Page 90 of Deep Blue Lies

EIGHTY-NINE

“I think you owe me more than that,” I say. And Mum nods, thinking.

“Some of it’s true,” she says in the end. I wait, but she doesn’t go on.

“What parts?”

“The police, are they really coming?” she asks, but I don’t reply. “How long have I got?”

“Long enough for the truth.”

She swallows now. Her face is changed, the almost sneering confidence she projected earlier is gone, she’s trying for something else.

“We did lose the baby overboard.” She looks down as she says the words, then glances up at me, testing how they land. I don’t reply at once. I’ve heard this story several times now, but I never quite believed it. But coming from her like this, I know it’s real.

“Oh my God, Mum…” For a second I’m a girl again, this is my mother telling me this.

“It wasn’t our fault! It wasn’t my fault…

” Her eyes narrow, flick left and right.

“With any boat or ship, the person in charge is responsible. But Simon was…irresponsible. I had no idea about the weather, he told me it would be fine to leave the baby where she was, it was too hot down below, we put a sunshade on her…”

“But you were responsible for the baby?”

“I was twenty-four years old, Ava. I have no idea why Mandy thought I was a suitable person to look after her child.”

Her words shock me. Even amongst this, that she can still speak like this shocks me.

“So what really happened?”

“You’ve heard the story…” – she shrugs meekly – “It was an accident, a complete freak accident that could have happened to anyone. We were just unlucky.”

“Not as unlucky as the baby.”

These words seem to wound her, she tries a smile to acknowledge this truth, but it doesn’t come out.

“It was more Simon’s fault than mine. He said so, at the time.

I should have gone to the police, I know I should, but he begged me not to.

He…” Her voice quietens, as if this part cannot be said out loud.

“He had drugs on him. In our panic when the boat capsized they went everywhere. Powder down the seats. It would have been impossible to clean it up had they checked the boat with dogs. The police would have taken this into account, and he’d have been put in prison for life.

And Greek prisons…” She leaves the sentence unfinished.

“So it was all Simon’s fault?” I ask.

She opens her mouth to reply, then lifts a hand, as if acknowledging how this must sound.

“What could I do, Ava? I was in shock, I was terrified, and I thought I loved him. I didn’t know what else to do.”

I listen to her words, and for the first time I actually hear them. What it must have been like to make a mistake like that. Because whatever happened next, that part at least was a mistake. And I’ve made plenty of my own.

“What happened after that? What really happened?”

Karen looks away from me, pursing her lips like she’s reliving it.

“We took the yacht back into the harbour in town, and I came back here. I don’t know if we were serious – we weren’t thinking straight, that’s for sure – but I came for my passport.

” She shakes her head, as if accepting how crazy an idea it was to try and run. “And then, when I got to my room…”

“You found Imogen, in labour?”

She nods.

“You can’t imagine, Ava. You simply can’t imagine what that was like.”

She’s right. I can’t.

“She’d lost a lot of blood. The baby was…

twisted inside her. I suppose that’s why it hadn’t shown.

I had to make sense of what was going on.

I wanted to get help, but Imogen begged me not to.

She told me she’d kill herself if I left her, even for a moment.

So I did the only thing I could, I helped her deliver the baby. ”

We both fall silent, me imagining, her remembering, I suppose.

“It was Imogen’s idea. To swap them.”

I glance back, surprised. I wasn’t ready to move on.

“I told her my story and she couldn’t believe it, but she was always a bit hippy.

She said it was the universe ‘finding a way’.

” She shakes her head, then shrugs. “An hour after the baby was born, she wrapped it in a blanket and went to Mandy’s room – she was back by then from her trip to Athens.

She tried to give it back to her, but of course Mandy knew at once.

So Imogen panicked. She picked up a lamp, the base was made of rock.

She hit her with it, beating her over and over to stop her from yelling out.

Then she left the baby there and came running back to get me.

“I was stunned. I had no idea what to do. I wanted to call the police, I wanted to do the right thing, but I couldn’t. Simon would go to prison, and now Imogen as well – the two people I loved most in the world. Their lives would be over.”

“And Jason?”

Karen’s eyes, which are downcast and staring at the battered, sun-weathered old bar top, lift and meet mine for a moment.

“That was Imogen too. She said we could use the gun and make it look like a murder-suicide. I was in no state, after everything that had happened. It was Imogen who called him on the radio. Her who waited behind the door with the gun, her who leapt on him the moment he walked in. And then she shot him. She did it all, Ava.”

I take a long moment, considering this. I can feel my heart racing in my chest, the blood pounding in my head.

“And me? I really am Imogen’s baby?”

She hesitates. Then nods. “I wanted to give you a happier ending than the orphanage you ended up in, I felt we owed you that much.”

I screw my eyes shut. Somehow, despite everything, I still want to believe this. Maybe I even should believe her? I can feel her staring at me, willing me to, and when I open my eyes, hers are fixed on mine, pleading with me to understand. I can feel the empathy radiating off her body.

“Ava, I’m sorry. So dreadfully, awfully sorry. You can see why I could never tell you this?”

I can. I can. That’s the problem. Of course I can see. It all makes perfect sense.

Except for one thing.

One tiny flaw.

“So you’re saying it was Imogen that did all this?” I tell her, feeling the tears welling up in my eyes. “That’s what you’re telling me?”

“Yes.” Her voice is soft now. Caring. “I’m so sorry, Ava.”

I open my mouth, momentarily I can’t find the words I need to do this. But then they’re here. I’m ready.

“So it was Imogen who was the mastermind behind this crime? Imogen Grant. But how is that possible? When you’ve told me my whole life what a failure she is?

How you’re the one who built a business, while she couldn’t?

How she’s a drug addict, who doesn’t have the strength of character to succeed in life? How I mustn’t turn out like she did?”

Karen opens her mouth to argue, but now she doesn’t have the words .

“After all, you were the one who was capable enough to adopt me.”

I see it in her eyes. As clear as the decrepit bar around me.

She knows I know. I might not be able to convince the police, let alone a jury, but she knows there’s no way back with me.

We’re over . And what’s more, she can’t help herself.

The smile comes back to her thin lips, turns into a twisted sneer.

“You’re right. Imogen wouldn’t ever have been strong enough in a crisis like that.

And she wasn’t either. She was a mess. A blubbering, pathetic mess.

Just like she’s been ever since. Of course it was my idea to switch the babies, and it might have worked too, except Mandy freaked out.

I was just trying to calm her down, I couldn’t let her scream the way she was. Nobody could have done.”

My heart rate, already flashing blood past my brain like a jackhammer, speeds up even more. I swallow.

“And Jason?”

The sneer deepens. “All me. Obviously. Somebody had to take control, or we’d have been finished. So I did. I knew where the gun was, and I took it and radioed for him to come to the room, and shot him the moment he walked in. It was easy.”

I don’t say a word, just let her go on.

“Imogen didn’t have the guts to pull it off. She didn’t have the character. She’s never had the character. But I did. So I killed them. And so what if I did? I had no choice. And I did it for the right reasons. I did it for you, Ava.”

I screw my eyes shut, trying to replay what I’ve just heard, what she’s just said.

But I can’t go on. I can’t make myself hear any more of this.

I reach into the other pocket of my shorts, and I pull out Sophia’s phone, the one I set recording as I stepped past the fence.

I check it now, and see the timer still running, a thirty-four-minute audio file, capturing everything Karen’s just said and automatically uploading it to the cloud server that Sophia set up. I hold it up to her. Out of her reach.

“I had two phones, Mum,” I say. “Two phones. ”

There’s a long silence. Karen stares at the phone in shock. Fear. Disgust. A vicious anger. I shake the phone at her.

“I don’t really have a confession from Imogen, but now I do have one from you.”

She moves much faster than I anticipate. Stepping towards me, so that we’re still a metre apart, but the old bar is no longer between us.

“Well, well. Aren’t you the clever one?” She strokes her lips, thinking hard. Then she reaches for something inside her bag, hiding it from me until she’s changed her stance. And then dropping the bag away. Now I see what it is – a silver long-bladed knife.

“You’re not the only one who came prepared this morning, Ava. I didn’t know what this was about, but just in case I made a small detour into the hotel kitchen.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’ve killed before. You really think I won’t do it again?”

“You wouldn’t,” I hear myself say. “I’m your daughter. I’m your fucking daughter…”

But of course I’m not. I watch in slow motion as she moves again, tossing the knife into her stronger hand and holding it out in front of her like a dagger. I’m stunned, and far too slow to move. I only have Sophia’s phone to hold up, like a useless shield.

But we planned for this too. Moving so stealthily that I don’t even see her move, Sophia steps out from behind the old pool storage area, a favourite place from her childhood games of hide-and-seek.

In her hands she’s got a speargun from the dive centre, the vicious pointed spear ready to spring forward, propelled by the taut rubber arms. One twitch of her fingers and the trigger will release.

“Back the fuck off bitch,” she says, aiming it towards Mum’s stomach. “Drop the knife, and back the fuck off .”