Ivoria by Tanith Lee (uplifting novels .txt) 📕

“You too,” She says.

It is a sort of curse.

He knows this.

All the while he walks down the hill, and cuts aside through the olive trees to reach the outer gateway of the house, he feels - not her look - but her curse on his spine. There will be time, he thinks, to catch the bus back to the other village on the other shore.

That evening, Crang calls Qirri’s mobile. He is in another country, but expense is no problem.

“You might be pleased to hear,” says Crang, “there’s a chance we can get that holiday up for you next month.”

Qirri holds her breath. Then lets it go. “Yes…”

“Fine. I’ll be in touch then.” His accent is slight, she has never placed it.

“Just - is he…?”

“Our old dog’s doing very well. You’ll be thrilled to bits, Kit, when you see how healthy he is.”

She cannot speak. Crang pauses, used, no doubt, to interpreting such choked intervals. “OK then, babes. Talk to you later.”

“Thank you,” she humbly says, remembering her manners, and that it is always sensible to behave properly, even in extremis, with the powerful and the lawless.

Pera, going by through the red-tiled hall a moment later, says to Qirri in equivalent Greek, “You look like you saw a ghost.”

“Oh, no,” says Qirri. “Quite the opposite.” And then, again to be careful, she adds, “A girl I used to know in England. Haven’t seen her for a year.”

The girl, of course, (she is to have the name of Abbi) is going to invite Qirri over to one of the other islands. Qirri will explain to Joss how much she wants to go. He will agree - Qirri is more a clever, exhibitable pet, than indispensible. But certainly he is fond of her. She is, after all, the only one of Claudia’s children who has ever been nice to him. He may even pay her fare, not that she needs it paid. When she does not come back for a while, she will find some other yarn to tide Joss - and Stephanos - over. And inevitably, if she comes back a bit the worse for wear, she can blame everything on a fall. It is best to be ready for that. It has been a long time. They will be not only greedy now, but starving.

Crang had first contacted Qirri when she was already in Greece. As he informed her, it would not have been advisable before. But now she was not only due to be rewarded, she herself was part of the reward.

Things were moving on, and very soon there would be no barrier. Then they could make a move. After conveying this, Crang turned the call over to them, allowing them to speak for two minutes. The longest shortest time that Qirri had ever been aware of.

To start with, that whole first minute, she was not even sure she recognised his voice, though they had warned her about that. Then too it might be some weird cranky trick someone was playing. Qirri herself had played enough of those to suspect it of others. But in the end - the second and last minute - he seemed to have found his own voice and she identified it. She started to cry but was very aware she must not speak his name. Presumably neither he, nor she, could ever use that name again. He is called Blake Castle, now.

Secops had been after the murderer for quite a time. He too had gone by more than one name, a variety of them, or of nicknames. But by the turn of the century - 2000, 2001 - mostly his associates, and decidedly his paying petitioners, knew him only as The Man, capital T and M. Obliquely affiliated to the police service, and also, if somewhat more aslant, to MI6, Secops had never quite got close enough to stop, as someone put it, The Man’s party. But then, through a series of investigations and abutting events, they had become aware of a Mr Stewart Pond.

Keeping tabs on Pond proved far more straightforward than attempting to unearth The Man himself. And Pond, as indicated, and without undue delay, unwittingly led them back towards The Man. Mr Pond had another client for The Man. She was the wife of a TV personality, a kind of People’s Easy Archaeologist, Laurence Lewis. They had, at least the police had had, half an eye on Lewis already, since a couple of occasions in the past. Never proved, yet he seemed to be rather on the (petty) illegal side himself. He also drank too much even to breathe on, let alone drive, the car he constantly roared around London in. More to the point however, it turned out Pond had arranged that Lewis was to be The Man’s next target.

By far the simplest plan was to get a tracker, either in the car or - better - on to Lewis’s person. As he was prone to check out the sites he worked on when others were away, now and then picking up a handy bit of treasure-trove, thereafter undeclared and profited by, a tasty and extremely expertly faked titbit was provided at the Coreley dig. Conceivably Laurence might eventually have had doubts about the veracity of this piece, but providing it fooled him for those special days and nights, it would do its work. It contained a homing device that anyone with a quarter ounce of training could lock on to and follow.

Unfortunately the redoubtable Lewis took it into London, and then dumped it, (as it transpired), in the flat of his brother, a Mr Nicolas Lewis. Beeping away from the flat’s interior, it was about as much use as a turd on a bicycle.

Nevertheless, when Laurence took off from the flats and the beeping did not go with him, (nor Pond) the Secops driver, code-named Grey, used his initiative and followed after Laurence’s Volvo.