Nemesis of the Dead (24 page)

‘That’s awful – so cold and calculated. But I still don’t understand how he could murder his own sister.’

‘You’re forgetting – he doesn’t feel any emotional attachment to the people he harms. What did for him in the end – the reason he failed – was that he had no real sense of the potential consequences of his crimes, not only for his victims, but also for himself. He considered himself invincible and couldn’t accept that there was a risk of being caught as a result of what he’d done.’

‘What will happen to him?’

‘Well, he won’t go to prison. Once the mindbenders get hold of him, he’ll probably end up detained indefinitely in a secure hospital for the criminally insane. I doubt they’ll ever let him loose again – not if they’ve got any sense.’

Corrie had her own views on the subject of avoiding responsibility for your actions. Technically, Professor Gordon might be pronounced criminally insane but he’d been smart enough to concoct a premeditated plan to murder for money – twice – and prepare an escape route.

‘I hope you’ve stopped drifting off into your nether world of Greek spirits now we’re off that weird island,’ said Jack.

‘Of course I have. It was just that being in a deeply superstitious community seemed somehow to conjure up the ancient mythology that must have been lying dormant in my brain all these years.’

‘Sometimes I worry about what’s lying dormant in your brain.’

‘Did you notice those three old crones in white, sitting in the crowd that gathered on the quay to see us off?’

‘No. Why?’

‘They were sewing.’

‘So what?’

‘They looked just like the Moirae – the three Fates. Clotho spun the thread of your life, Lachesis measured its length with her rod and Atropos cut it off with her shears when your time was up. She also chose how you died. They were psychopaths – cold, remorseless and unfeeling. Even Zeus feared the Fates. Mind you, he was a psychopath, himself. He could …’

Jack sighed. ‘Thank goodness. We’re pulling into the harbour. Let’s go home.’

T
he travellers – such as were left – had said their goodbyes at the airport. There were no promises to keep in touch, no invitations to ‘call in if you’re ever in our neck of the woods’ and most definitely no expressions of interest in returning to Katastrophos – ever.

Tim Watkins looked at the scan of his baby son, safe and warm in Ellie’s womb and silent tears of joy streamed down his face. Memories of their ordeal on Katastrophos had at last begun to recede, driven away by this beautiful child waiting to be born. It seemed like a miracle to them both as Ellie, never robust, had been fragile for some weeks after they returned home. Now she looked radiant and so happy.

Tim had spoken to Ellie’s mother as soon as he could about the true identity of Ellie’s poisoner. She had been deeply shocked but agreed there was no question of telling Ellie, especially now, in her condition. Thanks to Jack, the necessary statements to the police had been handled sensitively and with a minimum of distress. All that mattered now was the safe delivery of Tim and Ellie’s son and their future together as a family.

Some weeks later Ellie accidentally discovered the identity of her father. She had gone round to her mum’s house, rooting in the bureau for some family snaps for the baby book she was making for her unborn son. In an inner recess, she found an old crumpled photo that her mother had kept hidden away, tucked inside her birth certificate. There was also a panoramic photograph of everyone in her mother’s last year at college with Professor Gordon, in his cap and gown, seated in the middle, beaming. He must have been in his thirties when it was taken, but she recognized him instantly. Somehow, finding out had not been the bombshell she might have expected. Maybe she had been subconsciously aware of a relationship between them on that dreadful island. For some time she studied his face quite calmly and philosophically, seeing aspects of her own features that she hadn’t noticed on Katastrophos. How tragic to think she might have died at her own father’s hands.

She put everything carefully back in the bureau so that her mother wouldn’t know she had found it. She had never asked questions and now she would never mention any of it to her mum or Tim. It would be too upsetting for them. Of course, she would have to think of something to tell her son if he ever asked about his grandfather. But there was plenty of time for that. She wondered if he would be born with wispy ginger hair.

Marjorie Dobson sat on the deck of the cruise liner sipping her rum punch and watching the sun set over the Caribbean Sea. Dan was below deck in the games room, playing pool with his partner, Jeff. Such a nice young man and they’d both been so considerate, promising to keep in touch more often now she was a widow. They didn’t want her to be lonely. How could she ever explain that becoming a widow was the first time she hadn’t felt lonely since she married Ambrose? She’d passed her driving test, found herself a very absorbing part-time job and made lots of good friends. She worked because she enjoyed it, not for the money. She had plenty of that. Ambrose’s insurance company had paid up unusually promptly once they had translated all the Greek documents. They’d been very sympathetic and offered their sincere condolences, saying how tragic it was for her, losing her husband on holiday abroad and on their thirtieth anniversary, but they supposed it could have happened at any time given his weak heart.

Marjorie smiled quietly to herself. Only she knew exactly what had happened in St Sophia’s sacred grotto. She couldn’t help but enjoy the irony of the situation when she found out that Professor Gordon had already poisoned the picnic. She had nursed the basket all the way to the grotto, stopped it from falling into the sea when the boat capsized and carried it carefully into the cave, knowing that Ambrose would take it from her and greedily wolf everything down. How particularly expedient that the professor’s poison had exactly the same effect as the double dose of digoxin she had put into the orange juice.

The people on the cruise were such jolly fun, cheerful and friendly. She’d danced until dawn, played tennis and laughed and cheered at the live shows with Dan and Jeff. She smiled again, thinking how much Ambrose would have hated it.

Exactly how Diana’s ‘daddy’ felt about his lovely daughter going on holiday with a professor and coming back with a plumber, Sidney never really discovered. Naturally her father was devastated when he found out her husband had tried to murder her and there was even talk of sending over a team of his crack lawyers to ensure the man was dealt with properly. Ideally, he’d have liked him extradited to the States but apparently there were lengthy legal problems with that and anyway, Diana was adamant, Cuthbert was British and so were both his murder victims. It was only right he should be tried in the UK – and, not unreasonably, she wanted him kept as far away from her as possible.

Now, six months on, it was sufficient for her father to see that she was so obviously happier than she had ever been. When the news first broke that she was going to have Sidney’s baby, her enormous, extensive family welcomed him with open arms and he thought the party would never end. Sid was unrepentant about her having become pregnant so soon after they got together. As he pointed out, if she insisted on shagging him senseless every night, it was pretty well inevitable. She asked if he would still fancy her when she looked like a humungous muffin. He said he was a brave chap and he’d do his best.

‘Daddy’ put the crack lawyers to work arranging a quickie divorce and Diana and Sidney were married on the seashore in front of their Malibu beach house. When he discovered one of the showers in the marble bathroom was dripping, he whipped off the jacket of his morning suit and set about fixing it. Diana sat on the floor in her Emanuel wedding gown, her amazing legs crossed beneath her, and laughed from sheer joy.

The nice criminal psychologist told him he was doing very well. There had been no delusions of divine genius for several weeks now. She was an earnest young woman, with a modern, compassionate attitude to psychopathy, and she really believed that the revolutionary Tibetan approach she had been studying was working. Once she had coaxed him out of his profound silence, Professor Gordon had impressed her with his coherence and sincere remorse. Whilst he hadn’t made any excuses, accepting that what he’d done was indefensible, he believed it had been overwork that had driven him into a breakdown during which the unforgivable crimes had been committed. She was putting him through a course of new, cognitive behaviour therapy and he was responding so well, she told him, that it was a real possibility that her colleagues’ prognoses had been unnecessarily pessimistic and he might, with her support, be considered for some type of experimental parole and rehabilitation in the very near future.

‘Don’t worry, my dear,’ he whispered, after the nice lady psychologist had gathered up her papers and left. ‘You and I will soon be out of here. She’s a monumentally dim-witted young woman even for a psychologist. I can make her believe anything I choose. Once we’re free, my darling, we’ll disappear, back to Katastrophos to replenish my stocks. Then all we need is someone with a lot of money who can be persuaded to leave it to me. Once they’re dead, I shall be able to carry on my research without interference from stupid, nosy people who don’t understand my genius. Just wait a little longer until the simple-minded doctors are convinced I’m cured.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Time for a drink before dinner, I think, sweetheart.’ He picked up the watering can and sprinkled the hibiscus, growing in a pot on the windowsill.

The Katastrophos Health Centre was almost finished. Rather than embark on a completely new building, they had taken over an empty mini-market in the centre of St Sophia and refurbished it. The result was a clean, efficient, sterile clinic that would have been a credit to any small town. Tina was quietly amazed and gratified.

It had become imperative that the centre was built quickly, since most of the women who had made the pilgrimage to the monastery had become pregnant shortly afterwards. It was not considered in the least surprising that so many women were expecting babies at the same time, simply that St Sophia had been particularly pleased with her Katastrophans that year – probably because they had effectively ejected the disruptive foreigners. All, that is, except the one who was currently nourishing several trees in the olive grove and would be of no further trouble to anyone.

Tina thought frequently of Mark. She was no longer bitter and festering with unrequited vengeance, accepting that the law had taken its course and even Nemesis must acknowledge it. There was an appeal pending against the Draconian sentence he had been given. She hoped it would be successful but remained pragmatic about the outcome. One day he would be free and she had written to him, often, suggesting he might want to join her. Although he could no longer be a doctor, he had skills that would be invaluable to her. And maybe, in time, St Sophia would smile upon them, too.

It was a crisp Saturday night in late January with a sprinkle of snowflakes floating down from the clear, midnight sky. Corrie and Jack sat up in bed sharing a box of chocolates and a bottle of red wine that reminded Corrie very strongly of the illicit
Agiorgitiko
they had glugged in such awe-inspiring quantities on Katastrophos. She and Jack hadn’t discussed their fateful honeymoon at any length, Jack believing discretion was the better part of staying in one piece. The police evidence and witness statements had been dealt with remarkably efficiently and, as Jack had predicted, once the mindbenders took over, Professor Gordon’s prosecution and punishment became a mere formality as the medical profession took over from the judicial system.

He surreptitiously sneaked an orange cream – Corrie’s favourite – and chewed it, thoughtfully.

‘I bet none of them got pregnant afterwards.’

‘Pardon?’ Corrie looked up from her food magazine.

‘Those women on Katastrophos. They were a superstitious bunch, weren’t they? All that mumbo-jumbo about St Sophia and fruitfulness and traipsing up to that monastery every year.’

‘How do you know it was mumbo-jumbo?’

‘’Course it was. Couldn’t have been anything else. Chewing a bit of oily wick won’t put you in the club.’

‘Well, that’s just where you’re wrong, smarty-pants. I happen to know that several of us became pregnant after making the pilgrimage up the mountain.’ She carried on turning the pages of her magazine.

Jack paled and beads of sweat began to form on his clammy forehead. He poured another glass of wine, took a stiffening slug and braced himself.

‘Corrie, sweetheart, you don’t mean … you’re not trying to tell me …’

She looked at his stricken face. ‘Oh for goodness sake, not me, you idiot! And you’d better breathe out. That sigh of relief you’re holding in is making you go a very funny colour.’

They both laughed. ‘I had a postcard from Sid,’ said Corrie. ‘He and Diana are Greek Island hopping on her father’s yacht. Diana’s pregnant and they’re both ecstatic. It’s a girl and they’re planning to call her Calypso after the nymph who seduced Odysseus and kept him a captive of love on her island for seven years. Isn’t that just so romantic after Sid and Diana first … well, got it together in the Cave of Nymphs on Katastrophos? Anyway, they stopped off very briefly to see how the health centre was progressing and it seems Maria and lots of the other women are pregnant, too. Isn’t it wonderful?’

‘It’s bloody scary,’ said Jack, feeling a sudden icy shiver through his veins. ‘I happened across the file containing a copy of the Watkins’s statement yesterday. The detective constable who took it mentioned that Ellie was pregnant, too.’

‘Well, there you are then,’ said Corrie, decisively.

They were silent for a bit – each occupied with their own thoughts. Then Jack asked cautiously.

‘Am I completely forgiven now, dumpling? It was a lousy trick, pretending we were on honeymoon when I was really on a case. It must have been terrifying for you at the end.’

‘It bloody well was! But I knew you were a single-minded, workaholic flatfoot when I married you and I’ve no time for women who marry a bloke then set about trying to change him into something different. And it wasn’t entirely your fault. I was to blame as well. I should have listened – done what you told me instead of interfering.’

‘Can I have that in writing?’

Corrie cuffed him. ‘One thing that did surprise me, though. The way you blurted out to Tim and everyone that Ellie was the professor’s daughter. Normally, you’re such a tight-lipped old codger. What happened to the “leaked information jeopardizes convictions, you can only reveal certain facts on a need-to-know basis” and all that old cobblers. I’d have put next month’s profits on you keeping it very quiet.’

‘I most certainly would have if I’d been at home on my own patch. But it was that blessed island. It was as if I couldn’t help it. It was a very creepy feeling and not one I’d care to repeat or even admit to anyone but you. And if you say one word about Nemesis and divine retribution, I’ll guzzle the rest of the orange creams.’

‘Nemesis or not, poor Lavinia’s death was terrible but I’m so relieved the truth came out about how she died. Coriander’s Cuisine has never had so many orders. It’s as if people feel guilty that they suspected my food.’

‘Tell you what,’ said Jack, sitting up suddenly. ‘As you’re so well off and I’m owed some leave, why don’t we book another honeymoon? Somewhere remote and peaceful that isn’t in the tourist guides, where we can retreat from the stress of our jobs – absolutely no catering or murders …’

‘Stop right there. We’ll have our honeymoon – on our silver wedding anniversary.’