Chapter 67
AMBER
Time loses all meaning as I fall, and I brace myself for the impact.
At least it’ll be instant. It’s my last thought as I crash onto the ground.
For a moment everything goes black, but just as quickly I come to, my body throbbing as if I’ve had an argument with a steamroller and lost. Everything hurts like hell.
Tentatively, I move my head from side to side, then wriggle my toes.
When I try to flex the fingers of my right hand I almost faint from the pain.
I raise my head, trying to work out where I am.
I’ve landed on some kind of rocky outcrop.
With a jolt, I realise it’s the narrow ledge where I saw the goat the last time I was here.
My right arm is useless, so I feel around with my left until there’s nothing but air.
My stomach swoops. The ledge is barely wider than a hammock.
Seagulls wheel above my head, oblivious. Wincing, I prop myself up onto my good arm and look up. There’s no sign of Dominic or Simone. All I can see is the top of the lighthouse peeking over the edge of the cliff.
I’m pulling myself to a sitting position when shouts break out over the sound of the gulls.
‘Christ, Simone, what have you done?’ Dominic is yelling.
I can’t hear Simone’s reply.
Seconds later, his head appears. His hand flies to his mouth when he sees me huddled on the narrow ledge.
‘Oh, thank God, you’re all right. Are you all right?’ he calls.
My wrist’s broken, my arms and legs are covered in grazes and my ribs are so sore every breath is excruciating, but I’m not in pieces at the bottom of the cliffs. ‘I’m fine,’ I shout back.
‘I’m coming to get you.’
‘No, Dom, it’s too dangerous. Call Demetriou. He’ll send help.’
He ignores me, pacing up and down, looking for a safe route to the ledge. At first it seems hopeless, but then he calls, ‘I’ll use the bushes.’
I look up to where he’s pointing. Sure enough, a handful of bushes are growing out of the rock, but their roots are half exposed to the elements. There’s no way they’ll hold his weight.
‘No, Dom!’ I cry, but he’s already lowering himself over the edge.
Half of me can’t bear to watch, the other half can’t tear my eyes away as he edges closer, clutching a branch while reaching for the next hold. Stones come loose, skittering past me and down to the sea. My heart is racing, my palms slippery with fear.
Soon he’s close enough for me to see the sweat on his face.
He scrambles down beside me. I reach up with my good hand and he helps me to my feet.
We cling to each other, my head tucked under his chin, his arms around me.
I can feel his heart beating through the thin material of his T-shirt. Eventually, he breaks away.
‘We should go.’
‘I can’t. My arm—’ Tears smart as I motion to my broken wrist. ‘Get Simone to go for help.’
His expression hardens. ‘Not going to happen.’
‘You don’t know that. Surely she realises how much danger we’re in? She still loves you, anyone can see that.’
Dominic stares out to sea. When he speaks again, his voice is low.
‘You’re wrong.’ He drags his hands down his face, suddenly older, almost gaunt. ‘It’s taken me twenty years to realise that Simone is incapable of loving anyone but herself.’
I drop my voice instinctively. ‘You make her sound like a raving psychopath,’ I mutter. As I say it, I realise it’s not as ridiculous as it sounds. Simone claimed she killed Felix in self-defence, but I only have her word for it.
‘I’m not saying it’s her fault.’ Dominic meets my eyes. ‘It probably stems from her childhood. Either that, or it’s in her DNA.’
‘Not being loved alters the brain chemistry of a child,’ I say.
That’s what my social worker, Lisa, used to reckon. She said as much to Gran just before she became my legal guardian. Gran’s eyebrows had shot so far up her forehead they were in danger of disappearing under her hairline. ‘But Amber is loved,’ she’d cried. ‘I love her.’
‘Simone put me on a pedestal at university and has been playing power games ever since,’ Dom says. ‘It’s just taken me this long to see it.’
He looks crestfallen and I reach out with my good hand and touch his cheek.
‘When did you realise?’
His shoulders droop. ‘When she admitted she’d killed Felix and asked me to help her hide his body.
I know what you’re thinking. I should have said no and called the police.
But she told me she couldn’t go on if I did.
’ He looks me in the eye. ‘I wasn’t lying when I said she tried to kill herself at uni.
Though now I’m wondering if she really meant it or if she was doing it for effect. ’
‘No one downs a packet of pills and a bottle of vodka for effect, Dom.’
He sighs. ‘Maybe you’re right. But whatever her motive, she was manipulating me then and she’s manipulating me now. She knew that by threatening to hurt herself she guaranteed my help.’
I go to speak, then stop myself.
Dom squeezes my good arm. ‘What is it?’
I choose my words carefully. ‘Do you… do you think it was an accident? That she really did lash out in self-defence?’
He is silent for a moment. ‘Felix was a complete shit where women were concerned. One of those men who’d try it on with anything in a skirt. She’s never said he’s been violent before, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t.’ He looks conflicted. ‘Maybe she was frightened he’d find out if she told anyone.’
‘It’s a possibility,’ I agree. Or maybe he never laid a finger on her and she was lying through her teeth, I think privately. Either way, the damage is done. Felix is dead and by helping his former girlfriend hide the body, Dominic is implicated.
‘How did you get the body onto the building site without anyone seeing? Demetriou said the cameras weren’t working. Was that down to you and Simone?’ The question’s been on my lips since yesterday.
‘I went down to find a wheelbarrow while Simone wiped the recordings and made it look like a power fault. Between us we managed to manhandle Felix into the barrow and I pushed it back down and hid him as best I could next to a pile of rubble.’ Dominic pulls a face.
I remember seeing a wheelbarrow abandoned outside the gates of the villa as I walked up from the beach the next morning. I picture Dominic pushing it down the track, Felix’s head lolling every time he hit a loose rock, and bile rises in my throat.
‘You must have known it wouldn’t be long before the builders found him.’
‘I never said it was foolproof.’ Dominic sways, and for one horrible moment I think he’s going to topple over the edge of the ledge. I grab his T-shirt and pull him closer to the cliff face.
‘Sorry,’ he says, clutching a root above him like a handrail on the Tube. ‘I haven’t slept.’ He closes his eyes briefly. ‘I spent the whole night trying to talk Simone into calling the police, but she point-blank refused. Said it was too late the moment we hid the body. The alibi was her idea.’
‘Didn’t you realise the police would suspect the rest of us?’
His face sags with guilt. ‘Honestly? I was so caught up in what we’d done I didn’t think about anyone else.
Then Simone admitted she left your necklace beside Felix’s body and I freaked out.
I told her that if she didn’t go to the police, I would.
And I was going to speak to Demetriou this morning, Amber, I promise.
I went up to find you to tell you, but when I went into our room I saw the note Simone left you on your bedside table.
When I checked the villa and realised you’d both gone I came up here as fast as I could. Thank God I did.’
‘You think she was planning to kill me too?’
‘It sounds mad, doesn’t it?’ He shakes his head as if he can’t believe it could be true. ‘I don’t know. She’s always been fragile but she’s hanging on a thread. One more thing could tip her over the edge.’
‘The irony,’ I mutter, not sure whether to laugh or cry. I glance over my shoulder to where the ledge falls away and waves crash against the rocks below. The sight alone is enough to make my stomach plummet. ‘You think she’s up there waiting for us?’
‘No. If she’s got any sense she’s on the next sea taxi to Thalassia.’
‘I hope so.’ I let out a small sigh of relief. ‘Do you have your phone?’
‘Of course.’ He pulls it out of his back pocket, but his face falls when he checks the screen. ‘No signal.’
‘Are you sure?’ I grab it from him, squinting at the lockscreen. He’s right – there isn’t a single bar. ‘Shit. What are we going to do?’
‘You’re going to have to climb.’
‘What?’
‘Just a few feet at a time. I’ll help you.’
‘I don’t think I can—’
‘Come on, Amber. It’ll be fine, I promise. Anyway, what’s the alternative?’
We both stare up at the wall of rock on one side and the drop to the sea on the other. Dominic is right.
We don’t have a choice.