The men were already carrying off the body, and Kyrioudis strode after them. “Let me know what you discover,” he called back, with a wave of his fleshy hand.
Jasper studied the sand where the dead body had lain. There was no sign of a necklace there. Still he fell to his knees and looked for it, overturning handfuls of the sand for some minutes. When he didn’t find anything, he sat up and frowned. The necklace had been there, he was certain of that. So who had been here, at the body, to remove it?
He got up and stretched his stiff back. He shouldn’t have left the body. But he could hardly have let Ramsforth take his wife to the hotel, given the state the both of them had been in.
He rubbed his hands together. This was going to be some case. Perhaps much more of an “intellectual challenge” than he had thought when he had used those words to Kyrioudis.
Chapter Eight
Damaris opened her eyes. The room was full of a yellowish light. It came through the closed curtains. She looked at them, not quite able to remember if their hotel suite had such curtains. Then her gaze fell to the woman who sat reading, holding up her book to what little light there was to make out the words.
“Who are you?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.
The woman looked at her. “Oh, you’ve come to.” She rose briskly, dropped the book in her chair and came over to study Damaris closely. “How are you feeling? You look a bit better.”
“I don’t know. What happened?” Damaris reached for her forehead. “Did I faint? I remember I was so dizzy.’
“It’s the heat,” the woman said. She nodded to underline the point. “The heat makes you go all light in the head.”
“I wandered into the cafe to hold my wrists under cold water.” Damaris frowned. “I even wondered if they had running water there. It was a small cafe.”
“I always suck on a peppermint,” the woman said. “That helps me. But we’re all different, I suppose.”
She reached out to the bedside and produced a glass of water. “Have a drink.”
Drink.
Drink.
Oh, yes, the Hawtrees had made them drink champagne. So early in the morning. On an almost empty stomach. Teddy hadn’t wanted to spend much time on breakfast as he had wanted to race over to Gideon and tell him their business endeavour could go on anyway.
The champagne had been so cold. It had left her tongue numb. Champagne shouldn’t be so cold.
Had that made her dizzy? The drinking on an empty stomach, the temperature of it?
Damaris blinked. Her face felt numb still. So odd.
The woman still held out the glass. “Try and sit up, dear.”
Damaris tried to move but all her limbs were heavy. “Don’t want water,” she muttered.
The woman put the glass back in place. “You’re getting dehydrated,” she gently scolded her. “Then you will faint again.”
Damaris shook her head. “It was the champagne.”
“No, I don’t have champagne here. Not wise to drink it in your condition. Silly girl.”
Damaris wanted to say more but she was so tired. She closed her eyes and drifted off.
* * *
As soon as Mrs Murray emerged from the room, Jasper asked, “And? How is she?”
“She came to but refused to drink water. She asked for champagne! Can you imagine that?”
“Champagne?” Jasper asked, remembering the alcohol on Mrs Ramsforth’s breath when he had found her. “Did she ask for more champagne? Did she know where she was? What had happened?”
“I don’t think so.” Mrs Murray tutted. “Poor thing. To be on honeymoon and have this happen to you. Well, I must get back to her.”
Jasper stood motionless as the door closed behind her. So Damaris Ramsforth had drunk champagne before she had vanished from the cafe. Did the cafe even serve champagne? He had to go there and find out at once. He looked to the reception desk. The girl was writing something in the ledger.
He walked over. “Could you leave for an hour or so? I need someone to translate for me.”
She looked up. “It’s quiet enough. I could ask one of the waiters to attend, should anyone come and ring the bell.” She pointed to the polished bell that sat on the counter. “Where do you want to go?”
“To the cafe in the village.”
“There are several places where you can drink and eat.”
“I need one that is open in the morning. Before noon.”
“Ah, I know the one. I will take you there.” The girl smiled at him. “I’m Medea.” She stepped from behind the counter, walking ahead of him, the beads on her sandals slapping against the stone floor. “How is the lady?”
“Tired.” Jasper decided not to expound at this moment. “Have you worked at the hotel long?”
“No, just this summer. It’s boring.”
Jasper had to laugh. “Boring? But you don’t have to cook and clean, do you? Just sit at the desk.’
“That makes it boring. There is nothing to do. I’d rather do chores. Any chores.”
“How did you learn to speak English so well?”
“From books.” Medea looked proud. “My grandfather has a bookshop on the mainland. He taught me to write and read, not just Greek, but English as well. He wants me to go to Athens some day and be a tour guide for the tourists.’
“That’s a lovely idea.” Jasper tried to keep up with her as she quickly made her way down the slope towards the village. “It must be a two-mile walk. Do you do this twice a day?”
“Yes – sometimes more when I have to come up and do something for another who hasn’t shown up.” Medea grimaced. “Some people are so lazy.”
“Does the hotel have a large staff?”
“Cooks, cleaners, waiters and gardeners.” Medea looked proud.
Jasper sighed inwardly at the idea that he’d have to go and find the one person among them who had put beetles and a skull in Mrs Ramsforth’s room.
He knew for certain someone had done it, because the skull hadn’t walked or flown in.
“Is the staff all Greek?” he asked, hoping for a quick connection to England he could then follow up on.
Medea shook her head. “One of the cooks is French. He has this strange idea about eating snails. And one of the waiters is half German.”
“I see. And when Mr and Mrs Ramsforth arrived, did you see them speak with anyone?”
Medea frowned. “I think they didn’t see anyone but each other. They got the bridal suite because they were married in England. I think it was in England. Or in Venice? Or Paris? She is lucky.”
It sounded a bit hateful, and Jasper probed, “You mean Mrs Ramsforth?”
“He fell for her like she’s some movie star. But she’s not. I think she’s quite… how do you call it?”
“Plain?” he offered.
She nodded. “Nothing special. I don’t know why he likes her. He must grow tired of her soon.”
“Was there anything special about the night they arrived? Was anyone hanging around in the hotel? Watching guests?”
She shook her head. “There was nothing special.”
“And who prepared the bridal suite for them?”
“Demeter did. She always thinks up these ideas for the rooms.”
“Flower decorations?” Jasper asked. He was curious if the beetles could have been attracted by a scent in the room.
“No, with shells and things. Coins for good luck.” Medea’s mouth twitched into a wry grin. “Mrs Ramsforth wasn’t lucky with her coin.”
“How come?”
“You were there last night,” Medea said. She looked at him a moment with her deep, dark brown eyes. “You saw it too, didn’t you? The clerk told me this morning. He said everyone would have thought her mad if you hadn’t also seen it.”
She tilted her chin up. “You are not mad, are you?”
“Not that I know.”
Medea burst into laughter. “Nobody who is mad knows. That is the true curse of madness, my grandmot
her used to say. That everyone believes his acts are completely sane.”
“The grandmother who is married to the bookshop keeper?” Jasper asked.
Medea nodded. “She left him. She didn’t like life on the mainland.” She pointed ahead of them. “That’s the cafe. What do you want to know?”
“If they serve champagne.”
“Champagne? I could have told you that. No one has champagne on the island but the hotel.” Again Medea’s voice rose with pride. “The cafe only has coffee in the mornings. Beer in the afternoons. No tea, even though the English ask for it. But they are…”
She gestured with her hands and used a Greek word Jasper didn’t know. “They nag about it. They want a specific flavour or they say the water isn’t hot enough. That’s what Georgios told me. The keeper. He’s over there, chasing his wife.”
Jasper saw a slender woman in a blue garment fleeing up a path leading to a stone shed while a man followed her, shouting in Greek. To Jasper it sounded like abuse, or an argument, but he had learned that often when he couldn’t understand the language and didn’t know the people involved, he could mistake the tone used.
“Chasing his wife?” he asked Medea.
Medea laughed. “She doesn’t like to milk the goats. They kick at the buckets and they make her hands and hair stink. He has to chase her to the shed or she won’t do it.”
“And why doesn’t he do it himself?” Jasper asked.
“It’s a woman’s chore. Everyone would laugh at him if he did it.”
Jasper frowned. “And what if a man doesn’t have a wife to do it for him?”
“Then he shouldn’t buy goats.’
Now Jasper laughed. “Very clever.”
Medea raised her hand and waved to attract Georgios’s attention. Reluctantly he ended his pursuit of his wife and came over to them. His wife halted and watched, open curiosity in her features.
Medea explained something in rapid Greek to the man. He shook his head. She asked more and now he nodded.
Jasper wished he could at least follow, but it was all quite literally Greek to him.
From the corner of his eye he saw that the wife had ambled over and was listening with wide eyes. With the police officers having carried off the dead body to their boat docked in the harbour, the murder had to be the talk of the town, and people seemed eager to know every little detail about it.
At last Medea said her thanks and took her leave, waving Jasper along. His back ached at the idea of having to walk the two miles back to the hotel but he wouldn’t show that to a girl who could beat him to it.
Medea said, “He didn’t serve champagne to the couple this morning. They were there, but only briefly. The woman went inside to wash up and didn’t come back. The man came looking for her. He was angry and shouting something. That was all Georgios knew.”
“I see. So she must have drunk the champagne somewhere else.” Jasper recalled the waiter telling him over breakfast that the Ramsforths had left for friends. Champagne at the friends? That early? A celebration? Good news?
Medea said, “You asked if there was anything unusual about the night they arrived. There wasn’t. But there was something the next day.”
Jasper held his breath. “Yes?”
“A man came to see Mrs Ramsforth. He said it was important. He talked to her and she seemed excited about it.”
“What kind of man?” Had Ramsforth been right to assume his wife was involved with someone else?
“An Englishman. He had come all the way over here. He was kind of official looking.”
“Did he give you his name?”
“Yes. Fennick. I thought it was like Phoenix.”
“And is he staying in the hotel?”
“No. I have no idea where he’s staying. But Mrs Ramsforth talked to Mr Ramsforth after the man left.”
“Mr Ramsforth knew about them meeting?”
“Yes, he was there when the man introduced himself to Mrs Ramsforth. Then they talked without Mr Ramsforth present.”
“So it was an official matter he needn’t know about. Something about her family, perhaps.”
Jasper stared into the distance as he tried to form some kind of theory. But the truth was he just didn’t know enough. About Damaris Ramsforth, her reasons for marrying so soon, her life before her marriage. He kept thinking somehow someone from her past was here to…
Harm her? Beetles in her bouquet, a skull on her pillow. A former fiancée of Teddy? A woman he had abandoned for Mrs Ramsforth, kindling a need for revenge?
But how did the murder fit in? Would someone go so far as to murder an old woman to ruin Mrs Ramsforth’s honeymoon? It seemed too far-fetched.
“I need a list of all people staying at the hotel,” he said to Medea, “and of all staff. Names, addresses, anything you have on them. It could be important.”
She nodded. “Of course.” She skipped a pace. “Finally, it’s not boring any more.”
* * *
Teddy stood on the vantage point looking out over the sea. His head was full of questions but at the same time he couldn’t think them through. It was as if as soon as he wanted to take one and examine it, his mind became empty and all he could do was just stare at the sea and imagine Damaris’s laughter and how she had hugged him in the cart full of hay. How happy they had been.
“Why so glum?”
The female voice made him spin. Robin stood a few feet away from him. She wore a tight red dress that hugged her figure. Her hair was pulled back and put up in a bun at her neck, secured with two diamond hair pins. The sunlight reflected off them, dazzling Teddy. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
Robin held his gaze without flinching. “I’m here to see if my husband’s investment won’t lose its value. I heard some unfortunate news. Someone died, and your wife was found right next to the body. The police have a lot of questions and they might even take her to the mainland and lock her up. What does that mean for what you told us this morning?”
Teddy wet his lips. “I have no idea.”
Robin narrowed her eyes. “That’s not the right answer. I came to be reassured, not further worried by your lack of control of the situation.”
“Gideon put the squeeze on me last night. He threatened to cut me out completely. What was I to do?”
“Gideon has a chance to take the invention to the Stockholm exhibition. But only if there is money. And plenty of it. Can you blame him for wanting a little certainty?’
Robin closed in on him.
Teddy wanted to move away from her but remembered the abyss at his back. A steep fifteen-foot drop to the rocks and the sea below.
Robin said, “Gideon has waited for a long time for this chance. He’s in a good mood now and I want to keep it that way. You understand?”
Teddy nodded. He hadn’t forgotten the bruises she had shown him earlier that year, the result of Gideon’s bad mood. She had told him that if it stayed this way in her marriage, she couldn’t go on. He had promised he’d help her. He had made a vow and meant to keep it for once.
Robin looked past him at the view. She sighed. “Oh, can you imagine how good life could be if you two can only get that invention up and running? Gideon will be all caught up in his business affairs. He will travel a lot. I won’t have to go with him. I can stay in London. We could…” – she focused on him with her dazzling eyes – “see a lot of each other.”
Teddy stood motionless. Her perfume swerved round him.
“Gideon’s invention must become a reality, you understand?” She leaned even closer, brushing his chest with her hand.
“Don’t.” He drew in breath. “Someone might see us.”
“You’re right. I must run along. But remember,” – she gave him one last, long look – “my fate is in your hands.’
She turned and walked away with the natural grace of someone who needn’t try hard to stand out.
Teddy closed his eyes a moment. If only it had been Gideon Hawtree dead on the beach th
at morning, then…
What then? Robin might have been a widow, but he would still have been married. He had said “I do’, but to another woman. It had seemed such a good idea at the time. Focus on someone else, forget. Start a new future.
But here Robin was, in the middle of his new future. His new future that was fraying at the edges even without her telling him what he had to do. He should never have agreed to it. But it was too late now. Too late to turn back, too late for regrets.
Chapter Nine
Damaris sat in the walled garden in a chair that her kind temporary nurse had brought out for her, with a fresh glass of cold water beside her, just a bit of lemon juice in it. She had also eaten some soup and crackers and felt better now, more like a normal human being.
If she just leaned her head against the chair and listened to the sounds of the small birds rustling overhead and the bumblebees looking for food among the plants, everything seemed to be all right. Just as long as she didn’t think back, didn’t try to remember.
“Good evening.”
She didn’t have to turn her head to know who had intruded upon her quiet moments.
Jasper.
The man she should thank for reassuring her she wasn’t mad by telling her he had seen the skull as well.
But also the man who would ask awkward questions now and make this harder than it need be. Greek police would have questioned her in Greek and she could have pretended she didn’t understand them. But he…
Jasper came to sit beside her on a low stone wall. He had his dog with him and Damaris patted the retriever, smoothing the soft fur that felt so pleasant under her touch.
Jasper said, “How are you feeling?”
“I don’t know. Hollow.”
“Have you had spells before, in England, where you couldn’t remember what happened?”
“How do you mean?”
“This morning you went into the cafe. Then I found you on the beach. You must have walked there, but you don’t recall?”
She shook her head.
“Has this happened before?”
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