Chapter 47 Darcy

47 DARCY

NOW

Darcy and Kate are taking turns walking around the island to find out what’s happening. Camilla is particularly worried about Salvador, and earlier Darcy spent fifteen minutes typing a lengthy message into Google Translate so she could communicate with Salvador once she found him: making an offer of help, should he need it, if only to call his parents or to arrange a flight home. “He’s only eighteen,” Camilla told her through tears. “He’ll be beside himself, having to deal with this on his own.”

There may be legal implications for Salvador, too, police to deal with…. Poor boy. A terrible end to a magical holiday.

Darcy heads to the restaurant, then to the main office. She hears Salvador before she sees him, sobbing in front of the resort manager’s desk.

Nura glances up at Darcy.

“Hello, can I help you?”

“I’m Darcy,” she says, smiling. “Look, my friends and I had spoken with Antoni before…” She trails off, and Nura rises from her desk to follow her outside, where they can talk out of earshot.

“We’re worried about Salvador,” Darcy says, glancing back inside. “I just wanted to see if there was anything we can do.”

“His parents are on their way,” Nura says. “We’re in touch with the Spanish embassy.”

“Can I pass a message to him?” Darcy asks, and Nura nods. Darcy hands her her phone with the Google translation.

“You can show it to him,” Nura says, and she follows her into the office.

Inside, Darcy crouches down next to Salvador and shows him the translated message. He looks over it, his face red from crying, then raises his eyes to hers. “Thank you,” he says.

She heads back outside, fresh drips of rain hitting her skin. The weather matches the atmosphere of the resort , she thinks. The whole place is in turmoil. A few guests file along the causeway with suitcases, apparently prepared to argue their way onto a seaplane. The rest of them seem to have crammed into the bar, brought together by drama and fear. Some are already drunk, shouting about their rights.

She approaches a table of four women drinking iced coffees, English accents drifting through the air.

“Hi,” she says with a smile. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about all of this?”

The woman with a long blond plait leans forward, her voice low. “I heard someone say that the guy who drowned was kayaking over to Emerald Island every day. Apparently, he was buying weed, then smoking it over here. The Maldives have super-strict drug laws.”

“God,” Darcy says, shaking her head in dismay.

The woman shrugs. “No idea if there’s any truth in it. The police are already here, apparently, though there’s another team bringing sniffer dogs.”

The woman next to her raises a hand to her mouth, whispering, “Our butler wondered if his drug dealer on Emerald Island killed him.”

Darcy squirms, unsettled. Her mind turns to Rob, to how he’ll respond when they approach him…. A ripple of fear passes through her. It’s risky. But time is running out.

She decides to pick up a few snacks to take back to the villa. Important to eat now to keep up her strength. Camilla hasn’t eaten, refuses to drink anything. Darcy takes a few rolls, some skewers of grilled fish.

As she makes her way back to Kate’s villa, she sees a boat pulling into the harbor. It’s having a tough time, given how rough the seas are; a guest is hanging over the side, vomiting. She’s about to turn away onto the sand path when she sees Jade, wrapped in a towel, Rob at her side. Jade looks up, catching sight of her.

Darcy stands behind a palm tree, waiting for them to disembark. It takes a while for the guests to file off, and when she sees Jade and Rob she follows after them, keeping her head down. Rob has his arm tightly around Jade and is walking with her as though she’s about to fall apart.

“Excuse me?”

She turns to see a staff member behind her, one of the crew from the boat that has just docked. His name badge reads FARUG , and he’s wearing a towel around his waist and a dry T-shirt.

“You are Darcy, yes?”

She nods, confused. “Yes?”

He hands her what looks like a piece of rubbish, his eyes moving to the line of people behind them. It’s the wrapper of a Fanta bottle, folded into a small square. She unfolds it and finds something scribbled inside.

R tried to kill me

She stares at it for a moment, then calls after Farug, who has started to head off.

“Hello? Excuse me?”

He turns.

“Yes?”

“Who gave you this note?” she asks.

“A lady named Jade,” he says.

“Did something happen?” she asks. “They were on a scuba trip, isn’t that right?”

“She had a bit of a scare,” he says. “The tube on the oxygen tank came loose while she was thirty feet down. She’s fine now.”

“Thanks,” Darcy says, watching Jade disappear with Rob toward their villa.

“WE HAVE A PROBLEM,” DARCY tells Camilla and Kate when she returns to Kate’s villa. She hands Kate the piece of paper.

“What is this?” Kate asks, unfolding it.

“One of the staff passed it to me,” she says. “It’s from Jade. There was an incident on the scuba trip. Apparently, her oxygen tank developed a ‘fault’ while she was thirty feet underwater.” She uses finger quotes for fault .

Camilla and Kate share a horrified look. “Do you think he found out about the plan for tonight?” Kate asks.

“I think he’s a killer, is what I think.” Darcy feels electrified by this news, her whole body charged with adrenaline.

“First Antoni, now this,” Camilla says, pressing a hand to her mouth.

“Antoni was found on Emerald Island,” Kate says.

“The tide could have pulled him out there,” Camilla says. “But Rob did it. I’ll bet you anything. He hated Antoni.”

“What do we do, then?” Darcy says.

She glances at Kate, who lowers her eyes, then turns to Camilla.

“I say we kill him,” Camilla says. “He’s clearly dangerous. And he deserves it.”

“You can’t say someone deserves to be killed,” Kate mutters.

“Yes I can,” Camilla snaps back, eyes blazing. “I fucking can, all right? And I can say someone didn’t deserve to be killed, like Antoni. And my brother. And Elijah. And everyone else who was slaughtered that night—”

“All right!” Kate says, raising her voice. “Let me rephrase that: it is dangerous to say that someone deserves to be killed. It is dangerous because you are making a moral judgment that can result in death, even if it’s hypothetical.”

Camilla leans into Kate’s face. “I can say whatever the fuck I like—”

Darcy steps between them. “Ladies! Cut it out! This is getting us nowhere!” She eyes them in turn, her hands held up to separate them. “We’re all dealing with this, OK? It is stressful and emotional and once the job is done we can all take our stances on moral judgments to our separate corners, but right now, we need to be a team .”

Kate takes a deep breath and steps back. Darcy can see she’s trembling, mentally exhausted. Camilla is rigid, poised for a fight, her hands held by her sides in tight fists. As a group, they’re at their breaking point.

“If we are not careful,” Darcy says quietly, “Rob will escape, slip away out of sight again. We might not be able to find him. And everything we’ve hoped for will vanish.”

“And more people will die,” Camilla adds, her face in a scowl. “We are lucky that Jade didn’t die today. And if we’d acted sooner, instead of pissing about discussing it, Antoni would probably be alive too.” She glares at Kate. “We all of us have to live with that now. We could have prevented Antoni’s death.”

“We have no proof that Rob killed Antoni,” Kate says. “We don’t even know for sure if he was murdered.”

Camilla scoffs angrily. “ Rob killed him. And he’s going to kill Jade, and us, and God knows who else if we don’t stop him.”

“We have a right to at least ask Rob about Antoni, see how he reacts,” Darcy says, trying to straighten out the facts. “Agreed? We all saw how Rob attacked him, twice, and now Antoni is dead.”

Camilla wells up. “Yes. We owe that to Antoni.”

Darcy thinks quickly. “And perhaps, if we don’t waste any more time, we might prevent Rob from killing anyone else. But we definitely need Jade’s help. We’ll need to make sure she’s still up for it.”

“She’s probably too scared,” Camilla says. “God knows I would be if my husband tried to kill me on my honeymoon.”

“I don’t have Jade’s number,” Darcy says. “Can I use your phone, Kate?”

“Sure.”

Darcy takes Kate’s phone, her thumb hovering over the letters on the screen as she plans a message in her mind.

“What are you doing?” Camilla asks.

Darcy begins to type.

Hello! Hope you enjoyed scuba diving! Gym tonight? Xx

She clicks on Jade’s name, then sends the message. Camilla and Kate gather close to her, watching for a response.

“He might have taken her phone off her,” Camilla says.

Darcy frowns. “We could slip a note under her door?”

“They’ll have a butler,” Kate says. “Safer to pass a note through him.”

The phone makes a small ding .

Scuba was great! Yes to gym, be good to catch up. 8pm? xx

The three of them exhale at the same time. Darcy glances at Camilla, then Kate, who flicks her eyes up, cautiously.

“She’s in.”