III

Pierre’s front door opened as Rebecca pulled up in the Jeep, and Therese appeared. ‘I think it must be you,’ she beamed. ‘I tell Pierre that—’ But she broke off in shock when she saw all Rebecca’s bandages. ‘What happen?’ she cried.

‘I was out on the reef,’ she answered. ‘But it’s fine. I had a friend with me. He fixed me up.’

‘He!’ scoffed Therese, shaking her head at the absurdity of entrusting such work to a man. ‘Show me.’

‘I’m fine,’ insisted Rebecca. ‘I just need to speak to Pierre.’

‘But I—’

‘Please, Therese. Come round tomorrow if you like. Change my bandages then. But right now I need to speak to Pierre.’

She nodded and went inside. Pierre emerged almost at once, as though he’d been standing there listening. He cut a coin-sized slice from a stick of manioc with his penknife, ate it off the stubby blade. ‘We look in the forest this afternoon. Nothing, I’m afraid.’

‘Thanks anyway.’

‘Of course. Whatever we can do.’

‘Listen, Pierre …’ She hesitated, uncertain how to approach this without alerting him to the kidnap. ‘Did you hear that I’ve offered a reward for whoever finds Adam and Emilia?’

‘Sure. Everyone has heard.’ He flashed her a grin. ‘Maybe I’ll win it myself, eh?’

‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘I don’t have that much cash with me. And it’s proving a nightmare to arrange. So I was wondering …’

‘You want me to provide it?’ He blanched and put a hand on his chest. ‘I’m sorry, Rebecca. I don’t have that kind of money. Truly.’

‘It would only be a loan. I’d get it back to you in a couple of days.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘If it were possible, yes, of course. But it’s not. It’s just not.’

She hadn’t expected anything else, but it had been worth asking. She thanked him and took her leave, climbed gingerly back in the Jeep, headed south. Mustafa Habib next, then Delpha. The bumpy track tore at her cuts, forcing her to slow down, allowing her to brood on the kidnap. By a strange twist, one of her first ever programmes had included a segment on hostage taking. Surely if anything was an exclusively human behaviour, kidnapping would be. Yet male baboons under attack had been observed taking their assailants’ offspring hostage: Let me go or the kid gets it. She gave a little shudder at the thought of something similar happening to Emilia. She had to raise this money. But how? And how to repay it? Her credit cards and bank accounts were already stretched beyond their limits. Her house was fully mortgaged and had loans of nearly half a million pounds secured against it.

Good Christ! What had she become?

It had started innocuously enough. Years before, an Oxford boyfriend had ridden in point-to-points. She’d hated those afternoons, all those pompous pricks drinking punch, shivering over stale picnics. And she didn’t even have the fun of betting. Her allowance was so pitiful she couldn’t risk even fifty pence each way. One time, Nicholas had offered her a few quid to take a punt, but she’d been too proud and he hadn’t offered again. Or not directly, at least. Instead he’d put £5 on a horse called Madagascar Pride in the fourth race one afternoon. ‘Madagascar Pride,’ he’d said. ‘I had to place a bet for you.’ Somehow taking the yellow slip from him hadn’t seemed so bad. Madagascar Pride had romped home at 10-1. Fifty-five quid. Fifty-five quid. All the money in the world. After that, Nick had manufactured excuses to bet for her on almost every race. Rather than dreading these point-to-points, she’d begun looking forward to them, had lain in bed afterwards reliving the rush of a close race, the way the tendons in her neck stood out in sympathy with those of her horse.

She’d studied evolutionary biology, she’d known all about game theory, how players could often skew situations in their favour with seemingly perverse behaviour. But until she’d first gone racing, she hadn’t understood the first thing about gambling. She’d assumed that it was about money. But it wasn’t. It was about getting high. Losses were simply the price you paid for your fix. Her break-up with Nick had put an end to it, however, for she couldn’t afford to risk her own money. But then success had arrived, and she’d taken her whole team out for a big night as thanks. Titch had suggested going on to his casino, had signed them all in. She’d known from the first minute that she was in trouble. Her heart had broken into a pleasant canter even walking between the tables, and she’d tasted the delicious metal at the back of her throat. Get out, she’d told herself. Get out while you can. But it had been too late.

There’s something comforting about the word ‘addiction’. It’s an admission of defeat in itself, a way to make the problem so big that there’s no point even trying to fight it. Addictions all work in much the same way, usurping your body’s own reward mechanisms, flooding your system with dopamine, oxytocin, adrenaline, whatever your craving might be. Rebecca’s problem had been boredom; her fix adrenaline. She’d usually start with blackjack; it gave the illusion of pitting wits. She’d set a limit and vow to leave when she’d reached it, but she never really meant it. Sometimes she’d lose so quickly that she would become convinced the croupier was cheating her, yet she wouldn’t even move table; instead she’d become defiant, throwing down her money until it was gone. At other times she’d eke out her defeat, hunching over her chips until the weariness got to her and she’d grow almost eager to lose, before coming to her senses in the cab, nauseous with the knowledge that she had lost—irretrievably lost—another ten, twenty, maybe even fifty thousand pounds. And despite that, despite her disbelief at her own stupidity, she’d already be calculating how to put together her next stake. One hundred and fifty thousand pounds! Rebecca had lost twice that much in the last year alone. She owed her company over a quarter of a million and as much again to her various banks. She had gambled away her father’s and her sister’s lives, and now she had nothing left.