She whispered. “Maurice said he would see me on Sunday. In Athens. But I haven’t seen a soul. And then yesterday I somehow guessed that you had sent the other telegram.”

“How did you get here? On the boat?”

But she avoided that trap. “I found a way by land. By Kranidi?”

Occasionally thalassophobic parents used that route—it meant changing at Corinth and taking a taxi from Kranidi and then hiring a boat to bring one across from the mainland; a full day’s journey; and difficult if one didn’t speak good Greek.

“But why?”

“I know I’ve been followed everywhere in Athens. And I’ve seen Joe.”

“Where?”

“On Monday. He was in a car outside the Grande Bretagne. As soon as he saw me he drove away.” I didn’t believe it; she was simply telling stories. I hesitated, nearly called her bluff, changed my mind. Crossing the avenue I peered cautiously round a cypress on that side. The three were calmly strolling on, their backs to us; the grayish strip of road, the low black scrub. In a few moments they went round the bend and out of sight. June came beside me. I turned to her.

“I’ve put the whole business in the hands of the police.”

“The police?” I could tell I had caught her off-balance; then remembered that my own lies had to be convincing.

“Only today. I expect they’ve been looking for you in Athens.” She gave a dubious sort of nod. “Well your sister’s been abducted. Hasn’t she?” She wouldn’t meet my eyes. I was smiling. I began to feel certain that Julie was safe; and perhaps not very far away.

“I was thinking of the telegram.” There was a silence. I could smell the rain; then thunder, closer. “Would you come back with me? I’m in the hotel. I’m so frightened. On my own.”

I gave her averted face a long salt look again; then grinned. I knew now that she had been sent to fetch me.

“Let’s go round the rear of the school. Come on. While the going’s good.”

I took her hand and led her silently and quickly up the cypress alley to the chapel. Beyond it a path climbed up into the trees, and a minute or two later we came on a transverse path that led round hack to the village. Now we were higher we could see the lightning, great skittering sheets of it, ominously pink, over the sea to the east. Islands ten or fifteen miles away stood palely out, then vanished. There were green wafts of wet air. We walked rapidly, in silence, though I took her arm once or twice to help her over the steeper slopes. Below us, over the massive trunk of the school, I could see the pale light outside Barba Vassili’s lodge. There were one or two lighted windows in the masters’ wing. Mine was out.

Lightning sheeted closer, making the landscape, sleeping school, olive groves, cottages, chapels, sea, stems, branches, flash luridly into presence. I looked at my watch. It was just midnight, and I felt full of a sort of joy, an amused excitement, the intoxication of danger, deceit, the unknown, the girl beside me. We came to a path that led down between cottages, and made our way through the back alleys of the village. A few isolated drops of rain began to fall. Somewhere a shutter slammed; a man standing in a lit doorway wished us good night. At last we came to the narrow high-walled lane that led behind the hotel, and through a gateway into the back yard. A light came from the rear door, which was half-glazed. I made June wait beside it while I looked in across the stone tiles to the front part of the lobby. A few scattered chairs and a sofa; the double glass doors of the main entrance. In one of the armchairs by the reception desk sat a man in a white shirt. The clerk. He was slumped, evidently asleep. I tried the half-glazed door. It was open.

I turned to her against the wall, and whispered.

“You’ll be all right now. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“You must come in.” Her face looked startled.

“I don’t think I’d better.”

“Nicholas. Please. You must.” For the first time her voice sounded genuinely alarmed.

“I don’t want to compromise you.”

She didn’t say anything, but she began to smile like a girl who recognizes that she is being teased, and deserves it; and makes churlishness very difficult.

“I’ve got the key.” She produced it from her skirt pocket; it had a brass tag with 13 stamped out.

“Appropriate number.”

“Please.”

She bent, slipped off her shoes, then took the initiative and my hand. We tiptoed into the hotel lobby, halfway down which the stairs led off to the left. The man in the white shirt was snoring slightly. A clock was ticking. Rapid rain began to drum on the tatty blue and white marquise outside. Like ghosts we padded up the stone staircase, around a half-landing, and then we were out of sight. She led me along a corridor on the first floor; stopped outside the end back room. I took the key and fitted it in the lock. I didn’t know what to expect; but I was as tense as a thief. The door gave. I let June go first. She fficked on the light, and we both stood in the doorway.

It was a large square room. There was a double bed with a pink bedspread, a table with a green cloth, two wooden chairs and an armchair, a cupboard, two or three skimpy carpets. Pale gray walls in need of painting, a photo of King Paul, an oleograph ikon over the bed. Another door led into a bathroom.

I closed the door and relocked it. Then I went and looked in the bathroom. A huge bath, nowhere to hide. I opened the wardrobe. A dress, a pair of girl’s slacks on a hanger, a black cotton dressing gown. Under the bed: a dusty chamber pot. There was no trap.

June had been watching and smiling. She twisted off the headscarf and the cardigan and threw them on the end of the bed; stood in a dark blue skirt and a black sleeveless shirt.

“What now?”

“I’d love a cigarette.”

I gave her one and lit it, and then she went to the mirror door of the wardrobe, unpinned her hair, shaking it out, slim-backed, barearmed. I went behind her and watched her face in the mirror. Gray-amethyst eyes. She had a little smile.

I said, “Your cue.”

“Is it?”

She turned then, the smile widening; and much too mischievous to be consonant with an abducted sister.

“What’s so funny?”

“I was just thinking of the first time we met.” The invitation was so absurd that I laughed. “Seriously.”

“I don’t think anything’s very serious with you.”

I went and stood by the window, the now torrential rain. “Where is she, June?”

She walked to the wardrobe and took out a cotton dressing gown. “I don’t know. Really.”

“Come on.”

But she went into the bathroom. Thunder crashed. She left the door ajar, and a few moments later she came back with the dressing gown on, and hung the skirt and shirt she had been wearing up in the wardrobe. Rain came in a great squall of wind; gusts of coolness through the shutters. Suddenly she switched the light off, so that there was only the light from the open bathroom door. She came across the room to where I was standing. It was a short dressing gown; a deep neckline. She sat on the arm of the armchair beside me.

“My sister’s with Maurice, Nicholas. I really don’t know where. I expect on his yacht.” She paused, then added, “She’s completely under his influence.”

“Rubbish.”

She looked up at me. “Didn’t you realize?” Lightning flickered through the shutters. She jumped, too obviously. I counted three; then thunder boomed.

“I see. And you’ve come to console me?”

The rain pelted outside. Somewhere down the corridor a key went into a lock, a door opened and closed. Then a secondary clap of thunder. June stood up and came very close beside me. She had put on scent in the bathroom. I put my cigarette in my mouth and left it there.

“Why not?”

I leant back against the sill. She was tracing patterns on it; as she had on the back of the seat by the Poseidon statue.