Humiliated right down to her varnished toenails, she had turned on him. ‘Oh, lighten up,’ she had shouted above the pounding beat of a disco anthem. But he had stood there looking down at her with that disapproving expression on his face.
‘Yeah,’ Nick had joined in, ‘stop being such a pain, shape up or push off.’
He had done neither. He had simply remained where he was, watching her coolly, his brows drawn together, making her feel like a naughty child. In defiance, she had ordered another round of drinks. ‘You’re embarrassing me,’ she had said, bumping against him as she slipped off her bar stool and spilled tequila down his trousers. ‘This is adult time, why don’t you just go?’
And he had. Without another word, he had gone.
Now she was wishing he hadn’t. She hated herself for having treated him so badly. Feeling sick and miserable, she also wished she hadn’t listened to Nick’s suggestion that they leave her parents’ party, get changed and head into Kassiópi. She had been enjoying herself up until then. She and Harry had been having a great laugh together - they had even joined in with all that Greek dancing with her parents. But it was Sally who had said, ‘Oh, come on, don’t be boring. Let’s go.’ She knew the real reason why Nick had wanted to come: he had wanted to meet up with that bloke from Glasgow, the one with the accent as thick as cold custard who had been supplying him with his wacky-baccy. According to Giorgios, it came across from Albania. Occasionally it would wash up on the shore; that was when a delivery went wrong, when the Corfiot coastguards would appear on the scene unexpectedly, and the terrified Albanians would shove the lot overboard. Some of the waiters they had got to know joked that they spent the winter months when all the tourists had gone home sampling what came ashore.
She was no prude, but Nick was a mug for smoking the stuff. God knows what was in it. A bloody fool, that’s what he was. And it was all his fault that she was stuck here drunk, and that Harry had left her. She wanted to go home, wanted to be sick in the privacy of her own bathroom, then lie on the bed and crash out. But she wasn’t so drunk that she was going to risk walking through the olive grove in the dark on her own. Dad would go mad if he discovered she had done that. Technically she might be a full-blown adult, but to him she was still his little girl. In her wretchedly self-pitying state she felt tears welling in her eyes. Blinking them away, she knew she had no choice but to wait for Nick and Sally to decide that they had had enough and were ready to leave. Though knowing how they liked to party, she was probably in for a long wait.
As it turned out, once Nick had found his Glaswegian friend and had got what he had come for, he didn’t feel the need to hang about. ‘Right then, girls,’ he said, tucking an arm through theirs, ‘shall we go?’
They made slow progress. Sally was in a worse state than Francesca, and leaving the bright lights of Kassiópi behind them, and propping themselves up on each other, they entered the darkness of the olive grove. None of them had a torch, and once again Francesca wished that Harry was with them.
‘If Captain Sensible was here, we’d have no problem seeing where we were going,’ said Nick, as if picking up on her thoughts. ‘Wouldn’t you know that he’d take the bloody torch with him?’
‘Don’t talk about him like that.’
‘Oo-er, listen to her,’ jeered Nick. ‘She’s really got the hots for him.’
‘Shut up, Nick, and keep walking before I land one on you. Save your energy for your brain, what there is of it.’
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ groaned Sally. She staggered away from them and vomited into the bushes. It had the effect of making Francesca follow suit. No more booze for the rest of the holiday, she promised herself, as she emptied the contents of her stomach. No more tequilas. And definitely no more nights out with Nick.
When they had finished, they found Nick slumped on the ground, his back resting against the trunk of an olive tree, his head tilted upwards. ‘Something to clear the mind,’ he said, waving a clumsily put-together reefer, its end glowing red in the darkness.
‘You’re an idiot, Nick, smoking that junk.’
‘After what you’ve just deposited in the bushes, Frankie girl, I’ll take that as a case of pots and kettles. You need to learn to chill out. You’re getting to be as bad as my brother. Perhaps you’re seeing too much of each other. Wish I knew what it is you see in a dork like him when you could have me.’
‘I’ve told you before, don’t call me Frankie! And if you really want to know, your brother’s worth ten of you.’
‘Oh, come on the pair of you, stop arguing,’ said Sally. ‘Let’s get going. Give me a puff of that, Nick. It’ll help me feel better.’
By the time they had reached the bay, Nick was laughing and joking. He insisted that they go down to the beach. ‘It’s a beautiful night, girls,’ he said, staring up at the moon and slipping his arms around them once more. In his mellowed state he was all love and peace. So was Sally. ‘Oh, yes, my cool sisters of swing,’ he sang out expansively, ‘it’s a real beautiful night for catching the vibe. You know what we should do, we should go for a swim.’
It was a crazy idea and Francesca was having none of it. To her horror, Sally agreed with Nick, and giggling loudly, she flung her arms around him and kissed him. ‘I never knew until now just how brilliant you were, Nick.’
‘But you’re both off your heads,’ Francesca protested. ‘You’re mad even to think of it.’
They paid her no heed, slipped out of their clothes, held hands, and ran into the water.
Annoyed and resigned, Francesca watched them go. She was so tired and fed up, she was tempted to leave them to it, to climb the hill and go to bed. But something told her not to leave her friend. If Sally came to any harm, she would never forgive herself. Once again, she had no choice but to wait for Nick and Sally to get bored and come to their senses.
She sat down on the stones and instantly what little energy she had drained out of her. Her head felt like a ball of lead wobbling on her neck and the need to sleep was so overwhelming that she lay back and closed her eyes.
As long as I can hear them, she told herself drowsily, everything will be okay.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Mark was watching the scene below him with rising apprehension.
He had been on the verge of going to bed when he heard voices drifting up from the beach. Putting down the book he had been reading, he had gone to the edge of the terrace to see what was going on. Straining his eyes in the darkness, he had recognised Max and Laura’s daughter, Francesca, and her friend, Sally. The younger of the Patterson boys - the shambling, feckless one with long hair — was with them. And by the look of them they were drunk, staggering about, laughing and joking, raising their voices more than was necessary. His blood had run cold when he had seen Sally and the boy strip off and throw themselves into the water.
An excess of alcohol and a late-night swim was not a wise combination, and as he stood now, rooted to the spot, he saw them swimming further and further away from the safety of the shore. Seeing Francesca lie back on the stones as though she was settling in for the night only added to his fears.
You’re overreacting, he told himself, they’ll be fine. Stop worrying. They’re old enough to look after themselves. Just read your book and mind your own business.
He turned away from the sea and retraced his steps to his chair. He had taken no more than two paces when he heard a cry. A girl’s cry. He spun on his heels and peered into the darkness.
Laughter drifted up to him on the gathering breeze. It was the boy. Floating on his back, his arms stretched out either side of him, he seemed to be finding something hysterically funny in the sky above him.
The fear that had wedged itself in Mark’s throat subsided and once again he told himself not to be such a fool. But then he realised something was wrong with the picture he was looking at. Something was missing.
The girl whose cry he had heard, where was she?
He strained his eyes to pick out the whiteness of her body in the water. Where the hell was she?
From the terrace of Villa Petros, Izzy had also observed what was going on. She, too, concluded that something was wrong and headed for the beach as fast as she could.
She found that Mark had got there a few seconds ahead of her. The look of alarm on his face, confirmed her fears. ‘Sally,’ she said breathlessly, ‘where is she?’
‘I don’t know, I can’t see her. The tide’s going out, she must have drifted with it. You wake Francesca and I’ll shout to the boy. What’s his name?’
‘Nick. It’s Nick.’
Standing at the water’s edge, and though he couldn’t see the boy, Mark began shouting to him. ‘Nick,’ he bellowed, ‘Nick, can you hear me?’
There was no answer.
He tried calling to Sally. But there was no answer from her either.
Nor could Izzy get any response from Francesca. No matter how hard she shook her, Francesca slept on. All she got from the girl was an incoherent mumbling before she turned on to her side and sank further into a deep state of blackout. Giving up on her, Izzy went and joined Mark.
‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘They’re not answering me.’
Then in the silence they both heard a cry.
Followed by another, and another.
Keeping the panic from his voice, and ignoring the nausea in the pit of his stomach, Mark kicked off his shoes. ‘Go and get help. I’ll swim out to them.’
‘But, Mark, you can’t, you — ’
‘Go! Go
on!’
She watched him plunge into the water, before turning to race back up the hillside. But just as she reached the path, disaster struck. Her ankle gave way and she keeled over in pain.
In order to overcome the phobic instinct that had been with him for the last thirty years, Mark knew that he had to use the raw terror of those memories - of Niall’s open-eyed death mask of a face - to strengthen his body. If he couldn’t do that, if he let the memories overwhelm him, he would never survive.
In the distance, he saw what he thought was a head bobbing in the darkness. Pushing his arms through the water, kicking his legs as hard as he could, he heard the terrified shouts for help. But it was only one voice he could hear, and it was such a deep-throated cry of fear he couldn’t decide whether it was Sally or the boy.
He swam on.
Harder.
Faster.
But the gap didn’t seem to be closing. Now that he was so far from the shore, the waves were building, buffeting him relentlessly, and the effort just to stay afloat was harder to sustain. His stomach was cramping and the muscles in his legs were bunching. It was a struggle just to keep his breathing going. To keep the rhythm. To use the memories. Not to give in to them.
A sudden wave caught him off-guard and salty water hit the back of his throat. Panicked and choking, he swallowed it. And then his nerve went. It was all too terrifyingly familiar: the powerful swell of the sea, the sense of uselessness, the deep, deep, coldness.
His body was no longer responding to anything he told it to do: it had turned to stone. A wave covered him, then another, and as he slipped beneath the surface he knew it was over. He had cheated death as a child, but this time it would not be denied. It was futile to fight it. Why not let the Grim Reaper have his way? It would be over in seconds.
He opened his mouth and water flooded in. The searing and strangely echoing coldness of it filled his head and lungs, but suddenly his chest heaved with a desperate need for air, and he realised that although his leaden brain might have been fooled into admitting defeat, some other part of him wasn’t prepared to give in.
A new strength rushed through him, and he propelled himself to the surface. Coughing and spluttering, he gasped for air, fought for his life as the waves continued to buffet him. Treading water, he got his breathing under control again and looked around for any sign of Nick or Sally, not holding out much hope of finding them, not now.
At first he thought he had imagined it, but then he heard it again. A faint cry for help. Straining his stinging eyes in the darkness, he saw a flash of movement scarcely twenty yards from him.
It was Sally trying to stay afloat.
Adrenaline pumped through him and he swam over to her. She saw him and the relief showed in her panic-stricken face. She sank into his arms, frightened and exhausted, but he wasn’t prepared for her weight and they both went under. Down and down they went. Deeper and deeper. Her cold body slithered out of his grasp and he lost her. Kicking his feet, he swam to the surface, got his breath back, then dived down for her. It was so dark he couldn’t see anything. The salt water was burning his eyes. Suddenly he felt a hand. He grabbed at it and, with a tremendous surge of energy, hauled her upwards. But she wasn’t moving and her freezing cold body was a dead weight in his arms. A grotesquely distorted image of Niall’s face flew into his mind.
Anger and despair ripped through him. No! It couldn’t happen twice.
He held on tightly to Sally’s motionless body, and with one arm around her chest, and treading water, he prayed that he had the strength to get them both back to the shore.
He turned to start the long, hard swim, but was momentarily dazzled by a flare of light. In his shocked, exhausted state, he didn’t register what it was. But as the light grew nearer and brighter, and he heard the low throaty roar of an engine, he realised it was a boat coming to help.
‘Whoever you are,’ he murmured wretchedly, his mind plummeting back to that moment when the lifeboat had come for him and Niall, ‘you’re too late.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Izzy caught sight of Mark and Sally in the water and, her heart racing with relief, she pushed against the throttle, nearly knocking herself off her feet as the boat lurched forward in her haste to reach them. Ignoring the pain in her ankle as she tried to stand firm, she gunned the boat straight ahead. She came in close, cut her speed, and leaned over the side of the boat to Mark.