Nemesis of the Dead (4 page)

Because she hadn’t spoken before, Corrie had assumed that the girl didn’t speak English. In fact, her Greek accent was a barely perceptible lisp. She looked even more bizarre in the morning light, her face a caricature of black make-up above a plain black tunic with tattoos on her shoulders and arms. There was an awkward silence with everybody looking at each other but nobody knowing what to say.

‘Load of blasted mumbo-jumbo,’ said Ambrose eventually. ‘The girl isn’t all there.’

‘Yes, well …’ Jack stood up, ‘if you’ll excuse us, Corrie and I have some sightseeing to do.’ He took his wife’s elbow and steered her away towards the lobby. ‘Hypnosis? Bewitched indiscretions? Vengeance and retribution?’ he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Are they barmy or is it me?’

At only twenty square kilometres, Katastrophos was easily walkable but in fact, there were very few sights to see beyond the main town of Agia Sofia, named after the saint who brought Christianity to the island. Tiny, compact and photo-snappingly pretty, the town, which was in the south of the island, had a small square, edged with such of the Venetian buildings as had survived the earthquake. A maze of whitewashed alleys led off the square with clusters of geranium-decked houses overlooking a small fishing harbour. Given the remote location of the island, it was surprising that there were no large sea-going boats. This was because most Katastrophans had little desire to sample the delights of mainland Greece, where evidence was stark of the Greek love affair with the concrete mixer and a willingness to bulldoze beautiful beaches to make a fast euro. Indeed, many of the older inhabitants had never left the island. The only building of any size was the church of St Sophia with its red dome and scarred old clock face. It housed the mummy of the island’s patron saint circled by brass oil-candle holders but little else. According to the sparse tourist information, the church’s revered religious icons, including St Sophia’s precious relics, were kept elsewhere on the island for safety. Corrie was not surprised. The theft of icons and other valuables from Greek churches and monasteries was on the increase, with a growing market in rich collectors.

‘It says here, St Sophia has special responsibilities for fecundity and childbirth.’

‘She’s doing a sterling job,’ observed Jack.

It was true, there were children all over the place – running, swimming, playing – totally unaffected by the heat. As they came out of the dark church the sunlight was blinding, bouncing off the white walls like a magnesium flare.

‘Picturesque seclusion. That’s what sells this place.’ Jack pointed. ‘Look. Two mini markets, a bakery and a
kafeneíon
but nothing much in the way of tourist shops and no nightclubs, thankfully.’

They stopped at the
kafeneíon
where old men sat with worry beads, drinking
ouzo
and spitting at lizards in the dust. Naturally gregarious, Sidney sat amongst them enjoying a cold beer. He kept taking off his photo-sensitive sunglasses to check that they had gone dark, in case he’d paid nine-pounds-fifty for nothing.

‘Morning, Jack … Corrie.’ He raised his sombrero, wincing as the noonday sun pounced on his thinning scalp. ‘Bit quiet, here, isn’t it? I fancy a bit of adventure, me. I wish now that I’d done one of those activity holidays where you go down potholes or crawl inside volcanoes.’ He took a long swig of his beer. ‘Tell you what, though. I wouldn’t mind having a look up there.’

Sidney pointed to a spectacular rock rising some seventy metres out of the sea just off the island’s south-east coast. On the summit they could see a ruined building with hundreds of steps leading up to it, hewn out of the stone.

‘These blokes reckon it was an old monastery,’ said Sid, indicating the men drowsily clicking their
komboloi
. ‘It looks like it’s in the sea but when you get close, it’s actually on a little island connected to Katastrophos by a causeway of stepping-stones. It wouldn’t take long to nip across and have a butcher’s.’

Jack peered at it, shielding his eyes. ‘It doesn’t look like anyone’s been up there for years; the steps are all overgrown.’

‘Oh, there’s definitely someone up there,’ asserted Sid. ‘I couldn’t sleep last night for the heat and those bloomin’ chirpy things, so I went outside to get some air. There was a light flashing inside the monastery. You don’t reckon the monks still live in it, do you? Hell of a journey to fetch a newspaper in the mornings.’

He fell about at his own wit and upset two old men’s backgammon board. They gabbled at him in furious Greek. He apologized in Spanish and went off to get them a couple of
ouzos
by way of compensation.

O
n their way back to the hotel, Corrie and Jack passed Marjorie Dobson sitting quietly outside a café, sipping a small glass of lemonade.

‘Hello, Marjorie. Are you enjoying Katastrophos?’ said Jack genially.

She smiled politely. ‘Very much, thank you, but I’m afraid Mr Dobson isn’t liking it at all.’ She pointed inside the dark café where Ambrose was arguing with the owner about the cost of her lemonade. He was fanning his beefy red face with his panama hat.

‘He looks very hot,’ said Corrie, secretly appalled that Marjorie referred to her husband as ‘Mr Dobson’. ‘Maybe he’d feel more relaxed sitting on the beach or having a gentle swim. I know he has to be careful, with his heart trouble, but the sea here is lovely and warm and there’s a slight breeze this morning.’

‘Thanks but I don’t think so. He says the sea is polluted with filthy Continental effluent and what good is a beach without any deckchairs.’

‘We did hear him mention this morning that he would have preferred a holiday in Bournemouth. Is that where you usually go?’

‘We went once, on our honeymoon.’

‘Don’t tell me you haven’t had a holiday since your honeymoon?’ Corrie tried to keep the incredulity out of her voice.

Marjorie shook her head. ‘We live in Hampshire, you see. My hubby says you don’t need a holiday if you live in Hampshire.’

Tight sod, thought Jack.

‘So what brought you to Katastrophos?’

‘It’s our anniversary next week. Thirty years. I recently came into a little money and I thought it would be nice to spend it on a holiday. I’ve never been abroad before. The nice young man in the travel shop said Katastrophos was the quietest, most isolated place he could find. He said it wasn’t in the package-tour brochures, being more of a location for private travellers. Not so much a place to see as to remain unseen. Ideal, I thought.’

‘You didn’t fancy somewhere with a bit more life, then?’

‘Oh no.’ She said it in a way that didn’t sound wholly convincing. ‘Mr Dobson dislikes mixing with other tourists – especially Germans. And Italians and Spaniards and Scandinavians and Americans. Come to think of it,’ she said, a mite tartly, ‘there are quite a lot of things he dislikes – nightclubs, music, dancing, foreign food, mobile phones, smokers, alcohol, rich people, poor people, gay people, old people, young people – it was a little tricky finding somewhere he
would
like.’

‘But if you were paying for it, surely you were entitled to an equal say, at the very least?’ Corrie felt Jack’s restraining hand on her arm. She knew she was crossing the boundary between polite interest and interference but couldn’t stop herself. This was the sisterhood – she was a member!

Marjorie gave her a tepid smile. ‘Men always want you to put them first though, don’t they?’

‘No!’ said Corrie with vigour, ‘and even if they do, you don’t have to go along with it.’ Has this woman no balls at all? she wondered.

Ambrose emerged from the café, his face beetroot.

‘That lemonade, Marjorie, has just cost the equivalent of fifty p. Make sure you drink it all …’ Then he noticed Jack and Corrie. ‘Oh. Good morning,’ he mumbled almost grudgingly. ‘Come along, Marjorie. I can’t stand here gossiping. I need to buy some repellent for these blasted mosquitoes.’

He removed his panama, delicately so as not to dislodge his hairpiece, and slapped himself hard on the back of the neck. Corrie’s hand ached to swat the next one for him.

‘Naturally, we shan’t be staying here,’ he said self-importantly. ‘I propose to return to Hampshire first thing in the morning.’

‘I don’t think we can, dear,’ said Marjorie, timidly.

He snorted. ‘Don’t talk rubbish. Of course we can. I shall instruct—’

‘Actually,’ interrupted Jack, ‘Marjorie’s right. As I understand it, once the ferry has dropped off any visitors, it doesn’t return until it’s time to take them back. There’s no other transport to the mainland.’

‘What?’ Ambrose was flaming. ‘You mean we’re stranded on this abominable island for two weeks whether we like it or not?’

Jack nodded. ‘’Fraid so.’

Dobson turned on his wife. ‘Now see what you’ve done, you stupid woman!’

They watched him strut angrily away, carrying his suit jacket carefully over one arm with Marjorie hurrying obediently along beside him. Corrie opened her mouth to vent her barely contained spleen but before she could speak Jack said calmly, ‘Corrie, it’s none of our business.’

They went for a swim and a long laze on the beach, then meandered back to the Hotel Stasinopoulos in time for a drink and a shower before dinner. Outside, among the olive trees, a tiny hobgoblin of an old woman was dozing on a camp bed. She was no bigger than a ten-year-old and wore a thick black dress and a black head-scarf. The skin of her face was soft and brown and thick-looking with deep pink wrinkles. Witchlike, her long chin curved firmly upwards towards her nose.

Outside the hotel kitchen, Yanni Stasinopoulos was chasing rats away from a flat, broad tree-stump that served as a chopping block and a place to bash an octopus tender. Morsels of meat and fish still adhered to the rough surface, rotting gently in the heat. Corrie thought of food regulations and her scrupulous attention to hygiene when preparing meals for Coriander’s Cuisine and shuddered. It would be a miracle if they didn’t all get food poisoning.

Yanni spoke a little English but not nearly as much as his wife Maria, who handled most of the communications with the guests. Seeing Jack and Corrie, he shouted ‘
Ya sas
’ and a few other greetings in loud, effusive Greek. Seeing them glance at the old woman snoring in the shady olive grove, he obviously felt some introduction was called for. He jabbed a thumb in her direction.

‘That – Ariadne,’ he explained. ‘She – Maria’s
mitéra
– er – mother. She cook.’

The expression that accompanied this last statement implied that he would not recommend the house menu. Ariadne, they discovered, was also the island’s midwife, clairvoyant and general hot line to St Sophia. She was also passionately fond of Professor Gordon, considering him a king among men. He could often be found in her kitchen, gossiping to her in Greek and stirring things in her black, satanic cooking pots.

In response, Jack pointed at Corrie. ‘This – Corrie. She – my wife. She also cook. Ow!’ Corrie had slid her hand down to Jack’s buttock and pinched it hard. When they had agreed to keep quiet about Jack’s job and their honeymoon status, they had also agreed not to reveal that Corrie was a professional caterer. Experience had shown that in any kind of food emergency, people would expect her to pop on a pinny and slap up a meal. But it was too late: a look of hunger and envy had flitted briefly across Yanni’s lugubrious features.

‘Oi, Yanni mate.’ It was Sidney, calling from his balcony. ‘What are those lights I keep seeing up the old monastery?’

Yanni shook his head. ‘No lights,
kyríe
Foskett.’

‘You sure? They flash on and off in the middle of the night.’

‘No lights. Nobody there.’ Yanni looked uncomfortable.

‘Can I go up there tomorrow and have a bit of a poke round?’

‘Sorry, not possible,’ said Yanni. ‘Is forbidden. Holy place of St Sophia. Nobody go there except on pilgrimage.’ He turned and disappeared into the kitchen.

As they went inside the hotel Corrie glanced up again at the hideous Medusa sneering down at them from the roof. She was evil personified. Little wonder that Perseus performed a ritual murder on her, a revenge killing committed with the full complicity of the Olympians who provided him with most of the equipment he needed. A sudden movement at one of the second-storey windows attracted her attention. Sky, the young Greek woman, was staring down at them. She had a look that Corrie could only describe as malevolent. It was chilling and unexpected and despite the heat, Corrie shivered slightly.

‘Did you see that?’ she asked Jack.

‘See what?’

‘Sky. She was watching us from her room. Her face was full of … well, hatred almost. What’s she got against us, do you think?’

‘Nothing,’ said Jack. ‘How could she? She only met us yesterday. We might not be the most loveable couple in the world but we don’t usually repulse people within twenty-four hours. Don’t worry about it. She’s one of those tortured souls who hate everybody, including themselves. You heard all that metaphysical hippy nonsense at breakfast about Nemesis and retribution.’

‘I wanted to be a hippy when I was a teenager,’ said Corrie nostalgically. ‘I even went to Glastonbury once, to “feel the vibes”.’

‘So did I,’ said Jack. ‘Only I went to feel the collars. You didn’t try to get in under the fence or smoke anything dodgy, did you?’

‘Who, me?’ said Corrie, crossing her fingers behind her back.

In the cool, violet-grey twilight of the approaching evening, people gravitated slowly back from various places on the island to the big olive table under the vines for dinner.

‘
Mezédes
,’ said Maria, indicating appetizers in lots of dishes. They were undoubtedly the work of Ariadne because they were, for the most part, distinctly unappetizing. Some of the ingredients had been so mutilated that even Corrie had trouble identifying them but she recognized cold stuffed vine leaves, aubergine soaked in olive oil until slimy, fried squid tentacles and a bowl of mud-coloured taramasaláta garnished with olives. In fact, everything was garnished with olives, which were obviously in glut. The only thing that looked remotely edible was a colourful Greek salad. The big wooden bowl contained thick slices of juicy red tomatoes, chunks of peeled cucumber, red onion, lettuce, green peppers,
feta
cheese and the ubiquitous olives. Oregano and olive oil were sprinkled liberally on top.

‘What are they?’ Sid whispered to Corrie, pointing to a bowl of small brown shrivelled things. He was ravenous but wary.

‘They’re called
marídes tiganítes
,’ she whispered back. ‘Small fish. They take them straight from the sea, dip them in flour and fry them.’

‘What – you mean they don’t take the innards out first?’

‘No.’

‘What about that?’ He pointed to the muddy taramasaláta.

‘Fish roe beaten smooth and mixed with olive oil. It’s normally pink, though.’

He grimaced. ‘And those?’

‘Octopus balls.’

‘I didn’t know an octopus had …’ He was interrupted by Ambrose.

‘This food is disgusting,’ he declared officiously. ‘I propose to draft a strong letter to the travel company demanding my money back, which I shall pass round for everyone to sign.’

‘Blooming nerve,’ said Corrie to Jack. ‘It wasn’t even his money – it was Marjorie’s.’

People began sampling morsels of the
mezédes
with caution. By a happy quirk of fate, Ellie was left-handed and Tim was right-handed. They had discovered that as long as Ellie sat on Tim’s left, they could fork up their food and still keep an arm around each other. The communal dishes of food meant people tended to move around the table, Greek style, rather than pass the dishes, so Tim and Ellie often had to change seats several times during a meal in order to keep hold of each other, but they didn’t seem to mind at all. Now, Tim stood up and walked round to the end of the table to hijack the Greek salad.

‘Excuse me.’ His voice, rather louder than his usual apologetic
sotto voce
, cut through the preprandial hum. ‘It’s for Ellie,’ he explained, defensively. ‘She’s vegetarian. She can’t eat this other food. She only likes lettuce and things like that.’

Professor Gordon, who had been happily chewing on gobbets of raw, marinated squid and chatting earnestly to Yanni, suddenly rose to his feet and leaned across the table. He thrust his whiskery face, belligerent and intimidating, into Ellie’s until his nose was just inches away and his ginger hair and hers were barely separable in the twilight.

‘I suppose you know,’ he barked, eyes bulging, ‘that a lettuce emits a virtual scream when you tear it from the ground. Plants are living things to be studied, nurtured and conserved, not stuffed in your mouth like chocolate. They have a genesis, a fundamental life process that a silly girl like you can only wonder at.’

The professor, now well into his stride, dismissed poor, cringing Ellie with overt contempt and turned to lecture the wider audience.

‘Plants are the single most important part of our lives. They generate the oxygen, fuel and medicine that allow so-called higher life forms to exist. Plants absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that in large amounts affects global climate. What more evidence do you need to treat them with respect instead of mindlessly ripping them from the ground and ramming them down your ignorant throats?’

There was a stunned silence, then Ambrose sneered: ‘Poppycock! Everything we eat comes from plants, either directly or indirectly. They’re at the bottom of the food chain. If you’re implying we should leave them alone and eat only meat, you’re an idiot. Animals eat plants and we eat animals.’

Professor Gordon turned and stared at Ambrose for a long time. Then he spoke in a cold, menacing tone.

‘You have a heart complaint, Mr Dobson. What medication keeps you alive?’

‘Digoxin, if it’s any of your business.’

‘And digoxin, now synthesized, is a drug originally derived from the foxglove plant,
Digitalis lanata
. I wonder, Mr Dobson, how many plants gave their lives in order to ensure yours, and if, indeed, it was an equitable exchange. Personally, I think not.’

Ambrose jumped to his feet, fists clenched, temper blackening his puffy features. ‘How dare you!’

Several voices joined the protest.

‘That was a bit much, Professor …’

‘Take it easy …’

‘Cuthbert, don’t be a jerk …’

Corrie was startled to see Jack on his feet, ready to get between the two men. It wasn’t like him to overreact and only hours before, he had been warning her not to interfere in other people’s business. Maybe there was something particular about this conflict that Jack wanted to avert. In the event, the potentially explosive situation was defused by Sidney emerging, clench-faced, from the gents.