by Honeymoon
The policemen had cuffed Teddy, and Jasper held him by the arm, while the policemen now came for Robin. She rose calmly and offered her wrists to them. She looked past them at Jasper. “It would have worked, you know. If only you hadn’t been holidaying here. It would have worked.’
Gideon watched as his wife was taken away by the police, her head up high, her back straight. He suddenly felt unworthy of her. He had never owned up to his guilt, believing that it was the ultimate proof of a killer’s cleverness to go undetected.
But perhaps it was the ultimate proof of a coward, afraid to face the consequences of their actions?
He lowered his head. He couldn’t even claim he had killed his brother. Not consciously. All he had wanted was to hurt his hands. Those precious hands that made him so beloved. If he took a bad fall and his hands were broken, he couldn’t play the piano any more. It would all be over.
Just the hands. Not the neck.
That was what he had told himself over and over as he had faced those gruelling sessions with the psychiatrist. Hired to trick him into confessing. But he was cleverer than that.
Gideon sank down at the table and hid his face in his hands. For the first time since his brother’s death the tears came.
Chapter Twenty-One
Damaris stood at the vantage point staring out across the sea. She supposed people always spoke of the sea when they came back from holidays as the azure sea, or the endless sea, because it was so impressive. Nothing but water until the horizon. So smooth and tranquil and beautiful.
Unless you fell into it from high atop the rocks. Then it was a death trap.
“I’m sorry.”
She didn’t have to turn her head to recognise the voice.
Dupin came to stand beside her. “I wish you need not have heard any of the things that were said in there.”
“Why not? They are the truth. My husband never loved me. He loved Robin Hawtree.” She still flinched when she heard the cry, Run with me, darling! in her mind. “He didn’t marry me just for money he wanted, but because he believed it would cover up his desire for another. A married woman. The wife of his best friend and business partner. So he would be able to keep on seeing her. As it would be natural for us to socialise.”
She swallowed down the bitterness welling up as she thought of Robin’s kindness to her. While she had been plotting to frame her for murder. So she could have justice for her father, and money, and… Teddy as well? After she’d have been executed for murder, he would have been a free man again. A rich widower.
Dupin said, “Not about your husband. About your mother. She was a good woman. She didn’t have affairs like everyone suspected. She loved your father, even though he left her alone all the time and was more married to his novels than to her. She loved him and refused men who wanted to have an affair with her.”
Damaris looked at him. “You knew her better?”
“I saw her every now and then. On the beach when she was walking there with you. I even let you ride on my donkey sometimes.”
“It was your donkey that Arthur Reynolds taught me to ride on?”
“Yes. Well, my donkey…” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “It came with the house where I lived. We used it because you loved it. You laughed when you were on its back and you wanted to stroke its fur and long ears. You were a wonderfully happy child. Never difficult or nagging for attention. As quiet as a mouse when you wanted to. Hiding away.”
He surveyed her face. “You don’t deserve to be so unhappy now, Damaris.”
She smiled sadly. “But I am. Not only did Teddy deceive me, but his friends as well. It was all a big plot. And Mrs Murray who cared for me when I was so confused turning out to be the mother of…”
She shivered. “It’s like they were all waiting for me here the moment I set foot on the island. To circle me and corner me and drive me to feel like I was going insane, then drive me to death with this fake murder charge.”
She wrapped her arms around her shoulders. “They all had some connection to it. Medea, who seemed so kind. And even the police chief and his brother.”
Dupin said, “You need not worry about it, Damaris. Just let the wind caress your face. Close your eyes and listen to the song of the waves below.”
Damaris closed her eyes. The breeze touched her cheeks, which seemed so dry. She couldn’t cry at all. She wanted to, but she felt numb inside. She had arrived here feeling happy and able to take on the world. Now she had lost everything: her husband, the prospects of a happy marriage, family life. It would be London again, grey, dull and alone.
Dupin said softly beside her, “Listen how the waves sing. They tell tales of old. Odysseus, the Trojan War. Heroes and heartache. They are timeless. They have endured.”
Damaris felt a bit of tension seep away from her body. The sun was warm on her face and the rustle of the waves soothing. As if they were singing her to sleep.
“They tell you there is nothing to be afraid of,” Dupin said even softer. “That you will be all right.”
She snapped her eyes open, taking a sudden step back from the edge. “It made me dizzy.” She tried to laugh. “Just like I was going to fall.”
Dupin smiled at her. “Of course not. The moment you pitched forward I would have caught you.’
A memory flashed through her mind of sitting on the donkey’s back and then someone lifting her off it, carrying her in his arms for a moment. Not her father probably, as he had never been around much, but… Dupin?
“Now close your eyes again,” he urged. “Listen to the waves. They tell the same song they told all those years ago when you played here. When they came to lap at your bare feet.”
She had to smile. That little girl had to have been happy. Secure.
Dupin came to stand closer. She could feel his warmth against her. “You liked to collect shells and make little mosaics out of them. A jumping dolphin and a seagull. Can you remember?”
“No.” She could remember barely anything, except for her mother’s dead body. And that she didn’t want to remember.
She had to tell herself it was over now. Teddy had been taken away, and Robin Hawtree and her husband. Jasper had gone with the police to see to the statements. It was over now. She could travel home. Or stay around here just a little longer. There was no one out to harm her any more.
Dupin said, “I can restore the painting your husband damaged. But I doubt you will still want it.”
“No, it just reminds me of a lie. Of a whole time of lies. I want nothing to do with it any more. I wish I could just toss it into the sea. Be done with it.” She took a deep breath. “I want to throw everything he ever gave me into the sea. Starting with this.”
She pulled off her wedding ring and held it up. The sunshine sparkled in the diamond.
“Are you sure?” Dupin asked. “It is worth money.”
“I have enough money now. I don’t need this. I don’t need anything of his any more.” An exhilarating sense of freedom came over her as she held her arm back for a throw.
“Take a few steps back and run to the edge so you can throw further,” Dupin encouraged her.
She looked at him a moment, thanking him silently for being with her. Otherwise, on her own, this moment would have been morose and sad, but now it was almost exciting. A new start into a new life. Why go back to London at all? Why not do something with her money? Something for herself?
She strode back a few paces, estimated the distance. She began to move. She saw Dupin standing there, close to the edge. In the last instance she saw something in his eyes, not knowing quite what it was. Determination? A decision?
Something hit her, propelling her to the ground. She made a hard impact, the ring jumping from her grasp and shooting away across the ground.
A voice said, “I wouldn’t do it, Dupin.”
Looking up, Damaris saw Dupin standing there, pure hatred on his face. But the hatred wasn’t directed at Jasper, who had materialised out of nowhe
re and apparently knocked her to the ground. No, he looked with those eyes of fire at her. Gone was the kind, considerate man who had reminisced with her about her childhood. A stranger stood there, deathly cold in his face.
“It was you,” she said, hearing the words as if another spoke them. “You killed my mother.”
“Yes, he did,” Jasper said. “There was a substance found in the knife wound on her chest. The doctor couldn’t quite identify it. But I believe it was paint. Dupin had come to the villa with his painting kit like he often did. But in reality he was after your mother. He forced himself onto her. She rejected him and in his arrogance he pulled out the stiletto he carried to protect himself and stabbed her and left her to die on the tiles. Arthur Reynolds came upon her and… we know the rest.”
Jasper eyed Dupin. “Damaris just told you that she felt like the people who had been involved with Arthur Reynolds and her mother’s murder were all waiting for her when she came here to Kalos, to circle her and wait for the moment to strike out at her. And you were one of them, Mr Dupin. Back then you already worried about the child having seen something. Didn’t you just say she was always quiet like a mouse? Hiding somewhere? You worried that little Eleanor had seen you kill her mother and would start to talk. But another had already been driven to his death by the staff, and the local police chief had no interest in looking closer at the case. Then the girl was whisked away from here to be treated for her trauma and you told yourself it would all be forgotten and you would be safe. Until she came back here. You saw her the moment she came off the ferry. The spitting image of her mother. And you became afraid. You thought up a way to get near her, lying that the hotel had commissioned a painting for her room. I don’t know what you planned. To put poison somewhere? To lure her into the orchards some day and strangle her and throw her body into the sea? But I believe, strongly, you intended to kill her from the moment she set foot on this island.”
“You can’t prove I did anything wrong,” Dupin said.
“You confessed to me. When I was in your studio. You told me that when you find out things are different from what you believe, you must destroy them. Like a painter who can’t stand the imperfection in his painting, you couldn’t stand the imperfection in this perfect woman. That she didn’t want you. Wasn’t prepared to betray her husband with you. You couldn’t let her live after she had become imperfect in your eyes. You had to destroy her. And with her you destroyed Arthur Reynolds, and the woman he had married, the son to whom he had given a home, the daughter born to them. Robin Hawtree, who came back here to take her revenge. You had no idea who she was. You didn’t know who had placed the beetles in Mrs Ramsforth’s room. But it was all perfect. She was apparently targeted. If she disappeared, died, it would all lead back to those who hated her, right? You only had to stay in the shadows, make sure the light didn’t fall on you.”
Jasper paused, then clicked his tongue. “But you overplayed your hand, Mr Dupin. After I had exposed the plot against Mrs Ramsforth, everyone’s part in it, and had taken the guilty ones away, you should have accepted that it had turned out well for you and left. But you couldn’t. You couldn’t leave alive the image of the woman you had destroyed because she wouldn’t be yours. You wanted to kill Damaris as you had killed her mother. And this time, make it look like suicide? A young woman, distraught by the discovery her husband had never loved her, had even lured her somewhere to rid her of all her money, standing at the edge of the rocks, ready to throw in her wedding ring. Then thinking she might as well jump in herself as she had nothing left to live for?”
Dupin smiled. “I still have not heard how you’re going to prove of what you accuse me. You’re interpreting this in a certain light. You’re entitled, I suppose. You feel protective of this girl you saved. But I never intended to do her any harm. And I never wanted her mother to have an affair with me.” Dupin scoffed. “You think you’re a psychologist, Jasper. But you don’t understand anything. At all.’
Jasper checked his watch. “They should be done by now.”
“With what?” Damaris asked.
Jasper smiled at her. “When I asked Mr Dupin to come to the hotel for my revelations, I lured him away from his studio. As soon as he left, policemen began to search it and search the surrounding land. They will have dug up—”
“You bastard.” Dupin jumped at Jasper, holding his hand up as if he intended to beat him. Then he suddenly sprinted past him and rounded the hotel.
“What is he going to do?” Damaris asked.
Jasper reached out and helped her to her feet. “Are you all right?” He looked about him. “We should look for your wedding ring.”
“What is he going to do?” Damaris repeated.
“He’s going to see if they found what he buried all those years ago.”
“He buried something by his house? Why? Wouldn’t that have been very dangerous?”
“Dupin is a methodical man. After he killed your mother, he left the house with his painting kit in hand, acting like he always did. He went home and he buried the stiletto he had used to stab her on his land. If he had acted in an unusual manner, for instance taking a boat out to drop the stiletto into the sea, he might have been seen. That would have been a risk. But what risk was there in sneaking out of his house in the middle of the night and burying something on his own land? It would only have taken a strong man a few minutes to accomplish and the night is pitch black here on Kalos, there would have been nothing to reveal him scurrying about, no chance of being seen. He kept the house for all these years so the land would never be disturbed. It struck me as odd from the beginning that he kept such a simple house here, something befitting the young man he had been when he first came here, but not the man he is now. Why had he not moved to a bigger house on the island? Why was he so attached to this particular spot? Because of what is buried there and should never be found.”
“Do the police have it now?” Damaris asked.
“No, but he will lead them to it. The moment he comes into the yard he will look at the place where it’s buried to ensure they haven’t dug there. Where he looks at, they will dig. And they will find it.”
“You seem so certain.” Damaris held out shaking hands to him. “I feel like I can’t walk one step any more. He seemed so nice and kind. I believed him. And he was my mother’s killer all along?’
“Yes. I knew that when we were inside and I proved the involvement of the others in all events that happened here. But I was worried I would never get him to lose his nerve and lead us to the stiletto. I had to risk him getting close to you to kill you as well.” Jasper touched her arm. “I apologise for the risk I took. I endangered your life. But there was no other way, or he would have gone scot-free. And he’s not the man to leave loose ends. He would have come after you to kill you.”
Damaris lowered her head. She felt so tired she wanted to drop to the ground and just lie there. “Will it never stop?’
“They should be arresting him about now. Then it is over. Then we have everyone involved locked up. You will be safe.”
Jasper leaned closer to her and repeated, “You will be safe.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mrs Valentine led the way through the bustling crowd on the dock to the ferry. She carried her suitcase in one hand and Damaris’s in the other, feeling like a snow plough which creates an open path. She glanced back over her shoulder every few paces to ensure Damaris was following. The girl walked with the former inspector, who had insisted on accompanying them to say goodbye. His dog trotted beside them, sniffing the passers-by.
Mrs Valentine reached the ramp and put the suitcases down a moment to wait for the other three. Damaris was a little sunburned and there was a smile on her face as she leaned down to caress Red and play with his ears. The dog put back his head, looking up at her, and barked as if he was saying, “Stay safe.”
Jasper shook Damaris’s hand. “I hope you have a good time in Athens. It’s a beautiful city.’
“I wish you were coming with us,” Damaris said, and for a moment her face was vulnerable and pleading.
Jasper shook his head. “I’ve already been there. I’m staying here for two more days and then I will go to see other islands.’
He had confided to Mrs Valentine that he didn’t want Damaris to cling to him. “She shouldn’t become dependent on me,” he had said, “which is something that can easily happen after I saved her from the killer. I want her to start her own life as soon as possible. Under your guidance of course, for the first few months, to ensure she adjusts to her new surroundings and she isn’t preyed upon now that she has money. Damaris has proven to be very resilient, earlier in life when she had to work through her mother’s death and the loss of her father who wasn’t there for her. She can also do this now.’
Mrs Valentine smiled at Damaris. “Shall we go on board?’
Jasper carried the suitcases up the ramp, while the women waited with the dog on the dock. When he returned, and controlled the eager retriever who wanted to stay by Damaris’s side, the women embarked. Mrs Valentine waved back at Jasper. She was sorry to leave the idyllic island and return to the bustle of Athens, but looking at the white houses, lemon orchards and fishermen, she realised that even idyllic islands could hide dark secrets. She thought a moment about Teddy Ramsforth, Gideon and Robin Hawtree, all still in custody for their parts in attempting to defraud Damaris of her money, and Robin also for the murder of the old woman on the beach and the petty thief.
And Amaranth Dupin, arrested for the murder of Damaris’s mother.
She shivered, thinking of his ice-cold nature, having walked away from the murder scene calmly. Perhaps he had heard the child’s petrified scream, but he had kept on walking. And, while at the back of the villa the angry crowd had driven an innocent young man to his death, he had ambled down the hill back to his house, carrying his painting kit with the bloodied stiletto inside. He had buried it and waited, patiently, until it had all died down.