She shrugged. "My uncle has always felt a responsibility towards him. His father was one of those who died at Fonchi."
"And they all hate me," he said. "Ah. except you. Why, Katina? Why should you be different?"
She pushed herself up and said lightly, "But you have given me no reason to hate you."
She stood looking out to sea as the sun finally dipped beneath the horizon and Lomax got to his feet and moved to her shoulder.
"Why did you never marry?" he said softly. "A girl like you must have had offers."
8 113
She turned very slowly and in the weird orange light reflected from the sea she might have been Helen gazing on Troy burning and never more beautiful.
Her eyes were dark pools a man could never fathom. When she whispered his name and took a step forward they came together naturally and easily. Her hands pulled his head down as her mouth sought his and then he lifted her hi his arms and laid her down on the rug.
She was crying, her face wet with tears, he was aware of that and then a great wind seemed to gather them up and carry them off to the other end of tune.
As they went through the garden to the house they walked hand-in-hand like children. Katina's linen dress was badly crumpled and stained with salt water and. Lomax chuckled and kissed her gently on one cheek. "You'd better change before supper. We don't want to shock Oliver in his old age."
They moved through the sitting room into the hall and paused at the bottom of the stairs. "I think I'll take a shower as1 well," she said. "I'll see you in half an hour."
He nodded. "Ill be on the terrace with Van Horn."
She kissed him briefly and turned away and he stayed there, aware that her fragrance still lingered in the air around him, feeling curiously sad.
For a little while he had managed to escape from the world of hate and violence into which he had been plunged. But what he had just experienced on the beach had been a brief foretaste of a happiness he could only have if he solved a seventeen-year-old mystery. He was beginning to doubt whether that was possible.
Van Horn was sitting on the terrace in the same canvas chair smoking a cigarette and looking out to sea with a pair of night glasses.
"Ah, there you are," he said. "Enjoy your walk?"
"I went down to the beach," Lomax told him. "Quite a boat you've got there."
Van Horn nodded. "Comes in very handy. It means I can get across to Crete when the mood hits me. The mail boat only calls here once a week."
"I'm only too well aware of that fact," Lomax said.
He leaned against the balustrade and looked out over the darkening sea and after a while, Van Horn said softly, "Why did you come back, Lomax? Why now after all these years?"
Lomax shrugged. "I felt like a change, it was that simple."
"But nothing ever is," Van Horn said.
Knowing.,at once that he was right, Lomax frowned, trying to get it straight in his own mind. After a moment he said, "I seemed to have taken a wrong turning somewhere."
"You wanted to be a writer, didn't you?"
Lomax nodded. "Oh, I became one all right. Not the great novelist I'd imagined or anything like that, but I've done all right in the film game."
"Learning to compromise is one of the hardest things in life."
Lomax laughed harshly. "In my case it seemed at times as if life had done the compromising. I reached a state in which my mornings carried a permanent taste of dead yesterdays. I thought that if I came back to the Aegean, took some time off to think, that I might find where I'd gone wrong, begin again."
Van Horn sighed. "Isn't that what we all want to do and never can? We wouldn't make the same mistakes twice-we'd simply make fresh ones." He smiled softly. "There's an old Greek saying: 'For every joy the Gods give two sorrows.' We must accept life as it is, Lomax, and work from there."
Lomax shook his head. "Too fatalistic for my taste. A ais man must be willing to fight back when the going gets rough."
"Presumably you intend to do just that?"
Lomax nodded. "I'm fully aware that I have some sort of moral responsibility for starting what happened here, but I didn't pull the trigger on these people. I don't see why I should carry the cross for the person who did."
"But you've nothing to go on. You don't even know what you're looking for."
"It's quite simple really," Lomax said. "I'm looking for the member of the original group who doesn't fit into the general pattern. The person who obviously benefited by his treachery."
"Or his weakness or fear, have you considered that?" Van Horn'shook his head. "It won't work, Lomax. Every member of the group suffered in one way or another. Some died, the rest saw the war out in Fonchi, and we all squatted In that Hell together. No one received special treatment, I can assure you."
"Except Alexias," Lomax said.
"As I think I mentioned earlier, they sent him to Gestapo Headquarters in Athens for special treatment of another sort."
"But why should they?" Lomax demanded. "They knew he'd worked with me and with the EOK on Crete, but it's highly unlikely he could have told them anything about the general set-up there that they didn't already know. Under the rules of the Geneva Convention they were quite entitled to shoot him as a spy and yet they didn't."
"On the other hand, they usually executed Special Air Service officers when they caught them and failed to do so hi your own case."
Lomax nodded slowly. "That's the one thing I've never understood. Why Sterner didn't have me shot. They couldn't have been saving me for Crete because the policy was to hold a public execution in front of the local populace where they caught you."
"I might add that if you're looking for someone who doesn't fit into the general pattern there's always Katina," Van Horn said calmly.
Lomax looked at him in astonishment. "For God's sake be sensible. We know exactly what happened there."
"We only have her word for it. If you suspect her uncle then you must logically suspect her also." Lomax frowned and sat down in the opposite chair and Van Horn continued. "Another thing. Even if Alexias did betray us, that still doesn't explain how the Germans got on to him in the first place."
And there was the one great flaw. Lomax sighed heavily. "You're right of course."
"I'm sorry," Van Horn said gently. "But it had to be said. "What will you do now?"
Lomax got to his feet. "I still think it's time I had a word with Alexias. After all, in a manner of speaking, he's at the heart of things."
"Do you think he'll see you?"
"I don't see why not. Katina tells me he lives out at the farm on his own. If I simply turn up there, he won't have much choice, will he?"
"You're aware, of course, that he may be praying for you to put in an appearance? That you could be running your head into a noose?"
"That had occurred to me," Lomax said calmly.
Van Horn got to his feet and moved to the balustrade. For a moment he stood there looking out to sea and then he turned. "I can't say I approve of all this, Lomax. Frankly, I don't think it really matters any more, but if I can help in any way, I wiU. You're welcome to borrow the jeep for a start."
Lomax shook his head. "Thanks all the same, but I could do with some time to work things out. I think I'll walk over the mountain."
"Can't I persuade you to stay for supper?"
"I don't think so. For one thing, I don't want Katina to get involved too much in this business. If she knows I intend seeing her uncle, she might try to prevent me."
"What shall I tell her?"
Lomax shrugged. "Anything you like. Say that I'll be in touch. That I want to think things over on my own."
Van Horn looked as if he intended to argue, but Lomax turned quickly, went through the house and out into the garden. As he moved towards the main gates, someone called his name and Yanni emerged from the yard.
"Aren't you staying for supper?"
Lomax shook his head. "I've got pressing business, son. Something that can't wait. Tell Katina how sorry I am."
Yanni's young face was solemn. "You looking for trouble again, Mr. Lomax?"
Lomax grinned. "It's usually the other way round. You go back in the house now. I'll see you tomorrow."
He moved across the road and started up the hillside. It was that quiet period half-way between evening and night and strangely still. He could hear a dog barking in the distance and the scent of woodsmoke drifted on a small wind from some shepherd's hut.
When he stopped to rest, he leaned against a boulder and lit a cigarette. He had been aware for some tune that he was being followed and he moved back into the shadows and waited. A moment later there was a rattle of stones and Yanni came cautiously forward.
He paused, obviously undecided, and Lomax moved from behind the boulder and tapped him on the shoulder. "And where might you be going?"
Yanni smiled sheepishly. "I didn't mean no harm, Mr. Lomax. I thought you might get into trouble again like this afternoon."
"Well you thought wrong," Lomax said. "Does Katina know you're here?"
"If I'd told her, she'd have wanted to come too."
Lomax turned him round firmly and gave him a push.
"Now you get back down to the villa before she starts worrying about you."
The boy moved away. He paused once and looked round, but Lomax hardened his heart and waved him oa and he disappeared reluctantly into the dark shadow of the ravine. For a moment Lomax stood there, a smile touching his mouth, and then he turned and started to climb again.
When he moved over the rim of the plateau near the top of the mountain and looked again upon the Tomb of Achilles, night was at hand.
He stood in the desolate light of gloaming and the mountain was tipped with orange fire. Below him the sea was black with depth, purple and grey near the shore, and the lights of the villa seemed very far away.
The beauty of it was too much for a man and he felt strangely sad and drained of all emotion and then the fire on the mountain died and night enveloped him. A small wind whispered between the pillars of the temple and there was only the silence.
He turned cold and a thrill of elemental fear moved inside him. Here on top of this mountain, standing amid the ruins of an ancient race, he was faced with the silence of eternity and the realisation of his own insignificance in the general scheme of things. Whatever a man did came to nothing in the final analysis.
That being so, he could only do what had to be done and hope for the best. He crossed the plateau and started down towards the other side of the island.
A Fine Night for Dying
The moon was rising as he went down the hill through the olive trees and he could taste the salt on the wind. The farm was shrouded in the darkness of the hollow, still and quiet with no light showing anywhere, and he ducked under a fence and moved cautiously across the yard.
An old and battered pick-up truck, relic of the war years, was parked by the porch. The radiator was still warm when he touched it and he stood for a moment, a slight frown on his face, and then mounted the steps to the porch and opened the door.
There was a slight eerie creaking from the hinges, but no other sound. He moved into the kitchen, eyes probing the darkness, and paused suddenly, aware with complete certainty that he was not alone.
A foot scraped on a flagstone and Dimitri Paros said from the shadows, "Come right in, Mr. Lomax. We hoped you'd call."
Lomax took a quick step backwards and something exploded in the pit of his stomach, doubling him over. He sank to his knees and keeled slowly over on to one side.
A lamp was turned on, flooding the room with light, and he lay with his knees drawn up, fighting for breath while his wrists were tied behind his back.
He was aware of voices speaking together in Greek and the sound of laughter and then someone grabbed him by the lapels and hauled him to his feet.
There were two others besides Dimitri and stamped in the same mould, young fishermen in shabby reefer jackets and patched jeans. One of them was shaking with excitement and the other kept wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
Dimitri's head was heavily bandaged, his face drawn with pain. "You're going to die, Englishman," he said, and his eyes were like stone. "For making a fool of me in front of my friends with your dirty tricks and for sending my father to his death in Fonchi camp."
Lomax was managing to draw ah- into his tortured lungs once more, but his mouth was so parched that he found difficulty in speaking. He moistened dry lips and croaked, "I didn't send your father to his death, or anyone else. He was a brave man for whom I had only respect."
