Angel of Death

by Charlotte Lamb

  Who was she? Did her appearance at the hotel explain Pandora’s tear-stained face and distress just now? And what did Charles mean – there will be hell to pay? If he hears about it? Or had he said: if she hears about it?

  ‘He doesn’t scare me. This is a hotel. I’ve a perfect right to be here.’ The woman’s voice warmed, grew sensual. ‘How are you, Charles? You look wonderful. You haven’t given me a kiss yet.’

  Miranda moved again, in shock in time to see the woman leaning closer, her slender arm going round Charles’ neck. There was the sound of a kiss; their mouths together.

  Had they been lovers? Was it over? Or was the woman Elena refusing to let him go?

  She was so disturbed by her own thoughts that she crept back the way she had come and took another route to her bungalow, but she could not shake off what she had seen. If Pandora found out about her husband and that woman, it could bring on another miscarriage.

  She skipped dinner that evening and stayed in her bungalow learning some more Greek, listening to an audio tape Milo had lent her.

  Next morning she went out for a walk to the sea after an early breakfast. Fetching up near the isolated house again she stopped to stare, wondering again who lived there. While she was staring she heard a footstep, the sharp snap of a twig someone had stood upon, the rustle of grass parting as a body came through it.

  Miranda turned in the direction of the sounds. A man in black shorts and a white t-shirt was only a few feet away, walking briskly towards her. She recognised him with a painful twist of the heart.

  She could barely breath. It was him. On the beach two days ago, she had not been imagining things or hallucinating. It had been Alex Manoussi walking at the edge of the sea.

  He saw her a second later and stopped moving, staring at her, then he came on in a calm, unhurried fashion, his long, bare brown legs gleaming in the sunlight, and gave her a polite bow of the head.

  ‘Mrs Grey. Good morning.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she whispered, then, before he could answer hysteria swept through her. ‘Did you follow me here? Are you stalking me? I suppose you’ve already told Terry where to find me so that he can send someone to kill me? Or has he asked you to do it?’

  His hand came up and clamped over her mouth, his long, slim fingers cool.

  ‘You’re hysterical. Try to be calm.’

  She tried to bite him but could only mumble at his palm, voice muffled by the flesh pushing down against her teeth. ‘You . . . bastard . . .’

  ‘Ssh . . .’ he murmured. ‘You don’t need to be frightened of me! I did not follow you here. I didn’t need to, I was already here.’

  Then he let his hand drop away from her mouth. She took one long, unimpeded breath.

  ‘You expect me to believe that?’

  ‘It’s true. This is my hotel. I own it,’ he expanded. ‘Pan is my sister.’

  A tide of disillusion and hurt swept over her. ‘She set me up? It was all a plot to get me here? She lied to me?’ She had liked Pandora and her husband the minute she met them, had never suspected for an instant that they might not be straight with her. Why should she?

  While she had been busy feeling sorry for Pandora, worrying about her, trying to help her, Pandora had been conspiring with Alex Manoussi to lure her here.

  Alex shook his head. ‘No, Pan didn’t tell you any lies. Everything she told you was the truth. Except . . .’

  ‘Except what she left out!’ Miranda said with fierce contempt. ‘She didn’t mention you, for instance, didn’t tell me you were her brother, or say she knew Terry Finnigan. I know he visited your home and met your family, he told me so. So she knew all about me!’

  He sighed. ‘I did talk to her about you, and I asked her not to mention me, but I didn’t tell her anything about Terry. What she knows about that she heard from your mother. I simply said that you might not come if you knew I would be here.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. How can I trust a word you say?’ She moved sideways to get away, but he put both hands on the trunk of the plane tree and fenced her between them, leaning towards her, his body very close yet not actually touching hers, merely reminding her how much more powerful his body was than her own. Her senses rioted. She had never been so aware of any man.

  His expression was very serious, even brooding. ‘Don’t you know my sister better than to believe she would conspire against you? She likes you. And she needs help; if she doesn’t carry this baby full-term I’m afraid she may crack up. She really needs you, Miranda. Don’t turn against her because of me.’

  ‘Of course it was a pure coincidence that she was in the hospital at the same time as me!’ she said with biting sarcasm.

  ‘She had been asked to spend a few days having tests to check that the baby was still OK but she hadn’t arranged a date. When I heard you were in that hospital I admit I asked her to ring up and book herself in at the same time. As a foreigner, she was a private patient anyway, so it wasn’t difficult.’

  She was breathing in the scent of his skin, faintly salty, and smelling of pine – aftershave or shower gel? she thought inconsequentially, so disturbed by her reactions to him that she leaned away, her head back and touching the tree trunk. He was far too close.

  ‘Why lie to me, though? Why didn’t she tell me the truth?’

  ‘Because I asked her not to! I’ve explained that.’

  ‘You haven’t explained why you didn’t want me to know!’

  ‘If she had told you she was my sister would you have come?’

  She looked away, very conscious of his long fingers only inches from her cheek. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I do. You would have refused.’

  ‘I wanted to find somewhere safe, to hide from the Finnigans. Now I know you own this hotel I know I’m not safe here. I shall have to leave.’

  ‘No! You can’t go. You’ve signed a contract, promised to do this job, I won’t let you leave!’

  Terror leapt inside her, she felt all the colour rush out of her face and was suddenly very cold, despite the increasing heat of noon.

  ‘You can’t force me to stay!’

  ‘You have a legal obligation to stay for three months – that was the term specified in the contract, wasn’t it?’

  She couldn’t even remember. She had signed the contract after one brief glance at the terms.

  ‘You already owe us a considerable amount,’ he added.

  She was shaken by that, her voice thready and weak. ‘Owe you? What do you mean? I don’t owe you anything.’

  ‘Did you read that contract you signed? If you leave before the three months is up you must refund the cost of your fare out here.’

  ‘I don’t remember that.’

  ‘Well, check your own copy of the contract.’

  She looked down, her breathing fast and uneven, trying to think, to work out what to do. ‘Have you told Terry I’m here?’

  ‘No.’

  Her eyes lifted incredulously, stared into his dark ones. They had midnight’s blackness, the round pupils like dangerous mirrors, reflecting her own face, very small. ‘But you are going to tell him?’

  He shrugged those wide shoulders, his face impassive. ‘No, why should I? I’m one of Terry Finnigan’s clients, I’m not a friend of his. I won’t speak to him again for months, unless there’s a problem with the shipment he’ll be sending me shortly.’

  She searched his eyes. ‘You know about the murder, though, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said flatly.

  ‘You know he sacked me for telling the police I overheard his son with the girl?’

  He nodded. ‘And I know about the hit and run driver who ran you down in the street. I have talked to the police, I was one of the witnesses who was interviewed after your accident. I saw what happened.’

  ‘Oh.’ That astonished her. ‘You were really there?’ She had not imagined that she saw him among the crowd surrounding her while she lay on the road.

  One of his
black brows lifted in sardonic mockery. ‘Did you think you were seeing things?’

  ‘I suppose I was concussed. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing.’ She caught sight of his gold watch, realised time had flashed past. ‘Oh, I must go, it’s lunchtime.’

  ‘No, come in and eat with me,’ he ordered in an autocratic tone that she resented.

  ‘Don’t order me around!’

  ‘We have a lot to talk about, don’t we? I’ve only heard the police version of what happened. I haven’t discussed it with Terry. I’d like to hear the story from you.’

  His face was sober, his gaze direct; she stared back at him uncertainly, biting her inner lip. Could she believe him? Did she dare trust him, this man who had haunted her nightmares for years?

  Chapter Nine

  If she was honest with herself, she was curious to see the interior of the house, and curious, too, about Alex Manoussi. She knew so little about him or his family. Even what she had thought she knew, had heard from Pandora and Charles, from Milo, was obviously not entirely true. They had left Alex out of the stories they told, and that made what they had said flawed, unreliable, as well as making her uneasy about them. As they had lied to her by omission, they were no longer the people she had believed they were.

  ‘Come along,’ he said softly, coaxingly, and took her elbow.

  She could have pulled away, but she didn’t. She let him lead her into the house, although she was trembling inside, her head swimming with doubt and uncertainty.

  He unlocked the front door and took her into a hall from which a flight of beautifully polished stairs rose into a shadowy first floor. There was a scent of summer flowers; roses and lavender mingled. A large green glass bowl of them stood on a heavy oak table by a fireplace whose blackened chimney bore witness to years of fires. Charles had said it was cold here in the winter; snow often lay on the ground for days, which was why the hotel now had central heating, although Pandora had laughingly said that in her childhood before the central heating was installed they had had huge fires of wood, perfumed by pine cones from the pines in their grounds.

  Had she really meant the hotel, or had she been talking about this house?

  ‘Is the house old?’ she asked Alex, as they entered a large sitting room leading off the hall.

  Alex let go of her and walked through the shadowy light to the windows, pressed a button which operated the shutters.

  ‘By English standards, no. It was built in eighteen sixty-one; Greece had a King, then, King Otto. He was driven out in eighteen sixty-two, just a year after this house was built.’

  ‘Did your family build the house?’

  ‘My great great grandfather, Philip built it.’ He pointed to a brightly coloured painting hanging on one wall. ‘That is him.’ She studied the proud, weather-beaten, hawk-nosed face.

  ‘I can see a resemblance.’

  Alex laughed. ‘Thank you. He was fifty when he built this house. He had just married for the third time, a girl of eighteen called Helena. His first wife and child were killed in an earthquake in Athens. He married again, but that wife died in childbirth. Medicine was very primitive here in that era. It was bad luck. But he tried again, with my great great grandmother, and she had four children – two boys, two girls.’ He gestured to another painting of a similar-looking man with the same black hair, black eyes, flashing stare. ‘My great grandfather, Constantine, was the eldest. He was married at twenty, but his wife didn’t have a child for ten years, and then only had one, my grandfather, Basil. That’s him, that photograph over there.’

  Miranda went over to look at the faded, monochrome photograph standing on a highly polished sideboard. The resemblance to Alex was striking; the family face was oddly uniform, they all looked much the same.

  ‘That was a very early photograph. Apparently my grandfather was a keen amateur photographer. He was too busy constructing his boat-building yard to get married. He finally chose a girl whose father was well-to-do; one of grandfather’s customers. My grandmother was beautiful, but we don’t have any photos or paintings of her here. There are photos taken by my grandfather, but a cousin of mine has those, in Athens.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Sophie. When she had a daughter first, she gave her the same name. My father was her third child and first son. She had seven children in all, but several of them died in infancy, which was not uncommon in those days.’

  ‘Did they live in Piraeus, near the boat yard, or here?’

  ‘Sometimes here, sometimes in Piraeus. Once children started to arrive, my grandmother chose to live here. I spent my childhood here, with my mother, while my father lived on the mainland and came over here at weekends.’

  ‘It must have been a difficult life for your mother.’

  ‘Yes, she missed my father when he was away, but she was a good wife and accepted the way of life he wanted.’ He turned to look down at her, his dark eyes glinting mischievously. ‘Greek women were very submissive then.’

  ‘Not now?’

  ‘We have feminists now. Life is not so easy for men as it used to be. Women argue back more than they did.’

  ‘Good,’ she said, chin lifted, and his mouth went crooked, half in amusement, half in derision.

  ‘Home life was much more peaceful in those bad old days, though.’

  ‘For the men – I wonder if women liked their lives much?’

  ‘They had their children, and their home to run. They were not powerless, not in their own homes.’

  ‘And you would like to go back to those times, I suppose?’

  He considered her drily, then shook his head. ‘I don’t believe you can ever turn the clock back. No, I’m perfectly happy with the way things are now.’ He walked over to a drinks tray and lifted a glass. ‘What would you like to drink? White wine, retsina?’

  ‘White wine, please. Retsina is interesting but it is an acquired taste, a glass of it now and then is OK, but I wouldn’t want to drink too much of it.’

  ‘Nor would I,’ he agreed, pouring them both white wine.

  Taking her glass she sat down. The furniture was mainly golden oak, the armchairs covered in dark blue velvet which matched the curtains hanging at the windows. She got an impression of tranquillity; the room was cool and elegant. The walls were painted a soft eggshell blue; on them hung family portraits and watercolours of the Greek landscape.

  A face caught her attention; younger and softer but familiar all the same, and very beautiful. The woman she had seen with Charles – Elena. Was she a member of the Manoussi family, then?

  Watching her, Alex said, ‘Shall I order lunch from room service, or shall we make our own?’

  ‘Well . . . have you got anything here?’

  ‘Plenty of salad in the fridge. Would you like fish or lamb with that? I’ve got some lamb chops and some sea bream, or squid.’

  ‘Sea bream would be lovely.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m a bit dubious about squid, I’m afraid.’

  ‘We’ll have to teach you to love it. It tastes like chicken, you know.’

  ‘I’ve been told that, but I can’t get over those tentacles, and the horrible little suckers. When I see squid I keep thinking it is going to slither off the plate and grab me by the throat.’

  He laughed. ‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you! By the time it turns up on a plate, it’s dead and has been cooked.’

  She shuddered. ‘Maybe, but I still don’t like the look of it. Can I help with the cooking?’

  ‘Would you make the salad and the dressing while I cook the fish?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well, come through to the kitchen.’

  She was still staring at the portrait of Elena. Should she ask Alex about her? Slowly she turned to follow him.

  The kitchen was an ultra modern room with high windows through which the sun streamed once Alex had opened the shutters.

  The cabinets were made of golden pine, there was a bright yellow range and a tall re
frigerator on top of which sat a tabby cat with a huge, bushy, stripy tail. It stood up, yawning widely, showing sharp little white teeth.

  ‘Oh, isn’t he sweet? Is it a he?’

  ‘Yes, but he is not sweet, nor would he want to be if he understood what you were saying. His name is Attila, and his occupation is mostly murder. He prowls through the grounds and kills everything he can catch; mice, rats, shrews, birds. Red in tooth and claw, I’m afraid. Not sweet at all.’

  She stood on tiptoe to stroke the cat’s silky head. ‘You’re not an assassin, are you?’ she whispered. It narrowed its eyes to a slit and humped its back, making a growling noise.

  ‘Careful, he bites and scratches, for no reason at all,’ Alex warned.

  A second later the cat launched itself on to her stroking hand, dug its very sharp claws into her and bit her at the same time.

  ‘Ow,’ she squawked, jumping away.

  ‘I warned you,’ Alex said, taking her hand and looking with concern at the red marks scarring the smooth surface of her skin. ‘Does it hurt? I’ll find some cream for it.’

  ‘No, don’t bother. It isn’t serious.’

  His long fingers were caressing her hand, sending shivers down her back. She pulled free and he gave her a quick, upward glance but said nothing.

  Moving away, he opened the fridge, got out a plate on which lay a shiny, silver-scaled sea bream. Then he got out a large plastic bowl of salad; lettuce, cucumber, green peppers, tomatoes.

  He put the salad on the kitchen table, took the fish over to the sink and began preparing it, holding it under a running tap and scraping off the scales with a knife into a bowl. When he had finished he put the bream on a wooden board and neatly gutted it while she watched.

  ‘Cutlery is in the table drawer right next to you,’ he told Miranda. ‘Vinegar, olive oil, pepper, to make a dressing, you’ll find on the shelf over here.’

  She walked over to the shelf and took down the condiments. Alex got a copper frying pan down from the wall, poured a little olive oil into it and set it on top of the range.

  Then he began chopping onions, which he dropped into the smoking oil before crushing some garlic and slicing tomatoes, which he added to the pan. When they were all cooked he cleared a space in the pan for the bream. The kitchen filled with the fresh scent of cooking fish.