Page 69 of Someone in the Water
‘And then I came out to Corsica in secret, and you were forced to come rescue me.’
‘I’ll do anything for you, I promise. But it was scary. Coming to this hotel, at this time of year.’
‘And someone here knows about your vulnerability and is using it against you. To stress you out, or scare you away.’
‘I hope that’s all it is,’ I whisper.
Lola looks back at the notes and takes a long breath. ‘You dreamed about me, didn’t you?’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘That’s why you’re so desperate to take me home. You think some dark magic is going to kill me.’
I look out to sea. ‘I have been fighting it with every ounce of sanity I have. But now someone is sending me these notes. I thought the first one might just be a nasty joke, but look at the words of the second one: “Who will die first? Mother or daughter?” That’s a clear threat. And there’s a countdown.’
‘A count up, you mean.’
‘Sorry?’
‘One, two, three, four. And the first note only counts to three.’
I look down at the notes in Lola’s hand. ‘Yes, you’re right. Look, I don’t know what it means, but I do know it’s threatening.’
Lola furrows her brow. ‘The first note only mentions me, the second talks about both of us.’ She scrapes her bottom lip with her teeth, then looks up. ‘What if it’s a body count? I’m the third, which is why the first note counts that far, and you’re the fourth.’
‘But that means …’
‘There have been two before us.’
The waves lap against the shoreline. Cloud has gathered around the mountain peaks in the distance, and it reminds me of a childhood film, a magic kingdom in the sky.
Two before us. If Lola is right …
‘Izzy and Archie,’ I whisper.
Lola
29th July
Lola puts down her newly charged phone and sucks on the straw. Keeps sucking until her nostrils burn with carbon dioxide gas. She can’t believe this used to be her mum’s staple drink; it tastes like rocket fuel.
‘Another Long Island iced tea?’ the barman asks. Not Patrick, but a young man with blonde hair cropped so short that he looks bald until his stubble catches in the overhead light.
‘Sure, why not.’ She probably shouldn’t be drinking. Not now she knows someone’s sending menacing notes to her mum. Threatening to kill them both. But that conversation on the beach, it was a lot. A little numbness is required.
While she hates to admit it, when she thought she was solving a two-decade-old crime, it was almost fun. Playing the detective, cracking a cold case like she was leading a Netflix docu-drama. But things are different now. She might be in real danger, and more than that, so might her mum. The woman who has lived in the shadow of a crime for more than half her life.
Un, deux, trois, quatre. Does the fact it was written in French mean anything? Is it more likely to be Raphael than Jack or Dom or Anna because he’s a native French speaker? But they’ve all been living in French-speaking Corsica for years, and anyway, everyone over five knows those numbers. It doesn’t tell her anything. The only thing she knows for sure is that it’s not Salvo because he’s dead. And for some reason that makes her feel relieved – Patrick’s beloved grandfather being innocent.
The barman slides the potent drink towards her, and she sucks on the new straw. She had such an amazing day with Patrick. The picnic, the remote location, the sea lapping into rock pools; it was all perfect. They ate and swam, chatted and made out. How can that have only been a few hours ago? Now she’s scared, half-drunk, and grappling with what to do next. Of course she should go home – her mum is desperate to, and there is clearly a risk here. But that means leaving Patrick, the man she is falling for hard. And it also means that whoever wrote the notes will have won. And possibly got away with double murder.
But also, possibly not. The notes are just words. It could all be fake news, some fantasist’s bullshit.
She stirs her drink with the straw, then swallows another large mouthful. She has sailed in winds other people consider dangerous, swam in rivers with stronger currents than most swimmers would tackle. She’s been flung around the sea on a mono-ski at fifty kilometres an hour. Is she really going to be scared off by a couple of notes and a mystery scribe?
She’s so lost in her thoughts that when a hand lands on her arm, she jumps, her thighs smashing against the underside of the bar.
‘Shit, sorry,’ Patrick says. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’
