Kiss Heaven Goodbye by Tasmina Perry

was it guilt? Was Miles feeling the same sense of self-loathing he was?

    ‘He’s all right?’ said Miles, almost to himself. ‘But he was dead, I was sure I ...’

    ‘We still shouldn’t have left him there, mate,’ said Alex. ‘He’s still probably badly hurt.’

    ‘Don’t go getting all pious on me now,’ sneered Miles. ‘You were just as happy as the rest of us to leave him for dead, Alex. You wanted to save your own skin.’

    ‘What? No!’ protested Alex.

    Miles shook his head with disgust and turned towards the door. ‘Well, don’t start celebrating just yet,’ he said over his shoulder.

    There was a soft knock at the door. Alex opened it and saw Nelson standing there, his face expressionless.

    ‘Mr Ashford wants to see you in his study. Have you seen Miss Sasha?’

    ‘We’ll be there in a minute.’

    They found Sasha sitting on a sunlounger by the pool. Her hair was wet and she was wrapped in a bathrobe, her arms clasped protectively around her knees. She had sunglasses on and seemed to be staring blankly across the water.

    Alex hung back and watched the interchange between his friend and his lover.

    ‘My father wants to see us,’ said Miles flatly.

    ‘Let me change.’ Sasha’s voice was vague, despondent.

    ‘Just come.’

    She pulled off her shades and looked at them both. A trail of black eye make-up was smeared down her cheek. In the two years he had known her, Alex had never seen Sasha look anything but supremely self-confident and in control. But her open anguish spoke for all of them.

    ‘How does he know about it?’ she asked.

    ‘Thank Alex.’

    ‘What are we going to say to him?’ she whispered urgently.

    ‘The truth,’ replied Alex.

    Robert Ashford’s study was in a far wing of the house overlooking a sweep of ocean. Daylight had come quickly. Robert was already dressed in a crisp white shirt and dark blue tie when Alex, Miles and Sasha walked in. Grace was sitting sombre-faced in a leather chair facing his desk and Robert motioned to the seats beside her.

    ‘I prefer to stand,’ said Miles.

    His father shook his head slightly and pulled a sour face. ‘As you wish.’

    He folded his hands in front of him as if he were about to chair a board meeting.

    ‘Let’s get right to it, shall we? Would someone like to explain why Alex and Grace told Nelson there was a body on West Point Beach this morning?’

    There was a moment’s silence and then they all started speaking at once.

    ‘There was a body!’ said Grace over the top of the hubbub. ‘We thought he was dead!’

    Robert made ‘quieten down’ motions with his hands. ‘And who exactly is supposed to be dead?’ he asked.

    ‘Bradley someone. He was a boat boy hired to help out with your visitors,’ said Grace. ‘We were all walking back from Catseye Cove and we found him on the west beach.’

    Robert steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. ‘Was he breathing? Was there a pulse?’

    Everyone looked at Miles.

    Alex stared at his friend anxiously.

    ‘I was going to test for a pulse but we decided not to touch the body as the police would want to see it first.’

    ‘He was pretty still,’ added Sasha.

    ‘Still?’ said Grace. ‘He was dead! There was blood all down his face.’

    ‘Were you taking drugs? All of you?’ asked Robert finally.

    Grace was now visibly upset. ‘I know what I saw, Dad. And yes, we’d all been drinking, but we weren’t hallucinating.’

    Robert sat back in his chair with an air of annoyance. ‘Well, what I can tell you is that one of the boat boys does appear to have vanished. His bed was slept in, but there’s no sign of him on the island.’

    ‘Maybe he was washed out to sea . . .’

    Her father held up a hand. ‘I haven’t finished, Grace,’ he said. ‘What I was going to say was that Nelson has been down to the boat shed and one of the Boston Whalers is missing.’

    ‘So you think the little shit has done a bunk?’ said