Aphrodite's Smile

by Stuart Harrison

‘And?’

  ‘There was a boy tending goats on the hillside. He saw a woman wearing a red shirt on the cliff, and there was a man with her. He thought that they were arguing.’

  I was completely taken aback by this news.

  ‘Did you see anybody else yesterday, Mr French?’

  ‘Nobody. Except the priest.’

  ‘Ah yes, the priest. You said that you went to his house to use the telephone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The priest said that he had seen you before that.’

  ‘That’s right. I asked him if he’d seen Alex. He warned me about the path being dangerous.’

  ‘Then it was after speaking to the priest that you went along the cliff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are certain of this? Perhaps you spoke to him as you were returning?’

  ‘No. I told you, he warned me to watch my step.’ Exasperated I said testily, ‘I don’t see what difference it makes anyway.’ Theonas made a vague gesture, but then I saw what he was getting at. ‘This man the boy saw. You think it was me, is that it?’

  ‘Was it you, Mr French?’

  I shook my head incredulously as it dawned on me that Theonas suspected that Alex had not jumped or fallen from the cliff, but that somebody had pushed her. The somebody in question being me.

  I was taken into the police station through the rear entrance after our small procession came to a halt in a dirt yard at the back of the building. The single officer left in charge was sitting with his feet on the desk smoking a cigarette while he watched a soap opera on a television in the corner. He looked over his shoulder and spoke to one of the returning officers.

  ‘Yassou,’ he called out. ‘Ti nea?’

  ‘Tipote,’ the officer replied. Nothing. Then he made some other comment and jerked his head towards me.

  The man glanced curiously at me and went back to his soap opera. Theonas frowned and angrily slapped the man’s boots from the desk, barking something which made him sit up and hastily turn off the television.

  I was taken to a small room containing a scratched table and a couple of chairs. ‘Please,’ Theonas gestured that I should take a seat.

  Irene had insisted on coming with us, even though Theonas had tried to persuade her to allow him to drop her at the house, assuring her that he merely needed to ask me some questions. When she started to follow me into the room, Theonas stopped her, his tone uncomfortably apologetic. She was surprised and irritated and a brief conversation followed which to me was completely unintelligible. Finally Irene conceded, though she wasn’t happy about it.

  ‘Apparently I am not allowed to stay. It is ridiculous of course.’ She made a vague gesture of impatience. ‘I am sure everything will be all right but I will telephone a lawyer in Kephalonia. He is English. Your father knew him.’

  ‘A lawyer?’ My sense of unreality had deepened during the drive to Vathy, but the idea that I might need a lawyer brought my situation into sharp focus.

  ‘As a precaution, that is all,’ Irene assured me, though I detected a shimmer of uncertainty in her manner.

  When Irene had gone Theonas sat down. ‘There are some questions I would like to ask you, Mr French. Do you mind answering them?’ His manner had changed. He was relaxed, almost friendly. ‘It will take some time for the lawyer Irene mentioned to arrive. Of course you would be within your rights to wait until he does.’ He took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one, offering the pack to me though I waved it away. ‘Perhaps by then we can clear this up.’

  ‘That depends what “this” is exactly doesn’t it?’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘For now, I would like to understand more about your relationship with Alex. You met when exactly?’

  ‘Last week.’

  ‘Can you be more specific?’

  ‘The day I arrived on the island. The day my father was found.’

  ‘And how did you meet?’

  ‘We shared a table at a café in the square,’ I said. ‘She didn’t stay long.’

  ‘Did you speak to her?’

  ‘Not then. Later.’

  ‘The same evening?’

  ‘Yes. I went for a walk. When I got to the end of the wharf I saw her again.’ I hesitated, uncertain how to describe what had happened next. It wouldn’t be exactly true to say she had jumped, but neither was it accurate to say she had fallen. Instead I told him I had heard a splash. ‘It was dark. One second she was there, then I glimpsed a movement and she was gone.’

  ‘You are saying Alex attempted to kill herself on the night you met?’ Theonas’s tone mixed astonishment with a note of scepticism.

  ‘I’m not sure what she intended.’

  He let the question go for the moment. ‘What did you do after you witnessed this?’

  ‘I ran over to where I’d seen her. She was floating face-down. I jumped in and turned her over and got her to the shore.’ I could see that Theonas didn’t believe a word I was telling him.

  ‘Go on, Mr French,’ he said when I paused.

  I explained how I’d borrowed a bedspread from a cottage to keep her warm before I took her back to where she was staying. ‘Eventually I got her into bed and she fell asleep. I stayed with her until some time in the morning.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I left her. I thought she would probably sleep for most of the day. I wrote a note in case she woke up.’

  Theonas lit another cigarette. ‘Tell me, did you call for a doctor at any time during all of this?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I see. Did you perhaps inform anyone of what had happened? Perhaps the owner of the house where she was staying?’

  ‘It was the middle of the night.’

  ‘So you left her sleeping. You were not concerned that perhaps she might wake up?’

  ‘Look, I know what you’re suggesting,’ I said irritably, ‘but she didn’t seem to be suicidal. She told me she’d taken some sleeping pills and then had a few drinks on top of them. I didn’t really think she knew what she was doing when she jumped or fell or whatever she did. She didn’t strike me as the sort of person who would seriously try to kill herself.’

  ‘I see. And after you left her that night, when did you next see her?’

  ‘The following day. I went to where she was staying, but she wasn’t there. She’d left a note to say she was all right and that she would be back later. I decided to go to Polis Bay for a swim and by chance I met her on the road. Her scooter had broken down. I gave her a lift to Exoghi because she wanted to see the house where her grandmother was born.’

  ‘And how did she seem to you that day?’

  ‘Fine. Embarrassed actually. I mean it was obvious that she was unhappy about something, but she certainly wasn’t suicidal.’

  ‘And after that you saw her again the following day I believe? You took her sailing on your father’s boat?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then at the weekend you both visited the house of Alkimos Kounidis in Kioni, am I correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You came to know each other quite well.’

  ‘Quite well.’

  ‘What was the nature of your relationship with Alex, exactly, Mr French?’

  ‘We were friends.’

  ‘That is all? I was led to believe that your relationship was perhaps more intimate than that.’

  By whom I wondered? ‘You want to know if we slept together, is that it?’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You were aware that Alex was involved in a relationship with Dimitri Ramanda?’

  ‘Yes, I know all about that. But it was over when I met her. That was why she took the sleeping pills the night I met her.’

  ‘She told you that?’

  I tried to remember if that was what Alex had actually said. ‘If not, she implied it.’

  ‘On Sunday, when you returned from spending the weekend with Alkimos Kounidis, you left Alex at the house where she had rented a room?’
/>
  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And in the morning you returned, I believe. The woman who owns the house remembers you very well.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Alex was not there?’

  ‘As you say, she was not there.’

  ‘Did you see her that day, Mr French?’

  I hesitated, wondering whether he knew that I had met her in the street. I guessed that he did and I could only imagine that Alex must have told Dimitri what had happened. ‘Yes, I ran into her as I was leaving, actually,’ I admitted.

  ‘Did you speak to her?’

  ‘Why don’t we just get to the point?’ I said impatiently.

  ‘Very well. Did Alex tell you that she had spent the night at the house of Dimitri Ramanda?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That must have come as a surprise to you.’

  ‘Must it?’

  ‘Something of a shock, in fact. You had spent the weekend together. Perhaps you had developed certain feelings. Tell me how you felt when you discovered that she had spent the night with Dimitri.’

  I tried to keep my expression neutral. ‘As you guessed, I was surprised.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Unpleasantly so, I imagine.’

  I made no response.

  ‘That night you went to Dimitri’s house, I understand.’

  ‘Yes, and I’m sure you know what happened.’

  ‘But I would like to hear it from you. Why did you go there?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to Alex. She and Dimitri were on the terrace. I overheard them talking and I got the impression that things weren’t entirely settled between them.’

  ‘Settled?’

  ‘I don’t think Alex knew what she wanted.’

  ‘I see. And then what happened?’

  ‘She saw me. I said I wanted to talk to her and she came down to the street.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Dimitri followed her. There was a scuffle. A fight I suppose, between Dimitri and me.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then nothing. Alex had gone. I went back to Irene’s house and went to bed.’

  ‘You did not see Alex again that night?’

  ‘No. Not until yesterday. I’d been to book a flight home. I drove to where she was staying and saw her leave on a scooter.’

  ‘Ah yes. The ticket you bought yesterday morning. You were planning to leave Ithaca, were you not, Mr French?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You had decided that there was no future for you with Alex perhaps.’

  ‘Is that a question?’

  He made a gesture, as if to suggest that what I said didn’t matter. ‘But when you saw her, what did you do?’

  ‘I followed her.’

  ‘To Exoghi?’

  ‘Yes, and when I got there I couldn’t find her. Look, I know where all this is going. You think I saw her on the cliff and we had some kind of argument, is that it?’

  ‘Is that what happened?’

  ‘No. I told you, I never spoke to her.’

  ‘But you were angry. Of course this is understandable. Alex led you to believe that her relationship with Dimitri was over, and then you discover that she spent the night with him after being with you only a few hours before. Any man would be angry. It is only natural.’

  I would have laughed at his patently obvious ploy of empathy if I hadn’t known that his efforts to trap me into implicating myself were completely in earnest.

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t me on that cliff with Alex. Maybe the boy made a mistake.’

  ‘You believe that perhaps she went there with the intention of harming herself?’ he asked sceptically.

  ‘I don’t know what I believe. The last time I saw her she was upset. It’s possible.’

  Theonas stared at me. ‘It is a pity that you are the only person who was aware that Alex had attempted to harm herself before. I take it you did not mention this to anyone?’

  ‘No,’ I said wearily.

  ‘Then in fact I have only your word that this incident took place at all.’

  I got up and went to stand by the window with my back to him. ‘I think I should wait for the lawyer to arrive before I say anything else.’

  For some time I could feel him observing me, and then at last I heard the scrape of a chair followed by the sound of the door, and I was left in the company of a young female officer. She stood by the door, and when I smiled at her she merely stared back expressionlessly. I eyed the large automatic pistol holstered on her hip and settled back to think.

  EIGHTEEN

  The uncommunicative female officer who’d been left to guard me was later replaced by one of her male colleagues, a swarthy mono-browed individual who sat by the door with his legs stretched out in front and passed the time idly picking his teeth and looking bored. Occasionally I wandered too close to him as I paced the room, and when I did he waved me away with one hand while the other rested menacingly close to his gun.

  For the most part, however, I spent the time standing at the window with my back to the room. I contemplated the events of the past week, during which my life had been turned upside down and shaken like an old drawer. Gradually my mind began to work again and, as I thawed from the sense of shock into which I had sunk, I began to wonder about the man who was supposedly seen arguing with Alex. For the first time it occurred to me that she might not have deliberately jumped from the cliff. It was then that I remembered the car which had almost run me off the road on the way to Exoghi.

  I didn’t hear the door open, nor anybody enter the room, but a voice from behind broke into my troubled thoughts.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr French.’

  I turned to find a man perhaps in his forties regarding me with a pleasant smile. With one hand he clutched a battered leather briefcase, while the other was extended towards me. ‘My name is Williams. Shall we sit down? I’m afraid the heat still rather gets to me you know. Can’t get used to it.’

  We shook hands and then he produced a handkerchief and mopped his flushed brow. His Home Counties accent was incongruous in our current surroundings. He was wearing a crumpled pale linen suit and beneath it a white shirt which hung limply on his fleshy frame, striped by a pair of bright red braces which ballooned outwards to accommodate his ample stomach.

  ‘Now, first things first,’ he said briskly as he dug in a pocket of his jacket. ‘Yes, here we are. Let me give you my card.’

  The card introduced him as Peter Williams from the law firm Zikas and Williams. There was an address in Argostoli. He had thinning sandy-coloured hair and glasses from behind which he examined me with a sharply observant gaze that was at odds with his slightly down-at-heel appearance.

  ‘Irene telephoned as you know. I came as soon as I could. I expect she mentioned that our firm handled your father’s affairs. By the way, may I offer my condolences? Terrible thing. Always thought he was a thoroughly decent chap, your father.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Actually, I was a student at Oxford when he was teaching there. Never met of course. Different fields.’ He smiled benignly, and folded his hands on the table. ‘You’re in business yourself I believe?’

  ‘Yes. I run a property company in London.’

  ‘Not an academic man then, eh? Don’t blame you. That’s the thing isn’t it, these days? Bricks and mortar. I imagine you do very well.’

  As he spoke, Williams rummaged in his briefcase and found a pad. The first few pages were covered with notes written in a small, untidy hand. He flicked over to a blank page and then unscrewed the cap from a silver fountain pen and held it poised. ‘Now, shall we get down to business? I know all about your young lady-friend. Alex isn’t it? Naturally I’ve spoken to Captain Theonas. Between him and Irene I think I’ve got the gist of things.’

  ‘Theonas seems to think that I killed her.’

  ‘Yes, well, he’s not exactly saying as much actually. Not in so many words. He leans more towards the theory of a lovers’ tiff I
think. Perhaps things got out of hand. A tussle perhaps. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I understand that you witnessed an incident involving Alex on the night when you first met? She threw herself into the harbour I believe.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say she threw herself.’

  ‘But you did rescue her?’

  ‘I think “rescue” is a bit dramatic. I pulled her out of the water and got her back to where she was staying. Not that it matters. Theonas doesn’t believe it even happened and I can’t prove that it did.’

  ‘Yes, actually while we’re on that subject, it’s probably best if you don’t have any more little chats with the good captain unless I’m present. Can’t be too careful, you know. Words get twisted and so on.’ Williams consulted his pad. ‘However, it seems that there is some corroboratory evidence to support your account. A woman who lives in a cottage on the waterfront said that a bedspread she left out to dry unaccountably became damp with seawater. Also she found some money which was left by her doorstep. It would be helpful if we could also find the pills you mentioned, but apparently there’s no trace of them in Alex’s room.’

  ‘She told me she got rid of them,’ I said, surprised that Theonas had even bothered to check my story.

  ‘That’s a pity. But anyway, the bedspread helps to establish the possibility that Alex was prone to act rashly when in an emotional state. Who is to say that she did not acquire some more sleeping pills? She had reason to be upset yesterday, I gather?’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t believe she was ever suicidal.’

  Williams was surprised. ‘Really?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t think she drove up to Exoghi to throw herself from the cliff. Theonas said a boy saw her with another man.’

  ‘Yes. Naturally I enquired as to whether it had been established where this fellow Dimitri was at the time. It seems, however, that he was in Vathy for the entire day. There are witnesses.’

  ‘Then it must have been somebody else. On my way up there I passed a car on the way down. The driver was going too fast. It almost ran me off the road.’

  Williams blinked. ‘Did you mention this to our friend Captain Theonas?’

  ‘I forgot all about it. With everything else that’s been happening it slipped my mind. But there was something else. I didn’t get a good look at the car, but I know it was dark coloured. It might have been blue. Possibly a Fiat.’