The Last Murder at the end of the World

THIRTY-EIGHT

‘Seth,’ I say, finally pulling the heavy blanket off his mind. ‘Wake up, I need you now.’

He grunts in his sleep, clumsily wiping a drop of seawater from his face.

‘Something’s happened. Wake up.’

Blinking, he finds himself lying in the bottom of the Broad Bottom Packet, his legs over the rear seat, his face staring up at the blue sky.

‘What the –’

He bolts upright in shock, finding himself still at sea, the anchor down. The island’s high cliffs are on his right, the blue and white lighthouse still flashing its warning. His clothes are covered in dried blood.

His hands scramble across his chest and thighs, trying to locate the source, but his only injury is a circular gouge on his calf, that’s nowhere near deep enough to be the cause.

‘The blood isn’t yours,’ I say.

That calms him, but only a little. The last thing he remembers was arriving at the mooring jetty under the lighthouse. He tied the boat up and …

‘Adil was there,’ he mutters, struggling for the memory. ‘He was waiting for us.’

‘Niema ordered me to wipe your memory of everything after that,’ I say. ‘Don’t strain yourself trying to recall anything, because you won’t be able to.’

‘Where is she?’ he asks.

‘Dead,’ I reply. ‘Emory found her body this morning.’

‘No, that’s not possible,’ he says, shaking his head stubbornly. ‘We were just talking.’

‘I’m sorry, Seth. I know you two were close.’

‘I was with her,’ he says, reeling. ‘I wouldn’t have let anything happen to her.’

‘There was nothing you could have done.’

For the next twenty minutes, he simply sits there, his eyes unfocused, his mind unmoored, swinging between denial and confusion.

I wish there was something I could do for him, but I know there’s not. I’ve watched hundreds of villagers lose loved ones and I’ve learned that the only guaranteed defence against grief is not loving at all.

Truthfully, I’m surprised more of them don’t consider it. Anybody whose hands occasionally catch fire should probably think about cutting them off.

‘You need to take the boat back to the village,’ I say softly. ‘It may help us understand what happened last night.’

He doesn’t respond.

‘It’s time to go,’ I say, in his thoughts. ‘Emory’s been charged with solving Niema’s murder. She’ll need to see this boat.’

‘Emory?’ he repeats, bewildered.

‘She’s being of service,’ I say. ‘The way you always wanted her to be.’

He picks up the oars and is about to row away when he notices a folded piece of paper on the floor of the boat.

He smooths out the creases, discovering a drawing of a party, done in charcoal. It must be one of Magdalene’s, he thinks.

Niema’s standing with Hui near the bird bath. The younger girl is clutching her violin, looking crestfallen, while Niema reassures her. Clara’s sitting on a bench, carving one of her birds, while the band plays and people dance.

The wind catches the corner of the page, trying to rip it from his hand. As it snaps back and forth, he realises there’s a diagram on the back. Squares and lines connected by numbers. They’re in his handwriting, which is perplexing, because he has no idea what they could mean.

Movement catches his eyes.

A silhouetted figure has appeared on the cliffs high above him, carrying something in its arms. It drops the bundle over the edge, then disappears out of sight.

Frowning, Seth points the boat towards the coast.