‘I suggest that you bring the child Janet back from the beach. She and Tom should stay with Mr Kent. If you can vouch for your boyfriend-’
‘He isn’t!’ I snapped.
‘You fooled me, if that’s so. He should stay where he is and you should join him there. We’ll need volunteers for the search.’
That’s how it panned out. Tom wasn’t happy at first; he wanted to join the search, but when I insisted that he’d be of most use looking after Janet and keeping her as calm as he could, he accepted that.
I took my jeep along to collect Janet, and all the stuff I’d left along there. I’d have been almost as quick on foot, but I was taking Conrad’s story seriously. I knew she’d be safe with Liam, and in the house, but with me, on an open pathway, maybe not.
I left the car at home once I’d delivered her and ran back. By the time I got there, Alex had arrived; he was in uniform, and in charge. Liam was waiting for me where he’d said he would when I picked up Janet, at the foot of the iron bridge. He looked as distraught as I felt; I hoped that it registered with Alex and that he’d apologise later for ‘establishing the facts’.
I have to record here my appreciation for the way the beach people rallied around. As far as I could see, everyone who didn’t have children of their own to look after had volunteered to join the search. The Mossos had an inflatable, crewed by divers; their job was to probe the little green river with poles, and investigate anything solid they detected. The rest of us were split into teams to cover the ground behind the beach, and to trawl through the adjoining campsites. Liam and I stayed together, searching the fields. They were uncultivated and that made it worse, for the grass was waist high and tangled, hampering our progress. There was one very scary moment when a woman, no more than twenty metres away from us, screamed and put her hands over her face. We rushed across, to find her standing over the rotting carcass of what had been a large dog. We spent an hour combing our assigned area then another retracing out steps, but in the end it was all fruitless.
Finally a whistle was blown, and we all gathered back at the starting point, where Alex thanked us for our efforts, and stood us down.
‘What do we do?’ Liam asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I confessed.
Alex came across to us. He shook Liam’s hand, and gave me a quick hug. ‘Keep your phone charged and switched on,’ he told me. ‘When I know something, you will too.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think,’ he replied instantly, ‘that the fact that we haven’t found him makes it likely that Mr Kent was right, that the child has been taken. Has anyone been in touch with his mother? She’s in America, you told me, Primavera, yes?’
‘Yes, but she’s probably started the journey home by now. I could probably get in touch with her, but what would be the point, with nothing positive to tell her? She’s a very sick woman, Alex.’
‘Then I leave that judgement to you. For now, you go home, you wait and you pray, if that will help.’
I nodded, and he left. I looked at Liam, and he looked at me; we must have made a distinctly uncool pair, in our crushed and sweaty beach gear. Suddenly I felt exhausted. ‘I need some time,’ I murmured. ‘Let’s go to your hotel.’
‘Yeah.’ He slipped his arm around my waist and half carried me there. It wasn’t far, only a few metres along the path. He picked up his key from reception and led the way up to his room. As soon as he closed the door behind us, I collapsed into his only chair, and did something very un-Primavera-like. I burst into tears. He knelt beside me and hugged me as I cried it out, and I loved him for it. I couldn’t have done that in front of Tom and certainly not with Janet around.
When I’d composed myself, I patted his arm, to let him know I was all right. ‘I need to get back,’ I said, ‘but God, I’m filthy. Can I have a shower?’
‘Of course.’
I pushed myself out of the chair and stripped naked where I stood. He’d seen everything else, so there was no point in being coy about the rest. I went into the bathroom and stood under a barely warm spray for five minutes, flushing the grime, sand and sweat off me and shampooing it from my hair. When I was done, I wrapped myself in one of the robes that hung behind the door, and let Liam take my place. I was still wearing it when he came out in the other one, but I’d put my shorts back on. My bikini was definitely done for the day, maybe for ever. ‘Do you have a top I can borrow?’ I asked.
He smiled. ‘Sure.’ He opened a drawer and took out another of those GWA merchandise shirts from way back. ‘I brought this along with Tom in mind,’ he said as he handed it to me. ‘You can give it to him when you’re done with it.’
I raised myself up on my toes and kissed him again, running my fingers through his damp hair. ‘You’re a lovely man,’ I told him. ‘When we’ve got wee Jonathan back safe …’
‘Let’s just concentrate on that part,’ he whispered.
‘I need to get back home now,’ I said. ‘Come with me. I want you near me while this plays out. Bring your toothbrush.’ I rubbed his chin, and grinned. ‘And your razor too. And your pyjamas, if you’re bashful.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes. I’m getting more sure by the minute.’
He put some stuff in a small bag and we walked back to the village. When we got there I didn’t go up into the square, because I didn’t want to run into anyone I knew and face the inevitable quiz; instead I let us in through the garage. It’s alarmed all the time and there’s a buzzer that sounds upstairs whenever someone comes in that way, until they cancel it.
Conrad was waiting for us at the top of the stairs when we reached them. If he was surprised to see Liam with me he didn’t show it, but his eyebrows did rise a little when he clocked my replacement T-shirt. I left him to draw his own conclusions.
‘Any news?’ I asked him. He shook his head. ‘Me neither. Where are Tom and Janet?’
‘In the TV room. They’re watching the local station. It’s been running live coverage of the search.’
‘They haven’t named him, have they?’ I didn’t want that, no way.
‘No, but they did run the photograph that you sent Alex.’
‘Could he be recognised from that?’ Liam asked.
‘By a local, he probably could,’ Conrad replied. ‘We’ve been here long enough for him to become known as Tom’s half-brother. Let’s hope no reporter has the wit to ask.’
‘I’d like to think,’ I observed, ‘that my friends would realise that we don’t need that.’
‘I thought you said this place runs on gossip,’ Liam murmured.
He had a point, and I conceded it. ‘As soon as his identity becomes known,’ I said, ‘this will stop being a local story and go international.’
I remembered how I’d heard that Oz had died; I was in Jimmy Buffett’s bar in Las Vegas, when his face popped up on the big screen telly and I knew instantly that he hadn’t won an Oscar. ‘I hadn’t wanted to tell Susie, not until we had some good news, and then maybe not ever, but now, I’m thinking we have to, just in case.’
Conrad glanced at his watch. ‘Not for a while, we can’t. They were scheduled to take off from Phoenix ten minutes ago for Charlotte. That’s a long flight.’
‘Is it on time? Could they still be sitting in the airport?’
‘No. Audrey called me an hour ago to say they were boarding.’ He held up a hand. ‘And before you ask, I didn’t say anything to her.’
‘How’s Susie, physically? Did she say?’
‘Not much, but I don’t think she could. She said she was okay, but I wasn’t convinced. I don’t think she could speak freely; I reckon Duncan was too close.’
I walked through to the office where the second television is, and found the kids there. Janet looked up at me; her face was drawn beneath the tan and her eyes were anxious. ‘They haven’t found him, Auntie Primavera,’ she said.
‘I know, love,’ I replied. ‘Liam and I were among the people looking. That isn’t bad news, you know.’
‘But there were men looking in the river.’ She was on the edge of tears