Chapter 64
AMBER
I’m woken by the sound of cicadas, the Greek equivalent of white noise. A bleary glance at my phone reveals it’s still only six o’clock, but I pull myself out of bed anyway and tramp across to the en suite and into the shower.
As the water pounds my shoulders, memories of the countless mornings Dom and I have shared come back to me.
Bed-hair and morning breath, cups of tea and sleepy sex.
The desolation that pierces me stings far more than the jets of water.
It isn’t the big things I’ll miss: the weekends away, the trips to the coast, the expensive meals.
It’s the small, everyday ones. The way Dom’s forehead furrows in concentration as he studies the back of a box of muesli at breakfast like it’s The Economist. The sound of his humming when he cooks.
The fact he always remembers to buy chocolate when I’m on my period.
Dammit, why did I fall in love with a man who was already in love with someone else?
I force myself to get a grip and ten minutes later I’m pulling on shorts and a T-shirt, keen to grab a coffee and something to eat before the others surface.
By rights, we should be flying home today.
My bags should be packed and my passport ready for the long trip back to London.
But the Greek police have my passport and my belongings are still scattered over the room because it’s clear I’m not going anywhere until they’ve arrested someone for Felix’s murder.
I’m slipping my phone into my pocket when I see a folded piece of paper poking out from under the bedroom door. Frowning, I scoop it up and open it, my pulse quickening as I scan the message.
I can help you prove your innocence. Meet me at the lighthouse. Come alone.
It isn’t signed. Of course it isn’t. I flip through names like I’m flipping through the pages of Gran’s old Rolodex, the one that used to stand on a lace-trimmed doily on the walnut sideboard, next to the phone.
I discount Dominic – it’s not his handwriting. Simone, too. If I’m right, she’s trying to frame me for Felix’s murder, not clear my name. Could it be Victoria? Barney? Willow? Or someone else entirely?
The note, written in capital letters, is giving no clues. Before reason takes hold, I pull on my trainers and let myself out of the room.
On the landing, I peer out of the window that overlooks the formal gardens at the front of the villa.
A police officer I don’t recognise is lounging against the wall by the front door scrolling through his phone, a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.
He takes a drag and looks up, as if he’s sensed me watching, and I quickly draw back behind the voile curtain.
If I go out of the front door he’ll stop me, but if I leave the back way and climb over the wall to Villa Olympus, I should be able to slip out unnoticed.
In the kitchen, I grab a bottle of water from the fridge. I pause on the terrace, head cocked, but the only sounds are the cicadas and the waves breaking far below.
The slope between Villa Paradiso’s terrace and the building site is steeper than it looks.
I half walk, half slide down, trying not to yelp when thorny branches catch my T-shirt and scratch at my bare legs.
I stop when I reach the bottom, checking the coast is clear.
It’s too early for the builders, and Inspector Demetriou plainly doesn’t have the manpower to station an officer here too.
Reassured I’m alone, I trot past the footings for the villa and the gash in the ground which will soon be a swimming pool, averting my eyes from the spot where Felix was found.
The gates are closed but not locked and I let myself out and set off up the hill towards the lighthouse in search of answers, my heart pitter-pattering in my chest.
* * *
Everything I loved about this island when I arrived a week ago now feels suffocating and oppressive.
The heat, the dust, the relentless noise of the cicadas.
My lungs are tight and my throat’s dry. I stop in the shade cast by an old stone shepherd’s hut, unscrew the top of my water bottle and drink deeply, then set off again with heavy legs.
The path up to the lighthouse is pitted and narrow. Once, I turn my ankle on a rut, yelping in pain. Why, I don’t know, because there’s no one to hear me out here. I could be the last person left on this godforsaken island in the middle of the Ionian Sea.
Part of me wants to ditch this wild goose chase, turn tail and head back to the air-conditioned safety of the villa, to the steadying presence of Maria and the armed officer on the door.
But the other part – the bloody-minded part that refuses to take being a murder suspect lying down – keeps me putting one foot in front of the other.
Bring it on.
I’m breathing heavily when the lighthouse looms into sight, so I slow my pace until it’s back under control. But my heart’s still banging in my chest, like it’s trying to make a break for freedom, adrenaline zipping through my veins like an electric current.
‘Hello?’ I call. My voice comes out reedy and uncertain, betraying my nerves.
No one answers.
After a quick glance behind me, I walk around the back of the lighthouse.
The sound of the waves is louder here as they crash into the rocks below.
I peer over the edge of the cliffs, experiencing the same wave of dizziness at the vertiginous drop as I did last time.
There’s not a goat in sight today. I am completely alone.
I tramp back round to the front, stand in the sliver of shade offered by the flight of stone steps that leads to the main door of the lighthouse, kicking myself for my stupidity as I realise not only did the note make no mention of time, I’ve no clue when it was stuffed under my door.
I have no idea what time I’m meant to be here.
All I can do is wait.
And then, from somewhere behind me, I hear the scrape of a shoe against the baked earth.
I freeze.
I’m not alone after all.