Maria doesn’t know how or when she falls asleep but when she awakes, she feels the plane descending towards its final destination, the familiar expanse of turquoise water dotted with sparkling atolls.
‘Do you need something to drink?’ the man opposite asks, noticing her come to.
‘Water, please,’ she says.
He stands and heads towards a bar on the other side of the jet.
Maria is acutely aware of Jorgos’ presence beside her.
‘Is this Malé?’ she asks, not expecting an answer, but he shakes his head.
Maria feels her chest tighten. ‘But this is the Maldives?’
‘Yes.’ There is an amused look in Jorgos’ eye, as if he is enjoying her lack of power, feeding off the control it gives him. For a second, she pictures him approaching Artemis’ house the night she died and Maria feels a burst of barely containable rage. She wants to grab him by the throat, to gouge out his eyes. But instead she sits in her seat, her fingers entwined.
‘Is David here?’
‘He’s at the house,’ Jorgos replies and Maria’s mind holds onto this snippet of information.
‘The house?’
When David said they were going to the Maldives she had assumed he had meant the same resort she had been to with the family that Christmas.
Jorgos looks back at her, refusing to elaborate, and Maria looks away.
Something about this alternative plan troubles her. She had pictured it all so differently, and yet what had she expected, that they would be hanging out with honeymooners, eating from the buffet at a public hotel? Had she really pictured it at all? If she had, she wonders if she would be here now.
‘Thank you,’ she says, taking the bottle of water from the tall blond man. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Hans,’ he replies, resuming his seat and looking out of the window as the plane approaches a tiny island. Maria watches as they descend towards a purpose-built runway that juts out of the island, which is occupied by a series of three villas, all white with terracotta slates on the roofs, flanked by palm trees.
From above, she can see that on the other side of the island there is a jetty and a tiny boat tethered to the boardwalk; aside from the buildings and an area of garden leading towards the shore, she can see nothing but sea and sky.
Interrupting her thoughts, Jorgos turns to her and smiles for the first time.
‘Here we are. Home sweet home.’