They followed another path round a corner and she paused in the bushes a few yards from a flight of shallow steps that led up to a covered terrace. A french window stood open to the night, curtains lifting in the wind, light $pilling into the darkness.
Someone was playing the piano rather well, an old, pre-war Rodgers and Hart number, nostalgic and wistful, a hint of a summer that had gone and memories only now.
“Wait here!” Katina said.
She crossed the lawn, mounted the steps and went in through the french window. Lomax leaned against a tree, the sub-machine gun crooked in his arm, and waited.
The piano stopped. The silence which followed seemed to go on for ever and he could hear the waves breaking across the rocks on the beach below. Suddenly, the curtain was pulled back and Van Horn appeared.
He moved across the terrace, leaned over the balustrade and called softly, “Captain Lomax?”
Lomax stepped out of the bushes, Boyd at his heels, and crossed the lawn.
“My dear fellow, delighted to see you,” Van Horn said as calmly as if he were greeting an old friend arriving for dinner. “Let’s go inside.”
The room was large and comfortably furnished, its low roof crossed by great beams. A grand piano stood against one wall and a fire of logs burned on a wide stone hearth.
There was no sign of Katina, but at that moment the far door opened and she came in followed by an old woman with brown wrinkled face and sharp black eyes. She was drying her hands on the white apron she wore over her dress and looked at them curiously.
Van Horn crossed the room, the three of them held a hurried conversation in Greek and then he returned.
“I’ve asked Maria, my housekeeper, to fix you up with a room and a meal. We’ll have a chat when I get back.”
“You’re going Into town?” Lomax said.
Van Horn nodded. “I shouldn’t be long. The Germans took my car away long ago, of course, but I managed to get a couple of bicycles out of them for emergency calls.”
“Is there anyone else here?”
“Only Maria. She’s dumb, by the way, but she can understand everything you tell her.” He turned to Katina. “We’d better get moving, my dear.”
She was very pale and fatigue showed clearly on her face, but she looked up at Lomax and managed a wan smile. “I’ll probably see you in the morning.”
“Only when you’ve had at least twelve hours sleep,” he told her.
“Don’t worry, I’ll see that she does.” Van Horn slipped an arm about her shoulders and they left the room.
Later, after Maria had taken them upstairs and left them in the comfortable room with the twin beds at the end of the corridor, Lomax stood at the window looking out to sea and tiredness flooded through him.
Boyd had stripped to the waist and was washing his head and shoulders in cold water and Lomax followed suit. Afterwards, he felt better and they went downstairs and followed the aroma of coffee until they reached the ùkitchen where the old woman had prepared a meal of fried fish and eggs for them.
Later, they took their coffee and went back into the living room and sprawled in front of the fire smoking cigarettes.
“I think I can stand about as much of this as they’ve got to offer,” Boyd said. “Another cigarette and it’s me for bed. What about you?”
“I’ll wait for Van Horn to show up,” Lomax told him. “He’ll probably have a message from Alexias about tomorrow.”
Boyd got to his feet and moved across to the bookshelves that lined one side of the room. He examined one or two and chuckled. “All by the great man himself, bound in green leather and autographed in gold.”
“Bring one over for me,” Lomax said.
Boyd brought half a dozen and dropped them to the floor beside the chair. He was holding a slim pocket-book size volume in the same edition and there was an expression of real interest on his face.
“This one’s called The Survivor. Seems to be mostly poems about the war.”