by Roberta Kray
‘Eve?’
She shook her mind back into the present. ‘Yeah, why not?’ She picked up a piece of bread and shredded it between her fingers. ‘We could go later, after lunch. I thought I might take a walk this morning, do some shopping. We can meet up later. Would you mind?’
Had he been a different kind of person, less secure, less confident, he might have objected but Jack wasn’t the type to take offence. ‘About midday?’ he said.
She looked at her watch; it was only nine fifteen. That should give her plenty of time. ‘Okay. What will you do?’
‘Oh, go for a swim. Sit on the beach and top up my tan. Have a few beers. Don’t worry, I’ll keep myself occupied.’
He was wearing a simple white vest and a pair of black jeans. The vest showed off the muscles in his shoulders. With her eyes she traced the undulating contours down along his arms until she reached his strong long-fingered hands. His skin had already turned to a shade of dark honey, his hair lightened to an even paler blond. She felt a sudden impulse to abandon the project, to forget about the villa and join him on the beach.
Before she could give in to temptation, she jumped to her feet. ‘I’ll see you later then.’
Eve had been walking for over an hour and her legs were beginning to ache. Away from the breeze of the sea the heat was more intense. And it wasn’t even June yet. What was it like in August? She could feel the tiny beads of perspiration forming on her face, on her temples and upper lip, as the sun beat down on the top of her head. She should have bought a hat. She should have worn her trainers too instead of the ridiculous flip-flops that were already chafing between her toes.
Starting from the harbour, she had worked her way systematically back through the village, crossing each street off her map as it was walked, examined and then dismissed. Only the main thoroughfares were marked, however, and she had frequently come across other minor nameless paths that sometimes led somewhere but more often than not petered out into a dusty nothingness.
Elounda was a spread-out, sprawling kind of place, the village constantly expanding to accommodate the increase in tourists. Perhaps that was why, after over twenty years, so little seemed familiar to her. If it wasn’t for that clock tower, for the certainty of that one memory, she would doubt that she had ever been here before.
She was feeling somewhat dejected – the villa could be anywhere, tucked away in a corner she would never find – when she spotted the café up ahead. Five tables, two of them unoccupied, were huddled under a wide stripy awning casting a welcome block of shade. Yes, a drink was what she needed and a chance to rest her weary feet. She hurried forward and slumped down in one of the chairs with a sigh.
The waiter who came out to serve out her was tall, in his mid-twenties with a curly mop of black hair.
‘Kalimera,’ she said, drawing on her limited Greek.
He smiled broadly at her. ‘Good morning,’ he said. She didn’t need to question how he knew that she was British; her pale skin and red hair were tantamount to a flashing neon sign. ‘What may I get for you?’
‘Something cold,’ she said. She fancied a beer but settled on iced coffee. ‘Frappe?’
‘Frappe,’ he repeated, still smiling as if she had made a perfect choice. ‘Very good.’
He disappeared back inside. Eve stared down at the map. She had covered a fair bit of ground but it was starting to look like mission impossible. And what would she do if she did find it? Go and knock on the door, ask if this was Joe Silk’s villa, ask if anyone knew anything about a photograph taken two years ago? She realized, with growing frustration, that she hadn’t even got a plan.
The waiter returned with a long glass on a tray and with a dramatic flourish, like a magician producing a rabbit from a hat, set it down on the table in front of her.
‘Lovely,’ Eve said, thinking that maybe she should applaud. ‘Thank you.’
‘Ah,’ he said, catching sight of the map with all its markings and squiggles and crossing outs. ‘You search for somewhere?’
‘Yes, a villa. The Villa Marianne.’ Automatically, she repeated her hopeless description. ‘White, tall gates, a courtyard, a pool.’ She saw his bemused expression and smiled. ‘I know. It’s not much to go on, is it? But it’s all I can remember. I stayed there once a long time ago.’
As if this information was an invitation for him to join her, he pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘Marianne,’ he repeated thoughtfully, scratching his ear. He turned the map around to look at it. ‘Many villas in Elounda. Many rich persons.’
‘I’ve noticed,’ she said.
‘Is not good.’
She glanced at him, trying to decide whether it was the buildings or the people he was objecting to. ‘No?’
In the event it turned out to be neither. It was only the map. He prodded it with a finger and gave a sad resigned shake of his head. ‘Many roads not here. Much wrongness. Is … how you say?’
‘Useless?’ she suggested.
He laughed, slapping a palm down on his thigh. ‘Useless!’ he repeated, his dark eyes shining like a child who has just been taught a naughty word. ‘Is very useless!’
She found herself laughing too. It was a release as much as anything, an opportunity to free the tension from her body – and it was preferable to the other option of dropping her face into her hands and crying like a baby. She had been wasting her time. Useless! The word revolved mockingly around her head. She was useless. This whole stupid search for the invisible villa was useless. But there was some kind of blessed relief in finally realizing it.
Eve was still smiling as an overweight middleaged couple, their cheeks plump and shiny, staggered along the street and grabbed the last available table. With a series of grunts they lowered themselves on to the metal folding chairs. She watched as they gathered their overflowing beach bags closer to their ankles and then bent again to pat them anxiously as if a band of Cretan towel-robbers might be lurking just around the corner.
‘Are you sure about this?’ the woman said. Her whiny voice was loud enough to carry. ‘Are you sure the food is safe to eat here?’
‘As safe as anywhere round here,’ the man replied curtly.
Eve stared at them, her smile fading into embarrassment. She hoped the waiter hadn’t heard. She quickly turned, intending to say something, and to say it loudly enough to drown out their crass remarks, but he was already getting to his feet.
‘Excuse, please.’ He gestured towards the couple. ‘I must …’
‘That’s okay,’ she said. ‘And thanks.’ She threw him another smile, hoping to compensate by some small gesture for the incivility of her countrymen.
She watched as he presented a menu to the couple, nodded, smiled politely, and then walked back inside. She watched them peruse the contents, their eyes as suspicious as if they’d just been presented with a list of lethal poisons. What was the matter with them? She couldn’t understand why people went abroad and then turned up their noses at the slightest hint of anything foreign.
Eve gave the frappe a stir and then picked up her glass and took a long welcome drink. She lit a cigarette and relaxed. A few minutes passed before she became aware of the heated debate taking place inside. Curious, she glanced in through the window. A group of elderly men, their faces as brown and wrinkled as walnuts, were waving their arms and shouting over each other. The waiter, standing with one hand splayed across his hip, was looking from one to the other.
After a while he broke away and put his head round the door. He looked at her and grinned. ‘Yankee?’ he said.
She looked back at him, confused. ‘Pardon?’
Americano?’ he said. ‘At the villa?’
So they were talking about the Villa Marianne! She felt a faint surge of hope. ‘No,’ she said. Then, wondering if it might have been sold since, that an American might have bought it, she shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe.’
He said something in Greek to the men behind him. There was a volley of replies, anoth
er flurry of hands, a further outburst of views and opinions. By now everyone, inside and out, was staring at her – so much for discretion. Her business, it seemed, was the centre of attention.
The British couple, as if she was busy revealing the details of her sex life, were glaring at her open-mouthed. Their thin-lipped disapproval was as oppressive as the heat. She kept her gaze averted, refusing to meet their eyes. She had enough problems of her own without the additional burden of their suppressed outrage.
‘The white paint,’ he asked, relaying another question, ‘not the pink?’
She smiled. ‘It used to be white,’ she said.
The talk inside continued for a while and then gradually grew quiet. The questions ceased and the men returned to their cards. The discussion, it appeared, had reached an impasse. Eve’s brief flash of hope fizzled into disappointment. She finished her coffee, placed some euros on a saucer to cover the bill and prepared to leave.
The waiter hurried over to her table. ‘Come,’ he said, beckoning to her. ‘I show you.’
She looked at him. ‘Show me?’ Then the light dawned and her eyes widened. ‘You know where the Villa Marianne is?’
‘Is possible,’ he said.
Well, possible was better than nothing. It was worth a look at least. She got to her feet and picked up her bag. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
Within a few minutes she was starting to have doubts about the wisdom of her decision. As he weaved through the dusty side streets, leaving the café far behind, she quickly lost her bearings and began to feel uneasy. Was this an act of madness, wandering off with a total stranger? She had no real idea where he was taking her. To some lonely grove, perhaps, away from prying eyes, where no one would hear her cries and …
‘Is it far?’ she said. ‘My boyfriend’s waiting for me at the harbour. I promised I’d meet him at twelve. He’ll worry if I’m late.’
She hoped by this statement to convey not just the fact that she’d be missed but also that she had a partner. What if he had misconstrued her friendliness? Perhaps by agreeing to come with him, he thought she was actually consenting to something else entirely. She felt the nerves flutter in her stomach as she shot him a sideways glance.
‘Not so far now,’ he said.
‘This is very kind of you,’ she said stiffly. ‘Only I think that maybe—’
‘Only little way,’ he said. ‘We see soon.’
And, not having a clue as to where she was, being utterly disorientated, she didn’t have much choice other than to stay with him. If she just walked away she could be roaming these nameless paths for hours on end trying to find her way back. She was overly aware of how quiet it was, of the soft background thrum of insects, of the rhythmic slap of her flip-flops against the soles of her feet.
‘I don’t even know your name.’
‘Christos,’ he said. ‘Christos Papageorgiou.’
There was something reassuring about the voluntary addition of his surname. And also in the casual way he loped along. His easy manner and soft brown eyes gave no hint of any evil intention.
‘Eve Weston,’ she replied. She relaxed a fraction. There were witnesses, weren’t there? All those customers at the café for starters. And having hair this colour – she curled a damp strand behind her ear – meant that she was usually remembered. He’d have to be mad to try anything – well, either mad or reckless.
‘You come from London, Eve?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘I know London,’ he said. ‘I work Finchley. You know Finchley? My uncle he has restaurant there. I work six months in winter.’ He grinned at her. ‘Very cold, very rainy.’ He shook his slender shoulders in a gross exaggeration of a shiver.
She smiled back. ‘Not like Elounda.’
‘You like?’ he asked.
She hoped he was referring to the village and not himself. ‘Sure,’ she said. She spoke slowly and clearly, making sure there was no room for any kind of misunderstanding. ‘It’s a very pretty place.’
The road they had been following had gradually widened and now they were entering a more solid street, complete with a parade of shops and a gentle crush of people. Eve felt the remaining tension leave her body, her limbs loosening, her hunched shoulders rolling back, even her jaw relaxing as if she had been clenching her teeth together. She was secure here in the company of others. There was safety in numbers. She smiled again at Christos, feeling a need to compensate for her earlier suspicions.
They must be near the main square, only a short distance from the sea. A light breeze ruffled her hair and set the skirt of her dress dancing against her dusty ankles. She took time now to look around, gazing in the shop windows, absorbing the sights and smells, soaking up the atmosphere.
Like a jackdaw her eyes were drawn to a glittering display, an array of silver jewellery, of slender chains and rings and necklaces. She would buy a piece before she left, a memento to remind her of Crete. And something for Sonia too; she could do with a lift after everything she’d been through. She was still trying to decide what she might prefer – a bracelet perhaps – when she noticed the tattered poster on the wall, faded and peeling at its corners. Missing, it said in English across the top and directly underneath what she presumed was the Greek equivalent.
She might have thought no more of it, no more at least than of all the other similarly saddening posters displayed around London, if she hadn’t come across another just a few yards further along. The picture on this one was clearer and the girl’s face with its wide easy smile and long curtain of fair hair struck a chord. It took a second for Eve to process the information, for the features to translate themselves into someone she thought she recognized, and then …
Abruptly, she stopped, whirled around and walked back. There was a tightening in her chest, a squeezing sensation as if all the air was being forced from her lungs. Her lips moved as she quickly scanned the rest of the poster. Andrea Banks, 17, disappeared … Her heart skipped a beat, hoping for a different date, a different year, but there it was in black and white: the July of two years ago. It was the girl in her father’s photograph! There was no question about it. Still she felt an urge to reach inside her bag and unfold the copy she had brought with her … but it was pointless. She had stared at that photo long enough and hard enough to be absolutely certain.
Eve could sense her knees starting to tremble. Despite the warmth of the air, she shivered. It didn’t take a genius to add the parts together – it was a piece of arithmetic so simple that even a child could do the sums: a trip to Crete that was never mentioned, a girl that had gone missing, a photograph that had been secretly taken, a gangster called Joe Silk, all the threats that had been made … Andrea Banks was dead! She knew it as surely as if the teenage corpse was lying right in front of her.
God. No. Jesus!
She must have swayed a little because Christos suddenly took hold of her elbow. ‘You okay?’ he asked. His brown eyes were full of concern.
She turned towards him, flapping a hand in front of her face. ‘Just the heat,’ she mumbled. ‘Sorry.’ In truth what she felt was a vile clammy coldness. A wave of nausea rose up from her stomach. Oh Christ, what had happened here? What had happened to that girl? She tasted the sour bile in her mouth and hoped she wasn’t about to throw up.
‘You like water?’ he asked.
She stared down at the ground. She stared at her feet, at the dirt between her toes. She did need water but what she needed more was to think. She needed to be alone, to get away from here. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I’m okay. I’ll be all right.’ Her voice sounded odd, disconnected, like an alien sound that was coming from someone else’s mouth. Then she asked the question that she had to ask – although she already knew the answer.
‘Did they find her?’ she said, glancing again towards the picture.
He didn’t respond directly. ‘Elounda very safe,’ he insisted. ‘No worry. She meet people, she go away. Maybe not want to go home. Nothing bad happen in El
ounda.’
Don’t be so bloody stupid! she wanted to snap but she bit back the retort. He didn’t know what she knew. He was only trying to reassure her – and perhaps himself too. No one wants a murderer on their doorstep.
‘Not far now,’ he said, tugging insistently on her elbow.
She didn’t have the strength or the words to break away. Instead, unprotesting, she allowed him to lead her along the street. He made a sharp left turn along another winding lane. It seemed amazing that her legs were still carrying her along, moving one in front of the other as if they had nothing at all to do with her. Her head was filled with madness. There was a snatch of film running round, a short continuous reel that refused to stop and just kept playing over and over … four men sitting at a table with a blonde girl, four men sitting at a table with a blonde girl … four men …
They rounded a corner and covered a few more yards before Christos came to a halt.
‘Ah,’ he said.
She raised her eyes, belatedly aware that some response was expected. ‘Huh?’ It took a moment for her to focus on the pair of black wrought-iron gates pulled shut and secured by a thick length of chain and a heavy padlock. To either side stood a tall stone pillar, the white paint chipped and flaking. In fine italic script, engraved into the stone and picked out in black, was the name – Villa Marianne.
The breath caught in her throat. ‘My God,’ she murmured. If the choice had been hers she would have turned and fled but her legs, so compliant until now, had suddenly turned to jelly. She moved forward and wound her fingers round the intricate scrolls of the railings. If nothing else it was an effective method of keeping herself upright. She peered inside. She could only see the top left-hand corner of the villa, a flaking square of white, a part of the flat roof, a single blue shuttered window. The rest was obscured by a rampaging jungle of foliage.
‘Is the place?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘Yes.’ The word emerged as a croak. She wanted to keep looking, couldn’t help looking, but was aware of more pressing obligations. She could feel Christos behind her, along with the weight of his expectancy. He had gone out of his way to bring her here – the least she could do was to show him some gratitude.