The Burnout(44)

“Come on.” I find refuge in brisk practical tones. “Let’s sort you out. And no arguing,” I add, as he opens his mouth. “You’re not getting an infection on my watch.” As I turn, I hear Finn’s phone buzz, and when he checks it, he emits a sound of frustration.

“Did you download the hotel app?” he asks. “Because it’s driving me insane. ‘We see that you are on the beach,’ ” he reads aloud. “ ‘Fun fact: Did you know Queen Victoria once visited this beach? Why not take a moment to imagine her on the sand?’ I mean, seriously?” He looks up. “Do they need to bother us with this garbage?”

“I’ve muted their notifications,” I confess. “I did it yesterday after they invited me to celebrate the Fourth of July.”

“The Fourth of July barbecue invite! I got that too. In February! What the hell?”

He sounds so indignant, I can’t help giving a snort of laughter, and after a moment he’s grinning too.

“Notifications muted,” he says firmly, jabbing at his phone screen.


As we arrive in the lobby, Cassidy is tapping busily at her computer, but when she sees Finn’s scalded arm, she breaks off with a dismayed shriek.

“Mr. Birchall! How did you manage that?”

“Just one of those things,” says Finn casually, and I shoot him a tiny smile, appreciating his tact. “Got some hot water on it. No big deal. But I wondered, you don’t have a bandage, do you?”

“I’m the first-aid officer!” Cassidy beams triumphantly. She bends down and produces a plastic box from under the desk. “Oh, look!” she exclaims as she opens it. “There’s the key to Room Fifty-four. We searched everywhere for that.”

As she dresses Finn’s arm, I decide to broach the message on the beach.

“Cassidy, we found a bottle of champagne on the sand,” I begin. “Right in front of the lodges.”

“Champagne?” she echoes absently.

“On the beach,” affirms Finn.

“Did someone leave it behind?” she asks, cutting a length of gauze.

“No, it’s like a present. At least, we think it is. We can’t tell.”

“For who? Was there a note? Just too late for a Valentine!”

“There was a message on the sand,” I explain, almost reluctantly. It said, ‘To the couple on the beach. Thank you.’ ”

“The couple on the beach,” echoes Cassidy thoughtfully. “The couple on the beach …” Then her head pops up and she looks first at me, then at Finn, her finger pointing triumphantly.

“You’re the couple on the beach! It’s for you!”

“But we’re not a couple,” I say.

“Very much not a couple,” agrees Finn.

“Not a couple,” I reiterate. “At all. So it can’t be us.”

Cassidy looks blank. “Well, there’s two of you,” she explains helpfully. “And you’re on the beach all day. I’m sure it’s for you.”

“But it can’t be,” I object. “Who would give us champagne? And it said, ‘Thank you.’ There’s no reason to thank us for anything.” I summon up the photo of the message on my phone, and as I show her, her expression changes.

“Oh, right!” she says. “One of those. It’s like the Mavis Adler messages,” she adds, as though this will explain everything.

“The what?”

“The local artist? You know, she painted Young Love? The couple kissing? There’s a copy in the library. I’m sick of the sight of it, to be honest.” She rolls her eyes. “We get fans coming here every summer, pretending to be the couple. There’s a local photographer called Gill; she makes her whole living taking photos of tourists kissing in that spot. It’s mad.”

“Right,” I say, bewildered. “I know the painting. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Well.” Cassidy leans forward as though for a cozy gossip. “About five years ago, Mavis Adler did an exhibition, only it wasn’t paintings, it was messages on the beach. Protesting about the environment. Look.” Cassidy summons up a photo on her own phone, then turns it around for me to see. It shows two messages just like the one we saw this morning. Deeply gouged letters lined with stones, reading NO OIL and POLLUTION IS HELL.

“Wow,” says Finn, looking over my shoulder. “Punchy.”

“Yeah,” says Cassidy. “She wrote about ten of them and then took photos and put them in an exhibition. I think she wanted her messages to become as famous as Young Love? Only they never did. Awkward.” Cassidy makes a comical face. “Everyone was like, ‘Paint another couple kissing!’ But she didn’t want to.”

“I guess artists have to follow their hearts,” says Finn, shrugging.

“I suppose.” She puts her phone away. “Anyway, then people started copying her and writing their own messages on the beach, only they got a bit rude.” She snorts with laughter. “My friend wrote a really funny thing about our old head teacher, only he didn’t find it funny.” She gives another giggle, then bites her lip. “Yeah, that didn’t go down well. Anyway, the council said we had to stop and they put signs on the beach, and then it all died down.”