Chapters (64)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Prologue
- Five Years Later
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- Forty-seven
- Forty-eight
- Forty-nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-one
- Fifty-two
- Fifty-three
- Fifty-four
- Fifty-five
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgements
- Canelo Crime
- About the Author
- Also by Sheila Bugler
‘He looked very peaceful,’ Clodagh said. ‘It didn’t look as if he’d suffered.’
It wasn’t true. The only thing she’d really noticed was the one thing that mattered: the absence of life. The sudden, shocking knowledge that the man she was looking at was, beyond any doubt, dead.
‘Thanks,’ Simon said. ‘That means a lot.’
‘I don’t know if you wanted more,’ Clodagh said, ‘but there’s really nothing else I can tell you. I’m sorry.’
‘Is it true he sent you a text saying he wanted to speak to you about something?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You heard me.’
‘How did you…?’ She paused, already knowing the answer. Their little network was tight. Everyone at the villa would have spent the last twenty-four hours poring over everything they knew about Nick’s death, sharing information as they tried to make sense of what had happened.
‘Yes, it’s true. But I never found out why he wanted to speak to me. When I went looking for him, I couldn’t find him. So I went to bed instead.’
‘You must have some idea what it was about,’ Simon said.
‘Not a clue,’ Clodagh said.
‘You knew him before, didn’t you?’
Clodagh tensed.
‘I wouldn’t say I knew him. Not really. I went to his restaurant a few times, that’s all.’
‘And yet you ended up staying in the same resort in Crete. A bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?’
Clodagh was trying to work out how to respond to that when she heard Bella calling Simon’s name.
‘You need to come inside,’ Bella said, from the front door. She said something else, but Clodagh didn’t catch it because her phone had started to ring, the noise blocking out Bella’s voice. She saw Adam’s name on the screen and took the call as Simon stood up and went to speak to Bella.
‘Hi,’ Clodagh said. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Not really,’ Adam said. ‘Tara’s just called, screaming down the phone at me. The post-mortem results are back. Nick was murdered. No doubt, apparently. We’re all suspects in a murder investigation.’
At the front door, Bella had wrapped her arms around Simon and was holding him as he cried. She caught Clodagh’s eye and shook her head.
Then, before Clodagh could do anything else, Bella led her husband inside the house and slammed the door shut, leaving Clodagh outside.
Thirteen
It was six o’clock on Monday evening. Rachel was sitting in the office of Detective Superintendent Sharon Spalding, waiting for Sharon to finish reading the information Rachel had emailed to her earlier.
She had been sitting here for fifteen minutes. So far, apart from greeting her when she’d first walked in, Sharon hadn’t spoken a word. Rachel crossed her legs, then uncrossed them again.
‘A problem, Rachel?’ Sharon asked, without looking up from her computer screen.
‘No.’