Chapter 12
Edie, Ralph and Hannah sat in the shade by the pool for a while and tried to read, but none of them could concentrate.
When Hannah’s phone rang, they all jumped, but it wasn’t Jessica. It was Hannah’s eighteen-year-old daughter Charlotte.
Hannah got up and took the call at the other end of the pool, so as not to disturb the others, but they could hear her anyway.
A few moments into the conversation, Edie couldn’t help noticing a frown appear on her friend’s forehead, and her face, normally round and smooth, turned pale and pinched.
‘For God’s sake, Charlotte! What the hell were you thinking?’
Edie glanced at Ralph, who rolled his eyes. He was no doubt reflecting, as she was, that things surely couldn’t get much worse, yet it seemed they just had.
Charlotte had always been a bit of a wild child and Hannah and Mac had briefly sent her to boarding school, hoping it would sort her out. But they couldn’t really afford the fees and she’d hated it anyway, so they’d pulled her out after just one term.
Maisie always said Charlotte was attention-seeking, and Maisie was usually right. She also said Charlotte couldn’t wait to get away from home as her parents hated each other and the atmosphere was toxic.
At the time, Edie had dismissed this as youthful exaggeration, but she now feared it wasn’t far from the truth.
‘It’s your problem. You sort it out…’ she heard Hannah say in a whisper-shout. And: ‘I’m not giving you a penny… borrow it from somewhere… I don’t know… I don’t care…’
When she’d finished speaking, Hannah stomped back to Edie and Ralph with a big scowl on her face.
‘Trouble?’ Edie asked anxiously.
Ralph, beside her, pretended to bury his nose in his book, but she knew he was all ears.
‘She bought a second-hand laptop from some acquaintance she’d only just met,’ Hannah said angrily.
‘Her old one broke. She paid a ridiculous amount for it and of course it crashed immediately. Now the person who sold it to her has disappeared. He’s not replying to any of her calls or texts.
Apparently the laptop’s not worth fixing.
‘She took it to a computer repair place and they said there’s too much wrong with it. She spent all her savings on it, can you believe? Now she doesn’t have a laptop for her exams. I told her, tough. It’s her fault for being so gullible. She’ll have to sort it out.’
Hannah’s mouth clamped shut and her pupils shrank to small, black, glittering dots. For the second time today, Edie was taken aback by her friend’s rage. Before this trip, she’d have described Hannah as pretty even-tempered, and she’d never realised how strict she was with her kids.
Though Charlotte could be demanding and difficult, she was still young, and Edie felt sorry for her. She’d made a foolish mistake and was no doubt beating herself up about it.
A laptop was essential for her end-of-year exams. If Maisie had done the same thing at that age, Edie knew without a shadow of doubt she’d have been upset, angry and exasperated, for sure, but one way or another, she’d have helped her daughter out.
In fact, she and Ralph wouldn’t have expected Maisie to spend all her savings on a laptop in the first place; they’d have bought it for her or, if they couldn’t afford it, contributed as much as they possibly could.
‘What a nightmare,’ she said. ‘I bet that bastard who flogged it to her has done it before, too. If I were you, I’d be tempted to lend Charlotte the cash for a new one. She could set up a direct debit and pay you back an agreed amount each month?’
‘No way.’ Hannah’s jaw jutted and the veins in her neck protruded. ‘She’s always been useless with money. She’s got to learn.’
Edie decided to leave it there. Charlotte was Hannah’s daughter and there was no point arguing. Besides, Jessica was the more pressing worry.
It seemed almost pointless to try calling yet again, but Edie did so anyway, to no avail. After putting her phone back down, she turned to Ralph.
‘It’s one o’clock. We said if we hadn’t heard anything by now, we’d make a plan.’
Ralph removed his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. His face looked lined and drawn, and Edie felt a rush of guilt, because it was her fault Jessica was here.
‘You’re right,’ he said, replacing his shades and sitting up straight. ‘I googled emergency contacts this morning. I’ve got a number for the Greek Tourist Police in this area. They’re available twenty-four-seven. I’ll give them a call.’
The sun was high in the sky now and even in the shade, Edie felt hot and slightly nauseous. Listening to her husband on the phone to the police, describing Jessica and the situation they were in, seemed unreal.
Edie imagined she was looking down on herself from some distance away, as if she were a character in a play.
‘Yes, we’ve tried contacting her numerous times…’ she heard Ralph say, in a far-off voice, and, ‘No, not to my knowledge. She didn’t mention anyone she knew…’
The police wanted to know what she was wearing, what she’d taken with her and what her behaviour was like before she left.
‘We didn’t know she was going to Knossos till that morning… out of the blue, yes… History teacher… very fit… single… independent…’
He held the phone away from his ear and looked at Edie.
‘Do we know anything about her family? Or close friends?’
Edie shook her head. ‘She never mentioned parents or any brothers or sisters. She didn’t seem to have friends either, not even other teachers. I was the only one, really – to my knowledge, anyway. And Hannah, of course, but she’s much more recent.’
As she spoke, it dawned on Edie how little she actually knew about Jessica. Their conversations had mainly centred round Jessica’s numerous interests: books, ancient Rome and Greece, films, running and so on.
Edie had certainly spoken to her about Maisie and Ollie and she’d been to the family home. In fact, she was probably far more knowledgeable about Edie’s private life than the other way round.
Ralph interrupted Edie’s train of thought with another question.
‘Can you send me some photos of Jessica? Close-ups if you’ve got them, and full-length ones. As soon as you can.’
He glanced at Hannah. ‘You too.’
Both women scrolled through their collections, shared what they had and Ralph forwarded them straight away to an address he’d been given. When he finally came off the phone, he said the person he’d spoken to had very good English and seemed sympathetic, helpful and professional.
‘The police are going to make some enquiries in the village and around Knossos. It’s a shame we didn’t ask which hotel she was staying in the first night. There are so many in that area. It could have been any of them.’
Edie curled into a little ball on her lounger and hugged her knees. She wished none of this was happening and it was just a bad dream. It felt like one.
‘What about us? What can we do?’ she asked, pressing her palms together and squeezing.
Ralph stood up and stretched his back; he’d been sitting for too long.
‘We wait here for a bit, then the police want to meet us in the village at 5p.m. They’re obviously going to be asking round to see if anyone’s seen or knows anything.
They’re based in Chania, so we’ve arranged to meet in a café.
They might take this whole thing more seriously once they’ve put faces to our names and they’ll be able to see how worried we are.
To be honest, though, they sound pretty competent, like they know what they’re doing.
I suspect people, visitors I mean, probably go missing on the island all the time. ’
Edie and Hannah nodded.
‘I can’t help thinking about Michael Mosley,’ Edie said with a shiver, remembering the UK doctor who’d recently gone for a walk on a different Greek island and who’d tragically died, most probably of heatstroke.
‘He was much older than Jessica,’ Ralph pointed out. ‘And the circumstances were completely different. We haven’t had lunch,’ he added, deliberately changing the subject. ‘What is there? I don’t mind making something.’
Neither of the women was hungry but he insisted they should eat to keep up their strength.
‘I think we’ve got bread and there should be some leftover cheese,’ said Edie, rising too. ‘And a few tomatoes. Let’s have that. We can buy some other stuff in the village for later.’
As they all walked towards the villa, Edie suddenly stopped in her tracks and let out a small cry.
‘What about Mac? I completely forgot about him. Do we even know where he is?’
Ralph and Hannah looked blank.
‘Oughtn’t we to find him and tell him what’s happening?’ Edie went on. ‘Shouldn’t we ask him to come with us later, too?’
Hannah’s body stiffened and her face twisted into a grimace.
‘Absolutely not. I expect he’s upstairs in our room, sulking, waiting for me to go and apologise.
If he was at all concerned about Jessica, he’d be down here with us now.
I really don’t think he cares about her at all,’ she added, narrowing her eyes.
‘To be honest, he’d probably rather she was dead. ’
* * *
Hannah’s comment left Ralph and Edie speechless and the three of them barely spoke over lunch or opened their mouths on the walk to the village.
The Libyan Sea in the distance was deep turquoise and it glittered and gleamed like the surface of a brand-new car, but Edie barely noticed.
She was reflecting on the fact that though she couldn’t take Hannah’s words seriously, they’d still managed to shock her.
Edie wouldn’t have believed her friend could even think such a terrible thing about her husband, let alone say it out loud – and with such conviction.
Hannah must hate Mac yet, at the same time, she seemed to want to stay with him and he with her. Edie couldn’t understand it.
Compared with those two, her own marriage seemed pretty good. Yes, Ralph had strayed, but he’d owned up, apologised and said he bitterly regretted it. And Edie was as certain as she could be it hadn’t happened again.