Page 126 of Sunrise By the Sea

Marisa couldn’t help smiling. ‘Do I?’

‘Oh yes. So beautiful and so kind and the food and . . . well.’

She moved closer to him.

Suddenly there was a shout by the stage. It was Huckle, his face a mask of badly concealed panic.

‘Have you seen the twins?’ he said. ‘Have you seen them? They’re not watching the ship. Are they backstage?’

Alexei leapt off the stool and they both went backstage to have a look, calling their names. They were nowhere to be found, not in the green room, or the storage areas.

‘Shit,’ said Huckle. ‘God.’

‘We’ll go search,’ said Marisa. ‘Huckle. There’s millions of lifeguards and nannies here, you know that.’

‘All I know is that we’re on the wild Cornish coast and there’s millions of people here I don’t know and tin mines and surfing waves and rocks and . . . Christ,’ said Huckle, turning white and grabbing his phone. ‘Shit, I have to call Polly.’

‘We’ll start looking,’ said Marisa and Huckle nodded, shortly, grimly.

Before long the entire beach was out searching: the pirates, who had just been readying themselves to do battle with an entire platoon of stormtroopers, throwing themselves into it too. The children were half-convinced this was part of the party, and were jealous of the twins for being the ones who got to hide from pirates.

Polly charged up to the road in case they’d got in the way of the cars; Huckle went from food stall to tent, turning things over, shouting until he was hoarse. The terrible paralysing fear of it; the blind, white panic of missing children.

He reached the wild animal tent, where a large rabbit was being packed away. There were raised voices inside and a short-haired woman came out, looking mutinous.

‘Uh, yeah, we have a bit of a situation?’ she said. ‘Only, Janice is missing.’

Chapter Seventy-seven

They ran, both of them. Alexei was surprisingly fast for such a big fellow; he pulled off his ridiculous tailcoat and bow tie, shedding a couple of buttons. Marisa ditched her shoes, and grabbed the skirt up round her hips, and they ran like lightning.

‘Start at rocks,’ Alexei said. ‘Kids lovink rocks.’

They clambered around the headland, Marisa cutting her feet and not even noticing, calling and calling.

‘Where would they go?’ wondered Alexei. ‘Are there caves?’

They glanced back. There weren’t any to be seen.

‘The dunes?’ said Marisa.

‘But there are pirate ships and toys and sweets . . .’

‘I know,’ said Marisa. ‘Why leave that party? It doesn’t make sense.’

Alexei looked at her.

‘Maybe, for some people, is too noisy,’ he said.

They looked at one another and dashed on towards the dunes.

She slipped and stumbled behind him. He listened very carefully to the wind, listening for the tiniest change in sounds.

‘Come with me,’ he said, hearing something, the faintest of sounds; a sound between sounds. A rustle he felt was not right.

‘Avery? Daisy?’ shouted Marisa, but he hushed her, surprisingly.

She crept along behind him, tiptoeing through the sand – and what she saw made her gasp.

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