The Eden Legacy

FORTY-FOUR
I

Rebecca was in no state to drive, so Andriama took the wheel of her Toyota, with one of his men following in a police car. Everything seemed out of sync to her, numb and surreal. She pressed her hands between her knees and remembered Pierre calling just a week ago, her certainty that she’d get both Adam and Emilia back alive, that force of will would be enough.

But the world didn’t work that way.

It was late afternoon when they reached Tsiandamba. Villagers lined the route, staring at Rebecca with mournful expressions that couldn’t quite disguise their underlying curiosity and excitement. They reached a whitewashed chapel, the largest and coolest building in the village. Rebecca’s legs were so unsteady that Andriama had to help her out of the Toyota, and she kept her hand on his shoulder as they walked together into the tall, cool, dark interior. After the bright sunshine, she had to blink to adjust her eyes. To her right, a vast wooden crucifix was hanging on twin steel chains from the roof-beams above the altar. Two oblique arches of afternoon sunshine fell through narrow frosted-glass side-windows on to the red-tiled floor. To her left, along the rear wall, benches had been pushed together to form a low table, and lying upon it was the unmistakable form of a human body covered by a white altar cloth. A bowl of aromatic petals had been set beneath it, and at each corner, an incense stick burned in a glass jar.

Andriama walked across to lift the altar cloth and peer beneath. He turned to her and nodded sadly.

She took a deep breath. ‘Who?’ she asked.

‘Your father.’ He laid the cloth back down.

She walked forward, stumbling a little over the edge of some matting. Andriama caught her, tried half-heartedly to hold her back, but she pushed past him. Now that she knew the worst, her hands were strangely steady. She pulled the altar cloth down to his shoulders, and there he was, instantly recognisable despite the eleven years, despite his bloated appearance, the way his body arched slightly, as if he’d been electrocuted, but in reality merely bowed by his constricting wetsuit. His face and throat had been torn open in places, but elsewhere his complexion was pale, with tints of blue, green and yellow that suggested he’d been dead for days.

A cloying smell rose to her nostrils, sea-water and the onset of decay, distinctive more than unpleasant or overpowering, mitigated by the perfume of the incense and flowers. A drop of water splashed down, creating a grey circle on the white altar cloth that quickly grew almost translucent. It was only then that she realised she was crying. Andriama laid his hand gently upon her back. She stepped away from his false comfort, around to her father’s other side, pulled the cloth down to his waist. His arms were down by his side, a GPS unit on his right wrist, a diver’s watch on his left, along with what looked like the strap for a camera, only there was no camera attached. But what took her breath away was the bloodencrusted puncture wounds in the fabric of his wetsuit. They were all over his torso, and there were two on his right forearm as well, as though he’d been trying to defend himself from a furious assault. And they weren’t shark bites, or coral tears, or any other such natural phenomenon. They were too clean and straight to have been made by anything other than a sharp knife.

Her left leg gave way beneath her. Andriama caught her and helped her to an empty pew. A stooped and greyhaired priest, Latin American from the look of him, pulled the altar cloth back over her father then came and sat on her other side. He took her hand and pressed it. His fingers were dark, gnarled and hairy, she noticed, his nails torn and dirty with soil. A man, like her father, who’d practised his religion in hard work. ‘Who found him?’ she asked.

‘He was on the reef. Everyone saw him together.’

‘I promised a reward.’

He hushed her. ‘This is no time for that.’

‘We must take his body to Tulear,’ murmured Andriama from her other side. ‘Cause of death, you understand.’

‘We know the cause of death,’ said Rebecca. ‘Didn’t you see? Someone butchered him with a knife.’

‘With respect, Rebecca, the sea can often make an accident look like-’

‘He was stabbed to death,’ stated Rebecca. ‘You know it. I know it.’ Andriama’s eyes dropped; he looked away. She sensed immediately that he was holding something back. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

Andriama gave a heartfelt sigh. ‘There has been an incident,’ he acknowledged reluctantly. ‘In Morombe.’

A tiny shiver ran through Rebecca. Morombe was where Daniel had come down from. ‘What kind of incident?’

‘A serious one. We found two bodies.’

‘Bodies? You mean they were killed?’

Andriama nodded. ‘We thought at first that it was just an argument that had got out of control. They were gun dealers; they’d shot each other. It made a certain sense. But one of them had been stabbed too; and there was no trace of a knife at the scene. And we’ve since learned that they were supposed to be meeting a foreigner.’

Rebecca nodded. ‘And you think their deaths are connected to my father’s?’

‘Murder is very rare in Madagascar,’ said Andriama. ‘Stabbing is very rare. To have two such incidents so close in time and place, both involving foreigners… But it is still only a possibility. Coincidences happen. We don’t even know for sure yet that your father was murdered.’

She gave an expressive snort, glared up at him; but this time he met her gaze, and it was Rebecca who looked down. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said.

He touched her arm. ‘If your father was murdered, we will get his killer. I swear this to you.’

‘Thank you.’ She glanced at where he lay. ‘May I have a minute alone?’

‘Of course.’

Both men left together. She listened to their fading footsteps. When they were gone, when the door had swung softly closed behind them, she stood and walked back over to her father. She pulled down the altar cloth once more, removed and then pocketed the GPS unit from around her father’s wrist. Then she kissed his forehead and made her pledges to him, and laid the cloth reverently back down.