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‘See you later, Lottie.’
‘Hang on. I’ll ask Andy if I can come with you. You shouldn’t be alone tonight after what’s happened.’
‘Oh, no, Lottie, you don’t have to do that. I’m fine. It’s not as though Jake and I are an item or anything. It was just two people having dinner. Look, I promise to come down for breakfast in the morning and we can chat about what happened at our leisure.’
‘Well, if you’re sure…’ Lottie’s ski-slope nose crinkled in doubt.
‘I’m sure. Thanks for the brandy. It was exactly what I needed. Bye.’
Millie gave Lottie a quick hug and dashed outside to the taxi. The storm had passed but the rain was still lashing down with abandon on the town’s rooftops. She slid into the back seat and Clavie, who probably possessed some kind of sixth sense, drove quickly and in silence up the hill towards the villa. As she had expected, he stopped at the bottom of the driveway.
‘Sorry, Millie.’
‘It’s okay, Clavie. I’ll be fine. Thanks.’
She shoved a few notes into his hand, anxious to escape into her thoughts. She stood and watched the red taillights disappear, then turned to make her way up the drive. She had taken only a couple of paces when the full blast of her predicament engulfed her senses and she burst into huge racking sobs. Her tears mingled with the raindrops that were falling like glass spears onto the wide-brimmed foliage above her head, making her feel even worse. She scrambled around in her bag for a tissue, but within seconds it was a sodden mess of paper.
A parrot chose that moment to launch itself from the treetops and she screamed, but the sound was swallowed into the shadows and extinguished. She hurled herself up the incline, gulping in mouthfuls of soup-like air. The humidity and overwhelming intensity of nature’s bounty threatened to overwhelm her. A cathedral of arboreal magnificence in the daylight it might be, but under the mantle of darkness it had morphed into a macabre pantomime of horrors in whose wings danced terror and fear. Was there a brigade of nocturnal animals roaming the forest waiting to pounce on her and maul her to death?
Yet the birds continued to twitter their night-time sonata, unaware of the panic burgeoning in their midst, and by the time she reached the courtyard outside the villa her thoughts had spiralled into another sphere of enquiry.
Why had Jake abandoned her at the restaurant? What had she ever done to him to deserve such inconsiderate treatment?
None of it made any sense and no matter which way she framed the questions, the treasure trove of answers was empty. And was it any wonder? The whole evening had been a catalogue of mysteries and strange behaviour. First Dylan acting as though nothing had happened despite her running after the jeep, shaking her hands in the air like a demented cheerleader, when he screeched away with his stash of worthless cocoa pods. Then Jake vanishing into thin air when all he had to do was tell her he wasn’t interested in a second date!
Millie was so absorbed in chasing her confusion down blind alleyways that she didn’t hear the purr of an engine approach her from behind and had she been of a more nervous disposition she would have needed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation when a car horn blasted from two feet away.
‘Hey, Millie! What are you doing standing out here? Oh my God, you’re drenched! Can I interest you in a warm fire and a nightcap?’
Millie had never been so relieved to see anyone in her life. She rushed towards Tim’s Roadster and jumped into the passenger seat. ‘Oh, Zach, you have no idea how pleased I am to see you,’ and she promptly burst into tears.
Zach remained silent during the five minutes it took to drive to his lodge in the grounds of the plantation. They lurched and leapt along the deep furrows of the earthen track like an excitable kangaroo, before finally skirting a fringe of tropical forest crammed with a brigade of banana trees. The rain eased to a sprinkle and an ivory moon appeared from behind the clouds to bathe the landscape in a mottled aura. It looked like a scene staged for a movie, but Millie felt as though she had landed a role in the horror genre rather than the romance genre.
Zach’s home could best be described as an old steamer boat moored against a dense arboreal backdrop. A wraparound wooden veranda gave the impression of a ship’s gangways which afforded a spectacular outlook over the whole estate. Clad in a mantle of vapour, the topography of the grounds had been obscured, but in the distance the peaks of the Pitons reared majestically above the sea, now calm and smooth like a piece of crumpled black tinfoil.
Any film director would be delighted at the cinematography of the setting. It was Oscar-winning.
‘Come on. Let’s get you warmed up. And before you ask, Lottie called me. She was worried about you. She also told me what happened with Jake, so you don’t have to rehash any of the sorry tale if you don’t want to.’
A concerto of excited barking sprang from behind the door as Zach grappled with the lock.
‘Okay, Binks, behave. We have a visitor.’
Zach grabbed the dog’s collar and fondled his silky ears before leading him to his tartan-lined basket next to the fireplace and settling him down with a reassuring pat and a dog biscuit from his pocket. He crossed to the wood-burning stove, chucked a couple of logs from the wire basket inside and lit a fire – just being with Zach had calmed her serrated nerves and soothed her soul. How did he do that?
‘Grab a seat and I’ll make us some coffee.’
Millie did as she was told and watched Zach open one of the cupboards in search of a jar of coffee. Even in Étienne’s kitchen she had not met with such meticulous organisation. She wasn’t surprised to see an array of jars of varying exoticness – spices, herbs, flavoured salts. It was the fact that every last label faced the front that shocked her – and she had come across her share of obsessive chefs. It was like a supermodel’s closet – winter, spring, summer, each item colour coordinated with handbag and shoes. She couldn’t resist further investigation.
‘Are these in alphabetical order?’
Zach removed the spice jar from her hand, returned it to its rightful place, and shooed her off into the sitting room.
‘Go and sit next to the fire and keep Binks company.’
Whilst Zach clattered around the tiny kitchen making coffee, Millie took the opportunity to survey the lounge area. Like the kitchen, the room was so tidy it squeaked. A display of intricately carved objects marched across the shelves above the fireplace and colourful, framed local artwork hung on the walls. A pair of high-tech binoculars lounging on the windowsill was the only item that seemed out of place.
To the left of the stove stood a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, its occupants inserted in meticulous descending order. Millie knew you could glean a great deal about a person from their reading material and was curious to know what type of books Zach preferred.Caring for Cocoa?Tropical Forest Management Techniques?The Art of Polite Conversation?
