1 The Assassins' Village

by Faith Mortimer

  ‘Oh I’m sorry,’ Di spluttered joining in her laughter. ‘I couldn’t warn you in time. That was a rogue wave. It must have come from a ship out at sea. There’s no wind to make any. Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes of course I am. It’s a good thing Ann isn’t here, as she hates waves of any kind. Let’s swim out once more to the orange buoys and back, and then go in for a drink? Coming?’

  With long lazy strokes, they made it as far as the buoys that separated the swimming from the sailing boats area. After taking a breather they agreed to head for the shore. Diana felt the first tell-tale twinges of leg cramp and didn’t want to get caught out.

  Massaging her calf, Diana became aware of a long and slim, dark-grey shape gliding in the water nearby. Panic gripped her. A shark! She turned back towards Jenny.

  ‘Jenny!’ the scream tore from her throat.

  ‘What is it?’ Jenny puffed up alongside.

  ‘Did you see it? I think I saw a shark.’

  ‘What? Where?’ Jenny’s large eyes darkened with terror. She thrashed around and peered down into the water’s depths.

  ‘Keep calm and still. Movement might make it come back. Stay close to me.’

  ‘How can I stay calm if there’s a shark out here? Did you, did you see a fin?’ Jenny squeaked with terror.

  ‘No.’ Di gasped as she too looked fearfully down into the depths.

  They kept close together as they swam steadily towards the shore, terrified and trying hard to keep back the rising panic. Just then, a glistening grey beak poked its head out of the water just in front of them. Its eye was turned towards both women and Diana felt as if it was looking right at her as it moved forward.

  Jenny let out a horrified scream of terror and started swimming erratically towards the shore.

  ‘Jenny, Jenny it’s all right! It’s not a shark! It’s a dolphin. Look.’

  The intelligent eye slid back under the surface and glided nearer to Diana. She held her breath in wonder, not daring to move. Despite being a dolphin and not a shark, it was still a large wild animal. Then, the most amazing thing happened. The mammal slid alongside and gently thrust its beak under her armpit. As Diana was about to call out in alarm, the dolphin began to swim towards the shore taking Diana along. The dolphin was gentle, and stopped every now and then to reposition its beak in her armpit. They overtook Jenny who stopped swimming and looked on in astonishment. With a look of total bewilderment on her face she watched the dolphin carry Diana in towards the shallower waters. As quickly as the dolphin arrived it turned and swam out to sea again, giving a wiggle of its tail.

  Placing her feet on the sandy bottom Diana was left wondering, why me? She stood there quaking with excitement and wonder. She glanced around and nobody onshore had noticed, they all appeared absorbed in their own activities. She felt privileged. It was beautiful, by far one of the most astounding things she had ever experienced.

  ‘Di! Are you all right?’ Jenny asked her in a breathy voice when she eventually reached her. She looked as white as a ghost.

  Filled with awe and shaking with excitement, Diana covered her mouth with her hand and nodded at her friend. She had heard strange stories before, of how dolphins sometimes rescued drowning sailors or swimmers. But she had not been in danger of drowning. Why had it approached her? Yes, she’d felt a twinge of cramp but what if the dolphin sensed something special about her? It was bizarre. She could not wait to tell Steve.

  ~~~

  Steve and Bernard had snuck away and were on their second pint of cider when Diana and Jenny joined them at the beach restaurant. The women gushed out the dolphin story as they collapsed into their chairs.

  Steve looked sceptical. ‘Well I see neither ships nor dolphins. And I’ve never seen one here before. You certainly have a vivid imagination my love,’ he teased.

  ‘But it’s true.’ Di felt cross at him for doubting her word.

  Steve raised his brow and gave Bernard an amused look, and then turned to Diana. ‘I suggest you keep your fiction for your books, darling.’

  Infuriated that the men thought their story far-fetched, Diana and Jenny decided to let the matter drop. However, Diana promised that Steve would regret doubting her story when they got home!

  ~~~

  ‘Gosh, Bernard. You’ve hardly started that pint. You’re slow today.’ Di remarked. Jen shot her an irritated look.

  ‘Rubbish, Di. He’s already had one pint. Don’t think just because you’re not driving us home you can get legless. I’ve only got so much in my purse,’ she rounded on him with a deep scowl.

  Bernard raised his glass to Jen in a gesture of defiance saying, ‘Don’t be a spoilsport, my love.’

  ‘I’m not! It’s just that I need to go to the bank,’ she sounded worried.

  Steve looked over to Diana who gave a tiny nod of her head. She knew he read her signs when he stepped in with a cajoling smile. ‘Don’t worry, Jenny, lunch is on us today.’

  ‘Oh no, no you can’t do that.’ She gave a quick glance across to Bernard.

  ‘Oh yes we can. We owe it to you for looking after Sparky and watering the garden when we were away.’

  ‘But you gave us a nice plant in return.’

  ‘Yes, but that was nothing. Anyway, why can’t I treat our friends sometimes? It’s reasonably priced here so it’s not as if it’s going to break us, is it? Now no more arguments. Shall we look at the menu and order lunch before they get really busy? The place is beginning to fill up fast.’

  They ordered a simple meal of pork and lamb kebabs, salad with warm pitta bread, dips and the old favourite; chips. Proper chips; made from potatoes and not flour. Potatoes peeled and fried to a golden crispy skin with a soft and tasty inside.

  ‘Funny how I never lose my appetite even in hot weather,’ said Di helping herself to another good spoonful.

  ‘And here was I thinking you were feeling sick earlier,’ Steve smiled at her with his eyebrows raised.

  ‘Mmm. It’s the third or fourth time this week. Perhaps I have a wee bug or something.’

  ‘There’s always something going around,’ said Bernard. ‘It’s the tourists; they bring all sorts of nasty things over with them. I blame the air conditioning on the planes. Thank you both for this. You’re very kind and generous. It is delicious and totally unexpected.’

  ‘Yes, and our second meal out in two days,’ agreed Jenny.

  Steve waved aside their thanks with a smile as he asked where they had eaten out yesterday.

  ‘Well, we were going to tell you. We ate at the new taverna, Michael’s with Pete, Ann and Tilly. It was excellent. The food was very good and the views are simply gorgeous. It was pretty much packed out as well. You must try it sometime.’

  ‘Yes, you must. The four of us drove up together and met Tilly there in the evening. She was desperate to get out,’ Jenny agreed.

  ‘Oh? Why was that?’ asked a curious Diana.

  There was a little pause as Bernard and Jenny looked at each other. It was clear to the others that they wondered what to say. Jenny’s gaze lingered on Bernard, her earlier, carefree look now unsure. They had promised Tilly not to say a word to anyone. On this occasion she waited for Bernard to make the decision.

  ‘Oh, she has some personal problems at the moment. It’s nothing that can’t be settled. Is that kebab going free Jenny?’ Bernard said changing the subject and pointing at her plate with his fork.

  Steve and Diana gave a quick glance to each other. If they wanted to tell them it was up to them. The conversation paused and everyone tucked into his or her food.

  Pushing his empty plate aside, Bernard gave a contented sigh, and picked up his third pint of Blackthorns. He took a large swig and smacked his lips together in appreciation. ‘Jen and I love eating out, but we do have to watch the pennies now.’

  Diana and Steve had always assumed that as Bernard and Jenny no longer worked they relied on pensions. Finite resources of course, often did not go as far as one would like.
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br />   ‘It wasn’t always this bad. Just the last year or so,’ Bernard frowned as he studied the gold coloured cider in his glass for a moment. He traced a finger down the condensation on the outside. ‘Actually I got taken for a ride,’ he raised his head and looked first at Steve and then across to Diana. A look of anger darkened his face. ‘I was persuaded to cash in some P.E.Ps and reinvest it in a supposedly watertight, fail proof new investment. Unknown to me it was all a bloody scam.’

  Jenny touched Bernard’s hand. ‘You weren’t to know, darling,’ she said in a soft consoling voice.

  ‘How perfectly dreadful. Was this here in Cyprus?’ Di assumed he was talking about some Anglo-Cypriot venture.

  ‘Yes. I was guaranteed a high rate, a very high rate, of interest in return for lending them the money. Unfortunately, there was nothing legal backing them. Just a lot of quick mouthed, smooth talking bastards. I tell you his acting merited an Oscar! He’s wasting his time with all that modern art he’s so proud of,’ he paused and took another sip from his glass. Diana registered what he had said as her stomach did a quick flip. It felt as if it had suddenly fallen from a height. She instinctively knew what he would say when she asked, ‘His acting? His modern art?’

  Bernard looked at her and replied in a terse tone, ‘Yes. You know whom of course, Leslie. He was the one who approached me. He got me all interested and fired up in this Grand Scheme that was, oh so infallible! Huh! What he didn’t say was that the main players were Russian!’

  ‘Russian?’

  ‘Yes. Dodgy money and everything else that goes with it,’ he gave a huge sigh that sounded full of resentment. ‘To cut a long story short, I paid out in all good faith, expecting a full statement of accounts and presto, they disappeared. Probably Russian Mafioso connections for all I know. Cyprus has loads of Ruskies here now. Did you know that, Limassol as a town has the largest number of Russians in it outside Russia itself?’

  ‘Yes I did read that somewhere, but what about Leslie’s involvement? How was he implicated? Did he lose money too?’

  Jen snorted in unladylike disgust. ‘Oh no. He was too clever for that. His job – he was paid a commission to introduce naïve investors like ourselves, was simply to get them all signed up.’

  ‘Stitched up more like,’ stormed Bernard. ‘He never parted with a penny of his own money. We weren’t the first either. Oh no. He’d been doing it for some time,’ he stopped and thought for a moment before continuing. ‘So all in all, with his little shenanigans, he fair nigh ruined us. Thank God we own the little house we’re in and don’t need to pay rent. Apart from our small pensions and a couple of small investments of Jen’s we have nothing else left.’

  There was a small silence before Jenny sadly agreed. ‘No, there’s nothing else and scarcely anything to leave to the children.’

  Steve and Diana looked at each other in consternation. This was shocking! How could someone who lived in the same village treat people like that?

  ‘I am so sorry,’ Di said.

  ‘Me too. What a bastard. He must have known.’

  ‘Well. That’s that. Done and dusted. We’ll never get it back and now we have to live within our means. Of course Jen can’t buy all the new clothes she relishes, and we can’t get back to visit the grandchildren as much as we’d like but-,’ he smiled at his wife with fondness and squeezed her hand.

  ‘It’s amazing what you can find in the charity shops. Some very good labels and sometimes hardly ever worn,’ she replied with a jaunty grin in return. ‘We’ve got each other. That’s all that counts and our health of course.’

  ‘Even so, you can’t like him after all that,’ Di pushed. ‘And as you said, there must be others who’ve been hurt?’

  ‘Like him? I loathe the man. And now this appalling thing with Tilly!’ he stopped, aghast when he realized his mistake. He had almost broken his word. He flapped a hand to cover his embarrassment, ‘Well, I’m sorry, but we can’t tell you about that, as we said we wouldn’t. But I’ll tell you this much. If I was a more violent and younger man, and I had had the opportunity, I would have beaten him to a pulp!’

  Bernard shook with barely suppressed rage, his mouth a thin white line. Steve and Di had never seen him like this before. Usually Bernard was a perfect gentleman, old-fashioned, well-mannered and in perfect control. He shifted his tortured gaze across and met Diana’s eyes.

  There was a whooshing noise in Diana’s ears as she stared back at the look in his face. She felt a flood of nausea rush up from the pit of her stomach. Her face blanched as she reeled with shock, and then relief came as she keeled over in a dead faint.

  Chapter 5. Sunday 29th.

  Come what come may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

  Macbeth. Act 1 Scene 3

  Leaning against the old china sink, Sonja drank her second glass of ice-cold water. She normally walked her dogs in the cool of the early morning, but today she somehow could not get herself together. She had not slept well during the hot and airless night, and just as the first grey light had spread over the hillside opposite, she had fallen into a deep troubled slumber. When Leslie woke her a little later, asking when she might or might not be preparing breakfast, he had found that she was annoyed, as she’d overslept for the first time in years.

  ‘You might have woken me before now,’ she grumbled, tossing the crumpled and damp bed sheet to one side. ‘Now I’m all behind, and the dogs haven’t had their early walk,’ she paused at the end of their bed in an accusatory stance.

  Leslie eyed her with a rather baleful expression that could have meant anything. He twitched the sheet to recover his legs and picked up the book he had been reading. He had been in the mood for sex earlier, but he knew what the answer would have been if he had suggested it. Her and her annoying, damn dogs. These days she had little time to spare for him. Apart from the animals, she spent hours working in the garden and the rest in the kitchen. Her passion was making the most lavish of iced cakes, which she sold to a baker’s shop in Episkopi.

  Sonja gave an exasperated sigh, before flouncing off towards the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Leslie gave a little spiteful smile. He was out of sorts himself for these past few days. It was time for someone else to feel irritated with life.

  Glancing out of the nearby window Leslie saw that the sun had climbed halfway up into the sky. Already, he could feel the promise of another scorching day. Another ten minutes and it would be too hot to lie in bed. The sound of the telephone brought him out of his reverie; it was early for friends to call despite a Cypriot day starting at first light. Slightly puzzled, Leslie lifted the receiver and listened.

  ~~~

  Sonja hadn’t noticed it was yet another beautiful and sunny day. Leslie’s sudden announcement that the police were planning on paying them – no him, let us get that straight, a visit later that morning had placed her mind in a whirl. She could not begin to imagine what they could possibly want with Leslie. He had done nothing wrong that she knew of, except been extremely late in taxing the car again. As usual he had misplaced the renewal paperwork, and being a complete computer dinosaur, he hadn’t yet mastered the art of doing it over the Internet despite everyone saying how convenient and simple it was.

  Leslie said that the policeman was adamant. He wanted to speak to Leslie, and would around eleven o’clock be convenient? On a Sunday as well!

  Shortly after eleven, the doorbell to the courtyard rang and Sonja opened it to face two men dressed in suits. One was short and swarthy with a badly pitted olive complexion. His mother had obviously never heard of acne treatment when he had been in his teens. He was about forty-ish, had a receding hairline, and looked grumpy. The younger man was tall and rangy; his dark brown eyes were alert, probably never missing a thing. Sonja felt him staring deeply as the older man addressed her, and despite the sun, could not help suppressing a shiver.

  ‘Kuria Flowers? I am Inspector Andreas Christopopodolou and this is my colleague Sergeant Yiannis
Loukiades. I believe your husband is expecting us, yes?’

  Sonja took the dry outstretched hand in front of her. Later, she wished she had never been there to receive them. That she had never met the two policemen who were so polite to her. But above all, she wished she had never learnt the reason why they had cause to visit her husband in the first place.

  How could he the stupid fool?

  For years, she had known about his past affairs with other, prettier women. But to have the police involved in something that was so scandalous, and sordid. At first she refused to understand what they were saying. When they interviewed Leslie she couldn’t believe her ears. It must be all a ghastly mistake? The woman must be partly to blame evidently. Those who wore short skirts and low-necked blouses were nothing short of being common surely? Her mind whirled with all sorts of questions as she listened to what they had to say.

  As soon as the supercilious inspector and his observant sergeant had left their house and were out of earshot Sonja turned to Leslie in a rage.

  ‘How dare you! It’s bad enough that I have had to put up with your affairs over the years, but now this. They accused you of pestering her! Do you know how serious that is? And what if our so-called friends and neighbours get to find out, eh? Can you imagine the mileage they’ll get out of it?’ she hissed at him. ‘What were you thinking of? You’re nothing but an ageing Lothario and a bloody stupid one at that.’

  Sonja’s voice took on an edge that was bordering on the hysterical. She persisted in shouting at him. Her body shook with anger. Her usually pale eyes darkened as she worked herself up into a fury; her face suffused a mottled red. As much as Leslie was used to her often-short outbursts of temper, he appeared taken aback by the hate and venom that showed in the stiff rigid lines of her body and face. Never, had he seen her so angry. In order to diffuse the situation he attempted to make light of the matter.