My car was there. And just as I thought, it wasn’t blocking anyone. I should have turned back then but I was still walking towards it, wanting to see who had complained.

Across the drive, in front of the hotel, I saw Aiden MacNeil. He shouted at me. I thought he was angry about something. Then I realised he was warning me. He was staring at something above me, out of my line of vision.

I looked up in time to see the most extraordinary sight. There was an owl, its wings outstretched, seemingly in full flight. It took my brain a microsecond to work out that it wasn’t a real owl at all. It was the stone sculpture from the middle of the parapet that spanned the front of the hotel and which I had seen when I had arrived. But it wasn’t flying, it was plummeting.

Towards me.

I was right underneath it. There was nothing I could do. I didn’t have time to get out of the way. But then there was a dark blur and someone crashed into me, a man who had been near the entrance. I felt his arms around me and his shoulder against my chest as he rugby tackled me out of harm’s way. Almost at the same moment, the owl hit the ground and smashed into fifty pieces. I heard the impact and knew without any doubt at all that it could have killed me.

As we fell, the man had twisted so that I had landed on top of him. He had protected me from the gravel. Aiden was running towards us, horrified. I heard somebody shout. It was already clear to me that this had all happened deliberately. I had been tricked. The telephone call. My car blocking the way. All done to get me out of the hotel.

The man who had saved me let go of me and I turned to him. I hadn’t seen him but I already knew who he was. And I was right.

It was Andreas.

The Moonflower Suite

He pulled me to my feet.

‘Andreas … ’ I said. ‘What are you …?’ But I was too choked up to finish the question. I had never felt anything like it, the sheer relief overwhelming me, not just because I’d had such a narrow escape, but because, inexplicably, Andreas was here. I pulled him close to me.

‘You know, you’re becoming quite a liability,’ he said.

‘How did you get here?’

But before he could answer, Aiden MacNeil arrived, looking horrified. He could have had no idea that Andreas and I knew each other so as far as he was concerned, some random passer-by had just saved me. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. He sounded genuinely concerned and I felt bad that he had been number four on my list of suspects. Maybe, after this, I would drop him to number five.

I nodded. My arm and shoulder had been grazed by the gravel and they were already stinging. I looked at the broken pieces of the stone owl. There was a large dent in the ground where it had landed.

‘There was someone on the roof,’ Aiden said. ‘I saw them!’

‘What are you saying?’ Andreas was still holding me.

‘I don’t know. But there was definitely someone there. I’m going up to check.’ He continued past us, into the hotel.

Andreas and I were left on our own.

‘Who was that?’ Andreas asked.

‘Aiden MacNeil. He was married to Cecily Treherne. He’s one of my main suspects.’

‘I think he just managed to stop someone from killing you.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘He shouted a warning.’

‘Aiden didn’t save me. That was you.’ I grabbed hold of Andreas and kissed him on the lips. ‘What are you doing here, Andreas? How did you get here? And why didn’t you answer my email?’

Andreas smiled at me in the way I remembered best: slightly crooked, challenging me. He hadn’t shaved or brushed his hair. He could have come here straight from the beach. ‘Do you really want to talk about this now?’ he said.

‘No. I want a drink. I want to be alone with you. I want to get out of this bloody hotel. To be honest with you, I wish I’d never come.’

Andreas glanced up at the roof. ‘It looks as if someone else wishes the same.’

There was so much I wanted to say to him but once again we were interrupted – this time by the arrival of Lisa Treherne who had come hurrying out of the hotel. She was pale and out of breath. ‘I just met Aiden,’ she exclaimed. ‘What happened?’

‘One of those sculptures fell off the roof,’ I said.

‘Or someone helped it on its way,’ Andreas added. ‘Susan was almost killed.’

Lisa looked at Andreas indignantly, as if he was accusing her. ‘I’m sorry?’ she said. ‘Who are you?’

‘This is my partner, Andreas,’ I explained. ‘He’s just arrived from Crete.’

‘Aiden has gone up to the roof now,’ Lisa said. ‘There’s a service door on the top floor.’

‘Presumably, it’s kept locked,’ Andreas said. It was funny. I hadn’t told him that Lisa had forced me out of the hotel, but I could tell that he had taken an intuitive dislike to her.

‘I don’t know that it is. But I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt Susan.’

‘Well, she’s here investigating a murder and a disappearance so maybe someone’s decided that she knows too much.’

This was all getting out of hand.

‘I’ve hurt my arm,’ I said. I showed Lisa the grazes. ‘If you don’t mind, I’m going up to my room.’

‘I’ll let you know if Aiden finds anything.’

Andreas had been carrying a travel bag that he had dropped when coming to my rescue. He snatched it up, then took my arm and led me into the hotel. As we passed through the doorway it suddenly occurred to me that we might well run into Melissa Conway, who was presumably still waiting for me in the lounge. It was one embarrassment I was keen to avoid so I steered him quickly into the reception area and stopped briefly at the desk where Inga was working.

‘Inga,’ I said. ‘I have a guest in the living room. Could you tell her I’ve had to go up to my room?’

I didn’t wait for an answer. Still leaning on Andreas, I headed for the stairs.

‘Who was your guest?’ Andreas asked.

‘No one,’ I said. ‘It’s not important.’

I didn’t breathe until the door had swung shut behind us and we were alone in what I had come to think of as the Moonflower Suite. Andreas glanced with approval at the bed (Egyptian-cotton sheets, five hundred thread count), the flat-screen TV, the en suite bathroom. ‘Beats the Polydorus,’ he said.

I disagreed. ‘Our views are better.’

I sat on the bed. Andreas went straight to the minibar and took out a miniature whisky and added some water. He brought it over to the bed and sat down next to me. I took a sip and felt better already, although I didn’t know if it was the drink or having him next to me. I hadn’t realised how upset I was by what had happened outside.

‘Answer my question,’ I said. ‘How did you get here?’

‘EasyJet.’

‘That’s not what I mean and you know it! I haven’t heard from you for days. I thought—’ I broke off. I didn’t want to tell him what I’d been thinking.

Once again he took my hand. ‘Agapiti mou,’ he said, and it just made me happier, hearing him speak to me in Greek. ‘I’m sorry. Forgive me. I never got your email. Not until last night. It’s the stupid computer. Your email went to spam.’

I should have remembered. There was a problem with his computer. Just before I’d left we’d lost two bookings exactly the same way.

‘I found it last night,’ he went on. ‘I was going to call you but then I decided to get on the first flight this morning. I wanted to speak to you face-to-face.’

‘Who’s looking after the hotel?’ I asked.

‘Don’t worry about the hotel.’

‘I’m sorry I wrote the email, Andreas. I’m sorry I left Crete.’

‘No. You were right.’ Andreas sighed. ‘It’s my fault. I’ve been trying so hard to make the Polydorus work that I haven’t been thinking about you. We should have talked a long time ago and if you weren’t happy you should have told me or I should have seen it for myself. The Polydorus was always my dream, not yours, and maybe I was selfish ramming it down your throat. But I’m not going to lose you because of a building. I can sell it. My cousin can look after it. I want us to be together again like we were, and if that means moving back to London and starting again, then that’s what we’ll do. I can get another job in a school. You can go back to publishing.’

‘No. That’s not what I want.’ I held his hand more tightly. ‘I want to be with you. That’s all.’ Maybe I was thinking about Katie or maybe it was the shock of what had just happened but suddenly my mind was clear. ‘I can’t stay here, Andreas,’ I went on. ‘I’ve more or less burned my boats in London. I sold my flat and to be honest with you, the publishing industry isn’t exactly waiting for me with open arms. You know, if I could just get some editing work, even on a freelance basis, that would be enough for me. It’s just that books have always been such a big part of my life and not having any connection with them in Crete … it’s been a bit too drastic.’

‘Have you been looking for a job?’

‘I had lunch with a friend but it didn’t come to anything.’ I didn’t tell him about my dinner with Craig Andrews. Nothing had come of that either so there was absolutely no reason to feel guilty – or so I’d persuaded myself. ‘Can you forgive me, flouncing out the way I did?’