A large hermit crab dragged the heavy conical shell it had borrowed across the white sand, leaving a meandering trail to mark its progress. Steve picked it up to show to Lucy.

She looked at it and smiled. ‘It needs a bigger shell, there’s no room for its claws.’

The little crab waved a pinkish orange claw in the air defensively. Lucy handed it carefully back to Steve and he placed it back on the sand. They watched as it continued stubbornly on its path.

A stranded boat and a few damaged palm trees were the only sign of the storm that ravaged the coast. They had walked down to the beach to see the boat, lying wrecked on its side, several hundred yards from where it had been moored.

The sea looked so calm and inviting it was difficult to believe that it was the same ocean they had watched smashing onto the beach last night. Lucy kicked off her sandals and stepped into the water. It was warm and crystal clear, gently lapping round her toes.

‘This is how I always imagined Mombasa.’

‘I wasn’t sure what to expect. I meant to read up more about it on the Internet but never got round to it.’

‘I checked the hotel website. They didn’t say anything about tropical storms.’

Lucy slipped her hand into his as they walked and pulled him close to her. She felt happier now they had decided to start a family.

‘We must ring Dad to let him know we’re O.K.’

Steve nodded. ‘He does worry about you.’

She looked out across the deep blue of the Indian Ocean to the white breakers on the distant reef, absent mindedly brushing her blonde hair out of her eyes. Nothing seemed to worry Steve. He was a risk taker. Even when they broke down on a dusty, potholed road in the middle of the African bush and their driver started making frantic calls for assistance on an ancient mobile phone. He made her feel safe.

That was a big part of what had attracted her to him, as well as his rugged good looks and their shared sense of humour. He was the first man other than her father who really cared about her. She liked his dark hair, cut shorter for the holiday and the way his stubble shadow meant he always looked like he needed a shave.

They walked on in silence on the warm white sand. Lucy felt she should defend her father.

‘Dad paid for everything before I had my first teaching job. I took it for granted at the time. And he’s accepted you!’

‘I had to marry you first!’

She kissed him. ‘No regrets?’

‘No regrets.’

‘You like him really?’

He pretended to consider. ‘He would make a really good grandfather.’

Steve’s words hung in the humid air for a moment, they still hadn’t really talked about what starting a family would mean.

Lucy smiled. ‘I think he will.’

They reached the boat. A tangle of ropes lay next to it and there were a few bottles and bits of broken fishing equipment strewn around. Steve could see that the wooden hull had taken quite a hammering. Parts of the planking were broken and some had come loose.

Lucy stood looking at it. ‘This is someone’s life. I doubt they would have any insurance?’

Steve shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t think so. People here seem quite resourceful. I bet we’ll see it back on the water before we leave.’

They walked around the boat and could see the beach north of the hotel. Lucy recognised the leaning palm tree, bent over towards the sand, where Steve had taken her photo on their first night in Mombasa. It was only three days ago but seemed much longer. The rocky headland, jutting out into the sand, was as far as they had walked that night. She could make out the beach continuing on the other side.

Lucy walked towards it and spun round on the sand to call to Steve. ‘Want to explore? It looks like it’s going to be another nice day.’

Steve followed her and climbed up on the rocks. ‘It’s a great beach. No seaweed.’

She smiled. ‘The man we saw with the rake when we were kayaking must have been here before us.’

He reached out to pull her up and she climbed next to him. The pristine white beach went on for as far as she could see, in a long slow curve until it disappeared into the early morning haze. A line of tall palm trees fringed the sand. It was completely deserted.

Steve helped her down the other side. He picked up Lucy’s abandoned sandals and looked back towards the hotel. He was surprised at how far they had already walked. The boat was out of sight and the rocky headland hid the hotel from view.

Lucy pointed to a dark spot the horizon. ‘It’s a dhow. I had a dream about one of those the other night. It was in a storm though, not like today.’

They stood and watched its steady progress, the sail bent over.

Lucy pointed to the dhow. ‘There must be more wind at sea. There’s hardly any breeze here today.’

‘I think it’s coming closer.’

Lucy pulled her camera from her pocket. ‘Good. I was hoping to take some pictures of one before we left.’  She held up the camera. The dhow was still too far off.

‘Let’s keep on walking to where it’s headed’

Steve took her hand again and they carried on along the beach, Lucy glancing out to the ocean to see if the dhow was any closer.

 She bent and picked up a shell from the sand and showed it to Steve. It was a type of scallop shell, bleached even whiter than the sand, the inside perfectly smooth. He handed it back to her and she slipped it into the pocket of her shorts. It was her special souvenir of a wonderful morning in Mombasa.

Steve checked his watch. It was a habit he was finding hard to break, after so many years in a job when time was money and he was responsible for deadlines being met. Lucy had tried to persuade him to leave it at the hotel but he liked the feel of it on his wrist.

He was about to suggest they should turn back when Lucy pointed. ‘It’s coming in.’

Steve could see the dhow had changed its slow but steady course and was going to pull up on the beach a little way ahead of them. It looked a bigger boat than they had seen before, built for long voyages on the open ocean. As it came closer he could see the dark silhouettes of two men, one at the helm and the other bracing the huge triangular sail.

‘Do you think they will mind me taking their picture?’ Lucy remembered the safari guide had warned them about the Maasai not liking tourists taking photos, although they’d seemed happy enough when Steve gave them a five hundred shilling note.

‘We can ask if they come close enough.’

Lucy looked at the dhow using the viewing screen on her camera. ‘That scene hasn’t changed for centuries!’ It was still too far out to sea but she used the zoom.

They watched the dhow come closer to the beach. It was a sturdily built boat with a long bowsprit and a single curved mast that towered into the clear blue sky. The coffee coloured lateen sail was an impressive piece of engineering, perfectly evolved for the conditions and easily handled in a stiff breeze. The man at the helm had brought the boat round so that it was skimming effortlessly through the water, as fast as any modern sailing racer.

Lucy was standing at the water’s edge taking pictures while Steve carried her sandals and watched it approach. Everything happened very quickly. The dhow beached and both men leapt out. Steve realised they were in real danger. One of the men was carrying a rifle. He rushed at Steve and smashed him hard in the head with the butt. He heard Lucy scream his name as he passed out.

                                                                             # # #

Lucy fought for her life. She fought for Steve, although she didn’t know if he was alive or dead. The men were too strong. One bent her arms hard behind her back while the other placed his rifle back in the dhow and returned with a length of rope. As he bent to tie her legs she kicked him in the face as hard as she could. There was a satisfying thump as she split his lip and he fell over backwards onto the sand. She knew if she’d been wearing shoes, even sandals, it would have really hurt, but she was barefooted so he easily took the blow and slapped her hard across the face with his hand. Her head spun.

The two men were arguing in a language she couldn’t understand. The one with the rope scowled at her, putting his hand to his bleeding mouth. He said something threatening to her and took the rope, expertly tying her legs together. He pulled the end of the rope round her back and bound her wrists so tightly she could hardly move. The man who was holding her dropped her on the sand. Quickly searching through Steve’s pockets, they gave him one final kick before carrying her to the dhow.

As they threw her on board her head struck the rough wooden planking, opening up a cut that started bleeding down her face. The men shoved the heavy boat back into the waves and leapt aboard, hoisting the brown canvas sail and catching the light breeze. The boat turned to windward and they swiftly headed back out to sea.

Lucy realised the whole attack had probably taken less than five minutes. Five minutes that had turned one of the happiest days she could ever remember into a living hell. She lay in the bottom of the dhow, her mind racing with the surge of adrenalin from the attack. The sides of the boat were fairly low and she could glimpse the sea as it dipped between waves. Lucy tested the rope binding her wrists. The men had made sure if she tried to escape overboard she would drown, as she could hardly move her arms or legs.

One of the men noticed the cut on her head and shouted at the other. She didn’t need to understand the language to know he was angry. The other man yelled back. His tone sounded defensive, apologetic. Lucy decided she had to store every scrap of knowledge about the men in the hope that something would be of use. She knew the man’s anger was significant but she still felt dizzy and couldn’t work out how.

She could only see the angry man from where she lay but studied him carefully. He looked different from most of the Kenyans she had met. Tall and wiry, he was bare chested, with bare feet, wearing a pair of faded army combat style camouflage trousers with a bright metal buckle on the belt that flashed in the sun. He was also wearing an expensive digital watch that looked out of place on the ancient dhow. It was Steve’s watch.

The angry man glanced down at her. His eyes had a dark and humourless intelligence. She had felt his strength as she struggled to break free from his grip. He had not hurt her though. He had held her firmly, confident in his power over her. She watched him scanning the horizon. He was keeping a lookout for something. She thought there had been no witnesses to the attack, but perhaps someone had seen them. A flicker of hope. Perhaps they were raising the alarm and at any moment the man would shout that they were being chased by her rescuers. Lucy realised she had been disorientated. He was of course not looking behind but ahead of them. The flicker of hope vanished as quickly as it had come.

The angry man made fine adjustments to a rope that changed the shape of the huge brown canvas sail. He sat on the deck and began searching through something. It looked familiar to Lucy but strangely out of context. She realised it was Steve’s wallet. The man pulled out each item and examined it for a moment then put it back carefully. He looked pleased to see Steve’s bank debit card. She watched as he studied the picture on Steve’s driving licence and a photo of Lucy wearing her favourite summer dress. Steve loved that picture and always carried it with him. He would miss it more than anything else in his wallet. The man pulled out a wad of thousand Kenyan shilling notes and counted them, then found the blue plastic key card with the name of their hotel and room number in gold lettering. He looked across at Lucy and saw her watching him.

                                                                             # # #

Steve opened his eyes from a nightmare and immediately knew it had really happened. His head was throbbing painfully and he raised his hand to it and felt the tacky wetness of his own blood, congealing in the hot sun.  He sat up and shouted at the top of his voice.

‘LUCY!’

The beach was deserted. Lucy was gone. There was no sign of the dhow. He staggered to the water’s edge, desperately straining his eyes to see anything on the sea. There was nothing. He turned and examined the white sand. There were no footprints, no sign of a scuffle, no trace that Lucy had ever been there. A gentle breeze stirred the fine sand at his feet and something bright and metallic caught his eye. It was Lucy’s camera, almost buried in the sand. She had dropped it when they were attacked. He brushed the sand from it and held it close.

Something else caught his attention, a little further up the beach. Two dark objects close together. He went to investigate. Lucy’s sandals were lying on the sand. Steve picked them up and stared at them, one in each hand, unable to comprehend what had happened. Lucy was gone and he had no idea how to get her back. It was his fault. He had failed her. He sank to his knees and cried for the first time since his father died. 

They had taken his watch. He looked at his wrist as he had too many times during their holiday and now it was bare. Time had been important to him before but it was a matter of life and death to him now. He was wasting it on the beach when he should be raising the alarm. He had to get back to the hotel as soon as he could, as every minute of delay could mean Lucy was further away, harder to find.

Steve looked around for a landmark that would help him identify the spot he had last seen her. One of the tall palm trees at the edge of the beach had fallen down and lay in the sand, pointing directly towards the sea, to where Lucy had gone, been taken. It was as good a marker as any and he made a mental note to check that there were not any more like it between there and the rocky headland.

He turned on Lucy’s little digital camera, saying a silent prayer as he did so that it would still work. Lucy would have been pleased, as it worked perfectly and he found himself looking at a picture of the dhow and their attackers on the view screen. Their faces were not as clear as he would have liked and he guessed she must have been on maximum zoom. It was more than he could ever have hoped for. A miracle. He wasn’t in the habit of thanking God but he did now.

Steve put the camera in his pocket and realised his wallet was gone. Anger welled up inside him. Grabbing her sandals from the sand, he sprinted back towards the hotel. He was going to get Lucy back. Whatever it took. He had to have her back. Whatever the cost. He said the words over and over as he ran, like a mantra. It took his mind off what was happening. It stopped him thinking he may never see Lucy again.

He reached the headland and bounded up the rocks. It seemed an eternity since he had last climbed over it, with Lucy, since everything changed. Steve jumped down onto the hotel beach. A group of African men were gathered around the stranded boat. He had been right, as they were already busily at work and it would be back in the water before they went home. Then he remembered. There would be no going home for Lucy at the end of the week. He had to save her.

Steve ran to the men, shouting to them that his wife had been kidnapped. They stopped working and looked at him with bewildered expressions. He tried to explain about the dhow and realised they were staring at him. The front of his white shirt was covered in blood. His head was still bleeding from a deep wound. He was holding up a pair of women’s sandals as proof of a crime. One of the older men climbed down from the ladder placed against the hull of the wrecked boat and walked over to him. He looked at Steve with pity and concern and led him up the familiar stone steps to the hotel reception.

The inside of the reception was cool and calm, with a long window at the far end and wooden chairs and tables overlooking the beach. A huge ceiling fan slowly rotated, giving the place a languid feel. The whitewashed walls were decorated with brightly painted African art and the smell of polished wood mixed with the delicate scent of exotic flowers.

Kamaria was at the reception desk. She listened carefully to Steve and quickly grasped the key points of what had happened, her eyes wide with concern. She immediately called the hotel manager and took Steve into a side room to tend to the wound on his head. Her assessment was calm and confident.

‘This will need stitching. It is best for you to go to the Coast Hospital in Mombasa.’

Steve was still in shock and exhausted from his run across the beach. Kamaria took a clean white bandage from the hotel’s first aid kit and held it to the open wound to stop the bleeding. As she leaned close to him he detected the unexpected and subtly exotic scent of exotic perfume and momentarily glimpsed a different woman from the one he had imagined her to be.

‘It is quicker for you to go in our taxi than to wait for an ambulance. How long ago did it happen?’

‘I can’t be sure how long I was unconscious. It all happened so quickly.’

A grim faced African wearing an expensive suit appeared in the doorway. Steve saw a look pass between him and Kamaria. He looked at Steve and the white bandage that was already turning red.

‘Mr Milton? I am Mr Mutai, the hotel manager. I assure you that we will do everything we can to find your wife.’

Kamaria turned to him. ‘He needs to go to the Hospital, Mr Mutai. I must call a taxi.’

The manager raised his hand to stop her. His voice had the firm authoritative tone of a man used to giving orders.  ‘Stay with him please. I will arrange the taxi and also notify the police. I will ask them to meet you at the hospital.’

He looked at Steve. ‘Would you like me to send someone to your room to bring a clean shirt?’

Steve looked down at his blood-stained shirt. ‘Thank you.’

As the manager turned to go, Kamaria stopped him. ‘I could accompany Mr Milton to hospital?’

The manager thought for a moment and nodded. ‘Yes. I will tell one of the others to cover reception. Mr Milton may need help.’  He left, dialling on his mobile phone. He was calling the hotel owner. After the manager had gone Steve turned to Kamaria. ‘I have to find a way to get Lucy back. Whatever it takes.’