A Poisonous Journey

by Malia Zaidi

  "I noticed that. Niobe, for one, speaks perfectly. She said her father wanted her to learn."

  "I am sure it helps with employment nowadays."

  "I should very much like to see the Acropolis some time and Knossos, which is so close. I was hoping Jeffrey might take us one day," I say as we round a bend and see the low walls of Miklos village in the near distance.

  "Yes, you must. It is quite a site. I went there when we first arrived." I was hoping he would offer to accompany me, but perhaps that is too much to ask, his mind being occupied with other matters. A car, a standard black model, drives from the village gate toward us, slowing on its approach.

  "Lady Evelyn, Daniel, what a coincidence!" It is Darius, the museum curator and Jeffrey’s collegue. He pulls over to our side of the road, leaving barely enough space for a bicycle to pass by. We move further to the side, and Darius pokes his head out of the window. He is wearing his small round specs and a mournful expression.

  "I am so terribly grieved by what has happened. I called Jeffrey earlier this morning, and he told me. What a waste, what a tragic waste." He shakes his head and sighs. Daniel and I do not quite know what to say and simply nod along somberly.

  "Are you driving to the villa, Mr. Calandra?" I aim to steer the subject from Caspar’s death.

  "Oh yes. Darius, please call me Darius."

  "Then you must call me Evelyn."

  "Very good. I wanted to see how you all are managing. I don’t want to impose, Jeffery is a good friend and if there is anything I can do to help …"

  "Actually," Daniel’s voice surprises me, "you might be contacted by the police. Inspector Dymas is in charge of the case."

  A look of surprise plays across Darius’ face before he answers. "Dymas, I know him. He is a good man. Why would he want to speak to me?" He raises his shoulders slighty. "I will do what I can, of course, but I do not see what he could ask of me?"

  "It is probably routine. Do not worry. He wants to speak to all the people at the dinner, because we were among the last to be in his company — " he falters, swallows, and adds, "when he was alive."

  "Yes, I understand," he says slowly.

  "Well, we don’t want to keep you." Daniel forces a smile, and I follow suit. A rickety looking delivery truck laden with crates slowly approaches, but cannot possibly sqeeze through the narrow gap between the fenced edge of the road and Darius’ motorcar.

  "I should go." Darius casts a fleeting glance at the truck, and the driver makes an impatient gesture. Daniel and I step back to allow Darius to move without compromising our feet.

  "Goodbye." We wave, and Darius offers a small nod and drives off. The truck rattling after him sends up a cloud of dust. Daniel and I stand by the roadside a moment longer, coughing and rubbing our eyes before continuing our walk toward the village gate.

  As we pass the wall, we pass under the remnants of a stone arch. Once in the village, we stroll comfortably, side by side on the pavement. There are few people about. Mostly women carrying baskets of fruit, vegetables, packets wrapped in brown butcher’s paper and oval loaves of bread.

  When Daniel leads me around a corner and down a sunlit alley, a small child, a girl of perhaps three or four, collides with us. She is running, her expression not concealing naughty glee, her dark curly hair bouncing on her narrow shoulders.

  "Hello, young lady!" Daniel catches her as she pummels against him. She looks up at him, her impossibly dark eyes curious and not in the least intimidated.

  "I know you." She says this in Greek, which I am thrilled to be able to understand. Still, I am not quite confident enough to venture a reply, even to a child.

  "Yes, we’ve met before, haven’t we? You’re Kaia Zarek. Where are your parents?" Before the girl can answer, we hear a relieved cry and Laria Zarek, the doctor’s wife comes rushing around the corner, albeit in a much more dignified manner than her daughter, who is still glaring at us in the open, inquisitive way only a child dares.

  "Kaia! There you are!" Only now does she register us, and expressions of confusion and then recognition flash in succession across her face. "Oh, hello." She smiles and shakes her head as she grabs the squirming child’s hand.

  "Hello Laria, you remember Evelyn."

  "Of course I do, Daniel." Laria smiles warmly in greeting.

  "This is your daughter? She’s a beauty. Kaia is such a lovely name." Laria looks suitably pleased at my observation and pats Kaia’s head.

  "Thank you. Kaia was my grandmother’s name. Where are you off to?" From Laria’s easy manner, I gather she has not been told of the murder, and thus did not call Briony this morning. I must remember to ask about it.

  "We wanted to take a stroll around the village. You haven’t heard it then?"

  "Haven’t heard what?" She raises her eyebrows and turns her head, a very faint line appears questioningly on her forehead. Daniel glances at the little girl, who is twisting in her mother’s grip and will soon have freed herself.

  Laria notices his gaze, looks down and then at us again, her expression tightening. "Has something happened? Is Briony all right?"

  "Briony is fine …" Daniel trails off pressing his lips together.

  "You have time for a coffee?" Laria doesn’t wait for a response. "I will drop Kaia off at my mother’s house. She lives five minutes from here. Then we can talk."

  "In ten minutes at Hector’s café?" Daniel asks, and Laria nods.

  In a light voice she adds to her daughter, "Say bye-bye to Daniel and Evelyn."

  "Bye-bye," the girl dutifully imitates her mother’s English words and waves a small hand as Laria pulls her in the opposite direction.

  Daniel and I find "Hector’s Café", which is really just a tiny room, with three round tables packed onto the pavement in front of it. We sit down at one and the proprietor, whose name is not Hector but Daion, comes to greet us.

  "Mr. Daniel and beautiful lady!" He claps a large hand on Daniel’s shoulder and smiles jovially, displaying a gleaming row of three gold teeth.

  "Daion, good to see you. This is Miss Evelyn Carlisle. She is visiting from England."

  "Ah, wonderful, wonderful!" He smiles happily.

  "How are your children and your wife?"

  "Very good, all are very good. You are good to ask. I will bring you some wine?" He raises one caterpillar of an eyebrow.

  "Three coffees for now, or would you prefer a glass of wine, Evelyn?"

  "No, coffee is good." I am quite off wine for the forseeable future. Daion waggles his head and rushes off.

  "You have settled here rather well. You already have a local." I try to lighten the mood. After all, in a few moments he will have to tell Laria that his best friend has just been murdered. Before he can respond, she appears at the entrance to the alley. She spots us and waves.

  "Hello, again. Thank you," she smiles, and Daniel pulls out a chair for her. "That’s better. I have been running after that child all day. There must be a storm coming, she always get’s partucularly energetic when a storm is coming, strange isn’t it?"

  "Laria," Daniel is noticeably struggling to turn the subject from her lively child to his dead friend. He moves uncomfortably in his chair, almost squirming.

  "Laria, we have bad news." I interject and look in Daniel’s direction. He gives me a tiny, almost imperceptible nod of approval.

  "What is it? What has happened? You are so serious." Laria looks from me to Daniel and back again. "Out with it then."

  "There is really no easy way to put this. Caspar —" I falter. I thought it would be easier for me, but I hate these words. I hate them, and what they mean and their ugly hopeless finality.

  "He died yesterday." Daniel’s voice is very quiet, and his face frozen as though he can hardly believe he said what he said. Laria’s eyebrows knit together in an expression of puzzlement and disbelief.

  "I don’t understand, he died?" Her tone carries an unmistakable note of bewilderment. "What do you mean? We just saw him. He was fine! I don’t under
stand." The skin around her nose and cheeks has turned pale.

  "Laria," I reach across the table and gently place a comforting hand on hers, "he was poisoned. It is being investigated by the police."

  "Oh God, oh God," she mutters and stares at me, a wild expression in her eyes. As fate would have it, Daion chooses this moment to appear at our table with the coffees and a small basket filled with small round biscuits. To my great relief, he evidently senses something amiss and leaves without a word. I push a cup of steaming coffee across the table at her.

  "Drink some of this, it will help." A lie, of course. What use is coffee in a situation like this? I must admit, I am somewhat surprised at her strong reaction. She looks positively ill. At the party I did not get the impression she particularly liked him. In fact, I remember her looking distinctly annoyed with Caspar and his antics over the course of the evening. Perhaps she feels guilty?

  "Yes, thank you." Holding the little cup, she takes a careless sip, surely scalding her tongue, but not even flinching.

  "I am sorry to have distressed you, we—" I gesture at Daniel, "didn’t want to leave you ignorant, only to find out through gossip or exaggerated tales."

  Laria nods, sips again and sets the cup down, clattering on its saucer. Black-brown liquid slops over the sides and into the shallow little plate.

  "Shall we walk you home? This was a shock." Daniel is already pulling his wallet from an inside pocket of his beige linen jacket and placing what I take to be a generous sum on the table.

  We get up and lead Laria back the way we came. I assume Daniel knows the way to her home, because Laria doesn’t utter another word. I catch him occasionally glancing over at me, perhaps to make sure I am keeping up. I am surprised he is coping well enough to lend support to someone else. Maybe it helps to be useful, to be active in some way. If one can be find use for oneself, be helpful even, one can probably pull through the day. And the next, and the next, until one day the grief is only a dull pain one has grown used to and barely notices anymore. It will take time, but we can be a resilient lot.

  Laria’s house, a smaller, no less elegant villa than that of Briony and Jeffrey, is located a few minutes from the village gate. Nicolas has his medical practice in a separate building off the main road and is not home when we arrive. Fortunately, her mother, a small, elegant woman, who, despite her stature, carries herself with the distinct air of one-who-will-take-charge, is home to do just that.

  Daniel quickly explains the situation, and she responds in heavily accented English, "I am very sorry for your loss." Glancing at her still ashen-faced daughter, she adds, "You will excuse me, I must take care of her now."

  "Of course. We will see ourselves out."

  "Goodbye. Laria, I hope you will feel better soon." A silly thing to say, but one tends to say silly things in situations that are quite the opposite.

  Daniel and I make our way back. The street we follow is almost deserted, and there is more space between individual houses, some even have small gardens. Clearly, this is a more affluent neighborhood. Eventually, we near the main road again. The buildings are squeezed closer together once more and people going about their daily routine walk past us. Some give us an interested glance, and some smile and nod, most don’t bother with any sort of acknowledgement.

  "I didn’t expect Laria to react so strongly. Was she well acquainted with Caspar?"

  Daniel rubs his chin and gives me an odd look.

  "What is it?"

  "I might as well tell you. I think you will understand." He hesitates another moment, and the tiny ball of curiosity that has been building inside me since I saw Laria’s shocked, ashen face swells tenfold.

  "Yes?" I try not to sound too interested. Bad manners, Aunt Agnes would chide.

  "Laria and Caspar had a little affair. A dalliance."

  "A dalliance!" I burst out, unable to suppress my surprise. Despite my desire to stand still and hear more, Daniel pulls me along in the direction of the village gate from where we are, once again, on the road back to the villa.

  "Now," he slows his pace, "I don’t want anyone to hear about this. It could get Laria into deep trouble, or at the very least embarass her and Nikolas, and I don’t want that."

  "How do you know? Did he tell you?" Daniel is wearing a vaguely bemused expression at my undisguised incredulity.

  "Yes, he told me. He wasn’t the most subtle." He flinches slightly as he uses the past tense. The sun is warmer now, and he slips off his jacket and slings it over his shoulder, before continuing. "Maybe I should have said so to Dymas, but I wasn’t thinking. In any case, it didn’t last. As you know, we haven’t been here long, so …" He narrows his eyes, whether in question or as a reaction to the bright light I don’t know.

  "It was over? They weren’t still … " I trail off, hoping he will simply pick up from there.

  "Lovers?" Daniel startles me with his candor, but I try not to let it show, lest he think of me a prude, which, perhaps, I am … He goes on, "Yes, it was over. They were reasonably friendly, but as you might have noticed at the dinner party, there was no love lost between them anymore."

  "I see."

  "I hope I haven’t scandalized you? I shouldn’t have come out with it like that. You have only just arrived, and—"

  "No, not at all," I lie. "It is simply … unexpected, though it explains her reaction. Poor Laria. I wonder whether her husband has any idea. If not, she will have to pull herself together before he meets her."

  "I am sure her mother will see to that. Caspar called her a ‘dragon’, so yes, poor Laria." We are silent for a few steps, and I let this new information sink in. If Laria was suitably angry … no, her reaction couldn’t be faked, unless she is a superb actress.

  "What if Nikolas found out? Daniel, you might have to tell the police. He could have had a perfect motive!" I am stunned at the words I have just uttered. Nikolas Zarek seemed a very amiable, confident man when I met him. And now, by a small twist of fate, he is turning into a murder suspect in my mind. I look at Daniel. Staring ahead at the road, half his face is turned away, the other bathed in yellow light turning his skin golden. From the side he looks older, the angles of his cheekbones sharper, the line of his jaw more distinct. From this angle, the tired sadness in his eyes, giving him the appearance of being very young and a little lost, is hidden from view.

  "No, I can’t believe that." He sucks in a breath of warm air and shakes his head, turning slightly to face me, while maintaining his stride. "I can’t tell the police. It would humiliate Laria, and she doesn’t deserve that. She ended it, you know. The bitterness should be on Caspar’s part. I doubt very much Nikolas knew anything about it."

  "Maybe, but you can’t be certain, can you? Daniel, you must tell Inspector Dymas. I know you like the doctor, but he might have had a motive. Jealousy is as strong a drive for such empassioned action as any." I fall silent, allowing my words to take root. Foolish, terrible, irreperable things have been done in the name of love. Murder not excluded.

  "If I don’t tell him, will you?" There is tension in his questioning tone, but his expression has remained mild.

  "I would be duty-bound, Daniel. You probably view me as an outsider. But now you have told me of this, a confidence I do not want you to regret, but one I cannot forget either. I owe these people nothing, so it would be easier for me to tell the police than you. I have only been here two days. All the same, the police will ask how I found out about this, and then what could I say? It will be better coming from you." I add in a low, placating tone, "Dymas is an understanding man. You could surely tell him in confidence without feeling like a gossip?"

  "You are probably right, though I am certain neither Laria nor her husband had anything to do with any of this."

  "The truth about their affair may come out one way or another. Dymas wanted to question everyone who was at the party, and if Laria has a similar reaction as she did with us, he might put two and two together."

  "I might as well save the m
an some time and effort." Daniel sounds almost relieved now. Sometimes people already know what is right, what must be done, they just need a little push towards it.

  "I think that would be wise. You of all people will want this resolved as quickly as possible, I am sure." For a second I think I have overstepped the mark, but after a moment’s hesitation he nods in agreement.

  "I will call him once we are back at the house."

  "Good." We round a bend, and I glimpse the creamy façade of the villa in the distance. "Daniel," I slightly slow my pace, and he matches it instantly.

  "Yes?"

  "Thank you."

  "For what?" He wrinkles his brow.

  "For trusting me. You are not a gossip, and wouldn’t tell someone’s secrets easily, so I appreciate it." The words hang between us for a moment, until he breaks into a tiny smile.

  "You’re welcome. Selfishly I confess, I am happy to have someone to listen."

  "My pleasure."

  The house is very near now and keen to lighten the mood before we reach it, and before miserable memories overwhelm us, I begin chatting about the village, about the pretty houses, Hercule’s café, the sharpness of his coffee. Daniel understands what I am doing, for he joins in without batting an eyelid and we stroll through the gates nearly at ease. Yannick is in the drive, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, white-blond hair tousled by the gentle wind. He is washing the motor, running a large, soapy sponge along the dripping sides. He nods at us as we approach. Daniel excuses himself to call the inspector. I feel mildly guilty for pushing him into doing it, but it would be wrong to ignore any sort of clue, even if it is far off the mark, and I am almost certain that it is. As he disappears indoors, I linger for a moment, delayed by the desire to talk to the chauffeur who appears to exist almost as a spirit, always around, yet never really there.

  I saunter over to the spot where the Delage is parked. Yannick notices and straightens, like a soldier.

  "Miss Carlisle, good day."

  "Thank you, Yannick. How are you today? Such a terrible thing happened yesterday. I wanted to know how you are. I didn’t notice you this morning when Inspector Dymas was here."