It hadn’ttaken him long to realise that there was no way he could saveGemma; or that if he reported this it wouldn’t look good for him.And it hadn’t taken him too much longer to realise that the moneyhe’d taken back in England and brought with him on the cruise muststill be in Gemma’s things on the Uganda; and that his best betwould be to get back and away as soon as he could. Sure, it hadbeen an accident but he wasn’t prepared to risk trying to convincethe police or anyone else of that. It wasn’t as if he had wishedany of this on Gemma, or that he could help her now – of course hewould have done if there had been any chance of saving her. Thetragedy was that in the end he had changed his mind about harmingher and would have been quite happy to have left her to go back toEngland and stayed on in Dubrovnik alone to develop the venturewith Howard. If she hadn’t gone off on one and threatened to grasshim up over the death of her mother, which she had engineeredanyway, then none of this would have happened. As usual, it hadn’treally been his fault – why hadn’t she let him explain? It hadhelped his state of mind that he knew it had been an accident, buthe also knew it would be highly unlikely to be seen assuch.
As it was, hehad tried to wring out his jeans and jacket with little effect andhad headed back to the jetty and café; it had been as deserted asbefore and he managed to take some kind of overcoat and scarf froma rack at the back of the café which covered most of his otherclothes. It was a stroke of luck that it was the Zrinski, the otherof the two ferries, that had appeared after a few minutes, with itscrew having no idea that he had arrived on the island with a woman.He’d got back to Dubrovnik and then the cruise ship withoutattracting any particular attention. Sure enough the money he hadoriginally taken was now stored neatly at the bottom of Gemma’scase. No one had raised even an eyebrow when he’d left the shipwith his and her suitcases, telling the crew members he came acrossthat he was meeting Gemma in the city ready for the flight back toEngland. There had been a slight panic when he had tried tosurreptitiously dump her luggage into the harbour; the noise whenit hit the water seemed to drown everything else out, but no oneelse showed any sign of noticing.
He had headedup to Howard’s café with no particular plan in mind although herealised he would need some help and that Howard was his onlyoption. As it turned out, Howard had been amazing; he agreed itwouldn’t look good for Mark and offered to help him hide. He turnedout to have more about him than Mark had realised, and had managedto organise getting a false identity and passport from some contacthe had in the city. They decided it would be best for Mark to leavethe city for a few months at least and Howard promised to keep aneye on things and see if he could pick up if anything was reportedabout Gemma. Mark was happy enough to pay him for the identitychange and then to leave the bulk of his money to invest in thecafé – after all, that had been on his mind even before theaccident with Gemma. Also it might not have been too sensible to gointo hiding with a large stash of money and it certainly wouldn’tbe sensible to try and deposit it anywhere officially. Although hewas the first to admit he wasn’t the best judge of character, Markhad just felt there was something genuine about Howard. They agreedthat after a few months and before the summer season, Mark couldcome back under his new identity and work with Howard in some kindof partnership. As Howard had said, there was no reason for anyoneto connect Mark with him. They had agreed that the best thing forthe moment would be to hide at Howard’s for a few days while apassport was sorted out and then to get away as soon as possible.As it turned out that had taken a few days and Mark had arrived inAthens as Jeremy before the end of November.
Saturday 13 August 1983– 11.30 pm
Adrijana pouredherself a drink and sat next to him.
‘How was ittonight?’
‘Yes, busy, prettypacked between 9 and 10.’
‘Great. Look,leave the tidying, let’s go back and have a nightcap at home. I’vegot some good news: my dad said he’d buy the apartment for me,apparently he knows the owner is keen to sell it. You know, I thinkhe likes you and I reckon it’s also because he wants me to stayhere in Dubrovnik, close to the family. And after all he can wellafford it.’
So thingshadn’t gone too badly. He was sorry about Gemma but then it was anaccident; and who knows, perhaps fate?
