The Dark Side of the Island
The Dark Side of the Island
Jack Higgins
The timeless Higgins classic…Captain Hugh Lomax's last view of Kyros had been as a German prisoner of war. The picturesque beauty of the Greek Islands hiding their blood-drenched history and the terrifying carnage that took place years earlier.But there are questions still unanswered. Lomax knows he was innocent, and as he returns to Kyros he begins to remember things he had long since buried in the back of his mind; the deadly mission he undertook, as well as a horrific massacre that still remains without reason. Now, the time has come for answers.Lomax is set to unlock the secrets of his past; someone betrayed the islanders at the height of the Nazi occupation, and they want their secret kept, whatever it takes, whoever has to suffer.
JACK
HIGGINS
THE DARK SIDE OF
THE ISLAND
Contents
Cover (#uec7a3fe6-46ce-5816-b98f-989140f4cc62)
Title Page (#udade172a-347f-541a-ad53-5a7adfa5f804)
Publisher’s Note
Foreword
Book One: The Long Return
Chapter 1 - On Kyros, Nothing Changes
Chapter 2 - A Man Called Alexias
Chapter 3 - Two Candles for St Katherine
Chapter 4 - The Bronze Achilles
Book Two: The Nightcomer
Chapter 5 - Cover of Darkness
Chapter 6 - A Willingness to Kill
Chapter 7 - Of Action and Passion
Chapter 8 - ‘The Little Ship’
Chapter 9 - Temple of the Night
Chapter 10 - Fire on the Mountain
Chapter 11 - No Hard Feelings, Captain Lomax
Book Three: A Sound of Hunting
Chapter 12 - One Should Never Return to Anything
Chapter 13 - To the Other
Chapter 14 - A Fine Night for Dying
Chapter 15 - A Prospect of Gallows
Chapter 16 - The Run for Cover
Chapter 17 - Confessional
Chapter 18 - Dust and Ashes
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Jack Higgins
Copyright
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Publisher’s Note
The Dark Side Of The Island was first published in the UK by John Long in 1963 and later by Signet in 1997. It was originally published under the name of Harry Patterson, an author who later became known to millions as Jack Higgins.
This amazing novel has been out of print for some years, and in 2010, it seemed to the author and his publishers that it was a pity to leave such a good story languishing on his shelves. So we are delighted to be able to bring back The Dark Side Of The Island for the pleasure of the vast majority of us who never had a chance to read the earlier editions.
Foreword
One of my earliest forays into the Second World War. A holiday spent visiting the Greek islands and my discovery of the undercover work there by the SAS in its earliest years gave me the idea for a thriller which has the hero return to the island that had been the scene of his most brilliant exploit, only to find that the local people believe him a traitor and responsible for the executions of many partisans. In a way it is a whodunit, as he tries not only to stay alive but to find out who was really responsible.
Book One
The Long Return
Chapter 1
On Kyros, Nothing Changes
Lomax lay on the narrow bunk in the airless cabin, stripped to the waist, his body drenched in sweat, and stared up at the stained and peeling ceiling.
Looked at long enough, it became a pretty fair map of the Aegean. He worked his way down from Athens through the Cyclades to the larger mass that was Crete, but where Kyros should have been there was only an empty expanse of sea. For some reason it made him feel curiously uneasy and he swung his legs to the floor.
He got up, splashed water into the cracked basin that stood beneath the mirror beside the bunk and washed the sweat from his body. His shoulders were solid with muscle, his body bronzed and fit, and somehow the ugly puckered scar of the old bullet wound beneath his left breast looked sinister and out of place.
As he dried himself, a stranger stared out of the mirror. A man with skin stretched tightly over prominent cheekbones and dark, sombre eyes that examined the world with a curiously remote expression he could no longer analyse, even to himself.
As he reached for his shirt, the cabin door opened and the steward looked in. ‘Kyros in half an hour, Mr Lomax,’ he said in Greek.
The door closed behind him and for the first time Lomax was conscious of a faint stirring of excitement, a cold finger that seemed to touch him somewhere inside. He pulled on his linen jacket and went out on deck.
As he stood at the rail watching Kyros grad-u ally rise out of the sea, Captain Papademos emerged from the deck-house and paused beside him. He was heavily built and almost blackened by the sun, his face seamed with wrinkles.
He put a match to his pipe. ‘It’s difficult in this heat haze, but if you look carefully you can see Crete in the distance. Quite a view, eh?’
‘Something of an understatement,’ Lomax said.
‘I’ve been everywhere a sailor can go,’ Papademos continued. ‘In the end I found I was only travelling in a circle.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ Lomax said.
He took out a cigarette and Papademos gave him a light. ‘For an Englishman you speak pretty good Greek. The best I’ve heard from a foreigner. You’ve been out here before?’
Lomax nodded. ‘A long time ago. Before the flood.’
Papademos looked puzzled for a moment and then his face cleared. ‘Ah, now I see it. You were in the islands during the war.’
‘That’s right,’ Lomax said. ‘Working in Crete with the E.O.K. mostly.’
‘So?’ Papademos nodded, serious for a moment. ‘Those were hard times for all of us. The people of these islands don’t forget how much the English helped. Have you been back before?’
Lomax shook his head. ‘Never felt like it. In any case, I always seemed to have something more important to do. You know how it is.’
‘Life, my friend, she grips us by the throat.’ Papademos nodded sagely. ‘But seventeen years is a long time. A man changes.’
‘Everybody changes,’ Lomax said.
‘Maybe you’ve got a point there, but why Kyros? I could think of better places.’
‘There are some people I want to look up if they’re still around,’ Lomax said. ‘I’d like to see if they’ve changed too. Afterwards, I’ll move on to Crete and Rhodes.’
‘On Kyros nothing changes.’ Papademos spat down into the water. ‘Ten years I’ve been making this trip and they still treat me as if I’ve got the plague.’
Lomax shrugged. ‘Maybe they just don’t like strangers.’
Papademos shook his head. ‘They don’t like anybody. You sure you’ve got friends there?’
‘I hope so.’
‘So do I. If you haven’t, you’re in for a pretty thin time and you’ll be stuck for a week until I call again.’
‘I’ll take my chances.’
Papademos knocked the ash from his pipe on the rail. ‘We’ll be here for four hours. Why don’t you have a quick look round for old times’ sake and then go on to Crete with me? They’ll show you a better time in Herakleion than they will here.’
Lomax shook his head. ‘Next week I’ll take you up on that offer, but not now.’
‘Suit yourself.’ Papademos shrugged and went back into the deck-house.
They were close inshore now, the great central peak of the island towering three thousand feet above them. As the little steamer rounded the curved promontory crowded with its white houses, a single-masted caicque, sails bellying in the breeze, moved out to sea. It passed so close to them that Lomax could see the great eyes painted on each side of the prow.
The man at the tiller waved carelessly and Lomax raised a hand and then the throbbing of the engines began to falter as they slowed to enter the harbour.
On the white curve of sand, brightly painted caicques were beached and fishermen sat beside them in small groups mending their nets while children chased each other in the shallows, their voices somehow muted and far away.
He went back to his cabin and started to pack. It didn’t take long. When he was finished, he left the canvas grip and the portable typewriter on the bunk and went back on deck.
They were already working alongside the stone pier and as he watched the engines stopped and everything seemed curiously still in the great heat.
On the pier, three old men dozed in the sun and a young boy sat with a fishing line, a small black dog curled beside him.
As the steward emerged from the cabin carrying the canvas grip and the typewriter, Papademos came out of the deck-house. ‘You travel light.’
‘The only way,’ Lomax said. ‘What happens now? Do I just walk off the boat? Doesn’t anyone want to see my papers?’
Papademos shrugged. ‘There’s a police sergeant called Kytros who attends to all that. He’ll know you’re here soon enough.’
By now a couple of sailors had the gangway in position. The steward went first and Lomax put on a pair of sunglasses and followed him.
As he took out his wallet to tip the man, he was aware that the three old men were all sitting up straight and looking at him curiously.
The boy who had been fishing was winding in his line. As the steward went back on board, he hurried across, the dog at his heels.
He was perhaps twelve with brown eyes in a thin, intelligent face. His jersey was too big for him and his pants had been patched many times.
He looked up at Lomax curiously for a moment and then said slowly in English, ‘You want a good hotel, mister? They look after American tourist real nice.’
‘What makes you think I’m an American?’ Lomax asked him in Greek.
‘The dark glasses. All Americans wear dark glasses.’ The boy replied in the same language instinctively and his hand went to his mouth in astonishment. ‘Say, mister, you speak Greek as good as me. How come?’
‘Never mind that,’ Lomax said. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Yanni,’ the boy told him. ‘Yanni Melos.’
Lomax extracted a banknote from his wallet and held it up. ‘All right, Yanni Melos. This is for you when we reach this hotel of yours where they treat Americans so well. It had better be the best.’
Yanni’s teeth gleamed in his brown face. ‘Mister, it’s the only one in town.’ He picked up the canvas grip and typewriter and hurried ahead, the dog at his heels, and Lomax followed.
Nothing had changed. Not a damned thing. Even the pillbox the Germans had constructed to guard the pier was still standing, its concrete crumbling a little at the edges. All that was missing were the E-boats in the harbour and the Nazi flag over the town hall.
The boy led the way between tall, whitewashed houses, moving away from the waterfront. Once or twice they passed someone sitting on a doorstep, but on the whole, the streets were deserted.
The hotel formed one side of a tiny cobbled square with a church opposite. There were several wooden tables outside, but no sign of any customers, and Lomax guessed that the place would probably liven up in the evening.
He followed the boy into a large, stone-flagged room with a low ceiling. There were more tables and chairs and a marble-topped bar in one corner, bottles ranged behind it on wooden shelves.
Yanni put down the canvas grip and the typewriter and vanished through a door at the rear. It was cool and pleasant after the heat outside and Lomax leaned against the bar and waited.
He could hear a murmur of conversation and then a girl’s voice was raised, high and scolding. ‘Always you lie to me!’ There was the sound of a slap and Yanni ran into the room head down, a young girl in a blue dress and white apron in hot pursuit.
She came to an abrupt halt when she saw Lomax and the boy made a dramatic gesture. ‘There, am I not speaking the truth?’
The girl was perhaps sixteen or seventeen, with a round, pretty face, and she came forward, wiping flour from her hands on the apron.
She stood looking at him helplessly, crimson with embarrassment, and Lomax smiled. ‘It’s all right. I speak Greek.’
Immediate relief showed on her face. ‘You must excuse me, but Yanni is such a liar and he caught me in the middle of baking. What can I do for you?’
‘I’d like a room,’ he said. ‘Yanni told me this was the best hotel in town.’
She looked as if she didn’t know what to say and he added gently, ‘You do have one available, I take it?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she assured him. ‘You’ve caught me rather by surprise, that’s all. We seldom get tourists on Kyros. I’ll have to get clean linen and air the mattress.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ he said. ‘There’s no hurry.’
He took a banknote from his wallet and handed it to Yanni. The boy examined it carefully and his eyes widened. He looked longingly at the open door, sighed and held out the note reluctantly.
‘I think you’ve made a mistake, mister. It’s too much.’
Lomax closed the boy’s hand over the note. ‘Let’s call it an advance payment on your services. I may need you again.’
Yanni’s face split into a delighted grin. ‘Say, mister, I like you. You’re my friend. I hope you stay on Kyros a long time.’
He whistled to the dog and ran through the doorway into the square. Lomax picked up the grip and the typewriter and turned to the girl.
‘He is impossible,’ she said as she led the way out into a whitewashed passage.
‘He seems to speak pretty good English?’
She nodded. ‘After his parents were drowned, he lived on Rhodes with his mother’s people. I suppose he picked it up from the tourists.’
‘Who looks after him now?’
‘He lives with his grandmother near the harbour, but she can’t do much for him. She’s too old.’
They mounted narrow wooden stairs and turned into a corridor that seemed to run the full length of the building. She paused outside the door at the far end and said, ‘It’s a very simple room. I hope you understand that?’
He nodded. ‘That’s all I’m looking for.’
She opened the door and led the way in. It was plainly furnished with a brass bed, a wash-stand and an old wardrobe. As elsewhere in the house, the walls were whitewashed and the wooden floor highly polished.
The whole place was spotlessly clean and he went and opened the window and looked out across the red-tiled roofs to the harbour below. ‘But this is wonderful.’
When he turned, he saw that she was smiling with pleasure. ‘I am pleased you like it. How long will you be staying?’
He shrugged. ‘Until the boat comes again next week. Perhaps longer, I’m not sure. What do they call you?’
She blushed. ‘My name is Anna Papas. Would you like something to eat?’
He shook his head. ‘Not now, Anna. Later, perhaps.’
She smiled awkwardly and retreated to the door. ‘Then I will leave you. If there is anything you need, anything at all, please call me. I will be in the kitchen.’
The door closed behind her and he lit a cigarette and went across to the window.
Some fishing boats were moving in from the sea and he could see the rusty little island steamer moored beside the pier. A gull cried as it swept across the rooftops and quite suddenly he was glad that he had returned.
Chapter 2
A Man Called Alexias
He unpacked his bag and then washed and shaved and put on a clean shirt. He was pulling on his jacket when the knock came at the door and a small, balding man entered.
He carried a stiff-backed ledger under one arm and smiled ingratiatingly, exposing bad teeth.
‘Excuse me. I hope I’m not disturbing you?’
Lomax took an instant dislike to him, but he managed a smile. ‘Not at all. Come right in.’
‘I am the proprietor, George Papas,’ the little man said. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived. Mornings I work in my olive grove.’
‘That’s all right. Your daughter looked after me fine.’
‘She is a good girl,’ Papas said complacently. He placed the ledger on the table by the window, opened it and produced a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘If you wouldn’t mind signing the register. A legal requirement, you understand? The local police sergeant is fussy about such matters.’
Lomax examined the book with interest. The last entry had been made almost a year before. He took the pen and entered his name, address and nationality in the appropriate columns.
‘You don’t seem to get many visitors here.’
Papas shrugged. ‘Kyros is a quiet place with nothing much to attract the tourists – especially Americans.’
‘As it happens, I’m English,’ Lomax said. ‘Perhaps my tastes are simpler.’
‘English!’ Papas frowned. ‘But my daughter assured me you were an American.’
‘A mistake the young boy who brought me here from the boat made,’ Lomax said. ‘I only live there. Does it matter?’
‘No, of course not.’ Papas looked distinctly uncomfortable as he swivelled the register to examine the entry.
‘Hugh Lomax – California,’ he mumbled. ‘Nationality English,’ and then his whole body seemed to be racked by a violent spasm.
For a moment, Lomax thought the man was about to throw a fit. He took his arm to lead him to a chair and Papas jerked it away as if he had been stung.
His face had turned a sickly yellow colour and his eyes were staring as he backed to the door.
‘For God’s sake, man,’ Lomax demanded. ‘What is it?’
Papas managed to open the door with one hand and crossed himself mechanically with the other. ‘Holy Mother of God,’ he breathed and stumbled into the corridor.
Lomax stood there for a moment, a frown on his face, and then picked up the register and followed him.
When he went into the bar, Anna was polishing glasses. She looked up and smiled. ‘Can I get you anything?’
He shook his head and placed the register on the bar. ‘Your father left that in my room by mistake. I’d like to have a word with him if I may.’
‘I’m afraid he’s just gone out,’ she said. ‘I saw him crossing the square a moment ago.’
‘It can wait till later. Tell me, is there still a tavern on the waterfront called The Little Ship? It used to be owned by a man called Alexias Pavlo.’
‘It still is,’ she said. ‘Everyone knows Alexias. This year he is mayor of Kyros.’ She frowned in bewilderment. ‘But how could you know of Alexias and The Little Ship?’
‘Remind me to tell you some time,’ he said, and went out into the bright sunshine.
As he crossed the square towards the street that led down to the harbour, Yanni emerged from it and ran towards him, the dog yapping at his heels He was wearing a scarlet shirt, khaki shorts and a pair of white rubber shoes.
He halted a few paces away, held out his arms and pirouetted. ‘Don’t I look beautiful?’
‘What’s the idea?’ Lomax said
Yanni spread his hands ‘If I’m working for such a rich and important man I must look the part. These are my best clothes.’
‘That makes sense,’ Lomax said. ‘Where did you steal them from?’
‘I didn’t steal them,’ Yanni cried indignantly. ‘They were a present from a very good friend of mine. The best friend I’ve got.’
‘All right,’ Lomax said. ‘Have it your way.’
He moved down the cobbled streets towards the harbour and Yanni trotted beside him. ‘Where do you want to go first?’
‘A place called The Little Ship’
The boy’s eyes widened. ‘You don’t want to go there. That’s a bad place. Not for tourists. For fishermen.’
‘Where would you suggest?’ Lomax said.
‘Lots of places. There’s a Roman temple on the other side of the island, but we’d have to hire a boat. It’s a long walk.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Sure – the Tomb of Achilles, for instance.’
‘They buried him here, did they?’
Yanni nodded. ‘Everyone knows that.’
‘It must have been a long haul from Troy.’
The boy ignored the remark. ‘We could always visit the monastery of St Anthony or what’s left of it. They blew it up during the war.’
‘So I’d heard,’ Lomax said, and his face darkened.
‘Of course that would mean climbing the mountain. You’d probably find it too hot.’
‘That being so, I think we’ll make it The Little Ship for the time being.’
‘Suit yourself.’ Yanni shrugged despondently and led the way along the waterfront.
The Little Ship was on the corner of a narrow alley and when they reached it, he hesitated at the entrance and turned appealingly. ‘Let me take you somewhere else, mister.’
Lomax ruffled the boy’s hair with one hand. ‘Don’t look so worried.’ He grinned. ‘Shall I let you into a little secret? I’ve been here before. A long time ago. Before you were even thought of.’
He turned from the boy’s astonished gaze and went down the stone steps into the cool darkness of The Little Ship.
Just inside the entrance a young man sprawled in a chair against the wall and sang in a low voice, his fingers gently stroking the strings of a bouzouki.
He wore a red and green checked shirt, the sleeves rolled back carefully to display his bulging biceps to better advantage, and his hair curled thickly over the back of his collar.
He made no effort to move out of the way. Lomax stared down at him for a moment, anonymous in his dark glasses, and then stepped carefully over the outstretched legs and moved inside.
The first person he saw was Captain Papademos sitting by himself in a corner drinking red wine. Lomax raised a hand in greeting and Papademos deliberately looked away.
It was then that he became aware of a curious fact. There were six people in the room including Papademos, four of them sitting together and yet no one was talking.
The man behind the bar was small and wiry, his skin tanned the colour of Spanish leather. The right side of his face was disfigured by an ugly scar and the eye was covered by a black patch.
He leaned on the bar holding a newspaper and completely ignored Lomax. The strange thing was that his hands trembled slightly as if he laboured under some terrible strain.
Lomax removed his sunglasses. ‘Is Alexias Pavlo about?’
‘Who wants to know?’ the man demanded in a hoarse voice.
‘An old friend,’ Lomax said. ‘Someone from his past.’
Behind him, the bouzouki player struck a final, dramatic chord. Lomax turned slowly and saw that everyone was watching him, even Papademos, and Yanni’s white, frightened face peered round the edge of the door.
In the heavy silence, the whole world seemed to stop breathing and then a man stepped through the bead curtain that masked the door at the side of the bar.
In his time, he must have been a giant, but now the white suit hung loosely on his great frame. He moved forward slowly with a pronounced limp, leaning heavily on a walking stick, and the heavy moustache was iron grey.
‘Alexias,’ Lomax said. ‘Alexias Pavlo.’
Pavlo shook his head slowly from side to side as if he couldn’t believe the evidence of his own eyes. ‘It is you,’ he whispered. ‘After all these years you’ve come back. When Papas told me, I thought he was insane. The Germans said you were dead.’
The bead curtains parted again and George Papas moved out. There was sweat on his face and he looked frightened to death.
‘It’s me, Alexias,’ Lomax said, holding out his hand. ‘Hugh Lomax – don’t you remember?’
Pavlo ignored the outstretched hand. ‘I remember you, Englishman.’ A muscle twitched at the side of his jaw. ‘How could I forget you? How could anyone on this island forget you?’
Suddenly, his face was suffused with passion. His mouth opened as if he wanted to speak, but the words refused to come and he raised his stick blindly.
Lomax managed to ward the blow off and moved in close, pinning Pavlo’s arms to his sides. Behind him, a chair went over with a crash and Yanni screamed a warning from the door.
As he released Pavlo and started to turn, a brawny arm slid around his neck, half-choking him. He tried to raise his arms, but they were seized and he was dragged backwards.
The four men who had been sitting together held him in a vice half-way across their table. Papademos got to his feet and started for the door, but the man who had been playing the bouzouki shook his head gently and the captain sat down again.
The bouzouki player propped his instrument carefully against the wall and came forward. He looked down at Lomax for a moment, his expression perfectly calm, and then slapped him heavily in the face.
Lomax tried to struggle, but it was no use, and Pavlo pushed the bouzouki player out of the way. ‘No, Dimitri, he is mine. Lift up his head so that I can look at him properly.’
Dimitri grabbed Lomax by the hair, pulling him upright and Pavlo looked into his face and nodded. ‘The years have treated you kindly, Captain Lomax. You look well – very well.’
The little man with the scarred face and eye-patch had come from behind the bar and stood beside Pavlo and looked down at Lomax. Suddenly, he leaned forward and spat on him.
Lomax felt the cold slime on his face and anger boiled inside him. ‘For God’s sake, Alexias. What’s all this about?’
‘It’s really quite simple,’ Pavlo said. ‘It’s about my crippled leg and Nikoli’s face here. If you prefer it, there’s always Dimitri’s father and twenty-three other men and women who died in the concentration camp at Fonchi.’
And then it all began to make some kind of crazy sense. ‘You think I was responsible for that?’ Lomax said incredulously.
‘You were judged and condemned a long time ago,’ Pavlo told him. ‘It only remains for the sentence to be carried out.’
He looked at the bouzouki player, his face like stone. ‘Give me your gutting knife, Dimitri.’
Dimitri took a large clasp-knife from his hip pocket and passed it across. Pavlo pressed a button at one end and a six-inch blade, honed like a razor, sprang into view.
Lomax kicked out wildly, panic rising inside him. He made a last desperate effort and managed to tear one arm free. He swung round, dashing his fist into the nearest face, but in a moment, he was pinioned again.
The hand that held the knife trembled a little, but there was cold purpose in Pavlo’s eyes. He took one pace forward, the knife coming up, and a voice said from the doorway, ‘Drop it, Alexias!’
Everyone turned and Lomax felt the grasp on his arms slacken. Standing just inside the door was a police sergeant in shabby sun-bleached khaki uniform, and Yanni peered under his arm.
‘Stay out of this, Kytros,’ Pavlo said.
‘I believe I told you to drop the knife,’ Kytros replied calmly. ‘I would not like to have to ask you again.’
‘But you don’t understand,’ Pavlo told him. ‘This is the Englishman who was here during the war. The one who betrayed us to the Germans.’
‘So you would murder him now and in cold blood?’ Kytros said.
Little Nikoli made an impassioned gesture with both hands. ‘It is not murder – it is justice.’
‘We obviously have different points of view.’ Kytros looked straight at Lomax. ‘Mr Lomax, please come with me.’
Lomax took a step forward and Dimitri grabbed his arm. ‘No, he stays here!’ he said harshly.
Kytros unbuttoned the flap of his holster and took out his automatic. When he spoke there was iron in his voice. ‘Mr Lomax is leaving with me now. I would be obliged, Alexias, if you would not make it necessary for me to shoot one of your friends.’
Pavlo’s face was contorted in anger and he half turned and drove the blade of the knife into the wooden table in a single violent gesture.
‘All right, Kytros. Have it your way, but make sure he’s on the boat when it leaves at four o’clock. If he isn’t, I can’t be responsible for what might happen.’
Lomax stumbled past the sergeant and climbed the steps into the bright sunlight. For a moment, reaction set in and he leaned against the wall, his chest heaving as he struggled for breath.
Kytros put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Are you all right? Did they harm you?’
Lomax shook his head. ‘I’m getting a little too old to be playing that kind of game, that’s all.’
‘Aren’t we all, Mr Lomax?’ Kytros said. ‘My office is just around the corner. I’d be pleased if you would accompany me there.’
As they walked along, Yanni tugged at Lomax’s hand anxiously. ‘I got the sergeant for you, Mr Lomax. Did I do right?’
Lomax smiled. ‘You saved my life, son. That’s all.’
Yanni frowned. ‘They say you’re a bad man, Mr Lomax.’
‘What do you think?’ Lomax said.
The boy smiled suddenly. ‘You don’t look like a bad man to me.’
‘Then we’re still friends?’
‘Sure we are.’
They paused outside the police station and Lomax patted him on the head. ‘I’m going to be busy for a while, Yanni. You go back to the hotel and wait for me.’
Yanni turned reluctantly and Lomax added, ‘It’s all right. Sergeant Kytros isn’t going to put me in prison.’
The boy whistled to his dog and ran away along the waterfront and Lomax followed Kytros up the stone steps.
The sergeant led the way into an office furnished with a desk, several wooden chairs and a startlingly new green filing cabinet.
‘The boy seems to have taken quite a fancy to you.’ He took off his cap and sat behind the desk. ‘It’s a pity you won’t be around longer. He could do with an improving influence.’
Lomax pulled a chair forward and sat down. ‘So I’m definitely leaving, am I?’
Kytros spread his hands. ‘Mr Lomax, be sensible. That could have been a nasty business back there at The Little Ship and I can’t guarantee that it won’t happen again. Alexias Pavlo is an important man on Kyros.’
‘Does that make him God?’
Kytros shook his head. ‘He doesn’t need to be God to arrange for someone to slip a knife under your ribs one dark night.’
‘The Alexias Pavlo I knew seventeen years ago did his own killing,’ Lomax said.
Kytros ignored the remark. ‘Could I see your papers?’
Lomax produced them from an inside pocket and the sergeant examined them quickly. ‘What is the purpose of your visit to the island?’
Lomax shrugged. ‘I was here during the war. I thought I’d like to see the place again.’
‘But why Kyros, Mr Lomax? The war must have taken you to many places.’
‘It happened to be the first port of call on the way from Athens,’ Lomax said. ‘It was as simple as that. I also intended to look up old friends in Crete and Rhodes. If I still have any, that is. After my reception here, I’m beginning to wonder.’
‘I see.’ Kytros passed the papers back. ‘These seem to be perfectly in order.’
‘What happens now?’ Lomax asked.
‘I should have thought that was obvious. You must leave on the boat at four o’clock.’
‘Is that an order?’
Kytros sighed. ‘Mr Lomax, I notice that your visa has been franked by the minister himself. This means you have important friends in Athens.’
‘That’s one thing you can count on,’ Lomax told him grimly.
‘You place me in an impossible position,’ Kytros said. ‘If I force you to leave I will find myself in trouble in Athens. On the other hand, if you stay, someone will most surely try to kill you and I will again be to blame.’
‘But I must get to the bottom of this thing.’ Lomax said. ‘Surely you can see that? For a start, you can tell me why these people think I betrayed them to the Germans.’
‘Anything I know, I’ve heard at secondhand,’ Kytros said. ‘I’m from the mainland myself. I’ve only been here two years.’
‘Then what do you suggest?’
Kytros examined his wrist-watch. ‘You have exactly an hour and a quarter until the boat leaves. I would suggest that you go to the Church of St Katherine and speak with Father John. He was here at the time in question.’
Lomax looked at him in astonishment. ‘Do you mean Father John Mikali? But I met him when I was here during the war and he was at least seventy then.’
‘A very wonderful old man.’
Lomax got to his feet and moved to the door. ‘Thanks for the advice. I’ll see you later.’
‘On the pier at four o’clock,’ Kytros told him. ‘And remember, Mr Lomax. Time is your enemy.’
He pulled a sheaf of papers forward and reached for a pen and Lomax went outside and walked back along the waterfront.
Chapter 3
Two Candles for St Katherine
The lights in the little church were very dim and down by the altar the candles flickered and St Katherine seemed to float out of the darkness bathed in a soft white light.
The smell of incense was overpowering and for a moment he felt a little giddy. It was a long time since he had been in a church and he stretched out a hand and touched the cold roughness of a pillar in the darkness to bring himself back to reality and moved down the aisle.
Father John Mikali knelt in prayer by the altar. His pure, almost childlike face was raised to heaven and in the candlelight the beard gleamed like silver against his dark robes.
Lomax sat on one of the wooden benches and waited and after a while the old priest crossed himself and got to his feet. When he turned and saw Lomax he showed no visible emotion.
Lomax got to his feet slowly. ‘A long time, Father.’
‘I was told you were here,’ Father John said.
Lomax shrugged. ‘News travels fast in a small town.’
The old priest nodded. ‘Especially bad news.’
‘You too?’ Lomax said bitterly. ‘Now I know I’m in trouble.’
‘It is not for me to judge you,’ Father John said, ‘but it was foolish of you to return. Once the grass has grown over a grave it is not good to disturb it.’
‘All I want are the answers to a few questions,’ Lomax said. ‘If you of all people won’t help me, who will?’
Father John sat down on one of the benches. ‘First, let me ask you a question. Why have you returned to Kyros after all this time?’
Lomax shrugged. ‘An impulse, I suppose.’
But there was more to it than that – much more. He squeezed his hands together and frowned, trying to get it straight in his own mind.
After a while he said slowly, ‘I think I came here looking for something.’
‘It would interest me to know what,’ the old man said.
Lomax shrugged. ‘I’m not really sure. Myself, perhaps. The man I lost back there in the past so many years ago.’
‘And you thought to find him here on Kyros?’
‘But this was where he existed, Father. Don’t you see that? During the past two or three years a strange thing’s been happening to me. The events that other man was involved in here in these islands so many years ago seem more real to me than those things which have happened since. More important in every way. Does that make any kind of sense?’
The old priest sighed. ‘Captain Lomax, for these people that man has been dead for seventeen years. It would have been better if you had not resurrected him.’
‘All right, Father,’ Lomax said. ‘Let’s get down to hard facts. The last view I had of Kyros was from the deck of the E-boat which was taking me to Crete after the Germans had captured me. What happened after I left?’
‘Everyone who helped you was arrested,’ Father John said. ‘Including their immediate relatives. Some were shot in the main square as an example, the rest were sent to a concentration camp in Greece. Few survived the ill-treatment.’
‘And the people think I was responsible? That I betrayed them?’
‘You were the logical person and the fact that the Germans failed to execute you seemed to prove it. After all, they usually shot any British officer they caught who’d been working in the mountains with the Resistance.’
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ Lomax said.
‘You were badly wounded, perhaps even a little delirious. How can you be sure? In such a state, a man does strange things.’
‘Not a chance,’ Lomax said stubbornly. ‘I didn’t talk, Father. Believe me.’
The old man sighed. ‘It’s painful to have to tell you this, but I can see that I must. Colonel Steiner made no secret of the fact that he had persuaded you to give him the information he needed in exchange for your life.’
Lomax felt as if a cold wind had passed over his face. ‘But that isn’t true,’ he said. ‘It can’t be. I didn’t tell Steiner a damn thing.’
‘Then who did, Captain Lomax? There was no one else. They were very thorough, you know. They even included me.’
Lomax looked at him incredulously. ‘They arrested you?’
Father John smiled gently. ‘Oh, yes. I too sampled the delights of their concentration camp at Fonchi.’
Lomax buried his face in his hands. ‘This thing’s beginning to seem like a waking nightmare. Did you know that Alexias Pavlo actually tried to kill me a little while back?’
Pain flashed across the old man’s face. ‘So it has started already? And violence breeds violence. This was what I was afraid of.’
Lomax got up and paced nervously across the aisle. For a moment he stood there staring into space, a slight frown on his face, and then he turned quickly.
‘If I’d really been guilty of this terrible thing do you think I’d have dared show my face here again, even after seventeen years? I know these islands and their people. I spent four years in the mountains with them. They believe in an eye for an eye and they’ve the longest memories in the world.’
‘A good point,’ Father John said, ‘but it could be argued that the situation here has taken you by surprise. That you were not aware of what took place as a consequence of your action.’
Lomax stood looking at him feeling curiously helpless and then weariness flooded through him in a great wave.
He slumped down, his shoulders bowed in defeat. ‘For God’s sake, what’s the use?’
The old priest stood up. ‘Believe me, my son, I harbour no resentment against you, but I fear the evil that your presence here may produce. I think it would be better for all of us if you left on the steamer that brought you here. You still have time.’
Lomax nodded. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’
Father John murmured a blessing. ‘I must go now. My presence in the streets may help to prevent any expression of violence when you leave.’
He moved away along the aisle and Lomax stayed there on the bench, his head in his hands. He was past caring, his mind numb, gripped by a force he seemed unable to cope with. All the strength was draining out of him and he leaned forward and rested his head against a pillar.
Someone ran in through the entrance of the church and paused and then steps sounded on the stone flags of the aisle.
It was the perfume he first became aware of, strange and somehow alien in that place, like lilac fresh after rain, and it tingled in his nostrils bringing his head up sharply.
A young girl was standing there in the half-darkness, a scarf covering her head peasant-fashion. She was breathing heavily as if she had run a long way and she stood there staring down at him and no word was spoken.
His mouth went dry and something that was almost fear moved inside him because this thing was not possible.
‘Katina!’ he said hoarsely. ‘Little Katina Pavlo.’
She moved closer, a hand reaching out to touch his cheek and her face became that of a beautiful, mature woman in her middle thirties. In the candlelight it seemed to glow, to become alive.
‘The Germans told us you were dead,’ she said. ‘That the boat in which they sent you to Crete was sunk.’
He nodded. ‘It was, but I was picked up.’
She sat down beside him, so close that he could feel the warmth of her thigh through her linen dress. ‘I was in one of the shops buying supplies when I heard you had come in on the steamer from Athens. I couldn’t believe it. I ran all the way.’
Her forehead was damp with perspiration and he took out his handkerchief and dried it gently. ‘It’s not good to run in this hot sun.’
She smiled faintly. ‘Seventeen years and still you treat me like a child.’
‘A moment ago I thought you still were. You made the heart move inside me, but it was only a trick of the candlelight.’
‘Have I changed so little, then?’
‘Only to grow more beautiful.’
Her nostrils flared and something glowed in the dark eyes. ‘I think you were always the most gallant man I ever knew.’
For a moment time seemed to have no meaning, the present and the past merging into one. In some strange way it was as if they had sat here in the candlelight of the little church before, as if everything that happened was a circle turning endlessly upon itself.
He took her hand gently and said, ‘How did you know I was here?’
‘Sergeant Kytros told me.’ She hesitated. ‘I heard what happened at The Little Ship. You must forgive my uncle. Sometimes I think he is no longer in his right mind. He has lived with great pain for so many years.’
‘And he blames it all on me?’
She nodded gravely. ‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Along with everyone else around here, including Father John. Why should you be any different?’
‘Because I know you sacrificed yourself for these people,’ she said calmly.
He laughed and the sound of it was harsh and ugly. ‘You try telling that one to Alexias and his pals and see how far it gets you.’
‘I did,’ she said. ‘A long time ago, but only one person would believe me.’
He frowned. ‘Who was that?’
‘Oliver Van Horn.’
‘They told me in Athens that he’d stayed on here after the war. I’d hoped to visit him. Does he still live in the villa out on the point?’
‘I keep house for him.’
His eyebrows arched in surprise. ‘You never married?’
She shook her head. ‘Never.’
‘He must be in his sixties now,’ Lomax said slowly.
The right-hand corner of her mouth twitched slightly and there was amusement in her eyes. ‘We have no arrangement, if that is what’s worrying you.’
‘None of my business,’ he said, but he smiled for the first time and she smiled back. ‘How do the locals treat him these days? After all, he’s English enough in all conscience.’
‘Not to the islanders. He suffered as much as anyone. He was taken with the rest of us.’
Lomax frowned, a thought suddenly occurring to him for the first time. ‘And you, Katina? What happened to you?’
She shrugged. ‘They took me away with the others.’
‘To the concentration camp at Fonchi?’
She shook her head. ‘No, to another one, but they were all the same.’ She leaned forward and touched his face. ‘You look older. Too much older. I think you have been very unhappy.’
He shrugged. ‘Seventeen years is a long time.’
‘Are you married?’
He hesitated briefly and then plunged straight in and it was surprising how easy it was now, almost as if he was talking about some distant relative or a casual friend who wasn’t really important.
‘I had a wife and a little girl. They were both killed in an automobile accident in Pasadena five years ago.’
Her sigh echoed away into the darkness. ‘I knew there was something, but I wasn’t sure. It still shows in the eyes.’ She took his hands and held them firmly. ‘Tell me now. Why have you come back to this place?’
‘When Father John asked me, I told him I was looking for my other self,’ he said. ‘The one who existed here in these islands so many years ago, but now I’m not so sure.’
‘There is a deeper reason,’ she said. ‘Am I not right?’
‘Who knows?’ he shrugged. ‘Van Horn once told me that life was action and passion. If that’s true, there’s been precious little of either in mine for quite some time. Perhaps I thought I could recapture something.’
‘And what are you going to do now? Leave on the boat?’
‘That’s what they all seem to want me to do. Alexias told Kytros he wouldn’t be responsible for what might happen if I stayed.’
She glanced at her watch. ‘You would seem to have twenty minutes in which to make up your mind.’
‘What would you like to see me do?’
She shrugged. ‘It isn’t my decision to make. It can only be your own.’
She started to get to her feet and he held her hand and frowned, because he knew that for some strange reason this was the pivot on which the whole thing would turn.
‘Do you want me to stay?’
‘It would take courage,’ she said. ‘Very great courage.’
He smiled suddenly. ‘But I gave you my courage a long time ago, remember?’
She nodded, her face serious. ‘I remember.’
For a little while they sat there staring at each other and then she gently released his hand and stood up. ‘I’ll only be a moment.’
He watched her go down to the altar and drop to one knee, then she stood up, selected two candles and placed them under the statue of St Katherine. It was only as she lit them with a taper that he realised who they were for and a lump came into his throat that threatened to choke him.
He got to his feet and walked blindly through the half-darkness to the door.
Chapter 4
The Bronze Achilles
Outside in the square it was very hot and he stayed in the shade of the porch and smoked a cigarette as he waited for her.
Once, Anna appeared in the door of the hotel with a bucket and cloth as if intending to wipe down the outside tables, but at the sight of him, she drew back hurriedly.
It was quiet and deserted, the shadows long and black as the afternoon waned, and nothing stirred. He stood there, the cigarette burning between his fingers as he stared moodily out into the square and in some strange way it was as if he was waiting for something to happen.
There was a slight movement behind and he turned. Katina looked gravely up at him.
He smiled gently. ‘It was a long time ago.’
Suddenly, there were tears in her eyes and he slipped an arm about her shoulders and held her close. They stayed there in the cool shadow of the porch for a little while and then she sighed and pushed him away.
‘We must go. If you intend to catch that boat, you’re running out of time.’
He followed her out on to the steps, his mind in a turmoil. At that moment, Yanni staggered into the square from the street that led down to the waterfront.
His clothes were torn and covered in dust and his face was streaked with tears as he sobbed uncontrollably. In his arms, he held the little black dog.
Katina was already running to meet him and by the time Lomax arrived, she was on her knees in front of the boy. ‘What is it, Yanni? What’s happened?’
He held out the dog in his arms. Its head lolled to one side, the neck obviously broken, and there was froth on its mouth.
‘It was Dimitri,’ he said. ‘Dimitri killed him.’
‘But why?’ Katina demanded.
‘Because I helped Mr Lomax,’ Yauni sobbed. ‘Because I helped Mr Lomax.’
The rage that erupted inside Lomax was a searing flame that seemed to fuse with his whole being. He started forward and Katina said, ‘Hugh!’
When he turned, her face was very white, the eyes so dark a man could never fathom them.
‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘He’s already served two years in prison for manslaughter. When he’s been smoking hashish, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.’
He turned and walked quickly across the square and when he entered the street, he started to run. By the time he merged on the waterfront he was soaked in sweat and people turned to stare curiously at him.
This time he could hear no music coming from The Little Ship and he went straight down the steps without pausing and came to a halt just inside the door.
There were perhaps a dozen people sitting drinking and none of them had been there on his earlier visit. The man behind the bar was one of those who had held him across the table for Alexias. He was in the act of pouring wine into a glass and his mouth went slack in amazement.
Every head turned and Lomax examined the faces quickly and then crossed to the bar. ‘I’m looking for Dimitri.’
The barman shrugged. ‘Why ask me? I’m not his keeper.’
He picked up a glass and started to dry it with a soiled cloth and Lomax turned slowly and crossed the room. Dimitri’s bouzouki still leaned beside the chair where he had left it and Lomax picked it up and smashed it against the wall in a single violent gesture.
He turned to face the room and no one moved. ‘I asked for Dimitri,’ he said calmly.
For a moment, they all sat there looking at him quietly, and then an old man with white hair and a moustache burned brown by tobacco said, ‘He is on the pier waiting to see you leave.’
Lomax turned and went back up the steps into the hot sunlight. He crossed the road on the run and moved along the wharf.
The steamer was almost ready to leave and he could see Papademos up on the bridge leaning out of an open window, shouting down orders to the sailors on the pier as they started to loosen the mooring ropes.
There were perhaps two dozen people standing about in small groups. Alexias leaned against a pillar, a cigar between his teeth, and little Nikoli with the scarred face stood with him.
It was Nikoli who saw Lomax first and he tugged at the big man’s sleeve and pointed and Alexias said something quickly and every head turned.
Half of them were young waterfront layabouts in brightly checked shirts, hair carefully curled over their collars. They were of a type to be found in every country in the world. Mean vicious young animals who thrived on trouble.
One of them turned and made a remark and they all laughed and then Lomax saw Dimitri at the back of them. He was leaning against a windlass, a cigarette smouldering between his lips as he shaved a piece of wood with his gutting knife.
As Lomax approached, the crowd parted and he paused a couple of feet away from Dimitri. The bouzouki player was humming tunelessly to himself. He didn’t even bother to raise his head.
Alexias moved forward, Nikoli at his side. ‘This is the wrong time to seek trouble, Lomax. The boat leaves in five minutes.’
Lomax turned very slowly and looked at him contemptuously. ‘When I want to hear from you I’ll let you know. Once you were a man, but now...’
As he turned away, Dimitri reached to the cobbles for another piece of wood and Lomax kicked it out of his way.
Dimitri looked up slowly. His eyes were very pale, the pupils like pin-points. He still kept on humming to himself, but a muscle twitched spasmodically at one side of his jaw.
‘With children and dogs you’re quite a man,’ Lomax said clearly so that all could hear. ‘How about trying someone a little nearer your own size?’
One moment, the bouzouki player was lolling back against the windlass, the next he had moved forward, the knife cutting upwards like molten silver in the sunlight.
Lomax could have broken the arm with supreme ease. Instead, he pivoted and chopped down with the edge of his hand. Dimitri screamed, dropping the knife, and Lomax kicked it over the edge of the pier into the water.
He felt completely cool and without fear. It was as if that other, younger man had returned to take over. The one who had been trained to use such methods until they were a reflex action.
There was an ugly murmur from Dimitri’s friends, but he held up a hand and shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was curiously remote and far away. ‘I’ll break his neck as easily as I did the dog’s.’
All work had ceased on the ship and everyone waited. As Lomax circled warily, he saw people hurrying along the waterfront and then an old jeep appeared from a side street and braked to a halt and Katina and Yanni got out.
A segull cried harshly and swooped down and Dimitri jumped in close, his right fist swinging in a tremendous punch.
To Lomax the blow seemed to travel in slow motion. He swerved slightly, allowing the bouzouki player to plunge past him, and slashed him across the kidneys with the edge of his hand.
Dimitri screamed and fell to the cobbles. For a little while he stayed there on his hands and knees and when he got to his feet, he was slobbering like an animal.
He lurched forward again and Lomax grabbed for his wrist with both hands and twisted it round and up so that he held him in a Japanese shoulder lock. Dimitri screamed again and still keeping that terrible hold in position, Lomax ran him head-first into a stack of iron-bound crates.
There was a gasp from the crowd and Lomax stood back and waited. Dimitri grabbed for a chain and heaved himself to his feet. When he turned, his face was a mask of blood. His hand slipped from the chain as he took one tottering step forward and collapsed.
There was a moment of stunned silence and then a spontaneous roar of anger from Dimitri’s friends. As Lomax turned, they came forward with a rush.
He swung a fist into the first face and then a foot caught him on the shin and he cried out and started to sag. As he bent over, a knee lifted into his face and the cobbles rose to meet him.
He rolled desperately, face tucked into his shoulder, hands protecting his genitals, and then a shot echoed flatly across the water and then another.
It was as if all the clocks in the world had stopped at the same moment. Dimitri’s friends moved back reluctantly and Lomax scrambled to his feet.
Father John Mikali stood a few feet away and Kytros was at his side, automatic in one hand, the other hooked into his belt. He looked very calm and completely in control.
Lomax stood there, his body aching, the taste of blood in his mouth, and Kytros said quietly, ‘The boat is waiting for you, Captain Lomax.’
Lomax turned and looked at Alexias. On the big man’s face was something that might almost have been respect, but there was more also. A slight frown of bewilderment as if for the first time he was unsure of himself and of the situation.
Lomax took a deep breath to clear his head and turned. He brushed past the sergeant and walked back along the pier and the people moved silently to each side.
From somewhere a thousand miles away he could hear Papademos shouting to his men and the rattle of the anchor chain and there was a roaring in his ears.
Katina was there, her arms around him and Yanni, his face white with excitement. She led him to the jeep and the boy opened the door and Lomax slumped into the passenger seat.
She climbed behind the wheel and leaned across to wipe blood from his face. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked calmly.
He could feel her hand trembling and he held it for a moment and smiled. ‘A good thing Kytros arrived when he did. I’m getting a little old to be playing that kind of game.’
She drove away quickly, scattering the crowd, and turned the jeep expertly into the narrow side street.
‘Where are we going?’ he said.
‘To the hotel for your things. Afterwards I’ll take you out to the villa. Oliver would want me to.’
She turned into the square and braked to a halt in front of the hotel. As she started to get out, Lomax laid a hand on her arm. ‘Not you, only me.’ He climbed down and walked round to the other side. ‘I could do with some time to think this thing out.’
She looked down at him gravely. ‘Just as you like.’
‘Are you going to keep Yanni with you?’
She nodded. ‘I think it would be better.’
He smiled and ran his fingers through the boy’s tousled hair. ‘We’ll find you another dog, Yanni.’
He moved between the tables and just as he reached the door she called to him. When he turned he saw that she was unfastening a chain that hung around her neck.
She threw it to him, liquid gold in the sun, and he caught it, closing his hand over it at once, knowing what it was.
‘I give you back your courage,’ she said, and drove away very quickly.
He went into the cool darkness, aware of Anna’s frightened face peering at him from the kitchen doorway and the stairs seemed to stretch into eternity.
When he reached his room, he closed the door very carefully and stood with his back against it staring at his clenched right hand with the two ends of gold chain hanging down. After a while, he opened it gently and looked at the small bronze coin that bore the face of Achilles.
A long time ago, he thought. A hell of a long time ago. He lit a cigarette and went and lay on his back on the bed and stared blindly into the past.
Book Two
The Nightcomer
Chapter 5
Cover of Darkness
It was the throb of the diesels that brought Lomax awake with a start. He lay there for a moment on the bunk, staring up at the steel bulkhead, a slight frown on his face as he tried to remember where he was.
After a while, something clicked and he pushed himself up on one elbow. Alexias was sprawled in a canvas chair in the far corner watching him.
The Greek removed the cigarette that smouldered between his lips and grinned. ‘You talk in your sleep, my friend. Did you know that?’
‘That’s all I needed,’ Lomax said. ‘Have you got one of those to spare?’
The Greek nodded and rose to his feet. He was a big, dangerous looking man badly in need of a shave and his massive shoulders swelled under the blue reefer jacket.
‘I think that maybe you’ve been playing this game too long,’ he said as he gave Lomax a cigarette and struck a match.
‘Haven’t we all?’
Before the Greek could reply, the curtain was pulled back and Sergeant Boyd appeared with two cups of coffee. He gave one to Alexias and the other to Lomax who took a sip and grimaced. ‘Everything tastes of submarine. I don’t know how they put up with it.’
Boyd was a big, dependable northerner with the ribbon of the Military Medal sewn neatly into place above his left breast pocket beneath the SAS wings.
‘We’ve just surfaced,’ he said. ‘Commander Swanson asked me to tell you to be ready to go in fifteen minutes.’
‘Is all the gear ready?’
Boyd nodded. ‘I had to occupy myself somehow. Couldn’t sleep. Never can in these things.’
‘How do you feel?’ Lomax asked.
‘About the job?’ Boyd shrugged. ‘The same as usual. Why?’
Lomax shook his head. ‘No special reason. We seem to have been doing this sort of thing rather frequently lately, that’s all. We can’t last for ever, you know.’
‘Neither can the war,’ Boyd told him. ‘In any case, it’s fifty-fifty every time. Even I know that much mathematics.’
‘I don’t know,’ Lomax said. ‘This one’s different. In Crete, a man could run a long way in those mountains, but Kyros is a small island.’
‘We’ve been on small islands before,’ Boyd told him. ‘Besides, we’ve got Alexias here to show us around. We’ll be all right.’
Alexias grinned and his teeth looked very white against the dark stubble of his beard. ‘Sure, everything’s going to be fine. You’ve got nothing to worry about.’
‘Who said I was worried?’ Lomax swung his legs to the floor. ‘You two get the stuff together. I’ll see you up top in five minutes.’
After they had gone, he sat there on the edge of the bunk finishing his coffee. It tasted foul, but then so did the cigarette.
He was tired, that was the trouble. Too damned tired and everything was beginning to blur a little at the edges. He definitely needed a rest after this one. A month in Alex should do it, but he’d been promised that for a year now. He pulled on his sheepskin coat, reached for his beret and moved outside.
He moved through into the control room and mounted the conning-tower ladder to the bridge. Above him, the round circle of the night was scattered with brilliant stars and he breathed the fresh salt air deep into his lungs and suddenly felt better.
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Jack Higgins
The timeless Higgins classic…Captain Hugh Lomax's last view of Kyros had been as a German prisoner of war. The picturesque beauty of the Greek Islands hiding their blood-drenched history and the terrifying carnage that took place years earlier.But there are questions still unanswered. Lomax knows he was innocent, and as he returns to Kyros he begins to remember things he had long since buried in the back of his mind; the deadly mission he undertook, as well as a horrific massacre that still remains without reason. Now, the time has come for answers.Lomax is set to unlock the secrets of his past; someone betrayed the islanders at the height of the Nazi occupation, and they want their secret kept, whatever it takes, whoever has to suffer.
JACK
HIGGINS
THE DARK SIDE OF
THE ISLAND
Contents
Cover (#uec7a3fe6-46ce-5816-b98f-989140f4cc62)
Title Page (#udade172a-347f-541a-ad53-5a7adfa5f804)
Publisher’s Note
Foreword
Book One: The Long Return
Chapter 1 - On Kyros, Nothing Changes
Chapter 2 - A Man Called Alexias
Chapter 3 - Two Candles for St Katherine
Chapter 4 - The Bronze Achilles
Book Two: The Nightcomer
Chapter 5 - Cover of Darkness
Chapter 6 - A Willingness to Kill
Chapter 7 - Of Action and Passion
Chapter 8 - ‘The Little Ship’
Chapter 9 - Temple of the Night
Chapter 10 - Fire on the Mountain
Chapter 11 - No Hard Feelings, Captain Lomax
Book Three: A Sound of Hunting
Chapter 12 - One Should Never Return to Anything
Chapter 13 - To the Other
Chapter 14 - A Fine Night for Dying
Chapter 15 - A Prospect of Gallows
Chapter 16 - The Run for Cover
Chapter 17 - Confessional
Chapter 18 - Dust and Ashes
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Jack Higgins
Copyright
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Publisher’s Note
The Dark Side Of The Island was first published in the UK by John Long in 1963 and later by Signet in 1997. It was originally published under the name of Harry Patterson, an author who later became known to millions as Jack Higgins.
This amazing novel has been out of print for some years, and in 2010, it seemed to the author and his publishers that it was a pity to leave such a good story languishing on his shelves. So we are delighted to be able to bring back The Dark Side Of The Island for the pleasure of the vast majority of us who never had a chance to read the earlier editions.
Foreword
One of my earliest forays into the Second World War. A holiday spent visiting the Greek islands and my discovery of the undercover work there by the SAS in its earliest years gave me the idea for a thriller which has the hero return to the island that had been the scene of his most brilliant exploit, only to find that the local people believe him a traitor and responsible for the executions of many partisans. In a way it is a whodunit, as he tries not only to stay alive but to find out who was really responsible.
Book One
The Long Return
Chapter 1
On Kyros, Nothing Changes
Lomax lay on the narrow bunk in the airless cabin, stripped to the waist, his body drenched in sweat, and stared up at the stained and peeling ceiling.
Looked at long enough, it became a pretty fair map of the Aegean. He worked his way down from Athens through the Cyclades to the larger mass that was Crete, but where Kyros should have been there was only an empty expanse of sea. For some reason it made him feel curiously uneasy and he swung his legs to the floor.
He got up, splashed water into the cracked basin that stood beneath the mirror beside the bunk and washed the sweat from his body. His shoulders were solid with muscle, his body bronzed and fit, and somehow the ugly puckered scar of the old bullet wound beneath his left breast looked sinister and out of place.
As he dried himself, a stranger stared out of the mirror. A man with skin stretched tightly over prominent cheekbones and dark, sombre eyes that examined the world with a curiously remote expression he could no longer analyse, even to himself.
As he reached for his shirt, the cabin door opened and the steward looked in. ‘Kyros in half an hour, Mr Lomax,’ he said in Greek.
The door closed behind him and for the first time Lomax was conscious of a faint stirring of excitement, a cold finger that seemed to touch him somewhere inside. He pulled on his linen jacket and went out on deck.
As he stood at the rail watching Kyros grad-u ally rise out of the sea, Captain Papademos emerged from the deck-house and paused beside him. He was heavily built and almost blackened by the sun, his face seamed with wrinkles.
He put a match to his pipe. ‘It’s difficult in this heat haze, but if you look carefully you can see Crete in the distance. Quite a view, eh?’
‘Something of an understatement,’ Lomax said.
‘I’ve been everywhere a sailor can go,’ Papademos continued. ‘In the end I found I was only travelling in a circle.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ Lomax said.
He took out a cigarette and Papademos gave him a light. ‘For an Englishman you speak pretty good Greek. The best I’ve heard from a foreigner. You’ve been out here before?’
Lomax nodded. ‘A long time ago. Before the flood.’
Papademos looked puzzled for a moment and then his face cleared. ‘Ah, now I see it. You were in the islands during the war.’
‘That’s right,’ Lomax said. ‘Working in Crete with the E.O.K. mostly.’
‘So?’ Papademos nodded, serious for a moment. ‘Those were hard times for all of us. The people of these islands don’t forget how much the English helped. Have you been back before?’
Lomax shook his head. ‘Never felt like it. In any case, I always seemed to have something more important to do. You know how it is.’
‘Life, my friend, she grips us by the throat.’ Papademos nodded sagely. ‘But seventeen years is a long time. A man changes.’
‘Everybody changes,’ Lomax said.
‘Maybe you’ve got a point there, but why Kyros? I could think of better places.’
‘There are some people I want to look up if they’re still around,’ Lomax said. ‘I’d like to see if they’ve changed too. Afterwards, I’ll move on to Crete and Rhodes.’
‘On Kyros nothing changes.’ Papademos spat down into the water. ‘Ten years I’ve been making this trip and they still treat me as if I’ve got the plague.’
Lomax shrugged. ‘Maybe they just don’t like strangers.’
Papademos shook his head. ‘They don’t like anybody. You sure you’ve got friends there?’
‘I hope so.’
‘So do I. If you haven’t, you’re in for a pretty thin time and you’ll be stuck for a week until I call again.’
‘I’ll take my chances.’
Papademos knocked the ash from his pipe on the rail. ‘We’ll be here for four hours. Why don’t you have a quick look round for old times’ sake and then go on to Crete with me? They’ll show you a better time in Herakleion than they will here.’
Lomax shook his head. ‘Next week I’ll take you up on that offer, but not now.’
‘Suit yourself.’ Papademos shrugged and went back into the deck-house.
They were close inshore now, the great central peak of the island towering three thousand feet above them. As the little steamer rounded the curved promontory crowded with its white houses, a single-masted caicque, sails bellying in the breeze, moved out to sea. It passed so close to them that Lomax could see the great eyes painted on each side of the prow.
The man at the tiller waved carelessly and Lomax raised a hand and then the throbbing of the engines began to falter as they slowed to enter the harbour.
On the white curve of sand, brightly painted caicques were beached and fishermen sat beside them in small groups mending their nets while children chased each other in the shallows, their voices somehow muted and far away.
He went back to his cabin and started to pack. It didn’t take long. When he was finished, he left the canvas grip and the portable typewriter on the bunk and went back on deck.
They were already working alongside the stone pier and as he watched the engines stopped and everything seemed curiously still in the great heat.
On the pier, three old men dozed in the sun and a young boy sat with a fishing line, a small black dog curled beside him.
As the steward emerged from the cabin carrying the canvas grip and the typewriter, Papademos came out of the deck-house. ‘You travel light.’
‘The only way,’ Lomax said. ‘What happens now? Do I just walk off the boat? Doesn’t anyone want to see my papers?’
Papademos shrugged. ‘There’s a police sergeant called Kytros who attends to all that. He’ll know you’re here soon enough.’
By now a couple of sailors had the gangway in position. The steward went first and Lomax put on a pair of sunglasses and followed him.
As he took out his wallet to tip the man, he was aware that the three old men were all sitting up straight and looking at him curiously.
The boy who had been fishing was winding in his line. As the steward went back on board, he hurried across, the dog at his heels.
He was perhaps twelve with brown eyes in a thin, intelligent face. His jersey was too big for him and his pants had been patched many times.
He looked up at Lomax curiously for a moment and then said slowly in English, ‘You want a good hotel, mister? They look after American tourist real nice.’
‘What makes you think I’m an American?’ Lomax asked him in Greek.
‘The dark glasses. All Americans wear dark glasses.’ The boy replied in the same language instinctively and his hand went to his mouth in astonishment. ‘Say, mister, you speak Greek as good as me. How come?’
‘Never mind that,’ Lomax said. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Yanni,’ the boy told him. ‘Yanni Melos.’
Lomax extracted a banknote from his wallet and held it up. ‘All right, Yanni Melos. This is for you when we reach this hotel of yours where they treat Americans so well. It had better be the best.’
Yanni’s teeth gleamed in his brown face. ‘Mister, it’s the only one in town.’ He picked up the canvas grip and typewriter and hurried ahead, the dog at his heels, and Lomax followed.
Nothing had changed. Not a damned thing. Even the pillbox the Germans had constructed to guard the pier was still standing, its concrete crumbling a little at the edges. All that was missing were the E-boats in the harbour and the Nazi flag over the town hall.
The boy led the way between tall, whitewashed houses, moving away from the waterfront. Once or twice they passed someone sitting on a doorstep, but on the whole, the streets were deserted.
The hotel formed one side of a tiny cobbled square with a church opposite. There were several wooden tables outside, but no sign of any customers, and Lomax guessed that the place would probably liven up in the evening.
He followed the boy into a large, stone-flagged room with a low ceiling. There were more tables and chairs and a marble-topped bar in one corner, bottles ranged behind it on wooden shelves.
Yanni put down the canvas grip and the typewriter and vanished through a door at the rear. It was cool and pleasant after the heat outside and Lomax leaned against the bar and waited.
He could hear a murmur of conversation and then a girl’s voice was raised, high and scolding. ‘Always you lie to me!’ There was the sound of a slap and Yanni ran into the room head down, a young girl in a blue dress and white apron in hot pursuit.
She came to an abrupt halt when she saw Lomax and the boy made a dramatic gesture. ‘There, am I not speaking the truth?’
The girl was perhaps sixteen or seventeen, with a round, pretty face, and she came forward, wiping flour from her hands on the apron.
She stood looking at him helplessly, crimson with embarrassment, and Lomax smiled. ‘It’s all right. I speak Greek.’
Immediate relief showed on her face. ‘You must excuse me, but Yanni is such a liar and he caught me in the middle of baking. What can I do for you?’
‘I’d like a room,’ he said. ‘Yanni told me this was the best hotel in town.’
She looked as if she didn’t know what to say and he added gently, ‘You do have one available, I take it?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she assured him. ‘You’ve caught me rather by surprise, that’s all. We seldom get tourists on Kyros. I’ll have to get clean linen and air the mattress.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ he said. ‘There’s no hurry.’
He took a banknote from his wallet and handed it to Yanni. The boy examined it carefully and his eyes widened. He looked longingly at the open door, sighed and held out the note reluctantly.
‘I think you’ve made a mistake, mister. It’s too much.’
Lomax closed the boy’s hand over the note. ‘Let’s call it an advance payment on your services. I may need you again.’
Yanni’s face split into a delighted grin. ‘Say, mister, I like you. You’re my friend. I hope you stay on Kyros a long time.’
He whistled to the dog and ran through the doorway into the square. Lomax picked up the grip and the typewriter and turned to the girl.
‘He is impossible,’ she said as she led the way out into a whitewashed passage.
‘He seems to speak pretty good English?’
She nodded. ‘After his parents were drowned, he lived on Rhodes with his mother’s people. I suppose he picked it up from the tourists.’
‘Who looks after him now?’
‘He lives with his grandmother near the harbour, but she can’t do much for him. She’s too old.’
They mounted narrow wooden stairs and turned into a corridor that seemed to run the full length of the building. She paused outside the door at the far end and said, ‘It’s a very simple room. I hope you understand that?’
He nodded. ‘That’s all I’m looking for.’
She opened the door and led the way in. It was plainly furnished with a brass bed, a wash-stand and an old wardrobe. As elsewhere in the house, the walls were whitewashed and the wooden floor highly polished.
The whole place was spotlessly clean and he went and opened the window and looked out across the red-tiled roofs to the harbour below. ‘But this is wonderful.’
When he turned, he saw that she was smiling with pleasure. ‘I am pleased you like it. How long will you be staying?’
He shrugged. ‘Until the boat comes again next week. Perhaps longer, I’m not sure. What do they call you?’
She blushed. ‘My name is Anna Papas. Would you like something to eat?’
He shook his head. ‘Not now, Anna. Later, perhaps.’
She smiled awkwardly and retreated to the door. ‘Then I will leave you. If there is anything you need, anything at all, please call me. I will be in the kitchen.’
The door closed behind her and he lit a cigarette and went across to the window.
Some fishing boats were moving in from the sea and he could see the rusty little island steamer moored beside the pier. A gull cried as it swept across the rooftops and quite suddenly he was glad that he had returned.
Chapter 2
A Man Called Alexias
He unpacked his bag and then washed and shaved and put on a clean shirt. He was pulling on his jacket when the knock came at the door and a small, balding man entered.
He carried a stiff-backed ledger under one arm and smiled ingratiatingly, exposing bad teeth.
‘Excuse me. I hope I’m not disturbing you?’
Lomax took an instant dislike to him, but he managed a smile. ‘Not at all. Come right in.’
‘I am the proprietor, George Papas,’ the little man said. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived. Mornings I work in my olive grove.’
‘That’s all right. Your daughter looked after me fine.’
‘She is a good girl,’ Papas said complacently. He placed the ledger on the table by the window, opened it and produced a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘If you wouldn’t mind signing the register. A legal requirement, you understand? The local police sergeant is fussy about such matters.’
Lomax examined the book with interest. The last entry had been made almost a year before. He took the pen and entered his name, address and nationality in the appropriate columns.
‘You don’t seem to get many visitors here.’
Papas shrugged. ‘Kyros is a quiet place with nothing much to attract the tourists – especially Americans.’
‘As it happens, I’m English,’ Lomax said. ‘Perhaps my tastes are simpler.’
‘English!’ Papas frowned. ‘But my daughter assured me you were an American.’
‘A mistake the young boy who brought me here from the boat made,’ Lomax said. ‘I only live there. Does it matter?’
‘No, of course not.’ Papas looked distinctly uncomfortable as he swivelled the register to examine the entry.
‘Hugh Lomax – California,’ he mumbled. ‘Nationality English,’ and then his whole body seemed to be racked by a violent spasm.
For a moment, Lomax thought the man was about to throw a fit. He took his arm to lead him to a chair and Papas jerked it away as if he had been stung.
His face had turned a sickly yellow colour and his eyes were staring as he backed to the door.
‘For God’s sake, man,’ Lomax demanded. ‘What is it?’
Papas managed to open the door with one hand and crossed himself mechanically with the other. ‘Holy Mother of God,’ he breathed and stumbled into the corridor.
Lomax stood there for a moment, a frown on his face, and then picked up the register and followed him.
When he went into the bar, Anna was polishing glasses. She looked up and smiled. ‘Can I get you anything?’
He shook his head and placed the register on the bar. ‘Your father left that in my room by mistake. I’d like to have a word with him if I may.’
‘I’m afraid he’s just gone out,’ she said. ‘I saw him crossing the square a moment ago.’
‘It can wait till later. Tell me, is there still a tavern on the waterfront called The Little Ship? It used to be owned by a man called Alexias Pavlo.’
‘It still is,’ she said. ‘Everyone knows Alexias. This year he is mayor of Kyros.’ She frowned in bewilderment. ‘But how could you know of Alexias and The Little Ship?’
‘Remind me to tell you some time,’ he said, and went out into the bright sunshine.
As he crossed the square towards the street that led down to the harbour, Yanni emerged from it and ran towards him, the dog yapping at his heels He was wearing a scarlet shirt, khaki shorts and a pair of white rubber shoes.
He halted a few paces away, held out his arms and pirouetted. ‘Don’t I look beautiful?’
‘What’s the idea?’ Lomax said
Yanni spread his hands ‘If I’m working for such a rich and important man I must look the part. These are my best clothes.’
‘That makes sense,’ Lomax said. ‘Where did you steal them from?’
‘I didn’t steal them,’ Yanni cried indignantly. ‘They were a present from a very good friend of mine. The best friend I’ve got.’
‘All right,’ Lomax said. ‘Have it your way.’
He moved down the cobbled streets towards the harbour and Yanni trotted beside him. ‘Where do you want to go first?’
‘A place called The Little Ship’
The boy’s eyes widened. ‘You don’t want to go there. That’s a bad place. Not for tourists. For fishermen.’
‘Where would you suggest?’ Lomax said.
‘Lots of places. There’s a Roman temple on the other side of the island, but we’d have to hire a boat. It’s a long walk.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Sure – the Tomb of Achilles, for instance.’
‘They buried him here, did they?’
Yanni nodded. ‘Everyone knows that.’
‘It must have been a long haul from Troy.’
The boy ignored the remark. ‘We could always visit the monastery of St Anthony or what’s left of it. They blew it up during the war.’
‘So I’d heard,’ Lomax said, and his face darkened.
‘Of course that would mean climbing the mountain. You’d probably find it too hot.’
‘That being so, I think we’ll make it The Little Ship for the time being.’
‘Suit yourself.’ Yanni shrugged despondently and led the way along the waterfront.
The Little Ship was on the corner of a narrow alley and when they reached it, he hesitated at the entrance and turned appealingly. ‘Let me take you somewhere else, mister.’
Lomax ruffled the boy’s hair with one hand. ‘Don’t look so worried.’ He grinned. ‘Shall I let you into a little secret? I’ve been here before. A long time ago. Before you were even thought of.’
He turned from the boy’s astonished gaze and went down the stone steps into the cool darkness of The Little Ship.
Just inside the entrance a young man sprawled in a chair against the wall and sang in a low voice, his fingers gently stroking the strings of a bouzouki.
He wore a red and green checked shirt, the sleeves rolled back carefully to display his bulging biceps to better advantage, and his hair curled thickly over the back of his collar.
He made no effort to move out of the way. Lomax stared down at him for a moment, anonymous in his dark glasses, and then stepped carefully over the outstretched legs and moved inside.
The first person he saw was Captain Papademos sitting by himself in a corner drinking red wine. Lomax raised a hand in greeting and Papademos deliberately looked away.
It was then that he became aware of a curious fact. There were six people in the room including Papademos, four of them sitting together and yet no one was talking.
The man behind the bar was small and wiry, his skin tanned the colour of Spanish leather. The right side of his face was disfigured by an ugly scar and the eye was covered by a black patch.
He leaned on the bar holding a newspaper and completely ignored Lomax. The strange thing was that his hands trembled slightly as if he laboured under some terrible strain.
Lomax removed his sunglasses. ‘Is Alexias Pavlo about?’
‘Who wants to know?’ the man demanded in a hoarse voice.
‘An old friend,’ Lomax said. ‘Someone from his past.’
Behind him, the bouzouki player struck a final, dramatic chord. Lomax turned slowly and saw that everyone was watching him, even Papademos, and Yanni’s white, frightened face peered round the edge of the door.
In the heavy silence, the whole world seemed to stop breathing and then a man stepped through the bead curtain that masked the door at the side of the bar.
In his time, he must have been a giant, but now the white suit hung loosely on his great frame. He moved forward slowly with a pronounced limp, leaning heavily on a walking stick, and the heavy moustache was iron grey.
‘Alexias,’ Lomax said. ‘Alexias Pavlo.’
Pavlo shook his head slowly from side to side as if he couldn’t believe the evidence of his own eyes. ‘It is you,’ he whispered. ‘After all these years you’ve come back. When Papas told me, I thought he was insane. The Germans said you were dead.’
The bead curtains parted again and George Papas moved out. There was sweat on his face and he looked frightened to death.
‘It’s me, Alexias,’ Lomax said, holding out his hand. ‘Hugh Lomax – don’t you remember?’
Pavlo ignored the outstretched hand. ‘I remember you, Englishman.’ A muscle twitched at the side of his jaw. ‘How could I forget you? How could anyone on this island forget you?’
Suddenly, his face was suffused with passion. His mouth opened as if he wanted to speak, but the words refused to come and he raised his stick blindly.
Lomax managed to ward the blow off and moved in close, pinning Pavlo’s arms to his sides. Behind him, a chair went over with a crash and Yanni screamed a warning from the door.
As he released Pavlo and started to turn, a brawny arm slid around his neck, half-choking him. He tried to raise his arms, but they were seized and he was dragged backwards.
The four men who had been sitting together held him in a vice half-way across their table. Papademos got to his feet and started for the door, but the man who had been playing the bouzouki shook his head gently and the captain sat down again.
The bouzouki player propped his instrument carefully against the wall and came forward. He looked down at Lomax for a moment, his expression perfectly calm, and then slapped him heavily in the face.
Lomax tried to struggle, but it was no use, and Pavlo pushed the bouzouki player out of the way. ‘No, Dimitri, he is mine. Lift up his head so that I can look at him properly.’
Dimitri grabbed Lomax by the hair, pulling him upright and Pavlo looked into his face and nodded. ‘The years have treated you kindly, Captain Lomax. You look well – very well.’
The little man with the scarred face and eye-patch had come from behind the bar and stood beside Pavlo and looked down at Lomax. Suddenly, he leaned forward and spat on him.
Lomax felt the cold slime on his face and anger boiled inside him. ‘For God’s sake, Alexias. What’s all this about?’
‘It’s really quite simple,’ Pavlo said. ‘It’s about my crippled leg and Nikoli’s face here. If you prefer it, there’s always Dimitri’s father and twenty-three other men and women who died in the concentration camp at Fonchi.’
And then it all began to make some kind of crazy sense. ‘You think I was responsible for that?’ Lomax said incredulously.
‘You were judged and condemned a long time ago,’ Pavlo told him. ‘It only remains for the sentence to be carried out.’
He looked at the bouzouki player, his face like stone. ‘Give me your gutting knife, Dimitri.’
Dimitri took a large clasp-knife from his hip pocket and passed it across. Pavlo pressed a button at one end and a six-inch blade, honed like a razor, sprang into view.
Lomax kicked out wildly, panic rising inside him. He made a last desperate effort and managed to tear one arm free. He swung round, dashing his fist into the nearest face, but in a moment, he was pinioned again.
The hand that held the knife trembled a little, but there was cold purpose in Pavlo’s eyes. He took one pace forward, the knife coming up, and a voice said from the doorway, ‘Drop it, Alexias!’
Everyone turned and Lomax felt the grasp on his arms slacken. Standing just inside the door was a police sergeant in shabby sun-bleached khaki uniform, and Yanni peered under his arm.
‘Stay out of this, Kytros,’ Pavlo said.
‘I believe I told you to drop the knife,’ Kytros replied calmly. ‘I would not like to have to ask you again.’
‘But you don’t understand,’ Pavlo told him. ‘This is the Englishman who was here during the war. The one who betrayed us to the Germans.’
‘So you would murder him now and in cold blood?’ Kytros said.
Little Nikoli made an impassioned gesture with both hands. ‘It is not murder – it is justice.’
‘We obviously have different points of view.’ Kytros looked straight at Lomax. ‘Mr Lomax, please come with me.’
Lomax took a step forward and Dimitri grabbed his arm. ‘No, he stays here!’ he said harshly.
Kytros unbuttoned the flap of his holster and took out his automatic. When he spoke there was iron in his voice. ‘Mr Lomax is leaving with me now. I would be obliged, Alexias, if you would not make it necessary for me to shoot one of your friends.’
Pavlo’s face was contorted in anger and he half turned and drove the blade of the knife into the wooden table in a single violent gesture.
‘All right, Kytros. Have it your way, but make sure he’s on the boat when it leaves at four o’clock. If he isn’t, I can’t be responsible for what might happen.’
Lomax stumbled past the sergeant and climbed the steps into the bright sunlight. For a moment, reaction set in and he leaned against the wall, his chest heaving as he struggled for breath.
Kytros put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Are you all right? Did they harm you?’
Lomax shook his head. ‘I’m getting a little too old to be playing that kind of game, that’s all.’
‘Aren’t we all, Mr Lomax?’ Kytros said. ‘My office is just around the corner. I’d be pleased if you would accompany me there.’
As they walked along, Yanni tugged at Lomax’s hand anxiously. ‘I got the sergeant for you, Mr Lomax. Did I do right?’
Lomax smiled. ‘You saved my life, son. That’s all.’
Yanni frowned. ‘They say you’re a bad man, Mr Lomax.’
‘What do you think?’ Lomax said.
The boy smiled suddenly. ‘You don’t look like a bad man to me.’
‘Then we’re still friends?’
‘Sure we are.’
They paused outside the police station and Lomax patted him on the head. ‘I’m going to be busy for a while, Yanni. You go back to the hotel and wait for me.’
Yanni turned reluctantly and Lomax added, ‘It’s all right. Sergeant Kytros isn’t going to put me in prison.’
The boy whistled to his dog and ran away along the waterfront and Lomax followed Kytros up the stone steps.
The sergeant led the way into an office furnished with a desk, several wooden chairs and a startlingly new green filing cabinet.
‘The boy seems to have taken quite a fancy to you.’ He took off his cap and sat behind the desk. ‘It’s a pity you won’t be around longer. He could do with an improving influence.’
Lomax pulled a chair forward and sat down. ‘So I’m definitely leaving, am I?’
Kytros spread his hands. ‘Mr Lomax, be sensible. That could have been a nasty business back there at The Little Ship and I can’t guarantee that it won’t happen again. Alexias Pavlo is an important man on Kyros.’
‘Does that make him God?’
Kytros shook his head. ‘He doesn’t need to be God to arrange for someone to slip a knife under your ribs one dark night.’
‘The Alexias Pavlo I knew seventeen years ago did his own killing,’ Lomax said.
Kytros ignored the remark. ‘Could I see your papers?’
Lomax produced them from an inside pocket and the sergeant examined them quickly. ‘What is the purpose of your visit to the island?’
Lomax shrugged. ‘I was here during the war. I thought I’d like to see the place again.’
‘But why Kyros, Mr Lomax? The war must have taken you to many places.’
‘It happened to be the first port of call on the way from Athens,’ Lomax said. ‘It was as simple as that. I also intended to look up old friends in Crete and Rhodes. If I still have any, that is. After my reception here, I’m beginning to wonder.’
‘I see.’ Kytros passed the papers back. ‘These seem to be perfectly in order.’
‘What happens now?’ Lomax asked.
‘I should have thought that was obvious. You must leave on the boat at four o’clock.’
‘Is that an order?’
Kytros sighed. ‘Mr Lomax, I notice that your visa has been franked by the minister himself. This means you have important friends in Athens.’
‘That’s one thing you can count on,’ Lomax told him grimly.
‘You place me in an impossible position,’ Kytros said. ‘If I force you to leave I will find myself in trouble in Athens. On the other hand, if you stay, someone will most surely try to kill you and I will again be to blame.’
‘But I must get to the bottom of this thing.’ Lomax said. ‘Surely you can see that? For a start, you can tell me why these people think I betrayed them to the Germans.’
‘Anything I know, I’ve heard at secondhand,’ Kytros said. ‘I’m from the mainland myself. I’ve only been here two years.’
‘Then what do you suggest?’
Kytros examined his wrist-watch. ‘You have exactly an hour and a quarter until the boat leaves. I would suggest that you go to the Church of St Katherine and speak with Father John. He was here at the time in question.’
Lomax looked at him in astonishment. ‘Do you mean Father John Mikali? But I met him when I was here during the war and he was at least seventy then.’
‘A very wonderful old man.’
Lomax got to his feet and moved to the door. ‘Thanks for the advice. I’ll see you later.’
‘On the pier at four o’clock,’ Kytros told him. ‘And remember, Mr Lomax. Time is your enemy.’
He pulled a sheaf of papers forward and reached for a pen and Lomax went outside and walked back along the waterfront.
Chapter 3
Two Candles for St Katherine
The lights in the little church were very dim and down by the altar the candles flickered and St Katherine seemed to float out of the darkness bathed in a soft white light.
The smell of incense was overpowering and for a moment he felt a little giddy. It was a long time since he had been in a church and he stretched out a hand and touched the cold roughness of a pillar in the darkness to bring himself back to reality and moved down the aisle.
Father John Mikali knelt in prayer by the altar. His pure, almost childlike face was raised to heaven and in the candlelight the beard gleamed like silver against his dark robes.
Lomax sat on one of the wooden benches and waited and after a while the old priest crossed himself and got to his feet. When he turned and saw Lomax he showed no visible emotion.
Lomax got to his feet slowly. ‘A long time, Father.’
‘I was told you were here,’ Father John said.
Lomax shrugged. ‘News travels fast in a small town.’
The old priest nodded. ‘Especially bad news.’
‘You too?’ Lomax said bitterly. ‘Now I know I’m in trouble.’
‘It is not for me to judge you,’ Father John said, ‘but it was foolish of you to return. Once the grass has grown over a grave it is not good to disturb it.’
‘All I want are the answers to a few questions,’ Lomax said. ‘If you of all people won’t help me, who will?’
Father John sat down on one of the benches. ‘First, let me ask you a question. Why have you returned to Kyros after all this time?’
Lomax shrugged. ‘An impulse, I suppose.’
But there was more to it than that – much more. He squeezed his hands together and frowned, trying to get it straight in his own mind.
After a while he said slowly, ‘I think I came here looking for something.’
‘It would interest me to know what,’ the old man said.
Lomax shrugged. ‘I’m not really sure. Myself, perhaps. The man I lost back there in the past so many years ago.’
‘And you thought to find him here on Kyros?’
‘But this was where he existed, Father. Don’t you see that? During the past two or three years a strange thing’s been happening to me. The events that other man was involved in here in these islands so many years ago seem more real to me than those things which have happened since. More important in every way. Does that make any kind of sense?’
The old priest sighed. ‘Captain Lomax, for these people that man has been dead for seventeen years. It would have been better if you had not resurrected him.’
‘All right, Father,’ Lomax said. ‘Let’s get down to hard facts. The last view I had of Kyros was from the deck of the E-boat which was taking me to Crete after the Germans had captured me. What happened after I left?’
‘Everyone who helped you was arrested,’ Father John said. ‘Including their immediate relatives. Some were shot in the main square as an example, the rest were sent to a concentration camp in Greece. Few survived the ill-treatment.’
‘And the people think I was responsible? That I betrayed them?’
‘You were the logical person and the fact that the Germans failed to execute you seemed to prove it. After all, they usually shot any British officer they caught who’d been working in the mountains with the Resistance.’
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ Lomax said.
‘You were badly wounded, perhaps even a little delirious. How can you be sure? In such a state, a man does strange things.’
‘Not a chance,’ Lomax said stubbornly. ‘I didn’t talk, Father. Believe me.’
The old man sighed. ‘It’s painful to have to tell you this, but I can see that I must. Colonel Steiner made no secret of the fact that he had persuaded you to give him the information he needed in exchange for your life.’
Lomax felt as if a cold wind had passed over his face. ‘But that isn’t true,’ he said. ‘It can’t be. I didn’t tell Steiner a damn thing.’
‘Then who did, Captain Lomax? There was no one else. They were very thorough, you know. They even included me.’
Lomax looked at him incredulously. ‘They arrested you?’
Father John smiled gently. ‘Oh, yes. I too sampled the delights of their concentration camp at Fonchi.’
Lomax buried his face in his hands. ‘This thing’s beginning to seem like a waking nightmare. Did you know that Alexias Pavlo actually tried to kill me a little while back?’
Pain flashed across the old man’s face. ‘So it has started already? And violence breeds violence. This was what I was afraid of.’
Lomax got up and paced nervously across the aisle. For a moment he stood there staring into space, a slight frown on his face, and then he turned quickly.
‘If I’d really been guilty of this terrible thing do you think I’d have dared show my face here again, even after seventeen years? I know these islands and their people. I spent four years in the mountains with them. They believe in an eye for an eye and they’ve the longest memories in the world.’
‘A good point,’ Father John said, ‘but it could be argued that the situation here has taken you by surprise. That you were not aware of what took place as a consequence of your action.’
Lomax stood looking at him feeling curiously helpless and then weariness flooded through him in a great wave.
He slumped down, his shoulders bowed in defeat. ‘For God’s sake, what’s the use?’
The old priest stood up. ‘Believe me, my son, I harbour no resentment against you, but I fear the evil that your presence here may produce. I think it would be better for all of us if you left on the steamer that brought you here. You still have time.’
Lomax nodded. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’
Father John murmured a blessing. ‘I must go now. My presence in the streets may help to prevent any expression of violence when you leave.’
He moved away along the aisle and Lomax stayed there on the bench, his head in his hands. He was past caring, his mind numb, gripped by a force he seemed unable to cope with. All the strength was draining out of him and he leaned forward and rested his head against a pillar.
Someone ran in through the entrance of the church and paused and then steps sounded on the stone flags of the aisle.
It was the perfume he first became aware of, strange and somehow alien in that place, like lilac fresh after rain, and it tingled in his nostrils bringing his head up sharply.
A young girl was standing there in the half-darkness, a scarf covering her head peasant-fashion. She was breathing heavily as if she had run a long way and she stood there staring down at him and no word was spoken.
His mouth went dry and something that was almost fear moved inside him because this thing was not possible.
‘Katina!’ he said hoarsely. ‘Little Katina Pavlo.’
She moved closer, a hand reaching out to touch his cheek and her face became that of a beautiful, mature woman in her middle thirties. In the candlelight it seemed to glow, to become alive.
‘The Germans told us you were dead,’ she said. ‘That the boat in which they sent you to Crete was sunk.’
He nodded. ‘It was, but I was picked up.’
She sat down beside him, so close that he could feel the warmth of her thigh through her linen dress. ‘I was in one of the shops buying supplies when I heard you had come in on the steamer from Athens. I couldn’t believe it. I ran all the way.’
Her forehead was damp with perspiration and he took out his handkerchief and dried it gently. ‘It’s not good to run in this hot sun.’
She smiled faintly. ‘Seventeen years and still you treat me like a child.’
‘A moment ago I thought you still were. You made the heart move inside me, but it was only a trick of the candlelight.’
‘Have I changed so little, then?’
‘Only to grow more beautiful.’
Her nostrils flared and something glowed in the dark eyes. ‘I think you were always the most gallant man I ever knew.’
For a moment time seemed to have no meaning, the present and the past merging into one. In some strange way it was as if they had sat here in the candlelight of the little church before, as if everything that happened was a circle turning endlessly upon itself.
He took her hand gently and said, ‘How did you know I was here?’
‘Sergeant Kytros told me.’ She hesitated. ‘I heard what happened at The Little Ship. You must forgive my uncle. Sometimes I think he is no longer in his right mind. He has lived with great pain for so many years.’
‘And he blames it all on me?’
She nodded gravely. ‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Along with everyone else around here, including Father John. Why should you be any different?’
‘Because I know you sacrificed yourself for these people,’ she said calmly.
He laughed and the sound of it was harsh and ugly. ‘You try telling that one to Alexias and his pals and see how far it gets you.’
‘I did,’ she said. ‘A long time ago, but only one person would believe me.’
He frowned. ‘Who was that?’
‘Oliver Van Horn.’
‘They told me in Athens that he’d stayed on here after the war. I’d hoped to visit him. Does he still live in the villa out on the point?’
‘I keep house for him.’
His eyebrows arched in surprise. ‘You never married?’
She shook her head. ‘Never.’
‘He must be in his sixties now,’ Lomax said slowly.
The right-hand corner of her mouth twitched slightly and there was amusement in her eyes. ‘We have no arrangement, if that is what’s worrying you.’
‘None of my business,’ he said, but he smiled for the first time and she smiled back. ‘How do the locals treat him these days? After all, he’s English enough in all conscience.’
‘Not to the islanders. He suffered as much as anyone. He was taken with the rest of us.’
Lomax frowned, a thought suddenly occurring to him for the first time. ‘And you, Katina? What happened to you?’
She shrugged. ‘They took me away with the others.’
‘To the concentration camp at Fonchi?’
She shook her head. ‘No, to another one, but they were all the same.’ She leaned forward and touched his face. ‘You look older. Too much older. I think you have been very unhappy.’
He shrugged. ‘Seventeen years is a long time.’
‘Are you married?’
He hesitated briefly and then plunged straight in and it was surprising how easy it was now, almost as if he was talking about some distant relative or a casual friend who wasn’t really important.
‘I had a wife and a little girl. They were both killed in an automobile accident in Pasadena five years ago.’
Her sigh echoed away into the darkness. ‘I knew there was something, but I wasn’t sure. It still shows in the eyes.’ She took his hands and held them firmly. ‘Tell me now. Why have you come back to this place?’
‘When Father John asked me, I told him I was looking for my other self,’ he said. ‘The one who existed here in these islands so many years ago, but now I’m not so sure.’
‘There is a deeper reason,’ she said. ‘Am I not right?’
‘Who knows?’ he shrugged. ‘Van Horn once told me that life was action and passion. If that’s true, there’s been precious little of either in mine for quite some time. Perhaps I thought I could recapture something.’
‘And what are you going to do now? Leave on the boat?’
‘That’s what they all seem to want me to do. Alexias told Kytros he wouldn’t be responsible for what might happen if I stayed.’
She glanced at her watch. ‘You would seem to have twenty minutes in which to make up your mind.’
‘What would you like to see me do?’
She shrugged. ‘It isn’t my decision to make. It can only be your own.’
She started to get to her feet and he held her hand and frowned, because he knew that for some strange reason this was the pivot on which the whole thing would turn.
‘Do you want me to stay?’
‘It would take courage,’ she said. ‘Very great courage.’
He smiled suddenly. ‘But I gave you my courage a long time ago, remember?’
She nodded, her face serious. ‘I remember.’
For a little while they sat there staring at each other and then she gently released his hand and stood up. ‘I’ll only be a moment.’
He watched her go down to the altar and drop to one knee, then she stood up, selected two candles and placed them under the statue of St Katherine. It was only as she lit them with a taper that he realised who they were for and a lump came into his throat that threatened to choke him.
He got to his feet and walked blindly through the half-darkness to the door.
Chapter 4
The Bronze Achilles
Outside in the square it was very hot and he stayed in the shade of the porch and smoked a cigarette as he waited for her.
Once, Anna appeared in the door of the hotel with a bucket and cloth as if intending to wipe down the outside tables, but at the sight of him, she drew back hurriedly.
It was quiet and deserted, the shadows long and black as the afternoon waned, and nothing stirred. He stood there, the cigarette burning between his fingers as he stared moodily out into the square and in some strange way it was as if he was waiting for something to happen.
There was a slight movement behind and he turned. Katina looked gravely up at him.
He smiled gently. ‘It was a long time ago.’
Suddenly, there were tears in her eyes and he slipped an arm about her shoulders and held her close. They stayed there in the cool shadow of the porch for a little while and then she sighed and pushed him away.
‘We must go. If you intend to catch that boat, you’re running out of time.’
He followed her out on to the steps, his mind in a turmoil. At that moment, Yanni staggered into the square from the street that led down to the waterfront.
His clothes were torn and covered in dust and his face was streaked with tears as he sobbed uncontrollably. In his arms, he held the little black dog.
Katina was already running to meet him and by the time Lomax arrived, she was on her knees in front of the boy. ‘What is it, Yanni? What’s happened?’
He held out the dog in his arms. Its head lolled to one side, the neck obviously broken, and there was froth on its mouth.
‘It was Dimitri,’ he said. ‘Dimitri killed him.’
‘But why?’ Katina demanded.
‘Because I helped Mr Lomax,’ Yauni sobbed. ‘Because I helped Mr Lomax.’
The rage that erupted inside Lomax was a searing flame that seemed to fuse with his whole being. He started forward and Katina said, ‘Hugh!’
When he turned, her face was very white, the eyes so dark a man could never fathom them.
‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘He’s already served two years in prison for manslaughter. When he’s been smoking hashish, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.’
He turned and walked quickly across the square and when he entered the street, he started to run. By the time he merged on the waterfront he was soaked in sweat and people turned to stare curiously at him.
This time he could hear no music coming from The Little Ship and he went straight down the steps without pausing and came to a halt just inside the door.
There were perhaps a dozen people sitting drinking and none of them had been there on his earlier visit. The man behind the bar was one of those who had held him across the table for Alexias. He was in the act of pouring wine into a glass and his mouth went slack in amazement.
Every head turned and Lomax examined the faces quickly and then crossed to the bar. ‘I’m looking for Dimitri.’
The barman shrugged. ‘Why ask me? I’m not his keeper.’
He picked up a glass and started to dry it with a soiled cloth and Lomax turned slowly and crossed the room. Dimitri’s bouzouki still leaned beside the chair where he had left it and Lomax picked it up and smashed it against the wall in a single violent gesture.
He turned to face the room and no one moved. ‘I asked for Dimitri,’ he said calmly.
For a moment, they all sat there looking at him quietly, and then an old man with white hair and a moustache burned brown by tobacco said, ‘He is on the pier waiting to see you leave.’
Lomax turned and went back up the steps into the hot sunlight. He crossed the road on the run and moved along the wharf.
The steamer was almost ready to leave and he could see Papademos up on the bridge leaning out of an open window, shouting down orders to the sailors on the pier as they started to loosen the mooring ropes.
There were perhaps two dozen people standing about in small groups. Alexias leaned against a pillar, a cigar between his teeth, and little Nikoli with the scarred face stood with him.
It was Nikoli who saw Lomax first and he tugged at the big man’s sleeve and pointed and Alexias said something quickly and every head turned.
Half of them were young waterfront layabouts in brightly checked shirts, hair carefully curled over their collars. They were of a type to be found in every country in the world. Mean vicious young animals who thrived on trouble.
One of them turned and made a remark and they all laughed and then Lomax saw Dimitri at the back of them. He was leaning against a windlass, a cigarette smouldering between his lips as he shaved a piece of wood with his gutting knife.
As Lomax approached, the crowd parted and he paused a couple of feet away from Dimitri. The bouzouki player was humming tunelessly to himself. He didn’t even bother to raise his head.
Alexias moved forward, Nikoli at his side. ‘This is the wrong time to seek trouble, Lomax. The boat leaves in five minutes.’
Lomax turned very slowly and looked at him contemptuously. ‘When I want to hear from you I’ll let you know. Once you were a man, but now...’
As he turned away, Dimitri reached to the cobbles for another piece of wood and Lomax kicked it out of his way.
Dimitri looked up slowly. His eyes were very pale, the pupils like pin-points. He still kept on humming to himself, but a muscle twitched spasmodically at one side of his jaw.
‘With children and dogs you’re quite a man,’ Lomax said clearly so that all could hear. ‘How about trying someone a little nearer your own size?’
One moment, the bouzouki player was lolling back against the windlass, the next he had moved forward, the knife cutting upwards like molten silver in the sunlight.
Lomax could have broken the arm with supreme ease. Instead, he pivoted and chopped down with the edge of his hand. Dimitri screamed, dropping the knife, and Lomax kicked it over the edge of the pier into the water.
He felt completely cool and without fear. It was as if that other, younger man had returned to take over. The one who had been trained to use such methods until they were a reflex action.
There was an ugly murmur from Dimitri’s friends, but he held up a hand and shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was curiously remote and far away. ‘I’ll break his neck as easily as I did the dog’s.’
All work had ceased on the ship and everyone waited. As Lomax circled warily, he saw people hurrying along the waterfront and then an old jeep appeared from a side street and braked to a halt and Katina and Yanni got out.
A segull cried harshly and swooped down and Dimitri jumped in close, his right fist swinging in a tremendous punch.
To Lomax the blow seemed to travel in slow motion. He swerved slightly, allowing the bouzouki player to plunge past him, and slashed him across the kidneys with the edge of his hand.
Dimitri screamed and fell to the cobbles. For a little while he stayed there on his hands and knees and when he got to his feet, he was slobbering like an animal.
He lurched forward again and Lomax grabbed for his wrist with both hands and twisted it round and up so that he held him in a Japanese shoulder lock. Dimitri screamed again and still keeping that terrible hold in position, Lomax ran him head-first into a stack of iron-bound crates.
There was a gasp from the crowd and Lomax stood back and waited. Dimitri grabbed for a chain and heaved himself to his feet. When he turned, his face was a mask of blood. His hand slipped from the chain as he took one tottering step forward and collapsed.
There was a moment of stunned silence and then a spontaneous roar of anger from Dimitri’s friends. As Lomax turned, they came forward with a rush.
He swung a fist into the first face and then a foot caught him on the shin and he cried out and started to sag. As he bent over, a knee lifted into his face and the cobbles rose to meet him.
He rolled desperately, face tucked into his shoulder, hands protecting his genitals, and then a shot echoed flatly across the water and then another.
It was as if all the clocks in the world had stopped at the same moment. Dimitri’s friends moved back reluctantly and Lomax scrambled to his feet.
Father John Mikali stood a few feet away and Kytros was at his side, automatic in one hand, the other hooked into his belt. He looked very calm and completely in control.
Lomax stood there, his body aching, the taste of blood in his mouth, and Kytros said quietly, ‘The boat is waiting for you, Captain Lomax.’
Lomax turned and looked at Alexias. On the big man’s face was something that might almost have been respect, but there was more also. A slight frown of bewilderment as if for the first time he was unsure of himself and of the situation.
Lomax took a deep breath to clear his head and turned. He brushed past the sergeant and walked back along the pier and the people moved silently to each side.
From somewhere a thousand miles away he could hear Papademos shouting to his men and the rattle of the anchor chain and there was a roaring in his ears.
Katina was there, her arms around him and Yanni, his face white with excitement. She led him to the jeep and the boy opened the door and Lomax slumped into the passenger seat.
She climbed behind the wheel and leaned across to wipe blood from his face. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked calmly.
He could feel her hand trembling and he held it for a moment and smiled. ‘A good thing Kytros arrived when he did. I’m getting a little old to be playing that kind of game.’
She drove away quickly, scattering the crowd, and turned the jeep expertly into the narrow side street.
‘Where are we going?’ he said.
‘To the hotel for your things. Afterwards I’ll take you out to the villa. Oliver would want me to.’
She turned into the square and braked to a halt in front of the hotel. As she started to get out, Lomax laid a hand on her arm. ‘Not you, only me.’ He climbed down and walked round to the other side. ‘I could do with some time to think this thing out.’
She looked down at him gravely. ‘Just as you like.’
‘Are you going to keep Yanni with you?’
She nodded. ‘I think it would be better.’
He smiled and ran his fingers through the boy’s tousled hair. ‘We’ll find you another dog, Yanni.’
He moved between the tables and just as he reached the door she called to him. When he turned he saw that she was unfastening a chain that hung around her neck.
She threw it to him, liquid gold in the sun, and he caught it, closing his hand over it at once, knowing what it was.
‘I give you back your courage,’ she said, and drove away very quickly.
He went into the cool darkness, aware of Anna’s frightened face peering at him from the kitchen doorway and the stairs seemed to stretch into eternity.
When he reached his room, he closed the door very carefully and stood with his back against it staring at his clenched right hand with the two ends of gold chain hanging down. After a while, he opened it gently and looked at the small bronze coin that bore the face of Achilles.
A long time ago, he thought. A hell of a long time ago. He lit a cigarette and went and lay on his back on the bed and stared blindly into the past.
Book Two
The Nightcomer
Chapter 5
Cover of Darkness
It was the throb of the diesels that brought Lomax awake with a start. He lay there for a moment on the bunk, staring up at the steel bulkhead, a slight frown on his face as he tried to remember where he was.
After a while, something clicked and he pushed himself up on one elbow. Alexias was sprawled in a canvas chair in the far corner watching him.
The Greek removed the cigarette that smouldered between his lips and grinned. ‘You talk in your sleep, my friend. Did you know that?’
‘That’s all I needed,’ Lomax said. ‘Have you got one of those to spare?’
The Greek nodded and rose to his feet. He was a big, dangerous looking man badly in need of a shave and his massive shoulders swelled under the blue reefer jacket.
‘I think that maybe you’ve been playing this game too long,’ he said as he gave Lomax a cigarette and struck a match.
‘Haven’t we all?’
Before the Greek could reply, the curtain was pulled back and Sergeant Boyd appeared with two cups of coffee. He gave one to Alexias and the other to Lomax who took a sip and grimaced. ‘Everything tastes of submarine. I don’t know how they put up with it.’
Boyd was a big, dependable northerner with the ribbon of the Military Medal sewn neatly into place above his left breast pocket beneath the SAS wings.
‘We’ve just surfaced,’ he said. ‘Commander Swanson asked me to tell you to be ready to go in fifteen minutes.’
‘Is all the gear ready?’
Boyd nodded. ‘I had to occupy myself somehow. Couldn’t sleep. Never can in these things.’
‘How do you feel?’ Lomax asked.
‘About the job?’ Boyd shrugged. ‘The same as usual. Why?’
Lomax shook his head. ‘No special reason. We seem to have been doing this sort of thing rather frequently lately, that’s all. We can’t last for ever, you know.’
‘Neither can the war,’ Boyd told him. ‘In any case, it’s fifty-fifty every time. Even I know that much mathematics.’
‘I don’t know,’ Lomax said. ‘This one’s different. In Crete, a man could run a long way in those mountains, but Kyros is a small island.’
‘We’ve been on small islands before,’ Boyd told him. ‘Besides, we’ve got Alexias here to show us around. We’ll be all right.’
Alexias grinned and his teeth looked very white against the dark stubble of his beard. ‘Sure, everything’s going to be fine. You’ve got nothing to worry about.’
‘Who said I was worried?’ Lomax swung his legs to the floor. ‘You two get the stuff together. I’ll see you up top in five minutes.’
After they had gone, he sat there on the edge of the bunk finishing his coffee. It tasted foul, but then so did the cigarette.
He was tired, that was the trouble. Too damned tired and everything was beginning to blur a little at the edges. He definitely needed a rest after this one. A month in Alex should do it, but he’d been promised that for a year now. He pulled on his sheepskin coat, reached for his beret and moved outside.
He moved through into the control room and mounted the conning-tower ladder to the bridge. Above him, the round circle of the night was scattered with brilliant stars and he breathed the fresh salt air deep into his lungs and suddenly felt better.
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Jack Higgins
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Триллеры
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: The timeless Higgins classic…Captain Hugh Lomax′s last view of Kyros had been as a German prisoner of war. The picturesque beauty of the Greek Islands hiding their blood-drenched history and the terrifying carnage that took place years earlier.But there are questions still unanswered. Lomax knows he was innocent, and as he returns to Kyros he begins to remember things he had long since buried in the back of his mind; the deadly mission he undertook, as well as a horrific massacre that still remains without reason. Now, the time has come for answers.Lomax is set to unlock the secrets of his past; someone betrayed the islanders at the height of the Nazi occupation, and they want their secret kept, whatever it takes, whoever has to suffer.