The Dark Side of the Island - Jack Higgins [36]
"Am I to take that as a warning?"
Kytros nodded gravely. "Keep off the streets at night, Mr. Lomax. There are those here who would kill you. I'd rather you didn't make it easy for them."
"My pleasure." Lomax climbed into the jeep beside Katina. "Was there anything else?"
"Perhaps the only worthwhile legacy of the German occupation is our telephone system," Kytros told him. "If you could keep me informed of your movements it would help. If I'm not at my office, the operator should be able to contact me for you."
He stepped back and Katina drove away across the square. As they turned into a side street she said, "Will you do as he asks?"
Lomax nodded. "Why not, if it keeps him happy?"
She concentrated on her driving, taking the jeep expertly through the twisting, narrow streets. There was a new bridge over the ravine outside town, its web of steel replacing the stonework of the old, but otherwise nothing seemed to have changed.
He lit a cigarette, his hands cupped against the breeze, and turned sideways so that he could look at her.
"Where's Yanni?" he said.
She smiled. "I left him in the kitchen eating his head off."
"Who with--old Maria?"
Her smile faded. "Maria died a long time ago at Fonchi. They took her when they arrested Oliver."
He groaned, remembering the old woman and her kindness, and then another thought came to him and he said slowly, "What happened to your aunt?"
"She tried to warn my uncle when they came for him. They shot her down on the stairs."
"Something else he blames me for?" Lomax asked bitterly, but she made no reply and they continued the journey in silence.
When she stopped the engine in the yard outside the stables at the rear of the villa, it was still and hot and very quiet and nothing had changed. Time stood still, the past and the present merging to touch everything with a slight edge of unreality.
As he followed her along the narrow path between the olive trees, the feeling remained, and what he found when they mounted the steps to the terrace and entered the house only strengthened the unreality.
Everything was exactly as it had been seventeen years before. The great stone fireplace, the grand piano, even the shelves filled with books, and he paused and touched them gently with one hand.
He swayed suddenly, feeling vaguely light-headed, and Katina said in alarm, "Are you all right?"
He took a deep breath and pulled himself together. "Nothing to worry about. It's just that in some strange way, time seems to have no meaning for me standing here in this room. It takes some getting used to."
She seemed about to speak, hesitated and then turned away, a slight frown on her face. She walked out into the hall and moved along the cool, whitewashed corridor that led to the north terrace.
The circular glass room was filled with a diffused light, flimsy curtains half-drawn as a filter against the strong rays of the sun. There was no sign of Van Horn, but his magnificent collection of Greek ceramics was there, the great red and black amphora still the centrepiece, aloof on its pedestal in the middle of the room.
Lomax paused to admire it then frowned and moved closer. The surface was covered by a network of fine lines. Since he had last looked upon it, it had obviously been smashed into hundreds of fragments which someone had laboriously fitted together again.
A step sounded behind him and Van Horn said, "If you're interested, it took me just over a year."
His face seemed a little thinner, the hair and moustache snow-white now, but the eyes seemed very blue in the tanned face and when Lomax took the proffered hand, the grip was surprisingly firm.
"What happened?" he said.
"To the amphora?" Van Horn shrugged. "When the Germans came to arrest me they got a little rough. The astonishing thing was that when I returned after the war, I found the pieces in a box in the cellar. It was a good thing in a way. Piecing it together again gave me something to do during that first year. I had to take things pretty steady."
"After Fonchi?" Lomax said.
Van Horn nodded. "Let's go out on the terrace.