Page 45 of The House Swap

Jem grinned at her before pulling away from the kerb, the tyres crunching lightly on gravel before joining the coastal road. To their left, the sea thrashed restlessly in the evening wind.

Realising that they were heading in the opposite direction to the village centre, Poppy frowned.

‘Are we going somewhere different?’ she asked.

‘Do you fancy going to Analipsi? There’s a taverna there that’s open at the weekends. It’s nicer than Manoli’s. Quieter, no laminated menus, and it’s family-run. Plus, the food is really good.’

She laughed. ‘You had me at no laminated menus.’

There was nothing wrong with Manoli’s, but it would be nice to go somewhere different instead of returning to the same taverna.

It was still playing on her mind that Jem had known the address for Tom’s villa, but he had only just picked her up. She would wait until they were in the restaurant, she decided, and she would try to slot the question into conversation over dinner.

‘So, how do you know about this restaurant?’ she asked instead.

‘The lawyer I used for all the inheritance paperwork is based in Analipsi. I ate there a couple of times.’ He glanced briefly in her direction before returning his attention to the road. ‘I should have taken you there earlier, when it was still light. It’s a pretty village. A little more traditional than Gouves. I think you’ll like it.’

‘It sounds perfect,’ Poppy agreed, meaning it.

The car windows were cracked open just enough to let in the fresh scent of the sea, and she fell silent, letting the tension of the last few days drain from her body.

Out of season, the road was quiet. There were a few scattered headlights in the distance, but the majority of the hotels and tavernas they passed were closed, some of them with shutters down and chairs stacked neatly outside.

‘You okay?’ Jem asked, his tone casual.

‘Yeah.’ She turned to smile at him. ‘This is nice. It’s been a little lonely without Keira.’

He nodded. Silent for a moment.

‘Have you heard any more from her?’ he asked.

‘I sent her another message, asking her to let me know everyone was okay. She took ages to read it again, and when she did, she didn’t reply. She just hearted it.’

Jem frowned. ‘That’s a bit odd.’

‘Yes,’ Poppy agreed, her chest tightening. It was odd, but that word felt insufficient. Unsettling, perhaps? ‘It’s so out of character for her. She knows I’ll be worrying.’

Jem reached across the console and briefly squeezed her hand. The contact was warm, grounding and unexpected.

Aware that thoughts of Keira would have her sinking into melancholy, she made the effort to change the subject, asking Jem about his day.

‘It’s been very dull. I’ve been doing trips back and forth to the recycling yard,’ he told her. ‘You wouldn’t believe the amount of crap my dad collected. There’s still loads to go through.’

‘Has it been difficult for you?’ Poppy said softly.

He nodded, before seeming to change his mind. ‘More strange, I guess. Going through someone’s things after they’ve gone, you realise just how little you really knew them. Which I know might sound odd as we didn’t speak for a lot of years, but he was still my dad.’

His expression tightened slightly with an unreadable emotion that Poppy picked up on straight away, even in the shadowy interior of the car. Not grief exactly and not anger.

Regret, perhaps?

Seeming to realise he was souring the mood, he made an effort to lighten it, and he was midway through telling her about the random goat that had been wandering around loose at the recycling yard, when Poppy felt the toe of her sandal bumping against something in the footwell.

She leant forward to pick up a plastic case.

A Genesis album, she realised.

Jem glanced across, spotting it. ‘Just stick that back in the glovebox.’