He remembered the expensive handbags that Maria had mentioned Eleni had received. ‘How well-paid, specifically?’

  She laughed at that. ‘Specifically? Well, that depends on a lot of things. Like most high-end bar staff, a good chunk of money comes from tips.’

  ‘I see. Were you ever aware of Eleni Barlas receiving such tips? Or even gifts?’

  Lily considered the question for a moment, plucking another leaf from the branch. ‘Yes… yes, actually. She was really beautiful… and fun. I think she probably got a lot of gifts from the single male guests. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Do you remember any guest in particular with whom she had a close relationship? He would most likely have stayed at the hotel for quite a period of time.’

  She shrugged. ‘We get a few guests staying for long periods to work on projects or escape the English drizzle. If they’re still a member, I’ll have those records. I can check?’

  ‘That would be most useful. Is it possible to do it now?’

  She reached for her laptop. ‘Sure. Do you have a year? Dates?’

  He nodded, opening his notepad. ‘Five years ago. Between March and June. Please search for any guest who stayed longer than two weeks or visited regularly within that period.’

  She bit her lip in concentration, as he moved to get a look at the screen. ‘It’s searching. It’ll take a few minutes to load. You’re welcome to wait.’ She pushed the laptop to one side.

  ‘Thank you, I will. It will be a good opportunity for you to tell me about Tatiana Kanatas.’

  He detected a slight twitch in her face as he mentioned the name; perhaps it was understandable. The name ‘Kanatas’ would no doubt remind her of her last meeting with Irene. He continued, ‘She was a hostess too? At around the same time?’

  ‘That’s right. She was a little older, but she worked here. Same sort of stuff.’

  He asked the next question very casually. ‘Any idea where she is now?’

  He watched her digest the question, poised to detect any hint of deception. The furrowing of the brow, the flick of the eyes, the flush of the cheeks. No such signs occurred. She pouted, shaking her head. ‘No, sorry. I know that she left home abruptly. That’s it, I’m afraid. I tried not to have that much to do with Irene.’

  He folded his arms as a soft breeze danced through the trees surrounding them. For a moment, the bristling of the leaves provided a gentle distraction to the backdrop of drilling and hammering. Lily sighed, and rested her chin on her hands.

  ‘You still don’t understand how on earth the Saturnalia is going ahead? You find it callous?’

  It was an unusually direct question. ‘I understand it, Ms Woodstow. However, I don’t agree with it. I’ve been unfortunate enough to learn that the path to money and power is more often than not laid with blunt, ruthless force. I wouldn’t expect the “haves”, as you called them, to possess the sensitivity required to cancel their party.’

  An odd look came over her face. ‘It’s just a party.’

  ‘That depends on your perspective.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ She smiled and looked at the trees, apparently ready to change the subject. ‘It’s set to be a great pistachio harvest this year.’

  Michail turned to see where she was looking. The trees surrounding them were all olive, not pistachio. He frowned, confused. ‘Do you keep pistachio trees somewhere in the grounds?’

  She looked momentarily confused, as if she didn’t understand the question, when the laptop beeped. ‘Ah!’ She glanced at the screen. ‘Success… oh… well, that’s a coincidence…’ She turned the screen to face him.

  The database had provided only three names, all male. Only one name could be mistaken for a coincidence: Teddy Menkopf.

  Next Best Thing

  Sofia folded her arms tightly as Pete placed the soft toy on the grave. Grave. It was a disastrous word. She never said it aloud, because she knew that it would lodge, sticky and painful, at the back of her throat. He’d chosen a giraffe. It sat at an odd angle against the black-flecked marble. The sky was tinged with purples and pinks and yellows and reds, like a giant child’s finger painting. It was too early even for the birds to have reached their full song. Only the distant trundle from the train track at the bottom of the hill was audible above the silence. And Pete’s breathing: always steady, but shallow, as if he thought that, by limiting the air he breathed, he might be able to numb himself. To feel less.

  ‘I only have an hour. It’s a morning flight.’

  ‘When was the last time you visited him?’ Pete looked straight ahead, his eyes locked on the grave. The giraffe.

  ‘Don’t…’ Him. The words sent a tremor through her gut. She recognised the sensation. It woke her late at night. Sometimes, it caught her unawares in public; like when she walked past a family or heard a child’s unabashed laughter. It wasn’t painful, at least, not in the way that most people understood pain. It was more like a restless spasm, working through her insides, cordoning off her organs so that she was split into her raw parts, unable to function as a whole. She would have preferred a more traditional pain. The sort that culminated in screams and tears. The spasm had no release. It just made itself at home. Crouched, uncomfortable, between her stomach and her heart. Circulated its concoction of guilt and anger and shame through her blood. ‘It’s not him. It’s a grave.’

  They sat in silence for a few moments and she gripped the bench with both hands, wanting more than anything to leave. ‘You come a lot, then?’

  ‘Most weeks.’ Pete nodded, slow and calm. ‘We talk. I tell him about what’s going on… anything I see that I think he might like. There was a hot air balloon over the heath the other day.’

  ‘If you’re trying to make me feel guilty–’ She heard her voice snap. This was so typical. So repetitive. He never understood how she needed to be. How she needed to do things her way. She stood to leave. ‘This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have–’

  ‘Visited your dead son?’

  His words scraped through the air, catching her neck like a rough noose. She stopped, her head hung low, but couldn’t bring herself to meet Pete’s face. She knew the look he’d be wearing. That crinkle of confusion at the side of his eyes. The curl of pity on his lips. And the worst: the tautening of his cheeks that suggested he was apprehensive, even fearful, of her. She didn’t need to see that look again. It was one of the reasons she’d left. She listened to him get up and move to stand behind her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sofia. It’s just…’

  ‘You don’t understand it.’ She turned, her eyes tracing the hard, dusty ground. ‘You don’t have to understand, Pete. I was happy to sit with you here. But you can’t make me feel how you feel. You can’t force me to believe that this… this…’ Her voice wavered but she swallowed the air down. ‘This isn’t him. He’s gone. That’s what I need to believe. Otherwise…’

  She didn’t finish her sentence. Through the early silence tore the sounds of her ragged breaths, her fingers clawing at her own chest, her belly. She could almost feel the blood beneath her fingernails again. The grief.

  ‘Okay.’ His voice was soft. She raised her eyes and saw that he was crying. Even after all these years, it was unbearable to see. Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around him and held him close, breathing in the smell of his neck, wondering how something could be so intensely familiar and alien at the same time.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. She didn’t add what she was sorry for. Sorry for leaving him? Sorry for never coming home? Sorry that the only way she had found to live was to forget? Like an empty vessel.

  He sighed and stepped away from her, removing his glasses. ‘Look, we can talk somewhere else. I just… you’re right. I shouldn’t have asked you to come here. It was selfish.’

  She almost agreed. She wanted more than anything to be far from here. Far from this awful stoney reminder. Instead, she arranged herself, limbs stiff, back on the bench. ‘We’re here now. And… if anyone’s calling anyone selfish…’

  He gave a low laugh and sat beside her. ‘Can’t be selfish if you don’t let anyone in.’

  She closed her eyes and let the words bristle against her skin. He was right. He was wrong. There was no point in getting into it now. ‘You had something?’

  He paused for a moment as if torn between what to say, before reaching into his rucksack and pulling out some files. ‘I’ll send it all over to you, but here are the hard copies. Take a look.’

  She opened the folder and studied the statements. ‘This is payroll for the Balcombe Group.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I won’t ask how you got these.’

  ‘Very wise.’

  She allowed herself a small smile and scanned the first few pages. ‘Irene Kanatas. She was a cleaner at Saturn House… wait…’

  She ran a finger down the numbers and frowned. ‘She was unpaid? What? For six years, she’s basically been paid one euro a month. I – we – missed this.’ She gritted her teeth, annoyed.

  ‘I’m guessing she wasn’t someone who could afford to volunteer?’

  ‘No.’ Sofia continued to leaf through the file. ‘This is… look, again, Iraklis Barlas, the desk manager. He’s being paid basically nothing. Why? Why does he stay there?’

  ‘No idea. It's weird.’ Pete shrugged. ‘But, like I say, I’ve been tracking Domenico Bonarelli for a while. He’s got a lot of high-profile friends in a lot of high-profile places. A guy like that, on the international jet-set scene… there’d be rumours.’

  ‘And what have you heard?’

  ‘That’s just it. Nothing. Not even a whisper. He runs the most exclusive club in town, parties with the rich and famous, funds them, yet I can’t find a single person – staff, ex, caterer – who has a bad word to say about the man.’

  ‘If there’s no smoke–’

  ‘Then it’s likely charcoal fire,’ Pete finished. ‘Deadly unless treated with caution.’

  Sofia closed the folder. ‘Katerina met Tatiana Kanatas, Irene’s daughter, last night. She’s convinced there’s something going on. I’m with her.’

  ‘Trafficking?’

  Sofia nodded, squinting as a cool breeze lapped against her face. ‘Maybe. Lots of young, pretty girls. Lots of rich men. You don’t exactly need to be imaginative. Thing is, there’s no obvious trail, no suspicious links with high-risk countries, no red-flag transportation, no connection to anything underground, organised traffickers…’

  ‘Yet, three murders, one of them possibly a copycat, or not. It could be the same killer.’

  ‘Something on that scale would need infrastructure. It would be traceable – a network of traffickers, helpers, communications. We’ve found nothing. And this Saturnalia party.’ She let out a frustrated groan. ‘My colleague’s convinced it has something to do with some ancient ritual, if you can believe it.’

  ‘The same colleague who blew The Awakening open?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘You rate him?’

  ‘Yes. He’s going through some stuff, though. He has an imagination. But he’s thorough. Logical. If I’m honest, the whole investigation has turned into a bloody mess. I’m not sure any of us are working to our best abilities. I’ve missed something, I’m sure of it.’ She gazed down at the folder. ‘This is something. Why would the Balcombe House Group not pay these, specifically these, employees? Both of them had daughters who worked at the hotel previously. Tatiana’s in London, Eleni’s dead. That can’t be a coincidence.’

  ‘Yeah…’ He folded his legs and massaged his forehead. A morning mist had rolled in over the terraced roofs that stretched from the foot of the cemetery. ‘Perhaps they needed to remain working there.’

  ‘You mean like a debt? Something about their daughters?’ She watched the mist glow orange for a while then lowered her gaze to look at the grave’s inscription. Lucas Sampson. February 2009 – July 2013. Loved forever. Mummy and Daddy will see you soon. Night-night, little egg.

  ‘What else?’ Her eyes fixated on his name. She knew she should look away. This was the start of the spiral. The oily slope down to the gaping abyss. But there was his name.

  Pete shifted beside her. ‘What else?’

  ‘You said you told him about the hot air balloon. What else?’

  Pete cleared his throat before replying. ‘I walk through Regent’s Park in the mornings, if I have time.’ He pointed to the giraffe toy. ‘I see the giraffes over the trees. He’d have loved that.’

  She nodded, her lips pressed shut and tight.

  ‘There’s a water fountain that kids like to play in by King’s Cross. The water shoots up without warning… it’s fun. I tell him about that, you know, just stuff. Just stuff to talk about.’

  She didn’t reply. They sat in silence for close to a minute. Pete was patient, like always. She flicked the file with her fingernail in a quick, restless rhythm. She shouldn’t have let her curiosity pique. She didn’t need to know about the waterpark.

  ‘We arrested someone for the sniper attack. I think there was something going on between her and Domenico, judging from the note we found on her. The interesting thing was that she was a victim’s girlfriend.’

  ‘Alek Knox?’

  She raised her eyebrows.

  Pete sniffed. ‘He was social media famous here. The press have a bit to say about him.’

  She squinted into the horizon. ‘Right. Well, let me know if you find anything that suggests Domenico and Innes were in a relationship. Any connection at all.’

  ‘Like I said, it’s radio silence out there.’

  ‘You always find something.’ She turned to him, her face warm against the breeze. ‘You know, I keep thinking about the cleaner, Irene. She had a photo of her daughter in her cottage. I doubt she knew where Tatiana was, if she was safe. As a parent, you’d do anything, wouldn’t you, to keep your child safe? No matter what their age?’

  ‘You know that as well as I do.’

  She shuddered at that. The briny smell of hospital corridors mingled with the cemetery air. Had they, though? The amount of phone calls, the desperate begging for third, fourth, fifth opinions. Could she have pushed harder? Fought more? She bowed her head, a nausea gurgling in her belly. ‘That’s what I thought. Yet, I don’t think she looked for her, by the sounds of it. All those years. Her daughter disappears without a word and, instead of doing anything about it, she continues working at Saturn House, for free.’

  ‘You’re wondering why a mother would do that?’

  ‘There’s something I don’t understand, clearly.’ Sofia smacked her lips, remembering the footage of Irene from Lily’s office. ‘Something was bothering her… enough that she attacked her boss. Clearly, something was upsetting her.’

  Pete hung his head, removing his glasses as he rubbed his eyes. ‘I’ll ring you with anything I find. You won’t be back for a while, I take it?’

  She stood. For a few seconds she observed Lucas’s gravestone, the nausea lurching up in a hot wave through her lungs, groping at her throat. How did Pete leave here, after their chats? Did he kiss the grave goodbye? Did he place his hand on it? Touch the cool, relentless marble? Another thing she didn’t need to know. She didn’t want to remember him like this. Just like when the local paper had taken his photograph in his hospital bed at the children’s hospice fundraiser – she had hated it. It hadn’t looked like him. Pete had emailed the paper asking for it not to be printed. She wanted to remember him as he had been for the majority of his life. Happy. Laughing.

  Pete sniffed.

  ‘Not sure. Probably not. Good luck with… with everything.’

  He remained seated as he placed his glasses carefully back over his nose. ‘Sometimes, Sofia, parents can’t keep their children safe. Then, they need to cope with the next best thing.’

  Stuffing the folder into her handbag, she turned towards the steep path without saying goodbye, allowing the thrashings of grief to release in useless tears as she hurried down the hill.

  Inversion

  ‘Did you get a name, any identifying information at all?’

  Katerina did not like Michail’s tone. ‘We had no jurisdiction in London, Michail, as Sofia has explained.’

  The afternoon light settled through the kitchen window in orange patches. A car trundled past on the dusty road outside, casting a shadow between them and the opal sea. London seemed so far away, as did the unidentified girl, walking unsteadily into the crowds. He was right; she should have done more to protect her. But she hadn’t been quick enough. Clever enough.

  Sofia raised her face and, for the second time today, Katerina thought that she seemed fatigued, her eyes glassy and dull.

  ‘She’s right, Michail.’ Sofia took a long sip of coffee and wriggled out of her jacket. ‘The purpose of the trip was to find something to work with, which we managed. Katerina couldn’t have done anything more if she’d tried. Anyway, by the sounds of it, we’ll be seeing both Tatiana and her friend at the Saturnalia.’

  Katerina gazed at Michail’s board. ‘What’s that? You’ve added something.’

  ‘Good spot.’ Michail circled a photograph of a teenage girl. ‘As I already mentioned, the girl who ended her life by suicide at the Lykeio was Eleni Barlas, Iraklis’s daughter and Maria’s sister. Upon further investigation, it turns out that she had a tattoo on her ankle of the sickle symbol. Maria told me that she had a boyfriend who was a guest at Saturn House in the months leading up to her death. I asked Lily to run a search and Teddy Menkopf would have been staying for a long period at around the same time.’

  ‘You think he was the boyfriend?’ Sofia asked.

  ‘Almost certainly.’

  ‘Did Maria say anything about mistreatment? Did her sister mention that she was unhappy?’ Katerina stared at the photograph. It was silly, but she felt the same looking at it as she had speaking to Tatiana and her friend. It was as if she could sense the sadness, the desperation.