Chapter 42
AMBER
I stare at the bloodstained tea towel for a long moment, wondering what the hell it means, then start searching the house again, noticing things I hadn’t seen the first time round.
A full cafetière of coffee and four cups by the kettle.
I reach out a hand to touch it, pulling it back as if stung because it’s still warm.
A tumbler on the draining board, a red lipstick mark – Simone’s shade of crimson – on the rim.
An opened carton of orange juice on the kitchen table.
I step on something and, bending down to inspect it, see it’s a blister pack of painkillers, half empty.
Anxiety gnaws at my insides. Where the hell is everyone? It’s like that ship Gran told me a story about once, the one sailors found drifting in the Atlantic with no one on board. The Mary Celeste. Everything in place but the crew.
My imagination in overdrive, I’m about to head back upstairs when the creak of a floorboard above my head stops me in my tracks and I freeze.
I picture the first-floor layout. I’m directly below Victoria and Barney’s bedroom.
I peered round the door earlier but didn’t check the en suite.
Perhaps one of them had just come out of the shower.
I take the stairs two at a time, then pause outside their bedroom door, my head cocked, listening.
Someone is definitely moving around inside.
I knock once, then push the door open, not caring if they’re decent or not.
Just so long as they have a rational explanation as to where everyone has gone.
‘What the hell?’ a voice cries, and I jump out of my skin. Willow whips round, her hands behind her back. ‘What are you doing in here?’ she demands.
‘I could ask the same of you.’ I fold my arms across my chest, eyes narrowing.
She opens her mouth. Closes it again. ‘I was looking for a phone charger,’ she says finally. ‘I can’t find mine.’
‘Your dad or Simone didn’t have one you could’ve borrowed?’
‘Nope.’ She makes as if to move past me but I hold my hand up.
‘Wait. Where is everyone?’
‘Gone to Thalassia for brunch.’
‘You’ve seen them this morning?’
‘Nah, I’ve only just got up. The Wicked Stepmother left a note. Why, didn’t they ask you?’
A flush creeps up my neck. ‘I… I slept in. Dominic probably didn’t want to wake me.’
‘Right.’ Willow looks me up and down and raises an eyebrow. ‘If you say so.’
My gaze drifts down to my dirty dress and bloodied feet. I look like something the cat dragged in. My cheeks burn.
‘If that’s all, I have some business to attend to,’ she says. ‘So if you don’t mind?’ She nods at the door and I step back to let her pass.
‘Willow, wait. Is your dad OK? After, you know.’ I touch my jaw. ‘Only there was a tea towel with blood on it in the living room.’
‘I used it to mop him up. Dominic knocked out one of his teeth.’
‘Oh my God, I didn’t realise!’
‘He’ll live.’ She sighs. ‘Look, I know he was wrong to hit on you, but he’s basically harmless. He just doesn’t know when to stop.’ Her expression softens. ‘Why don’t you go back to bed. You look knackered.’
I nod gratefully and trail along the hallway to our room, where I shower in record time and sink into bed. In seconds I’ve fallen into a dreamless sleep.
When I wake, it is to the sound of voices outside.
I check my phone. It’s almost four in the afternoon and I’ve been asleep half the day.
Rubbing my eyes, I shuffle over to the window and look down.
Dom, Simone, Barney and Victoria are on the terrace, making inroads into a bottle of rosé.
I brush my hair, pull on shorts and a T-shirt and go down to join them.
Dom jumps out of his chair. ‘There you are, sleepyhead. Willow said you went up for a nap.’
I look at him blankly. He’s acting as if last night’s argument never happened.
As if I didn’t storm off into the dark and stay out till this morning.
I want to ask him why he’s being like this, but I can’t, not in front of the others.
It’ll have to wait. Instead, I ask, a little petulantly, ‘Where have you been?’
‘We caught the first sea taxi over to Thalassia and had brunch in a taverna on the quayside. Simone’s idea.’ He smiles at her and my heart twists painfully as I remember his blunt warning. Don’t ask me to choose.
‘Dom said not to wake you. Said you needed your beauty sleep.’ Simone tosses her perfect bob and holds out an empty glass. By rights, she should be looking as rough as me, but she’s as fresh as a daisy. How does she manage it? ‘Are you joining us?’ she asks, indicating the bottle.
The thought of more alcohol makes the contents of my stomach curdle. I sit, pour myself a tumbler of water from the jug on the table instead, and let the conversation drift over me.
Simone, Dominic and Victoria are reminiscing about the time they caught the ferry to Dublin to celebrate the end of their finals and Dominic had to rescue Simone from an amorous local who was determined to give her a taste of good old Irish craic.
‘That’s craic, spelt C-R-A-I-C,’ Simone says to me, as if the only crack I’m likely to have come across is the cocaine variety.
Barney barely says a word, even when Victoria, whose eyes are hidden behind her huge sunglasses, makes the occasional dig at him.
Finally, he downs his wine and addresses me. ‘Where’s Felix?’
I feel a flicker of disquiet. ‘He didn’t go with you?’
‘He did not. Is he in his study?’ he says, pushing back his chair. He has the air of a man tasked with solving world peace before teatime.
‘I… I don’t think so. I haven’t seen him at all today.’
Simone tops up her glass. ‘He probably went for a walk to clear his head. He’s like a child. He’ll be back in time for supper.’
But when Maria calls us through at eight, Felix is still not back.
‘D’you think we should phone the police and report him missing?’ I ask, eyeing his empty place setting at the head of the table.
‘What?’ Simone laughs. ‘Of course not. He’ll turn up. Not that there are any police on Pelagia anyway,’ she adds.
‘No police?’ I can’t hide my dismay. ‘What happens when someone breaks the law?’
‘No one ever does,’ Simone says simply.
‘But what if something’s happened to him? He could have tripped and fallen. It’s been forty degrees out there today. Surely we should at least go out and look for him?’
Willow looks up from her phone. ‘Much as I hate to agree with Simone, she’s right. Dad often goes walkabout when his head’s a mess.’
‘He’ll be drinking himself into a stupor in a bar in Thalassia,’ Barney says bitterly. ‘Too much of a coward to face up to what he’s done with my money.’
‘That’s enough!’ Victoria snaps. ‘And it’s my money, not yours.’
‘Don’t we know it,’ Barney mutters under his breath.
I try to picture Felix in a bar in the pretty harbour town, a glass in his hand as he drowns his sorrows with a bottle of ouzo. But it’s like trying to fix the pieces of two different jigsaws together. It just doesn’t sit right. Then something else occurs to me.
‘If there are no police on the island, how are we going to report the thefts?’
‘Thefts?’ Simone asks.
‘Your earrings, Felix’s watch. My amber necklace.’
Dominic places a hand on my arm. ‘We’re still not sure they were stolen, angel.’
I gape at him. ‘You were the one who said they had been, and that’s why Simone’s necklace was in our bed.’
Victoria drops her bread knife onto the table with a clatter.
Willow’s eyebrows shoot up so high they disappear under her fringe.
Even Barney looks up from his plate of pitta bread and hummus.
But my eyes are fixed on Simone. For the first time since we arrived on Pelagia, she seems ruffled. The question is, why?
The conversation moves on, the others talking and drinking as if nothing’s wrong, as if Felix might stroll back in at any moment with a sheepish grin and a fistful of excuses.
Maybe he will. But deep down, I doubt it.