Page 83 of The Island of Lost Girls

‘I can’t talk about it,’ she says.

Felix stops on the corner, looks her up and down. ‘That’s what we thought,’ he says. He walks on. ‘Your father’s a piece of work,’ he says. ‘I can’t believe he’d actually sell his own daughter.’

The Princess Tatiana sails back into port at eleven the next morning, and a few minutes later the castle car appears. It idles at the foot of the gangplank as Matthew Meade shambles up the gangway and distributes handshakes and back-slaps. Mercedes hears voices echo over the stones and the water, and feels a sense of dread.

She’ll be back soon, she thinks. But I’m not going to hide.

A tender from one of the marina yachts picks up two more guests. They motor away, reclining in their seats and cracking big bottles of water. Laughing, hearty. They’ve clearly had the best of times while his daughter was torturing Mercedes.

Donatella comes up and stands behind her as she watches.

‘D’you want to go indoors?’ she asks. ‘I bet there’s stuff you could be doing in the kitchen.’

‘Fuck that,’ says Mercedes, and picks up the cutlery basket to start laying the tables. ‘It’s my town, not hers.’

Donatella offers her a high five, a gesture they’ve recently picked up from the satellite TV Matthew has had installed in their living room so that Tatiana doesn’t have to go without, though the sum total of her visits to the flat above the Re has turned out to be one. Her expression as she perched on their grandmother’s cane settee and stared down at the chipped glass in which her Pepsi-Cola had been served made it clear to all of them that the visit wouldn’t be repeated. But nobody’s come and taken the TV away. Perhaps they never will.

Over by the restaurant door, Sergio frowns.

‘Donatella?’ he calls. ‘Your mother wants you to go to the bakery.’

Donatella huffs. ‘Really? Can’t Mercedes go?’

Sergio’s voice drops. ‘Don’t be a little perra,’ he says. ‘Do what you’re told.’

Donatella sighs and unties her apron. ‘Are the others going out today?’ she asks. ‘You should go out with them.’

‘Maybe later,’ she says. ‘Felix is out with his dad.’

‘Oh, laaaa,’ says Donatella, ‘Felix Marino, king of everything. Can’t do anything without Felix Marino’s say-so.’

‘Bugger off,’ says Mercedes, but she can’t help smiling.

The helicopter blats over their heads and wheels off towards the continent. The car comes back. There’s no guard of honour for whoever’s coming next. No Matthew Meade and his hearty affection.

The door from the staff staircase opens and heads bob along above the gunwales. The girls. Well, three of them. Shorter than when they came on board, for they have shed their heels and donned loose cotton dresses and a tracksuit. No skin-tight Lycra now. No little brown bellies on show. Off duty.

They walk as though they’re old. As though their joints hurt. Hang on to the guard rail as though they’re afraid they’ll fall. They don’t look left or right, but straight ahead, at the idling car. And they don’t look at each other, either.

Mercedes waits for the fourth. She tries to remember what she looked like before. But they all looked so much the same – all lip gloss and elasticated lace – that she can’t recall her face. Wouldn’t be able to distinguish one from another. The missing girl is just a vague impression of long blonde hair. Breasts, legs, buttocks. No face.

The chauffeur opens the door and the girls get in. They drive away.

Funny, she thinks.

‘What are you looking at?’ asks Larissa, coming up beside her.

‘I thought there were four,’ she says.

‘Four what?’

‘Girls.’

Larissa’s expression sours. Even if she had seen, she wouldn’t discuss it. You don’t discuss things like that. Not if you’re respectable. Girls like that might as well not exist.

‘Weren’t there four?’

‘I have no idea,’ says Larissa.