‘Oh my God,’ she whispered.
‘What is it?’ shouted Alex.
The whole world seemed to stand still.
Moving closer, Alex could see it was not driftwood. It was a body, lying completely motionless on the sand. All his nerve endings seemed to vibrate and his skin felt ice cold.
Grace stepped in and raised a hand to her mouth. ‘Who is it?’ she gasped. ‘Are they dead?’
Cautiously, Alex walked right up to the body. It was face down, but it was obviously a man and he was wearing the distinctive polo shirt of the Angel Cay staff.
He looked at Grace, then knelt down slowly and peered at the man’s face. All he could see was one closed eye and a gash down the side of his forehead. Blood was congealed around the wound.
‘Oh shit . . .’ said Alex quietly as he noticed one final terrible detail: there was a small, round burn mark on the man’s pale unmoving cheek.
Covering his mouth, Alex turned and fell to his knees, his body ejecting a stomachful of wine and spirits. After retching violently, long strings of spittle hung from his mouth. Wiping them away, he turned back to the body, his hands shaking. He looked around at the faces of his friends.
‘It’s that boat boy. Bradley.’
Sasha’s face was bleached of colour. ‘I think he’s dead,’ she said mournfully.
‘Feel his pulse,’ said Grace quietly, looking at Alex.
He looked back at her, his face pleading, but someone had to do it. Turning back to the body, he reached out to touch Bradley’s wrist.
‘Don’t be a prick,’ hissed Miles suddenly, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him back.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Don’t touch a dead body. You’ll leave fingerprints or DNA or something.’
Alex sprang back from the prone figure in alarm. His mum watched police shows all the time and he knew how it worked. The hard-bitten cop would cuff him to the table and say, ‘So, Mr Doyle, you were the last one to see the deceased alive. Did you leave him on good terms? Oh, and what can you tell me about these wounds on his face?’
No, Miles was right. Touching a dead body was not a good idea at all.
‘We can’t just leave him here,’ said Grace, taking a small step forward.
‘I mean it,’ said Miles, blocking her. ‘No one should touch it.’
‘It?’ replied Grace angrily. ‘He’s one of our staff.’
‘He’s called Bradley,’ said Alex quietly. ‘He only got here today.’
‘It, he,’ said Miles with irritation. ‘What does it matter if he’s dead?’
Dead. Alex felt glued to the sand. He could feel his heart pumping wildly. God, how can he be dead?
How? he asked himself. He looked at Miles and felt a sense of dread well in his stomach, then pushed the dark thought to one side as fiercely as he could.
‘We need to go and get help,’ he said.
‘I think he’s past helping,’ said Miles in a low, steady voice.
Although he was younger than Alex and Grace, Miles had a natural authority, assisted perhaps by the fact that his father owned the land around them. Sasha seemed happy to toe the line and Alex watched as she slipped her hand into Miles’.
‘What should we do, baby?’ she asked.
He looked at her, then at Alex and Grace. ‘Nothing.’