Page 68 of The Island of Lost Girls

Robin leaves the restaurant on the harbour front and weaves her way back to Duke Street. There’s some sort of snarl-up going on: a shiny black limo slowly edging its way through a multi-point turn while the crowds bang on the roof and curse it for impeding their way. Who would be so stupid? she wonders. To drive all the way into a place like this on a night like this? And then she turns right to go up the hill to the restaurant at the top and sees Gemma again, for the fiftieth time tonight, step through the glass doors at the top, into the light, and vanish.

This is so hard. She hands out her pictures of her lovely daughter as she climbs, sees them drop them in the gutter after a couple of strides. The crowd is quite tipsy now; early ones heading away from the blare of Euro-rock in the market square to secure themselves a good view of the fireworks.

Robin’s feet ache, and the hill is a labour. But I must go, she tells herself. If she’s really here for the duke’s party and not just this street festa, it will be the people here, the yacht people, that she’s with.

The beacon of light ahead is daunting. Welcome, it says, if you’re one of us. If you’re wearing trainers, stay away. I don’t want to go up there, she thinks. But still she climbs. For my girl I’d tolerate any humiliation. Just to see her. Just for the chance to say sorry.

They run out of chicken at eleven o’clock and her apron strap is cutting into Mercedes’ neck under the weight of all the cash she’s taken.

‘I’m taking a break for a minute,’ she says.

‘Yeah, don’t mind me,’ says Felix.

‘I’ll bring you a beer,’ she says.

‘Big of you,’ he replies.

‘Ah, a comedian,’ she says.

‘Someone has to be the funny one.’ He flashes her a grin.

In the cool interior, her mother sits on a banquette, grey-faced and drinking coffee. She’s come down too soon.

‘Jesu, Mama!’ Mercedes rushes over, puts a hand on her forehead, the way Larissa used to do with her when she was a child. ‘You’re burning up!’

‘I’m okay,’ says Larissa. ‘I just got a bit hot.’

‘You’ve got to slow down,’ she tells her.

‘Nonsense,’ says Larissa. But her eyes squeeze shut.

‘Okay,’ says Mercedes firmly, ‘one minute and I’m taking you upstairs.’

She hurries over to the bar and taps the code into the safe. Fishes in her apron pocket and brings out her bulging money clip. A brief memory of her father, back in the day, doing the same, with dollars.

‘It’s crazy out there,’ she calls over her shoulder. Dips into the pocket for the handfuls and handfuls of coins she’ll need to sort and take to the bank tomorrow. ‘We must have taken a couple of thousand euros just from the grill.’

Larissa’s voice is reedy. ‘I should be helping.’

‘Oh, hush, Mama. Felix is out there, and Maria’s got everything under control in here.’

‘He’s a good man, is Felix,’ says Larissa.

‘He’s a pain in the backside,’ she replies. ‘But we’re your family.’

She pulls out another double handful of coins, and her hand brushes paper. Thinking she must have missed a note, she pulls it out and finds that it’s the flyer the sad woman gave her earlier. Oh, God. More stuff. More demands, more things to remember. And she so doesn’t want Larissa seeing this, tonight of all nights. A missing girl, almost the same age as Donatella. It will rip her heart clean out.

She doesn’t want to look herself, either. The dull ache of her thirty-year-old loss can still break out, knock her to her knees. You go on. Because you have to. But guilt is a dark and savage beast that waits just out of sight for its opportunity to pounce. It’s been thirty years since Mercedes saw her sister’s despair and mistook it for courage, yet, when she remembers, the pain is as caustic as a lungful of lye.

She crumples the flyer up and throws it in the bin under the bar. Turns back to her mother and forces a smile into her voice.

‘Come on,’ she says. ‘No arguing. I’m taking you up to bed.’

Hanne has snuck off to a corner of the terrace and leans on the parapet, smoking a cigarette over the edge. Gemma is scandalised.

‘You’d better not let Tatiana catch you doing that!’ she hisses. ‘The top of her head’ll come off!’

Tatiana hates smoking. She’s noticed a lot of rich people do. A control thing. Hanne straightens up and laughs, though she notices that the hand that holds the cigarette remains behind her in the dark.