Page 104 of Deep Blue Lies
“I was twenty-four years old, Ava. I have no idea why Mandy thought I was a suitable person to look after her child.”
Her words shock me. Even amongst this, that she can still speak like this shocks me.
“So what really happened?”
“You’ve heard the story…” – she shrugs meekly – “It was an accident, a complete freak accident that could have happened to anyone. We were just unlucky.”
“Not as unlucky as the baby.”
These words seem to wound her, she tries a smile to acknowledge this truth, but it doesn’t come out.
“It was more Simon’s fault than mine. He said so, at the time. I should have gone to the police, I know I should, but he begged me not to. He…” Her voice quietens, as if this part cannot be said out loud. “He had drugs on him. In our panic when the boat capsized they went everywhere. Powder down the seats. It would have been impossible to clean it up had they checked the boat with dogs. The police would have taken this into account, and he’d have been put in prison for life. And Greek prisons…” She leaves the sentence unfinished.
“So it was all Simon’s fault?” I ask.
She opens her mouth to reply, then lifts a hand, as if acknowledging how this must sound.
“What could I do, Ava? I was in shock, I was terrified, and I thought I loved him. I didn’t know what else to do.”
I listen to her words, and for the first time I actually hear them. What it must have been like to make a mistake like that. Because whatever happened next, that part at leastwasa mistake. And I’ve made plenty of my own.
“What happened after that? What really happened?”
Karen looks away from me, pursing her lips like she’s reliving it. “We took the yacht back into the harbour in town, and I cameback here. I don’t know if we were serious – we weren’t thinking straight, that’s for sure – but I came for my passport.” She shakes her head, as if accepting how crazy an idea it was to try and run. “And then, when I got to my room…”
“You found Imogen, in labour?”
She nods.
“You can’t imagine, Ava. You simply can’t imagine what that was like.”
She’s right. I can’t.
“She’d lost a lot of blood. The baby was…twisted inside her. I suppose that’s why it hadn’t shown. I had to make sense of what was going on. I wanted to get help, but Imogen begged me not to. She told me she’d kill herself if I left her, even for a moment. So I did the only thing I could, I helped her deliver the baby.”
We both fall silent, me imagining, her remembering, I suppose.
“It was Imogen’s idea. To swap them.”
I glance back, surprised. I wasn’t ready to move on.
“I told her my story and she couldn’t believe it, but she was always a bit hippy. She said it was the universe ‘finding a way’.” She shakes her head, then shrugs. “An hour after the baby was born, she wrapped it in a blanket and went to Mandy’s room – she was back by then from her trip to Athens. She tried to give it back to her, but of course Mandy knew at once. So Imogen panicked. She picked up a lamp, the base was made of rock. She hit her with it, beating her over and over to stop her from yelling out. Then she left the baby there and came running back to get me.
“I was stunned. I had no idea what to do. I wanted to call the police, I wanted to do the right thing, but I couldn’t. Simon would go to prison, and now Imogen as well – the two people I loved most in the world. Their lives would be over.”
“And Jason?”
Karen’s eyes, which are downcast and staring at the battered, sun-weathered old bar top, lift and meet mine for a moment.
“That was Imogen too. She said we could use the gun and make it look like a murder-suicide. I was in no state, aftereverything that had happened. It was Imogen who called him on the radio. Her who waited behind the door with the gun, her who leapt on him the moment he walked in. And then she shot him. She did it all, Ava.”
I take a long moment, considering this. I can feel my heart racing in my chest, the blood pounding in my head.
“And me? I really am Imogen’s baby?”
She hesitates. Then nods. “I wanted to give you a happier ending than the orphanage you ended up in, I felt we owed you that much.”
I screw my eyes shut. Somehow, despite everything, I still want to believe this. Maybe I evenshouldbelieve her? I can feel her staring at me, willing me to, and when I open my eyes, hers are fixed on mine, pleading with me to understand. I can feel the empathy radiating off her body.
