Page 80 of Deep Blue Lies

SEVENTY-NINE

I’m close enough to see his hand snatching for the key in the ignition, but something stops him from turning it.

I can see what. The way he’s parked he’s backed the car right up close to the one behind him, so the only way out is forwards.

And where I’m standing, I’m already one step in front of the car.

He’d have to run me over to get away. For a wild second I think he might do it anyway, start the car and surge forward before I could even get out the way.

But he doesn’t, and I do something else.

I step more in front of him so that he can’t leave.

We stay there a few moments, staring at each other through the windscreen.

Then I see him swallow, and buzz down the window.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t seem to have any idea what to say.

“You’re Gregory Duncan. I remember you. Why are you outside my apartment?” As I speak I remember my break-in, how my laptop was stolen and the weird way it was returned to me, smashed up.

“Are you gonna say anything?” I demand. I take a half step back, so I could get out of the way if he did decide to start the car. I can’t see his hand now from where I am. It might still be on the ignition.

“Do you know?” he asks.

I wait, expecting something more, but it doesn’t come.

“Do I know what?”

“About Imogen?”

I stare at him, not understanding. “Do I know she’s dead? Yes, how do you…” Then I remember the portrait he had on his wall, the pencil sketch of Imogen when she was younger. He was in love with her, that’s what Kostas told me.

“No, not that she’s dead. Do you know the other thing?”

I feel my forehead pinching into a frown. “What other thing? What are you doing here? Are you spying on me? On my apartment?” I want to ask if it was him who broke in, did he smash my laptop?

“I’m not spying, I’m…observing.” He’s silent. So am I, for a few seconds.

“Observing what?”

Gregory doesn’t answer. But then he surprises me by suddenly pushing open the door. He unfolds himself from the seat. I’d forgotten how tall he is. When he stands straight he looks down on me, and I see his Adam’s apple roll up and down as he swallows.

“Do you know ?” he says again. There’s a desperation to his tone, like he can’t bear not knowing my answer. But I still don’t understand the question.

There’s no need to stand in front of his car anymore, but there might be a need to run. So I take a step back, away from him.

“Do I know what ?” I say again, trying to sound tougher than I feel right now. He just observes me.

“You don’t know,” he says now. He shakes his head a little, like this development is almost too much for him to bear. “You actually don’t know.”

“Are you going to tell me? What it is I don’t know?”

He doesn’t. Instead he moves suddenly and I think he’s about to grab me, but instead he simply rests his lanky frame against the car and drops his head onto the roof.

He even hits his head against it a couple of times, like he wants to hurt himself.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what the hell is going on.

But then I hear a familiar sound – the buzzy whine from the motor on Sophia’s scooter.

A few seconds later I see the headlight, and then she pulls up over the road from us.

She takes off the helmet, pulls the bike onto its stand and moves for the door, but then senses us. She turns around.

“Ava? Hey…” Her eyes move from me to Duncan, and her eyebrows go an inch up her forehead. “Mr Duncan?”

None of us speak.

“Ava, are you OK?” She comes across to me now, moving quickly. But already I’m not feeling threatened by Duncan. Whatever this is, it’s something else.

“What is it?” I demand from him again. “That I don’t know?”

I feel Sophia staring, but my eyes don’t leave Gregory.

He looks at me, then Sophia, then at the open car door as if he wants to drive away now.

And then something weird happens. He lets out a sound, but not human, more like a wild animal, a kind of mix of a roar and a sob.

In the dim glow from the streetlights I catch the flash of wetness on his cheek, he’s crying, sobbing wildly.

After nearly a minute he finally falls silent, then he turns back to me, grunting to himself like he’s trying to pull himself together.

“We need to talk.”