The Age of Olympus by Gavin Scott

Author:Gavin Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan

14

THE BAY OF LIMANI SANGRI

When Forrester woke early the next morning and opened the shutters, the storm was over and the sun was shining from a sky washed clean by the rain. Indeed, as he looked down at the village below the fortress, it felt as if the whole world had been renewed by the tempest.

The bay itself gleamed turquoise in the morning light. The crescent of white sand around it looked as if it had been laundered. Even the caïques and minesweeper tied up at the jetty shone under their veneer of dew. But what delighted Forrester most was the village of Drakonaris itself, whose whitewashed houses, their tiled roofs glowing red in the sunshine, tumbled down towards the water below the fortress as if they had been spilt out of a box of children’s building blocks. Orange trees glowed like lamps in tiny green gardens, and swallows ducked and dived above hidden squares built around wells where villagers were already filling jugs and buckets for the day’s needs. Slender, arrow-straight wisps of aromatic smoke rose from the chimneys into the still air.

“Do you have a sentence in English that means balancing on a bomb?” said a voice from the bed. Forrester turned to look at Sophie and thought for a moment.

“The English phrase is ‘sitting on a powder keg’,” he said. “A keg is a small barrel and the powder in question is gunpowder.”

Sophie smiled. “Then we are sitting on a powder keg,” she said.

Forrester gestured out of the window. “A very beautiful powder keg,” he said. Then he came over to the bed. “And speaking of beautiful powder kegs…”

“No,” said Sophie, taking his hand away. “We have to think what we can do to help these good people.”

“I’m not sure there’s anything we can do. Helena Spetsos believes she has a claim on Ari. She’s come here to make trouble. As you saw last night she has some expertise in that department. But I think Penelope Alexandros can more than hold her own.”

“Without someone being murdered?”

“I’m sure it won’t come to that.”

“How can you be sure of that, after what happened in Athens?”

“We still don’t really know what happened in Athens,” Forrester said. “All we can be certain of is that somebody at the Archbishop’s reception arranged for Jason Michaelaides to be poisoned.”

“And that General Alexandros might have had a motive because Michaelaides was having an affair with Helena Spetsos.”

“Well—”

“And as soon as you told Alexandros about your investigations, somebody pulled some strings and we were allowed to leave Athens and continue on to Crete.”

“That could be just coincidence—”

“Oh, Duncan, stop pretending. I know he’s your friend, I know all about you fighting together against the Germans, but face facts. Is there a better suspect for Jason Michaelaides’s death than General Alexandros?”

“I don’t know. But surely that’s something we can leave to the police? You’re not seriously suggesting there’s going to be another murder, are you?” Sophie did not reply, but lay back again in the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

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