‘Yes.’

‘DeShaun Riley. I’m doing forensics on the island.’

Miles had met the man earlier. He had taken the Mini Moke out to the west beach that afternoon to see how he was getting on.

‘Can you meet me by the boathouse? As soon as you can. There’s something I need to show you.’

Miles frowned, feeling a flicker of distress. The boathouse? What the fuck was he doing there? Hadn’t Detective Carlton said that the only scene-of-crime work was being done around the site where the body had been found? God, I knew it was a mistake to let Michael go back to George Town.

He grabbed a windcheater from his wardrobe and ran downstairs, where Alex and Grace were still sitting expectantly on the sofa.

‘I have to go out,’ he said, heading for the door.

‘Miles, we’re here to bloody talk!’ said Alex.

‘I won’t be long.’

Outside, the temperature seemed to have fallen by ten degrees and the first drops of rain were beginning to fall, spotting Miles’ expensive suede leather deck shoes. The quickest way to the boathouse was to weave through the mangrove at the back of the house. It was darkening as he walked through the forest, the wind beginning to rush through the treetops. I won’t go down for this, he told himself. I did nothing wrong.

As he approached the west beach, the vegetation thinned out and he could see glimpses of sand through the trees. A man was standing in the shelter of the rickety boathouse, but it was not DeShaun Riley.

‘Michael?’ said Miles with a puzzled expression. ‘What are you doing back? Where’s Riley?’

Michael waited until Miles had joined him him before he spoke. ‘I sent him away. I didn’t want anyone to overhear this.’

‘Overhear what?’

Michael’s expression was serious. ‘Miles, you have to tell me what happened that night.’

‘Why? What did the police say?’ said Miles, pulling his collar up against the cold.

‘Forget what the police do or don’t know. I am your lawyer, and if we’re going to fix this, I need to know the truth.’

Miles nodded; Michael was right, he supposed. So far, he had been selective with the information he’d told the lawyer, but then what really had happened? Over the last two decades he had rewritten history in his own mind. He remembered the key events: the spat with the boat boy when he’d caught him and Alex together. Finding out that the body on the beach had disappeared. The stolen Boston Whaler that had never reappeared. But everything in between had faded away, forced into some dark corner by his own reflex to protect himself.

‘Tell me, Miles,’ said Michael.

Miles felt a flicker of irritation at the expression on his lawyer’s face: hard and disapproving. That’s a bit rich, he thought, considering he paid Michael handsomely for his moral ambiguity. Still, he needed to tell him, even if it was only to cover every angle. He pulled a Camel Light packet from his shorts pocket, cupping his hand around the tip as he lit a cigarette.

‘I came to the island after our A levels with a bunch of friends,’ he began, breathing out a plume of smoke. ‘It was our last night and we got incredibly pissed. I’d been drinking absinthe, taking coke. I was a bit of a mess as I remember. Anyway, Alex and I went to the dunes for a smoke. We kissed. Just schoolboy stuff, messing around, but we’d been seen by this boat boy, who began taunting me. We had a fight. He ran away.’

He glanced at Marshall for a reaction, but the lawyer’s face was hidden in shadow. It was overcast now and Miles began to worry they might be caught in the storm.

‘After that, I went for a walk around the island. Maybe an hour later, I saw this boat boy again. He was drunk too, which I pointed out was reason enough to get him fired, the cocky little prick. So he starts having a go at me again. Called me a fag over and over. And then he tells me that he’s just fucked Sasha back in his quarters, because I wasn’t enough of a man to satisfy her.’

His mouth pressed into a sour line. He could still hear the boat boy’s whiny American voice now, taunting him. You fucking faggot. His words had been like acid and Miles had hated it, be

cause deep down he had known it was true, and it was the one thing about himself that he could not accept.

‘So you were angry?’ asked Marshall.

‘It made me mad,’ he snapped. ‘Of course it did! Sasha was bugging the shit out of me, but how dare that boat boy have sex with my girlfriend?’

‘So you killed him?’

‘No! At least,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘I didn’t think so. We fought, a bit of a tussle, but he had a beer bottle in his hand. Somehow I got hold of it and swung it . . .’

His voice tailed off. He screwed his eyes tightly and he could almost see the boat boy’s body crumple to the sand. In his rage, Miles had kicked him, and he remembered the feeling of sinking terror as he watched the body rolling down the dune on to the beach. He had been so scared. So scared. His first instinct was to go and tell his father, but Robert Ashford was such an unpredictable man, he couldn’t take the chance. It was the first time in his life he had felt absolutely alone, and even today, the thought of it made him shiver.

Tags: Tasmina Perry Romance
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