A Poisonous Journey

by Malia Zaidi

"You don’t have to explain." He holds out a hand to pull me up. "The car isn’t far away. Yannick is waiting."

  In a slow procession, made slower by my battered feet, we make our way down the alley to the Delage. I thank the heavens—whoever rules them—for Yannick is indeed leaning against the gleaming motor, smoking a cigarette. Upon noticing us, he quickly tosses it aside, crushing it with the toe of his shoe.

  "Miss Carlisle!" Even in the dim light, I see his blue eyes widen in surprise at my appearance. "Are you all right?"

  I must look ghastly, if this is everyone’s reaction. I put on a brave smile for him. Best not say too much yet. If Darius told the truth, Caspar’s murderer is still at large, whoever he or she may be, and revealing what I learned tonight may only cause further complications.

  "I am very tired, Yannick." I catch him glancing at my ruined shoes, the heels caked in dirt. "Too much dancing," I offer as explanation.

  Yannick opens the doors for us. Silently, we squeeze in. With weak effort, I think: Should I not be at the police station, making a statement? With the events of this evening still in motion, there is probably no one there anyway. All out celebrating or chasing down the mad museum curator. Jeffrey is sitting in the front beside Yannick, and I am cocooned between Briony and Daniel, safe and sound for now as we, at last, drive home.

  CHAPTER 34

  We reach the villa in no time at all, or at least it seems that way to me. The misadventure of the evening has left me drained, and I may have dozed off for a while during our journey. The image of that withered body, the skeleton with its empty stare, claws its way back into my mind, forcing me to wrench my eyes open to escape the vivid memory.

  When Yannick parks the motor and turns off the engine, the night suddenly turns terribly silent, the world outside our metal cage so large and confusing. I mustn’t brood now. Darius is not a well man. I must focus on all the kindness I have been shown, help I have been offered this evening. The world is terrible and terribly good; darkness and light, always shifting. There have been many times in my life where this simple truth has been so difficult to remember.

  Getting out of the car, I am carefully assisted as though I am a fragile creature not to be trusted to hold herself upright. If this night has taught me anything, it is that I am not as weak as I may have believed myself to be. Gently escaping the helping hands, I climb out. The cool air whips at my hair and makes me feel cleaner again. I want all the dust and misery of that horrible cave to wash away, restoring me to how I was before. I know it cannot be. I will always remember the suffocating fear for my life, saddened and frightened by the dead figure of a man I never knew. It is as if invisible fragments have crept under my skin and will not leave, no matter how hard I scrub. Memories are like tattoos. They are etched into us, and we are never rid of them. We may cover them up, yet they remain, always threatening to reveal themselves and to pull us back again.

  "Evie? Come," Briony beckons me forth, and I draw out of my trance to see them all staring curiously, creases on their foreheads, eyes narrowed. I worry them. I have happened upon two dead bodies in the span of ten days. Am I some sort of reaper?

  No. No more stupid, silly thoughts!

  We enter the house. It is silent and pleasantly warm. The stones of the building retain the day’s heat enough to provide comfort on a cool evening.

  "I will draw you a bath." Briony says.

  "Can I get you anything? Tea? Brandy?" Daniel looks wretched, or perhaps I am only projecting my own turmoil.

  "No, a bath is enough. Then I will sleep." I hope. Will I sleep? Will those empty eyesockets haunt me in my dreams? Will I be doomed to running and running even in my unconscious hours?

  "Sleep well then." I have the strong impression there is more he wants to say, but Briony bustles me up the stairs, and whatever is on his mind is left unspoken.

  "You must wake me when Dymas calls. Tell me if he caught Darius. Promise me, Briony." We enter my room, and she walks into the bathroom to begin filling the tub.

  "Of course. I am certain he will catch him. How long can Darius hope to hide in the cave? He must know it is over." She returns to my room and perches on my bed as I sit on the stool, unbuckling my shoes. There are no words for the liberation of taking of painful shoes. Men may never know it. It is quite incredible. I toss the offensive foot-traps to the side with relief, wiggling my tired, cramped toes before returning to the seriousness of the situation.

  "You didn’t see him, Briony. He was mad. Confused, manic, I cannot explain it better. He was most certainly not thinking rationally. To my fortune, otherwise he surely would not have been so easily duped."

  Briony shudders and wraps her arms around herself. "I cannot believe it. To think we were having a pleasant picnic with him a few days ago, and all the time—"

  "It is terrible. You know what makes it worse?"

  "What?"

  "If he was honest in the cave, and I trust he was since he had not reason to lie anymore, he wasn’t responsible for Caspar’s death. Whoever killed him is still at large, living a normal life. We may well have seen him or her at the festival. Will we ever discover who is responsible?"

  Briony shrugs. "I have to believe so."

  "We will see."

  "I am so sorry you have had such a horrid time, Evie." She bites her lower lip, a telltale sign tears will soon follow. Too tired to give much consolation tonight, I only shake my head and offer a weak smile.

  "It is not your fault, as you know. I am glad I came. Darius did what he did so long ago, and Caspar would likely have met the same fate if I had been thousands of miles away. It is as it is and cannot be undone, I am not be broken by either event. These tragedies are just that, tragic, but we have to learn to live with the fact that they invaded our lives and are part of our history."

  "I suppose that is true, Evie. And for what it’s worth, I am glad you came. You have been a good friend, and now I will be a good friend, too."

  "You are always a good friend."

  "Despite whining all the time?" She frowns at her lap.

  "Briony." I pull myself off the chair with effort and walk over to her. "Everything is well between us. As it always will be. Now," I sink onto the bed, "be a friend and see if the bath water is ready. I am filthy and exhausted, and you will not want me falling asleep on your precious linen in this state."

  Once in the bath with Briony dispatched to find out whether there have been any news, I close my eyes and lean my head against the small towel at the nape of my neck. I exhale deeply, but the tightness in my chest does not ease. Was it all a dream? I cannot help but wonder, floating here in this scented tub. Can it really have happened? It seems a lifetime ago I was in that ghastly cave, but the memories are so fresh and potent these events cannot have been mere figments of my imgination.

  Darius killed his own brother—his own brother—and left his body to rot while he went about his life, returning to the cave all the time, stealing and lying. His parents. Oh, his poor parents! Will they believe their own child capable of such a horrendous deed? He was the only son they had left, even before knowing why Andros could never return. Now, they will lose their only living child, too. What horror. What senseless tragedy. There are no other words for it. Four lives are ruined, if not more. And for what? A madman’s obession.

  Our little world has seen too many mad, careless, cruel people. I shudder of what else is still to come in my lifetime, my children’s, their children’s … It goes on and on, and we follow along, living and dying. How will history judge what we do? Darius will be forgotten, despite the pain he caused. His evil was not grand enough to be commemorated in the books and stories of our lives. The people here and now will cry and mourn, grieve and shout, yet in ten years, twenty, who but his parents will remember? Our stories are so small, and the few of us who make them big are often the worst of the lot. Is it not enough to be, to simply be? Cannot goodness be our highest aim, or is that a thought even children are not long able to sustain? For some
perhaps it is, still we are none of us perfect, and distraction, whether it comes disguised as love or reward, is often our downfall. Will I resist? Will I end my life without regrets? If Darius had succeeded, if he had killed me, what would my life have meant? Briony would be shattered, and I could not be there to comfort her. Jeffrey would feel responsible, and Agnes …? Would she blame me for having run away in the first place?

  I open my eyes, my face wet from bathwater mingled with tears. He did not succeed, and I am here. Battered feet, gangly limbs, pruny fingers. All still here. Life is a fragile thing, but we are resilient, too, and this I must remember. Daniel has suffered terrible losses. He has seen death, lived with it hovering over his trench in the mud of France. He is coping and moving on and so will I.

  The water has grown cool and my fingers wrinkly. I clamber out, wrapping myself in a soft towel and then a sky-blue robe, which Briony has draped over a small stool beside the washbasin.

  I glance into the mirror, wiping away the fog. There I am, just as before, maybe a bit pinker. Sometimes our scars are visible on the outside for everyone to see, a reminder that we have been harmed. When they are on the inside, we learn to dress those wounds well enough to appear as undamaged as we do on the outside. People tend to believe what they see, and black holes in your heart are rarely visible to others.

  Smiling encouragement at my weary reflection, I walk back to my bedroom. As I enter, I hear a knock at the door.

  "Evie? Evie are you—"

  "Come in!"

  Briony enters, her face flushed with excitement. My heart quickens.

  "Dymas called. They found him! They’ve arrested him. He’s at the police station right now."

  I inhale slowly, relief and an unexpected melancholy coursing through me. "Thank heavens!" I drop onto the edge of the bed.

  "He was not violent. No one got hurt. They are questioning him now. Dymas sounded rather frustrated. Darius is talking only to himself saying, ‘mine, they are mine’ or something similar over and over again, maybe a bit addled from the blow you dealt him. I am so relieved."

  "Yes," I smile weakly, "he is unwell, of course. It is a very sad story."

  "He is a murderer, Evie. He killed his own brother, and he would have—"

  "I know. Still, I cannot help feeling a little sad, for him and his brother and his parents. Imagine, their remaining son killed his only brother, and now he is too far gone to recognize the evil nature of his deed." I shake my head. "All that misery might have been avoided, if he had only spoken to his brother, tried to come to an agreement."

  "Men are brutes," is Briony’s simple answer.

  CHAPTER 35

  I am lying in bed, watching the shadows of tree branches dance across the walls, the curtain swaying everytime a soft breeze enters the room. Bone tired, and still I cannot sleep. Tossing and turning, too hot, then too cold, I cannot be comfortable. Counting sheep proves a complete waste of time as I disover at number nine-hundred and seventy. I try to clear my mind, to think of the blue sky, soft and gentle and … No, still awake. It is hardly surprising, but I had hoped to disappear into a dreamworld for a little while, to stop my mind from haunting me with images of dead men, of which I have seen two too many of late. Perhaps I should accept it. Allow myself to think about it, acknowledge reality and move on. It is never so simple.

  Troubling me, beyond his obvious villainy, is Darius’ denial of responsibility for Caspar’s murder. I believe him. He was too far gone to bother denying the truth if he had done it. The question looms in my mind: Who else might have done it? Of the innocence of Jeffrey, Briony, Daniel and myself, I am certain. Who remains? Yes, Caspar was a blackmailer, however, the sums listed in his journal were not ruinous. Then again, some people will only be pushed so far before they do something regrettable.

  Initially, Nikolas was my main suspect. He does have a good alibi, and he and Laria were in much better spirits at the festival than before. No, most likely, it was not him. Beyond all else, he is a doctor, sworn to ease suffering and not to be the cause of it. But he is human … I cannot fully discount him. Laria’s alibi is her mother, and mothers are known to protect their children.

  On the other hand, she appeared genuinely shocked when we told her what had befallen her exlover that I cannot in good conscience consider her a suspect. Who else, who else?

  The curtain flutters at a gust of wind as if aiming to tell me something. Right! Niobe and Yannick. Our secretive couple and their garden trysts. They appear, if my observation can be trusted, not particularly romantic. Certainly any amorous feeling is not two-sided. Niobe is plainly using the poor chap, and he is infatuated. He may do whatever she asks. Including murder? What if … I sit up in bed, what if Caspar is the child’s father? What if he was going about romancing a number or women and when Niobe presented him with the result, he rejected her! What if she told Yannick that Caspar had seduced her and ought to be punished? Oh dear, oh dear!

  As the thought crosses my mind, I remember they have alibis, too. I sink back into the pillows. How strong are their alibis? If I trust Laria’s mother to vouch for her daughter, I ought to believe Niobe’s as well. And Yannick … He might have slipped off, he had the car after all, done the deed and gone back to have cheese and olives with his soon-to-be family. Possibly, possibly. Very worrisome indeed. For a moment, I toy with the idea of waking the others, then decide it will keep till the morning. The police is overworked with one criminal tonight, and a fair number of them will go to work with throbbing heads from tonight’s festival.

  So, Yannick and Niobe are possible suspects. Anyone else? There are many people who Caspar knew, people I have not met. It may be anyone of them. Within the circle of our shared acquaintances, Yannick seems the most obvious choice, if indeed the child is Caspar’s.

  The cook can be dismissed from my list of suspects. Her alibi is tight as Dymas assured us the day after the murder. Further, she has no apparent motive, though it would certainly have been easiest for her to poison him as she handled all of his food and drink. Too obvious. No, I cannot think it was her.

  Paul and Rosie? Why? Rosie is a very unlikely candidate. She is not physically or mentally able to set into action such an elaborate plan. What if her condition is a front? No. The poor woman has been dealt a terrible fate as has her husband. What motive could either of them possibly have? Paul may have been blackmailed by Caspar for something or other, but his name does not appear in the journal. Further, they are unlikely to have ever met before coming to Crete. Paul and Rosie are from Holland, and Caspar lived in England before going to France during the war. I have to yawn. While my exhaustion takes over and my eyes drift shut, I have the faint idea that I am forgetting something terribly important …

  CHAPTER 36

  Despite the fear of never sleeping again or being haunted forever by the spindly hands of ghosts and spirits, I was able to drift off into a deep, dreamless slumber, waking at the respectable hour of nine in the morning. Initially, I believe yesterday’s events were only a frightening nightmare. It does not take long to realize this is, unfortunately, not the case. My crippling shoes are lying dirty and ruined on the floor beside my dresser, a potent reminder of the truth.

  As are the blisters on my feet.

  I am faced with conflicting emotions of wanting to stay in bed and wanting to find out whether there have been any developments. Allowing myself the private luxury of a frustrated groan, I climb out of bed. The wooden planks between the two rugs that cover much of the floor are delightfully cool, and I stand for a moment, stretching my arms. I wonder whether the others are already awake? It is Wednesday, so Jeffrey may even go to the museum. It will be quite an ordeal for him to explain that their respectable curator is a murderer and thief. I do not envy Jeffrey this thankless task. Cretans are protective of ‘their own’ and will almost certainly find it difficult to believe the mild-mannered man they knew and respected capable of such villainy. It is a frightening truth. Anyone might be capable of evil doings
, if even a man like Darius was.

  I pad over to the wardrobe. After some internal debate whether I should wear black, I instead decide on an emerald green dress with a square neckline and large buttons I can easily do up without Niobe’s help. What happened to her last night? Either Yannick picked her up later, or she went home with her parents. Contemplating this, my semi-conscious suspicion bubbles to the surface again. I must speak with someone about it. Time is running, and all this must be resolved.

  Doing up the last button, I slip into a pair of soft leather sandals, a relief for my still blistered feet, and decide to ask Daniel about his thoughts on the matter. He is in possession of a clear head, and I do not want Briony to come to the wrong conclusions regarding her household staff. Besides, I cannot tell her about Niobe’s pregancy. Not yet. And I cannot explain my suspicion without revealing her secret. I feel guilty towards Niobe. On the other hand, motive for murder trounces a promise of discretion.

  Leaving my room, I happen upon just the man. Daniel looks pleased as he notices me in the hallway.

  "Good morning. Did you sleep after last night’s ordeal?"

  "Disturbingly soundly, I must admit."

  "I am hoping Dymas will come and tell us his news."

  "Yes, I am quite certain he will. I still have to sign my statement."

  He gives me a sympathetic smile

  "Daniel," I touch his arm when we reach the bottom step, "might we speak in private a moment?"

  "Yes, of course. Are you all right?"

  "As can be expected. This is about something else. Last night I went over all that happened and …" I explain to him my suspicions.

  He stays calm throughout, only raising his eyebrows and widening his eyes when I tell him of the pregancy. Then he rubs his chin and frowns. "If Caspar knew of this, I believe he would have told me. He often felt the need for a confessor regarding his affairs, and he did not attend church."