‘EOKA is like any other nationalist army,’ Adonis said. ‘It’s poor. Most of the time we’re broke. Athens gives Grivas just enough to keep him on their leash.’ I’d heard of this Colonel Grivas. He ran EOKA like an old-fashioned warlord.
‘So?’
‘We need money. We always need money.’
‘To buy arms to kill innocent civilians with?’
‘Innocent civilians? Sometimes. And not so innocent soldiers, and policemen. You are occupying my island, Charles. I want you to go home.’
‘And your Turkish Cypriot neighbours?’
After a pause he said, ‘Yes, they will have to go home too.’
‘This is their home,’ Tony told him. ‘They belong here as much as you do.’
The priest shook his head, and looked at the ruins of lunch on the table as if they had some meaning for him. He sounded genuinely sad when he said, ‘Not any more.’
I realized then that I had just been given a better explanation of the Cyprus Crisis in three minutes, than any politician or academic could have managed in a fortnight.
‘I still don’t understand what this has got to do with me,’ I said.
‘Simple. Someone has offered EOKA money to kill you,’ the priest said. ‘An English person.’
‘You can say it now,’ Warboys told me.
So I said, ‘Fuck it.’ For once my brain worked fast enough, and the logic chains ran in the right direction. I dispensed with who and why, and even where and when: they could wait until later. I asked the priest, ‘How much?’
It was Tony who said, ‘What?’
‘How much? How much have you been offered?’ I wasn’t short of a quid or two myself.
The priest wrinkled his brow. He probably couldn’t see why it should matter. He said, ‘Two and a half thousand pounds sterling, as I understand it . . . but if I know the brave colonel he will stick out for more. It seems to be a seller’s market.’
‘I’ll give you four not to kill me, but kill the person who made the offer instead.’
A long long pause, then Tony said it again. He took a sip of his retsina, and asked, ‘What?’
‘You heard me. I’ll outbid whoever asked them, and turn the tables . . . but on one condition.’
‘And that is?’ the priest asked.
‘That mine is a once-and-for-all offer. You don’t go back to the originator, and bid him up again.’
‘How could you guarantee that?’ Warboys demanded.
‘By placing a side bet on the priest. You’re not the only one with friends in low places. If I get it, he gets it . . . and a relation . . . say, his mother you’re both so fond of. Easy to arrange.’
There was a moment of absolute silence. I could hear the birds of prey keening out on the plain below us. For the first time the priest looked startled. He went as deathly pale as his namesake was supposed to have been. That lovely boy.
He stared, and asked, ‘You would do that?’
‘Yes, of course. Why not?’
‘And you can do that?’
‘Of course. Do you think you’re the only person who can command a killing? Ask Tony.’
The priest glanced at Warboys, who sat back in his chair, stroked his chin as if caressing a long-lost beard, nodded and said almost absently, ‘I’m afraid Charlie does have a certain reputation.’
The priest stood. There were crumbs of bread on his clothes. As he began to walk away he told me, ‘I have to consult with our people. They will make the decision, not me.’
Tony and I stood up as well. I wasn’t prepared to let the priest go without another word.
‘Make sure I’m informed, won’t you?’
He paused, and spat back, ‘You will know of the decision when the bullet comes for you.’
‘No, Adonis. You will tell me of your decision, and if necessary you will give me a chance to run.’
‘Or?’
‘If anything happens to me, your mother will die. It is easily within my reach, and I promise it . . . and maybe your sister as well.’
He had been moving away from us. Now he stopped, turned and put the eye bite on Warboys. Tony said, hastily I thought, ‘Adonis’s sister is dead. She died while I was in England.’
The priest suddenly looked very tall. Ascetic. Distanced.
‘She hanged herself,’ he said, then turned and stalked away.
Although the sun was shining from a cloudless sky I was suddenly cold.
Warboys said, ‘I didn’t know that.’
I didn’t know if he was talking to me or Adonis.
Warboys went back to sit at the table. I joined him. We picked over the food and finished the wine. He seemed pensive. After the noise of both vehicles departing down the mountain road had died he asked me, ‘Do you have as much money as you said?’
‘Yes. I had a very good war eventually.’
‘Uh huh . . . and would you? Would you call down a killing on an old lady, just to prove a point?’
‘I don’t know. If it was the only way to stay alive myself. Let’s hope we never have to find out.’
‘You know that if you did that, I’d have to come after you myself, old son?’ The old silky voice of the assassin had come back.
‘I can always put you on the list as well, Tony. I wouldn’t want to, but would if I had to. Anything happens to me, happens to you – maybe to somebody close to you as well. You’d do very well to keep me in one piece – just like you promised the wing commander.’
He suddenly began to laugh. It was a very odd, hollow sound in that empty castle bailey.
‘What?’ I demanded.
‘I was thinking about old CB. He said that you were a thoroughly nasty piece of work wrapped in blarney.’
‘So?’
‘Next time I’ll listen more closely. You OK by yourself for
