Finally, we reached the north side of the island: a sheer cliff face, dropping down to the water below—where it was impossible for anyone to moor a boat; and there was nowhere to hide among the bare rocks.
At last, what I said earlier now became apparent to the others. There was no boat; no intruder.
No one else was on this island.
No one, but the six of us.
22
Perhaps this is a good place to pause—and take stock, before we proceed.
I am aware of the conventions of this genre. I know what’s meant to happen next. I know what you’re expecting. A murder investigation, a dénouement, a twist.
That’s how it’s supposed to play out.
But as I warned you at the start, that’s not the way this is going to go.
So, before our story deviates entirely from this familiar sequence of events—before we take a series of dark turns—let us consider how an alternative narrative might unfold.
Let us, for a moment, imagine a detective—a Greek version of Agatha Christie’s Belgian, perhaps? He appears on the island, a few hours later, once the wind has died down.
An older man, he cautiously steps off the police boat, assisted by a junior officer. He is tall and lean, with gray hair and a small, neatly clipped black pencil mustache. His eyes are dark and piercing. “I am Inspector Mavropoulos, of the Mykonian police,” he says with a strong Greek accent.
His name, Agathi informs us, means “blackbird”—messenger of death.
Looking rather like a bird of prey, the inspector perches at the head of the kitchen table. Once he and his officers drink their little cups of Greek coffee, devouring the sweet biscuits conjured up by Agathi, the inspector begins his investigation.
Brushing away some crumbs from his mustache, he requests to see us all—one by one—for an interrogation.
During these interviews, Mavropoulos quickly establishes the facts.
The ruin, where Lana’s body was found, is roughly a twelve-minute walk from the main house—along the path, through the olive grove. The murder itself took place at midnight—when the shots were heard. The body was found soon afterward.
As Leo was the first to appear at the ruin, he is the first to be interviewed by Mavropoulos.
“My boy,” he says, gently, “I am very sorry for your loss. I’m afraid I must ask you to put your grief aside for a moment and answer my questions as clearly as you can. Where were you when you heard the gunshots?”
Leo explains that he was throwing up—in the newly dug vegetable garden that he and Nikos had been working on. The inspector assumes Leo was sick from alcohol—and Leo decides not to disillusion him, suspecting marijuana might still be illegal in Greece.
The inspector, taking pity on Leo’s raw emotional state, doesn’t press him—and releases him after a few questions.
Next to be interviewed is Jason. His responses strike Mavropoulos as evasive, even strange. Jason insists that, at midnight, he was on the other side of the island, by the cliffs. When pressed for a reason, Jason claims he was looking for Lana, as he couldn’t find her anywhere in the house. The cliffs seem an odd place to search, but the inspector doesn’t comment—for the moment.
He simply notes Jason has no alibi.
Nor does Kate, alone in the summerhouse.
Nor does Agathi, asleep in bed.
Nor does Nikos, dozing in his cottage.
And where was I? you ask. Boozing in the living room—but you’ve only my word for it. In fact, none of us can prove where we were.
Which means any of the six of us could have done it.
But why would we?
Why would any of us kill Lana? We all loved Lana.
At least, I did. Although I’m not sure Inspector Mavropoulos fully grasps the concept of soulmates, I do my best to explain to him I had no motive to murder Lana.
Which isn’t strictly true.
I don’t inform him, for instance, that Lana left me a fortune in her will.
How do I know this? She told me, when I was arranging the sale of the house Barbara West left me in Holland Park. Lana asked why I was selling the house, and I said that apart from that I loathed the place and all its memories, the bottom line was I needed some cash. I needed something to live on—otherwise I would end up destitute on the street. I was joking, but Lana looked grave. She told me she wouldn’t let that happen—that she’d always take care of me, as long as she lived; and she had left me seven million pounds in her will.
I was stunned by her generosity, and deeply moved. Lana, perhaps regretting her indiscretion, asked me to forget what she had said—in particular, she requested I never mention it to Jason. The unspoken implication was that Jason would be furious. Of course he would—Jason was greedy, mean-spirited, ungenerous. The opposite of Lana and me, in fact.