‘Come on, just move her.’
Patty grabbed Rachel’s T-shirt and pulled her up. The woman was strong and she stumbled to her feet. Patty slapped tape on her mouth again, then cut the rope around her ankles so that she could walk and pushed her forward.
‘Call Eva,’ she instructed. ‘Tell her where we are. Get her to advise us what we should do.’
Rachel shuddered. She tried to call out, but the tape was too tight.
The grounds of the house were not overlooked. Greg dragged her across the grass and down to the water’s edge, where a boat with a shiny walnut hull was moored. Suddenly all Rachel could think about was those plaques in Postman’s Park. All those people trying to do the right thing. All those people killed trying to save someone else. It had turned out to be Julian’s fate, and now she shivered with the thought that she too was going to join the ranks of the dead.
Well she wasn’t going to let it happen, she thought defiantly. She slipped one bound hand into her back pocket. She could just feel the phone with her fingertips.
‘Jump on,’ ordered Patty.
Rachel was determined not to cry, but she was quaking in fear.
She lifted one leg over the side of the boat, then the other. Her eyes scanned the vessel and she spotted a knife – the sort that sailors carried for cutting rope. She knew that if she could just get hold of it she had a chance. She knew she was stronger, taller and fitter than either Greg or Patty, and she wondered if she had a chance of overpowering them, because she knew that as soon as Eva got here it would all be over.
She fell back on the deck deliberately in close proximity to the knife.
‘Get up,’ said Greg, jumping on to the boat and hauling her to her feet. She had the knife between two fingers but she dropped it and it clattered to the deck. Greg turned and saw it, the silver blade glinting in the sun.
‘Naughty girl,’ he whispered, his lips so close to her ear that they touched her skin. ‘Don’t go getting any clever ideas now.’
There was a small cabin below deck and he pushed her down three stairs so that she landed on the floor with a thump. She had fallen on her face. Her cheek throbbed violently, and as Greg locked the door behind her, she cried out in pain. For a moment she lay motionless, her eyes squeezed closed. She thought of Thailand and the lapping jade waters. She thought of Liam and all the happy times they’d had on their boat. She thought about the fruit punch they served in her favourite bar, and how tasty the curries were at the beach shack next to their office. And as she realised that she would probably never experience any of those things again, a tear trickled down her cheek, landing on the deck in a small, clear watery circle.
Don’t give up, she willed herself. Snapping her eyes open, she pulled herself to her feet and looked around for anything that could cut the rope free from her wrists. Sweat was beading down her neck and her breathing was shallow. There was nothing. No knife, no scissors, no sharp edges on anything. She remembered how she had once interviewed a man who did magic tricks. She had got him drunk and he had confessed that the way he got out of handcuffs was to dislocate his own thumb. She was tough enough to do that, she thought, exhaling sharply.
Suddenly she heard something – a gentle whoop-whoop coming closer and closer. The boat started swaying angrily on the water and she realised that a helicopter was coming in to land on Patty’s estate. Adrenalin fired around her body as the noise, a growling flutter of blades and wind, grew louder.
In the corner of the cabin she could see a thin cupboard. She turned around and backed towards the door so that she could open it with her hands. Spinning back around, she could see that it was stacked with fishing tackle. She kicked at it, jumping out of the way as rods rattled to the floor. The gleaming hook of a fishing gaff shone in the low light. Lowering herself to the floor, she took a minute to feel for the hook with her fingertips. She knew that she could slit her own wrists if she made one false move, but she had no idea who was in the helicopter. If it was Eva, she would be dead within five minutes if she didn’t escape.
She pulled hard against the hook, gasping as she heard a rip. Her hands dropped to the floor, and for a split second she wasn’t sure if they had been severed from her body. Shaking the rope off her wrists, she grabbed the gaff and rammed the long wooden end against the locked door of the cabin. ‘Come on,’ she hissed as it refused to open.
She could tell that the helicopter had landed. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she smashed the door harder and harder until finally, it burst open and she saw a face. She lifted the gaff, prepared to strike, and then she recognised who it was standing in front of her. Diana. Her sister had come to get her. Her sister was here to save her.
‘Rachel, it’s me. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay,’ she said, and they fell into each other’s arms.
65
Diana drove down the long winding drive towards Hanley Park and parked the car – one of Julian’s favourites – outside the Doric pillars. She was welcomed into the house by Concepción, one of Ralph and Barbara Denver’s maids, who kissed her on the cheeks, talking excitedly about ‘baby’, and led her out to the back of the house, where the long green lawns disappeared to the horizon.
She could see Ralph in the distance, in a cream panama hat and a blue blazer with brass buttons, looking as if he were about to go and watch tennis or a regatta. Her father-in-law turned and waved, and then walked towards her slowly, with difficulty.
His face was tanned – she knew they had spent most of the time since the funeral in Provence – but it could not disguise his world-weariness. But as they embraced, Diana felt more warmth and feeling in his touch than she had ever done before.
‘Come and sit,’ he said, leading her to a wrought-iron table and chairs in a shady spot under the branches of an ancient oak tree. ‘How is Rachel?’ he asked quickly.
‘Having a long, well-deserved sleep,’ she smiled.
‘She’s one ballsy girl, your sister.’
‘We wouldn’t want her any other way.’
Ralph’s expression hardened. ‘You know, Greg Willets and Patty Reynolds are going to pay for what they did. I will make sure of that.’
She saw the steely ruthlessness in his eyes and she had no doubt in her mind that he would. Diana did not consider herself a vindictive person but she knew she was feeling her own maelstrom of emotions about Patty Reynolds and Greg Willets. She could see them now, running along the bank of the Beaulieu River away from the helicopter. Adam had called the police immediately and chased after them, and although they had disappeared into the woodland that adjoined the Reynolds’s property, they had been picked up by uniformed officers within the hour. Diana was sure she would never forget those few excruciating seconds before she opened the cabin door of the boat praying that she would not find her sister dead inside. But it hadn’t worked out that way. Not this time.
She took a minute before she spoke again. ‘I believe Denver Group is holding a selection committee meeting in a fortnight to formally appoint the new chief executive.’