III

An Internet café near the hotel sold mobiles and other consumer electronics. Rebecca turned her charm on the manager, persuaded him to recharge her phone while she took one of the computer booths, placing the holdall between her feet as she checked her email and caught up on news. The keyboard was French; she kept hitting the wrong keys. She wondered idly if Adam had used one of these when he came into Tulear to catch up on his own email. On an impulse, she went to his hotmail provider, plugged in his email ID, tried ‘Yvette’ as his password. No luck. She tried ‘Emilia’ and ‘Michel’ without success. Then she tried ‘Rebecca’ and it welcomed her to his home page. She put a hand to her mouth, closed her eyes to prevent tears. She went to his in-box, noticed immediately that he’d checked his messages the day before he’d gone missing; and also, that one of the very last messages he’d read was from Pierre. She opened it herself.

She frowned. Pierre hadn’t said anything to her about any such meeting, or about sending emails to her father before he vanished. She made a mental note to ask him about it, then checked the other messages. There were half a dozen or so unread, one of them from someone called Braddock at the Landseer Trust saying he’d just heard that Adam and Emilia had gone missing. He was of course hoping devoutly that it was just a misunderstanding, but please could Adam let him know as soon as possible,or they’d have to alert Matthew Richardson and his colleagues at MGS Salvage.

She stared in disbelief at the screen. Daniel knew her father? What the hell was going on? She typed MGS Salvage into the search engine. The company had its own website. She went to it. Her screen refilled with a background shot of an underwater wreck, overlaid with corporate pap about expertise and reputation, dedication to ecosystems and archaeological context, plus a link to updates about their Madagascan treasure ship project. She went to the ‘our team’ page, two rows of thumbnail photos, with Daniel’s second from right on the lower row, captioned as Matthew Richardson. The photo was of poor quality, but there was no question it was him. It made no sense to her. She couldn’t get a grip on it at all. Who was he? How did he know her father? Why hadn’t he been straight with her? Could she trust him? She touched a fingertip to the screen, fuzzy with static, ran her finger down his face, along the line of his jaw—

A reflection in the monitor’s screen. She whirled around to see Titch standing behind her. She couldn’t tell how long he’d been there, but his face was pale and he looked a little dazed. He spun on his heel, hurried out. Rebecca grabbed the holdall from between her feet and chased after him, catching him outside, grabbing his arm. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

He turned and shook his head bitterly. ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’

‘What’s him?’

‘The reason you’re staying here. The reason you’re blowing off America, even though you know how important it is to us.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Titch. I’m staying here because of my father and sister.’

Anger clouded his face. ‘Don’t bullshit me,’ he cried. ‘I saw the way you were with each other last night. I saw how you flinched when he put his hand on—’

‘The way I flinched!’ she scoffed.

‘Yes,’ yelled Titch. ‘The way you fucking flinched.’ All around them on the streets, people stopped to stare, but Titch, normally the most reserved of men, didn’t even seem to notice. He stabbed a finger at his chest. ‘The things I’ve done for you,’ he said. ‘I’ve put my whole fucking life into your fucking company, and this is how you repay me? For Christ’s sake, Rebecca! You know how I feel about you: don’t you care for me at all?’

‘You’ve got this all wrong,’ she assured him. ‘I was just checking up on him, that’s all. I need to make sure I can trust him.’

‘Sure!’ scoffed Titch.

‘It’s the truth, I swear it.’

‘So this is about trust, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you trust me, don’t you? We’ve been together three years, after all.’

‘Of course I trust you.’

‘Then tell me you’re glad it’s me here with you, not him.’

‘For goodness’ sake, Titch!’

‘Tell me!’

She had too much to do to be wasting time like this. She said glacially: ‘I’m glad it’s you here with me, not Daniel.’ But her eyes flickered as she spoke his name; her voice rang hollow. She steeled herself to say it again, with conviction this time. ‘I’m glad it’s you …’ She trailed off. Her frown deepened. She looked at Titch in genuine bemusement.

A vein throbbed in his forehead. He clenched a fist and for a moment she thought he was going to hit her; but he controlled himself, shook his head, fished the hirecar keys from his pocket, tossed them to her. ‘It’s the white Toyota,’ he said, gesturing vaguely to his left. Then he turned his back on her and walked away.