Chapters (49)
‘You must be imagining it, David. How do you even know it was a man? It was probably one of the kids looking for the bathroom,’ Matt says.
‘It was definitely a man. We should see if the children are okay,’ her father says.
She feels her heart clench. Could there really be someone be in the house? Matt shoulders his way past her dad, pulling on his T-shirt. A moment later he returns.
‘They’re fine. I’ll check on Chloe.’
‘Shall we have a look in your bedroom?’
‘I told you – he left. He went downstairs,’ her dad says. He insists on going first, though, and she follows him along the landing.
‘What’s going on?’ asks Nick, opening the door of his room and running his hand through his hair, making it stand on end.
‘Dad thinks there was someone in his room.’
Nick frowns and pushes their father’s bedroom door open. ‘It’s empty.’ He even flings open the wardrobe for good measure. ‘Must have been a nightmare.’
Matt reappears, with Bethany behind him.
‘What’s all the commotion?’ she asks.
‘There’s no one else here,’ Matt says, ‘and I can’t see anyone outside or by the pool. The front and back doors are locked.’ He looks pointedly at Amy.
‘Maybe you just thought you saw someone?’ she says. ‘Or, like Nick says, you had a bad dream.’
‘I know what I saw!’ Their father takes a couple of steps into his room. His tone is fretful: ‘I can’t find my journal. It was here. I left it right here, on the dressing table.’ He points with one tremulous finger. ‘He must have stolen it.’
Matt shakes his head. ‘I’m going back to bed.’
‘You probably didn’t take it out of your suitcase, Dad,’ Nick says. ‘I never get round to unpacking.’
‘I do! I put it there because I always write in it at night.’
Amy can’t help noticing that Bethany is wearing a silk negligee over a pair of tiny shorts; a scrap of broderie anglaise covers her chest; her legs are toned and hard and laced with muscle. She must have had a boob job at some point. You couldn’t be thirty-four, exercise every day and have breasts that pert. She pulls her shawl more tightly around herself.
‘Dad, the travelling must have disoriented you. Why don’t you get some sleep? There’s no one here, and no one could have got into the house. I’m sure your journal will turn up in the morning.’
‘I’ll give him one of my sleeping tablets,’ says Bethany. ‘That’ll stop him wandering about.’ She puts her hand on Amy’s shoulder and says quietly, ‘I told you, didn’t I? He’s not himself.’
Amy feels the salt of tears burning the back of her throat and can’t bring herself to reply.