The Eden Legacy

III

The Bayliner was already crowded by the time Knox heaved his dive-bag and overnight bag down the gangway and aboard. Garry was at the wheel, with Dieter Holm behind him, looking thunderous, alongside Ron, their ship’s steward, off into Morombe for fresh supplies, and Lucia on the cushioned rear seat. He added his bags to the general pile, went to sit beside her. ‘What’s this, then?’ she smiled. ‘Deserting the sinking ship?’

He debated a moment, decided he might as well tell her. She was headed to Eden too, after all, and was bound to find out eventually. ‘You know how you couldn’t get hold of the Kirkpatricks?’ he said. ‘Turns out they’ve gone missing. I’m going down to help with the search.’

‘I thought you didn’t know them.’

‘I didn’t say that. I only said that they were pretty well known along this coast.’

She threw him an amused look. ‘So should I now doubt everything you told me yesterday?’ But there was no sting in her voice. She was a journalist; she knew how the world worked. ‘So how do you know them?’

‘I only really know Emilia. She spent a few days in England a little while back. I met her then.’

‘Ah. Like that, is it?’

Garry opened the throttle up at that moment, and the roaring engine spared him from having to answer. But Lucia’s question set him thinking. It had been a difficult time for Knox, struggling wretchedly to find a way to live without Gaille. Before losing her, he hadn’t fully understood how completely their lives had become conjoined, how dependent on her he’d become. The days had been manageable, thanks to his job at MGS, but his nights had been soul-destroying, unbearable. Miles and Frank had done their best to cajole him from his funk. They’d invited him to the pub, to their homes for dinner. But the forced jollity of those evenings had been awful; he’d come to dread them not simply for themselves, but also because he’d brought everyone else down, and he’d hated that. So he’d started saying no, returning instead to his one-bedroom rental, where he’d lain on his couch eating pizza and drinking himself to sleep in front of the TV. His self-discipline had dribbled away. He’d started turning up at work hung-over, unkempt and smelling of last night’s booze; and though he’d known his dismissal was surely imminent, he hadn’t cared one jot.

That was when Emilia Kirkpatrick had come into his life.

It had been late one Friday afternoon, during a particularly cold snap. She’d had an appointment with Frank that morning, but a flight delay had screwed that up, and Frank had headed off to Harwich to look over a boat. They’d all been locking up for the weekend when she’d arrived, and as everyone else had had plans for the evening, it had been left by default for Knox to deal with her. He’d told her to come back on Monday, when Frank would be able to see her; but she’d flown in from Madagascar for this, and she simply refused to leave, so he finally agreed to hear her out over a drink at a local wine bar. One glass had led to a second; a third had led to dinner. And, suddenly, perhaps as a result of being out for the evening with an attractive and sympathetic woman, his grief for Gaille had overwhelmed him, he’d started pouring out his heart, even weeping a little at the table, causing such consternation amongst his neighbours that he’d felt compelled to leave. Emilia had helped him to a taxi, had escorted him back to his flat, then had taken him to bed, where she’d kept him for much of the weekend, listening to him with extraordinary tenderness and patience now that the logjam had finally broken in his heart, allowing all his hurt to tumble out.

And on the Monday morning, when he’d driven her into MGS to make plans for the Winterton salvage, he’d realised to his surprise that he’d actually been looking forward to the day. For the first time since losing Gaille, he’d felt some glimmer of gladness to be alive. And so, yes, as he’d told Miles, he did owe Emilia. Without her intervention, he’d almost certainly have been out of a job by now, drinking himself to death in a one-bedroom tip somewhere on the outskirts of Hove.