Lie With Me (23 page)

I put the book down on the bed, cover up. ‘For what?’

‘The boat trip.’

‘Oh, that. I’m not coming.’

She had opened the cupboard door to find a dry swimsuit, but she stopped and turned, the costume, a strip of rainbow-coloured Lycra, hanging off her fingers.

I picked up the guidebook and opened it at random. A folded newspaper cutting fell out; I slipped it back in. ‘I’m going to visit some ruins today.’

‘What ruins?’

‘Ruins of the early Helladic Settlement at Okarta. Maybe if I have time –’ I consulted a page ‘– the Spring of Exoghi, where, according to legend, Odysseus’s swine-herder Eumaeus used to bring his pigs to drink. There’s a bus from the top of the road. I asked in town last night.’

I was hoping she would lie down next to me, wrap her arms around me, beg me not to go off without her. It was a test of sorts.

She had bundled the swimsuit in a towel and now she held it to her chest, resting her chin on it. ‘Don’t sulk.’

‘I’m not sulking.’

‘You are. It’s because of what Andrew said about the trunks. He was only joking.’

I shrugged.

‘Come on. It’ll be fun.’

‘Why?’

Because you’ll be there with me
, I wanted her to say.

‘It just will be. Andrew’s a brilliant sailor.’

I am my own worst enemy. I wanted to be with her more than anything on earth, but now she had mentioned Andrew’s sailing brilliance. Fuck. I was too riled.

‘I could do with a bit of time on my own,’ I said.

They were doing their hopeless milling when I left – moving round in frantic, ineffectual circles like flies trapped in a room. ‘Jesus H Christ,’ I heard Andrew say to one of the boys. ‘
Shoes
. What is wrong with you?’

‘I’m off,’ I said, to no one in particular. Aiming for a cultured air, I was wearing a lilac shirt with my linen suit (I left Andrew’s wet trunks on the kitchen table), and I was armed with certain props: Michael’s guidebook, an old bus timetable I had found in a drawer, and a bottle of water from the fridge. I crossed the terrace, cutting a swathe through their chaos. I wanted them to watch me go, to witness my independence, my defiance. Nobody owns me, said my swinging arms. Look, said my tilted chin, this is what freedom looks like.

‘Bye then,’ Alice said. ‘Have fun.’

I blew her a kiss. ‘I will.’

At the end of the drive, I stopped at the gate and peered over. A new area the size of a football pitch had been levelled in the upper reaches of the field. Several men were standing around a concrete mixer, which was churning hungrily. The fence on this side had been dismantled and several trees felled, undergrowth cleared. The larger of the two diggers had moved up the hill several metres towards Alice’s land and was tugging at the earth with its claw.

The dog was under its temporary shelter chewing a bone. It couldn’t hear me above the racket. Or maybe it knew not to be on guard when the machinery was actually in use.

I pulled myself up on to the gate and jumped over. To the left was a small patch of untouched rough grass behind a chunk of hedge thick enough to hide me from the lane. Checking the dog was still oblivious to my presence, I slunk down and lit a cigarette, noticing the packet was nearly empty. While I waited, I opened the guidebook and found the newspaper article that had fallen out earlier. Michael must have cut it out for me. It was from the
Daily Telegraph
– his journal of choice – and was headlined ‘The Dark Side of Paradise’. I read it through. In a nutshell it described Pyros as a hotbed of crime and corruption, exacerbated by the euro crisis. The practice of bribes or ‘fakelaki’ underpinned its entire infrastructure, being rife among ‘lawyers, doctors, customs, the judicial system, the police’. There was guff about prostitution and illegal immigrants, and a whole paragraph on the abuse of the disability allowance. Ten times more people were signed off with eye problems on Pyros than anywhere else in Europe. Its nickname on mainland Greece was ‘the Island of the Blind’.

At the bottom of the article, in his lawyer’s spider writing, Michael had written: ‘Enjoy!’

What a wag. I scrunched it up.

I didn’t have to wait long before they left. Vibrations along the earth, a jolting flash of silver through the branches. I waited until the people carrier had disappeared down the track to the main road and then stood up. A short, squat man in a short-sleeved pale blue shirt, an orange hat shadowing his face, was looking in my direction. I stubbed out my cigarette with my foot and raised my arm in greeting. He didn’t respond, so I turned away, pulled myself back over the gate and set off up the track to the house.

The key was where I knew Alice kept it – under the lavender pot on the terrace. I let myself into the kitchen, which was a mess. No one was bothering to keep it clean any more. Cupboards yawned open; tea towels lay on the floor. An open tin of honey was attracting an army of suicidal ants. Next to the kettle was a pile of loose change, which I took. I snooped around the house a bit – finding a ten-euro note in the middle of the rumpled folds of Louis’s bed. Nothing much to look at in the girls’ room, apart from underwear, and a couple of the plastic gusset-protectors they put in new bikini bottoms. Phoebe had left her credit card propped on the keyboard of her laptop, which I looked at regretfully, but even I wouldn’t be that stupid.

I took a cold beer from the fridge, and drank it down by the pool, enjoying having the lower terrace to myself. I smoked the last cigarette in the packet and at 2 p.m., found the remnants of Tuesday’s picnic in the fridge and made myself a sandwich with what was left of the bread. Overcome by the exertion of that, I lay on the bed and slept for a while. When I woke up it was 3.30 p.m. – just the right time for a cup of tea. I brewed up and sat on the Indian bench, when I remembered I’d run out of fags. I left the bench to search my suitcase: nothing. Alice’s bag too. Of course she didn’t smoke, but I remembered the pleasure she had taken in a cigarette the first night we met (though I hadn’t seen her smoke since). I looked in the boys’ room – under Louis’s bed. In the cupboard above the kitchen sink.

I felt restless. Nerves jangled, jaw on edge, fingers twitchy. The supermarket in Stefanos would be closed for the afternoon, but Nico’s taverna sold Marlboro Lights and the Greek brand, Karelia Royal. I began to imagine the weight of the packet in my hand, the scrunch of paper in my fingers, the loose strands of tobacco between my teeth, the sweet woody smell.

And then an idea hit me: Hermes. What was to stop me driving down? Alice didn’t know I’d mended it – I’d never had a chance to tell her. I could make up for this morning by surprising her off the boat.

The van started on the third try, and I reversed carefully out into the yard, managed to turn round, with some grinding of the gears, and then proceeded down the drive, past the building site, along the narrow lane, and down to the main road. The engine was by no means smooth. The bite was high and I stalled several times. But the road was quiet at this time in the afternoon, and there was no one around to watch. I drove carefully into the village, looking for the people carrier; when I saw it parked in the lay-by, I drew up behind.

I bought cigarettes – Karelias, the cheapest – and smoked one walking back to the lay-by. To my surprise, when I got there, the people carrier was gone. I climbed back into the truck, completed a clumsy three-point turn, and roared back up the hill. I wondered what they would think when they saw the garage empty. I was looking forward to seeing their reaction when I drove up – Andrew’s annoyance, and Alice’s delight.

I stalled only once in this section of the drive, at the turn-off. It took me a few goes to re-start the engine. An elderly woman dressed in black was working in the scrap of field to one side to the road. She leant on her hoe and watched me. The window was rolled down and I said, ‘Kali spera.’ She nodded.

It was harder going up the track than coming down. A couple of rocks crunched on the undercarriage. I stayed in second gear after that, the engine throaty, wheels erratically spinning, dust on each side as thick as smoke. It was a rabbit-hop of a journey and at the bend, where the lane ended and the track up to the house began, I changed down to first in preparation for the sharp turn and promptly stalled again.

I waited a few seconds to give the engine time to recover. It was silent out there, the air liquid; the construction workers had stopped work. Bees droned. The sound of a sheep’s bell, ringing miles away. A distant shout, the splash of water.

The engine turned, but didn’t fire.

I opened the door and got out. I stood up on the second bar of the gate, my hands gripping the top, to see if there were any labourers around who might help. The sun had slipped out in a crack in the clouds and the makeshift shelter was in the shade, the long knife shadow of a cypress slanting over the awning and the patch of ground it covered. I wasn’t sure if I could see the dog or not. There was a dark shape under there, but it might have been a small heap of clothing. It wasn’t moving, or making a noise, so no – it can’t have been. The dog must have gone. Perhaps Artan, instructed by Andrew, had got heavy and the contractors had agreed to do without their Cerberus.

My hands were wet, tacky. Assuming sweat mixed with dust, I wiped them absent-mindedly on my shirt and made to climb down, then noticed I’d left marks on the lilac – a dark pinky brown. And my hands were stained with something like rust. Puzzled, I rubbed my fingers together, had another look at the top bar. It was streaked and crimson wet.

I looked back at the shape motionless under the shelter. I swung my legs over the gate, clambered over and walked towards it, across the stones, spiky plants scratching my calves, with a horrible feeling of dread.

The poor animal was lying on its side – the ridges of its bony body soaked in blood. Its eyes were glazed, already misted, lifeless, its teeth bared in a horrible rictus, viscous saliva stretched between the open jaws. The knife was still in its throat, blood congealing around the handle. Beneath the blade was a gash of bone and sinew. Bile rose at the back of my throat, and I bent to retch.

I heard a shout and stood up. A man in a hard hat was walking down the field towards me. He was gesticulating, pointing at his car, a blue sedan, doors open, which was stuck behind my truck. He obviously wanted me to move it.

I shouted, ‘Over here. Come quick! The dog! Someone has killed it!’ I put my hands out to show horror and dismay. The palms were still bloody, and I quickly wiped them on my trousers.

The man began to run, and when he reached me, he started shouting even more, his face contorted. He was short and dark, arms thick with muscle. He pushed me a couple of times, hands against my chest. I stumbled backwards, had to stop myself from falling.

‘It wasn’t me,’ I yelled. ‘I just found him. I’ve just arrived. A second ago.’

He got on his phone, holding my arm in a vice to make sure I didn’t move. His fingernails were ingrained with dirt. Behind him, another man had emerged from the car. He opened the gate and came down the field at a run. He was wearing a short-sleeved blue shirt, torn across the shoulder – the man I had seen earlier.

The two men started talking loudly, over each other, almost shouting. ‘I had nothing to do with it,’ I kept saying. ‘Please understand.’

The first man pushed the poor animal with his foot. The earth beneath the body was dark, a cluster of white stones stained red. Then he made another threatening gesture with his fist, pointed at the dog, and pointed to my pocket, rubbing his fingers together, gesturing for money.

‘I haven’t done anything,’ I said, ‘and I haven’t got anything.’

I turned the pockets inside out to prove my point.

They had started shouting at each other. Then the second man turned to me. ‘You stay here,’ he said. ‘We get the boss.’

‘Listen.’ I tried to sound as persuasively honest as I could, putting everything into my expression. ‘I didn’t kill the dog. I don’t know who would do such a thing. I just found it. I’m going to go now, but I’m not running away. I live up there.’ I pointed beyond the corpse. ‘I don’t know who would do such a thing. But I didn’t. It wasn’t me.’

I decided to risk it and started to walk away, up the field, towards the open gate and the truck. They both followed, talking intently to themselves. I looked over my shoulder a couple of times, smiling in what I hoped was a helpful way.

They watched as I got into the cab of the truck. I said, through the open window, ‘Let’s hope it starts.’ I was trying to sound relaxed, to behave as somebody who wasn’t guilty would behave, self-conscious about it, even though it wasn’t an act.
I wasn’t guilty.
My wallet was in a pile with my phone and the Karelias on the long plastic bench-seat. I didn’t want them to see it.

The engine turned and fired. I can remember fewer occasions when I have felt more relieved. I smiled again through the window and said, as I pulled the steering wheel sharply round, ‘I’m sorry about the dog.’

‘What on earth’s happened?’

Alice had come round the side of the house as I drew into the yard and switched off the engine.

I opened the door and almost fell out into her arms. She reared back. ‘Oh my God. Fuck! What’s happened? Are you hurt?’

‘It’s the dog,’ I said. ‘I found it. Someone slit its throat. I was too late to save it.’

I leant back into the van and fumbled for my cigarettes. My hands were shaking.

‘You’re covered in blood,’ she said. Her expression was one of revulsion. I lit a fag and took a deep draw on it.

‘I know. It was horrible.’

She took a step back. ‘You’ve got blood on your . . . on the cigarette.’

I held it up. She was right.

‘Good God.’ Andrew had rounded the house, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. Fresh from the shower, he had swept his hair back; you could still see the comb lines. ‘What the fuck has happened? What have you been doing with Hermes?’

‘Yes.’ Alice pulled her eyes away from me. ‘What have you been doing with Hermes?’