Chapter One


If she should return now, of course, or even five minutes from now, it would still be all right. The thought that he might never see her again could then be dismissed as a delusion, an absurd over-reaction to an excess of solitude and silence. And from the notion that, at any second, she would return, calling to him as she came down the track, part of his mind could not be dislodged: the orderly, housetrained, rational part. It was only in the chaotic realm of instinct and sensation that a contrary suspicion had taken root, only, as it were, in the part of himself that he did not care to acknowledge.

Besides, Harry had every justification for blaming his anxious state on the position in which he found himself. To spend three-quarters of an hour sitting on a fallen tree trunk halfway up a pine-forested mountainside, whilst the warm glow of the afternoon sun faded towards a dusky chill and silence--absolute, windless, pitiless silence--quarried at the nerves, was enough to test anyone's self-control. He wished now that he had gone with her to the summit, or stayed in the car and listened to the radio. Either way, he really should have known better than to wait where he was.

He stubbed out the fourth cigarette of his vigil and took a deep breath. It was growing cold now in the shadow of the mountain, yet the coastal plain below was still bathed in warm, golden sunlight. Only here, on the thickly conifered slope, or out there, invisible but palpable in the clear, frozen air, could the waning of the day no longer be ignored.

Why had she not returned? She could scarcely be lost, not with the guidebook and a compass. After all, she had been to Profitis Ilias before, which Harry never had. Nor, if the truth be told, did he ever want to again. Two hours ago, he had been basking in the sun at a terrace table of a psarotaverna just down the coast, lighting the first cigarette in this packet at the leisurely conclusion o...