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‘That’s no reason to bully a young girl.’ Shauna stood her ground.

‘Stay out of this, Shauna,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I still have a daughter … if anything has happened to her, I’ll …’ At this he looked past Shauna and addressed Grace: ‘Get out of my sight.’

The girl burst into tears and Demetrios turned and stormed out of the taverna.

Shauna was enraged. How dare he? She ran after him as he headed towards the Ferrari, and as he put his key in the ignition she shouted. ‘It’s a shame you didn’t put as much energy into looking for me when I disappeared.’

‘Shauna, please, this isn’t the time or the place.’ Seeing the despair in his eyes, she felt a stab of pity.

‘You need to think rationally,’ she told him, her voice calm now. ‘Tell me what happened.’

Demetrios explained to her about Ariana being seen getting into the boat after midnight. It seemed that, instead of climbing into a taxi, she had taken the boat out – and no one had seen her since.

‘Could she have gone to a friend’s house? Have you tried ringing around to see—’

‘Christian has done that already. They told him she’d spent most of the evening at a beach party, and not only had she been drinking, she’d also taken drugs.’

‘Oh no.’

‘When I get my hands on that Georgiou, I’m going to kill him.’ He clenched his jaw.

‘Now isn’t the time for anger. Have you alerted the police?’

‘Yes. The coastguard is on the lookout—’

At that moment, there was a commotion in the harbour. A fishing boat was coming into dock, and its captain was gesticulating and shouting, pointing at something he was towing behind his boat.

As if they were possessed by some second sense, the two of them ran along the jetty to see what it was. Shauna didn’t need to be told that this was Demetrios’s speedboat, she recognized it from when he had brought her back in it the other day. She felt sick when she saw that the fisherman was holding up a pair of high heels. Though she didn’t understand what he saying, she could tell from his gestures that the shoes had been found in the hollow of the deck. The boat itself was empty.

The captain, having told Demetrios everything he knew, handed him the shoes.

Demetrios turned to Shauna. ‘They found the boat floating near Fengari Bay, but there was no sign of Ariana.’

‘Demetrios …’ Shauna could see the fear on his face.

‘Shauna, my little girl … she is gone.’

‘There is no sense trying to use logic – we need to think like a teenager who is a little drunk and a lot unhappy,’ said Roxy.

Shauna had brought Demetrios back to the taverna with her. He’d wanted to go out to join the police and fishing boats searching for his daughter, but Shauna had persuaded him that it would be easier for the authorities to contact him here. The truth was, she was afraid they were looking for a body.

‘But the boat … her shoes,’ Demetrios said.

‘It doesn’t necessarily mean the worst,’ said Roxy. Her unassailable optimism, combined with her down-to-earth Liverpudlian practicality, was the one thing keeping their hopes alive. ‘Look, Demetrios, no one knows her better than you do. If she’s hurting, her instinct would be to go somewhere she feels safe. Where would that be?’

‘Christian said he had checked the boathouse but there was no one there.’

‘Where else?’ said Shauna.

‘She has friends from primary school, I could ask them.’

Sensing that it would help him to be doing something rather than passively waiting, Shauna told him, ‘Let’s go see them. I’ll come with you.’

‘Thank you, Shauna …’ His voice faltered, unable to find words to express how much he valued her steadying presence.

‘You two go and do what you need to,’ said Roxy, practical as ever, ‘while it’s still light.’

‘I’ll call you when we have some news,’ Shauna told her, and they hugged.