Page 57 of Vows of Revenge

Then someone tapped her hesitantly on the shoulder. She started, looking up. It was Dr Michaelis. But it was not only him she saw. It was the man behind him.

Damos.

Was he insane? The words were inside Damos’s head, but it was as if he could hear them audibly. Insane to come here? Hadn’t Spain taught him his lesson?

She wants nothing to do with me—nothing.

Yet he was here, all the same. Two months on. Months that had been like nothing he had ever endured in his life. Months that had made those brief weeks in the summer seem like a distant, impossible dream—a dream to torment him and torture him. For it was lost to him for ever.

As Kassia was lost to him.

Pain buckled through him at the knowledge of what he had done.

Everything she told me I had.

As he stood there now, looking down at Kassia hunkered in the trench, a terrible sense ofdéjà vucame over him. It was as if time were collapsing and he was seeing her as he had seen her for the very first time.

He felt a vice around his chest, tightening pitilessly.

But he deserved no pity...

Deserved only the pain that was now his constant companion.

Dr Michaelis was addressing her, and Damos could hear the awkwardness in his voice. He felt bad for him, but his need was too great. Too desperate.

‘Ah, Kassia... Kyrios Kallinikos has...has asked the favour of a word with you.’

Kassia’s expression did not change. Nor did she look at Damos. She got to her feet. She said nothing—only stepped out of the trench.

‘Good, good...’ said Dr Michaelis, sounding flustered. He hurried away.

Kassia’s eyes went to Damos. There was something wrong with them, he could see. They looked...smeared.

She still didn’t speak—just stood there. Memory poured through him. He could swear she was wearing the same earth-coloured baggy cotton trousers, the same mustard-coloured tee—though this time she wore a tan gilet over it against the chillier weather. Her hair was screwed up in a careless knot on her head, and she wore not a scrap of make-up—unless he counted the flecks of dirt on her cheeks.

The memory struck at him of how she’d walked back to the yacht at the marina in Spain, her shoulders hunched, head down. All the confidence that she’d glowed with once he’d got her to realise just how beautiful she was had gone. As if it had never been...

She was still not speaking, only looking at him with those smeared, blank eyes.

He made himself speak. Say what he had come here to say.

‘I... I have something that I would like to tell you. That I... I would like you to know.’

His voice was hesitant—but how should it not be? Twice already she had not let him speak—in Athens and in Spain.

‘I... I wanted you to know that I have been funding the museum. Your father...’ his voice was strained ‘...withdrew his support after—’

He broke off, then made himself continue.

‘I did not want the museum to suffer, so I stepped in. It was...something I could do. But I don’t...don’t say this in any expectation that you might...might think less ill of me—’

He broke off again. Those blank, smeared eyes conveyed nothing. Nor did she say anything.

He went on with what he had come here to say.

‘My acquisition of Cosmo Palandrou’s company has gone through—I used a proxy, whom I funded, who then sold it on to me. It had been badly mismanaged, and industrial disputes were endemic. Since my acquisition I have created an employee share scheme which allocates half the company to all the employees, at no cost to themselves. Profits will be shared fifty-fifty, and my share will be reinvested for the company’s expansion. I,’ he added, ‘will not be benefitting financially.’

He stopped. What he had to say next was hardest of all. But he must say it. Even though Kassia still had not moved, her blank smeared gaze was still on him.

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