The Pleasure Seekers (14 page)

‘Oh, I see what this is all about. You want to be free to have sex with other men. I saw you with that Frenchman, he clearly wanted you. And that rugged, sexy-looking Cretan who sat the other side of you at dinner, how would you have liked to have had him?’

D’Arcy was just closing the sarong round her hips and adjusting the skirt while slipping into her sandals. She looked up and smiled at Laurence. ‘I have had him, many
times, and long before I ever became interested in you.’

She placed the halter top round her and fastened it in place, then taking her jacket in her hand she walked to the bed and sat down on it next to Laurence. ‘This is not worthy of you. Just once be honest with yourself. It’s you who feel you are somehow being cheated of something in this love affair of ours. It’s you who wants other women, not me who wants other men. I may be in love but I’m not blind. I see the way you covet the women Max has, every beautiful woman who crosses our path. You are a selfish, greedy pig of a man, Laurence, and for a long time I didn’t mind that. I was always happy for you to be the man you are. I still am.’

She rose from his side and was slipping into her jacket when he asked her, ‘Why suddenly now, this moment of truth?’

‘Because of Arnold’s death, because that French doctor last night made me realise that we are all fooling ourselves. Arnold met his death unwillingly. For a moment that doctor made me examine my own role in Arnold’s life, all our roles, and that led me to take a look at us and what I really want from a lover.’

‘I’ll dress and take you home.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t, but thanks for offering.’

‘Let me take you to lunch?’

‘The Kavouria? Maybe. If I decide to go down to the port for lunch I’ll see you there. I didn’t say we weren’t friends, just no longer lovers. I didn’t even say we would never have sex again.’ D’Arcy smiled at him and walked from the room.

She did not go down to the port for lunch that day. Instead she stayed at home and lolled around, not doing much of anything, merely enjoying the day and her own space. It was not a matter of trying to come to terms with what she had done. D’Arcy was as much a realist as a romantic, and more than those things she was a woman who liked to live, not stagnate. She had always been quick to see the first signs of decay in anything to do with her life or work, and to put things right before they took hold. She was a woman who knew how to keep her life trouble free, a woman who always did what she had to do and was quick to know when to cut her losses. She could not pretend that she was any the less in love with Laurence than she had been, simply more realistic about loving him.

What she hadn’t bargained for was how much a part of her life he had become, how very much she would miss him and what they’d had together. What made her feelings for him, her sense of loss, easier was her certainty she had done the right thing at the right time for them both. She felt strongly that to be blameless was a superior way to live and afforded the greatest of pleasures. It was the road she took in life though not always the easiest passage. She thrived on progress, not stagnation. She was the most positive of beings, but found the very thought of imposing her own beliefs or codes on anyone else an abhorrent thing to do. D’Arcy Montesque was no missionary, just a woman who wanted to live the way she wanted to live.

There had been things to do round the house and in the studio. The fax she had found in the machine on her return
from their trip to Rethymnon contained a fascinating and financially interesting offer for work: a design problem for the German automobile firm that had made her a millionaire. A desk was piled high with projects she was considering, letters to be answered, tax returns, the general mess of red tape it takes to keep a life afloat whether you are living in paradise or some major city in the world. There was E-mail on the computer she hadn’t yet done anything about. The concentration was simply not there: Arnold’s death, the unanswered questions and unease in the community, self-examination, the strained atmosphere that seemed to permeate everything, and now Laurence. These were her priorities in the days since her return. She needed nothing more now than to relax, lie around her house and gather her energies.

D’Arcy did not even go down from the house to the port to shop for food, but sent Poppy, the housekeeper. Poppy made a huge moussaka, and the housekeeper and the gardener and D’Arcy had it in the dining garden with a bottle of red wine. They talked, but not about the house and the garden. Instead it was village gossip, maids’ gossip: the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker sort of gossip. The three of them had known each other almost all their lives and were soon enjoying themselves thoroughly. They laughed a great deal, and then the inevitable topic, Arnold’s death, seeped into their conversation.

Both Poppy and the gardener knew him well, had been very fond of him. To listen to them tell not at all disrespectful but bizarrely funny stories about Arnold was to remember him with laughter and understand why his
death had affected them all in the way it had. These simple island people, like most of the Livakian locals, saw him as their pet eccentric, a little mad, a harmless foreigner for whom they had to care. One of God’s unfortunates, a sort of upmarket village idiot whom the community loved and was bound to care for out of a sense of compassion. They thought of him as even more intelligent and special than Mark or any of the other foreigners because he was weak and could be taken advantage of, a price exacted upon him by someone who had, long before he arrived in Livakia, placed the evil eye on him for having such super intelligence. He had been a figure of fun to them. It was the gardener who said, ‘And that’s why Kirios Mark had so much trouble with him.’

It didn’t shock D’Arcy that neither the gardener nor Poppy was surprised by Arnold’s death nor the mystery surrounding it. But she was taken aback when Poppy said, ‘No one in Livakia will be pleased if the killer was a Cretan,’ before rising from her chair and starting to clear away the dishes.

D’Arcy spent that evening alone at home. It was a strange sensation being without Laurence, not unpleasant just strange. In the two years they had been together there had been times when they had been separated from each other for long periods: he at Oxford lecturing, she visiting Brett or away for meetings on some project or other, but that was different, there had seemed to be nothing strange about those separations. This would take some getting used to.

Early the following morning D’Arcy went down to the port. It was quiet. The fishermen had already taken the
boats out and the shopkeepers were just opening, setting tables out in the sun in front of their establishments, sweeping the cobblestones, taking time to have coffee with one another or the odd early-bird customer waiting for the bread to come out of the baker’s oven. It was what D’Arcy called the port’s lazy hour and the time she liked being there best of all.

She was sitting with the baker who was covered with a dust of white flour, his ham-like hands, fingers and nails encrusted with it, and the butcher who was waiting for a boat to bring his order of beef and lamb, the latter still on the hoof. Edgar and Bill, who were always the first of the foreign residents in the port, there for the bread and the post, joined them. They seemed particularly at odds with each other but were obviously trying hard not to be. Conversation round the table had got to the latest political scandal in Athens when the boat the butcher was waiting for rounded the cliffs and came into view. He was the first to leave the table, then the baker to take his bread out of the oven.

I didn’t want to say anything in front of them but something’s amiss. Our police chief was flown out by Max just after dusk last evening. Rumour has it they went to the coroner’s office in Iraklion. Do you know anything?’ asked Edgar.

‘About what?’

‘The verdict.’

D’Arcy had heard nothing. The news gave her a terrible sense of unease. Are our troubles just about to begin? she asked herself. She had no need to hear the verdict. In the many days of waiting she had vacillated as to what had
really happened to Arnold but all that had ended over dinner on the night she had walked out on Laurence. She knew in her heart someone or several people had been responsible for Arnold’s death.

The two men sat staring at her, their own anxieties showing in their faces, waited for her to answer. Fortunately she didn’t have to. The three of them were distracted by the sound of an aeroplane’s motors. That in itself was disconcerting because Max rarely flew over the bay or the village and almost never taxied through the water to tie up in the port. He used his own bay, where he kept his plane, a twenty-minute walk from the village and his house.

The plane, like a great lovely white moth, appeared in the bright blue sky. It banked and then slowly swooped down and skimmed the water for some distance before it made a relatively soft landing, cut its motors and edged its way in. Dimitrios, who had heard the plane, was walking round the port to the place where the butcher stood ready to catch the line and pull the white moth in close to the quay. Edgar and Bill went to help. D’Arcy simply sat there unable to move. She was fighting back tears. She felt so deeply sad, as if her heart would break from the weight of her melancholy. She watched the men at their work securing the plane with hollow eyes, an empty mind. She was transfixed.

The door opened and the first one to step down on to the pontoon was Manoussos. He extended a hand and the butcher grabbed it and pulled him safely on to the quay. The next man was a stranger, a policeman. He very nearly missed the quay and fell into the water. Max appeared to
grab the lines as the men threw them back. He gathered them up and vanished into the plane with them only to return and give his passengers a salute before closing the door. The men pushed on the plane’s wing and it drifted far enough away from the quay for Max safely to start its engines and taxi out, make a full turn and take off again.

By this time a great many more people had arrived in the port, curiosity more than anything else bringing them out. They were standing round in small groups, clinging together, thought D’Arcy. The whispers and chatter ceased and a frightening quiet settled over them as Manoussos and his group passed by them. Hands were stuck out to be shaken, welcomes offered for his return. The question was asked and answered, and some faces grew very pale, others looked terribly pained. The groups dispersed, seemed just to melt away, some to sit at tables, others to return home.

Manoussos saw D’Arcy when he was a good distance from her. He shook his head from side to side as if to say, ‘All is lost.’ She understood. He went into the cafe she was sitting outside, then returned and placed another table next to hers. The other men drew up chairs.

‘We’re hungry. I’ve ordered eggs and ham and cheese, some coffee, and the boy’s gone to get the bread. Breakfast for all of us.’ Those were Manoussos’s first words to her.

‘Did you remember the honey? You always forget the honey.’ Those were D’Arcy’s first words to him.

‘I forgot the honey.’ He dutifully went back into the cafe to ask for honey to be sent to the table as well.

D’Arcy wondered what they were talking about. Honey, at a time like this? She was trying to get her head and her emotions together, that was the only thing that could explain such extraordinary behaviour. D’Arcy heard the young policeman before she actually took any notice of him. ‘I’ve never been here before, have always wanted to come. It’s even more beautiful and unusual than people say it is. I never thought I would come here on a case.’

Manoussos was approaching the table when he heard the young man. ‘I think I had better introduce you to everyone, Stavros.’

The young man jumped to his feet and very nearly stood at attention. ‘Oh, do sit down. We run a relaxed police station here in Livakia. That’s not to say we are not respected, so that’s the balance you will have to try and keep while you’re here working with us. Now this is Dimitrios whom you will be assisting.’

The two men shook hands and then Manoussos carried on round the table with more introductions. There seemed to be an endless stream of boys running back and forth from the cafe slamming plates and cutlery, cups and saucers, on the tables. Platters of fried eggs arrived and thick slabs of ham. The men ate with gusto and the talk at the table was excruciatingly mundane. D’Arcy could not bring herself to ask a single question. Finally every morsel of food was gone, and empty plates littered the table. It was then that Manoussos sat back and spoke to them. The moment he began people left their tables to stand round and listen: the boys waiting on table, any passer-by. Proprietors came out of their shops and a small boy ran and brought the two Mount Athos monks who
were getting into a boat to the table. A crowd of fifteen or so people had gathered and were listening.

‘Arnold Topper did not die of natural causes. Although he was inebriated at the time of his death, he did not die of drink. He was suffocated, most likely by a person or persons who placed a plastic bag over his head during or just after a sexual encounter. There is no doubt that a crime has been committed and we are making a full investigation. It’s to everyone’s advantage that we have full co-operation and this case is solved in as short a time as is possible, preferably before the press gets hold of the story. The family has been notified. Any questions, come to my office. They’ll be answered there if possible. Any information that anyone can contribute, even the smallest thing, could be a clue and help us.’

With that Manoussos rose from his chair and left the table to push through the crowd, followed by his investigative team. No one looked surprised. No one looked upset. Everyone looked frightened. Someone living in Livakia, or a visitor, had moved among them, dined in their restaurants, drunk at their cafes, bought provisions from their shops, had spoken to them, brushed past them, laughed with them, had shared in their lives – and then had gone out and taken a man’s life. What evil, what betrayal! And how were they to say it would not happen again to any one of them?