Page 55 of Someone in the Water

Lola

‘You did what?’ Lola asks, sucking on the straw of her breakfast smoothie. Her mum looks like a ghost, her insides clawed out by insomnia.

‘Someone has stolen your travel papers, Lola,’ Frankie says, her voice gravelly. ‘The Poste France website lists them as delivered, so someone signed for them, and took them.’

‘But you broke into the hotel office in the middle of the night to search for them?’ Lola still can’t get her head around it. When she planned her secret trip to Corsica, she was excited to visit Hotel Paoli, to find out her mum’s secrets. Now a big part of her wishes she’d left them well alone.

Except that means she wouldn’t have met Patrick.

‘The door wasn’t locked, so I wasn’t breaking in,’ Frankie says quietly. ‘And I looked everywhere, so at least we know your documents aren’t there.’

Lola shrugs. ‘But how is that helpful? You still don’t know who’s taken them – if anyone has,’ she adds, remembering how Patrick’s views on the Corsican postal service aligned with Anna’s.

‘You’re right, I don’t know who’s got them,’ Frankie admits. ‘But maybe it makes Raphael less of a suspect.’

‘Same for Anna,’ Lola muses.

‘And Patrick.’

‘What?’ Lola sits back in her chair. ‘You can’t think Patrick took them?’

‘To keep you here,’ Frankie mutters. ‘And it was just a thought.’

‘Oh.’ Lola wonders if it could be true. And why on earth a tiny part of her feels pleased at the idea.

‘I think it might be Dom who’s taken them,’ Frankie murmurs, then shakes her head. ‘But I don’t know why. I want to ask him.’

Lola’s nose crinkles in confusion. ‘Why do you think it’s Dom?’

Frankie opens her mouth to talk, but no words come out.

‘Mum?’ Lola nudges.

Frankie sighs, then leans forward over the table.

‘It’s complicated. And I might be wrong.

But I’m going to hire a car, drive to Sartène this morning.

If he has them, I’ll make him give them back.

And then I’ll book a flight. I checked on my phone and there are seats on the three thirty Air France flight.

It means a stopover in Paris, but that would be fun, right? We’ll be home early tomorrow.’

‘Mum, I don’t think …’

‘I just need to know that you’ll come with me.’ She takes a long inhalation. Her face cracks, then straightens. ‘Today. No more arguments.’ Her mum’s eyes look vivid in the bright sunshine. Deep brown, stark white, red-rimmed.

‘First off, I don’t think you should go to Dom’s house by yourself,’ Lola starts carefully.

It’s partly to avoid talking about leaving, but she genuinely doesn’t think her mum is in a fit state to go anywhere by herself, and especially not drive on mountain roads.

‘What if he is the killer? Do you really want to take that risk?’ She waits to hear her mum scoff at her concern, but instead Frankie looks away, towards the sea.

‘I’m not scared of Dom.’

Lola pulls at her napkin. When she was sailing with Patrick yesterday, she felt on top of the world.

Like nothing bad could happen to her. And then he convinced Vincent to cover his bar shift that night so they could spend the evening together.

Her mum didn’t like it, but when Lola pushed for an explanation, Frankie couldn’t come up with a good one.

They both knew that Patrick would do a better job of protecting Lola from any would-be attacker than Frankie could.

Patrick took her into town for moules marinière.

They ate from big metal bowls, pulling out a never-ending supply of black shells and dunking fresh bread in the creamy white wine sauce.

Lola told Patrick how she dreamed of visiting her dad in New Zealand one day and windsurfing in Taranaki or on Lake Wakatipu near Queenstown.

He countered that by saying he wished his father lived on the other side of the world, and how his dream was to get away from him.

At the end of their meal, she asked him to walk her back to her room. And then she invited him to stay over. They didn’t do anything more than kiss, but having him with her through the night was exactly the comfort she needed.

And she must remember that her mum didn’t have that same safety net. While she was sleeping next to Patrick, her mum was prowling around the hotel on Lola’s behalf.

‘Listen, I know tonight is a big thing for you,’ Lola starts, with as much compassion as she can muster.

‘The anniversary of Izzy’s death, and the significance of the date in the mazzeri legend.

But it is just one summer’s night, the same as any other.

’ She wants to believe this more than anything, and saying the words out loud takes her one step closer.

‘And what about the threatening notes?’ Frankie asks. ‘And someone stealing your papers?’

Lola swallows. ‘If Dom did take them, maybe he did it for the same romantic reasons that you accused Patrick of.’

‘No way. It’s not that.’

Her mum says it with such conviction that Lola doesn’t challenge her.

She tries a different approach instead. ‘Mum, you look exhausted. You’re not in any fit state to be driving on unfamiliar mountain roads right now.

Why don’t you get some sleep today, then come with me this evening – Patrick has offered to drive us.

There’s still a chance that the post is just late, and that my documents will arrive today.

And if they don’t, we can ask Dom about them at Salvo’s gathering.

It’s a public place, and you’ll have me and Patrick there as backup.

I know there might be someone out there who wants to hurt us, and we need to be careful, but we will be. ’

Lola leans over the table, reaches for her mum’s hands. ‘Please, Mum. Trust me on this.’

Frankie gives her a watery smile, but then her lips shift downwards and her eyes glaze with tears.

She rubs the heel of her hand across her forehead.

‘I don’t know.’ Then she shakes her head.

‘No, we can’t go tonight. Being with them all, in Salvo’s hometown, it’s too dangerous.

But maybe I shouldn’t go to Sartène this morning.

I’ll find us another hotel room instead, away from here.

We can apply for new documents. That must be possible, right? ’

‘Mum, stop it,’ Lola warns. ‘You’re making this worse than it is.

My documents might just be late, an admin error.

You’ve been here for four days, and nothing bad has happened to us, which must mean that whoever is writing these notes is bluffing, like online trolling in paper form.

All I’m asking is that you see it for what it is.

Let us spend my birthday together in the sunshine, and then let me kick arse in that windsurf competition.

And we’ll figure out my travel documents along the way. ’

Her mum’s face is so twisted, it looks like she’s in physical pain. ‘I’m scared that if we go tonight, it will be too powerful, that you won’t make it to your birthday.’

‘What?’ Lola pulls her hands away. ‘What will be too powerful?’

‘The mazzeri.’

‘What the fuck?’ Lola says, her voice rising. ‘The mazzeri story is bullshit!’

Frankie looks away. ‘I don’t know,’ she mumbles. ‘Maybe. I’m not sure anymore.’ She blinks three, four, five times, like she’s closing down a set of images. ‘The dreams feel so real; they must mean something.’

Lola’s heart thuds faster. She needs some air. She pushes back her chair and stands up. ‘I’m going to Sartène tonight, with Patrick, to see the town my grandfather grew up in and say goodbye to his. I would like you to come with me, but if that’s too much to ask, I’ll go by myself.’

‘No, you’re not safe there!’

‘For fourteen years you’ve left me with someone else on my birthday because you don’t think I’m safe with you.

’ She pauses, swallows back tears. ‘I’m starting to think that maybe you were right.

’ Her mum looks like she’s been punched and Lola instantly regrets her words.

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’

But Frankie doesn’t look at her. She drops her napkin onto her plate – still laden with the food she hasn’t eaten – and pushes her chair away. Then she turns on her heels and, with a shaky gait, disappears out of the restaurant.