‘Bless you, no. Nothing like that. We’re here to…’ She nods at the corpse.
‘Philippa sent you?’
Before she can answer there’s another knock on the door, and another woman, whom Eve vaguely remembers seeing behind the till in the supermarket, bustles in.
The policewoman touches Eve’s arm. ‘Tea,’ she says firmly.
Eve retires to Philippa’s kitchen and fills the kettle. When she returns to the sitting room, there are six of them. Sensible-looking women in everyday clothes, aged between twenty-five and fifty. They look at her with bright, sympathetic smiles. ‘Four white, no sugar,’ the supermarket woman says. ‘Two white, with.’
Mutely, Eve returns to the kitchen. When she comes back holding a laden tray, the policewoman takes it off her, and sets it down on the floor. ‘I want you to do exactly as I say,’ she tells Eve. ‘Go upstairs, change into your night things, bag up the clothes you’re wearing now in a pillowcase, and bring them down here. Then have a hot bath, go to bed, and do not come downstairs again, for any reason, until the morning. I repeat,do not come downstairs again until morning.’
‘Got it,’ says Eve. ‘And… thank you all.’ She looks around the room.
Six pairs of eyes look calmly back at her.
39
Oxana wakes at dawn, and by the time she’s ascended to the main deck, the sun’s rising out of a molten, metal sea. With theMedusalying motionless at anchor, she dives from the stern and swims. Floating on her back she watches as golden light flushes the sky. It’s as if the world’s hers, and hers alone.
Climbing back aboard, she squeezes the salt water from her hair, pulls on the towelling dressing gown from her cabin, and makes her way to the galley for a breakfast of scrambled eggs and smoked salmon with Feris and Andreas. As Andreas makes coffee on the Gaggia machine, Feris allows her fingers to slip proprietorially down the back of his jeans. She grins at Oxana. ‘You’ve caught the sun.’
‘I know. I’m very fair-skinned.’
‘It looks good.’
Oxana shrugs. Although she doesn’t tan easily, like Defne and Buse, she’s slowly acclimatising to the Aegean climate. Where they’ve become olive brown, she’s turned a freckled blush-pink.
‘Your nose’ll be peeling by the time we get back to Athens,’ Feris says.
‘Probably.’
Andreas grins. ‘You got a boyfriend waiting for you?’
Oxana shakes her head.
‘I’m sure you meet someone soon. Some guy gonna be lucky.’
‘Doubt it.’ Oxana pulls a face.
‘Hey, you really pretty. For a nanny.’
Feris glances at him sternly. ‘Talking of getting lucky…’ she says.
Oxana flicks her a glance. ‘Go on.’
‘A certain young lady didn’t sleep in her cabin last night. Which is kind of tricky, because it’s asharedcabin.’
‘Ooof. Buse, I assume?’
Feris nods.
‘With Emir?’
‘Yes, she’s had her eye on him since last year, at least.’
‘What Buse wants, Buse gets,’ Andreas says.
‘I hope that doesn’t include you,’ Feris says.