Chapter 48
AMBER
Time has slowed to a crawl.
The waiting is intolerable. We’re stuck in limbo, unable to leave the villa, unable to plan anything.
Packing seems pointless, because if Barney’s right, we’re here for the foreseeable.
With nothing else to do, I find a shady spot on the terrace and pretend to read Nessa’s book while surreptitiously watching the others.
Victoria and Barney are eating an early lunch as if nothing’s wrong.
Dominic has slipped seamlessly into the role of master of the house, finalising the plans for dinner with Maria, checking solicitously on Willow and Simone and keeping up our spirits.
But underneath the unruffled image he’s trying to portray, I sense an undercurrent.
Not quite fear, but a definite unease. He’s as worried as the rest of us.
After an age, Maria shuffles out to announce that the police have arrived.
‘Should I tell Simone?’ I ask Dominic.
‘Please. And Willow.’
I head upstairs and knock softly on the door of the master suite.
‘Simone? Sorry to disturb you, but the police are here.’
A beat of silence, then Simone replies, ‘I’ll be right down.’
I find Willow sitting cross-legged on the window seat in her room, staring out to sea. Her face is blotchy and her nails are bitten to the quick.
I perch at the other end. ‘How’re you doing?’
‘Not great. But Mum’s coming on Tuesday. She just called to say she’s booked her flight.’
‘I’m glad.’ I give her a sympathetic smile. ‘Hey, the police have arrived. They want to talk to us about your dad.’
Her body stiffens. ‘What about him?’
‘Just, you know, when everyone last saw him, that kind of thing.’
‘’K.’ She slithers down from the seat. ‘Simone too?’
‘All of us.’
She nods and I follow her down to the living room, where everyone has gathered, like the characters in the denouement of an Agatha Christie novel.
Simone, the tragic widow, beautiful but haunted.
Dominic, the affable gent, all charm and diplomacy, keen to smooth the police officers’ way.
Victoria and Barney, the picture of upper-middle-class respectability.
Willow, the grieving daughter, barely holding it together.
Maria, the faithful housekeeper, always there, missing nothing.
And then there’s me – the stranger in their midst. The outsider. My nose pressed to the glass, gazing in on their world of wealth and privilege. The one person no one really knows.
* * *
Once Sergeant Nikos Griva has offered his deepest condolences to Simone and Willow, the questions begin.
‘When did you last see your husband, Mrs Pearson?’
‘When we went for a meal at the taverna the night before last to celebrate my birthday.’
He scratches his chin. ‘You hadn’t seen him after the meal?’
‘We left separately.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Well, Barney and Victoria left early and walked back to the villa. Dominic and Amber left not long after them. I had a headache and didn’t feel like walking so I rang Yannis – that’s Maria’s son – and asked him to pick me up in the golf buggy.
Felix and Willow were last to leave and walked back together. ’
The sergeant scribbles in his notebook, then turns his gaze to Willow.
‘How did your father seem on the walk home?’
Willow glances at Dom, swallows, then shrugs. ‘A bit drunk, but otherwise fine.’
I stare nonplussed at the others. Is no one going to mention the fact that Barney stormed off after a stand-up row with Felix, and Dominic punched him squarely in the face?
‘Is something bothering you, Miss’ – Sergeant Griva flicks back a couple of pages in his notebook – ‘Miller?’
I hesitate, my pulse skittering. If I tell the officer Dominic hit Felix he’ll want to know why, and I’m not sure I want the fact that Felix assaulted me to be common knowledge. Not while we still don’t know how he died. I lift my chin and meet his eye. ‘No.’
‘Mr Pearson didn’t spend the night with you, Mrs Pearson? Once he was back from the taverna?’
‘He might well have, but I took two sleeping pills and was out cold the moment my head touched the pillow.’
‘He slept on the sofa in here,’ Willow says. ‘He didn’t want to wake Simone.’
‘So where did you think he was yesterday morning?’ the sergeant asks, clearly perplexed.
‘I just assumed he’d taken himself off for a walk to clear his head.
’ Simone glances round at us. ‘We all did. And then when he wasn’t back for lunch, I presumed he’d taken a sea taxi to Thalassia and stayed the night there.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’s done it.
I was fully expecting him to turn up for breakfast this morning.
I even asked Maria to make some pancakes with bacon and maple syrup for him. They’re his favourite.’
Maria nods in agreement.
‘So this is something that has happened before? Mr Pearson going, how do you say, walkabout?’
‘Every now and then.’ Simone dabs at the corner of her eye. ‘When he didn’t appear, I realised something was very wrong. I was about to phone the police to report him missing when the builders found his body.’
Again, her ability to spin the truth astounds me, because when I’d suggested calling the police she – and the others – had shut me down.
The sergeant mops his brow with his handkerchief.
‘Thank you. I think that is all for now. But I need to ask you not to leave Pelagia. A detective is on his way from Corfu and he would like to speak with all of you too.’ His gaze lingers on me a little too long for my liking, and I feel the colour racing up my neck like a wave at high tide.
‘A detective?’ Barney asks.
Sergeant Griva dips his head. ‘Detective Lieutenant Andreas Demetriou from the homicide unit.’
The room falls so silent I swear I can hear the blood pounding through my veins.
‘Homicide?’ Dominic echoes. ‘Are you saying Felix was murdered?’
‘Mr Pearson suffered, how do you say, a catastrophic injury to the brain. The forensic pathologist will decide the cause of death, but I have been a police officer for nearly twenty years and I have only ever seen a head injury like that once before. That man was clubbed to death with a baseball bat.’
Two things happen simultaneously. Simone clutches her chest like the beleaguered heroine in a period drama. Willow doesn’t make a sound as she bolts from the room.