Chapter 23

THE FOUR OFus spent the rest of the day looking for Dan, spreading out across the island, calling his name, but as far as we could make out, he wasn’t there.

It was impossible to be sure, of course. At the villa end of the island the forest was relatively manicured, punctuated by paths and little artificial clearings. But at the far end it was wilder and much more untouched, and it was impossible to penetrate some of the thickets without a machete and protective clothing. None of us wanted to hack our way through untouched forest in shorts and flip-flops—who knew what snakes and spiders might be waiting for us.

It was hard to believe that Dan could be in there though. And even if he was, surely he would have called out when he heard us. One thing seemed certain, if he was on the island, he didn’t want to be found.

When sunset came, we trailed back to the cabana, Santana limping a little now, though her leg was much better than it had been, and she was no longer wearing my makeshift bandage. We drank the meager ration of water and stared at the pile of breads and croissants in the center of the table. There was mold on one, I saw. We had stripped all the bananas that were even remotely ripe days ago, and we had all been so focused on looking for Dan that no one had had time to fish today. We were down to stale pastries and the last few tins of fruit salad. Santana simply sat, staring at the plate in front of her, and then she put her head in her hands and burst into tears.

We all clustered around, trying our best to comfort her, but it was Zana who knelt in front of her, putting her hands either side of her face, speaking to her directly, who managed to calm her.

“Hey,” she kept saying. “Hey, Santana, hold on, okay? Just hold on. It’s going to be okay.”

“You don’t know that,” Santana said. She looked up at the sky, turning a deep indigo now, spattered with stars that were brighter and more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen in London. Her eyes were huge and full of tears. “You have no idea if that’s true. We’re going to die here.”

“We still have the radio,” Zana said. “And Lyla’s right about the septic tank and the services on the island, someone is bound to come past eventually, they have to, we just have to hold out until they come.”

But Angel had given a start at the word radio.

“We didn’t radio today,” she said. “With everything about Dan— I am going down to the shack to try.”

“Good idea,” Conor said. “I’m going down to the shore. I have this theory boats might be easier to spot at night, with their lights. And they’d see our beacon better too if we tried to signal.”

Angel nodded and set off for the radio shack, while Zana and I tried to persuade Santana to eat something. Only Joel did nothing. He was sitting with his head in his hands, looking more despondent than I had seen him since Romi died.

Santana had stopped crying and had managed to swallow some croissant, with the moldy parts picked off, and eat some chunks of coconut, when we heard Angel coming back up the path from the shack. I don’t know how, but just the sound of her footsteps was ominous, and I looked up to see her face was set and grim as she came towards the fire.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It is dead.” Angel’s voice was flat.

“What?”

“The radio. The fucking radio. The battery is dead!”

“Are you sure?” Joel asked, and Angel turned on him savagely.

“Sure? Of course I’m sure, you idiot. Yesterday there was a light, today there is not! And yes, I checked the connection, but we all knew the battery wouldn’t last forever.”

“Shit.” Santana had lost all color again. “Is there nothing we can do? Can’t we—I don’t know. You know when your torch runs out and you put the batteries in your armpit to warm them up. Can’t we… can’t we warm up the battery?”

“We could try again tomorrow at midday,” I said wearily. “When the sun’s on the shack. But I don’t know if that’s how those big car batteries work. They’re lead acid, aren’t they?”

“They could be radioactive,” Angel said. Her voice was stony. “And it would not change the facts. The thing is dead, and even if we manage to get a trickle of charge from it tomorrow, it will be dead after that. We are all completely screwed.”

“Look—” Joel said, at the same time as we all heard a shout from the beach.

“Hey! Hey, come here, come quick.”

We stopped, frozen in the actions we’d been performing, like children playing statues. It was Conor’s voice, but he didn’t sound excited, as if he’d seen a ship. He sounded… afraid.

“Can someone please come!” Conor yelled again.

And then, as if released by his words, we all jolted into action and began running down the path towards the beach, as fast as we could in the thick velvet dark.

I could see Angel’s pale dress fluttering in front of me and hear Joel panting at the rear. It took only a few moments, and then we broke out into the moonlight and saw Conor standing far up on the shore, a dark shape at his feet.

“What is it?” Zana called. She had pulled off her Birkenstocks and was running through the sand with surprising speed. “Have you found something?”

“Has something washed up?” Joel asked. But Conor didn’t say anything, he just stood there, staring down at the thing at his feet.

It was Santana who saw it first, and even then I didn’t understand the scream that ripped out of the throat, the way she gathered up her skirts and began to run haltingly down the beach towards where Conor was standing.

And then, I knew, and I was running too, falling to my knees in the surf beside the thing that had been Dan.

He had been badly torn up—whether by sharks, or just by the action of the coral, I wasn’t sure. His face was unrecognizable, but the clothes were his, from the Bermuda shorts to the thin red string tied around one wrist. One arm was flung beseechingly out on the sand, while the other was curled into his body, as if protecting himself from a blow. Most heartbreaking of all—where his shirt had been ripped I could see a very small tattoo, just above his hip. Mickey Mouse—the matching companion to Santana’s Minnie.

It was that simple little thing that undid me, and I put my hand over my mouth, holding back the sob that threatened to erupt. Santana had lost it entirely—she was kneeling over him, holding his outstretched hand, weeping in violent, choking gasps, until Zana led her gently away to try to comfort her.

Joel, Conor, Angel, and I dragged the body up the beach. There was nothing to do except begin the now familiar macabre ritual of digging a grave in the clearing beside the others. We couldn’t leave him out here overnight for the birds to continue what the fish had started.

When the hole was deep enough, the four of us each took a limb, ready to lower the body into the makeshift grave. Conor and Angel were holding his ankles, Joel his left arm, and I his right.

We were slowly lowering him into the grave, trying for something more respectful than simply dropping him, when my grip on his wrist gave, his hand slipping through mine, and I clutched at his fingers, breaking the rigor mortis. The joints gave with a horrible crunching noise, but I managed to grab hold of his hand, and as I did, I felt something in it, something hard and round and smooth against my palm, as if Dan were passing it to me. A pebble, maybe. Or a fragment of the rocks he’d slipped from.

It was only when Dan’s body was stretched out below us, covered with a sheet, that I looked down at what I was now holding. At first I didn’t recognize it, and when I did, I didn’t understand it. It was more on instinct than by calculation that I slipped it quickly into the pocket of my shorts, hiding it from view.

All through the makeshift ceremony, the object gnawed at my mind, whispering questions beneath the sound of Santana’s tearing sobs. What did it mean, this thing that Dan had been holding on to so desperately as his body was swept out to sea?

It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. The question was, what should I do now?