Last Resort Read Online Free Page A

been testing the zoom capabilities of the camera, but all of them gave away her location. In each of them, there was the unmistakable shape of the one-time royal yacht, Britannia , in her permanent mooring beside the Ocean Terminal centre in Leith, Edinburgh’s port.
    ‘That’s handy,’ I murmured. ‘Now I know where you live, Ms McDaniels, if needs be.’
    I could have scrolled straight to the end to find and delete my own mugshots, but I was curious so I went on slowly. As the pictures progressed it was obvious that Carrie had been learning how to use the camera properly, as they became more skilled, sharper and better composed.
    All of the early images were of places, street scenes in Edinburgh, a series in the Royal Botanical Gardens, which were actually pretty damn good, and crowds of shoppers in a covered mall that I recognised as Cameron Toll, not far from the new Royal Infirmary.
    The naked man took me by surprise, as he had been taken also, from the expression on his face. He was on a beach, and she had caught him changing into swim trunks, behind a windbreak that would have given him a degree of privacy had she not been on the same side. She had caught him with his right foot in mid-air, toes pointing towards the costume that he held in both hands, leaning forward yet looking sideways, mouth open, half-smiling as he looked at her, showing bright eyes and perfect teeth.
    Five more shots followed, catching him in the act of over-balancing and falling over, laughing as he rolled in the sand, then struggling into his garment as he sat there. The last was a normal pose, a more controlled grin half-turned towards the camera: close cropped dark hair, thick straight eyebrows, good muscle definition, perfect teeth, age thirty-something, maybe. He reminded me of someone; I studied him for a few moments then decided that he looked like the actor, Dominic West, and moved on.
    The next few photographs were of Carrie herself. The man had pinched the camera and paid her back in kind, catching her sleeping on a beach towel, mouth open slightly, topless, then in a couple more as she woke, startled possibly by the click of the camera. She was comfortable with him, that was for sure.
    I paused and checked the time on the top corner of the screen. I knew I should be going, for I couldn’t be sure how long it would take me to find Xavi’s place, but I pressed on, and into a surprise.
    The next sequence of photographs showed the beach. I knew it very well: I live just above it. There were a few zoomed images across the Forth of the coastal villages that I knew to be Elie and Earlsferry, but the rest looked inland, up towards Gullane Hill, and at the properties there.
    But not all of the properties: they were concentrated on one specific house; quite a few of them were close-ups. It was a modern two-storey building, set on quite a big plot. Overlooking the beach there was a bay-windowed structure that some might call a conservatory. But I don’t; I call it the ‘garden room’.
    Yes, it was my house.
    The last photograph had been taken at what must have been the camera’s maximum zoom; there were two people in the room, a man and a woman. They were standing, and while Carrie had been too far away for either to be facially recognisable, I knew for sure from her body shape that one was Aileen, my ex-wife now, but not then, not on 5 May, the date on the image.
    I was pretty certain, too, that I could put a name to the bloke, from his slim build, his height in relation to her, because they were standing pretty close, and from his distinctive head of hair. A pound to a pinch of pig-shit, he was Joey Morocco, the actor she’d been caught with, post flagrante, one might say, by a tabloid newspaper.
    I hadn’t really given a toss when it all came out, for we’d been history by then, but on 5 May we hadn’t been. The gloss might have worn off, but we were still Mr and Mrs, and she had had him, literally for sure, in our house, in my