Lady of Sorrows by Anne Zouroudi

Author:Anne Zouroudi [Zouroudi, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, General
ISBN: 9781408809853
Google: QtvKULWl9asC
Amazon: 1408809850
Publisher: A&C Black
Published: 2011-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

At the counter, the fat man paid the bill. The tip he left was generous, and when he asked the shop’s proprietor to take care of Agiris’s basket for a short while, the proprietor was happy to oblige.

‘I wonder,’ said the fat man, as he put away his wallet, ‘if you could tell me where I might find gypsies?’

The proprietor frowned.

‘What would you be wanting with gypsies?’ he asked. ‘Dirty thieves, every one. Pinch the food from your children’s mouths, they would, and your children too, if they thought they’d fetch the right price. You want to stay well away from them.’

‘Happily, I have no children to be stolen,’ said the fat man, ‘only a matter of business to discuss with one of their party.’

With reluctance, the proprietor told him where to look, and the fat man followed his directions, taking a path up to a road which led out of town, rising in a gentle incline into the hills. The road was not well made. Though used only infrequently by motorised traffic, the many flocks of sheep and goats herded along the route had eroded patches of its surface leaving the carriageway vulnerable to wear, and many winters’ rain had washed away the hardcore underneath, opening treacherous pits and potholes. Still, the fat man walked briskly, until the gradient increased and his pace slowed. The scent of herbs and pine trees was in the air; clay dust coated the dry leaves of the thorny shrubs which grew amongst the rocks. A breeze caught the branches of an olive tree, moving the grey-green leaves from matte to silver, so the tree seemed to shimmer in the wind.

A mile outside the town, a track met the road. Signposted to the chapel of Ayios Panteleimon, the track was little more than a footpath overgrown with dry grasses and thistles, but the vegetation had recently been broken down, and the sweep of tyre tracks followed the path’s line to a hillock a short distance away. The hillock was covered in tall pines, and from amongst the trees rose smoke.

Without hesitation, the fat man followed the track, his feet raising puffs of soft, terracotta dust which stained his canvas shoes. As he drew close to the hillock, the ground dipped in a wide and shallow gully – a dried-up river bed of sun-bleached rocks. The gully was not visible from the road, and in the river bed, hidden from passers-by, were three vehicles. An old truck in fading yellow, its paint flaking and dulled by years of burning sun, stood with its tailgate down and its bonnet propped up, the cab windows open because the glass was gone; the back was heaped high with domestic junk – blankets and buckets, a bicycle tyre, a child’s potty, a cardboard box holding tinned food and milk, a bale of hay with its string cut, a plastic water barrel tied on tight, and a number of baskets, some finished, some partly made with the willow lengths for completing them laid through the handles.

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