‘I never did get to see the original,’ Austin went on.
‘I’m afraid it completely disintegrated,’ said Cass.
‘I threw it away,’ said Delphine. ‘There’s enough paper in this house that you can read without keeping the scraps.’
None of this was true. Cass still had the original map, hidden in the secret pocket in her daypack, along with a copy of the new map and her drawing of that particular part of the forest.
Becca was looking intrigued. Ranulph told her the story of the petroglyph.
‘The map was of where Bastian’s father thought it was,’ he finished.
‘He never saw it himself,’ said Bastian after shooting a cross look at Austin. ‘But he met a man who used to pass it every day on his way to his garden which was a little bit of land he’d cleared. He tended it every day. This man drew a map which he gave to my father when he heard he was interested in the petroglyph.’ He paused. ‘Years ago, my father and Cass’s father went to look for it.’
Cass broke in. ‘Somehow the map ended up with my father’s things. He was horrified when he realised he had it, and asked me to bring it to Bastian. Then there was the hurricane.’
‘And before you ask,’ said Austin, ‘we took the mapand looked for the petroglyph and it wasn’t there. Probably never had been.’
‘What a shame,’ said Becca, who, thought Cass, was looking at everyone as if trying to work out what was going on.
‘Not from my point of view,’ said Austin, happy to take centre stage. ‘I have a book due to be delivered to my publisher soon. I just needed to clear up a couple of details. Which I have now done, but of course I can’t get off this bloody island!’ He laughed, as if he was joking, but no one was convinced. Cass noticed that he had also failed to mention that there was a large prize going for research writings about early Caribbean peoples, and that Bastian’s own extended paper was also eligible.
‘So now we’ve established the facts,’ Austin continued, ‘I’m trying to find out when there’ll be flights off the island. I need to get home to the States.’
‘Possibly not for months,’ said Delphine.
‘I can’t wait months!’ Austin protested. ‘I’m on a deadline.’
‘So leave the way you arrived,’ said Delphine with a shrug. ‘On a fishing boat.’
Austin shook his head. ‘No way! I was so sick I wanted to die.’
‘Well, if you can’t fly and you won’t go on a boat, what are you going to do?’ asked Bastian.
Austin shrugged. ‘I plan to get to Roseau. There might be someone with a private plane who could give me a lift.’
‘But the airport is on this end of the island,’ saidRanulph. ‘Roseau is over a mountain and on the other side.’
‘I reckon the money – and so the private jets and helicopters – are where the capital is,’ said Austin.
‘He’s right,’ said Delphine. ‘There are places where helicopters land or take off. They take rich people to see the Boiling Lake.’
‘We walked to the Boiling Lake,’ said Becca. ‘Do you remember, Ran? All those years ago. It was some hike! Took all day but it ended with that amazing swim in Titou Gorge.’
‘It was one of the highlights of my visit,’ said Ranulph. Cass couldn’t avoid seeing the warmth in his eyes as he reminisced.
‘It is such an amazing place,’ Becca went on. ‘All that bubbling sulphurous mud.’
‘So there are helicopters on the island at the moment?’ asked Austin.
Delphine shrugged dramatically. ‘How can we possibly know? All the rich people may have got into their choppers and fled when they heard a hurricane was on its way.’
‘But they might have come back,’ suggested Bastian, possibly horrified at the thought of being trapped with Austin for months. ‘Without any regular flights, there would be money to be made getting people off the island.’
‘That would be fine by me,’ said Austin. ‘It would be expensive, but worth it.’
‘You know,’ said Becca thoughtfully, ‘I did hear of someone with a small plane taking people who canafford to pay. He only goes with a full load though. That might be another possibility.’
‘Hallelujah! There is a way out of this godforsaken place!’ said Austin. Then, obviously realising just how rude he had been, he said, ‘Dominica is beautiful, of course, but I need a bit more civilisation.’
