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To judge by the cynical sigh, and muttered, ‘Po, po, po,’ no further explanation was needed. ‘You know the name of this man, thespinis?’
‘He’s called Spiro Xandreou.’
‘Xandreou?’ Across the miles, she heard the sharp intake of breath. Then, ‘I regret I cannot assist you. But I advise you most strongly, thespinis, to proceed no further in this.’ A pause. ‘Most strongly.’ And he’d rung off, leaving Camilla with a host of unanswered questions.
She’d been warned off, she realised uneasily. She could only hope that Spiro wasn’t some kind of thug—a member of the Greek mafia, if there was such a thing. Maybe he wasn’t on Karthos at all, but in gaol somewhere.
But how could she tell Katie her suspicions, and burst the bubble of optimism and anticipation which encircled her? Maybe she just had to let her find out for herself, she concluded resignedly.
Camilla sighed silently as she finished the iced fruit juice.
But where on earth should their search start?
‘You enjoy?’ Kostas, the hotel’s burly proprietor, arrived to clear the table. He had a thick black moustache, a booming laugh, and he smoked incessantly. But the warmth of his welcome had been quite unfeigned, and to Camilla’s relief he spoke better than rudimentary English. The questions she needed to ask were omitted from the usual phrase books.
She nodded vigorously. ‘It was delicious, thank you. Just what I needed.’
‘To travel in this heat is not good.’
As he turned away, she said, ‘Kostas, do you know a family called Xandreou—with a son named Spiro?’
The genial smile vanished as if it had been wiped away. He looked startled, and almost apprehensive. ‘Why do you ask?’
She said lightly, ‘Oh, our families used to be—acquainted. I believe they come from here, and I’d like to see them again. That’s all.’
There was a silence, then, ‘Xandreou, you say?’ Kostas shook his head. ‘I don’t know the name. You have come to the wrong place, I think, thespinis.’
‘I don’t think so.’ She gave him a level look. ‘You’re sure you haven’t heard of them?’
‘Certain.’ He paused. ‘You are on holiday, thespinis. You should relax. Go to the beach—enjoy the sun—drink some wine. Make other friends—and don’t waste time looking for these people.’
And if that wasn’t an oblique warning, she’d never heard one, Camilla thought, watching him walk away between the tables, which were already filling up for lunch.
It was the same message she’d got from Athens: keep away from the Xandreou clan.
Everyone knows them, but they don’t want to talk about them, she thought, a prickle of wariness running down her spine. Yet, somehow, for Katie’s sake, she had to penetrate this wall of silence.
She picked up her bag, and walked to the steep outside stairway which provided an alternative access to the bedrooms.
There’d been some cards on the reception desk advertising car and motorbike hire. She’d rent a scooter and take a preliminary look round. The brochure on the island had warned that most of the best beaches were out of town, and it might be pleasant to find some deserted cove and laze around for a while before the real business of their trip began.
‘Journeys end in lovers meeting’, she thought. I only hope it’s true.
She was halfway up the steep outside staircase that provided an alternative access to the bedrooms when a voice below her said urgently, ‘Thespinis.’
Glancing down, she saw one of the hotel waiters, who’d been serving an adjoining table while she spoke to Kostas. He gave her an ingratiating smile. ‘You want Spiro Xandreou?’
‘Why, yes.’ Her heartbeat quickened in swift excitement. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Since boys.’ He touched a fist theatrically to his chest. ‘I too am a man of Karthos.’
‘Then can you tell me where to find him?’
The young man shrugged, sending a slightly furtive glance back over his shoulder. ‘Is not easy for me, you understand…’
Camilla understood perfectly. She extracted a thousand-drachma note from her wallet, and handed it over.
He whispered hoarsely, ‘He is at his house—the Villa Apollo.’
‘Is that near here?’
‘Ochi.’ He gestured towards the craggy hills which formed the island’s hinterland. ‘Is long way.’
‘Is there a bus?’
‘No bus. Nothing there—only villa. You get car, or motorbike.’ He handed her one of the cards displayed in Reception. ‘My cousin rent—very cheap.’
With you on commission, no doubt, she returned silently. But she thanked him politely, and went on up the steps.
‘Thespinis,’ he hissed again, and she paused. ‘Thespinis, whatever occur, you don’t say to boss I told you, ne?’
‘Not a word,’ she said, and watched him vanish into the hotel.
Katie was still out for the count. Camilla wrote her a brief note saying she was going to explore, and replaced the simple button-through dress she’d worn for the journey with white shorts and a sleeveless top, with her initial in red and gold embroidery over the left breast. She gathered her thick chestnut hair into a barrette at the nape of her neck for coolness, and slid her feet into comfortable canvas shoes.
She found the rental place easily enough. It was basically a dirt yard, with chickens pecking round between the scooters. Andonis, the owner, wore a grubby singlet and a three-day growth, and had the kind of gleam in his eye which made Camilla regret she hadn’t changed into something less revealing.
She was able to hire a scooter with a disturbing lack of formality, although the actual cost was rather more than she’d bargained for. She enquired about a safety helmet, and Andonis stared at her as if she were mad, then spat on the ground.
‘Karthos roads are good,’ he said flatly. Her request for a map of the island met with more luck, however. A photocopied sheet, dog-eared and much folded, was produced.
Camilla stared at the web of roads, wondering where she would find the spider.
‘I’m looking for a particular house—the Villa Apollo,’ she said. ‘Can you mark it for me?’
He whistled through the gap in his teeth. ‘You want Xandreou?’ He gave her another lascivious look. ‘So do many women. He’s lucky man.’
Well, his luck’s about to change, Camilla thought grimly. Andonis’s remark, and the grin that accompanied it, had only confirmed all her worst fears. Katie’s honourable lover was nothing more than a practised Casanova, she realised with disgust.
Andonis made a laborious pencil cross on the map. ‘Villa Apollo,’ he said. He gave her another openly appraising stare. ‘You should tell me before. Maybe I make special price for Xandreou’s woman.’
Presumably they arrived in convoys, Camilla thought with distaste.
She distanced Andonis, who was disposed to help her on to the scooter, with an icy look.
‘You’re mistaken, kyrie. I’m not—what you say.’
The grin widened, unabashed. He shrugged. ‘Not now, maybe, but who knows?’
‘I do,’ Camilla said curtly, and rode off.
This was obviously what they’d all been trying to warn her about, she thought, as she headed out of town on the road Andonis had indicated.
Innocent Katie had given her heart and her body to a worthless piece of womanising scum. Well, he wasn’t going to get away with it.
‘Xandreou’s woman’, she thought with contempt. What a tag to be branded with.
But I’ll make him pay for it, she vowed under her breath, if it’s the last thing I do.
‘Whatever occur’. The waiter’s words sneaked unexpectedly back into her mind.
An odd thing to say, she thought. Almost like another warning. And, in spite of the intense heat, she felt suddenly, strangely cold.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_d412f71e-15ce-5789-8d84-b9cfb1d3d111)
CAMILLA brought the scooter gingerly to a halt on the stony verge, and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
Much further, and she would run out of road. Already the surface had dwindled to the status of a track, yet there was still no sign of the Villa Apollo. Had Andonis deliberately sent her to a dead end?
She eased the base of her spine with a faint grimace. He’d certainly given her the maverick of his scooter collection. The steering had a mind of its own, and the brakes barely existed. If she had to do an emergency stop…
Not that there seemed much chance of that. So far she hadn’t passed another living thing, except for a donkey, a couple of tethered goats, and a dog on a chain who’d barked at her.
The road, rising steeply, was lined on each side with olive groves, and their silvery canopy had protected her from the worst of the sun. Some of the trees, with their gnarled and twisted trunks, seemed incredibly old, but they were still bearing fruit. The netting spread on the ground beneath to catch the olives bore witness to that.
Camilla turned and looked behind her, as if to remind herself that civilisation did exist. Below her, in the distance, glimpsed in the gaps between the clustering olives, were the multicoloured roofs and white walls of Karthos town, topped by the vivid blue dome of a church. And beyond that again, azure, jade and amethyst, was the sea.
I could be on a beach now, she thought wistfully, if I weren’t riding this two-wheeled deathtrap up the side of a mountain.
She sighed, as she eased the clinging top away from the damp heat of her body, imagining herself sliding down from some convenient rock into cool, deep water, salty and cleansing against her skin.
One more bend in the road, she told herself. Then I go back.
She coaxed the scooter back to life, and set off, trying to correct its ferocious wobble on corners. In doing so, she nearly missed the Villa Apollo altogether.
She came to a halt, dirt and gravel flying under the tyres, and stared at the letters carved into the two stone gateposts ahead of her. And beneath them the emblem of the sun—the sign of the god Apollo himself, who each day, according to legend, drove his fiery chariot through the heavens.
Camilla dismounted with care, propping her machine against the rocky bank. With luck, someone terminally insane with a death wish might just steal it.
Beyond the gateway, more olive trees shadowed a steeply lifting driveway.
Right, she thought, tilting her chin. Let’s see this irresistible Adonis who causes such havoc in people’s lives. Hands in pockets, she set off up the gradient, moving with a brisk, confident stride that totally masked her inner unease. Knowing she had right on her side did little to calm her nerves, she discovered.
And when the man stepped out in front of her, she only just managed to stifle a yell of sheer fright.
One glance told her that he wasn’t the one she’d come to find. He was stocky and grizzled, with a walkie-talkie in his hand, and a gun, she noted, swallowing, in a holster on his hip. His face was unwelcoming, his stance aggressive as he barked a question at her in Greek.
Camilla stood her ground. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘My name is Dryden, and I have come from England to see Mr Xandreou.’
An armed security man, she thought. What am I getting into here?
The man stared at her for a moment, then spoke into his radio. He listened, then jerked his head at Camilla, indicating that she should follow.
The drive curved away to the right and Camilla saw that the olives gave way to lawns of coarse grass, and flowerbeds bright with colour.
And beyond them was the house itself, the Villa Apollo, large and sprawling, its white walls dazzling in the sunshine. It was surrounded by a colonnaded terrace, festooned in purple and crimson bougainvillaea, and a smoky pink flowering vine.
Camilla slowed, staring round her. What did a waiter in an Athens restaurant have to do with this frankly glamorous background? she asked herself. Unless Spiro Xandreou was merely an employee, and she was being shown to the tradesman’s entrance.
The security man looked back, gesturing impatiently, and she moved forward reluctantly. Ahead of her, she saw the clear turquoise sparkle of a large swimming-pool. Around the edge were tiles in an intricate mosaic pattern, and loungers and chairs stood waiting under fringed sun umbrellas. There was a table with a tray of drinks, and on the edge of the pool a twin of the radio device carried by the security man.
Otherwise, the place seemed deserted.
As she stared round her in bewilderment, a man’s dark head suddenly broke the surface of the water. Camilla felt her heart beating slowly and unevenly as he pulled himself athletically from the pool, and stood for a moment, shaking the excess water from his mane of black curling hair.
He was well above average height, she saw, broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, his bronzed body lean, muscular and perfectly proportioned.
He was good-looking too, she recognised dazedly, his almost classical beauty of feature redeemed by the inherent toughness and strength of his mouth and chin. A man to be reckoned with.
‘Like a Greek god.’ She’d heard the phrase many times, but never expected to see it brought to life in front of her.
Especially as, like most of the ancient classical statues of the Olympians and heroes, he was completely naked.
Moving with the lithe grace of a jungle animal, he walked over to one of the loungers, picked up a waiting towel, and began to dry himself, casually and without haste, ignoring the presence of the new arrivals.
Camilla knew that displaying himself like this in front of her—a woman, and a stranger—was a calculated insult. But if he expected her to blush or faint, or run off screaming like some frightened nymph from mythology, he’d be disappointed, she told herself, and stood waiting in stony silence, refusing to let the deliberate affront get to her.
Eventually, he draped the damp towel round his hips, securing it with a knot. He reached for the thin, elegant platinum watch on the table, and clasped the bracelet on to his wrist, allowing his gaze, at last, to rest coolly and dispassionately on Camilla. His eyes were dark, long-lashed, holding an odd glitter.
Like cold fire, she thought.
He said, ‘Who are you, and what do you want here?’
His voice was low and drawling, the accent only slightly marked. But then Katie had told her his English was excellent.
Katie, she thought with a kind of despair. No wonder she’d fallen for him hook, line and sinker. But why should a sophisticated man of the world like this have encouraged her inexperienced sister, even for a moment? It made no sense at all. Unless he still wasn’t the one she sought.
‘Well?’ His voice prodded at her impatiently. ‘You have forced your way in here. Why don’t you speak?’
She said slowly, gauging his reaction, ‘I want to talk about—Xandreou’s woman.’
He filled a glass with mineral water from one of the bottles, and drank. The security man, she realised, had discreetly faded away.
He said, ‘I think you flatter yourself, Kyria…?’
‘Dryden,’ she supplied again. ‘Please don’t pretend you’ve forgotten the name.’
He shrugged. ‘It is vaguely familiar.’ He sounded bored. The brilliant eyes went over her, lingering on her breasts and thighs and long, slim legs, making her uneasily aware that the heat had made her scanty garments into a second skin.
