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Olivia stopped pacing. ‘What did you say?’
Janine smiled, but it didn’t put Olivia at ease. In fact, her body tensed even more, a coiled spring. ‘When Pierre found us, I thought my luck had run out. I’d been waiting to get you alone on the ice. I almost had you too. It would have been so much more perfect to kill you there. But this works. Especially after you told me what happened on the previousClarissa.’ From behind her back, Janine pulled out a long kitchen knife. ‘It’s surprisingly hard to find a weapon on board that isn’t nailed down, but the galley provided.’ She checked the blade with the edge of her finger, pulling back when satisfied it was sharp.
‘Janine, what are you doing?’ Olivia tried to keep her voice calm, even though fear pulsed through her body. Her eyes flicked around the room but there was little she could use to defend herself. The only exit was the one Janine barred. There was a set of sliding doors leading to a balcony, but beyond that was only the freezing, stormy sea …
‘You don’t feel an ounce of remorse, do you?’
‘For my father? Of course I do. I think about it every day—’
‘Not your father. For Kay.’
Olivia paused, staring up at Janine’s face. There was real anguish there, deep pain she’d kept hidden, nowrising to the surface. The hidden underside of her iceberg, pushing through the woman’s skin.
‘I’m sorry, Janine. You have the wrong person. I don’t know who Kay is.’ She paused. ‘Wait, are you talking about your boyfriend? Who you broke up with?’
‘I didn’t break up with him. He’s dead.’
‘Oh, Janine, I’m so,sosorry. But I don’t see what that has to do with me …’
‘Don’t be stupid!’ Janine slapped the knife against the nearest wall, making Olivia jump. ‘Why do you think I’m in Antarctica? To make you all pay. That disgusting man Stefan profiting from his legacy. Aaron drugging him into a mania. And you – you killed him.’
Olivia choked, her throat closing. ‘Your boyfriend was Kostas Yennin?’ she managed to say. She thought of Stefan swinging from the curtain rail. She knew it hadn’t been suicide. But Janine had mentioned Aaron too. ‘Wait. What … what did you do to Aaron?’
‘Murderer,’ Janine growled.
‘Murder? I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Olivia almost screamed it. It was so absurd. Her mind couldn’t reconcile the gentle, friendly Janine from her cabin with the wild-eyed woman in front of her, snarling with rage.
‘But you do. You’ve told me yourself why you did it. Your burnout. Stepping out into the road. But that wasn’t the whole story, was it?’
Olivia swallowed. Janine was right.It wasn’t the whole story.
After she’d jumped back on the pavement, she realized how stupid she’d been. What an awful mistake she’d almost made. But she was safe. Unharmed. She’d stopped herself before there could be any terrible consequences.
No. Not quite.
Almost immediately a horn blared. Tyres screeched on the road, brakes squealing in protest. Then a loud bang resonated through her body. The car that had been driving erratically had swerved into a lamp post, smashing into it at speed. The cyclist who’d given her the finger had stopped, scrambling around for his phone. A black cab pulled up just behind the scene of the accident, a woman rushing out to check whether anyone in the car was hurt. Olivia had heard her anguished scream when she must have seen he was. Other drivers, on both sides of the road, stopped their cars, getting out to check on the crash. So many people with their phones out, dialling 999, alerting the authorities.
She thought about calling the police too but she caught sight of the time – she was already so late to the auction. She had about a million missed calls from Aaron. There were enough other witnesses around. A man shouted that he was a doctor. She felt sure that whoever was in the car would be getting the help they needed.
It wasn’t until hours later that she made the connection. Once she had heard the full police report from Aaron, she suspected – and when he told her the name of the road, it was confirmed. Yennin had been in the car. He had passed away on impact.
If she hadn’t been in such a bad way, if she’d picked him up like she had promised Aaron she would do … it never would have happened.
She didn’t think anyone knew she’d been there.
And yet now she was staring directly into the pain-filled eyes of someone who knew.
Janine whimpered but held the knife firm. ‘So you do remember. You ran away. But you knew you had caused the accident. And then you benefited from his death. My Kostas.’
‘But I didn’t cause the accident.’ Olivia’s mind was spinning. ‘I was there, yes, but the car was already swerving all over the road.’
‘Don’t lie!’ Janine shouted, tears filling her eyes. ‘I was following in the black cab behind. I saw you step out into the road in front of Kostas. I saw you. Hehadto swerve to avoid hitting you!’
‘No, that’s not …’
But Janine wouldn’t listen. ‘He’d almost made it. He was so close. If it hadn’t been for you …’