Page 100 of Deep Blue Lies
Sophia’s question reconnects me to the world I was living just an hour before. I almost laugh.
“I’m supposed to go back there. Karen sent a taxi to take me back to the hotel. Then tomorrow she and I are flying back to England.”
Sophia’s quiet for a moment.
“Well, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” she says at last.
EIGHTY-SIX
Sophia goes outside and tells the taxi we don’t need it after all. She asks the driver to say that it was just me here, in case Mum asks, and then I text her. I tell her it took me longer than expected to sort out the apartment, and it’s easier to sleep here tonight. I’m just playing for time really. She comes back to me right away, and I sense the suspicion under her words. She tells me she’s finished at the airport now, and she can come pick me up herself. It’s obvious now, she just wants to keep an eye on me. I text back again, telling her it’s fine, that I’m just really tired and I’m already in bed. This seems to work, since she doesn’t reply.
Then Gregory leaves. We exchange numbers first so we can contact each other, and I promise to tell him what I’m going to do once I’ve figured it out. If I ever figure it out. And then Sophia and I sit and talk.
The first thing is this: It’s obvious that Gregory was telling the truth. But maybe it’s not so obvious that Imogen was. There’s not a lot of me that believes this, but it is possible that Imogen really was just full-on crazy, maybe from her medication or maybe just because she was nuts underneath it, and she imagined this whole thing. But it’s only a small part of me that’s holding onto this, and maybe I really don’t believe it at all.
That leads to the second thing. Assuming all this is true, assuming that I really was brought up by a killer, a woman who could do these horrible things, then where does that leave me? Why did she adopt me, and how? Was she actually telling me the truth when she said she didn’t know who my real parents were? And why did she adopt me at all, since it’s never really felt like she loved me?
There’s still so many questions, so many answers that I don’t have. And the time is ticking away. My flight tomorrow leaves at six in the evening and I’ll need to check in before that.We’llneed to check in before that – if I’m going back to England with Mum, that is. Or whatever I now have to call this woman. And if I’m not going back to England with her, then I’m going to have to explain to her why not. And she’s going to know that I know.
We discuss going to the police. But Duncan’s right. With no proof at all, of any of this, all we have is his word that Imogen said all this. We even phone Duncan again, asking if he will go to the police if that’s an option, but he refuses point blank. He says that if we tell the police what he’s told us he’ll deny everything, because all it will do is set Karen against him, and he’s scared of what she might do. So that route’s out of the question.
Midnight comes and goes, then I notice the clock on my mobile says it’s past two in the morning and I still have no idea what I’m going to do. But by three o’clock we do have something that you might call a plan. Or maybe it’s not, maybe it’s just a desperate idea because we have to do something, and we’re running out of time. We stay up past four in the end, going over the idea again and again, trying to think through everything we’re going to need, assess whether it has any chance of working. And then, with the light of dawn already showing through the windows outside, I go to sleep for a couple of hours.
Because I’m going to need to be ready for this.
EIGHTY-SEVEN
I wake up at seven thirty because Mum’s an early riser, she always has been. Sophia runs down to Maria’s supermarket to grab a few things we need, and I send Mum another text. This one takes a bit longer to craft:
Hi Mum. I need to speak to you, it’s important. I suggest we meet in the old Aegean Dream Resort. I think that’s a good place to have this out.
I know this is going to make her suspicious as hell, there’s no avoiding that. But what I want to do is stop her steamrolling me into leaving the island. She’s so good at that, making me do what I don’t want to do. It’s what she’s done to me my whole life. This time it takes her a long time to reply, even though I can see from the message receipt that she’s read it. Eventually a message comes in:
Ava, what is this? Why would we go there? It isn’t safe, the resort’s in ruins. If there’s something you need to say, I’ll come to you. Wait there.
I can see she’s already typing a second part to the message, so I fire back before she cansend it:
I’ll meet you there at 11. By the old pool bar.
Then immediately I switch off my phone so she’ll see I won’t receive anything she writes after that. She’s got no choice then, she’ll have to come, and she’ll absolutely hate that. Then I leave to meet Sophia in a cafe – just in case Mum jumps straight in her car to catch me at the apartment.
I try to eat something, but mostly I just sip at strong black coffee, drinking one straight after the other. We go through the plan a final time. It still seems basically crazy and doomed to fail, perhaps even more so now that we’re out of the late-night, unreal setting of my apartment and back in the bright sunshine of the real world. But it feels a pretty damn bleak world right now, and neither of us can come up with anything better.
“It’s ten o’clock,” Sophia says to me, touching my shoulder with her hand. “Time to go.” She tries to force a confident smile, but it looks twisted on her face. “You got this.”
I nod, hoping I don’t look as wretched as I feel. I get up and look down to the sea, then I start walking. Down the beach, towards the faded glory of the Aegean Dream Resort.
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 mywatch. 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.”
