‘You’re a fucking lunatic!’
‘Yes, but I’m still the one with the gun in her hands, so turn the bloody car round. We have to get their guns.’
I took us back to where the shooting had occurred. I’ve told you before that the most shocking thing about violence is the speed with which it occurs, and the speed with which it’s over. I stayed in the car still gripping the steering wheel. My knuckles were literally white. I hadn’t seen that before. Thirdlow clipped a fresh mag onto the silenced Sterling and got out. I could hear the guy I’d hit groaning, still lying across the wall. She walked up to him, and I heard a small pop. He twitched, and then relaxed; stopped moving. She picked up his pistol, and moved on to the others. I heard no more pops so I guess they’d had it. She came back a few minutes later with two pistols, and an old Italian military rifle. She put them on the back seat, then climbed back in beside me.
‘OK, you can go on now, Charlie. We’re finished here.’
I didn’t speak at first. I put the bus into first and let her roll, picking up speed. Probably after a minute I said, ‘You’re a bloody murderer.’
It’s funny that I’d lost sight of the ghosts which would be knocking on my door when my Christmas Carol came round, isn’t it? She sighed, and looked away from me out of the passenger-side window, her arm leaning on the sill and catching the breeze.
‘Murderess. OK, if you like, Charlie. But don’t worry, it doesn’t make me unreliable.’
After a minute I think I began to laugh; out of pure relief, I’m sure. Then she started to laugh as well. A low little chuckle. She had a nice laugh to go with her nice stretch and nice hands. One of us must have turned off the radio as the action started. She reached forward and turned it on, and found some music this time.
I said, ‘I can’t believe that the car and us came through that with barely a scratch.’
She smiled and replied, ‘They make them good in England, Charlie.’
Some time later she asked me, ‘Let me get this right. Your plan, if I can call it that, is to ride into Kampos like the cowboy with the white hat, and ask the priest at the local church where Pat Tobin and Will Carney are?’
‘Will Carney?’
‘Warrant Officer Wilson Carney, the Army Air Corps pilot. You didn’t even know his name, did you?’
‘It may not be as simple as that. As far as I can gather Kampos is a bit bigger than your average mountain village. It may have more than one church. I’ll pick the biggest. And I’m not going to go knocking on the priest’s door – I thought I’d just go and sit in the church, and wait to see what happens. Sooner or later someone’s going to get curious.’
‘Why the priest?’
‘Because the best info we’ve had so far came from a priest. They’re the black mafia out here – if anyone’s heard anything, they have. Whether they’ll tell me about it, is another thing. I was going to make an appeal to their better nature – the bit God talks to. I’m willing to listen to better suggestions if you have them.’
She hadn’t, but did ask me, ‘Why are you doing this, Charlie?’
‘Because Pat Tobin looked after me when I arrived in the Canal Zone three years ago. I might not have survived it without the advice and help he gave me then. I don’t like to think of him out here on his own, without anyone to back him up.’
‘He chose to go out on his own. A couple of National Service boys took a week’s leave last year at the height of the killings, and hiked right across the island to see the sights. They got away with it, why shouldn’t he?’
‘And I chose to do the same . . . until you turned up. Why are you here?’
‘I chose to as well, didn’t I?’
‘Stupid.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
A few miles on I asked her, ‘Can you fill and light a pipe for me?’
‘Yes. I used to do that for my grandfather.’
‘You’ll find everything in my small pack, under your seat.’
She had a good couple of puffs herself before she handed it over. A nice-looking woman smoking an old straight billiard briar looks very exotic. The Humber had one of the quietest engines of any car I had driven. She had been right: they made them well in England.
It was like a bloody ghost town. We found two churches, and both were shut. You should always have a Plan B, shouldn’t you? Unfortunately that’s never been my strongest suit.
An old woman, led by a boy of about ten, came from a small house surrounded by chickens in the small, dusty square in front of the second of the churches. Thirdlow and I sat on the wide church steps, by the Humber. The passenger door was open so Thirdlow could get at her armoury if she needed to. We’d switched the courtesy light off – the one that came on as soon as a door was opened; I didn’t want to drain the battery. The woman addressed us in formal but not unfriendly Cyppo. The boy translated.
‘She says you are not welcome here. She says you would have been welcomed here before you started killing our men, and sided with the Turks.’
‘Tell her I am on nobody’s side. I wanted to speak with a priest.’
‘She says the priests have all gone to the Mother of God monastery at Kykkos for the festival, and asks why you wanted them. Do you and the lady wish to be married?’
‘No. We do not wish to be married. A brother was lost in the Troodos some weeks ago. I was hoping for
