The Eden Legacy

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‘I know fady.’

‘Besides, what kind of thieves would let a valuable boat simply drift away? No. Robbery makes no sense. It was an accident. A tragic accident.’

‘You’ve given up,’ she said.

‘I’m being realistic.’

‘They’re not dead.’

Andriama assumed an expression of sadness. ‘I pray that you are right,’ he told her. ‘Truly, I do. But I fear the evidence is—’

Rebecca patted her heart. ‘They’re not dead,’ she told him. ‘And I’m going to find them.’

II

Boris popped the buckle of his new knife’s sheath as he followed Knox down the alley, gripped it firmly by its hilt. The feel of it brought back vividly his first time, nearly twenty years ago now, as a young farm-worker seeking general vengeance for the rape and murder of his mother, one of the many atrocities of Georgia’s brutal civil war, but the only one that had mattered to him. They’d been waiting in ambush beneath a thin line of trees for an approaching patrol. He remembered still lining his man up in his sights, the way he’d fallen in the snow, the inhuman sounds he’d made as he’d struggled against his fate, reaching out a beseeching arm for the comrades who’d already turned and fled. Bullets had been too precious to waste, so Boris had drawn his knife as he advanced upon his man. It had been so obvious that he was dying, however, that he’d just stood there watching with his companions until it was over; and, afterwards, he’d been struck most by his own detachment, his lack of feeling anything at all.

Some fence-posts had collapsed ahead, brought down by the weight of a makeshift fly-tip that had spilled out into the alley, stinking and buzzing with flies. Boris couldn’t have asked for anything better. Getting this kind of operation right depended on knowing exactly what you intended to do. He therefore rehearsed it in his mind like a high-jumper before starting his run-up: left hand over Knox’s mouth to keep him quiet, right hand sawing through his throat. Then heave him up and over the flytip, take some pictures with his camera-phone before covering him with his groundsheet, kicking rubbish over him. With luck, even if his disappearance provoked a search, it would be a day or more before he was found. Plenty of time to fetch Davit and make their escape.

He quickened his pace, turned the knife around in his hand, the better to carve through Knox’s throat. He was just two paces behind him when a pair of girls playing tag ran shrieking into the end of the alley ahead. They saw Knox and Boris, shrieked gleefully some more, turned and fled. Knox must have seen the flicker in their eyes; he glanced around and saw Boris so close behind that it made him start. ‘Christ!’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise you were there.’

Just for a moment, Boris considered going for it anyway, but then he remembered that this man had bested Mikhail Nergadze in single combat—Mikhail Nergadze, the only person who’d ever truly put the fear of God into Boris. He hesitated just a blink, but it was enough, his opportunity was gone. He hid his knife against his wrist, offered an apologetic smile, then walked on by, out on to the beach, cursing his bad luck, wondering when next he’d have so good a chance to take his revenge and make himself rich.

III

Knox arrived back at the pirogue still brooding on the man in the black shirt. There’d been something familiar and unsettling about him. But then Lucia arrived, and the activity of departure pushed it from his mind. They all dragged the boat down to the sea’s edge, stowed their luggage and helped Lucia to her place. Then Knox, Alphonse and Thierry pushed the pirogue out through the gentle breakers and vaulted aboard.

Thierry took the stern, from where he could steer. Alphonse sat sideways in the bow, where he raised the mast and set the sail, before furling it back up. Knox and Lucia each sat on one of the thin central slats. There was so little wind that Thierry and Alphonse grabbed a paddle each, went to work. Knox found a third paddle for himself. It was chiselled from heavy wood, but he soon picked up the rhythm, their blades banging like heartbeats against the pirogue’s hull.

He glanced back at the shore. The man in the black shirt was walking along the beach, almost as though keeping pace with them. After Mikhail’s death, Knox had lived in constant fear that some lowlife would learn his identity and that he had a five million euro bounty on his head. But the years had passed without incident, and he’d come to think himself safe. He remembered suddenly the nearness of the man in the alley, the flicker of frustration upon his face, and his old fear returned with such force that he half-missed his next stroke, splashing seawater into Thierry’s midriff. He turned to apologise and sort himself out, and by the time he looked again towards the shore, the man in the black shirt had vanished.

TWELVE (#ulink_21699ab8-0a47-50bc-bd9b-8247918169f6)

I

The road north from Tulear was even worse than Rebecca remembered. It was just about acceptable for the first twenty kilometres or so, but then it disintegrated into a track of sand, rock and rutted mud that eventually petered out into nothing a little north of Eden. Even making allowances for its wretched state, however, Zanahary drove like a flustered nun, inching across the occasional hazards like they were unexploded ordnance. It grew too much for Rebecca to bear. ‘Let me drive,’ she said.

Zanahary shook his head. ‘Insurance,’ he said.

‘Then let’s at least take a break,’ she said. ‘I need to stretch my legs.’

He pulled over gladly, reaching for his cigarettes even as he threw open his door. She waited till he was out then slid across into his seat, locked the door from the inside, turned on the ignition and pulled away. There were tears in his eyes when she slowed enough for him to catch up and clamber in the passenger side. He stamped on invisible brakes as she sped away along the track, twisting in his seat and muffling shrieks. Perversely, his fear only made Rebecca all the more rash. She came too fast upon an archipelago of rocks, hit one hard with her front right, bounced clear into the air. She cursed out loud; that was an axle gone for sure. It was a nightmare breaking down on these roads; you could wait forever for another vehicle. But somehow they landed between two hummocks and then bounded on to safe, soft sand. It was a dreadful, reckless piece of driving; it braced her and made her careful. But on Zanahary it had the opposite effect. ‘You drive like my brother,’ he said, as though fear was now pointless. ‘He mad too.’