Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

I was sitting on the veranda of our hotel in Cuba. I was watching everyone else continue with their ordinary lives, the maids and the guards exchanging polite nods as they past each other. Carts rattled by, filled with used towels and empty bottles from the mini bars. Over friendly smiles were given to the people loaded with supplies for a day on the beach. All with rosy cheeks and burnt shoulders. I was glad to be in the shade, once again the sun was harsh and even in this early hour it seemed unmoving in the sky, always high and still growing in intensity.

I heard Lisa’s phone bleep from inside the room, then the crash against wood as she threw it down on the coffee table. She had made the phone call against her will, I knew this because I was the one who forced her into it. I had begged and pleaded with her to make that call. We both know it wasn’t an option that I might do it, she was more convincing than me in any situation, at any lie.

She poked her head around the French windows and motioned me to come inside, throwing a suspicious glance at the guard stationed against the outer fences, casually leaning against the mesh. We hadn’t told anyone what I had seen in the water, and to Lisa, anyone with a uniform was a threat. Once again her disconnected logic and lack of compassion baffled me. We had gone from hiding evidence to hiding a body.

‘What did they say?’ I asked as she flung the glass door shut with a heavy smack. I was glad to be back in the air-conditioned room.

She shook her head, ‘you were right,’ she admitted, though her eyes suggested she still thought I was wrong. ‘He doesn’t eat.’

I nodded. In some ways it was what I wanted to hear, but I still suppressed a shiver. I already knew we were dealing with madness, I knew where he was, I had been there, I just hadn’t realised the level of insanity. The investigation was dragging me kicking and screaming to places I didn’t want to go.

Lisa looked so tired, there were dark patches under her eyes and she had the drawn gaunt look of the very ill. There were more creases on her face than I remembered from the last time I looked at her.

‘The doctor told me something really strange,’ she said,’ he told me Jarl ate the food, but the plates came back full.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘It’s suggestion,’ Lisa explained, her face resuming the look of calm I was used to, being more knowledgeable than me about something seemed to restore her to normality. ‘You remember when he told you to go swimming?’ I nodded. ‘He must have suggested that exact spot, in something he did or said, he weighted the head,’ she hesitated only for a moment, ‘knowing you would find it.’

‘So he can influence people?’ I asked, then I remembered something, ‘in the doctor’s file, it said he had manipulated the staff. It’s like Derren Brown.’

Lisa narrowed her eyes at me, ‘you watch too much TV,’ the way she spoke made me ashamed of my lifestyle and everything I had done up to the point I had met her.

‘Do you think that’s why there’s no record of him?’ I was clutching at straws, but I had a theory. ‘You told me you haven’t found a trail through airports, the name doesn’t register anywhere. He can deceive people, fool them into believing a blank sheet of paper is a passport.’

Lisa snorted, ‘or he has a very good fake passport, it’s more likely.’

I had to agree with her internally, outwardly I still liked my crazy idea. I remembered the reason I had asked her to phone the hospital in the first place. ‘How long has he been in the hospital?’

‘Two weeks.’

I nodded, thinking about what this meant, ‘when they told you he didn’t eat, did they mean he has, a few times, just not recently, or he’s picky, or what?’

Lisa looked at the floor, she was wondering the same impossible thought as me. ‘No,’ she whispered, ‘every single meal, the plate comes back full, every single meal for two weeks.’ Her voice cracked, the silence hung between us.

‘Why haven’t they tried to force feed him?’

‘I told you,’ she shot back angrily, ‘he told them he ate the food.’

‘And the riots?’ This time my voice cracked.

‘Yes,’ she whispered, it was barely even a sound, ‘a patient died in the riots.’

We looked at each other, I needed to absorb all this information, it was taking a lot of effort. ‘Jarl is a cannibal?’ She was on the verge of laugher, ‘you know how stupid we sound to even think about this.’

‘Not just Jarl,’ I said, ‘the children in Norway, didn’t they try to bite you?’ She nodded, we had both been thinking about it.

‘A rehab centre in France,’ I was speaking more to myself than her, ‘it’s a cult.’

‘A cult?’ Lisa put her head in her hands and leaned over the coffee table until her hair was scraping the surface. ‘The more we find out, the more impossible it all seems.’ She sighed deeply, the sound raked through her.

Now I saw her like this, desperate and confused, it was time to suggest the thing I had been too afraid to say. If there ever was a time, this was it. I placed my hand uncertainly on her back, I had flash backs of our kiss the night before. ‘You know who killed Angelica,’ I tested, ‘isn’t that what you wanted.’ I let that sink in, ‘isn’t it time we went home?’

Her neck snapped up with inhuman speed, she stood up from the coffee table and walked across the room, her back to me. I was afraid I had broken her, pushed her over the edge. Years seemed to pass as she stood there.

‘You really think that’s enough?’ She asked, her voice thick with emotion. ‘You were there, at the hospital, it’s so clean you could lick the floors.’

I nodded, realising what she meant, ‘but he’s not well,’ I admitted, ‘it’s not fair, but he belongs there.’

‘And how long do you think he’ll be there?’ She hissed back at me, ‘he can convince them he’s sane as any moment.’

‘He’s obviously tried,’ I reassured her, ‘and they haven’t fallen for it.’

‘But the riots?’ Lisa turned back to me, her eyes were red at the edges, but painfully dry. ‘How many people are going to die?’

‘So now you care about people dying?’ It had just slipped out, I hadn’t meant to hurt her, but it was true, she had never shown me any emotion, any indication that she cared about any death but Angelica’s.

‘Maybe I don’t,’ she admitted, I never thought she would, her voice was cruel and empty.

‘If you don’t care,’ I said, ‘give it up.’

‘You don’t understand,’ she threw her hands up in exasperation, she sounded like she was begging for something, ‘it’s for Angelica that I can’t give up now.’

‘You want revenge?’ I understood now, and it left me cold. Her eyes were wild and angry.

‘I want to find Alex,’ she whispered, ‘whoever he is.’ Everything went quiet, the cheerful voices outside even stopped.

‘Why?’

‘You saw Jarl’s face when we spoke about Alex,’ I couldn’t look in her eyes, ‘you saw how afraid he was, if Alex is going to hurt him, I want it to happen. If you Alex wants to kill Jarl, I say let him. Let him tear into him the way he killed my sister.’

‘You’re serious,’ I waited for the feeling to return to my chest, it was numb and solid.

‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘Jarl is scared of Alex, and I want to know why.’

‘You want to carry on digging?’ I realised how unenthusiastic and scared I sounded.

‘I have to,’ she said blankly, ‘you don’t have to come with me, but whether you do or not, I am.’

I shrugged, I realised how pathetic it must’ve looked, maybe that was what sparked her anger. She laughed coldly at me, ‘you just wanted to play detective,’ she spat, ‘you want to live out your TV fantasies, but as soon as you see something that scares you, you want to go home.’

‘You just told me that you could do it alone,’ now it was my turn to be angry, ‘besides, I’ve seen a lot of things that scare me, I’ve been through everything you have. Feral children, funerals without bodies, I’ve been held at gunpoint, I’ve met a murderer. All this time I’ve followed you.’

‘So that makes it okay to leave me now?’

‘You told me I didn’t have to come!’ I repeated louder, angrier.

‘I didn’t really mean that,’ she admitted, she sounded almost shy, ‘I thought you would, it helps to have someone around who’s more afraid than me.’

And she had gone back to offhandedly insulting me again. I groaned in frustration, ‘you want to go Havana,’ I said through my hands.

‘I want to find out what Project 45 is,’ she said, the resolution and determination shining through, ‘I want to find Alex, and I want to end this whole thing.’