A couple of teenage boys came out of the bushes a hundred yards away, and began to move towards us. Their eyes swung this way and that; the height of innocence. It was as if they were trying to reassure us that they weren’t really closing on us at all. They looked as if they had just left their classrooms. I turned half away, so that they could clearly see my pistol. When I turned my face back to them my hand was near it, and I made eye contact. Both pulled up sharp, and turned away from us – almost hurried along a path towards the sea. Good decision. One, I noticed, wore a gutting knife tucked into his belt in the small of his back.
When we got back to the car one of the tyres had been slashed. Steve kept cavey while I sweated over changing the wheel: it took me half an hour. After we were rolling again she sighed, and said, ‘This used to be a nice little island, you know that?’
I tried to see it through her eyes, and those of others who had lived here before Makarios and Grivas began to stir the pot. Suddenly their little slice of heaven must have seemed full of snakes.
Talking of snakes, before we got back on to the metalled road a large one crossed the track in front of the car. Steve slowed to let it go. She was right; we had nothing against each other. I was surprised at its size though – maybe three feet long and as thick as my arm.
‘Blunt-nosed viper,’ she told me. ‘That was an old one, wasn’t it?’
Silence.
Later she said, ‘I’ll need to think about you, Charlie. OK? I didn’t expect you to be a killer.’
‘I didn’t expect to be one . . . but I understand. Can we still see each other while you’re thinking?’
Another long pause.
Then, ‘No, probably not.’
It took another half-hour to get back to the hotel. We didn’t say much. Neither of us had much left. As she was nosing the Renault up the narrow lane to Yassine’s place she suddenly asked me, ‘What are you thinking, Charlie? I’m uneasy when I don’t know what you’re thinking.’
‘I was thinking that the next time a woman asks me to tell her the worst thing I’ve ever done, I’m going to lie.’ At least that raised a wan smile. We got out of the car in the small courtyard in front of the hotel, and faced each other across its blue roof. The sunlight on her pulled-back hair made it look glossy, like a helmet. She was going to say something else; I was sure of it.
‘You’re a murderer, right? That is what you said?’
‘Maybe.’
She looked at my face for maybe a thousand years. Then she said, ‘I’ll call you,’ and ran up the steps. Somehow I didn’t think she would.
I had a beer with Yassine, and then another with Pat when he came in. I saw Pete sitting in the garden with a woman but didn’t go out to speak to him.
Yassine asked me, ‘Staying tonight?’
‘No. Early start tomorrow. They want me to go flying again.’ We had all been together in the Canal Zone; it wasn’t worth the effort of hiding things from them.
Pat asked, ‘Have you told your bird?’
‘No. Didn’t you once warn me about that anyway?’
He looked uncomfortable.
‘The way I said it was way out of line. I didn’t know things were serious between you two.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Pat. I think I just found out they aren’t. Let’s have another beer all round.’
Chapter Fourteen
Returned to Sender
Kermia used to be a small airstrip north of Nicosia. Flights 1910 and 1915 of the Brown Jobs’ private air force, if my memory serves me right. The Turkish Air Force has Kermia now, and probably calls it something else. In my time it had a hard tarmac runway, crossed by a packed earth one for days when the wind was playing silly buggers. One of the problems with flying out of Cyprus is that the prevailing winds change direction in the middle of the year, so if you leave yourself with only one runway you’re bound to be disappointed for six months. The first time I saw it the tarmac runway was new, and they were gearing up to make the cross runway metalled as well. Flying control was a large tent, which set the tone of the whole place really – because everyone lived in them as well. You might be forgiven for wondering if you had wandered into a tented encampment from the Boer War.
Watson had played a wicked joke on me – he had his ADC drive me up to Kermia. She was the only person I ever met who made an Austin Champ look small. We had about sixty miles to cover together in the dawn. She had a flying jacket like mine, but about ten sizes larger. And we needed them. Anyone who tells you that Cyprus is forever a land of swimming shorts and cold beers is having you on. Before sun-up, and high in the mountains at the unfashionable times of year, the tight little island can be quite nippy. At least she raised the canvas hood, but there were no side screens. I had my small pack containing a blank pad of signal flimsies, several pencils, and a flask of coffee – I threw it in the back behind the front seats. I thanked her for getting up to drive me.
‘Don’t mention it – our master’s voice. I don’t think he trusts you not to get lost on your own.’ Over the years I had developed this reputation with Watson – of being unable to find my way about. It was totally unjustified. ‘My name’s Fiona, by the way.’
‘Charlie –
