I’m logging the day’s rushes in the office with Annabel when Craig knocks softly on the door to tell us that he’s dealt with Gaia’s inexplicably minor wounds and will be in his cabin if we need him.
I thank him, and when he’s gone, I look back to Annabel and blow out my cheeks.
She smiles. ‘Well. Certainly a dramatic afternoon.’
‘It’s not supposed to be quite like this, you know.’
‘No? What’s it supposed to be like?’
‘Boring, actually. People always think of TV production as being this incredible thrill. So much glamour. Is that what you were hoping for?’
She weighs it up. ‘I guess I thought it seemed like a cool job.’
‘Yeah, well. Is it? You came straight from uni, didn’t you? You studied in America?
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Film studies. Though I didn’t think I’d manage to get on a show like this so quickly.’
Will had said how determined Annabel had been, calling his office every day for a fortnight until he agreed to interview her. Whether she would have got hired if she’d been charging the same rates as everyone else is another matter.
‘What about you?’ she says. ‘You don’t usually do this kind of work, do you? Will said you did undercover investigations. That sounds cool. Pretending to be other people all the time? Like nobody knows who you really are?’
I look away, my appetite for small talk evaporating, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
‘I bet you’ve got loads of stories from when you were secret filming. Like, how do you do remember all the lies all the time? I mean – sorry, I didn’t mean lies,’ she says quickly. ‘I just meant when you’re not, like, being your actual self. And what happens if someone finds out? That you’ve not been telling the truth?’
‘It’s not as fun as it sounds.’
Her excitement drops like a rock. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?’
I get up, fold my laptop shut. ‘It’s fine. Long day. I’m going to get some food, all right?’ But as I get to the door I think of something. ‘Annabel, you did a lot of background on everyone, right?’
She nods. ‘Loads.’
‘Where is all that now?’
‘Will bought that big drive there and transferred everything over,’ she says, pointing. ‘I didn’t know what we’d need, and I knew there wouldn’t be any internet, so I thought I might as well bring it.’
‘Good. Look, I want you to do me a favour. I need all of the insurance stuff, so we know what we need to do about John—’
‘I already started pulling that together actually—’
‘Sure, but we need something else, too. Connections, you know? Anything that might link Tori to any of the contestants.’
Her eyes are full of fear. ‘You don’t think it was an accident? You really do think someone tried to kill her? Who?’
‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking you, would I?’ But the fact remains, I have no idea. Who could have that kind of a grudge against Tori, bad enough that they’d find a way to get into her cabin and sabotage the heating? Would anyone? And how? But given what happened on the first night, what other explanation could there be?
‘Could you have a look? It’s a long shot, I know. But see if there’s a way that Tori’s path might have crossed with anyone else here.’
She nods vigorously. ‘I will.’ There’s a pause. ‘I’ll do what I can. And, Dee, look, I’m sorry what I said. I didn’t mean you were a liar.’
I tap the doorframe and go to leave, but then I see the Billie Holiday book tucked into the soft case of the second camera. ‘Can I borrow that?’
‘Course,’ she says, handing it to me.
I leave her where she is and go up to the saloon. It’s much too early for dinner, but Ulla’s left out a plate of cakes and some fruit. I take an apple and settle in a corner, but after a bit I find I’m not hungry after all. I open the book at random. But I don’t read it. I’m thinking of what she said. Because she’s right about that. No amount of dressing it up changes the fact that I am a liar, actually. That’s exactly what I am.
What I was. What I was to him.
‘I’d ask if you mind me joining you, but you’re not really the sociable kind, are you?’
I look up and find Helen regarding me, a cake on a plate in her hand.
‘Be my guest,’ I say. It’s not like I have any choice.
She comes over, sits next to me and starts eating. Nodding at the book, she swallows and says, ‘I don’t get that stuff. Bit of rock, Motown, something you can dance to. But jazz?’ she wrinkles her nose. ‘Doesn’t make any sense to me. All – disjointed, you know? I like order.’ She laughs at herself. ‘Stuffy old cow, aren’t I?’
‘I don’t get it, either,’ I tell her, closing the book.
‘No?’ She angles her head. ‘So why are you reading about it?’ Before I get to formulate a reply, she leans back, smiling. ‘Trying to impress someone, right? The only reason a woman like you would find time to read something she doesn’t care about is work, which I’m guessing this isn’t, or a love interest.’ She waggles her eyebrows.
The right thing to do would be to laugh, but with no warning whatsoever, suddenly I find I’m in tears. I try to make it stop, try to smile, but it’s like fighting the tide.
‘Oh, goodness,’ Helen says softly, pushing her plate away. She touches my shoulder. ‘There’s more to it than that.’ She says nothing for a moment and just watches the sea while I get my breath back. Then she turns back to me. ‘How do you feel about whisky, hmm? I have a marvellous Japanese single malt with our name on it. Have a drink with me.’
‘Helen, no, it’s the middle of the afternoon. I shouldn’t—’
‘You absolutely should. I don’t think I’ve seen you look happy once since we’ve been out here. Come on.’ She takes hold of my elbow. ‘I promise not to ask any questions.’
Five minutes later I’m sitting on the edge of her bed, lifting a mug to my lips. I let the warm fumes, thick as a forest of oaks, sting my eyes.
She watches me drink, then pulls the cork from the neck with a squeak.
‘One’s probably enough,’ I say, vaguely covering the mug with my hand, but she waves the bottle.
‘Nonsense. I can’t drink it all on my own. Come on.’
So I let her pour. I look around the room and spot a photo tacked up behind the headboard. It’s a boy, maybe early teens. I indicate it with a nod. ‘Cute kid. Yours?’
She finishes the pour with the accomplished twist of the bottle of someone who knows the value of every drop, then follows my eye.
‘My nephew. Lovely boy.’
I take in the goofy expression on his face, his arm slung easily over the shoulder of a woman in her thirties. A woman, I realise now, with the same distinctive nose and steep forehead as Helen. A sister then, but much younger.
She sets the bottle down. Settling next to me, she shifts herself back onto the bed, leaning against the wall. She takes a deep swig of the golden liquid in her glass and exhales, then raises her eyebrows, expectant.
‘You did say, Helen, that you wouldn’t ask questions.’
‘I did.’
I shake my head, smiling.
‘Look,’ she says. ‘It’s lovely to have company is all. Lonely old place, out here. Not much action in these old bones any more, so I live vicariously through anyone who’ll talk to me. But I do see that you’re …’ she pauses, swirling her mug as she looks for the right word. ‘You’re a private person.’
It’s an understatement that could sink this whole ship.
‘Why don’t you tell me about who he is. Or she. What do they do for a living?’
‘He’s a musician and a music teacher,’ I tell her, because on paper that was what he did. The tense is the first lie of many, but what’s a drop in the ocean?
‘Secondary?’ she asks.
I take another sip, feeling the rigidity in my spine soften with every swallow. ‘Secondary, sixth form, private lessons from home.’
She nods. ‘How did you meet?’
I sigh. The thing is, I can’t tell her the whole truth – I know it’s not possible. But something is happening to me as I sit here with Helen, some kind of loosening, like my chest is an old, seized-up machine and someone has slipped a drop of oil into me.
I can tell her some of it. I can release some of it. And so I do.
It was a drizzly summer evening when I first saw Leo play. It was in a bar I’d never been to, a place that did a roaring trade in the kinds of cocktails people order to show off what they know about cocktails. A grand piano sat beside the vast folding doors that opened out onto the street.
The customers weren’t there to listen to music, and nor was I. From one of the whistleblowers who’d contacted the producer about the story in the first place, I’d discovered that Leo played there for extra cash. I’d gone along to establish contact, find a way into what was really still just a rumour, launch the investigation. I don’t tell Helen that.
His set started at six, and the place was only beginning to fill up. I took a small table, close to the piano. I watched him exchange a joke with one of the bar staff, then he came over to settle himself at the stool. Deep-brown arms and a shirt in blue and green. Eyes you could drop into and never find a way out.
He sat and he played. And honestly I know nothing about music. Back then, I couldn’t have told an arpeggio from an adagio, but watching him play was like discovering for the first time that birds could fly.
What I learned, very quickly, was that this man was more than a story.
Leo was music. It was his whole life. Everything about him was melody and harmony and sound – it was every spark of his soul, every breath he took. He’d hear a recycling lorry go past as he walked along a pavement and immediately look for the rhythm in it, start accompanying it with an impromptu perfect hum. Once, I found him standing in his kitchen, smoke pouring out of the toaster, utterly lost in a recording of Miles Davis. I didn’t understand it. I still don’t. I never will, now. But that was who he was.
If I’d known how hard I was going to fall for him, I’d never have gone near. Screw the consequences. Because you can’t survive a drop like that. No one can.