Page 69 of Someone in the Water

Lola

‘So are you ready for this?’

Lola smiles at her mum, then lets her knees drop until she’s sitting cross-legged in the warm sand.

She looks at the expanse of sea in front of her.

Shades of blue from aquamarine to cobalt.

A strong easterly wind darting across the water, creating hundreds of tiny white peaks in the otherwise flat Piantarella lagoon.

And fluorescent buoys marking out the one-kilometre course. ‘Yeah, I’m ready.’

‘This view is beautiful, isn’t it?’ her mum murmurs. ‘A bit different to what we were doing on your birthday last year.’

Lola doesn’t take her eyes off the sea – the five male competitors out there, up on their fins, bright sails catching the wind as they aim for the next buoy – but she nods and smiles.

Her last birthday – her eighteenth – was mostly spent in a police station in Sartène, giving a statement about the two deaths.

Dom was the first to think about calling the French equivalent of 999 as they stood, shellshocked, in the vineyard that night.

The emergency services had turned up soon after, a red-and-blue flashing convoy.

Both Patrick and Raphael had been pronounced dead at the scene.

Jack had been arrested and taken away in handcuffs, but it hadn’t taken long for them to let him go.

Once he explained what happened – that Raphael had killed Patrick and Jack had shot him to stop him doing the same to Frankie – they’d released him without charge.

Lola’s travel papers had been found under Patrick’s mattress in his bedroom, and she’d flown home with her mum the day after her birthday, on the promise that they would cooperate fully with the police investigation from the UK.

There were inquests into both deaths, but no official asked them to give evidence.

It seems that Corsican pride extends to not wanting to draw too much attention to the country’s darker side.

A shadow looms over Lola, and she looks up, her hand at her forehead to block out the sun. ‘Oh hey, Jack.’

‘Hey, guys.’ He nods at them both. ‘And happy birthday. Nice to do this on the beach rather than in a police station.’ He looks out to sea for a few moments, then sinks down next to Lola.

‘You know, I entered this race a few times myself when I was younger. But I have a feeling you’re going to do better than me. ’

She smiles her gratitude, then punches him lightly on the arm.

‘No Dom today?’ he continues.

‘He had a painting to deliver,’ her mum says. ‘He’s on his way.’

This is something new. Throughout her childhood, Lola never questioned why her mum had no partner.

Even though most of her friends had dads, she knew her own father lived in New Zealand, and it never occurred to her to wonder why her mum hadn’t married or even dated.

Now she knows. Her mum couldn’t get that close to anyone with the thick cloak of guilt that she constantly wore.

But that finally slipped off a year ago.

And now her mum visits Corsica every school holiday.

She pretends it’s to help Dom with the new art gallery he’s opened in Sartène, but Lola’s not that dumb.

Personally, she’s not ready for a relationship yet.

It’s not like she and Patrick were together for long, but she did fall for him hard, and she’s still reeling from what happened.

Although that doesn’t mean she’s not making the most of university life, joining clubs, making friends.

Yes, the scars of her experience in Corsica are permanent, but she won’t let them rule her like they ruled her mum for so long.

She looks at her dive watch. ‘I guess I better get going,’ she says, pushing up. She pulls the tight rash vest over her head and wriggles it down to the hem of her bikini bottoms. She checks her plaits are still tight, then grabs her harness.

‘Fly like a bird, sweetheart,’ her mum says.

Lola raises her eyebrows and grins. ‘Like an eagle owl maybe?’

A slight waft of fear crosses her mum’s face, but then it vanishes, and she smiles.

‘It was a good omen in the end, wasn’t it?’ Lola reminds her. ‘You were saved by the flight of that bird.’

‘Which you scared away from the window.’

‘I like to think of it that way, yes. My guardian owl.’

Frankie

I watch my beautiful daughter stride towards her rig. Shoulders back, eyes watching the windsurfers, picking up any last-minute clues about the wind. This time last year I was scared she might be dead. Today she’s full to the brim with life.

‘She’s fucking awesome, your daughter.’

I laugh. ‘Yeah, she is. I just wish I’d been more present when she was growing up. This is only the fifth birthday I’ve spent with her.’

Jack shrugs, unfazed. ‘We all do things we regret. Me more than most. The only thing that matters is how we remedy them.’

His words make me think of Anna. How I caught a glimpse of her from the taxi window as we left the hotel.

She was barely recognisable – no make-up, hair scraped back, the carefully constructed bravado gone.

The crushing devastation of losing her husband and only child in one night radiating from her like a dark mist. I wonder if she’ll ever be free of her regrets.

I never told the police about the notes.

I convinced myself that it was because there was no point – three generations of Paolis were already dead – but that wasn’t really it.

For all Raphael confessed to, he didn’t mention them.

It could have been Patrick of course, but I’ve never been able to quell the suspicion that Anna slipped them under my door.

She knew what Raphael had done, and how Salvo derailed my thoughts.

So she understood the damage I could cause – to the hotel she’d worked so hard to get back on track and had just inherited a third of – if my memories returned.

I think that was why she offered me a room when I arrived too. Keep your enemies close.

And I figured she had suffered enough.

‘I mean, look at Salvo,’ Jack continues. ‘He had plenty to regret. But now I own a vineyard with Izzy’s mum, Nicole. Salvo wasn’t responsible for either Archie’s or Izzy’s deaths, but Raphael was his flesh and blood.’

‘Family is everything,’ I whisper.

‘He felt responsible. And he did what he could.’

‘You know, I always thought Salvo was my nemesis. And now it turns out he might have been the best of them.’

‘Yeah, well. That’s life, I guess. Never goes quite how you think.’

I watch Lola carry her rig towards the sandbank where the race starts. A bird flies overhead and disappears into the haze of the horizon. And if it wasn’t the brightest, sunniest part of the day, I’d swear that it was an eagle owl.