Lie With Me (21 page)

‘Doing what?’ she said suspiciously.

I shrugged. ‘Mending the van.’

This time I wedged the shed door open, using a large plastic container that was sitting by the wall. The label was in Greek, but showed a skull and crossbones – the international sign for poison. The lid was tightly closed, but to be on the safe side, I wiped my hand on my shorts after I’d moved it. A shaft of dusty light streamed in and I saw that where the wall had been thick with dirt two days before, now a smear ran along it, in a wide curve, as if it had been wiped with a towel, or as if someone else had squeezed past.

The stuff on the shelves at the back of the shed looked like old rubbish – half-finished paint tins, empty containers. I couldn’t think why anyone would have ventured in. And then I remembered Artan closing the door behind him. Maybe this was where he kept his tools, though I couldn’t see any. Or perhaps he came in here to change into his work clothes. Or to fuck Daisy?
Was
he fucking Daisy? Who cared?

The car had been parked almost up to the shelves, but with just enough room to stand at the front of it. I fiddled under the bonnet and found the release hook in the middle under the front. It popped quite easily, and I secured it open with the metal support. Easy so far. But inside – I recoiled. It was like looking at innards, intestines – coiled and dirty. I didn’t have a clue. I couldn’t even locate the water tank let alone the oil stick. An old spanner was resting on what might have been the fan belt. I took it out, weighed it in my hands. It was heavy, rusted up, the hinge like a parrot’s beak. Then I moved round the bonnet to try the driver’s door. It opened – not fully, because of the wall, but just wide enough for me to wriggle through and up on to the seat.

I sat there for a few moments in the cool half-light, with the bonnet open. I tried to imagine I
was
a mechanic, or maybe just a regular guy somewhere in the American Midwest who knew what they were doing, a man a woman like Alice would have no choice but to respect. I lit a cigarette and rolled down the window to stick out my elbow. I leant back. It wasn’t particularly comfortable; the seat was a flat bench with a padded plastic cushion. But the interior was clean, apart from a few pieces of twig and road-grit and an old handkerchief lying scrunched in the footwell. Hell – I smiled ruefully to myself – if Alice left me for Andrew, I could move out here.

I finished the fag and stubbed it out with my shoe. The key was in the ignition, just as Alice had said. A surprisingly stunted key for such a mighty machine; no fob. It seemed an unwise thing to do, get a car going in an enclosed space. Carbon monoxide fumes, all these bottles of liquid.

I bent my head to twist the key but it was stuck tight. I tried to pull it out but it wouldn’t budge. My fingers were slippery with sweat and it was almost impossible to get a purchase. I mopped them on my shirt and tried again. Still no joy. The key couldn’t have rusted completely; I just needed something to help my grip. I looked around, and spotted the old handkerchief on the floor. That would do. I reached down to pick it up and then wrapped the dusty cream cotton round my fingers and tried again. This time, my grip was secure enough to provide sufficient friction. The key turned. The engine coughed, died. A second go: same deal. One last time, my hand sore already, the metal digging deep into the meat of my forefinger through the cotton. A rattle, and then a throaty whirr and the beast began to vibrate, the propped-open bonnet rattling on its support. I took my hand off the key and marvelled. I
had
mended it. Perhaps it was as simple as removing that spanner.

I switched the engine off and the shed fell quiet again.

I felt an extraordinary sense of achievement, and with it a lift in my self-esteem. What could Alice possibly see in Andrew that she didn’t see in me? Clearly he provided her with moral and emotional support, but were they having an affair? Could the gold condoms be old? Or confiscated from his son? I lit another cigarette and took a deep drag. Fact is, if they had been sleeping with each other, was Andrew
really
any match for me? I had to prove my worth, was all. I had to find a way to get rid of him.

I remember this thought process in detail. What I don’t remember is what I did with the spanner. I don’t know whether I dropped it on the floor of the shed – but it was heavy and would have made a resounding clank and I don’t remember that. Or whether I took it with me into the cab and left it there.

Chapter Fifteen

Alice and Andrew were back at about 5 p.m., long after the others. I was lying on the bed, pretending to read, when Alice breezed in as if nothing were wrong. The plane had been delayed, their car had got stuck behind some goats – ‘we had to switch off the engine and wait for a man to come and shoo them through a gate’ – and they’d stopped for a drink before dropping Yvonne and Karl at the hotel. ‘Anyway,’ she said, throwing off her shoes and plonking herself down on the side of the mattress. ‘They’re here.’

‘Are they OK?’ I said. ‘It must be traumatic coming back.’ I was reaching for the intimacy we’d shared in the car. But Alice was in a different sort of mood. Her gestures were over-generous. When she reached over to kiss me, her mouth loose and moist, her breath smelt of ouzo. ‘Yes. Actually, yes, they’re both fine. Under the circumstances.’ She was drawing out her words. ‘I’m not sure it’s hit them. What have you been up to?’

‘Well, actually,’ I propped myself up on my elbow, ‘I’ve had an interesting day.’ I was planning to tell her about Daisy and Artan and about mending the van. I was expecting both pieces of information, in their different ways, to draw us closer.

But she had got to her feet, and was peeling off her clothes. ‘Tell me later,’ she said, standing there naked. ‘We’re meeting Yvonne and Karl at Nico’s in half an hour and I’m desperate for a shower.’

Nico’s was smaller and prettier than Giorgio’s, with gingham tablecloths and a cascading vine over the terrace. Yvonne and Karl were sitting alone at a long table over by the water when we got there. Alice wended her way round the chairs to reach them, holding my hand to make sure I followed close. Yvonne stood up and Alice pushed me forward. ‘Darling Yvonne, this is my friend Paul, whom I told you about in the car. He’s staying with us for the week.’

Yvonne put out her hand and I stood for a moment, clumsy and awkward, staring at her. She was small and slight, with a thin face and long hair; the skin under her eyes was rough like sandpaper. Her dress was a floral cotton one with cap sleeves – it was an old one of Alice’s; I recognised it from a photograph – and it hung off her, gaping at the neck. She was smiling, showing stained teeth.

I bent down and hugged her, feeling the rub of the crucifix that lay around her neck. The damp of her lipstick brushed my cheek.

‘I’m actually here for a fortnight,’ I said, pulling away, ‘unless she’s forgotten.’

Yvonne stretched her mouth into a wider smile and Alice laughed. ‘Sorry. A fortnight. And this is Karl.’

He was smaller than Yvonne, an ancient pocket-rocker with grey stubble, sunken cheeks and a faded blue tattoo of an elaborate lizard behind one ear. When he shook my hand, a square gold ring on his forefinger jabbed the flesh at the base of my thumb. ‘Delighted, I’m sure,’ he said.

Around me I was aware of the others greeting Yvonne, Tina embracing her, Louis knocking over a chair, Daisy sitting as far away from me as possible. I pulled out the empty chair next to Karl. The waiter brought us menus. Andrew ordered wine: ‘Or Karl, would you prefer beer?’

‘Wouldn’t mind,’ Karl muttered.

‘And a beer for my esteemed friend,’ Andrew said.

Alice, who had taken the head of the table, was talking with animation to Yvonne, asking her about her hotel room, was it cool enough, did they have mosquito nets, were the pillows comfortable?

I thought Yvonne began to look a little irritated. ‘It’s fine,’ she answered shortly. ‘It’s what we expect. It’s all fine.’

Karl leant into me. ‘Alice wants everything to be perfect,’ he said. ‘She’s like this every year. None of it makes any difference.’

‘Where is it that you’re staying?’

‘It’s up there somewhere –’ he gestured with his chin. ‘It’s got a nice pool, and some of the rooms have sea views, though ours hasn’t. The first year we came, the year we lost Jasmine, we stayed at the Barbati Beach Apartments and after that they used to give us a discount. But they bulldozed it to build that big posh hotel—’

‘Delfinos.’

‘Same manager, but . . .’

‘People forget,’ I said.

Karl shrugged. ‘Yeah. People forget a lot of things.’

The teenagers were sitting at the far end of the table. I looked over just as Daisy looked over at me. Her face suffused red. I smiled and gave a very small nod. It turned out it felt nice to have something on her.

‘Is there any point?’ Karl said.

I turned back to him. ‘Sorry?’

‘In the car, Alice said you were on holiday in Pyros, actually in Agios Stefanos, the night Jasmine went missing but that you don’t remember anything about it so there was no point asking you.’

‘No, she’s right, I’m afraid. That night is a bit of a blank.’

He nodded. ‘One too many shandies, was it?’

I was beginning to feel disordered. ‘Absolutely. Several too many, in fact.’

‘I recognise you, though.’ He narrowed his eyes, biting the side of his lip. ‘Yes, definitely. You were out in the street.’

‘I don’t think I was. I think I’d already gone.’

‘Are you sure?’ He tapped the side of his head with his finger. ‘I’ve got a head for faces.’

My brain reared wildly back in time, trying to recall past conversations with Alice. I thought she had said I’d left the village in a taxi long before Jasmine went missing. I racked my brain for a genuine memory of my own – nothing.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said again. ‘It’s certainly the sort of thing I hope I’d remember.’

At the head of the table, Alice was telling Tina and Yvonne the story of the goats – making vigorous gestures with her hands as if trying to propel the anecdote along, filling it with life and air. I imagined the narrative sinking to the floor without her efforts, limp and shapeless, and felt a welling of sympathy. What a pact with the devil she was engaged in, pretending Jasmine was still alive, pretending there was still hope. And I noticed how Alice was the woman here I felt most sorry for, not Yvonne, and how odd that was.

Karl tapped my arm to get my attention. ‘You’re a writer, Andrew told us.’

‘Yes, I write novels.’

‘I’m not really a reader, though one of my mates down at the local has published a book about philately – I say “published”. He paid for it himself. Ah, thanks.’ His lager arrived and he took a long slug.

‘And what do you do?’ I said.

He put the glass down. ‘Work-wise I’m at B&Q, on the replenishment side of customer services, but I began as a roadie. Big Tallulah? Steve and the Sunshine Boys? The Krooks?’ He looked at me enquiringly. ‘None of them ring a bell?’

I shook my head apologetically.

‘That’s how me and her met, back in 1995. She was a lovely singer, sang like a bird, though she gave it all up. She hasn’t sung a note since Jasmine left us.’

He stopped and looked across the table at Yvonne.

Alice was leaning over to point at items on Yvonne’s menu. ‘I think you should order moussaka. You like that.’

‘It’s a good thing I have you to tell me what I like,’ Yvonne said, putting the menu down. She seemed exhausted, letting her arms drop by her side as if she didn’t know what to do with them.

‘I don’t suppose anything has been the same since then,’ I said, turning back to Karl.

‘It’s a fucked-up world,’ he replied. ‘I can’t tell you what a hole she’s left. I don’t know. It can make you angry.’

‘What was Jasmine like?’ I said, after a beat.

He folded his napkin into smaller and smaller squares. ‘She was a handful, I won’t tell a lie. Had a lot of tonsillitis and missed a lot of school, got a bit behind. But she loved her rabbits, though Yvonne was always having to nag her to clean out the hutch. They were at each other a lot, those two – fighting all the time, but it was just the age, you know? Jas had just got into Eminem, boys, doing everything to wind her mother up. Flashpoints.’

I looked to the other side of the table, where the younger members of our party were all on their phones. ‘Teenagers can be trying,’ I said. ‘I realise that.’

Karl pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and removed a photograph. It was a picture I’d already seen of Jasmine – the one with the ginger cat held up to her cheek. But this picture wasn’t cropped and in shot was a table piled with dirty takeaway cartons, a half-eaten pizza, a spilt bottle of beer, a different kind of kitchen to the one you might imagine – filthier, more out of control.
Flashpoints.

Karl’s voice seemed to get stuck at the back of his throat. ‘She had a wicked smile.
Has
.’

Food arrived and Andrew snapped to it, bossing the waiter around, directing lamb kebabs and swordfish steaks. Yvonne and I had both ordered the moussaka, though I noticed she only picked at hers.

Andrew was squeezing lemon on to his calamari with one hand while gesturing at Phoebe to pass him the jug of water. ‘Big excitement here this week,’ he said. ‘Poor girl was raped after a night at the club.’

Louis muttered something.

‘What did you say?’ asked Alice, her eyes on him.

‘I said silly slapper.’

‘Louis!’

‘It’s what Paul called her.’

My feet jerked forwards so violently, my chair legs scraped. ‘No I didn’t.’

Andrew stood up. ‘Louis. That’s not a good thing to say.’

He shrugged, and Alice put her hand on Yvonne’s. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’

Yvonne moved her hand away. ‘Have they found the rapist?’ she asked.

Alice exchanged a glance with Andrew. Her lips downturned slightly at the corners, and she gave a small shake of her head. Her earrings reflected the candlelight. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not yet.’