‘Is she alone?’ Joe asks.
‘I think she took Jack with her,’ Ralph says. ‘At least I hope she did. I didn’t see them leave though.’
‘She’s not with Jack,’ Brindle says. ‘I saw him a while back, when that other chap was here.’
Skye looks up. ‘What other chap?’
‘I’ll try her now.’ Nigel turns to the radio.
‘Can I see her room?’ Joe asks.
‘Why?’ asks Brindle.
His mother gets to her feet and holds up her warrant card. ‘What part of wanted in connection with murder do you people not understand? Now, show my son to Miss Lloyd’s room – take me while you’re at it – and answer Superintendent McNair’s question. What other chap?’
* * *
Felicity’s room is small and feels even smaller when Joe, his mother, Susan Brindle and Skye are squeezed inside it. The neatness is familiar, as is the white dressing gown hanging on the back of the door, but the photograph by the bed is new; a shot of Felicity standing amidst towering columns of ice. Again, she looks happy.
‘And you didn’t ask his name?’ Skye is saying.
‘He was very cagey.’ The station chief sounds defensive. ‘And he scarpered pretty quickly.’
The window looks inland. A short stretch of green meadow dotted with red flowers gives way to a massive slope of rock and scree, its peak shrouded in mist.
‘What exactly is it you’re looking for?’ Brindle asks.
‘What’s going on?’
Joe glances back to see a man of about his own age, an inch or so shorter, but of a stockier build, with fair hair and bright blue eyes.
‘Jack, these people are looking for Felicity,’ Brindle says.
The newcomer’s blue eyes linger on Joe. ‘Popular woman this morning.’
‘Can you help?’ Brindle asks him.
‘Why?’ The man called Jack speaks directly to Joe. ‘Why do you need to see her?’
‘They’re police,’ the station chief tells him, in a hushed voice.
Jack’s face clouds over. ‘Is that other bloke with you?’
‘Very good question,’ Skye mutters.
‘Close the door, please, I need to work in peace,’ Delilah says. ‘Superintendent, can you keep these people outside?’
‘Have you authority to be here?’ Jack takes a step into the room.
‘Is this where she was going?’ Joe has spotted the chart on the desk, a circle drawn around Bird Island. He glances over the Post-it notes, the weather forecasts, the journey times, the shopping lists.
‘Outside,’ Delilah points to the corridor.
‘They’re saying Felicity’s killed someone,’ Brindle says.
Jack sneers. ‘Bullshit.’
‘We didn’t say that,’ Joe says. ‘We said “wanted in connection with murder”. Now, if you want to help, answer some questions. Is there a locked cupboard in this room? Or a locker somewhere that she had access to? Anywhere she could keep stuff she didn’t want anyone else to see?’
Two mystified and hostile faces look back at him.
‘Felicity adopts orphan penguins in breeding season,’ Jack says. ‘She wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
‘That’s a point,’ Susan Brindle says. ‘Where are they?’
‘My room,’ Jack tells her. ‘Making a hell of a racket.’
‘Does she have a private locker?’ Delilah almost yells.
‘She has a locker in the boot room,’ Jack says. ‘She gave me the key to it this morning. No dead bodies that I could see. Just climbing gear, some diving equipment and a packet of butterscotch.’
* * *
It doesn’t take long to search Felicity’s room and other than clear evidence that she’s left for Bird Island, they find nothing that can help. They return to the harbour master’s office as he’s finishing a telephone call. By this time, raindrops are splashing against the windows.
Ralph, the boat man, is at the radio. ‘King Edward Point to Felicity, come in, Felicity.’ He shakes his head. ‘I can’t understand why the tracker on the RIB isn’t working. She wouldn’t have disabled it.’
‘All the visitors are going back to the ship,’ Nigel announces. ‘There’s a squall heading down off the mountain.’
Delilah says, ‘So she could be anywhere?’
Nigel says, ‘I got through to the station on Bird. They’ll be in touch the minute they hear from her.’
Delilah says, ‘We need to go after her.’
Ralph shakes his head without taking his eyes of the weather report. ‘Not a good idea. It’ll be a rough trip. And you don’t look like you’ve recovered from your last session on a boat.’
‘You’re going to leave a woman out on her own in a storm?’ Delilah demands.
Ralph leans around Delilah to speak to Jack. ‘I thought you were going with her.’
As Joe tells himself not to read too much into the worried expressions he can see around him, the phone rings. Distracted by the sound of his mother arguing with the boat man, Joe tries to hear what is being said to the harbour master. At last, after writing several notes on a desk pad, Nigel holds up a hand for silence.
‘That was the ship,’ he announces. ‘Like we haven’t got enough problems. One of the passengers is missing. The crew are organising a search party.’
Joe feels a deadweight settling on his chest. ‘What’s his name?’ he asks.
Nigel checks his notes. ‘Bloke called Lloyd. Freddie Lloyd.’
66
Joe
A party of five – Joe, Delilah, Skye, Jack and Ralph – set off from King Edward Point in the pouring rain and even before they leave the sheltered waters of the bay, Delilah is throwing up. When they turn north-west into heavy seas, Joe knows that he’s made a mistake allowing her to come along. The launch is travelling directly into oncoming waves and every few seconds the boat climbs a turquoise wall of water before slamming down the other side.
Skye, who seems unaffected by the sea state, is at the chart table speaking to the captain of the ship via radio and using the satellite phone to contact her office on the Falkland Islands.
‘Lloyd was last seen heading west out of Grytviken,’ she tells Joe.
‘How did we miss him?’ Delilah groans from her supine position on the cabin seat. ‘How could he be on our boat and we not know it?’
Joe too is starting to feel uncomfortable. The cabin is hot and smells of diesel fuel, whilst the rain and spray have turned the windows opaque. It is a little like being trapped inside a washing machine.
‘You were in your cabin for most of the trip over, Delilah,’ Skye says. ‘As were a lot of people, to be honest. He might never have appeared in the communal parts of the ship.’
‘I should have checked the passenger list,’ Delilah mumbles.
‘We were never sure there was a Freddie,’ Joe says. ‘And we had no idea what he looked like.’
‘Well, he won’t walk to Bird Island,’ Skye says. ‘It’s sixty miles of mountains and glaciers, and he’d have to swim the last bit. If that’s where he’s heading, he’s on a suicide mission.’