Diamond Eyes Read Online Free

mainland, it was the roar of a motorbike and sidecar leaping off the end of the derelict tram bridge onto the timber-planked shore-line.
    Freddie saw them from his own perch on the great wall of Likiba, restricted by the terms of his release following the incident with Mira. However, he’d known for almost a fortnight that he’d be here to witness the arrival of the two military doctors. Deaf as he may be to everything that moved around him, he’d heard the echoes of their coming a dozen times as he passed by this way on his morning walks. And now, as Time rippled over its own threshold between presentand future, he was reduced to watching their arrival in silence — and with dread, since he’d overheard far more than their initial arrival. He had followed their echoes throughout Serenity and heard every word and every conversation they would ever have on the island, including their eventual plans for Mira and the dreadful fate that awaited her and Ben, because of them.
    Pointless, he’d learned, to try warning anyone. Staff had failed to take him seriously. After all, he’d heard of Mira’s initial arrival too, and that incident with her stitches and the subsequent traumas with Ben, and yet here he was, watching all of their lives still unravelling. Powerless to prevent it.
    Yet there was still a chance he could save his sweet angel, the matron. Ben had suggested he should express himself by writing a play, and so he stole down from the wall and slinked away into the forgotten dungeons beneath Serenity, hoping to finish it in time — and in Braille, lest it fell into any hands that could bring disaster back to them.
    The Harley Davidson nearly rolled, its sidecar teetering. The passenger gripped onto his map and seatbelt, leaning heavily in the opposite direction to remain upright. Behind them, fishermen shouted and shook fists at them before recasting their lines into the swift salty water.
    ‘Scenic route be damned, Mitch!’ shouted the sidecar passenger. ‘Next time we use the
new
bridge!’
    ‘Live a little, Zan. I did warn you to hang onto your helmet.’
    ‘Keep your extreme sports for the weekend! Plus, you’ve lost our bodyguards.’
    ‘Hardly; look again. These guys may not be the best the colonel could find, but they’re adequate.’
    Zander Zhou turned his head and lifted his foggy visor to see a white four-wheel-drive zigzagging at speed around roadworks along the new bridge from the mainland. ‘They don’t look happy.’
    ‘Meatheads are never happy unless we’re not. Relax — enjoy the ride and the sunshine.’
    ‘It’s still overcast!’
    ‘Fresh air then.’
    ‘How can I, when you’re so lost? Look, this island isn’t even supposed to be here. It’s an unnamed mangrove swamp!’ Zhou waved the map at his hulkish companion, who snatched it and cast it over his leather-clad shoulder into the breeze.
    ‘That’s a tourist map. You won’t find this place on
any
tourist map.’
    A horn blared and Mitch Van Danik accelerated to avoid a concrete truck exiting a construction site where the work on foundations for a new marina had turned the remnant vegetation, grey sand, mud and mangroves into a foul-smelling paste. Van Danik signalled two victorious fingers at the truck driver and accelerated his Harley in the opposite direction along the only sealed road on the island. Dodging potholes in the time-punished bitumen, he swerved onto the wrong side and raced past regular gaps in the kerb that promised a future grid of adjoining side streets.
    The road wound around a small tidal marsh before rejoining and running parallel to the derelict tramway, both of which terminated in a clearing at the base of a low hill. There sat a gleaming bus shelter that guarded the crumbling beach-stone walls of a large colonial-style building like a fresh sentry at an old jail.
    Rusted razor wire curled along the top of the wall, intertwining with flowering vines — and the peering face of an old man watching