but she could supply for herself the evil leer beneath that triangular moustache.
She turned to look round the hut. Conchita was tied to an old wooden chair, which had in turn been tied to one of the hut’s upright supports. Though the girl strained to communicate, only a liquid gurgle could penetrate the gag made by her own scarf, whose overpaid designer had never envisaged this usage for his creation.
Larry Lambeth lay face downward, unmoving, on the floor. Mrs Pargeter rushed to his side.
“It’s all right. He’s only unconscious,” said Sergeant Karaskakis languidly, as he hooked the flashlight to an overhead beam.
Mrs Pargeter turned Larry over. His eyes did not react, but his breathing was regular. She looked up to the Sergeant, who loomed above her, gently tapping against his palm the nightstick which had presumably knocked Larry out.
“As I say, you are very nosey. Foolishly nosey. Too nosey for your own good, Mrs Pargeter.”
She stood up and faced him, remembering more of the late Mr Pargeter’s words of wisdom. “The only situation which might justify panic is one in which panic is likely to help. Such a situation never arises. Though pretended panic may sometimes cause a useful diversion, real panic can never be anything other than a waste of energy.”
“I do know, Sergeant,” she said, “why all this is happening. It is the crime of Christo Karaskakis that is behind it all.”
He stiffened at the mention of the name.
“And Joyce Dover was killed because it was feared that she might reveal the secrets of that crime. Which was nonsense. She had no desire to expose anyone. All she wanted to do was to find out about her husband’s past. All his life Chris had managed to keep the truth about his background secret, but his conscience would not allow him to let that secret die with him. In what was perhaps a final gesture of honesty, he offered his wife the chance of knowing the truth. He saw to it that she received a letter after his death. And that letter led her here to Agios Nikitas.”
Sergeant Karaskakis casually pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket. “Might this be what you are speaking of?”
Even in that inadequate lighting, Mrs Pargeter could see the distinctively purple writing on one side of the paper.
“Yes. You found that in Joyce’s luggage at the Villa Eleni.”
“So?” he asked insolently, shoving the letter back into his pocket.
So… that means you were definitely there the night she was murdered. But Mrs Pargeter didn’t bother to say it out loud.
“Everything you say,” the Sergeant continued, “may be very interesting… but I don’t know what relevance it has to me.”
“It is relevant to you because you were involved in Christo’s original crime. You and Georgio helped him steal the boat, you helped him sabotage the outboard motor. You were an accessory to the attempted murder that went so horribly wrong.”
“You’ve done a lot of research, Mrs Pargeter,” he said, without intonation of either praise or blame.
“Yes. Where’s Georgio?” she asked suddenly.
The Sergeant smiled. “He has gone home. Gone home with his English whore to get drunk. Georgio was always feeble. He can’t stand it when things get too hot. Thirty years ago, he was with us when we stole the boat, but when we start to fix the outboard, he gets afraid and goes away. He is not a man, Georgio.”
Mrs Pargeter was pleased that Sergeant Karaskakis made no attempt to deny his crime. But her pleasure was not unmingled with other emotions. His ready admission of guilt suggested that he was not too worried by the possibility of her surviving to bear witness against him. She knew she must try and keep him talking as long as possible, while her mind desperately raced to see a way out of her predicament.
“Sergeant, there was no need to kill Joyce Dover. She represented no threat to you. And there is certainly no need to harm Conchita. You should release her.”
“No.”
“Then at least take the gag off. No one can hear her shouting out here.”
“No. She talks too much,” he said, affronted. “She talks rudely. She does not behave as a woman should behave.”
It was not the moment to enter into a feminist debate, so Mrs Pargeter asked coolly, “What are you planning to do with her then? With all of us, come to that?”
“What happened with the boat,” he began slowly, “has been a secret for thirty years. We want it to remain a secret for ever.”
“Fine,” said Mrs Pargeter. “That suits us fine. We don’t want to dig up the past. When we get back to England, we’ll never think about it again, promise. I can assure you, your little crime may seem pretty important out here in Agios Nikitas, but the rest of the world has no interest in it at all.”
“We cannot take risks, I’m afraid. Christo would not wish such risks to be taken.”
“You shouldn’t still care what Christo thinks. Show a bit of independence. Make a decision of your own for once in your life.”
This approach did not unfortunately have the desired effect; Sergeant Karaskakis seemed instead to read it as a challenge to his masculinity. “Don’t you dare speak to me like that! Or I will gag you like the other one!”
“Gagging me won’t help you at all.”
“It will, Mrs Pargeter. So will tying you up.”
As he spoke, he reached behind him for a hank of rope. She struggled, but a woman in her late sixties was no match for a man more than ten years younger. Her arms were quickly trussed behind her and she was strapped against another upright beam beside Conchita.
“All right, well done,” she taunted him. “So you’ve managed to knock out one man from behind and tie up two women. What do you want – a medal for bravery?”
“Mrs Pargeter,” he sneered, “your death is one that I will not regret at all.”
“Oh, I see.” She was still managing – with some difficulty – to keep the insolence in her voice. “And how are you proposing that I should be killed?”
He gave her a smile, though there was no vestige of humour in it. “This is a very dry island in the summer. There are many fires. A wooden building like this would not survive long in a fire.”
Conchita gurgled and struggled as she heard this spelling out of their fate, but Mrs Pargeter still contrived to appear unruffled, even though she had just noticed two petrol cans against the wall behind the Sergeant. “Fires do get investigated, you know. If you’re proposing to use that petrol, traces would be left. Arson is a fairly simple crime to recognise.”
“So? There is a lot of arson on the island already. Men from other villages may be jealous of Agios Nikitas’ success with the tourist trade. They will be blamed. As I say, there are many such crimes. It would not be thought strange.”
“But some of the details might be thought strange. The fact that two of the charred bodies had been tied up is the kind of thing that might be noticed.”
His mirthless smile grew broader. “That would depend, of course, on who was conducting the investigation. I represent the authorities here in Agios Nikitas. I would be the first person on the scene of the tragedy.”
“So you reckon you could tamper with the evidence again – just as you did after Joyce’s death?”
He shrugged.
His next words were more chilling than anything he had said up until that point. “Mind you, it would probably be simpler if the bodies were found
“You mean dead before the fire got to them?”
“Why not?” Once again he tapped his nightstick against his palm. He looked across at the two women, assessing his next move.
Mrs Pargeter was not a religious woman. She was not convinced that God existed, and so her philosophy had always been to enjoy this life to the full, in case the concept of a future life was merely misleading propaganda circulated to control the worst excesses of public behaviour. But she prayed at that moment.
And, as Sergeant Karaskakis advanced towards her with his nightstick upraised, her prayer was answered.
