‘Long way to come to commit suicide.’ Joe groans as the launch takes a sudden dive down a steep wave.
‘Joe, you don’t look good either,’ Skye says. ‘Go up and get some air.’
Hating to leave his mother, knowing Skye is right, Joe pulls up the hood of his coat and climbs into the cockpit. Ralph is at the helm in a heavy oilskin coat and Jack is sheltering in the lee of the cabin wall.
‘How long to Bird Island?’ Joe takes the opposite seat.
‘Five hours in good conditions.’ Jack is holding binoculars to his eyes. ‘These are not good conditions.’
It is a little after one o’clock in the afternoon.
‘Ralph’s keeping us close to land,’ Jack says. ‘He’s trying to avoid the bigger seas. We’ll have a more comfortable trip, but it will take longer.’
Joe looks down into the cabin. His mother isn’t moving.
‘We’re keeping an eye out for Felicity’s RIB,’ Ralph shouts. ‘She may have decided to sit the storm out.’
Joe turns to face land. The mountains are almost black in the storm, broken by streaks of white where the glaciers meet the sea. He switches seats, sitting next to Jack on the starboard side.
‘So, who’s this Freddie bloke?’ Jack asks, without lowering his binoculars.
‘According to Felicity, he’s her husband.’
The binoculars drop. ‘She’s married?’
Joe takes a mean pleasure in saying, ‘Guess there’s a lot you don’t know about Felicity.’
‘I know she’s not a murderer.’
Joe says nothing.
‘Seriously?’ Jack breaks the silence first. ‘You really think she killed someone?’
‘There’s evidence.’
Jack shakes his head. ‘I can’t see it.’ He lifts the binoculars again, as though the subject is closed.
‘She has a condition,’ Joe says, after a moment. ‘She may not have known what she was doing. I think she needs help. And a hospital, not a prison.’ He lets his eyes travel back towards the cabin. ‘Not everyone agrees with me.’
‘What sort of condition?’
‘I shouldn’t discuss her. She was my patient.’
Jack turns to face him and once again Joe is struck by how blue his eyes are. ‘I’ve seen Felicity every day for nine months,’ Jack says. ‘Her compulsion to tidy everything is verging on obsessive. She may have a mild form of OCD. Other than that, nothing. She’s completely normal.’
‘It’s possible being here helped her.’ Joe pushes down the surge of jealousy that this man has seen Felicity at her best. ‘I think fear of her husband triggered her symptoms back in Cambridge. On the other side of the planet she felt safe.’
‘Until you brought him.’
There is no answer to that, so Joe resumes looking for Felicity’s RIB. The land is cloaked in a grey mist and he can barely make out the reddish-brown outlines of buildings. Something that looks like a tower, and a shipwreck close to shore.
‘Sorry,’ Jack says. ‘That was uncalled for.’
‘We don’t have to worry about Freddie yet,’ Joe says. ‘From what Skye tells me, he won’t get anywhere near her. What’s that place?’
‘Husvik,’ Jack says. Another old whaling station. Bit like Grytviken, but not safe for visitors. We’ll pass another in a while, at Stromness. Then Prince Olav a bit further up.’
The cabin door opens and Skye appears. ‘You’re wanted,’ she tells Joe.
Down in the cabin, Delilah has managed to sit upright. ‘Tell him,’ she says.
‘We’ve had some more news from the ship,’ Skye tells Joe. ‘Freddie Lloyd saw the ship’s doctor just before we arrived. He’s recently been released from prison.’
67
Joe
The storm is at its height by the time they reach their destination – a single storey, green-painted building nestling in the foot of low hills. After Ralph and Jack have tied up the launch, Joe and Skye help Delilah onto a salt-encrusted jetty and then across a beach of kelp-covered rocks. The six-hour trip has taken its toll. Even Ralph and Skye are pale and Delilah is on the verge of collapse.
The news awaiting them is not good.
‘She’s not here? How can she not be here?’ Skye demands of the married couple who run the station.
‘We are expecting her,’ Jan explains as her husband Frank organises hot drinks. ‘Just not necessarily today.’
‘So where the hell is she?’
‘Mum, take it easy,’ Joe warns, even as he is thinking about accidents at sea, Felicity’s boat overcome by waves.
‘There you go, love.’ Ralph hands Delilah a steaming mug. ‘Use your mouth for drinking not talking until you’re a bit more yourself.’
‘Fuck off,’ Delilah tells him, but she clutches the mug with shaking hands as a flurry of raindrops, possibly spray, hits the window. The sea seems dangerously close. ‘Where else could she have gone?’
‘Camping out would be stupid,’ Ralph says. ‘She’s not stupid.’
‘Husvik,’ Jack says. ‘There’s an old manager’s villa there. It’s the only place apart from Bird Island and KEP where she could hang out safely, especially in a storm.’
‘Husvik?’ Delilah gasps. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘No sign of the RIB,’ Ralph tells him. ‘I watched the entire coastline on the way up.’
‘That’s miles back, isn’t it?’ Delilah’s colour is returning rapidly. ‘Someone get me a map.’
‘She hid it,’ Joe says.
‘Why would she do that?’
‘She doesn’t want to be found. She’s hiding.’
‘From us?’ Jack asks.
‘From Freddie. She’s terrified of Freddie.’
He remembers her trembling even as she mentioned Freddie’s name, her whispered memories of what she suffered at his hands. And the break-in at her house, when someone – probably Freddie – nearly killed her, and not a single one of them took it seriously.
‘Could he walk to Husvik?’ Skye asks.
‘Ten miles or so,’ Ralph tells her.
‘He’d have to cross three glaciers not to mention climbing several mountains,’ Jack says. ‘Unlikely. Not impossible.’
‘Can we go back?’ Delilah asks Ralph.
He laughs. ‘You’re a game old bird, I’ll give you that. But no one is going anywhere until this storm dies down.’
Joe thinks of Freddie, relentlessly tracking Felicity down, of her hiding up somewhere in fear of her life, while they are miles away.
‘Can we get a helicopter out here?’ he asks. ‘Skye, you must be able to organise that. From the RAF base on the Falklands?’
Skye looks miserable. ‘It can’t be done, Joe. South Georgia is too far for a helicopter to travel.’
‘We get around by sea, or we don’t get around,’ Ralph adds.
‘So, what do we do?’ Delilah asks.
Ralph looks outside as another burst of rain, or spray, hits the windows. ‘We wait.’