‘Where is he?’
‘I left him on the veranda. He knows I’m coming to talk to you.’ She paused for breath. ‘Do you know anything about ham radio?’
‘A little bit. I’ve had to use it a couple of times when I’ve been somewhere that’s cut off from the world.’
‘Bastian told Austin there was a set and he’s keen to get it going. But he can’t! I suggested you might be able to fix it.’ She paused and took a breath. ‘He thinks he might be able to pick up details of when a private plane is coming over to pick people up.’ She licked her dry lips. ‘He wants us to travel together.’
Ranulph frowned. ‘How do you feel about that?’
‘Not great, but I will if I have to.’
‘But why would you have to, Cass? It doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.’
She didn’t reply immediately.
‘Why would you do that, Cass?’ Ranulph persisted.
‘I’d forgotten I hadn’t told you. I’m going to do illustrations for Bastian’s entry for this prize. Bastian can draw but his father couldn’t. He wants me to redothose illustrations, or as many of them as I can. His work must be the best it can be if it’s going to win. Him winning would help the whole island. If Austin wins, he’ll just keep the money.’
‘So …?’
‘If the paper is finished, with illustrations, I can take it with me to somewhere it can be emailed to the competition before the deadline.’
‘Ah, now I understand—’
‘But the paper won’t be done unless you can do something to keep Austin out of my way, so I can get on and do the drawings. Austin will find a way to stop me if he thinks I’m helping Bastian.’
‘I don’t like that helping Bastian means you should travel with a man I think is a jerk—’
‘I know he’s a jerk. But he’s a jerk I have to keep onside! If you did the radio thing, at least we’d have control. Although if you fixed it, I’m sure he’d be able to operate it.’
Ranulph considered. ‘Come on then. If I fix the radio, I can unfix it afterwards, so Austin won’t have control of it.’
The next couple of days were busy. Cass was constantly finding excuses to leave the house and go and visit Delphine’s holiday cabin so she could draw. Ranulph was struggling with the radio set – it had been left unused for so long and everything was rusty. Austin paced between Ranulph’s radio shack, the beach and Errol’s garage. But, at last, Ranulph got a connection.
Cass was there at the time and Austin instantly came into the little building and leant over Ranulph’s shoulder.
‘Who’ve you got there, Ran?’ he said. ‘Can he put us in touch with a small plane company?’
Ranulph got up. ‘Tell you what, Austin, why don’t you communicate with him? The system works now and it’s all yours. I’m going down to the dig. We have to secure it soon so it can be properly investigated.’
When everyone, including Becca, who had been invited, finally sat down for dinner that evening, there was not much in the way of conversation. Everyone seemed tired and preoccupied. Cass was thinking about her drawings. She had done some but not as many as she would have liked. She was copying some of the plants from an old book with botanical plates, but she wanted to add grasses and fallen foliage. Putting in the amount of detail she liked took time. But should she concentrate on a few, really good pictures? Or try and get them all done, even in a sketchy way? She hadn’t managed to ask Bastian and wasn’t sure he’d give her a useful answer anyway. He’d just say, ‘Do the best you can.’
Becca and Ranulph began to talk in low voices about something apparently urgent concerned with pottery that had been broken possibly (Cass had no idea!) thousands of years ago. Eventually they got up and carried on their conversation on the veranda.
Cass had tuned out of what was going on to the extent that when Austin spoke to her it made her jump. ‘Sorry, what was that you said?’ she asked him.
‘I said, what have you been up to today? I haven’t seen you at all. I know you weren’t delivering supplies because Bastian’s been out with the pick-up.’
‘Oh, I’ve been helping Delphine over at her place,’ she said breezily.
‘But Delphine’s been here all day. I’ve been here too, trying to get some sense out that darn radio set,’ said Austin.
‘I don’t have to be there for Cass to help me,’ said Delphine, coming on to the veranda just then. ‘I can’t be in two places at once. The cabin I used to rent out before the hurricane is in a mess. Cass is helping me sort it out.’
It was a wonderfully logical answer and Delphine said it with such conviction that Cass relaxed.
‘I can’t wait to see the end result,’ said Austin. ‘Maybe I can take a peek when I visit Errol tomorrow.’ He sounded about as sceptical as he could without being rude.
