My Brother Michael

by Mary Stewart

  He had recognised me, of course. I saw that as his slow stare raked me. He must have seen me distinctly last night in the light of the torch.

  He said: ‘So it’s my little friend of the studio, is it?’ He was speaking in the quick guttural French he had used with Danielle.

  I tried to say something, but no sound came. As I cleared my throat I saw the smile deepen. My voice came back. ‘I hope I hurt you,’ I said.

  ‘That score,’ said Angelos, very pleasantly, ‘will soon be quite even.’ My hands pressed hard on the warm stone. I said nothing. He said abruptly: ‘Where’s the Englishman?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He made a small movement towards me and I shrank back against the boulder. His expression didn’t change but his voice did. ‘Don’t be a fool. You didn’t come up here alone. Where is he?’

  I said hoarsely: ‘I – we were sitting up here on the cliff and we saw a man hanging about … that chap Dimitrios. He’s a guide … I don’t know if you know him. Simon … my friend … went off to speak to him. He – he thought it was him last night at the studio and I think – I think he wanted to find out what he’d been after.’

  It was so near the truth that I hoped he might be satisfied as far as Simon was concerned. But it wouldn’t help me. Nothing would.

  ‘And you’ve been up on the cliff all this time?’

  ‘I – why, no. I went over the hill a little way, and then I thought Simon might have come back, so I—’

  ‘And you haven’t been in the cave?’

  ‘Cave?’ I said.

  ‘That’s what I said. The cave.’

  The sun was cold. The rock was cold. I suppose even till this I had been hoping against silly hope, but now I knew for certain. Of course I was going to die. Whatever I had seen or not seen – the mule, the cave, the treasure, Nigel, Danielle – it wouldn’t help me in the least to play the innocent. None of these things mattered beside the one fact that now I had seen Angelos.

  He had taken two paces away to where his coat lay over a boulder. He slipped a hand in the pocket and brought out the torch. ‘You left this, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A gleam of surprise in the black eyes showed that he had expected me to deny it. I said flatly: ‘I dropped it when I saw Nigel’s body. And I was in the cave just now when you killed Danielle.’

  The metal of the torch flashed as he made a sudden little movement. At least I had startled him into interest. If I could keep him talking … if I could keep alive for just a few more minutes … perhaps the miracle would happen, and I wouldn’t die. Murderers were conceited, weren’t they? They talked about their murders? But then Angelos took murder so for granted that it had hardly seemed to interest him to commit, let alone to discuss … But he was a sadist, too; perhaps he would enjoy talking to frighten me before he killed me …

  I said hoarsely, gripping the stone: ‘Why did you torture Nigel? Did you really mean to kill Danielle?’

  It wasn’t going to work. He dropped the torch back on top of the coat, and gave a quick glance round the encircling cliffs. Then he put the gun down gently beside the torch, and turned to me.

  I did manage to move then, but the thrust of my hands that took me off the warm stone sent me a pace towards him. As I whirled to run he caught me from behind and pulled me back as easily as if I had been a rag doll, I suppose I fought him; I don’t remember anything except the blind panic and the feel of his hands and the acrid smell of his sweat, and the appalling iron strength that held me as effortlessly as a man’s hand holds a caught moth. One hand came hard over my mouth, crushing my lips against my teeth, but the palm was slimy with sweat; it slipped, and I wrenched my head away and managed at the same moment to kick him hard on the shin-bone. I paid dearly for the moment of advantage, for as I twisted my body in a vain attempt to break away, he half-lunged forward to drag me close again and silence me, trod on a loose stone that rolled under his foot, and we fell together.

  If I had fallen undermost I should probably have been badly hurt, if not stunned, for he was a heavy man; but he went down on to his side in a stumbling fall, dragging me with him. Even then the brutal grip never loosened, and as we hit the ground he moved like lightning, flinging himself over my body with a quick heave, and holding me down on the ground underneath him.

  Then his grip shifted. I was on my back, my left arm twisted up under me, so that our double weight held it there, almost breaking. My right wrist was in his grip, clamped down against the rock beside me. His free hand flashed up to my throat. The heavy body held me down; I couldn’t move, but frantic now with terror I screamed and twisted uselessly under him and jerked my head from side to side, trying to avoid the hand that slipped and groped on my throat for the hold he wanted. I screamed again. He cursed in Greek and hit me hard across the mouth and then as my head went back against the rock the hand gripped my throat at last, moved a little, tightened …

  I was still alive. It was years later and the boiling agonised black had cleared, and I was still alive. I was still lying on my back in the hot dust, and above me the sky arched in a great flashing, pulsating dome of blue. Angelos’ weight was still on me. I could feel the heave of his heavy breathing; the smell of his sweat was rank; his hand was wet and sour and foul across my mouth: the other hand was still on my throat, but it lay loosely there, and now it lifted.

  He didn’t move away. He lay there quite still, with rigid muscles, looking up and away from me towards the entrance to the corrie. Then his hand slid from my face and went down on to the dusty rock beside my head ready to thrust him to his feet. I remember that the hand was on my spread hair, and the tug as he put his weight on it hurt me. The tiny pain was like a spur. It pricked me back to consciousness. I stopped blinking up into the vibrating blue of the sky, and managed to move my head a fraction, to look where Angelos was looking.

  He was staring straight into the sun. At first I could see nothing in the dazzle at the mouth of the corrie. Then I saw him.

  I knew who it was straight away, though he was only a shadow against the glare. But even so I felt the sharp cold thrill run up the marrow of my spine as I felt Angelos’ heart jerk, once, in his body, and heard him say, thickly: ‘Michael?’

  19

  I am come,

  Fresh from the cleansing of Apollo …

  … To pay the bloody twain their debt

  Of blood.

  EURIPIDES: Electra.

  (tr. Gilbert Murray.)

  REALISATION, shock, recognition – it must only have taken a few seconds, but it seemed an age.

  One moment Simon was silhouetted in fractional pause against the glare of the gateway, the next Angelos had swung himself off my body and on to his feet as lightly as a dancer. He must have forgotten that his gun had been laid aside, for I remember that his hand flashed as if automatically to his hip just as Simon, coming down the ramp with the speed of a ski-jumper, brought up not five yards from him in a flurry of dust and shale.

  Angelos was standing right over me, hand still at hip, watching him.

  Simon had stopped dead where he was. I couldn’t see his expression, but I could see Angelos’, and fear seeped back into my blood as agonisingly as warmth after frostbite. I stirred in the dust and tried to say something, to tell Simon who and what he was, but my throat was swollen and sore, and the brilliant light swam round me sickeningly as I moved, and I couldn’t make a sound. Angelos must have felt me move at his feet, but he took no notice. Simon hadn’t glanced at me either. The two men watched one another, as wary and slow as two dogs circling before a fight.

  I waited for Simon to rush him as he had done last night. I didn’t notice then how hard he was breathing, fighting to get heart and lungs under control after his rush up the steep track towards my terrified screaming. Nor did I realise that he still thought the Greek might be armed … and I was lying where knife or gun could reach me, seconds before Simon could make contact … None of this was I in any state to realis
e. I only knew that Simon didn’t move, and I remember wondering, with a sick cold little feeling, if he was afraid. Then he took two paces forward, very slowly, and now that he was no longer between me and the sun, I saw his face. The cold feeling went, and I wasn’t afraid any more. With the fear the tenseness went out of my body, and I felt myself relax and begin to tremble. The bruises the Greek had inflicted began to hurt. I turned on my side and tried to pull myself a little further away from him. I couldn’t have got up, but I dragged myself a foot or so away to crouch, shaking and still gasping for breath, against the base of the boulder where I had sat before.

  He took no notice of me. He had dealt with me, and thrown me aside, and now he was going to deal with Simon. I could be finished after that.

  Simon said pleasantly: ‘I take it you are Angelos?’ His breathing was still over-fast, but his voice was level.

  ‘The same. And you are Michael’s little brother.’

  ‘The same.’

  The Greek said, on a note between satisfaction and contempt: ‘You are welcome.’

  Simon’s lips thinned. ‘I doubt that. I believe, Angelos, that you and I have met before.’

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘Yes.’ Simon looked at him for a few seconds in silence. His voice went flat and uninflected. Knowing him now, I felt my heart tighten and begin to race. He added: ‘I wish I had known – last night.’

  I turned my head painfully and managed to say: ‘He killed Nigel … and Danielle.’ It was some seconds before I realised that I had made no sound at all.

  ‘You murdered my brother Michael.’ Simon hadn’t even glanced at me. He was breathing evenly now, his face wiped clean of all expression but that light, watchful look. I recognised it for what it was. Just so must Michael have looked when he faced Angelos here all those years ago. Just so must this blazing sky have looked down, those indifferent rocks throwing back its blinding heat. Time had run back. Angelos faced Michael again, and this time the odds were on Michael.

  It seemed that Angelos didn’t think so. He laughed. ‘Yes, I killed Michael. And I shall kill you, little brother. In your country they do not teach men to be men. It is different here.’

  Simon was moving now, very slowly, forward a pace; another.

  ‘How did you kill my brother, Angelos?’

  ‘I broke his neck.’ I noticed with surprise that the Greek was giving ground. He had lowered his head in that characteristic way he had. I could see the contraction of the flat black eyes against the light. I saw him blink rapidly once or twice, and he moved his head as a bull does whose horns pain him. Then he took a slow step backwards, sidling a little …

  I thought for a moment that he was trying to get Simon out of line with him and the sun, and wondered fleetingly at the same time why he should have let the other play for time like this, when suddenly, like a flash out of a black night, I knew what he was doing, I remembered the gun, lying hidden from Simon in the tumble of Angelos’ dropped coat.

  Somehow I moved. It was like lifting a mattress stuffed with clay to lift my body from the scuffled dust but I rolled over, kicked myself along the ground with one convulsive jack-knifing motion, like a fish, and grabbed at the dangling sleeve of the coat just as Angelos took a sudden, swift step aside, and stooped for the gun.

  I had the sleeve. I yanked at it with all my strength. It caught at a bit of the rock, tore, and came with a jerk. The torch flashed over like a rocket and crashed on a stone by my head. The gun flew high and wide, hit a pile of stones three yards away, and slithered out of sight. It actually struck the Greek’s hand as he reached to grab it. He whirled with a curse and kicked me and then went down sickeningly across the boulder as Simon hit him like a steam-hammer.

  Simon came in with the blow. The Greek’s forearm, even as he went down over the rock, just managed to block the side-handed chop at the throat that followed it, and counter in the same movement with a wicked elbow-punch that took Simon in the lower part of the stomach. I saw pain explode through him like a bursting shell, and as he recoiled the Greek, using the rock as a springboard, came away from it in a lunge with all his weight behind it. Simon’s mouth disappeared in a smear of blood. His head snapped back in front of another blow that looked as if it had broken his neck, and he went down, but as he went he hooked one leg round Angelos’ knee and, using the man’s own momentum, brought him crashing down over him. Before the Greek hit the ground Simon had rolled aside and was above him. I saw the Greek lash out with a foot, miss, and aim a short chopping blow with the edge of a hand at Simon’s neck; Simon hit him in the throat and then the two were locked, heaving and rolling in the dust that mushroomed up round them.

  I couldn’t see … couldn’t make out … Angelos was on his back, and Simon seemed to be across him, trying to fix the man’s arm in a lock, to drag it under him as Angelos had dragged mine; the Greek smashed again and again at his face; the shortened punches hadn’t much force behind them but the blood was running from Simon’s mouth. Then suddenly the flailing fist opened, clawed, came down on to Simon’s cheekbone and slithered across it, the big spatulate thumb digging, digging, for his eye …

  I had dragged myself to my feet holding on to the boulder beside me. He couldn’t do it after all; he couldn’t be expected to do it … he was younger, and he knew how to fight, but Angelos had the weight, and all those desperate years behind him … If I could help … if I could only help …

  I stooped giddily, and reached for a lump of rough rock, lifting it in hands that shook like leaves. I could hit him as I had last night … if I could have found a weapon – perhaps the torch—

  The gun.

  I dropped the knob of rock and flung myself, with sobbing little breaths, at the pile of stones where the gun had gone. Here, surely, it had struck and slid out of sight? No sign. Then here? No. Here … oh, dear God, here…

  There, white on the limestone, a scratch had marked its passage … I drove a shaking hand down between the jammed rocks. They scraped the skin and it hurt me but I hardly noticed. I thrust my arm down as far as I could. My fingers, stretching, touched something cold and smooth … metal. I couldn’t reach it; the tips of my fingers slipped over it, no more. I could feel my lips trembling as the tears spilt salt on to them. I lay down hard against the stones and thrust my arm further into the narrowing crack. The cruel stone rasped at the skin and I felt blood running down my wrist. My fingers slid further, curled, gripped. I had the gun. I tried to withdraw it. But with my hand now curved round the butt I couldn’t pull it back between the stones. I dragged at it, hopelessly, stupidly, and my hand hurt till I cried out with the pain, but I couldn’t drag the gun out …

  Simon had twisted back from the gouging thumb. The Greek lunged violently to one side as the other’s hold slackened, and then somehow, was free. With a movement incredibly quick for a man of his build he had rolled aside and was bunching to jump to his feet. As he went I saw his hand close, like mine, on a cruelly jagged chunk of rock. But Simon was as quick. The same movement that threw him back and away from the clawing hand had brought him to his feet. He saw the Greek clutch the rock. Even as the fist closed on it and the arm-muscles tightened Simon jumped. His foot stamped down on the man’s hand. The rock was undermost, and I heard the man make a dreadful sound as his hand was smashed down on to it. But he whipped over and brought his foot up with what looked like appalling force into Simon’s groin. Simon saw it coming, and tried to sidestep. The foot grazed the inside of his thigh. Simon’s hand came up under the lashing ankle: I saw a heave and a twist, and the Greek crashed back on to his side like a felled ox, and Simon plummeted down on to him again in the smother of dust. Another blow, a sick sound of flesh and bone smacking together, and then Angelos was uppermost, his fist smashing down like a hammer …

  I opened my hand and let the gun go. I dropped to the base of the pile of stones, and began to claw at them with those useless, shaking fingers, trying to pull the heavy stuff aside. From behind me came the thud and
slither of their bodies on the ground, the torn dreadful breathing, and, again, the sudden sharp sound of pain. I thought it came from Simon.

  The stone under my hands gave way and I threw it down and tore at the next. And the next. And then a pile of dry earth and small jagged pebbles.

  Then I saw the blue-dark gleam of the gun.

  I thrust the last lump of rock aside and pushed my hand through. The muzzle was towards me. I grabbed it and dragged the thing out. I didn’t even think once of the danger of holding it like that. I just dragged it out between the rough stones and turned, holding it in my aspen hands. I remember thinking with surprise how heavy it was …

  I’d never touched a gun before in my life. But of course it was quite easy. You simply pointed it and pressed the trigger; I knew that. Provided I got close enough … and if the men would only break apart for a moment and let me see through that stifling dust … One simply pointed the thing and pulled the trigger, and Angelos would be dead, blasted out of life in a fraction of time. It didn’t occur to me that this was in any way a wrong or a momentous thing to do. I took a couple of faltering steps in the direction of the struggling bodies on the ground …

  It was funny, but it was difficult to walk. The ground was unsteady and the dust dragged at my feet and the gun was too heavy and the sky was far too bright but still I couldn’t see properly …

  The locked bodies on the ground moved as the man underneath made a seemingly titanic effort. Both men were covered with dust; I couldn’t see who it was lying prone with one arm twisted into that cruel lock behind his back … or who it was who lay astride him, shifting his grip now, straining in some final agonising effort. If only they would break apart … if only I could see which was Angelos …

  The man uppermost lay clamped over the other, one hand hard round the wrist of the locked arm, his own free arm flung round the prone man’s neck in a tight embrace. As I watched, the embrace tightened still further …