Chapter Thirty
Thirty
Skye stared at Andreas.
“Traces of both?” she said. “Human and animal bones buried in the same grave?”
“That is what the police said.”
Skye let go of her suitcase, and it rolled several inches forward on its wheels.
“Did they say anything else?” Joy asked. “Do they know when whoever it was might’ve died or how?”
Andreas shook his head slowly.
“They didn’t tell me much more. It is not my house, and so…” He spread his hands wide. “I think perhaps they will come to visit Skye once they have completed a full report.”
“Right,” she said, still not moving.
“However, they will not be able to do that if you have left the island,” he pointed out.
Human remains.
Skye’s mind kept circling back to the inescapable truth: Someone had been laid to rest here, on her grounds.
An unmarked grave she could have filled in quietly without drawing attention and exposing herself to scrutiny.
The instinct she’d felt when she’d first seen the bones had been right.
She shouldn’t have allowed the others to sway her.
“I still need to leave,” she said.
Andreas began to rub the back of his neck, his T-shirt rising up to reveal an inch of stomach.
“That is up to you,” he said, but Joy made a small noise of protest. “I can look after the house while you’re away,” he went on, “and when you come back—”
“I’m not sure if I will come back.”
Joy raised her arms in an offer of a hug. Skye dropped her chin.
“It is Sunday,” Andreas said. “There are no more ferries today. I think the first one tomorrow is at seven forty-five.”
Skye considered this.
“You mean there are none leaving or none arriving?”
“Both,” he confirmed. “If any more boats come today, it would be only the private charters.”
Skye felt the tension slip slowly from her body. Joy had gone very quiet, her arms now folded in front of her, while Andreas continued to frown.
“I don’t want to leave,” she said, the words a whispered rush. This was her home, her bare walls waiting to be painted, her view of the mountains and of the sea beyond.
Joy was beside her in an instant, bracelets tumbling across her wrists as she reached out to grasp Skye’s hand.
“You don’t have to leave, you silly chook,” she said. “Whatever’s going in that head of yours, we can work it out. If being here is what you want, you must stay.”
“But I can’t,” she said, her voice thin. “You don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t,” Joy agreed. “But the best thing you can do is tell us. I can see that you’re scared,” she added, “and that’s a worry.”
Skye glanced at Andreas, something in her chest catching, a leaf caught on a current of air.
“Fear builds higher walls than whatever it is waiting on the other side,” he said. “Can I?”
When Skye said nothing, he moved past her and sat on the edge of the bed.
“I had a brother once,” he said, without looking up.
“Sotiris. He was younger than me, and one of those people for whom everything in life comes very easily. He always had many friends, a lot of girlfriends”—he huffed out a laugh—“and was very successful in his studies. The plan was that he would go to England and study medicine. He had passed the exams, my parents had saved enough money, and before he was due to leave, we decided to have one last holiday together, the four of us.”
Joy crossed the room and sat beside Andreas, but Skye didn’t move. Her feet felt leaden.
“Sotiris,” she said, wanting to say his name. Andreas’s hands tightened briefly into fists.
“We went to Corfu,” he said. “There is a small island, Vido, close to the town, and boats to take people across. My brother wanted to swim. He was like a fish, always in the water, and we did not worry about him. I went with my parents on the boat, and we waited together on the beach.”
He stared into the middle distance as he spoke. Skye wondered if he was still, even now, watching for his brother.
“By the time we realized something was wrong, it was too late. The sea had taken him, and it took the heart of my family with it.”
“Oh, you poor love,” Joy said.
Skye took a long steadying breath.
“I don’t tell very many people this story,” he went on. “I think, sometimes, that it is too much. Nobody wants to be around sadness. They do not want to be marked by it.”
The look on his face tugged at something in her.
“I don’t feel that way,” she said, her voice softer than before, the edges less sharp.
“I think it’s nice to talk about the people we’ve lost, otherwise you risk allowing their memory to fade.
My dad died four years ago now, and my mum still refuses to talk about him.
Well, unless she’s saying something critical. ”
Andreas looked grim.
“Your mother is angry?”
“That about sums it up,” Skye agreed. “Angry with him, angry with me, angry at life.”
“But you are not?”
“I was.” The admission felt heavy, and Skye hesitated for a moment before continuing.
“I found the anger helpful in the beginning. Anger is a force; it got me out of bed in the morning, made me want to move, to do things, go to work, clean my flat, feed myself—but once that drained out of me, and the sorrow took over…” She grimaced.
“That was when things became more difficult. I understand why my mum can’t let go of the anger, but that doesn’t make being around her any easier. ”
“I was angry with Bobby, too,” Joy said. She’d been sitting so quietly that Skye had almost forgotten she was in the room. “So damn angry that he’d gone and done something as bloody stupid as getting himself killed. Coming out here was part of me addressing that anger, you know?”
Skye’s body ached with the weight of her sympathy—for Joy, for Andreas, and for herself.
They had all experienced the sudden loss of a loved one, though unlike her, the other two had not allowed their grief to muddle them into making a terrible decision.
Her gaze trailed toward Andreas. He had tipped his head back and was staring unblinkingly at the ceiling.
“The rage that you both describe,” he said. “I felt it also, after Sotiris. But when it comes to death, you have to find a way to make a sort of peace with it.” Andreas lowered his chin, and their eyes met. “If you do not, it will eat you alive.”
Skye went still as an image of Martyn surfaced, his jaw tight, a muscle twitching with tension. She’d forgiven his rage-fueled outbursts more times than she could count, telling herself that he only lost control because of his own grief.
“I do not speak about Sotiris to many people,” Andreas said, looking between the two women. “Only to friends, and we are friends, I think?”
“Of course we are,” Joy said.
They both turned to Skye.
“We are,” she agreed.
“The thing that is causing you to be afraid,” he said, “you can tell us.”
“You can,” Joy agreed, nodding along, but Skye’s throat had gone dry. Logic told her that she could trust Andreas, though that same voice of reason had led her toward Martyn.
“No,” she said, the word hoarse. “I can’t, I—”
Two deep grooves appeared between Andreas’s brows. He was hurt. She was hurting him. All at once, Skye felt suffused by anger. It crashed over her in a great wave that brought her arms up, her fingers into her hair.
Joy got to her feet.
“Do you want us to leave you alone?” she asked.
Skye shook her head.
“Not you,” she said, her tone flat, defeated. “You can stay.”
An uncomfortable silence was broken only by the low hum of the wind.
Skye did not want to look at Andreas. She turned to the window, clouds blurring past like thoughts she couldn’t hold on to, waiting until she heard the creak of bed springs, the sigh of surrender, the soft click as he closed the bedroom door behind him.
“His name is Martyn,” she said, without moving.
“OK.” Joy’s voice was honey. “Who is he?”
Skye half turned, forcing herself to breathe steadily.
“He’s someone I was close to, someone I—”
Why was it so difficult to say the word?
“Your boyfriend?” Joy asked, though she sounded uncertain, almost as if she wanted Skye to contradict her.
If only it were that simple.
“No,” she said, “not a boyfriend. Martyn is my husband.”