London, the day Anna dies
The rain has already started by the time Maria arrives back at the hotel on Portland Place.
Looking at her watch, she approaches the entrance, nodding courteously at the doorman as she steps inside, her mind on Anna, who will be arriving home from the lawyer’s office at any moment. Maria pictures her, her face ashen in the back of the taxi as it carries her home from McCann’s office on Queen Square, where she and Clive’s lawyer had been due to discuss David’s will.
Maria closes her eyes, feeling once again the finality with which she had closed the door behind her for the last time on the house where it had all happened, allowing the surge of emotion to overcome her. Would she see the girls again? Of course she would. She wouldn’t allow herself to imagine the alternative. Instead, she imagines Anna finding the words Maria had left there, propped on the table; Anna’s fingers still shaking with the shock of the meeting at the lawyer’s office as she opened the envelope, pulling out Maria’s letter.
David is alive. He and Clive are planning to have you killed, just as Clive did with his own wife, when she started to question the business. They will make it look like suicide and they will tell everyone that you were mad … I have made contact with Harry and together we will make sure of everything else. You can trust us.
The hotel foyer is relatively empty. The soles of Maria’s Converse squeak as she moves towards the staircase, heading for the room David has booked her into. She still has time to change into the heeled sandals and mid-length shirt dress he has bought for her, before the pre-booked car arrives. A car not a taxi. The circle of trust has grown tighter and tighter so that it is a wonder any of them can still breathe. Given the significance of where she is headed, and why, he has been sparse on details. Nothing could be discussed, David had once again stressed, unless done through EncroChat, the encrypted messaging service downloaded to the phone David had given her the last time they had seen each other, before he left.
Their last conversation had been brief. If we’re going to do this, you have to understand that you’re giving up everything. You can never speak to anyone apart from your mum ever again. ‘David, I don’t have any friends, apart from you. Athena has no interest in where I am or what I’m doing, you know that as well as I do.’
It’s true. Apart from Stella and Rose, Maria has no one.
There is no time to shower. She throws her belongings into the small bag David has sanctioned for the trip, with its single change of clothes and basic toiletries. Nothing else to give away the world they are leaving behind.
A sheen of sweat glistens on her brow as she takes a final look around the room, avoiding her own reflection before heading towards the lift, the sound of the wheels of her suitcase on the carpet following her inside. When the doors open on the ground floor of The Langham, she steps out onto the marble, the clattering of her heels echoing above the discreet strains of classical music. Keeping her head focused forwards, refusing to turn towards the voices that goad her from either side of her mind, she walks purposefully towards the desk and out into the night.
The city she has lived in for the past three and a half years is unrecognisable as she waits under the porch for the car. Tonight, the world has shifted. Through sideways rain, she looks across at All Souls Church, a cluster of tents erected under the shelter of its porch. From inside, the strains of the choir practising for their Christmas concert drifts over sleeping bodies, their harmonies bleeding into the sky.
Briefly, Maria recalls the day she boarded the flight from Skiathos to London, intent on making something of her life. She can almost hear the explosion of noise that greeted her as she stepped off the bus for the first time, onto Green Lanes where her bedsit awaited above one of the grocery stores that dominated this seemingly endless stretch of road. Inside the doorway, the light was too sharp, highlighting the scuffed carpets and precarious light fittings as she placed her suitcase beside the narrow single bed.
Bedding down for the night, she had forced herself not to think of her university room in Athens, overlooking the Acropolis, or the bed in her mother’s house on the island with its views across the water. This was her choice, she told herself then; she had wanted this and now she had it, and she would not wish it away. No matter what.
Breathing in a lungful of cold November air, she exhales, letting the steam rise in front of her face as a pair of headlights momentarily blind her. The car sweeps up to the hotel and she has to steady herself against the urge to run as the driver steps out and approaches, taking her single bag and locking it in the boot. Moving away from the portico, towards him, Maria attempts a smile as she ducks into smooth leather seats, the chill of the air-con rippling over her skin.
The man in the driving seat says nothing at first as the car pulls off.
After a moment, he speaks. ‘Please can you pass me your phone?’ From his tone she senses this is not a negotiable question.
Maria tenses and the man attempts to reassure her. ‘It’s just protocol.’
‘Of course,’ Maria says, leaning forward, her hand hovering for a moment behind the handbrake as he reaches back to take it from her. He must be in his twenties, Maria observes: smartly dressed, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up slightly to reveal a flex of muscles as his fingers close around the handset, pressing the power button with one hand.
Maria locks her attention on the outside world as they move along Euston Road, willing herself to remain calm. There are flashes of Regent’s Park on one side, where she had once taken the twins, and Marylebone on the other, where she would occasionally accompany the family to lunch at an Italian restaurant Clive loved.
They move onto the Westway, following signs for Heathrow. Picking up speed, the driver opens his window, the sound of the wind rushing through the car as he tosses the phone onto one of the railings.
He watches Maria in his mirror as he closes the window again, judging her expression. She holds his eye, seemingly undaunted, as he returns his attention to the road ahead.
Feeling her heartbeat thump in her chest, Maria closes her eyes for a split second and prays. She still went to church most weeks, in London, to the Greek Orthodox mass near the house. It was near there that Felicity had approached her the time she finally revealed herself, moving up alongside Maria as she made her way home along Holly Walk. Refusing to let herself even think of that now, fearful that she will somehow give herself away, Maria returns her attention to the here and now. The car changes lanes, the engine revving, and Maria imagines the tyres skidding beneath them – the bliss of near-oblivion as she visualises the vehicle flipping, turning in slow motion, the impact hitting her in an instant as it finally lands.
They drive for almost an hour, the occasional roar of a low-flying jet causing Maria to hold her breath. Briefly, she plays out an alternative reality, one in which the choices she has made had been different – one in which she had walked away the first time Felicity tried to bump her. One in which she had long ago boarded a different plane, back to the island, back to her mother and the safety of a world that she had longed to escape. David had been standing next to her, watching her lips move, as she made her final call to Athena a couple of days earlier. Her mother had sounded sulky when Maria apologised for the length of time since they last spoke – not that Athena had tried to get in touch with her only child, either. She had already heard about David, though not from her daughter, she stressed. No, she’d had to learn about his death in the shop, as if it was nothing to do with her. She sounded more wounded by the dent to her pride than about the death of her friend’s son. But that wasn’t fair and Maria knew it. Athena had cared about David, just as she had cared about Artemis. It was just complicated. She was complicated. But aren’t we all?
‘Wait, I think that was our turning,’ Maria calls out to the driver as they speed past the exit for the airport.
‘It’s OK,’ he replies calmly, and Maria flinches, her eyes moving to the door handle.
Sensing her unease, he watches her in the rear-view mirror. ‘David is waiting for you,’ he says, and Maria can’t be sure if the use of David’s name is a reassurance or a threat.
They are moving along country lanes, the headlights of their own car swerving ahead of them as they speed through dark tunnels of trees. Maria has never ventured into the British countryside since she arrived – the Witheralls preferring more far-flung destinations – and she has no idea where she is. Looking out of the window, she sees stars for the first time in England and something about the sight fills her with longing for home.
What is she doing here? Once again her eyes move to the door handles, not that she could get away even if she did manage to escape. They would find her. There is no way out of this, not now. She breathes in sharply, picturing Stella and Rose. She is here for them, and for Anna.
Anna. Maria jolts at the thought of her.
If only there had been more time to prepare the plan, but it had all happened so quickly. She had barely had time to make contact with Harry. Back in London, she had felt so bold in what she was doing, so convinced she could pull this off. Now is not the time to start second-guessing. She has to trust they can do this. Whatever comes next, there is no going back.
Closing her eyes, Maria pictures herself back in the Maldives, three years earlier. It was Christmas and her bones had ached as they stepped off the seaplane, the sand moving unsteadily underfoot as she reached the shore. Rose had fallen asleep in her lap during the final leg of the journey from London, Anna and David sitting separately at the front of the plane.
It was a few days later, whilst pushing the girls in their buggy along one of the pathways behind the beach, that she overheard David on the phone to Clive.
I’m doing it tonight at dinner … I know! For God’s sake, Dad. Do you think I don’t know that? I love her.
Maria had been unaware then that she was overhearing David agree that this would be the night that he would propose to Anna, presenting her with the ring that was a physical manifestation of the circle that would draw tighter and tighter around her, until she could no longer breathe.
As the car slows, somewhere in the depths of the British countryside, Maria pictures the wooden walkway perched above the sea which led to their suites, the glittering turquoise surface deflecting from the endless black beneath. When she thinks of it now, she imagines it as a pirate’s plank, the sharks circling out of sight.
The car slows, turning without indication. It’s so dark out here, away from any streetlamp, that it is impossible to make out the world beyond the window. From the juddering movements of the car, Maria believes they are on a track; one thing is for sure, they aren’t heading for an airport.
Whatever happens next, she cannot afford to panic. She has come this far, and David trusts her.
The car stops. The driver switches off the engine but he doesn’t move.
‘Is David here?’ Maria looks beyond the windshield, where she can make out the outline of a building. She hears voices and then two men appear from the darkness, walking closer, until she sees Jorgos and another man opening the car door.
She shifts back in her seat at the sight of the men, Jorgos’ head lit up from behind by a flush of moonlight as the clouds briefly part.
These are Clive’s hangmen, come to kill her – come to do to Maria what they had done to Artemis, and what was lined up for Anna, too. For a moment, she is sure of that. They, or someone close to them, had been watching her when she went to meet Harry. They must have seen and heard every word. Someone had followed her to Anna’s house the night she left the letters, pausing for a moment to tuck one back inside her handbag.
And yet she had been so careful, there is no way anyone had been tailing her. She had been so quick, and she was watching out the whole time for signs that she was being followed.
The fear that rushes through her nonetheless, as she looks up at the men, is a flood, and she struggles to keep her head above water. Panic is the most common reason people drown, she remembers her father telling her whilst teaching her to swim; if you find yourself out of your depth, keep calm. She works hard to keep her thoughts on her father, pushing aside the image of Artemis that lingers in the corner of her mind. Is this retribution? Maria’s punishment for not having called for help the night Clive sent Jorgos to the house, the night Artemis died? She can feel now the same fear that rattled across the island the night of the storm.
No. Maria pulls herself out of the current. That was not her fault. Whatever happened – whether whatever Jorgos said or did pushed her to hang herself, or whether he helped her tie the knot – that was on Clive. He was the one who betrayed Artemis, and their child. Maria was a friend to David, and she loved his mother. David knows that, he trusts her – she is his confessor, and he has shared too much to doubt himself now.
She thinks back to the days after that illicit first adult kiss, the evening she had found him at the kitchen table with the DNA results confirming the girls weren’t his. If Anna hadn’t interrupted when she did it was impossible to know what would have happened that night. As it was, Maria avoided him for the next few days, David heading out early for work and returning late. A few days later, she saw him again. Anna had been out all day and the girls had just gone down for a nap when she heard the front door close. She could tell from the way his footsteps paused in the hallway that it was David. Maria knew the family’s movements so well by then that she could picture him removing his suit jacket and hanging it over the newel-post.
He said nothing as he stepped into the room, walking up behind her where she stood at the sink, swilling a plate. There was an inevitability to it, and she felt herself freeze, his breath against the back of her neck, his fingers moving gently under her T-shirt, and then sliding down beneath her knickers.
He didn’t kiss her for at least a minute. She felt herself fall forward against the counter, giving in to his touch. It was such a relief to feel a man’s hands on her after so long that for a while she could convince herself it was good, what was happening, as he finally moved his fingers back up and undid her trousers, and then tugged them down sharply.
Back in the car, forcing herself to meet Jorgos’ eye, Maria swallows as he speaks.
‘Hello, Maria.’