Page 93 of Deep Blue Lies
None of us speak.
“Ava, are you OK?” She comes across to me now, moving quickly. But already I’m not feeling threatened by Duncan. Whatever this is, it’s something else.
“What is it?” I demand from him again. “That I don’t know?”
I feel Sophia staring, but my eyes don’t leave Gregory. He looks at me, then Sophia, then at the open car door as if he wants to drive away now. And then something weird happens. He lets out a sound, but not human, more like a wild animal, a kind of mix of a roar and a sob. In the dim glow from the streetlights I catch the flash of wetness on his cheek, he’s crying, sobbing wildly. After nearly a minute he finally falls silent, then he turns back to me, grunting to himself like he’s trying to pull himself together.
“We need to talk.”
EIGHTY
We go inside my apartment, it just seems like a natural thing to do. And Gregory seems to completely expect that Sophia will come with us. And I sense the reason why. He’s been watching me, he knows how close we’ve become.
“I don’t have anything to drink.” I say it almost as a joke, I feel a need to try and lighten the mood, but Gregory doesn’t answer, let alone laugh. He just looks around. There’s only really one place to sit, around my tiny kitchen table.
“Can I sit down?”
I hold out my hand, watching as he finds a way to fit all his angles into the small chair. After a while I take the only other chair, opposite him. Sophia jumps up and sits directly on the worktop, facing us both.
“What is it I don’t know?” I ask again.
It takes him a long time to begin, but when he does his first word is Imogen. Then he stops again.
“What about her?”
He pants, but finally it seems he’s found the words.
“She’s dead. I know that now.”
“So do I. The hospital told me. She died of a heart attack.”
“No.” He shakes his head, but offers no explanation.Instead he draws in a deep breath. “She’s dead, and I’ve failed her. I thought you might be able to help. That’s why I was here. Why I was observing you.”
I glance at Sophia, but she seems as confused as I am.
“Help Imogen? How?”
“If this happened, she asked me to help. To do something.”
“If what happened…” I begin, but then answer him myself. “If shedied?”
He just nods. I don’t know what to do next.
“Was it you that broke into my apartment?” I ask. The question seems to surprise him for a moment, but then he nods again.
“Yes. I once wrote a character who was a locksmith. I practised with picks so I could write him authentically. You never know when it’ll come in handy.”
“And it was you who was spying on me from the ADR right after I came to see you.”
He gives a chuckle. “Yes, I suppose I was clumsy at first. I got better though, I don’t believe you saw me after that?”
I try and make sense of this.
“So it was you who smashed my laptop?”
“You had a password on it. I couldn’t get into it.”
“I know I had a…” I stop myself. “Why did you want to see my laptop?” I literally can’t think of a single thing on it that had any value.
