by M. M. Kaye
‘There’s Glenn,’ said George Norman. ‘Do you suppose he’s____’ He checked suddenly and coughed in an embarrassed manner. The prow grated upon stone and a moment later the passengers were on shore and Claire Norman was holding out a small white hand to the man in the tweed coat:
‘Glenn. How nice to see you! I suppose you are here to meet Miss Derington. Or did you come to meet … someone else?’
There was the faintest pause before the last two words, and Mr Glennister Barton’s pleasant tanned face flushed deeply and the muscles about his mouth tightened. Claire Norman said: ‘Amanda, this is Glenn Barton. Your host in Cyprus.’
Amanda held out her hand and found herself looking into a pair of grey eyes that were unmistakably desperate and unhappy. And she was suddenly unreasonably angry with Mrs Norman, who had said something which, though meaningless to Amanda, had undoubtedly possessed a hidden and hurtful meaning for this pleasant, rather diffident man.
Glenn Barton barely touched her hand, was introduced to her companions and exchanged a few civilities. He inquired after her Uncle Oswin and, having taken charge of her luggage and seen her through the customs, led the way to a long grey saloon car that was parked near the customs’ shed. Amanda had expected to see Mrs Barton, but there was no sign of any other woman, and Glenn Barton, having piled Amanda’s suitcases on to the back seat held open the front door of the car for her.
Persis called out: ‘See you in Kyrenia, honey!’ and Toby Gates, looking like a spaniel puppy that is being left behind from a walk, said in an urgent undertone: ‘You will let me come over and see you, won’t you?’
Amanda glanced over his shoulder, but Steve Howard, his back to her, was leaning lazily against a pillar with his hands in his pockets, talking to Claire Norman. Amanda got into the car feeling unaccountably annoyed and said: ‘Why, of course, Toby,’ with unnecessary cordiality and emphasis, and a moment later Glenn Barton released the clutch and the car slid out of shadow into the bright sunlight of the road to Nicosia.
The countryside, once they had left the coast and the incredible sapphire, turquoise and jade of the shallow waters that fringed it, was bleached and colourless in the hot sun. The earth was brown and stony and dotted with small shrubs, and except for an occasional olive grove there was little green and almost no shade as the road wound and twisted through barren hills and past dried-up watercourses where the heat haze shimmered on the stones and boulders.
It was all new and strange and different to Amanda, and she might well have found it fascinating but for the fact that her host was strangely silent and was driving much too fast. She wondered if he were shy or if there was something in that seemingly innocent remark of Claire Norman’s that had goaded him to this silence and speed? The big car was moving with dangerous velocity, shaving corners with a screech of tortured tyres and singing down the straight stretches of road with the speed of a steel-shafted arrow, while Amanda, who was not normally of a nervous disposition, found herself unconsciously clutching at the edge of her seat with rigid fingers and watching the flickering needle of the speedometer with fixed and apprehensive eyes.
She turned her head away with an effort and covertly studied her prospective host. He was sitting hunched forward a little, as a man will sit who steadies a nervous horse at the approach of a dangerous fence, and there was a look of nervous strain and tension in every line of his brown face and slim body. His hands were gripping the wheel so tightly that the knuckles stood out white against the tanned skin and there was a deep crease between his brows. Amanda thought that she had never seen anyone look so unhappy, and she looked away quickly, embarrassed and disturbed.
The needle of the speedometer wavered on ninety and she tightened her clutch on the seat, shut her eyes briefly and swallowed hard. Making a valiant effort she attempted a few polite observations on the scenery, to which Mr Barton returned equally polite but brief replies. The car whipped between an ox cart and a bus load of Cypriot peasants on their way to market, avoiding both by a hair’s breadth; flashed past a string of camels on to a narrow bridge, and missed a small boy on a donkey by a matter of millimetres.
Amanda shut her eyes again and Mr Barton inquired if she had had a pleasant trip from Fayid.
‘No,’ said Amanda with feeling. ‘It was perfectly beastly!’ She found herself telling him about Julia Blaine’s death, and Mr Barton expressed concern but no surprise.
Amanda said: ‘Did you know about it then?’
‘Yes. You see we ship a good bit of our wine from Limassol, so there are always several of our people on those boats or at the docks and most of them had heard. There was a lot of talk about it. The Blaines were over here for a couple of weeks last year, staying with Claire and George Norman. They’re related I believe. I was away on business at the time so I didn’t meet them myself, but my—wife knew them slightly.’ He was silent for a moment or two and then said apologetically: ‘Of course I had no idea that Mrs Blaine had died in your cabin, or I should not have asked such a stupid question. It must have been a most unpleasant experience. I’m sorry that you should have had such a horrible introduction to Cyprus. I wish I could do something to make up for it.’
He turned to look at her and his tired, unhappy face broke into a smile. It was an extraordinarily pleasant smile and Amanda found herself returning it with frank friendliness.
He’s nice, she thought. But he’s got something on his mind. He’s tired and badgered and worried sick about something—and then he has to come and meet me and put me up and look after me!
She said quickly: ‘It’s very kind of you and your wife to have me to stay. I do hope it hasn’t been an awful nuisance. I feel rather bad about it—inflicting myself on you like this. I don’t imagine that Uncle Oswin gave you much choice, did he?’
‘Well—no,’ said Glenn Barton with a rueful smile and a return of the anxious crease between his brows. ‘But____’
He slowed the car down and said abruptly: ‘Look, would you like something to eat? There’s an inn just ahead. We could get some bread and cheese and olives and some goat’s milk if you’d like it.’
‘I’d love it!’ said Amanda, suddenly remembering that she had had no breakfast. Mr Barton removed his foot from the accelerator and brought the car to a stop before a small shabby building half hidden by trees.
The little inn consisted of one large room furnished with rough wooden chairs and tables and decorated with portraits of the King and Queen of the Hellenes, torn from some illustrated paper and tacked against the walls. The charming, elfin face of Fredricka smiled out from a wreath of green leaves, reminding Amanda that this was an island where many of the inhabitants resented the British occupation and were demanding union with Greece.
The room was crowded with black-haired, dark-eyed Cypriots and redolent with garlic and the spilled lees of wine, but the proprietress, a buxom red-cheeked woman who seemed to know Mr Barton well and addressed him in rapid Greek, found them a table and fetched coarse bread, grapes, figs and lumps of cheese made from goat’s milk. At Mr Barton’s request she added a bottle of some colourless liquid that appeared to be gin, a carafe of water and two glasses.
Amanda ate the simple food with relish and Glenn Barton poured a small portion of the liquid into each glass and added water, whereupon the mixture turned a cloudy white.
‘What is it?’ demanded Amanda, intrigued.
‘Ouzo. The national drink. Do you see that old man over there by the door?’ Amanda turned and observed an ancient and decrepit greybeard who appeared to be dozing comfortably in his chair. ‘He’s our hostess’s husband. He used to be a tough upstanding chap when I first came to Cyprus, but he took to drinking his ouzo straight. If you drink enough of it it’s supposed to send you off your head. But it’s quite harmless in small quantities. Try it.’
Amanda picked up the nearest glass, sniffed at it and wrinkled her nose expressively. Glenn Barton laughed. ‘It smells pretty pungent, doesn’t it? Aniseed. Don’t you like it?�
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‘No,’ said Amanda frankly, ‘I’ve always detested the smell of aniseed ever since my kindergarten days when there was a small boy who used to sit next to me in class and suck aniseed balls. I hated him—and them.’
‘It tastes better than it smells,’ said Glenn Barton. He raised his glass to her. ‘Here’s to your first visit to Cyprus. May it be a very pleasant one.’
‘Thank you,’ said Amanda, and smiled at him.
Mr Barton drank and pushed away his glass. The frown was suddenly back in his forehead and Amanda saw that his hands were not quite steady and that there was a tinge of whiteness about his mouth. He offered her a cigarette, and when she refused, lit one himself and said in a jerky and difficult voice: ‘I–I’m afraid that I–we–shall not be able to put you up after all. You see–my wife is not well, and I couldn’t ask you to stay in the house while–while____’
He stopped and pushed his hands through his hair in a gesture that was somehow boyish and despairing.
‘But of course you can’t!’ said Amanda, moved by a sudden warm feeling of compassion. ‘Don’t give it another thought—please. I’m terribly sorry to hear about your wife. Are you sure that there is nothing I can do to help?’
‘No, nothing,’ said Glenn Barton wretchedly. ‘It’s very good of you to take it like this. I feel pretty terrible about it—saying that we’d put you up, and then letting you get here and failing you like this.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Amanda cheerfully. ‘It doesn’t matter a bit. I can easily go to a hotel.’
‘Oh no. I couldn’t let you do that!’ Glenn Barton lifted his eyes from the table and looked at her earnestly. ‘I’ve arranged all that. A friend of mine in Kyrenia, a Miss Moon, is going to put you up instead. She’s a bit eccentric, but very kind. I know you’ll like her.’
‘But I can’t go sponging on your friends,’ said Amanda dismayed. ‘It was quite bad enough Uncle Oswin pushing me on to you like this, but____’
‘Please!’ interrupted Glenn Barton with a twisted smile. ‘You’re being kind and letting me down gently, but I’d be very grateful if you’d add to your kindness by agreeing to stay with Miss Moon. I’d feel much better about it. Besides, she’s expecting you. She’s a dear and is delighted at the idea of having you. She likes young people—specially pretty ones.’
His smile pointed the compliment and Amanda laughed and capitulated. She had been disappointed at the prospect of staying in Nicosia instead of on the coast, and Persis and Toby would be in Kyrenia. She would have preferred to be independent and stay at a hotel, but she could hardly treat Mr Barton’s arrangements in a cavalier fashion.
Mr Barton said: ‘Then that’s fixed. We’ll have to stop in at the office in Nicosia just for a minute or two I’m afraid, but we should be in Kyrenia in time for lunch. If you really won’t try the ouzo we’d better be getting along.’
5
The buxom proprietress of the inn presented the bill and embarked on an animated conversation with Mr Barton that, judging from her laughing glance, referred to Amanda.
‘What is she saying?’ asked Amanda.
‘She was asking where you’d come from, and she says that you are a very beautiful young lady and wishes to know if you can sit on your hair when it is unbound,’ said Glenn Barton with a smile.
Amanda laughed. ‘Tell her, only just!’
‘You come on Orantares, yes? From Port Said?’ said the woman in halting English. ‘My man too. Is fine ship.’
She smiled broadly at Amanda, swept up the handful of small coins that Mr Barton had counted out onto the table, and hurried away to deal with an impatient patron.
‘Are all the people here as friendly and cheerful as that?’ asked Amanda.
‘A good many of them. Why? You sound surprised.’
‘I suppose I am,’ admitted Amanda. ‘The only things that ever get into the papers about Cyprus are articles about how discontented they are with the whole set-up.’
Glenn Barton smiled and said: ‘I think you’ll find them cheerful enough.’
He dropped the end of his cigarette into Amanda’s glass, where it hissed out and disintegrated slowly, and sat watching it abstractedly for a moment or two with his own face anything but cheerful. Presently he gave a sharp sigh and stood up.
‘Let’s go, shall we?’
They walked out into the bright sunlight to the car and continued their journey towards Nicosia; but at a less dangerous speed. The interlude at the inn appeared to have lessened Glenn Barton’s nervous tension, and he was more talkative and at ease; but he did not refer again to his wife’s illness and it was obvious that he did not wish to discuss it.
Amanda found herself wondering what Mrs Barton was like, and if she would meet her—and passed from that to wondering whether she would meet Steven Howard again, and why it should be a matter of concern to her whether she did or not? Mr Howard had been brusque and arbitrary and rude, and had had the incredible effrontery to hint that she might have planned the murder of Julia Blaine as the result of an intrigue with Julia’s husband Alastair. True, he had said nothing to suggest that he himself believed it. But that such an idea could even enter his head, infuriated and frightened her. She ought by rights to be thankful that she need have no more to do with him and could put him out of her mind and forget him.
But she found that she could not stop thinking about him. Who was he? Why had he been on the Orantares? What had he been doing in Fayid and who was it that he had followed to Cyprus?
The road twisted downwards through the sun-bleached hills and ran out upon the wide, flat, dusty central plain of Cyprus, and it was midday by the time they came in sight of the green trees, jostling rooftops, Byzantine churches and Gothic mosques of Nicosia.
The heat danced in the narrow, crowded streets; on minarets and domes and fretted balconies, the concrete walls and roofs of innumerable newly built suburban-style houses, petrol pumps, jeeps, Army lorries and creaking carts drawn by oxen.
Presently the car turned in between white-washed gateposts shaded by flamboyants and oleanders, and drew up before a small bungalow.
‘This is our Nicosia office,’ explained Glenn Barton. ‘Would you like to come in? I won’t be more than a few minutes.’
The office walls were bare and white-washed. There was coarse matting on the floor, and green wooden jalousies over the windows kept out the midday heat and made the rooms cool and dim. A woman who had been seated at a littered desk rose quickly as they entered and Glenn Barton said: ‘This is Miss Ford—my secretary. Monica, this is Miss Derington.’
Miss Ford was plain, solidly built and verging on middle age. She had slightly protruding teeth and her hair—of that indeterminate shade that is usually described as ‘mouse’—was drawn loosely back from her forehead and confined in a small hard bun at the nape of her neck.
Glenn Barton said: ‘I didn’t think you’d be here today, Monica. Sure you’re all right? You needn’t have come you know.’ There was concern in his voice and he put a hand on the thick shoulder and pressed it affectionately, and turning to Amanda said: ‘Monica’s not only my secretary. She’s my right hand—and my left one! I don’t know what I’d do without her. She practically runs the business.’
Miss Ford’s sallow face flushed with pleasure and for a moment she looked almost girlish. ‘That’s nonsense, of course,’ she said to Amanda. ‘Glenn works far too hard. I’m always telling him that he’ll have a breakdown if he doesn’t let up a bit. How is your uncle, Miss Derington? I haven’t seen him for over a year. He got me this post you know. I used to work in his London office.’
‘Uncle Oswin is fine,’ said Amanda. ‘He’s ramping round the Middle East putting the fear of Derington into Deringtons, which is his idea of bliss.’
Glenn Barton laughed. ‘Then we can consider ourselves very lucky that he has sent us such a charming representative instead of paying us a personal visit.’
‘Oh, I’m not a representative,’ said Amanda, smil
ing back at him. ‘I’m merely having a holiday on my own. Uncle Oswin would have come himself if he could have fitted it in, but he couldn’t, and once he’s worked out a programme nothing will induce him to alter it by an hour—let alone a day. So he decided that you would have to get along without a personal pep-talk for another year or so.’
‘It’s a pity he couldn’t come,’ said Glenn Barton with a sigh. ‘We have a lot of problems to contend with that I don’t think your uncle fully understands. They lose a lot of force when they are reduced to official reports, but a few days on the ground would have brought them home to him. Perhaps you could persuade him to come over on his way back?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Amanda lightly. ‘He’ll be in Kenya now, and he flies to Tripoli for a few days this week-end, and goes back to London from there for a conference. I don’t believe he’d alter a schedule for the H Bomb. That is, not unless you could think up something that would really lure him; like flagrant immorality among the staff! Uncle Oswin is very hot on the Purity of Deringtons. It’s his hobby.’
Amanda laughed, but there was no answering smile on the faces of her two companions. It was, on the contrary, instantly and painfully obvious that she had made an exceedingly tactless remark, for once again there was a white line about Glenn Barton’s mouth while Miss Ford’s sallow face had flushed a dull and unbecoming shade of red.
There was a brief uncomfortable silence and then Miss Ford turned hurriedly to Mr Barton:
