Greek Fire (22 page)

“M. Stavrides, deputy leader of EMO, stated late last night that the death of George Lascou will not affect his party's plans for contesting the election. ‘We shall go on,' he said, ‘saddened but inspirited by the example of this good man. And we shall win.'

“In Salonika yesterday dock labourers——”

She switched it off and ran her hands up and down her arms as if to suppress a shiver.

When she sat down at the table again he touched her hand. “That's nothing fresh.”

“I don't like to hear it.”

“What are you going to do today?”

“Mme Lindos is entirely to be trusted?”

“She's an old woman. She mustn't be caught up in this. She lent me money; that's enough.”

“Gene, give up for a little while denying to your friends the privilege of helping you!”

“… Anya, what made you go to see her yesterday?”

“I thought you had gone. I thought I wanted to know more about you.”

Thinking of the things he had found in the drawer, he said: “Perhaps we already know enough.”

She looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“It was just a casual remark.”

“But what did you mean by it?”

He hesitated and then said: “ I was only thinking that for love you must have some degree of innocence.… Maybe we both know too much ever to achieve that innocence again.”

She got up and went to the mantelpiece. It was a sudden almost defensive movement he had not seen her make before.

He tried to follow up the sentence, but he was struggling with feelings he didn't recognise in himself. Before he could add anything the front door bell rang.

“Oh, good day, Mlle Stonaris, I didn't know if your maid would be in yet. I'm glad to see I haven't disturbed you. I've only been stirring myself some few minutes but I had to come round at once to tell you about the water.”

“Water, M. Voss?”

“Yes. I woke about twenty minutes ago and could hear the dripping.
Tap, tap, tap
, it went, and I thought it was raining and dripping on the window sill. Then when I got up I found a pool on my bathroom floor. It appears to be running along the beading of the ceiling and be coming from a corner by the hot water pipes, but the water is only just warm. Have you a leak in you bathroom?”

“No.”

“I feel it must come from up here. There's nowhere else, is there. Could you make sure? It's leaking quite fast.”

“Of course. Will you wait in here a moment?”

She showed her neighbour into the little vestibule but no further. Then she slipped quickly through the empty living-room into the bathroom. Gene was in there, having decided in the absence of a police car that there was no need to hide.

“You heard?”

“Yes. There's no leak here.”

She glanced under the bath. He stayed her with fingers on her arm. “I may have damaged something last night in the man-hole.”

She went out. “I'm very sorry, M. Voss. There seems to be nothing, but I'll look round.”

“I'd be very glad. My bathroom floor is quite awash. Could I help you at all?”

“No, I'd prefer to do it myself. My maid will help when she comes.”

“Well, if you can't find anything I'll have to send for a plumber. But perhaps you'll let me know when you've looked again.”

“I'll phone you, M. Voss.”

“Thank you. Thank you.”

She showed him out and went back to the bathroom. Gene said: “There's nothing to see here.”

They went into the maid's bedroom and pulled the chest away. He opened the man-hole and wriggled part way in.

“Yes, it's here.”

“Much?”

“There's a split at the joint. I must have done it when I forced a way in.”

She crouched beside him, said rather stiffly: “ Can you stop it?”

“It's iron. You can't mend it without tools; there's a leak at the joint. I might try wrapping it with cloth.”

He tried wrapping it with cloth.

“That's no good,” he said. “It'll have to be a plumber.”

“Can't you put something underneath it? A basin, a bowl?”

“It's pretty difficult because the water runs down the pipe instead of dripping direct to the floor. But if you get me something I'll try.”

She got him a basin. When he'd put it down he said: “Have you a stop-cock?”

“Yes, I think so. Under one of the tiles in the bathroom.”

“I thought for today maybe we could do without water. It would save a plumber.”

“It won't work. It cuts off the water for the downstairs flat also.”

He bit the end of his thumb. “ Then a plumber it'll have to be.”

“I don't like it.” She squatted on her heels and frowned.

“It will be better than having the man downstairs complaining.”

“I shall have to wait in until he comes.”

“Maybe not. Go out and do what you want to do and phone the plumber when you come back. In the meantime if I can have a good supply of old rags I can keep it under control for an hour or two.”

She phoned a soothing message to M. Voss, and changed into a black frock and went out. She said, still distantly: “ Don't answer the door. Don't answer the phone. I don't think anyone will come.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don't know. I don't know yet at all.”

When she had gone the flat was suddenly foreign and empty. He was not a man to whom inactivity was ever welcome, and inactivity at present was harder than usual to take. So long as Anya was with him he could forget it, but as soon as he was alone he began chafing at his own helplessness. To him movement was not just a means of escape, it was a way of defeating the enemy: the positive choice instead of the negative one.

Before she left Anya had opened the windows and pulled up the blinds. It was necessary to give any watchers the appearance of naturalness; but it restricted his movements to the far side of the rooms and even made these undesirable. When the sun came round this afternoon it would be right to let the jalousies down again.

It was a brilliant day and summer was falling on the city. One or two white clouds hung in the sky but their vapour was being absorbed by the sun. A bee droned lazily in and out of the open windows. People walked on the shady side of the street. A little puff of dust rose every now and then with the wind. In a corner on the opposite side a thin dark sneering young man with a drooping bow tie and a petulant mouth shifted from one elegant leg to the other and spat. Gene saw him and knew that he had not followed Anya.

The leak took most of his time. He tried tea towels and floor cloths to mop the water up, but the result didn't justify the effort. In the end he let it run and devised a series of basins and cups to catch most of the leak.

Once he cast about the flat for the Avra letters he had brought, but in the panic of last night Anya had either hidden them securely or burned them. Once the telephone rang. It went on insistently, and after a minute he crawled to the window and peered out. Zachari was gone. He waited there on his knees till the phone stopped; then presently the watcher opposite came back to his post.

The little Limoges clock with the blue and gilt face struck ten and then half past. With the windows open he did not dare switch on the radio. Opening the escritoire to put away a book he saw a roll of strong sellotape and thought that even yet there might be a chance of saving a plumber. He went back and pushed the basins aside to see if he could bind over the split.

With his head and part of his body inside the hole he had no chance of hearing someone come into the flat and then into the room behind him.

Nerves long trained will show their training in a crisis; like soldiers under ambush they answer by instinct, responding to the conventional call. When someone exclaimed behind him he didn't crack his head on the pipes but slid quickly out and sat up to stare at a short thick-set woman in a linen coat and white shoes.

“What is it you are doing here?”

“He swallowed saliva in his throat and coughed. “ I didn't hear you come in.”

“Who are you? What is it you are doing there?”

He said: “ What business is it of yours?”

Her halting Greek had given him a lead. But he wanted to be quite sure.

“I'm Mlle Stonaris's maid. Where is she?”

“She's just gone out. D'you want her?”

“I come to pick something up. I do not expect … What is gone wrong?”

He was in his shirt sleeves, and even the old gladstone bag he had bought was on the floor behind him, lending the right colour to the idea. “There's a leak. The man downstairs called me in. Name of Voss. It's coming through in his bathroom.”

“Is it you are from the builders?”

“No, I work on my own.” He took out a packet of cigarettes and offered her one. “They're French.”

“No, thank you.” The surprise was leaving her and she was a little on her dignity. “ I come for a dress. It so happens to be in here.”

“All right.” He lit his own cigarette.

Still sitting on the floor he watched her go to the wardrobe. If you watch someone, someone hasn't the same opportunity to watch you. His chief danger was lack of tools; but it was unlikely she'd stop and peer into the man-hole.

She took a black frock from the wardrobe, and then out of a drawer a few things she didn't let him see.

She said irritably: “ What is the matter; can you not mend it?”

“Oh, yes, nearly done. Just taking a breather.”

“When is Mlle Stonaris coming back?”

“She said she wouldn't be long. She said if I was finished before she got back I was to let down the catch.”

The woman hesitated. Gene knew pretty well what was going on in her mind. He said: “I'll not be more than another hour.”

“Another hour! … Phoo! Be sure it is good work. Often one hole is stopped and another made.”

She folded her frock on the bed and then laid it carefully over her arm. Gene opened his brown bag and pretended to look for something inside.

“Are you going on holiday?” he asked.

“Perhaps.” She was on her dignity again. “Where did Mlle Stonaris say she is gone out?”

“She didn't tell me. Why should she?”

The woman moved to the door and went out. But she didn't leave the flat. He thought she was just slightly suspicious and uncertain and was perhaps looking round to see if anything had been disturbed. His mind flickered over the things in the flat. Nothing to tell her he had been here all night. Lucky he'd made this bed. His hat? No, that was in here. Coffee cups? Anya had stacked them in the kitchen. Cigarette ends? Unlikely she'd read anything from that.

He heard her moving about in Anya's bedroom, then in the kitchen. He picked up a piece of old piping left on the floor of the man-hole and began to tap one of the other pipes with it. Silence fell. He knew she had not gone. Was she sitting waiting for
him
to go? Anya might be out till one o'clock.

He picked up his piece of pipe and went out into the sala. She was not there, but the first thing he noticed was this morning's
Aegis
face upwards on the piano with his own photograph staring at the ceiling. He could not touch it, not even to turn it over.

He went into the kitchen but she wasn't there. She came quickly and suspiciously out of the bathroom as he opened the nearest drawer, bending his head over it.

“Yes?”

“Have you a small spanner?”

She hadn't yet recognised him. “Do you not have your own tools?”

“My spanner's too big.”

“There are a few things in that cupboard.”

He opened the door of it and rummaged about. He took out a pair of pliers. “These may do. Thanks.”

She stood aside to let him pass. He wondered if he should make the move, his hand over her mouth, into the spare room. It was the act of despair, the final surrender to panic.

He went past. He went into the sala with the paper staring from the piano and thence to the spare room. As he did so he heard a key in the outer door of the flat.

He couldn't greet her as she came in, to warn her and explain, but he stood just within the door where she could see him as she went past, and clinked the pipe with pliers.

She came through the double doors and began to speak; but stopped in time.

“
Edda
! What are you doing here?”

“Ma'am, I thought already you had left for the hotel and I have the need for my black dress. So I came up for it.”

“Oh.… Oh, I see.” Anya had heard his hammer from the spare room.

“You do not mind? It is my best dress and I have the wish to visit my brother. And then I find this plumber here.” The voice was lowered. “I think perhaps it is best.…”

“Yes, of course.…”

The voices mumbled on. Gene went back to the man-hole, breathing deeper. Edda had taken it on herself to make the situation clear.

Anya came to the door. “Have you nearly finished?”

He withdrew his head and they looked at each other. There was a glint of irony in his eye. “About ten minutes, I expect, ma'am. I've just to tighten the joint.”

“I see.…” She put down her shopping basket. “All right, Edda, everything will be all right now.”

The Italian woman still wanted to linger; she explained that she'd passed the time tidying up, and would Mlle Stonaris tell her which hotel it was to be? and she was desolated to hear the terrible news, and she hoped …

Anya got her to the door and out. When the door was shut she leaned back against it and stared at Gene.

They didn't speak. He slid across to the window watching, Edda came out and down the steps and walked off up the street. But Zachari from his corner, though he may have taken note of her leaving, did not try to intercept her.