Jack Higgins (11 page)

“And that put you off politics?”

“At a very early age. Oh, I was raised on the hero bit. We had his photo on the mantel with a rosary hanging from the frame and a candle always on the go. My mother never let that candle out. She loved him till the day she died. Poor lass, she had a hard time finding it in her heart to forgive me for joining the bloody British Army.”

“But she did?”

“In the end.” I hesitated, aware of something that had to be said. “It isn't that I hate him or the memory of him and the things he did. A man has to do what is right for him, I know that. It's just that I think we needed him a damned sight more than that God-almighty Cause of his.”

She reached up to touch my face. “Poor Savage, you love him like hell, always have done and it hurts to admit it.”

And that was the plain truth of it. “Something like that,” I said.

“No more sad songs now. It's too beautiful. Far too beautiful.”

We were almost at the cliffs now, the boats far behind us. The night was warm, the slight breeze perfumed. She paused, her hip touching me, and I put an arm about her waist. She looked up and I kissed her gently.

She pulled away and turned in a circle, arms outstretched. “Oh, but I feel good. I feel alive. A hundred percent alive.”

She stood there, hands on hips, smiling at me. “You know what we're going to do? We're going to celebrate being alive. We're going for a swim and then I'm going to let you make long and very slow love to me.”

Her hands were already at the zip on the side of her skirt. As she stepped out of it, I said quickly, “I don't think you should, Sara. It's damned cold out there when the heat of the day has gone. It wouldn't be good for you.”

She went very, very still, standing there in the moonlight, the skirt in her left hand.

“You know,” she whispered. “You know. But how?”

“Aleko,” I said.

The language that erupted in one vicious deadly stream was as bad as I'd ever heard in any barrack room or water-front saloon. She stepped into the skirt and zipped it up quickly.

“Listen to me, Sara.” I reached for her. “Just a minute.”

She sent me back with a stiff right arm. “Not pity, Savage. Do you really want to know what I was after? You, all the way, and you wanting me. To be possessed, to feel you inside me, one instead of two, something warm against the darkness. And you didn't even need to love me. I could have taken that as long as the part of me you did want, you wanted honestly and truly. But not now—now, it's all spoiled. Now, I could never be sure it wasn't out of pity and I've too much pride for that.”

She turned, then, running through the moonlight, and disappeared into the shadows. I didn't go after her.

 

If Aleko had been there or anywhere within striking distance, I think I'd have taken a knife to him, so great was the anger I experienced after she had gone. Anger at the world, at life and the sheer, senseless cruelty of it, but most of all, anger at Aleko. It was as if he was somehow responsible, which was absurd for it was better to know, whatever Sara thought. Better for her—better for me.

But now more than anything, I needed a drink and I walked back along the beach towards the harbour. Someone had lit a fire of driftwood beside the boats. They were cooking lobster from the smell of things. There was laughter, a young girl of sixteen or seventeen ran past me, a boy of around the same age hot in pursuit.

They didn't notice me in the darkness, and I stood
there for a moment watching the group at the fire, feeling completely apart and outside of things and lonely.

And then I thought of her and realised, quite suddenly, that this was how Sara must have felt. With people, yet apart from them, branded clean to the bone with no possibility of escape. Alone—really alone.

I hadn't cried since I was a boy in short pants. My grandfather's funeral. Rooks lifting out of the trees like black rag bundles, calling to each other through the heavy rain. Father Fallon's clear gentle voice, the rattle of the soil that we threw in one after the other.

A long time ago
. Strange, but the same lump the size of my fist threatened to choke me now and my eyes were stinging. There was the Celt in me if you like and I turned and stumbled away through the darkness.

 

I could hear the
bouzoukis
, plaintive in the night as I turned on to the waterfront and approached Yanni's. The door was wide, light flooded out across the tables on the front terrace and most of them were occupied.

Inside, it was at first sight a typical waterfront
taverna
with stone floor, whitewashed walls, beamed ceiling and the food being cooked on the spot in copper pans over charcoal in a kitchen area on the left. The resemblance ended there as the prices indicated.

It was about half-full for it was early in the season for tourists, but there were a couple of dozen in there, mainly German from the sound of them and most of them were women of the well-preserved variety or perhaps mature would be a kinder word. Typical products of a class to be found in most countries. The ones who
have everything and who find, in the final analysis, that they have nothing.

If they were looking for excitement, they'd come to the right place. There was an atmosphere about things in there that night. I could sense it in the laughter from the rougher element who kept to the tables on the other side of the small dance floor. Fishermen, and sponge divers in the main, they were wholly Greek for the Turks had still not returned in substantial numbers. The few who did work these waters stayed clear of Yanni's to avoid trouble, except for Ciasim Divalni, who was very much a law unto himself, feared nothing on top of earth and didn't think much of anything Greek at the best of times.

Greece is a man's country and this is especially true of the islands and old-fashioned codes of behaviour still apply. A man does not take his wife to the
taverna
. He goes there to drink with his friends in what is essentially a man's world and any woman—which usually means tourist—who invades that world, must expect to be looked upon as fair game.

On the other hand, the plain fact was that most women of the type who were there that night, rich, bored, eager for excitement, knew the rules of the game to a nicety and if their present aim in life was to find themselves flat on their backs in the sand under some muscular specimen off a sponge boat, then that was all right by me.

Loukas, the police sergeant, was seated on a wooden stool at the very end of the long bar talking to Alexias Papas, the manager. They were drinking
ouzo
and helping themselves from a plate of
mezes
which had been placed between them. Scraps of
fetta
cheese, whitebait,
chopped octopus and similar delicacies. Definitely, an acquired taste and certainly not mine.

Papas noticed me at once and waved. “Ah, Mr. Savage, I was hoping you would come in. Mr. Kytros is back. He would like a word with you.”

“Here I am,” I said.

“Good.” He put a bottle of Fix on the bar which is a very passable beer they produce in Athens. “I will tell him you are here.”

The beer was ice-cold which is the way they always serve it in Greece, even in the winter. Very refreshing, but I needed something stronger. I swallowed it down and Sergeant Loukas filled a spare glass with
ouzo
and pushed it across.

“You will join me, Mr. Savage?”

I didn't care for the stuff, but to refuse would be like insulting the Greek national flag. He was a small, insignificant-looking man in a shabby, sun-bleached khaki uniform. He badly needed a shave and there was an expression of settled melancholy on the narrow face. Nothing about him impressed, not even the automatic in its black leather holster on his belt.

And yet there had to be more to him than this, for according to Yanni he had been an area commander with the old E.O.K.A. in Crete during the German occupation. A man with an awesome reputation who had stayed one step ahead of the Gestapo for the entire war.

He smiled gently, this quiet little man, this simple island policeman who must have cut an untold number of throats in his day.

“How are things, Mr. Savage? For you, not so good, I think.”

“Don't worry about me,” I said. “I'm surviving.”

“I am happy to hear it.” He swallowed another of the tiny glasses of
ouzo
and stood up, making no attempt to straighten his uniform.

“Making your rounds?”

He nodded. “Perhaps I will look in later. We have another drink together, eh?”

“I wouldn't bother,” I said as laughter roared out at the other end of the bar and a glass broke. “They'll have burned the place down by then.”

He smiled politely as if not understanding and then the smile widened. “But of course, you are joking. The British are always joking. I remember this from the war.”

“Irish,” I said.

“The same thing, is it not so?”

He saluted and moved off which was as well. One hell of an exit line and there were places I knew where they'd have had the arms and legs off him for making a remark like that.

I helped myself to another
ouzo
. Funny, but it was beginning to taste better already, then Papas appeared and lifted the flap for me to go through to the rear.

 

Yanni Kytros met me at the door of his office and embraced me like some long lost brother. “Good to see you, Jack. Good to see you.”

Which meant that he wanted something. “It's going to cost you, whatever it is,” I told him.

There was a small bar in one corner. He went behind it, produced a fresh bottle of Jameson and almost filled a shot glass.

“There you are, Jack, a drop of the Paddy, isn't that what you call it?”

“Now I know you want something.”

He smiled, that beautifully self-deprecating smile of his, and lit one of his Turkish cigarettes. “I only arrived this afternoon, but from what I hear, you aren't doing too well. On the other hand, what can you expect. Who needs real sponges these days? A dying trade.”

“What have you got to offer that's any better?”

“Rum,” he said. “They are paying a lot for rum on the black market in Turkey these days.”

“They've also got a very old-fashioned attitude towards people who break the law,” I said. “They not only put them away for rather lengthy periods. They throw in hard labour as a bonus.”

“I'm not asking you to land, Jack. You rendezvous with a Turkish fishing boat five miles out on the other side of Nisiros. They'll transfer your cargo and off you go. Nothing could be simpler.”

“How much?”

“A thousand dollars plus expenses.”

Which was more than I could make in a month and he knew it. “All right, when do I go?”

“Tomorrow night,” he said. “I'll give you details later.” He grinned and clapped me on the shoulder. “Nothing to it, Jack. Just like falling off a log.”

“Then why don't
you
go and save yourself some money?”

He laughed heartily and pushed the bottle of Jameson across. “You'll be the death of me, Jack. Here, take this. Go and enjoy yourself. I'll see you tomorrow. We'll talk some more then.”

 

It was noisier than ever when I went back in. Three
bouzoukis
were going full blast and half a dozen couples were dancing in the cleared area in the centre of the floor. I got a glass from the bar on the way through and found myself a table. I wasn't ready to leave yet. Time for that when I was too drunk to think straight, or think at all.

Ciasim came in through the entrance like a strong wind, paused, his eyes scanning the room, and saw me. He came through the crowd in a straight line, shrugging people to one side carelessly, a grin on his face.

He produced an envelope and waved it in my face as he sat down. “My licence, Jack. My licence to work the wreck. It's come through. Loukas saw me when I got in.”

“Good for you.” I shoved the bottle across. “Help yourself.”

He reached for someone's glass from the next table, emptied its contents on the floor and filled it with whiskey. Down it went. He closed his eyes in bliss and smiled as he opened them again.

“Maybe you change your mind now, Jack?”

I shook my head. “Not a chance. You don't need me. I'd be no good to you.”

His face was grave. There was sympathy there—real sympathy. “So, you meant what you said. It is that bad, eh?”

“I'm afraid so.” I filled my glass again and shoved the bottle back to him. “To you, Ciasim. Good luck and no foul-ups.”

The glass went to my lips and stayed there. Aleko was standing in the entrance, wearing, for some obscure reason, his bosun's outfit again. Everyone was looking
at him, astonished at the sheer brute size of the man, and the clothes rounded things off nicely, so that he looked capable of clearing the place out on his own if the need arose.