Page 98 of Deep Blue Lies
“Yes, I understand.”
“Karen told Imogen to get the walkie-talkie from reception, and they used it to put a call out for Jason, asking him to come to his room, his and Mandy’s room. That was normal, no one would have thought it strange, not even the next day when they found them both dead. I don’t think anyone would have even remembered it.”
“What did they do then?” I swallow.
“They dragged Mandy’s body so he wouldn’t see it when he walked in the room, and they called him, and they waited behind the door. And when he came in they jumped out at him. Apparently Karen had the presence of mind to put the gun up under his chin before she fired it, they wanted to make it look like a suicide. They blew the top of his head off.”
There’s a silence in the kitchen. A very long silence.
“Imogen used the reception computer to print out a suicide note. They made him confess to hitting Mandy, then say he couldn’t live with himself. I’ve thought about the gunshot, over theyears, wondered how come nobody ever heard it, but it’s easily explained. They used to go hunting in the hills behind the resort. You still hear them today.” He shrugs. “It would have been late for hunting, but no one would have suspected what it really was.”
Somehow, there are elements of the story that I can’t connect with, that won’t process. But then I see it.
“What about the baby?”
Duncan looks at me sharply. “Which one?”
“The…Imogen’s baby. What happened to it?”
He frowns, like the question is irrelevant. “They left it there. I guess they couldn’t bring themselves to kill it. Or maybe they didn’t think it would survive the night. I don’t know. It hardly matters. Either way, when the bodies were found the next morning, everything went crazy. We had over a hundred guests that week. The resort manager and his girlfriend both dead. Total disaster.”
Gregory looks at me suddenly and shrugs, like the whole thing was just a really bad day at work.
EIGHTY-FIVE
I’ve never known a moment like this. I thought I had – I thought it was something to discover that the only parent you’ve ever known isn’t your real mother. I thought that was enough. I thought it was going to be something that hits me, again and again, over the course of my life. No matter how long I’ll live. But now I know it’s nothing. It’sthismoment. Sitting here, in this shitty little kitchen, this is the moment that will echo forever through the rest of my life.
I don’t know what to say. There isn’t a single thing I can say. Nothing anyone can say.
“You didn’t have anything to drink?” Duncan asks. “I sort of need something. Like I said, it’s a bit heavy.” I suddenly remember the stupid bottle of Metaxa I bought, and get up, find it in a cupboard and pour some in his empty glass.
“That can’t be true,” Sophia says from somewhere. I don’t understand how she has the presence of mind to say anything.
“Oh I’m quite sure it is. I mean, why would Imogen confess to it if it wasn’t true?” He doesn’t thank me, but takes a large sip from the glass. “And you should have seen her, the way she explained it on the video. It was quite clear how much this weighed on her mind.” The weird, matter-of-fact Duncan that told the final details of the story seems to have gone now. He seems to have recovereda little now that the story is told, the job done. He’s back to the man he was before, fretting, self-loathing.
“And now she’s gone. Imogen’s gone, and the one thing she asked me to do, the one time she trusted me, I let her down.” He drinks again. More this time.
This shakes something loose in my mind, I’ve lost the thread on this.
“Tell me again. What was it she wanted you to do?”
He frowns at me. “Isn’t it obvious?” He shakes his head again. “She was worried about Karenkillingher. Silencing her. Karen – I suppose – was also worried, about Imogen confessing to what they’d done. And Karen had good reason to be concerned. After all, Imogen sent me the video file. But also she told me, in the video, how often she’d begged Karen to go with her to the police, to confess what they’d done. But Karen refused of course, because she thought they’d got away with it. And they did, after a fashion.” He closes his eyes, like all this is giving him a hell of a migraine.
“It was an insurance policy,” he tries again. “Imogen’s video file was an insurance policy. She sent it to me, in case Karen ever did her harm, so that the truth could finally come out. And now Karen’s killed her, but I’ve deleted the file, so I can’t prove a thing.”
Sophia gets down again and takes the bottle of Metaxa. She pours herself a glass, then another for me. She leaves the bottle out of Duncan’s reach as he glances at it hungrily.
“Why not just go to the police anyway, tell them what you’ve just told us?”
He shakes his head. “The only piece of evidence that proves Karen did anything wrong is gone. Evidentially, everything I could tell the police would count as hearsay. It’s inadmissible in a Greek court. And for a crime where the case was closed over twenty years ago…they wouldn’t even listen to me. Believe me, I researched this thoroughly for a book I?—”
“Wait, hold on, what are you saying?” I try to filter his words.
“What am I saying? That I failed her. I loved that woman, I would have done anything for her, and what do Iactuallydo? I lether down. I meant to protect her but I did the exact opposite. The one thing she asks me to do?—”
“No. You said Karen…you think my mum…” I stop, trying to order my thoughts. “Are you saying it wasKarenwho attacked Imogen on the beach?”
“Of course. I thought you realised that?”
