Page 76 of Someone in the Water
I squint at the name for a second because it looks familiar. Then I gasp.
Nicole Bassot.
That’s Izzy’s mum’s name.
It can’t be a coincidence. Salvo has left his share of a vineyard to Izzy’s family.
Why would he do that?
I drop the document on the desk and lean back in the chair. I only saw Salvo once after Izzy drowned, for a few minutes at the police station, but I will never forget our conversation, or his demeanour. He didn’t seem upset about Izzy’s death at all – just acted as though it was simply her fate – so why did he leave this part of his estate to Izzy’s family?
I look back at the document. I don’t know what Raphael’s handwriting looks like, but I wonder if those angry scribbles are his, and what his father leaving him nothing might do to his mental state.
With shaking hands, I tidy up the document, slip it back into the folder, and return all the paperwork to the desk’s middle drawer. But there’s a filing cabinet against the wall with four square-shaped drawers that I should search too. I push onto my feet and pull open the top drawer. But as I’m rifling through more files, my mind keeps wandering back to Salvo. I knew him for less than six months. And in that time, I only spoke to him four or five times. And yet I’ve let him become this invisible but omnipresent force in my life, a constant thorn in my side.
But Salvo remembered Izzy in his will. Was he more human than I gave him credit for?
Twenty minutes later, I’ve checked all the possible hiding places for Lola’s travel documents and accepted that they aren’t in the office. I’ve achieved nothing.
I switch off the light, edge open the door, and return, defeated, to my post outside the staff accommodation block. And I pray for at least a few hours of dreamless sleep.
Lola
31st July
‘You did what?’ Lola asks, sucking on the straw of her breakfast smoothie. Her mum looks like a ghost, her insides clawed out by insomnia.
‘Someone has stolen your travel papers, Lola,’ Frankie says, her voice gravelly. ‘ThePoste Francewebsite lists them as delivered, so someone signed for them, and took them.’
‘But you broke into the hotel office in the middle of the night to search for them?’ Lola still can’t get her head around it. When she planned her secret trip to Corsica, she was excited to visit Hotel Paoli, to find out her mum’s secrets. Now a big part of her wishes she’d left them well alone.
Except that means she wouldn’t have met Patrick.
‘The door wasn’t locked, so I wasn’t breaking in,’ Frankie says quietly. ‘And I looked everywhere, so at least we know your documents aren’t there.’
Lola shrugs. ‘But how is that helpful? You still don’t know who’s taken them – if anyone has,’ she adds, remembering how Patrick’s views on the Corsican postal service aligned with Anna’s.
‘You’re right, I don’t know who’s got them,’ Frankie admits. ‘But maybe it makes Raphael less of a suspect.’
‘Same for Anna,’ Lola muses.
‘And Patrick.’
‘What?’ Lola sits back in her chair. ‘You can’t think Patrick took them?’
‘To keep you here,’ Frankie mutters. ‘And it was just a thought.’
‘Oh.’ Lola wonders if it could be true. And why on earth a tiny part of her feels pleased at the idea.
‘I think it might be Dom who’s taken them,’ Frankie murmurs, then shakes her head. ‘But I don’t know why. I want to ask him.’
Lola’s nose crinkles in confusion. ‘Why do you think it’s Dom?’
Frankie opens her mouth to talk, but no words come out.
‘Mum?’ Lola nudges.
Frankie sighs, then leans forward over the table. ‘It’s complicated. And I might be wrong. But I’m going to hire a car, drive to Sartène this morning. If he has them, I’ll make him give them back. And then I’ll book a flight. I checked on my phone and there are seats on the three thirty Air France flight. It means a stopover in Paris, but that would be fun, right? We’ll be home early tomorrow.’
