Page 20 of Someone in the Water

Frankie

I sit motionless in the back of the cab, trying to stem the nausea and suffocating memories that are threatening to derail me.

‘Miss?’

I was planning to tell the cab driver to drop me at the end of the drive, so that I could walk up to the front door of Hotel Paoli at my own pace, give myself chance to prepare.

But as the cab got closer to the hotel, I found I couldn’t speak, a solid lump of dread like a dam in my throat, and I watched dumbly through the window as the driver swept down the long drive.

‘Um, twenty euros, miss,’ he tries again. ‘You have my fare, yes?’

I grasp for his voice, use it to drag me back to the present.

‘Sorry,’ I whisper. ‘Yes, I have it.’ I reach into my shoulder bag, open my wallet with shaking fingers, and pull out a crisp note.

I bought the euros at Gatwick Airport along with a cheap phone for Lola.

I bought a book too, a romcom to distract me.

But I spent most of the flight in that familiar twilight between waking and sleeping.

I hand over the banknote and climb out of the cab.

The heavy oak doors have been replaced by sliding glass panes.

It looks better, I think, more welcoming, and I use this wisp of optimism to propel myself forwards.

A few moments later, I drop my bag in the same spot as I did twenty-one years ago and turn to look at the familiar face behind reception.

‘Hello, Frankie,’ Raphael says. ‘Anna said you were coming.’

I nod, wonder if I can trust my voice. Then I think about why I’m here and clear my throat. ‘Thank you for helping Lola.’

Raphael gives me a stiff nod. ‘I haven’t met her yet. Anna gave her one of the single rooms in the staff block.’

‘That’s kind of Anna, of you both,’ I manage. It sounds like Lola has kept a low profile like I begged her to, which is a relief, but their generosity is unnerving. Raphael was a nice enough boss for a while, until he denounced me as a killer. And Anna’s opinion never veered far from her husband’s.

‘It’s been a long time,’ I continue. ‘But you look well.’ It’s not completely true.

Raphael’s swept-back dark hair looks good with streaks of silvery grey, but his dark eyes have faded.

His skin has sagged, and he’s developed a small paunch.

But of course he will have aged. The memories are still so vivid to me that I forget how much time has passed.

‘Actually, life has been hard recently,’ Raphael says. ‘We buried Salvo on Thursday.’

I draw a sharp intake of breath. Salvo is dead. I feel a weird mix of relief and loss. As though I’m finally free of him, but it’s still a bond broken. ‘I’m sorry,’ I manage.

‘He’s with my mother now. She died a few years ago. And he was eighty-five, so …’ Raphael shrugs as his voice trails off.

Family is everything in Corsica, so I’m surprised by how dismissive he sounds. ‘But life must feel strange here without him,’ I try.

‘Not really. My parents moved back to Sartène a long time ago, soon after you left in fact. Anna and I were so busy dealing with the fallout at the hotel that I barely saw him for the first few years. And relationships need effort, even blood ties. We never quite managed it.’

I think back to my final conversation with Salvo, at the police station after my interview. How I despised his manner – accepting, calm, impassive. Like he didn’t care at all. I can’t imagine he moved away because of what happened.

‘Can I go to the staff block?’ I ask, suddenly desperate to get away from this conversation, to find my daughter and get the hell out of Corsica. ‘Try and track down Lola?’

‘Of course.’ Raphael starts to gesture towards the back of the hotel, but then his eyeline shifts.

‘Frankie, how lovely to see you.’

I twist towards the voice. Anna. Time hasn’t reduced her like it has her husband. In fact, it seems to have had the opposite effect. She’s kept her hair long and blonde and her skin is still smooth and pale despite the Corsican sun. But she was always beautiful; now she radiates confidence too.

‘Hello, Anna,’ I murmur. ‘I really appreciate all your help with Lola.’

‘You don’t think we’d throw a young girl back out onto the streets, do you?’

‘No, of course. It’s just that …’ How do I say it?

That twenty-one years ago there was a double tragedy in this hotel, and life hasn’t been the same since?

That Raphael wouldn’t look me in the eye after finding my friend’s lifeless body in the sea, and things only got worse after that, so him helping my daughter now feels disorientating?

‘And you should stay here too.’

‘Me? No.’ I shake my head. There’s no way I’m spending a night here. ‘Lola and I can find a room in town until we sort out her new passport. You’ve done enough.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Anna says. She glances at her husband’s stony face, then turns back to me. ‘And it’s peak season now, so you’ll struggle to find anything half decent at this late notice.’

‘There must be somewhere,’ I murmur, wondering why I didn’t think to book a room before I came. Why I filled my head with memories of my friends dying, or me killing my own daughter in a Corsican forest, instead of doing the practical things like making sure we had somewhere safe to stay.

‘And we’ve just had a cancellation, so you can have the room for free.’

‘Anna, can I have a word?’ Raphael is clearly as keen on me staying here as I am, but Anna doesn’t even register that her husband has spoken, and miraculously, he doesn’t push it, just looks away in surrender.

It’s a role reversal I would never have predicted.

When I worked here, Anna lived in his shadow. Now she seems to be the one in charge.

‘They cancelled too late for a refund,’ she goes on. ‘So we’re not losing out.’

‘I … I don’t know what to say.’ What I mean is that I don’t know how to turn down the offer, but I realise that my words have the opposite effect.

‘That’s settled then. It’s room 316. We’ll get your bag taken up so that you can go and see Lola,’ Anna says. ‘She’s on the beach by the way. I saw her talking to Jack.’

I catch my breath. ‘Jack’s here?’

‘He never left,’ Raphael says. ‘We had to cut costs after that summer – funny how two sudden deaths aren’t great for business – and not recruiting a waterfront team was an obvious way to save money.

Jack was still hanging around, so I helped him set up his own business.

He’s been renting that section of the beachfront from us ever since.

And he lives in my parents’ old beach house too. ’

As subtly as possible, I reach for the reception desk to steady myself.

Any relief I felt about not bumping into Salvo is erased by the thought of seeing Jack again.

I imagine Lola talking to him, what he might tell her, how he would react when he found out who she was.

I crane my neck, try to look through the glass doors at the back of the hotel, but there are too many obstacles in my way.

‘Dom lives on the island now too,’ Anna continues. ‘He bought a crumbling wreck in Sartène about five years ago. He’s doing it up himself. Very slowly, it seems.’

‘Dom?’ I half-whisper, half-gasp.

‘He did well in the UK apparently,’ Anna continues. ‘As an estate agent of all things. He was married, but no children. But then Brexit happened, and he had some sort of early midlife crisis – although he calls it an epiphany. He left his wife and moved out here while he still could.’

‘I thought we’d all want to stay away,’ I whisper.

‘No, just you,’ Raphael says.

I look away, towards the sea. ‘I’d better find Lola.’

I turn and walk as quickly as I can without running.

Past the hotel restaurant and out onto the terrace, trying not to think about what’s coming – seeing Jack, staying in this hotel overnight.

I zigzag through sun loungers spread across the lawn, almost all of them occupied by hotel guests, some holding books over their faces, others with their eyes closed, fat headphones covering their ears.

As I get closer to the beach, I see Lola talking to a man.

It’s clearly Jack. He hands Lola a windsurfing rig, and I watch her drag it down to the shallow water.

She steps up on the board with one foot, angles the sail to catch the wind, then lifts up her back foot.

She arches her back – which I know is her clipping into a harness – then flies out to sea, showing why she’s always the one to beat in junior windsurfing competitions.

But today she’s on a rig set up by the man who blames me for his boyfriend’s death. A man who I also know is capable of murder.