All Inclusive (20 page)

‘It's for when you're having sex, Lesley honey!' Gina had had to spell it out.

How much rocking and crashing had Beth and Ned's headboard been doing? Cyn stroked the soft silk robe that lay folded neatly on the end of the bed. It was the mauvey-grey colour of a pigeon's throat. She tried to imagine Beth in it and pictured her padding barefoot out of the bathroom with the robe slipping from one bare shoulder, her curls softly tousled, the steamy scent of shower gel in the air. I can do tousled, I can do silky robe and gorgeous scent, she thought angrily. She felt like ripping the garment in half and caught a horrified sight of herself in the mirror, actually staring round wildly, searching for scissors.

She then wandered into the bathroom and spent a few moments checking out Beth's cosmetics. She didn't seem to go for brand loyalty then: here was Clarins moisturizer, Simple cleansing wipes, Lancôme, Chanel and Max Factor eyeshadows,
Chantecaille blusher. She opened a Clinique lipgloss and tried it on. Not really her colour, she decided, peering into the mirror, a bit on the plummy side. She delved further into Beth's make-up bag, searching for more intimate items – a pack of contraceptive pills perhaps, a multi-flavour condom selection. Finding nothing of interest, she put everything back tidily where she'd found it and returned to the bedroom, then climbed onto the bed and lay down, using Beth's robe as a pillow. It was easy to tell who slept on which side – Beth's table had a heap of books, the sort that tend to come under Modern Women's Fiction, whereas the opposite table held a Psion organizer, a diver's computer watch and a copy of
Coral Reef Fishes
. No condoms there either. Perhaps they didn't do it. No, she decided, too much to hope for, especially on a hot holiday. Beth had probably got a highly efficient coil. She was the sort who'd be careful to get it changed every three years – probably using her birthday as the reminder time.

Cyn got up and went to the windows. It was tempting to open the doors and go out onto the balcony. Perhaps she could wave at the snorkelling party as they came back in the boat from the island. She could just imagine Beth out there, sitting beside Ned and saying, ‘Third one along, isn't that our room? Who's that on our balcony?' He'd know. He wouldn't need a second look.

Time to go back to the beach. Bradley would be back from his reflexology any minute. She hoped he wasn't going to tell her all about it. Nothing was more boring (though analysis of a golf game came close) than hearing What the Therapist Diagnosed – you'd think people would want to keep it to themselves if a masseuse tinkering with your big toe noticed a malfunctioning colon.

Cynthia took her perfume atomizer out of her bag and sprayed it around the room. Beth would think the cleaner had been wearing swanky scent but Ned would know better. And in case he didn't – she slipped off her cream Myla knickers and pushed them under his pillow. With men it was no use being subtle; you just had to spell it out.

Beth watched Lesley as she waded out of the shallows and up the beach. There was such a difference. All that shrinking fear had vanished and Lesley was now laughing and happy. She even looked somehow taller, slimmer, radiating confidence.

‘I did it!' she called. ‘In the real, open sea! I was beginning to think I'd developed a real phobia there!'

‘You did, and wasn't it brilliant?' Beth said as they walked back towards the bar.

‘That big turtle! I thought, does he fancy me or something? He wouldn't leave me alone! Followed me everywhere like a puppy!'

‘Anyone fancy a beer? Thirsty work, swimming.' Len came up behind them, flinging an arm round each of the women. ‘Better get one in for old Dolly as well. What's her poison?'

Beth giggled. ‘Better not mention poison, Len, she might start mixing up a potion. Where is she?' she said as they approached the palm grove. ‘This is where we left her, isn't it?'

Dolly was nowhere in sight. Her lounger was still safely in the shade, and her sunglasses and hat were lying on it as if bagging it for later. Her shoes were neatly placed side by side on the sand.

‘What's all that, under her hat? Isn't that her robe thing?' Len said, poking at the little fabric heap.

‘She must have gone for a paddle. She can't be far
though, surely. I wish I'd known, one of us should have been with her.' Beth peered anxiously out to sea.

Lesley picked up Dolly's sunglasses and gingerly poked at the belongings so very neatly folded beneath. ‘All her clothes are here!' she howled. ‘It's happened again! She's gone!' Lesley, distraught, fell into the sand and screamed and screamed.

21 ml gin

21 ml cherry brandy

21 ml dry vermouth

The sun was down, gone in that swift final green flash on the horizon that Beth loved to watch each evening. You didn't get a lingering sunset here – darkness almost literally fell, tumbling over the land in a rapid half-hour as if it had a record time to break. Dusk was also the peak time for mosquitoes to attack, and the astringent whiff of sprayed chemicals and lemon filled the air and mingled with the scents of assorted fruits that were being sliced at the Sundown bar for the early-evening drinks rush.

Beth, Gina, Dolly and Len sat at their usual table on the beach side of the terrace, enjoying what Len called a ‘Day-Ender'. And how we deserve it, Beth thought as she took a deep reviving sip of her Sea Breeze and tried hard to obliterate from her mind the astounding sight of Dolly that afternoon, strolling stark naked along the sand in all her pale-skinned glory, hailed back from her visit to Dragon Island's nudist area by
Lesley's sky-splitting screaming.

‘That woman coulda woken the dead!' Dolly (now securely buttoned and belted into a navy blue linen dress) seemed to find this an amusing thing to say and had repeated it several times, drawling the words ever more slurringly as she made her way through her third pina colada. No-one else was laughing.

‘Enough already, Mom,' Gina told her, taking her empty glass from her and returning it to the bar counter.

‘Hey! Bring me another while you're there!' Dolly yelled. ‘And a bowl of those peanuts!'

‘You're not allowed peanuts, Mom, you know that. They're a choking hazard for you,' Gina told her patiently. ‘And you've had plenty to drink. You'll fall out of your bed tonight if you have any more.'

Dolly gave a crackly snigger. ‘I doubt it, honey. I have a feeling tonight's the night! And in the morning when I'm lying cold and stiff and gone you'll be filled with guilt that you denied me my last wish, one last measly cocktail.'

‘Trust me, I'll deal with it. That's what therapy's for,' Gina replied. ‘Now do you want dinner with me in the restaurant or in your room?'

‘In my room of course, like I always do,' Dolly snapped. ‘You think I want to sit among strangers all chewing and swallowing?'

‘How should I know, Mom?' Gina sighed, catching Beth's eye and grinning. ‘I mean I wouldn't ever have dreamed you'd take all your clothes off and go walkabout on a public beach, but hey, how wrong was I?'

‘How many times, honey, it's a
nudist
beach; you
don't wear clothes
.' Dolly rapped a sharp gold-painted fingernail on the table as she spoke.

‘Not the whole naffin' island, it isn't!' Len told her.
‘Most people take it to mean that bit where it says “Nude bathing area”, not the whole bloomin' shebang. Still, no harm done, eh?' He winked at Gina.

‘No, I guess not.' Gina sounded weary. ‘I'm sorry folks, I didn't realize Mom was going to be such a liability for you all.'

‘No she wasn't, it's fine, no worries,' Beth comforted her. ‘And did
you
have a good afternoon? Did you do anything exciting?'

‘Er . . . not sure I'd put it that way; I just had some errands to run, nothing special.' She gave Beth a smile full of mystery and left them all to guess what she'd been up to. Or possibly who. Which took Beth back to the Delilah-and-Sam conundrum. Please, she offered a quick prayer to any listening deities, please don't let all that come to blows again.

Ned knew the instant he opened the door that Cynthia had been in the room. He felt his blood pressure instantly rocket to what was surely a potentially fatal level; at this rate Dolly wouldn't be the only one going home neatly boxed in a plane's cargo hold. How, he thought as he inhaled that unmistakable hint of vanilla, had she got in? She couldn't have come with Beth – Beth hadn't been back to the room since they returned from the island, but had spent a half-hour in the jacuzzi jollying Lesley along before joining Len and Gina at the bar. Had she broken in? He had a close look at the door lock – no damage that he could see, not that he couldn't imagine Cynthia jemmying the thing open if she really set her mind to it. Maybe her room key was simply the same as theirs – he supposed there couldn't be that many variations. Horrendous coincidence if that was the case – she could be in and out on a daily basis. She might follow him there when
he was alone, creep up while he was showering.
Psycho
came to mind. Well it would: if she'd go this far, who knew what a scorned women was capable of? Or she could be hiding under the bed while he made love to Beth. Suppose she already had been? Oh God. Suppose she'd been watching and listening that night they did it on the lounger on the balcony? That had definitely been a bit special . . . but the thought of Cynthia spying on them from only feet away was an absolute blood-chiller.

Ned sat on the bed and wiped sweat from his forehead. He was just being paranoid. Wasn't he? Perhaps it wasn't Cynthia. It could be that it
was
her perfume but the cleaner had simply had a quick spray of it while tidying Cyn's room, just to see what it was like. Or used the same sort herself; Cyn couldn't be the only woman who liked that particular scent. But if it
was
her . . . what had she come in
for
? What did she hope to find? He looked around quickly, casing the room to see if there was anything immediately different, peering under the bed – she might have left something . . . Though what, a bomb? A recording device?
Herself?
He prodded the underside of the bed base. Nothing there, thank goodness.

Ned pushed the balcony doors open and went out into the steamy evening air. He could just make out Len sitting at the usual table across at the bar. There were trees blocking the view of the rest of the group, and he had to hope Beth was still with them rather than on her way back to the room for her bath. Ned needed time to check everything, make sure Cyn had left no more than her perfume behind.

Bath. Ned raced into the bathroom, suddenly terrified he'd find Cynthia herself hanging from the shower hook (bringing the holiday's potential body
count up to three – a running total outdoing the worst sink prison and sure to cause the hotel the loss of at least one star from its rating). Nothing different in there either, but still that lingering, elusive hint of perfume. What to do about it? Nothing he could do, he concluded as he returned to sit on the bed and give in to a feeling of helplessness. He would have to ignore it – if he said anything to Cynthia she'd take it as revived interest. And suppose it
hadn't
, after all, been her? What kind of fool would he look?

Ned felt his heart rate gradually subside to something close to normal. To give it a few more recovery moments he relaxed back on the bed and reached for his copy of
Coral Reef Fishes
. That afternoon they'd seen some brilliant little fish, a shoal of the most starting cobalt blue ones, some with vivid yellow tails, close to where one of the yachts was moored. ‘Hanging about where there might be food, do you think?' Len had asked him as they swam back together. Ned had agreed they probably were, not liking to point out, knowing this as an experienced diver, that the food in question was less likely to have been temptingly offered over the boat's side by keen fish-spotters than to have been stuff flushed out from the lavatory tanks. Often, in the sea, it was better not to think about how some species got by.

Feeling cramped and uncomfortable, Ned shifted the pillow behind his neck and flicked through the book's pages. Those were the ones, blue tangs. Between three and twenty-eight centimetres. That sounded about right. They were described as ‘unafraid', which was rather sweet, he thought, smiling at the memory of the little fish as they crowded around the snorkellers, eager and bustling as riverside ducks sensing a toddler approaching with bags of stale bread.

Something fell softly to the floor as Ned shifted. Something made of diaphanous cream fabric and black ribbon. He reached down and picked up Cynthia's knickers. No doubt now. He even recognized them. He remembered buying them for her – an expensive, spontaneous, and so unwise present back in March.

‘Unafraid'. He caught sight of the word again as he closed the book. If only. Bizarre, he thought. Never in his life had he imagined he'd really, really envy a fish.

Oh it felt so good to get out of the hotel. Beth sat back in the taxi and savoured the usual vicious air conditioning, feeling her skin tingle in the unaccustomed chill. A reggae version of ‘White Christmas' was booming from the driver's radio, and he had decked the windscreen with so much plastic mistletoe and holly that Beth wondered how he was managing to see the road. It was his choice, she told herself firmly, nothing to do with her, and she looked instead at the view of the moonlight on the sea from the side window. She was not interested in problems tonight, feeling she'd already done her good-deed bit. In the few hours since coming back from the snorkelling trip, she had listened to Lesley as she'd told her all about the dead Mr Benson, reassured Gina that her mother hadn't caused rumpus and outrage and had comforted Len, close to weeping into his beer, as he confided his fears that his wife was losing her marbles. And this was supposed to be a holiday. Tomorrow, she promised herself, she would spent most of the day in the Haven indulging in full-on pampering, from Indian Head Massage down to Peppermint Foot Treatment.