‘Two poached eggs on toast,’ Kate says as she rounds the table to where Geraldine is sipping her coffee. She’s pretty sure Geraldine deliberately requested something that wasn’t on the menu. And poached eggs no less – an absolute bastard to get right without any vinegar in the water. Is she going to review Kate’s culinary skills in her article? ‘Not only is Tom Wade a murderer, his wife is a shit cook too.’

‘Hope you enjoy them,’ she says as she puts the plate down in front of her.

Then choke to death, she thinks as she walks away.

Chapter 21

Now

FRAN

Fran’s poached eggs are the worst she’s ever eaten. She dabs her mouth with her napkin and places it over the eggy abomination on her plate. She’ll ask for toast tomorrow. With salted butter and apricot jam. She can’t stand raspberry. She doesn’t floss her teeth each morning just to get pips wedged in the gaps. Sitting back in her chair, her gaze flits from Caroline to Renata, sitting beside her, and Damian, on her other side. Interesting that two of the three Gozo survivors have chosen to flank Caroline, while Phoenix is ever present at her own side. Fran had hoped to have a word with Damian about the photo he took of her the previous night, and his motivations for doing so, but he was late to breakfast and she was already seated between Peter and Phoenix.

The first fifteen minutes of breakfast were interminable as Phoenix recounted, in excruciating detail, the dream he’d had last night. Initially, she paid attention, hoping for a nightmare that involved a sweat lodge or a grey-eyed man with shoulder length hair. Instead, he told her the world’s most tiresome story about a bird on a rollercoaster and how he’d tried to rescue it from between his feet only to trample it to death instead. She zoned out and stared at the salt cellar in the centre of the table until he finally took the hint and fell quiet.

She glances at her watch. They’ve got half an hour until Tom tells them the itinerary for the day; she can either confront Damian or get an update from Caroline about her conversation with Kate the previous night. She deliberates, then gets to her feet, subtly signalling to Caroline to do the same.

‘Back porch,’ she mouths.

Fran raises her eyebrows as Caroline joins her in the porch. She hadn’t been able to appreciate the sheer awfulness of today’s jumper whilst Caroline was tucked up at the table. It’s an enormous white tiger head on a black background.

‘Good disguise,’ she says.

Caroline looks at her quizzically. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘The jumpers. You look just like a middle-aged woman with emotional problems.’

‘I always wear these jumpers.’