Angel of Death

Sean was charged that evening. Edward Dearing saw him alone afterwards. By then Sean was pale and drained, his face puffy, as if he had been crying, his body limp.

‘I want to see my dad.’

‘I’m afraid he can’t come today, Sean. He’s had to go away for a couple of days.’

‘Gone away?’ the boy repeated blankly. ‘While I’m going through all this, he’s gone away?’

‘Yes, but he’ll be back soon.’

‘Where the hell has he gone that’s so important just now?’

Dearing hesitated, frowning. Walls had ears, especially in police stations.

‘I can’t tell you that, but, believe me, he only has your welfare at heart.’

The boy’s face contorted viciously. ‘Oh, yeah, sure. He hasn’t scarpered because he doesn’t want to be mixed up with me now I’m up on a murder charge?’ He lay down on his front, on the cell bed and hid his face in the crook of his arm.

‘Buzz off if you can’t do nothing for me, you useless bastard,’ he muttered.

Edward looked at the back of the boy’s head with dislike. That was all the thanks you got for slaving away all day on his behalf. It had been a long and difficult day, and Edward was very tired. He bit back the angry retort that had risen to his tongue, knocked on the inside of the cell door, and left without a word.

Left alone, Sean wept angrily.

Why was this happening to him? He had always thought of himself as lucky. His life had seemed a charmed one. Not any more. Everything was going wrong.

Miranda could not get back to sleep, so at first light she got up and put on her swimsuit, slipped into a towelling robe and sandals, to walk down to the beach, carrying a towel. A swim would help her face the day ahead. After that largely sleepless night she was overheated, weary, stupid with misery and fear.

As she walked along the winding paths through the gardens, she watched the sun coming up out of the sea, a bright orange, hot and glowing, as if made of fiery iron, streaking the sky with colour, pink and red, like blood seeping into the pale, pale blue, beginning to fill the world with light, showing her the way down to the beach. She heard the waves louder and louder, the cry of gulls, the tumbling waves crawling up the beach.

Only a short time ago she had come down here at this hour and found Alex in the sea. He had come up out of the water and grabbed her.

Her heart hurt as she remembered being in his arms that morning, felt his kiss on her mouth.

She ran a sweating hand over her face. She wouldn’t think about him. It was over now, she must begin to forget or she really would go mad.

She slowly took off her robe and laid it down with her towel on top of it, kicked off her sandals and placed them beside the robe, then began to walk down the beach. The water was chilly at this hour of the morning, before the sun warmed it up. She slid down into the sea, gasping, and struck out. A moment later she saw a boat round the high rocks guarding one side of the bay.

White sails billowed. There were two men on board, moving about, pulling on ropes, navigating.

Miranda began to swim, staying cautiously in the shallows. It was safe enough, on this beach, if you stayed close to shore, but she feared the sea. It was as unpredictable as a wild cat, striking at you when you least expected it. It had taken Tom. She had never got over that.

The boat came nearer. One of the men on board hailed her in Greek. She trod water, lifting her head to hear him.

‘Meea keereea . . .’ The other words were drowned by the sound of the waves sloshing about around the boat.

‘Leepa me,’ she said, after saying she was sorry, she didn’t know enough Greek to understand what he had said.

He leant over the side of the boat and she swam closer to hear him better.

He reached down his hands and caught hold of her shoulders.

‘What are you doing?’ Miranda breathlessly said in Greek, feeling herself being lifted, pulled up into the boat. ‘Let go of me!’

A second later she was over the side and slithering wetly down on to the boards in the bottom of the boat.

The man who had dragged her up into the boat bent and picked her up. Terrified, she struggled, screaming.