‘OK.’ Tahir nods thoughtfully. ‘The man that Defne was dancing with. The one who called you apoutana. Did you accuse him of drugging her? Of spiking her drink?’
‘No. I barely spoke to him. I thought the most important thing was to get Defne out of there. I didn’t have any proof that this particular man had drugged her.’
He frowns. ‘So you didn’t…harmhim in any way?’
Oxana’s eyes widen. ‘No. Goodness me. Not at all.’
Tahir stares out to sea.
‘May I ask why you’re…’
‘Because I’ve just received a news agency report that a thirty-year-old Greek man, Nicky Katsaros, was found dead in the Nymphaeon nightclub in Kytheria in the early hours of yesterday morning. He had been stabbed in the throat with a restaurant fork, or something very like it.’
‘But that’s horrible. Who would do something like that?’
‘I wonder. Turns out that Mr Katsaros had something of a reputation, locally. He’d been accused of spiking a tourist’s drink a couple of years ago, but the case was never proven.’
‘Oh my gosh.’
‘But the thing that really caught my eye in the report was a comment by a police doctor. Katsaros bled to death following multiple perforations of the carotid artery, and this, apparently, is not an easy way to kill someone. Even under what you might callideal conditions, it takes considerable strength, accuracy and anatomical knowledge. Yet the attack was almost certainly carried out on the club dance floor, with the only available light being the laser-lights and strobes that you talked about. So you’ll understand why it makes me wonder.’
‘Yes indeed.’
‘Specifically, Oxana, it makes me wonder about you.’
‘In what way, Mr Yilmaz?’
‘It makes me wonder if you’requitewho you say you are.’
‘Are you dissatisfied with my care and concern for your daughter?’
He smiles faintly. ‘On the contrary. I’m gratified by your conscientiousness and attention to detail. Is loyalty important to you, Oxana?’
‘Nothing is more important to me.’
‘Excellent. Perhaps we should just say that as far as your visit to Kytheria is concerned, all’s well that ends well. With mydaughter’s honour intact, and nothing worse than a headache for her to remember the evening by.’
‘Just a midsummer night’s dream, Mr Yilmaz.’
He gives her a cold smile. ‘Don’t overstep the mark, Oxana.’
34
Eve sinks into Philippa’s capacious sofa, displacing Pyewacket, who jumps to the floor and stalks stiffly away. She’s just had a call from Jack, to confirm that he’s just dropped off his passengers. He doesn’t mention any names, but Eve knows that he means Philippa and Tom, who are now staying with Philippa’s sister Linda in Lane End, some thirty minutes’ drive away.
Eve checks her watch. It’s 8p.m., and she’s beginning to feel hungry. A search of the kitchen reveals a couple of Philippa’s homemade pasties and a handful of muddy carrots. She sets to work, and half an hour later is settled in front of the TV with a dinner plate balanced on her knees, watchingFreaky Fridayand trying to ignore Pye, who is testing his claws on her jeans.
Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis have just opened their fortune cookies at Pei-Pei’s Chinese restaurant when there’s a bang at the front door. Eve takes no notice of this, mistaking it for one of the sound effects of the earthquake which is taking place on screen, but a second knock, moments later, is clearly happening in real life. Eve pauses the film and strolls unhurriedly to the door. She opens it a fraction, and a secondlater is almost knocked to the floor when a fast-moving figure shoves past her and slams the door. It’s Finbarr Williams. Wild-eyed, smelling of alcohol, and pale with fury.
35
Standing at a short distance from the others, Oxana is wrapped in her thoughts. There’re only a couple of days left of the cruise, so assuming that it takes a day to return to Athens, it follows that tomorrow is the day of reckoning. The day which will blast away the pretences of the last week and reveal her for who she is. Or more accurately, who she isn’t. Either way, there will be no more sleepy, sun-dazed days. No more starlit nights. This is the last of them, and conceivably her own last on earth, a prospect Oxana regards with equanimity until she thinks of Eve and is pierced with sadness.
Getting her back is not going to be easy. I can’t help thinking of the famous quote inThe Leopard, a book I read at the suggestion of my beloved Anna Leonova. ‘If things are to remain the same, everything must change.’ And everything must change. I see that now. I must stop, as Eve so eloquently puts it, being such a little cunt.
Andreas has excelled himself. We start with white asparagus cream with coconut and almond dust, paired with white Santorini wine which smells of orange blossom. Then lobster tail glazed in rose and saffron, matched with a luminous Château Miraval. I miss out the next course, a wild mushroom risotto served with truffle shavings, because since Buse said the unsayable truth, which is that truffles actually taste of shit, I haven’t been able to get the thought out of my mind. So I sit in silence, gazing up at the inky Aegean sky, picking out the handful of constellations that I recognise, and watching for the tiny blue-white streak of Perseid meteors. It’s magical, and the knowledge that I might die any day now only makes it more so.
36