Deep Waters by Whitnell Barbara

Author:Whitnell, Barbara [Whitnell, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2017-05-15T22:00:00+00:00

6

‘Easy!’Tom said quietly. ‘Save the screams of delight until he’s safely behind closed doors. In fact, I should go and put the coffee on again, if I were you.’

I went swiftly to the kitchen and filled the percolator again. I also put a kettle on to boil and went to the cupboard in the tiny shower room to hunt for some disinfectant. From the look on Nick’s blood-caked face, there was some swift first aid to be done.

By the time I returned to the living room, Nick was inside and had subsided wearily into a chair. He was soaking wet, but seemingly too exhausted to be conscious of it.

‘Get you something?’ Tom asked. ‘There’s coffee.’

‘I’d rather have Scotch.’

Tom poured the drink and handed it to him.

‘You’d better get out of those wet clothes,’ I said.

Nick appeared to notice my presence for the first time.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he asked.

‘I couldn’t leave without knowing what had happened to you,’ I said, coming closer to him. ‘Nick, let me do something about your face.’

He waved me aside impatiently.

‘Tom, you should have made her go.’

‘Yeah? Me and whose army?’ Tom enquired. He gave Nick a few more moments respite. ‘Feel ready to talk?’ he said at last.

Nick looked at me and said nothing.

‘Don’t mind me,’ I told him. ‘Tom told me everything.’

‘It seemed pointless holding out any longer,’ Tom said. ‘She’s involved now, whether she likes it or not. Whether we like it or not.’

‘She should have gone,’ Nick said again. But there was no heat in his voice. He seemed too weary to be much concerned one way or the other.

‘What happened, Nick?’

Nick took a long swallow of his drink.

‘You’re not going to like this, mate. I feel all kinds of a fool.’

‘Go on,’ Tom said, without expression.

‘I was on my way back,’ Nick began at last, ‘waiting for clearance to land. There was some light plane taking off, so I had to circle. I had no passengers for the return flight. There was a load of tourists going over to West Guani, but coming back I was on my own, so just for the hell of it I took a wider sweep than usual and flew over da Costa’s house. Right out of the usual flight path, as you know. No one could have expected me.’

‘So?’

‘I saw something that made me think this was the break we’d been looking for. There was a man, half-way up the cliff below the house.’

‘But that’s a sheer drop!’

‘That’s what made me look twice. I couldn’t see how anyone could have climbed up or down to that point. So I kept looking — and he disappeared, Tom, right before my very eyes. Now you see him, now you don’t sort of thing.’

‘A cave?’

‘That’s what I thought immediately.’

‘So you went to see? On your own? Without waiting to tell me where you’d gone?’ Tom’s voice was hard.

‘Look, I know it seems crazy in the light of what happened but you weren’t around, Tom.

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