Thunderbolt Wilbur Smith (surface ebook reader .TXT) 📖

I shrugged.

‘Well, it should have, possibly because I’ve never suffered from motion sickness: not on the dive boat, not on any plane, and not during any of the million or so car rides we’ve shared since we were small.’

It was true. Neither of us ever gets car sick. We could both happily read a book in the back of Mum’s Mercedes coupe while Mum, who drives pretty fast, raced along twisty country lanes.

‘So, I assumed you’d see through that.’

‘To what?’ said Xander. ‘I was actually sick. You gave me two pills. Not that they helped much.’

‘Sure, but. You really don’t get it, do you?’ she said to me, exasperated.

I shrugged again.

‘The pills were painkillers. Sorry, Xander, but they were. The point is: what else do you think might have been in that packet?’

‘Beats me.’

At that she yanked off her trainer. The look on her face suggested any sane person would know the answer lay within it. In which case I’d have to plead insanity. I leaned forward, hands on my knees. Having given up hope on me she peeled off her trainer sock, turned it inside out, and shook four of the wedding rings we’d found on the seabed into her cupped palm.

I immediately glanced at Mo. He was wide-eyed in the gloom. Seeing that Amelia was reaching for her other trainer I quickly said, ‘Don’t bother, we get the picture.’

‘Could have fooled me,’ she replied, but with a smile.

I realised I was digging with my fingers at the softness running along the edge of my kneecaps, prying at them in my frustration. What was Amelia thinking, showing Mo the jewellery? How had I been so stupid as to let this happen? Already the boy’s expression had changed, his quick surprise replaced with a more deadpan poker face. Valuable jewels, right there in the cell with us: how might he use that information?

‘You don’t seem particularly impressed,’ Amelia said now.

Xander jumped in: ‘Of course we are. With a bit of luck those will come in handy. But –’ he couldn’t keep a playful note out of his voice –‘but why did you bring them to sea in the first place? Wouldn’t they have been safer back in the hotel?’

‘On the balance of probabilities, no,’ said Amelia firmly. ‘Valuables go missing from hotels the whole time. Those safes the hotel provides are unlockable with a master code. They have to be, otherwise daft tourists who forget their passcodes would forever be missing their flights home. It’s hardly surprising stuff gets pinched from rooms every now and then: some of the poorest members of society, cleaning staff and so on, having their noses rubbed in the guests’ excess day in, day out. They can’t really be blamed for falling to such temptation. I mean, who wouldn’t want to redress the balance?’

‘Robin Hood again,’ murmured Mo.

‘And statistically speaking we were unlucky to be accosted by pirates,’ Amelia went on blithely. ‘That was unlucky –’

‘Still is,’ said Xander.

‘Yes, but it doesn’t alter the fact that my answer to your question is correct: probability-wise, the rings were safer with us than they would have been in the hotel. And my decision to bring them also turns out to have been expedient.’ She glanced my way and, very annoyingly clocking that I didn’t know what ‘expedient’ meant, went on: ‘Useful in a practical sense, because they’re more valuable to us as bargaining chips in this situation than they would have been in monetary terms ashore.’

As often happens with Amelia, everything she’d just said was true, and yet it also missed the bleeding obvious. The rings were obviously valuable bargaining chips, if we played them carefully. But now Mo knew we had them, she’d effectively handed the advantage over to him. Because although he seemed trustworthy enough and was definitely putting on a good show of being on our side, he was – however reluctantly – one of the goddamn pirates!

27.

Shortly after Amelia undermined her very welcome revelation by spouting it in front of Mo, Flip-flops cracked the door to our cell and motioned for me to come out. Mo came too. I knew, because he had told us, that we were about to be photographed or filmed, and the three of us had agreed on the best way of turning that to our advantage.

The pirate-guard led me to a door at the rear of the house which gave out onto a dusty courtyard. Passing from the linoleum to dirt, the squelching sound of his flip-flops died. They flicked up little plumes of dust as he walked to the centre of the courtyard. Barrel-man handed up a newspaper, which Flip-flops passed to me.

Strangely enough the newspaper was in French, a copy of Le Figaro. I’ve admitted my French isn’t good, but I nailed the days of the week at least, so I was able to translate the date on the front cover, which included the word vendredi.

While languages may not be my strong point, I’m good at keeping orientated in place and time. Today was Saturday, not Friday, so the newspaper was a day old. I didn’t know whether to be impressed that the pirates had got hold of an international newspaper so soon after stepping ashore, or to pity them for not having found the most up-to-date copy. I don’t suppose they thought a day mattered much in the scheme of things.

Aside from me, Mo and the two pirates, the courtyard was empty, of people that is. Two of the skinniest cats I’ve laid eyes on were stretched out on their sides in the shade of the eastern wall. They were both pretty much the same colour as the dirt they lay on, and they stayed so still throughout the process of me having my mug-shot taken – I couldn’t even see them breathing – that I began to wonder whether they were dead.

There was no high-tech filming equipment, tripods or lights,