One Way or Another(6)

“I feel badly,” she said, turning to caress Em’s snout, hanging over her shoulder. “Throwing her out of her rightful place.”

“Em’s good at sharing.”

Their eyes linked and there was a long silence. “I’m glad you came,” he said finally.

“Me too.”

Nothing more was said as Marco made his way through the suburban sprawl and out onto the sea road where the colors of the water changed in stripes of pale turquoise to greenish blue to cobalt. The sun sparked off the tiny wavelets in diamond points of light. Small pastel houses clung to rocky hillsides and white villas overlooked the sea, half hidden under swathes of fuchsia bougainvillea. The road narrowed and the countryside became more rural. They drove through a couple of seaside villages where fishing boats rested until they would sail into the moonlight and not be back until dawn.

Martha said suddenly, “Nothing bad could happen here, it’s too simple, too peaceful. I feel it in my heart.”

Marco glanced sideways at her. “That’s why I came here,” he said. “And why I didn’t want to believe what I saw with my own eyes.”

Em rested her head on Martha’s shoulder, drooling all over her pristine white shirt. Martha stroked the dog absently. “But you have no proof,” she said.

He shook his head. “Not even a body.”

“Marco, did you ever think she might simply have gone in for a swim? I know you said the storm was coming, but girls can be impulsive, a spur-of-the-moment thing, perhaps she’d had a row with her boyfriend.…”

“Perhaps she had, and maybe he was the one that bashed her head in. Martha! That girl’s head was covered in blood. I could see the white of her skull! Someone hit her. And hit her with something hard.” He shrugged. “Anyhow, I believe she was murdered. And I want to find her, and who did it.”

Martha was silent. She wondered what she was doing here. Marco seemed set on this idea; he did not seem to want to escape from it and simply enjoy a vacation.

They drove through the village, past the harbor crammed with holiday rental boats and the happy sound of English voices having a good time. At the end of the long, cobbled street an illuminated red sign blinked on and off. COSTAS BAR AND GRILL. Marco pulled up and Em immediately leapt out and headed, tail waving, through the beaded curtain.

“Come on in,” a man called from inside, as a shy maiden swept back the jangling curtain and stood, frowning uncertainly at them. The young woman’s brown eyes widened as she took in Martha’s appearance, then she stepped back and said, coolly, “Welcome, Marco’s fiancée. We know all about you.”

Martha threw a questioning glance at Marco, who lifted a shoulder. “I said you were my girl and you were coming to stay.”

Martha followed the dog into the cool, dark bar. She stood for a minute, adjusting to the dim interior after the sunlight, hearing a distant peal of thunder.

Costas, haggard and mustached, eyes blazing a welcome, took her hand and dropped a whiskery kiss on it. Suddenly exhausted—after all, she had been traveling forever, what with the connections and the delays—Martha sank into a woven leather chair and accepted a pink drink, clinking with ice, brought to her by the shy maiden with the curtain of black hair and the sexy body.

“My wife, Artemis,” Costas introduced her proudly.

Artemis kissed Martha three times on her cheeks and said something in Turkish. “She says you smell good,” Costas told Martha, who dove into her huge white bag and found amongst the accumulated junk, buried beneath War and Peace, the small freebie vial of Chanel, which she presented to the girl. “So she will smell good too,” she told Costas.

But Marco was looking at the gold chain Artemis was wearing: a thin rope linked with a tiny gold panther. Also dangling from the chain were the initials AM. He wondered, out loud, where Costas had found such a charming piece.

“The police had it,” Costas explained.

Martha recognized the signature panther and said, surprised, “But it’s Cartier. How lovely.”

Artemis lifted the initialed chain and inspected it. “Cartier?” she said doubtfully. “I found it on the beach, washed up by the waves. I thought it simply some pretty trinket lost by a tourist while swimming. It happens all the time.”

“Once,” Costas added, “someone found a diamond ring. Three stones in gold. Of course he gave it to the police and it was claimed by an engaged couple; they’d had a fight and she threw it in the sea, but they reconciled. It’s the only thing of value ever found on our beach.”

“Well, now there’s something else.” Marco remembered the girl in the blue dress whose body had not been found, and had the sudden gut feeling it belonged to her. He asked Artemis if he might take a look. She lifted her heavy black hair and unfastened the lobster clasp, sliding the chain reluctantly through her fingers as she handed it to Marco.

“Martha was right,” he said, pointing out the tiny Cartier signature, making Artemis sigh because she realized she could not keep it if it was expensive.

“Then we must hand it back to the police,” Costas said. He felt sorry for Artemis, losing her chain. “I’ll buy you a new one,” he promised.

Marco paid for their drinks and he and Martha held hands as they walked back to his cabin, with Em darting ahead, seeking out interesting scents.