She pulled on some clothes, took the map out of its hiding place and went to Bastian’s study. Everything except the map was waiting for her on the desk.
She put on her head torch and taped the tracing paper to the map, glad that Bastian had all the right equipment, including fine-nibbed pens.
It was strange, she realised, to be doing this more or less by moonlight, but she found it calming. She was good at this sort of thing, something everyone, including her, tended to forget.
Something made her look up. It was Austin.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Drawing.’ Cass couldn’t very well pretend she wasn’t drawing, after all.
‘What are you drawing?’
‘Why are you up?’ she said, trying to buy herself some time to think of an answer.
‘I went to the bathroom, saw you in here. Why are you up?’
‘Well, I went to bed ridiculously early,’ Cass said. ‘When I woke up and knew I’d never get back to sleep I decided to use the time to finish something I had been working on before.’ This all sounded very plausible. Some of it was even true.
‘What are you drawing?’ He came into the room and looked at her work.
‘I’m redrawing the map,’ she said, feeling she couldn’t pretend otherwise. ‘The one showing how to find the petroglyph. It’s very fragile and difficult to read in places.’ She couldn’t think of a single thing she could have said instead of the simple truth.
He nodded. ‘Well, don’t make any mistakes.’ Then, abruptly, he left the room.
Cass stared after him. Of course it was weird that she was drawing the map in the middle of the night but his manner as he left had been as if she was a draughtsperson employed by him to do a job.
Making mistakes was never part of her plan, she realised. But things could change.
She awoke late the following morning and her first thought was to see how Ranulph was. He wasn’t in his bed so she hurried with her dressing and went to the table on the veranda where everyone seemed to be.
‘How are you, Ranulph?’ she asked, having giventhe table the most cursory nod. She went to him and put her hand on his leg, which was propped on a chair. ‘It doesn’t seem hot. That’s good.’
‘Everyone has done that already,’ said Austin. ‘No one thought it was hot.’
‘He’s my patient,’ said Cass. ‘I have to make sure for myself.’
‘He’s doin’ well,’ said Delphine. ‘Now eat some breakfast.’
‘Did you finish redrawing the map last night, Cass?’ said Austin.
Cass nodded.
‘So when are we going to look for this petroglyph?’ Austin went on.
‘We should wait until Ranulph can walk,’ said Bastian. ‘It’s quite a trek.’
‘Ranulph doesn’t need to come,’ said Austin.
Ranulph cleared his throat as if to speak. Cass interrupted him. ‘We need Ranulph to be there,’ she said firmly.
‘If you say so,’ said Austin, looking at her. ‘But we definitely don’t need you. You’d slow us down.’
Cass studied him. Austin really didn’t like her, but that was fine, she didn’t like him either. ‘I am quite fit,’ she said. ‘I’ll keep up.’
‘She’s certainly fitter than I am,’ said Ranulph. ‘Currently.’
‘Let Bastian decide when to go,’ said Delphine. ‘He’s the one with local knowledge.’
