The day Clive dies
They sit for hours, side-by-side, without talking, the day Clive dies, just as they had the day of Artemis’ funeral, two decades earlier.
‘It might help to talk about it,’ Maria tries for a second time, breaking the interminable stretch of silence, the only sound the occasional swig of David drinking whisky straight from the bottle.
He doesn’t reply and Maria tries again. ‘Perhaps we could send flowers?’
David finally turns to face her. ‘Flowers?’
‘It’s your father’s funeral, David, and you can’t be there. I thought you might like—’
He laughs, as if she has just told the funniest joke. ‘Oh yes, great idea. I’ll just ring Interflora, ask them to send a bouquet reading “With love from your dead son, David”.’
Maria blushes. ‘I didn’t mean … I just thought if there was a way of discreetly … But you do have a new phone here – isn’t that risky?’
He stops laughing then. ‘It would be if it was registered to my name, or in any way traceable to me. It’s only for using the proper messaging system, not for chit-chat, not for ordering bloody lilies.’
‘You mean the EncroChat you mentioned?’ Maria asks.
He looks at her for a moment. ‘Christ, what is this, the Spanish bloody inquisition?’
‘David, I’m just talking to you. It’s not like we have anything else to talk about, is it? It’s not like I do anything other than—’
‘I see,’ David says. ‘Are you regretting coming here with me?’
‘I don’t know.’
Her honesty cuts him dead.
Neither of them speaks again for almost a minute and then Maria continues, more quietly. ‘I’m just lonely. There’s nothing for me here. You’re working all the time. You hardly talk to me.’ She inhales. ‘I suppose it’s not how I imagined it.’
‘So you wish you hadn’t come?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ she replies, taking the bottle from him and drinking, appreciating the burn of the whisky in her throat.
‘I’m sorry,’ David says after a moment and Maria feels a tug of guilt.
‘It’s not your fault,’ she says.
‘Is there anything I can do, to make things easier?’ he asks and Maria pauses, before taking another drink.
‘I would like to speak to my mother.’
‘You know you can’t do that.’
‘Why?’ she asks plainly, the frustration making her bold.
‘We spoke about this, Maria. This is not a game. It’s too risky. You agreed to cut off all contact, at least for the time being, until we’re more settled.’
‘Settled where? How?’ Maria feels her voice rise. ‘Don’t you think it’s stranger if I don’t call, ever? It will be Christmas soon. There is no reason why anyone would be listening in to my mother’s calls. Everyone thinks you’re dead, David, and I’m just the nanny. The only person who is likely to be suspicious that something is wrong, to raise any kind of alarm, is my mother. If I don’t call—’
‘Jorgos wouldn’t like it,’ David says sharply.
‘Jorgos?’ Maria sneers. ‘Who is in charge here, David? I have given up everything to be here with you, with no friends, nothing to do, for what, be your mistress – someone to have sex with at the end of another long day of meetings? And still you don’t trust me?’
‘It’s not just about me,’ David says, his voice quieter. ‘Things are complicated with the business right now.’
‘Complicated how?’
‘It’s Jeff,’ he pauses. ‘He wants to take the business in directions I’m not sure of.’
‘You’ve just lost your father, I’m not sure that’s the best time to be making any kind of major decisions.’
David snorts derisively. ‘I’m not really in a position to be taking compassionate leave.’
Maria doesn’t rise to the bait. ‘What does Jorgos say?’
‘It’s nothing to do with Jorgos,’ David snaps, his voice less controlled.
‘I agree. But does he?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, it seems to me that Jorgos is keeping an eye on us, as much as he is protecting us.’
Her words hang there as David considers what she’s just said. For a moment Maria wonders if he is questioning the use of the word ‘us’. Does he even see them as a unit in this?
She presses on. ‘What if – and I’m not saying this is necessarily the case – but what if Jeff and Jorgos are in cahoots. With your father gone, if Jeff wanted to make a play for a bigger part of the business …’
She lets her words sit there for a while as they circle back towards the house, neither of them acknowledging Jorgos and Hans seated on the porch.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she says a while later, as they sit at the table, David fiddling with his phone. ‘I shouldn’t be putting pressure on you right now; it’s just that I’m worried about you. But I understand things are complicated.’ She leans over and touches his hand. ‘I’m so sorry about your dad, and Anna—’
‘Anna?’
There is venom in his voice as David slams his phone on the table. He regards her a moment with contempt and then he stands, and moves towards the kitchen to get another bottle. Maria’s eyes fix on the unlocked phone as he casts around the kitchen.
‘David, just because of how things ended doesn’t mean you’re not going to feel upset. You loved her and she betrayed you, but that doesn’t mean—’
She doesn’t have time to doubt herself. She keeps one eye on him as he moves between cupboards with his back to her, unsteady on his feet. Reaching forward, glancing briefly back up at him, she turns the phone over and scrolls past the apps until she finds Voice Memos.
Pressing ‘record’ she returns the phone to its face-down position as David begins to move back towards her.
‘You think I’m upset about Anna? You think I feel remorse for what we did?’ His words are so matter-of-fact, she can hardly believe she is hearing them. ‘Getting rid of Anna was the best thing I’ve ever done in my pathetic life.’ His eyes are shining with a sort of furious glee. ‘Knowing she suffered, just as she made me suffer, is only bettered by the fact that she will have known that he was the one who betrayed her. After everything she did for him – after the things she put me through in order to help him: after making me raise his babies, believing them to be mine …’ He nods, reassuring himself more than her. ‘When she died she will have looked him in the eyes and she will have known that he was complicit in her death.’
Maria’s throat is dry, her voice rasping when she speaks. ‘Who, David?’
‘Harry bloody Dwyer! The man she was fucking,’ he announces triumphantly. ‘He was the one who got her to open the door to the men who—’ His face falls. Maria can no longer be sure if it is David swaying with nausea, or her.
‘Harry Dwyer. Our very own Trojan Horse.’
* * *
Maria’s head is swimming as she leaves the villa. There is nowhere to go. She wants to scream. The whole island seems to be growing smaller and smaller by the day until she feels she will suffocate.
Harry was in on it. Harry knew they were going to kill Anna? Her mind tilts one way and then the other, finally settling on David’s phone.
She waits until the dead of night, for his snore to grow loud enough that she knows he won’t wake again, then she picks up her phone and moves outside, silently pulling the front door closed behind her.
A cool sea breeze follows as she moves, barefoot, towards the shoreline, keeping to the shadows, avoiding the sightline of the second villa as best she can. When she glances up at it, she sees the lights are on, but there are no signs of life inside, or on the terrace. She stops and listens, waiting until she is sure it is quiet before she carries on.
Crouching behind the narrow trunk of a palm tree, she scrolls through her address book until she reaches a number she hasn’t dialled before, one she secreted from Anna’s phone in the early days and passed on to Felicity, along with everything else, not long before Felicity cut her off once and for good.
It is late both here and in England and the phone rings several times before Anna’s mother answers. She sounds older than she must be, and understandably perturbed by the unexpected call in the middle of the night.
‘Yes?’ she says and Maria clears her throat, talking as quietly as she can whilst still making herself heard.
‘I am so sorry to bother you. I know it’s late and you don’t know me, but I am a friend of Anna’s and I need to talk to you.’
‘Isobel Mason, is that you? Trying to stir things up with your suggestions that my daughter’s death was not suicide?’ Her voice is a mixture of anger and fear.
‘No, it’s not Isobel,’ Maria said quietly, trying to sound reassuring.
‘So you’re another journalist, bothering me in the middle of the night when there are children asleep upstairs? Like I told Isobel, I am not interested in telling my story—’
Maria whimpers at the mention of the twins. ‘Diane, I am not a journalist, I promise you. My name is Maria, I was the nanny to Stella and Rose. That’s why I’m ringing, to check on the girls. I wanted to—’
‘Maria?’ Diane’s voice is calmer now.
‘Anna mentioned me?’ She looks up, noticing the lights inside the villas are now off.
‘No. But she left something for you … in her will. A letter.’
‘For me?’ Maria says, her fingers stretching into the sand. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure,’ she says. ‘It’s with the lawyer. Only you are allowed to collect it, in person. Anna’s instructions were very clear.’
Diane’s voice breaks, and Maria feels a pang of sadness for the woman who by all accounts couldn’t find enough warmth in her heart to be a proper mother to Anna whilst she was still alive.
As if reading Maria’s thoughts, Diane clears her throat. ‘I was a terrible mother. After Thomas died I blamed her, and she knew it. I blamed her because she was supposed to be watching him and she didn’t, when he fell from the roof. Do you have any idea what it’s like to lose not one but two children?’
‘I have no idea how you must be feeling,’ Maria tries to comfort her, her attention pricked by a shadow on the terrace. She ducks down, further out of sight, but when she looks again it is completely dark.
‘I’m so sorry, but I have to be quick. Please can I have the details of the solicitor?’
Committing the number and the address to memory, Maria ends the call, asking Diane to send her love to the girls and promising to ring again soon.
‘I can’t have them here forever,’ Diane says plainly before the call ends, and any tenderness Maria was beginning to feel towards the woman hardens. What kind of woman rejects her own grieving grandchildren?
‘You won’t have to,’ she says. ‘But please look after them until something can be worked out. I’ll call again soon. Diane …’
‘Yes?’
‘Can I have the number of the journalist – Isobel Mason?’
‘Why?’
‘I’ll get her to leave you alone. It’s not right that the girls should have to risk having her call again, upsetting you at this time.’
Diane sniffs. ‘People have no idea how hard this has been for me.’
Maria swallows. ‘I know. I’ll speak to her. I’ll sort it out.’
Maria’s fingers are shaking as she dials again. The voice at the end of the line, when it answers just two rings later, sounds younger than she had imagined.
‘Is that Isobel Mason?’
‘Speaking. Who’s this?’ the woman replies, clearly still awake.
‘My name’s Maria. I’m … I am— I was the nanny for Anna Witherall and her children. Her mother, Diane, gave me your number – she said that you’d been going to the house. She said that you were asking questions about Anna’s death. She said that you were unconvinced that it was suicide.’
‘Oh,’ the woman says, flustered but keen to keep her on the line. ‘Yes, I’m Isobel. I’m a reporter, I’d love to talk—’
Maria breathes deeply before carrying on, knowing she is taking a risk by talking to this person, who could be anyone, though she has no other option. ‘I need your help.’
It’s hazy when Maria wakes the next day, David’s side of the bed already empty beside her. Instinctively, she reaches down the side of her bed for her tote bag, which is just where she left it. She is about to pick it up when she hears movement in the kitchen.
Freezing, she sits up slowly and kicks the bag more discreetly under the bed.
‘Did you sleep well?’ Jorgos asks in Greek, from his position at the kitchen table, as she enters the room.
‘Yes, thank you,’ she replies in English, not looking at him as she moves to the counter and fills the kettle, the sound of the water hitting metal rising above the tapping of her own heartbeat. ‘Where’s David?’
‘He just went to get something.’
‘Are you working in here today?’
He doesn’t respond and she places the kettle on its stand, moving to the fridge. The cool air hits her face and she stands for a moment, letting it soothe the heat rising in her cheeks. What is he doing here? She closes the fridge door, gripping it briefly before turning to face him, telling herself he doesn’t know anything.
‘Would you like coffee?’ She makes herself half-smile at him.
‘Mmm,’ he says. ‘Your mother used to make me coffee at Clive’s house in Greece, when she was his cleaner.’
Something about hearing him refer to her mother makes Maria bristle. ‘She wasn’t exactly a cleaner,’ she responds, her tone lighter than she feels.
‘It wasn’t a slight,’ Jorgos says. ‘I liked Athena. I still do. She was a good friend, loyal.’
Maria says nothing, scooping three spoons of coffee into the cafetiere, before picking up the kettle, tipping it and watching the boiling water cascade onto the granules.
When she hears his voice again it is right behind her. ‘Not like her friend.’
Maria pulls herself closer to the counter, away from him, holding herself there. ‘You remember Artemis, don’t you?’ Jorgos says, his voice a whisper, taking a step closer, so close that Maria dare not exhale for fear she will touch him. She feels the breath expanding in her lungs until her chest aches.
She is suddenly aware of the kettle still grasped between her fingers, feeling her arm lift a little when the door clatters open.
‘Maria?’
‘David.’ She turns quickly, the hot water splashing out and catching Jorgos’ shoulder as he also turns towards the sound of David’s voice.
‘Malaka,’ he cries out, grabbing his shoulder and stepping away from her.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean—’ she says, as David steps forward.
‘Jorgos, are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ he says, lifting his hand, trying to suppress the pain in his expression. ‘Maria was just making us coffee. She needs to learn to be more careful.’
The men take their coffee to the other villa, and Maria moves straight into the bedroom, rifling for her phone and moving into the bathroom before the maid arrives. She is shaking as she waits for it to come on. When it does, the message is waiting for her: ‘My name is Madeleine. Isobel contacted me, I can help you.’