The Women Who Ran Away - Sheila O'Flanagan Page 0,46

said Grace.

She continued to sit with Deira, but eventually she felt her eyes start to close.

‘I have to go to bed,’ she said. ‘Will you be all right?’

‘Sure I will.’ Deira gave her a weak smile. ‘Don’t worry about me, Grace. I’m fine.’

But she didn’t feel fine. She felt terrible.

She stayed sitting in the alcove, not in the slightest bit tired, staring ahead of her, allowing the last few months to replay in her mind, as she’d done so often before. She thought of the things she should have said and done, but the bottom line was that the result was always the same.

Gavin had left her.

And before that, he’d lied to her.

She would never forgive him.

She would never forgive herself.

It was almost four in the morning and the sky outside was beginning to lighten by the time Deira decided she was tired enough to go to bed. She deliberately didn’t look out of the window at the damage the fire had caused. It would still be there when she woke up again. Grace was right. It was only stuff. There was no point in stressing. Tomorrow (or more accurately, later today) was time enough to worry about it.

The bartender had closed the bar and most of the other guests had gone back to their rooms, although a few continued to wander around the public areas, which still smelled faintly of smoke. Nevertheless, after the pandemonium of earlier, it was quiet and peaceful.

Deira left her empty cup and half-empty glass of brandy on the bar counter before turning to head upstairs. And then she turned back again. She couldn’t understand how she hadn’t noticed before. The hotel bar, like the restaurant she’d eaten in with Grace, had a nautical theme. A net hung from its ceiling, supporting some green and red glass buoys. Semaphore flags decorated the wall. And on a long shelf was a wooden boat, with a chrome plaque beneath it that said Atlantic Lady. Set into the hull of the boat were five portholes.

Surely, thought Deira, this was the answer to the professor’s clue? A ship called Atlantic Lady. Behind the bar. A place where he might have expected Grace to relax. In a hotel called the Atlantique.

The first clue had given them the number 2. The uploaded photo would give them another number. Along with 5 for the portholes, Grace would be on her way to unlocking the next folder and continuing on her way to whatever prize her late husband had left for her. But that left them a number short if the password was four digits again. Maybe the uploaded photo would give a two-digit number. Or perhaps the first clue was 20 and not 2. The title of the novel was Twenty Thousand Leagues after all. She’d talk about it with Grace later. But right now, she needed to sleep.

She woke up at nine o’clock, her eyes snapping open, instantly alert. She showered as quickly as she could, pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and hurried downstairs. The smell of smoke hung in the air and she had to steel herself to walk outside and survey the possible damage to her car.

She wasn’t the only one. Although the fire zone was still cordoned off, a small group of people clustered nearby. Most of them were either taking photos or talking animatedly into their mobiles. Deira edged past them to have a look. And groaned.

Even if the convertible wasn’t the burnt-out wreck of her worst imaginings, it certainly didn’t resemble anything that would be drivable in the near future. The paintwork was bubbled and scorched from the heat of the flames, and a plank of wood from the pergola had burned its way through the fabric top, falling onto the passenger seat and setting it alight too. Only the prompt arrival of the fire brigade had stopped further damage, but it was clear to Deira that the interior would have been ruined by the water from their hoses. As for the mechanical parts, she couldn’t imagine that a few thousand litres at high pressure would’ve done them much good either.

She stayed where she was for a few minutes, but as there was nothing she could usefully do, she abandoned the depressing sight and went into the hotel. Breakfast was being served in the café, and she helped herself to some pastries and a large coffee from the buffet.

‘Deira.’ Grace Garvey, sitting at a window table with a cup of coffee in front of her,