Icon of Gold
Page 32
She wandered from room to room. Most of the packing had been done; the place already seemed empty, unlived-in. Leon’s dream was finished, done to death as surely as Leon himself had been. She went out on to the terrace, watching for the evening boat. It had been windy all day, and it was rising still. The boat was late. She went down the steps to the bedroom. Here too most of the packing had been done, only the last of their personal possessions left. She opened the empty wardrobe, to check nothing had been missed, went through the equally empty drawers. In Nikos’ room she checked methodically that all was ready for the morrow’s departure.
Home. They were going home.
Through the sound of the wind she heard the ferry’s whistle as it ploughed round the headland and into the bay. Nikos was coming.
She opened another drawer. This one still had some clothes in it; neatly folded shirts and jumpers, waiting to be packed. She must remind Nikos to clear it tonight. She tried to shut it, and the thing skewed and jammed. She rattled it impatiently, trying to free it. ‘Blast it!’ It was wedged tight. She pulled it, and with a suddenness that made her jump it freed itself, swinging in her hand, cracking against her knee, spilling the contents all over the floor. ‘Blast the thing!’ she said again, rubbing her damaged knee before bending to retrieve the scattered clothes.
She almost missed the gleam of gold; for ever after she wished that she had. Very, very slowly she reached for the small bright object that had been concealed within the folds of a pale blue shirt. It lay in her hand, heavy and familiar. She stared at it for what seemed a very long time, marshalling thought, trying to suppress a dawning dread. The missing icon. The talisman that had lost its power to protect; that had been wrenched from the neck of a dead or dying man.
How had Nikos come by it? The police had spent two days scouring the scene of the murder; the icon had not turned up then.
No matter how she fought, it was impossible not to follow the path down which her thoughts were leading her. Nikos had lied to her once. In God’s sweet name — was the deception greater than she had imagined? Her mind sheered from the thought.
Adam had stabbed Leon — by accident, she did believe that - and left him for dead. Mortally wounded Leon had dragged himself to the stream and, too weak to save himself, had drowned. Those were the facts. Or were they? Had Leon dragged himself to the water? Or — terrible thought — had he been dragged? No one had looked for such signs; there had seemed to be no need. With Adam fled, a self—confessed murderer, who else was there to suspect?
Who indeed?
She shook her head once, and then again, fiercely. ‘Adam killed Leon,’ she said aloud, firmly. ‘He told me so himself. Adam did it.’
Then what of this? Her hand closed upon the icon.
‘If you love me,’ Nikos had said, ‘then trust me.’
And on the heels of that, Leon’s voice rang suddenly in her head, clearly as if he were there in the room with her; ‘God damn you, woman. God damn you for a squalid whore. You be stolen my honour and my son. Look for punishment, for it will come.’
She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Adam killed Leon,’ she said again, and even she could hear the dreadful edge of doubt in her voice.
The ferry whistled again as it approached the shore.
With enormous care she fitted the drawer back on to its runners, folded the clothes and put them back. She stood for a long, still moment, the trinket that she knew had meant as much to the son as it had to the father still in her hand. What superstitious impulse — what fear? — had led to the breaking of that chain? And under what circumstances?
‘If you love me, then trust me.’
How had it come here?
One day she would ask him. But, she knew, not now, not yet. Not until she was certain she was strong enough to face the answer. ‘How did I never realise,’ she asked into the empty, oppressive silence of the room, very softly, ‘what a terrible thing — a truly terrible thing — love can be?’
After a long moment she tucked the icon carefully back into the folds of the shirt and shut the drawer.
The ferry would have docked by now. Nikos was coming.
*
They were safely away and on the high seas when the earthquake struck, two days later. At the heart of the monstrous upheaval whole villages were destroyed as the treacherous earth convulsed beneath them. The mainland and the farther islands, however, escaped more lightly, though the tremors were enough to terrify and to bring down the odd building. Though Cathy did not discover it until later the house on the mountain was, oddly, the only one in the village to be damaged. As the earth slipped so the structure slipped with it, beams cracking and walls leaning drunkenly, the waters of the stream washing across the terrace and through the wrecked garden. In a few violent moments Leon’s pride was destroyed. Only the Shepherd’s Hut remained, whole and untouched, small and solid upon its outcrop of rock.
ALSO OUT NOW
The Italian House
A gripping story of passion and family secrets in a glorious Tuscan villa
First published in United Kingdom in 1997 by Little, Brown and Company
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
57 Shepherds Lane
Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © 1997 by Teresa Crane
The moral right of Teresa Crane to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781910859513
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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