Greek Fire (21 page)

“A car, I think. It may be nothing.…”

He went quickly to the window and moved the blind a fraction of an inch. A car had stopped at the door and men were getting out.

“Police,” he said.

Gene said: “What way out is there?”

She'd gone that transparent white which sometimes follows fever. “No way but the front. This house stands with its back to another. Everything comes through the front.”

He grabbed up his hat and bag. “Then I'll get out of here.”

“
No
”

He stopped a second, his movements as high-strung as hers.

She said: “Let me think——”

“There's no time to think——”

“Stop!” She got between him and the door. “It's too late: you know what the staircase is like: they'd see you.”

“Perhaps not leaving this flat; I can take care of myself.” He tried to get past, she caught his arm, he wrenched it free but she snatched it again.

“Then maybe I can put you in the clear,” he said, raising his hand.

“
No, no, no
!” she said. “I can hide you. Let me
think
!”

“The window?” he said.

“Wait.”

She fled past him into the bathroom, turned on the bath taps, was back.

“This way.”

She led him into a bedroom. It looked like a spare room or a maid's room. He said: “Which way does this window look?”

As he spoke there was a ring at the door. They had lost no time.

“Here.…” She beckoned him to a chest of drawers beside the bed. “Help me.”

He helped her to lift the chest out. Behind in the wall was a panel about two feet square. She pressed some sort of a spring catch and the panel swung open.

“
In
.”

“If they catch me this will mean——”

“
In
.”

He crawled through into a mass of pipes, which were obviously behind the bathroom. The trap door was for getting at the plumbing, but it was not a man-hole as such because there was no room for a man. He had to force his way in and lie on a tangle of pipes, with his head bent against the sloped roof and his feet cramped at the other end. The panel would just shut and he was in complete darkness. He could hear her struggling to get the chest of drawers back in place. Then the door-bell went again.

For half a minute there were indistinct noises. He heard her calling something. The taps were shut off.

Silence fell, except for slight hurried movements in the bathroom. Something dropped on the floor. Then she must have opened the door to them for he could hear the growl of men's voices.

He could tell she was arguing and indignant; but after a minute she gave way. Heavy footsteps. The hot water pipe was burning his back. It was very close in the confined space and he could hardly move an inch any way. His shoulder was pressed hard against the door. The footsteps moved on.

Suddenly her voice came quite clearly: “Do please look in here if you wish!” They were in the bathroom.

“I'm sorry, madame. You realise it is solely a matter of duty. I personally should not wish to intrude on your grief.”

Nevertheless their apologetic manner didn't seem to be preventing the police from having a thorough look round. He heard them moving about. His shoulder was cracking.

She said: “I think it a little strange that you should suppose
I
would conceal this murderer.”

“I'm
very
sorry, madame. We thought perhaps he might have got into you flat unknown to you.”

“And into my linen basket while I was in the bath?”

“Of course not. That's enough, Cassimi.”

They went out, and for a time Gene could only hear movements further away. Then abruptly they were again within hearing. They had come into the spare bedroom.

She said: “But who was this man who reported that he had seen the murderer entering this building?”

“We received the information. We took it to be a reliable source.”

“How do you know that this man even knows the murderer? How do you know it is not a hoax?”

“We can't be sure, madame. But it is our duty to check the information we receive.”

A cupboard door opened very near Gene.

Any minute the pressure of his shoulder on the panel would make the spring catch fly open. Yet he could not move to take away the strain.

“There are other flats in the house, officer.”

“It is what I was thinking myself, madame. This is a spare room?”

“My maid sleeps here when she sleeps in.”

“She isn't sleeping in at present?”

“As you see.”

There was a creak of the bed.

“If I may advise you, madame, I would suggest that you keep your door locked for the rest of the night.”

“It's a custom I often follow.”

“Yes—er—I beg your pardon. Is this the last room?”

“There's the kitchen.”

“Of course. If you will——”

“It's this way.”

A long wait in blackness and in heat. Sounds and movements for a time, and once Gene thought he caught some stirring in the bedroom still, as if perhaps one of the men had stayed behind in the room. Then there was a murmured conversation in the sala. Then silence.

Lack of air in the man-hole. Gradually the pipe, which had nearly burned through his coat, began to cool. The beginnings of cramp in both feet. Mustn't think of cramp. Or suffocation. A door banged somewhere in the distance but no footsteps followed it.

He began to count. It was a way he'd followed for years of getting through high discomfort. He had counted to beyond four hundred when someone turned on the water again in the bath. That went on for two or three minutes and the pipe behind him grew hot again. He began to wriggle his feet, fighting the cramp again and fairly sure that any slight noise he made now would be covered. He was soaked in sweat, and it was running off his forehead, down his face and trickling inside his collar. The water stopped. Then someone came into the room and he heard the chest of drawers being cautiously dragged back.

Light fell into the dark. She said: “I think they're searching the other flats. Are you all right?”

“Yes, fine.”

“Can you stick it for a few minutes more until the car goes?”

“Yes, if you leave the panel open.”

He watched her feet move away. She was wearing the same green pumps, but above four inches of bare ankle was a scarlet bathrobe. He stuck his head out and gulped at the air. Almost immediately she was back.

“They've just gone. Did you hear the car?”

“All of them?”

“I can't be sure. But it's safe to come out.”

He began to wriggle through the opening and got to his feet. There was no feeling in either of them and he collapsed into her arms and thence to the bed.

She said: “I am sorry. I could have come earlier but I was expecting a trap; I thought they would come back.”

He began clumsily to massage his feet, and she stood and watched him. Presently she pulled off her bathcap and shook out her hair. He said: “ Did you change into all that before they came?”

“Yes. I was terrified of two things. The bathroom was too—unused, too unsteamed. And that mark.” She pointed to a scrape on the polished parquet floor. “I made it pushing the chest back. I was in too much haste.”

He got up, first testing one leg, then the other. “I'll give them another ten minutes and then go.”

“Go where? I was asking you when they came.”

He limped back into the living-room, moved over to the blind, peered out. “It wasn't the police who saw me come in. I don't like that. This evening, when I went back to the place where I'd been staying, the police were there. I was warned just in time. I doubt if they would have found me on their own.”

She tightened the cord of her bath robe. “There's the paper. The Lieutenant left it for me. Perhaps he thought I would recognise you better.”

He picked
Aegis
up and stared at the two photos, at the glaring headline. The paragraph underneath was very brief—later editions would carry more. “No name or nationality.”

“That's a government tactic, I should say. If possible they'll hush it up or try to call you British. But it won't stop them bringing you to trial. George had many friends.”

“I'll get out.”

“Which way can you go?”

“I shall make my way down to Piraeus and smuggle on board a ship, if possible one going to Venice. From there there's all Europe to choose.”

“It will be impossible.” When he looked at her she added: “Without help.”

He offered her a cigarette. She shook her head. “Do you know, there is only one safe place for you, Gene, for the time being.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

He lit a cigarette for himself, broke the dead match, put it in an ash-tray. “ No.”

“Yes.”

“Well, thanks, but I don't see it.”

“It is obvious. Everyone will expect you to be on the run, to be trying to get out of Greece. The last place the police will look is here—
which has already been searched
.”

He thought round it carefully. “Maybe you have something. But even if that was so, I'm not willing to involve you any more.”

She said: “Don't you know I am involved?”

“Not if I get out now.”

“Whatever you do now—I am still involved.”

He looked at her, his eyes going carefully, almost painfully over her face. “ Yes … in that … but that's not the way I mean.”

“I sent you away,” she said. “ It was your view too. But tonight you have come back. That is—just the way the cards, have fallen. It does not mean I may not be permitted to help you.”

“It does if your safety is concerned as well.”

She said: “ If you stay here tonight I think I can make arrangements. I have money and still some influence. Perhaps you could leave tomorrow night, but that will depend.”

“And your maid?”

“I can telephone her. I will tell her not to come.”

He shook his head. “ If I stay tonight it may mean I'm stuck here for three or four.”

“Does that matter?”

“Yes, yes, yes. Every hour increases your risk. D'you realise what being an accessory after the fact means?”

“Do you realise that I don't care?”

He came across slowly and put his hands on her elbows and smiled his crinkly smile at her. “You don't care?”

She looked at him directly for a moment, then glanced beyond him with a sort of removed matter-of-factness, a drawing back as if he were a stranger. “ I must hide you here until I can make arrangements to get you out. What chance do you think you would have of slipping through tonight or tomorrow at any Greek port or station or air terminal?”

“I've slid out of difficult corners before.”

“But this is not war. You have not got the population on your side. You have no passport except one which will get you instantly arrested. You have no disguise but a pair of spectacles. You admit you will not ask your friends to help you. Therefore it's essential you should stay here.” He released her and walked up and down once, thinking it over,

knowing she was watching him.
He said: “Are you proposing I should spend another night with

you in—in intimate celibacy?”
“I don't know what that means.”
He explained.
“Yes,” she said. “ Yes.…”
He smiled at her again. “You think—that is going to answer

with us now?”
“With things as they are, it cannot be any other way.”

They slept for three hours. She had set a clock to wake them but before it went off he was stirring, moving round the sala, examining the grey empty street through the slats in the Venetian blind. He made coffee, and a few minutes before the clock was due to go off he went into her bedroom with a tray and touched her hand.

She was instantly alert. “Yes?”

“Just before seven and all's well.”

She slowly relaxed and yawned against her fingers. Her hair lay thick and black on one bare shoulder. Her face looked strangely naked and unguarded without make-up in the filtered morning light.

She said: “I had horrible dreams.”

“Coffee?”

“Thank you.”

They drank in silence.

He said: “I wouldn't have waked you so early but for calling your maid.”

“Have you looked out?”

“Yes. There's someone watching the house.”

“What? Who is it—the police?”

“No. A young man I first saw with Mandraki at The Little Jockey.”

“So you were right.”

“They may be watching only so they can follow you when you go out.”

“I must telephone Edda.”

He left her while she got up. Looking for a towel in the bathroom, he opened a drawer and found a razor and a tooth brush and some hair cream. In a small silver box were collar studs and cuff links, and clean handkerchiefs. For a moment they shocked him, and he was startled at being shocked. Sometimes common sense barely goes skin deep. A stain lay suddenly across his mind—like an overturned inkpot.

When he came out she said: “I've given her two days off. She knows about George's death, of course.”

“I'll make breakfast while you have your bath.”

“There's no new bread. Edda usually brings it.”

“If it's old I'll toast it.”

Over breakfast they didn't speak for a while. Presently she got up and switched the radio on. They listened to an advertisement and then the news came through.

“Progress is being made in the search for the international spy who is wanted for the murder of George Lascou, ex-minister and leader of the newly formed EMO party. All available police have been allocated to this task, and Major Kolono, who is in charge of the investigation, stated that an arrest could be expected shortly. The assassin is described as of medium height, fluent in Greek, about thirty years of age, brown hair, grey eyes, of thin build but muscular and athletic. All Athens is shocked and horrified by this dastardly crime which robs the political scene of one of its most talented and popular figures.