Lie With Me

by Sabine Durrant

  I fell asleep. I don’t know for how long. When I woke, the diggers were still churning but I was alone: the sunbeds were empty, the pool a sheet of glass.

  Tina was standing at the foot of the steps. I could see her mouth move. ‘Paul!’ she was repeating. ‘Paul.’

  I jumped to my feet, the world black and white, dizziness swimming, my ears buzzing.

  ‘Paul,’ she said again, walking towards me. She was wearing another tent: this one made out of a faded 1960s-style fabric decorated with boats. ‘Didn’t anyone tell you to get ready?’

  ‘Get ready?’

  ‘We’re going to hire kayaks and have a picnic. We promised the kids we would this year. Alice wanted to get out, to escape from the noise. We’re all in the car waiting for you.’

  ‘Oh, OK.’ I made a rueful face, tugging down the corners of my mouth. ‘No one told me.’

  I put my shirt over my head and we walked together up the path and round the terrace to the front of the house. Faces at the car windows. The engine already running. It occurred to me that maybe I had been forgotten; someone had remembered me as they were just about to leave. No. Alice wouldn’t do that. Tina opened the boot, looked at me expectantly – ‘Sorry, it’s all that’s left’ – and I climbed in, folding myself up between two large canvas beach bags. I was doubled up on myself, my knees in my face, my neck rigid with the effort of keeping my head down.

  ‘Sorry for keeping you waiting,’ I said cheerfully to the car. ‘I was asleep.’

  Alice was just in front of me, in the middle of the last row of seats. She turned round. ‘You sleep through anything,’ she said.

  ‘I have a clear conscience.’

  She stretched out her hand, managed to touch my shoulder. ‘I should be so lucky,’ she said, and then mouthed. ‘Sorry.’

  Andrew drove down the track to the main road and then almost immediately right at the sign for Delfinos Beach Club. I couldn’t see much past the obstruction of the beach bags. ‘Isn’t this enemy territory?’ I said as we pulled into a car park at the end of a long tarmac drive. ‘Isn’t this hell’s mouth?’

  Everyone was piling out. An agonising wait while they stretched and collected, car doors sliding shut. Finally, the boot was lifted. Andrew was standing there. ‘It’s the only place you can get kayaks,’ he said crisply.

  Outside it was all white – blindingly so. White walls and white-painted pavements. The hotel was modern and angular, channelling as much an Eastern as a Greek vibe, with turquoise-painted windows, pots of bamboo, small windows. A few spiky palms were planted in beds of white gravel. A youngish woman carrying an enormous sack of bed linen came out of one door and disappeared into another. I could hear a small baby bleating in an upstairs room. Otherwise, it was oddly deserted. No sign of the marauding hordes that filled Alice and Andrew with such horror.

  Andrew took one of the canvas bags and handed me the other, then we trailed in a marauding horde of our own across the car park towards the end of the building, beyond which you could see a snapshot of beach: sparkling water with small, frolicking waves, rustic umbrellas made out of dried-palm matting, a strip of custard-yellow sand. Here’s where the people were. You could hear their shouts and ringing cries, that particular beach acoustic that’s like noisy birdsong. On the side of the building an arrow pointed to ‘Reception’ and Andrew, after telling the children to wait outside, pushed open a door, holding it after him for Alice and Tina. I hesitated, not for the first time unsure whether to ally myself with the adults or their offspring, but then followed.

  Inside was a small room, freezing cold and smelling strongly of chemical vanilla. An air-conditioning vent in the wall hummed, and a candle was burning on a long desk. Three men had looked to the door when we came in – one sitting the other side of the desk; the other two standing, both dressed in thick navy trousers and crisp white shirts with the sleeves rolled neatly to above the elbow. Police. Guns hung from their belts.

  Alice took a step forward. There was a catch in her voice, as if she had left it slightly too late to breathe in. ‘Lieutenant Gavras.’

  The older of the two policemen was tall and muscular with short salt and pepper hair, thick brown arms, and blue eyes within the tanned folds of his face. ‘Mrs Mackenzie,’ he said politely. ‘Mr Hopkins. Mrs Hopkins.’

  He put out his hand and shook theirs, one after the other, then adjusted his waistband, tucking in his shirt in at the back and sides. Patches of sweat bloomed under his arms. He introduced them to his younger colleague, Angelo Dasios, who had the symmetrical good looks of a film star, and to Iannis, ‘the hotel manager’, a fat man sporting sideburns and a patterned Nehru shirt. No one introduced me, pressed up against a noticeboard on the far wall, and I didn’t bother to push myself forward.

  They exchanged awkward pleasantries, about the weather, and the busy-ness or otherwise of the resort. ‘You got the new posters?’ Alice said.

  ‘I did indeed,’ he said, turning back. He smiled, his jawline firm. ‘We have distributed them to key points around the island.’

  ‘I haven’t seen any,’ Alice said. ‘I’m the one who has been putting them up, handing them out everywhere I can.’

  ‘Well, I can assure you,’ he said, his smile tight, ‘they have been allocated.’

  How much he must resent Alice and Andrew, I realised. He had had ten years of this. All this fuss for a dead girl.

  ‘I’ve seen one,’ I said, before I could stop myself. ‘On a lamp-post in Elconda.’

  Gavras craned his neck and noticed me. ‘There. An independent witness,’ he said, clearly taking me for a random hotel guest. ‘I assure you again, Mrs Mackenzie: no one wants to find Jasmine Hurley more than I do.’ He gave her name a particular pronunciation: Yazaminer Urley.

  A pause, and then Andrew said: ‘So we heard about the attack in Agios Stefanos last night. A rape, was it? Terrible. Just not what you want.’

  Gavras brought a finger up to an eyebrow and smoothed it. ‘It is why we are here,’ he said. ‘Not good.’

  Iannis, the hotel manager, let out a noise from somewhere between his nose and his throat, expressing agreement.

  ‘What happened?’ Tina asked. ‘Can you tell us?’

  ‘It was unfortunate,’ he said. ‘A young girl left her companions and went outside alone for some fresh air. It appears that, taking advantage of her inebriation, her attacker took her against her will into an isolated area and . . . well . . .’

  ‘Our girls were at the club last night,’ Tina said. ‘They say they didn’t see anything but if you want to talk to them, I’m sure they’d be happy to answer your questions.’

  ‘That is useful.’ The policeman pulled a small pad of paper from his breast pocket. ‘I am trying to collect a list of everyone who was there. The girls’ names . . .?’

  ‘Phoebe Mackenzie and Daisy Hopkins.’ Alice spoke before Tina could answer. ‘You can contact them through me.’

  I waited for her to mention Louis, but she didn’t.

  ‘Is that it?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’ She was standing very still, her hands behind her back, her fingers tightly laced together. ‘Lieutenant Gavras: did the girl see her attacker?’

  ‘That I can’t say. What I can say is that we have a suspect we are hoping to take in for questioning.’

  ‘Oh, do you? Someone staying here? Someone she knew, maybe?’

  ‘I shouldn’t say any more. It’s why in fact . . . as I say . . .’ He caught the eye of the receptionist and held it.

  I saw Alice’s shoulders relax a tiny bit. ‘Anyway,’ she said, picking up on his unspoken message. ‘We’d better get on.’

  ‘Yes.’ Gavras gave a small bow. ‘I have taken up enough of your time.’

  But we still had to pay for kayaks as well as the ‘day membership’ that was required to access them. Gavras and his handsome sidekick had to move out of the way while Andrew produced his credit card and Iannis brought out a dial-up machine from under the desk. Andrew input h
is number. It hadn’t occurred to me to bring any money, so I quietly left.

  Outside, there was no sign of Frank or Archie. Phoebe and Daisy had moved away and were talking to a couple of girls just in sight on the edge of the beach. Louis, however, had slunk to the ground and was slumped against the wall, his legs stretched across the path. His eyes were bloodshot and he had a greenish pallor; he was swallowing hard. ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘Do you want some water?’

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  The door opened and the others came out. Alice made a small exclamation of dismay when she saw Louis crumpled on the pavement and put out her hands to pull him to his feet. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he muttered as he stumbled forward. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

  ‘OK. Hang on.’ She looked frantically around and then seeing an arrow sign for ‘Shop and Toilets’ began to steer him back towards the car park. Over her shoulder, she shouted, ‘Wait for us.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Andrew said. ‘It’s probably just sunstroke.’

  She put her hand up to acknowledge she’d heard and disappeared around the corner.

  Tina and Andrew stood staring at the sea, with bored half-smiles on their faces. I told them I was going to have a quick smoke and I walked away a few feet, out of the shadow and into the sharp sun. I lit a cigarette and surveyed the scene. It’s always odd when you discover another holiday that’s happening only a few feet from your own. Not an isolated villa up in the hills, but a beach with activity, noise, organisation. The smell of coconut oil, and Nivea Factor 50. On the shoreline rows of Lasers and kayaks lay like beached whales. A mother was trying to help a toddler build a castle. Two girls in bikinis threw a frisbee back and forth. Shrieks of pleasure from a volleyball game; splashes from a pool, somewhere over to the right, set back perhaps behind those palm trees. Other people. Crowds. I felt a sudden pang of longing for Alex’s Bloomsbury flat; for the primary school children’s voices that were sometimes carried on the wind.

  I turned, stubbed out my cigarette in the imported sand. I was almost near enough to Phoebe and Daisy to be able to hear their conversation with the two strangers – girls with long wet hair wrapped in matching blue and white striped towels. I took a step closer.

  ‘She was like really, really drunk,’ one of the girls was saying. ‘She’d been like drinking all day. That’s why she went in the sea afterwards – it was stupid because the salt water got rid of all the evidence.’

  ‘I don’t think she even really knew what was happening,’ the other girl said.

  ‘And who do you think did it?’ Phoebe asked.

  ‘Everyone thinks it was Kylie’s brother, Sam. He really fancied her and he was following her around all night.’

  ‘Which one was he?’ Daisy asked.

  ‘He’s kind of young looking, bit spotty, long brown hair, bit over his eyes.’

  The child with the sandcastle began wailing and hitting the bucket. I missed what Phoebe said next, and then the girls suddenly moved apart. Andrew, Tina and Alice, with Louis trailing, had emerged from the side of the building. The girls slipped past them, eyes averted.

  Alice watched them go. ‘Who were they?’

  Phoebe threw her hair over her shoulder. ‘Just friends from Club 19. We were arranging to meet them tonight.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll be going to Club 19 tonight,’ Alice said.

  ‘I doubt it will be open,’ said Andrew. ‘And even if it is, you must do what your mother says.’

  ‘That’s not fair. Their parents are letting them go out tonight,’ Phoebe protested. ‘And they actually knew the girl who was raped. I’m not even joking. They talked to her.’

  Andrew said: ‘We have your best interests at heart.’ God, he could be pompous.

  Phoebe said, ‘It’s not going to happen to us. We’re not going to get raped because a) we’re not stupid enough to split up, b) we’re not going to get drunk and c) we wouldn’t flirt like she did, lead some weirdo on.’

  I mused for a moment on the self-absorption of the teenage mind. In order to be allowed to go out, Daisy and Phoebe were laying as much blame on the victim as they could. They were presenting many of the same arguments I’d caused offence with that morning. And then Daisy said, ‘I mean, she was obviously coming on to him – she was wearing his shoes because she’d broken her flip-flops.’

  I’d had my back to them for much of this discussion, but I turned.

  ‘Where was she from?’

  ‘Newcastle, I think.’

  I turned back to face the sea. Broken flip-flops. Newcastle. It sounded like it might be the girl from the bus who’d been raped. The one who looked like Rita Ora. ‘You knob.’ What was her name? Laura. I’d taken the attack lightly, with no real thought for the victim, but now it felt horrible and real. Anxieties I had been suppressing rose to the surface. Was Louis involved? Was Alice covering for him?

  ‘Excuse me.’

  I turned round. A bald, thickset policeman was approaching from the other direction, trudging across the sand in his big shoes, the flash of a gun at his belt. He was holding a young boy above the elbow. The boy, who was only about fifteen, was wearing board shorts and a baggy vest, his feet bare, his arms long and thin. It was hard not to notice the difference in their sizes, not to imagine the thumb-print bruise being pressed into his arm. He had a long narrow face, with hollow eyes. He was biting his lip.

  I was blocking the path and I stepped out of the way. They passed me, the man still gripping the lad’s arm. The boy looked once over his shoulder, clumsily rubbing the palm of his hand in his eye, and then they headed back along the side of the building, towards Reception.

  We had all stopped to watch. No one spoke for a moment, then Tina turned, her mouth dropping. ‘Surely he isn’t a suspect?’ she said. ‘He looked about twelve.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘God. Poor kid. I mean, I suppose they know what they’re doing?’

  ‘Of course they do,’ Alice said. Louis had slunk down again on to the sand and she gave him a nudge with her foot. ‘Come on, stand up. Let’s go.’ She seemed unaffected by the boy’s arrest. In fact, if anything, she looked relieved. She gave me a perky smile and set off towards the kayaks without a care in the world.

  Chapter Eleven

  The water beneath me didn’t look cobalt blue as it had from a distance, but black and threatening, full of danger. Beneath me were crags, jagged pumice with snags and dips, sudden patches of darkness.

  I worried about tipping over, sinking down into the abyss. I tried to concentrate on the paddle, on the angle of the blades. It was hard work and I was out of breath, that nasty hot feeling scouring the back of my throat. The big yellow life jacket they’d made me wear was chafing beneath my armpits.

  The hotel receded, two white cubes above the swell. To my left was a small island – ‘Serena’s rock’? Alice had left me to my own devices: ‘You don’t mind, do you? I need to keep going or I’ll capsize.’ She was way ahead, paddling side by side with Andrew. Tina had volunteered to drive Louis round, but Phoebe and Daisy, Frank and Archie kept doubling back to taunt me, weaving back and forth to show how easy it was, and then setting off again at mocking speed. ‘Got the hang of it now?’ Frank yelled at one point, and then added something that made Archie laugh.

  I battled round the chain of rocks at the mouth of the bay. It seemed to take ages. I kept hacking at the water, not cutting through it. By the time I had got round them and then fought the current to change course, I was alone. The others I could see had reached the small cove, and were pulling their boats out of the water. Tina was standing at the edge, a hand shielding her eyes. She waved, and I raised an elbow in reply. Salt stung the corners of my mouth. I ploughed on. Alice and Andrew were bent down over the boats, heads close. Louis was sitting on the other side of the inlet, throwing stones into the water. Why hadn’t Alice told the policeman he’d been at the nightclub? Did she think he might be involved, or worse know? No, it was more likely just a natural insti
nct to keep her son out of trouble. But still – Andrew should have encouraged her to tell the truth. It was the right thing to do – whatever Louis’s involvement. It didn’t surprise me he hadn’t. There was something unsavoury about Andrew, something off, a discrepancy between his actual physical standing and how he wanted to be seen. I kept coming back to the way his eyes had followed those young German girls, and then how he had lied about doing so this morning. At least, for all my failings, I was honest. I was the one she should be listening to, not him. I felt a twinge of something unfamiliar, and realised it was what it might be like to occupy the moral high ground.

  I reached the shallows to cheers and cries of congratulation. Archie and Frank had been despatched to help me out of the water: ‘One, two, three, yank,’ Frank shouted, heaving the kayak with exaggerated effort. As I divested myself of my yellow straitjacket, a small smile played around Phoebe’s lips. ‘Nasty bit of chafing there, Paul,’ she said. ‘You might need some cream.’

  She was lying on a towel. I let my eyes run over her body. ‘Are you offering to rub it in?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  Alice separated from Andrew and came over. She put her arms around my shoulders and held me, laying her head briefly on my shoulder. I felt the damp swell of her Speedo against my chest, causing me to stir, even through my exhaustion. ‘Poor Paul,’ she said, kissing my sunburnt shoulders.

  ‘You should have said you’d never done it before,’ Andrew called. ‘Though how you could have reached forty-four without once rowing a kayak, I’ll never know!’

  He laughed to hide the jibe. A little knife, that was his weapon of choice.

  Tina was kneeling on a threadbare tartan rug, laying out rolls and tomatoes and unfolding greaseproof packets containing ham and a plastic-looking cheese. She reached into a coolbox for a bottle of beer and thrust it into my hand. A rash of freckles had sprung up across her nose and cheeks; she’d caught the sun. ‘There you go,’ she said. ‘Cure for all ills.’