An Inch of Time

by Peter Helton

  ‘Are your students likely to come in at any moment?’

  Morva checked her watch. ‘Not for half an hour or so.’

  It seemed somehow proper to make my report to Louise, perhaps to convince her that I wasn’t completely useless. ‘Kyla is alive and she’s on the island.’

  ‘Where? At the co-op?’

  ‘Quite likely. Remember the quad biker driving out to the shed?’ I asked Annis.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘I think that’s where they keep her. To stop her from exposing the fact that the place exports fake olive oil.’

  ‘And the supermarket is selling it? Last year half their organic vegetables were found to have pesticides on them. No wonder they don’t want this to come out. Kyla must have got wind of it somehow.’

  ‘So why don’t we just call the police right now?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Because we’re pretty certain they’re in on it.’

  Louise was getting agitated. ‘I can’t believe we’re sitting round here discussing it. Let’s go there and get her out. Now!’

  ‘There’s Vampire Boy,’ Annis warned.

  ‘Who’s Vampire Boy?’

  ‘They’ve got someone guarding the place with a shotgun. He was wearing some vampire tee shirt when we saw him,’ I explained.

  ‘What kind of tee shirt?’

  ‘It had some sort of joke . . .’

  Annis helped me out. ‘It said “Have a Stake in the Future, Become a Vampire”.’

  ‘What? That’s my tee shirt. I mean, it’s Kyla’s. I had it printed for her because of the teen vampire stuff she likes to watch. I invented that slogan; you can’t buy them. She’s definitely there. We must get her out.’ Louise shot up from her seat.

  I pulled her down again. ‘We will.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘As soon as it’s dark.’

  ‘And the vampire shotgun?’ Annis asked, not unreasonably.

  I had no plan at all but Morva came to my rescue. ‘We’ll all go. Not the students, I mean, but us lot here. They’re not mad; they can’t kidnap or shoot all of us.’

  ‘Oh, quite,’ Annis agreed. ‘Not all of us. Remind me, Chris: was it a double-barrelled shotgun?’

  I ignored her. ‘Tim, you can get us in through the gate, surely?’

  ‘No probs.’

  ‘There you are,’ I said to Louise. ‘We’ll set off as soon as it gets dark.’

  Sophie’s eyes shone. ‘I’m gonna come, too. The more the better. Surely.’

  We had managed to persuade the students to go for a meal in Corfu Town, but Sophie had changed her mind at the last minute and stayed behind.

  ‘You shouldn’t have told her,’ I said to Charlie, who was unsuccessfully trying to get Sophie to relinquish her wine bottle.

  ‘Let her come with us.’

  ‘She’s pissed.’

  ‘She’ll be fine. I’ll look after her,’ he promised.

  ‘On your head be it.’

  At dusk, we set off in the two cars, with Charlie and Sophie, who was still stubbornly clutching her bottle, in the back of my rented wreck. As agreed, we drove in convoy through the village, waved at anyone who was looking as though we were off on an adventure.

  Which we were. At the turn-off to the olive grove, I slowed. No one appeared to be around and I gave the OK signal to turn on to the narrow track. After a hundred yards and out of sight of the road, we turned off the track and cut the engines.

  It was darker here than I had anticipated, but this was my third visit and I remembered it well enough to lead the troops, all but Sophie, who had passed out in the back of the car, clutching her bottle. We decided it was safer to leave her there, and after a short march and stumble we reached the front gate.

  We stood back in the darkness, breathing in the faint scent of charcoal burning, while Tim magicked the lock open. It took him all of one minute to defeat it. We left the gate ajar for a swifter exit and moved quietly along the lane. I took point with Annis behind me, while Charlie brought up the rear.

  We had had a short argument about whether or not we should arm ourselves, and he was still unhappy that he had not been allowed to bring clubs, knives, billhooks and pitchforks on the raid. He remained unconvinced by my argument that if you went equipped for an uprising, then that’s what you were likely to get. Now, as we padded softly down the track towards an electric nimbus of light, I was ready to admit that some sort of weapon would have given me a little more confidence than I was feeling.

  The yard was lit by its three feeble lamps. Where I had last seen Vampire Boy and a pile of empty barrels stood the BMW, the quad bike and trailer and Margarita’s battered moped. The lights were on in the Portakabin office and the barbecue was sending up thin wisps of smoke. As arranged, we stuck together – based on Morva’s assumption that they wouldn’t shoot a whole crowd of people – and stuck to the paths, thinking that it would be a lot quieter than six people stumbling in the dark through the undergrowth. This meant cutting across the right-hand corner of the yard, within sight of the Portakabin window, behind which I could see shadows move.

  Never had three light bulbs appeared so bright. I halted my squad at the edge of the light and murmured to Annis, ‘Keep low and slow, past the quad bike and down the path on the right. Pass the word.’ I waited until the Chinese whispers had died down, then set off on a ridiculous duck walk across the yard. To my ears, we sounded less like ducks, more like a trampling line of rhino. At every step I expected an eruption of shouts or shots, and when we had all made it on to the path and out of the immediate pool of light, I could hardly believe it. We straightened up gratefully in the relative safety of the trees among which the path disappeared into the dark.

  ‘I can’t see it, but the hut is somewhere back there.’

  ‘What if she’s not in there?’ asked Tim, not unreasonably.

  Standing in the dark, I conjured up the image of the quad bike rumbling past towards the hut that evening. Crockery is what I heard clink on the trailer. Quadman was taking food to the hut. ‘She’s there.’

  ‘Then let’s go,’ Louise hissed.

  The path curved gently as the darkness under the trees closed in around us. Not daring to use even the tiny torch I had brought, I was reduced to walking at a snail’s pace with both arms outstretched, the blind leading the blind. Of course, it could be anyone inside that hut, I realized now – a sick person perhaps, an elderly relative who needed looking after, a wounded man with a gun under his pillow . . . I had trouble keeping the worst case scenarios from popping into my mind.

  ‘There.’ Visible at first only as a dark outline, the stone hut took reluctant shape.

  Tim appeared by my side. ‘What kind of lock does the door have?’ he murmured.

  ‘No idea; never been here. You go look.’

  ‘Oh, ta.’

  ‘All right, I’ll come with you.’

  As we got within eight or ten feet of the front, we could hear small noises, occasional muffled thumps. And perhaps a voice. Tim had heard it too and laid a hand on my arm. The noises continued. Together, we approached another couple of feet on tiptoe, then stopped when we heard what was clearly a human voice, talking in a quiet, desultory way on the other side of the door in between the other muffled sounds. I held my breath as Tim and I closed the final distance between us and the door.

  There were two voices. One male, one female. It was impossible to make out what they were saying. I pulled Tim back from the door to where the others were waiting. I found Louise in the darkness. ‘Go and listen at the door. See if you recognize her voice.’

  Without a word, Louise slipped away to the front of the hut. After only a few seconds of listening, Louise tapped on the door. ‘Kyl, it’s me, it’s me; we’re getting you out.’

  Tim was there in an instant and I followed behind. Everyone seemed to be talking at once: the voices behind the door, Tim complaining that the lock was too stiff, Louise chattering soothingly that we’d have her out in no time at a
ll – and me telling them all to shut up. And then Tim finally got the door open with a squawk of the hinges that sounded to my ears like a scream. A man and a woman tumbled out, the woman flying straight into Louise’s arms. One – perhaps both of them – crying now. We were out of sight of the yard, and there were so many of us now it felt quite safe to turn on my torch. I shone it into the face of the man. It was Kladders, the man from the boat. His face was bruised and there was dried blood around his mouth.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I whispered, not ready to trust anyone quite yet.

  ‘I’m a journalist. Undercover. Well, I was until they found my mobile. I’d dropped it in the shed.’

  At last I had a look at Kyla. Life in the hut had not been good for her: her skin was pale and her hair wild. But she looked very alive and happy to be standing under the stars. Gloves introduced us. ‘You’ve no idea how glad I am you found us,’ Kyla said.

  ‘Team effort. How long have you been stuck in there?’

  ‘Weeks. Dimitris and his friends were supposed to get rid of me but couldn’t bring themselves to do it. They told their mafia chums I was dead and buried in the groves somewhere. How long they thought I could survive in that hut I have no idea. I think I was meant to grow old in there.’

  ‘Is this what you came here for? The olive oil scam?’

  ‘Yes. I had seen some suspicious emails as far back as two years ago but had been told not to worry about it.’

  ‘But you did.’

  ‘They were going to ignore it all. They knew they were selling bog-standard olive oil as their flagship organic oil. But they had just spent nearly a million on an advertising campaign with the nation’s favourite fat chef endorsing the stuff. Last year half of their organic veg was found to have pesticides on them, and not long before that lots of their so called “freedom food” was proven to come from intensive farms. They couldn’t afford another scandal or middle-class shoppers would have walked out on them. Ask Kladders here; he was investigating the lot of them.’

  ‘Yes. Shame we could not have met earlier. Much as I have enjoyed your company these past few days. I think Morton hired Mr Honeysett here to find out whether you were safely out of the way or could suddenly reappear to become a huge embarrassment.’

  ‘I’m going to take great pleasure in becoming embarrassing,’ Kyla said. ‘I’ll also sue the pants off him and the company.’

  ‘I’ll be glad to help,’ promised Kladders. ‘But right now we should really get out of here. These guys are jittery as hell since Mr Honeysett’s last visit and we’re all making too much noise.’

  He was right. We’d been standing and chatting as though it was all over. I shushed everyone and took the lead again. Our easy success seemed to have lightened everyone’s spirit just a little too much: our footsteps were heavier, our breathing louder and, behind me, everyone still whispered and murmured.

  Kladders walked beside me. ‘If it wasn’t so dark, I’d say we’d strike across through the trees, but it would make even more noise. We’ve really got to get out of here quickly. Their lords and masters are due any minute and they’re not from peasant stock, I can tell you. We were trying to dig our way out of the hut with a soup spoon when you came.’

  We had reached the edge of the yard. ‘Have you got cars nearby?’ Kladders murmured.

  ‘Just outside the gate. We left the gate open.’

  ‘Then I suggest we run for it.’

  But it was too late. The headlights of the BMW flared up and two men stepped into our path. One of them was Vampire Boy. He levelled his shotgun at us and swept it from side to side, keeping everyone covered. The man next to him was the friendly cafe owner, Dimitris. He held a baseball bat and didn’t look so friendly now. Vampire Boy started shouting. ‘One person move, I shoot everybody! No you move!’

  The third man from the car joined the line-up. He was carrying no weapon but moved nervously, and looked light on his feet like a boxer. Behind them all, at the window of the Portakabin, the unmistakable shape of Margarita. Morva bravely stepped forward and instantly the shotgun was levelled at her. She started a fierce exchange in Greek with Dimitris. He didn’t meet her gaze but kept a close eye on the males in the company, whom he perceived as the greater threat.

  He was wrong, of course. Behind enemy lines, into the pool of light, slanted the less than steady figure of Sophie. Every few steps she stopped to fortify herself with a swig from her bottle before advancing further. Morva turned up the volume to keep the Greeks focused on her. At the window, Margarita, despite having a grandstand view, stood unmoving as Sophie staggered up to our adversaries. Having first satisfied herself that the bottle was really empty, Sophie changed her grip on it, swung it high and hit Vampire Boy over the head. The bottle didn’t break. The man staggered and the gun slid from his hand. Sophie swung again, overbalanced and stumbled back. Dimitris reached for the shotgun, but Morva jumped on him like a wildcat before he could get his hands on it. Now Margarita came flying out of the Portakabin and for a few seconds the fight turned into a free-for-all until three cars, headlights blazing, came down the track, fanned out and began shedding men, some in police uniform, some in mufti. They descended on us in a frenetic rush, not bothering to establish who was who, everyone shouting in Greek or English.

  Behind them, at a leisurely pace, strode up Superintendent Michael Needham with the officer from Athens. ‘That’s right – we’ll sort the wheat from the chaff later; for the moment, arrest all of them.’ Needham pointed a chubby finger at me. ‘But especially that one.’

  EPILOGUE

  The body of Petros Grapsas, the tax inspector the police had been looking for, was only later ‘rediscovered’ during restoration work at the farmhouse, since we all thought there was already enough to explain and the air conditioning at police headquarters had been turned off to save money. Needham and his incorruptible counterpart from Athens had been investigating all around us right from the start, which explained why, in Corfu, even the tails had tails.

  No one congratulated us on freeing Kyla and Kladders. Apparently, the Greek police really do not like foreign PIs working in their country without a licence. After interminable questioning, they booked me a seat on the next plane back to Blighty. I explained to them that I never flew. They were very understanding and gave me a window seat.

  Helen and Rob mysteriously vanished. They and their luggage disappeared while everyone was busy being grilled by the police.

  Sophie, who had drunkenly saved the day, sobered up and went back to Lincoln to look after the living and bring up her daughter. But she kept on the flat with sea view, north of Corfu Town.

  Tim and Annis, who could both produce return tickets, were allowed to stay for another week of sunbathing and kebab snaffling. Derringer, a real villain without a passport, took to the hills behind Ano Makriá until everyone had gone, then returned to Morva’s place where he’s being spoiled rotten by her new batch of painting students. Because Morva did stay on, running her freshly registered painting school and feeling much safer now with Charlie there to lend a hand. Apart from being a good life model, he turned out to be an excellent cook, which none of us had realized before, since, as he rightly pointed out, no one had ever asked.

  It was later in the same year that I received a large envelope with unintelligible French postmark and no return address. Inside was a small watercolour sketch of an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century French farmhouse, seen against a backdrop of olive trees. In the foreground, near an empty easel, stood two deckchairs. On one of them lay a paint-spattered straw hat.

 

 

 
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