‘I’ll make…I’ll make coffee,’ Annia said, but subsided into her handkerchief instead.
And then Nikos’s phone rang.
He flipped it open and listened.
He had the absolute attention of everyone in the room. Even Oscar was looking up, though that probably had more to do with the time and the absence of dinner.
But Oscar’s dinner was doomed to wait. Nikos flipped the phone closed again. Frowning.
‘Alexandros himself is flying the chopper,’ Nikos told them, speaking slowly, thinking it through as he spoke. ‘That was Alex now. Demos and the children are indeed in the boat, and they seem fine. But, according to Alexandros, they’re going nowhere. Their boat’s stopped. He thinks it must have run out of petrol. It’s floating half a mile off the northern end of the island. Alexandros is holding position until we can reach them.’
He took a deep breath. Moving on.
‘We’ll take my runabout. It’s faster than the bigger boats,’ he snapped. ‘Let’s go. I’ll radio as soon as we know. Can you guys bring one of the bigger boats after us?’
He grabbed Athena’s hand, and they were gone.
It took fifteen long minutes to get there. Fifteen minutes with the runabout’s motor roaring at full throttle. Smashing through the swells with sickening thumps.
If Demos had restarted the engine…Or if they’d tipped the boat…
She glanced at Nikos and his face was grim as death.
She’d never doubted it. Not for a minute. He’d do whatever he must to keep these children safe. To keep the islanders safe.
To keep her…
And suddenly her thoughts were lurching with the boat. Taking her beyond her present fear.
This man had betrayed her. Or she’d thought he had. But…as she watched him at the tiller, as she saw the bleakness behind his eyes, she felt the sense of betrayal finally leave her, and all that remained was the knowledge of his honour.
He’d lost his father when he was twelve. He’d been on the boat with him-his father had a heart attack and by the time twelve-year-old Nikos had managed to get their fishing boat back to harbour his father was dead.
From that day on he’d taken on responsibilities too heavy for a boy. He’d been desperate to care for everyone, to make sure nothing like his father’s death happened again.
And Marika…Christa’s mother. Nikos’s short-term wife. She’d never been able to think of Marika without the pain of betrayal overwhelming her. But, given these moments of enforced thought, the scene they’d just left came back to her. And Annia’s words, speaking of Christa.
Marika had been older than she was and a bit…reckless. She’d been infatuated by Demos, desperate to get away from her bully of a father and away from the island. Her mother was one of Nikos’s relations-almost family-but her father was a thug. If her father had found out Marika was pregnant…She shuddered to think of his reaction.
The germ of an idea-the germ of truth she’d discovered back in Annia’s kitchen-was suddenly turned to full blown certainty.
But now wasn’t the time to be talking of this with Nikos. Nikos was sick with worry. She should be sick with worry too-but still things didn’t quite fit. She knew her son.
He was very, very like his father.
Nicky knew who Demos was. He’d seen his portrait. He’d understood the threat from the boat.
And now the boat was stranded, according to Alexandros, floundering just outside the reef.
‘They’ll be okay,’ she said, steadily and strongly, to Nikos, and Nikos looked back at her with despair.
‘How can you know?’
‘Because my son is resourceful and clever and brave,’ she told him. ‘Because my son will do whatever it takes. Because my son is just like his father.’
And there they were, right where Alexandros directed them. His helicopter was still hovering overhead.
As Alex had told them, there were three people in the boat. Demos. Christa. Nicky.
Demos was leaning over the side.
‘He might be armed,’ Nikos warned her as they approached but she looked ahead at her cousin and she shook her head.
‘He’s seasick.’
‘He still might be dangerous.’
‘You mean he might shoot me? Not Demos.’ She shook her head scornfully. ‘With Alexandros in the helicopter watching? With the entire Argyros fishing fleet bearing down behind us? When he’s totally occupied with his stomach?’
And she was right. Demos was beyond caring. They ran the runabout up beside the speedboat and he barely looked up at them.
Nikos had the two boats fastened together in seconds. He steadied, and then he lifted Christa over.
Thena took her and hugged her close, and Nicky clambered over himself and sat down in the middle and grinned at his mother and grinned at Nikos. He didn’t look the least bit worried. He looked supremely pleased with himself.
‘Hooray, you came. I knew my plan would work,’ he said with smug satisfaction.
‘You knew…’ Nikos said faintly.
Other boats were approaching now. The bigger fishing boats were slower than Nikos’s runabout, but the fishermen of Argyros had gunned their motors as fast as they could to be in the action.
There wasn’t a lot of action. Demos was bent over the side. Their villain didn’t look the least bit menacing.
The fishing boats were forming a circle. Even if he got the motor going, there was no longer anywhere to run.
‘He was all right until the motor stopped,’ Nicky said scornfully, as they all looked at Demos. ‘But as soon as it stopped, the boat started rolling up and down and up and down and…’
‘Do you mind?’ Athena said faintly. ‘Not so much with the ups and downs. So can you take us back to dry land?’ she asked, hugging Christa and looking a plea to Nikos.
Nikos hadn’t heard. He was still watching Demos. But Demos was no longer a threat to anyone. He was a bundle of abject misery.
‘Tell us what happened,’ he said to Nicky, and the little boy’s eyes gleamed. He was mischief personified. Just like his father.
‘We saw him on the beach from Yia Yia’s kitchen window,’ he said, and the islander’s word for Grandmama resonated with pride. Here, then, was another association Nicky was proud of. ‘I knew it was him ’cos of the boat, and ’cos of the picture. He pulled the boat up on the beach, really fast into bushes and I knew he was trying to hide. Then he came up the cliff path. I said to Christa, I know how to stop his boat going again, so we snuck down the cove past the craypots and Joe didn’t even see us going. And when we got to the boat it was just like the picture in the book-only it said sometimes the fuel tank’s locked-but it wasn’t so we opened it up and put a whole lot of sand in. But it was hard getting the top back on ’cos it got sandy and I just got it on when Demos came back. He saw me and tried to grab me but I ran away. But then he grabbed Christa. So I had to go with him.’
‘Oh, Nicky…’ Athena said, torn between pride and horror. ‘You shouldn’t have…’
‘I couldn’t let him just take Christa, could I?’ he said, stung by implied criticism of such a great plan. ‘She’s my sister. He pushed her into the boat and he said he’d hurt her if I didn’t come too, and I knew the sand was in the engine so I hopped in anyway. He said you had to agree to ab…to abdicate. He said he’d hurt me if you didn’t. So I did get a little bit scared. I thought the boat would stop really fast or not go at all but it went for ages. It sounded sicker and sicker though, but then it stopped and
