‘Riiiight.’ I’m not even surprised. OK. I’m a little surprised. But I shouldn’t be. And damn it, I’m intrigued. ‘So you hacked into Facebook. Why?’
Gran lets out a long sigh, like I’m testing her patience. ‘You remember Vlad?’
‘Husband number four hailed from Russia? Died in a plane crash?’
‘That’s the one. Apparently he was involved with a billionaire Russian oligarch, whose name I won’t mention for your safety. Vlad helped him move his money into offshore tax havens for a small fee.’
‘Let me guess, they moved the funds to the Cayman Islands?’
‘How positively Nineties, darling. No, they moved it all to Liechtenstein. Anyway, Vlad was happily working for them and then one day, boom.’ She clicks her fingers. ‘He goes missing.’
I gasp. ‘Theykilledhim because he knew too much?’
‘What?’ Her eyebrows knit. ‘No, darling. Why would they? He did their dirty work and the man was just as crooked as them. They adored the scheming rule-breaker.’
I frown, confused. ‘So, what happened then? And why did you need to hack into a social network?’
Lily leaves the comfort of the sun lounger and sprints to Gran, doing figure of eights around her ankles before settling beside Gran’s chair. ‘There were rumours floating around that Vlad was getting a little too close to a certain ballerina. I mean of all theclichés. Can you even imagine?’
‘Wait, what? You thought Vlad was cheating?’
Gran heaves a frustrated sigh as if the retelling of this memory is still a sore point. ‘A woman always has to protect her interests, and I can’t have a husband who I don’t trust. Hence I had to poke around and see what I could find.’
‘Hence the small hacking incident.’
‘Right.’
‘And what did you find?’
‘A vast array of concerning information and, therefore, I booked him a one-way flight over the Bermuda triangle.’
I gasp. ‘On purpose?’
‘What do you mean on purpose? He had to get from A to B, didn’t he? It wasn’t my fault the plane went missing. Navigational error is my best guess. Alas, the poor man hasn’t been seen since. Sad.’
‘Yeah.’ I don’t remember much about Vlad, as he was always away on work trips and when he returned he didn’t smile much. I always thought there was something a little odd about him.
We’re interrupted by a woman holding takeaway cups. ‘Coffee has arrived,’ Gran says. ‘This is Athena, who owns the Squashed Olive Café down the lane. It offers the most gorgeous range of Greek specialities, includingtomatokeftedes, a tomato fritter dish that will blow your socks off. The lovely lass brings me a cup of Joe every Friday and we have a bit of a gossip.’
‘Nice to meet you, Evie.’
‘You too.’ Athena is about mid-fifties and wears a bright floral sundress and yellow sandals.
We take a seat at one of the outdoor tables and invariably Zeus tries to sit in her lap. I shoo him away before finding his chew toy and throwing it onto his outside bed. Gran disappears before returning with Pee Wee in one arm and a book for Athena, something racy by the look of it. Trust Gran! I keep my mouth shut because I’ll just get another lecture about being a prude and that the human body is made to be enjoyed until my complexion will betomatokeftedesred and I’ll be racing up the hills no matter how steep and arduous the ascent. Gran sits and little Pee Wee cracks one eye open as if to remind Gran to rock him like a baby, which she promptly does.
‘Are you planning on staying in Santorini long-term, Evie?’
I swallow a mouthful of coffee so strong it stops my ability to form thought. Once the headrush abates I say, ‘Umm, just for the summer. I’ve got work to get back to.’
‘Ah, a career woman! Where do you work?’
Dammit. ‘Well, I’m currently unemployed due to no fault of my own, but I plan to change that.’
Confusion dashes across her features. ‘I see,’ she says, clearly not seeing. We lapse into silence. A regular occurrence when people chat with me.
It doesn’t take long for Athena to launch into local gossip. By the sounds of it, there’s a lot happening on this so-called quiet side of the island from an argument over whose tomatoes are the sweetest (Athena’s) to a teenage bust-up over a missing smartwatch. Once that situation had been resolved another cropped up. Nethra gave Xenia the evil eye, also known asmati, although it can’t be unequivocally proven. This has divided the small village with those who say Xenia deserved it and those who disagree.
I breathe a sigh of relief that I don’t need to contribute and relax into my chair, pulling out my phone to check if there are any replies to my job applications or a reply from documentary filmmaker Val from Olympus Media. Zilch. My inbox is empty. A feat I would have celebrated back in LA. I slip my phone away, determined not to let the lack of response get me down. These things take time; they’re busy people. Gran needs me, so it’s really a blessing in disguise. Or that’s what I tell myself.
