Secrets of the Dead

He pulled open the glass door. Abby stepped through and gasped. Behind the villa, the pool terrace stretched right to the cliff edge. A mock-classical colonnade framed three sides: fluted columns and Corinthian capitals that didn’t really fit with the rest of the modern architecture. The fourth side was the cliff, with the bay far below. In the twilight, the pool seemed to flow straight into the sea. There was no rail.

Abby heard a soft click behind her as Michael touched a switch. Recessed lights in the pool made the water glow. When Abby peered in, she saw an undersea world of nymphs and dolphins, mermaids and starfish, a seaweed-haired god in a chariot drawn by four sea horses – all picked out in a dappled black-and-white mosaic. Fine traces of light shimmered across it, so that the monochrome figures seemed to dance underwater.

More lights had come on behind the colonnade. Each alcove held a marble statue on a marble plinth: Hercules, draped in a lionskin and leaning on his club; a bare-breasted Aphrodite clutching a robe that had somehow slipped below her hips; Medea, a coil of serpents fizzing from her hair. They looked solid, but when Abby touched one she felt it tremble on its base as if a gust of wind could blow it off. She flinched.

‘Careful,’ said Michael. ‘They’re not making any more of those.’

Abby laughed. ‘They can’t be original.’

‘Every one, so I’m told.’

Dazed, Abby wandered on past the silent figures. She came to the end of the terrace and looked down. The cliff was so steep that even there she couldn’t see its base: only a froth of silver foam on the water drifting off the rocks. She shivered. The flimsy sundress wasn’t nearly enough this late in August.

She heard a bang behind her; something flew past her face, almost touching her cheek. For that instant, she was back in Freetown, or Mogadishu or Kinshasa. She gave a low scream and spun around, almost losing her balance on the unprotected cliff edge. She grabbed on to the nearest column, hugging it for dear life.

‘Are you OK?’

Michael was standing beside the pool with two champagne flutes in one hand, an uncorked bottle of Pol Roger in the other.

‘Didn’t mean to scare you. I thought we could celebrate.’

Celebrate what? Abby leaned back against the column and clung on, her heart still pounding. The night breeze blew the gold necklace against her throat and a mad thought struck her. Was he going to propose?

Michael poured the champagne and pressed a glass into her trembling hand. It slopped over the rim and dribbled down her fingers. He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her to him. Abby sipped her drink; Michael stared out to sea as if looking for something. The last crack of sunlight made a rim on the horizon, then vanished.

‘I’m hungry.’

Michael fetched a cool-bag from the car, and soon the house was filled with the smells of frying garlic, prawns and herbs. Abby drank and watched him cook. The champagne didn’t last long. A bottle of Sancerre appeared from the cool-bag, and that quickly went down, too. Abby found a switch to turn on the terrace heaters, and they ate outside by the pool. She dangled her bare legs in the water, while light rippled off the colonnades and stars pricked the sky.

The food and drink began to unwind her. When the evening cooled, Michael lit the fire in the living room, and they sat on the sofa watching the stars over the bay. Abby curled up like a kitten with her head on his lap, eyes half-closed as he stroked her hair. You’re thirty-two, a small voice chided her, not seventeen. She didn’t care; she liked it. With Michael, she had no responsibilities. He made life easy.

Much later – after the second bottle of wine had emptied, after the town across the bay had gone dark and the fire had died to embers – Abby pulled herself off the sofa. She swayed; Michael rose and held her, surprisingly steady considering how much he’d drunk.

She wrapped her arms around him and kissed his neck.

‘Shall we go to bed?’ She was drunk, she knew, and it felt good. She wanted him. She began fumbling with the buttons on his shirt, but he ducked out from under her embrace and spun her around.

‘You’re insatiable,’ he scolded her.

He steered her to the bedroom and unclasped the necklace, then eased her down on to the bed. Abby tried to pull him on top of her, but he stepped back.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m not tired.’

‘I’m not tired either,’ she protested. But it was a lie. By the time he’d kissed her goodnight and closed the door, she was asleep.

The cold woke her. Lying on top of the sheets, still in her sundress, she could feel an air-conditioned chill blowing across her skin. She rolled over, looking for Michael’s warmth, but didn’t feel him. She groped her way across the wide bed until she touched the far bedside table.

The bed was empty.

She lay there a moment, trying to get her bearings in the unfamiliar room. She looked for light, but saw nothing. All she could hear was the hum of the air conditioner and the tick of the bedside clock. Its luminous hands showed 3.45 a.m.

And then something else – a murmuring voice. She listened, trying to grasp the sounds of a strange house. Was it two voices – some kind of conversation? Or maybe it was just the waves breaking on the rocks.

It’s the television. Michael must have fallen asleep watching it. Now that her eyes had adjusted, she could see a dim blue light flickering in from the hallway.

Still sluggish from sleep and alcohol, she wondered what to do. Part of her said she should leave him there, let him wake up stiff and alone. But the bed was cold.