Page 31 of Hot Greek Summer

‘How do we stop her?’ Stella whispered. ‘She might be about to rob us.’

‘No clue,’ Winnie said, watching the woman as she pulled an annoyed face and shut the doors again. They’d emptied out the cupboard last week, moving the contents under the sink. As they watched, the woman pulled a large cotton hankie from her apron pocket, spat on it, and started to clean the reception desk with gusto, shoving the ledger and pen aside as she went.

‘Ah! Stella, do something!’ Winnie spluttered. ‘She’s wiping her saliva all over the ledger!’

‘Do you think she wants to do the cleaning?’ Frankie said. The cupboard had housed all of the cleaning products, which presumably was what the woman had expected to find when she flung open the doors.

‘Not if she’s going to spit on everything, she isn’t,’ Stella said. ‘Do we even need a cleaner?’

Winnie reached for the phone on the desk. Flipping open the diary to the small list of numbers she’d amassed, she dialled Panos and quickly asked him if he’d mind chatting to the woman on their behalf.

The woman looked at the receiver suspiciously for a moment before taking it, and then at Winnie through narrowed eyes.

‘Panos?’ Winnie said, and the woman’s face cleared as she lifted the receiver to her ear and started a rapid-fire exchange. After what seemed to be half an hour but probably was more like five minutes, she handed the phone back with a ‘you talk now’ gesture at Winnie.

‘Panos? It’s me again, Winnie,’ she said.

‘Ah, Winnie. I come by for my gin supply later today, yes?’

Winnie frowned. ‘Well, yes, OK, but can you tell me what this lady wants from us, please?’

He laughed. ‘It’s Hero. She work for you.’

‘She does?’ Bloody Ajax! Was there anything else he ‘forgot’ to mention when they bought the place?

‘Sure she does. You don’t know this thing already?’

‘Well, no. This is the first time we’ve met.’

‘Right,’ Panos said, drawing the word out. ‘Hero has worked at the villa for many years, different owners. She come in to help clean, she does the sheets, and washing, you know the things.’

Winnie wasn’t certain that she did. ‘What do I pay her?’

Panos mentioned a small sum of money, and then added ‘and four bottles of island gin on Friday’.

‘Four a week?’ Winnie said. That seemed a heck of a lot of gin for one small woman.

Hero must understand more than she let on, because at that she nodded, grinned and held up four fingers.

‘Thanks, Panos. I’ll see you later, OK?’

Winnie hung up the phone and lifted her shoulders at the others.

‘Well, this is Hero,’ she said. ‘And she works here.’

Frankie and Stella looked taken aback.

‘She does?’ Frankie said.

‘Hero? As in action hero?’ Stella said. ‘Is she going to take us all out if we say we can’t afford her?’

Winnie relayed the unusual pay arrangements, and a look of pure admiration flickered through Stella’s green eyes.

‘Well, at that price, I vote she stays,’ she said. ‘We could use the help when we get going. Besides, I don’t know the Greek for “You’re fired.”’

‘You’re not Alan Sugar,’ Winnie said.

Hero watched the quick conversation with her dark, interested eyes, nodding along oblivious, then held up four fingers again just to make sure the arrangement was clear.

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