The following week (and less than two weeks after Lara’s abortion had taken place) Gabrielle drove up to Oxford to celebrate the last day of Lara’s Finals. She wasted no time in pressing home her advantage with James. After the traditional post-last exam ambush on the street, the three of them spent the evening with other drunken undergrads, quaffing Pimms and beer, and taking shots of tequila. By the end of the evening Lara was completely wasted and James (though pretty much the worse for wear himself) started to get concerned. He grabbed the tequila shot she was holding up to her mouth and dragged her out of the circle of drinkers on the floor and up onto the sofa.
‘You need to stop drinking. It’s not good for you – or the baby…’ he hissed in her ear.
Together, Gabrielle and James half carried Lara back to her college room and Gabrielle told James she would put her to bed. As soon as the door closed, Gabrielle sat Lara on the bed and gripped her hands.
Lara was swaying from side-to-side, with her eyes closed, giggling to herself. Gabrielle slapped her hard round the face.
‘Look at me, Lara. Open your eyes. I need to speak to you. Does he know? Lara, Lara, shut up you idiot! You bailed, didn’t you? You haven’t told him.’
Gabrielle watched the marks of her fingers spreading across the side of Lara’s face. Suddenly sober, Lara opened her eyes and looked straight at Gabrielle. Her eyes were indignant, brimming with pain and anger.
‘I’ve got to tell him, but I’m scared,’ said Lara. ‘He’s a Roman Catholic, for God’s sake, even though a lapsed one. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic and I know he’s against abortion, believes in the sanctity of life and all that… He’s going to hate me for it. I should have talked to him first. It was his baby too.’
Gabrielle grabbed her hand. ‘You did what you thought was right. You did what you thought was the best thing for you and what you thought was the best thing for him too. You were being unselfish. You were thinking of him as much as yourself.’
‘That’s such crap,’ said Lara. ‘You know it’s not true. You made me do it. You bullied me into it. You didn’t give me any time to think… I didn’t think at all…’ She covered her face with the pillow and Gabrielle leant forward to hear her muffled words. ‘And now I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life. I have to tell him. And he’s going to hate me. And I’m going to lose him. I’ve lost everything. I got rid of his baby. I should kill myself too.’
Gabrielle yanked away the pillow.
‘Pull yourself together, you’re being ridiculous, hysterical. You’re not the first person ever to have an abortion. It’s a routine procedure. You’ll feel better in a few days. It’s just your hormones making you feel this way.’
She sat down on the bed next to Lara and put her arm round her.
‘I’ve got a plan. You really don’t need to tell him you had an abortion. What’s the point of making him mad? Just tell him you had a miscarriage. Tell him that’s why you were in London with me. That you were feeling ill and exhausted so I came to fetch you so that you could have a quiet weekend at the flat, and on the Saturday night the miscarriage started and we took you into hospital and you were too upset to talk about it before your Finals and then you didn’t want to upset him before his end of year exams, so you decided to keep it a secret from him until now.’
Lara’s expression was horrified, hostile. ‘You want me to lie to him about the most important thing that’s ever happened between us. We’ve spoken of the future, of getting married once we’ve finished our studies, he wanted me to have this child. OK, so we’re young and naïve but we thought we could make it work – and then you barged in and took control and destroyed any hope of happiness we might have had. You just can’t bear to see me happy! If I can’t be honest with him about this, my relationship with James is over. If we stayed together, I’d be living a lie for the rest of my life.’
‘Trust me,’ said Gabrielle, ‘it’s the only way. If you tell him you had an abortion, he’ll never forgive you. If you want to keep him, you’ve got no choice. Tell him it was a miscarriage.’
Gabrielle walked over to the window. The clock in the tower was tolling midnight. The room reverberated with the chimes. She slammed down the window. The cracked, dusty frame shook. ‘How do you ever sleep with those bloody bells!’
*
The next day, well-coached by Gabrielle, Lara cycled up the Cowley Road with a pounding head and a heavy heart to tell the tale to James, and Gabrielle drove back to Chelsea but not before leaving a note in James’ pigeon hole inviting him to come to her studio in Convent Garden the following Tuesday for a photoshoot – ‘You’ve got talent! I’ll give you some tips that will come in useful.’
*
But Lara was right. The lie came between them, like a flash flood forcing them apart. When Lara told James about her ‘miscarriage’ he broke down in tears. She was taken aback by his reaction that she considered self-indulgent and weak despite her own horrible feelings of shame. He said the loss reawakened the grief of losing his brother as a child. Almost believing in her own deception, Lara felt she was the one who needed his support. She needed him to be strong to help her cope with the loss and the grief. She had to admit that he pulled himself together very soon and in the following days he was there by her side whenever she needed him, offering sympathy, cups of tea and a shoulder to cry on.
But as time passed she became aware of a change in his mood. He embarked on obsessive research about the causes of miscarriage and blamed her for the loss of his baby. He accused her of having been irresponsible for drinking to excess in early pregnancy and for not having looked after herself properly. She was irritated by this constant sniping and became more and more withdrawn from him. She hadn’t the strength of character to struggle and fight against the torrent of sadness and guilt. The bad feeling between them erupted in a blazing row after supper one balmy summer’s night in July at The Trout Inn on the banks of the Cherwell. The next day Lara announced her intention to contact Columbia University to ask if it would be possible to reinstate their offer, made to her some months previously, that she had turned down when she discovered she was pregnant. In the second week of July, her Masters placement to study American literature was confirmed and ten days after that she was at Heathrow boarding a Virgin Atlantic plane for JFK, while James was heaving his trunk from the platform at Oxford station onto the London train.
Gabrielle was there to meet him at Paddington station and take him home to her flat where he stayed for the rest of the summer vacation indulging in her exotic cuisine and insatiable appetite for sex. When not working in the lab for his internship at the London Institute of Oncological Research, he was out earning extra holiday cash freelancing as a male model for Gabrielle’s network of fashion photographers. He had little time to think of Lara or to dwell on the sadness of the miscarriage and the bitterness of their break up but deep down he missed her dreadfully. This late summer romance felt like a ‘through the looking-glass’ fantasy with Gabrielle, who was a sparkling reflection of Lara, and a delightful distraction from his real life. But before too long he intended to do everything in his power to get back together with Lara – his first and true love.
But Gabrielle had other plans. One evening in late August, as she sat curled in James’ lap on the sofa in her flat, sipping a shared glass of dark red Châteauneuf-du-Pape, she decided that the time was right to twist the knife. She gently stroked his hair and decanted her poisoned tale of truth and lies.
‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ she said. ‘Lara didn’t have a miscarriage. She had an abortion. Here in London. At the Chelsea clinic. I begged her to think again. I begged her to wait, to go back to Oxford, to talk to you. But she was so determined. She was desperate to get rid of that baby, said she couldn’t face going through with it, that it would put an end to her studies, wreck her life. And she couldn’t face telling you because she thought you would put pressure on her to keep the child. I’m so sorry. I tried so hard to make
her change her mind. I know how much this must hurt. I thought it was only fair that you should know.’
By the end of the September, Gabrielle’s deceit had worked its magic. James had overcome his initial black depression and recovered his usual cheerful disposition, transferring his affections lock, stock and barrel to her. His anger with Lara tipped the balance in favour of Gabrielle. He put aside any lingering thoughts of trying to get back together with his first love. Cementing his relationship with Gabrielle was the best way to punish Lara for having disposed of his baby. In his head, Gabrielle had become Lara’s avatar.
For Gabrielle, victory was sweet. They were inseparable, madly in love, the hottest new couple in town. Some weeks later Gabrielle suggested a long weekend in New York (all expenses paid by her), the pretext to check up on Lara, the true motive to press home her advantage and to torture her rival with the spoils of her passion.
James was up for it. It would be nice to see Lara again. He was in the mood to be forgiving. He’d always wanted to visit New York.
And fortunately for James, he had saved up enough money from his photoshoot assignments to feel suitably relaxed and pumped with testosterone when Gabrielle suggested that they should ‘drop by Tiffany’s’ before taking Lara out for brunch.
16
Scarlett
I click the stopwatch on my phone as Costa starts up the engine and we hurtle across the water towards the reef.
6.25 a.m.
The shadows of dawn have melted away. It’s daybreak and sunshine is streaming into my eyes, bouncing off the surface, lighting up the spray. I’m alive and at one with the sea and the sun.
6.49 a.m.
Costa steers the boat alongside the reef, cuts the power and drops anchor.
I click the stopwatch.
‘Twenty-four minutes.’
The boat bobs in the water. It’s peaceful without the straining engine. The surge and suck of waves breaking on the reef and lapping against the wooden hull provide a soothing soundtrack. And now that we’ve stopped, the heat of the rising sun is building steadily. For the first time since Katie disappeared, I feel optimistic. Costa seems to think my account is credible. I think we’re going to find her.
Costa stands in the prow with his back towards me and his head turned in profile. He takes off his leather jacket and undoes the top buttons of his shirt. He has the kind of body that looks constrained by city clothes. It occurs to me that on this boat I’m completely at his mercy, and I get the feeling that he knows it and it’s going to his head. Now it’s so quiet that I can hear his breathing. His eyes are fixed on the reef at the point where breaking waves funnel through a channel between two ridges of coral.
Suddenly the peace is broken by the garish ringtone on his mobile phone.
Could this be news of Katie?
I hold my breath. I watch him – the deepening frown as he takes the call and his curt response: ‘Not now, I’m busy. Send through the report, I’ll get back to you.’
My heart is thumping.
‘Bad news?’ He ignores me.
The gulls are swooping overhead. Save for them and two fishing boats far out to sea, we’re alone. The boat’s hidden from the shore by the topography of the coast and the overhang of the cliffs. Only someone walking along the coastal path on the cliff edge would be able to see us.
Costa seems lost in thought.
When he turns to face me, I sense a change in his mood and start to feel uneasy. His eyes are hostile, cold, shining with distaste. He crouches down next to where I’m sitting, uncomfortably close. The boat rocks under his weight.
‘So what happens next?’ he says quietly. ‘Tell me more, Scarlett. You haven’t told me everything that’s going on in that pretty head of yours yet, have you? Who took her from the beach? If Damien couldn’t have done it on his own then who is his accomplice?’ He puts his fingers under my chin and tilts my face until I’m looking directly into his eyes.
So he thinks it’s me.
I hold my breath. ‘Her mother,’ I say. ‘Christina.’ My words gush out. ‘She took her from the beach and drove her down to Crooks’ Bay in Damien’s Jeep.’
For a second, I think he’s about to strike me. His face is so close to mine that I can see beads of sweat glistening on his forehead and a muscle pulsing in his jaw. Then he turns away as if he can’t bear the sight of me.
Slowly, realisation dawns on me. Now I get it. He thinks I’m lying, trying to frame the victim’s mother to cover up my own guilt. That’s why he agreed to this outlandish trip in the first place. He’s been pretending to believe in me, and all the time he’s just been giving me the opportunity to incriminate myself. He’s a more wily detective than I gave him credit for. I’ve fallen into his trap. I’ve made myself his hostage – caught between the devil and the deep blue sea – and on this boat he can interrogate me to his heart’s content, as tough as he pleases. Damien and I are his main suspects, and as the chief criminal investigating officer he will do anything to wring a confession out of me.
But there’s no stopping me now. While Costa watches the waves breaking on the reef, I tell him why I’m suspicious of Christina. She’s behaving in a strange and secretive way. She seemed distracted and distant from her daughter the first couple of days of the holiday. Then there was something over-the-top and fake about her grief when Katie disappeared. I can’t put my finger on it but her grief doesn’t ring true. She’s hiding something.
‘Damien’s controlling her,’ I say. ‘She’s besotted with him. As you’ve seen, he’s a compulsive gambler with huge debts and expensive tastes – a morally bankrupt risk taker. My hunch is that Damien forced Christina to go along with his plan to stage the disappearance of Katie, to make it look like she’d died in a tragic drowning accident and to hide her away somewhere, before finding some way of either fraudulently claiming on her travel insurance or claiming a reward for information leading to her discovery. I guess he was desperate to get his hands on a lump sum to pay off his gambling debts and continue with his life of decadence in the sun. But his arrest screwed up the plan and now I think Christina’s got cold feet and is desperate to find a way out…’
I’m sticky and breathless. The heat is building, the breeze has dropped and the endless listing of the anchored boat is making me feel seasick.
‘I can’t bear this any longer,’ I say, tugging my hoodie from over my head and twisting my hair back into a ponytail. Again, I wish I’d taken the time to dress properly before leaving my room when I catch Costa eyeing the outline of my breasts through my camisole. He turns away quickly.
‘I’m listening,’ he says quietly. ‘Carry on.’
Now I’ve got his attention.
‘The beach was crowded when Katie disappeared,’ I say. ‘If she had drifted out to sea on the lilo or been taken by a stranger someone would have seen it. Surely one of the scores of staff and guests you’ve been interviewing would have noticed something. She’s such a beautiful child that she attracts attention. From the day we arrived, we were there on the beach each day, all day long, back and forth collecting shells. Everyone knew her. But no one intervened, no one reported anything suspicious at the time and no one’s reported it since.’
He shrugs. ‘It was a crowded beach, lots of people coming and going. Anyone could have abducted her while you were asleep.’
I shake my head. ‘You don’t know Katie. She’s a delightful, sweet little girl but if something upsets her, everyone knows about it, believe me. She’s a highly sensitive child and she doesn’t like strangers. She’d have had to be dragged kicking and screaming off that beach if someone she didn’t know had tried to take her away.’ He’s scrolling through a text as I talk, with a deepening scowl. He taps out a response to the text then turns to me again, stoney-faced.
‘Do you think the child’s still alive?’
‘Yes…’ I hesitate. ‘Yes, I do believe that. I don’t think Christina would ever do anything to place Katie’s life at risk. I belie
ve she’s acting under Damien’s orders and I think he’s doing it in order somehow to get money to pay off his gambling debts and fund his drug addiction.’
‘What makes you so sure Christina drove the car?’ says Costa.
‘Because I found her earring under the driver’s seat the morning after Katie disappeared. It must have dropped out while she was driving to Crooks’ Bay.’
‘It could have dropped out earlier in the week,’ says Costa.
‘Damien didn’t hire the Jeep until the day before Katie disappeared.’ I say. ‘I remember it clearly because Christina picked a fight with him for missing supper that night. He said he’d been delayed by a puncture after collecting the Jeep. He’d called out a mechanic to change the wheel. What’s more, I remember noticing that Christina was wearing her jade earrings at the pool on the morning of the day Katie was taken –She was wearing a bikini and kimono in matching blue – same colour as her earrings.’
He takes a long swig from a water bottle. I’m parched but he doesn’t offer it to me.
‘If Christina took the car, how did Damien get down to Coral Point?’ he says.
‘I’ve no idea. He’s got plenty of friends here. Any one of his golfing or gambling buddies could have given him a lift. You should check with the cab companies too. Obviously, he wouldn’t have wanted to park the Jeep down at the harbour as it would have given away his timings and movements.’
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