Page 79 of Deep Blue Lies
“Your friend Imogen arrived yesterday and checked into the Aegean View Hotel – you probably know this. It seems as she was arriving – into the airport, and taking taxi, into the hotel – she was paying with cash, from a purse with many banknotes. Too many. This was noted at the hotel, but perhaps noticed also at the airport, who can say…?”
“Noticed by who?”
He pauses, makes a face, but then decides to be understanding of my ignorance. “Unfortunately there are gangs of Albanians who target tourists on the island. Not just here on Alythos, but across Greece. It is a wide problem.”
I stare at him, not understanding.
“Our neighbours to the north.” He sighs, like he’s talking about a troublesome family member. “It is a difficult place to live, and many cross the border – illegally of course – to target the tourists here.”
“But I wasmeetingher. She was going to speak with me, to explain something. What if she was attacked for that instead?”
“I think this is unlikely, we did not find the purse, nor Ms Grant’s telephone, most probably it was stolen.”
“No, no. The thing she was going to explain is important, it might be dangerous.”
He seems taken aback by this. But at least he seems interested.
“What was she going to explain?”
I pause, trying to think clearly. “I don’t know, that’s the point. She didn’t get the chance to tell me, but couldn’t thatbethe motive? Someone attacked her to stop her talking?”
He frowns at me now, like he doesn’t understand suddenly. “What was it…” – he stops, searching for the word – “referring to, do you know this?”
I take a breath before replying, but nod at the same time. “She was going to tell me what happened, here on Alythos, when I was born. Something about my mother.” I try to make my explanation sound heavy and important, but as I finish I realise just how weak it really sounds. “What I mean is, there was something she had to tell me, about what happened when I was a baby.” I want to tell him about the other baby, the one involved in the murders, but I can’t because that’s not me. He gives me an awkward smile and glances to the door, like he wants to get away.
“OK, well I think this is not something to kill over, yes?” He gives me a final smile, dismissive. I sit back. One of his words hits me hard.
Kill?I know she’s been attacked. Did someone really try andkillher? New questions come to my mind quickly.
“How is Imogen?” I ask. “Where is she now, is there a hospital here on the island?”
The policeman nods now, happier to be on familiar ground again. “Yes. Your friend is alive, but it is serious. This is all I know for the moment.”
“Can I see her?”
“This you will need to check at the hospital.”
“What hospital, where do I need to go?”
He looks uncomfortable for a moment, but answers anyway.
“She was taken first to the medical centre here in Kastria, but I believe now she has been transferred to the hospital in Panachoria. It is larger, with more facilities.” He stands, and this time it’s clear the interview is over.
SIXTY-NINE
I phone Sophia in the reception area of the police station, then wait outside until her and Maria arrive. Right away they agree to take me to see Imogen, and we drive the few minutes down to the ferry terminal. We have to wait here, and I explain everything that happened at the beach. On the ferry Maria hands me a coffee, and I sit drinking it, staring at the churning white water pushed out behind as we chug away from the island.
The world is slightly different on the mainland. Even though we’re still a half-hour from the city of Panachoria, it already feels busier, less cut-off, and as we get closer to Panachoria there’s that city feel, dual-carriageway roads full of cars, a train running by the side and planes moving overhead. The hospital is on the outskirts, a big building with multiple car parks and different departments, most of the signs in Greek. We go inside, into the Emergency Department, and from there we’re told it’s Neurology we need. Finally we find it, and Maria and Sophia explain at the reception desk who we are and that we’re looking for Imogen Grant, the woman who was attacked on the beach. At least I assume that’s what they’re saying, they speak mostly in Greek, switching only to English when it’s clear the person they’re talking to understands it. I find myself drifting away, first mentally then physically,stepping past the desk where they’re speaking and looking into the ward beyond. I did a placement on a Neurology Intensive Care Unit when I was studying. And I’d begun to think that maybe this was where I might like to specialise. If I hadn’t been kicked out. It’s strange to be back now. The ward here is made up of private rooms, the door of the first room is half open and when I just move a few steps to see the patient, to my amazement it’s her – Imogen – in the bed. I look back, but Maria and Sophia are still talking with the woman at the desk, not looking at me. So I just go inside.
She’s hooked up to a ventilator that hisses slowly as it fills and empties. Two IV lines run into her left wrist, and there’s a plastic endotracheal tube taped into her mouth. Her eyes are closed, and she’s either asleep or unconscious, I’m not sure which. I’m sort of familiar with the machines around her, I learned about them. There’s an ICP – an intercranial pressure monitor – which will be tracking swelling inside her skull. She has a catheter, I see the output bag hanging under the bed. A pulse oximeter is clipped to her finger. I move closer, checking the readings. Her heart rate is stable, oxygen saturation high. That’s good.
I’m startled by a voice behind me in clipped Greek and I spin to see a doctor, a woman, frowning at me from the doorway. Before she can speak again, Maria cuts in, presumably explaining who I am. The doctor listens, then nods and when she speaks again it’s in English. She comes into the room and picks up the notes from the foot of the bed.
“You are the next of kin?” she asks me. Maria gives me a look that I should say yes.
“Um, yeah.”
“Ava...?”
