Page 17 of Deep Blue Lies

SIXTEEN

There’s a helmet dangling from the handlebar of the little moped, and I pull it on, fastening the strap under my chin.

Then I feel the weight of the bike as I rock it backwards off its stand.

It’s heavier than I expected. I glance back at Sophia, who is now stood in the doorway, arms folded and grinning.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it,” she calls out. “Oh, and it pulls to the left when you brake hard, so don’t brake hard.”

Great. Now she tells me . But she seems to sense my nervousness, and walks over to give me a thirty-second lesson on how to ride the thing. It has no gears thankfully, so you just twist the handlebar grip to go and squeeze the brake to stop. Just not too hard.

“Go on, you’ll be fine,” she says.

I climb on and press the starter. It roars into life and after a moment I twist the throttle. The moped lurches forward, throwing me backwards so that I overcorrect, squeezing the brakes too hard. I shudder to a stop, and I plant my feet on the ground, my heart racing.

Sophia calls out again. “Try a little less throttle,” she says thoughtfully .

The next time I’m too easy on the throttle, and I roll forward so slow I have to use my legs to keep me upright.

So I twist a little more, and then finally I find a balance.

It’s not so hard. I pull onto the road that runs along the seafront and do a little test one way, then slow and come back the other.

“See, I told you!” Sophia says, and I turn again, so I’m pointing the right way.

I go to reply to her, but I see Kostas behind her, and she simply raises a hand and goes back inside the centre.

So instead I just set off, down the street this time.

And all at once it’s glorious. I’ve walked this route so many times now, and it’s difficult in the heat.

But on the moped the buildings zip by, the air feels wonderful on my bare arms, fresh but warm.

I have to resist the urge to call out, like an excited child on a fairground ride.

Sophia told me the route up to the villa where Gregory lives, but it would be easy to guess anyway. There’s really only one road, and I can see it snaking out in front of me.

I clear the town and the road opens up a little, and so do I. The moped’s motor hums beneath me, the sun is warm on my arms, and the scent of pine, olive and thyme floods past. I could get so used to this.

About a mile further on, I reach the beginning of the hill, and ahead of me I see a tractor that’s taking up most of the road.

I start to slow, but then I don’t need to as the driver, an old guy, turns around and sees me, then indicates with his arm that he’ll putt across to the right to let me pass.

I move to the left side of the road to maximise the space, but then suddenly the tractor does the same, so the road is blocked.

I have no choice then but to brake hard, and just as Sophia said, the moped pulls violently to one side, nearly throwing me off before I come to a shuddering halt.

For a second I can almost feel the damage I would have done to myself had my bare skin scraped across the rough road surface, but I didn’t, and now the tractor moves aside again.

This time the driver raises his hand in apology, and I see what the problem was: a cat lying asleep in the road.

It gets up now, and lazily walks away, like it played no part in the little drama.

The tractor driver shouts something at me now, in Greek so I don’t understand.

He might be apologising, he might be telling me off for driving too fast. Either way, I carefully pass him and carry on up the hill.

I need a moment though before I get to this guy’s house, and I stop at a little layby where the road widens.

It’s kind of a viewpoint, and I stop the moped here, pull it back on its stand and walk to the edge.

Here I see the whole of Skalios Bay laid out beneath me.

I can see the dozen or so streets of the town, even make out my apartment building, the little supermarket and Hans’s bar – but from up here they’re all tiny, like models, and dwarfed by the dazzling blue sea.

From up here the distant islands look closer too, though they’re still shrouded in a haze which gives them an almost ghostly appearance.

But despite the almost absurd beauty of the place, there’s one thing that seems wrong.

It’s the remains of the Aegean Dream Resort.

I can clearly make out the dirty blue of its empty pool, and from up here I see that some of the old accommodation block no longer has its roof.

It’s like an ugly scar on an otherwise beautiful face.

I stare out for a while, then hear the noise of the tractor, following me up the road.

I don’t want to have to overtake again, so I get going, and then around the next corner I’m at Duncan’s house.

Up close, it’s kind of an odd place. Even less impressive than I’d assumed from a distance.

Maybe it was once some sort of agricultural building, like a place for goats or sheep, but it’s been rebuilt as a home, except not quite finished.

And then maybe not maintained very well either.

The guy’s car is here though, another white Fiat that everyone here seems to drive.

At least I assume it’s Duncan’s. There’s something about the place that tells me he lives alone.

I draw in a deep breath, filling my lungs with the scent of mountain pine.

I still don’t really know what I’m going to ask this guy, but I have to try.

There’s quite a long wait between when I knock on the door and when it opens, and I hear him inside. It sounds like he’s grumbling, but I’m not sure because he’s speaking in Greek. Finally it opens and he stares at me. No smile, just a stare, his eyes magnified by thick glasses.

“ Neh? ”

I frown for a second, till I remember that’s Greek for “yes”.

“Hello, erm…Mr Duncan?” Sophia did tell me he was English, or has he gone full local?

His face is guarded, suspicious. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I begin, trying to slow down my speech so I don’t gabble like I did with Kostas. “I was told you used to work at the Aegean Dream Resort, just before it closed, and I wanted to ask you some questions about it.”

“You’re a journalist?” he asks, his eyes narrow behind the lenses.

“No, I’m…” There’s no putting this off. “My mother used to work at the resort. In 2001, when it closed. I’m trying to find out more about that time.”

He frowns deeply now, pulling the door open a little more, but only so he can see me better. He seems to take a long time processing what I’ve just said.

“Your mother?”

“Yes.”

He cocks his head on one side. He’s very tall, and I’m reminded of a heron, stalking through a river trying to catch fish.

“Why? And why would I have known her?”

“Um.” I decide to answer the second question. “You used to work there? That’s what I was told.”

Unlike Kostas he doesn’t ask who told me, so I push the point.

“I was told you’d be a good person to speak to.”

He accepts this with a grunt, like he agrees with the theory. But he doesn’t answer, and we just stand there for a while, me on the doorstep and him still inside, until I speak again.

“I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you. If you were writing?”

“Well, yes,” he replies at once. “Yes, I was, and you are rather…” He looks out past me, a vexed expression on his face. “I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”

“Ava,” I swallow. “Ava Whitaker.”

At this he seems to freeze. Behind the lens of his glasses his eyes blink several times. Then one of the eyes twitches, pulling his whole face into a strange spasm.

“ Whitaker? ”

“Yes.”

He blinks again, then breaks into a nervous-looking smile.

“I’m sorry, that means nothing to me. Good day to you.”

He goes to shut the door on me, but there’s something about his manner that made me expect this, and I throw myself forward, my hand stopping him from doing so.

“Wait! Please.”

He stops again, eyeing me now with clear anxiety. I’m not sure why, and I have no idea what to say next.

“Please help me, I have no one else to ask.” I give him my best pleading look, trying to make myself seem as vulnerable and appealing as possible. “Please could you just take a look at this photograph? See if she looks familiar?”

He seems to take an age considering. Then behind me I hear a juddering noise.

I don’t even really notice it at first, but I see his eyes focus on something behind me.

It’s the tractor, the one I overtook on the way up.

It’s finally got here, and now it seems to be stopping.

The driver kills the engine and the noise stops.

There’s a fence opposite Duncan’s house, and the driver ambles over to it, yanking at the wooden structure and finding a bit that’s broken.

Then he whistles as he goes back to the tractor for some tools.

As he does he seems to notice me – or maybe Duncan – it’s hard to see, but he raises a hand in greeting either way. I turn back to the writer,

“Please Mr Duncan?”

Slowly his eyes come back to me and my hand, still preventing him from closing the door. There’s a look on his face that’s odd, he looks scared .

“I’ll look. But not here. It’s better if we go inside. Quickly.”

Without waiting for an answer he pulls the door open and stands back so that I can walk past him. The change is startling, and there’s a moment when I consider whether this might be a bad idea. But I can’t exactly say no now. I take a deep breath.

“Thank you,” I say, and step inside.