Page 79 of Deep Blue Lies

SEVENTY-EIGHT

The taxi stops outside the gate to Maria and Sophia’s house, but I can see right away they’re not home.

The little house is in darkness, but even so I get out and go up to the door and check.

But there’s no answer. I shake my head to try and clear it, why didn’t I message Sophia?

What am I thinking, why aren’t I thinking?

I pull out my phone and send her a quick text, saying I’m going to be at my apartment for an hour or so if she’s around.

Then I turn and walk back to the taxi. I’m about to open the door and climb in when I change my mind.

It’s a lovely warm evening, the air soft and infused with the scents of the flowers in Maria’s garden.

Except here by the car it’s overpowered by the smell of the exhaust fumes and the cloying chemical from the air freshener.

I think of how Sophia insisted she was fine to walk back from my apartment.

It seems a lifetime ago, but still I trust that she was right. My hand hesitates on the door handle.

“Actually, I think I’m going to walk,” I say to the driver through his open window. “Can you still pick me up though, in an hour?”

He shrugs, but looks happy enough – which helps me not second-guess my idea. It doesn’t even occur to him to be concerned about a female walking alone at night. I step back to let him turn the car around, then watch the rear lights disappear back down Maria’s little lane.

There are street lights – not the harsh type we have in England, but soft and pretty – that illuminate the route from Sophia’s house to my apartment.

And quite a few of them are softened further by the blooms of bougainvillea and other flowers that have been planted in this part of the town.

And even though the walk is only short it does me good, and I start to think how I’m going to pack my things.

It’s not even that big a job. But when I step around the final corner – so that the front door of my apartment is over the road, opposite – something stops me.

There’s a car, parked just in front of me, and I can clearly see there’s a man in it.

He has his back to me – he’s sitting in the driver’s seat, as if he’s watching the front door.

Of my apartment block. I don’t move for a moment, and at first I’m just confused.

Is he waiting for someone? But then I realise I’m being stupid.

There’s loads of people he could be waiting for, any of the other residents of the building.

Maybe they’re going out and he’s just picking them up.

But then I have another thought – I guess it’s triggered by my wondering earlier whether it’s safe to walk here at night. Someone attacked Imogen – in broad daylight – and I don’t know who they are. And they didn’t get caught.

Either way, there’s no way I can get to my apartment without walking past this car.

So I take a deep breath, and drop my head and just power past. But then the moment I draw level with the driver’s window, I sense more than see – because I’m keeping my eyes forward – the man duck down into his seat. Like he’s trying to hide.

I keep going, pretending I didn’t see, but I can’t not notice.

And then another thought fires in my mind.

Before the man dropped down, I recognised him.

I stop, my thigh level with the front of the car, and I turn around.

And then very slowly – carefully – the man pulls himself back up, like he’s expecting I’ve gone past now and I won’t see him.

But I do. I look right into his face. And I don’t understand at all.

“Gregory Duncan?”