One thought rose above all others as we waited for the police to arrive. It was how heartbreakingly close Dr Michael Mosley had come to making it. Making it to the sea that would have cooled his heat-tortured body after his hike in the mountains under a merciless sun. Making it to the taverna and the promise of a long drink to assuage his thirst. He was 80 yards from both, little more than a minute away – a minute from surviving.
As it was, the life of Dr Mosley – the ‘wonderful, funny, kind and brilliant’ man recalled by his wife today – ended last Wednesday afternoon on a rocky slope leading from a mountain down to the sea. He lay alongside a low stone wall: atop it, the perimeter fence of Agia Marina, which comprises a beach, taverna and walled gardens.
If one of the staff or the 30 or so holidaymakers ranged across sunbeds that afternoon had only sat up and looked in this direction, they might well have seen him.
This in turn led to another inescapable question: how could it possibly have taken so long to find his body, when only the day before, a search-and-rescue helicopter had circled above this very spot?
From leaving his wife at another beach, it took Dr Mosley, 67, around two hours 15 minutes to make it to the marina perimeter, whereas the walk to where he was staying in Symi town would normally have taken little more than an hour.
We know now that he took a wrong turn and got lost. Footage from Agia Marina timed 3.44pm shows him apparently disoriented and stumbling around for four minutes before gingerly picking his way down the slope and disappearing from view.
Again, the question: Why didn’t anyone see him? Or, if he shouted, hear him?
Quite likely he was suffering from heat exhaustion, which can cause dizziness and nausea.
That afternoon Dr Mosley set off at 1.30pm. He walked from the beach, known in Greek as Agios Nikolaos, along a clifftop path to the fishing village of Pedi. Around 20 minutes later, he was captured on CCTV outside Pedi’s Blue Corner cafe. At the time, he was moving purposefully and using a purple umbrella as a parasol. By all accounts, he was in good spirits.
From Pedi, the direct route back to Symi town should have taken him just 40 minutes on foot, passing through the village of Chorio.
He needed to turn left out of the village at Pedi; but Clare Bailey said today that her husband was, among many things, an adventurous soul, which is why he strode off purposely towards the mountains in the opposite direction.
It is unlikely that he was heading for Agia, however. It seems more probable that he tried to reach the marina only when he became disorientated.
Most people travel to Agia by water taxi from Pedi – as I did this morning at 10am with several British journalists and the mayor of Symi, Lefteris Papakalodoukas.
On the 15-minute journey, the mayor was keen to stress that the search – this was day five – was ongoing and that rescue teams would be examining a network of caves known as the Abyss. ‘Still nothing yet, though,’ he told me. Then he abruptly changed the subject and, beaming, declared Symi ‘the most beautiful of all the Greek islands’.
We passed the Abyss, a rocky outcrop, but there was no sign of activity. In fact, nobody seemed to be looking for Dr Mosley at all.
When the water taxi disgorged our group, Mr Papakalodoukas remained on board.
Over coffee in Agia’s outdoor taverna, manager Ilias Tsavaris, 38 – whom we had first met the previous day – reiterated that there was ‘no chance he [Dr Mosley] had been here’.
He added: ‘We would have seen him, it’s just not possible.’
Then he was called away – urgently, as it would soon transpire. A minute or so after leaving us, the mayor, standing on the deck of the water taxi, had spotted something ‘unusual’ from the water. Also on board was a Greek TV crew. Their camera zoomed in. Something was lying close to the fence. The mayor rang Ilias’s boss, urging him to ‘get one of your guys to check it out’.
Not that he seemed particularly exercised, for neither the mayor nor the TV crew then came ashore. Instead the boat took them straight back to Pedi.
But this was the reason why Ilias had been called away. He was the guy chosen to check it out. Ilias would later recall how he first noticed Dr Mosley’s watch ‘glinting in the sun’. And then, as he clambered up the slope, gnawing dread gave way to shock. He came straight back to us, tearful.
‘There’s a body up there,’ he shouted. It was a little after 10.30am local time: 8.30am in Britain.
That Dr Mosley could be so close seemed incredible. He was just 100 yards or so from where his children had searched along the Vroulias mountains the previous day.
Next to Dr Mosley’s body lay his purple umbrella, which he had used to shield himself from the sun. Nearby, his small rucksack lay on some rocks. Did he fling it away when he stumbled? It was 20ft from where he fell.
Behind the taverna, there is a volleyball pitch and a sloped, walled garden dotted with olive trees. Here some holidaymakers could be seen in the footage from the marina. They were close by when he fell – how could they have missed him?
The high perimeter fence encases the marina on three sides, but from where Dr Mosley approached, there was no opening of any kind. And that day he had left his mobile phone behind, so he was unable to raise the alarm. The sea would have been visible to him from the mountains, though. That was his goal.
Standing on the beach 50 yards from where Dr Mosley was found, Ilias was trembling. ‘His poor family, his poor family,’ he repeated like a mantra.
‘It was horrifying,’ he added. ‘You don’t see a dead body every day. This isn’t a warzone. It’s summer, people are supposed to be having fun…’ And then, lost in thought, his voice trailed away.
Nearby some 15 holidaymakers were enjoying this peaceful, hidden beach, sunbathing beneath parasols, oblivious to what was unfolding around them. The juxtaposition was incongruous. Someone from the bar, not Ilias, called the police. And so we waited.
How unreal it all seemed. And how deeply upsetting. Thoughts turned inevitably to Dr Mosley’s family, and, in particular his wife of nearly 40 years, who only the previous day described his disappearance as unbearable. Resolutely, Clare had promised that the family would never give up hope. Now those hopes had been dashed.
The minutes passed and it was approaching 11am. We scanned the horizon for the police.
After nearly 30 minutes, the first officers – five in all – stepped ashore. They were led to where Dr Mosley was lying and waited on a slope 15 yards away. There was nothing for them to do but guard the scene. They brought with them a sheet of tarpaulin and we expected them to cover the body. Instead they didn’t move.
Instead, they stood, with no respite from the sun, for three sweltering hours. As well as sweat from their brows, two of them wiped away tears. ‘They are feeling it too,’ said Ilias. ‘What a job, just standing there, marking the spot like sentries.’
Their presence made the sun-worshippers sit up and squint in their direction. Soon the news spread. Some came closer to look. Others lay back down on their loungers. Two men played with a ball at the shoreline.
One of the holidaymakers, Jim, a TV executive from Market Harborough in Leicestershire, said: ‘It’s so awful. So close by. You’ve got to wonder why he was never found before now. I read his columns and heard him on Radio Four. He seemed a lovely bloke. Decent, a gent. To be honest, I feel a bit embarrassed sitting here sunning myself. It doesn’t feel right, a bit indecent. Is that terribly English of me?’
Someone said the coroner was on his way from Rhodes, an hour by boat. Still we waited for the forensic officers and emergency workers. It was business as usual in the taverna but Ilias was struggling to focus. ‘I will never forget this day,’ he said. ‘I won’t be able to get that image out of my mind.’
Holidaymakers were beginning to sit down for lunch. ‘The sea bream is popular today,’ reported Michael, a waiter. ‘Feels a bit strange though doesn’t it? People eating when he is just over there…’
As plates were cleared, a succession of boats bearing emergency workers, forensic officers and the coroner finally swept into the bay. It was just after 2pm.
Five firefighters, masked, gloved and wearing red caps, carried a bright-orange stretcher to the scene, which was beginning to attract a crowd. We are used to screens shielding crime scenes in the UK but, here, everything was played out in public.
Forensic officers first examined Dr Mosley’s rucksack then edged towards his body, which they covered and placed on the stretcher. Emergency workers carried it down the slope to a waiting white dinghy with a powerful outboard engine.
It chugged slowly away though, passing a coastguard vessel which sounded its horn. Out of respect? We hoped so.