Deceive Me Read online

  ‘You wait here. Let me do the talking,’ I say, opening the car door.

  ‘Are you joking? No way, Jo. I’m coming with you,’ Chris says firmly. ‘This kid could be dangerous.’

  I sigh. Chris will probably bulldoze in and spoil my strategy, which is to get Andreas to trust me and confide in me. Also, there are certain things I don’t want Chris to know. Let’s hope that Andreas doesn’t know as much as I suspect he does. It’s frustrating but I can tell from the expression on Chris’s face that he’s not going to back down this time.

  ‘All right,’ I nod, ‘but leave the talking to me, okay?’

  We pick our way up the path, through the rubbish. As we reach the door a cockroach scuttles under a dead pot plant and I shudder.

  Chris rings the doorbell three times before Andreas answers.

  ‘Hello?’ he says vaguely, as if he doesn’t recognise us. He looks as if he’s high. The flushed skin and dry lips are a dead giveaway.

  ‘We need to speak to you about Grace. Can we come in?’ Chris says. ‘I’m her dad.’

  Something flickers behind his eyes as Andreas looks up slowly at Chris. ‘I know who you are,’ he says tersely, opening the door. I try to identify his expression. Is it fear or guilt? No, I’m pretty sure it’s hostility. Deep, intense hostility. I guess he’s heard the rumours about Chris being involved in Grace’s disappearance. There’s no smoke without fire. That’s what people say, isn’t it? And most of the time it’s true, I think. But not in this case. That’s what I believe. What I need to believe.

  ‘We follow him into a cramped, smelly living room. The place is chaotic, with dirty plates and glasses heaped on every available surface: the coffee table, the TV table and the floor. A video game, a first-person shooter, is on pause. And underneath the smell of BO and rotting food there’s an acidic, vinegary smell that makes me certain that he’s been taking drugs.

  I look around the room. There’s no sign that anyone else is home. ‘Where’s your brother? You said you lived with your brother,’ I say.

  He seems confused and drowsy.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your brother, where is he?’

  ‘Oh, Yiannis? He doesn’t live here anymore. He’s moved in with his fiancée.’

  Chris and I exchange a look of relief. That makes things a lot easier.

  I glance around at the room. There are pictures on the wall, old-fashioned prints of flowers and embroidered lace. They don’t look like the kind of pictures a teenage boy and a young man would choose, so I’m guessing they’ve been left here from before their mother died. There are also a couple of photos. A picture of a woman who I’m guessing is his mother and an old photo of a hotel, a tall 1960s-style tower block with rounded balconies and Grecian Bay Hotel in large blue letters above the portico. ‘Where’s this?’ I ask, taking the hotel picture from its hook and brushing off the dust.

  Andreas takes the picture from me and hangs it back up. ‘It’s our family hotel in Famagusta, in no man’s land. When the Turks invaded, my family had to flee. My grandparents lost everything. They left with just the clothes on their backs.’

  I think briefly of all the people whose lives were changed forever by the war and then I clear a space on the sofa and sit down.

  ‘Andreas,’ I say cautiously, ‘we need you to explain something to us. Is that okay?’

  ‘Sure,’ he nods warily.

  ‘I went to see Doctor Stavrides yesterday. Apparently, Grace went to see him a week or so before she disappeared. Do you know anything about that?’

  His eyes widen. I watch his Adam’s apple move up and down in his throat as he swallows.

  He shakes his head.

  ‘I think you do,’ I say slowly, ‘because, you see, Doctor Stavrides told us that she wasn’t on her own. There was someone with her. And the person that was with her sounded very much like you.’

  He doesn’t answer immediately. He sits in the armchair tapping his thighs with his long, bony fingers.

  ‘She made me promise not to tell anyone,’ he says at last.

  Chris leans forward. There’s a muscle in his cheek flexing.

  ‘Why did she tell you?’

  Andreas shifts slightly, stares out of the window and then back at us. ‘What?’ he asks vaguely. Drug-induced confusion or delaying tactics? I wonder.

  ‘Why did she tell you about the pregnancy?’ Chris repeats more loudly.

  ‘She trusted me, I suppose.’

  ‘Are you the father of the baby?’

  Andreas looks startled. Then he laughs a high-pitched nervous laugh. ‘No, of course I’m not.’

  ‘Who is the father then?’ Chris asks.

  Andreas gives him a sly look. ‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

  You could cut the tension in the room with a knife. Andreas opens his mouth to speak. I have the feeling that he’s about to tell us something important. But just then my phone rings, startling us all, and Chris and Andreas watch silently as I fish it out of my handbag. I glance at the screen, Dave’s name flashing up, and scowl.

  ‘Shit,’ I say and stab the ‘end call’ icon. Trust Dave to call at such a critical moment and ruin everything.

  ‘Who was that?’ asks Chris.

  ‘Dave.’ I replace my phone in my handbag. ‘We should have bought the ticket and escorted him onto the plane. That’s the only way we’ll ever get rid of him. Sorry about that,’ I say to Andreas. ‘You were about to tell us about Grace.’

  ‘I was just going to say that—’

  In my bag the phone rings again and I snatch it up angrily.

  ‘Dave? What do you want?’

  ‘Joanna, thank God,’ he says. ‘I’ve been calling and calling, trying to contact you.’

  I bite back the expletive on the tip of my tongue. ‘Listen, this is not a good time. Can I call you back?’

  I can hear him breathing on the other end of the phone – and the irritating sucking sound he always makes when he runs his lips over his teeth. ‘I’ve remembered something about Grace,’ he says. ‘About the night I saw her in the club. It could be important.’

  ‘What?’ I snap impatiently.

  ‘I can’t tell you over the phone. Why don’t we meet somewhere? We could meet at the marina.’

  ‘Dave, I’m kind of busy right now. I’ll meet you later, okay?’

  ‘When?’

  I sigh. I very much doubt he has anything to tell me. ‘Two o’clock at the marina,’ I say abruptly and hang up.

  ‘Dave again?’ Chris raises his eyebrows. ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He says he remembered something else about the night he saw Grace. He’s so full of bull.’

  Chris sighs. ‘Well, next time tell him not to come anywhere near me or I won’t be held responsible for my actions. Time-wasting twat that he is.’

  Andreas picks up a coaster and taps it against the coffee table, glancing from me to Chris.

  ‘You were about to say . . . ?’ I ask.

  ‘Nothing.’ He puts his hands on his knees and stares at us defiantly.

  ‘Really?’ Chris says sceptically.

  ‘Yes, really.’ Andreas flashes him another look. The look is full of deep hostility. I didn’t imagine it earlier, I think. He really hates Chris.

  ‘What would you say has happened to her, if you had to guess?’ I try.

  He shrugs. ‘How should I know?’

  I sigh. I don’t think we’re going to get anything more out of him. Maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe he really doesn’t know anything. But I seriously doubt it. There’s something suspicious about his manner. I could swear he’s hiding something. I stand up and walk to the window. Looking out at the half-finished block of flats and the dry fields opposite, I remember what Dino said at our first meeting: She’s probably at a friend’s house. What if he was right?
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  ‘You don’t mind if we just take a look around, do you?’ I say to Andreas.

  He looks alarmed. ‘Um, well . . . I don’t want—’

  ‘She wasn’t asking your permission,’ says Chris grimly, standing up and looming over him. ‘It’s a good idea, Jo,’ he nods at me. ‘I’ll have a look round down here. You do the bedrooms.’

  ‘You’re not the police,’ Andreas protests. ‘You can’t just search my house.’

  But I’m already halfway up the stairs. I can hear him behind me on his phone, speaking urgently in Greek. I hope to God that he’s not calling his brother. If he is, we probably haven’t got much time. I whizz around the bathroom. Not many hiding places there. Then I open a random door on the landing.

  ‘You can’t go in there.’

  ‘Can’t I, though?’ I say. ‘Watch me.’

  I’m guessing this is Andreas’s room because there’s a school shirt scrunched up on the floor and school textbooks spread untidily over the desk. I look in the wardrobe, rifling through a bunch of nondescript T-shirts and jeans. Then I pull open drawers and I even duck under the bed, but find nothing but dust, a smelly T-shirt and a few balled-up tissues. Is it possible that Grace is hiding here, right under our noses? From the way Andreas is anxiously hovering I’m certain there’s something here he doesn’t want me to find. It’s like a game of hot and cold. The more agitated he becomes, the closer I am to finding it.

  When I look in the chest of drawers, I know I’m on to something because Andreas seems ready to explode with anxiety. And there, sure enough, shoved into the bottom drawer, I find bowls, spoons, tied-up condoms, syringes and a few fat plastic bags of white powder. I would have to cut the bags open to be certain, but it looks very much like the stuff Dave used to shoot up. I take the bags from the drawer and spread them out on the floor. I have no idea of the going rate, but I imagine he must have at least a few thousand pounds worth of heroin here. Anyway, it’s way more than could be just for personal use.

  ‘This stuff will kill you, you know,’ I say, weighing one of the bags in my hand.

  ‘Please . . .’ he begs. ‘Please don’t . . .’

  ‘It’s all right. I don’t really care.’ I sit down on his unmade bed with a sigh. ‘I’m not going to tell anybody. All I want is to find Grace.’

  I feel deflated. I was so sure I would find something here that would lead me to her.

  ‘Where is she, Andreas?’ I ask wearily. ‘I think you know.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ he says. He sits at his desk and stares back at me defiantly.

  We’re sitting there eyeballing each other, like a game of who blinks first, when there’s the sound of a car pulling up outside and the car door slams, making us both jump. There’s the sound of heavy footsteps on the path and then angry shouting in Greek. I can just hear Chris’s voice in between the shouting, trying to sound conciliatory.

  ‘All right, mate, calm down. I can explain.’

  Andreas runs out of the room and after a couple of seconds I follow. But I freeze halfway down the stairs, because in the living room Chris is backed up against the wall and a large man is standing in the doorway, pointing a shotgun at him.

  The man is tall like Andreas, over six foot, but unlike Andreas he’s broad and muscular, easily as big as Chris. His hair is shaved, and he’s dressed in camo. He has a hard, nonchalant expression on his face that makes me pretty sure he wouldn’t think twice about pulling the trigger.

  Andreas speaks to him rapidly in Greek, and the man, who I guess is his brother, answers. I catch a few words – police, wanker and then the name of the head of the mafia in Larnaca. At the sound of that name the hair lifts from my scalp and my throat tightens. Chris stares at me, terrified, and I stare back, frozen with fear.

  ‘Does he speak English?’ Chris asks Andreas and Andreas nods, wide-eyed. He seems almost as scared of his brother as we are.

  ‘Look, we don’t want any trouble,’ Chris stammers. ‘We just want to find our daughter.’

  Yiannis sits down in the armchair, still pointing the gun casually at Chris. Then, slowly he swivels it, so it’s aimed at me. My heart skips a beat and my knees buckle.

  ‘Please,’ I beg. ‘Like he says, we just want our daughter.’

  Slowly he turns so it’s aimed at Chris again. His eyes are stone cold, his expression impassive.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ he says at last and Chris shakes his head. He opens his mouth and then closes it again. He looks like a fish gasping for air. If it wasn’t so terrifying, it would be comical. ‘I have friends who can make your life very hard.’

  ‘Listen, mate—’

  ‘If you come near our house or my brother again,’ he says slowly and deliberately, ‘I will kill you. Do you understand?’

  Chris swallows and nods. I feel my knees trembling. I’m rooted to the spot, unable to move.

  ‘I’m sorry about your daughter,’ he continues quietly. ‘But my brother, he don’t know where is she. So, leave him alone, all right?’

  ‘All right,’ Chris nods eagerly.

  Yiannis sighs and places the gun on the floor next to him. ‘Now go,’ he says. ‘And don’t come back.’

  We don’t wait to be told twice.

  Chapter 36

  I sit in the car, breathing deeply, trying to stop the shaking that’s taken over my whole body. Even Chris looks rattled. He stalls the engine as we start up, then takes the corner too quickly and the car skids and screeches as he stamps on the brakes.

  ‘You okay?’ he asks me once we’re on the main road and he’s sure we’re not being followed.

  ‘I think so. I’ve never had a gun pointed at me before.’

  ‘Me neither,’ he laughs grimly. ‘That guy was scary. I think we’re in over our heads, Jo.’

  I stare out of the window at the betting shops and cash-for-gold places that sprung up everywhere in the wake of the economic crisis.

  ‘Did you believe Andreas?’ I ask. ‘Do you believe that he doesn’t know about Grace?’

  Chris purses his lips and squints at the road. ‘I don’t know. We keep coming back to him, don’t we? He was the last person to see her, and he was there at the doctor’s with her. It can’t be a coincidence.’

  We drive past the front of Grace’s school. It’s Sunday and the school’s closed but there must be an event on because there’s a crowd of kids outside and, as we stop at the traffic lights, a group of teenage girls surge past, long brown hair flicking, shrieks of laughter. For a second, I think I see Grace amongst them and my heart flips but then the girl I thought was Grace turns her face and I see that it’s not her, that she looks nothing like Grace, not really.

  ‘Did you find anything downstairs?’ I ask, ignoring the stab of pain in my chest.

  ‘Not really, you?’

  ‘No.’ I decide not to mention the large stash of drugs I found in Andreas’s bedside table. It’ll only worry him, and it probably has nothing to do with Grace.

  We pass the turning to the police station and Chris suddenly indicates. ‘I hate to say it, but I think we should tell Dino about this,’ he says.’

  I know he’s right. Andreas’s brother is clearly a career criminal and, tough as Chris is, he’s no match for someone like him. I doubt Dino will be much interested in what we have to say, seeing as he seems to have fixated on the idea that Chris is the guy he’s looking for, but it’s worth a try.

  But as Chris is heading to the car park on the edge of town my phone rings.

  It’s Dave. Again.

  ‘Where are you, Joanna?’ he says, sounding aggrieved. ‘I’ve been waiting half an hour.’

  ‘Okay,’ I sigh. ‘I’m in town now. I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.’ To Chris, I say, ‘Can you drop me here. I forgot I said I’d meet Dave.’

  Chris stops by the zebra crossing. ‘Are you sure y
ou want to bother? He’s only going to waste your time again.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, but I might as well hear what he has to say, just in case.’

  Chris shrugs. ‘Okay. Your call. I’ll ring you when I’m finished.’

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ I say. ‘You don’t have to bother. Don’t wait for me. I’ll get the bus back.’

  There’s just a single shred of cloud in the sky and a meagre breath of wind from the sea as I head towards the marina. A teenage boy is whizzing around on a skateboard, doing tricks, jumping up on the wall around the fountain. Families parade along the front, small children carrying balloons and mothers pushing prams. But this otherwise idyllic scene is somewhat spoiled by Dave, who is at the marina, sitting hunched on the sea wall, smoking a roll-up like some kind of malign goblin.

  He glances up as I approach and grins. ‘Well, you’re a sight for sore eyes,’ he says. ‘You remind me of your mother when she was your age. She always was a good-looking woman. Mind you, she could never keep time either.’

  ‘I thought you’d have left the country by now,’ I reply tartly.

  He shrugs and chucks his cigarette butt on the pavement, grinding it with his heel. ‘Yeah, well, some tosser nicked all me money.’

  ‘Oh really, again?’ I raise my eyebrow.

  ‘Yeah, really.’ He looks aggrieved. ‘I left it on the beach when I went for a swim and when I came back it was gone.’

  ‘Look, Dave, I really don’t have time for all your crap,’ I snap. ‘You said you had something to tell me about Grace. Why don’t you just spit it out?’

  ‘Have you got any money? I’m starving. I haven’t had anything to eat all day.’

  He’s obviously still using. Where else is the money going? I feel like leaving him there. I’m tempted to push him off the wall into the water. It would be very satisfying to see his face as he tumbled backwards and to hear the splash as he hit the water. Instead I swallow my annoyance and say, ‘All right then. Come with me.’