Strangers in Company (29 page)

“There.” Mrs. Adams pulled off her skirt. “Grateful to me now I made you wear your Marks and Spencer pants? Here!” She threw her the black bundle. “Quick. She wants to see you.”

It was the kind of shapeless black garment worn by elderly Greek women, and like the bed, it smelled, but Marian put it on gratefully, noticing, as she did so, that Mrs. Spencer had already vanished with her own clothes and bag.

“Right,” said Mrs. Adams as the heavy, dirt-engrained folds fell around her. “Now, just once I will warn you. She is not one to cross. One word out of tune, and you are dead, and Stella, too. Possibly even I.… So, understand me, there will be no word out of tune.”

“I understand,” Marian said.

“Good. Then come and let her see you. Though how she will make herself so meek and sweet, God knows.” This was spoken in a quick undertone, and Marian was suddenly aware of waves of fear emanating from Mrs. Adams. If
she
was afraid.…

Best not finish that sentence. She followed, meekly (“meek and sweet?”), as Mrs. Adams led the way into the main room, then stopped, amazed.

She faced herself across the room. “Good,” said the other woman, in Marian's voice. “Very good. She knows
herself. Speak to me, Mrs. Frenche. The tape recording is not always perfect. I may have some accent wrong. You will tell me … show me.”

It was extraordinary. Her own voice? No, not quite. But once she had spoken to this consummate mimic, it would be. So: silence. She folded her lips in a mutinous gesture remembered from the twins and stood there, silent, still, aware of the smell of her garment; beyond humiliation.

“So?” said her double. “We must make you speak? In Athens, Miss Marten will not even have the comfort of crying out. She is gagged, of course. Nikos, the telephone, that our guest may know we mean what we say.”

But—gagged, thought Marian, as the Greek called Nikos picked up a telephone in the corner of the room. Then, surely, still in the Hermes? Perhaps, even, rescued already? But he had made the connection, spoken swiftly in Greek and nodded across the room to the nameless woman, who was so nearly Marian. Why not quite? The wig was too tidy, for one thing. Doubtless it had been made back in London, when Marian was looking for jobs, keeping herself, always, scrupulously tidy. Besides, her hair had grown on this trip.… But that would be no problem.

Her double was exchanging look for look as the unintelligible conversation continued. Now he smiled, and Marian could have laughed with relief. There is something extraordinarily disconcerting about seeing one's other self. But the smile had split their personalities once and for all. Her mirror had never shown her a smile capable of that cruelty. No wonder, Marian thought, freed from a burden of superstition she had not knowingly borne, no wonder this woman's own people were afraid of her.

“Who are you?” She regretted the question the moment it was spoken.

“Good.” A gesture stilled the young man at the telephone. “‘Who are you?'” The imitation was horribly perfect, the faint, false intonation wiped out, as by the reverse feed of a tape recorder. “I am Medusa.” Again that terrifying smile. “And”—satisfied—“you have never heard of me.”

“I have, Medusa.” At the professor's voice, every head in the room swung round. “I have waited a long time to meet you again.” He was standing in the doorway, holding the gun the Greek outside had been cleaning. “If any of you move, I shoot her.” His gesture showed that he meant the woman called Medusa. Behind him, men were coming quietly into the room, disarming first the second Greek, then Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Spencer.

“Good,” said Edvardson. “Line up against the wall there, facing outwards. All but her. I want to talk to her for a moment”

The woman called Medusa spat something at him in Greek, and he shook his head. “We will keep it in English, if you please. My friends all understand it, and so, I think, do yours. I wonder how many of them know just what they were doing.” He turned first to Marian, who had been surveying his friends with astonishment One was the proprietor of the café the three of them had visited, another the restaurant owner, another, surely, the stand-in bus driver who had brought them from Delphi. The bus driver confirmed this by winking at her cheerfully.

“I don't understand,” she said.

“Why should you? And we've no time for explanations. But what I must know is what Stella told you. Trust me, Marian.”

Absurd? But she did. Completely. And tears of the most exquisite relief and happiness were running down her face to prove it. “Yes,” she said. “I trust you.” And, saying it, knew how much more she was saying. The air between them seemed to vibrate with unspoken messages. No time for them now. Marian turned to gaze at her double, the woman called Medusa. “She's a liberal sympathiser.” Her voice totally failed to carry conviction. “Stella thought she was a friend of Madame Vlachou.” Impossible, now, to believe it. “She's escaped from the prison here on the island. She was to take my place on the plane home.”

“And you hers in prison? Or just be found convincingly dead, I suppose, thus ending the search. And the rest of
you?” His gaze swung along the row of staring, angry, puzzled faces. “Is that your story, too? A gallant bid for freedom by a tortured woman? She doesn't look too bad, does she, for someone who's been in solitary confinement for years? In fact, they only caught her six months ago, when she made the mistake of coming back to Athens.”

“Coming back?” This startled Mrs. Adams into speech.

“Children, the lot of you.” There was conviction and contempt in Edvardson's tone. “Just gullible children. You did not begin to think, like Miss Marten, that it was a very violent plan for a political escape? That there might be some political detainees not quite so entitled to support? Even the name ‘Medusa' gave you no clue?”

“She's too young. She explained all that.” It was the Greek by the door.

“
You're
too young, or you'd have recognised her for the lying Jezebel she is. Medusa”—he turned and spoke to Marian as if only she mattered—“was the name of a leading Communist in the rebellion after the war. You remember, I told you about Odysseus and Ares, the guerrilla fighters, back at Delphi? Well, she was one of them. The worst of the lot, in some ways. There's no time to tell you the things she did, and I wouldn't if I could, but she had reason enough to know about Stella as one of the Greek children who were carried off. I rather think she was her aunt. But we won't tell Stella that, I think.”

“Stella?” Marian was taking it in slowly.

“Safe. She's had a change of guards, that's all. And now, we must get going. You”—he would not even use Medusa's name—“into that room and out of those clothes, if you want a chance to live.”

“What do you mean to do with me?” Her eyes challenged him across the room.

“It's a problem.” Marian was aware of tension between them, thick as dried blood. Then, visibly, he came to a decision.

“It's a problem,” he repeated ruefully. “We don't kill, my friends and I, so easily as you do. And I cannot bring myself to hand even you back to the colonels' police. But I
would no more take your word than I would a viper's. So my friends here are going to take the lot of you out into the wildest part of the island, tie you up and leave you. If you've not got loose by tomorrow, someone will come. If you try anything, I'll hear of it and tell the police. But, frankly, I'd like to keep the police out of this.”

You could see her weighing chances. “Very well.” She opened the door of the little room Marian had used. “Give me my clothes.”

Ten minutes later, the exchange had been made once more. In her own clothes, and without the wig, Medusa did indeed look much older, and one of her own Greek followers spat at sight of her. “It's true,” he said. “You
are
Medusa.
Kyrie
”—to Edvardson—“you must be the mad American. The one they talk about I am your man.”

“Oh, no, you're not,” said Edvardson cheerfully. “You're for the bushes with the rest of them. You can sort it out among yourselves later.” He looked at his watch. “No time to be lost. We're going to be late as it is. Stavros”—to the café proprietor—“you're in charge of the island party.”

“I shall enjoy that,” said Stavros.

“Now, you two.” Edvardson turned to Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Spencer, who had stood rigidly side by side throughout all this. “Which is it to be?”

“Oh, God, take me home,” wailed Mrs. Adams. “I had no idea.… He made me do it.” In her despair, she had aged incredibly. She's older than I am, thought Marian amazed.

“Do you know, I'm inclined to believe you,” said the professor. “Though you seem to have taken to violence pretty naturally. But you could be useful to us, and will be, if you want to get home. If you behave, we'll get you out. But you're something else again.” To Mrs. Spencer. “You joined the party in Athens—it was the first thing that made me wonder—and you are going to leave it here. I'll explain to Mike.” He smiled. “Isn't it a fortunate thing that your gang operates to such an extent in separate
cells? Our friend Mike still believes I'm one of you. Right, off with you, Stavros, and tie them up tight.”

“Believe me, I will.”

“But not to kill.”

“Since you say so.” His voice was regretful, but resigned.

“Now.” Left alone with Marian, Mrs. Adams and the bus driver, Edvardson took another anxious look at his watch. “The substitution continues. You are Medusa, Marian, and you, Mrs. Adams, are in charge of her. If you want to get home alive, you won't put a foot wrong. Loukas here”—he smiled at the bus driver—“is going to hitch a ride back with us across the island. He'll be sitting right behind you two, and I'll be in front. So, no idiocies.” He turned to Marian. “Can you do it?”

Pretend to be pretending to be herself. “I don't see why not. Her wig was wrong, did you notice?”

“Yes. And so would they have, and cut it. They're professionals.”

“You'd hardly think so,” said Marian. It was incredible to have the tables so entirely turned.

“Ungrateful.” He was laughing at her. “Did it seem too easy? Well, console yourself, my love, I was a professional too in my day. Loukas here would tell you if there was time.”

Loukas grinned broadly. “Those were the days,” he said. “Shoot first, questions afterwards; none of this tying up in woods. You're getting soft, madman.”

“I'm getting slow,” said Edvardson. “And we can't risk it.” He looked quickly round the hut. “Off we go. Side by side, you two, and don't forget to look cowed, Marian.”

“No.” After what he had just called her, it was impossible to meet his eye.

Mike was waiting anxiously in the little main street of Aghia Marina, where the path branched off up the hill. “There you are at last.” He was carefully casual. “I was beginning to think you'd lost yourselves.” He saw the professor. “You found them then?”

“Told you I would. And a good thing. A bit of trouble. Nothing serious. Come on, let's eat.” Edvardson led the
way round to the harbour side of a little café and settled the four of them at a table. In some curious, unspoken way the initiative seemed to have passed from Mike to him. And he had settled them, Marian noticed, at a table close to four of the schoolmistresses, so that the double pretence must be kept up throughout the meal, and Mike had no chance to ask the questions with which he was obviously bristling.

She was glad of it Too much had happened too fast, and it was easiest to be a rather tired Mrs. Frenche, eating a late lunch, or, in Mike's eyes, Medusa, giving a brilliant imitation of that tired Mrs. Frenche.

By the time they had finished charcoal-grilled fish and the inevitable choice of huge apples or still huger oranges, the bus had pulled up behind the café. The schoolmistresses had been for a walk along the shore and came back saying they wished they had brought bathing costumes; Marcelle and her boyfriend had parked their motorbike behind the bus, and Marian realised for the first time that he had been one of Stavros' group up on the hill. Presumably this meant that Medusa and her friends were safely immobilised somewhere.

Marcelle waved cheerfully. “No bridge going back,” she called to Marian. “My friend comes too.”

Aware, suddenly, of Mike's eye upon her, Marian looked puzzled for a moment, then shrugged and said, “Too bad.”

“Nothing of the kind,” said Mrs. Adams briskly. “She cheated something shocking coming over.” Something had slipped a little about Mrs. Adams' accent since the confrontation on the hillside, and Marian wondered if Mike's English was precise enough for him to notice but, hopefully, doubted it

When the bus emerged from the intricate network of streets onto the quay at Aegina town, Marian saw the professor stiffen in front of her. As the bus turned, she saw what he had, a loose line of police strung out all along the quay and a control point at the end of the mole where the ferry docked.

“Looks like trouble of some sort” Edvardson sounded
casual. “They've got a prison here on Aegina.” He turned to explain to Marian and Mrs. Adams. “It looks like they've had an escape. No problem of ours, of course.”

“I do hope not.” Pam leaned across the aisle. “We don't want to miss our plane.”

“No fear of that,” said Edvardson comfortably. “We can all vouch for each other after all. It will just mean a bit of a holdup while we do so. Incidentally, it might save time if no one mentions that I came across on the other ferry. Would you like to pass the word down your side? And I never did see that Orphean warbler,” he finished ruefully.

The bus had stopped on the quay, and one of the smartly dressed police had walked over to enter as the door was opened.