She was some distance behind Milo when she saw him entering a house. Not a bungalow, a rather elegant house built in something akin to a Georgian style, with well-proportioned windows and a small portico, resting on two white pillars, above the dark wooden front door.
Miranda hesitated – should she turn back now, before Milo returned and caught her, realised she had been following him?
Well, she hadn’t, really – why should she? He had merely been a marker for her to follow in her exploration. Where he could go she had assumed she could safely go.
She was curious, though – who lived in that house? Pandora’s father, who owned the hotel? Or perhaps this was accommodation for richer guests who did not wish to stay in a bungalow and who demanded privacy, set apart from everyone else. She could see the blue gleam of a pool to one side, and they were near the sea out here on the furthest extent of the hotel grounds.
But she couldn’t hover here, staring. Inside the house Milo or whoever was staying there might be watching her, in turn, wondering what on earth she was doing.
Turning back among the trees she wandered back to the hotel and went to her room for half an hour to do her make-up and brush her hair, before making her way to the dining room.
Milo met her as she entered it, bowing slightly. ‘Are you more rested, Miss Miranda?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Good, good. I’m afraid you will be alone at dinner. Miss Pandora is too tired to get up, and her husband is staying with her. They will be having room service tonight.’
‘I’m not surprised. It was a long journey and Pandora hasn’t been at all well.’
He sighed. ‘It is very sad, she and her husband long to have a child, as I am sure you know. Let us hope she will carry this one to a birth. We must take great care of her now.’
‘You must have known her for many years,’ Miranda said, liking him very much. He had a steely centre, she realised, but he was a kind and sensitive man, his smile was gentle and sympathetic.
‘Since she was a child,’ he agreed. ‘Would you like a table by the window looking out into the garden? It won’t be dark for several hours. You’ll have a wonderful view while you eat.’
She followed him to a small table and sat down, glancing out of the open window at a bed of dark red roses whose perfume drifted into the room. There was a fine-meshed net stretched across the window.
‘What is that there for?’ asked Miranda.
‘Mosquitoes – you have been warned to be careful to keep your doors and windows shut? This is not a malarial area, thank heavens; but if you get bitten it could still cause problems. The itching is a nuisance, and if you scratch, you can get blisters, or even worse, it could lead to blood-poisoning. Walking around the gardens after dusk isn’t a good idea.’
‘I saw you coming out of the hotel with a tray, earlier, and walking in among the trees,’ she said, watching him. ‘Don’t you get bitten?’
‘Very rarely. They prefer to bite women, especially fair-skinned women. Our skin is tougher, our blood full of garlic.’
‘Like vampires!’ she said, laughing.
‘Exactly. Garlic is good for keeping insects at bay.’
Casually, she asked him, ‘Were you taking room service to someone?’
She saw his black eyes flicker, his face stiffen, there was the briefest pause, then Milo said blandly, ‘Yes, I was delivering food to one of the bungalows. Would you care for an aperitif, Miss Miranda?’
‘Just some sparkling mineral water, thank you. I drink very little wine or alcohol.’
‘A glass of wine is good for you with your dinner. Helps you sleep, is excellent for your blood. But I will send water to your table right away.’ Milo gave another of his little bows and smoothly glided away. She stared after him, brow wrinkled.
He had lied to her. But why?
Chapter Seven
It was raining heavily as Terry Finnigan went to the hospital with a very expensive bouquet of flowers only to discover he was a day too late.
‘She left yesterday, a nurse briskly told him, hovering obviously to get back to whatever she had been doing when he interrupted.
‘Where did she go?’ he asked and got an impatient look.
‘No idea. Ask the hospital administrator. Excuse me. I’ve got a lot to do.’
He went straight to Miranda’s flat, got no answer there and started knocking on doors in the building. Most people seemed to be out, but at last he found a young woman in a dressing gown with sleepy eyes and the pink nose of someone who has a cold. She told him that Miranda was away.
‘I saw her yesterday, when I was on my way to see my doctor. She was going out with a suitcase. She was on crutches, poor girl. She’d had an accident. I expect she’s gone somewhere to convalesce.’
‘She didn’t say where she was going?’
The woman shook her head. ‘Maybe she went down to stay with her mother, in the country? Her mother was staying here and disturbed a burglar who attacked her. So she went back home, but I don’t know where she lives.’
Terry took the flowers back to the office and gave them to one of the typists who was expecting her first baby without benefit of a husband or even the boyfriend she had had but who had vanished the minute she spoke the dreaded word ‘baby’. Flushed and startled, she held them cradled in her arms as if rehearsing for motherhood.
‘Ooh . . . they’re lovely, thank you, Mr Finnigan.’
‘All men aren’t rats, Sharon,’ he said paternally.
The other girls in the office exchanged looks, raised eyebrows. Could the baby be Sean’s? they wondered, not for the first time, since Sean had had a go at all of them, with varying rates of success. Or was Terry simply a very kind and generous man?
In truth, he had not known what to do with the flowers, but, seeing Sharon’s swelling figure as he walked by her desk he was hit by a sudden inspiration and acted on it at once. He felt sorry for her, poor girl.
He was too busy to have time to leave London for a few days, but the following weekend he drove into Dorset, took a room at a pub in Dorchester, and waited until Sunday morning to drive over to Miranda’s mother’s cottage.
He found her in the garden pruning and weeding, wearing old blue denim dungarees and a t-shirt. She managed somehow to make them look like the very highest fashion.
Terry was programmed to buy women flowers or chocolates when he visited them, so he had bought flowers again, en route, a great polythene-wrapped spray of red roses, but looking around the garden he could see he had brought coals to Newcastle. Dorothy Knox lived surrounded with flowers, like a princess in a fairy tale in an enchanted bower.
She paused, flushed and breathing fast, to stare at him as he pushed open the gate, which whined and creaked like an old dog.
‘Mrs Knox?’
She nodded, pushing a lock of fine-spun silvery hair back from her forehead.
She was amazingly attractive for a woman of her age, he thought, staring at the brightness of her eyes, the warm tones of her skin, her slim, active figure.
Terry hesitated to tell her his own name. He had no idea how much Miranda, or the police, would have told her.
‘Is Miranda here?’
‘No,’ she said and suddenly there was frost on her voice. ‘Who are you?’
He couldn’t refuse to answer. ‘Terry Finnigan, I was Miranda’s boss.’ He held out the flowers in what he felt, himself, to be a pathetic attempt to placate her. ‘I happened to be down in the west, so I thought I would look her up, see how she was, and I brought her these.’
Dorothy Knox made no move to take them. Her face had become cold, hostile. ‘Well, she isn’t here, and before you ask, I don’t know where she is. If I did, I wouldn’t tell you. I know about you and your son.’ She put a hand up to her head. ‘I still have the scars to remind me.’
Terry ground his teeth. He had forgotten what had happened to her. ‘Look, I’m sorry for what happened to Miranda, and to you, too, but I wasn’t
responsible, I assure you. I haven’t done anything to either of you.’
‘Your son did! If you have any decency, you’ll stay away from my daughter. The police won’t be too pleased to hear that you’ve been here, looking for her. And I will tell them, don’t worry. She’s under police protection, so don’t bother searching for her. Even if you found her you wouldn’t get near her. Now, I’m very busy, so please go away and don’t come back.’
Flustered, he protested, ‘Look, I’m sorry, honestly, that you got hurt. I just want a chance to . . .’
She lifted the hoe she was using, poised to use it if he came any nearer. ‘Clear off. I don’t want you here.’
A car was progressing along the country road towards them. Dorothy glanced at it, her face lighting up. ‘Here’s my friend. He’s a policeman, he’ll soon deal with you.’
Terry looked round as the battered red car stopped at the gate. The man getting out was in his sixties but he had a wiry, faintly belligerent look that would, recognised Terry, make him something of a problem in a struggle.
‘Go on, get out,’ Dorothy said. ‘Before Freddy throws you out. He’s a lot tougher than you think you are, believe me.’ Her eyes were contemptuous.
Terry didn’t try to argue or plead; he just slunk away, passing Freddy at the gate without meeting his stare.
‘Who’s he?’ he heard Freddy ask.
Terry dived into his car and drove off before Freddy could catch up with him. He wasn’t afraid of the man, simply reluctant to get into a fight and perhaps attract police attention.
Back home, he found Sean lying on a sofa in a towelling robe, his hair wet from a swim in the pool, listening to deafening rock while he cut his toenails. Terry looked at him with a mixture of despair and disgust, then walked over and turned the music off.
‘Hey!’ Sean began then stopped at the glare he got. ‘What’s the matter with you now? You’re always on my case these days. This is the weekend. Don’t I deserve a bit of peace on a Sunday morning?’
‘Have you seen Nicola this weekend?’
‘Yes, we had dinner and went on to a club last night, then I drove her home at midnight. Her dad insists she’s in by then, old-fashioned git. Where were you last night? Don’t tell me you picked up a woman?’
‘I was doing what you should have done. Looking for Miranda,’ his father bit out with scorn. ‘She’s out of hospital, but she’s gone underground, and I’m told she has police protection. I went down to Dorset to find her mother and got warned off.’ He was still burning over the way Dorothy Knox had spoken to him.
Sean ran a hand through his springy, wet, blond hair. ‘Maybe a chick would find out more – why don’t I get one of my birds to look around? Chat people up. Even the filth get friendly with a pretty girl.’
Terry frowned. ‘What the hell d’yer mean, one of your birds! Don’t you ever learn? You’re supposed to be engaged to Nicola. You shouldn’t be seeing any other women. You don’t have any common sense, do yer? Grow up, for God’s sake.’
Even his accent was deteriorating and his son noticed it, giving him a startled look.
‘OK, OK – but shall I get someone to ask around, or not?’
Terry didn’t even answer. He was staring out of the window, thinking hard, facing facts.
Sean had mentioned the police and that was a source that could be tapped, although not by Sean, who wouldn’t know how. Or by Terry himself. He dared not risk approaching them. He was going to have to talk to some of his old friends. He had not seen them for years, had stayed well clear of them not wanting to be tarred by that particular brush, but Sean was forcing him to get involved again. They were men who had contacts he no longer had. They had friends in the police force. Friends who were on the payroll and who could be persuaded or blackmailed into finding out information.
Somehow he had to find Miranda, get to her. She was dangerous to him, and to Sean. She had to be silenced. Whatever the cost.
‘Kaleemera!’ Miranda said to the waitress at breakfast next day and was given a smiling ‘Good morning!’ back in English.
As she sat down at the table she had sat at last night the girl asked her: ‘O kafes? American? Eleeneeko?’
She dimly understood the question. ‘American, please.’ Greek coffee was great after dinner, but far too strong and far too small at breakfast.
A basket of rolls and croissants stood in the middle of the table with a tray of butter, jam, marmalade and honey. The waitress indicated a buffet table and rattled off some more Greek. Miranda didn’t grasp a single word of it, but she got the general drift, and went to the buffet table to investigate the choices. It all looked delicious.
Fruit juices – grape, orange, cranberry. Lots of fresh fruit; grapes, peaches, berries, piled high. Yoghurts in a chilled cabinet. A covered hot dish in which she found scrambled egg and crispy bacon. Cheeses of various kinds, including a very soft white one over which she noticed another guest trickling smoky, golden Greek honey.
She took some cranberry juice, grapes and yoghurt and returned to her table. The coffee arrived, but it was not the waitress who brought it.
‘Kaleemera!’ Milo said, smiling at her in that paternalistic way of his. ‘I hear you already speak Greek.’
Going pink, she shook her head. ‘I picked up a couple of words from my phrase book.’
‘I suspected as much. But you impressed Sophie. She’s now convinced you speak fluent Greek.’
‘Oh, dear,’ groaned Miranda. ‘Will you explain for me?’
‘Yes, but, remember, a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. If you learn a few words a day you’ll soon be speaking Greek like a native.’
‘I intend to learn as much as I can, while I’m here. Have you heard how Pandora is this morning?’
‘She and her husband had their breakfast in their room half an hour ago. Pandora would like you to go and see her after you’ve eaten your own breakfast. You’ll be moving into a bungalow today, but there’s no need to start work yet. We have only a handful of English-speaking guests at the moment. Pandora will talk to you about the work.’ He looked at the table. ‘Is there anything you need? Anything I can get you?’
She shook her head. ‘No, thank you, Milo.’
‘Then I will leave you to enjoy your breakfast in peace.’
She ate an unhurried meal, aware of Milo moving about the room, greeting guests, escorting them to tables, checking that every detail was correct, talking to the other staff. Seeing that she had finished, he came back, raising his fine black brows, asking her: ‘Kala?’
Miranda looked blankly at him.
‘That means good,’ he explained. ‘Was your breakfast good? Kala?’
‘Ne,’ she said, remembering to shake her head, not nod. ‘I enjoyed it very much.’
‘The Greek for that is “moo a resse para polee”,’ he translated.
She repeated the phrase, then got a notebook out of her handbag and wrote it down while Milo spelt it.
He smiled at her approvingly. ‘You will soon be speaking Greek, I can see that. Now, I will take you to see Pandora.’
It was a much larger room than her own, with several windows, very bright and sunny. Pandora was lying on a cushioned lounger, reading a book, while music played. There was no sign of Charles – no doubt he had gone to his manager’s office.
Lifting a smile to greet Miranda, Pan said, ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Very well – how about you? You look better.’
‘I am. I’ve barely moved a muscle since we arrived. Come and sit down. Milo, can we have some more coffee, please?’
‘Of course.’ He withdrew and Miranda sat down facing the window and the view over the gardens. The window was open, the warm, rose-and-lavender-scented air softly blew into the room.
‘I gather I have the rest of the week off, starting work on Monday,’ Miranda said.
‘Yes. We have a party of Americans arriving this Sunday, though, so you may be called upon to tra
nslate for them. But Milo’s English is fluent, and so long as he isn’t otherwise occupied, he can cope with any problems that come up.’
‘He seems to do a dozen jobs! Watching him this morning I felt I should be starting work at once, not taking the rest of the week off.’
Pan laughed. ‘No need! Milo could run this place single-handed if he needed to. He has worked here for years and has done almost every job – even the cooking! If we’re short of staff in one job Milo can take over if necessary. He’s wonderful.’
‘How old is he? It’s difficult to tell.’
‘He’s in his fifties, but, as you say, he carries his age very well.’
‘Is he married?’
‘He was, once, to a lovely woman, I can still remember her smile and her great big eyes, she was always so kind – but Silvana died when I was about ten. She worked here, too. They had a staff bungalow in the grounds. Milo still lives there.’
‘Did they have children?’
‘Yes, two boys – one of them is in medical school in New York, and the other is an athlete. He’s in America, too, training at some sports camp.’
‘Milo must miss them.’
‘Yes, but he is ambitious for them, he wants them to be very successful and that means leaving home. He’s very logical, he accepts that they have to go away.’
‘He’s promised to help me learn Greek.’
Pandora laughed. ‘He has amazing patience. He trained me to work here, I have the highest respect for him. Milo is one of our family.’
‘Really? Related to you?’
‘Not in blood, but in every other way. He was my father’s best friend, and now he’s very close to my . . .’ She stopped abruptly, looking out of the window. ‘Oh! Who’s that?’
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