eyes sparkling, pearly teeth glistening and her hair festooned with pondweed.
‘Finished,’ he announced tautly, when the screen went blank.
His memory furnished the rest. He’d put down the camcorder and dragged Emma into his arms. He’d kissed her till she couldn’t breathe. Oh, God, he remembered so well!
Seven years later he could still smell and taste the pondweed and feel the indescribable warmth and softness of her welcoming, laughing mouth as she’d lured him into the woodland beyond.
Grimly he swung Lexi into his arms and suggested a swim, relieved that she had asked no questions. He wasn’t ready to supply answers.
As she tugged him along excitedly, he reflected that he would have to decide how he should handle the question of Emma. Did he tell his niece the truth one day about her jailbird mother? Or should he give a sanitised version? And should he ever reveal who the woman in the video was?
His brow furrowed deeply. If he did the latter, Lexi would be captivated. She’d want to meet her mother—whereas he intended to keep them apart as long as possible.
He felt a chill steal over him despite the heat of the early afternoon. Emma would be released in a couple of years or so. And then Lexi would no longer be safe from harm.
He looked at her sweet face as she sang happily to herself, absorbed in ‘helping’ her to wriggle into a bathing costume which sported a large daisy cutely adorning her small bottom. His heart lurched. Ever the attentive, doting uncle, he swept her curls up and expertly fastened them with a scrunchie.
He loved this little scrap. From day one she’d wormed her way into his frozen heart and with every flutter of her lashes and big, gummy smile she had set about thoroughly defrosting it. Now she meant everything to him—and life without her would be untenable.
He made a silent pledge. Emma would never get her daughter back. Not while there was still breath in his body.
‘And…Mrs Kyriakis,’ murmured the smooth, young immigration officer, ‘what are your plans now you are on Zakynthos?’
Emma remained composed, even though her heart and stomach seemed to have shot down an elevator into her trainers and were now sending alarm signals through her entire system.
She’d had a lot of practice in self-control over the past two years—and getting into the country was far more important than some of the things she’d silently borne in prison. Consequently she managed to flash a warm smile.
‘Simple. I’m going to get a tan!’ she announced airily.
With a show of cheerfulness she indicated the sun cream, lodged precariously on top of her belongings which had been tipped unceremoniously out of her case.
‘I see. Staying…where?’ enquired the officer idly, scanning a list.
She craned her neck. It looked like the names of people. Her dramatically fertile imagination provided details. Drug dealers and terrorists. Rapists. Paedophiles, whatever. Her heart leapt back into her chest with an unnerving suddenness and sat there palpitating. Maybe she was on that list as an undesirable!
‘Your hotel?’ prompted her interrogator.
Emma forced another broad smile. ‘Hotel! I wish. I’m looking for something cheap. A friend of mine said it was easy to find rooms to rent,’ she confided. ‘Can you recommend anywhere?’
He studied her thoughtfully and ignored her attempt to disarm him. ‘You have a Greek name.’
She’d been ready for that one. Nodding slowly, she gave herself time to calm her leaping nerves and to steady her voice. ‘My husband…’ she frowned at the shaky delivery but plunged on ‘…he…he died in England more than two years ago.’
Unfazed by her apparent agitation, the officer gave her a calculating stare. She recognised in him the same detachment as that adopted by the prison officers. They’d heard too many lies and too many sob stories to be anything but suspicious of emotion.
‘He has family here?’
Emma tensed. Her solicitor had said there were many people in the phone book with the name Kyriakis and her arrival shouldn’t provoke comment. She hoped this officer was merely bored and was using her to hone his interviewing technique.
‘My late husband lived and worked in England. His family—wherever they are,’ she said, suggesting a vagueness as to the Kyriakis whereabouts, ‘were opposed to our marriage. They never came to the wedding.’ She allowed a puzzled frown to ripple her forehead. ‘What is this? Everything’s in order, isn’t it? All I want is a holiday in the sun. I’ve had an operation. I need rest and no hassle—’
‘Ah. The pills.’
Emma watched as he curiously fingered the homoeopathic remedies for sickness and exhaustion. Her prison sentence had been cut short on compassionate grounds because she’d been so ill. She had her solicitor to thank for that. Dear John! Bless him for his support. She glanced at her watch and bit her lip. He’d be waiting for her, wondering where she was…
‘Someone meeting you?’
She blinked. He was good! Someone ought to promote him to head inquisitor, she thought wearily.
‘I’ve never been here before,’ she said, evading the question with a politician’s skill.
‘You looked at your watch.’
‘Yes. I need to eat at regular intervals and take my pills at certain times. With the two-hour time difference, I was anxious not to get in a muddle.’
‘Really.’
This man would have made an angel edgy, she thought sourly. She felt suddenly weak and passed a hand over her hot forehead.
‘I need to sit down,’ she muttered. Without waiting for permission she went to a bench against the wall and sank onto it, leaning her back against the cold stone, terrified of failure. ‘I don’t understand the problem,’ she said quietly. ‘I can’t be the only person who arrives without any definite accommodation. I don’t have enough money or clothes to stay here for long, you can see that. I’m not carrying drugs, or anything else illegal. I’m just an ordinary woman hoping for some sun, sea and sand to help me become well.’
Indifferent to her evident frailty, the officer turned over the contents of her case with a desultory hand.
‘I see. Would you wait here?’ he asked politely.
As if she had any choice! Patiently she waited. An hour. Two. Exhausted from her four a.m. start, she curled up on the hard bench and promptly went to sleep.
‘Mrs Kyriakis?’ The officer was shaking her shoulder. ‘You can go. Enjoy your holiday.’
Relief brought her fully awake. She was free! A joyful smile began its journey across her face but she lowered her sparkling eyes hastily and tried to think how an ordinary holiday-maker would feel.
‘About time,’ she grumbled. Getting up stiffly, she saw that she’d slept for nearly an hour. ‘Some welcome!’
The officer gave an only-doing-my-duty shrug and she continued her show of irritation as she repacked her case then trudged out of the room.
She couldn’t believe it. She was here. Really here. And not far away was little Lexi. Soon she’d be holding her baby in her arms again. Excited, Emma thought blissfully of the moment when Lexi would call her Mummy.
‘Wonderful!’ She breathed ecstatically.
Back in his office, the officer punched numbers on his mobile. ‘She’s on her way,’ he warned.
Leon thanked the officer, tucked his mobile into the pocket of his linen jacket and waited tensely beneath the shade of the tamarisk and pine trees opposite the airport entrance.
The first call, some two hours earlier, had come out of the blue.