She’d been sitting slumped in the courtyard of a taverna watching the sun set over the Ionian Sea, her remaining notes and coins spread out on the table, wondering whether she could afford a main course and who she could ask to charge her phone, but not really wanting to because then she’d have no excuse for not calling Mum and Dad and admitting what had happened, and groaning, actually groaning out loud, when she’d been conscious of The Beautiful Man – dazzling white shirt, tanned skin, designer sunglasses – passing her table.
She’d seen him around in Kioni and christened him The Beautiful Man and made up a whole life story for him in which he was the son of an earl and was here for a secret assignation with one of the minor royals. She’d even had a brief conversation with him in a shop. She’d been all flustered because the shopkeeper kept nodding and smiling and saying, ‘Twenty euro’ and trying to put a cheap-looking gold necklace into her hand, no matter how many times she said ‘Neh’.
‘Uh, you realise that “Neh” means “Yes” in Greek?’ Sean Connery’s voice had murmured behind her, and she’d turned to find herself looking straight into the gorgeous, long-lashed blue eyes of The Beautiful Man.
‘Oh. Really? Oh God, that explains a lot!’ she had giggled, and he had thrown back his head and laughed.
She stared at his back as he walked towards the taverna entrance, admiring his lean, muscled body and the way he moved, athletically, like one of the big cats. And then he stopped, and walked back to her table, and took off the sunglasses to reveal those beautiful eyes.
‘Are you all right?’
She must have looked a fright. Puffy red eyes from crying. Sweaty T-shirt from frantically running around trying to find a police station like a ditzy heroine in a bad romance. And here was her knight in shining armour.
‘Perfectly fine, thanks,’ she assured him.
‘Hmm,’ was all he said.
She glared up at him. He was smiling. And then she was smiling too, grinning, laughing hysterically and telling him the whole sorry story as he took a seat opposite her, long lean legs stretched to the side. ‘I was so sure I locked the door!’
‘I’m sure you did.’ And he told her that that guest house was notorious for stuff going mysteriously missing. The owner had a nice little sideline in theft going on. ‘I wouldn’t feel any compunction in skipping out without settling your bill, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ He was looking at the fifteen euros spread on the table.
Oh God. She hadn’t even thought about the guest house bill! She couldn’t just leave without paying, even if they had stolen all her stuff. Could she?
‘Look, I’m off to Athens in an hour, flying back to London for a few days. If you’re at a loose end, I wonder if you’d consider housesitting for me while I’m gone?’ He said it diffidently, as if it were Lulu who’d be doing him a favour rather than the other way round. ‘I have a little villa up the coast. It would give you a chance to get everything sorted out.’
‘But you don’t even know me!’
He smiled. ‘I’m an excellent judge of character.’
So she had stayed in his ‘little villa’, which had turned out to be a charming five-bedroom house with a red-tiled roof and a terrace under a pergola with views down a vertiginous drop to a secret turquoise cove. For three days, she had munched through the contents of his fridge and spent her days trekking up and down the steep little path to the private beach and wondering about him, her rescuer, this Nick Clyde who’d been holidaying alone in this private paradise. She had snooped shamelessly, discovering his favourite bands were the Bee Gees and Abba – was he gay? Typical of her luck if he was gay. But the centrepiece of the long console table in the dining room, a broken female torso that was probably not just an antique but an antiquity, and the nude painting of a woman in his bedroom suggested otherwise.
And then he’d come back, and she’d meant to leave that day.
And then the next.
And then the next.
Typical Lulu, as Beth and Jenny had remarked.
Yvonne didn’t seem to find any of this particularly funny, but she was a good listener, obviously interested in the story. By the time they’d arrived in Langholm and were sitting down at a table in a cute little café, Lulu was beginning to relax. Yvonne seemed a reasonable person, if a bit humourless and literal. But that just made her virtual abandonment of Nick all the harder to understand.
‘Duncan’s wife used to own this place,’ Yvonne said, picking up a menu. ‘Hence the name. Maggie’s.’
‘Oh!’ Lulu looked around her.
‘That’s her friend Pam behind the counter.’ The woman serving was all smiles for the customers. Her hair was very short, almost a crew-cut, but she had the bone structure to carry it off. ‘Pam took the place over after Maggie . . . well. After the disappearance.’
Lulu lowered her voice. ‘Nick thinks . . . he thinks Maggie . . .’
‘Killed them?’ Yvonne said at normal volume. ‘That’s just nonsense.’
‘So, what do you think happened? Do you think the police were right, that they just up and left?’
‘I suppose it’s possible. There have been all kinds of theories mooted over the years.’
‘Such as what?’
But Pam had approached their table. After they’d ordered, Yvonne didn’t answer Lulu’s question but came out with, ‘Nick’s making your life hell, then, is he?’
‘No!’ Lulu almost laughed. ‘No, of course not! He’s just . . . being back here is churning a lot of stuff up for him. Actually, that’s the reason we’re here.’ She explained about the therapy she was using to treat his PTSD.
‘PTSD?’ Yvonne snorted. ‘And the “therapy” is working, is it?’
‘It’s a process. It’s too soon to say whether it’s working or not, but the fact that he’s dealing with what happened, addressing his feelings about it –’
Yvonne shook her head with an expression almost of pity. ‘Look, Lulu, you seem like a nice girl. Nick’s my flesh and blood, but I’d be the first to admit he’s bad news. You need to get out of that relationship, and fast.’
Wow.
Lulu blinked. ‘I know he’s got issues –’
‘Oh yes, he’s got those all right.’
Lulu felt herself bristling. ‘After what he went through, it’s not surprising.’
‘Nick’s issues are nothing to do with what he “went through”. He’s always been a little shit. A callous, calculating little shit.’