Elena hung up.
She’d prepared Timmy for this moment. Two weeks ago, when she’d visited him soon after their stop in New York, he’d asked her yet again about his father (he never enquired about his mother) and she showed him the photo that the Polish newspapers had published shortly after his arrest.
Shahla had caught Nadja.
He’d never left the bathroom.
That was the lie she’d dished up to Martin to make him abandon the search for his son. In vain. She’d suspected that he’d get to the bottom of the truth at some point.
After Shahla had battered the mother with the desk lamp and locked Timmy in the bathroom, Elena had helped her to wrap the corpse in a sheet and throw it overboard. The security cameras showed two victims. Unfortunately it was noticeable that the suitcase was smaller than the mother’s body. They ought to have disposed of the suitcase first and then the corpse. A massive error, but luckily the cruise line had played the role of silent accomplice and made the recordings disappear to hush the matter up.
Elena immediately started to look after the boy. Timmy, scared out of his wits and deeply troubled, didn’t have any idea how to get in touch with his father.
Her research found out that his father was in prison in Warsaw as a dangerous criminal with links to the mafia.
The perverted mother dead; the father a murderer. The relatives might not be any better. Under no circumstances were they going to send the traumatised boy back to such a wretched family. At this point Elena had no idea that Martin was working as an undercover investigator; she only found out years later when Daniel told her of the case that Schwartz had tried to bring against him. So at the time she decided to take Timmy into her care. She hid him for a while on the ship, took him to her house in Casa de Campo and put him in a boarding school there. Several times a year she visited him in the Dominican Republic, for as long and as often as she could.
Later, when she found out who Timmy’s father really was, it briefly occurred to her to bring the two of them together, but she abandoned the idea. Martin was a detective. One of the best. The danger was too great that he’d stick to her heels and hunt her down. Which he must be considering now. From today she was on the run; she’d done all she could to postpone this moment for as long as possible.
During the years that she’d kept Timmy hidden from his father, he’d grown into a fine young man who enjoyed life in the Caribbean and now played tennis so well that he’d got to the final of the Caribbean junior championship.
Two weeks ago Elena had told him who his father really was and that he was sure to come looking for him. So Timmy was forewarned. All the same, she didn’t want to imagine the shock he must be feeling now.
With a sigh Elena put the mobile back in her Louis Vuitton handbag, opened a compact mirror, applied another layer of lipstick and pulled the décolleté of her little black number a little lower. Then she got up from the lounge chair by the windows.
The swell in Ari Atoll was pleasantly calm, the MS Aquarion lay like a plank on the Indian Ocean and she had no trouble making it to the on-board bar in her ten-centimetre heels.
‘Gin and tonic, please,’ she said to the barman of the small but elegant cruise ship which had room for just under a thousand passengers. One of them, a man with unbelievably deep eyes, who was holding a beer, gave her a smile that did not fail to do the trick.
‘Please allow me,’ said the good-looking German, who she hadn’t let out of her sight since they’d left Sri Lanka.
‘That’s very kind of you, Herr…’
‘Schiwy,’ the man told her his name, which of course Elena already knew. ‘But please call me Tom.’
She smiled and said the name she’d used to check in for this trip.
‘Tell Julia I’ll make amends for my mistake!’
‘So, what brings you on board?’
‘Whew.’ He pretended to wipe sweat from his brow. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘We’ve got a long journey ahead of us,’ Elena said, with an even friendlier smile and brushing, as if by accident, Tom’s hand on the bar with the tip of her finger.
‘Okay, well, if you want to hear the short version: I’m running away.’
‘From love, perhaps?’
He nodded smugly. ‘If you like, yes. Can you imagine a situation where both a mother and daughter fall in love with you at the same time?’
Elena winked coquettishly. ‘With you, Tom, yes.’
He made a dismissive gesture. ‘Yes, yes, I know it sounds funny, but believe me, it’s absolute hell. Two jealous creatures, who are also related. One wanted literally to kill herself for love, and she’d have done it too, if I hadn’t warned her mother in time.’ He gave a lecherous grin. Evidently he thought that this frivolous story would enhance his attractiveness.
‘And so you booked this trip to flee from those wild women?’ Elena asked innocently.
‘No, no, this was just a slice of luck in the midst of adversity. I won the trip in a silly online card game. I mean, I often get mail telling me I’m the hundred thousandth visitor to some website or other, but this time it was actually true. The tickets were delivered to me directly.’ He was grinning from ear to ear. ‘They arrived right on cue.’
‘Just like you, Tom.’ Elena took his hand and squeezed it gently. ‘So, lucky at cards, are you?’
‘And in love… Well, I just have fun,’ he grinned back.
‘Sounds good,’ Elena said, getting down from her bar stool.
‘How about…?’ She nodded in the direction of the lifts. ‘I know my way around here fairly well. Do you fancy a tour behind the scenes of the ship?’
Tom Schiwy finished his beer in one gulp and handed the barman his room card to put the drinks on his bill, before hurrying after the elegant blond.
In excited anticipation of the evening and everything it would entail.