He stopped when he saw me, his head lowered like a bull on the defensive. He looked older, less cocky, a hunch to his shoulders. "Well, young man?" He stood with his legs braced as though still feeling the movement of the sea, his head thrust forward. "What do you want?"
"Where are you going?" I asked him. "To your dig at Tiglia?"
"Where else?"
"I thought you might be going out to see my father."
"Later. That'll come later." And he added, his eyes narrowing so that the creases running back from the corners were very pronounced. "You were in on it, were you? You knew what he was up to-wasting public money, making a fool of me. And with what object? Can you tell me that?" The anger was building up in him. "Thought he'd get rid of me. Is that it? A clear field whilst he worked on the cave that really mattered. Well? Well, haven't you got anything to say?"
"I know nothing about it."
"Well, if you won't talk I'll have to have it out with Van der Voort."
"You leave him alone," I said. I could see the old man now, his big hands opening and clenching. There'd be murder if Holroyd tried to interfere with him. "Stick to Tiglia or go off and find some dig of your own. But don't cross the channel to where my father is working."
"Why not?"
"Because he'll kill you if you do."
I saw his eyes widen and he stood there, staring at me for a moment. And then without another word he went past me to the boat and Vassilios helped him in. The outboard roared and they slid away from the quay, out into the calm waters of the inlet, the light fading, everything still. I stood there, watching until they were out of sight, wondering what was going to happen. And then I turned to find Sonia standing a few yards away.
"He mustn't worry Dr. Van der Voort," she said in a small, tense voice. "Did you tell him that?"
"Of course I did." I was angry as her for stating the obvious, angry with myself for yielding to a compulsion I did not understand. And as I stood there, facing her, I was remembering the sense of something altogether evil I had felt up there alone with him the previous night.
She took my arm suddenly, her fingers gripping tight. "What is it?" she asked. "You're trembling."
But I couldn't tell her what it was, for I didn't know myself. "Do you remember those photographs Dr. Gilmore brought with him to Amsterdam? The second one-he was holding something in his hand. A stone lamp, Gilmore said. D'you remember? What did they use a stone lamp for?"
"The ancients?"
"Yes, the ancients." It was a strange, archaic word to use. "Was there something special about a stone lamp?"
"No, of course not." She said it briskly. "They had to see and it was the only lamp they knew-a hollowed stone with animal fat and the wick floating in it. Isn't that what the Eskimos use?"
"Probably."
She left me shortly afterwards and I rowed off to the boat. I needed a drink, a good stiff drink.
I was on my second Scotch when the Barretts came off in Zavelas's boat. They were very subdued. Even Florrie. They'd made up their minds. They wanted to clear for Pylos in the morning, and once through the channel, head direct for Pantelleria.
"Without going to Pylos to hand in our transit-log?"
"Yes," Bert said. And his wife nodded. "It's dangerous here." They were thinking of the cargo we carried. I was thinking of Holroyd and my father.
"Zavelas is suspicious. I think he knows something."
So they had felt it, too. "Okay, "I said. All day, whilst we had been cooped up on board waiting for the weather to moderate, we had talked of little else, chewing it over with the intensity of people who have no means of getting away from each other. And now that they had finally made up their minds, I knew there was no shifting them. Like most easygoing men, Bert could be very obstinate once he had been forced to a decision.
"We can always plead stress of weather, an engine breakdown, something like that," he said. "The regulations allow for that, provided I post the transit-log back to the port of entry and give the reason for not clearing foreign."
I nodded. We'd be in the clear then to come back if I could wring enough money out of Borg. "So long as we stop in the channel-I'd like to have a word with my father before we leave."
"Of course. But I'm not making a dive." And Florrie added, "Zavelas warned us about that. If Bert dives, then they'd have to examine the boat to make certain he hadn't lifted some archaeological treasures off the bottom." I knew that, but I had thought that in a little place like this … "A pity," I said and left it at that. It was no use arguing with them.
We had supper then, and afterwards I took the dinghy and rowed ashore to say goodbye to Sonia. I still had some drach-
mas and I wanted to leave the money with her. It would be just enough to keep him going for a month or two the way he was living and I wasn't certain he'd take it from me.
It was very hot ashore, a preternatural stillness hanging over the little port. Zavelas was no longer at the kafeneion, but the proprietor sent his daughter with me to show me the house. She was about fourteen, a bright, dark-eyed girl shyly conscious of the fact that she was just emerging from the puppy-fat stage. Her short, white frock, immaculately laundered, gleamed in the dark. It was a breathless, suffocating night, no stars and the air hanging heavy. By the time we reached the house my shirt was sticking to my back. "Spiti Zavelas," she said, and with a quick smile and a swirl of her skirt she was gone, still looking as fresh as when we started.
Zavelas opened the door to me himself. "Come in, fella." And he showed me in to a ground-floor room that was like a stage version of a Victorian parlour. "So you're leaving in the morning, and now you want to see the Dutch girl, eh?" He was smiling, not quite a leer, but as near as dammit. "Well, you're welcome." He left me and I heard him calling to Sonia up the stairs.
There were lace antimacassars on the chairs, bric-a-brac everywhere, and the walls crowded with photographs-group pictures mainly, of cops and sailors and loggers. An English Parliament clock showed the time as nine forty-seven. I was still wondering where that had come from when the door opened behind me and I turned to find Sonia standing there. No puppy-fat on her and her face looking hot and strained. "Mr. Zavelas has told me. You're leaving in the morning."
"Yes." I began to explain the reason, but she cut me short:
"You could have stayed if you'd wanted to. You don't have to go with them." I could almost hear her saying. You're running out on him again.
"I came to give you this," I said quickly, getting out my wallet and explaining to her why it was better for her to have it. She took the dirty notes, counting them carefully. "Eight hundred and seventy-five drachs," she said.
It was a little over £12, not very much. "I'm afraid it's all I've got left."
"Never mind. It will help. And he's vegetarian-except for eggs and cheese. He eats a lot of eggs." And she added, "It's extraordinary the energy vegetarians have. Yet they're much gentler than meat-eaters." She was just talking for the sake of talking, and she wanted to think of him as a kindly man. "Are you a vegetarian?" I asked. She hadn't appeared to be when she was cooking for Cartwright and her brother at Despotiko, but I didn't really have any idea what she liked to eat.
"I think I might be-with a little encouragement. In Amsterdam I was. But it's so difficult, with other people."
We might have gone on talking like that, keeping to neutral topics and avoiding personal contact, but at that moment the walls seemed to move, the ground swaying under my feet. It was the heat and the drink. That was my first thought, that all the liquor I had consumed that day had caught up with me. I could feel my body swaying, the room swimming before my eyes. And then, with a conscious effort, I seemed to have control of myself. The room was still again and I said, "Vegetables are cheap in the islands here. At least he won't starve." My voice sounded over-careful, the words thick and blurred. I must be drunk. Even in this cool, Victorian room, the air was stifling. I could feel the sweat on my forehead, my whole body clammy with the heat. "I'll go now," I said, remembering that time in Amsterdam when I'd flung her against the wall. "I just came to give you those notes." But she didn't seem to hear. She was standing very tense, her eyes wide, and there were beads of sweat on her forehead and on her short upper lip. "What was that?" she breathed.