It didn’t take long to reach the edge of the gorge, where the land was overgrown with gorse and there were outcrops of rock. Below was the pebbly riverbed that was often in spate after the spring thaw but was now dried-out, given over to snakes, wild boar and other animals that Dionysos probably liked to hunt. Hunting was surely what he did best.
Dionysos stepped in front of me. “This way, you follow me,” he said, taking a narrow stony path covered in places with scree. It cut down the top section of the gorge. Once I started to follow him, the drop seemed less sheer than it did from above but it was perilous enough. It was a difficult descent and I was sweating with panic, Zeffy trotting beside me on a tense lead, his urge to have a go at Dionysos undiminished. But he was a smart creature and I knew he was just waiting for the right moment. Dionysos kept a safe distance in front of us, however, glancing back at us now and then.
As we descended, I eyed up loose rocks, wondering if I could lob one at his head. But what if I missed? My legs were beginning to tremble from the effort and the fear of it all, but my mind was constantly turning over every possibility for escape. Finally, we arrived at a wide ledge in front of the mouth of a cave, which was concealed from above. The mouth was vast, triangular in shape, narrow at the top. The cave at the back was dark and uninviting.
“Sit in there with dog,” he snapped, shaking his gun towards the front of the cave. Before he followed me, he reached in his pocket, took out my mobile and pitched it into the gorge below, where it made a tinny clattering sound.
I sat down with my back against the cave wall, with Zeffy at my side. I could sense he was still bubbling with rage, but he kept vigil beside me, his eyes flickering towards me every now and then. Dionysos sat on the opposite side and took out his mobile. It must have been possible here to get a signal. Pity my phone had gone.
Dionysos had a shouty conversation with someone in Greek that seemed to go on and on. Then he snapped the phone shut.
“We wait now, for a friend.”
“What friend?”
He sneered at me. “Not your business.”
God help me: this was going to be gang rape now. My mind was fizzing with anxiety. I should have made a run for it when I had the chance. This was a place where no-one would see or hear me. I’d probably rather take a risk and just jump off the edge of the ravine. It was closer here to the bottom anyway. Zeffy started whining.
“Shut him or he gets this,” he said, jabbing the air with the gun.
I looked properly at the gun and thought it looked more like some old kind of World War Two handgun that probably didn’t work, but I couldn’t be sure.
“Why are you doing this? What have you got against me?”
“You are the enemy of Greek people,” he said, in an echo of the EPE party slogans Angus and I had seen on the posters in Glika Nera.
“No, I’m not. I love Greek people.” Engage him in chatter, I thought. Keep his mind occupied.
“You are enemy!”
“You mean of Ellines Patriotes Enomeni? You’re a follower, aren’t you? You come from Glika Nera. You know you have already been reported to the police.”
“Police useless.” Then he continued in a long Greek rant. “I saw you in Glika Nera, with your malakas father.”
I ignored the insult.
“Why am I the enemy? I’m just a foreigner living here.”
“You are one who …” he stuttered around with his English. “You … grafeis,” he said making a scribbling sign with his hand, and it wasn’t hard to understand grafeis meant write. “You … grafeis … things for the English. I see it.”
“See what, my work? How is that?”
“Skase mori! Shut it up, you bitch!” he said, making the insult sound even worse than it was in his mangled English.
“Don’t speak to me like that,” I fumed, uselessly.
He laughed, a greasy cold laugh.
“You tell me how you’ve seen my work.”
“Friend Derek, he English. He knows. You grafeis … bad things.”
I didn’t know what was more appalling, his English or that the expat Derek was involved in this. Was it possible that Derek had got hold of some of my columns, from a Scottish contact perhaps, particularly the recent one about the rise of the far right, and had shared them with his Greek pals? From what Angus had told me, Derek was a traitor who seemed to hate his own compatriots, who’d been only too happy to escape from them and who apparently now preferred the company of creeps like Dionysos.
“Is that why I’m here? As a punishment?”
He got up, pointing the gun at me. He looked agitated. “You don’t come here and be enemy of Greek people!”
Zeffy was on his feet as well and barking loudly. I couldn’t stop him this time. He looked like he might want to rip the creep’s throat out and I probably wouldn’t have stopped him. Dionysos pointed the gun at him. I felt a rush of blood to my head, and cringed against the wall of the cave. Zeffy first, me next. Was this possible? I felt an acid rush of liquid filling my mouth. I thought I might vomit but spat instead on the dirt floor.
Dionysos had his finger on the trigger but nothing followed. No shot. I screamed. The creep cackled. It was meant to frighten us, but the next time it might be for real. Or perhaps the gun wasn’t really loaded. I didn’t want to push it. I pulled Zeffy back but he was on his back legs now, snarling. He felt suddenly powerful, wound-up, and he lunged towards Dionysos, pulling the lead right out of my hand.
Zeffy, in a lightning move, lunged and clamped his teeth around the creep’s leg below the knee. Dionysos didn’t have time to think and, in shock perhaps, dropped the gun. As he bent and scrabbled for it near his feet, Zeffy held on tight, shaking his head over the creep’s leg. I got up quickly and estimated whether I could lunge for the gun and manage to pick it up. What then? But he was too quick for me. He kicked hard with his other leg against Zeffy’s side. The dog squealed and released his grip a moment. Dionysos bent down and recovered the gun, but with a trembling hand.
“Gamoto! Fuck it!” he shouted, his face wincing in pain.
“Let me get the dog’s lead,” I said. As I bent down for it, to pull Zeffy away, he did something I didn’t expect. He bolted out of the cave, dragging the lead behind him. I could hear him paws scattering stones as he ascended the path.
“Dog coward, leaves you now … too bad,” he scoffed.
Without Zeffy, I felt completely stranded but, in my heart, I was sure he’d somehow summon help. I hoped that was the case.
Dionysos sunk down again against the wall opposite and waved the gun at me. “You sit.”
He pulled up the leg of his jeans. “Gamoto,” he said again, his face snarly. The bite looked deep and was bleeding a lot.
“Your malakas dog, I sorry I not shoot,” he said, waving the gun.
While Dionysos throbbed away with indignation, I tried to figure out again if I could bolt out of the cave before he aimed the gun. I would wait until he was distracted or he put the gun down. But he was watching me carefully, his greasy hair hanging over his face. His mobile rang. There was an angry exchange again. The friend? I got the sense Dionysos was berating him, probably for his delay in fronting up, wherever he was. The creep pinged the phone off.
“We wait,” he said with a snarl.
We sat in silence for about half an hour. It seemed an eternity. When he reached over to check his leg again, I slowly inched a bit towards the mouth of the cave. I was sitting against the wall with my hands slightly behind me. To my right, I felt the outline of a small rock and clasped it in my hand. At least if he came for me, I’d launch it. I leaned my head against the rough wall of the cave and wondered if this was the place Angus had once told me about.
During some punitive raids in the Mani by the Ottoman Turks in the 18th century, a group of villagers, mostly women and children, had been sheltering from the sun in a cave after visiting a nearby spring water outlet. A group of Turks had come to the edge of the gorge and disco
vered their presence, probably when a baby cried. They clambered down a track and lobbed sulphur ‘bombs’ through the mouth of the cave, killing almost all the group. The story had become historic legend in the village. I could well believe it had happened here.
There was a pernicious feel about this place, especially at the back of the cave, where it was dark and fetid. It was then I remembered, like the twist of a knife in the guts, that a cave had figured in Kieran’s tragic story after the Battle of Kalamata. Was his fate to be my fate as well? History repeating itself all over again in another part of the Mani?
I was starting to feel faint and very thirsty but I had no water with me. Dionysos looked even worse and I noticed he had a large patch of red blooming on the leg of his jeans. He surely couldn’t run at all now. Zeffy had done a good job. I gripped my rock and waited, trying to ramp up my courage to spring to my feet and flee. But then I heard a faint noise coming from the top of the dirt track, of stones being dislodged. My heart sank. Creep number two? In moments, he’d be here and then all was lost. The noise grew louder, a frenzied tramping, scree flying.
Then I heard Zeffy barking, people shouting. Zeffy appeared first and rushed over to me, licking my face. I got to my feet, feeling faint again, but this time with relief. Two men were right behind the dog and I was overjoyed to see one was wearing a police uniform. The other was Adonis, the church elder who’d been at the Sunday lunch. The police officer had his gun drawn and rushed at Dionysos, shouting in Greek. The creep dropped his gun on the cave floor. The officer manhandled him into a standing position and cuffed his hands behind his back. He picked up the gun and checked it. No bullets apparently and it probably wouldn’t have worked, even if it had been loaded. My intuition had been right: it was an old piece of junk. The officer prodded the creep towards the path. More scree tumbled down towards the mouth of the cave from the path.
Leonidas came quickly into view, carrying his medical bag. I rushed towards him and hugged him.
“Are you all right, Bronte?”
“I am now,” I said in a thin, tired voice.
“Are you sure, my love?”
I nodded.
Adonis came over and tapped me gently on the shoulder and pointed to Zeffy.
“Kalos skilos, poli mangas,” he said, and I remembered what it meant from the Sunday lunch, as far as I could recall anything at that moment. Zeffy was a good dog and a plucky character. I agreed. I even managed a smile.
“Efharisto. Thanks for helping, Adonis,” I said, feeling teary.
“You welcome,” he said, rushing out of the cave to follow the others, leaving me and Leonidas alone with Zeffy.
“Leo, I’m so happy to see you. I thought that bastard was going to kill us both, Zeffy and me.” I threw my arms around his neck again and cried tears of relief. He rubbed my back like a consoling parent and it felt like the safest place in the world to be.
“You’re okay now, Bronte. But you’re in shock.” He pulled out a small bottle of water from his medical bag.
“I brought a few other things with me in case you were injured. I’m happy I don’t need them, but are you okay to walk back to the village?”
“Yes, I’ll be fine once I get away from this horrible place.”
I gulped the water as Leonidas took Zeffy by his lead and we climbed slowly up the path to the lip of the gorge, where we stopped for a breather. From there we could see the commotion of Dionysos being led over the field in handcuffs with the policeman and Adonis. They were followed by some other village men, whom Leonidas said had come as back-up and who had waited at the top of the gorge. They were talking loudly and chivvying Dionysos along. He had his head down, limping. In a few moments they were out of sight.
Zeffy sat patiently beside us, his tongue hanging out. He was panting. I streamed water from the bottle into one of my cupped hands for him and he drank eagerly.
“Zeffy saved my life today – for the second time with that bastard Dionysos,” I said, venting my anger. Leonidas smiled.
“It was fortunate that Zeffy went straight back to the village and made sure he got everyone’s attention. He’s a very smart dog. Elpida saw him first, running about the plateia, barking. She remembered seeing you both earlier and raised the alarm. And Dionysos won’t be troubling you any more, Bronte. Or his friend. Some man from the same village of Glika Nera, I think. The police caught him trying to escape by car from the village. I don’t know any more details yet. God knows what they had in mind. I can’t bear to think of it. But we must get back to the village. You will need to give a statement to the police.”
When we arrived in the plateia there seemed to be a lot of villagers milling around. They were talking loudly and excitedly about the kidnapping, as if nothing so dramatic had happened here for years. I was surprised to see that even Myrto was there, having heard the news somehow. She’d come straight from her farm compound, riding Zeus, dressed in her work clothes and wellies. She rushed over and gripped me by the arms.
“I am so mad I didn’t find that man for you and shoot him with my rifle, like the mad kangaroo he is,” she said.
Next it was Elpida’s turn to fly towards me and hug me in big strong arms.
“Oh, Bronte! When the dog came back on its own with the strap dragged behind, I knew something is not right and I call people on their mobiles: Leonidas, your babas. Thanks be to God they found you in time.” She crossed herself several times.
“Thank you, Elpida. You had great instincts all along. You knew Dionysos was up to no good.”
“Yes, stomach was twitching but I didn’t act quickly enough. Still, could have been worser,” she said, mangling her English in all the excitement.
I saw Angus getting out of his car and walking towards the plateia. His face looked grey. I don’t think I’d seen him look so sickly since he’d been on the verge of a heart attack the previous year. Leonidas instructed him to sit down and asked Elpida to bring a glass of water. He wouldn’t sit before he’d given me a good hug and rubbed my back.
“Are you okay, pet?” he said, pushing me back a little so he could see for himself how I was.
“Yes, I’m fine now. I’m more worried about you.”
He sat at one of the kafeneio tables and sipped his water. “I’m okay now but the ticker got in a flap when I finally got home and played a message on voicemail from Elpida. If I’d driven up on the coast road instead of the Mani road, I’d have seen all the commotion and would have stopped.”
He rubbed his hand over his forehead. “I blame myself for not making it clearer, not to go roaming about the village alone with that guy on the loose. When I came here 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have dreamt of telling anyone to be careful out on a Greek hillside. Things are different now,” he said, suddenly out of breath.
“Are you having chest pains, Angus?” asked Leonidas, with medical authority.
“No, no, don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
“No more talking,” said Leonidas, patting him gently on the shoulder.
After my police interview, in which Angus added a comment of his own about the suspects and Derek’s possible collusion with Dionysos, Leonidas drove us back to Villa Ambelia and offered to pick up Angus’s car later. He didn’t think Angus was in a fit state to drive it after his shock and told him to take it easy for the rest of the day.
Chapter 25
Under every stone, a scorpion
“I only wish there had been a way to get the police to arrest Dionysos sooner, but he was cunning. He hadn’t broken any laws yet,” said Leonidas as we sat in the living room of Villa Ambelia early in the evening with Angus, now recovered from his shock. Zeffy was sitting in front of us on a colourful dog rug.
Leonidas had agreed that as Zeffy had become the hero of the day, he should be allowed to stay where he liked. As a reward, Zeffy was given a large dinner of cooked chicken.
“I shouldn’t have gone up the path in the direction of the Rindomo Gorge. That was stupid. But I didn’t t
hink for a minute Dionysos would ever go up there. Perhaps he was stalking me a lot more than I realised,” I said.
“Looks like it,” said Angus.
“How were you to know what you were up against? We Greeks have been through a lot of upheavals in our history but the crisis has brought new challenges we have not had for a very long time and we’re not equipped to deal with them,” said Leonidas.
I was keen to know how the posse of rescuers had come about and Leonidas filled me in on the missing parts of the story. He had left the surgery early that day and decided to go straight to Villa Ambelia, but found I wasn’t there or in Villa Anemos. He was about to drive into Marathousa when Elpida rang his mobile. Elpida had always been like the unofficial mayor of Marathousa. She had a pinboard inside the kafeneio with dozens of local numbers on it, practically the whole village, including Angus’s number. When she called, there was no answer. When she rang Leonidas, she told him she was worried because she remembered seeing me and Zeffy walking through the village earlier and then, much later, I hadn’t returned but the dog bounded onto the plateia, dragging his lead. Elpida thought something bad must have happened.
Before Leonidas drove to the village, he called my mobile, with no success. My phone was lying at the bottom of the ravine. He also called Kalamata police station and, name-dropping his detective friend, summoned a patrol car to Marathousa immediately. Luckily for me, there was one not far away on the southern outskirts of Kalamata.
When Leonidas got to the village plateia, the place was in a flap, Zeffy fizzing with anxiety. Villagers were gathered into a group, talking excitedly, with Elpida at the helm.
“The dog was incredible,” Leonidas told me. “He kept barking to keep our attention and sometimes running towards the back stairs of the plateia and back again, as if to make us follow him.”
When the police car arrived, one young officer said he would go with Leonidas to wherever the dog led them. Adonis offered to take charge of Zeffy. The other policeman would stay in the village in case I happened to return. A few other men were to follow on as back-up. Miltiades from the taverna wanted to join in but didn’t think he was fit enough to keep up. He could dance, he said, but hillwalking was something else. Leonidas was to take his medical bag in case I’d had an accident, or worst of all, fallen into the ravine. No-one at that point was thinking of a kidnap, or a sinister incident with Dionysos because none of the villagers recalled seeing him, yet he must have been lurking somewhere out of sight. He could then have gone by scooter up one of the narrow farm tracks that led off the main road to the fields above. Or else it was just an unfortunate co-incidence that he was up there.
How Greek Is Your Love Page 22