The Dark Side of the Island. Jack Higgins
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his cap and sat behind the desk. ‘It’s a pity you won’t be around longer. He could do with an improving influence.’
Lomax pulled a chair forward and sat down. ‘So I’m definitely leaving, am I?’
Kytros spread his hands. ‘Mr Lomax, be sensible. That could have been a nasty business back there at The Little Ship and I can’t guarantee that it won’t happen again. Alexias Pavlo is an important man on Kyros.’
‘Does that make him God?’
Kytros shook his head. ‘He doesn’t need to be God to arrange for someone to slip a knife under your ribs one dark night.’
‘The Alexias Pavlo I knew seventeen years ago did his own killing,’ Lomax said.
Kytros ignored the remark. ‘Could I see your papers?’
Lomax produced them from an inside pocket and the sergeant examined them quickly. ‘What is the purpose of your visit to the island?’
Lomax shrugged. ‘I was here during the war. I thought I’d like to see the place again.’
‘But why Kyros, Mr Lomax? The war must have taken you to many places.’
‘It happened to be the first port of call on the way from Athens,’ Lomax said. ‘It was as simple as that. I also intended to look up old friends in Crete and Rhodes. If I still have any, that is. After my reception here, I’m beginning to wonder.’
‘I see.’ Kytros passed the papers back. ‘These seem to be perfectly in order.’
‘What happens now?’ Lomax asked.
‘I should have thought that was obvious. You must leave on the boat at four o’clock.’
‘Is that an order?’
Kytros sighed. ‘Mr Lomax, I notice that your visa has been franked by the minister himself. This means you have important friends in Athens.’
‘That’s one thing you can count on,’ Lomax told him grimly.
‘You place me in an impossible position,’ Kytros said. ‘If I force you to leave I will find myself in trouble in Athens. On the other hand, if you stay, someone will most surely try to kill you and I will again be to blame.’
‘But I must get to the bottom of this thing.’ Lomax said. ‘Surely you can see that? For a start, you can tell me why these people think I betrayed them to the Germans.’
‘Anything I know, I’ve heard at secondhand,’ Kytros said. ‘I’m from the mainland myself. I’ve only been here two years.’
‘Then what do you suggest?’
Kytros examined his wrist-watch. ‘You have exactly an hour and a quarter until the boat leaves. I would suggest that you go to the Church of St Katherine and speak with Father John. He was here at the time in question.’
Lomax looked at him in astonishment. ‘Do you mean Father John Mikali? But I met him when I was here during the war and he was at least seventy then.’
‘A very wonderful old man.’
Lomax got to his feet and moved to the door. ‘Thanks for the advice. I’ll see you later.’
‘On the pier at four o’clock,’ Kytros told him. ‘And remember, Mr Lomax. Time is your enemy.’
He pulled a sheaf of papers forward and reached for a pen and Lomax went outside and walked back along the waterfront.
Chapter 3
Two Candles for St Katherine
The lights in the little church were very dim and down by the altar the candles flickered and St Katherine seemed to float out of the darkness bathed in a soft white light.
The smell of incense was overpowering and for a moment he felt a little giddy. It was a long time since he had been in a church and he stretched out a hand and touched the cold roughness of a pillar in the darkness to bring himself back to reality and moved down the aisle.
Father John Mikali knelt in prayer by the altar. His pure, almost childlike face was raised to heaven and in the candlelight the beard gleamed like silver against his dark robes.
Lomax sat on one of the wooden benches and waited and after a while the old priest crossed himself and got to his feet. When he turned and saw Lomax he showed no visible emotion.
Lomax got to his feet slowly. ‘A long time, Father.’
‘I was told you were here,’ Father John said.
Lomax shrugged. ‘News travels fast in a small town.’
The old priest nodded. ‘Especially bad news.’
‘You too?’ Lomax said bitterly. ‘Now I know I’m in trouble.’
‘It is not for me to judge you,’ Father John said, ‘but it was foolish of you to return. Once the grass has grown over a grave it is not good to disturb it.’
‘All I want are the answers to a few questions,’ Lomax said. ‘If you of all people won’t help me, who will?’
Father John sat down on one of the benches. ‘First, let me ask you a question. Why have you returned to Kyros after all this time?’
Lomax shrugged. ‘An impulse, I suppose.’
But there was more to it than that – much more. He squeezed his hands together and frowned, trying to get it straight in his own mind.
After a while he said slowly, ‘I think I came here looking for something.’
‘It would interest me to know what,’ the old man said.
Lomax shrugged. ‘I’m not really sure. Myself, perhaps. The man I lost back there in the past so many years ago.’
‘And you thought to find him here on Kyros?’
‘But this was where he existed, Father. Don’t you see that? During the past two or three years a strange thing’s been happening to me. The events that other man was involved in here in these islands so many years ago seem more real to me than those things which have happened since. More important in every way. Does that make any kind of sense?’
The old priest sighed. ‘Captain Lomax, for these people that man has been dead for seventeen years. It would have been better if you had not resurrected him.’
‘All right, Father,’ Lomax said. ‘Let’s get down to hard facts. The last view I had of Kyros was from the deck of the E-boat which was taking me to Crete after the Germans had captured me. What happened after I left?’
‘Everyone who helped you was arrested,’ Father John said. ‘Including their immediate relatives. Some were shot in the main square as an example, the rest were sent to a concentration camp in Greece. Few survived the ill-treatment.’
‘And the people think I was responsible? That I betrayed them?’
‘You were the logical person and the fact that the Germans failed to execute you seemed to prove it. After all, they usually shot any British officer they caught who’d been working in the mountains with the Resistance.’
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ Lomax said.
‘You were badly wounded, perhaps even a little delirious. How can you be sure? In such a state, a man does strange things.’
‘Not a chance,’ Lomax said stubbornly. ‘I didn’t talk, Father. Believe me.’
The old man sighed. ‘It’s painful to have to tell you this, but I can see that I must. Colonel Steiner made no secret of the fact that he had persuaded you to give him the information he needed in exchange for your life.’
Lomax felt as if a cold wind had passed over his face. ‘But that isn’t true,’ he said. ‘It can’t be. I didn’t tell Steiner