Page 81 of Deep Blue Lies

EIGHTY

We go inside my apartment, it just seems like a natural thing to do. And Gregory seems to completely expect that Sophia will come with us. And I sense the reason why. He’s been watching me, he knows how close we’ve become.

“I don’t have anything to drink.” I say it almost as a joke, I feel a need to try and lighten the mood, but Gregory doesn’t answer, let alone laugh. He just looks around. There’s only really one place to sit, around my tiny kitchen table.

“Can I sit down?”

I hold out my hand, watching as he finds a way to fit all his angles into the small chair. After a while I take the only other chair, opposite him. Sophia jumps up and sits directly on the worktop, facing us both.

“What is it I don’t know?” I ask again.

It takes him a long time to begin, but when he does his first word is Imogen. Then he stops again.

“What about her?”

He pants, but finally it seems he’s found the words.

“She’s dead. I know that now.”

“So do I. The hospital told me. She died of a heart attack.”

“No.” He shakes his head, but offers no explanation. Instead he draws in a deep breath. “She’s dead, and I’ve failed her. I thought you might be able to help. That’s why I was here. Why I was observing you.”

I glance at Sophia, but she seems as confused as I am.

“Help Imogen? How?”

“If this happened, she asked me to help. To do something.”

“If what happened…” I begin, but then answer him myself. “If she died? ”

He just nods. I don’t know what to do next.

“Was it you that broke into my apartment?” I ask. The question seems to surprise him for a moment, but then he nods again.

“Yes. I once wrote a character who was a locksmith. I practised with picks so I could write him authentically. You never know when it’ll come in handy.”

“And it was you who was spying on me from the ADR right after I came to see you.”

He gives a chuckle. “Yes, I suppose I was clumsy at first. I got better though, I don’t believe you saw me after that?”

I try and make sense of this.

“So it was you who smashed my laptop?”

“You had a password on it. I couldn’t get into it.”

“I know I had a…” I stop myself. “Why did you want to see my laptop?” I literally can’t think of a single thing on it that had any value.

“I thought she might have sent it to you too. I hoped she did.”

This means nothing to me. It doesn’t help at all, and I guess Sophia must think the same.

“Maybe you should start at the beginning, because I don’t think Ava is understanding much of this?”

His eyes move to her. He seems a little confused by her presence suddenly. As he turns I notice the stubble on his jowls. He looked better the other time I saw him, like a man who liked to be well turned out, now he looks a mess. He nods in agreement, but then does nothing .

“What do you think Imogen would have sent me?” I ask again. “Because I assure you she didn’t.”

This seems to hurt him a little, like it’s the final confirmation of something he already knows, but isn’t quite ready to accept.

“The file.” He looks away from both of us now, then covers his mouth.

A few moments later he looks back at me.

“I’m sorry, this is very difficult. Very difficult indeed.

” Something makes me wait. As I do I remember I was supposed to be here packing up my apartment.

Getting my passport. I don’t know where that fits suddenly – into how things are unfolding.

But I’m interrupted as he begins to speak again.

“Imogen and I were…not close exactly, when she worked here, but we were friends.” Duncan nods to himself at the idea of this. “We understood each other, is what I’m trying to say.”

“OK.”

“She was seeing Kostas – the man from the dive centre – at the time. He was a gardener back then.” He stops, glances at Sophia with a snatched smile. “Of course, you work for him now, you’ll know all that.”

“Yeah. I do. But keep going.”

He settles again, seems to miss the bitter sarcasm in her voice, maybe even appreciates the prompt.

“When she left, I tried to stay in touch with her, and eventually I tracked her down. Obviously her time on the island ended with the terrible tragedy, the murders in the Aegean Dream Resort, so I reached out to her. I asked if I could support her in any way.” He looks away, his head shivers a little.

“She turned me down. Rejected me, you might say. But occasionally we talked. Very occasionally.” He clears his throat.

“Eventually we became friends. She supported my writing…and then one day something happened.”

“What?”

“She sent me a file.”

“What file?” Sophia asks, from her perch on the work surface. I sense the impatience in her voice, but I don’t share it. I’m not sure I want to hear this.

“A video file. She sent me a video file, and she gave me a set of instructions.” He pushes on, not letting himself stop.

“The instructions were that I wasn’t to watch it, under any circumstances.

She absolutely forbade it. She told me that if I loved her – which I suppose I did,” – he pauses, as if he’s surprised himself by saying this part out loud – “then I must keep it, but never watch it .”

“Well then, what’s the point of it?” Sophia asks now.

“The point was,” – he takes a breath – “were she ever to die, of anything other than old age – I should send the file to the police investigating her death, or if she died in a way that didn’t arouse enough suspicion for the police to be involved, then I should send it to the newspapers.

Or I should publish it on my blog. That generally I should do whatever it took to make this video file public.

” I see him sitting up straighter in his chair as he says this, as if this were all some noble quest.

“And now she is dead,” – Sophia speaks slowly, carefully, trying to follow – “you’re going to do that?”

It’s almost imperceptible, but he shakes his head.

“No.”

“Why not?” I ask.

He swallows. “Because I don’t have it. I deleted it.”

“You deleted it, without watching it?”

Again the shake of the head.

“No. I deleted it because I watched it. I broke her trust. I betrayed her. I watched the video file, and what I saw on it was so dreadful, so horribly awful that I knew I could never hurt her by making it public. So I deleted it and I erased it from my computer, so that I could never recover it. But now that she has… been killed. Now finally I understand what she was doing. She was so clever, so brilliant. Now I understand. It wasn’t about her, but about justice.

About doing the right thing, the only possible way she could.

” He stops, his narrow chest rising and falling fast from the effort of his words .

“That’s why I hoped Ava might have been sent the same file.” He lifts a hand to smooth down an eyebrow. “Why I wanted to check her computer. I had to know.”

“So we have a video file,” – Sophia speaks slowly, summing up, “that might finally explain what the hell is going on here.” She pauses, thinking. “But we don’t know what’s on it, and now we never will because you deleted it.”

“No.” He turns to her, and then slowly his gaze returns to me. “I know exactly what’s on it. And I can tell you.”