Page 21 of Deep Blue Lies

TWENTY

We’re like that, me holding on as tight as I can and Kostas driving, one hand on the throttle, the other on the wheel, for a couple of minutes.

It’s long enough to put us a good distance offshore and away from the beach.

Then he turns the boat in a long smooth arc, so that we’re facing back towards Skalio, but too far to make out any of the buildings now.

He pulls the throttle right back so that we slow, falling off the plane, and finally rolling slightly as the waves we’ve just created catch us up and rock into the side of the boat.

Kostas lets the engine idle a few moments, watching it carefully, then he cuts it.

There’s near silence, just the sound of the last few waves slapping against the rubber side of the boat.

“Seems OK,” Kostas says.

“The engine?”

“Yes.”

He’s not looking at me, his eyes are fixed on the horizon, out to sea, not back at Alythos. Finally he goes on, still not looking in my direction.

“When you came to me the other day, I said I didn’t recognise either of the women in your photograph,” he begins, then stops again. He looks gravely serious. “That was not the truth.”

He falls quiet .

“OK,” I say after a while. Because I don’t know what else to say.

“This is not easy for me to say. I do not like to be caught in a lie. But I had not thought about Imogen in a long time.” Finally he turns to me, as if wanting to know how this line lands. I don’t know what to say.

“OK,” I say again.

“A very long time.”

“Uh huh.” I nod. I glance over the side. The water must be deep here, the colour is almost black – like Kostas’ hair, and his eyes. I get the thought that he’s taken me out here into his element. It’s a bit weird. Unsettling.

“The truth is I do remember Imogen. I remember her very well. We became…close. When we worked at the resort. Friends.” His eyes flick away, glancing towards the derelict remains of the hotel far away on the shore as he says this.

“We were still close when the murder happened. But it tore us apart.”

I stare at him, sort of stunned.

“Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

He takes his time again, like he’s thinking how to put it.

“The man who died – Jason Wright. He was the resort manager, in charge of everything. The woman he killed was both his girlfriend and the resort’s deputy manager.

With both of them gone, there was no one left to run the hotel.

It was closed down. Everyone who wasn’t from the island – the guests of course, but the staff too – were sent home.

I don’t remember how they did it, maybe the owner in Britain hired a jet to get everyone away – I do not know. ”

He’s quiet for a moment, he seems to be thinking. I just wait, perched on the side of this little rubber boat over an abyss of water.

“What I am trying to say, it happened just like that .” He snaps his fingers suddenly as he speaks, catching me by surprise. “ Gone .” His face twists, I see anger in it. Regret, something else too. He falls silent again .

“I remember your mother too. Karen Whitaker.” He looks at me sharply, watching. I just wait.

“She and Imogen shared a room. In the staff quarters.” I think I knew this, I think she told me once – or maybe Imogen did, I can’t remember.

“OK.”

“She did not have a baby.”

That takes me by surprise for a moment. “I know she didn’t. Not that first summer. I was born the year after, the second year she was here?—”

“No. You weren’t.” His words cut me into silence. For a few moments neither of us speaks.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I say in the end.

“There was no child.”

I don’t know how to answer this. Obviously he’s making a mistake, or he’s just mixing her up with someone else.

“Um…” My voice fades away. I stare at the water. There’s just the tiniest sheen of oil on the surface now, I think from the engine’s cooling system. A tiny swirl of rainbow. It’s easier to focus on this than what I’m suddenly being told.

“Perhaps Karen was pregnant when she left the island? Perhaps you were born after, back in England. Or somewhere else, another island.” Kostas’ words keep coming. Insane. Completely wrong . I shrug, shaking my head at the same time.

“No. It was definitely…Alythos.” I have my passport in my bag. Hans needs to see it for my work permit. It lists my place of birth. And the date. But I don’t pull it out, I don’t show it to him. I’m not here to prove myself.

He turns away, as if me not believing him is insulting. But he’s just wrong.

“I will take you back now. Hold on.”

And then he fires up the engine again. Moments later the boat has climbed back onto the mountain of white water that its engine produces, as we power back towards the beach.

For a minute or so there’s no possibility of talking, with the noise and the movement of it.

It could be thrilling, but my head is spinning.

I don’t understand what he’s just told me, why he’d say it.

But we don’t quite get to the beach. Instead he kills the engine, spinning the boat around again when we’re maybe a quarter of a mile from the sand.

The water here is bluer, but still dark and deep.

It makes me want to get closer still. To where I could definitely swim ashore if I needed to. If he tried to throw me off.

“I do not know if I should tell you this.” His words cut into me again. “I do not understand this.”

I let go of the handles to lift my hands into a shrug. “I don’t think I do either.”

“You are the daughter of Karen Whitaker?” His dark eyes bore into me. “The woman in your photograph – Imogen. We are talking about the same Karen Whitaker who was friends with Imogen Grant?”

“Yes. Yeah, I think so.”

He draws in a deep breath, then shakes his big head again, like this cannot be the case. Then he half-unzips his buoyancy aid, and reaches a hand inside. He stops. Seems to consider again.

“Imogen and I…our relationship was casual. Typical of its time. I mean by this, we did not know so much about each other, outside of the island. This was a time before mobile telephones, the internet. This you understand?” He waits until I nod, before he goes on.

“I did not know where she lived. Of course I knew America, but I could not contact her, when she left the island, after the murders.”

Now he turns to face me properly, looking me square in the face. “This was hard for me. I believed myself to be in love with her at this time. And her with me. Yet I had no way to reach her.”

I can’t see where this is going, but it must have been hard. I can sort of understand what he’s telling me.

“So did you find her? Afterwards?”

“No.” He shakes his head. Like a powerful but tragic bear. “I have never seen Imogen Grant again. Not after the deaths. ”

“Oh.” I nod, for what must be the fourth or fifth time. I mean, this is super interesting and stuff. But I’m not sure why it’s that relevant to me. I still don’t really know what I’m doing out here. But it turns out Kostas isn’t finished.

“At first the police sealed off the resort. Everything was off limits. But after a few days, it was clear they did not have enough men to keep it locked down. They put police tape. Keep out.” He glances at me, then looks away, so that I see the whites of his eyes.

I just wait. Whatever this is, it seems it’s difficult for him to tell me.

“So one night. I went down there. To the hotel. I broke into Imogen’s room. Imogen and Karen’s room. You understand?”

“Um, not exactly?—”

“I wanted to find an address – something to help me get in touch with Imogen. Maybe I did not think the relationship could last forever, but it should not have ended the way it did.”

I wait, then reply.

“But you didn’t find anything? Otherwise, you’d have contacted her?”

He nods, his eyes absent again.

“Nothing from Imogen. No.” His frown deepens, his brow knotting like he’s pulling something up from the past. “I should not have done what I did next. It was shameful. I have felt a guilt over this for many years. Perhaps if I hand this over to you, it will remove this guilt? I do not know…”

He stops again, and I have to press.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Hand what over?”

“Your mother, Karen. She kept a diary of her time on the island. I found it when I searched their room. I am sorry to say I took it. Ever since, I have kept it, I cannot say why, I do not know…” He fixes me with his dark look again, and then his hand disappears further into the buoyancy aid.

Underneath, tucked into his shirt, is a clear plastic bag, and inside that, I see the corner of a book.

“I wasn’t sure I still had it, but after we spoke I looked and…” He shakes his head. “You tell me you were born here, on Alythos? To Karen Whitaker? ”

“Yes.”

He shakes his head.

“Then you must read this. I do not understand, but it will tell you the truth.”

He pulls the book now from his shirt, looks at it a moment longer, then holds it out to me.

For a moment I’m unsure what to do. I just stare at it, in total shock.

This is something real. Mum’s actual diary.

I just blink at it for a few moments, and then I take it from him.

I tuck it in the waistband of my shorts, because I can’t even look at it yet.

He nods – I think at this – but then I see it’s at the rubber handle, telling me to hold on again.

And moments later we’re flying again, as he powers the boat full-speed back towards the shore.

But I don’t feel I’m going forward anymore. I feel like I’m already falling backwards. Back into the past I’m so desperate to understand.