The crewman smiled an ugly smile. Flicking the stub of his cigarette over the side so it flew in an arc into the water below, he leaned back on the deck rail.
‘I remember,’ he said. He looked expectantly at the fat man’s pocket, then down at his own extended hand, which he seemed surprised to find empty.
‘Did my friend not pay you for your trouble?’ asked the fat man.
‘He gave me something,’ said the crewman. ‘But small sums pay for small favours. I took my work seriously, friend. I stuck with your young lady when she left this boat. All the way to the end of the line she went, and then I made it my business to stick by her a while.’ With a broken-nailed and oily finger, he pointed to the outer corner of his eye. ‘I made observations, you know, on your behalf. I did more than you might have expected, and if you wanted, I could tell you what she did when she left our boat.’ He raised his eyebrows, and gave a devilish smile.
The fat man hesitated; then he took two banknotes from the folds of his wallet.
‘I shall give you one of these,’ he said, ‘and if your knowledge warrants it, you shall have the other, too. What did she do?’
‘She took another boat,’ said the crewman, slipping the note into his pocket. ‘She asked around until she found the one she wanted, and she boarded another ferry.’
‘What ferry?’ asked the fat man. ‘Do you know where it was going?’
‘Oh yes, I know where it was going. I’m tight with the lads who work the other lines. Like brothers to me, they are, and I know their routes as well as I know my own. Soon as I saw which boat she was on, I knew where she was going. Only one destination, that boat. Only goes one place.’ He folded his arms over his chest, waiting.
The fat man held out the second banknote.
‘Tell me, then,’ he said. ‘Where has she gone?’
The crewman pocketed the note in no hurry, and turned to spit into the water below. On the quayside, a truck laden with boxes of cabbages was backing up to the ramp. The crewman watched frowning for a moment, and called down to his colleagues below.
‘Take the cash from him first, Harris! He owes us already for three trips. And stack ’em at the back, and stack ’em high! We’ve no room to spare down there today.’
He left the railing, and moved past the fat man as if about to leave him standing there, without delivering the debt of information he still owed.
But as he crossed the deck to the staircase, he looked back over his shoulder.
‘Seftos,’ he called out, as he descended the stairs. ‘Your lady-friend took a boat to the island of Seftos.’
Twenty-one
As the ferry drew into Seftos’s port, the fat man’s view through the salone window was of the island’s unremarkable landscape, of its commonplace architecture and its uninteresting geography, and of the medlar orchards behind the town, rose-tinted and flourishing on the low-rising slopes.
He let the other passengers disembark, keeping his seat until most of the small cargo was unloaded, waiting until the last crates and boxes were carried away, before picking up his holdall and making his way off the boat.
In the swell, the ramp between ferry and quayside shifted under his feet. The crew were already heading home. Two had mounted a moped inadequate to carry them both, the pillion passenger clutching with one arm the waist of the teenage driver. In the pillion rider’s other hand was a bag of purple-shelled oysters, which he held, like the goddess Themis with her scales, at arm’s length, to avoid the oysters’ watery juices dripping on to his trousers. The driver started the engine and moved the moped incompetently forward in jerks and stops, his passenger laughing and calling him malaka; but the young driver then picked up speed, and his nervous passenger called to him to slow down, his feet dangling over the road in preparation for a fall. Amused, the fat man watched them go, until the moped and its passengers disappeared down the backstreets, its underpowered engine echoing off the house walls.
The ferry had docked at the harbour’s northernmost point, where the wide bay’s waters were at their deepest. Between the dock and the town’s first houses, no other boats were moored, and as the fat man walked along the harbour-side, from time to time he looked down into the shallow waters, where small fish swam over rocks spotted with spiny urchins.
In the wake of the ferry’s arrival, the place was quiet. Two boys in jeans and sweaters prodded sticks into the harbour wall, to extricate soft-shell crabs hiding in the crannies; their hats lay upturned on the quayside, ready to hold their catch. At a little distance, a man with the gentle features of a half-wit – he was perhaps as young as thirty, but the close-shaved stubble on his head was entirely grey – crouched on an upturned bucket, an unbaited fishing line dropped in the sea at his feet, and watched the two boys covertly from the corner of his eye.
With no shelter in the harbour, the wind was cold across the open sea, and the house doors were all closed. Ahead of the fat man, an old woman dressed in black walked slowly in the direction he was heading, using a pink umbrella as a cane; with frivolous nylon frills around its edges, the accessory was unsuited to its owner, and yet the widow carried it with pride, though the frills were fraying in places, and the grubbiness of the fabric told of use through many seasons.
The fat man soon caught up with her, and as he drew level, slowed his pace.
‘Kali spera sas, kyria,’ he said.
She stopped, and peered at him through black-framed glasses. Even in this early season, her lined face was tanned from outdoor life.
‘Kali spera sas,’ she said.
She might have let the fat man pass by, and go on; but as she looked at him, her interest grew, and she stopped in her promenade, and leaned panting on the umbrella, breathless even from such slow walking.
The fat man gave her an affable smile.
‘I’m a stranger here,’ he said, ‘as you will no doubt have observed.’
‘Kalos erthaite,’ she said, in a traditional welcome.
Her eyes moved to the half-wit fishing, who was no longer watching the end of his own line, but the activities of the two boys, who had caught a small green crab, and were shrieking as it scuttled over their four hands in its desperation to return to the sea.
‘Manolis!’ The woman called to the half-wit, and the boys looked across at her, and at him, and quickly dropped the crab into one of their caps, folding it in half to make the crab their prisoner. They glowered with hostility at the half-wit, who, like a shamed dog, dropped his head, and sadly gave his attention back to his empty line.
‘Forgive me,’ said the fat man to the woman, ‘but Manolis there won’t be catching many fish if he has no bait.’
‘He’s no bait because whatever bait he has, he eats,’ she said. ‘Stale bread, or fish guts, it makes no difference. God gave him a good heart, but no sense.’
Manolis seemed to sink under her words. The two boys picked up their sticks and their caps, and keeping their captive secure inside, moved away along the quay, to what seemed to them a safer distance from Manolis.
‘You seem to take an interest in his supervision,’ said the fat man.
‘I’ve no choice but to take an interest,’ said the woman. ‘He’s my sister’s son, and she’s a fly-by-night; she abandoned his care to me some years ago. But the Lord sees all. I do my duty, and God provides, as he sees fit.’
‘A dutiful woman is to be admired,’ said the fat man, ‘but the man must be frustrated, fishing without bait or hook. Surely a little bread would do no harm?’
‘He spears his fingers with the hooks,’ said the woman. ‘I used to spend hours pulling them from his thumbs and fingers. He’s fine as he is. I thank you for your interest.’
The fat man bowed his head, in apparent deference to her point of view.
‘Do you live close by?’ he asked.
‘My house is there.’ She pointed to a house along the road, where the front step was swept and whitewashed, and geraniums were planted in gallon cans which had once held
Kalamata olives.
‘I imagine the care of him keeps you close to home, does it not?’
‘I’m a church-woman, kyrie. I attend the services I should.’
‘But the rest of the time, you are not far away, I assume?’ persisted the fat man. ‘For instance, when the ferry docks, are you usually there to see?’
‘I see it often enough, if the weather’s fit. If the boat comes in, I see it; I see it come, and I see it go.’
‘And I expect an intelligent woman like yourself sees who travels with it, too: who comes, and who goes.’
‘I know most folk who take the ferry. It’s good manners to greet them, wouldn’t you say?’ Her eyes were on Manolis and his line.
‘I would indeed say so,’ said the fat man. ‘And it’s good manners to greet strangers, like myself. A welcome from the locals warms a stranger’s heart. But I suppose there aren’t many strangers on your ferry?’
‘Rarely,’ she said, frowning in Manolis’s direction as if ready to reprimand him again. ‘More rarely still, this time of year. We keep to ourselves, in Seftos. We’re not people to encourage visitors. Manolis, stop throwing stones!’
‘Which makes it perhaps the more surprising, then,’ said the fat man, looking with sympathy at Manolis, ‘for two strangers to arrive within twenty-four hours?’
‘I suppose it does.’
‘The young lady who arrived yesterday, did you speak to her?’
‘I had no call to. She offered me no greeting, and I offered none to her.’
‘But she went by here?’
Behind the lenses of her glasses, the woman’s eyes grew sharp.
‘What’s your interest in young girls, kyrie? If I might ask?’
The fat man smiled, and wagged a finger at her.
‘You are protective,’ he said. ‘You have a mother’s instincts, no doubt from taking such excellent care of your nephew. But my interests in the girl are nothing sinister. On the contrary. I bring her news of a legacy, and have tracked her down – with some difficulty, and at my personal expense – to Seftos. If you can tell me where I might find her, I would be grateful.’
‘She was collected from a spot just down the quay there,’ she said. ‘I saw him waiting for her when the boat came in. He took her off with him, over there.’ She waved her hand across the bay.
‘Who took her?’
‘The man living on the little island,’ she said. ‘The man they call the hermit.’
At the general store, the shopkeeper sat on his stool behind the counter, a fresh cup of coffee at his elbow, a tumbler with a shot of Metaxa to one side. On a paper napkin were the crumbs from a slice of cake, and the vanilla scent of baking mixed with the smells of salami and onions, of soap powder and brine-soaked olives. The aisle from door to counter was again obstructed with sacks of rice and lentils; the shop was still dimmed by the boxes of stock stacked up over the window. The cheese fridge hummed; the linnet in its cage pecked at its bars, and chirped for attention.
‘You’re back,’ said the shopkeeper, to the fat man. ‘Kalos tou, kalos tou. But you’re still too early for medlars, friend. You’ve a long wait, if you’ve come back for the medlars.’
‘Life takes extraordinary turns, does it not?’ said the fat man. ‘A chance visit to Seftos only a short while ago, and now I find myself here on official business.’
‘Official, are you?’ The shopkeeper looked the fat man up and down. ‘Well, you certainly look the part. On whose behalf are you official?’
‘My business is likely to be brief,’ said the fat man. ‘But I need to find someone with a boat to take me where I’m going. I’ll pay well, for someone to carry me.’
‘Pay well, will you?’ asked the grocer, taking a slug of his Metaxa. ‘And where will you pay to be carried to?’
‘I’m heading for the house of a man you mentioned to me, when I was last here. My business is with the man you call the hermit.’
‘Not such a hermit at this moment, I gather,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘I hear he has a visitor with him. A young lady, who arrived on the boat before you. He whisked her away before anyone got a look at her. He’s a dark horse, is our hermit. She looked too young for him; but if you can get them young, why not? My wife was sixteen years my junior when I married her, and I never had any regrets.’
‘I don’t believe they are married,’ said the fat man, choosing a packet of cheese-flavoured snacks from a shelf.
‘Don’t let old Father Nikos know, then,’ laughed the shopkeeper. ‘He’s a stickler for morality, in certain areas. If you’re looking for a ride over there, maybe I’ll take you myself. I’ll get the wife to mind the store.’
‘I shall want taking, and bringing away,’ said the fat man. ‘As I say, my business is not likely to take long.’
‘If you want me to, I’ll wait,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘For a consideration.’
‘I’m sure we can agree on a fair price.’
‘Give me half an hour, then,’ said the shopkeeper, ‘and we’ll go.’
Twenty-two
The shopkeeper’s boat was broad and well-balanced, and cut comfortably through the swell, raising only light spray at the prow, though the cold engine billowed dark smoke at the stern.
‘She’ll go through anything, this one,’ said the shopkeeper, as they motored away from the harbour. ‘My grandfather made her with his own hands. In the war, he used her to smuggle provisions, right under the Germans’ noses. She was passed down to my father, and now she’s come to me. She’s no oil painting, but she’s reliable. A good rule to choose a woman by, that is. That’s how I picked my wife. You’d be a fool to marry a pretty wife, wouldn’t you say?’
The fat man gave no answer. Seated on a bench spanning the boat’s hull, he held his holdall on his knees, and rested his feet on the plastic tablecloth which had wrapped the engine. The boat was not clean; the bilge-water threw up the stink of diesel and dead fish. Noticing a smear of oil on one of his shoes, the fat man frowned.
The shopkeeper sat at the stern, his arm on the tiller, steering a course to an unlit beacon which marked the island’s most southerly point. Beyond the beacon, the distance they travelled was short, to a tiny island which appeared, at first, to be no more than uninhabited scrub and rock; but as they drew closer, the fat man picked out a short stretch of beach he remembered, and a jetty where an open boat was moored. Behind the beach, on levelled ground, was a roughly built shack, and beside it, a garden fenced to keep out goats.
The wind might have covered the sound of the engine until they drew closer; but when they were still at a distance, the hermit’s hound rose up from beside the shack and ran barking to the jetty they were approaching, where he snarled and barked to ward off the intruders.
The shopkeeper gripped the side of the moored boat, and pulled his own in close, holding it steady as the fat man stood.
‘What about the dog?’ asked the shopkeeper, apprehensively. He called out to the animal, reminding him they had recently been companions, but the dog seemed to have no memory of their acquaintance.
The fat man seemed unperturbed.
‘He is protecting his territory, nothing more,’ he said. ‘Will you wait for me here? I expect to be an hour at most, no longer.’
‘That’s long enough to try for a bite or two,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘Though our hermit may not be very pleased if he thinks I’m taking his fish.’
‘Your hermit will have more than fish to think about, when he and I are finished.’
The shopkeeper looked concerned.
‘Won’t he welcome your visit?’ he asked. ‘He’s a good customer of mine. If you’re bringing bad news, he might blame me and shoot the messenger.’
‘You are in no danger whatever of being shot,’ said the fat man. ‘I give you my word on that.’
He stepped on to the moored boat, and from there on to the jetty, and as his foot touched land, the dog stopped barking, lowered his head and, wagging his tail uncertainly, came for
ward to lick the fat man’s hand.
The fat man touched the dog’s head and set off along the beach towards the shack, whilst the dog followed at a short distance behind, his head still down, his tail low.
But the animal had done his job, and roused his master. As the fat man approached, the hermit opened the door of his home and looked down towards the jetty. He waved at the shopkeeper.
‘Did I leave something behind?’ he shouted, with both hands cupped to his mouth for amplification. ‘Or have you only come for my fish?’
The shopkeeper shouted some reply, but the wind carried his words away. He pointed at the fat man, and the hermit, following his gesture, looked along the beach, where the fat man walked towards him with the hermit’s dog meekly following him as if he were the fat man’s own.
The hermit frowned, puzzled both by the dog’s behaviour and by the stranger’s unusually smart dress.
‘Chairete,’ said the fat man, in the most formal of greetings, as he grew close. He stopped in front of the hermit, laid his holdall on the ground and looked him somewhat rudely up and down, taking in his shabby clothes, his uncombed hair and half-grown beard, and scrutinising his face. ‘So you are Seftos’s infamous hermit?’
‘What do you want?’ asked the hermit. ‘This is private property.’
The fat man unzipped his holdall, and took from it a paperback book, which he laid on top of the bag.
‘Hermes Diaktoros, of Athens,’ he said. ‘Forgive my intrusion, but I am looking, in the first instance, for an acquaintance of mine, a young lady named Leda. Is she, by any chance, here with you?’
‘I am.’ Leda stepped out from behind the door, and stood at the hermit’s shoulder. Over her own clothes, she wore a man’s pullover, and her arms were wrapped around herself, against the cold; her eyes were red and swollen from recent crying.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.
‘I have to admit,’ said the fat man, ‘that I followed you from Vrisi.’
‘How could you have done? I would have seen you.’
The Whispers of Nemesis Page 22