Page 62 of Deep Blue Lies

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Sophia takes her time, reading the whole paper carefully before setting it down and looking at me.

“Wow. So the sample you gave doesn’t match? That kid wasn’t you?”

“No.” I feel utterly baffled. More than that, crushed. I want the last few seconds to not have happened, to open the envelope again and it go the other way.

“Could it be a mistake?” Sophia asks. She reads the paper again.

“I don’t think so. Isn’t the chance that these things are wrong something like one in ten billion?”

“Oh. That’s a big number.”

“Yeah. I guess I’m more likely to be…” – I pause, reaching for an example – “Elon Musk’s daughter than Mandy Paul’s.”

“Yeah. I guess.” She doesn’t know how to react. “Does Elon Musk even have a daughter?”

“Not sure. But I’m probably not her either.”

We both fall silent then.

“What now?” Sophia asks, after a long while.

“I don’t know.” But she looks at her watch .

“Oh shit, I have to get to work.” She pauses, looking concerned. “Are you gonna be OK?”

I nod, before I even consider the question.

“We’ll talk tonight. OK? I’ll cook something. I get off at seven, come round then?”

I nod.

“Yeah. Alright.”

I’m in a daze the rest of the afternoon.

I walk again, up the beach towards the old Aegean Dream Resort.

There’s a couple of guys here now, putting a new fence around it, I suppose because they’re going to knock it down at last. Only they’re working in typical Greek style, incredibly slowly.

And there’s still nothing to stop anyone walking into the site where they haven’t yet put the fence.

But I don’t go in. It doesn’t matter to me now.

It doesn’t affect me. Whether Jason Wright did or didn’t kill his girlfriend, I don’t really care, because the baby left behind wasn’t me after all.

Yet everything I’ve learned won’t quite leave me alone. My mind goes back to the crazy story Simon Denzil-Walker told me. About how they lost – or nearly lost – Mandy’s baby, the day before she died.

There’s another thing. The seed of an idea I don’t want to examine at first, but which I can almost feel take root in my mind.

Sophia told me that we share the same birthday, or at least nearly.

She also told me that she’s adopted. And it’s not hard to put two and two together, or at least begin to.

What if I’m not the adopted baby, but somehow Sophia is?

I just can’t get my head around any of this, but perhaps that makes some sense? I’m not sure.

I didn’t want Sophia to go to work, but now she has, I find I almost prefer to be alone.

I don’t know why exactly, but I sense it has something to do with how we nearly argued about Kostas.

I sit for a while, and just try to empty my mind.

Instead I pick up handfuls of the soft pale sand and let them run out through my fingers.

And then I find that I’m on my feet and walking inland, away from the men building the fence and up towards the mountain that sits behind the resort .

For a few minutes I can kid myself that I don’t know where I’m going, but of course I do. Maria told me how she found the bodies, and she also told me where, and I can see the building up ahead of me. There’s no fence, there’s no one around. There’s nothing stopping me from taking a look.

When I get there, I wish I hadn’t. There’s a sadness to the place.

It’s not just that it’s been used to house animals – I can see that by the goat droppings littered around – there’s something deeper, but I suppose that’s just in my mind because of what I know happened here.

I’m not that far away from the main resort, but it’s far enough that no one would really have heard Mandy if she’d screamed when she was attacked.

Did she scream? Did she try and protect the baby?

Did she actually succeed? Is that how it somehow stayed alive?

The door is still there but barely hanging on its hinges.

I push it open, and step into the cool, dark interior.

I don’t know what I’m looking for, it’s not as if I’m going to find any clues, it’s not as if this has anything to do with me anymore, but I still try and imagine the scene.

It’s obvious where the bed would have been – though there isn’t one here now.

Maria said Jason’s body was by the door, Mandy’s further inside.

There are dark stains on the wall, could it still be blood, all these years later?

Suddenly I hear a noise. Footsteps outside.

There’s a second when I think it might be just in my mind, but then I’m sure, and I don’t know what to do.

If I go back out there, whoever it is will see me, so I figure the best thing to do is stay here and wait until they go by.

But then the footsteps get louder and there’s a shout, urgent and angry.

It sounds like they’re coming right up to the building.

I look around for another exit, but all I see is a little bathroom.

I try it, and there’s a smashed-up toilet and a very broken shower tray.

So I come out again, just in time to see the building’s main entrance – the only entrance – blocked by the silhouette of a large man .

He sees me the same time I see him, and for a second or two we just stare at each other. But then he starts yelling again. It’s all in Greek, except then I make out a few words: private , and another word: dangerous .

And then I understand. He’s one of the men fixing the fence. He must have seen me come up here and followed, to tell me that people aren’t allowed here anymore, because of how the resort has been sold. How it’s going to be knocked down.

I have to push right past him to get out and get away. As I do I feel my cheeks flush, a little bit with fear, but with embarrassment too. Because what am I doing here? I should just leave it well alone.

These people have nothing to do with me. And it’s not like I don’t still have my own mystery to solve.