Page 134 of The Island of Lost Girls

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He grants her an audience as he sits in his hot tub. No freshly squeezed juices now, no toothsome pastries. He’s just taken delivery of his second new crew of staff since the ones who used to spoil her as she waited for Tatiana to get up in the morning, and she’s as much of a stranger to them as any other teenage girl passing by on the harbour. The only person she recognises now is Philip, the captain.

It took some persuading to get the new security guard on the gangplank even to take him her note, and he kept her waiting so long for a reply that she was beginning to believe that it had never got through.

The emperor lounges in his bubbling water as she stands before him in the blazing sun, his arms spread wide along the rim of the tub. I should have brought a hat with me, she thinks. So I could wring it between my hands as I beg.

The tub is designed to seat four, but Matthew Meade fills it so thoroughly that she pities anyone who might attempt to share it with him. And a memory of those girls who came to the Stag last summer flashes through her head and she wishes it hadn’t.

‘So!’ he says, ‘our money’s good enough for you now, is it?’

‘It was never … ’ she begins. Realises she’s leading herself down a blind alley and changes tack. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘It was … when Tatiana got new friends, when she started coming into our restaurant with them, I guess I was … ’

She casts about for the right word, the one that will unlock his triumph. Not relieved, then. Not glad. Not liberated.

He smiles slightly as he waits. He’s loving this. Loving it. He takes real pleasure in other people’s misery. It’s not, for him, just that he should win, but that other people should lose, and know they’ve lost, and feel the burn of their defeat. He’s an awful, awful man. But he’s the only man she knows to whom a hundred thousand American dollars is pocket change.

‘Jealous,’ she tells him, because it’s what he wants to hear. ‘And my sister, I know she was disrespectful. But she is … was … ’

The still-unfamiliar change of tense stops her in her tracks. She flounders, bites back her tears.

Matthew Meade’s right arm, creased and folded flesh dangling from the underside, lifts up and drops itself into the water. ‘Ah, yes,’ he says. ‘Your sister. A pity about her. Pretty girl.’

She doesn’t reply. Stares down at the deck and tries to get hold of her emotions. I can’t lose my mother, she thinks. If we don’t manage to keep the Re, it will kill her.

She hears the suck and slosh as he shifts in the water. ‘So how do you propose,’ he asks, ‘repaying this money? If I agree to lend it to you.’

Mercedes looks up. The hand is still under the water. She tries not to think about where it might be.

‘We’ll pay you back from what we earn,’ she says.

A hiss of contemptuous mirth. ‘Well, that’s going to take a while. I’m not sure I’ll live long enough.’

‘We’ll give you ten per cent of what we earn, every year,’ she says.

She hasn’t discussed this with Larissa. But desperation makes her bold. They’ll have two fewer mouths to feed now, after all.

A smirk. ‘A tithe, is it? The same way you pay the duqa?’

She nods.

‘That wouldn’t even cover the interest, my dear. How about the rest of it? It’s not as if you’re borrowing money to expand. How are you intending to repay the principal?’

Mercedes stares at him, lost. She doesn’t know these words. Doesn’t know the language of commerce, the language of debt. Just knows that he’s telling her that she’s putting herself for years – decades – in his power.

I can’t lose my mother, she thinks blindly. I can’t! This island has killed my sister. If it takes my mother too, there will be nothing left for me.

‘I’ll do anything,’ she says. ‘Anything you suggest.’

Matthew Meade studies her with a look of amusement. ‘Anything?’

She swallows.

He lifts the hand out of the water, sniffs his fingertips. ‘Well, I don’t suppose we have to go that far,’ he says. ‘Pity, really, you’re not pretty like your sister.’

He picks a cigar from the humidor behind him with his dry hand. Takes his time preparing it, lighting it. The lighter is chunky. Made of gold, and monogrammed with his initials. ‘Well, I’m sure I can think of something,’ he says eventually. ‘Give me a day or two. Perhaps we might make Tatiana feel better at the same time. You and your sister, you really upset her, you know. It will take a very long time to make up for that.’

She is flooded with relief. ‘Thank you,’ she says. Meets his eye as calmly as she can. ‘Thank you so much.’

She understands what she is agreeing to. A lifetime’s abasement stretches out ahead. But there is no other option. This is her only hope.

He flicks his finger, dismisses her. She turns and starts to walk back towards the gangplank gate. As she reaches it, he calls after her.

‘There’ll be a contract, of course.’