Page 23 of Deep Blue Lies

TWENTY-TWO

My first thought is whoever did this might still be in here.

I flicked the light on when I came in, so if there is, they’ll know I’m here. I think about turning it off again, but I don’t want to be in darkness. It’s a small apartment, but there’s still lots of places I can’t see from where I’m standing, lots of places where someone could hide.

Shit.

I go to shut the front door, but then change my mind. If whoever did this is still here, then I want to give them some way of escape. If I trap them, they’re more likely to hurt me.

I step forward cautiously into the bedroom.

Look around, nothing. Another step and I’m in front of the wardrobe, it’s like the most obvious place.

I reach out, hesitating on the handle, then pull it wide open.

Nothing again. I turn, bend down and look under the bed.

Nothing but dust. The room – apart from my clothes all over the floor – looks just how I left it.

I check the bathroom next, I still haven’t put the shower curtain up, so at least no one can redo in reverse the whole Psycho shower scene on me.

It’s obviously empty. I go back into the kitchen/living room part of the space, and there’s not really anywhere left to hide.

I look behind the sofa, open the rest of the cupboards, which are too small to hide in anyway, and then take a huge sigh of relief.

So then I go back to the door to my flat, and this time I shut it, I lock it, and I pull the kitchen table in front of it, so that no one can push it open again from the outside. At least not easily. Only then do I really stop to think.

I didn’t see any signs of forced entry. I mean, I’m not a detective or anything, and I’m not sure I’d know for sure.

But the lock didn’t look any worse than it normally did – which is pretty shaky if I’m honest, like it was the cheapest option when it was fitted, and that was twenty or thirty years ago.

Could someone have opened it with a pick?

I don’t know. Or what about how the key opens the front door and this apartment, is that how they opened it?

I look around the room again. What about the windows?

I’m on the ground floor, but I’m certain the windows were closed when I left, and they still are now.

But just like the door, they’re not the most secure-looking I’ve ever seen.

Far from it. Yet the little levers that hold them shut are still in place.

Another thought hits me. Perhaps it’s someone who stayed here before and kept a key? Or even Klaus, my landlord? I wouldn’t put it past him. Maybe this is how he makes extra money on the side?

And then I wonder, I’m assuming this was someone just breaking in to rob me – but what if that’s wrong? Maybe there’s some other reason? But as soon as I think that it seems ridiculous. What other reason?

I don’t know. I think I’m just freaked out. Freaking out. Here all alone, and feeling super vulnerable. But what do I do now? Should I call the police?

This probably sounds stupid, but I actually have no idea how to do that, here in Greece. Obviously back home I’d call 999, but it isn’t 999 everywhere, right? In America it’s 911. So what is it in Greece? I have literally no idea.

I could Google it. But even if I do call them, what am I actually going to say ?

It was pretty dumb, the way I left my computer on the table.

I didn’t think, but anyone passing by in the street could look in and notice it.

I removed the net curtains, I cleaned the windows, none of that helped.

I guess I was just distracted, what with this being a beautiful Greek island and everything, I assumed there wouldn’t be any crime here.

But of course there is. There’s crime everywhere, and a MacBook is going to be easy to sell, obviously valuable.

I start to feel less freaked out, and a bit more… embarrassed.

It’s pretty obvious, now I think about it, that this was just a burglary.

And I begin to count myself lucky that there wasn’t anything else to steal.

I had my money and bank card on me, plus my phone, and my passport too, luckily, because I needed to show it to Hans.

So the only thing of value was the computer.

And anyway, even though it was an expensive laptop – back when Mum bought it for me – that was a few years ago now, and it’s been well used since then. I’ve been thinking for a while I need to get a new one. So maybe there’s no need to tell the police? Maybe I just chalk this one up to experience?

And if I don’t have to call the police, I don’t have to tell them that some part of my brain is telling me to link what happened here to the person I thought I saw watching me at the ruins of the Aegean Dream Resort. Because I don’t want to do that at all.

And besides. Now that the adrenaline has worn off – a little – I’m still starving. So instead of calling the police, I sit down at my kitchen table and eat my souvlaki , unpacking it onto my final unbroken plate. Only then do I remember the diary. But I can’t face it now. It’s just too much.

I have the whole of tomorrow off work, I’ll read it then.