Page 89 of Deep Blue Lies

EIGHTY-EIGHT

The fence going up around the old resort is half-complete now, so that from some directions it might appear hard to break in.

But from others you can still just walk right in.

The men who were putting the fence up are nowhere to be seen, but that’s not a surprise: Sophia told me last night that there’d been a dispute over payment that will take weeks to sort out.

So the place is abandoned again. It’s just me.

The sun is already hot on my back as I leave the footpath and follow the fence line, until it abruptly stops where a fence post stands entombed in its concrete footing.

Up close there’s a menacing aspect to the old buildings, and it occurs to me that however well I think I know it, Karen’s going to know it far better.

Am I giving her an advantage coming here, one I didn’t see last night?

If so it’s too late now. I step over weeds and shards of broken glass as I make my way to the heart of the old resort, the swimming pool with its smashed blue tiles and years of dust and junk accumulated at the bottom.

Next to it is the bar, the roof broken and collapsed at one end but still in place at the other.

I walk behind the bar, looking out. It’s a good place, a natural vantage point from where you can see almost everywhere in the resort.

I check my watch. Ten thirty already, I wanted to get here early because I have a hunch that Mum will try to do the same…

“Hello, Ava.”

Her voice shocks me, makes me physically jump. She’s sitting calmly on an old broken chair under the shelter of the half-fallen portion of the roof. My hand goes to my chest.

“I didn’t…” I try to strip the panic from my voice. “I didn’t see you there.”

She doesn’t answer, but stares at me intently, and I take a few steps back so that I’m not behind the old concrete bar with her.

That’s where I wanted to be so that there would be a physical barrier between us, but she got here first. I move around the other side of the bar, where there are still a few tiled concrete posts that once served as fixed stools.

To try and calm myself – and give an illusion of calm – I sit on one, looking at my mother, who now stands, leaning her arms on the bar between us.

“So, what’s this about then?”

She’s like a vixen, tasting the air carefully with every word she utters. Alert to how dangerous I can be if she doesn’t handle me just right .

“Why are we here, Ava?”

There’s no point with preamble, pretending this is anything other than it is. From my pocket I pull a pen drive, purchased this morning from Maria’s little store, quite possibly it’s the only one she’s sold in years.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a USB stick.”

“I can see it’s a USB stick. I’m wondering why you’re waving it in my face?”

Till now I haven’t been looking her in the eyes. I maybe don’t even mean today, maybe I never have. But now I do. They’re bright, bright blue, like the sky above. Not like mine, which are dark chestnut brown.

“Imogen sent it to me. ”

Her expression cracks. The calm, confident shell. It doesn’t collapse – far from it, but it slips a little. My words concern her.

“Imogen? What did she put on it? More drug-fuelled hallucinations?”

“She told me everything.” I ignore the excuse she’s trying to make, before I’ve even said anything. “She told me the truth.”

“I’ve told you, Ava, that woman – that poor woman – has said all kinds of things over the years, but very rarely the truth. That’s why I’ve tried to stick with her. To support her. It’s why I flew out here when I heard she’d been attacked. To help her.”

Except you were already here, I think to myself, but I don’t say that. Except you were the one who attacked her. There’ll be time for that.

“She’s told me everything, Mum. It arrived by courier yesterday evening, when I was cleaning out my apartment.”

“OK. I’ll bite.” She gives me a sharp smile. “What exactly does Imogen say?”

She’ll dismiss everything, I know it. But even a psychopath must flinch when they’re hit with the truth?

“She told me how you lost Mandy’s baby overboard from Simon’s yacht, the day before the murders. I know that’s true.”

Her eyebrows go up, but she says nothing.

“And then she tells me how you came back to the room you shared, and found her giving birth. To a baby she didn’t even know she was having. A cryptic pregnancy.”

I let her absorb the words. I’m close enough to see her pupils expand, the surprise dissipating backwards into her brain. But apart from that, the only physical reaction is a slight smile that creeps onto her lips.

“I see.”

“Then she told me how you helped her deliver the baby, she says you probably saved her life. But then the two of you were stuck. You’d lost Mandy’s baby, you knew how much trouble you were in for that, and she’s suddenly found herself with a child that no one expected.

That she couldn’t possible keep. And you found a solution, to both problems.”

“Oh yes? This is an interesting one. She’s told me some stories over the years, but I haven’t heard this one. What was this ‘solution’?”

“You thought you could swap the babies. Take Imogen’s newborn, and trick Mandy into believing it was her child, that you never killed her baby.” I try to put real force into my words, to make them sound convincing. But Mum’s smiling warmly now.

“Really. Really , Ava?” She shakes her head. “Well, tell me, how sensible does that sound? Do you think it’s an idea that anyone would think would work? Or is it the deluded fantasy of a deeply broken woman, addicted to a wide range of medication?—”

“But that plan didn’t go so well, did it, Mum?” I force my voice over hers, then don’t give her space to come back at me. “Because Mandy wasn’t as stupid as you thought she was. You’re right, no one could be, except that you were, because it was your idea.” I smile for a moment, then go on.

“Don’t beat yourself up, Mum. In your defence you were off your head on coke, and stressed up to your eyeballs. Everyone makes mistakes, even you.” I twist my own lips into a sarcastic smile now, and I see how much she hates it.

“Mandy saw at once that you’d given her the wrong baby, and I can imagine what happened next.

She freaked out, didn’t she? She would have done, anyone would have done.

And then you panicked and what, picked up the closest heavy object and smashed her over the head with it?

What was it Mum, a lamp? I can’t remember what Imogen said, can you remind me? ”

I stare at her again, my own words causing me to evaluate her anew. Reassess the person I’ve known longer than any other on this earth. This is what evil looks like. Before she speaks again, her tongue appears for just a moment. I’m surprised it’s not forked.

“And then what happened, in Imogen’s little fairy tale?”

I pause, before going on. If I’d hoped that being confronted with this would cause her to collapse and confess, begging for my forgiveness, I was wrong. But I didn’t really think that was how it would go.

“You tell me. You did it.”

She scoffs at the idea, then brushes a strand of her blonde hair from her forehead.

“OK, I’ll play. Since I know that Jason Wright tragically murdered Mandy Paul and then shot himself, I imagine Imogen’s story would proceed along those lines.

Unless she really goes off the rails at that point?

” She lifts her shoulders, making it a question.

I just wait.

“So I imagine she says I waited for Jason, and then, somehow already knowing he had a gun hidden in his room – which of course I couldn’t know – I shot him with it, and made the whole think look like a murder-suicide?”

“You did know he had a gun. You wrote about it in your diary.”

This unsettles her, not much, but a bit. The expression that passes across her face is self-questioning, checking, dark and scary, but it’s gone as fast as it arrives.

“If I did it’s only because it was a rumour flying around the hotel. I certainly didn’t know where it would have been hidden.”

“Your diary says the cleaners discovered it hidden under the mattress. They put it back there. So you knew exactly where to look.”

“Oh, come on, Ava. I can’t remember what I wrote…” She stops, realising that not remembering now doesn’t help her if it proves she knew back then. “It’s a fantasy, Ava. A delusional fantasy. Entertaining, but not a reason to drag me all the way out here.”

“I’ve sent Imogen’s confession to the police. They’re on their way here. Right now.”

Mum turns back to me, her eyes level, intense, probing. She stays like that a long while.

“I very much doubt that, Ava.”

Her certainty shakes me. “Why not? ”

“Because they won’t believe it. Because the case was closed and shelved a long time ago. But most of all, because it’s not true.”

“Imogen’s just been murdered. Even if it wasn’t you at the hospital, someone attacked her on the beach. That case is open.”

Her lips twitch as she acknowledges this. “Even so.”

“I’m your daughter. If I tell them I believe Imogen, that will count for something.”

She smiles now, beatific. “A little, perhaps. They might want to speak to me. But I’ll be able to convince them.

Of the truth . After all, you’ve had a shock, you’ve discovered you’re adopted.

And maybe I’ll even be able to convince you in the end, when we get home, away from this place, which I will admit does invoke a certain ghostly atmosphere. ”

I shake my head. “I’m not coming home with you. You’re a killer.”

“Are you recording this, Ava?” she answers at once.

“Is this how this is supposed to work? You tell me all this, in the hope I’ll say something incriminating, and then you can take it to the police, because as we both know, the testimony of a known drug addict like Imogen Grant is utterly worthless.

And that’s if there even is anything on that pen drive.

” She stops, her eyes probing into mine again, trying to drag my secrets from me.

I don’t say anything, but I can’t help but swallow.

“Show me your phone,” she asks.

I don’t move.

“Ava , your phone? You must have it, I’ve never seen you without it.”

Slowly I reach into the pocket of my shorts. The truth is, she surprised me by being here so early, I didn’t even have time to start the recording. I hold it up, showing her the screen.

“Why don’t you hand it over?”

I try to resist, to defy her, but I feel my hand disobeying me.

I lay the phone on the counter top and slide it over towards her.

She picks it up, inspects it at once. It’s not recording, but she doesn’t seem satisfied by that.

She presses the power button until the option comes up to switch it off completely.

She’s silent until the screen goes black, the buttons unresponsive.

She looks at me, gives a sad little laugh.

“Imogen was a drug addict, Ava. A junkie. I know because I was the one supplying her.” My eyes flick up from my phone, like I’m willing it to magically still be on and recording.

“ Legally , I should add, from the pharmacy. But I have the records, Ava.” She pauses, her eyes going back to the pen drive that I’m still gripping tightly.

“Whatever you have on there, it’s not what you believe it is, and the police won’t fall for it.

Not for long. Not when I show them the dosage she was on. ”

I’m silent again.

“I don’t suppose there’s any point asking you for it? I expect you’ll have made copies?”

I nod.

She purses her lips, thinking.

“Why are we here, Ava? What is this about?” She waves a hand around, indicating that “this” means here.

“I wanted to give you the opportunity to explain. I want to know where I fit into all this.”

She’s quiet a moment, thinking, and I go on.

“Imogen really did have a baby, didn’t she?” I say, then watch her carefully, lowering my voice.

“I kept the clothes I was wearing when Imogen was attacked on the beach. They were soaked with her blood. I’ve sent a sample off for DNA testing.

If I’m her daughter, I’ll know. In two days the results come back, and I’ll know.

” I fix my eyes on her, willing myself not to look away, for her to see my fury.

And I see it, this time a flicker of real panic.

A major shifting inside her mind this time.

She wasn’t expecting this. Not at all. She gives herself a moment, but not more than a few seconds. Then a smile.

“Yes. Damnit.” She shakes her head again, runs a hand through her hair.

“Do you know I never suspected a thing. I worked with her, I slept in the same room as that stupid girl, who obviously was too stupid to even operate a condom. Oh, I realised there was something , she complained a little more than usual, maybe she’d filled out a bit, but nothing that I really noticed – and believe me I was a hawk about her weight.

The way she looked in a swimsuit actually reflected on me… ”

“Oh, I believe you. On that I believe you.”

She pauses, then smiles sarcastically. But then she softens it.

“But I never thought for a second she might be pregnant. I didn’t even know she was having sex.”

We’re both silent for a while, then she begins again. “You know, I’ve noticed over the years since, how you see stories about this from time to time. Girls who find themselves with a baby without ever knowing they were pregnant. It’s surprising how often it happens. And it rarely ends well.”

“And that was me? I was Imogen’s child?”

Her tongue comes out again to wet her lip, but her mouth must be dry. She holds up a finger to tell me to wait and reaches into her shoulder bag, pulling out a bottle of water. Carefully she breaks the seal and takes a sip, then a longer swig. When she’s done she offers the bottle to me.

“No. Thank you.”

She puts the bottle down on the bar between us, next to where she put my phone. She glances at it now, the screen black. Then she taps the home button again, checking it’s definitely switched off.

“OK, Ava. I suppose I owe you the truth.”