Part 18 (1/2)

'What is it?'

'Shhh ... I thought I heard a boat.'

I concentrated, and suddenly heard it again. It seemed to be coming from behind me-from the south, where we'd landed. Although we were surrounded by sheer drops, the view of the immediate area around the south end was hidden by the hump of Winklestein's Steeple. Then, as I stared downward, a boat emerged around the point and into view. 'There!' I cried. 'I think it's Bob's boat. He's looking for us.'

It seemed so small, a tiny white speck. We were like people on the observation deck of the tallest skysc.r.a.per, looking down at the ant-like activity far below. We began shouting and waving our arms, hoping he might be scanning the peaks with his binoculars. Our throats were so dry that we quickly became hoa.r.s.e, and then the boat slid out of sight beneath the lee of the eastern cliffs. We hoped it would do another circuit around the Pyramid, but perhaps it already had, for the next sighting we got was of it heading out across the sparkling sea, back to Lord Howe.

'Oh f.u.c.k.' I sagged.

'Come on.' Anna was pulling her backpack on again. 'One last effort.'

We had discovered no further signs of Luce that morning, and I had pretty much given up hope of finding any answers to our quest. The summit pinnacle was a formidable cylinder of rock, like an ancient watchtower with a domed cap. To get to its base we inched across the Cheval Ridge, feet dangling over five hundred metres of s.p.a.ce on each side. Halfway across I paused to ease the strain in my arms, and looked down, first one side, then the other. Far below, beyond spinning seabirds, I saw the foam of breakers. I felt the suck of vertigo dragging on my feet and stomach. My head felt hot and swollen inside the helmet and I became dizzy.

'Jos.h.!.+'

I dragged my eyes away from the void and saw Luce on the ridge ahead of me. I cried out her name.

'Josh? It's me! Come on!' I blinked. It was Anna, of course.

'Yeah ... coming.' My throat was so parched I could barely speak, but I focused on the rock in front of me and began to move forward again.

I really can't remember that last climb, only the feeling of relief when we finally crawled onto the summit, a dozen square metres in extent, covered with tufted gra.s.s. How had it got up there? The sheer b.l.o.o.d.y-minded persistence of living matter seemed astonis.h.i.+ng. I lay down with a groan, and as if at a signal the sunlight faded and died, and a cold gust whipped across the quivering gra.s.s.

There was a small cairn of loose stones that the first climbers had piled together on the crown. Anna crawled towards it and began dragging it apart. She pulled out an old rum bottle, and handed me the messages that former climbers had left inside. The last one ended with a confident ... and now attempting to descend the North Ridge and now attempting to descend the North Ridge. I hoped they'd made it. But there was nothing from Luce.

'Nothing at all?' I said. I don't know what I'd expected, but the futility of what we'd done filled me with despair.

Anna gave a little yelp. I thought she'd been bitten by something, Ball's Last Insult. But it wasn't that. She'd turned over another stone and pulled out a small candy-striped bag. I knew it well-I'd followed it with my eyes many times, bouncing around on Luce's shapely rump. It was her chalk bag.

I got up and walked unsteadily to Anna and looked over her shoulder as she prised the thing open and drew out a slip of paper. She read it and then handed it to me. There were tears br.i.m.m.i.n.g in her eyes.

I recognised the handwriting, but not the quotation.

For with earth do we see earth,with water water,with air bright air,with fire consuming fire,with Love do we see Love,Death with dread Death.

I wasn't sure what the poem meant, but it seemed pretty obvious what Luce had intended. I just stood there for a long time without speaking, without really thinking, just surrendering to the earth, the water, and the bright air, to love and death.

A spatter of rain slapped my cheek. I turned and saw a grey ma.s.s of cloud advancing on us across the ocean from the south. Anna was sitting at my feet, hands tucked up into her armpits, absorbed in some private meditation of her own.

'I think we're in for a storm,' I said.

She looked up at me, eyes puffy with tears, then out to sea. To the north Lord Howe was rapidly disappearing into grey cloud, the sun was gone and the wind was picking up, cold and harsh. She roused herself and I helped her to her feet, scooping Luce's chalk bag into my pack.

'Sure there's nothing else?'

She shook her head, and I piled the rocks back into the semblance of a cairn.

We abseiled down the pinnacle a great deal faster than we'd gone up, then worked our way back along the Cheval Ridge, the wind now ripping alarmingly at us on our exposed perch. By the time we reached the Black Tower the southerly change had reached full force, scouring us with driving rain. Refres.h.i.+ng at first, it rapidly chilled us through and we decided we'd better find somewhere to shelter. We chose what seemed the least exposed flank and I began to lower myself down, cautiously now. I knew that more climbers are killed abseiling downwards than climbing up, and the rock was streaming with water. About twenty metres down I came to an overhang, beneath which was a relatively dry ledge. I called up to tell Anna, and a few minutes later we were both down there, huddled against the wind and gusting rain. I tried with limited success to rig up a water collection scoop with my nylon coat, and after a while managed to get us a drink and begin to fill our water bottles. Soaked and freezing, I sank back against the unyielding rock, feeling that this was certainly the most miserable situation I'd ever found myself in. I sneezed and s.h.i.+vered and began to laugh.

'What's funny?' Anna said, through teeth clenched against the cold.

'I was just thinking that my specialty was risk management.'

She gave a snort. 'That was with the bank, was it?'

'Yes.'

'I don't like banks.'

'n.o.body does.'

'But you left Luce to go and work for one.'

There was no real answer to that. Put so bluntly, it seemed preposterous.

'Yes. I did a stupid thing.' I'd never spoken about this to anyone, but what did it matter now, marooned on a crag in the middle of the ocean? 'I slept with someone else, one weekend when Luce was away. It didn't mean anything and I didn't think it mattered, but it did. I couldn't stand the thought of her finding out. So I left.'

It was more complicated of course-my restlessness, my doubts about us. But I felt a tremendous relief to tell someone this simple, shameful fact at last. The wind howled around us, and Anna said nothing for a while.

'She was a first-year student of Marcus's.'

I thought I'd misheard. 'What?'

She repeated it, and I said, 'You knew? I didn't think anyone knew. How ...?'

'Marcus told us.'

'Us?'

'Well, Damien certainly, probably Curtis and Owen.'

'My G.o.d ... And Luce?'

'I don't know. I didn't say anything. She never mentioned it.'

I was astounded. 'How did Marcus know? He wasn't even there.'

'He arranged it, Josh. He never forgave you for having Luce fall in love with you. He got the girl to do it.'

I think if I hadn't been tied in I'd have slipped off the rock at that point. I thought of everything that had flowed from that betrayal, leading ultimately to Luce's death. If I hadn't left so abruptly, if I'd waited till the end of the academic year, say, and come to Lord Howe with Luce, and climbed with her on that fateful day ...

As if she was listening to my thoughts, she said, 'I had the impression that Marcus wanted to get rid of you. That he didn't want you coming here with Luce.'

'I feel terrible, Anna. So ashamed.'

'That's why we're here, isn't it?' She put a cold hand around mine and squeezed it tight.