Chapter Forty-Four

The blood-drenched drama in St Ioannis, followed by Chrysanthi's traumatic revelations in the hospital, had left Cassie feeling drained. After staggering home, she had managed only to feed Macavity before falling fully clothed into bed and a dreamless sleep.

The next morning, she sat on deck in the sunshine with a coffee watching a pair of coots, which she had come to recognise by their black heads and white beaks. At first she thought they were fighting, before realising that she was watching what passed for springtime courtship in the coot world, a male pursuing a female. He chased and chased but she kept evading him at the last minute. Finally, she disappeared, diving right under the water before surfacing a metre behind him, leaving him looking around in comic confusion. Good for you, girl , she thought.

She had given Doug a (heavily edited) account of the events that had stopped her from appearing at work the previous day, and he'd insisted she take today off too. She and Chrysanthi had carried on talking until dusk, when Cassie had told one of the nurses that the surgeon could bring the consent forms. Even then, Cassie had held her breath. But Chrysanthi had signed, and the risk of her committing suicide had ebbed – at least for now.

Having kept a lid on the real story of her life and her father's crimes all these years, why had she chosen to share such profoundly private matters with Cassie? Probably as a result of the heightened sense of intimacy that came from Cassie looking after Bronte in the mortuary, while also being a complete stranger.

Cassie could barely control her feelings of rage whenever she thought of George's callous abuse of his own child: a little girl brought up by strangers, who must have thought all her Christmases had come at once when her daddy finally turned up in his fancy fucking car .?.?.

What a contrast to what had happened when her own father had turned up after a similarly long absence – albeit one that hadn't been his choice. Sure, she and Callum had each struggled to adapt to their roles, but she had known one thing from the start: his every action had been designed to put her welfare, her feelings, her best interests, above his own needs.

Cassie saved a side order of wrath for the role Father Michaelides had played.

As a young mother of twins recently arrived in England, deeply troubled by her sham ‘marriage' Chrysanthi had sought out St Ioannis. But she had got cold comfort from her confessor. It was clear that he had denied her absolution for the mortal sins – not of murder, as Cassie had thought – but of incest and ‘criminal marriage'. Before receiving forgiveness she'd be required to show a ‘firm purpose of amendment' which would have meant reporting her incestuous marriage to the police, and telling Bronte the truth about her parentage – that her mother was also her sister, her father also her grandfather.

Rather than inflict such a terrible revelation upon her daughter, Chrysanthi had silently and bravely borne ‘her' sin – ‘the sin that could never be washed away' – alone. And as Bronte's star had started to rise, the stakes of keeping the family secret climbed ever higher. It was Chrysanthi and not George who had been punished – without absolution she was denied the comfort of communion, the taking of holy bread and wine with her fellow churchgoers.

Horrible. And Cassie had since discovered that there were other Orthodox churches, with other, more liberal-minded priests who would have taken a very different view of where the sin rightfully belonged.

One thing Cassie wasn't sure about: whether she'd read Chrysanthi right when she'd implied she would be prepared to kill her husband for his murder of their daughter.

She didn't have to wonder about that for very long.

The boat swayed gracefully in the water and she turned to see Flyte climbing on board, her unbending spine marking her out as irredeemable land-folk.

‘Come aboard why don't you?' she said with a wry grin. ‘But take those heels off before you scratch the varnish.'

Flyte made a face, but obeyed, before inching her way up the catwalk like it was a tightrope.

‘George Angelopoulos is dead,' said Flyte, drilling Cassie with her glacier-blue gaze.

‘Christ,' said Cassie, her shock genuine. ‘How?'

‘Threw himself off a high building.' Still staring at her. ‘Just like Bronte.'

‘Wow.' You had to admire the symmetry. Cassie had no idea how she'd pulled it off but was in no doubt that George's death was Chrysanthi's retribution for her daughter's murder.

‘I'm wondering if the two events are in any way related – Chrysanthi's attempt on her own life and George's suicide,' Flyte went on. ‘Did she say anything to you before she cut her wrists?'

‘Not really,' said Cassie, truthfully.

Flyte swept back her fringe, frustration making her face even more angular, a series of planes, like a Picasso.

Still beautiful though.

‘I'm going to talk to her priest, Father Michaelides,' she went on. ‘He must surely know something.'

Cassie was reminded of a saying from her grandmother's fund of Polish proverbs: You'll get no milk from that cow.

‘What's funny?' Those steel ice picks that doubled as eyes didn't miss much.

‘Oh nothing,' said Cassie. ‘But you do know the sacrament of the confessional is unbreakable?'

Flyte made a face before looking out over the canal. ‘It's actually quite .?.?. peaceful here, isn't it? You could almost be in the countryside.' Her tone wistful, before turning businesslike again. ‘Look, we're not ruling out that it was George who killed his daughter.'

‘Really?' Cassie sensed that Flyte was simply flying a kite.

‘But we can't see any possible motive.'

‘Yeah, like why would he?'

Flyte looked at her. ‘Is there something you're not telling me?' A plaintive note to her question.

Cassie and Flyte had cooperated in the past, short-term alliances that had helped to solve more than one murder, but this time Cassie wasn't about to help her. Why? Because the perpetrator in this Greek tragedy lay dead – and good riddance. Chrysanthi had been punished enough. Dragging her through court and broadcasting the grisly family history would only throw fresh meat to the social media hyenas. And if Cassie knew anything about Bronte, she knew she wouldn't want that.

Friends.