An Inch of Time (19 page)

Yet I did doze off eventually and woke late in the afternoon, ravenously hungry. Today I would dodge Margarita's fare (which could be excellent one day and inedible the next) and instead hunt for Niko's elusive taverna with the help of Kyla's postcard. I'd try to remember not to let this scrap of a clue out of my hand, having still not quite got over the embarrassment of having lost Kyla's picture to what I had now come to think of as
the opposition
. Well, Morva had warned me. Dimitris had warned me. So had an Italian with a petrol can. Yet somehow I always suspected that it wasn't curiosity that did for the cat, but someone with a blunt instrument and something to hide.

Ablutions at Morva's place were a decidedly retro affair, consisting of what was basically a tin bath by the side of the house and a few enamelled ewers of water. Morva had always made sure there were at least three of cool water drawn from the well, with Margarita supplying a pitcher of scalding hot water on demand. Now that Morva was laid low, it was every detective for himself. Her current students had been sweet-talked into putting up with it, but I doubted that would work on everybody.

Dispensing with Margarita's offices, I drew water from the well and gratefully poured the cold stuff over myself, which left me extremely awake and gaspingly refreshed. Since Morva's ‘accident', Sophie had elected to stay at the house all the time, sleeping it off each night in Morva's room. She shrugged when I asked to borrow the bike again. ‘Be my guest.'

Sometimes, astride a motorbike is the only place to be. When the heat becomes oppressive and the air is still and stagnant, there is noting better than a blast down country roads on a motorcycle. Here, even the uncertain horsepower (ten? fifteen?) of Sophie's rattling Honda brought instant relief and a fragile smile to a hungry and frustrated private eye on his way south. I had no idea where I was going, having deliberately left the map behind. Somehow, today I didn't care. Had I thought about it, I would probably have said that I no longer believed I could find out anything at all about Kyla Biggs's disappearance. Perhaps Sophie was right: everyone had to be somewhere, and so she was either dead or alive somewhere, just not wherever I was. Corfu was not a huge island, but trying to find someone here was still like looking for a penny on a football pitch. A penny that had turned green with verdigris at that. It would be pure chance if I found a trace of her and chances aren't marked on a map.

Where the hell was I? I'd already forgotten the name of the village I was driving through – another two-donkey affair, low houses dribbled along a narrow tarmac road that looked as if it was still a novelty to the kids on bicycles and the scooting chickens. One cafe-cum-cornershop, no Niko's Taverna and no stretch of water. There was water and the masts of boats in the picture postcard, so perhaps I ought to head for the coast. Well, nowhere was far from the coast – that was the whole point of being an island – so I simply carried on. My stomach growled louder than the engine as I rode through two more villages with otherwise perfectly good tavernas, restaurants and cafes that didn't fit the bill. I carried on south until I was sure I'd keel off the bike if I didn't get my teeth into something edible very soon.

Lefkimmi appeared to be a small town with quite a sizeable population if the number of churches – all yellow, white and pink – was anything to go by. There was little evidence of tourism here. As I tootled slowly downhill through its streets, I saw several women – mostly over sixty, granted – in traditional costume that included a headdress apparently devised from checked tablecloths.

Unexpectedly, I arrived at a bridge over what looked like a canal, which was not only home to a long row of fishing boats but also lined with trees and tavernas. Journey's end for my stomach and willpower. I left the bike under a tree and walked into the first little taverna to my left that had tables by the edge of the water, pointed at the first thing on the menu that looked good and was soon settled with a large bottle of beer in dappled sunlight at a table by the canal. Thankfully, only a few minutes later I was twirling thick spaghetti and chasing bits of octopus with my fork through a thick, fuliginous sauce. Had this been a holiday, then I'd have considered myself truly arrived at last. The clientele at this and the other two tavernas I could glimpse was a mix of tourists and locals and the menu had shown a refreshing absence of moussaka or chicken and chips.

I never think well on an empty stomach and a certain amount of drink always seems to help lubricate the cogs of my mind. Having vacuumed up my last strands of spaghetti and replenished my glass with beer, I took out Kyla's postcard. Stretch of water, masts of boats, trees, taverna. I was there. Niko's Taverna was one of these restaurants – had to be. All I had to do was match the postcard to the view.

After crossing the canal via the narrow bridge, I turned left along the row of low houses. Niko's Taverna was only the fourth one along. Despite the noisy Greek bouzouki – which sounded uncannily like the music played in all the other establishments – the place was nearly empty. Or perhaps because of it. I matched the spot from which the image on the postcard had been taken and felt as if at last I had come to the end of a long journey that had started in Mrs Walden's icy flat in a distant season.

Only two tables were taken under the strings of coloured lights festooning the awning and unfortunately none of the diners was Kyla Biggs. The man behind the bar beamed at me. ‘Welcome, you are alone?' He craned his neck to see behind me.

‘Yes, it's just me,' I confirmed. ‘So this is Niko's Taverna. And you are Niko?'

‘I am he.' He opened his arms in an expansive gesture of surrender.

Did he remember a woman called Kyla?

‘Kylie? Kylie Minogue!' He beamed as though he'd found the winning answer to a quiz question.

‘No, no,
Kyla
– different name.' I wished I'd still had her picture as I struggled to describe to him a woman I knew only in black and white.

Niko was apologetic. ‘Every year so many tourist, so many names. Is quiet now, but in two, three weeks, very busy.' He swept a hand towards the many snapshots of happy- and drunk-looking punters that covered half the wall behind the bar.

‘She sent this postcard.' I held it up for him to inspect.

He beamed again. ‘Yes, our postcard.' He pointed out a stack of them on top of the bar. ‘You get free with meals. Is what is called
gimmick
. And works, no? You got postcard, you come here.'

‘She only sent it a few weeks ago. There can't have been that many tourists around then.'

Niko put on a conspiratorial air and leant across the bar. ‘Is too many faces every week,' he said in a tragic voice. ‘We like tourists, but every day is same job, different people. Sometimes people come many years, then you remember, but if come for one or two weeks only, then you smile, you say how nice, how wonderful, and when they go away, you forget same day. Because is already more people. To you is holiday, important event, OK. But to us is just people come and go, come and go, always.' His fingers drummed a tattoo on a laminated menu. ‘You want to eat now?'

I have been rightly called a glutton, but another meal so soon was beyond even me. Besides, I have a rule about eating in places with laminated menus. You guessed. I climbed on to a bar stool. ‘No, not tonight. I'll just have a drink, please.'

Niko set an ice-cold bottle of beer in front of me. ‘Enjoy your drink. Sorry, I must go kitchen now.' He ducked away through a narrow door, leaving me to contemplate my various ineptitudes as a private eye over a glass of Henninger. My only clue as to where Kyla Biggs went on her holiday hadn't got me very far. They didn't remember her – or else Niko was a good actor. And he did have a point, after all; I didn't for one minute imagine that I myself would remember foreign names and faces over a hectic twenty-eight-week season of moussaka and chips. Sipping my drink, I sat gloomily unfocused, not knowing what my next move should be. Sometimes, I tried to tell myself, the answer was right there in front of your nose, if only you could see it. ‘
Focus
!' I admonished myself. I drank more beer and sat up straight. My eyes focused on the dense patchwork of tourist snaps blu-tacked to the wall behind the bar. It was an excellent showcase of how even the worst photographer somehow managed to capture at least some of the atmosphere; happy, pink, possibly drunk examples of tourist-hood smiled from every picture, now fading in the strong Greek light almost as quickly as they did from Greek memory.

And there she was, right in front of my nose, looking back at me from a square Polaroid: Kyla, sitting outside this very taverna, smiling, tanned from the sun, red-eyed from the flash and flushed from drink, raising a glass towards the photographer. To her right sat Niko, smiling at her. Next to him, badly lit and half cut-off at the edge but easily recognizable, sat the chap I had seen only this lunchtime, sitting in the leading car emerging from the Thalassa Organic Olive Oil Co-op, checking his watch. And to Kyla's left, with bleached hair and sparkling nose stud, holding a bottle of beer by the neck, unsmiling and watching the others, sat Gloves.

I
slid off the barstool and peered into the doorway Niko had disappeared through – a cluttered gangway leading to the kitchen. There was no sign of him or any staff. Good. I had just changed my mind about Niko's acting skills. Or perhaps the state of his memory. I walked behind the bar, snatched the picture off the wall and rearranged its neighbours a bit. There, no one was going to notice that. My first impulse had been to point the photo out to Niko to refresh his memory; only then I remembered how the police seemed quite keen for me not to find this place. Or perhaps any place Kyla had visited. I heard a noise from the doorway. The Polaroid disappeared into my pocket and I swiftly resumed my place at the right side of the bar. Not a moment too soon. Niko reappeared. Too smiley now somehow, and tidying things that didn't need tidying, while keeping a nervous eye on the open entrance door. I felt a little tingle at the back of my head that made me think I shouldn't be sitting here with my back to that door. Peeling euros on to the table, I thanked Niko, who suddenly came to life.

‘You go so soon? Is early. Have another drink.' He pushed the money back towards me as though refusing all payment.

‘No thanks, I ought to be going.'

With lightning speed, he set two glasses up on the bar and splashed a generous amount of ouzo into both from a large bottle. He pushed one across and set a carafe of water next to it. ‘You must take one drink with me. Is ouzo – you mix with water if you like. On the house, of course. Is traditional, for welcome people. I forgot before, very sorry.'

If one large shot of this ubiquitous aniseed horror was going to be enough delay, then I really had to get a move on. ‘Very kind, but I'm allergic,' I said on the way to the door. ‘
Iássu
, Niko.'

He followed me outside and put a heavy arm around my shoulder. ‘You have allergy with ouzo? Come drink whisky. One whisky. Is on the house.'

‘Scotch whisky?'

‘Greek whisky.'

‘Tomorrow,' I promised. ‘I'll have a drink tomorrow.' But most likely not in this place. And definitely not Greek whisky.

I had reached the edge of the taverna area by the canal and he had to let go of me now. Guests from the two tables began to notice this excessive display of hospitality and two more couples, talking in loud, happy voices, were just arriving, greeting Niko like a long-lost friend.

I shrugged past them and hurried. It was getting darker now and the retro street lamps along the canal were glimmering against the remnants of the sunset. I had nearly reached the bridge when a police car came flying across from the opposite side. Hastily joining a family reading a billboard menu outside a cafe, I watched as the car stopped abruptly by the little supermarket at the corner. Two men jumped out, one in uniform, the other in a dark suit. They walked fast towards Niko's Taverna.

Not as fast as I legged it across the bridge to the bike. I had little doubt that the police had arrived in response to me having quizzed Niko and I had no intention of hanging around to find out what they thought about it. The wretched little bike responded to my working the kick-starter with a tired snuffling sound. Four, five, six times – I was just going to flood the tiny engine if I carried on. I pushed the bike along the road, faster, fell into a trot, then jumped on the thing, slid it into second gear and dropped the clutch. It coughed, the engine fired and I opened the throttle wide, listening to its agonized whine, urging it to gain speed as it crawled uphill through the town. There was no point trying to hare down the side streets in an attempt to hide; the police were bound to know every short cut and would simply scoop me up round the next corner. I joined the thin traffic through the centre, checking behind every few seconds, my paranoia at a fresh peak, then left the town northbound. Soon I was just a tiny light on a rural unlit road, being frequently overtaken by faster vehicles, though none of them turned out to be the dreaded police car. Perhaps I had got it all wrong and the arriving police had nothing to do with me. Or perhaps they had decided to believe my promise to come and have a drink there tomorrow and would be waiting for me. Or perhaps they were confident of getting me later. We'd see about that. For the first time since arriving here I had taken the advice given to me; Morva had said, ‘If you see police, scram', and I was scramming north as fast as the little Honda would go.

The roads around Neo and Ano Makriá felt familiar now, which is how I managed to find my way home in the dark with only the feeble glimmer from the bike's headlamp and the stars for company on the narrow unlit roads. A few potholes and a couple of prowling dogs took me by surprise, but I skilfully panicked the bike around those without riding it into a ditch. I was relieved when I reached the prosperous lights of Neo Makriá. Dimitris's cafe, though, stood dark and deserted as I passed it. The treacherous dirt road up to Ano Makriá seemed to go on for ever tonight and Morva's crumpled Fiesta by the tree was a sharp reminder of just how close to the edge it ran.