The Secret of Helena's Bay Page 3

  Some of the huts still had lights on, and occasionally, despite the storm she could hear the low hum of night-time conversation, as those who shared got to know each other. Perhaps, she thought, if she had bothered to share she would have someone to chat with, instead of feeling so out of the loop. She pushed the thought aside and walked down the sandy steps to the hut nearest the beach.

  She hesitated. What could she do? Knock on the door? Disturb those inside. She crept nearer, hoping to hear someone talking. There was no sound at all, and the hut was in complete darkness.

  Moving nearer, she was startled by the slamming of a door somewhere in the distance. Or was it thunder? She was not sure. The noise continued as if the door were off the latch.

  “This was a good idea, Shelley,” she murmured. She remembered Annette’s warning about not going out onto the islet on her own at night, and began to understand why it was good advice. If she shouted for help, chances are that no one in the far off huts or the farmhouse would hear her over the storm.

  Still her feet took her closer to the hut, determined to set her mind at rest. When she got there, she realised where the rattling noise came from. The door to the hut was off its latch, banging and clattering in the storm. She pushed it open, but it was empty. She was not surprised. No one could possibly sleep in there with the door banging open, letting in the elements.

  Turning back towards the farmhouse, at much greater speed than that with which she had left it, she shivered, wishing she had put on a coat. She crashed through the open farmhouse door and straight into Paris’s arms.

  “Shelley, what were you doing out in that weather?” he asked, his hands warm on her rain chilled arms. She trembled, and was not entirely sure it had anything to do with her cold, wet state.

  Standing so close, she could see just how smooth his tanned skin was, and smell the masculine aroma of the sea on his clothes.

  “I … er … thought I my book outside,” she said, her head bowed to hide the lie. This only served to bring her closer to his chest, which, she could see through the open neck, had a few fine dark hairs that spread upwards to his collarbone. She wondered if she could pretend to be disorientated for a moment longer, just to enjoy the sensation of being close to a man again. She reluctantly stepped back, gently disentangling herself from his arms.

  “Surely it could have waited till the morning. Come on into the kitchen. I’ll get you a towel and make you a hot drink.”

  “No, I’m fine, honestly,” she said, looking down at the floor like a child caught doing something naughty. That was when she realised that her vest top had become almost transparent in the rain. To make matters worse, she noticed him noticing. Her subsequent blush covered not only her face, but also her neck and shoulders. At least it warmed her up a little.

  “Perhaps you should go upstairs and get changed,” he said, grinning. “But the offer of a warm drink is still there if you want it.”

  “No, I’ve had enough excitement for one night. Thanks for the offer though.”

  Feeling stupid, and very wet, she rushed up to her room where she showered and dressed for bed. “It’ll serve you right if you get sick,” she said to her reflection on the mirror, before climbing into bed and seeking warmth.

  The room reminded her of the Bed and Breakfast places her parents used to take her on when she was a child. That was on the East coast of England, and more often than not there would be a storm. She used to snuggle down under the duvet, listening to the rain lashing against the window. Lying in the farmhouse, in a huge double bed, enwrapped in a thick blanket that she found in the closet, she felt like a child again. All the worries of getting there, the storm outside, all the cares of the evening and her concerns about Stefan drifted away.

  She idly thought about Stefan for a while, wondering where he was and if he was okay. But the last image in her mind, as she drifted off to sleep, was of Paris looking appreciatively at her in her wet clothes, enhancing the warmth she already felt.

  Chapter Five

  In the morning she joined her group to help prepare breakfast. The previous evening, just before they’d gone to bed, Annette had split the guests into five groups of four people, and then gave them a rota.

  “Your free time is your own,” Annette had told them, “but we do encourage guests to be involved in the day to day domestic arrangements, including cooking, setting the table, washing dishes, laundry, helping out in the vegetable garden, and keeping the common areas tidy.”

  “I didn’t realise we’d paid to be used as skivvies,” Len had said.

  “It is all part of the fun,” said Annette, unconvincingly.

  “And a good way for you all to get to know each other,” Paris had said, with rather more conviction.

  Shelley was placed with Mrs Caldicott, Miss Charters and Len. She was poring over the map in the hallway when they came downstairs.

  The weather outside was dull, but calmer, so some of the early risers were sitting at the tables on the terrace. As Brits they were used to making the best of whatever weather was thrown at them.

  “Time to get breakfast ready, Shelley,” said Mrs Caldicott. She appeared to have elected herself leader.

  “I’m coming now.” Shelley smiled, and followed them to the kitchen. “I was just looking at the map, and trying to work out where Helena’s Bay was. I can’t seem to find it.”

  “Is there a Helena’s Bay?”

  “I thought I heard someone say there was,” said Shelley, vaguely.

  “What’s that?” Paris was waiting in the kitchen for them.

  “Shelley was looking for Helena’s Bay,” said Miss Charters. Her voice sounded odd. Guarded.

  “There isn’t a Helena’s Bay on the islet,” said Paris, searching Shelley’s face. There was something in his eyes that she could not quite fathom. “It’s so small that none of the bays have official names. Only those given to them by the locals when the islet was still inhabited. I’ve never heard anyone mention Helena’s Bay.” She had the strong feeling he was withholding something. She opened her mouth to speak, but he talked over her, with what she thought was unnecessary abruptness. “In the kitchen you’ll find yoghurt, fruit and cereal. There’s toast if anyone wants it, but ask first rather than waste bread, as we still can’t get to the mainland. Come with me and I’ll show you all where everything is.”

  In the kitchen he pointed out the relevant cupboards, and the small utility room, which held the fridge and washing machine.

  “Paris …” Shelley hesitated, wondering how much she should say.

  “Is this to do with your friend? What was his name, Stefan?” asked Paris. He turned to her, with something like annoyance in his eyes.

  She felt the heat of four pairs of eyes burning into her.

  “I didn’t imagine him,” said Shelley, folding her arms. “In fact, he put some letters in my bag, so I can prove to you that he exists.”

  “What letters?” asked Mrs Caldicott.

  “They were in German. I managed to translate one online, but didn’t have time to do the others. They were from his father to his mother, and mentions a visit to Helena’s Bay. And I found a website for his family online. I’ve emailed his American cousin, Bertha, to ask if she knows where he is.”

  “That’s very interesting, dear,” said Miss Charters, “but we really need to get breakfast ready. You can show us later.”

  “I’m not imagining him,” said Shelley. She turned to Paris. “I don’t make up stories.”

  “Perhaps we should talk about this after breakfast,” said Paris, his voice gentle. “You can show me the letters, then we’ll try and work out where Stefan went.”

  “Don’t bother humouring me.” Shelley grabbed up some cutlery and went out onto the veranda, slamming it down on the table.

  For the rest of breakfast, she was quiet, whilst everyone chattered around her. Then she remembered the huts.

  “Someone was brave last night, sleeping in the hut nearest the beach,” she s
aid, as lightly as she could. “For a while at least. They seemed to have given up and come back to the farmhouse.”

  The guests who had slept in them looked at her askance.

  “I don’t think any of us did,” said a woman called Jean. She was a hairdresser from Bradford. As such her hair was a mixture of several different expertly applied colours and her make up immaculate, even at eight-thirty in the morning.

  “Somebody did,” said Shelley. “I saw a light on in there. Perhaps it was one of the staff?”

  Annette, Paris and a couple of the resident staff members looked up from their breakfast. “All the staff sleep in the main house,” said Annette. “Perhaps you imagined it.”

  “Like the letters?”

  “Letters?” Annette rested her chin on her hand, looking bored already.

  “That Stefan left in my bag. About Helena’s Bay.”

  “There isn’t a Helena’s Bay, is there?” Annette turned to Paris, who shook his head.

  Shelley couldn’t miss the look everyone gave each other. She was clearly considered a complete fruitcake.

  When everyone had gone back to eating breakfast, Mrs Caldicott leaned over to Shelley and said, “I don’t mean to be unkind, but you’re making everyone feel a little uncomfortable with all these questions. Why don’t you let the matter of Stefan drop?”

  Her kind warning might have been convincing if not for the fact that when Shelley nipped upstairs to get a jacket she looked out of her window and saw Mrs Caldicott going into the hut near the beach. A few minutes later, the old woman came out and gazed up towards Shelley’s bedroom window. She began to wonder if Mrs Caldicott had other reasons for stopping her asking questions.

  The first morning’s lesson was in making stained glass. It was presided over by a very elderly woman. Her blue black hair was streaked with silver, and pulled up into a knot on top of her head. She wore peasant dress, and sturdy black shoes.

  “This is Yaya,” Paris told them, when he led the guests to the workshop in some stables at the back of the farmhouse. At that time, Yaya was facing away from them, stooped down over her work. She turned and everyone gasped, and then tried to cover it by coughing. On the right hand side of her head was a big scar that started just below her hairline and spread across her temple. Yet her face was beautiful, showing evidence of once perfect cheekbones and cornflower blue eyes.

  “Yaya was injured during the war,” Paris explained, reading everyone’s minds. “She lost her memory of that time.” He glanced across at Shelley, a look of warning in his eyes. “ Yaya still makes the most exquisite stained glass you’ve ever seen and she’s going to teach you. Her English isn’t very good, but she can explain herself well enough through hand signals. As far as making the stained glass is concerned, just watch her and copy her movements.”

  “Couldn’t you stay and translate?” asked Len. “I mean, how are we supposed to learn if we can’t understand a word she says?”

  “You watch and pay attention,” snapped Miss Charters. “It’s quite easy, even for a man.”

  Shelley caught Paris’s eye and they exchanged amused glances, the earlier tension forgotten for a moment. “I’ll see you later,” he said, looking straight at her.

  It took the class a while to get used to Yaya’s signals. She started by saying ‘Come, come,’ and they had to join her around the main table, watching as she cut the glass into small pieces, then used glass paint to decorate it, before setting it in lead cames, using a small welding iron on the metal joints. The final picture, just a few inches square but exquisite, was of a red rose.

  “Now,” said Yaya. “You … try.”

  The next half hour was a mixture of precarious and hilarious, as glass flew into the air, landing on the floor, and at one point, in Jean’s hair, getting caught up in her extensions.

  “I’d send them a bill for that if I were you,” said Len. Miss Charters tutted.

  “They couldn’t afford it,” said Jean. “I had it done at the place where Posh Spice had hers done.”

  “Your salon not good enough then?” said Mrs Caldicott, her mouth twitching at the corners.

  Despite the sparky discussion, Shelley could not help noticing that they all worked close together, whilst she worked alone at a table near to Yaya’s. She had not intended to, unlike the evening before at dinner. It just worked out that way. Perhaps Mrs Caldicott was right. She was driving people away with her questions about Stefan.

  “You … OK?” Yaya asked. It took a moment for Shelley to realise the old woman addressed her.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” said Shelley, nodding and putting a thumb up. “OK.”

  “Cut,” said Yaya, pointing at Shelley’s thumb. “Blood.”

  There was a hairline cut on the edge of the thumb, but it was bleeding quite heavily.

  “Kitchen. Plaster,” said Yaya. They were obviously words she had learned by heart for moments just like this.

  “It’ll be okay.” Shelley put her thumb into her mouth.

  “No.” Yaya held up her hand, and pointed to a list of health and safety rules on the wall. “Infection.”

  “Oh, I see. Yes, alright. I’ll be back soon.”

  As she left she felt the force of everyone staring at her, and wondered if she’d been labelled as the troublesome one. Or perhaps it was just her age, alienating her. She was at least twenty years younger than everyone else on the Islet, apart from Paris.

  As if thinking of him conjured him up, he was in the kitchen when she got there.

  “Is there a problem, Shelley?”

  “Nothing serious. I cut my thumb and Yaya wouldn’t let me continue until I’d put a plaster on it.”

  “Let’s take a look.” Paris reached up into a cupboard and pulled out a first aid kit. “Come on, hold out your thumb.”

  “I can dress it myself.”

  “Okay, Miss Independent.” He handed her the box, and watched as she struggled to clean the cut and then wrap a plaster around her thumb one-handed. When the plaster folded in on itself and stuck solid before she had chance to put it on, she capitulated and held her thumb out.

  Nothing prepared her for the bolt of electricity she felt when he touched her hand. It was all she could do to breathe as he tenderly wrapped the plaster around her thumb. Did she imagine it, or did he hold onto her hand for a little longer than necessary?

  He smiled and turned away, busying himself with putting away the first aid kit. Shelley was about to walk away when he turned back to her and fixed her with a piercing gaze.

  “Are you alright, Shelley? I sense you’re not having a good time.”

  “I’m fine,” she said. She was torn between wanting to show him the letters to prove her point, and hoping he would just forget the whole thing. Every time she tried to explain, she ended up on the defensive, and it was an emotion she had spent too many times, living back with her mother and trying to explain how she could be so stupid as to let Tony con her out of so much money. “Just, you know, being the youngest here and all that. I feel a bit out of it.”

  “I hope you won’t mind me saying this, but you should try to mix more.”

  “I would if people weren’t going out of their way to avoid me,” she said, pursing her lips.

  “I’m sure they’re not, Shelley. Sometimes we have to be the ones to make the effort. You know?”

  “Thank you, I’ll bear it in mind.”

  “I’ve offended you.”

  “No. You’ve just spoken the truth. I don’t mix very well with other people. I used to but … Anyway, thanks for putting the plaster on. I’d better get back to Yaya’s class.”

  “Don’t worry about that. Why don’t you show me Stefan’s letters?”

  “Now?”

  “Seems as good a time as any.”

  “Forget it. It doesn’t matter. He’s probably left the islet, that’s all. Maybe they fell into my bag accidentally.”

  “No one could have left the islet. The ferry isn’t running again yet.”<
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  “Couldn’t someone have left by private boat?”

  “There aren’t any private boats. We’d like one, so we’re no longer at mercy of the ferry company – as you know they charge well over the odds, but at the moment we don’t own one.”

  “What happens if someone is sick and needs to leave the island?”

  “We can get a rescue helicopter over from the mainland, but I can assure you that it hasn’t visited recently. I don’t understand, Shelley. You were eager to show me the letters earlier, to prove this man existed. Now you don’t want to. Why?”

  “Alright, I’ll show them to you. They’re up in my room.”

  Paris followed her up the stairs. When they got to her door, it was slightly ajar.

  “Someone has been in,” she said, pushing the door open gingerly.

  “Are you sure you shut it?”

  Shelley nodded. “I locked it. I know I did.”

  Everything in the room seemed to be in order, until she found her bag. It was where she left it, near the wardrobe, but she could tell it had been moved. Picking it up, she searched it for the letters.

  “They’re gone. Someone has taken them.”

  “Really?” Paris was watching her closely, in a way she did not much like.

  “They were in my bag. Look, I’ll get my laptop and show you the website. I saved it on my favourites.”

  But when she started up her laptop and opened up her Internet browser, the site was gone from the list. She checked the temporary Internet files and the history, but someone had wiped them clean, so that all trace of any webpages she had visited for the past goodness knows how many months had gone. She was notoriously bad at clearing the cache herself. Someone else must have done it. She tried the same steps again to find the website, using a search engine. Whilst there was a page listed on Google, when she clicked on the link there was just a plain white page saying ‘Error - Server Unavailable’.

  “It was here,” she said, her cheeks feeling hot. Tears pricked her eyes, and she fought them back. There was no way she was going to cry in front of Paris, but it was all too much. “There was a website because I’ve found the link. So,” she said, trying to work things out in her head, “whoever had that website has a reason for not wanting me to see it again. But what? Then there’s the letters. How could they have gone?”