300 Days of Sun (12 page)

“You think he knows who I am?”

“He knows something about you,” I said bleakly.

“What about this Eduardo Walde—­ever heard of him?” he asked.

“Nope.”

Nathan was quiet for a while. I think we were both processing the mental grenades Rylands had thrown.
For Mayer read Walde
. I didn't want to say anything until I could think it through.

Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose and scrunched his eyes tightly closed. “Why did he have to say that . . . about the paedophiles and the child abuse?”

I knew full well why. “Unfortunately, it's one of those issues that isn't unmentionable anymore. It's been pulled out of the shadows, especially where it involves powerful, well-­known men. Every newspaper in London is waiting for more to come out and no one dares to discount it anymore.”

“I mean, did that happen to me?”

So that was why he had reacted as he did. I should have realised sooner. “I can't give you complete reassurance, Nate, but I think . . . that you would know, deep down, if anything like that had happened to you.”

“But it could have done.”

“And there are many other reasons why kids are taken. For money. For revenge. To hurt a family. Don't assume.”

“You do understand, though?”

I put my arm around him, feeling that the back of his shirt was soaked with sweat. “Of course, I do.”

He leaned in and rested his head on my shoulder. He was a boy again. A beautiful broken boy. “And what the hell did he mean about knowing the name Emberlin?”

That, I have to admit, was the part that worried me most. “If you hadn't gone off on one, we might have found out.”

“He could just be saying it.”

“Maybe.” I wasn't convinced though.

“Shit. We have to ask him,” said Nathan.

“I think so.”

We ran up the wooden walkway. I didn't think we'd come as far as we had. The next ferry back to the mainland was due within the hour. Nathan flew past me, with a smooth, athletic stride. I came around the other side of the restaurant where the raised path to the ferry jetty jinked off at an angle. The boat was there. Nathan hurled himself down the walkway, which bounced under his steps. I had to stop to get my breath back. A stitch in my side jabbed painfully. Was that Rylands on board? Nathan was waving in the direction of the ferry, but he was too late. It pulled away as Rylands watched from the deck rail, ramrod straight, expressionless.

That afternoon on the beach on the Ilha Deserta—­it would be four hours until the ferry returned, so we sat on the sand, burning in the sun—­I realised something about Nathan. He had courage, more than anyone I had ever known. I've always tried very hard not to appear vulnerable, and it occurred to me that I could learn a lot from him.

N
athan was already at O Castelo when I arrived at nine that night. He had a prime seat on a sofa with a view over the old city walls across the water to the marshlands.

“I called Terry Jackson at the number Rylands gave us.”

“That was quick.” To tell the truth, I had my doubts the number would work. “Did you speak to him?”

“Yep.”

“What did he say?”

“That he heard I'd been looking for him, and how was I, after all these years?”

“How did he sound?”

“Normal. Quite friendly, full of bullshit. He asked me if I wanted to meet for a drink. Not a word that he might have come to my house, done my room over, and had me beaten up,
naturally.”

Best not to contradict him. “OK . . . so now what?”

“I meet him for a drink, of course.”

“I'm not sure that's such a good idea, Nathan.”

“What, so I've come all this way and I'm going to bottle it now?”

“No, but—­oh, I don't know.”

“He wants to meet me at Horta das Rochas.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow night.”

At least it was in a public place, somewhere that was above the line. I wasn't going to say anything more about it, not now. We had a ­couple of drinks and ate dinner mostly in silence. Ritzy-­reggae on the sound system grated on my nerves. Nathan seemed just out of reach, preoccupied. When he did speak, it was about the past.

“It wasn't a terrible childhood. I can't say that. It was all a bit rough-­and-­tumble, but I thought I was normal, you know? And now I want to have it out with the ­people who called themselves my mum and dad but never told me the truth. I want to rage at them. Only they're not here anymore, and so I'm raging at myself . . . for, for not knowing somehow.”

“You can't do that. It's not your fault.”

I thought he was going to explode. I felt the tension ratchet in him from across the table. But he held it back.

“I was always disruptive as a child, rebellious. But you grow up, don't you? You grow into yourself. You think you understand what you need, what you are. And then . . . you find out you're not yourself. You're someone else, and maybe the . . . shadow of that was always there, even though you didn't know what to call it, or how to live with it. What if that angry child knew all along, but the knowledge got covered over, and over, until it was
forgotten?”

“You're still the same person.”

“It doesn't feel like it.”

I put my hand on his arm and left it there. “We don't know anything for certain yet,” I said gently.

“There were . . . incidents. Words. Overheard bits of argument. I put it down to my . . . parents having a complicated relationship. But for a start I should have seen I didn't even look like them.”

“But if you weren't looking to see difference, you wouldn't have seen it.”

He was a beautiful broken boy, I repeated to myself. In the candlelight, his hair shone as it flopped over his cheekbones. The sadness in his expression was deeper than I had ever seen. I knew if I reached out, he would take any comfort, and validation, I offered. But it was all to do with need, and not desire, I told myself. Perhaps we were equally guilty of sending mixed messages.

I was unsettled as we walked across the lamplit cobbles of the old town, the white bulk of the cathedral rising like a liner from the darkness. Clatter of dishes from restaurants and a tinny note of music from a radio. We were almost through the Largo da Sé when he stopped.

“Actually . . . there's something I want to do.” The overly casual way he said it implied some solo mission I suspected I wouldn't want to know about.

“Oh?”

But he surprised me. “You can come with me if you want.”

“Where are you going?”

“I'll show you.”

Against my better judgement, it has to be said, I wheeled around and trotted alongside him back the way we'd come, past O Castelo and along the lane that led out of the Old Town. We passed no one.

We emerged close to the shore, where the old fortress walls had a crumbly texture from the worst of the sea winds. On stone like nibbled biscuit, a sentinel cactus grew.

“Up here,” said Nathan. He started to scramble up, making for the cactus. When I hesitated, unsure the soles of my sandals would offer any grip, he held out a hand to me.

“What the—­?”

“You'll see.”

I let him pull me up behind him, and we felt as much as saw our way up until we were standing on top of the old walls.

“It's just along here.”

The ancient stones were shaggy with sea grasses. We made our way carefully along until we reached a structure. It was a centuries-­old look­out point or sentry post. Stretching out before us, the dark sea and marshes.

Immediately my suspicions resurfaced. “This isn't some kind of dodgy hangout at night, is it?” I pulled back.

“Come on!”

All was quiet. I couldn't hear anyone else up here.

Nathan balanced on the outside ledge of the stone hut. “This way round. Be careful of the drop,” he said. He gripped my hand tighter. “Whatever happens, don't let go. Now, look inside,” he said, in a whisper. “Can you see?”

A coil of while feathers. It was a huge storks' nest.

“Beautiful, aren't they. I just wanted to check they were all right.”

We walked back to the Rua da Misericórdia, and said good night. He touched my arm lightly, and was gone.

 

iii

T
he following evening we left at seven to give ourselves plenty of time. I wasn't sure if there was an Algarve rush hour. It went without saying this time that I was driving him to Horta das Rochas. The plan was for me to drop him off, wait in the car park for fifteen minutes, then to wander into the bar, where Terry had asked Nathan to meet him.

“I'll try taking a photo on my phone, but it may not be possible.”

“Don't start letting the flash off, for God's sake.”

“Have faith. I'll think of something. I could always ask the waiter to take one of me at the table, making sure he was in the background. There's always a way.”

Nathan looked doubtful.

“I won't do anything silly. Don't worry.”

N
athan left. His saunter might have been convincing had I not got to know him. His shoulders were stiff and the laid-­back confidence was lacking. I waited out the quarter of an hour in a corner of the car park screened by oleanders, listening to a music station and straining to pick out words I could understand in the adverts for hypermarkets and insurance. A retouch of my makeup—­I wanted to look plausible as a woman out on her own who might be up for a chat with a stranger, or at least who might want a stranger to take a photo of her—­and I set off.

The reception area was more crowded than when we'd come that afternoon and eaten at the beach bar. Clumps of suitcases and a ­couple of groups in travel clothes indicated that the front desk was busy. I went on past and looked for a sign to the bar.

It was a cheery hubbub of noise and clinking glasses. I claimed a table where I could sit with my back to the wall with the bar, the entrance, and the rest of the room all visible. No Nathan, but I wasn't too concerned. It would be typical of him to have decided to take another look around and to keep Terry Jackson waiting. Perhaps Nathan had come into the bar and decided he didn't want to be the one waiting.

A waitress caught my eye, and I ordered a small glass of Vinho Verde. I had no intention of drinking more than a few sips. Still I waited. A man came over and asked if he could sit with me. I sent him away and took a book, a serious literary book, from my bag and pretended to read it while failing to drink my wine. Without Nathan and Terry Jackson in the bar, I needed to give out a different vibe.

After three quarters of an hour, feeling increasingly concerned, I paid my bill and went back across the foyer. I lingered for five minutes, thought about texting Nathan but held back, and then ostentatiously looked at my watch before walking quickly down the steps and back outside. For want of any other idea, I went back to the car.

As I approached, a shadow moved.

I was ready to run—­feeling a sense of being followed, remembering the attempted bag snatch—­but the assailant hissed, “Jo!”

Nathan grabbed my arm.

“You scared the life out of me! What's going on?”

He pulled me along. We were walking down one of the paths to the small villas in the trees.

“Have you seen Jackson?” I asked.

“No.”

“And you weren't in the bar.”

“I was, first of all. I went and sat at the bar, but as soon as I did, I got a text asking me to go to Villa Eleven.”

“From Jackson?”

“That's the name that came up. I suppose so.”

“That's where he wants to see you—­Villa Eleven?”

“Yep.”

“And that's where we're heading now?” I was distinctly uneasy.

“I don't know what else to do, Jo. I wanted to do this in public, but it doesn't seem like I have a choice. I just thought I shouldn't go without telling you where I was.”

“OK. No, you're right. Good thinking.”

“It's here.”

We were outside a single villa. It was set apart from the others we had passed, which had been in rows of four. This must have been a superior version. The front door was slightly open. Through a window, we could see a ­couple of lamps burning, but all was quiet.

“I'll stay outside, then. I'll just be over there.” I indicated a palm with a thick trunk flanked by bushes, feeling a bit silly.

Nathan knocked at the door. After a minute or so, he pushed the door open and went in. I waited, self-­consciously ridiculous in the darkness. I couldn't hear any voices.

Then Nathan emerged. He held me by the arm and I could feel his hand trembling.

“What is it?” I asked, knowing immediately that something was wrong.

“There's no one there—­well, there
was
,” he whispered.

“What the—­?”

“I want you to see this. Then we can tell someone. Don't touch anything.”

“Nathan—­?” Dread was uncoiling in my stomach.

“Don't say anything.”

He led me inside the villa and into the main room. By sliding doors, slightly open, was a sitting area. The only light was cast by a lamp on a side table.

Ian Rylands was sitting in a high-­backed armchair. At first glance he looked as if he was sleeping. The glass by his hand had been knocked over.

“Don't go any closer,” said Nathan. “He's dead. And my fingerprints are on his neck where I checked for a pulse.”

“I don't suppose it was natural causes?”

“I'm no expert, but I wouldn't have thought so.”

I don't know where I got the cold-­bloodedness from but somehow I knew it could be important. I swiped my phone onto camera, and took three photos of the scene as we had stumbled into it.

 

iv

A
s the first witnesses on the scene, we were also obvious suspects. I knew that was inevitable, and I could only hope Nathan did, too.

“Tell me again, why did you go to Villa Eleven,” said a bald plainclothes detective with a deep blue shadow over his jaw. He had a way of narrowing his eyes intently to make sure his prey knew he possessed greater powers. I hadn't caught his name, which was unlike me. An indication of how wrong-­footed I was, perhaps.

There was, of course, an obvious response: to tell the truth. Which was that Nathan and I were trying to find a British man called Terry Jackson, and that we thought we had finally succeeded when he asked Nathan to meet him at the hotel. We had to assume that Jackson had also invited the dead man. But as soon as either of us mentioned Terry Jackson, everything we had found out and done so far would be made public and subject to official investigation. I didn't know whether that would be a good or a bad thing. In the end, of course, it was illusory to think there was a choice. In these situations, fudging the truth is never a good idea. I'd covered enough news stories to know that the truth always comes out, and when it does it's the lying to cover it up that causes the most trouble.

“I went to Villa Eleven when my friend came and found me in the car park, and said that the person he had come to the resort to meet had asked him to go there.”

The detective—­Gamboa? Gameiro?—­nodded inscrutably after I stopped speaking, letting the pause lengthen, until it became so awkward that I would be tempted to say something—­anything. I knew the technique. Journalists use it all the time. In a small faraway part of my brain, I thought, this is going to be interesting, being on the other side of the questions, standing in the shoes of a suspect being interviewed by the police, seeing close up how the Portuguese authorities conducted themselves when dealing with foreign nationals. Their reputation wasn't good. Guilty until proven innocent was their usual line. I stopped dissociating myself from the situation and allowed myself to worry as I waited for him to break the silence.

“Who is this person?”

“A man called Terry Jackson.”

“Do you know this man?”

“I have never met him.”

“But your friend Joshua knows him.”

Joshua? That caught me off-­balance. I must have looked puzzled for the second or two it took me to register that Nathan had given the police his real name, or rather the name that would be on his passport, the name he had gone by until he came to Portugal. At least he was still thinking straight while being interviewed by the police. What was his surname? Think, think . . .
Harris
, that was it.
“It's more who I am than Josh Harris.”
In sheer relief, I gave myself a mental pat on the back.

“Did you not know that?”

“I'm sorry?”

“Did you not know that Joshua was here to meet a man called Terry Jackson? The man he claims to know?”

“I did know that. Sorry, I misunderstood.”

“Where does Mr. Jackson live?”

“Here in Portugal, I believe.”

“Where, exactly? Do you have an address?”

“No, I don't know that.”

“When did Joshua last see Mr. Jackson alive?”

“I don't know. You'll have to ask him.”

“But recently?”

“No, I think it was some years ago.”

“Why did they decide to meet now?”

“Terry Jackson was an old friend of . . . Josh's parents. Sadly both his mother and father have died, but while Josh was in Portugal he thought he would try to contact Mr. Jackson. I'm not sure, but I think that he wanted to pass on the sad news.” I was playing the innocent as much as I could. I didn't want to complicate matters any more than necessary, though I had no idea how much Nathan was telling them.

We went round and round the same information several times. They asked me how well I knew Joshua. I was waiting nervously for the question that would draw us in closer to the crime. The one question the detective didn't ask: whether the victim had been known to us. Was he waiting for me to volunteer the information? My thoughts were small cars veering from lane to lane on a crowded motorway, trying to judge distances and speeds, and constantly aware of the danger from larger vehicles capable of surprising acceleration.

“OK, you can go now.”

It was too late. I simply didn't know how best to say it.

A
t two o'clock in the morning, I was drinking mineral water in the manager's office. The manager, another person whose full name hadn't registered during a formal introduction, was called Jaime according to his name badge: a stocky man with a thick moustache. He was quiet, but perfectly genial as he made a valiant effort to pretend all was normal. But under the low-­energy light, he was crumpled and grey. He sat at his desk in front of a laptop where he might have been surfing the net (Google:
what to do + murder + business premises
), or he might have been playing solitaire; I couldn't see the screen. A uniformed policeman with a marine's stance was outside the door.

I was wondering whether news had spread through the resort or if the pampered guests were sleeping through, undisturbed and unaware of the drama. Part of me, the detached, callously ­professional part, wanted to take notes and call the night news desk at the
Independent
in London. But I couldn't, of course I couldn't. It turned out I wasn't much of a risk-­taker after all, despite my ­bravado.

Rylands must have been, though, whatever it was that he had taken on. The picture of him in life lingered, queasily: the ­old-­fashioned upright bearing; a man who was puzzled by the modern world, and regarded it with painful ­bemusement. The other picture of him, as we found him, made me feel ­nauseous.

Tiredness and shock were taking their toll. I wasn't able to think coherently. I should have said that I knew the identity of the dead man. Did the police know who he was? Was it possible he could have been killed for reasons completely separate from what we'd discussed with him? He had been so careful to cover his tracks . . .

The door opened and the detective showed Nathan in. Then he left us alone.

It occurred to me that the security camera overhead was recording, and that anything Nathan and I had to say to each other would be instantly relayed to the investigation.

“You all right?” he asked me.

I nodded. “You?”

“I'll have some of that water,” he said, reaching over for the bottle.

Neither of us said anything else. I needn't have worried. Nathan was sharp. The manager ticktacked his keyboard like a pianist finishing a breezy solo.

It was a while later that the detective—­Gambóias; I checked—­returned and gave the manager permission to take us to some overnight accommodation.

Once again Nathan's good looks had worked in his favour. Several young women on the staff had noticed him wandering through the gardens down to the beach and back; everything he said he'd done since arriving at the resort checked out. My movements too had been timed and captured on CCTV cameras pointing at the car park.

Preliminary postmortem findings were in, too. Ian Rylands had died of poisoning. Suicide could not be discounted, though murder was a stronger probability. The possibility that finding the body was intended as a terrible warning to us was as yet unexplored. Nor were we told anything about the person who must have booked the villa.

“Come with me, please.”

We obeyed, following in close formation out into the grounds and towards a small terrace of guest villas, not as large and well-­appointed as the one we had visited earlier. The hotel manager showed us into a pleasantly spacious, predominantly white sitting room with stairs leading to an upper floor. “You can stay here until the morning. The detectives will want to speak to you again.”

It was heartening that we were allowed to be together. The arrangement suggested we were in the clear.

The manager left without giving us a key, though.

Nathan took his shoes off and wedged the door open with a Converse sneaker. “I need a smoke,” he said, and headed outside again.

I joined him on the dark grass as the smell of the cigarette curled through the night air.

He exhaled deeply. “Shit.”

Neither of us said anything for a few minutes.

“Did they ask you anything about Rylands?” I ventured.

“No.”

“Terry Jackson?”

“What about Terry Jackson?” said Nathan.

Oh, hell, had he not mentioned him? “That you'd gone to meet him.”

“Yeah, that. Nothing else.”

Relief.

“They seemed more interested that I went down to the beach first. That was what they kept on about.”

“Why?”

Nathan sucked in the smoke. “I saw a dealer down there.”

“A dealer? What . . . a drug dealer?”
No
, I was thinking,
not that, too
. “Please tell me you didn't—­”

“It's not what you think.”

“No?”

“I've seen quite a lot of dealers, one way and another since I've been down here. Don't look at me like that.”

“You can't see me. It's too dark.”

“Believe me, I know what your face is doing. Look, dealers have contacts with ­people like Terry Jackson. OK, I'm not saying I'm a saint. Sometimes I had to score, sometimes more than once, just to make it look authentic, and yes, sometimes, I took some stuff—­because . . . because I'm messed up right now, you know? But nothing much, I promise you. I left a lot more in nightclubs than I ever took. Nice little present for someone. I'm telling you straight up.”

I thought back to the mornings he never turned up at class. It was only what everyone had suspected anyway. “All those long nights,” I said.

“Yeah. But not because I was clubbing that late but because I couldn't get back from Albufeira or Vilamoura. I had to sleep sitting up on the beach till the trains started running again in the morning. And not because I was necessarily in a crap state.”

“What else haven't you told me, Nathan?” I was really worried now. “I can't help you if you—­”

“Calm down, it's all right. I didn't buy anything down on the beach because the guy wasn't there. I just heard he was sometimes, and it was too good a chance to miss, this being a high-­roller kind of place that Terry Jackson used. That's the way it works. There's nothing else.”

“Bloody dangerous,” I muttered. It was the closest we had come to an argument. This wasn't interesting and fun anymore. The smell of smoke filled the black space between us. Not a joint. No scent other than the normal acrid tar and tobacco of a Portuguese cigarette.

“Anyway,” he said. “It was a good thing I did go down there to look. Someone saw me, and backed up what I told the police. And if they can track us through the resort, then with any luck, they can track Jackson.”

“If it was him. If he was even here. He probably got someone else to do the dirty work.”

We both needed to try to get some sleep but that wasn't going to happen until my mind calmed. “What else should I know, Nathan?”

“What do you mean?”

“What else haven't you told me? It's important, for both of us.”

“You know everything now. You know more than I've told anyone.”

I waited. “Where did you go when you didn't come to class for three days, just after I nearly had my bag snatched?”

“My bus driver mate offered me a free ride to Lagos to go and check out the records there. I reckoned if there was nothing on Jackson in Albufeira, I should look a bit further along the coast. But I didn't find anything, even though I thought I had a lead—­a T. Jackson who turned out to be a woman called Tina.”

“OK . . . and what else?”

“All right, the girls I said I met in the clubs. There weren't any girls—­apart from one, one night, but that was it, I swear. It was just easier to let it seem like I was Jack the Lad, out every night. No one was going to ask for details of what I was getting up to, they could imagine only too well.”

“Right.” I don't know why but the information made me feel weary. But I wasn't going to ask why he'd let me buy into the Jack the Lad persona, too. Perhaps the reason was just too mortifying to think about.

“This is not just a story for you to dig into. It's my life,” said Nathan.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean—­” I hesitated. “Hasn't the time come to get help? Tell the police exactly what you're doing?”

It seemed to me that this was the only way forward, but even as I said it I was wondering how far we could trust the Portuguese police, and Rylands' warnings were ringing in my ears.

We went upstairs, peeling off into separate rooms at the top without even looking inside them first. It was nearly four o'clock when my head went down on the pillow to chase some sleep that wouldn't come, and quarter to five when I next looked at my watch. Not much longer after that, Nathan padded into my room, and saying nothing, curled up beside me. Animal warmth came off him, like a child. He slept; I still couldn't. At around six thirty, I got up and went downstairs noiselessly on the tiled steps.

There was a TV in the living area and I switched it on. Breaking news of Rylands' death was a ticker tape at the bottom of the screen (
“Expatriado britânico encontrado morto no hotel”
). A still photo of the resort was up on the screen. No doubt the TV cameras were on their way.

I wandered over to the kitchenette area. A sparkling clean kettle stood on the worktop but no sign of any coffee or tea. I filled it and set it to boil, then sipped at a mug of hot water, letting the steam soothe my dry eyes.

When I returned to the television screen, a reporter was speaking to the camera by the entrance to the resort. I had to concentrate hard. Even though I knew the subject matter I only got about half the words. A British man. Seventy years old. House in Vilamoura. A description of the hotel and its guest villas. Then I jolted forward, spilling scalding splashes of water over my bare knees. I wasn't sure I had understood correctly. The reporter was a doll with dyed red hair and glossy lips—­it was hard to believe news was actually her forte—­but I went over what I thought I had just heard, picking out the words that sounded familiar. Walde family. Controversy and tragedy. Connected to the Horta das Rochas hotel. The abduction of a child.