The voice was unmistakably English. This, then, was ‘Tony’. I looked at him with sharp interest.
He was young, somewhere under thirty, it was difficult to guess where; of middle height, slightly-built, but moving with the kind of tough grace that one associates with ballet. His hair was fairish, fine and straight, rather too long, but impeccably brushed. His face was narrow-featured, and clever, with light-blue eyes. He wore close fitting and very well-tailored jeans, and a spotlessly white shirt. He was smiling, a rather charming smile; his teeth were small and even, like milk teeth.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘How do you do? You’re expecting me for tonight, aren’t you? I know I’m a little early, but I was hoping for lunch.’
‘Early?’ He laughed. ‘We were just going to put the police on your trail. You’ve no idea. Miss Scorby thought—’
‘Police?’ I must have sounded startled beyond all reason, and I thought I saw the flicker of surprise in his eyes. My heart jumped painfully, then ground jaggedly into top gear. ‘Miss Scorby? What are you talking about? Is my cousin here already?’
‘No, no. She rang up last night. She said the boat was still held up in Patras, but that she’d gone by train to Athens, and managed to catch the flight after all.’
‘Oh, good for her! Then she’ll get today’s bus? She’ll be here for dinner?’
‘For tea. She said she wasn’t going to wait for the bus; she thought the vegetable caique might be more fun, and would get her here sooner.’ The small teeth showed. ‘An enterprising lady. She should be here any time now. The boat’s overdue as it is.’
I laughed. ‘I might have known Frances would make it! And before she was due, at that! That’s marvellous!’
‘Yes, she did think she’d been rather clever. She thought she’d be catching you up in Heraklion – you were both to have got the bus today, weren’t you? – but you’d gone. They told her you’d left yesterday, with a message saying you were coming straight here.’
He finished on a note of perfectly normal enquiry. I managed to say, I hoped naturally: ‘I did. I did leave Heraklion yesterday, and I fully intended to come on here, if I could. But I was offered a lift by some sweet Americans, and they decided to stay overnight in Chania, to look at the Turkish quarter. They’d offered to bring me on here today, and there was no hurry, as I didn’t think you were expecting me.’
‘Ah, well, that explains it. We weren’t really worried, you know, dear, we thought you’d have let us know if you were coming sooner, and, to tell you the truth, I doubt if we could have taken you before today.’
‘Full up?’
‘No, no, nothing like that. But busy, you know, busy. We’re still only half in order here. Did you walk down from the road?’
‘Yes. I had some coffee near the bridge, and then Georgi carried my case the rest of the way.’
‘Well, come and sign the Golden Book, then I’ll show you your room.’
The lobby was merely a wide passage running straight through the house. Halfway along it stood an old-fashioned table with a chair behind it, and a rack holding four keys. This was the reception desk. A door beside it was marked ‘Private’.
‘Not just the Ritz, you know,’ remarked Tony cheerfully, ‘but all in good time, we’re expanding like mad. We’ve got four whole bedrooms now. Not bad, for Agios Georgios.’
‘It’s delightful. But how do you come to be here – you’re English, aren’t you?’ The visitors’ book was brand new, its blank pages as informative as a shut eye.
‘Yes, indeed. My name’s Gamble, but you can call me Tony, everybody does. Gamble by name, and gamble by nature, to coin a phrase. There’s money to be made over here, you know, with this tourist boom, and hotels going up everywhere like mushrooms; not so much just yet, perhaps, but when they build the road this way – real money. We want to be ready for that. And the climate’s nice, too, for someone like me, with a chest.’ He paused, perhaps feeling that he had been a shade over-eager with his explanations. Then he smiled, and an eyelid flickered. ‘La dame aux camélias, and all that, you know. That’s really what persuaded me to settle so far from the dear old Vicarage.’
‘Oh?’ I said. ‘Bad luck. Ariadne did tell me that you’d found London unhealthy. That must have been what she meant. Well, this seems a lovely place, so I wish you luck. Is this where I write, at the top?’
‘Yes, just there.’ A beautifully kept finger indicated the first line of the virgin page. ‘Our very first guest, dear, did you know? One thing, you can be certain the sheets are clean.’
‘I wouldn’t have dreamed of doubting them. But what about my Danish friend, the man who sent me here? You should have collected his signature – it’s famous, in a mild way.’ I gave his name.
‘Oh, yes, but he doesn’t count. We weren’t officially “open”, and Stratos only put him up for the publicity, and because there was nowhere else. We were still painting.’
I wrote my name with what I hoped was a casual flourish. ‘And the Englishman?’
‘Englishman?’ His stare was blank.
‘Yes,’ I picked up the blotting paper and smoothed it over my signature. ‘I thought those children said you’d had an Englishman here last week?’
‘Oh, him.’ There was the tiniest pause. ‘I know who they mean.’ He smiled. ‘He wasn’t English; he was a Greek, a friend of Stratos’. I suppose those brats heard him talking to me?’
‘Probably, I hardly remember. There.’ I pushed the book across to him.
He picked it up, ‘“Nicola Ferris”. A very pretty start to the page. Thanks. No, dear, he didn’t count either; he didn’t even stay here, just called on business, and left the same night. Well, come and see your room.’ He flicked a key off its hook, picked up my case, and led the way back towards the front door.
‘You said the boat was due now?’
‘Any minute, but you know how it is. She’ll certainly be here by tea-time.’ He grinned over his shoulder. ‘And that’s one of your worries away, let me tell you. I make the tea myself.’
‘Oh? Good. She loves her tea. Not me; I’ve had time to get acclimatized.’
‘Acclimatized? You mean you’ve been over here for a bit?’ He sounded genuinely interested.
‘Over a year. I work at the British Embassy in Athens.’
I thought his glance was appraising. He swung my case as if it weighed no more than an ounce. ‘Then you’ll talk the lingo, I suppose? This way, dear. We go up the outside steps; rather primitive, I’m afraid, but it’s all part of our simple, unstudied charm.’
I followed him up the flower-bordered steps. The smell of carnations was thick as smoke in the sun.
‘I’ve picked up a bit of Greek.’ I had had to decide on this admission when I met the children, and he would certainly find out – in fact, I had already implied – that I had talked to them. I added, apologetically: ‘But it’s terribly difficult, and of course there’s the alphabet. I can ask simple questions, and so on, but as for talking—’ I laughed. ‘In my job we tend to mix, most of the time, with our own people, and I room with an English girl. But one day I really mean to get down to learning the language. What about you?’
‘Oh my dear, a little, only a little, and ghastly Greek at that, I do assure you. I mean, one gathers it works, but I never speak it unless I have to. Luckily, Stratos’ English is quite shatteringly good . . . Here we are. Primitive, but rather nice, don’t you think? The décor was my own idea.’
Originally, the room had been plain and square, with roughly plastered walls, a scrubbed wooden floor, and a small window cut in the thick wall facing the sea. Now the rough walls were washed blue-white, some fresh straw matting covered the floor, and the bed, which looked comfortable, was covered with a dazzling white counterpane. The sun, reaching round towards afternoon, already poured a slanting shaft through the window embrasure; the shutters were open, and there were no curtains, but outside there was a vine sifting the sunlight so that the walls of the room were pattern
ed most beautifully with the moving shadows of leaf and tendril.
‘A shame to shut it out, don’t you think?’ said Tony.
‘It’s lovely. Is this your “décor”? I thought you meant you’d designed it.’
‘Oh well, you could say I did in a way. I stopped them spoiling it. Stratos was all for Venetian blinds, and two colours of wallpaper, just like home sweet home.’
‘Oh? Well, I’m sure you were right. Is, er, “Stratos” your name for Mr Alexiakis?’
‘Yes, he’s the owner, you knew that? Did your Danish friend tell you about him? Quite the romantic local-boy-makes-good story, isn’t it? That’s what all the emigrants from these poverty-stricken rabbit-hutches dream of doing – coming home after twenty years, buying up the place, and showering money on the family.’
‘Oh, he has a family?’
‘Well, there’s only a sister, Sofia, and between you and me, dear, there’s a little bit of difficulty about showering money on her.’ Tony dumped my case on a chair, and turned confidingly, with very much the air of one who has been missing the pleasures of a nice, cosy gossip. ‘It would mean showering it on her husband, too, and dear Stratos doesn’t, but doesn’t get on with his brother-in-law. But then, who does? I can’t say I just fell madly for him myself, and I’m fearfully easy to please, far too easy-going, really. I remember—’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘Josef? Oh, first of all, he’s a Turk. Not that I mind that, but some of these village types think it’s just the last thing, next to a Bulgarian or a German. And the poor girl was left well off, respected papa and all that, just the job for a nice local Cretan boy, but she had to go and marry this Turkish foreigner from Chania, who’s frittered and drunk most of it away – won’t lift a finger, and rather pushes her around. Oh, the usual, you know, such a dreary tale. What’s more, he won’t let her go to church, and that, of course, is the last straw. Quaint, isn’t it?’
‘Can’t the priest help?’
‘We haven’t one, dear, he only visits.’
‘Oh. Poor Sofia.’
‘Yes, well, things have looked up for her since brother Stratos got home.’
‘He must have done well for himself; he had a restaurant, didn’t he? Where was it, Soho somewhere?’
‘Oh, you wouldn’t know it, it wasn’t big – though of course the locals think it was the Dorchester, no less, and give Stratos an income to match. Far be it from him to disillusion them. It was a nice little place, though; I was there myself for six years. That’s where I picked up my bit of Greek; most of the boys were Greeks, made Stratos feel at home, he said. Ah well,’ he twitched the peach-coloured tablecloth straight, ‘it’s quite amusing here, tarting the place up a bit, though I don’t know that little Tony’d just want to settle here for life. We’re going to build, you know, on to the other end. Get a nice long, low block, facing the sea. Take a look at that view.’
‘It’s wonderful.’
The window faced south-west, over one end of the land-locked bay. To the left, I caught a glimpse of the edge of a roof; that was all; the rest of the village was out of sight. Directly below me, through the masking vine, I could see a flat space of gravel where a few tables and chairs were set – this, no doubt, would be Ariadne’s ‘beautiful garden’. What flowers there were grew in pots, enormous earthenware pithoi, like the old wine jars from the Cretan palaces. A clump of tamarisk trees stood where the gravel gave way to the flat rock of the foreshore; this, smoothed and fissured by water, burned white in the sun. In every cranny of rock blazed the brilliant pink and crimson sunbursts of ice daisies, and, just beside them, the sea moved lazily, silky and dark, its faint bars of light and shadow gently lifting and falling against the hot rock. Beyond the stretch of sea, at the outer curve of the bay, tall cliffs towered jaggedly, their feet in the calm summer water, and along their bases curled the narrow golden line of shingle that rings the islands of the tideless Aegean. Even this, if the wind stiffened from the south, would be covered. A small boat, painted orange and cobalt, rocked, empty, at anchor a little way out from the shore.
‘Next stop, Africa,’ said Tony, behind me.
‘It’s lovely, oh, it’s lovely! I’m glad I came before you’ve built your new wing, you know.’
‘Well, I do see what you mean, not that I think we’ll exactly put Billy Butlin out of business,’ said Tony cheerfully. ‘If it’s peace and quiet you want, dear, we’ve bags of that.’
I laughed. ‘Well, that’s what we came for. Is it warm enough to swim yet? I asked Georgi, but he has a different sort of built-in thermostat from me, and I don’t know if I can take his word for it.’
‘Well, heavens, don’t take mine, I’ve not tried it, and I don’t suppose I ever shall, not being just a child of Nature. I wouldn’t risk the harbour, it’s dirty, but there are bound to be plenty places where it’s safe. You’d better ask Stratos; he’ll know if there are currents and things. Your cousin’ll go with you, I suppose?’
‘Oh, she’ll probably sit on the shore and watch – though it wasn’t safety I was thinking about; there won’t be any currents here that could matter. No, Frances isn’t a swimmer, she’s mainly interested in the flowers. She’s a rock garden expert, and works in a big nursery, and she always takes a busman’s holiday somewhere where she can see the plants in their natural homes. She’s tired of Switzerland and the Tyrol, so, when I told her what I’d seen last spring over here, she just had to come.’ I turned away from the window, adding casually: ‘Once she sees the place, I probably shan’t be allowed time off for swimming. I’ll have to spend the whole time tramping the mountainside with her, hunting for flowers to photograph.’
‘Flowers?’ said Tony, almost as if it were a foreign word he had never heard before. ‘Ah, well, I’m sure there are plenty of nice ones around. Now, I’ll have to be getting down to the kitchen. Your cousin’s room is next door – that one, there. There’s only the two in this end of the place, so you’ll be lovely and private. That’s a bathroom there, no less, and that door goes through to the other side of the house. Now, if there’s anything you want, just ask. We don’t rise to bells yet, but you don’t need to come down; just hang out of the door and yell. I’m never far away. I hear most that goes on.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, a little hollowly.
‘Cheerio for now,’ said Tony amiably. His slight figure skated gracefully away down the stairway.
I shut my door, and sat down on the bed. The shadows of the vine moved and curtseyed on the wall. As if they were my own confused and drifting thoughts, I found that I had pressed my hands to my eyes, to shut them out.
Already, from the fragments I had gleaned, one thing showed whole and clear. If the murder which Mark had witnessed had had any connection with Agios Georgios, and if his impression of the Englishness of the fourth man had been correct, then either Tony, or the mysterious ‘Englishman’ from the sea – whom Tony had denied – must have been present. There were no other candidates. And, in either case, Tony was involved. The thing could be, in fact, centred on this hotel.
I found a wry humour in wondering just what Mark would have said, had he known that he was packing me off, with prudent haste, from the perimeter of the affair into its very centre. He had wanted me safely out of it, and had made this abundantly clear, even to the point of rudeness; and I – who had taken my own responsibilities for long enough – had resented bitterly a rejection that had seemed to imply a sexual superiority. If I had been a man, would Mark have acted in the same way? I thought not.
But at least emotion no longer clouded my judgement. Sitting here quietly, now, seeing things from the outside, I could appreciate his point of view. He wanted to see me safe – and he wanted his own feet clear. Well, fair enough. In the last few minutes, I had realized (even at the risk of conceding him a little of that sexual superiority) that I wanted both those things, quite fervently, myself.
I took my hands from my eyes, and there were the patterned shadows
again, quiet now, beautiful, fixed.
Well, it was possible. It was perfectly possible to do as Mark had wished; clear out, forget, pretend it had never happened. It was obvious that no suspicion of any sort could attach itself to me. I had arrived as expected, having successfully dropped the dangerous twenty-four hours out of my life. All I had to do was forget such information as came my way, ask no more questions, and – how had it gone? – ‘get on with that holiday of yours, that Lambis interrupted’.
And meanwhile, Colin Langley, aged fifteen?
I bit my lip, and snapped back the lid of the suitcase.
8
She shall guess, and ask in vain . . .
THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES: Song of the Stygian Naiades
There was a woman in the bathroom, just finishing with a cloth and pail. When I appeared, towel on arm, she seemed flustered, and began picking up her tools with nervous haste.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘I’m not in a hurry. I can wait till you’ve finished.’
But she had already risen, stiffly, to her feet. I saw then that she was not old, as her movements had led me to imagine. She was of medium height, a little shorter than I, and should have been broadly built, but she was shockingly thin, and her body seemed flattened and angular under the thick, concealing peasant clothing. Her face, too, was meant to be full and round, but you could see the skull under the skin – the temporal bone jutting above deep eye-sockets, the sharp cheekbones, and the squared corners of the jaw. She was shabbily dressed, in the inevitable black, with her dress kilted up over her hips to show the black underskirt below, and she wore a black head-covering, wrapped round to hide neck and shoulders. Under this her hair seemed thick, but the few wisps which had escaped the covering were grey. Her hands were square, and must have been stronger than they looked; they seemed to be mere bones held together by sinews and thick, blue veins.
‘You speak Greek?’ Her voice was soft, but full and rich, and still young. And her eyes were beautiful, with straight black lashes as thick as thatch eaves. The lids were reddened, as if with recent weeping, but the dark eyes lit straight away with the pleased interest that every Greek takes in a stranger. ‘You are the English lady?’