The Far Side of the Sun (47 page)

Flynn looked up at Dodie from where he was crouched on the ground and eyed her carefully. ‘Do you want this gold, Dodie?’

‘No, Flynn. It’s blood money.’

He patted the tin. ‘Yes, it’s that all right.’

‘Are you going to give it to the police?’ she asked.

His eyes widened with amusement. ‘Sure as hell I’m not.’

‘To Sir Harry’s family?’

‘Those guys have more than enough already.’

She paused. ‘Are you going to keep it?’

He frowned, as if thinking hard about it, but he was teasing her. He tipped his head sideways towards where Mama Keel was hanging out washing on a rope line. ‘I know someone,’ he said under his breath, ‘who will know how to use it.’ He nodded. ‘Sir Harry would like that.’

They walked down to the beach where they ambled through the shallows of the surf together, the sky an endless arc of gleaming blue above them. Dodie didn’t hurry to ask the question on her tongue because she wanted this moment to stretch into the future. She fixed it in her mind as one she would hold on to. The feel of the warm skin of his arm around her waist and the sight of his long pale feet swimming like lazy fish beneath the waves.

But she could sense the vibration in the air, like thunder out at sea, and she knew what was coming. Out of the western sky roared a formation of B-24 Liberators. Seven of the great monsters were climbing up from Oakes Field and droning overhead, young men with their hearts tight as they set off to patrol the Atlantic. Each plane boasted the United States Army Air Force roundel, a dark blue circle around a white star, and she saw Flynn’s eyes while he watched them. There was no need to ask her question. She already knew the answer.

‘You’ll be leaving.’

He turned to her, surprised, and then smiled when he recognised what was in her eyes. ‘You see too much, Dodie,’ he laughed, ‘you see what’s in me before I see it myself.’

She stood in front of him, the waves meandering around their ankles, and looked him full in the face, loving each feature of it. Every rise and fall of it constantly revealed more to her of the person inside.

‘The Bahamas has stamped its mark on you,’ she said, and kissed the light golden tan that coloured his cheek. ‘Our sun has got to work on you, so you won’t forget us in a hurry.’

‘No, you’re the one who has got to work on me, Dodie.’

He didn’t smile as he said it, and he didn’t say,
I won’t forget you in a hurry
. But he took both her hands solemnly in his and Dodie knew the words she dreaded to hear were going to spill out into the bright sunlit morning.

‘I’m leaving.’

It was said. The day crashed to a halt.

‘Sir Harry Oakes and Johnnie Morrell were my friends, Dodie. More than friends, they became like fathers to me – for good or for bad – and it was because of those guys that I stayed linked to the mob. I don’t have a damaged lung from tuberculosis. That certificate was forged by the mob’s doctor to keep me out of the forces. But now,’ he looked up at the aeroplanes still in formation but no more than small birds in the distance now, ‘all that has changed. I want a different life.’

‘You’re going to sign up.’

‘Yes.’

‘To the army?’

‘The Army Air Force.’

Twenty thousand feet of nothingness between him and the ground.

‘You’ll be good at it, Flynn.’

‘Even the mob thinks twice before getting mixed up with the military, so I will be safe there, but I’m taking my mother’s surname just in case.’

‘What is it?’

‘O’Hara.’

‘Flynn O’Hara. That’s good. I like it.’

‘I’m glad you like it, because I’m coming back to get you used to it, Miss Wyatt, you and your bewitching island.’

Dodie felt her day start up again and she looked around her at the silvery beach, at the lazy palm trees, the effortless blue of the sea and sky, at all that she had here on this side of the sun. She wanted to share it with him.

‘Too many people have been killed, Flynn. In Nassau. In Europe. In places we’ve never heard of on the far side of the world. Death changes us, it takes away parts of us that we can never get back.’

She thought of Ella and the deep gulley at the back of her eyes where her sorrow lay buried. She was busier than ever with her Red Cross work and had invited Dodie to join her at it in her spare hours but there was a look about her these days, as though she had left too much of herself at Portman Cay.

And now Flynn was taking to the skies where aeroplanes were shot down in flames every day and death became the thief that stalked young men’s lives.

‘Dodie,’ Flynn said and cradled her chin in his hand, ‘You mean too much to me to take away a part of you. I’ll never do that, I promise.’

‘Good, Flynn O’Hara. I’ll hold you to that.’

I am enormously grateful to my wonderful editor, Catherine Burke, and the fabulous team at Little, Brown UK. They are superb. And thank you to Anne O’Brien and Thalia Proctor for their expert eye on my manuscript.

To my brilliant agent, Teresa Chris, thank you for always being a whirlwind of skill and energy and kindness.

Very special thanks to my twin sister, Carole Furnivall, for coming with me to explore the Bahamas. It was like being ten years old again and on a thrilling adventure together. Unforgettable.

Huge thanks to the gang at Brixham Writers for listening to my woes and making me laugh at them.

Thank you again to Marian Churchward for turning my scrawl into a beautifully typed manuscript and for leaving me some biscuits.

As always, mega thanks to Norman for a constant supply of inspiration and coffee, as well as for his passion for each book I write.

The reason that I felt drawn to set a story in the beautiful Bahamas was not just because I fancied a glamorous research trip! It was because of a car. Not any old car, of course. It was a glorious monstrous coffin-nosed Cord automobile produced in America in 1936.

More than twenty years ago my husband owned one of these magnificent cars and through the Auburn-Cord-Duisenberg Car Club he met an author called James Leasor, who also owned a Cord and who wrote action-packed crime novels. But James Leasor had also published a non fiction book about a strange real-life crime that interested him, and out of politeness I read it. It was called
Who Killed Sir Harry Oakes?

Immediately I was hooked. The book examined the unsolved mystery of how and why one of the richest men in the world was brutally murdered in Nassau in the Bahamas. The corpse was partially burned and scattered with feathers. This murder was committed in 1943 while the Duke of Windsor was Governor of the Bahamas, and the investigation that followed did nothing but muddy the waters. Suspicions and allegations were flung in all directions in the full glare of the spotlight from the world’s press. It became a
cause célèbre
, knocking war news off the front pages.

It was an extraordinary story, far more bizarre than any fictional tale, and it remained with me for years to come, hovering in the shadows at the back of my mind. To my surprise, when the time came to start plotting a new book last year, the questions about this mysterious unsolved murder elbowed their way to the forefront of my mind and I became excited at the prospect of examining it further. I wanted to dig deeper, compelled to find out more about what had precipitated the tragic event on the paradise island of New Providence.

During the course of months of research I discovered that it was a fascinating whirlwind of mystery and murder. Of glamour and beauty. Of secrets and corruption. And above all else, it was a story of greed and gold.

Around these events I wove a passionate love story, and I must point out that although a number of the events and people whose names you will recognise are included in my story, it is a work of fiction.