Chapter Fourteen: No Worries
“It is always possible to find a quiet beach to escape the bustle.”
• • •
Stuart resisted revisiting the scene of the crime for one whole day, but by the morning of the second day - the calendar had assumed a new starting point: everything was forever after measured as from the day that Stefan was killed - the impulse to return had become too strong.
He had not seen Jenny at all since ‘the incident’, as it was becoming euphemistically referred to in his subconscious, although an envelope containing 2000 francs had been left for him at the reception of Chez Pauline, with a brief note saying call me, followed by a scribbled number which he had found impossible to read, and which upon dialling his ‘best guess’ decipherment had connected him to a clothes boutique in Viatape. The rest of the group had remained fairly distant too. Of Mike and Ian he had seen not a sign, although both of their luggage were still in the dormitory - he had looked - so it was apparent that they had not checked out altogether. In contrast, Stefan’s possessions had mysteriously disappeared. Someone had done a proficient job of erasing all evidence. Norbert had caught up with him briefly in the kitchen, while he had been preparing a light supper for himself the previous evening. He had thanked him for the attitude he had taken. He had said that he - Stuart - would never know how grateful he - Norbert - was to him. He had said that they must all stick together; that everything would be all right. He had described returning the rental car; there had been no questions asked. He had gone on to describe the bike ride that he had taken that day with Corrie, and particularly about how Corrie had been bitten by a local dog, which had dashed out from one of the private residences and attacked her in the road. Nothing serious, he hastened to add, just a flesh wound, he had bent down to indicate an area just above the ankle, but you cannot be too careful. They were going to have to return to the main island shortly to make sure that she received a course of rabies shots. Not immediately. Just a precaution. There was plenty of time. Corrie had been sleeping by the time he had taken to his own bed, sleep perhaps being the surest way to block out the continuing dilemma that must have occupied all of their minds, and he had not spoken to either her or Norbert again.
Stuart was surprised how innocent the scene looked. A small expanse of white sand, only broken by a thin line of brown and drying seaweed at the ridge that indicated high water mark, and a narrow band of tall palm trees, which did not provide as much privacy for the beach from the road as they had appeared to do in the darkness of night, thirty six hours previously. He was able to identify the fallen trunk, at the northern end of the beach, on which he had had his conversation with Jenny. He did not know what he expected. Perhaps, he half-imagined there would be an accusing hand sticking out through the sands, or the waves would have completely uncovered the body and it would be there, in the shallow water, floating, bloated and lonely, rocked backwards and forwards in the caress of the ocean. Instead, there was nothing. A coconut, dark and hairy, bobbing in the water, waiting to be cast up on shore, but nothing else.
He was aware that his gaze had not entirely focused on the area where, as far as he could tell, Stefan would still be buried, several feet beneath the sands. It was like a little blind spot in his vision: he could fix on the sea, he could scan across the trees, even look at the sands at the edge of the beach, but that small patch closest to the centre of the grove was unobtainable. In its place, he imagined Stefan’s face, and found that he could not meet him eye-to-eye. He had to force himself to look at the beach, first, from the safety of the palms, and then, to convince himself that the job of concealment really had been completed as thoroughly as it appeared, he took several hesitant steps across the sand, until he stood next to the spot where he pictured Stefan lay. Walking on top of dead people, he didn’t much like the idea. How much easier in churchyards, where headstones marked the spot, and tended paths indicated where you could step and where you would be invading some corpse’s right to personal space. He might have misjudged, he might be standing immediately above Stefan’s chest now, or treading on his face, compressing the sand ever so little, forcing it down, pressing the fine particles further up Stefan’s nostrils, or into the last corners of his already full mouth Stuart shifted his weight uncomfortably. There was a good side to thinking like this: it meant that he could not tell exactly where Stefan lay. There were no obvious signs of digging, of recent internment, of the secret beneath the sands. If Stuart could not tell where the body was buried, there was no reason for anyone else to chance upon it.
“Guilty conscience?”
Stuart had never been more startled.
Mike was sitting on the bank, leaning up against the smooth trunk of one of the palm trees. He looked as though he had been there for some considerable time, but Stuart knew this could not be the case. He assumed the New Zealander’s air of relaxed indifference was put on especially for his benefit. “Any signs?”
Stuart took one final look at the smooth, unblemished sand around him, only sullied by his own trail of footprints, and walked across to join Mike.
“We did a good job, yes?” Mike pressed.
It was Stuart’s turn to ask a question, “You’ve already been here?”
“Yes,” Mike was drawing out the explanation.
“This morning?”
“No, yesterday.” Then in an uncustomary lapse of honesty, “I didn’t have your self-control. I couldn’t keep away.”
“You know what they say about the guilty man ...?”
“Yes.”
There was a silence. Stuart picked up a smooth stone from among the dry, leaf debris at the base of the tree, and threw it with a lazy arm towards the water. It fell some yards short, making a short double hop across the sand, before coming to rest. “Feeling guilty?” Stuart asked, not looking the other man in the face.
“Yes,” said Mike, quietly.
“Me too.”
The silence continued for some time. It should have been a perfect morning. The lagoon was agitated by the most delicate of touches, the breeze cooling and constant, removing the uncomfortable oppression of the sun’s heat. The palm fronds were rustling, an almost cognitive communication, it was possible to imagine them, triffid-like, engaging in basic conversation. Stuart recalled standing in a similar position as this, watching the sea, lost in his own thoughts, the first day that he had arrived on the island; he had never felt so free. Thoughts of home, of family, of friends, all seemed so very far away as to be from a different era, or to belong to a different person. Here there were no problems, no worries, no negatives. It seemed like a long time ago now.
Mike had risen to his feet, “Let me show you something. It’s why I came back here again today. I can’t stop thinking about it. See what you think.”
Puzzled, Stuart followed Mike, to the southern extreme of the stretch of beach, to a point furthest distant from Stuart and Jenny’s fateful log. Here the palm trees were slightly more densely clumped together, offering a welcome shade as the sun reemerged from the cloud it had momentarily passed behind. The white sand was covered with a jetsam of black seaweed, left marooned and stranded by the high tide. Among the dry and dying weeds, tiny sand fleas were visible, hopping in random patterns, like hot coals leaping from a fire.
“There.” Mike pointed to the soft ground between two trees, one characteristic, split lengthways in two, one half bowed and folded over, barely maintaining its vertical credibility, supported only by leaning on its closest compatriot, like a closing-time drunk staggering to stay upright. He continued, “Maybe it’s just me. Am I being paranoid?”
At first, Stuart could not see what it was that Mike was indicating. There was nothing that seemed particularly out-of-place in this location. Then the implication of what he was looking at sunk in, “You mean the bike track?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think ...?”
“I don’t know.
Maybe.”
“But it could have been made at any time.”
“I know. I’m not saying there was definitely someone else there that evening, I’m just saying ...” He held his arms open and shrugged his shoulders, at the same time puffing out his lower lip, in a body language expression of ‘who knows?’. “There’s a cigarette stub too.” Mike kicked at the grubby butt with the toe of his trainers so that Stuart could see.
For some reason he could not understand, Stuart found himself picking up the half-smoked tube and sniffing it experimentally. He was no Sherlock Holmes, though: it held no clues for him. He flicked it into the undergrowth.
“You would have seen someone smoking?” he asked, finally.
“Perhaps,” said Mike, “We were pretty busy though, we might not.”
“The light would have stood out in the darkness. You would have seen the light?”
“You would have thought so, but, if he kept well back in the shadows.” That shrug and puffy lip again.
Stuart was trying to sound positive, “Well, the bike. The track marks are pretty wide. This wasn’t made by a push-bike, it must have been a pretty powerful motorbike...” He stopped in mid-sentence, suddenly remembering the offer of a lift he had received that evening as he had walked back from the festivities in Viatape.
“What?” said Mike.
Stuart regained his composure, “A motorbike is not exactly quiet. You would have heard something.”
“We did hear a couple of cars going past on the road.”
“But nothing stopping?”
“Not as far as we could tell.”
“Well, there you are then. Nothing to worry about.”
Mike slapped Stuart across the back, “God, you’re right mate. And to think I was a mess all day yesterday thinking about this. You’re right no one could have seen us. Stupid of me. Nothing to worry about, eh?”
No worries: the Antipodean philosophy of life. It works by transference.