The Moonspinners (22 page)

‘They've killed Colin. You were right. And they've buried him down there . . . just near the mill.'

There was a silence. I was watching some ants scurrying to examine the fallen flower heads.

‘But—' her voice was blank – ‘how do you know? Do you mean you saw something?'

I nodded.

‘I see. The mill. Yes, why not? Well, tell me.'

When I had finished, she sat a little longer in silence, smoking rather hard. Then I saw her shake her head sharply, like someone ridding themselves of a stinging insect. ‘That nice woman? I can't believe it. The thing's fantastic.'

‘You didn't see Mark, lying up there in the dirt, with a bullet hole in him. It's true enough, he's dead. And now I'll have to tell Mark. We can get the police on it, now that it's too late.' I swung round on her, anxiously. ‘You said you guessed something was wrong. You mean I showed it? Would Sofia guess I knew something?'

‘I'm sure she wouldn't. I wasn't sure myself, and I know you pretty well. What could she have guessed, anyway? She's not to know you knew anything about it; and there was nothing to see, not unless someone was deliberately looking for traces.'

‘It was the mouse. If I hadn't seen the mouse with that bit of bread, I'd never have found anything. I'd have wondered about the brushwood, but it would never have entered my head to hunt for crumbs, or to look at that rope.'

‘Well, she didn't see the mouse, so it wouldn't occur to her, either. I should stop worrying about that side of it. She'll have gone off quite satisfied with the result of her tidying-up, and you and I are still well in the clear.'

The ants were scurrying about aimlessly among the lavender flowers.

‘Frances, I'll have to tell Mark.'

‘Yes, I know.'

‘You agree I should, now?'

‘I'm afraid you'll have to, darling.'

‘Then – you think I'm right? You think that's what's happened?'

‘That Colin's dead? I'm afraid it looks like it. In any case, Mark ought to hear the evidence. It's got well beyond the stage at which he can deal with things himself. Are you going now?'

‘The sooner I get it over, the better. What about you?'

‘You'll be better on your own, and in any case, I ought to be here to cover up for you if you're late back. I'll stay around taking film and so on, and then go back for tea, as arranged. I'll tell them that you've gone farther than I cared to, but that you'll keep to the paths, and be back by dark.' She gave me an anxious smile. ‘So take care of yourself, and see that you are. I'm not at all sure that I could be convincing if you chose to spend another night up there!'

‘You needn't worry about that, I'll be even less welcome than I was last time.' I hadn't meant to speak quite so bitterly. I got quickly to my feet, adding prosaically: ‘Well, the sooner the better. How about dividing the lunch packet?'

My plan, if it could be called a plan, was relatively simple.

It was possible that Mark and Lambis, after last night's foray, had gone back for the rest of the night to the shepherds' hut, sooner than undertake the long trek over to their caique. But, if the blood in Sofia's shed was evidence, Mark might not have been able to face the stiff climb to the hut. He and Lambis could have holed up till morning somewhere nearer the village, and it might even be that Mark (if his wound had broken open badly) would have to stay hidden there today.

Whatever the case, it seemed to me that my best plan was to find the track which led across to the ruined church – the track on which the first murder had been committed – and follow that along the lower reaches of the mountainside. It was a reasonable way for a tourist to go, it would lead me in the same general direction that Mark and Lambis would have to take, and it was, as I knew, visible for long stretches, not only from the alp and the ledge, but from a wide range of rocks above.

I remembered how clearly the Cretan had stood out, yesterday, against the stand of cypresses beside the track. If I stopped there, and if Mark and Lambis were anywhere above me, they would surely see me, and I could in some way make it apparent that I had news for them. No doubt – since I had promised that I would only interfere again if I had vital news – they would show some sign, to let me know where they were, and after that I could make my way up to them as cautiously as I could. If no signal showed from above, then I would have to decide whether to go up and look at the ledge and the hut, or whether to push on along the track, and try to find the caique. It was all very vague and unsatisfactory, but for want of more exact knowledge, it was the best I could do.

As for the murderer, whom I was determined, now, to identify with Josef, I had coldly considered him, and was confident that there I ran very little risk. If I should meet him on the track, I had every excuse (including Stratos' own advice to visit the Byzantine church) for being there. It was only after I had exchanged signals with Mark that I should need caution, and then no doubt Mark and Lambis would make it their business to protect me. It was odd that this idea didn't irk me, as it would have done yesterday. Today, I could think of nothing beyond the moment when I should have discharged my dreadful burden of news, and with it the responsibility for future action.

From the shrine, where I had left Frances, a narrow path led up through the last of the lemon trees, on to the open ground above the plateau. Like the track from the bridge, it looked as if it was much used by the village flocks, so it occurred to me that it might eventually join the old mountain road which led towards the church and the ‘ancient harbour'.

This proved to be the case. Very soon my narrow path took me upwards over bare, fissured rock where someone had tried to build a dry wall, to join a broader, but by no means smoother, track along the mountainside.

It was already hot. On this stretch of the hill there were no trees, other than an occasional thin poplar with bone-white boughs. Thistles grew in the cracks of the rock, and everywhere over the dry dust danced tiny yellow flowers, on thread-like stalks that let them flicker in the breeze two inches above the ground. They were lovely little things, a million motes of gold dancing in a dusty beam, but I trudged over them almost without seeing them. The joy had gone: there was nothing in my world now but the stony track, and the job it was taking me to do. I plodded on in the heat, weary already. There is no one so leadenfooted as the reluctant bringer of bad news.

The track did not bear steadily uphill. Sometimes it would twist suddenly upwards, so that I had to clamber up what was little more than a dry water course. Then, out of this, I would emerge on to a stretch of bare, hot rock that led with flat and comparative ease along some reach of the mountain's flank. At other times I was led – with an infuriating lack of logic – steeply downhill, through drifts of dust and small stones where thistles grew, and wild fig trees flattened by the south wind. Now and again, as the way crossed an open ridge, or skirted the top of a thorn thicket, it lay in full view of the high rocks that hid the shepherds' hut: but whether I could have seen Mark's ledge, or whether he, if he was still there, could have seen me, I did not know. I kept my eyes on the nearer landscape, and plodded steadily on. It would be time enough to expose myself to the gaze of the mountainside when I had reached the grove of cypresses.

It was with curiously conflicting feelings of relief and dread that, following the track round a jutting shoulder, I saw at length, dark against the long open wing of the mountain, the block of cypresses.

They were still a fair distance off. About halfway to them I could see the jagged scar, fringed with the green of tree tops, which was the narrow gully running roughly parallel to the big ravine up which I had first adventured. It was at the head of this gully, in the hollow olive tree, that Lambis had hidden the provisions yesterday.

It was downhill all the way to the gully. I paused at the edge at last, where the track took a sudden sharp run down to the water. At this point the stream widened into a shallow pool, where someone had placed stepping stones. Downstream from this, the stream bed broadened soon into a shallow trough where the water tumbled from pool to pool among the bushy scrub, but upstream, the way I might have to go, was a deep, twisting gorge crowded with the trees whose tops I had glimpsed from the distance. It was the thickest cover I had seen since I had left Frances in the lemon grove, and now, though reason told me that I had no need of cover, instinct sent me scrambling thankfully down towards the shady pool with the thought that, if I must rest anywhere, I would do so here.

Where the track met the pool it widened, on both banks, into a flattened area of dried mud, beaten down by the feet of the flocks which, year in and year out, probably since the time of Minos, had crowded down here to drink, on their journey to the high pastures. There had been a flock this way recently. On the far side the bank, sloping gently up from the water, was still muddy where the sheep had crowded across, splashing the water up over the flattened clay. Superimposed on the swarming slots in the mud I could see the blurred print of the shepherd's sandal. He had slipped in the clay, so that the print was blurred at the toe and heel, but the convoluted pattern of the rope sole was as clear as a photograph.

A rope sole. I was balanced on the last stepping stone, looking for a dry place to step on, when the significance of this struck me, and – after a horrible moment of teetering there on one leg like a bad imitation of Eros in Piccadilly – I stepped straight into the water. But I was too startled even to care. I merely squelched out of the stream, carefully avoiding that beautiful police-court print, and stood there shaking my soaking foot, and thinking hard.

It was very possible that, as I had first thought, this was the print of the shepherd's foot. But if that was so, he had the same kind of shoes as Mark.

This, again, was possible, but seemed unlikely. Most of the Greek country-folk appeared to wear either canvas slippers with rubber soles, or else a kind of cheap laced plimsoll; and many of the men (and some of the women) wore boots, as in summer the dry fields were full of snakes. But rope soles were rare; I knew this, because I like them, and had been trying both in Athens and Heraklion to buy some for this very holiday, but with no success.

So, though it was possible that a Cretan shepherd was wearing these rope soles, it was far more likely that Mark had been this way.

The thought brought me up all standing, trying to revise my plans.

The print was this morning's, that much was obvious. Whatever had happened last night, this meant that Mark was fit enough to be on his feet, and heading away from the village – not for the hut, but back towards the caique.

I bit my lip, considering. Could he –
could
he have already found out what I was on my way to tell him? Had he somehow found his way into the mill, before Sofia had been able to remove traces of its occupant?

But there I checked myself. I couldn't get out of it that way. I still had to try to find him . . . But it did look as if the job might be simplified, for there were other prints . . . A second, much more lightly defined than the first, showed clearly enough; then another, dusty and blurred; and another . . . then I had lost him on the dry, stony earth of the bank.

I paused there, at fault, staring round me at the baked earth and baking stone, where even the myriad prints of the tiny, cloven hoofs were lost in the churned dust. The heat, unalloyed in the gorge by any breeze, drove down from the fierce sky as from a burning-glass.

I realized, suddenly, how hot and thirsty I was. I turned back into the shade, set down my bag, and stooped to drink . . .

The fourth print was a beauty, set slap down in a damp patch under a bush, right under my eyes.

But not on the track. He had left it here, and headed away from it, up the gully bottom, through the tangle of trees beside the water. He wasn't making for the caique. He was heading – under cover – up in the direction of the shepherds' hut.

I gave a heave to the bag over my shoulder, and stooped to push after him under a swag of old-man's-beard.

If it had been shelter I wanted, there was certainly plenty of it here. The catwalk of trodden ground that twisted up under the trees could hardly have been called a path; nothing larger than rats seemed to have used it, except for the occasional blurred prints of those rope-soled feet. The trees were spindly, thin stemmed and light leaved; aspens, and white poplars, and something unknown to me, with round, thin leaves like wafers, that let the sun through in a dapple of flickering green. Between the stems was a riot of bushes, but luckily these were mostly of light varieties like honeysuckle and wild clematis. Where I had to push my way through, I was gratified to notice various signs that Mark had pushed his way through, too. Old Argus Eyes, I thought, momentarily triumphant. Girl Crusoe in person. Not such a slouch at this sort of thing after all. Mark would have to admit . . . And there the mood faded, abruptly, back to its dreary grey. I plodded doggedly on.

The stream grew steeper, the way more tangled. There were no more signs now, and if there were footmarks I never saw them. The air in the bottom of the gully was still, and the shade was light, letting a good deal of sunshine through. I stopped, at length, to have another drink, then, instead of drinking, turned from the water with sudden resolution, sat down on a dry piece of fallen tree trunk in the shade, and opened my bag.

I was hot, tired, and exhausted by depression. It was going to help no one if I foundered here. If the news I was bearing (I thought crudely to myself) had knocked the guts out of me, better have a shot at putting them back in working order.