Page 52 of Someone in the Water
1st August
The police officer’s words bounce off my skull. No, I won’t let them in.
When the paramedic officially pronounced Izzy dead on the beach as the storm broke and rain pounded down last night, I thought then that my emotions would overwhelm me. Shock, pain, loss, guilt. I’d swum away in terror from something that might just have been seaweed – turned into something deadlier by images from that nightmare – and left my friend to drown.
If the police had interviewed me last night, I wouldn’t have mentioned being grabbed at all – a mix of self-hatred and self-doubt – but nobody asked me anything. Only one police officer turned up with the paramedics – the man sat opposite me now – and after speaking to Raphael for a while, he addressed the rest of us together. He said that he knew we’d all been drinking, so there was no point interviewing anyone until we’d slept it off. And I’d been too grateful for the reprieve to wonder why he wasn’t treating the incident with more urgency.
I’d gone back to the accommodation block with the others, all of us too shellshocked to speak, and taken a shower. I’d tried to burn away the guilt with scalding water, but it hadn’t worked, so I’d shuffled back to my room and crawled into bed, making sure not to look at the empty one next to mine. The images had come on a loop for a while – Archie, Izzy, the deer, the churning black water, struggling for breath – but eventually I’d drifted into some state of unconsciousness.
When I woke up a few hours later, I went to the beach, like I needed to return to the scene of the crime. The clouds were still moody from the night’s storm, and I’d stared out to sea. Salvo was there, heading out in his fishing boat, water spraying up behind him. That’s when the sensation of being pulled under came back to me. And I knew then that it had happened. It was a real memory, not the by-product of a dream.
So when the police officer eventually got around to bringing me into the station for an interview this morning, and asked for my recollection of events, I told him everything, and he wrote my account down in his own language. At first, he didn’t seem interested – typical stupid behaviour by drunk English kids, Izzy tarred with the same brush by association – but then I mentioned someone pulling me under.
And the way he has now made sense of my account makes me want to vomit.
‘So do you think that could be it, mademoiselle?’ he presses. ‘That it was your friend in the water, struggling, reaching out for your help?’
The officer’s words finally muscle their way in, and the room shifts around me. I see Izzy’s lifeless body, feel the pull on my leg. ‘Can I go home now?’
He sighs. ‘You can, yes. We need a copy of your passport and your address in the UK. You may need to return for the inquest, but hopefully not. I believe we’ll be recommending a verdict ofdécès accidentel– death by misadventure – which wouldn’t require your attendance.’
I remember how I kicked out. Then I see the deer’s face become Izzy’s.
I push the chair back and stand up. The room is small and stacked high with files, and it’s too oppressive. I lunge for the door handle and step into the corridor. But the relief I was praying for vanishes as I see three generations of Paoli family sitting in a line of chairs opposite.
Salvo is in the middle, with Patrick curled up next to him. Raphael gets up from his chair on the opposite side and our eyes meet. I want to see sympathy there, a bond built on shared adversity, but there’s only a glare of hostility, like he blames me for Izzy’s death too. It hits me like a sharp slap, and I turn away as he disappears into the police officer’s room.
I look at Salvo and a burst of burning-hot rage engulfs me.
‘This is your fault,’ I hiss. ‘I was only scared because of you! The crazy ideas you put in my head!’
‘Scared? What do you mean?’
‘I felt something out there, someone. I thought they were trying to kill me! I didn’t think it could be Izzy!’
‘Ah, I see.’ His expression is serene, unaffected by my screaming. ‘Don’t hate yourself, Francesca. If you had a mazzeri dream about Izzy dying, which I am guessing is the real cause of your distress, then it was her destiny to die. You could never have saved her.’ His tone is calm. I want to scratch his ice-blue eyes out.
How can he be so fucking accepting?
‘No, this is on you,’ I spit out. ‘The mazzeri story is bullshit. You made me think that I had this terrible power, and that fucked my head up, and now a terrible thing has happened! But you did this, not me.’ I point a shaky finger at him. ‘This is your fault.’
Salvo taps Patrick, who straightens, and they both stand up. ‘Go home, Francesca. Take your grief and your accusations far away from here.’
‘You think I want to stay on this island?!’
A door slams and instinctively I turn towards the noise.
‘So you killed her,’ Raphael says, walking towards me.
I take a step back. ‘What?’
‘I’ve just read your statement.’
‘Why did they let you …’
‘I thought you were just too much of a coward to help rescue her. But it’s worse than that, isn’t it? She reached out to you, and you kicked her away.’
‘No, I …’
