Beneath the Cypress Tree Page 4

  The girl smiled shyly and opened the door wide to let Kate step inside.

  Brief minutes later, Mrs Hutchinson was leading her downstairs to where, for coolness in the heat of the summer, the bedrooms were located. ‘This is such a lovely surprise, Kate,’ she said, showing her into the same small room she had stayed in previously. ‘Kit didn’t tell us you were coming to see the spring wild flowers, but you are very welcome. You must take a trip out to the Omalos Plain. At this time of year it’s simply carpeted with tulips. Kit is in Heraklion at the moment. It’s the only place he can buy an English-language newspaper. The minute he arrives back, I’ll tell him where to find you.’

  When Mrs Hutchinson had hurried away, Kate sat down on the edge of the bed, relieved at Mrs Hutchinson’s innocent assumption as to the reason for her being there. All she needed now was for Kit to greet her in an equally warm manner.

  A little while later, when she heard her brother coming down the passageway at a run, she knew he wasn’t going to do so.

  The door burst open and she leapt to her feet.

  ‘What the blazes are you playing at?’ Kit was angrier than she had ever seen him. ‘Does Dad know you’re here? Does he know you’re here uninvited?’

  Aware that angry retaliation would be of no help, she said stiffly, ‘Yes, Daddy does know I’m here. All he asked of me was that I wouldn’t be a nuisance to you.’

  Kit ran a hand through his untidy straight hair, struggling for composure. Still white-lipped, he said tautly, ‘Well, now you’re here, I suppose I’ll have to make the best of it.’ He took off his horn-rimmed glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘How many days were you hoping to stay? If it’s any longer than a week, you’re out of luck. Sir Arthur is expected by then, and he may well be bringing family and guests with him.’

  ‘That isn’t a problem. I’ll move into a hotel in Heraklion, and if Heraklion’s hotels are full, I’ll find somewhere to board in one of the nearby villages, Fortetsa or Archanes – and if necessary I’ll do so long-term.’

  ‘Long-term?’ He stared at her. ‘Why the devil would you need somewhere long-term?’

  ‘I’m not here for a few days’ holiday, Kit. I’m here to work. Hopefully as a member on a tomb dig-team.’

  ‘As a member of . . . ? God in heaven, Kate, I’ll say this for you! You win first prize for pig-headed persistence!’

  She couldn’t tell whether he was admiring or appalled.

  ‘I’m more than suitably qualified, Kit.’

  He stared at her for a long moment, then he put his glasses back on. ‘I’ll have a word with the Squire,’ he said tersely. ‘Just don’t get your hopes up.’

  When the sound of his footsteps had receded, she wondered how she was going to survive the tension until he returned. The small room suddenly seemed claustrophobic and she opened its narrow French window and stepped out into the dense greenery of the lower rear garden.

  It was the garden where Lewis Sinclair had outraged Professor Cottingley by, if the Squire’s assumption was correct, meeting Nikoleta Kourakis. Remembering the unpleasant sensation that her dream of Nikoleta had left her with, Kate closed her mind to the memory, sitting on a garden seat that could easily be seen from her bedroom and hoping that when Kit stepped out into the garden, he would do so with a spring in his step signifying good news.

  A half-hour passed, and then an hour.

  The optimism she had been feeling began to fade.

  When two hours had passed, deep pessimism set in. Convinced that Kit was simply delaying giving her bad news for as long as he could, she rose to her feet, intending to walk back up the road to where, by the bus stop and opposite the entrance to the Palace of Minos, there was a small cafe.

  ‘Kate!’

  She whirled round. ‘You can relax,’ he called out, striding towards her. ‘The Squire’s come up trumps.’

  ‘That’s marvellous.’ She ran towards him. ‘Am I really and truly on a Cretan dig-team?’

  ‘Really and truly.’

  ‘What will I do about lodgings? Will I be staying here, at the Villa? Or will I be living with a local family?’

  ‘Probably with a local family. You certainly won’t be staying here. It’s miles too far from the dig.’

  ‘But you stay here.’

  ‘That’s because the excavation site I’m working on is within easy distance.’

  She frowned, puzzled. ‘I don’t understand. If I’m not to be working on one of the tomb digs, where am I to be working?’

  ‘On Lewis’s dig. He wasn’t too happy with the idea at first, but the Squire talked him round. Go get your case. We’re leaving now.’

  Chapter Five

  It was so unexpected that Kate was speechless.

  Seeing her reaction, Kit said, ‘It’s far better that Lewis takes you on as a member of his team than that I do. You must see that, Kate? In the future, when you have a couple of major digs beneath your belt, then maybe it will be different. For now, I can’t be seen to be giving my kid sister a place on a team somewhere as prestigious as Knossos, when she has nothing previous on her CV. There would be murmurings of nepotism, and you know how much I hate that word. If you want to work on a Bronze Age dig in Crete, the new dig Lewis is about to start at Kalamata is by far your best bet.’

  ‘And what is he hoping to find?’

  ‘A small palace. If his instinct is correct, you could well find yourself excavating a major Minoan site.’

  ‘But if he’s had to be pressured into taking me on? Isn’t that going to make for an uncomfortable situation?’

  Kit never laughed easily, but he laughed now. ‘If you’re going to survive in the cut-throat world of archaeology, you’re going to have to develop a thicker skin, Kate.’

  She grinned ruefully. ‘Okay. Point taken. What kind of a team does Lewis Sinclair have?’

  ‘A small one. I’ll tell you more on the way there. Collect your suitcase and say goodbye to Mrs H. I’ll meet you in the Sally at the lodge gates.’

  ‘The Sally?

  ‘One of the small trucks used by the excavating teams.’

  ‘So tell me about the Kalamata team,’ she said twenty minutes later as the small truck rattled up a dusty road in the direction of the mountains that ran almost unbroken down the backbone of the island. ‘Is it mainly a British team?’

  ‘It will be a little more so when you arrive.’ Kit changed gear and swerved to avoid a boy herding a couple of sheep.

  ‘Explain,’ she said, tense once again.

  ‘Like the last dig, this one is being privately sponsored and, until it’s known whether it’s going to be viable or not, only a handful of people are working on it. Apart from Lewis, and now you, they’re from Kalamata or from villages in this part of Crete. All of them have worked on excavation sites before,’ he added hastily. ‘Christos’s father worked on the Knossos site when the palace was being excavated, and Christos was brought up with Minoan excavation in his veins. Where practical work is concerned, his experience is second to none.’

  He shot her an encouraging smile.

  ‘You can see now what a chance this is for you, Sis. You’re not going to be just another member of a team. You’ll be on a dig where you can play a part of real importance.’

  ‘But I’m also going to be a woman alone in an isolated village, with a Scotsman who is ill-mannered at the best of times and who isn’t enthused at having me dumped on him. Add to that an unspecified number of Greeks – all male, and with presumably little English. It doesn’t make for an ideal situation.’

  She tried to visualize what their father would think of such an arrangement, but her imagination wouldn’t stretch that far.

  At the doubts in her voice, Kit said, irritated, ‘The Greeks you will be working with will all have some English, and your classical Greek and your year in Greece have served you well, haven’t they? Also there will be women at whatever lodging Lewis arranges for you. They’ll find you a bit of a novelty at first, but they
’ll be welcoming. Greeks always are.’

  Kate, aware that her doubts were out of place, considering how lucky she was to have been given a place on any dig in Crete, was immediately repentant. ‘Sorry, Kit. I was just trying to get my head round being the only woman on the team. It’s something I’ll be able to take in my stride, so forget the mild panic attack. Does Lewis Sinclair have a truck at Kalamata? I’ve been driving Daddy’s Riley for years, and driving a truck won’t be a problem for me.’

  ‘You’ll have use of a truck. It’s essential, in order to get in and out of Heraklion for stores and suchlike.’

  He slowed down a little as they entered the small hill town of Archanes. It was where Kate had thought she might stay, if Sir Arthur’s presence at the Villa Ariadne had made being a guest there impossible and, seeing it now for the first time, she thought it would have suited her very well. The houses in the narrow streets all had blazingly white walls, and balconies crammed with pots of scarlet geraniums and pale-yellow lilies. Cafes in the small central square had chequered-cloth tables set outside them, and beyond the square was a pretty church with a bell-tower. As they drove past it, Kit said, ‘There are Byzantine frescoes in the church. You should try and find time to see them.’

  ‘I will. Have we much further to go?’

  ‘Quite a bit. Even for a Cretan village, Kalamata is well off the beaten track.’

  It was so far off the beaten track that for the first time Kate wondered just how the Squire and Lewis Sinclair had been able to make contact with each other. Villa Ariadne was on the telephone, but a telephone in the area they were now in was as unthinkable as a red London bus.

  ‘Is Lewis Sinclair at Kalamata now, waiting for me?’ she asked as they turned off on to a steep, winding, perilously narrow mountain road.

  ‘Nope, but he won’t be far behind us. When the Squire tracked him down he was at the museum in Heraklion.’

  Crete’s mountainous landscape was laced with unexpected valleys and plateaus, and just when Kate thought it impossible for them to climb any higher, a plain of fertile fields and windmills opened up in front of them. At its heart lay a huddle of houses and a church.

  ‘Kalamata,’ Kit said, not driving into the village, but bringing the truck to a shuddering halt so that they could take in the view. ‘It’s very picturesque, don’t you think?’

  Kate drew in a slow, rapturous breath. It wasn’t merely picturesque: it was beautiful. Far to the east were the snow-capped peaks of Mount Dicte, mythological birthplace of Zeus, king of the gods; to the west lay the great mountain range of Ida, where Zeus was said to have grown to manhood. On the northern side was a glittering glimpse of the distant sea.

  ‘We’d best continue into the village,’ Kit said at last. ‘I’ll stay with you until Lewis arrives, but then I’m going to head straight back.’

  She felt a pang of alarm and quelled it. Although Kalamata was isolated, it wasn’t as isolated as a dig in Persia or Arabia would have been. In a truck she could be in Heraklion in little over an hour. The very nature of archaeology meant long periods of time spent in places with few, if any, modern conveniences; and living and working alongside colleagues who could be difficult to get along with was something all archaeologists had to put up with at times.

  ‘How far is the site from the village?’ she asked as Kit put the truck into gear again.

  ‘About a fifteen-minute walk. I’d take you there now, only I think Lewis will want to be the first to show you around. There’s the usual cafeneion in the heart of the village. It’s where he will expect to find us when he arrives.’

  The instant the truck reached the outlying houses, children raced towards them, forcing Kit to a snail’s pace as they shouted out questions and greetings.

  Kate’s Greek was good enough to understand what was being asked. The question the children most wanted answering was whether or not she was his wife; and, on Kit answering that she was not his wife, but his sister, if she was Kyrie Sinclair’s wife.

  ‘My sister is here to work,’ Kit said, time and again. ‘She is here to help Kyrie Sinclair with the village excavation.’

  This last bit of news was met with incomprehension. How could the Kyria help with the village excavation? An excavation was man’s work. Had the Kyria no house and husband to look after? No children to care for? No animals that needed tending?

  When they at last drew to a halt on the bare earth of the village square they were saved from further bombardment by the cafe’s owner rushing to greet them and shooing the children away as he did so.

  The children, giggling, retreated several yards and then squatted down on the ground to wait and see whether Kyrie Sinclair’s friend and his sister would have coffee inside the village cafeneion or outside it.

  ‘It’s always the same,’ Kit said as they sat at a rickety iron table beneath a sun-bleached awning. ‘Visitors in a village this isolated are rare events and always end up attracting this kind of attention. Would you like lemonade? It will be made with fresh lemons.’

  When the cafe owner had served Kate with lemonade and Kit with a small cup of thick black Turkish coffee, he introduced himself. ‘My name is Andre Stathopoulos,’ he said, beaming at them from behind a thick, drooping crescent of a moustache. ‘I am a man of Kalamata and it is a poor village, but when a great palace is excavated, it will be famous and my cafe will be full all day long with tourists.’

  ‘Then let’s hope a palace is found,’ Kit said, trying to insert caution into his voice.

  ‘Oh, it will be found! Kyrie Sinclair is sure of it.’

  As if on cue, they heard the sound of a vehicle approaching the village. The children scrambled to their feet. Kate’s tummy muscles tightened. Kit said, ‘Here comes Lewis. Now we’ll be able to find out where you’ll be staying.’

  Seconds later a small truck roared into the square and, as it slewed to a halt in front of the cafe, the children swarmed around it, shouting out to Lewis that the Kyria had come to work on the excavation team and that if she could work on the excavation team, why couldn’t they?

  To Kate’s surprise, Lewis Sinclair’s reaction wasn’t irritation. Instead, with his mouth tugging into a smile, he took a handful of sweets from his pocket, throwing them for the children to scamper after.

  When he joined them at their table she didn’t receive a similar smile, only a courteous acknowledging nod.

  Andre bustled up and, without being asked, set a glass of raki in front of Lewis. Kit said conversationally, ‘That Kate is wanting the experience of working on a Minoan dig, and that you are on such an under-funded budget that you’ve no professionally qualified team members, is pretty fortuitous, don’t you think, Lewis?’

  ‘“Fortuitous” could be one word for it. What do you think of the arrangement, Kate?’ For the first time he looked at her directly. ‘Are you happy with it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said with more composure than she felt. ‘Very.’

  Lewis turned his attention back to Kit. ‘Then in that case you’re right, Kit. Your sister will be a big help. Tom Wilkinson from the British School was here until a month ago, but the political troubles in Spain have claimed him.’

  Kate could see that the mention of Spain had caught Kit’s attention, and before he could change the subject to Franco, she said, with a question mark in her voice, ‘Kit tells me that the Kalamata site supervisor isn’t a qualified archaeologist, but that he’s very experienced?’

  ‘Christos Kourakis’s father, Kostas, worked on the Knossos dig from the first shovel-stroke. As a small child, Christos made himself useful in whatever way he could and Arthur Evans always took a great interest in him, and in the rest of Christos’s family. When it comes to removing fragile objects without breaking them, Christos has the best pair of hands I’ve ever come across and he’s an excellent site supervisor. He’ll find it odd having a woman on the team, but as long you don’t expect preferential treatment, you’ll find him easy to get along with.’

  ‘And
other members of the team?’ Kit said, as with the beaming smile that rarely left his face Andre set another cup of coffee down in front of him.

  ‘Like Christos, they have all worked on previous Bronze Age digs – a couple of them at the Palace of Minos before the dig there came to an end. Dimitri and Angelos were at Olympia, which was a German excavation and is the reason their German is as good as their English. Pericles, Nico and Yanni have had experience on American digs, and Adonis has worked for a French excavation team at Corinth. It means that as they live in the village, or have relatives in the village with whom they can stay, there’s no tented accommodation as yet, though there will be, once a palace is located and a bigger labour force is brought in.’

  It was accommodation for herself that Kate wanted to know about. Mrs Hutchinson had said the Kourakis family lived close to Knossos and she wondered what kind of accommodation had been found for Christos in Kalamata – and what kind of accommodation Lewis Sinclair enjoyed.

  She was just drumming up the nerve to ask him where he slept at night when Kit said, ‘And you, Lewis? Where do you stay? And where will Kate be staying?’

  ‘Heraklion’s deputy mayor has an unused family home here. I’m renting it from him. There are two bedrooms and at the moment Christos and I have a room each, but we can easily share. Christos won’t mind.’

  Kate waited for her brother to say that Christos might not mind, but that – on her behalf – he did. No such objection came and so she said reasonably, ‘I’m not settling for sharing a house in the back of beyond with a man I barely know and a man I’ve not yet met. Sorry, but there’s going to have to be a rethink.’

  Lewis took a drink of his beer, put the glass down and rose to his feet. ‘Give me five minutes,’ he said, in the voice of a man whose patience was being strained to the upmost.

  When he walked away, it wasn’t in the direction of his truck, but into the cafe.

  Kit said, ‘Whatever arrangements are made, I think it would be best if you kept the Villa Ariadne as your address, where our parents are concerned.’