This Rough Magic

by Mary Stewart

  ‘It’s not Spiro.’ Godfrey spoke quickly, almost harshly.

  ‘It’s not?’ The hand dropped, and she let out a long breath of relief. ‘Oh, I was so sure … But does that mean two, in just a few days? Have you any idea who it is?’

  ‘It’s a local man called Yanni Zoulas. I doubt if you know him. Look, we were just going up to telephone. Will you come with us? If I just go back now to the bay for the rest of—’

  He stopped abruptly, and turned. A shadow fell across me where I sat pulling on my sandals. Max Gale’s voice said, just behind me:

  ‘Is anything the matter?’

  I know I jumped as if he had hit me. The other two were caught gaping, as if in some guilty act. He must be stones heavier than Phyllida, but we had none of us heard a sound. I thought: he must move like a cat.

  For seconds, nobody replied. It was a queer, hair-pricking little pause, during which the men eyed each other like unfriendly dogs circling one another, and I sat with a sandal half on, watching them.

  ‘The matter?’ said Godfrey.

  I knew then that he didn’t want to tell Gale what had happened. The knowledge, somehow not surprising, came like a cold breath along my skin. Mr Gale glanced from Godfrey to Phyl, then down at me, and I bent my head quickly, pulled the sandal on, and began to fasten the strap.

  He said impatiently: ‘It’s obvious there’s something. I was watching the bay with glasses, and I thought I saw something odd – some debris or other floating, away out; I couldn’t make it out. Then Miss Waring came this way, and I saw her on the rocks that run out from the point. She stopped and looked into one of the pools, and her reactions made it pretty obvious that there was something very wrong indeed. Then you went over and made it rather plainer. What is it? Or shall I go and see for myself?’

  It was Phyllida who answered him. She must not have felt the overtones that had chilled me – but then she didn’t know what I knew. She said, in a sort of rush: ‘It’s a dead body. Drowned. In that pool, there. We were just going up to phone the police.’

  There was a moment in which I seemed to hear the cliffswallows, very loud and shrill, just overhead. Then Max Gale said: ‘Who is it? Do you know?’

  Godfrey still said nothing. He had not taken his eyes off the other man’s face. It was Phyllida who answered.

  ‘I forget the name. Godfrey says he’s from the village. Yanni something.’

  ‘Yanni Zoulas,’ I said.

  He looked down at me as if he was aware fully for the first time that I was there. I got the strong impression that he wasn’t seeing me even now. He didn’t speak.

  ‘Did you know him?’ I asked.

  The dark eyes focused on me for a moment, then he looked away again, over towards the pool. ‘Why, yes, slightly.’

  Godfrey said: ‘You say you were watching something floating, some debris. You couldn’t say what sort of thing? Could it have been flotsam from a sunk boat?’

  ‘Eh? Well, I told you I couldn’t see at that distance, but it could have been … My God, yes, I suppose it could!’ All of a sudden Gale was fully with us; his gaze sharpened, and he spoke abruptly. ‘I wonder what time he went out last night? I thought I heard a boat soon after midnight, bearing north-east.’ He looked at Godfrey. ‘Did you hear it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Last night?’ said Phyllida. ‘Did it happen as recently as that? Could you tell, Godfrey?’

  ‘I’m not an expert. I don’t know. I don’t think he’s been there long. However, it shouldn’t be hard to find out when he was last seen.’

  I had been watching Max Gale’s face. He was looking thoughtful now, grave – anything but the way I knew he ought to be looking. ‘It must have happened within the last forty-eight hours. I saw his boat myself on Saturday. It went past the bay at about three in the afternoon.’

  If I hadn’t known what I did, I’d never have known that he was lying – or rather, implying a lie. For a moment I even wondered if perhaps Yanni had not been on his way to the Castello last night, then I remembered that Mr Gale had, in the last few minutes, given me another reason for doubting his good faith. He looked down suddenly, and caught me watching him. I bent my head again, and fiddled with the second sandal.

  ‘Well,’ said Godfrey, ‘it’ll be easy enough to check with his family, and the sooner we let the experts get on the job, the better. Shall we go? One thing, nobody need stay with the body. There’s no tide to shift it … Where are you going?’

  Max Gale didn’t trouble to answer; he was already swinging himself down to the rocks below us. Godfrey made a quick, involuntary movement as if to stop him, then he shrugged, said softly to us: ‘Do you mind? We won’t be long,’ and slithered in his turn down through the bushes.

  Gale was bending over the pool. Like Godfrey, he stood looking down at the body for some time in silence, then he did what neither Godfrey nor I had done: he lay flat at the edge of the rock, and reached down through the water as if to touch the dead man. I saw Godfrey make another of those sharp involuntary movements, but he must have decided that what evidence there was could hardly be damaged further by a touch, for he said nothing, merely stooping down himself to watch with close attention.

  ‘What in the world are they doing?’ asked Phyl, rather petulantly.

  I was clasping my knees, hugging myself together closely. In spite of the sun, I had begun to feel cold. ‘I don’t know and I don’t care. I hope they hurry, that’s all. I want to get some clothes on and get the police over and done with.’

  ‘You poor lamb, are you cold? Here, have my coat.’ She took it off and dropped it over my shoulders, and I hugged it gratefully round me.

  ‘Thanks a lot. That’s marvellous.’ I laughed a little. ‘At least it puts me in competition again! I wish you didn’t always look as if you’d just got back from Elizabeth Arden, when I feel like a bit of Mr Gale’s debris. It was probably me he saw floating. If, that is, he saw anything.’

  She looked quickly down at me. ‘What does that mean? It sounds loaded.’

  ‘Not really.’

  She sat down beside me. ‘You don’t often make remarks for nothing. What did you mean?’

  ‘I’m not happy about this affair, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, heavens, who is? But is it an “affair”?’

  ‘I don’t know. There’s a feeling … a feeling that there’s something going on. I can’t put it better than that, and I’m probably wrong, but I think – I think – Godfrey feels it, too. Why don’t he and Mr Gale like one another?’

  ‘I didn’t know they didn’t. They were a bit wary today, weren’t they? I suppose Godfrey’s more upset than he lets on … after all, it’s rather soon after the Spiro business … And Max Gale doesn’t just put himself out to be charming, does he?’

  ‘He has things on his mind,’ I said.

  The remark was intended merely as an evasion, to imply only that his personal worries – over his father – made him difficult to know or like, but she took it to refer specifically to what had just happened. She nodded.

  ‘I thought so, too … Oh, nothing special, just that he seemed to be thinking about something else. But what did you mean?’ She shot me another look. ‘Something’s really worrying you, isn’t it?’

  I hesitated. ‘Did it strike you as odd, the way Mr Gale took the news?’

  ‘Well, no, it didn’t. Perhaps because I know him better than you. He’s never very forthcoming. What sort of “odd” did you mean?’

  I hesitated again, then decided not to specify. ‘As if he wasn’t surprised that a body should roll up here.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he was. He’d be expecting it to be Spiro.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ I said. ‘Look they seem to be coming back.’

  Mr Gale had finished whatever grisly examination he had been conducting, and had withdrawn his hand. He rinsed it in the salt water; then stood up, drying it on a handkerchief. As far as I could make out, the two men still hadn’t spoken a word. Now
Godfrey said something with a gesture towards Phyl and myself, and they turned together and started over to us.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ I said.

  ‘You’ll feel better when you’ve had a drink, old dear,’ said my sister.

  ‘Coffee,’ I said, ‘as hot as love and as sweet as hell.’

  ‘Godfrey might even run to that, you never know.’

  The men scrambled up to the path beside us.

  ‘Well?’ said Phyl and I, together.

  They exchanged a glance, which might even be said to hold complicity. Then Gale said: ‘It should be interesting to hear what the doctor has to say. He seems to have been knocked about the head a bit. I was wondering if the neck was broken, but I don’t think so.’

  Godfrey’s eye met mine. I stood up. ‘Well, when the boat’s found, there may be something there to show how it happened.’

  ‘For all we know,’ said Godfrey, ‘that’s been done, and the hue and cry’s on already. Let’s go, shall we?’

  ‘Thank goodness!’ I said. ‘But I still want to get dressed. My things—’

  ‘Good God, I was forgetting. Well, hang on another minute or two, I won’t be long.’

  Max Gale said, in that abrupt, rather aggressive way of his: ‘You three start up the path. I’ll go and pick your stuff up and bring it along.’

  He had so plainly not been invited to go with us, and just as plainly fully intended to hear all that was said to the police, that I thought Godfrey was going to demur. But Phyllida got eagerly to her feet.

  ‘Yes, let’s get away from here! It’s giving me the grue. Mr. Gale, if you would be an angel … I’ve left some things, too, they’re under the pine trees.’

  ‘I saw where they were. I won’t be long. Don’t wait for me; I’ll catch you up.’

  He went quickly. Godfrey looked after him, the grey eyes curiously cold. Then he caught me watching him, and smiled. ‘Well, this way.’

  The path followed the cliff as far as the boat-house, then turned up a steep zigzag through the trees. We toiled up it, grateful for the shade. Godfrey walked between us, in a sort of awkwardly divided solicitude that might at any other time have been amusing; but just now all I could think of was a bit of solitude in his bathroom, then a comfortable chair, and – failing the coffee – a long, cool drink. I hoped Max Gale would hurry with the clothes. I thought he probably would: he wouldn’t want to miss what was said to the police. It had surprised me that he had risked this by offering to go back.

  Godfrey had paused to help Phyl negotiate a dry gully which the winter’s rain had gouged across the path. I was a few paces ahead of them when I came to a corner where a sudden gap in the trees gave a view of the point below.

  I might have known there would be a good reason for Max Gale’s offer. He was back at the rock pool, lying flat as before, reaching down into the water. I could just see his head and shoulders. Just as I caught the glimpse of him he withdrew his arm and got quickly to his feet. As he turned, I drew back into the shade of the trees, and just in time, for he glanced up briefly before he vaulted up to the path, and out of sight.

  ‘Tired?’ asked Godfrey, just behind me.

  I started. ‘No, not a bit. Just getting my breath. But I’ll be glad when it’s all over.’

  ‘So shall we all. I seem to have spent the whole week with the police as it is.’ He added, rather bitterly: ‘At least they know their way here, and most of the question to ask.’

  Phyllida touched his arm gently. ‘Poor Godfrey. But we’re terribly grateful. And at least this time it doesn’t touch you … except as a rather ghastly sort of coincidence.’

  His eyes met mine. They held the bleak expression I was beginning to know.

  ‘I don’t believe in coincidence,’ he said.

  7

  What have we here, a man, or a fish? dead or alive?

  II. 2.

  EITHER she had been more distressed than she had allowed us to see, or else the trip down to the beach in the heat, with the bathe and the climb to the Villa Rotha, had been too much for Phyllida. Though we spent the rest of the day quietly, and she lay down after lunch for a couple of hours, by evening she was tired, fidgety, and more than somewhat out of temper, and very ready to be persuaded to go to bed early.

  Maria and Miranda had gone as soon as dinner was over. By ten o’clock the house was very quiet. Even the pines on the hill behind it were still, and once I had shut the windows I could hear no sound from the sea.

  I felt tired myself, but restless, with sleep still a long way off, so I went along to the scrubbed and empty kitchen, made myself more coffee, then took it through to the salotto, put my feet on a chair, some Mozart on the gramophone, and settled myself for a quiet evening.

  But things didn’t quite work out that way. The calm, beautiful room, even the music, did not manage to keep at bay the thoughts that had been knocking for admission since that morning. In spite of myself, my mind went persistently back to the morning’s incidents; the discovery in the pool, the two men’s raw antagonism, and the long, wearying aftermath of interrogation, with the fresh problems it had brought to light.

  The police from Corfu had been civil, thorough, and kind. They had arrived fairly soon after we had reached Godfrey’s house, and had gone straight down with the two men to see the body. Shortly after that a boat had arrived from somewhere, and presently departed with its burden. Another came soon afterwards, and cruised off out to sea – searching, one assumed, for the ‘debris’ which Mr Gale insisted that he had seen. From the terrace of the Villa Rotha Phyl and I had watched it tacking to and fro some way out from land, but with what success it had been impossible – failing Mr Gale’s binoculars – to guess.

  Then the men came back. The questions had been searching, but easy enough for my part to answer, because of course nobody imagined that I had ever seen Yanni before in my life, so the only questions I was asked were those touching on my finding of the body.

  And when Max Gale reiterated to the police that he had not laid eyes on Yanni Zoulas since a possible glimpse of his boat on Saturday afternoon, I had not said a word.

  It was this that bore on me now, heavily, as I sat there alone in the salotto, with darkness thickening outside the windows, and moths thumping against the lighted glass. And if I was beginning to get too clear an idea why, I didn’t want to face that, either. I pushed that line of thought to one side, and concentrated firmly on the facts.

  These were, in their own way, comforting. Godfrey had rung up in the late afternoon to give us the latest reports. It appeared that Yanni’s boat had been found drifting, and on the boom were traces of hairs and blood where, as the boat heeled in a sudden squall, it must have struck him and sent him overboard. An almost empty bottle of ouzo, which had rolled away behind a pile of rope and tackle, seemed to provide a clue to the young fisherman’s carelessness. The doctor had given it as his opinion (said Godfrey) that Yanni had been dead when he went into the water. The police did not seem inclined to press the matter further. Of the debris reported by Mr Gale no trace had been found.

  Finally – Godfrey was a little cryptic over this part of the message, as the telephone was on a party line – finally, no mention had been made of any illegal activities of the dead man. Presumably his boat had been searched, and nothing had come to light, so the police (who preferred to turn a blind eye to small offences unless action was forced on them) were satisfied that the fatal voyage had been a routine fishing trip, and that Yanni’s death had been accidental. It was obvious that they had no intention of opening any further line of inquiry.

  So much for Godfrey’s anxiety. My own went a little further.

  It had transpired, from police inquiries, that the last time Yanni’s family had seen him alive was on Sunday: he had spent the day with them, they said, going with them to watch the procession, and returning home in the late afternoon. Yes, he had seemed in good spirits. Yes, he had been drinking a fair amount. He had had a meal, and then had gone out. N
o, he had not said where he was going, why should he? They had assumed he was going fishing, as usual. He had gone down to the boat. Yes, alone; he usually went alone. That was the last time they had seen him.

  It was the last time anyone had seen him, according to the police report. And I had said nothing to make them alter it. Where Godfrey had been worrying about the inquiry’s leading back to Spiro, I was worrying about its involving Julian Gale. That Max Gale was somehow implicated seemed obvious, but I had my own theories about that, and they hardly justified turning the police searchlight on Yanni’s activities, and so wrecking Sir Julian’s precarious peace. With Yanni’s death an accident – and I saw no reason to doubt this – it didn’t matter if he had indeed paid a furtive visit to the Castello before going out last night. So if Max Gale chose to say nothing about it, then it was none of my business. I could stay in my enchanted bubble and keep quiet. It didn’t matter one way or the other …

  But I knew quite well that it did, and it was this knowledge that kept me sleepless in my chair, while one record followed another, unheeded, and the clock crawled on towards midnight. For one thing, I had had information forced on me that I would rather not have owned. For another—

  The record stopped. With its slow, deliberate series of robot clicks, the auto-changer dropped another on the turntable, moved a gentle arm down on it, and loosed Gervase de Peyer’s clarinet into the room in a brilliant shower of gold.

  I switched my own thoughts back into the groove of facts. One thing at a time. The best way of forgetting how you think you feel is to concentrate on what you know you know …

  Godfrey had been sure that Yanni was a smuggler, and that he must have some ‘contact’ who was probably his boss. I was pretty sure now that the contact was Max Gale. It all tied up: it would explain that furtive visit just before Yanni’s voyage, and Gale’s silence on the subject. It would also account for the thing that had so much worried me this morning – Gale’s reaction to the news of Yanni’s death. He had not been surprised at the news that a body was on the rocks, and this was not, as Phyl had assumed, because he thought it was Spiro. To me it was obvious that Spiro had never entered his head. His first question had been ‘Who is it? Do you know?’ though the obvious assumption would have been the one the rest of us had made, that this must be the body of the drowned boy.