A Saint for the Summer by Marjory McGinn

Author:Marjory McGinn [McGinn, Marjory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781999995706
Publisher: Pelagos Press
Published: 2018-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Polly, Bronte, Kalamata

We turned onto the main seafront road, right past the intersection where the taxi had stopped on my first day, across from the gulf. It seemed a long time ago now. The Gorgona, the Mermaid, was a traditional kind of taverna, much frequented by Kalamatans for its position overlooking a pristine stretch of beach and for its seafood. We took a table at the edge of the terrace. We ordered a carafe of wine to start with, and I never thought to chastise Angus for filling up his glass. He deserved a drink today, as we all did.

“Yeia mas. To our good health,” he said.

I turned to Polly. “Thank you for coming with us today and translating everything. Even if Angus probably understood quite a lot, it was helpful to me.”

“Oh, my dear,” she said, squeezing my arm. “I am very happy to help you both. This is such a big thing you are trying to uncover and, if I may say,” she glanced at Angus, who was staring out to sea, “it is not going to be easy. How much further you can go with it, I don’t know.”

“You’re right, Polly. We gained some amazing information but may have also hit a brick wall,” Angus said, sipping his wine, twisting the squat glass around between his fingers. “If we want to discover who the murdered soldier really was, it’s important to find the family of Panayiotis Maneas, particularly the son, Dimitris. But if he only comes now and then to his holiday house in Athens, how can we trace him?”

“There will be other relatives still living in Kalamata, I think, with that name, who might have a contact number for them. I can search through the phonebook for you and ask around. I know many people in Kalamata. But even if you found Dimitris, would he remember who this soldier was? He would be in his mid-eighties now,” said Polly.

“If they had somehow discovered the soldier’s real name, wouldn’t they have at some point later tried to get that information to the War Office in Britain, or give it to someone who could?” I mused.

Polly shrugged. “These were simple farming people to begin with, my dear. They spoke no English. Would they have known even where to begin? And then they left for America.”

“It’s hopeless, I know, but we have to push on now, don’t we, Bronte?” said Angus.

“Of course,” I said, but I didn’t feel at all confident, not with just the few weeks I had left.

Our meal arrived and it offered a welcome distraction. One plate was piled high with pieces of calamari, which were light and crispy on the outside and soft and delicious, not the rubbery rings I’d had on my first trip to Greece. The barbecued octopus was succulent. I ate with a good appetite. Angus smiled.

“I like the way you eat everything in front of you now, pet,” he said, as if he were an anxious parent and I was a 10 year old in need of bulking up.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.