(If you like romantic suspense set in the Greek islands, why not also try The English Daughter, set in Corfu?)
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Excerpt Below
PROLOGUE
Andrew sat on the cliff below the castle wall and watched the sky. Far
below, the Aegean was a deep rust in the setting sun. Wind gusted against his
back. At his feet barley and rockroses, a cushion of yellow vetch growing in
the ruins, small red and white flowers whose names Melissa would know.
Down on the beach men moved, dark shapes against the sand. A small boat
rode at anchor. Stiffly, Andrew shifted position. From the corner of his eye he
saw a stocky, dark-haired man standing a bottle of retsina down on a rock,
wiping it carefully with a handkerchief. He nodded a greeting.
Then, to his left, another movement -
Two men looked down at him. One pushed at his body with a foot. 'He's out
cold, no problem. Do it.' The other spun the cap from the bottle, poured the
contents over Andrew, put the bottle between the sleeping fingers. Then they
both rolled him over the edge.
A rattle of falling scree, then silence.
CHAPTER
1
England, 1996
'I should have known I'd find you here.'
The cool voice cut through the beat of straining wings. Gulls,
oystercatchers and sanderling were exploding from an English estuary, darkening
the ice-blue March sky. Katherine Hopkins had just marched straight across the
sands, disturbing hundreds of birds roosting on the beach.
'And a good day to you, too,' Melissa said dryly, squinting up at the
tall figure. Freezing and cramped after lying motionless behind a breakwater
for hours, she had just lost a shot: a vital consideration since nature
photography was part of her living.
'You're full of surprises, Katherine,' she observed now through
chill-flayed lips. 'I thought you only liked your animals stuffed or sautéed.'
'Always so sure of yourself,' answered Katherine, 'Always so right.' She
ignored the sights and sounds of alarm around them: birds did not buy anything.
Coming to look the site over in private, she had been intensely irritated to
realise that Melissa Haye was there first.
'But you've never actually beaten me. I always win in the end. Don't I?'
Melissa shrugged and snapped the cap onto her 600mm lens, fingers
tingling with returning life. Unlike her own windswept hair, not a strand of
Katherine's dark chignon stirred in the crisp air. Looking over business-dynamo
Katherine Hopkins, the trousers tailored to those sleek legs, the scarlet
jacket and silken cravat, Melissa wondered why an intelligent woman should find
it so hard to accept that anyone was different from her.
What was done was done. Because of local opposition and a campaign
spearheaded by Melissa herself, Katherine had failed to build one of her Total
Woman Centres on this estuary. To Katherine the horseshoe of cliffs, the closer
profile of river and sea, sands and reedbeds, mudflats and marsh, was a barren
landscape, evocative as the moon but unproductive.
'Remember the paper which "no longer required" you?' Katherine
continued, grinding a razorshell under one green boot. 'Remember the
"lost" photo commissions? That was down to me. A couple of phone
calls in the right places was all it took.'
'Now you've reminded me...' Melissa scooped a beanbag camera-support, hat
and veiling into jacket pockets, her back icy where Katherine's shadow fell. It
would be great, she thought, if Katherine could let the past alone, but, on and
off, Kate Hopkins had been trying a long time to block her career. Looking
back, Melissa acknowledged that Katherine's vindictiveness had actually spurred
her on by making her do more, try harder. She laughed softly.
'I never thanked you for that, did I?' She glanced up again at her
nemesis. They both knew why Katherine detested her. It had nothing to do with
Melissa's work.
Katherine's patrician cheekbones turned a delicate pink. 'What is your
problem?' she demanded. 'Total Woman Centres provide a service for thousands.'
At fifty pounds an entry ticket, Melissa wondered how many thousands were
being favoured. Katherine though was a woman with a mission: already, at thirty-four,
one of the wealthiest women in Britain, with her 24-hour shopping and
healthcare stores established in every major city in Europe. Her business
didn't need more expansion, but Katherine was greedy.
'A pity, then, that the people here voted to leave things as they are.'
Cradling her camera, sweeping a rapid look over the area she had been stalking
to make sure she would forget none of her photo gear, Melissa rose stiffly to
her feet. The waders would not settle now until she and Katherine were gone.
'You can't possibly pretend it ends now,' snapped Katherine. 'This is a
prime site...'
'I know.' The estuary was a focal point for local families. In summer,
these sands rang with children's voices. In winter, mudflats and saltings
upstream tingled to the cries of curlew.
Melissa smiled, then frowned, the taste of sea-salt catching for an
instant in her throat. 'We should go.' Accustomed to numbness in her legs after
a photo-shoot, she started to limp briskly towards the dunes.
'....perfect for the sensitive development I had proposed -'
Abruptly Katherine broke off, instinctively shying away as a storm of
Brent geese flew in overhead. Melissa stopped, throwing back her blonde head to
track the birds gossiping and grunting in flight: an everyday miracle.
'Amazing!' she murmured, thirst and cold forgotten.
The dark chattering swarm sharpened her responses to the estuary. Andrew should have been here to see this,
she thought, hands tightening on the camera.
Memories, too strong to be denied, welled in her. As grief threatened to
break out again, it helped Melissa to know that Andrew's favourite place was
safe: that she and the local people who had once been Andrew's neighbours had
made it safe.
'Wide-eyed enthusiasm doesn't work with me. Is that how you won the
locals over, turning on the little girl charm?' Pausing when she did, Katherine
was looking at her sidelong.
Melissa clicked her tongue and chuckled: she was actually grateful for
Katherine's presence and sharp comments. 'You'll never know. Meetings are over,
and so is the voting. People like their sand and "mud" as it is.'
'So it would seem.' Green eyes showed gold for an instant as Katherine
acknowledged that unpalatable fact. Dismissing the estuary development from her
immediate calculations with a brisk shake of her head, Katherine moved when
Melissa did, keeping pace with her opponent as they left the beach and began to
thread through the tall, twisting corridors of dunes.
As they walked, Melissa moving sure as a skier over soft dry sand and clumps
of tough marram grass, Katherine's green eyes flashed up her sand-coloured
fatigues and gloves, flitted over the younger woman's delicate complexion, gold
brows and lashes, shoulder length silky blonde hair. Her rival would probably
have to diet to stop those soft body curves, the round lines of an open face,
neat nose, from blurring into flab.
Katherine's lips twitched with satisfaction. Those who thwarted her
always paid. Melissa Haye had lost before, but it seemed she had still not
learned her lesson. Throughout the last decade, their paths had crossed too
often, both professionally and personally.
Andrew Thornhill had been Katherine's personal assistant and occasional
lover. Recognising how his attractively-uneven, maturing looks and ready
enthusiasm could be a foil to her poised, subtle fire, she had given him the
chance of a great career. Yet he had been a disappointment, preferring the safe
Melissa Haye.
Katherine's lips tensed, umber sculptured eyebrows drawing together as
she negotiated a litter of pebbles and feathers on the narrowing dune path.
Although it had piqued her to be rejected for some romping teenager, it had
cost her nothing. Andrew had been young, and so could be excused his choice.
She had wished him well, and it seemed he had been happy - he had lived with
Melissa Haye until his sudden death in Rhodes, two years ago.
Old history. Katherine shook herself, consigning Andrew Thornhill to
oblivion, and returned to her present enemy now peeling off her gloves, that
prying long lens nestled in the crook of an arm.
'I'm watching you, Melissa Haye. One day you're going to make a serious
mistake.'
The threat: always a good sign she was doing her job, reflected Melissa
wryly. Behind, the distant tide hissed in her ears like an indrawn breath.
'Then we'll see who pays.'
There it was, a gold-plated promise of revenge. Melissa was surprised at
how little she felt.
'Nothing to say?' Katherine liked proof of attention.
Melissa sighed. 'Can't we call a truce for once, Katherine?' Fishing into
a trouser pocket for her favourite silver seahorse earrings, she hooked them
deftly into her ears whilst cresting a dune-top and dipping down the other
side. These silver seahorses were special: Andrew had bought them for her on
Rhodes...
Katherine was coming at her again, leaning forward as she kicked through
rabbit-marked sand. Her wide, up-tilting eyes were sharp.
'You disgust me,' she said, scornful of any olive branch. Her rapid gaze,
fixing on Melissa's silver seahorse jewellery, became dismissive. 'Everything
you are. Everything you stand for. Cross me again and I'll finish you for
good.'
Katherine pushed past Melissa, striding on towards the track and her
black four-wheel drive, towards civilisation and her plans for revenge.
CHAPTER
2
Clutching her camera, Melissa stared out to sea. She no longer thought of
Katherine's threats. The past had returned.
Andrew Thornhill, with his straight brown hair, craggy nose and keen
smile. Six-one in his stockinged feet, and broadening. He had blushed when he
first saw her at the local wildlife group meeting at Wells-next-the-Sea. Later,
walking with Melissa by the sea shore, Andrew had asked her out. He was twenty
then, Melissa seventeen.
They had lived together for eight years.
Still the memories flowed. His walk, his voice, his scent. His lethal
sloe gin. His listening face. His hilarious imitation of a love-struck
diplomat. The way he double-knotted his shoelaces. The way he liked 'messing
about' round rock-pools. The way he made love -
'Stop this!' The heavy camera trembled on Melissa's arm. Andrew had died
two years ago, and still she was struggling to come to terms with it. She had
to get away, find a different direction. But there was something she had to do
first: a secret, private mission behind her next assignment.
Her bags were always packed. She loved roving - new places, new people.
She was due to go to Greece in April, the peak time for the amazing spring
flowering and bird migration in the region, stay on the remote eastern island
of Asteri, just off the coast from Turkey, whilst she researched her latest
travel series: 'Paradise under Threat.' She could bring that trip forward, fly
to Rhodes, take the light airplane to Asteri.
It would be expedient to drop out of circulation in England until a certain
brunette forgot her. Kate Hopkins had a spiteful memory and a long business
arm.
Melissa laid her camera down and sat on the shadowed side of the dunes,
nimble fingers digging into the cold sand. The ebbing, mournful cry of a curlew
dragged at her insides as she swallowed, faintly nauseated.
Remembering....
Two years ago, due to join Andrew on Rhodes for a holiday, she had been
summoned instead to identify his body.
Lindsay Townsend
