Sneak Peek Week!! MISS DIRECTION

Read the first five chapters of Book 2 in The Miss Trilogy, a fast-paced con-gone-wrong.

The text might contain language or sexual references unsuitable for under 18s.

© Annie Holder 2018

Temptation in paradise is hard to resist…

Disgraced ex-Detective Sergeant Phillip Fishmandatu has lost everything - the woman he loves, his unborn child, his promising career, and his unimpeachable reputation. He’s hit rock bottom. Then, notorious gangster Jimmy Chadwick comes calling… Chadwick’s got a job for him, and Phillip can’t refuse.

The old Phillip believed in truth, justice, and honour. The new Phillip has discovered the twin temptations of revenge and greed. In the tropical heat, the passion of the past and promise of the future entwine to beguile him into recklessness.

When Phillip is seduced into swindling the wily gangster out of millions, what begins as skilful misdirection unravels into a desperate scramble for his life…

MISS DIRECTION by Annie Holder

ONE

Nothing had ever hurt as much as this.  No wonder people pleaded, and sobbed, and made foolhardy deals so readily – because they simply couldn’t bear this pain.

Love is weakness, exploitation; regret – that much is obvious.  He’d deliberately never let its poison infect him…and yet it had, hadn’t it?  Insidiously, he’d fallen in love – without choice, without reason – and barely realised until it was snatched away.  What he needs now is the only thing capable of alleviating this unremitting agony: revenge.  Though this vengeance is complicated.  Not merely an eye for an eye…there’s more at stake. 

Richard.  It hurt to even speak his name!  He’d told him – wide-eyed, ingenuous – that he wanted to get off the grift.  One last job and he was quitting the con, permanently.  But the double-crossing little bastard had lied to him.  He’d had no intention of giving up his life of crime.  What he’d done was ensure everyone looked the other way while he went after the prize most worth having. 

James Chadwick leans his aching head back against the sofa cushions, and briefly closes his eyes.  Reams of paper are spread across his lap, the floor, the seat next to him.  Richard had died in pursuit of a considerable fortune; the papers strewn around him are the evidence – extensive research, dead ends, cold leads…  Forty million sits in an offshore fund, ripe for appropriation…if only he could find it!  Richard had been killed before he could complete his search.  The contents of this folder take Jimmy Chadwick so far, and no further.  Places he can’t go.  He needs an agent.  A dogged investigator.  Someone who will persist despite the obstacles.  Someone who also lost everything that fateful December afternoon: a confused, forsaken, betrayed man called Phillip Fishmandatu; once an honest copper, now a fallen angel desperate to be avenged.

****

Phillip Fishmandatu sits on the deck outside his beach bungalow and dangles his legs in the plunge pool up to his knees. The water feels chilly on his skin, its velvety coolness calling him to slide off the t-shirt he’s just put on, ease himself in fully, and float…the hot Antiguan sun warming him, and his body casting rippling shadows across the underwater tiles.  He resists the temptation; there’s work to be done.  He looks at his watch.  Nearly time.

The heat of the day builds; the relentless sun a pulsating fireball driving even the most dedicated worshipper under their parasol to escape its ferocity. The sand becomes too hot to walk on, and the wood of the poolside decks burns even the hardiest feet.  The perfect time to catch them at home.

Catch them…

Fishmandatu smiles sardonically – what a thoroughly apt choice of words.

TWO

Bobbing in the pool, sealed in his blissful bubble, eyes closed, fierce noonday sun cooking his protruding belly, Marc Pickford occasionally lifts a hand to trickle cool water across his hot skin.  His somnolent brain decides it’s heard a noise, and only then begins idle speculation about what it might have been…perhaps something hitting the tiled floor indoors?  That makes him wonder if it’s lunchtime, contemplate how peckish he’s becoming, and raise his head hopefully.  Instead of a picture of pleasing domesticity, he witnesses what he at first assumes is a burglary in progress, as a rangy black man forcefully pins Tammi against the pillar to the left of the kitchen.  Panicked – and these days not lauded for his athleticism – Marc leaps for the edge of the pool, misjudges it, slips, and submerges.  He ingests a significant quantity of heavily-salted water, and shoots back to the surface spluttering for air.  Fruitlessly wiping stinging eyes with wet fingers, he gropes blindly for the side, levering himself heavily upwards to land on his stomach with an ungainly flop, clouting his knee painfully as he wriggles bodily across the red-hot patio.

Tammi’s assailant smirks cruelly as he watches Pickford flap around on the scalding tiles like a walrus, scoffing sarcastically, “Here he comes, your Knight in Shining Armour.  He might make it off his fat arse sometime in the next fortnight…and then I’m in big trouble, aren’t I?”

The slap of Marc’s massive feet whacking urgently across the patio causes the intruder to whirl and face the lumbering, dripping, panting, slipping giant lurching over the now treacherously-wet floor.  Both men regard one another with awkward recognition and cold calculation, each awaiting the other’s first move.  When it becomes obvious Marc will not act until he does, her captor abruptly shoves Tammi with all his might towards his adversary.  She connects hard with the expanse of obese torso, a sharp smack of bare flesh-on-flesh that makes both gasp, stagger, and slide in the puddle widening from Pickford’s sopping body.  By the time they’ve righted themselves, the front door is slamming.  The man is gone.

Marc grips Tammi roughly around her upper arms, his wet flesh cold on her warm skin, “What the hell’s he doing here?!”

Irritably shoving him aside, Tammi pelts down the hallway after the intruder, barking, “Don’t just stand there!  Get the car keys – quick!”

Marc complies with as much urgency as he’s capable.  They bundle out of the villa and down to their open-sided Landi, zipping up to the development’s entrance and waiting an eternity for the wrought-iron automatic gates to swing slowly inward.  Livid at the maddening delay, Tammi thumps the dashboard violently, “Come on…come on!”

Marc guns the little 4x4 through the gate as soon as it’ll fit.  Tammi’s already flipping open the glove compartment and wiggling out the ancient binoculars.  She looks frantically left to right, squeaking, “Stop!”

Marc reacts, swerving the vehicle to a sharp halt on the grass verge just outside the gate, glaring at her, “Now what?”

She points, “Look!” 

The lithe figure of the man is jogging away down the side of the coast road, a mile ahead at most. 

“Come on!”  Tammi slides out of the open-sided Jeep, clad only in her bikini, dancing barefoot off the burning tarmac onto the sandy scrub, “Shit, that road’s hot!  Come on, hurry up!  We need to follow him!”

Marc scowls, climbing out unwillingly, leaving a damp outline of his still-wet body on the battered leather seat, “We haven’t got any shoes on.  Can’t we follow him in this?” 

Tammi rolls her eyes in exasperation, “At jogging pace?  Are you mad?  We’ll catch him up in twenty seconds, and then what?  Hold our bloody breath and hope he doesn’t notice the car that’s cruising three feet behind him?  We need to see where he’s going…so we’ve got to follow him with some subtlety…  Come on, or we’ll lose him.” 

“What if he’s walking to his own car half a mile down the road, huh?  That buggers up everything, doesn’t it?” 

Tammi weighs up the risk, “Ok…I see your point…  Look, there’s parking at the back of the beach, right?”

“Yep.”

“If he came here in a car, that’d be a practical place to leave it, wouldn’t it – to sneak up to our place on foot…?”

“How did he get onto the development?”

“Oh, Marc, how should I know?!  Ring a random bell and pretend to be the milkman!  Wait in the hedge for someone to drive out, and dive through before the gate shuts?  There are a million ways!  When someone presses our bell and tells you they’ve got a delivery, how often do you check the camera before you buzz them in?”

“Well…”

“Exactly!  And nor does anyone else, probably.  Besides, it doesn’t matter where he’s been!  I care about where he’s going!  Come on.  We’ll just follow him to the beach, and then we’ll make a decision from there, ok?  He’s going round the corner now; we’ll lose him!  Come on, Marc!”

She’s off, scurrying down the rough verge after her quarry.  Marc sighs resignedly, leans over to tug the key moodily from the Landi’s ignition, and follows her.

Past the corner where the road swoops down from the bluff to run parallel with the rugged coast, the man strides across the parking area, the soles of his flip-flops puffing little clouds of sand into the air.  He doesn’t stop at one of the few vehicles as expected, but continues down onto the beach.  They follow at a discreet distance, prudently hugging the undulating dune.  Stopping at a suitably-screened vantage point dotted with sapling palms and spreading seagrass, Tammi clamps the heavy plastic of the binoculars to her face, tutting and muttering as she twists the wheel to bring the beach into sharp focus, scanning impatiently until she spots him again, now strolling casually, his green t-shirt bright and noticeable against the white sand.

Hovering annoyingly behind her, Marc rattles out questions she can’t answer, “Phil-bloody-Fishmandatu!  What’s he doing here?  How did he know where to find us?  What does it mean?”

Tammi tries to ignore him, fixing her eyes on the distant, diminishing figure.  To shut him up, she snaps, “I don’t know what it means!”

“What’s he come here for?  Why now?”

“I don’t know, Marc!”

“Didn’t you ask him?”

She takes her eyes from Fishmandatu long enough to glare at him, “Funnily enough, we were rather too preoccupied with having a punch-up to manage much smalltalk.  I could’ve done with you five minutes before you chose to make an appearance!”

Emasculated, Marc puffs out his enormous chest, and pompously declares, “I frightened him off, didn’t I?”

Tammi’s glance is withering, “Don’t flatter yourself, I think he was going anyway.  He just turned up to rattle my cage…and, to be honest, he’s succeeded…”

She moistens dry lips, and squints at the bright green speck of Fishmandatu’s t-shirt.

Marc flops dejectedly onto the sand, absently rolling a lone pebble with his big toe, eventually asking, “Can you still see him?”

“Yeah, he’s going straight down the shore.  Is that deliberate, do you think?  So we can watch him if we choose?  I mean, we weren’t exactly stealthy back there.  He must have assumed we’d follow, right?”

Marc shrugs, not really listening.

She exhales irritably, “What’s at the other end of this beach?”

“Just that boutique hotel…and then the headland and the hill behind it.”

At length, she abandons her observation, “He’s gone.”

“What now?”

“I don’t know…”

“Do you think he’s in the hotel?”

“Only one way to find out!”

Afraid of her answer, he ventures tentatively, “What are you going to do, Tammi?”

She taps the binoculars distractedly against her thigh, “I’m going to wait until it gets nice and dark, and go and have a look…”

“Just a look?”

Lightly, “Of course, what else?”

Marc swallows apprehensively, “Do you need me to come?”

“I don’t think so, do you?”

“No witnesses, eh?”

“I’m not sure what you’re implying, Marc…I’m just going to assess the situation.”

“What did he say to you in there?”

“He said, Hello Tammi, remember me?”

“That was it?”

“Yeah.”

“What was that designed to achieve?”

“How many more times – I don’t know, Marc!  But I’m going to find out…”

****

Fishmandatu fidgets in the wide bed, kicking to dislodge the sheet that coils uncomfortably about his clammy legs.  The ceiling fan spins with a low, hypnotic hum, the displaced air barely stirring the mosquito net around the grand four-poster.  Still wired by the events of this afternoon, the dreamworld eventually exerts its beguiling pull and Fishmandatu is more-than-willing to drift, lulled by the drone of the fan and the distant, rhythmic rush and splash of breaking waves.

He knows sleep has fully claimed him when he feels the delightful, fanciful brush of a soft, female body at his back.  A dream.  Just a dream.  A smooth limb curls over his hip, little toes tickling down the front of his shin to rest lightly on the top of his foot.  Small breasts squash against his shoulder blade, titillating with delicious, plump pressure.  One slim hand snakes around his shoulder, down his chest, and across his stomach to his firming penis; gentle, warm fingers sliding with invigorating rhythm.  Fishmandatu sighs, luxuriating in the sensation, knowing it’s fantasy, not caring, leaning back and murmuring, “Annelisse…” into the hot darkness.  Moist lips nibble his ear, a gentle exhalation of breath tickles tantalisingly as she breathes, “Phillip…”

Fishmandatu twitches involuntarily.  Wide awake in an instant, he grabs at the slim wrist and yanks it away, spinning around on hands and knees to face where she lies, smirking, amongst the tumbled covers, clothed only in pale moonlight.

Fishmandatu sinks back onto his heels and scrapes a hot hand down his sweating face, growling, “That was a shitty thing to try.”

She sniggers, “I thought I was doing quite well.  What gave it away?”

He grunts humourlessly, “Of all the women I’ve ever known, only my mother calls me Phillip.”

Tammi Rivers pulls a face, “Eurgh!  No wonder you got up so quick!”

She rolls onto her back, pushing her palms against the headboard and stretching languorously across the mattress, opening her legs deliberately, knowing he’s still watching her.  It would take so very little to give in to this, to allow his tired and broken brain to pretend that the woman before him is the woman he so wants her to be.  Not Tammi Rivers, the conniving con-artist with the suspected blood of more than one victim on her hands, but her identical twin – Annelisse – the only woman he’s ever really loved.  Fists clenching around the bedclothes, he bunches them in his palms until his knuckles ache.  It feels as if he teeters on the knife-edge of temptation for a shamefully long time before his conscience drives him backwards off the bed, struggling clumsily from the clutches of sheet and mosquito net.

He staggers across the room, grabs at a pair of shorts, and hurries to conceal his revealing arousal.  He plunges into the Antiguan night, crickets chirruping busily in the undergrowth to either side of the bungalow.  He totters a few feet across the private deck and subsides onto the furthest sun lounger, legs rubbery with shock.  The strength of his desire for her staggers him.  She isn’t Annelisse, and yet the striking resemblance is seemingly enough for it not to matter to his treacherous body or tormented brain.  Only the remaining tatters of his once-enviable integrity hold him in check.

Starting at a sound behind him, there she is, swathed tightly in the discarded bedsheet.  He doesn’t know what he’ll do if she approaches.

Thankfully, she sinks gingerly to the deck in her restrictive, makeshift toga, and edges tentative toes into the plunge pool, “Oooh, chilly!”

The voice isn’t identical, but the tone and inflection are close enough to further trouble his fragile emotions.  His chest aches as if he’s sprinted up a hill.  He thought his heart was already broken, so how can it be shattering for a second time?  It doesn’t seem fair that he’s died inside, but is still expected to go on living.  Head in hands, he pointedly refuses to look at her, praying she’ll leave if denied the oxygen of his attention. 

She makes no move to depart.  Distractedly, he wonders where her clothes are.  She’s talking to him.  Is it wiser to listen, or blot it out?

“I wanted to get your attention…the way you got mine this afternoon.”

Fishmandatu daren’t lift his head.  He snorts mirthlessly, “Touché.  I think we’re quits now, don’t you?”

No response.  He can’t help but snarl caustically, “Just out of curiosity, how did it feel to spectate at your own funeral?”

Tammi shivers, and wraps her bare arms around her body, “If I’m honest, a bit fucking odd…”

Something in her voice makes Fishmandatu stare searchingly at her.  She skilfully avoids eye contact. 

Fishmandatu smiles sorrowfully, “I have to admit a grudging admiration for how fast your brain works.  I mean, you had everyone after you, and you plucked an escape plan out of thin air, and made it stick!  It certainly helped that my department was so endemically-corrupt they didn’t actually want to solve the case…but you were still exceptionally convincing.  You had a plausible answer for everything; pretending to be the distressed Mrs Annelisse Pickford, conned by her own sister, taken hostage at knife-point.  You committed two murders and got away scot-free – “

“Hey!”  The intangible moment of confessional intimacy is past.  She hisses with urgent fury across the few feet of sultry air separating them, “Self-defence!  If I hadn’t done what I did, do you think Ricky McAllister would have shown any mercy?  It was him or me, simple as that.  Tell me what else I was supposed to do!” 

“I don’t know.  I wasn’t there.”

“No, you weren’t.  You didn’t show up and stick your flamin’ oar in until it was already way too late.”

“And your sister?”

“She fell!”

“You put her in that risky situation!  You’re as responsible for her death as you would be if you’d pushed her!”

“I was nowhere near her!  You know that…you were closer to her than I was.  In fact, I seem to remember, Phillip, that you were the one she was trying to reach when she slipped.  You.  Not me.  Arguably, if you’d just left well-alone – instead of meddling in something you didn’t understand – both your mistress and your unborn child would still be alive today…and we wouldn’t be here having this pleasant little chat.”

Strange; she’s not the first to insinuate that Detective Sergeant Phillip Fishmandatu, who’s previously prided himself on his perception and judgement, was in fact stumbling blindly, pitiably and constantly behind the curve.  He’d worked in a department so riddled with corruption it was rotten to the core, yet never noticed there was anything wrong with any of his colleagues.  He’d accepted all their explanations at face value until the truth was too glaring to ignore.  How had he ever dared call himself a detective? 

The torpid night air slowly ripples the water between them.  Illuminated by the pool lights, the resultant moving shadows travel across her bare, brown skin like writhing serpents.

Disorientated, he breathes, “You’re evil…”

She starts, staring at him in affronted astonishment, retorting, “I’d rather be evil than weak!”

“What does that mean?”

“Annie told me she was already carrying on with you before she married Marc…and went through with the wedding because he was a millionaire, and you weren’t.  But she kept on using you for her own amusement anyway, didn’t she – and you were so pathetic that you let her?  Now, there’s a man with zero self-respect.”

Defensive, Fishmandatu blurts, “It wasn’t like that!  She knew she’d made a mistake marrying Marc – “

“Funny how she only came to that realisation decades later when his money dried up…”

Fishmandatu wrestles with the disquieting accuracy of this analysis, too choked to repudiate.

“We’re straying from the point of my visit.  I want to know what you’re doing here, what lunchtime’s little performance was designed to achieve.”

“What do you think?”

“I must confess I’m still struggling to work it out.  It’s not as if coppers who get the push for misconduct can legitimately afford swanky beach bungalows on Caribbean islands, is it?”

“Implying?”

“That you’re not paying for this.  So who is, and why?”

****

Nathan Palmer nods with fatigue, and tries to keep his wandering attention on what his boss is saying.  There’s an annoying crackle on the line from London, making it hard to hear, and Jimmy Chadwick’s voice is uncharacteristically animated – a world away from his usual sardonic, upper-class drawl – as if the gangster is anxious.

“So, you can see them now, Nathan?”

“Yes, Mr Chadwick.”  Nathan leans forward again and squints down the powerful telescope to make doubly-sure.  You can never be too careful with Chadwick.  There’s every chance the devious bastard has someone watching the watcher.  It never does to promise what you can’t deliver, or embellish what you can’t prove.

There they are, sure enough; two small, indistinct figures in the muggy darkness, lit eerily from below by the pool lights, “Yes, I can see them right now.”

“And they’re just sitting there?”

“Yes.”

“But you can’t hear what they’re saying?”

“No, Mr Chadwick.  I told you, they’re on the deck.  The devices I planted in Phil’s bungalow can only detect what goes on inside the room.  They aren’t powerful enough to pick up sounds outside.”

“Do you think he knows you’ve bugged the place, Nathan?”

“No.  No way.”  Nathan recalls the last few days of recordings, eavesdropping on Fishmandatu’s frequent nightmares; hearing him call out in his troubled sleep, and be an uncomfortable, unwilling witness to his former colleague’s tortured tears, “He has no idea he’s under surveillance.”

“Splendid.  For the time being, I want it to stay that way.  You are my insurance policy, you understand?  Phillip has his instructions to carry out, and I have no reason to think he won’t do so…unless he’s led astray in some way.”

“Yes, Mr Chadwick.”

“It’s not Phillip’s integrity that’s in question, Nathan.  I simply have reason to believe the Rivers woman can be…how can I put this…rather persuasive when it suits her…?”

Nathan chuckles, and takes a swig of the coffee at his right hand, gagging as he realises it’s stone cold, steeling himself to gulp the mouthful.

Chadwick is still purring down the receiver, “I fancy Phillip’s not in the correct frame of mind to resist.”  Nathan thinks of that earlier, desperate groan of desire.  It wouldn’t take much to tip Fishy over the edge.  He’s bereft, abandoned, humiliated, lonely… “I’ll keep an eye on him, Mr Chadwick.”

“Good man, Nathan, good man…and, in your absence, I will, of course, ensure a reciprocally-close eye is kept upon your lovely wife and darling daughter…”

Nathan’s insides tighten.  He squeezes his eyes shut, bows his head, and fights hard not to puke up the cold coffee he’s only just swallowed.  For Dionne and Amanda, Detective Sergeant Nathan Palmer sold his soul to this most-urbane of devils.  It’s impossible now to seek to buy it back.  The price is greater than he will ever be able to afford.

“I’m doing everything you asked, Mr Chadwick!”

“Of course you are, Nathan…of course…”  The honeyed tones ooze unctuously from the mobile ‘phone, and Nathan’s senses swim.  Queasy with fear, he shivers despite the humidity of the night.

“Keep an eye on him, Nathan.  A close eye.  I’ll be in touch.”

The murderer cuts the call, and Nathan flings his ‘phone onto the opposite armchair with an exclamation of fruitless rage.  He spends a moment or two deep-breathing, slowing his thudding heart.  To allow panic to take hold is pointless.  He’s powerless to control what happens four thousand miles away in London.  The message is abundantly clear: do as he’s told and Dionne and Amanda will be safe.  Disobey, and…?  It doesn’t bear thinking about, so he buries it.  There’s no alternative.  High on the hillside above the exclusive beach-bungalows of Phillip Fishmandatu’s five-star retreat, on the wide, empty poolside of a secluded plantation villa, Nathan Palmer bends once again to the eyepiece of his telescope and settles, as instructed, to keeping the closest of eyes upon his erstwhile best friend…

****

She yawns vocally, eyes scrunched, mouth wide, as if she doesn’t care how she appears in front of him because he matters so very little.

“I’m tired…”

He retorts unsympathetically, “You chose to come here in the middle of the night to pull your poor-taste stunt.”

Tammi simpers sarcastically, and troubles the surface of the pool with lazy fingers, reawakening the rippling serpents.  Fishmandau rubs his glazing eyes.  Since his breakdown, disciplining his wandering concentration is a battle he frequently loses.  Doubt, fear, desire, fury – all churn his fragile wits and make him feel light-headed with grief and bewilderment.

Rivers yawns again, “Why don’t you make me a nice cup of tea, and then we can talk properly, like intelligent human beings who know the score.  I’ll level with you, and you’ll extend me the same courtesy.  Perhaps we can put one another out of our individual miseries?”

Fishmandatu doesn’t want to make her anything.  He doesn’t want to sit and pretend civility with the woman who is the cause of all his pain, but he’s here to do a job.  He has to be professional about it.  He’d gone looking for trouble this afternoon; he shouldn’t be so surprised he found it.  He’ll do as she asks.  Not because he wants to, but because it’s expedient.  Shuffling unwillingly to his feet, he pads inside, returning presently with two cups of tea made in the bungalow’s basic kitchenette.

He thumps one cup down onto the deck beside her, and stomps moodily back to the safety of his previous seat on the opposite side of the pool.  Again, she agitates the water, lifting a languid arm and watching the drips form, swell, and plop from the tips of her relaxed fingers.  Conversationally, she remarks, “Awfully nice here, isn’t it?  I don’t miss England at all.”

Fishmandatu considers her words.  Apart from a vague and omnipresent pain in his solar plexus, which he attributes to the harrowing events of the past two years and prolonged separation from his three sons, he concludes he doesn’t miss it much either.  Life in this bubble of opulent unreality is very satisfying, as is the prospect of earning a great deal of money from this unusual assignment.

“Why are you here, Phillip?”

“Can’t a chap have a holiday?  I’m recuperating from a serious mental breakdown.  Oh, but you know that, don’t you, given you were the cause…”

She regards him coolly, “I thought we’d agreed to level with one another?  Nice cuppa, slice of straight-talking?”

Stubbornly, Phillip grunts, “I don’t remember agreeing to anything of the sort.”

Undeterred, she persists, “How much is this place costing: five; six grand a week?  What’s financing this ‘holiday’, Phillip?  Who’s fronting the cash for you to be here, in my face, bursting into my house on a sunny afternoon and roughing me up for fun?”

He gazes steadily at her, and baits, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

THREE

“Heard of a bloke called Jimmy Chadwick?”

It’s satisfying to see her jaw drop, her eyes widen.  Uncertainty flashes across her face.  Brazenly, she crows, “No way!  No way!  I don’t believe it.  You, working for the notorious Jimmy Chadwick?  You’ll have to do better than that, Phillip!”

How to convince her?

“Wait here.”

He goes inside to the safe, returning with Ricky McAllister’s assiduously-amassed envelope of evidence, withdrawing two particular items from it, and dropping the folder casually onto the sun lounger at her elbow.

She snatches up the packet, scrabbles through it, demands, “Where did you get this?”

Fishmandatu shrugs as if the answer’s obvious, “From Chadwick…and he got it from McAllister…”

Her eyes flick from side to side, brain calculating rapidly as she examines selected sheets in obvious agitation.

“Believe me now?”

“When did you get this?”

“Couple of weeks ago…before he sent me out here.”  He watches her intently, “Why, seen it before?”

He passes her the smaller of the items he holds.  It’s a thin, poor-quality reproduction £20 note.

She takes it cautiously, and examines it in the light shining up from the water.  She chuckles incredulously, “How did you get hold of this?  From Chadwick too?”

He grins, “That’s my business.”

“Fair enough, Phillip.  You keep your secrets, and I’ll keep mine.  How’s that for a deal?”

Still grinning, he declares, “I have a choice.  You don’t.”

“Big talker, eh?  Got anything to back it up?”

“The full and considerable might of my new employer?”

She regards him thoughtfully, waving the note, “When Ricky got this counterfeit cash off Chadwick, the plan was always to do a runner abroad without paying him for it.  Ricky’s idea.  Always Ricky’s bloody ideas…!  I told him we wouldn’t get away!  I told him Chadwick’d come after his hundred grand eventually.  Ricky said he couldn’t.  He said he was powerful, dangerous…but on a police watch list…that he’d be arrested like a shot if he attempted to leave the country.  I didn’t know how much of it to believe…?”

“What are you fishing for?”

“Information, Phillip.  If you’re in as deep with Chadwick as you claim, you’ll be able to provide it, won’t you?”

“He’s under suspicion.  It’s why he keeps such a low profile.  We know – “  He stops, realising he isn’t who he once was, correcting himself, “They know what he is, but they can’t prove it.  He’s got so many coppers in his pocket that any attempts to construct prosecution cases against him crumble for lack of evidence.  It just…disappears…”

Tammi thinks of the folder in her lap, and where she’d last seen it – on the hallway floor of Marc Pickford’s Kentish mansion, next to Ricky’s cooling corpse.  She wonders who ‘disappeared’ it from that crime scene and placed it in Chadwick’s hands?  She recalls how it had looked the first time…identical to this: notes scribbled on scraps torn from pads, random photocopies, reams of internet printouts copiously underlined, highlighted, and liberally-annotated in the margins with Ricky’s spidery scrawl.  Not a neat, reproduced copy, but rough, ready, raw, and…unique?  Chadwick’s apparently so confident of his hold over Phillip Fishmandatu, he’s seemingly entrusted his only copy!

He's holding out his hand for the folder.  Reluctantly, she surrenders it, “Tell me about Chadwick.”

“What?”

“Tell me.  You know him.  I only know the rumours.  You want me to be intimidated by him, explain why I should be.  From what you say, he’s no threat to me.  He can’t come and get me, right?  And he’s sent you in his stead!  No offence, Phillip, but you’re hardly the most terrifying option…”

Irrationally stung, he smacks the folder angrily onto the end of his lounger, “I’m not sure how to take that.  I’m not here to terrify you.  I’m here to persuade you.”

Her reply is scornful, “Persuade me of what?  To pay him a hundred grand I don’t owe?  Hand over the cash or my cover’s blown?  Face it, Phillip, your veracity’s been so utterly discredited over the past couple of years, who’s going to trust a word you say now?  You practically screamed the truth into the faces of anyone who’d listen.  No one believed you; they just had you sectioned.”  She shakes her head dismissively, “Sorry, Phillip, but you have no leverage.  I won.  They believed me and not you.  Live with it.”

She reaches beneath an overhanging branch of bougainvillea, tugging out a hidden kaftan and slipping it over her head.  She stands awkwardly, pulling it down prissily to preserve a modesty she’s already squandered, wriggling the enveloping bedsheet to the ground beneath it.

She’s going!  Abruptly, without even taking leave!  She’s half way across his private beach before Fishmandatu recovers sufficient presence of mind to squawk, “It’s nothing to do with the hundred grand!”

Her body language betrays only exasperation.  She isn’t frightened of him at all.  Her eyes flash irritation as she marches back up the beach, “Then what?”

Fishmandatu goes for broke, “He wants the forty million in your offshore account!”

Tammi, usually so accomplished at keeping her nerve, stumbles on her way back up the steps to the deck, wincing as her toes stub the rough stones.  Witnessing this delivers Fishmandatu a surge of self-confidence, enabling him to jerk a casual thumb at the bulging packet of paperwork beside the pool, and drawl, “Pointless denying it.  It’s all in there.  Every single bit of evidence but where the money is right now…and that’s the bit I’m here to discover.”

Her eyes flick restlessly from the folder to his smirking face, “And if I refuse to cooperate, Phillip, what then?  Are you here to kill me at Chadwick’s behest?  Do you know how hard it is to take another life, no matter what the provocation?”

“Annelisse told me you were a trader once.  What if I’m not here to kill?  What if I’m here to trade?”

“Trade what?”

“Your freedom…for the money.”

“But you hate me, Phillip.  Surely the last thing you want is for me to go free?  What do you get for brokering said deal?”

“A Finders’ Fee.”

“Paid for out of my money?”

“Is it your money?”

“All the while it’s still in my account.”

“What about the people you stole it from?”

“Prove it.”

He smiles complacently, “I don’t need to.”  He points at the folder, “Ricky McAllister’s done it for me.  I told you, we know everything apart from where the money is.”

“Why would I give it to you?”

“Because I’m the friendly advance-party, here to negotiate.  Refuse to deal with me, and what follows will be a lot worse.”

“I disclose the location of the money, and you destroy me with the contents of that folder anyway, just for fun.  The only way to keep myself alive and at liberty is to keep my mouth firmly shut.  Funny Chadwick didn’t think of that…?  How much of a fool is he?”

Fishmandatu pictures the cultured, elegant, self-assured individual with whom he’d conversed at length about this assignment, “He’s no fool.  He’s an incredibly well-educated and intelligent man.”

“Have you genuinely met him?”

“I’ve genuinely met him.”  Is he boasting about it?  Unaccustomed exhilaration surges within him as he contemplates his own daring, “I’ve shaken his hand!”

She regards him intently, “Come on Phillip…explain to me…”

He’s amazed how readily he complies, “Meeting him surprised me.  He wasn’t what I expected.  He’s an unlikely villain.” 

“Because?  What were you expecting?”

“The traditional thug!  The underworld hard man!  The sort of bloke I’d arrest on a weekly basis, once upon a time.  There’s none of that posturing with Chadwick.  He’s well-spoken.  He’s…this’ll sound funny, but he’s…graceful.  He’s groomed.  He looks like a barrister, or a stockbroker.  He’s so respectable, you’d trust him to watch your stuff while you popped to the loo on a train.  Rumour has it he went to Eton; to Oxford!  They say he moves in exalted circles.  Reportedly, he knows peers, politicians, captains of industry – “

“And yet he squirmed in the gutter with slime like McAllister…?”

“I’m only telling you what I saw; what I’ve heard.  You asked me.  We’ve got a gentleman’s agreement.  I give him what he wants…and he gives me what I want.”

“How much is your Finders’ Fee?”

“Five per cent of whatever I recover.  Five per cent of forty million’s a pretty good payday, I’d say.  It’ll set my boys up for life.”

She doesn’t miss a beat, “Oh, Phillip, if I’ve got forty million, it’s news to me!  That sounds like a Richard McAllister ‘Jackanory’.  I might still have enough to pay your boss his disputed hundred grand and get him off my back – I’d have to check my accounts – but that’s about it.”  She points to the folder, “Anything else it might say in there is a flight of fancy straight from Ricky’s Machiavellian little mind.”

“I told you, Tammi, denial’s pointless!  I have all the information I need to take you down.  The one thing that can save you is to reveal the location of your fund.”

“Even if I had that kind of money – which I don’t – nothing would induce me to tell you – “

“Chadwick will have you killed!”

She smiles.  It’s chilling.  “I disagree.  You’re the one he’ll dispose of…for being useless.  Seems he’s got forty million reasons to keep me alive!”

She lunges for the folder.  It takes him a moment to register what’s happening.  In those vital seconds, she flits past him to leap over the border of seagrass framing the raised deck.  He gasps, springing up, making a grab for the hem of the flapping kaftan, catching a glimpse of slim thigh and bare bottom as she flies to land awkwardly in the deceptively-deep, daily-raked sand of his private beach.  He’s beside her even as she struggles upright, hauling her back by a fistful of excess material, pinioning her in an aggressive embrace, reaching around her body to wrest the folder from her clutches.  She kicks frantically.  Daggers of pain shoot up his right shin as a swinging heel finds its target.  He swears under his breath, sweeping a long leg like an illegal football tackle, toppling her to hands and knees.  A squeak of surprise and pain escapes her.  He holds her still with a palm flat in the centre of her back, reaching behind him at full stretch to toss the precious folder safely back onto the deck.  It slithers across the sun-bleached wood.  For a moment, it looks as if it'll slide straight into the pool, before scraping to a halt against one of the lounger legs.  An exhalation of relief, and he drops to the sand beside her, pushing her roughly so she collapses.  As she scrabbles to recover, he crawls on top of her, straddling her, gripping her flailing arms and pushing them down into the sand.  She squirms and grunts with wasted effort.  He shoves down hard with hands, feet, knees, pelvis.  His supposedly-safely-vanquished erection stirs at the upthrust of her determined little body against his groin.  He drops his head, mouth millimetres from her face.  She stops wriggling.  Her big eyes watch him unblinkingly.

“I’m not going anywhere, Tammi.  You and I have two years of unfinished business.  You can do it the easy way, or the hard way, but you will give me the information I’ve been sent here to obtain.”

Another fruitless spasm of defiance, “Over my dead body!”

Fishmandatu smirks, and writhes against her, making her eyes widen in involuntary alarm, “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, eh?”

The other sheet of paper he’d been clutching has fluttered to the ground a couple of feet away.  He risks releasing one of her wrists, lays out full length upon her tensed body, and stretches for it, sweaty fingertips providentially sticking to the glossy surface, enabling him to flick it close enough to pluck from the sand.  Her free hand shoves ineffectually against his shoulder as he flattens her, but stops when he eases back up and wafts the picture across her line of vision.  Despite the moonlight, it’s dark down here on the beach, shaded from the pool lights by the lush seagrass hedge around the deck.  She’s unable to discern what the black and grey images indicate.  They look like x-rays.

“What’s that?”

“The most damning piece of paper of all.  The one that’ll prevent you getting anywhere near your forty-mill unless you agree to cooperate.”

She opens her mouth as if to argue, so he cuts her off, “I’ll tell you what this is, Tammi…and then you can have a good old think what you’re going to do about it.  This, here, is Annelisse Pickford’s dental records – yet more suppressed evidence that should have come to light during the so-called ‘investigation’ that destroyed my career; proof-positive that you stole your twin sister’s identity to escape prosecution for fraud, theft, murder, and God knows what else.  One word from Chadwick, and this is back in the public domain.  The only way to prevent it, is to give me what I’ve come for.”

FOUR

Tammi stands over the bed and stares down at the slumbering figure.  For four days and nights she’s done nothing but work at the problem, turning it this way and that in her head like a kid twisting a Rubix-cube.  What has Pickford done but sit on his backside in the sunshine, getting drunk, complaining about the barefaced cheek of Fishmandatu’s appearance, and generally being as pointless a collection of atoms as ever?  Tammi can’t suppress the flash of temper that makes her smack the pillow millimetres from the snoring face.

“Oi!”

“Ugh…what?”

“Are you too hungover for intelligent conversation?”

Marc rolls onto his back and squints up at her, face scrunched, the imprint of a fold in the pillowcase marking a red line across his cheek.  The bedroom blinds are drawn; the room stale and dark.

Thickly, he gurgles, “Why do you always want to do things at the crack of dawn?”

Having waited an eternity for him to wake naturally, Tammi snaps, “It’s quarter to eleven!”

She stalks to the window and flicks open the blinds, bright sunlight instantly flooding the room.  Marc cries out in horror, and throws an arm theatrically across his face like a vampire confronted with the ultimate weapon of life-enhancing daylight, “For God’s sake!  What are you trying to do, finish me off?”

Reinstating the darkness, Tammi stomps back to stand over the bed, hands on hips, “If only it were that easy!”

Marc ignores her, doesn’t bother moving his arm, but smacks his sticky lips, rolls his dehydrated tongue across his furry teeth, and croaks, “Get me a drink will you?  My mouth feels like the bottom of a birdcage…”

“If you answer some questions.”

“What d’you call this, Guantanamo Bay?”

“Do you want to know what’s going on or not?”

Marc sighs.  He does want to know…  He can’t think of a way to get her to tell him without conducting this conversation, so grunts, “Yes, of course I do.”

“Right.  Fishmandatu says he’s got evidence that exposes us – the identity swap.”

“Says…?”

“He was waving bits of paper around.  It was dark; I couldn’t see.” 

“Ohhhh Tammi…it could’ve been his shopping list for all we know!  Do we have to do this now?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Why?  I can’t think straight.  My head…”

“Because you’re only ever one of two things: drunk or hungover – and I get even less sense out of you when you’re drunk.”

“Ughhhh….get me a drink, eh?  Glass of water?  Orange juice?”

“He wants ‘incentivising’ to keep his trap shut.”

“So that’s it?  Straightforward, boring blackmail?  Cash in return for keeping quiet about what he knows?”  Marc scoffs contemptuously, “No one believed him two years ago while he was still a copper!  Who’s going to listen now?”

“I did point that out to him.”

“Did you make any sort of bargain?”

“No, I told him to sod off!”

“So, nothing to worry about, then!  We could give someone some money to rough him up…make him think twice about trying again, eh?”

“I wouldn’t bother with that.  It’ll come back to bite us.”

Marc pouts, “Why?”

Tammi pictures the grainy image that may or may not have been an x-ray of her dead sister’s dentistry, and justifies hurriedly, “Because, genius, that makes us look double-guilty, doesn’t it?  At the moment, you and I are the innocent and injured parties, and he is the blackmailing aggressor.  I haven’t spent the best part of two years doing all this friggin’ groundwork to embed us respectably here, for you to blow our cover in two seconds flat by paying one of your backstreet poker buddies to fill-in an unsuspecting English tourist on a dark night!  We need a way to get him permanently out of our hair whilst ensuring our conduct remains beyond reproach.  The idea is Phillip wakes up one sunny morning to find himself more beautifully framed than the Mona Lisa.  You know I’m right.  Why do you persist in arguing about every little thing?”

“Because it annoys you, and I find it both entertaining and satisfying.”

“How spectacularly petty.”

Marc wheedles pathetically, “Get me a glass of water…?  Have we got any paracetamol?  My head’s really banging.”

Tammi raises her eyes heavenward, but marches to the kitchen nonetheless, returning presently with a fizzing glass of chilled water, aspirin bouncing and dissolving energetically in the bottom.  She eases the blinds half-open and pushes the windows wide, admitting the warm Caribbean breeze and the rushing sound of waves against headland rocks far below.  Marc struggles to prop himself up and gulp the bubbling liquid, pulling exaggerated faces at its bitter taste.

Tammi sits cross-legged at the end of the bed, and persists, “I think he’s ill, Marc.  He definitely lost the plot in England, didn’t he?  I don’t think he’s recovered all his lost marbles.  I think some rolled away…under the metaphorical sofa forever, know what I mean?”

“How much did he say he wanted?  Perhaps we should just pay him off to get rid of him?”

“Impossible.  He’s demanding millions.”

“What?!!”  Marc surges upright in horror, clutches his thumping skull, and subsides against the headboard again, groaning piteously.

“I told you, he’s not the full ticket.”

Marc burps, scratches his chest, and murmurs, “It is odd how crackers he went.  He’d always been such a measured guy.  Once he pinged, I didn’t recognise my old mate Phil in him at all.”

“Stress changes you, in every way.”

“Despite him being a champion pain-in-the-arse, I am a bit sorry for him…”

“Tell me about the real Phillip Fishmandatu…before all this shit.”

Despite his raging hangover, Marc responds with characteristic generosity of spirit, “Oh, great bloke!  Good fun.  Sense of humour.  Very bright.  Very…analytical.  Worked things out.  Uni; sunday mornings, he’d be on the sofa with a bucket of coffee doing those logic puzzles you get in the weekend papers – when the rest of us were so hung over we could barely form sentences!  We’d have to watch endless cop shows on the tv.  Phil’d always know who-dunnit before the big reveal.  We’d all be guessing randomly – it’s the butler, it’s the wife, it’s the bloke who owed him money – and he’d have worked it out from the tenuous clues they crowbar in all the bloody way through!  He loved a good mystery.  Probably why he became a Detective.”

“What was his degree?  Psychology or something?”

“No…Geography, I think.”

“And yet he became a copper?”

“Not at first.  He got some other job out of Uni.  Can’t remember what.  Got married, had a kid…breakneck speed, you know?  Then, just as fast, it was all over.  He was divorced and out on his ear.  He packed in the office job and joined the Met.  I think he wanted some structure, some direction…and it was a steady wage and a pension.  His family’s got bugger-all money – they couldn’t help him.  He dug in and worked his way up.  It got under his skin somehow.  He enjoyed it: a new mystery to solve every day.”

Tammi watches Marc closely, “And relationships?”

“I think he had some long-term bird on the go, but he never really talked about his personal life.  Then, suddenly, he got married for the second time!  A girl much younger than him.  Had more kids.  I assume that marriage ended when he had his breakdown.”

“So, he did lose everything that mattered to him – career, family, friends, reputation…?”

“I suppose he did.  All because he wouldn’t shut up about Annie!  Why he was so bothered about my wife, I’ll never understand…?”

There are none so blind as those who will not see.  Tammi looks pityingly at Marc, but fortunately he doesn’t notice.  She concludes, “So, he’s got nothing; he’s worth nothing.”

“He’s got to be flat-broke.  He had virtually no money to start off with.  I daresay two divorces have pretty much finished him.”

“Would you say he was desperate?”

Marc contemplates the horrific, and thankfully completely hypothetical notion of going without, and volunteers with feeling, “Bloody hell, I would be – wouldn’t you?”

Tammi recalls the many privations of the past, despises Marc passionately for causing her to suffer them, and murmurs, “He’d be prepared to risk everything…if he thought he could screw some money out of us?”

“Possibly.  I told you, he’s not the guy I remember.  Last week, bursting in like that…!  The look in his eyes…deranged!”

“Do you think he’ll leave eventually, if we just ignore it?”

“He’s come all this way.  The last couple of years should’ve demonstrated to you what an obstinate sod he can be if he thinks he’s right.  He probably won’t give it up without a decent battle.”

“Do you think there’s any reasoning with him?”

“Who knows these days!”

“But once there was?”

“Phil is methodical…frustratingly so, sometimes.  If something doesn’t add up, he’ll pick and pick until it all unravels.  If you can demonstrate to him a reason why…?  But he’s bonkers now, Tam.  He won’t listen, will he?  He just sits down there on the beach staring at us through his binoculars, tailing us wherever we go!  Hardly the behaviour of a rational man!  He either thinks something’s changed in the last two years that’ll give him leverage over us – but I can’t see what – or he’s at rock bottom and there’s nowhere else to go.  Win or bust.”

Tammi considers an alternative angle to straightforward greed, “Does he love his family?”

“He certainly always loved his kids.  He did his best by them…I suppose, until he went barmy…?”

“Hmmmm….”  She stands, sliding her feet into flip-flops.

“Where are you going?”

“To strike while the iron’s hot.  To reel in and reason with a lunatic.”

****

Following her to the closest grocery store at the nearby marina, he agonises and hesitates on the pavement opposite, before finally pursuing her inside.  This is the closest he’s been to her since that night on the deck.  Just dwelling on it bewilders him.  His face burns with remembered mortification. 

Ducking through the fluttering plastic strips of the fly curtain, he enters the cool dimness of the grocery store.  Strong scents of rich soil and ripened fruit assail him.  Melons, peaches, dusty grapes – all piled in burlap-lined crates.  Grubby sweet potatoes in sacks sit pudgily on the tiled floor, leaning up against one another like drunks at a bus stop.  Boxes of plantain and bananas wrapped in curling leaves jostle for room with overflowing buckets of chillies and gnarled ginger.

He picks up a plastic basket from the stack by the door and hovers indecisively.  The young girl behind the closest cash-register glances at him, pops her chewing gum disdainfully, and turns to serve her next customer with minimal enthusiasm.  Not wanting to arouse suspicion, Fishmandatu shoots speedily past the haphazard fresh produce display, and inches around the first shelf of tins, packets, and bottles.  No Rivers.  He attracts a couple more quizzical looks, so makes an effort not to tiptoe and sneak, but to walk with nonchalance up the first aisle and around the corner.  Inch.  Peek.  Check.  Clear.  Amble casually up this gangway as well.  It occurs to him he should put something in his basket, but doesn’t dare take his eyes from the end of the aisle in case she appears.  He could just stick out his hand and select at random, but knowing his luck he’ll end up with tampons, incontinence pads, or something equally embarrassing.  He tries to suppress the nagging conviction he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing.  What he needs is to be calm and methodical.  Start at the very back of the store where the huge freezer cabinets rumble and rattle, and work his way towards the front, flushing her out like prey in long grass.  He can then lurk unobserved behind the shelves, watch her through the checkout, and follow her from the shop, choosing exactly the right moment to pounce.  Purposeful now, he walks briskly across the worn floor, making for the back of the store.  He reaches the freezers, glances left to ensure the aisle is empty, and backtracks speedily down to the next, accidentally kicking a rattling stand of sunglasses with his heel as he reverses, making it waver dangerously.  Horrified, he whirls around and grips the rack, trying to steady and silence it.  Glancing anxiously left down the closest aisle, there she is, looking his way, seeking the source of the sound!  He immediately drops his head, using the peak of his baseball cap to shield his face, making a grab for the first thing he sees in front of him: a glossy bestseller on another rickety revolving tower of fat paperbacks.  He pretends to read the blurb intently, cringeing inwardly as he turns it over in his hands and sees it’s a Jilly Cooper novel with an appropriately-saucy cover design.  Not exactly the most macho choice.  Cheeks aflame, hands shaking, he forces himself to stare at the novel as if giving it serious consideration, counting to fifty before daring to raise his head again.  The aisle is deserted!  Cursing under his breath, he fumbles the book back into the overfilled rack with such clumsy force he creases the pages and bends the cover.  Like the tower of sunglasses next to it, the rack is precariously topheavy.  His rough treatment makes it sway alarmingly, causing him to have to throw his arms around it in a steadying embrace.  By the time it’s stable and he’s managed to shove a couple of suitably-masculine items into his basket, several moments have passed.  He’s worried she might already be through the checkout!  Unconcerned now about appearing erratic in front of the locals, he pelts back down to the front of the shop, skids to a halt behind the first row of shelving, and peeks cautiously around it.  No Rivers in the four-deep, eye-rolling queue for the sluggish girl at the till.  She’d had a basket of produce.  She wouldn’t have been able to progress through in the short time he’d taken to stabilise the book rack.  She must still be in the shop somewhere.  He spins on his heel with a squeak of trainer sole and resumes his chaotic search.  She’s nowhere to be found.  Had she spotted him at the sunglasses, abandoning her basket and running from the shop?  Only one thing for it – go back to his bungalow, collect his powerful binoculars, and return to his usual vantage-point on the beach, waiting for her to reappear on her private terrace, accepting he’ll have to try again tomorrow, or the day after; secretly relieved to have their next direct encounter postponed by his own bungling.

Tucking his basket surreptitiously at the end of a deserted aisle, he turns to leave the shop, and walks straight into the motionless, smirking figure of Tammi Rivers.

FIVE

An exclamation escapes him.  There’s no pretending a coincidental meeting.  Hot with humiliation, Fishmandatu’s shoulders slump and he stands before her like a chastened child, wishing the ground would open up and swallow him.

With the directness he still finds disarming, she remarks mockingly, “Do much tailing of suspects in your old job?  Only I think your surveillance technique’s a bit rusty.  You buying this book or not?”

From the top of the full basket hooked over her forearm, she holds up the damaged paperback, “After all, they can’t sell it now…and you’re the one who ruined it.”

The mischief dancing in her eyes makes Fishmandatu smile despite vowing not to.  She giggles, and pushes the book into his unresisting hands, “Come on.  We need to pay.  I think that’s your basket over there, isn’t it?”

Sheepishly, he retrieves it from the floor, tosses the paperback in on top, and follows her meekly to the checkout.

Standing outside the shop, the strong late-morning sun bakes their uncovered skin.  Mobilettes and rusty old cars bounce past them on the potholed road.  Mind blank, Fishmandatu struggles to take the initiative.  Teasing gently, she suggests, “In a rush to get home and start your new book, or shall we go for a drink somewhere?”

He gapes, “Really?”

“Well, that ‘unfinished business’ you’re so keen on…we’d better just get it done, hadn’t we, as you’re becoming a serious irritation.”

And he’d thought he was having absolutely no effect whatsoever!  “Isn’t it a bit early?”

“You’re on Island Time now, matey.  Stuff happens when it’s good and ready.”

“Will the bars be open?”

“I think you can have rum for breakfast here.”  She points down into the marina, “There’s a couple of ok places there.”

“Right.”

They walk a hundred yards in silence before he nudges her arm, indicating the two plastic carrier bags of shopping she shifts from hand to hand as if they’re heavy, “You want me to carry those?”

The question brings her up short with wide-eyed amazement, before she shyly averts her gaze and murmurs, “Yes…please…”

Both start, blush, and grin bashfully as he reaches down to relieve her of her burdens and their hot fingers touch.

At the waterside bar, already surprisingly crowded for ten minutes to midday on a late-spring Thursday, Tammi leads him between the gloomy jumble of indoor tables and onto a sun-drenched deck, floating amongst the moored boats in the very centre of the marina.  A few plastic chairs and tables are set out, all with umbrellas made of dried palm fronds which rustle like falling rain in the constant Caribbean breeze.  She chooses a table beside the water.  Sitting here between the large and expensive yachts, bobbing up and down with the motion of the pontoon, it feels very much as if they’re on the deck of their own private boat, soaking up the sun and planning where they might sail away to next.  The pinging sound of taut ropes on metal masts puts Fishmandatu in mind of distant church bells, carried on the wind across London’s rooftops and in through his open bedroom window on a lazy Sunday morning.  Suddenly; powerfully, he longs for home.

Where the fabric of his shorts stops, the exposed backs of his thighs stick sweatily to the plastic chair.  He wriggles around, sliding to slouch in his seat and extend his feet to rest on the rope barrier between deck and water, setting it swinging gently.  Two drinks are brought despite neither of them seeming to place an order.  He takes off his cap, rubs at his perspiring forehead with the back of his wrist, and swigs the milky liquid in the glass before him.  Coconut, lime, and a hit of rum that could launch a rocket.  He blows out his cheeks, eyes wide, alcohol-laced breath catching in the back of his throat.  Tammi grins, “Livener?”

“Cor…you could say that!”

Instead of sitting at the table as he’d assumed she would, she instead drags one of the plastic chairs right up to his, seating herself facing him as if they occupy a love seat in a secret bower.  Her fingers rest on the arm of her chair, which abuts his so closely he’d only have to roll his arm outward a centimetre to cause their skin to touch. 

“Are you enjoying this?”

Taken aback, unsure what she means, he blinks and stares until she snaps, “You’re like a randy dog on the Postman’s leg; there’s no shaking you off!”

He sniggers, and retorts, “I told you, I’m not giving this up!  I’m doing it for my boys…and for Annie – “  He hesitates, then truthfully admits, “And to prove to myself I still can.”

Her intense gaze bores into his, “Phillip, hear me when I say – I’m not the one in danger here!  You are, regardless of what evidence you hold in your precious folder.”

She states this with such confidence he can feel his shaky resolve crumbling.  She always speaks as if she knows more than she’s letting on.  He struggles to remind himself she’s all style and no substance.  He takes another unwise glug of the rum, which warms his throat and chest like a swallowed tongue of flame.  He coughs, gasps, manages to gurgle, “What are you saying?”

“What I said days ago.  I’m sure you’re a superlative investigator, Phillip…but you won’t come through for him when it matters.  He needs a bloke who’ll go for the jugular when instructed to do so.  You haven’t the balls, despite telling yourself you’re an edgy, tough-guy these days.”

“Tammi, you’re still not listening!  What I’ve told you will come true.  If you refuse to deal with me, I can’t protect you from what will follow…to make you comply – “

“What do you care?”

“I want to get paid!  I desperately want to get paid, ok?  I’ve got a lot of making up to do with that money!”

She raises an eyebrow, “Trying to buy her back, Phillip?”

Indignant; frustrated at her deliberate obtuseness, he growls, “No!  The money’s for my kids!  I want to give my sons the sort of opportunities the Marc Pickfords of this world assume are theirs by right!  I want to cheat the lottery of birth!  I’m going to load the odds in favour of my boys for once!”

“Sounds to me like you’re trying to buy them too, Phillip.”

“You can think what you bloody well like.  I’ve got a good reason for being here – “

“Yeah, I made you look a fool and your ego can’t take it.  You’re here to beat me at my own game.  You’ve just admitted as much.  ‘Proving to yourself you still can’…?  You won’t, though.”

Fishmandatu scowls, and takes another huge mouthful of rum.  It’s odd; his cocktail isn’t getting any emptier, yet Tammi’s is practically down to the dregs.  A milky residue of coconut coats one side of her glass.  He can’t remember seeing her drink a drop.

“Fine.  If you won’t deal with me, see how smug you are when Chadwick sends in the professional ‘persuaders’ and I hand over my file to whoever is most interested in investigating you for fraud, identity theft, embezzlement – “

“Phillip, no one else is coming to take this responsibility off you!  Can’t you see?  He’s going to force you to do whatever he wants.  He’s going to make you do all the things you’re privately so worried about.  Can you torture me until I finally give up what I know?  What if I never do?  What if you actually have to kill me?  You can’t, can you?  Inside, you’re still a decent, upstanding, law-abiding citizen.  You’re only here doing this now because you know you can’t beat me the honest way.  If you could have arrested me that night at Gatwick, you would have done, wouldn’t you?  You’d never have gone over to the dark side!”

“He can’t ‘make’ me do anything.  I’m here of my own volition.  We’ve got an agreement – “

“I’m sure he’s very attached to it.  Just out of interest, did you tell your army of ex-wives where you were going?”

“What?”

“Did you explain to your kids why you wouldn’t see them for a few weeks?”

Puzzled; befuddled, Fishmandatu slurs, “No…I…  What…?”

“You just left them all behind, cluelessly, in England – where Chadwick is – with no protection of any kind…?  No exhortation to watch their backs at all?”

“Um – “

“That’s how he’ll do it, Phillip!  I’m sure that’s how he gets pretty much everyone.  All those coppers you say he’s got in his pocket?  Didn’t advertise ‘corrupt situations vacant’ in the local paper, did he?  I reckon he probably eased them into a compromising position…and tightened the metaphorical vice on their nuts until they came around to his way of thinking.  You’re fine; no one’s coming out here after you.  Why bother travelling all this way when he can apply pressure to the tender little bodies you’ve left behind, within easy reach?  How old are your sons, Phillip?  Old enough to put up a fight?  Even the littlest ones?  That’s how he gets you: coercion.  You commit crime under considerable duress, and then you’re his…end of.”

A powerful memory assails Phillip Fishmandatu: poor Nathan Palmer’s hunted expression as he revealed the truth of his own association with Chadwick.  Nathan had to comply, or sacrifice his daughter.  What choice did his ex-police partner have?  Fishmandatu’s stomach somersaults violently.  He belches, and a bubble of creamy, acidic alcohol surges up the back of his throat into his revolted mouth.  He grimaces and swallows it again, staring out at the impossibly-blue ocean and glaring-white yachts, eyes watering against the unbearable midday brightness, croaking, “My eldest son…he’s just getting to grips with his career.  He’s like I was in my mid-twenties, trying to make something of himself.  My little ones…they’re only nine…”

To catch his mumbled words, she cranes towards him on the rocking deck, suddenly passing the point of balance and tipping off the front of the chair.  Instinctively, he reaches out to catch her, and she topples sideways over his scooping arm, giggling bashfully; drunkenly, “Ooooh…I think that was a bit too strong…!”

She’s soft…and so warm…  At such close proximity, through swimming eyes, Fishmandatu’s fuddled senses struggle to separate undiminished longing from disconcerting reality.  She’s on his lap, her arms about his neck, her lips against his ear, “I think you might need to help me…”

He couldn’t have let go even if he wanted to.  Struggling to his feet, pulling her up with him, the whole world tips and they cling to one another.  She’s sniggering uncontrollably, “Oh God…no more lunchtime rum!”

Fishmandatu feels unhinged.  Exhilarated, he holds her possessively, far tighter than he needs to.  They fumble a shopping bag each.  Weaving back between the close-packed tables is a challenge.  The bags tangle about their legs and catch on chair backs.  She seems to find it all irresistibly funny, and Fishmandatu can’t prevent the grin that tugs at the corners of his mouth.  He’s unaware they pass the observing Nathan Palmer by inches, Fishmandatu’s bag clouting his one-time buddy around the back of the head as they stagger for the door. 

Outside, the street bobs gently up and down as the deck had done.  She snuggles in, arms about his waist, body curling to his side like an infant primate to its mother.  She’s murmuring something.  He cups her ringlets in his free hand and tilts her face up to his, “I can help you, Phillip…but only if you help me…”

“How…?”

“I need to know what you know.”

“You do know what I know!  We’re about the only people in the world who know the full truth – “

“No, Phillip…I mean about me.  I need to know what you know about me.”

“I don’t understand – “

“I need to read that folder, Phillip.  The one you guard so jealously?  I’m happy for you to supervise me doing it…but I can’t do anything for your vulnerable little boys without it.  I could save them from Chadwick’s horror.  It depends whether or not you actually want me to.  You might love the lure of money more…I don’t know you well enough to tell.”

He gasps, horrified she could think so little of him, “I don’t!  I couldn’t!  I will never love anything as much as my sons!  They’re all that keeps me breathing in and out every day…the belief that soon I can make it right for them.”

“You know what they really want more than games consoles and iPhones is their Dad back from the brink, right?  I’m sure they’d forfeit every Playstation in the world for that.”

Fishmandatu’s throat tightens.  Tears rush into his unfocused eyes, “What can I do?”

Clinging to him, she breathes passionately, “Take me back with you!  Convince me you’re telling me the truth!  Give me what I need, and I can make it all go away…I promise…”

****

Pouring sweat with the effort of beating his quarries home, Nathan skids across the poolside patio and slides into his seat, clamping on his headphones, impatiently waggling the computer mouse to bring the hibernating machine to life, and clicking on the recording software.  He slumps back in the chair, taking a much-needed breather and a gagging swig of stale Cola from the open can that’s been on the desk all night.  He wipes the sweat out of his eyes, and leans forward to peer down the telescope. 

No sign. 

Where would they go if not back here?  What the hell is Fishy up to?  It’s as if he’s completely taken leave of what little sense he’s got left!  Nathan slouches despairingly, ears ringing with the sound of silence, before petulantly tugging off the headphones and padding to the kitchen for a cold drink.  He stands in the open door of the fridge enjoying the cool air swirling around his overheating body – that’ll teach him to try and run, uphill, at lunchtime, in the oppressive Caribbean heat – scrolling through the surreptitious pictures he’d taken of Fishmandatu and Rivers in the marina bar, and texting them to Chadwick.  Too miserable and weary to hurry, he plods dejectedly back to his post, again sliding on the headphones, wishing he could ring his wife, knowing that’s impossible… 

A sound rouses him.  Nathan’s ears strain.  He holds his breath.  Someone’s there…he’s certain of it.  Yes!  The abrasive scrape of sandy shoe on tiled floor.  Urgent whispers.  Quick, unsteady footsteps.  Thuds.  A breathy female chuckle.  Murmurs and sighs.  Are they kissing?  Is it Rivers down there with him?  It has to be!  More throaty whispers.  More breathy laughter.  The protesting squeak of bedsprings.  Another soft, seductive female sigh.  The low, urgent responding grunt of male arousal.  Nothing for a while but the gentlest of muttering…none of the tell-tale gasps and groans of intercourse that Nathan awaits with voyeuristic expectation.  Instead, before many more minutes elapse, there’s the unmistakeable sound of steady snoring.

The quietest of creaks – someone getting back off the bed?  The pat-pat-pat of bare feet across tiles.  Nathan clamps both headphones tight to his skull with flat palms, and listens until his head aches.  What is going on?

The electronic beeps of the room’s safe being opened.  Rustling of paper.  The snoring intensifies.  Nothing happens for nearly an hour.  Pages turn every so often.  No one speaks.  Someone snores.  Nathan records it all, and doesn’t understand what he’s eavesdropping upon.  Pat-pat-pat again.  The reassuringly-solid thud of the safe reclosing.  The click of the catch on the French doors, and Rivers flits swiftly across the deck, tramps with effort across the deep sand surrounding the bungalow, and strides out onto the public beach.  The shallow waves sweep across her feet as she wanders unhurriedly down the tideline home, a shopping bag in each hand.  She appears deep in thought.  Nathan watches her for as long as he’s able.  Unless it’s shoved into one of those bags, whatever she took from the safe it’s apparent she put straight back – so what was the bloody point of nicking it in the first place?  Nathan massages his throbbing temples, and emails the audio file to Chadwick too.  He isn’t here to think, only to do his master’s bidding.

****

“Nathan, do you ever want to see your family again?”

“I – ?”

“What is this horseshit you’re sending me?”

“I don’t – ”

“No information worth anything, apart from pictures of yet another sexually-charged encounter, with our boy grinning like the cat who got the cream!  How is that in any way designed to keep me abreast of the situation?”

“But the latest file?  She got him drunk deliberately!  I watched her top up his glass from hers every time he turned his head.  She led him on…just so she could get a look in the safe!”

Chadwick responds with weary sarcasm, “Yes, Nathan, all very Le Carré…  Answer me this – who could possibly have given her the combination but Phillip himself?”

Such an astute observation stops Nathan in his tracks.  Fortunately, Chadwick doesn’t require any sort of response from his temporarily-dumbstruck employee, “It’s abundantly clear from the meagre pickings you’ve deigned to provide thus far, that young Phillip is having some trouble differentiating between fantasy and reality, and it’s glaringly obvious Rivers is using it to her very considerable advantage!”

“He lost it big-time, Mr Chadwick.  You know that.  The shock…!  He lost the love of his life, his unborn baby…  He couldn’t handle the fact that no one wanted to know the truth about the identity-swap.  It drove him crazy.  I mean, proper crazy!”

“I’m well-aware, Nathan.  It’s precisely why I chose him for this very particular assignment.  Like myself, Phillip has a vested interest in crushing Rivers like a bug…and yet…?”

“He’s better, but he’s not right.  He’s probably not ready to be here.”

“I was ready, Nathan.  More than ready.  I couldn’t wait any longer.  This is the perfect juncture in Phillip’s recovery!  He’s fragile, certainly, but nothing will speed him back to robust mental health like a dose of vindication!  Yet, for all that he should hate and despise Rivers as much as she deserves, they seem thick as thieves, and I’m the one cut out of the loop!  She’s being allowed to get into his head…and that is unacceptable on its own, Nathan, without all the other glaring anomalies.”

Here, Chadwick pauses, and Nathan realises this time he’s supposed to say something, “Um…I don’t follow…?”

“They never talk inside; have you noticed that?  Despite it being much the safest place to converse, wouldn’t you say?  Less chance of being overhead by a neighbour in a nearby bungalow, or some nosey-parker out on the public beach?  Almost as if they’ve been warned not to…?”

Nathan’s chest tightens in apprehension as Chadwick continues, “A more suspicious individual might even consider that a plot is being hatched against him by a former partnership seeking to exploit their past association for present gain?”

“I’m not sure what you’re implying, Mr Chadwick, but – “

“If I discover you and Fishmandatu are in league with Rivers to put one over on me – “

“You won’t!”

“What, Nathan?  I won’t discover it?  You’ve covered your tracks too well?  You’re too clever for me?”

Frantic, Nathan leaps to his feet, squawking desperate clarification, “No!  No!  You won’t discover it because it’s not happening!  I’m here at your behest, following your instructions!  I’ve done nothing I haven’t been asked to do!  I send you everything I get – audio, pictures – “

“And still I know nothing, Nathan!  Likewise, I hear nothing from Phillip.  All I receive are your delightful snaps showing Rivers doing what she does best.  It’s called ‘Roping the Mark’…I assume you’re familiar with the term?  All the while Fishmandatu delays in order to perpetuate his pitiable private fantasies, she learns more and more…and the sensitive information I’ve sent Phillip to uncover slips further from my grasp.  She’s buying time, Nathan; any idiot can see that!  And Phillip’s doing nothing but following his cock up a blind alley!”

“I can’t do more than I’m doing without giving away my position.  I can’t control the fact they talk outside a lot.  I definitely haven’t told them to!  Neither of them has a clue I’m here.  You told me to stay well-hidden – ”

Chadwick’s menace freezes Nathan where he stands, despite the ninety-plus Antiguan heat and the four thousand miles of distance from the terrifying murderer, “So I’m forced to trawl through hours of him dreaming, crying, wanking, snoring, farting…and nothing of any use or value because they ‘talk outside a lot’?”

“Mr Chadwick, I – “

“You’d better not be fucking laughing at me, Nathan Palmer!  You and Fishmandatu better not be working together.  I might be forced to discuss at length with your lovely wife why you seem to have taken leave of your senses at such a delicate stage in proceedings – “

“No, Mr Chadwick, please!  I’m doing what you asked; everything you asked!  Everything I hear, I send you.  Everything I see, you see.  I’ve left nothing out; I swear!”

“Rivers is clever, Nathan.  She’s the brightest adversary we’ve ever faced.  She’s cunning, aware; adaptable.  She’s a born survivor.  You can be confident she’s two steps ahead of us at all times, and we are constantly playing catch-up.  I assume Fishmandatu will have told her he is in my employ?”

“Oh yes.  That’s Phil.  Honest to a fault.  He’ll have told her exactly why he’s here, and who sent him.  Did you advise him not to?”

“No, Nathan, I gave him free rein to approach this as he saw fit – providing his methods yielded results.  To date, they have not.”

“Look, Mr Chadwick, if there’s one thing you can be sure of, it’s Phil’s integrity.  If you’ve taken him on to do a job, he’ll do it to the best of his ability.”  Even as he gabbles, Nathan wonders why he’s bothering to defend Fishmandatu so vehemently, “He won’t be pulling a fast one, honestly!  It’s not in his DNA to do that.  He’s straight up.  If you can trust anyone on this planet to do what they say they’re going to, it’s Phil Fishmandatu.”

“You’re confident of that, Nathan?”

“I’d stake my mortgage on it.”

“And what about you?”

“Sorry?”

“Are you ‘straight up’, Nathan?  Experience would indicate otherwise…?”

Fatalistically, Nathan mutters, “It doesn’t matter, does it?”

“What makes you say that?” amusement tinges the plummy drawl.  Nathan clenches his free hand into a fist and thumps his own thigh, wishing it was Chadwick’s face, “If I don’t come through for you, shit happens…right?”

Jimmy chuckles throatily, and Nathan suppresses the sudden urge to scream his futile fury into the sizzling afternoon sky.

“I’m in, Mr Chadwick.  Well in, and you know it.  I will do what you ask.  I always do what you ask.  That’s been our arrangement for so long now I can’t remember what it was like before…”

“Halcyon days, I daresay,” mutters Jimmy sarcastically, “And I’m sure you’ve never enjoyed your succession of fancy cars, expensive foreign holidays, or your daughter’s pricey education one little bit.”

“I do what I do…and you do what you do…and it turns the cogs in the big machine.  Don’t ask me to say whether I like it or not.  I benefit materially, for which I am grateful, up to a point.  That point being where comfort bisects conscience.  Sorry, but that’s the way it is.  I have regrets.”

“My heart bleeds.  Can we return to the pressing problem of Phillip Fishmandatu?  What are you going to do about your staggering lack of success with regard to close observation of your old pal?”

Nathan calculates feverishly.  There is something he can do.  He doesn’t want to, but…

“I’ll give him a nudge.”

“A ‘nudge’?”

“I can speed him up.  He won’t know it’s me.  He’ll just comprehend he’s being monitored.  If he’s got any sense, it’ll be the kick up the arse he needs.”

“And if he’s losing all reason in the face of Rivers’ manipulation?”

“Then…I’m not sure what more I can do.”

“Ah…a shame, Nathan…given the price your darling daughter will pay for your failure.”

“Please…Mr Chadwick…I’ll get this done!  I will!  Give me a couple of days.  I’ll get Phil’s mind back on the job.”

“Two days, Nathan…and I want to see action, or – ”

“You will, Mr Chadwick, don’t worry!  I’ll shake him out of his stupor.”

“I’m delighted to hear it.  You may have been tasked with watching Phillip…but be very aware, Nathan, that I am watching you.”

SIX

The unfamiliar vibration jerks him awake.  He instinctively slaps a palm down on his thigh as if a giant mosquito has crawled up the leg of his shorts.  It’s only when his fingers connect with the mobile ‘phone that he remembers, fumbling it out and staring at it uncomprehendingly. 

A text message.

Jimmy Chadwick had given him this ‘phone, along with an envelope of single-use SIMs.  Who can this message possibly be from but him? 

It’s oppressively hot.  The French doors to the deck are closed.  He pushes to hands and knees and hangs his foggy head.  This morning’s sketchy.  Too nervous for breakfast, he’d gone without; then consumed that reckless rum cocktail on an empty stomach in the lunchtime sun. 

He listens.  The bungalow is silent.  Rivers is gone.  He feels destabilised by his hazy recollection of events.  He stands too quickly, tottering unsteadily for the bathroom as the room tips alarmingly.  God, he needs a sandwich or something!  His first priority is the safe.  The door’s firmly shut.  He types the release code, opens it, and checks the contents.  His passport.  The envelope of SIM cards.  The folder of evidence.  He picks it up and flicks swiftly through it.  It all seems to be there, including the vitally-important dental records.  She’d kept her word – just to read it and nothing else.  Relieved, his next concern is to empty his protesting bladder.  He recalls the text, wonders absently what’s up, flushes the toilet, fishes the ‘phone from his pocket again, and sits down on the closed seat. 

‘I’m tired of waiting for results that don’t materialise.  This isn’t a holiday; it’s an assignment I expect you to take seriously.  I suggest you make some progress – quickly – or I will take the necessary steps to speed you up.’

There’s a second unread message beneath the first.  Fishmandatu opens this too.  It’s a video.  If this message had been from anyone else – his eldest son, an ex-workmate – he’d assume it was one of those stupid YouTube gag reels where idiots fall over skateboarding, topple off ladders cutting the hedge, or something equally banal.  Usually, he deletes that sort of thing straight away, pompously considering it beneath his intellect.  On this occasion, he delays.  He simply can’t picture Jimmy Chadwick sharing a chummy blooper clip as if they’re old mates…so what’s this amateur movie all about?  Average quality footage shot on a mobile ‘phone, probably from inside a car – then it becomes abundantly clear what he's looking at, and why.  It’s a film of his wife collecting his two youngest sons from the gates of their primary school.  The camera follows their departing figures down the London street for as long as the lens can focus.  The meaning of the message and the movie together are staggeringly clear.

Fishmandatu’s chest tightens so instantaneously he’s convinced it’s a heart attack.  He can hardly breathe.  He grips the ‘phone in his right hand, and clutches at his breast with the left.  It’s some moments before he brings his panic attack under control.  Body spasming violently with the physical manifestation of his terror, eyes swimming with running perspiration and coursing tears, it takes Fishmandatu’s wavering fingers an inordinate length of time to successfully dial his estranged wife’s number.  It rings, and rings, and rings…while he sweats, and shakes, and whimpers.  Eventually, the answerphone kicks in and Fishmandatu blurts, “Jo, it's me!  It’s Phil!  I need to talk to you!  It’s urgent!  Call me back.  No…no…you can’t call me back…  I’ll call you, ok?  I’ll call you.  I…I…  Shit!” 

He’s suddenly remembered his presence here is a secret, and the ‘phone he’s been given isn’t meant for contact with anyone but its owner.  He severs the connection, cradles the handset against his stomach, and wonders anxiously whether there’s any way Chadwick can trace the foolhardy call.  What if it puts Jonelle and the boys in even greater danger?  Eyes tight shut, he tries deep-breathing, needing to get a grip on his rampant dread.  The calming image Providence gifts him is of a floating deck where sunlight sparkles on blue ocean, and makes expensive white yachts gleam blindingly.  Unable to stand the brightness, he turns his face to the relief of the shade…and familiar eyes bore into his.  ‘You just left them all behind in England, with no protection of any kind…’

Rivers is right.  Chadwick got him where he wanted him by flattery and persuasion – and now he’s beginning to tighten the screws.  Before he knows it, he’ll be as thoroughly corrupted as the wretched Nathan Palmer, any remaining dignity and self-respect lost to the ceaseless struggle for survival.

Phillip Fishmandatu doesn’t get around to the sandwich that might have helped settle his biliously-churning guts.  Instead, he leaves the bungalow at a gallop, racing down the public beach like pursued prey.

Nathan sits back from the telescope and sighs heavily.  A horrible thing to do to someone he’d once been happy to call a friend – but what choice does he have?  His ‘nudge’ has got Fishy moving and, right now, that’s what matters.

****

It’s time to get out of Antigua – that much is obvious.  At leisure to thoroughly absorb the full, troubling contents of the folder as Fishmandatu slept off his liquid lunch, the only sensible conclusion is flight over fight.  To retaliate, she needs something on Chadwick – and there’s nothing!  You can’t apply leverage to a ghost.  If she knew anything about him beyond rumour and hearsay…!  The one she can reach is Fishmandatu, so she must continue applying the pressure to him instead.  It’s certainly working, just not fast enough.  In the meantime, there are those illuminating x-rays, that damning Pathology report on the dead body with its four-month foetus, the comprehensive financial information flippin’ Richard pain-in-the-arse McAllister so efficiently chronicled.  All that evidence cataloguing a career of misdeed!  Can she manipulate Phillip into handing over the folder, or will that be a step too far even for a man so psychologically-shattered?    

Chadwick wants her forty-million…but Tammi’s not so sure financial gain was ever Fishmandatu’s primary motive for accepting this assignment.  Whatever Phillip might claim, and however creatively he’s choosing to kid himself; she’s convinced, in his heart, he’s still crusading for justice on her dead twin’s behalf.  Will he really give up so easily on the truth?

Tammi slides off the edge of the pool and into the water, shockingly cold on her too-hot skin.  She floats…legs and arms spread in a star shape.  Her long hair swirls out from her head like tendrils of seaweed caught in a current.  She shivers, simultaneously baked and chilled by intense sun and cool water.  What to do…?  She rolls over and swims a lazy breaststroke to the seaward edge of the infinity pool, leaning her forearms on the moulded lip and her chin on her hands, kicking gently now and again to stop her body drifting away from the side.  The hazy outlines of St Kitts and Nevis are visible on the horizon.  They look close enough to swim to.  Escape is possible; simple, even!  It’s the evidence trail they’ll leave behind that troubles her.  She’s got to get that folder – and in a way that provokes no retaliation.

Deep in thought, she’s utterly unprepared for the dark shadow that abruptly lunges up from beneath her feet, suddenly blocking out the sun!

© Annie Holder 2018 

Annie Holder has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. 

First published by Annie Holder in 2018.

This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination.  Place and public names are sometimes used for the purposes of fiction.  Resemblance to any person, living or dead, is completely coincidental. 

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author.