The Major took a sheet of notepaper out of his pocket. 'When Matheos Noukakis' house was searched last night this was found,' he said. 'I did not wish to raise the question with you earlier when we were with Leandros because I know of his relationship with her daughter.'
He handed the letter to Spiridakis who unfolded it and read it.
'It is a pact,' went on Krasakis. 'An agreement. And it clearly implicates Kyria Matakis in at least conspiring to kill the Englishman, of initiating the attempt.'
Stunned, the lawyer looked up from the letter. 'But from what motive? I know of none. That I swear to you. '
The Major held his look. 'And it also makes her an accomplice; he continued, 'to the murder of her own granddaughter, and her great grandson.'
Spiridakis nodded. He was appalled. 'Dear God! No wonder she was struck down by the news. And with Noukakis there.' And then it became clear to him. 'It was him then that she cursed,' he added reflectively. He sighed, shook his head despairingly and then indicated the letter. 'What will you do about this?' he asked. 'Katerina Matakis is desperately ill. She is probably dying.'
The Major took the letter from him. 'In that case,' he said gravely, 'she will answer elsewhere for her part in this. And whatever God or gods she believes in perhaps there she will find some mercy.'
Katerina's eyes were open but it was obvious that she had no control over any of her limbs. Not once throughout the examination did she speak. When the doctor had finished he nodded to the nurse who pulled the bedclothes back over the old woman. The doctor smiled and nodded encouragingly at Katerina and then, picking up his bag from the bedside table, he left the room.
Annika was waiting for him in the sitting room, strained and exhausted.
'The damage is very bad I am afraid, Kyria Zeferis,' the doctor said with a sigh. 'Your mother is completely paralysed. She cannot move at all. She can hear and she can see. But she cannot speak. And that is how it will be with her until the end.'
Annika nodded. 'I understand; she said. 'And how long will she live?'
The doctor shrugged. 'A day. A week. A month. Months even. A year perhaps. There is no way one can tell.' He shook his head. 'I am sorry.' There is nothing I can do. Nothing anyone can do. Except to make her as comfortable as possible. She will need constant attention. You would like the nurse to remain here?' he asked.
'Yes.'
'I will arrange it. And I will call every day.'
'Thank you,' said Annika.
The doctor shook his head once more and again he sighed. 'I only wish I could do more,' he replied wearily. 'To help her, and to comfort you.'
Once the doctor had left, Annika climbed the stairs to Katerina's bedroom. The nurse was sitting beside the bed intent on some embroidery. As Annika entered she made a move as if to stand up but Annika motioned her to stay where she was and then crossed to the bed and looked down at her mother, lying with her paralysed arms stretched out by her sides above the cover. Katerina Matakis stared up at her daughter desperately. There was so much that she wanted to say, to explain but she could not.
Annika smiled at her, lifted Katerina's right hand and kissed it. Then, gently, she put the useless and lifeless hand back on the bed again.
Lying on the bedside table was the key to the wooden box in the cabinet in the sitting room. Casually Annika picked it up and then turned and moved towards the door. Katerina was aware that she had picked up the key and frantically she tried to cry out, to speak but her lips would not move and she could not make a sound.
Annika slowly descended the stairs and went back into the sitting room. She crossed to the carved cabinet, opened the drawer and took out the wooden box. She carried it over to the table and set it down. Then, pulling up a chair, she settled herself on it and, with a sigh. unlocked the box and lifted the lid. Reaching inside, she pulled out the documents and the papers which it contained and which, with her mother no longer able to manage her own affairs, she knew she must now examine so as to be ready to discuss them with Petros when he arrived.
She was sorting through the paper when she found the letters addressed to Melina. Interested, she picked up the top envelope and studied it. She frowned slightly. The letters were written long ago and to her sister but somehow the handwriting seemed vaguely familiar. Curious, she pulled the letter out of the envelope, unfolded it and began to read.
Spiridakis drove along the rough, narrow, unpaved road to the point where it petered out entirely and they could go no further by car. He stopped the old Mercedes and he and Haldane got out. To the left a barely discernible goat track led the way up into the mountains and to the peaks of Oros Idi.
Both men were suitably dressed to make a long journey on foot across difficult terrain. Haldane had a knapsack slung over one shoulder and a pair of field glasses hanging from a strap around his neck. Together they went to the back of the car and Spiridakis opened the boot. Reaching into it, he pulled out a hunting rifle and a box of ammunition which he handed to Haldane.
The Englishman took the bullets from the box and slipped them into his pocket. Then, expertly, he checked the action of the rifle and fed some of the ammunition into the magazine.
Spiridakis pointed to the goat track. 'They were last seen above the village of Visagi, heading west.'
'Do the police know this?' asked Haldane.
Spiridakis shook his head. 'Not from me. And not from any man who was with the Andarte. They will report any sightings.' He took a second rifle and some ammunition from the boot. 'But only to us,' he added.
Haldane looked at him and then at the gun he was holding and shook his head. 'To me,' he said firmly.
Spiridakis frowned. 'Noukakis is not alone,' he protested. 'His brother, Ioannis, is with him. He is a wild one. and they are very close.'
'On my own, Babis,' insisted Haldane flatly. 'This is my affair. My vengeance.' He clipped the magazine into the rifle and, snapping home the bolt, drove a cartridge into the breach. He put on the safety catch. 'And I want no one else at risk,' he said adamantly.
Spiridakis searched his face and saw from his expression that there was no point in arguing. He put the second rifle and the ammunition he was holding back into the boot of the car and closed it. Then he turned to Haldane and embraced him. 'Take care, Leandros,' he said. 'And God be with you.'
Haldane nodded, slung the rifle on to his shoulder and then, moving away from the car, started to make his way up the track.
For some time Spiridakis stood watching him climb, sure-footed and with purpose, higher and higher up into the mountains.
As Spiridakis entered his office he pulled up sharply with a look of surprise. His secretary had not been at her desk as he had strode past it so he was unaware that Annika was waiting for him.
'Annika!' he exclaimed.
She was standing looking out of the window. She turned to him. Spiridakis closed the door.
Annika, her eyes on his face, opened her handbag and took from it the three letters which Haldane had written to Melina. She held them out to the lawyer.
'I found these,' she said tonelessly, 'locked away in a box in my mother's house.'
The letters meant nothing to Spiridakis. He had never seen them before. He walked over to her, took them from her and examined them. He frowned and then, after shooting a worried glance at her, pulled one of the letters from its envelope and scanned it. His frown deepened.
'You knew of this?' she asked.
Spiridakis looked at her again and he could see that there was nothing to be gained from lies. He nodded.
'Yes,' he said quietly and with a sigh. 'And I also knew that Leandros had written such letters because when he first returned to Crete he told me that he had. But Melina never received them. Of that I was certain and I said this to him. But I could not explain why.' He shook his head sadly. 'Now I know. Katerina intercepted them.'
'Melina was very much in love with him?' she asked And from her expression the lawyer could tell that the answer was very important
to her. 'Deeply,' he said.
'And he with her?'
'Yes.' This was the moment. The moment he had dreaded. For her and for Leandros. But there was no evading it. 'And there are other things that you must know, Annika.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Matheos Noukakis and his brother, a short, thickset, ill-tempered looking man in his mid-thirties, slithered down the tree and rock-covered slope and on to the road. They each had a rucksack on his back and each carried a rifle.
They hesitated, crouching behind the cover of a bush.
Noukakis glanced up the road. Apart from two men sitting at a table under the shade of a tree outside the local taverna intent on their game of tavli, the village street appeared to be deserted. Matheos signalled to his brother and, keeping low, they dodged quickly across the road.
Out of the corner of his eye, the younger of the two tavli players was aware of the sudden movement down the street from where he was sitting. He glanced up and saw the Noukakis brothers take shelter behind the drinking fountain. He frowned and then turned his attention back to the tavli board.
Matheos and Ioannis waited for a few seconds, crouching beside the water trough, then they climbed up into the sanctuary of the trees on the rising ground behind them.
The sun was beginning to set when Haldane, following almost exactly the same path taken by his quarry, came down the slope and stepped onto the road. He looked around cautiously and then crossed to the fountain and, leaning his rifle against the trough, drank from the cool, sweet water gently spouting from the pipe above it.
Very much on the alert and suddenly aware that someone was approaching him, he grabbed his rifle again and, with the gun levelled from his hip and flicking off the safety catch, swung round.
The younger of the two tavli players pulled up sharply three or four yards off from him. He was a man of about Haldane's own age. 'Leandros?' he asked.
Haldane nodded and lowered the barrel of his rifle a little. The man came up to him and pointed in the direction taken by the Noukakis brothers. 'Two, three hours ago,' he said.
Haldane considered the man and then nodded his thanks. Resetting the safety catch, he slung the rifle over his shoulder and started up the slope and into the trees. Spiridakis had been right, he thought. He had said that the news that Leandros of the Andarte was hunting Matheos Noukakis would spread quickly. But then, he reflected grimly that if the people of the mountain villages knew this then surely so must the men he was following. And if that was the case then sooner or later somewhere up there in the rocky wilderness below the snowline they would be waiting for him.
Annika, alone in the chapel, her eyes closed, knelt on the stone floor and prayed.
Then after some minutes, she rose from her knees, crossed to the candle stand, slipped a handful of coins into the box, took a candle, lit it from the guttering flame of one already burning and then wedged it into the sand. For a few seconds she stared at the taper then she turned from it and walked away and out through the chapel door.
She crossed to her car. The sun, an enormous blood red ball, was beginning to sink behind the mountains. Silhouetted against it, Annika stood and gazed at this symbol of mankind's most ancient beliefs and silently she delivered up another prayer to other gods.
As the sun sank and the mountain air around them grew cooler, Noukakis and his brother heard the helicopter and dived for cover.
The chopper came close to their hiding place but then veered off on another course.
From his seat beside the pilot, Krasakis scanned the mountainside below them through binoculars. He could detect nothing moving on the rugged terrain and the light was going fast. He lowered the binoculars and signalled to the pilot to turn back. The pilot nodded and then swung the helicopter onto an easterly heading and a course which took it exactly over the spot where, 200 feet beneath it, Alan Haldane lay, cramped and motionless, in the shelter of a defile in the rocks.
When he judged that the helicopter was too far away for anyone in it to spot him, he got to his feet and slung his haversack and the rifle over his shoulders.
Haldane had known from the very beginning that he was on the right track from the information given to him by the occasional shepherd he had met on the way and by checking, whenever he had been close enough to a village with a telephone, with Spiridakis to whom all the ex-members of the Andarte immediately relayed any sightings of the fugitives.
And less than an hour earlier, from a high peak, he had caught a glimpse of Matheos and Ioannis Noukakis through the powerful field glassed Spiridakis had given him. He had estimated that the two small but identifiable figures were, at most, only four miles ahead of him and, as Major Krasakis had predicted, were heading west towards Sfakia.
Soon it would be dark but while there was still some light he might be able to narrow the gap between them some more. He set off in pursuit.
It was nearly ten o'clock at night but Babis Spiridakis was still in his office. Spread out in front of him and illuminated by the lamp on his desk was a large scale map of the western half of the island.
Spiridakis spoke into the telephone. 'Yes ... Yes .. .' he acknowledged. And then he checked the map. This latest information confirmed the last sighting he had been given. 'Good,' he said into the phone. 'Thank you.' And he hung up.
As he did so the door of his office, which was still ajar, was gently pushed open and Major Krasakis stepped into the room.
Spiridakis quickly folded the map and got to his feet.
'Forgive me, Kyrie Spiridakis,' the Major apologised with a smile. 'But there was no one in the outer office to announce me.'
Spiridakis shook his head. 'No. My secretary is not here.'
Krasakis stood in the doorway and looked at him. He glanced at the folded map on the desk. 'And yet you are still working,' he said, and there was a faint note of surprise in his voice.
'On personal business,' replied Spiridakis.
'And your telephone call?' Krasakis enquired pleasantly.
The lawyer frowned. 'Was in connection with that,' he countered abruptly.
'I see,' smiled the Major. He crossed slowly to the desk and, as he did so, Spiridakis casually picked up the map and put it into a drawer.
‘I have been to Leandros' house,’ Krasakis went on. 'He was not there.'
'Oh!' The lawyer hoped that he sounded sufficiently surprised.
'No. And I thought that perhaps you might know where he is.'
Spiridakis shook his head and met Krasakis' gaze. 'No, Major. I am afraid that I cannot help you. I have no idea where he is ... ' He paused and then added to give truth to the statement, 'at this moment.'
Again the Major studied him. Then he nodded thoughtfully. 'He was close to the Vassilakis family, was he not?' he asked.
'Yes.'
'More than just a friend would you say?'
'He loved them,’ replied Spiridakis. 'All of them. That is no secret.'
'And their deaths will naturally have caused him great pain.'
'Naturally. As they pained all who knew them.'
'But Leandros more than others perhaps?' persisted Krasakis. 'Particularly since he knows they died in his place.'
Spiridakis shrugged. 'Perhaps.'
'And knowing that,' the Major went on, 'and knowing who killed them and who it was who would have killed him, a man like Leandros might be tempted to do something foolish, do you not think?'
Spiridakis gave him a puzzled, questioning look. 'Something foolish, Major?' he asked innocently.
Krasakis nodded. 'Like seeking revenge. Taking the law into his own hands.'
Spiridakis hesitated. Then he made a gesture. 'Who can say?' he said. 'He might.'
'Yes, he might,' Krasakis nodded and he was no longer smiling. 'That is why I went to his house. To advise him against taking any such action.' He turned and moved to the door where he paused and looked back at the lawyer. 'You understand?'
Spiridakis nodded. 'I understand.'
'Good,
' said the Major. 'For were he to find Noukakis and kill him in vengeance that would make him a murderer, and put me against him. And I would not want that. Tell him this, will you?'
'Yes, Major,' replied Spiridakis levelly. 'I will tell him.' He shrugged and gave the policeman a faint smile. 'When I next see him.'
Georgios Kaladis yawned widely and scratched himself as he crossed to the front door of his house and opened it to the first light of a new day. He stepped outside, spat and looked around sleepily.
Kaladis' house and the small patch of land which he owned and worked with his wife and family lay on the outer fringes of a small village high in the mountains. Yawning again, he surveyed the scrubland beyond where he stood.
It was then that he saw and recognised Matheos and Ioannis Noukakis.
They were approaching the house along a path which would bring them within twenty feet of it. Matheos was holding his rifle over his shoulder while his brother had his nestled in the crook of his left arm. They were moving quickly but warily. But not warily enough, thought Kaladis. They had obviously not spotted him in the doorway.
He stepped back into the house took down his shotgun from the pegs on which it rested on the wall beside the fireplace and loaded both barrels.
Matheos and his brother came level with the house and, as they did so, Kaladis appeared in the open doorway. He took two or three paces out of the house and levelled the shotgun.
'You two!' he called out. 'Stop! I know who you are. Do not move.'
Matheos and Ioannis pulled up sharply and slowly turned to the old man. The shotgun was unwavering and the expression on Kaladis' face was uncompromising. Noukakis shot a worried, questioning look at his brother. Ioannis gave him a brief nod and, as Matheos made a sudden, feinting movement as if to make a run for it, Kaladis swung the shotgun round to cover him.
In one swift, fluid movement Ioannis levelled his rifle and fired,
The impact of the bullet hurtled Kaladis back through the open doorway and on to the floor of the house. From inside a woman screamed.
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