Page 19 of Deep Blue Lies

EIGHTEEN

When I get back to the dive centre it’s bustling, busier than before.

I spot Sophia, but she’s deep in conversation with a group of customers, occasionally pausing to haul one of the air tanks onto a trolley, which I suppose will go down to the boats.

She catches my eye for a second, offers a quick nod, but doesn’t have time for more.

I set the key down behind her desk, suddenly unsure of what to do with myself.

I don’t want to go back to my apartment. Instead, I just walk.

I follow the shoreline, past Bar Sunset and out towards the old Aegean Dream Resort. But I don’t stop there this time. I know what it is now – an empty, gutted shell of a place, that shouldn’t still be here but is. Instead, I just keep going, following the curve of the beach.

I keep on, right until the end of Skalios Bay, where the soft sand gives way to a rocky cliff where a path has been worn upwards by untold numbers of feet.

I take it, wishing I’d put on better footwear, but not really caring because the rocks have mostly been polished smooth.

I come up onto the clifftop, the water below me a thousand shades of turquoise and in some places emerald green.

But I’m not really looking at the views.

Instead, I’m thinking. About what I’m doing here, and if I’m ever going to find anything out.

Why did Kostas seem so…suspicious of me?

And Gregory Duncan was clearly nervous about something, but what?

Or is he just a nervous guy? Someone who’s not used to visitors, who lives alone and writes his books and people like Sophia think of as a creep?

I don’t know. Most of all, why is it that Mum has always been so secretive about her time here?

Or have I got that wrong too? Have I always had it wrong?

Perhaps there’s no secret, I’m just something that happened a long time ago when she was young and careless, and she wants to put it behind her – put it behind us , and move forward with our lives?

Would that be so bad? After all, she did get pregnant from some random Greek waiter, and it’s not exactly something to be proud of.

But doesn’t that also mean she’s not proud of me ?

My head hurts now. Stupidly I didn’t bring any water, and this part of the island is wild, with no building in sight, except for a lighthouse up ahead.

I was sort of aiming towards it, thinking I could turn around there, but now I think I should probably turn back, because the sun is slipping down quickly and the path will be difficult in the dark.

I go on a little further, then I give up and turn back along the cliff path and down towards the sand.

Maybe I do have some connection to the murder – or the murders – at the Aegean Dream Resort?

My mind keeps coming back to this. What I mean is, it seems almost certain that my mother would have known the couple who died.

She worked for them, after all – even if she wasn’t working when it happened, because she’d have been with me.

So it seems plausible at least that their deaths are connected to her reluctance to tell me about her time here.

And why not? This would have come on top of whatever shame she felt about getting knocked up by the waiter.

On top of that her boss goes crazy and murders his girlfriend, or someone murders both of them – and it’s a small island, as everyone keeps telling me, so probably she’d have known the people who were suspects at the time, if there were suspects…

It’s easy to see why I’ve got this in my mind now.

I’m nearly level with the old resort again, and with the sun so low over the sea, the ruins have a really brooding, intimidating presence on the beach.

They’re illuminated only from the front, and it gives the impression that anything, or anyone, could be hiding in the shadows.

I wonder which of the rooms the deaths happened in, and I stop to take in the twin accommodation blocks, one in a reasonable state of repair, the other’s roof partially collapsed into it.

I stop, suddenly aware of something. It’s a light, flashing at me from behind the closer accommodation block, the one with the tumble-down roof.

No . Not a light, but a flash of light, like a reflection off something.

I suddenly feel very exposed. There’s no one on the beach around me – I haven’t seen anyone at all since I left Skalio two hours ago, and the town is still a good mile ahead of me.

I stand still, just watching the resort, trying to see if the flash comes again.

I almost convince myself that it’s nothing, that I’m just tired and paranoid, or that even if I did see something it would have just been the sun glinting off a piece of broken glass.

But then it comes again, clearer this time.

The reflection of something, right beside the wall of the second accommodation block.

I start to get this crazy feeling that someone there’s watching me, and this is the glint of sunglasses, or even binoculars – which is stupid because there’s obviously no one there.

But then I find myself moving forward, towards where the light flashed from, in an effort to prove to myself I’m mistaken.

It’s amazing how easy it is to get onto the old resort grounds.

If this was in the UK there’d be fences everywhere, covered in signs warning of the danger and telling you to keep out.

Here there obviously was a fence once, but only the posts remain, and I can just pass between them.

So I step off the beach, into the old gardens, and carry on right up to the ruined, broken-tiled pool.

I can feel my heart fluttering in my chest as I get there.

I don’t know why, and I’m not sure why I’m doing this, except I need to prove to myself that I’m not scared, even though I am, actually.

A little bit. I pause at the pool – taking another look at Mum’s old haunt, but then turn left towards the accommodation block where I saw the light.

It’s only fifty feet away now, and I’m sure it would have been beautiful back then, but now it’s overgrown in places and bare in others.

And there’s a nasty roll of tangled barbed wire that was presumably once a fence.

I make it to the front of the accommodation block, the rooms in front of me have been broken into so there are holes in the wooden boards blocking the entrances, but they’re so small that very little light from the sinking sun illuminates the interiors.

The deaths could have happened in any of these rooms, I realise.

Or a different one. I don’t even know why I’m thinking it.

I’m nearly at the corner now, and I stop again, wondering if I’m actually being foolish, if this is actually dangerous.

This place could be used for all sorts of things, drugs…

I try to list in my mind what else could happen here, and I can’t think of anything – burying stolen treasure?

I almost laugh out loud at how silly this is, when another thought cuts through.

It’s just the sort of place you’d come to if you were a psycho, needing somewhere quiet to torture or murder your victim.

God, Ava. Give it a rest , I tell myself.

This is Alythos, there’s no crime here, and all I’m doing is proving that.

I keep going, pausing just before the wall runs out and I turn the corner to where I thought I saw the light.

And then I hear something. Or maybe I don’t.

I hesitate though, scared now to take the last few steps.

But this is silly. I do it. I turn the corner.

There’s nothing there. I knew there wouldn’t be.

It must have been the sun hitting some glass, just as I thought.

It’s not just broken bottles, there’s other bits of garbage strewn around on the ground, and some of the window frames have shards left in them, sharp and jagged.

I force myself to speak out loud, thinking it might settle my nerves a bit.

“See? Nothing,” I say. But it is creepy.

On the side of the building there’s a doorway, the actual door long gone so that I can see inside.

Or I could if it wasn’t pitch black in there.

But then I hear it again, clearer this time.

A noise, a cough? But then something else, a kind of shuffling sound.

I’m certain this time. Something – or someone – is inside the building, right next to me.

I look around, there’s no one else here. No one who could help me. Why did I have to come here? Why did I have to prove how brave I am?

The shuffling noise comes again, and now I think that maybe whoever’s in the room is moving closer to the doorway.

Closer like they’re readying themselves to rush out and grab me.

It’s crazy, but it feels real. I take a step back, keeping my eye on the door, and right away I stumble on something half-buried in the ground, and then I feel a hand on my shoulder, grabbing me, pulling me down to the ground.

But it’s not, it’s just a branch from an overgrown bush.

And I see I tripped on a broken, twisted piece of paving slab.

My heart is racing now. The sound of it thudding inside my head.

For a few seconds I just sit there, staring at the dark opening, waiting for whoever it is to come out.

Another sound. Soft, but there. A breath? A whisper? The barest scuff of movement.

My body takes over. I scramble to my feet and start to move.

I don’t want to run, I don’t know why. Perhaps because that would confirm that this is actually real, and the thought terrifies me. So I walk. Fast. Feeling eyes on my back as I cross through the ruined gardens and back towards the fence line, where the few posts stand like sentinels.

As I get there the pressure is too much and I turn, fully expecting to see someone there, running towards me. But there’s nothing. No one. Just the empty, black windows of the old accommodation block, as if the broken building itself was watching me.

I hurry along the beach, and only really start to relax as I get close to Skalio.

But already I’m revising in my mind what just happened.

If there was someone there, it was probably just kids.

Maybe it’s a place they come to play? If so, maybe I scared them just as much as they scared me?

Or, worst-case, it was just the local Skalio peeping- tom, a little weird and creepy maybe – but not dangerous.

Either way I overreacted, and I was stupid to go up there in the first place.

With the drama in my head I almost don’t notice, but the bay around me has transformed into something absolutely spectacular.

Lights are coming on in the white-painted town up ahead, as the restaurants open up around the harbour.

The distant mountains are ghostly shadows rising up from the sea, but most of all it’s the sunset.

Above me, all around, there’s a screaming cacophony of colour, as the last of the glowing red sun slides away.

It’s hard to stay scared when surrounded by such an absurdity of beauty.

I stop at the supermarket on the way to grab a few things for an easy pasta dinner.

Maria’s not serving now, but another woman, who’s not unfriendly, but not as friendly either.

I pay, stuff everything into my bag and keep walking, trying to get my mind back to my mission here, and what, if anything, I learnt today.

Something snags in my memory about Gregory Duncan’s office wall, before he closed the door on it.

Why did he do that? Why did I notice it?

I try to think my way into the question, but whatever it is, it’s not going to come.

Back in my apartment, I pull a beautiful pepper from the bag and find a knife to chop it up.

But the thought I had earlier hasn’t completely gone away.

I try to see back inside that office. The flashing cursor on his computer screen, the pencil portraits of the harbour, and the people.

They weren’t very good, but they weren’t that bad.

And then, just like that, I realise what’s bugging me.

It’s the girl, the portrait on the wall of Gregory Duncan’s office.

I only saw it from an angle, but it looked a hell of a lot like a young Imogen Grant.