Chapter 29
AMBER
My amber necklace is gone.
The old woman from the mati stall is staring at me like I’ve just picked up an axe and cleaved my own head in two.
When I touch my face, I realise why. Silent tears are streaming unchecked down my cheeks.
I brush them away and am about to apologise when she scuttles back behind her stall, watching me warily from behind the streams of pendants and dreamcatchers.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I tell myself I’ll have left it back at the villa, trying to ignore the spiteful little voice inside my head that says I’ve never forgotten it before.
I pull out my phone to ask Dom to check the room, but it goes straight to voicemail.
I hang up without leaving a message. He’d only say I was making a fuss over nothing, even though the necklace is so much more than a gemstone on a silver chain.
Apart from the few photos I have, it’s my last tangible link to Gran. It’s priceless.
I dither by a stall selling honey and olive oil.
Part of me wants to dash back to the harbour, catch the next sea taxi back to Pelagia and check the room myself.
But the sensible part of me, the part that recognises how unpopular I’ll be if I return to Villa Paradiso without Maria’s long list of groceries, wins.
So I spend the next hour food shopping, trying not to baulk at the prices as I hand over my credit card again and again.
When I’m done, I allow myself a strong, sweet Greek coffee in a small café at the far end of the market, choosing a table in the shade of an olive tree.
Opposite, people crowd around a bric-a-brac stall selling everything from old pine towel rails and copper pots to paintings and ceramics.
I push my fears about my necklace out of my mind and soak in the atmosphere.
I am sipping coffee under an olive tree in a pretty Greek harbour town.
The sky is the same shade of cobalt as my new amulet necklace and the air smells of garlic and herbs.
I wonder what Gran would say if she could see me now.
What Mum would say. Gran would be pleased for me, but I’m not so sure about Mum.
She’d mutter something about me thinking I was better than the rest of them.
Maybe she’d be right. It’s a privilege to be here. I mustn’t forget that.
A man in a navy polo shirt and beige shorts has stopped by the stall, his back to me.
I realise with a start that it’s Barney.
I’m about to call out a greeting, but something about the set of his shoulders stops me.
He is gesticulating to the stallholder, remonstrating, almost. The stallholder shakes his head, firing off a volley of Greek too fast for me to catch.
Barney shrugs and looks as if he’s about to walk away when the stallholder calls him back and produces a wad of notes from his pocket.
He peels off a few and offers them to Barney.
After a moment’s hesitation, Barney takes them.
Something about his body language feels off, but I’m probably reading too much into it.
He must have bought something for Simone and they were haggling about the change he was due.
I’m not sure Simone’s a flea market kinda gal, but Barney has known her a lot longer than me, so maybe I’m doing him a disservice.
Curious to see what Barney has bought Simone, I catch the eye of the waiter to ask him for the bill. But by the time he’s ambled over and I’ve paid, Barney’s disappeared into the throng of shoppers.
Just like that I’m on my own, left with the bags of groceries and a snowballing suspicion that something fishy is going on.