‘I think you’re managing that very well on your own.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Do you have to drink at every single meal?’

‘I’m on holiday! Supposed to be bloody enjoying myself – but I didn’t choose the company, did I? They’re your friends, not mine.’

‘All the same, it would be nice if you played with our daughter instead of passing out in the sun every afternoon.’

‘We’re playing now. You’re the one skulking out here on your phone.’

Odette clapped her hands.

‘My turn to hide, Mummy!’

Rowan reached for her daughter, giving her a smile. ‘Come on then, baby.’ She plucked Odette off Russ’s back, settled the little girl on her hip the way she had carried her when she was a toddler. ‘Let’s find a place.’

‘And then we can both hide?’

‘Yes. We’ll both hide from Daddy, somewhere really clever.’ She turned and headed off down the path around to the back of the house, Odette bouncing on her hip. ‘Somewhere he’ll never find us.’

Chapter 28

28

I had done enough watching, enough listening. It was time for action. Time to do something.

I crept along the first-floor hallway on the balls of my feet. No sound, no voices. Pushing the heavy oak door open, I peered inside Rowan and Russ’s bedroom. Like ours, it was decorated in creamy marble and antique wood, with a four-poster bed and beautiful carved bookcases. The sliding glass door out to the balcony was open slightly, gauzy white curtains stirring gently in the breeze from outside.

What was I looking for? What was I even doing in here?

I didn’t really know. But there had to be something, some clue that would help me find my way out of this maze. Where would I hide something, if it was me? If this was my room?

The wardrobe doors were open. I pushed a dozen dresses and tops aside and saw two matching red Samsonite suitcases stacked at the back of the space, one slightly smaller than the other. I selected the smaller of the two and unzipped it, poking through empty plastic bags, charger cables and a grey cotton laundry sack, also empty. The pockets inside the lid of the case had a few papers in them that seemed to relate to Rowan’s company, columns of figures and accounting terms that I couldn’t make head nor tail of.

I crossed the room and pulled open a bedside drawer. An open carton of ten packets of Marlboros, with only six packs remaining. A spare lighter. Assorted pills, a penknife, a plastic envelope stuffed with a thick wedge of fifty-euro notes, a phone charging cable, an iPad and a Google Pixel mobile phone, both switched off. Russ’s side of the bed. That was a bit weird, that his phone was here, switched off. He seemed to be on it all the time.