Rush of Blood (8 page)

When the pager she has been given begins to vibrate, Angie jumps up and says, ‘Here we go.’ There are red lights flashing
on the top and as they walk towards the reservations desk, Ed takes it from her and says it looks like a Taser. He presses
it against his neck, then pretends to convulse as though from an electric shock. Everyone laughs, so he repeats the gag as
they are being shown their table, and the young waiter, who wants to do everything he can to ensure a decent tip, laughs too.

‘That’s awesome,’ he says.

They have been waiting ten minutes in the bar of the Bonefish Grill, drinking beer and cocktails. Trying to make themselves
heard over the noise. There is a good deal of chatter at the bar and from the booths on either side, as well as the commentary
from dozens of TV sets mounted on the walls, which are showing baseball, basketball and football games.

‘You know what they’d be showing if we were back at home?’ Ed had asked when they’d arrived. ‘Darts, snooker and rained-off
cricket matches …’

‘Snooker and what?’ Barry had said. ‘I can’t hear.’

Ed shook his head like it didn’t matter and Angie said she’d tell him later.

It’s a large table, right in the centre of the busy room. There are several families with children eating, plenty of chit-chat,
but it’s still a lot quieter than it had been in the bar. The waiter takes their drinks orders – beer and white wine – then
when he’s gone, Ed raises the glass he’s carried through from the bar. He asks the others to do the same.

‘To a great holiday,’ he says. ‘And one that’s been all the better for making new friends.’

Glasses are raised and clinked together. Marina says, ‘To a great holiday,’ at the same time as Angie says, ‘New friends.’
The others mutter one or the other. Barry says, ‘Cheers.’

‘Funny old day though,’ Ed says.

‘Horrible,’ Angie says.

Sue leans forward and, one by one, the others do the same. ‘So, what do we think?’ she asks.

‘She’s wandered off,’ Barry says. ‘That’s all.’

‘Oh God, I hope you’re right,’ Angie says.

Dave nods. ‘It’s easy enough to get lost in a strange place, especially if you’re a bit … you know.’

‘Maybe she just went to the mall,’ Marina says.

Ed shakes his head. ‘Too far to walk.’

‘Plus, I think they’d have found her by now,’ Sue says. She looks at Marina, who recoils slightly, as though her suggestion
has been dismissed as rather silly. ‘It was probably one of the first places they looked though, so it’s a good thought.’

‘It’s not what the police think.’ Ed puts down his glass. ‘That she’s just wandered off, I mean. You can tell from their faces.’

‘Tell what?’ Dave asks. ‘You can’t tell anything.’

Ed looks at his watch. ‘It’s been what … four hours already? They’ll have searched everywhere, talked to anyone who might
have seen her. This long after someone goes missing, a child I mean, they know damn well someone’s taken her.’

‘I don’t think that’s true,’ Marina says. She stops as the waiter comes back to the table. The drinks are laid down along
with some bread and olive oil, and the waiter tells them that he’ll be back in a few minutes to take their orders for appetisers.
‘For a start, she’s not an ordinary child, is she? She might not have a normal sense of time or distance or whatever.’ Dave
nods, next to her, and swigs from his beer bottle. ‘She might just be walking round a supermarket, or sitting behind a rock
on the beach somewhere, colouring in that book she’s always got and thinking that her mum is coming to get her.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ Angie says again.

‘Well, yes, obviously.’ Ed sits back and folds his arms and says that he just thinks it’s important to be realistic about
these things. That the
police
certainly will be. ‘I’m not trying to be morbid, I promise,’ he said. ‘It’s the last night of the bloody holiday, after all.’

‘Bad things can happen anywhere,’ Barry says, quietly. ‘Even somewhere like this, where the sun’s shining and everything seems
like it’s perfect, you know?’ He’s peeling the label from his beer bottle. ‘Probably
more
bad things.’

There is nodding around the table. Angie puts a hand on Barry’s arm.

‘It was freaky though, wasn’t it?’ Marina says. ‘Talking to the mother, earlier on I mean, by the pool. I felt terrible, her
chasing around and panicking and the six of us just lying there, desperately trying to soak up a last bit of sun before we
go home.’

Angie agrees, says she’s been feeling guilty ever since.

‘It’s only natural,’ Sue says. ‘Especially if you’ve got kids.’

‘Not our fault,’ Ed says, shaking his head.

‘No, but it was still weird, didn’t you think?’ Marina turns to him. ‘Her face, like you could see she was going over and
over all the terrible things that might have happened, and us just lying there … sunbathing.’

‘Why should we feel guilty?’ Ed asks. ‘I mean, there was no shortage of people out looking for her, and it’s not like we didn’t
offer to help, is it?’

Sue shrugs and looks at Marina. ‘There’s not much we can do about the sunshine, is there?’

‘Disparity,’ Dave says. ‘Is that the word? You know, when what you’re talking about doesn’t match the surroundings? Like somebody
talking about their child being missing when … you know, like earlier.’

‘Never heard of it,’ Barry says.

Angie says, ‘Come on, Marina, you’re the writer.’

The waiter appears at their table and asks if they’re ready to order their appetisers. Nobody has really looked at a menu
yet and so they hurry to take in what’s on offer while the waiter, who still has an eye on that tip, smiles and tells them
there’s no rush.

‘Take all the time you need,’ he says.

They order spicy shrimp, corn chowder, calamari and spring rolls. Sue says she is not very hungry, that she got a little too
much sun maybe and is happy to wait for her main course. Dave asks for another beer and Barry tells the waiter to make that
two.

‘So, what did everyone say to the police?’ Marina asks.

Shortly after the three couples had encountered the mother of the missing girl late that afternoon, uniformed officers had
begun asking questions of everyone at the Pelican Palms. By that time, only Marina and Dave had been left at the pool. The
other two couples had gone back to their cabins. Barry had said he fancied a nap before dinner and Sue said that she wanted
to spend some time online in the resort’s small computer room, to which guests had access at the cost of ten dollars per half-hour.

‘Just answered a few questions,’ Angie says. ‘That’s all. Same as you did, probably. We had a policewoman come knocking on
the door.’

‘Bloody embarrassing that was as well.’ Barry shakes his head. ‘Ange shouted through that the police wanted a word, so I came
to the door in my pants, didn’t I? Never thought it would be a woman.’

‘What did she want to know?’ Dave asks.

Barry shrugs. ‘All just routine, that’s what she said. They’re following up a report that a fourteen-year-old girl has gone
missing, blah, blah, blah.’

‘When was the last time we saw the girl?’ Angie says. ‘Had we seen anyone dodgy hanging around the resort?’

Ed nudges Barry, and says, ‘Apart from Dave, obviously.’

Angie continues. ‘Where were we when she went missing? Same questions they asked you, most likely.’

‘You two were still at the beach, weren’t you?’ Marina says.

Angie nods. ‘Trying to make the most of the last day.’

‘Same here,’ Ed says. He looks mock-daggers at his wife. ‘Though for some unknown reason that involved the pair of us traipsing
round the shopping mall.’

‘There was stuff I needed to get,’ Sue says.

Ed looks at Dave. ‘What about you two?’ He puts on a silly voice: a pantomime copper. ‘Would you be so kind as to confirm
your movements between the hours of one-thirty and two-thirty this afternoon?’

Dave laughs and takes another swig of beer.

‘Still having our lunch,’ Marina says. ‘That place opposite the Oyster Bar, whatever it’s called. We got back about three
o’clock, met you lot by the pool around half past …’

‘Right,’ Ed says, nodding. ‘Next thing, the woman starts screaming and ten minutes later there’s cops all over the place.’

‘She had plenty to scream about,’ Angie says. ‘You don’t even want to think about it, do you?’

‘So
don’t
think about it.’ Barry takes the last piece of bread and mops up what’s left of the oil. ‘Nothing we can do.’

Nobody says anything for a while. They pass a bottle of water around the table and cough and straighten cutlery. After a minute
or so, Ed looks towards the kitchens and asks if anyone else thinks the food is taking a long time.

‘We should make another toast,’ Sue says, suddenly. ‘We should drink to that girl.’ She holds up her glass. ‘To everything
being all right and to her getting back safe and sound to her mummy.’

‘Hear, hear,’ Angie says.

They all raise their glasses and touch bottle to bottle, which is when they realise that not a single one of them knows the
missing girl’s name.

Let’s not kid ourselves, everybody lies.

Sorry, I’m busy that night
.

I was just looking at something on You Tube
.

I love you too
…

Twenty-five times a day on average, they reckon, and men twice as often as women, mind you I’ve never been convinced about
that
. Before that bloody strange Easter Friday in Sarasota, I don’t know if I was more or less honest than anyone else, but I
never had much of a problem saying whatever made life easier. For me or whoever I was talking to. Even so, I was seriously
impressed with how easily it came to me when it needed to.

The degree of it, I mean.

It’s funny, isn’t it, how you can just throw that switch when you have to, and become whoever you need to be for however long
and get the things done that need doing? The normal things. How you can talk or eat or whatever it is, without slipping up,
not even for a second.

You don’t look at your watch.

You don’t sweat more than you should, or scream suddenly or glaze over.

You don’t say, ‘She’s in the boot,’ when you mean to say, ‘Can you pass the salt?’

I’m joking, obviously … exaggerating to make the point, but hopefully you can see what I’m talking about. I can never get
over it, that’s all I’m saying.

The things we’re capable of.

Like I said, all the time this was happening, the everyday stuff and the ordinary conversations about this and that, I was
amazed at how well I could look after myself. It just kicked in immediately, to tell you the truth, because even while I was
busy in that car – while that girl bucked and kicked and tried to slap my arms away – I’d known I wasn’t going to drive straight
to the nearest police station and tell them what had happened. I knew 100 per cent that I was going to say and do whatever
was needed to avoid getting caught. I’d started to think about exactly what those things might be.

I’ve never really bought into this idea that, deep down, some offenders want to get caught. Everyone wants to stay out of
prison surely, it’s a natural instinct, isn’t it? It certainly felt natural to me. I felt – I
still
feel – that punishing me for what I’d done would be wrong. That seemed blindingly obvious, even then. I was positive that
if I
was
ever caught, the powers-that-be would see sense pretty quickly. Once I’d explained, as soon as they’d been made to understand
about … fairness, then any kind of punishment wouldn’t really be an issue.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely not
planning
on being caught. I just don’t think it would be the end of the world. That, worst-case scenario, I could talk my way out
of it.

Ironically enough, just by telling the truth.

That smile, what it did, and why.

Meanwhile, let’s not forget about all those lies being trotted out every day. Husband to wife, colleague to colleague, doctor
to patient; snow-white, pitch-black or somewhere in between. A good many of these liars do what they do for very good reasons.
Some of them have the best of intentions. Now, I’m certainly not claiming to be one of
them and I know there’s no way you can measure these things, but I do wonder if those twenty-five small lies every day would
equal one big one.

My big one.

I heard a vicar or someone on the radio once, saying that being able to lie is what ‘perverts’ us. It’s because we find it
easy, so he said … that’s what makes us all corrupt and spoils what might otherwise be perfect. That’s rubbish, come on, you
know
it is.

Even then, before any of this happened, I never believed that.

Lying is what makes us human.

‘Are we the first here?’ Marina asked.

‘It doesn’t matter, so long as you’re here. How was the journey?’ Angie beckoned Marina and Dave in from the porch. She took
the proffered wine and chocolates, said there was really no need, then pointed towards the kitchen and invited them to ‘go
through’.

‘Somebody’s got to be first,’ Dave said.

While Marina and Dave stood hand in hand, making all the right noises about the kitchen, Angie deposited jackets and bags
in the utility room and Barry took orders for drinks. Marina said that red wine was great if there was already some open and
Dave asked Barry what
he
was having.

‘I’m on the beer for now,’ Barry said.

‘Sounds good to me.’

‘This is amazing,’ Marina said when Angie reappeared. ‘It’s huge.’

The kitchen had been large enough already before being extended out towards the garden, an orangery-type glass roof now sitting
above what was a conservatory-cum-dining area decorated in a Mediterranean style. Angie talked about the feeling of space,
and told Marina where she had bought the dining table and the big terracotta pots.
Barry pointed out where the RSJs had been fitted. Something jazzy and melodic was playing quietly, though the source of it
was not immediately obvious. Angie saw Marina looking around, finally spotting the white speakers mounted high on the wall,
and said, ‘Jamie Cullum.’

‘I’m surprised you’ve done such a lot to the place,’ Dave said to Barry. All four were standing in the conservatory looking
out into a large garden. It had been a bright, warm day, but now it was clouding over a little and the light was starting
to go.

‘It’s what I do, isn’t it?’

‘Exactly,’ Dave said. ‘I’d’ve thought
because
you’re a builder, it might have been the last thing you wanted to do. You know, like the cobbler’s children always going
barefoot.’

‘Come again?’ Barry said.

‘Where are the kids?’ Marina asked.

Angie nodded upwards. ‘Laura and Luke are upstairs with a couple of mates and some pizzas. I should probably get them down
to say hello,’ she said. ‘Prove they’ve got
some
manners.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Marina said. ‘Leave them to it.’

Dave turned to Barry. ‘And you’ve got one of your own, right? A son, is it?’

‘Nick,’ Barry said. ‘He’s with his mum.’

Jamie Cullum sang uninterrupted for those long few seconds until the doorbell rang.

‘There they are,’ Angie said.

When Barry had followed Angie out of the kitchen, Marina raised an eyebrow at Dave.

He said, ‘I can’t bloody stand Jamie Cullum.’

Marina nodded out towards the front door and whispered, ‘The kid’s a bit of a sore point, I reckon.’

They listened to the noises of greeting, the exclamations and the kisses on the cheek, until, half a minute later, Angie came
back into the kitchen carrying an enormous bunch of lilies.

‘Look at these …’

Ed, Sue and then finally Barry appeared in the doorway and, once
Dave and Marina had welcomed the newcomers – exchanging enthusiastic kisses and greetings of their own – more drinks were
organised while Angie dug around in a cupboard to find a vase for her flowers.

‘Your hair is amazing,’ Sue said to Marina.

Angie moved across to join them. ‘Yeah, I meant to say.’

Marina leaned towards the other two conspiratorially and said, ‘It was stupidly expensive, to be honest. I’m not sure Dave’s
too thrilled.’

‘Sod him,’ Sue said.

The women laughed. ‘Spot on,’ Angie said. ‘I mean it’s him you’re looking gorgeous for, isn’t it?’

On the other side of the kitchen, the men were talking about the football season that had recently finished. Barry was an
avid Arsenal fan, while Ed still followed Aston Villa, the team he had watched as a boy. On holiday, Dave had rashly confessed
to being a Manchester United supporter and now the other two happily took up where they had left off in Sarasota, mocking
his support for a team that, as a southerner, he had no natural affiliation for. Dave stood his ground, saying that he’d followed
them for years, but when Ed asked him to name half a dozen members of the current team he fell three short.

‘My mum knows more than that,’ Ed said. ‘And she’s got Alzheimer’s.’

Barry laughed and told Dave he was a lightweight.

‘You should always knock ten per cent off the cost of a visit to the hairdresser’s,’ Angie said to Marina and Sue.

‘Same with shoes and bags,’ Sue said.

‘We can hear you, you know?’ Ed punched Dave in the shoulder and walked across to join the women.

‘You making fun of my old man?’ Marina said.

Ed grinned. ‘Just winding him up. You know what he’s like …’

‘Yeah,
I
do,’ Marina said. ‘But you want to be careful.’ She narrowed her eyes, theatrically. ‘He can
turn
.’ She smiled at her boyfriend over Ed’s shoulder. ‘Can’t you, babe?’

‘Definitely,’ Dave said, a little red-faced, as he and Barry walked across.

‘Barry’s got a temper on him as well,’ Angie said. She slid an arm around Barry’s waist. ‘He’s like the Incredible Hulk sometimes,
storming round the place.’

Marina leaned into Ed. ‘What about you?’

Ed’s face was a picture of innocence. ‘Me?’

‘No way, not Steady Eddie,’ Sue said. ‘Happy as a pig in shit, aren’t you, my love?’

‘Well, I
can
get a bit strict with you sometimes,’ Ed said. ‘When you’ve pissed me off.’ He winked at the boys. ‘But only because you
like it …’

‘Right,’ Angie said. ‘The chicken’s taking care of itself, so—’

‘Smells gorgeous,’ Marina said.

Angie put down her wine glass. ‘Who fancies a quick tour?’

‘We should have given these to the police,’ Angie said. She looked up at the others. ‘God, do you think we still should?’
She carefully lined up three photographs, tapped a bright-red fingernail against several of the figures in the background.
The missing girl and her mother, then a number of anonymous men and women captured behind the main subject: sitting around
the pool; walking in one direction or the other through the back of the shot; more than one of the strangers looking towards
the photographer. ‘He might be right here in one of these pictures,’ she said. ‘We might be looking at whoever took that girl
…’

The offer of a ‘tour’ had not been taken up by everyone. Ed had hung back in the kitchen, along with Barry who pulled a face
and opened them both another beer. Dave had hesitated, looking from the men to the women and back, before eventually deciding
to trot along after Marina, Angie and Sue.

‘How gay is that?’ Ed had said, as Barry handed him his drink.

Fifteen minutes later, when everyone was gathered back in the kitchen, Angie had put plates in the oven, given her main course
a final stir and told people to find a seat. Her ‘special’ placemats had caused every bit as much interest as Angie had hoped
and served to remind Sue that she and Ed had brought photos of their own to share.

‘We got three sets printed up,’ she said. ‘Ed was going to email them, but as we were getting together anyway …’

‘I didn’t think,’ Angie had said. She wiped her hands and came over to the central island to take a look. ‘I’ll get two more
sets of ours done as soon as I get five minutes.’

‘It’s a great idea,’ Marina said.

They gathered around the island and began to look at the photos that Sue had handed out. The majority were of Sue or Ed themselves
of course, a handful of them together taken by one of the other four and a few of the entire group. There were shots of them
at the beach and in assorted bars and restaurants, shots against sunsets, some with pelicans or egrets silhouetted against
the pink-orange sky behind, but many of the pictures had been taken around the pool at the Pelican Palms.

It was a group of these photographs that had captured Angie’s attention.

‘We should have given them to the police,’ she said again. ‘At least let them look at what was on our cameras.’

‘They didn’t ask,’ Sue said.

‘You’re being ridiculous,’ Barry said. He nodded down at the pictures. ‘What are the chances that this bloke who took her,
if
anyone took her in the first place, is sitting there in his Speedos or whatever?’

Angie shook her head, adamant. ‘The police did this thing, a few years back, on Brighton beach or Southend or somewhere. They
were looking for someone who they knew had been spotted in the area, so they asked anyone who’d been on the beach on that
particular day to send their snaps in.’

‘I think I read about this,’ Marina said.

‘Right. And when they looked at all the photos, they identified about a dozen known paedophiles.’

‘A dozen?’ Dave said. ‘On one beach?’

‘Maybe a few less than that,’ Angie said. ‘I can’t remember the exact number, but it was really shocking.’

Dave looked at Barry.

‘No, she’s right,’ Sue said. ‘I saw something about it too.’

Ed leaned down to take a closer look at the photographs. ‘I still don’t see why that means anything as far as these are concerned.’

‘What if he’d been watching her?’ Marina asked.

Sue nodded. ‘If it was someone who was already there, he might just have seen her wander away and followed her.’

‘It would have been far easier for someone to take her if he was someone she recognised,’ Marina said. ‘Someone she knew,
even.’

They all stared at the photos for a few more seconds, until finally Ed dropped the set back on to the worktop and stood up.
‘All well and good in theory, but the police questioned everyone who was there, didn’t they? So they must have spoken to everyone
in these pictures.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Sue said. She laid down the photograph she was holding. The others waited. ‘I remember talking to one couple
who weren’t actually staying there at all and just paid a daily rate to use the pool. So there’s no guarantee that everyone
in these pictures was a resident or was around when the police were questioning people. Also, I’m pretty sure that some people
just sneaked in whenever they felt like it and used the pool.’

‘Definitely,’ Marina said. ‘There was nothing to stop anyone doing that and it wasn’t as though anybody checked, was it?’

‘There you are then,’ Angie said.

Barry held his hands out. ‘There you are,
what?
’

She waved a photograph. ‘I’m just saying. What if he’s on here?’

‘So contact the police or whatever,’ Barry said. ‘Email them the sodding pictures if it’s going to keep you awake at night.’

Ed was nodding his head in time to Jamie Cullum. A somewhat frantic version of ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’. ‘It’s all far too
late anyway,’ he said, reaching for his glass. ‘It’s been a month or something now, hasn’t it?’

‘Month and a half,’ Dave said.

‘So, she’s dead—’

‘
She’s
called Amber-Marie,’ Angie said. ‘I saw it when I was checking on the internet.’

Ed nodded. ‘Right … so,
Amber-Marie’s
dead, the police probably don’t give a toss any more and whoever killed her is hardly likely to still be knocking about at
the Pelican Palms eyeing up his next victim.’

Sue shook her head. ‘God’s sake, Ed.’

‘I’m just being realistic.’

‘We should eat,’ Angie said. ‘Before all my timing goes tits up.’ She asked them all to go and sit down and, while she laid
the paté out and Barry got more wine from the fridge, the four guests walked across to the dining table.

Standing at the table, Dave leaned towards Ed and muttered, ‘A dozen paedophiles on the same beach?
On the same day?
’

Barry heard it, turned round and shook his head as if to say, ‘Ignore her.’

‘An ex-girlfriend of mine once accused me of being a paedophile,’ Ed said.

Dave looked at him. ‘What?’

‘I told her that was a pretty big word for a ten-year-old.’

Dave laughed, one eye on Marina’s reaction.

‘Just sit anywhere,’ Angie shouted.

Seeing that Barry had finished his main course ahead of anyone else, Angie said, ‘Go and ask the kids to come down.’

‘Do we have to?’ Barry said.

‘Probably the last thing they want to do,’ Sue said. ‘Come and talk to boring old farts like us.’

‘They should at least come and say hello,’ Angie said.

As the others continued to eat in silence, Barry went out into the hall and shouted up the stairs. After half a minute or
so he shouted again, a real edge to his voice this time. He came back in and sat down, shaking his head, and they all listened
to the thump of footsteps on the stairs, then watched as the two teenagers – a boy and a girl – trooped wearily in and waited
at the end of the table.

‘Say hello,’ Angie said.

They did as they were told, though the boy somehow managed to make the word monosyllabic. He looked as though he’d rather
be having teeth pulled, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his hooded top. The girl seemed marginally less uncomfortable,
manufacturing something that might almost have been a smile as she shifted from one Ugg-Booted foot to the other.

‘What have you two been up to then?’ Ed asked.

‘Just watching TV,’ the girl mumbled. ‘Me and my friend.’

‘Anything good?’

‘Not really.’

‘No need to ask Luke what he’s been doing.’ Angie rolled her eyes. ‘He’ll have been glued to that bloody Xbox. Honestly, he
forgets to eat sometimes.’

The girl’s smile broadened and she leaned into her brother’s shoulder. The boy leaned back into hers, far harder.

‘Hey,’ Barry said.

‘Dave works on computer games,’ Angie said. ‘Maybe he can give you a few tips later on.’

The boy brightened just a little. ‘Did you work on
Call of Duty?
’

‘I’m afraid not,’ Dave said.

‘
Halo?
’

‘No …’

The boy went back to staring at his trainers, the conversation clearly going nowhere.

Ed looked at Dave and shook his head. ‘And there we all were, thinking you were “down” with the kids.’