1 The Assassins' Village

by Faith Mortimer

  Shrugging their black-clad shoulders they’d turn their thoughts to other things, an impending wedding or the demise of old Maria due to the dreaded cancer. God rest her. Funeral garments would be taken from their drawers, given a good shake to dislodge the moths, and Maria’s daughters would join the other older women to be dressed permanently, forever, in black.

  ~~~

  The crisp sunny day had disappeared and been replaced by a weak winter sun dipping behind the western hills. The encroaching shadows were deep slate-grey and maroon in the valley clefts; night would soon fall.

  Antigone gave a shiver as she threw another log onto the fire. The dry brittle wood caught almost immediately and the new blaze threw warm golden shadows to dance on the cottage stonewalls. The little house felt cold and damp. When Antigone had returned home and finished her chores she felt a lassitude fall upon her. The animals were all carefully penned up for the night. The chickens safe behind their wire and away from the marauding fox bandits.

  Weary, Antigone needed a good long sleep to restore her energy. Her usual evening task would have to wait until tomorrow after she’d rested. Her lamps were not bright enough for the tiny little stitches she was working on anyway.

  Her evening meal of stew had been tasty. Rinsing her plate and cutlery, Antigone put them away on the shelf before sorting out a chunky log for the fire. Just this once, she’d keep it going overnight. It would be good to rise tomorrow without feeling that deep inner chill she’d noticed lately.

  A clatter outside the house made her jump, and she swung round in the direction of the noise. Opening the door she was startled by her brother and father standing just inside the courtyard gate. As she watched her father swaying unsteadily on his feet, she realised with dismay that he was very drunk. A chill came over her; she knew their visit boded no good.

  ‘Papa, Kristiakis? What do you want at this late hour? I was just about to go to bed,’ she said and trying hard not to stammer as she noticed their glowering dark looks. What had she done wrong now?

  ‘This is not a social call,’ Kristiakis growled between his clenched teeth.

  ‘No it’s not. This is another matter. You tell her Kristiakis.’ Her spineless father agreed with his son after giving a loud belch and lurching into the house wall.

  Antigone guessed what was coming. She felt a wave of nausea sweep over her and her stomach did an involuntary flip. She willed herself not to faint with fear. She had so hoped to keep her condition secret for another month or two. She thought that once she had grown big and unable to conceal it, they would be safe.

  Unable to say a word, Antigone began to quiver with trepidation. It was Kristiakis who spelled out what he had been told that day.

  Yanoulla! That interfering, frustrated bitch of an old maid! Why hadn’t she just minded her own business for once?

  ‘Is it true?’ his voice was low.

  She had no choice. She whispered. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And just who is the father? Whose little bastard is it? Is it that silver-tongued Yiannis?’ Antigone recoiled away from the look on his face.

  ‘Yes.’ Her father reeled in the doorway. ‘Whose is it? I need to know, so we can get him to put a ring on your finger. His family can help pay for his dirty little ways. There will be a wedding to fork out for, the church, guests, food and drink. Don’t think you’re having an expensive fancy dress though, girl.’

  Antigone gaped in astonishment at this bombshell. Of course they would expect her to marry! If there was no marriage, a family vendetta would develop – they would believe their own propaganda, making up a story to suit themselves. They were capable of picking an innocent hapless victim as the father. Poor handsome Yiannis! He’d never be able to stand up to their bullying. Unless she told the truth there would be blood. The last thing she wanted was to have a blameless family brought into this. She felt as if she was in a void. Their voices and faces receded. For a few seconds she heard nothing.

  What could she tell her father?

  Her silence was telling. She stood there, her mind reeling. Kristiakis roughly swung her round to face him. He bruised her shoulder with his heavy hand and shook her so violently her head snapped back.

  ‘Well?’ He spat in her face with a globule of phlegm hitting her cheek. His breath was hot and smelling of raw onions, unlike her father’s which she knew would be sour and lethal from the alcohol he’d drunk that day.

  ‘Whose is it? You’d better tell us. How many months are you anyway?’ Both men took up positions on either side of her. Terrified, Antigone felt as if she was cornered by two snarling beasts. She looked at her brother.

  Kristiakis eyes opened wide with shock as he suddenly understood and realised who the father of her bastard brat was. The swift look that passed between them determined they could never disclose the truth. The horrified look on his face was replaced by one of cunning. ‘That bastard Britisher I should have guessed!’

  Her father looked on incredulous. ‘What? Not Yiannis? Who are you talking about?’ Catching hold of his son’s sleeve he shook him. ‘Tell me,’ he demanded.

  Kristiakis ignoring the hand on his jacket couldn’t take his black eyes from his sister.

  ‘That damned English army officer! The smarmy one who ordered us all around last summer, that’s who.’

  Antigone stood shock-still. Her father had never known about Leslie. Kristiakis had never told him.

  ‘You stupid little whore, you little bitch! You’re as bad as your mother was.’ Alexandros took a swing sending him off balance and stumbling in the doorway. Once he’d recovered, he straightened up and turned back to have another go at her. ‘We’re going to teach you a lesson you’ll never forget.’

  Antigone tried to dart away from them, but Kristiakis was too quick for her. Grabbing her by the wrist he slammed her into the stone-wall. Winded, Antigone gasped for breath as both men approached her, belts ready in their hands.

  As the leather snaked across her, she at last found her voice and screamed. When Kristiakis’ blows drew lower; she felt a bolt of terror shoot through her. She tried to fend them off, but fell at their feet with the blows raining down upon her.

  Deep within her she felt the first quickening of her unborn.

  Interval

  Act 3

  Chapter 34. Present day.

  Which of you have done this?

  Macbeth. Act 3 Scene 4

  If the village was in turmoil before, then this latest news about Kristiakis’ suicide had them all reeling. Everyone was asking the same questions. One murder, and now a second death in the village. Had Kristiakis been the one who’d killed Leslie after all? Had he felt so guilty that he killed himself out of remorse? The village tongues wagged and the local coffee shops did a roaring trade. Their owners rubbed their hands in glee as they helped matters by adding ‘fuel to the fire’.

  ~~~

  If this was so, then it gave the police inspector in charge of the case a problem. With a blinding headache making him decidedly bad-tempered, he mused over his new dilemma. He would now have to prove the case without a prime suspect. Or, he simply took Kristiakis’ suicide as a statement and concluded that ‘justice’ had been done. So far, there was no evidence of a suicide note, but all the locals were pointing the finger at him. (Almost everyone had a nephew who was in the police force and there was a lot of loose talk.)

  The police had a long record covering Kristiakis from the years of his youthful EOKA connections to the present day. He had always been a hothead. During the last few days the inspector had made good progress with their enquiries. Firstly, he discovered from Bernard, ‘Kristiakis threatened Leslie over some incident that occurred years ago.’

  This perhaps explained some of his animosity towards non-nationals. More recently, ‘Kristiakis had discharged his hunting rifle uncomfortably near Leslie and I when we were out walking,’ Sonja had said.

  She’d been quite emphatic that it had been Kristiakis, but when asked she had no idea why he had
done it. All the clues added up and they culminated in Kristiakis’ arrest earlier.

  The police couldn’t prove Kristiakis had tied Leslie up; they could only assume it. Cypriot forensics was still a pretty basic science, but as everything was pointing towards his guilt, it all fitted quite neatly.

  The inspector listened as the villagers got heated about it all in the coffee shops. As usual they were the experts; they knew all the answers.

  The inspector went over his notes, wishing they would all be quiet. His head was throbbing and he wandered away from the row going on around him. Now he could think.

  Kristiakis was out hunting and witnessed the row between Leslie and Alicia. As a hunter he would have carried a sharp hunting knife and quite probably string or twine to truss up any fowl or hare he shot. As soon as Alicia had left, Kristiakis made his move towards the immobile Leslie. Leslie had been alive up to that point according to Alicia, and of course the policeman didn’t forget Tony’s testament.

  Alicia vehemently denied tying Leslie up. The inspector had it all written down in her statement.

  She’d argued with him. ‘I’d hardly have gone after Leslie with evil intentions, would I? Besides, where would I have got whatever it was that he was tied up with?’ She reluctantly agreed however, when the inspector questioned her that she had left him in pain.

  ‘I hoped someone else would come along to help him.’ She said.

  The police inspector retorted. ‘Leaving an injured man is itself a crime! And even if you did not deliver the fatal blow, you are the instigator in this whole sorry affair.’

  Seething, he wanted to make sure he could charge her with something.

  ~~~

  It would’ve been so easy for Kristiakis to look down at Leslie and gloat over his injuries. The inspector privately thought it hardly mattered if he had tied Leslie up or not. He was now dead himself, and judging by the heavy whiff of alcoholic fumes lingering on him, he had been insanely drunk when stepping off the stool in the barn of the old house.

  Privately and unprofessionally, the inspector decided that with the two of them dead it was good riddance to a lot of trouble.

  He concluded they were a strange lot that lived in the mountains. Kristiakis’ sister certainly was an odd one; he couldn’t work out if she was half-witted or not.

  She’d eventually told him. ‘I found him hanging from the rafter. He was dead. I tried to get him down. I cut the rope.’

  The inspector found it almost impossible to get the full story out of her. She wouldn’t meet his eye, speaking in either monosyllables or short disjointed sentences.

  As far as he could ascertain, Antigone stumbled on Kristiakis late that evening and he was dead when she entered the bakery. She acted vaguely, and the policeman hadn’t known if she really understood all that had happened.

  When asked. ‘I do not know any more,’ she said.

  The inspector noted the dried blood on her hands and skirt from her brother’s neck wound. She’d certainly been in contact with the body and judging from her slight build there was no way she could have got him down without cutting the rope. Except it wasn’t rope really, but some sort of tough twine. He was pretty certain it was similar to the type farmers used for tying up their hay bales.

  His thoughts returned to Kristiakis’ sister’s reactions. She was most certainly in shock. She would have felt awful on finding her brother and then having to fetch a sharp knife to cut through the line. He shook his head at the thought, praying nothing like this would ever happen to him. Poor woman, she was going to be in a state when it finally sunk in and she realised just what had happened.

  There was no doubt; it all seemed perfectly logical when you thought it through. Kristiakis had been Leslie’s killer. He’d have to write up a good report, but he could see no opposition to his summing up.

  He supposed he would have to let the British woman know she was no longer a prime suspect. But she was guilty in one respect. Leaving Leslie injured. Cypriot law followed British law, and the inspector knew the statement of murder off by heart: ‘The unlawful killing of a human being by another human being with malice forethought…either expressed or implied.’ In her case, at the very least, she had been reckless. It would be up to the prosecution to prove Mens Rae – a guilty state of mind.

  Giving a small smile of smug contentment, Detective Inspector Andreas Christopopodoulou had solved another case – and practically all by himself. He could almost taste and smell the promotion.

  Chapter 35. Diana

  The air-drawn dagger.

  Macbeth. Act 3 Scene 4

  Diana was feeling listless and depressed. Sadly, she knew this reflected in the progress of her novel. After re-reading a couple of the latest chapters the story was just too improbable. Did people really think and act as she’d written, or was it all too far-fetched?

  Steve was very down to earth about it all. As he entered her work den she’d thrown down her pencil in frustration and sat cradling her head in her hands. At first he’d not said a word. It was only when she moaned that she was ‘giving up for the day before even starting’, that he voiced his opinion.

  ‘Darling, we all have off days. If you just sat and wrote without the occasional hiccup, surely you wouldn’t get those flashes of inspiration. Taking breaks, be it minutes or days, must refresh your imagination. Surely this brings another slant to the story? It doesn’t have to be all written down and finished in five minutes, does it? Usually, you have stacks of patience. What’s the rush?’ Standing behind her chair, Steve rubbed the back of her neck affectionately. Her body looked tense and stiff.

  ‘I suppose so. You are right, I guess.’

  She gave another groan, stretching her arms above her head, before turning to face him.

  ‘I usually am!’ he grinned smugly. ‘Besides, what’s for lunch I’m starving?’

  ‘Ha! So you’re really just trying to come up with a good enough reason for me to down my pen and put on my little wifey pinny, ha?’ Standing up, she stretched again and grimaced at her stiffness. She had sat still for so long.

  Steve laughed good-naturedly. ‘The image of you being just a housewife isn’t convincing. You get bored after spending a couple of hours house-cleaning. But there again, wearing just an apron does have its own certain appeal.’

  He caught her as she made a half-hearted attempt to slap him and nuzzled his face against her neck. ‘You smell nice. How about we go and -?’

  ‘Don’t push it,’ she giggled as his arms tightened around her. ‘But, you are right. There is no rush to get the story finished except,’ she paused and looked up at him. ‘Every so often I feel that there is a finite timeline in the story itself. Oh, I can’t explain it very well. But I feel that there is a point by which it must all be put down on paper. Almost as if time is running out. It’s weird. Sometimes there is something, a force perhaps, that is guiding my hand, telling me what to write. Then at other times there’s nothing. I get just a blank feeling.’ Her pretty face looked flushed and tired. A small frown wrinkled her brow as she tried to explain how she felt.

  As he listened, a worried look crossed Steve’s face. ‘You often become lost and tied up in whatever you’re working on. But I agree, this time, you seem to be more involved in your story than ever. And you’ve not been feeling too well either.’

  To hide his concern he made a suggestion. ‘How about we go out somewhere to eat? Save us making something for lunch. And I think a change of scenery away from the village and its entire trauma will do us good.

  Di thought for a moment and shook her head.

  ‘No thanks. Eating here is just fine. Besides we have masses of salad that must be eaten before it spoils in this heat.’

  He gave a groan. ‘Please, not more salad! What I would give for a burger and thick greasy chips like the good old days. It’s all very well trying to live healthily, but just because you’ve decided that you’re getting chubby from sitting down then I have to suffer from eating lashi
ngs of the green stuff. It’s not fair!

  ‘Remember when you worked in London? Those long boozy lunches in the eighties and early nineties. And all those rich pasta dishes, curries and meat pies to help soak up the alcohol. I know they seemed like fantastically good times, but things have changed. Toiling in the City took a demanding toll on you and your colleagues. Come on, admit it. You’d would sooner live here, working part-time when you felt like it, than wasting hours sitting on the train commuting up to town.’

  They visited the UK three or four times a year, and considered they’d the best of both worlds. The cost of living in Cyprus was cheaper overall, they’d many more friends than when they lived in England, masses of things to do and the time to do it in. Best of all, the weather was a trillion times better.

  Of course it wasn’t a bed of roses all the time and sometimes they could have wrung a few of the locals’ necks for them. But, as they reminded themselves, this was Cyprus, the near East, and things happened differently. The Cypriots were not European; their demeanour and outlook on life was entirely different.

  He gave a small sigh as if to say. ‘You’re right. Salad for lunch it is, and I’ll be grateful for it.’

  ~~~

  ‘I thought I’d pop down and see Alicia later on,’ Di said finishing the last of her avocado and yoghurt. ‘Mmm, that salmon was delicious. Would you like some more salad?’

  ‘No thanks. I’m nearly full. Why are you going to see her?’

  He was curious. They usually only saw Alicia during rehearsals, the rest of the time she kept mostly to herself and her huge menagerie of malodorous cats. She remained something of an enigma to most people, only socialising with Yanoulla and Sonja. Tony kept on about her strange religious sect, but as it didn’t affect them, Steve ignored him. Alicia was entitled to live her private life as she wished.

  ‘Well, in case you’ve forgotten, we’re supposed to have a rehearsal later on in the week. Karl rang me earlier wondering if it was still on. He’s a bit loath to contact Alicia direct as he thought she’d be in a bit of a state after being taken in for questioning. Anyone would be, but you know how she is.’