CHAPTER ONE
I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.
Charlotte Brontë,Jane Eyre
Islas Del Penta, Panama, New Year’s Day
Sage woke early after a long night of broken sleep. The rising sun’s rays, already strong, were glaring through the dilapidated wooden shutters of her bedroom window. Not yet ready to face the world, she kept her eyes tightly closed. Her dry throat constricted as she tried to swallow. Lifting a hand to her face, she gingerly traced the swelling around her left eye. She suspected that the delicate bone beneath the eyebrow was broken and knew that this time, she would leave.
The sound of gentle breathing reminded Sage she was not alone in the bed. Carefully so as not to wake him, she pulled the solid, comforting warmth of her three-year-old son towards her and encircled him gently with her arms. The tempo of Hal’s rhythmic, sweet breaths soothed her jangled nerves sufficiently for her to finally open her eyes. She turned onto her back and gently moved away from the sleeping child. She found that she was fighting to keep her breathing even, strung out and taut in every frightened sinew. Today was going to be fraught with complications. Her husband and his mother would make herescape from the island as difficult as possible. She had guessed that Santiago would not have slept in their bed last night – he rarely did any more – but she was apprehensive nevertheless and looked around the large room, which was somehow still elegant despite its shabby state. Reassured to find that she and Hal were alone, she let out another sigh into the warm and heavy air; one of relief this time, which she had not realized she had been holding in.
Young women all over the world had mourned when American playboy racing driver and renowned bachelor Santiago Deverill had married her. She knew that even now, people still envied her. They saw the nineteenth-century plantation estate set on this Pacific island with its hundred acres surrounding the grand but crumbling colonial mansion where she was raising their child, and immediately reached the conclusion that Sage Deverill must be happy. Happiness, however, had eluded Sage for the last four years.
Hearing the muffled squawks of her mother-in-law’s African grey parrot from the confines of its cage on the veranda below the window, Sage sat up cautiously and edged her way over to the side of the bed, taking care not to wake Hal, still peacefully sleeping. She hoped, as she swung her legs off the side of the bed, that she would have a chance to compose some semblance of a plan before he woke. She pulled on an old pair of denim cut-off shorts and a faded blue linen shirt that she had been wearing the day before, then swept her thick, tangled hair off her hot neck and tied it into a hurried plait. She bent down to pick up her espadrilles with one hand before grabbing her dark glasses from the dressing table with the other.
It was dawn, a quarter past six, and the temperature already felt as if it was up in the thirties. Sage felt the stifling, humid heat closing in on her as she stepped out into the stale air of the hallway. She yearned for a sharp, white, frosty English morning.A wave of homesickness crashed over her without warning, causing her to let out an involuntary sob. She clapped a hand over her mouth as though to trap in the grief. Squaring her shoulders and sucking in a deep, steadying breath, she padded purposefully across the polished teak floorboards on bare feet.
As she passed the mirror that hung in the gloom of the ornate upstairs landing, she paused at the sight of her reflection and winced; her green, swollen eyelid was casting a purple shadow over her high cheekbone like some sort of grotesque stage make-up. Carefully, she put on the glasses and crept downstairs.
The maids had not started work yet; all the downstairs shutters were still closed and a putrid smell of stale cigarette smoke hung heavily in the semi-darkness. Sage found the front door ajar and pushed it open, stepping out onto the enclosed wooden veranda that wrapped around the huge house. The bamboo blinds had been lowered but enough of the morning light was shining through to show the scattered debris from last night’s after-party. Empty bottles were strewn across the tables and floor, and every available surface was crowded with empty glasses, overflowing ashtrays and discarded packets of cigarettes. Beneath the bright, beating sunshine, Sage could see a similar extent of wreckage surrounding the pool outside.
At the far end of the veranda, on a chaise longue, lay a supine body which Sage recognized as that of her husband. She approached cautiously, willing him not to regain consciousness, but as she got closer she heard his comatose snoring and knew that it was safe for a while at least; he would not wake easily now. One of Santiago’s arms was hanging limply to the ground, his hand still clutching a crystal tumbler filled with amber liquid. Rum always brought out the very worst in him. Sage angrily swiped away a tear, furious at herself for still caring, enraged that she still felt anything for the man who had hurt her, timeand time again. It had not always been like this. She had fallen in love with his fun side – he could be sweet and amusing and would know how to lift your mood – but he was no longer remotely kind to her; his mother had seen to that. He was still undeniably the life and soul of every party.Too much party, though, Sage thought ruefully, as she noticed the remains of the lines of white powder that had been regimentally lined up on the glass tabletop.
She examined her husband a little more closely. His handsome face looked dreadful and considerably older than his twenty-eight years. His dark hair was greasy with dried sweat. Red veins threaded along puffy cheeks, under closed feline eyes, his golden, sunburnt skin looked as dry as paper, crinkling where it touched the cushion, and Sage noticed, shuddering with revulsion, that he had white discharge trickling out of one broken-veined nostril. She wondered how many girls had been there last night. It was the first time that Santiago had actually brought the party back to the house. Normally he kept his extracurricular activities at a distance, but not last night. Things had taken a turn. It still hurt horribly but knowing that she was finally going to leave managed to lessen the usual pain and somehow made it feel more distant; almost as though it were affecting someone else.
Santiago’s phone, as ever almost surgically attached to him, lit up and buzzed next to his head, startling Sage, but still he did not move. The rank smell of tobacco smoke was starting to make her feel sick, so with one last look at her handsome, abusive, pathetic husband, she hurried back inside to check on their son.
She was still careful to tread lightly as she passed through the downstairs hall, for the last thing she wanted was to alert her mother-in-law, who would be upstairs in the master bedroom. When Sage first arrived at Finca Azucar, she had been fullof hope. Santiago had been depressed and irritable since the accident that forced him to retire a few months previously with a busted shoulder. A change of scene seemed the answer to it all when Lucilla had asked Santiago to return. It was the most beautiful house on the island and she had tried to make it her home; she had been nervous about being so isolated so she had tried, every day, to forge some sort of relationship with Lucilla and had genuinely wanted the cold older woman to like her. Lucilla had always treated Sage like an unwelcome visitor though. She would mostly ignore Sage but if she did speak to her, she would feign forgetfulness and call her ‘Lotta’, who had been Santiago’s previous girlfriend. Sage had not really even particularly minded that; she’d been so fiercely lonely that at first she had just been pitifully grateful to be addressed at all. Now she found the silent treatment easier to bear.
Lucilla had been there the previous afternoon. Santiago had been high on drugs and already full of alcohol when Sage had tentatively suggested that he might drink less rum and more water. Santiago had smacked Sage with the back of his hand, sending her across the drawing room and into his new enormous flat-screen television, which had smashed on impact. It was not the first time he had hurt her but it was the first time he had purposefully hit her, and this time it had been in front of Hal and Lucilla. Their young son had been paralysed with fear, while Lucilla had simply looked the other way and moved into the hall to rearrange a vase of lilies. Sage had scooped up a shaking, ashen Hal and fled with him in her arms to the sanctuary of their bedroom. Not just frightened but furious, she had finally stopped believing she could, or should, make her marriage work. Hal had been traumatized, sobbing and shaking until he finally fell asleep in her arms. Sage, in that moment, vowed to get him away from Islas Del Penta as soon as physically possible. She would do whatever was necessary to protect him.
The four long years that Sage had been at Finca Azucar had been extremely isolated. It had started with small things, like Santiago insisting he always do the driving. But then as time went on neither Santiago nor Lucilla had allowed Sage to drive any of their three cars, claiming the roads were too dangerous. Sage had not wanted to get a job as she had refused to have a nanny raise their son, so she spent all day caring for Hal, and the tasks that would take her out of the house, which was miles away from anywhere, and into town were increasingly delegated to the staff instead. This meant she was perennially strapped for cash, as Santiago kept a tight hold on the purse strings, and it had become increasingly difficult for her to leave the plantation. Lucilla would send the staff home if Sage and Santiago ever planned to go out for an evening so that there was no one to look after Hal and then Lucilla would go with Santiago herself, leaving Sage alone to look after the sleeping child.
Sage had spent much of her time in Panama aching from loneliness and longing to go back to England, but Santiago’s increasing violence lately had made her homesickness almost palpable. A few months ago, Sage had again raised the idea of a trip back home so that Hal could meet his great-grandparents again. The bruises on her wrist had taken weeks to fade. Then two weeks ago, Sage had found Santiago passed out on the veranda. He had been out all night and found the house locked up when he got back in the small hours so he had slept outside on one of the sofas. Sage had tried to wake him up the next morning, not wanting Hal to see his father in such a booze-addled state. When he had not woken up she had, as a last and desperate measure, poured a jug of water over him and he had gone ballistic, shoving her into the wall, pulling her hair, breaking her mobile phone and spitting in her face. Sage had been seriously frightened. The Santiago she had once loved was now unrecognizable. That had been a pivotal moment for her,the catalyst that proved her marriage was not worth persevering with. She knew she had to get Hal away from Panama, and last night had just consolidated her plans and made her determined to move faster.
She climbed the dark wooden staircase, taking care to avoid the steps that creaked, and as she reached her room, she saw that the door was open. Her heart began to thump in her chest as adrenaline coursed through her veins. If Lucilla were in there, it would mean some sort of confrontation. She could not remember her mother-in-law ever having entered her bedroom before.
She gently pushed against the door and stepped into the room with trepidation. Her pulse quickened as she saw Lucilla sitting on the bed, staring down at the sleeping form of Hal, his golden limbs loose and wrapped around the white sheets, his blonde mop of hair tousled upon his brown forehead, his full lips slightly open. It was still only half past six and Sage wanted to let him sleep for as long as possible after the trauma of yesterday, so she turned back to the door, knowing that Lucilla would follow in pursuit of her quarry. She padded softly down the stairs, through the dark maze of corridors and into the musty kitchen; then, with a thrust of her hip against the swollen wood that always caused it to stick, she pushed open the back door and stepped outside.
Sage loved the kitchen garden; it was an untamed jungle full of colour, where the green and pink bougainvillea climbed up the hanging vines like the roots of the bearded fig trees, and where mischievous green monkeys chattered and threw mango stones at each other from the roofs of the greenhouses. A deep natural gully lay beyond the vegetable patch, where poisonous manchineel trees grew in the brackish water of the mangroves leading down towards the ocean and the delicate early blossom on the pink trumpet trees that hung above them grew on thebanks like soft candyfloss clouds. Papaya trees stood sentinel around the garden, luring the wild birds away from the vegetables with their generous offerings of fruit. Hal had grown up playing happily out there with Sage. It had served as a kind of sanctuary for them, for Lucilla and Santiago rarely ventured into the kitchen garden, preferring instead the straight lines of the manicured lawns on the west side of the house, where the pool and tennis courts could be found. Inhaling a jagged breath of sweet, earthy air, Sage turned around as she heard Lucilla’s footsteps coming determinedly through the kitchen. She resolutely raised her chin, readying for battle.
Lucilla had been a relatively unremarkable middle-aged American woman before her dashing husband Juan had left her, a little overweight perhaps but attractive and usually dressed in expensive but outdated clothes as Juan had eventually managed to get through all of her money on fast living. Since the divorce three years earlier, she had lost almost three stone and cut her black hair to a short crop that now stood up in spikes and made her look like a furious, startled raven. She was wearing a frilled white shirt and a pair of ludicrously tight red cycling shorts; these accentuated her newly defined thighs although Sage could not help noticing that Lucilla’s skin now hung off her bones, reminding her of the turkey that had become a pet after her grandmother had given it a reprieve one Christmas when she was a child. Sage had initially tried hard to connect with the older woman – she had felt desperately sad for her losing her husband – but Lucilla had spurned any show of affection or kindness. She had poured cups of tea that Sage had made her down the sink while Sage had watched. She had given away birthday and Christmas gifts, which Sage had painstakingly chosen for her, to the staff. Lucilla would pretend she did not hear Sage talking and just speak over the top of her as though she was not there. Sage’s instinct was that while grief hadworsened her behaviours, Lucilla had always had a mean streak. Finally, Sage had given up trying.
She decided to get straight to the point, feeling almost liberated by fear and emboldened by adrenaline.
‘Lucilla, I can’t stay here any more. Hal and I are leaving Finca Azucar. We are leaving the island entirely. We are going home as soon as I can get us a flight on the mainland. I really need our passports.’
Having started in a hushed tone, her voice quickly became louder and slightly shrill, and her amber eyes filled with tears as she looked at Lucilla and wrung her hands together in anguish. A more compassionate person would have taken pity on the young mother with worry etched into the lines of her open, pretty face, but Lucilla was not a kind-hearted woman. Instead, she impatiently reached out her hand and hooked a long finger around the arm of Sage’s dark glasses, causing Sage to flinch slightly as she pulled them off.
‘Lotta. I mean – Sage,’ she began, wrinkling her upturned nose and drawing out the word to make it sound like an insult, ‘you may leave by all means. Go ahead, but Santiago and I will not allow you to take the child. And you will not upset Santiago, not again.’
Sage almost laughed but the hypocrisy stuck painfully in her throat, making her cough instead, and tears started to roll down her cheeks in protest. Yesterday, Santiago had been totally out of control, his behaviour had been inexcusable – and both Sage and Lucilla knew it.
Forcing herself to avoid a futile sparring match, she gulped back the unfairness of Lucilla’s words. She would have to find another way. As she turned to go back into the house she heard Lucilla hiss, ‘You won’t get a penny from us, do you hear? When you leave this house, that will be the end of it – once and for all.’
Lucilla watched her daughter-in-law with narrowed eyes,hoping her message was clear. She and Santiago were a team: one that would triumph.
‘Is that what you think? That it’s money I care about? I don’t want anything from you, Lucilla – or from Santiago. If you just let us go in peace, I won’t ask for anything else. I promise. It’s what we both know that you really want. Now you can have Santiago all to yourself.’
