Suddenly her face brightened as she saw him. She thrust her hand in the air and waved furiously, then moved quickly towards the point where Marsh would come through into the main concourse. He wanted to sweep her into his arms but had to remember she had been widowed barely a week. He smiled and put his arms round her, kissing her warmly on her cheek.
Helen flung her arms around him.
“Oh, Marsh,” she said, “it’s so good to see you.”
She held him very tightly, so much so that he could feel her body pressing into him. It felt so comforting, so natural.
He pulled away and looked at her full in the face. He was aware of the general movement of people around them, most of them being met by loved ones, friends and relatives. How many, he wondered were arriving under the shadow of a death in the family?
“Helen, I don’t know what to say.”
She touched his lips with the tips of her fingers. “Don’t say anything.”
She turned, taking hold of his hand. “Come on,” she said, and together they walked out of the airport into the Bahamian sunshine.
It was two hours later that Marsh was through part of his rehabilitation. Helen had insisted that he came back to her villa so she could give him a meal and they could talk about the tragic events that had so swiftly overtaken them both and perhaps make up their minds what they would do.
He had enjoyed a hot bath followed by a cool shower, then a shave and a meal. It was never far from his mind that he was in Greg’s house, using Greg’s things. While he had been using the bathroom he had been constantly aware of the heady scent of Helen’s cosmetics; her soap, bath salts, talcum powder. It reminded him of the time once, years ago, when he had lived with a girl; those heady, lovely days of a golden youth.
They had finished their meal and Marsh was sipping his wine when Helen asked him what he was going to do. He didn’t want to spoil the moment by going into detail about the conversation he’d had with Francesini and Starling at the hospital, but he felt it was only fair that they, he and Helen, talked about what plans they would make about their own futures and that of the company. Whether they should continue as a partnership, sell up, that kind of thing. But first the question of what he had to do immediately had to be dealt with.
“I have to see Inspector Bain,” he told her. “No doubt he will want to question me about Greg and what happened. He is expecting me, isn’t he?”
“Tomorrow,” she told him. “He said he trusts you otherwise he would have been waiting for you at the airport.”
“I’m honoured,” he said. “Better than being wanted.”
“You are wanted,” she said suddenly. She lowered her eyes and looked into her hands. Marsh wondered if she had made a mistake: an unintentional statement. She lifted her head, her eyes looking directly at him as though she had reached a decision and was about to tell him something of great importance.
“Marsh, there’s something you should know.” She interlocked her fingers and stared down at her empty palms. “Greg and I were not really very close. Oh, I loved him once, but that was a long time ago.” She looked up and Marsh could see tears on her cheeks. “Don’t misunderstand me please, Marsh; you can’t share your life with a man and not lose something when the love dies and your life begins to break apart. And when he dies, it’s still painful. We were good friends once but lately…..” she paused, struggling to put into words what was in her mind. Marsh waited, knowing how difficult it must be for her. Helen straightened suddenly, as though summoning up the courage to carry on. Her voice softened when she spoke again.
“Marsh, when Inspector Bain told me that one of you had survived, I prayed that it was you.”
She dropped her face into her hands and burst into a flood of tears.
Marsh felt something uncanny surge through his whole body, almost like an electric shock. When Helen spoke those last words, she had been looking directly at him, saying with her eyes what lay deep in her heart. Her admission of her true feelings for him rendered him speechless, and he felt an embarrassing sense of guilt and shame that he was the one she had prayed for in such terrible circumstances.
He realised that Greg’s death had been the unkind release she had wanted and now she was ridding herself of the lie they had been living. Now he was dead and her true feelings for Marsh were out in the open. Helen would not have been callous enough to wish her husband dead, but now fate had intervened she could mourn him as a dear, lost friend and try to pick up the fragments of her shattered life.
Marsh stood up and walked round to the table to her. He put his hand on her arm and she stood and reached up to him. They held each other tightly, staying that way for some time, not moving, not saying a word. He could feel her sobbing against him and was content to let her cry.
Soon she pulled away and brushed her tears away with her hands. Then she brushed the front of Marsh’s chest in a vain effort to remove the tear stains from his shirt.
“Thank you, Marsh.” She pulled away from him and began clearing the table. “Things to do,” she said with a sigh. Then she was about to say something else when the phone rang. She stopped what she was doing and walked over to a small bureau against a wall and picked up the phone. Marsh waited while she spoke. When she put the phone down, she had a puzzled look on her face.
“That was Mac at the boatyard. There’s a man there calling himself Batista; says he would like to speak to you.”
Nothing happened for a moment because the name took a few moments to register. When it did Marsh felt a small shudder run down his spine.
“Julio Batista,” he said, more to himself than to Helen. “One of Khan’s divers.”
Helen still had her hand on the phone even though she had put it back in its cradle.
“Hakeem Khan?” she said. “Isn’t that the guy Greg worked for some time ago?”
He didn’t answer because his mind was racing at the implications. What could Batista want with him? He thought about Francesini, the C.I.A. and Greg, and didn’t like the answers that were popping into his mind. Then he thought about Helen and realised that any fears he might have could unsettle her if she became aware of them. So he decided to play it out; see what Batista wanted and then worry about it.
“Yes,” he said eventually. “He commissioned Greg. But we weren’t involved, remember.” His voice tailed off and his mind went on to the figures that Greg had been concerned about after the commission. He put the thought from his mind. “Well, whatever; let’s go and see what Batista wants.”
Helen began to tidy up taking the dirty dishes to the dishwasher. She spent a few minutes making sure everything was in its place, put a vase of flowers back on the table and did a quick check to make sure everything was to her satisfaction. Marsh recalled how Greg would often moan about Helen’s mania for making sure the house was tidy before they left.
They walked out of the villa and climbed into Helen’s yellow Chevrolet pick-up truck. Helen gunned the motor into life and pulled out of the driveway.
And as they left, neither of them noticed two men sitting in a black sedan watching the house.
Julio Batista thought the boatyard look slack; no sign of any real work being carried out. The yard was at Hawksbill Creek, right in the heart of the Freeport waterfront. The sights and sounds of the different yards, the gulls flying overhead, boats pulling away from their moorings, the pop-pop of marine diesels; all these were so familiar to Batista, but here at Ocean Quest’s boatyard there was an eerie, emptiness as though an invisible hand had covered the yard and shut out all the other sounds.