Page 141 of The Island of Lost Girls

58 | Mercedes

Even Paulo, veteran of sieges and reliefs, of wars and hijacks, is frozen.

Ursula feels for a chair, unable to take her eyes from the screen. Collapses into it. She was barely walking when Donatella died. To her, this is a stranger.

‘No,’ she says. ‘No.’

The video plays on.

Mercedes’ head swims where she slumps, weak as a kitten, on the soggy carpet.

‘Is that real?’ asks Ursula. ‘It can’t be. Tell me it isn’t real.’

I cannot watch this. I must not watch this. I will never forget, as long as I live.

One huge tear rolls from Donatella’s glazed eye. Runs across the bridge of her nose and into the other. She doesn’t blink.

The camera starts to pan back.

‘Oh, no,’ says Mercedes. She wants desperately to look away, to cover her eyes, but she is paralysed. ‘Oh, please no.’

The cameraman raises his lens and briefly films himself in a mirror. Grinning broadly. In the background, a circular porthole window, useless brocade curtains to either side, a wall panelled in shiny leopardskin walnut, four photos the size of an atlas fixed to the wall above the bed. Two men, watching. One looks serious, storing his memories forever. The other is laughing.

The man grinning behind the chunky handheld camera is Matthew Meade.

Paulo unfreezes. Points the remote. The screen goes black. They are silent for a long time. Mercedes wonders if she is going to vomit. But the nausea is full-body, not focused on her gorge. She leans forward and rests her forearms on the coffee table. Tries to breathe. Fails. Tries again.

She didn’t kill herself, she thinks. But this is so much worse. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. Oh, no. Oh, Donatella.

‘Where was that?’ asks Paulo. His voice is hard and cold.

She can’t speak.

‘Mercedes, where was that? Do you recognise it?’

‘Yes,’ she says.

‘Where?’ he asks.

‘It’s on the boat. On the old boat. It’s Tatiana’s cabin,’ she says, dully.

Paulo turns on his heel and strides from the room.