‘That man was on a mission,’ said Delphine. ‘My brother said he was on at him all the time to hurry up, get the pick-up fixed.’ She paused. ‘He paid my brother a lot of money to get it done.’
‘He was very keen to get off the island and put a lot of pressure on me to go with him.’ Cass gave a wrylaugh. ‘Although he seemed quite eager to get rid of me shortly afterwards!’
‘What kind of pressure?’ said Becca.
Cass glanced at Bastian. ‘He said – he said he’d ruin Bastian’s reputation academically if I didn’t go with him. He needed to submit his book and to do that he had to get off the island. I wanted to submit Bastian’s paper so I had to get off the island too.’
‘Thank you for making the copy of the last section,’ said Bastian. ‘That was very kind.’
‘I couldn’t bear the thought of there only being one copy, and considering how near I came to losing those last pages, it was probably one of my better decisions!’
Bastian said, ‘Thank you, Cass. You risked your life for my work.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand,’ said Becca.
‘Most of my paper was on a memory stick,’ said Bastian. ‘It’s how I back up.’
‘I took it with me,’ said Cass. ‘Plus the last section. I was going to scan the pages, and then email them with the contents of the memory stick to the judges of the prize as soon as I could. And also scan my drawings.’ She hesitated. ‘I didn’t want Austin to get his work in on time and not Bastian’s. And it was Bastian’s father’s work too,’ she added.
Bastian smiled. ‘It was. It meant a lot to me. Thank you, Cass.’ He looked across the table at her and Cass saw real gratitude.
Behind her, Ranulph cleared his throat, announcing his presence. ‘Howard has been on the radio. Again. He’s been on and off all morning.’
‘Oh! The connection wasn’t lost? Can I speak to him?’
‘Of course,’ said Bastian.
‘He doesn’t know you weren’t here last night,’ said Ranulph, who obviously still hadn’t forgiven her. ‘I thought I’d spare him the anxiety.’
‘Give it a rest, Ran,’ said Becca. ‘The poor girl knows she made a mistake but she had her reasons and they were very commendable ones.’
Ranulph humphed. ‘I’ll take you to the radio,’ he said.
The little shack that contained the radio was small and very crowded with other things. There was really only room for one person but Cass and Ranulph crammed two chairs in the space and sat down.
It took a while for Ranulph to connect but at last he handed Cass the earphones.
Cass found herself emotional talking to her father after so long. She hadn’t meant to tell him about her close encounter with a hurricane but it came out. ‘We don’t know what happened to Austin,’ she said when she had given him a toned-down version of events. She hadn’t the heart to tell him about his camera.
‘I should have suspected that bastard had his own selfish reasons for wanting to leave Dominica but he made out it was you who were desperate to get home,’ said Howard. ‘But I heard that he survived.’
‘How?’ said Ranulph.
‘The people with the plane I was trying to arrange for you two got in touch to tell me they couldn’t fly. They said there was another man desperate to leave.Turned out to be Austin. So I knew that he had turned up at the airfield but you hadn’t, Cass.’
‘I’m so sorry. Were you worried about me?’
‘I didn’t know you’d gone with Austin. I assumed you’d stayed at home, safely behind shutters.’
Even with the limitations the radio produced, Cass could hear the irony in her father’s tone.
‘Anyway, I’m safe now.’
‘Good, but I want you home. I’ll ask Eleanor to make arrangements this end. I want you back safe and sound.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A couple of days later, Ranulph came in from where the radio was to announce that he and Cass would be leaving the following morning.
