Evolution of Fear (24 page)

Clay and Hope left the house shortly afterwards. They found a small pension not far from Paphos, taking separate rooms. Early next morning, they drove west into Agamas. After a couple of hours of slow going on rough, unpaved tracks, Hope directed them seaward. They left the 4WD at the end of a steep track and Hope led Clay down a rocky footpath towards the lonely arc of a white sand beach. The hammered- lead surface of the sea sloshed under a wet, uncertain sky. A pair of gulls fled south across the water, kissing up feathers of white spray.

‘This is Toxeflora,’ said Hope. The soles of her feet squeaked as she walked over the sand. A chill gust sent her hair streaming. ‘In July and August, during the nesting season, we’ve managed to have a team down here most nights to monitor the turtles. There have been the usual problems with foxes, but in the last couple of years the numbers of nesting females has plummeted, and the survival of those eggs that have been laid has been catastrophically low. We’re very concerned.’

Clay levered off his shoes. The sand was cool and damp. ‘Where do the turtles lay their eggs?’

Hope walked to a point a few metres from the edge of the scour slope.

‘In winter, the storms pull sand from the beach and dump it out to sea. The profile becomes much steeper, like now. In summer, the sand is piled back onto the beach by the gentler waves, and the beach flattens out again. So in summer, it would be about here. Above the tide line.’

Clay started walking along the beach, scanning the ground between the rock and the break in slope.

Hope followed.

‘When will your son arrive in Thessaloniki?’ he asked, checking the rock for any signs of disturbance. So far, all he’d seen had been made by nature, not man.

‘This afternoon.’ Hope seemed to think about smiling, but let it die stillborn on her face. She’d been a lot more composed since she’d called Maria again a few hours ago, confirmed that her faxed letter of permission for Maria to accompany her son overseas had gone through, and most importantly that her ex had also signed a similar declaration. Everything was in order. They were now booked on the early flight, leaving Larnaca for Athens in just a couple of hours. ‘What about your friend, Koofoot?’

Clay smiled at Hope’s mangled attempt at the Afrikaans pronunciation. He’d managed to reach Crowbar on Hope’s phone earlier that morning. After being treated by the doctor, Crowbar had locked up Hope’s place and gone to Limassol to check in with Medved’s people. Clay told him about Rania, the break-in at Hope’s, their suspicion that Rania’s aunt was being held somewhere in Limassol, probably by Zdravko Todorov. They had agreed to meet at noon in Pissouri, a seaside village halfway between Paphos and Limassol. ‘He’ll be okay,’ said Clay. ‘He’s tougher than he looks.’

That got a half-smile from Hope.

‘He’s looking for Rania’s aunt right now.’

They were halfway to the far point, about equidistant between the two rocky headlands that marked the ends of the beach, when Clay stopped. There, up ahead, in a sandy embayment in the rock, something caught his gaze. He sprinted across the sand.

‘What is it?’ called Hope, running to keep up.

It wasn’t much, would be easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it. A steel pipe, half an inch in diameter, sticking up from the ground, capped at knee height with a simple gate valve. It was barely visible, nestled in a clump of acacia.

‘It’s a water tap,’ said Hope.

Clay opened the valve. Nothing. ‘Do you remember what your friend from Karpasia said about the pipe? He said he saw a tanker truck there.’ Clay took Hope by the hand. ‘It’s not for getting something out of, Hope. It’s for putting something in.’

Hope looked down at the pipe, at the surrounding ground. ‘There is no way you could get a vehicle in here.’

Clay started inland, clambering up a rocky carbonate bluff, contouring a series of prominent outcrops. Hope followed. He’d gone about two hundred metres inland when he came across a set of twinned ruts twisting away through the rocks, faint, overgrown with winter grass, not recent.

‘Vehicle tracks,’ said Clay.

Hope was looking back out towards the sea. ‘People come in here all the time for picnics, a swim. I don’t see that this means anything, Clay.’

‘Maybe it doesn’t.’ Clay clambered back down to the beach, located the standpipe, took five paces towards the sea, dropped to his knees and started digging like a three-legged jackal looking for a carcass. ‘How deep did you say these turtles lay their eggs?’ he said, reaching into the deepening hole. His fingers carved away at the banded, silica-rich sand, scraped through layers of coarser, pebbly material.

‘About where you are now.’

Clay kneeled back, sat looking down into the hole. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Do you see that darker layer, just above the base. It’s softer, finer grained.’ He reached into the hole, scooped out a handful of the darker sand, smoothed the silt between his fingers, brought his hand to his nose and sniffed. ‘Hand me a bucket, would you?’

Hope reached into her backpack, passed him one of the empty plastic ice-cream containers he’d appropriated from the hotel the night before. Clay scooped the dark silt into the container, retrieved four more handfuls, closed the lid and wrote on the lid with a black marker pen.

‘What are you looking for?’ said Hope, stashing the sample in her pack.

‘We’ll know soon.’

After Clay had collected three more samples, all from the same depth and at the same point in the beach profile, but dotted along the length of the beach, he stood and looked out over the sea. ‘Fancy a swim?’ he said.

Before she could answer, he stripped off his clothes, piled them on the sand and strode down to the water’s edge. He stood naked in the surf, the water lapping his ankles, felt the breeze flow cold over the dangerous frailty of his body. ‘Pass me a mask and snorkel, could you?’

Hope stood with a smirk on her face, looking him over. She reached into her pack. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘The water’s pretty cold this time of year.’

Clay turned, started wading into the sea.

‘Wait,’ she called, scampering down the beach with a pair of masks hanging from her hand. Clay caught a glimpse of her long, pale legs, the patch of auburn between, and then she was in, wading up to her chest. Her nipples were pale, turgid. A beam of sunlight broke through the clouds, held them a moment in its warmth, coloured her face, her bare shoulders. She handed him a mask and snorkel and fitted hers.

They swam out into the bay, the water cold then slightly warmer for a moment and colder again as they moved away from the beach. The water was clear here, so lacking in nutrients. Prisms of light searched down from the surface, scanned across the seabed for a moment, then faded away, replaced by a new cloudburst farther on. It was as if they were suspended in a dream of their own making, and there was nothing but the cold, clear water and the sky and the blue sand and everything that they shared. Clay knew what he would find. The cold and the thought of it made him shiver. He estimated a depth of four metres here. He searched the sea floor.

And there it was, a subtle ridge in the sand, running parallel to the shore, snaking in the shifting sealight. He waved to Hope, pointed
along its length. She nodded, her eyes big behind the mask’s lens. Clay signalled down.

He dived. Hope followed him. Pressure built. Clay equalised, released air from his lungs, reached out for the bottom. Head down, kicking to maintain position, he clawed at the ridge. Sediment erupted from the bed, hung like fog in the water before dispersing in the bottom current. He kept digging but the sand was like soup, flowed back to fill whatever depression he managed to create. Hope dropped down beside him, used her two hands.

Moments later they burst to the surface.

‘It’s too deep,’ Hope panted. ‘The winter bedload is thick here.’

‘We’ll follow it along,’ said Clay, treading water. ‘Find a better place.’

‘This way,’ said Hope, teeth chattering. She bit down on the mouthpiece of her snorkel and started swimming towards the western end of the beach. He followed, watching her limbs move pale and goose-skinned through the sun-strobed water.

The ridge grew in prominence, then faded. They kept going, picked it up again, moving steadily parallel to the shore, always in about four metres of water. As they approached the headlands, sand gave way to rock, dark and slick with seaweed. Clay looked at his watch. They’d been in the water for almost half an hour now. He reached out, touched Hope’s thigh. She twisted to face him, popped her head out of the water.

‘Let’s go in,’ he stuttered. ‘Warm up.’

She nodded and started swimming towards the headland. He followed. They emerged from the sea, clambering naked over the rocks.

They found a ledge cradled into the headland where they could shelter from the wind and sat looking out across the bay. The sun streamed from between the ranks of drifting cumulus in thick woolly beams, scattering over the surface of the sea like chaff in the breeze. There had been some early winter rain, and now the usually barren coastal hills shimmered with life, thick ephemeral grasses, gorse, the prism points of a million dewdrops. They were completely alone.

The rock was smooth and warm to the touch. They lay on their backs and soaked up the rock’s heat, water dripping cold from their bodies, pooling around them on the hard mineral surface, warming in the sun. Hope reached for his hand, took it. He closed his eyes, felt the sun’s warmth on his body, heard the hush of her breathing. She rolled onto her side, traced a fingertip along the scar on his cheek, then kissed it. A nipple brushed his chest, hard and cold, then the soft compression of her breasts as she moulded to him, warm now, wet. He could feel himself hardening. Heat poured from the rock now, from their bodies. He turned his head. Her eyes were closed. They kissed. She tasted sweet, salty, like heather. She rolled onto him, wrapped herself around him, pulled him in. There were no words. They were together now, bodies joined. She moaned as he pushed into her, arched her back. He moved slowly, feeling her respond. He was close. She moaned, louder this time, gripped him tight, shuddered. His head was swimming. He made to pull away.

‘No,’ she breathed, holding him in. ‘Fill me.’

After, they lay on the rock in the sun for a long time. Neither spoke. After a while Clay stood, glanced along the beach, turned, looked down at Hope and offered his hand. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet.

He looked into her eyes. ‘I love her,’ he said. To the degree I am able. Maybe not as others love, but as far as I can understand it, I love her.

Hope smiled and raised her finger to his lips. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘Don’t say anything. Now we’re complete, the three of us.’

It didn’t take them long to find what they were looking for. They tracked it into the rocks, up onto the shore. Hope stood beside him, examining the black sheathing.

‘It’s the same type of cable we snagged with the anchor that night in Karpasia,’ he said.

Hope looked both ways along the beach. ‘What is it doing here? There’s nothing here. No houses, no buildings of any kind. Is it a telephone line?’

Clay motioned towards the water and started following the cable out, pulling it up from the seabed as he went. As the water deepened, they took turns, one diving down, exposing a few centimetres of cable, returning to the surface to breathe, the other taking over. After half an hour, they had unearthed about twenty metres of cable. Clay’s fingertips were raw from the digging, numb with the cold. He rose to the surface, breathed and looked down through the water at Hope struggling with the cable. He was tiring now, could feel the cold deep in his core. Hope looked gone. He tread water, waited for her to surface.

Something grabbed his leg. Hope burst to the surface, shouting through her snorkel. She spat out the mouthpiece, pulled up her mask. ‘I’ve found something,’ she gasped. ‘Come and look.’

They spent a few minutes inspecting the thing, as much as they could manage in the cold, then swam back to the beach. They walked back along the sand, close but not touching, saying nothing. Soon they were back where they’d left their clothes. Hope turned away, pulled on her underwear, followed quickly by her jeans, a t-shirt, her big knitted wool jumper. Clay rummaged in his pack for his knife, sprinted back along the beach to the place where they’d unearthed the cable. By the time he returned, Hope was walking back down the beach towards him, phone hanging in one hand.

‘That was Maria,’ she said. ‘They’re on their way to the airport.’

Clay nodded. ‘Good.’

Hope looked down at the dead thing hanging from Clay’s hand, the severed arteries dripping sea water, the black body lifeless. ‘Is that it?’

‘One of them, yes. Do you know what it is?’

‘Have you ever seen a marine geophone?’

‘Sonar?’

‘Same idea. Basically an underwater loud speaker.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Turn those things on during the nesting season, and no turtle will come close. That strand of the phylogeny dies. Evolution stops.’