A Coven of Vampires

NECROS

I

An old woman in a faded blue frock and black head-square paused in the shade of Mario's awning and nodded good-day. She smiled a gap-toothed smile. A bulky, slouch-shouldered youth in jeans and a stained yellow T-shirt -a slope-headed idiot, probably her grandson - held her hand, drooling vacantly and fidgeting beside her.

Mario nodded good-naturedly, smiled, wrapped a piece of stale focaccia in greaseproof paper and came from behind the bar to give it to her. She clasped his hand, thanked him, turned to go.

Her attention was suddenly arrested by something she saw across the road. She started, cursed vividly, harshly, and despite my meagre knowledge of Italian, I picked up something of the hatred in her tone. 'Devil's spawn!' She said it again. 'Dog! Swine!' She pointed a shaking hand and finger, said yet again: 'Devil's spawn!' before making the two-fingered, double-handed stabbing sign with which the Italians ward off evil. To do this it was first necessary that she drop her salted bread, which the idiot youth at once snatched up.

Then, still mouthing low, guttural imprecations, dragging the shuffling, /ocacc/a-munching cretin behind her, she hurried off along the street and disappeared into an alley. One word that she had repeated over and over again stayed in my mind: 'Necros! Necros Though the word was new to me, I took it for a curse-word. The accent she put on it had been poisonous.

I sipped at my Negroni, remained seated at the small circular table beneath Mario's awning and stared at the object of the crone's distaste. It was a motor car, a white convertible Rover and this year's model, inching slowly forward in a stream of holiday traffic. And it was worth looking at if only for the girl behind the wheel. The little man in the floppy white hat beside her - well, he was something else too. But she was -just something else.

I caught just a glimpse, sufficient to feel stunned. That was good. I had thought it was something I could never know again: that feeling a man gets looking at a beautiful girl. Not after Linda.

And yet-

She was young, say twenty-four or -five, some three or four years my junior. She sat tall at the wheel, slim, raven-haired under a white, wide-brimmed summer hat which just missed matching that of her companion, with a complexion cool and creamy enough to pour over peaches. I stood up -yes, to get a better look - and right then the traffic came to a momentary standstill. At that moment, too, she turned her head and looked at me. And if the profile had stunned me . . . well, the full-frontal knocked me dead. The girl was simply, classically beautiful.

Her eyes were of a dark green but very bright, slightly tilted and perfectly oval under straight, thin brows. Her cheekbones were high, her lips a red Cupid's bow, her neck long and white against the glowing yellow of her blouse. And her smile-

-Oh, yes, she smiled.

Her glance, at first cool, became curious in a moment, then a little angry, until finally, seeing my confusion - that smile. And as she turned her attention back to the road and followed the stream of traffic out of sight, I saw a blush of colour spreading on the creamy surface of her cheek. Then she was gone.

Then, too, I remembered the little man who sat beside her. Actually, I hadn't seen a great deal of him, but what 1 had seen had given me the creeps. He too had turned his head to stare at me, leaving in my mind's eye an impression of beady bird eyes, sharp and intelligent in the shade of his hat. He had stared at me for only a moment, and then his head had slowly turned away; but even when he no longer looked at me, when he stared straight ahead, it seemed to me I could feel those raven's eyes upon me, and that a query had been written in them.

I believed I could understand it, that look. He must have seen a good many young men staring at him like that - or rather, at the girl. His look had been a threat in answer to my threat - and because he was practised in it, I had certainly felt the more threatened!

I turned to Mario, whose English was excellent. 'She has something against expensive cars and rich people?'

'Who?' he busied himself behind his bar.

The old lady, the woman with the idiot boy.'

'Ah!' he nodded. 'Mainly against the little man, I suspect.'

'Oh?'

'You want another Negroni?'

'OK - and one for yourself(tm) but tell me about this other thing, won't you?'

'If you like - but you're only interested in the girl, yes?' He grinned.

I shrugged. 'She's a good-looker . . .'

'Yes, I saw her.' Now he shrugged. That other thing -just old myths and legends, that's all. Like your English Dracula, eh?'

Transylvanian Dracula,' I corrected him.

'Whatever you like. And Necros: that's the name of the spook, see?'

'Necros is the name of a vampire?'

'A spook, yes.'

'And this is a real legend? I mean, historical?'

He made a fifty-fifty face, his hands palms up. 'Local, I guess. Ligurian. I remember it from when I was a kid. If I was bad, old Necros sure to come and get me. Today,' again the shrug, 'it's forgotten.'

'Like the bogeyman.' I nodded.

'Eh?'

'Nothing. But why did the old girl go on like that?'

Again he shrugged. 'Maybe she think that old man Necros, eh? She crazy, you know? Very backward.

The whole family.'

I was still interested. 'How does the legend go?'

'The spook takes the life out of you. You grow old, spook grows young. It's a bargain you make: he gives you something you want, gets what he wants. What he wants is your youth. Except he uses it up quick and needs more. All the time, more youth.'

'What kind of bargain is that?' I asked. 'What does the victim get out of it?'

'Gets what he wants,' said Mario, his brown face cracking into another grin. 'In your case the girl, eh? If the little man was Necros . . .'

He got on with his work and I sat there sipping my Negroni. End of conversation. I thought no more about it -until later.

II

Of course, I should have been in Italy with Linda, but... I had kept her 'Dear John' for a fortnight before shredding it, getting mindlessly drunk and starting in on the process of forgetting. That had been a month ago. The holiday had already been booked and I wasn't about to miss out on my trip to the sun. And so I had come out on my own. It was hot, the swimming was good, life was easy and the food superb. With just two days left to enjoy it, I told myself it hadn't been bad. But it would have been better with Linda.

Linda . . . She was still on my mind - at the back of it, anyway - later that night as I sat in the bar of my hotel beside an open bougainvillaea-decked balcony that looked down on the bay and the seafront lights of the town. And maybe she wasn't all that far back in my mind - maybe she was right there in front - or else I was just plain daydreaming. Whichever, I missed the entry of the lovely lady and her shrivelled companion, failing to spot and recognise them until they were taking their seats at a little table just the other side of the balcony's sweep.

This was the closest I'd been to her, and-

Well, first impressions hadn't lied. This girl was beautiful. She didn't look quite as young as she'd first seemed - my own age, maybe - but beautiful she certainly was. And the old boy? He must be, could only be, her father. Maybe it sounds like I was a little naive, but with her looks this lady really didn't need an old man. And if she did need one it didn't have to be this one.

By now she'd seen me and my fascination with her must have been obvious. Seeing it, she smiled and blushed at one and the same time, and for a moment turned her eyes away - but only for a moment.

Fortunately her companion had his back to me or he must have known my feelings at once; for as she looked at me again - fully upon me this time - I could have sworn I read an invitation in her eyes, and in that same moment any bitter vows I may have made melted away completely and were forgotten. God, please let him be her father!

For an hour I sat there, drinking a few too many cock-tails, eating olives and potato crisps from little bowls on the bar, keeping my eyes off the girl as best I could, if only for common decency's sake. But ... all the time I worried frantically at the problem of how to introduce myself, and as the minutes ticked by it seemed to me that the most obvious way must also be the best.

But how obvious would it be to the old boy?

And the damnable thing was that the girl hadn't given me another glance since her original - invitation? Had I mistaken that look of hers - or was she simply waiting for me to make the first move? God, let him be her father!

She was sipping Martinis, slowly; he drank a rich red wine, in some quantity. I asked a waiter to replenish their glasses and charge it to me. I had already spoken to the bar steward, a swarthy, friendly little chap from the South called Francesco, but he hadn't been able to enlighten me. The pair were not resident, he assured me; but being resident myself I was already pretty sure of that.

Anyway, my drinks were delivered to their table; they looked surprised; the girl put on a perfectly innocent expression, questioned the waiter, nodded in my direction and gave me a cautious smile, and the old boy turned his head to stare at me. I found myself smiling in return but avoiding his eyes, which were like coals now, sunken deep in his brown, wrinkled face. Time seemed suspended - if only for a second - then the girl spoke again to the waiter and he came across to me.

'Mr Collins, sir, the gentleman and the young lady thank you and request that you join them.'

Which was everything I had dared hope for - for the moment.

Standing up, I suddenly realized how much I'd had to drink. I willed sobriety on myself and walked across to their table. They didn't stand up but the little chap said, 'Please sit.' His voice was a rustle of dried grass. The waiter was behind me with a chair. I sat.

'Peter Collins,' I said. 'How do you do, Mr - er?-'

'Karpethes,' he answered. 'Nichos Karpethes. And this is my wife, Adrienne.' Neither one of them had made the effort to extend their hands, but that didn't dismay me. Only the fact that they were married dismayed me. He must be very, very rich, this Nichos Karpethes.

'I'm delighted you invited me over,' I said, forcing a smile, 'but I see that I was mistaken. You see, I thought I heard you speaking English, and I-'

Thought we were English?' she finished it for me. 'A natural error. Originally I am Armenian, Nichos is Greek, of course. We do not speak each other's tongue, but we do both speak English. Are you staying here, Mr Collins?'

'Er, yes - for one more day and night. Then - 'I shrugged and put on a sad look, '- back to England, I'm afraid.'

'Afraid?' the old boy whispered. 'There is something to fear in a return to your homeland?'

'Just an expression,' I answered. 'I meant, I'm afraid that my holiday is coming to an end.'

He smiled. It was a strange, wistful sort of smile, wrinkling his face up like a little walnut.

'But your friends will be glad to see you again. Your loved ones-?'

I shook my head. 'Only a handful of friends - none of them really close - and no loved ones. I'm a loner, Mr Karpethes.'

'A loner?' His eyes glowed deep in their sockets and his hands began to tremble where they gripped the table's rim. 'Mr Collins, you don't-'

'We understand,' she cut him off. 'For although we are together, we too, in our way, are loners.

Money has made Nichos lonely, you see? Also, he is not a well man, and time is short. He will not waste what time he has on frivolous friendships. As for myself - people do not understand our being together, Nichos and I. They pry, and I withdraw. And so, I too, am a loner.'

There was no accusation in her voice, but still I felt obliged to say: 'I certainly didn't intend to pry, Mrs-'

'Adrienne,' she smiled. 'Please. No, of course you didn't. I would not want you to think we thought that of you. Anyway I will tell you why we are together, and then it will be put aside.'

Her husband coughed, seemed to choke, struggled to his feet. I stood up and took his arm. He at once shook me off-with some distaste, I thought - but Adrienne had already signalled to a waiter.

'Assist Mr Karpethes to the gentleman's room,' she quickly instructed in very good Italian. 'And please help him back to the table when he has recovered.'

As he went, Karpethes gesticulated, probably tried to say something to me by way of an apology, choked again and reeled as he allowed the waiter to help him from the room.

Tm . . . sorry,' I said, not knowing what else to say.

'He has attacks.' She was cool. 'Do not concern yourself. I am used to it.'

We sat in silence for a moment. Finally I began: 'You were going to tell me-'

'Ah, yes! I had forgotten. It is a symbiosis.'

'Oh?'

'Yes. I need the good life he can give me, and he needs . . . my youth. We supply each other's needs.' And so, in a way, the old woman with the idiot boy hadn't been wrong after all. A sort of bargain had indeed been struck. Between Karpethes and his wife. As that thought crossed my mind I felt the short hairs at the back of my neck stiffen for a moment. Goose-flesh crawled on my arms.

After all, 'Nichos' was pretty close to 'Necros,' and now this youth thing again. Coincidence, of course. And after all, aren't all relationships bargains of sorts? Bargains struck for better or for worse.

'But for how long?' I asked. 'I mean, how long will it work for you?'

She shrugged. 'I have been provided for. And he will have me all the days of his life.'

I coughed, cleared my throat, gave a strained, self-conscious laugh. 'And here's me, the non-pryer!'

'No, not at all, I wanted you to know.'

'Well,' I shrugged, '- but it's been a pretty deep first conversation.'

'First? Did you believe that buying me a drink would entitle you to more than one conversation?'

I almost winced. 'Actually, I-'

But then she smiled and my world lit up. 'You did not need to buy the drinks,' she said. 'There would have been some other way.'

I looked at her inquiringly. 'Some other way to-?'

'To find out if we were English or not.'

'Oh!'

'Here comes Nichos now,' she smiled across the room. 'And we must be leaving. He's not well. Tell me, will you be on the beach tomorrow?'

'Oh - yes!' I answered after a moment's hesitation. 'I like to swim.'

'So do I. Perhaps we can swim out to the raft . . . ?'

'I'd like that very much.'

Her husband arrived back at the table under his own steam. He looked a little stronger now, not quite so shrivelled somehow. He did not sit but gripped the back of his chair with parchment fingers, knuckles white where the skin stretched over old bones. 'Mr Collins,' he rustled, '-

Adrienne, I'm sorry . . .'

'There's really no need,' I said, rising.

'We really must be going.' She also stood. 'No, you stay here, er, Peter? It's kind of you, but we can manage. Perhaps we'll see you on the beach.' And she helped him to the door of the bar and through it without once looking back.

III

They weren't staying at my hotel, had simply dropped in for a drink. That was understandable (though I would have preferred to think that she had been looking for me) for my hotel was middling tourist-class while theirs was something else. They were up on the hill, high on the crest of a Ligurian spur where a smaller, much more exclusive place nestled in Mediterranean pines. A place whose lights spelled money when they shone up there at night, whose music came floating down from a tiny open-air disco like the laughter of high-living elementals of the air.

If I was poetic it was because of her. I mean, that beautiful girl and that weary, wrinkled dried-up walnut of an old man. If anything, I was sorry for him. And yet in another way I wasn't.

And let's make no pretence about it - if I haven't said it already, let me say it right now - I wanted her. Moreover, there had been that about our conversation, her beach invitation, which told me that she was available.

The thought of it kept me awake half the night . . .

I was on the beach at 9.00 a.m. - they didn't show until 11.00. When they did, and when she came out of her tiny changing cubicle-There wasn't a male head on the beach that didn't turn at least twice. Who could blame them? That girl, in that costume, would have turned the head of a sphinx. But -there was something, some little nagging thing, different about her. A maturity beyond her years? She held herself like a model, a princess. But who was it for? Karpethes or me?

As for the old man: he was in a crumpled lightweight summer suit and sunshade hat as usual, but he seemed a bit more perky this morning. Unlike myself he'd doubtless had a good night's sleep. While his wife had been changing he had made his way unsteadily across the pebbly beach to my table and sun umbrella, taking the seat directly opposite me; and before his wife could appear he had opened with: 'Good morning, Mr Collins.'

'Good morning,' I answered. 'Please call me Peter.'

'Peter, then,' he nodded. He seemed out of breath, either from his stumbling walk over the beach or a certain urgency which I could detect in his movements, his hurried, almost rude 'let's get down to it' manner.

'Peter, you said you would be here for one more day?'

'That's right,' I answered, for the first time studying him closely where he sat like some strange garden gnome half in the shade of the beach umbrella. 'This is my last day.'

He was a bundle of dry wood, a desiccated prune, a small, umber scarecrow. And his voice, too, was of straw, or autumn leaves blown across a shady path. Only his eyes were alive. 'And you said you have no family, few friends, no one to miss you back in England?'

Warning bells rang in my head. Maybe it wasn't so much urgency in him - which usually implies a goal or ambition still to be realized - but eagerness in that the goal was in sight. 'That's correct. I am, was, a student doctor. When I get home I shall seek a position. Other than that there's nothing, no one, no ties.'

He leaned forward, bird eyes very bright, claw hand reaching across the table, trembling, andHer shadow suddenly fell across us as she stood there in that costume. Karpethes jerked back in his chair. His face was working, strange emotions twisting the folds and wrinkles of his flesh into stranger contours. I could feel my heart thumping against my ribs . . . why, I couldn't say.

I calmed myself, looked up at her and smiled.

She stood with her back to the sun, which made a dark silhouette of her head and face. But in that blot of darkness her oval eyes were green jewels. 'Shall we swim, Peter?'

She turned and ran down the beach, and of course I ran after her. She had a head start and beat me to the water, beat me to the raft, too. It wasn't until I hauled myself up beside her that I thought of Karpethes: how I hadn't even excused myself before plunging after her. But at least the water had cleared my head, bringing me completely awake and aware.

Aware of her incredible body where it stretched, almost touching mine, on the fibre deck of the gently bobbing raft.

I mentioned her husband's line of inquiry, gasping a little for breath as I recovered from the frantic exercise of our race. She, on the other hand, already seemed completely recovered. She carefully arranged her hair about her shoulders like a fan, to dry in the sunlight, before answering.

'Nichos is not really my husband,' she finally said, not looking at me. 'I am his companion, that's all. I could have told you last night, but . . . there was the chance that you really were curious only about our nationality. As for any 'veiled threats' he might have issued: that is not unusual. He might not have the vitality of younger men, but jealousy is ageless.'

'No,' I answered, 'he didn't threaten - not that I noticed. But jealousy? Knowing I have only one more day to spend here, what has he to fear from me?'

Her shoulders twitched a little, a shrug. She turned her face to me, her lips inches away. Her eyelashes were like silken shutters over green pools, hiding whatever swam in the deeps. 'I am young, Peter, and so are you. And you are very attractive, very . . . eager? Holiday romances are not uncommon.'

My blood was on fire. 'I have very little money,' I said. 'We are staying at different hotels. He already suspects me. It is impossible.'

'What is?' she innocently asked, leaving me at a complete loss.

But then she laughed, tossed back her hair, already dry, dangled her hands and arms in the water.

'Where there's a will . . .' she said.

'You know that I want you-' The words spilled out before I could control or change them.

'Oh, yes. And I want you.' She said it so simply, and yet suddenly I felt seared. A moth brushing the magnet candle's flame.

I lifted my head, looked towards the beach. Across seventy-five yards of sparkling water the beach umbrellas looked very large and close. Karpethes sat in the shade just as I had last seen him, his face hidden in shadow. But I knew that he watched.

'You can do nothing here,' she said, her voice languid -but I noticed now that she, too, seemed short of breath.

'This,' I told her with a groan, 'is going to kill me!'

She laughed, laughter that sparkled more than the sun on the sea. 'I'm sorry,' she said more soberly. 'It's unfair of me to laugh. But - your case is not hopeless.'

'Oh?'

'Tomorrow morning, early, Nichos has an appointment with a specialist in Geneva. I am to drive him into the city tonight. We'll stay at a hotel overnight.'

I groaned my misery. 'Then my case is quite hopeless. I fly tomorrow.'

'But if I sprained my wrist,' she said, 'and so could not drive . . . and if he went into Geneva by taxi while I stayed behind with a headache - because of the pain from my wrist -' Like a flash she was on her feet, the raft tilting, her body diving, striking the water into a spray of diamonds.

Seconds for it all to sink in - and then I was following her, labouring through the water in her churning wake. And as she splashed from the sea, seeing her stumble, go to her hands and knees in Ligurian shingle - and the pained look on her face, the way she held her wrist as she came to her feet. As easy as that!

Karpethes, struggling to rise from his seat, stared at her with his mouth agape. Her face screwed up now as I followed her up the beach. And Adrienne holding her 'sprained' wrist and shaking it, her mouth forming an elongated 'O'. The sinuous motion of her body and limbs, mobile marble with dew of ocean clinging saltily . . .

If the tiny man had said to me: 'I am Necros. I want ten years of your life for one night with her,' at that moment I might have sealed the bargain. Gladly. But legends are legends and he wasn't Necros, and he didn't, and I didn't. After all, there was no need . . .

IV

I suppose my greatest fear was that she might be 'having me on', amusing herself at my expense.

She was, of course, 'safe' with me - in so far as I would be gone tomorrow and the 'romance' forgotten, for her, anyway - and I could also see how she was starved for young companionship, a fact she had brought right out in the open from the word go.

But why me? Why should I be so lucky?

Attractive? Was I? I had never thought so. Perhaps it was because I was so safe: here today and gone tomorrow, with little or no chance of complications. Yes, that must be it. If she wasn't simply making a fool of me. She might be just a tease-But she wasn't.

At 8.30 that evening I was in the bar of my hotel - had been there for an hour, careful not to drink too much, unable to eat - when the waiter came to me and said there was a call for me on the reception telephone. I hurried out to reception where the clerk discreetly excused himself and left me alone.

'Peter?' Her voice was a deep well of promise. 'He's gone. I've booked us a table, to dine at 9.00. Is that all right for you?'

'A table? Where?' my own voice breathless.

'Why, up here, of course! Oh, don't worry, it's perfectly safe. And anyway, Nichos knows.'

'Knows?' I was taken aback, a little panicked. 'What does he know?'

That we're dining together. In fact he suggested it. He didn't want me to eat alone - and since this is your last night . . .'

I'll get a taxi right away,' I told her.

'Good. I look forward to ... seeing you. I shall be in the bar.'

I replaced the telephone in its cradle, wondering if she always took an aperitif before the main course . . .

I had smartened myself up. That is to say, I was immaculate. Black bow-tie, white evening jacket (courtesy of C & A), black trousers and a lightly frilled white shirt, the only one I had ever owned. But I might have known that my appearance would never match up to hers. It seemed that everything she did was just perfectly right. I could only hope that that meant literally everything.

But in her black lace evening gown with its plunging neckline, short wide sleeves and delicate silver embroidery, she was stunning. Sitting with her in the bar, sipping our drinks - for me a large whisky and for her a tall Cinzano, I couldn't take my eyes off her. Twice I reached out for her hand and twice she drew back from me.

'Discreet they may well be,' she said, letting her oval green eyes flicker towards the bar, where guests stood and chatted, and back to me, 'but there's really no need to give them occasion to gossip.'

'I'm sorry. Adrienne,' I told her, my voice husky and close to trembling, 'but-'

'How is it,' she demurely cut me off, 'that a good-looking man like you is - how do you say it? - "going short?" '

I sat back, chuckled. 'That's a rather unladylike expression,' I told her.

'Oh? And what I've planned for tonight is ladylike?' My voice went huskier still. 'Just what is your plan?' 'While we eat,' she answered, her voice low, 'I shall tell you.' At which point a waiter loomed, napkin over his arm, inviting us to accompany him to the dining room.

Adrienne's portions were tiny, mine huge. She sipped a slender, light white wine, I gulped blocky rich red from a glass the waiter couldn't seem to leave alone. Mercifully I was hungry - I hadn't eaten all day - else that meal must surely have bloated me out. And all of it ordered in advance, the very best in quality cuisine.

'This,' she eventually said, handing me her key, 'fits the door of our suite.' We were sitting back, enjoying liqueurs and cigarettes. 'The rooms are on the ground floor. Tonight you enter through the door, tomorrow morning you leave via the window. A slow walk down to the seafront will refresh you. How is that for a plan?'

'Unbelievable!'

'You don't believe it?'

'Not my good fortune, no.'

'Shall we say that we both have our needs?'

'I think,' I said, 'that I may be falling in love with you. What if I don't wish to leave in the morning?'

She shrugged, smiled, said: 'Who knows what tomorrow may bring?'

How could I ever have thought of her simply as another girl? Or even an ordinary young woman? Girl she certainly was, woman, too, but so ... knowing! Beautiful as a princess and knowing as a whore.

If Mario's old myths and legends were reality, and if Nichos Karpethes were really Necros, then he'd surely picked the right companion. No man born could ever have resisted Adrienne, of that I was quite certain. These thoughts were in my mind - but dimly, at the back of my mind - as I left her smoking in the dining-room and followed her directions to the suite of rooms at the rear of the hotel. In the front of my mind were other thoughts, much more vivid and completely erotic.

I found the suite, entered, left the door slightly ajar behind me.

The thing about an Italian room is its size. An entire suite of rooms is vast. As it happened, I was only interested in one room, and Adrienne had obligingly left the door to that one open.

I was sweating. And yet ... I shivered.

Adrienne had said fifteen minutes, time enough for her to smoke another cigarette and finish her drink. Then she would come to me. By now the entire staff of the hotel probably knew I was in here, but this was Italy.

V

I shivered again. Excitement? Probably.

I threw off my clothes, found my way to the bathroom, took the quickest shower of my life. Drying myself off, I padded back to the bedroom.

Between the main bedroom and the bathroom a smaller door stood ajar. I froze as I reached it, my senses suddenly alert, my ears seeming to stretch themselves into vast receivers to pick up any slightest sound.

For there had been a sound. I was sure of it, from that room . . .

A scratching? A rustle? A whisper? I couldn't say. But a sound, anyway.

Adrienne would be coming soon. Standing outside that door I slowly recommenced towelling myself dry. My naked feet were still firmly rooted, but my hands automatically worked with the towel. It was nerves, only nerves. There had been no sound, or at most only the night breeze off the sea, whispering in through an open window.

I stopped towelling, took another step towards the main bedroom, heard the sound again. A small, choking rasp. A tiny gasping for air.

Karpethes? What the hell was going on?

I shivered violently, my suddenly chill flesh shuddering in an uncontrollable spasm. But... I forced myself to action, returned to the main bedroom, quickly dressed (with the exception of my tie and jacket) and crept back to the small room.

Adrienne must be on her way to me even now. She mustn't find me poking my nose into things, like a suspicious kid. I must kill off this silly feeling that had my skin crawling. Not that an attack of nerves was unnatural in the circumstances, on the contrary, but I wasn't about to let it spoil the night. I pushed open the door of the room, entered into darkness, found the light switch. ThenI held my breath, flipped the switch.

The room was only half as big as the others. It contained a small single bed, a bedside table, a wardrobe. Nothing more, or at least nothing immediately apparent to my wildly darting eyes. My heart, which was racing, slowed and began to settle towards a steadier beat. The window was open, external shutters closed - but small night sounds were finding their way in through the louvres.

The distant sounds of traffic, the toot of horns - holiday sounds from below.

I breathed deeply and gratefully, and saw something projecting from beneath the pillow on the bed.

A corner of card or of dark leather, like a wallet or-Or a passport!

A Greek passport, Karpethes', when I opened it. But how could it be? The man in the photograph was young, no older than me. His birth date proved it. But there was his name: Nichos Karpethes.

Printed in Greek, of course, but still plain enough. His son?

Puzzling over the passport had served to distract me. My nerves had steadied up. I tossed the passport down, frowned at it where it lay upon the bed, breathed deeply once more . . . then froze solid!

A scratching, a hissing, a dry grunting - from the wardrobe.

Mice? Or did I in fact smell a rat?

Even as the short hairs bristled on the back of my neck I knew anger. There were too many unexplained things here. Too much I didn't understand. And what was it I feared? Old Mario's myths and legends? No, for in my experience the Italians are notorious for getting things wrong. Oh, yes, notorious . . .

I reached out, turned the wardrobe's doorknob, yanked the doors open.

At first I saw nothing of any importance or significance. My eyes didn't know what they sought.

Shoes, patent leather, two pairs, stood side by side below. Tiny suits, no bigger than boys' sizes, hung above on steel hangers. And - my God, my God - a waistcoat!

I backed out of that little room on rubber legs, with the silence of the suite shrieking all about me, my eyes bulging, my jaw hanging slack-

'Peter?'

She came in through the suite's main door, came floating towards, me, eager, smiling, her green eyes blazing. Then blazing their suspicion, their anger, as they saw my condition. 'Peter!'

I lurched away as her hands reached for me, those hands I had never yet touched, which had never touched me. Then I was into the main bedroom, snatching my tie and jacket from the bed, (don't ask me why?) and out of the window, yelling some inarticulate, choking thing at her and lashing out frenziedly with my foot as she reached after me. Her eyes were bubbling green hells. 'Peter!'

Her fingers closed on my forearm, bands of steel containing a fierce, hungry heat. And strong as two men, she began to lift me back into her lair!

I put my feet against the wall, kicked, came free and crashed backwards into shrubbery. Then up on my feet, gasping for air, running, tumbling, crashing into the night. Down madly tilting slopes, through black chasms of mountain pine with the Mediterranean stars winking overhead, and the beckoning, friendly lights of the village seen occasionally below . . .

In the morning, looking up at the way I had descended and remembering the nightmare of my panic-flight, I counted myself lucky to have survived it. The place was precipitous. In the end I had fallen, but only for a short distance. All in utter darkness, and my head striking something hard.

But . . .

I did survive. Survived both Adrienne and my flight from her.

Waking with the dawn, stiff and bruised and with a massive bump on my forehead, I staggered back to my hotel, locked the door behind me - then sat there trembling and moaning until it was time for the coach.

Weak? Maybe I was, maybe I am.

But on my way into Genova, with people round me and the sun hot through the coach's windows. I could think again. I could roll up my sleeve and examine that claw mark of four slim fingers and a thumb, branded white into my suntanned flesh, where hair would never grow again on skin sere and wrinkled.

And seeing those marks I could also remember the wardrobe and the waistcoat - and what the waistcoat contained.

That tiny puppet of a man, alive still but barely, his stick-arms dangling through the waistcoat's arm holes, his baby's head projecting, its chin supported by the tightly buttoned waistcoat's breast. And the large bulldog clip over the hanger's bar, its teeth fastened in the loose, wrinkled skin of his walnut head, holding it up. And his skinny little legs dangling, twig-things twitching there; and his pleading, pleading eyes!

But eyes are something I mustn't dwell upon.

And green is a colour I can no longer bear . . .