‘Seriously?’

  ‘Of course.’

  It was 9.15 p.m. and my dinner date was over.

  And yet.

  Hans-Jürgen was endearing.

  At least he did bloody care, unlike Nicos, who was just a vulture, out for whatever pickings he could take from the carcass of human decency.

  I checked on Bruno, opening his door quietly, and to my relief he was asleep. I closed it and returned to my thoughts.

  God, I could have done with a drink. I reflected on his words.

  Would the world be any different if I had not existed?

  Suddenly, again, I found myself turning to Roy for the answer. I knew exactly what he would have told Hans-Jürgen. It had become almost a mantra to him. A principle. It was something I had always admired about him and always remembered. Perhaps, I thought with sudden realization, it was Roy’s defining quality. He would have said, ‘No man ever made a greater mistake than the man who did nothing because he could only do a little.’

  Tomorrow, I decided, I would find the Hochmeister and tell him that. But perhaps he knew it already?

  Then I reined myself in with a reality check. Hey, you left Roy. Now you’re quoting him. Really?

  I walked across the lounge to the open window and stared out across the parkland and the lake and the dense trees beyond, and breathed in the sweet scent of dewy, freshly mown grass.

  I felt lonely, suddenly. Lonelier than I could remember. Other than Bruno and Hans-Jürgen I didn’t know anyone here – and I realized I didn’t really know Hans-Jürgen at all. There were a couple of dozen books on the shelves in the room, mostly in German, but I’d seen a large English section in the library downstairs and I decided I would have a browse tomorrow.

  I missed having a television.

  I missed so much else, too.

  My thoughts returned to Nicos and his boat and what was happening. I tried, with the signal that seemed particularly feeble, to log back onto the websites of the Jersey papers, but to my frustration that timed out also.

  Probably just as well.

  73

  Autumn 2011

  The signal was better in the morning. Nicos was the lead story in the Bailiwick Express, and the Jersey Evening Post’s front-page splash for the second day running.

  ABANDONED YACHT MYSTERY DEEPENS

  Beneath the headline were photographs of Nicos and myself.

  Was it just an unfortunate printing glitch that made my face look dark and sinister, or had someone in the photographic department of the newspaper done this to deliberately make me look like a criminal? I stared at it in horror. I looked a bit like the Moors murderer Myra Hindley. Where the hell did they get it from? Great. I read on.

  States of Jersey Police have taken command as the lead investigators in the mystery of the abandoned thirty-eight-foot motor yacht Bolt-Hole, found drifting ten nautical miles off St Peter Port, Guernsey, on Tuesday morning. Chief Inspector Callum O’Connor told this paper that they are working closely with the Jersey Coastguard and Customs and Immigration and that the boat, which has now been towed into St Helier harbour, has been declared a crime scene.

  ‘We are currently conducting a forensic search of the vessel,’ CI O’Connor told the JEP. ‘At the present time we do not know who was on board or how it came to be abandoned. The boat is modern, in good mechanical order, and the sea-state was moderate at the time it was found adrift and abandoned. No freak waves, which might have caused a capsize, had been reported by any local fishermen or sailors.

  ‘We are working on a number of theories, which include the owner, Nicos Christoforou, who had business interests in Jersey, and who was believed to have been on board earlier Monday evening, falling overboard. But, having done some investigation into Mr Christoforou’s background, we are not at this stage ruling out foul play. We are anxious to speak to his partner, Sandra Jones, with whom, along with her young child, he shared an unqualified apartment close to Victoria Avenue. Neither have been seen since the beginning of the week.’

  Not ruling out foul play? No shit, Sherlock!

  I was deeply curious what they had found out about Nicos’s background. And I did not like that they were anxious to speak to me. How anxious, and how far would they push to do that? I was far enough away, I thought, unaware I was about to find that Jersey might be a small island but it had a long reach. But for now I wasn’t worried about myself, I desperately needed to find out what had happened to Nicos. What did the police know and were holding back? What investigations had they done into Nicos’s background?

  ‘States of Jersey Police held a press conference yesterday in which we put out an appeal to any members of the public who might have seen either Mr Christoforou or his partner, Sandra Jones, and her son, between the hours of 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. on Monday, to call States of Jersey Police, on +44 (0) 1534 612616 and ask for the Operation Sandbar incident room, or call Crimestoppers, anonymously, on +44 (0) 800 555111.’

  I read the piece again, then a third time, checking for any little nugget, any hidden clue about Nicos in the Chief Inspector’s guarded comments that I might have missed.

  The boat had been declared a crime scene, which surely indicated they did suspect foul play. Investigations into his background led them to the possibility of foul play, they said.

  ‘Mama, I’m hungry,’ Bruno whined, walking sleepily into my room in his pyjamas and rubbing his eyes.

  I put my phone down, gave him a good-morning kiss on the forehead, then suggested he get dressed quickly, so we could hurry downstairs before all the food was gone.

  ‘Do I have to go to that class again today? They are too babyish for me,’ he asked, his face squidging into a grump mask.

  ‘Actually, my darling,’ I said as an idea flashed into my head, thinking about Hans-Jürgen’s request last night for Bruno to see the resident doctor – Borg or whatever his name was. ‘There’s someone who is going to talk to you this morning and see if there is a better class for you.’

  Bruno suddenly looked so serious. ‘I think that would be good, Mama. They were all so stupid in my class yesterday.’ He nodded his head. ‘I mean, really, you just wouldn’t believe how stupid they are.’

  I ruffled his hair, which he hated and immediately stepped away. ‘How does it feel to be the brightest little boy in the world?’ I joked.

  But he replied without smiling. ‘I’m brighter than a five-year-old.’

  ‘Of course you are, darling.’

  He tilted his head back and strode off back to his room, reminding me of a character called Johnny Head-in-the-Air from one of my favourite childhood books, Struwwelpeter.

  Then I shuddered. They were all cautionary tales in that book. Most of the children died horribly. Johnny Head-in-the-Air walked over the edge of a riverbank.

  My phone rang. It was Julia Schmitt. Dr Borg could see Bruno at 9 a.m. I looked at my watch. It was just gone 7.30.

  74

  Autumn 2011

  Half an hour later, Bruno sat next to me at the Refectory table, messily shovelling Coco Pops into his mouth, from a bowl of them drenched in milk.

  As I prodded my spoon at a bowl of granola, berries and yoghurt, with no appetite, thoughts about Nicos were swimming in my mind.

  Or about Nicos not swimming at all.

  I just could not stop thinking, wondering, what had happened out there in that dark ocean.

  I was feeling terrible. Had he made his rendezvous with the Saul Brignell boat and been killed and dumped overboard when they’d found out how little cash he had with him? I knew it wouldn’t be good when they found out but I wasn’t thinking he’d be drowned. I was expecting either he would get a beating or the boat would be intercepted by Customs. It made me sick to think that what I’d done may have been the cause of his apparent death.

  I went over and over it in my head, my anxiety going through the roof again. Yes, he deserved to suffer for all the shit he had done to me and Bruno over these past few years. But no one deserves to be sent to their death. Maybe it was that damned Lutheran background instilled in me in early childhood: Do the right thing. And putting Nicos in that situation wasn’t doing the right thing.

  Or had Nicos cut a deal of some kind with the Brignell mob? He was persuasive enough to cut a deal with anyone.

  Or had he simply, cunningly, faked his disappearance to escape from them?

  And come after me?

  I needed to re-read the newspaper article to see if it said anything about the Bolt-Hole’s lifeboat. Because if the lifeboat was missing, it could mean Nicos had used it. I knew from my times on Bolt-Hole that the lifeboat, a RIB, had a powerful outboard motor. It could reach any of the other Channel Islands, or even the French coast, in an hour or so in most weather conditions, and Nicos had told me he had on a number of occasions launched it off Bolt-Hole out at sea, at night, to collect or deliver drug consignments on remote parts of the French coast as well as Guernsey and Alderney, without fear of being picked up on a coastguard’s radar.

  Had fisherman Adam le Seelleur, who had ferried me to Saint-Malo, done the dirty and snitched to Nicos? Or would he, when he saw that the police wanted to speak to me, go to them?

  But that would be insane. What could le Seelleur have to gain from confessing he’d illegally smuggled us into France, other than risking his licence?

  ‘Hey, good morning!’ said a man with a gravelly American accent. I smelled the reek of tobacco – forbidden here of course like pretty much everything else that was remotely naughty – and looked up, to see Shambolic Hair looking down with a broad smile. ‘This your kid?’

  I can’t explain what it was, but he instantly fired me out of my dark thoughts and put a smile on my face. ‘No, I don’t know who he is – I just found him under a rock.’ I winked at Bruno and he smiled.

  Shambolic Hair grinned and held out a hand and in an American accent said, ‘I’m Stoker.’

  ‘Stoker? As in Bram?’

  He looked puzzled, not getting it. ‘Bram? No, I don’t think so.’

  I shook his hand back, and put him out of his misery. ‘Bram Stoker wrote Dracula.’

  He beamed and nodded. Then he tapped the side of his head. ‘Yeah, well, you’re too sharp for me, at this hour. I just spent the night in a coffin, cut me some slack, lady!’

  I laughed, I couldn’t help it. He had this face that was part impish, part handsome, part . . . rebellious. There was something wild about him. Something dangerous. ‘You need to grind those teeth,’ I replied. ‘They look too blunt – for a vampire.’

  He nodded, as if he wasn’t sure I was joking, then stood awkwardly for a moment. ‘Actually, I’ve come to say goodbye, which is kind of a bummer, as I’ve not yet even met you.’

  ‘Was it something I said?’ I fired back. I don’t know what it was exactly, but I felt such an instant chemistry between us.

  He shook his head. ‘I guess it was something you didn’t say. But, hey, who knows, if we’re meant to meet again, we’ll meet again. Until then, tschüss!’

  ‘Hasta la vista!’ I replied.

  He made a gun out of his fist and pointed the barrel at me. ‘Hasta la vista, baby!’

  Then he was gone.

  There were more Coco Pops spilt on the table around Bruno’s bowl than remained inside it, along with ocean-sized puddles of milk, but he continued eating, oblivious to the mess. I turned and looked towards the door. Shambolic Hair was standing there, on the far side of the room, seemingly looking back at me. Our eyes met briefly – unless I imagined that – and then he really was gone.

  Leaving my insides all shaken up. At least it stopped me racing through thoughts about Nicos.

  I certainly wasn’t looking for a relationship at the moment. But to feel a flutter at a brief flirtation with this Stoker guy, along with the cold distance Hans-Jürgen had put between us, made me realize just how much I was missing the warmth I had always felt with Roy.

  God, how stupid had I been to leave him?

  Or was I just in a bad dip right now?

  Stoker. Cool name. The American stranger. And now he was gone, out of my life. Ships in the night.

  Although maybe that wasn’t such a great analogy at the moment.

  I looked at my watch. 8.45. Time to take Bruno to Dr Borg and see what he would make of my son.

  And afterwards, to see what the doctor would prescribe me. I had done a calculation and worked out I had just one more day’s supply of the tablets they gave me – dihydrocodeine – and I don’t think the schloss will give me any more tablets. They do keep my cravings for heroin at bay.

  Perhaps I could go to a chemist to get my prescription. Maybe pick up a bottle of nice wine. How I missed those pleasures.

  As I stood up, and was about to tell Bruno it was time for us to go, I saw Julia Schmitt striding anxiously across the room towards us, followed by another, young, friendly-looking woman, in the same schloss tunic. I wondered why she was in such a hurry. Had I misheard the time of the doctor’s appointment and we were late?

  Then when she spoke, giving me a strange look as she did, I was seized with complete and utter panic.

  ‘Sandra, there are two police officers who would like to speak to you.’

  75

  Autumn 2011

  I stared at Julia numbly. My mind hung, my brain spinning like one of those infuriating little pinwheels on a computer screen. ‘Police?’ I said lamely.

  I was frantically trying to think of all the reasons the police would want to speak to me. Had Roy finally tracked me down? Was I here illegally? But that could not be the case, this was the EU, I could travel freely anywhere within it if I wanted. It had to be something to do with Nicos, I concluded, but what?

  Was he going to accuse me of stealing from him?

  No way.

  Julia Schmitt turned to the woman behind her. ‘This is my colleague, Ellen Reinbach-Brenner. She will take Bruno to see Dr Borg, if you come with me.’

  Her colleague gave me a reassuring smile.

  ‘But – I – I want to be there for the consultation.’

  Very firmly Julia replied, ‘It is Dr Borg’s preference to see him alone and then to speak to you afterwards. And these police officers must speak to you urgently.’

  I leaned down to Bruno and explained quickly to him that this lady, Ellen, would take him to meet the man I’d talked about yesterday. He looked at her very closely, as if appraising her head to toe and then back up to the head, like a tailor or dressmaker. ‘What computer games do you like?’ he asked her.

  I took the opportunity to slip away and followed Julia back across the Refectory, then along the labyrinth of corridors, the stone walls lined with sconces holding unlit candles, and framed motivational quotes that were on just about every wall in this vast building.

  Man cannot seek new horizons until he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

  A mind once stretched can never return to its original dimensions.

  Failure isn’t making the mistake. It’s allowing the mistake to win.

  Then we came into the entrance foyer. Standing by the reception desk, which Bruno and I had arrived at just two days ago, were two men in smart green uniforms that had a military cut. One, tall and wiry, in his forties, with wavy grey hair, had two pips on his epaulettes, and the other, some years his junior, with sleek black hair, and a good-looking but a don’t-mess-with-me face, had just one.

  Julia introduced me.

  The tall one said, with no handshake offered, ‘Good morning, sprechen Sie Deutsch?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t.’

  He smiled, pleasantly, but not that warmly. ‘We are detectives from the Munich Headquarters. I am Kriminalhauptkommissar Ludwig Bollenbacher, and my colleague is Kriminalkommissar Jörg Steinmetz. We would like please to ask you some questions.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, shaking with nerves. ‘What about, exactly?’

  They both looked at Julia, and I had the uncomfortable feeling she knew something I didn’t. She led us through a doorway behind the reception desk into a small, cluttered office, with a table and four chairs surrounded by shelves loaded with a printer and a mass of files, and general office clutter. ‘Kann ich Ihnen ein Getränk holen? Kaffee?’ she said to the police officers.

  Both shook their heads and she left the room, closing the door behind her.

  I felt very alone and very scared. I looked at Bollenbacher, who seemed the friendlier of the two. Was I about to be interrogated by the hard man–soft man technique I’d read about in books and seen in movies?

  Bollenbacher spoke first. ‘Frau Jones, we have been requested to speak with you by the States of Jersey Police, in regard to Herr Nicos Christoforou, who we understand is your partner?’

  I stared at him for some moments, in silence. Wondering just how much he knew. Perhaps that I’d changed my name. But how far back had he drilled? Did he know who I really was?

  I chose my words carefully before replying, not at all sure where this might be going. ‘He is my ex-partner, I have left him.’

  The two officers exchanged a glance, which unnerved me. Just what the hell did they know?

  ‘How long have you been his ex-partner, Ms Jones?’ Steinmetz said. From his cultured voice I could tell he was more comfortable speaking English than his colleague.

  ‘I left him just under a week ago.’

  ‘On Monday, September the twenty-sixth?’ Steinmetz said. ‘The last time anyone has seen him?’

  I felt like I had just stepped onto the edge of an elephant trap. Gathering my thoughts quickly, I said, ‘What do you mean, “the last time anyone has seen him”? Has something happened to him?’

  The two officers exchanged another glance. Steinmetz responded. ‘You are not aware that Nicos Christoforou has not been seen since the night of September the twenty-sixth?’

  I had no idea what my rights were, here in Germany. Should I ask for a lawyer? I decided, for the moment, to play dumb and innocent. Both of them were looking at me, no doubt reading my body language and wondering why I was pale and trembling. I shook my head. ‘No, I had no idea. He has not been seen since then? I did not know that. I just wanted to get away from him – and get my son away from him.’