Deceive Me

by Karen Cole

  I’m not at all sure that I will, but I’m hoping that she hasn’t changed her password since I last borrowed her phone. I tap in the numbers and letters praying that I’m right.

  And, just like that, I’m in.

  I stand up, carry the phone downstairs, away from Andreas, and sit in the kitchen, tapping on the messages icon.

  It’s all there, all the calls and messages she sent in the few days before her disappearance. With a mixture of excitement and trepidation, I scroll through them backwards in time. The last was to Tom on Sunday evening at nine thirty. Tom where are u? she wrote.

  There was no reply.

  It fits with what he told us about Sunday evening, I think.

  Further back, there are more messages to and from Tom. Mainly arranging where and when to meet. There’s no sexting, thank God, though she has sent him a photo of herself in a bikini drinking what looks like a cocktail.

  There are only two messages to Andreas a couple of weeks ago. See you at 4pm. And then Thank you with a heart emoji. I’m guessing that was when they went to see Dr Stavrides together. As well as the messages to Andreas, there are lots of messages to Maria and other friends. I trawl through them, trying to make sense of the jumble of seemingly innocent, silly teenage banter. But there’s nothing that gives me any clue to where she could be.

  ‘Have you found anything?’

  Andreas has come downstairs and he sits opposite me, taking out a pack of cigarettes and lighting one. He’s trying to appear nonchalant, but I notice that his hands are shaking.

  ‘Where is she, Andreas?’ I ask again.

  He frowns. ‘I told you already. I don’t know.’ He stands up, stubbing out his cigarette and looking pointedly at his watch. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry but I need to go to bed. I’ve got school tomorrow.’

  I’m certain that he’s lying. But how to get the truth out of him? I could threaten him with the police, I suppose, but that would mean answering some awkward questions myself.

  I pick up the phone again. There must be something, something I’ve missed. I open her internet browser and a Wikipedia page pops up. It’s about Varosha.

  Of course, Varosha, I think excitedly. I click on the link and read.

  Varosha is an abandoned Southern quarter of the Cypriot city of Famagusta. Before the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 it was the modern tourist area of the city. Its inhabitants fled during the invasion and it has remained abandoned ever since.

  I remember the day we visited the Roman ruins at Salamis and then afterwards went to the beach at Varosha to look at the empty city. Grace had been distinctly unimpressed. ‘A load of old falling-down buildings, big deal,’ was her grumpy teenager verdict. So why the sudden interest now? Alongside the text there are several photos of tall, empty apartment blocks and abandoned hotels. I look at them thoughtfully. They remind me of something.

  ‘Where was your family hotel again?’ I ask Andreas. He looks startled. ‘What?’ His reaction is so stark and obvious that I know I’m on to something. Before he can stop me, I run into the living room and snatch the picture off the wall.

  I slap it down on the table in front of him.

  ‘Your family hotel,’ I say. ‘It was in Varosha, wasn’t it?’

  His eyes widen but he stays stubbornly silent.

  ‘Grace is in Varosha, isn’t she?’

  He doesn’t meet my eyes. ‘I don’t know,’ he says.

  I pick up my phone. It’s time to put the pressure on, call his bluff. ‘Well, in that case, I’ll have to ring the police,’ I declare. ‘I think they’ll be interested to know what I found in the drawer in your bedroom.’

  Andreas looks alarmed. ‘Please don’t do that . . .’

  I swipe the screen and scroll through the names, slowly and deliberately. ‘Here it is,’ I say, my finger hovering. ‘Detective Dino Markides.’

  He tries to grab the phone from me. ‘Okay, okay. Maybe I can help you,’ he says.

  I slide the phone back in my pocket. ‘Look, I don’t know exactly what Grace has told you,’ I say more gently. ‘I just want to talk to her, that’s all. I’m not going to force her to come home if she doesn’t want to, I promise.’

  He stares at the kitchen tiles. Then he raises his head and looks searchingly into my eyes. ‘You promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘Okay,’ he says, giving a big sigh. ‘I’ll take you to her.’

  Chapter 42

  I wait in the car while Andreas gets dressed. I can hardly believe this is finally happening. He knows where Grace is. He’s going to take me there. I’m so close now. I pray he doesn’t change his mind.

  Please let her be safe and well, I say to myself. Please let her be safe and well. I repeat this over and over in my head like a mantra. Right now, I really don’t care about anything else.

  While I wait for Andreas I fiddle with Grace’s phone. I click on an icon at the corner of the screen, bringing up her internet search history, scrolling past the Varosha tab.

  The list is long and comprehensive, every little search marked: Facebook login, Snapchat login, Instagram, synonym for fate. Spark notes for Romeo and Juliet, Wikipedia, searches for various artists on YouTube, searches ranging from Superorganism to Bob Dylan.

  I scroll down further, and a search immediately leaps out at me, made at five p.m. on Saturday.

  Gloucestershire Echo. Body of baby found in local beauty spot.

  Hands trembling, I click on the link and the article appears on the screen.

  At the top there’s a split-screen photo, two pictures of the same lake. One is a promotional shot on a sunny day, silver water sparkling, spring flowers and rushes fringing the banks. The other is of the same lake two weeks ago. The sky is full of dark grey clouds which are reflected in the water. The area has been cordoned off and in the foreground men in white jumpsuits are milling around.

  There’s a café with a terrace built on stilts over the water in the background. I stare at the dark, deep water. For a second, it feels as if I’m submerged in that water, as if I’m drowning – drowning in thick murky water.

  I force myself to read the article.

  BODY OF BABY FOUND IN LOCAL BEAUTY SPOT

  Fishermen at Childon Water Park made a gruesome discovery yesterday, when they found the remains of a four-month-old baby in the boating lake. The remains, which were weighted down with bricks and wrapped in a plastic bag, appear to be at least ten years old, police have revealed, but they have refused to speculate as to whether they could be the remains of baby Daisy Cooper, who went missing from outside her house in 2001, sparking a nationwide hunt.

  At the time several people of interest were questioned, including Daisy’s father, Gerald Cooper . . .

  I can’t read any more. Blackness is curling at the edge of my mind. I feel as if I’m about to faint. I hold on to the edge of the table waiting for the dizziness to pass.

  ‘What is it?’ asks Andreas as he climbs into the car.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say, fighting a wave of nausea. I close the page quickly so that he can’t read it and try to steady my breathing.

  But it’s far from nothing. This is it. There can be no doubt now. I know why Grace was reading this article and I know why she’s run away.

  I’ve buried the past for so long I’d almost let myself forget what happened all those years ago. But, if I’m honest, a part of me has always known that this day would come. It’s the day of reckoning, the day I have to face the terrible things I’ve done. And I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being punished. I’m being punished, and the punishment is almost biblical in its ferocity. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. A child for a child.

  Chapter 43

  ‘Have you got your passport?’ Andreas asks.

  I try to gather my shattered thoughts. ‘Er, yes, I think so,’ I say shakily. I rummag
e in my bag and find the passport still in the front pocket from my visit to the North a few days ago. ‘But Grace didn’t have her passport with her. We checked.’

  Andreas shrugs. ‘We didn’t use the border crossing. She knew the police would easily find her if she did.’

  I start up the engine and drive out towards the main road, thinking about his front yard, the shabby tarpaulin.

  ‘Of course. Your boat. You went around the coast by sea.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But how exactly? There are guards posted at the beach.’ I’m not sure if there are guards on the Greek side of the border but I remember seeing one in the North when we went to Famagusta beach a few months ago. A bored-looking Turkish soldier, not much older than Grace, standing in a sentry box, staring out to sea.

  Andreas taps his fingers on the dashboard. ‘I met her on the beach near the power station. There’s never anyone there. We sailed far out so the guards wouldn’t see us and then came in again when we were safely on the other side. It was easy.’

  We’re on the motorway now. The road is virtually empty, just a couple of other cars on the road, drunk drivers crawling home. We drive on through scrubby farmland, the skeletons of old farm machinery lit up by our headlights. I think about them sailing out at night and I think about the marina in Ayia Napa, all the boats with women’s names.

  ‘Marilena. It’s the name of your boat, isn’t it?’ I say with a sudden flash of understanding.

  Andreas stares straight ahead at the road. ‘What? Oh, yeah, we named it after our mother.’

  ‘So that’s why Grace had Marilena written on that piece of paper,’ I murmur, more to myself than to Andreas.

  Andreas doesn’t answer. I don’t think he’s really listening. Our headlights light up the billboards at the side of the road. Adverts for fast food restaurants and university courses – pictures of bright-eyed, clean-cut young people wearing mortar boards.

  ‘Why did you help her?’ I ask.

  ‘She’s my friend and anyway, I couldn’t let him keep hurting her.’

  He means Chris, I suppose.

  ‘It was you who told the newspaper that Grace was afraid of her stepdad,’ I realise.

  He nods. ‘Yeah. I could have said more. I wish I had.’

  ‘Grace’s dad was not abusing her,’ I say firmly. ‘When we see her, she’ll tell you that herself.’ I drive on, battling a queasy mixture of emotions. On the one hand, I’m relieved that I was right about Chris being a good man, a good father. On the other, I’m angry with Grace for letting Andreas believe something so terrible. But underlying both these feelings is a deep vein of guilt. And I’m appalled to contemplate what Grace must be going through, to think that letting Andreas believe Chris had abused her was preferable to telling the truth.

  We drive the rest of the way to the border in silence, each lost in our own thoughts. When we arrive, I park and climb out to show our passports to the border official. If the guard thinks it strange that an unrelated middle-aged English woman and a Greek teenage boy are travelling alone in the middle of the night, he shows no curiosity.

  ‘Just carry on straight towards Famagusta,’ says Andreas as I get back in the car.

  Grey light is just beginning to seep into the sky as we drive past the thick stone Venetian walls that surround the old city centre of Famagusta. We reach a roundabout and pass a huge bronze statue of Atatürk’s head and then take the turning to the beach.

  We park near the beach opposite a closed-up kiosk with spades and inflatables outside and look up at the abandoned tower blocks.

  ‘What kind of place is this for a young girl?’ I shiver. I’m thinking of the stories I’ve heard of poisonous snakes thriving in the long dry grass and of packs of wild dogs prowling the area.

  ‘It was Grace’s idea,’ Andreas says. ‘It’s the only place she was sure she wouldn’t be found.’

  ‘But aren’t there lots of Turkish soldiers here? There’s a barracks, isn’t there?’

  Andreas shrugs as he climbs out of the car. ‘If you’re careful, you can easily avoid them,’ he says, heading for the barrier.

  The whole area is fenced off and barricaded with rusted-up old oil drums. There’s a red sign with a picture of a soldier that says ‘Entry forbidden’ in four different languages.

  Ignoring the warning, Andreas ducks down and crawls through a gap under the fence.

  ‘Come on,’ he hisses, holding the wire up for me. I hesitate, worried that someone will see us, but it’s early morning and there’s no one about, so I scramble through after him, scratching myself on the fence in the process. A trickle of blood runs down the back of my leg. I ignore it and look around.

  Row upon row of tower blocks stand empty and crumbling, looming over us in the early morning light. Their windows gape silently like wounds as we walk down the old, potholed road. Weeds nudge their way up through the cracks and rusted-up cans are strewn amongst them. Something scuttles through the grass. I try not to think about what it could be.

  ‘How much further?’ I ask Andreas. He’s walking fast, striding ahead of me, and I’m struggling to keep up with him as we wind our way through a maze of streets further back from the beach. Most of the houses here are older, colonial buildings made of sandstone, shutters hanging off at angles.

  ‘Here,’ says Andreas suddenly. And I look up and find myself staring at the same tall building I saw in the photo at Andreas’s house. It has the same curved balconies and above the portico a couple of the letters have fallen off but it’s still recognisable as the Grecian Bay Hotel.

  The door swings open easily – which means, I hope, that someone has been here recently. The reception area is dark and smells musty; wallpaper is hanging off the walls and covered in mould. Rubble and broken glass crunch under our feet as we pick our way down the hallway.

  ‘Grace?’ Andreas calls out.

  There’s no answer. He opens a door on the right into what appears to have once been a large bar. It’s been left pretty much as it must have been in 1974. There’s a disembowelled sofa, the springs poking out, and there’s a dark wooden bar with beer pumps attached. There are even a couple of glasses still intact.

  And there, curled up on the floor, asleep, is Grace.

  Chapter 44

  She’s alive.

  In this moment nothing else matters. I forget it all. I forget Andreas standing awkwardly in the doorway. I forget the reason she’s here in the first place. She’s alive and everything else pales into insignificance.

  I run up and crouch down beside her, tears of joy streaming down my face.

  ‘Gracie?’ I whisper.

  She doesn’t stir, she’s so deeply asleep. Her hair falls lankly over her face, and her narrow chest rises and falls with her breathing. She’s wearing just a bra and shorts and a dirty-looking sleeping bag is twisted in her arms. I’m aware of Andreas watching from the doorway so I untangle the sleeping bag from her arms and cover her with it.

  ‘Grace?’ I say more loudly and shake her by the shoulder.

  Her eyes open and I see her struggle between sleep and consciousness. For one blissful second, she blinks at me sleepily and her eyes light up. It’s a look I remember from the past, the way she used to look at me when she was a little girl, an instinctive reaction to the sight of her mother – the love of a baby, borne of dependency. Then just as quickly as it appears, the light is gone. Her face snaps shut and she’s teenage Grace again. Fully awake. She sits up, her blue eyes dull with hostility.

  ‘Grace.’ I kneel next to her and wrap her in my arms. She feels limp. I can feel her skinny shoulders, her heart beating fast under her ribs and her breath is sour with sleep and neglect.

  ‘Grace, we’ve been so worried about you,’ I murmur.

  I let go of her and sit back, looking at her. She looks awful. There are dark shadows around her eyes and her
hair is dirty and tangled. She looks as if she’s lost weight and it’s not as if she had that much spare to lose in the first place.

  She stares back at me warily, reminding me of a stray cat, backed into a corner, back arched and hissing.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ she says. ‘How did you . . . ?’ Her voice is hoarse like she hasn’t spoken to anyone for a while. She glares at me then up at Andreas, noticing him for the first time and pulling the sleeping bag up around her chest. ‘You!’ she sneers. ‘I should’ve known I couldn’t trust you.’

  Andreas shuffles uneasily. ‘She promised she wouldn’t make you come home,’ he says.

  ‘Don’t blame him. He didn’t tell me, I guessed.’

  I gaze at my daughter. This is a Grace I don’t recognise. Somewhere inside is the Grace I love, I’m sure, but right now she’s hidden well. She looks so thin and drawn. I wonder what she’s been eating. How has she been living?

  ‘Are you hungry? Thirsty?’ I ask. I wish I’d thought to bring some food. At least I have my water bottle with me. I offer it to her, but she bats it away.

  ‘No.’ She sighs heavily, stands up and pulls on a T-shirt over her dirty bra. Andreas looks away, embarrassed.

  ‘Have you got a cigarette?’ she asks him coolly.

  ‘Sure,’ he says, eager to please. He rummages in his pocket, produces a packet and hands her one.

  She lights the cigarette, staring at me defiantly, and takes a drag. I think how beautiful she looks in this moment, despite everything. I think how resourceful she must have been to live like this and I’m proud of her and I love her so much but I’m also terrified. Terrified of what she knows, what she must be going through and of what she might do. I look down at her belly. It’s still flat but is there life in there, growing right now inside my girl, who’s still not much more than a child herself?

  ‘Andreas, I’d like to talk to Grace alone if you don’t mind,’ I say.

  ‘Well, er . . . is that okay?’ He looks over at Grace who shrugs.