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she was tired of probing away and dragging out tiny details to fit into
her picture of the past. It had all seemed so simple before she came
here; she had been so obsessed with Frazer and how she felt about
him that she had confused the two things. She had come here to find
Frazer and punish him but for what? She had told herself it was to
punish him for what he had done to Melanie, but now she knew it was
to punish him for what he had done to herself. Frazer had been right;
if she kept on digging away all she would do was stir up mud which
would stick on innocent people.
Now that she knew them all Irena and her husband and Georgi
Vourlamis she found it impossible to believe that any of them had
deliberately caused Melanie's death. They were all involved, that
much was obvious, but if there was any guilt it did not belong to
them. Who was she to accuse anyone of the guilt, anyway? Guilt for
what? Melanie was dead, what good would it do to find out exactly
why and how? She no longer wanted to know.
It took her five minutes to dismantle her barricade and put all the
furniture back where it belonged, and when she got downstairs she
found Frazer in the kitchen drinking brandy and watching the rain
beating against the windows.
It was dark now, the room looked cosy and comforting compared to
the weather outside, but Nicole felt cold as Frazer looked around at
her.
'Pour yourself a stiff drink,' he said.
'Am I going to need one?'
'Oh, yes,' he said, and drank some more from his own glass, watching
her walk across the room and pick up the bottle of brandy and a glass.
She poured herself a finger of the spirit and stood sipping it, feeling
the warmth of it circulating in her veins, but feeling even more the
sting of Frazer's hostile stare.
'You wouldn't leave it alone, would you?' he erupted suddenly. 'Oh,
no, you're the great detective you had to keep on asking questions,
prying into things that don't concern you, reminding people of things
they preferred to forget. Can't you get it through your head? It was an
accident, Melanie drowned by accident, nobody was to blame but
her.'
'Then why wouldn't you tell me the whole truth? Why make such a
mystery of it?'
He put down his whisky and walked across the room, then swung and
walked back, both hands raking his hair.
'Damn you, Nicole, because people don't want to talk about
something that doesn't give you the right to nag away until they tell
you their secret!' He stopped in front of her, blue eyes angrily bright,
his black hair dishevelled now. 'It's such a stupid, everyday little
secret anyway, if you were as clever as you think you are, you'd have
guessed by now.'
'Maybe I have,' she said. 'Maybe I think Georgi Vourlamis started
some sort of fling with Melanie and it was him she went over to Delos
to meet that night.' She watched Frazer's face, byt it didn't tell her
anything. 'Maybe I think it was an accident, she drowned and Georgi
came over here to tell you, but as she was dead there seemed no point
in admitting why she was on Delos, because that would mean a public
scandal and Georgi might lose his job, not to mention his fiancee. So
you told Georgi to keep his mouth shut and sent him back to Delos to
wait for news, and then when Melanie's body was found you acted
amazed and said you had no idea how she came to be on Delos but
she'd gone swimming alone that night. Nobody took much interest
because you were definitely here in Mykonos that night I suppose
you had an alibi, you were with someone. People saw you. You
weren't suspected and the police just put it down as accidental death
and forgot it. It was so much tidier.'
'Georgi hadn't committed any crime,' Frazer said tightly. 'Melanie
chased him; he didn't chase her. He was bored and lonely, stuck over
there with just a few other site workers around. She was bored, too,
and she wanted to hit back at me for making her stay here. She used to
get fishermen to drop her off at Delos in the afternoon and she'd stay
there all night, sleep out on the beach, swim in the moonlight. It was
becoming a regular thing with her.'
'Very romantic,' Nicole said with dry irony, but inside she was aching
for Melanie. Had it seemed romantic? Swimming by moonlight on a
deserted island beach? Delos was a magic place when the sun poured
down that brilliant light, but it must be even more mysterious and
haunting by moonlight.
'Georgi felt guilty, though he knew it would get back to his girl
sooner or later and he wanted to end it. He told Melanie that night, she [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]