300 Days of Sun Read Online Free Page B

out again. So, what I was thinking was, there’s a story I want to find out, and who knows how to find out? And that’s when it came to me: that’s what you do, isn’t it?”
    â€œI don’t have any contacts here,” I said.
    â€œBut you’d know how to get started, at least?”
    â€œNathan, I’m not an investigative reporter. I’m a politics and economics specialist.”
    â€œIt’s important.”
    He looked about sixteen, hungry, and desperate. I responded as anyone with a heart would. “I can’t promise anything.”
    Silence, except for the call of a gull.
    â€œYou’ll have to tell me exactly what you want to know with as many details as you have. Names. Places. Dates as near as you can get. It might also be worth telling me why you need to know.”
    He shot an anxious look around. On one side a gaggle of teenagers, boys and girls, were oblivious to anything but their own noisy flirtations; the young ­couple on the other side were speaking together in French, discussing whether it was worth hiring a car.
    â€œThere are two places. One is called Horta das Rochas near
Albufeira. It’s a resort on the coast, with a golf course and spa. The other is Vale Navio. Its reputation isn’t great. It’s changed hands several times, sometimes for dirty money—­Portuguese, and British, too. The name of the man I want to find out about is Terry Jackson.”
    â€œPick an easy subject, why don’t you?” I kept my voice down. “I’m not sure either of us should get involved in anything like this.”
    â€œI’m not saying I want to get involved. There’s no getting
involved—­it all happened a long time ago. I just want to find out if there’s anything on record about it.”
    His eyes were locked onto mine.
    â€œWell, OK. I take it you’ve done the obvious Google search?”
    â€œAs I said, this was early 1990s. There’s not a lot that goes that far back online, certainly not that I can find in English. That’s what I mean—­if you had to write a newspaper story about this, how would you get started?”
    The wind blew my hair back from my face and I could taste the salt in the air. I watched the boats rocking at anchor in the channel and a plastic jerry can float by.
    â€œIf I was at work, I’d probably call the local English language newspaper. Ask one of the journalists there if they could help with some research, sweeten the request with the implication they’d be giving their career a little boost, or at the very least their bank account.”
    â€œWould you be up for that?”
    â€œWell, obviously I’m not at work.”
    â€œYou could have a go, though, eh?”
    â€œYou still haven’t told me why this is so important.”
    â€œI will do. Just not here. But trust me, it is.”
    â€œGive me a bit more to go on,” I said.
    Nathan rubbed his hands over his face. I waited, and he seemed to reach a decision.
    â€œYou know the little girl who disappeared in Praia da Falesia years ago—­the famous case, parents both lawyers who did everything they could to keep the case in the news?”
    Tilly Stern. A three-­year-­old at the time she was snatched from a holiday apartment in the middle of the night while her parents slept in the next room. It would have been around 2006, because I’d landed my first job on a financial magazine after Oxford and, even there, it was one of those stories no one could avoid. I nodded.
    â€œI think there could have been others. Going back a lot longer.”
    The engine of the ferry started up. Vibrations overrode the slight tremble in my limbs. Some of my best stories had started this way, the shot of adrenaline confirming the strength of my instincts.
    â€œConnected to the resort developments you mentioned?”
    â€œIt’s a possibility.”
    I didn’t know what to