Damn him, I thought. He’s ruining everything.
We reached the jetty steps. I stopped, unwilling to go on. I felt the gun pressing in my back, forcing me up, step by step … until I stood there, on the stone platform. I came face-to-face with Kate and Jason.
Kate was still holding the gun, I noticed—and Jason didn’t seem to object, so perhaps I had been wrong about that. Kate looked from me to Nikos, with a look of disbelief mingled with revulsion.
She turned to Jason. “He said Nikos was dead. He said you killed him.”
“What?” Jason looked stunned. “What?”
“Elliot said you killed him—like you killed Lana.”
Jason gasped. “What the fuck?”
“What a snake you are, Elliot.” Kate turned to me. “What a fucking snake. I keep expecting you to hiss. Why don’t you hiss? Ssssssssssssss—”
“Kate, please stop. I can explain—”
I was about to begin to talk myself out of it—when, over Jason’s shoulder, I saw someone on the beach. My heart sank. It was Agathi. She was hurrying over to us.
Now, it was all over. My entire house of cards was about to collapse around me in a heap. Nothing I could do now but resign myself to it.
While I waited for Agathi to reach us, I turned my attention to Kate and Jason—who were talking about me as if I weren’t there. Which was disconcerting, to say the least.
I have often heard other writers describe their characters as “getting away from them,” behaving independently, with “a life of their own.” I used to scorn this idea, roll my eyes at the pretension of it. But now, to my amazement, I was experiencing it myself. I kept wanting to interrupt them—to say, No, no, you’re not meant to be saying that and This shouldn’t be happening. But it was happening. This was reality, not a play. And it was not going as I’d planned.
“He’s trying to frame you,” Kate said. “Lana left him millions of pounds. Did you know that?”
“No.” Jason looked furious. “I did not.”
Agathi appeared at the top of the steps. She gave us all a frightened look. “What’s going on?”
“We know who shot Lana,” Kate said.
“Who?” Agathi looked confused.
Kate pointed at me with the gun. “Elliot.”
10
We stood there on the jetty, staring at one another. We remained in silence for a second. The only sounds were the wind wailing and the waves crashing around us.
Behind Agathi’s eyes, I could see her thinking hard, working out her next move. She spoke cautiously.
“Why would Elliot do that?”
“Money,” said Kate. “He’s broke, Lana told me. She said she left him a fortune.”
This was the one possibility I had never considered: that I might end up as the prime suspect.
The irony was not lost on me. It took an effort to keep a straight face. I pulled myself together and presented them with a grave expression.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you. I am guilty of many things—but murdering Lana is not one of them.”
I gave Agathi a defiant look. Go on, I thought. Spill the beans, I bet you’re dying to tell them it’s all a charade.
But Agathi remained silent. And a hopeful thought suddenly occurred to me. Was it possible that Lana had succeeded in winning her over? Might Agathi play along, after all? Might she help me turn this around?
Meanwhile Kate was talking, in a low, excited voice: “Elliot killed her. He can’t get away with this. He can’t, he can’t—”
“He won’t,” said Jason. “The police—”
“Fuck the police. He’ll talk his way out of it. He can’t get away with it, Jason. We cannot let him.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about justice. He killed Lana.”
“You want to shoot him? Go ahead. Be my fucking guest.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
There was a slight pause. This had gone far enough, I decided. I didn’t like where it was heading; particularly as Kate was waving a loaded gun around. Things might easily get out of hand. So, very reluctantly, I felt compelled to end it.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” I held up my hands. “I hate to spoil the surprise. But I’m afraid this isn’t real. This whole evening is a hoax. Lana isn’t dead. It’s just a joke.”
Jason looked at me with disgust. “You’re fucked in the head, mate.”
So he didn’t believe me—which was, in a way, a tremendous compliment.