III

Knox and Rebecca crossed a fat river on a long bridge and then were in Tulear, a large town of ramshackle housing and broken roads. Thin men hauled gaudy rickshaws while young women lounged at enticing angles against the walls. Knox waited outside with Zanahary while Rebecca went in to see her lawyer, give him the insurance documentation for her father’s boat so he could have the port captain release the Yvette into their possession.

The paperwork took its own sweet time. It was twilight by the time everything was sorted. They drove out to the harbour, a man-made island at the end of a kilometrelong promontory. The Yvette was moored against its wall, its deck a good three feet beneath the jetty. Knox jumped down; Rebecca, too. Her ankle turned as she landed; she would have fallen had he not grabbed her forearm. ‘Careful, now,’ he said.

He took his time inspecting the boat. They’d need to leave before dawn to reach Eden by nightfall, so he needed to familiarise himself with it now. It had its own inboard, but it was a sailboat first and foremost, designed to be handled from the stern. He opened the main hatch, clambered down into the hold, looked over the engine, propeller shaft, bilge pump and retractable centreboard. There was enough diesel for a couple of hours cruising, though not enough to get them all the way back to Eden. The water tank had a hook glued to its backside, a bunch of keys dangling from it, presumably spares for the lodge. Back on deck, he inspected the anchor and then the bench lockers. Orange life-jackets; flares and a flare gun; a boathook; coils of synthetic rope; an inflatable life-raft. There was dive-gear too. A pair of snorkels and masks, a couple of boxes of home-made lead weights, a scuba tank with a red-tag to indicate it was filled with air; a wet-suit, a buoyancy-control device and a regulator. There were also biscuits, canned foods, bottles of water, soft drinks and beer. All valuable stuff, yet not taken.

The bridge was set down in the deck, but offered good views on all sides, though the windows were scratched and tired. It was better equipped than he’d expected, too, with VHF radio, GPS and sonar, a compass in a brass binnacle and a varnished wooden wheel. He turned on the GPS, hoping to find a record of the boat’s movements around the time Adam and Emilia had gone missing, but either it hadn’t been turned on that day or the information had since been deleted. The bridge was too cramped for a map table, so Adam had instead rigged a corkboard to a system of pulleys that could be raised when needed, then lowered out of sight again. A chart of the Eden reefs was currently pinned to it, protected by a sheet of acetate. It was marked not just with the usual depth lines and tidal information, but also with Adam’s own additions, Latin and Greek characters, zodiac signs and dates, some ringed or boxed or in triangles. There was no key to explain these symbols, however, and it was too dark to make them worth the study.

He unfurled the mainsail, checked the mast and rigging, then furled it back up again. A hatch opened on to living quarters. He climbed down a ladder into a cramped cabin with fold-away bunk-beds against one wall, a compact galley on the other, with a fridge and cooker and a small cupboard filled with tinned food and condiments. A framed photograph on the far wall showed Emilia and her son Michel. A sliding door concealed the WC, washbasin and a large chest of medical supplies.

‘How much longer?’ asked Rebecca, climbing down to join him. ‘Only we should probably find ourselves a hotel.’

‘All done,’ he told her. ‘Let’s get out of here.’