“Everything you’ve done, you’ve done it to torture me,” says Flora as he moves closer to her. “Making me live in that house, making me have more children, calling them the same names.” She’s breathing hard and fast, as if she’s been running. In my head, I’m running away from Lewis. I wonder if she is too.

“The lies you made me learn by heart to repeat to Beth, while my children that I haven’t seen for twelve years are just around the corner, and I can’t see them, not even once, for a second. What’s next? Let’s say you get your way and I have another baby—what’s next on your torture list after that?”

“Why are you saying all this now?” Lewis asks her.

There’s a pause. Flora looks at me. Then she says, “I don’t know.”

“Your friend’s here, and you’ve got some moral support for the first time in years. Clearly it’s gone to your head. But Beth’s not going to be here for much longer. Maybe you aren’t either. Did you stop to think of that?”

He’s going to kill us both. And if he does that, if he’s killed once and will happily kill twice more . . . “Why has Thomas been taken out of school?” I ask him as he raises his arm to point the gun at Flora’s head.

Her eyes fill with fear. “What?” she says.

“Ignore her,” says Lewis. “She’s talking shit.”

“I’m not. Thomas isn’t at the school anymore. And Emily’s place has been canceled. Kevin and Yanina . . .” The missing words stick in my throat.

What did Kevin and Yanina do? And why, if Lewis knows nothing about it? They’re supposed to do what they’re told in exchange for life-changing money.

“What the fuck?” Lewis swings around and points the gun at me. It makes a clicking noise. Everything inside me starts to shake. His face is twisted: a mixture of rage and confusion.

Flora lunges at him from behind. The gun falls from his hand and lands on the floor. He trips and tumbles, taking her with him. She lands half on top of him, with a noise that’s halfway between a scream and a howl. Lewis lunges for the gun, not quickly enough. It’s in my hand.

It’s in my hand. I stare down at it.

Lewis lunges toward me.

“Beth!” Flora screams.

“Lewis, don’t!” I say, aiming the words at his phone on the table. “Don’t kill me. Please.”

He was about to lunge again, but he stops. Confusion spreads across his face. He can’t think why I’d say those words when I’m the one holding the gun. “Don’t do it!” I cry out. There’s nothing fake about the panic in my voice.

“What . . . ?” Lewis tries to scramble to his feet.

I fire the gun.

27

“Why did you turn it off?”

“You’re not saying anything. No point me recording silence.”

“I’ve already repeated it twice.”

“I know. And I’m sorry to have to ask you to go through it again. You’ve been so incredibly helpful.”

“Wasn’t the recording on his phone clear enough for you?”

“Loud and clear, ma’am. You have no idea how grateful I am to have it. But I need to hear the story from you, in your own words. I know you’ve already told Detective Gessinger, but—”

“And then can I call my family?”

“Absolutely for sure. Don’t worry, they know you’re safe. I reached out to your husband myself.”

“Can’t we do this after I’ve phoned home? And slept? I’ve missed a whole night’s sleep.”

“I have an idea: how about if you only tell me about the last part, for now? Then tomorrow we can talk properly, once you’re rested.”

“Where’s Flora?”

“Detective Gessinger’s with her now. She’s hanging in there. Her parents are on a plane, on their way over.”

“And her children? She’s got four children!”

“Mrs. Leeson, please let us take care of everything. There’s nothing you need to concern yourself with. Trust me. We’ve got this.”

“Okay.”

“Now, I need you to tell me what happened. From the beginning.”

“All right. I—”

“Wait a second. Resuming the interview at 1100 hours. Detective Sophia Steel interviewing Mrs. Elizabeth Leeson. All right, Mrs. Leeson, I need to hear your account of how Mr. Braid lost his life.”

“He had a gun. He’d come to the house to kill me—he made that clear over and over again. Kept saying it. I don’t know about Flora. I didn’t think he was going to kill her—I think he might even have said he wasn’t—but then later he implied that maybe he would. It’s all in the recording, just listen to it.”

“Go on. You’re doing great.”

“He would have done it. He’d have killed both of us. I had no idea that my question would throw him in the way it did. I assumed—”

“Wait, back up. You asked him a question while he was pointing the gun at you?”

“I think . . . I’m trying to remember. I think he was facing away from me, pointing the gun at Flora, when I asked him why Thomas had been taken out of school. I assumed he knew that had happened, but he didn’t. He was shocked. We both saw it, me and Flora. Any second, he was going to kill us. We both knew it. When he turned around to say something to me, she ran at him and either grabbed him or shoved him, I don’t know which.”

“And then?”

“The gun fell out of his hand. Landed on the floor. Oh—he’d clicked it just before that happened, like people do when they’re about to shoot.”

“What happened after the gun fell?”

“I picked it up and started to back away toward the front door. I was thinking I could open it, run outside and scream for help. Lewis and Flora were both on the floor at that point. She’d landed on top of him. He was struggling to climb out from under her. Then he did, and he grabbed a knife from the block on the kitchen island. He started walking toward me, holding the knife like this—his hand was level with his head, in position to stab down.”

“Go on. This is what we need. You’re doing well.”

“I was close to the door, and he was coming toward me slowly. I thought I’d have time to get out before he got to me, but the door was locked. He must have locked it when he first came in. I couldn’t unlock it, not at the same time as keeping the gun on him, and if I didn’t do that . . .”

“I understand.”

“He was coming closer. I couldn’t get away. There was nowhere for me to go. I knew he was going to kill me if I didn’t do something, so I aimed the gun at his right arm—or I thought I did. I never meant to hit his head.”

“You’ve never fired a gun before?”

“No. Never.”

“Then the odds were against you hitting him at all. How much distance would you say there was between you when you fired that shot?”

“I don’t know. The closer he got, the more scared I was. I fired when I knew . . .”

“It’s okay. Take your time.”

“When I knew that if he came any nearer I’d freeze and it’d be too late. I remember thinking, ‘Soon he’ll be too close and there’ll be no point.’ I shouted at him not to do it, not to kill me—”

“Excuse the interruption. You were the one holding the gun, and Mr. Braid was not yet close enough to reach you, and you shouted ‘Don’t kill me’?”

“I told you: he was walking toward me with a knife. Holding it like this.”

“But you had a gun. Wasn’t he worried you’d kill him? I mean, that’s what happened, yes? You killed him.”

“No, he wasn’t worried. He still totally believed he was going to walk away without a scratch after killing me and Flora. He didn’t think I’d ever fire the gun. He thought I was too weak. So did I, until I did it.”

“All right. Thank you, Mrs. Leeson. We’ll let you have a little rest, maybe call your family in England. And then—I’m sorry, but it’s necessary—you’re going to need to go back a little further and talk me through all this from the very beginning. How it all started.”

Epilogue

Four months later

The narrow road winds around and around, perilous zigzag corners all the way up the hill. Every so often we pass a large pile of rubbish, bagged in multicolored plastic sacks, that’s been dumped by the side of the road and left to rot in the sun. There’s a strike going on according to Dom. I don’t know how he knows anything about the work disputes of Corfiot refuse collectors; I never got to find out. When he started to tell us, Ben and Zannah both groaned and put their earphones in, and he gave up with a sigh.

“How can there be any more turns?” he asks. “I mean . . . this is it. We’re at the top. But I think I’m supposed to turn right again here. Didn’t Flora’s email say turn right at the Lavandula bar?”

“Yeah. We must be nearly . . . Look, there. There’s a sign saying ‘Villa Agathi,’ with an arrow.”

“Okay,” Dom says in a low voice. He sounds as if he’s readying himself for an ordeal.

“It’ll be fine,” I tell him.

“Will it?”

“Yes. The kids aren’t worried.” I adjust our rental car’s rearview mirror and inspect each of them in turn. They’re half asleep, undisturbed by the loud music that’s pouring into their ears.

“What are you expecting to happen?” I ask Dom.

He shakes his head, keeping his eyes on the bumpy track ahead.

“We’re not going to walk into an awful scene of pain and anguish. Is that what you’re worried about?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m worried, exactly.”

“It’ll be fine. They’re on holiday.”

“We’re not, though. Are we?”

“Not in the same way, no.”