Chapter 51 Camilla

51 CAMILLA

NOW

Camilla walks, harried, to Kate’s villa. Her nerves are shot. She’s probably having a full-blown nervous breakdown, her thoughts flinging in every direction.

She spoke to Detective Sergeant Rasheed earlier. She told her about the spat between Rob and Antoni during her Pilates class, detailing the way Rob crashed the class halfway through and made a point of harassing Antoni. And she told her about sleeping with Antoni the night before he went missing. All of that was true. But she embellished a little. She said that Antoni had told her he’d be leaving early to go kayaking. He said he enjoyed kayaking to Emerald Island and that he’d be heading off at dawn.

She probably shouldn’t have lied. No, not probably— definitely . It was a moment of panic. She worried that the police might consider her a suspect, given that she was the last person to see him alive. What if the police find out she was lying, and decide that it implicates her in Antoni’s death? She has no idea how the Maldivian justice system works, or what kind of penalties they impose for these things, but given that it’s illegal to drink in public she’s fairly sure murder is considered a pretty serious offense.

Fuck .

The only thing standing between her and being detained is the question about the time of Antoni’s death. That will take a while to determine.

She takes a deep breath before entering Kate’s villa. She could do without this, whatever it is Kate wants her for. Probably another bloody argument about her poor morals.

“I’m here,” she calls from the hallway. “What do you want?”

Kate appears from the kitchen, carrying a pot of tea as bloody usual. Camilla hates tea but Kate doesn’t seem to believe her. “Come and sit down,” Kate says. Then, glancing behind her: “And lock the door.”

Camilla is as curious as she is flustered. She watches for a moment as Kate pours two cups of tea.

“Where’s Darcy?” Kate asks.

“She went swimming. What’s going on?” Camilla says, watching as Kate sits down in the armchair opposite.

“Something’s been bothering me,” Kate says after a moment of contemplation.

“Oh, same ,” Camilla says sarcastically. “I have to say I’ve been feeling a bit bothered today myself.”

Kate is silent, staring into the distance.

“Go on,” Camilla says testily. “What’s this all about?”

“Darcy sent me the roses.”

Camilla widens her eyes. “Fuck off,” Camilla says. “No she didn’t.”

Kate sips her tea. “My butler said that Darcy sent them.”

Camilla stares. “Does he have proof?”

“Why would he say she sent them if she didn’t?”

Camilla looks away, visibly trying to reconcile this with the Darcy she knows. “It’s probably some sort of computer error,” she says. “Or he got mixed up. There’s no way the butler can be sure.”

“What if she did send them?” Kate says quietly. “Who else knew I was here?”

“You said you’d been getting them for twenty years,” Camilla says, an icy feeling creeping over her shoulders. “You’re saying… what, that Darcy resented you surviving when Elijah didn’t?”

“Possibly,” Kate says. “I phoned Jacob.”

Camilla laughs. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Why not?” Kate says, her gaze firm. “Have you ever actually spoken to Jacob?”

“No,” Camilla says, incredulous.

“We’ve heard plenty about him from Darcy,” Kate continues. “And I thought, if he’s going to drag me into this, if he’s going to stoop so low as to contact me while I’m on a bloody holiday in the Maldives, I’m going to have words. So I did.”

Camilla is baffled, but she can see that Kate is upset; her cheeks are flushed and that spot on her chest, the one that flares up when she talks about the massacre, is red raw today.

“And what did he say?”

“He asked if I recognized a mobile number.”

“What mobile number?”

Kate sighs. “He said that his son Charlie had found a secret phone belonging to Darcy. He took photos of the calls made on his own phone. Jacob went through the list of numbers on the handset and called a few of them.”

“And who were they?” Camilla asks, as patiently as she can. “Members of the PTA? Potential babysitters?”

“He said most were plumbers,” Kate says. “One of them was a nail salon, another was a brothel.”

She eyes Camilla, who raises her eyebrows. “A brothel?” She’s heard it all now. Darcy working as a prostitute on the side. Ha! “Is he saying Darcy’s a sex worker?”

“I’m just telling you what he said, Camilla.”

“Oh, come on . Darcy told us that the number Jacob gave you was for a phone she used to speak to Adrian.”

“So why was she calling sex workers from that phone?” Kate says, and Camilla rolls her eyes.

“I don’t know. A wrong number?”

Kate rubs her face, seeming to struggle now with her own doubts. “Jacob said the reason he emailed you and me in the first place was because he discovered that someone was using his software.”

Camilla thinks back to his message to her. “He thought I was using his software. He emailed me about it and I told him to fuck off.”

Kate lifts an eyebrow. “Look, why don’t we call Jacob together?” she says finally. “Maybe he can shed some light on the matter.”

Camilla begins to stand, tired of this. “No,” she says. “I’m not calling Darcy’s ex while we’re here celebrating her divorce!”

“Camilla, the roses were from Darcy,” Kate says gently. “And if she sent them to me here, she’s been sending them to me for twenty-two years . Doesn’t that change things? Just a bit?”

Camilla hesitates. She doesn’t have an answer for that.

She pulls out her phone with another sigh. “Fine. Let’s call bloody Jacob.”