Deep Blue Sea (23 page)

‘Good,’ Diana said quietly. ‘After the coroner’s visit, I wondered if you could come and look at something with me.’

‘Sure. What is it?’

‘There’s a café in the village run by a widow. It’s run-down. I was thinking of investing in it. Adam thinks I need a project, and I think he’s right. I’ve bloody missed you, you know.’

‘I’ve missed you too.’

‘Did you ever think of calling me?’

‘All the time,’ said Rachel honestly. ‘I have a good life in Thailand, but it doesn’t feel quite right because my family isn’t in it.’ She looked down at the path, not wanting to admit that there was a selfish element to this story. Liam’s parents, his siblings, had all been over to see him in Ko Tao. They called at Christmas, and sent parcels for his birthday. Rachel had friends with whom she celebrated her birthday, and Songkran, the Thai New Year. But she often felt lonely, isolated, without back-up. Sometimes she thought that she could free-dive to the bottom of the ocean and if she never resurfaced no one would notice or care. Not really.

‘You have Liam. What’s the story there? He was very protective of you when I showed up asking questions.’

‘Was he?’ she asked more animatedly.

Diana slid her thin arm into Rachel’s, an intimate gesture that almost made Rachel stop walking; the last time Diana had touched her was to slap her across the face.

‘Anyway, you’ve got me now.’

They both smiled and started walking back to Bayswater.

31

Rachel listened in to Diana’s meeting with the coroner’s officer. Not in any official way, of course – Diana had insisted that she take the meeting alone – but Rachel thought it best that she monitor the conversation, not only to check that her sister was okay, but to make sure that she didn’t let slip any information to him that she hadn’t told her.

She sat on the warm stone step outside Somerfold and listened intently. She had left the French windows a little ajar, but the morning birdsong blotted out much of what was being said. From what she could make out, though, Mr Nicholson, the sensible-looking man who had arrived half an hour earlier, had ruled out the possibility of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Rachel cringed when she heard Diana fishing around the subject.

‘Auto-erotic asphyxiation is masturbation,’ explained Mr Nicholson. ‘If he was masturbating, then it’s likely he would have removed some or all of his clothes, but he was found fully clothed. Plus there was no semen found in the post-mortem.’

Poor Diana
, thought Rachel, hugging her knees. Poor Julian, too, being described in such cold, clinical terms.

She heard them say their goodbyes, heard him leave, and she crept into the house through the French windows.

Diana spun round, looking startled.

‘Were you out there the whole time?’ she gasped.

Rachel looked sheepish. ‘I was just, gardening, er, sunbathing . . . Yes, I was,’ she admitted.

She watched Diana lean against the wall as if all the life was draining out of her.

‘Come on,’ she said briskly. ‘It’s time to show me that café you’re interested in.’

‘Not today . . .’

‘Yes, today. Should we invite Mum?’

‘No. Just us,’ said Diana, standing up straight.

‘Do you have bikes?’

‘Julian’s Ducatis . . .’

‘As much as I would love to arrive in the village at ninety miles per hour, I was thinking more like bicycles. Let me go and speak to Mr Bills.’

She found Mr Bills and asked him to bring two bikes to the front of the house. She knew she had to keep her sister moving, knew how difficult it had been for her to be interviewed today.

‘Come on. Mum’s having a swim. She’ll be back at the house any minute.’

‘It makes it seem like we’re sneaking off.’

‘We are,’ grinned Rachel, remembering all the times as teenagers when they had slipped out of the house to meet boys or go to a party.

‘How about you move into the main house?’ said Diana suddenly.

‘Are you sure?’ asked Rachel, swinging one long leg over the Pashley frame.

Diana nodded, and Rachel felt a warm glow that she had finally been accepted home.

They were both sweating by the time they got to the village. It was a warm day. Rachel had barely run or swum since she had arrived in London and she could feel her fitness levels slipping.

‘Is this it?’ she asked, leaning her bike against the pub railing by the green. ‘Good location.’

The café was a long honey-stone building with tired curtains at the windows. Inside, an elderly woman was transferring scones from a box marked ‘Catering Pack’ on to chipped white plates.

She looked up and smiled. ‘I’m not even open yet, girls.’

‘Dot, meet my sister Rachel,’ said Diana, pushing her forward.

‘Look at the colour of you,’ grinned Dot.

‘I live in Thailand.’

‘How do you cope with that?’ she asked disapprovingly. ‘Two sisters living so far apart.’

Rachel watched Diana moving around the room, stroking the rickety tables. She couldn’t see the potential in this place; then again, her own flat proved that she lacked the Midas touch when it came to interiors. Diana, on the other hand, had always been a wizard. It wasn’t just herself she could make look pretty. Her Christmas trees were always beautifully decorated, even when she could only afford to go to the pound shop; presents were always exquisitely gift-wrapped; her home had the sort of taste and style that money alone couldn’t buy. And right now Rachel could tell that she wanted to get her hands on the Blue Ribbon café.

‘My sister has a proposition for you,’ she said without further preamble.

Diana shot her a horrified look, but Rachel always did things with purpose once she had made up her mind to do something.

‘She wants to invest in your business. She thinks it has a lot of potential.’

‘This place?’ said Dot, taking off her apron.

Diana’s expression softened, her eyes sparkling with excitement. ‘It could be fabulous, Dot.’

‘Listen to her,’ agreed Rachel. ‘Have you ever seen that Meryl Streep movie
It’s Complicated
? That fabulous café-bakery that Meryl’s character owns? Deli porn, that’s what it was. Diana could make this place as sexy as that.’

Dot looked as if she didn’t know where to put herself. She clearly didn’t see the café as in any way pornographic.

‘What Rachel means is that I really would love to help you give it a facelift, bring it right up to date, back to the glory days of when Ron was still with us,’ said Diana more gently.

‘I want to sell the place, not bring it up to date, lovey,’ said Dot. ‘I could always sell it to you if you were interested, but I’m not sure you’d . . . well, with respect, I can’t really see a smart lady like you standing behind a counter.’

‘Which is why the two of you should do it together,’ said Rachel, looking at Diana and then Dot. She remembered the days when she was setting up the diving school with Liam. They had found a tiny shack by the beach and spent all weekend painting it red, white and blue. They had flyers printed, delivered them all over the island, and accosted tourists in the streets to hustle for business. They had both arrived in Thailand a little burnt-out and broken, but the diving school had brought them back to life again, and Rachel just knew that this place could do the same for her sister.

‘Tell me what it was like in its heyday,’ said Rachel, noticing that Dot didn’t look convinced.

‘Oh, it was marvellous, lovey,’ replied Dot, softening. ‘Everyone used to come here,’ she said. ‘On a summer Saturday they’d queue down the street for tables. It was Ron’s recipes, you see.’

‘Do you still have them?’

Dot shook her head sadly. ‘Not really. Well, he had a little notebook where he’d scribble down his experiments, but I can’t make head nor tail of them.’

‘Do you still have it? The notebook, I mean?’ asked Rachel.

Dot rummaged in a cupboard. ‘Here it is,’ she said, handing over a pale blue pocketbook.

Rachel flipped it open but could only frown when she saw the text. She’d had visions of being able to revive the bakery using Ron’s old recipes, but Dot was right, it made no sense at all. Instead of the clear step-by-step instructions you got in cookbooks, it was a lot of scrawled letters and numbers – ‘S1Y BHF BS 2pch’ – with no relation to each other.

Diana peered over Rachel’s shoulder. ‘Do you think they might be ingredients?’

Dot shrugged. ‘What on earth can “MHFP” mean?’

‘Look, there’s a gap between the letters, I think it’s “M HF P”,’ said Diana, trying to make sense of it. ‘Could it be “milk half pint”? Look at the next one: “B 3 O”? I think that might be “butter three ounces”.’

Rachel started to laugh. ‘I think you’re right, Mary Berry. Check this out: “4e”. That’s got to be four eggs, surely?’

Dot snatched the book back, her eyes skimming over her late husband’s script as though he was coming back to life with each deciphered message.

‘Girls, you’re right!’

‘We should try and make something,’ said Rachel mischievously.

‘What, now?’ asked Dot, bug-eyed.

‘We’re not doing anything for the rest of the afternoon, are we, Di?’

‘You know, Ron’s courgette cake was legendary.’

‘Is it in the recipe book?’

Dot nodded. ‘And now that you clever clogs have cracked the code, we know how to make it.’

She beckoned them to follow her into the kitchen, which was surprisingly clean and modern. She started opening cupboards, checking best-before dates on packets, and eventually declared that they had every ingredient they needed except courgettes.

‘There’s the village stores,’ offered Diana.

Dot snorted. ‘You’ll have as much luck finding courgettes there as you would a designer handbag.’

‘Where’s the nearest supermarket?’ asked Rachel.

‘In Henley. About a twenty-minute drive away.’

‘Maybe we’ll have to try something else, then.’

‘There is
one
place we could get courgettes . . .’ said Dot.

‘Go on. Over you go.’

Diana looked at the wall dubiously. It was only about four feet high, but there were spiky-looking bushes on the other side and her pretty Moschino dress wasn’t exactly designed for mountaineering.

‘Are you sure she’s not in?’

‘Dot says she’s in Bournemouth with her grandchildren.’

‘This is trespassing.’

‘I’m the family law-breaker. I’ll take all responsibility.’ Rachel pushed the toe of her Converse into a gap in the wall, hoisting herself up. She pulled Diana up behind her, then dropped into the garden, taking a moment to savour the smells: flowers, leaves, even the grass smelled wonderfully damp from last night’s rain.

Diana looked like a demure terrified doll on the top of the wall.

‘Come on,’ hissed Rachel.

‘I don’t even know what a courgette plant looks like,’ Diana moaned.

‘I thought you
lived
in the organic greengrocer’s.’ She pointed to the vegetable patch – easy to spot from the cane wigwams with runner beans twisting around them. ‘Spiky leaves, yellow flowers, over there, go, go, go.’

Diana’s eyes opened wide, as if she’d had an adrenalin shot. She scuttled across the garden and scooped up the contraband vegetables. When she returned to Rachel, her face was pink and radiant.

By the time they got back to the café, Dot had already assembled pots, pan and scales around her. It was Ron’s old equipment, she told them as she followed his code, mixing flour, eggs, sugar and butter together. Diana got stuck in too, and Rachel took a moment to watch them. It was as if the two women were coming back to life, like watching a photo develop in front of her.

Within an hour, it was ready, a perfect slab of loaf, flecked with courgette and ginger.

‘You do the honours,’ said Dot. ‘My hands are shaking.’

Diana divided the loaf into generous slices and they took one each on a plate.

‘Go on, try it,’ urged Dot.

Tentatively, Diana took a mouthful. ‘It’s delicious,’ she said. ‘I mean, really, really good. What do you think? Is it as good as Ron’s?’

But Dot couldn’t speak; there were tears running down her face.

‘What’s the matter? Is it that bad?’

Dot shook her head. ‘It’s perfect. It’s just like Ron was here, like he’d just baked it and stepped through to the other room.’

Rachel had switched into business mode.

‘You shouldn’t be selling factory-made cakes, Dot. You should make your own, with Ron’s recipes. Diana can get to work on the interiors and organisation and I might even have a few old press contacts to get word out about the place . . .’ She could feel energy and anticipation pulsating not just within her but around the whole room.

‘We could reopen on the day of the village fair,’ said Diana, beaming. Rachel could feel her own smile stretching from ear to ear.

She could hear a loud buzzing noise. At first she thought it was one of Dot’s kitchen appliances, before she realised it was her own phone. She stopped laughing to answer it.

At first there was silence on the other end, then a gentle snivel. Rachel realised instantly that it was someone crying.

‘Who is this?’ she asked softly.

‘It’s Kath Jensen.’ For a second Rachel couldn’t place the name. ‘Ross’s ex-wife.’

She was immediately on alert. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘It’s Ross. He’s been attacked in Jamaica. He was on a job. The job he was working on with you, I think. Rachel, he’s in a coma and they don’t know if he is going to pull through.’

32

Rachel had expected it to be hot, of course she had: it was the Caribbean. But it was one thing to imagine it and another to feel the almost physical thump as you stepped from the air-conditioned plane and into the furnace of Montego Bay. Her body shivered as it fought to cope with the sudden shift, and her breathing increased, like it was hard to drag oxygen from the humid air.
Now I know how gingerbread men feel
, she thought. Perhaps she had been away from Thailand too long. Or perhaps she was still in shock from the news about Ross – she was torn between being desperate to get to her friend’s side and dreading seeing him. No, that wasn’t shock, it was guilt. There were no two ways about it: if Rachel hadn’t turned up on his doorstep a few weeks ago, Ross would still have been walking around happily. Well, perhaps not happily; he was never exactly a ray of sunshine, she thought with a grim smile as she was waved through customs. A tall man in a suit was holding up a sign with her name on it.

‘Miss Rachel? I am Yohan,’ he said, holding out a huge hand and showing her his teeth – perfect except for one missing at the side. ‘How long are you staying with us?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘
Irie
,’
he said, taking her bag. ‘I was sorry to hear about your friend.’

‘Really?’ said Rachel. ‘Was it on the news?’

The man let out a chuckle. ‘Nah, I spoke to your sister, Miss Diana? She told me that whatever you want to do while you’re in Jamaica, I should take you. So I will be your driver, your guide. And . . .’ he gave her another wide smile, ‘I was in the Jamaican army, so you will be safe.’

A bodyguard? Rachel felt her emotions pulled in two directions at once. The hardened hack in her bristled at the idea that she might need protection; she had faced worse things than Jamaica could throw at her. But at the same time, so had Ross; in fact, he had also been in the army, and what good had it done him? She looked at Yohan’s broad back as he led her to a large black Mercedes. No, on balance she was rather glad her driver was on hand, because she was starting to think that perhaps Diana’s worries about her safety weren’t entirely unjustified.

Yohan put Rachel’s bag in the boot and opened the car door for her.

‘You want to go straight to the hospital?’

Rachel pulled a face, then nodded. ‘Yes, okay. You know the way?’

He laughed again. ‘Miss Rachel, I know everything and everyone on this island. I told you, you’re in good hands.’

Rachel sat in the back seat, glad to be once more sealed inside a climate-controlled environment, and watched as the airport gave way to fields. Sometimes new places surprised you: Naples had been like that. Rachel had once taken a train to the city from Rome, expecting a glamorous seaside town; instead she had been confronted by endless run-down concrete tenements, covered in grime and graffiti. But Jamaica was exactly as she had imagined: banana groves and sun-blasted fields interspersed with tiny settlements seemingly thrown together from planks and corrugated iron, people literally sitting on the kerb in shorts drinking Red Stripe and Tang. And then suddenly you’d glimpse the sea and the high gates of a luxury resort, the razor wire at the top designed to keep the wealthy holidaymakers inside and on their sunloungers and the real Jamaicans out. No wonder so many of those places were all-inclusive, thought Rachel.

By contrast, Montego Bay was raw. Yes, the poverty was everywhere – dirt roads, lean-to shacks selling dusty car parts and coconuts – but it pulsated with noise and life. Even though the car’s windows were firmly closed, she could hear the music: reggae and dub pumping from every opening along with the horns, the shouts, the laughter. Rachel had been to some poor parts of the world, but the mood in Jamaica was defiantly upbeat.

The Cornwall Hospital also refused to conform: a high-rise building in lush grounds high on a hill looking out over the sea. Apart from the ambulances parked outside, it could have been a holiday resort. Inside, Rachel was directed to the surgical unit, where she approached a nurse.

‘I’m looking for Ross McKiney?’

‘And you are?’ She turned at the sound of a deep male voice behind her. The Jamaican man was mid forties, stocky, with that unmistakable world-weary yet tuned-in look of policemen the world over.

‘Are you Detective Henry, by any chance?’ she said.

The man nodded warily. ‘I am.’

Rachel stepped forward and offered her hand. ‘Rachel Miller, we spoke on the phone yesterday?’

‘Ah yes. I have just been visiting Mr McKiney.’ He glanced towards the door to the ward. ‘I imagine you are thirsty after your journey, Miss Miller. Perhaps I could buy you a coffee before you go in to see your friend?’

Rachel didn’t really think she had much choice, so she nodded. Besides, she needed to speak to the policeman. He led her to a lift, then down to a café with a view of the bay.

‘So how is he?’ asked Rachel when they were sitting at a table with their drinks.

‘As well as can be expected, isn’t that the phrase? You should prepare yourself, Miss Miller, he’s not a pretty sight – he took quite a beating.’

He registered the dismay on Rachel’s face and held up a finger.

‘However, I spoke to his doctor earlier; he is expected to make a full recovery. I think he was lucky.’

‘Lucky?’ said Rachel angrily. ‘My friend has almost been killed and you think that’s lucky?’

She sipped her coffee, feeling a swell of dread at seeing Ross.

‘So what happened? A tourist in the wrong place at the wrong time? I should have reminded him that this was the murder capital of the world.’ She knew she was being rude about someone else’s country, but she was angry and frustrated,

‘Contrary to what you might have heard, Jamaica is generally a safe country,’ Henry said patiently. ‘We work hard to protect our people and the people who come to visit us. Most of the violence you hear about in the media is by the criminal community directed at the criminal community. It is not the Wild West, Miss Miller.’

‘So what went wrong?’ she pressed.

‘Mr McKiney was walking in what might be termed a bad area. Shack housing, a few run-down businesses, the sort of place you wouldn’t want to be walking alone, even as a Jamaican. He was seen asking directions, then taking photographs with expensive camera equipment, and he was white, well-dressed . . .’ He shrugged. ‘He looked exactly like a lost tourist.’ Henry swirled his coffee around the cheap plastic cup.

‘I assume his possessions were taken.’

Henry nodded. ‘Unfortunately, we have a few of these cases each year. But this one seemed different. The ferocity of the attack was unusual for a simple mugging.’

Rachel felt a sinking in her stomach.
Oh God, Ross, what have I done to you?
she thought miserably.

‘Muggers, are, how do you say, opportunists: whack someone over the head, grab the stuff and run. They don’t want to risk anyone seeing them, especially in a small community where they might be recognised. In this case there was more than one assailant, definitely armed. Clearly Mr McKiney fought back, but even so, if they hadn’t been disturbed – a pastor visiting a sick parishioner happened to come by – I think we would be looking at a murder.’

The word seemed to hang in the air.

‘Why was Mr McKiney in Jamaica, Miss Miller? I have checked out his hotel. It isn’t a tourist resort.’

Rachel looked out at the view and wondered how much she should tell him.

‘It does not do your friend any favours to keep secrets,’ said the policeman in his thick Caribbean accent.

Rachel’s mouth felt dry. ‘He was tracing the movements of a friend,’ she said finally. ‘A friend who had come to the island with his mistress.’

‘Ah,’ said Henry, nodding as things became clear. ‘That makes sense,’ he said quietly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Perhaps someone didn’t want him to find anything out.’

‘You mean he got scared off.’

‘He was warned.’

Henry finished his coffee and threw the cup into the bin with a direct hit.

‘You should go and see your friend. Call me from your hotel and perhaps we can talk more later.’

Before Detective Henry’s warning, Rachel wasn’t sure how she had expected Ross to look. Perhaps she would find him lying peacefully, a drip in his arm, a plaster on his cheek. Instead, she wanted to cry, he looked so beaten and broken. He was lying on his back, his arm in plaster held at a right angle, bandages around his head. His face was swollen and bruised, one eye almost closed.

She was allowed to take a seat by his bedside. She wasn’t sure how long she had been there when she felt another presence enter the room.

Turning to the door, she didn’t recognise the couple who had come in until they introduced themselves as Kath and Phillip Jensen.

‘Thank goodness,’ said Rachel, feeling suddenly less alone.

‘Can he be flown home?’ asked Kath.

‘Not until he regains consciousness. And then, who knows.’

‘We’ll stay until it gets sorted,’ said Phillip. ‘The kids are at my mother’s. Thank you for the flights over here,’ he added, stepping forward with a grateful handshake.

Rachel smiled. As soon as she had come off the phone with Kath Jensen, Diana had forgotten her own troubles and sorted out immediate travel for both Rachel and Ross’s family to fly to Jamaica, paying for every single expense.

Standing at Ross’s bedside, Kath Jensen looked ready to cry. Rachel watched as her husband put a concerned arm around her shoulders, and remembered what Ross had said about him. He had every reason to dislike Phillip Jensen, and yet he had called him a nice guy. He had been able to see through the betrayal to the man beneath.

Rachel stayed until the nurse indicated that visiting hours were over. Yohan was waiting for her, a reassuring presence standing by his Mercedes outside the hospital.

‘How is your friend?’ he asked.

‘We’ll see,’ she said, not wanting to think about it too hard. She looked at the man quizzically. ‘Yohan, you said you know everyone on the island, right?’

He grinned. ‘Maybe not everyone, but most people, sure.’

‘So would you have any idea who did this to my friend?’

Yohan’s face clouded over. ‘I have already started to ask around, Miss Rachel. My job is to look after you; look what happened to Mr Ross.’

‘And what have you found out?’

‘Nothing yet, but I will,’ he said with determination. He opened the car door. ‘I should take you to your hotel,’ he said quietly.

They drove out of the city past coconut and banana plantations. Deeper into the island, Rachel could see a backdrop of thick jungle that reminded her of Thailand. She wanted to ask Yohan more questions, but her body was tired, eyelids drooping. She had been on the go for over a week, with barely time for a change of clothes. She wound down the window to let the breeze on to her face, breathing in the warm air infused with salt and the smell of tropical flowers. She must have nodded off, because when she opened her eyes, Yohan was standing outside the car, grinning at her through the window.

‘We’re here, Miss Rachel.’

She had read about Round Hill in a magazine when she had been waiting in Virgin’s Upper Class lounge at Heathrow – a delicious colonial estate just outside the city, the feature had said, aglow with a glamorous heritage that included guests of the calibre of John and Jackie Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor, before being revamped by Ralph Lauren in recent years. The green and white awning over the entrance suggested a small house, but it opened out on to a verandah with spectacular views across a jutting headland and down to white beaches and blue sea.

Thanks again
, she thought, offering her prayer up to the goddess Diana, she with her fingers on the purse strings. She felt her shoulders relax as she walked in and took her bag from Yohan.

‘Do you need me this evening, Miss Rachel?’

‘I’m not sure yet. Give me your cell phone number and I’ll call you.’

She checked in and was shown to her room. It was cool and spacious – white linen and wood – and she fell backwards on to the bed, sighing, but she knew that if she stayed there, she would never get up again. And if she stopped moving, the emotions of the afternoon – of the last month – might overtake her. So she levered herself up and ran into the bathroom and showered, washing her hair through twice until she felt really clean. Walking back into the room, towelling her hair, her eye fell on the minibar. Usually she called ahead and requested that her room be cleared of alcohol; that was what they told you in AA – don’t put temptation in your way – but she wasn’t sure she would get through this without something. Moving quickly, before she could change her mind, she sat down and poured the contents of two small whisky bottles into a tumbler. She could call room service for ice, but she just wanted to feel the liquid burn down her throat; her mouth was literally watering at the prospect.

The tumbler had just touched her lips when she heard knocking at the door.

‘Shit,’ she whispered. She had always wondered what it would be like to have a bodyguard at your beck and call. But right now, all she wanted was to be left alone.

She pulled the door open. But it wasn’t Yohan standing there.

‘Liam?’ she said, her voice tumbling into staccato laughter. For a moment she couldn’t quite understand what she was seeing. Was this some cruel trick of the booze? But she hadn’t even had a sip.

‘It’s me. The Ghost of Christmas Past,’ he said, smiling.

‘I don’t believe it,’ she said, throwing her arms around him. For a moment she forgot the awkwardness of their last couple of days in Thailand. She just stood there holding him, enjoying his shape, his smell, the sensation of his arms folded around her body.

‘I think you’d better put me down now,’ he whispered.

Rachel took a step back, just to check that what she had felt was real.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she said, for one minute feeling inordinately glad that she had washed her hair.

‘Your sister called me. Thought you might need a friendly face.’

‘She did that?’

Liam was trying to make light of it, breaking the tension in the room, but the fact remained that he had flown thousands of miles to be with her. Now what did that mean exactly? She turned to look at him, but he avoided her gaze. Now what did
that
mean?