Dark Apollo

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Endpage

Copyright

“How dare you speak to me like that?”

His voice was molten.

Camilla met his gaze. Eyes dark as obsidian, she thought with a strange clarity, and as hard as flint. But with a small flame burning…

Just as she was burning inside.

She drew a deep angry breath. “Because it wasn’t me that you…seduced and abandoned in Athens. It was my sister, Katie.” A sob rose in her throat. “And you can’t even remember what she looks like.”

SARA CRAVEN was born in South Devon, England, and grew up surrounded by books, in a house by the sea. After leaving grammar school she worked as a local journalist covering everything from flower shows to murders. She started writing for Harlequin Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from writing, her passions include films, music, cooking and eating in good restaurants.

Dark Apollo

Sara Craven

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘BUT he loves me.’

‘I wouldn’t count on it.’ Camilla Dryden spoke more brusquely than she’d intended, and repented instantly as she saw her sister’s eyes cloud with bewildered hurt.

‘Katie, love,’ she went on more gently, ‘you hardly know each other. It was a holiday romance. Just—one of those things.’

She could hardly believe her own ears. One cliché” was following another, and she wasn’t surprised to see Katie shaking her head.

‘It wasn’t like that. I knew as soon as I met Spiro that there would never be anyone else. And he feels just the same about me.’

Camilla winced inwardly. ‘Then why wasn’t he on that flight? Or any of today’s other flights, for that matter?’

‘I don’t know. Something must have happened to prevent him—delay him.’

Camilla could make a cynical guess what that ‘something’ might be. Spiridion Xandreou had probably remembered, just in time, that he had a fiancée—or even a wife—already.

This is what comes, she thought seething, of allowing an impressionable eighteen-year-old to spend Easter in Greece.

It had seemed a perfectly acceptable invitation at the time. Lorna Stephens, Katie’s best friend, was going to Athens to visit her aunt, married to a Greek businessman. The two girls had been working hard for their public examinations, and deserved a break from their studies.

How could Camilla have guessed that Lorna’s aunt was the kind of irresponsible idiot who’d allow her niece and her niece’s friend to be chatted up by personable Greek waiters?

If only it had stopped at chat, Camilla thought with a silent groan. Or if Katie had been sophisticated enough to realise she was being spun a line by an experienced charmer.

On her return, she’d informed her elder sister that, although she was still prepared to take her A levels, they no longer mattered because she was engaged to be married.

Camilla had taken a deep, steadying breath, and done some gentle probing.

What had emerged was hardly reassuring. Spiro, it seemed, worked in a marvellous and famous restaurant where Katie had gone for a meal with the family party. Spiro had served at their table, and the following evening Katie and Lorna had managed to return to the restaurant alone.

‘Of course, he’s not really just a waiter.’ Katie’s eyes had been full of stars, and a new womanly awareness which had struck a chill to Camilla’s heart. ‘His family own the restaurant, and masses of other things beside—hotels, even a shipping line. From what Spiro says, they must be amazingly wealthy. Isn’t it incredible?’

‘It certainly is,’ Camilla had agreed, but Katie had been oblivious to the irony in her voice.

‘When my exams are over, Spiro’s flying over to meet you, and ask formally if he can marry me.’ She had smiled tenderly. ‘He’s very old-fashioned.’

Well, he’d certainly chosen the right route to Katie’s heart, Camilla had thought savagely. Katie was old-fashioned too, a shy, gentle girl, who before that Athenian spring had had her heart set on university and an academic career. First love should have come gently to her too, not force-fed under a Greek sun by some plausible Lothario.

She’d thought, She’s going to be so hurt.

But, to her surprise, letters with Greek stamps had begun to arrive regularly and frequently.

Perhaps Spiro Xandreou knew Lorna’s rich uncle, and assumed Katie came from the same kind of background.

Little does he know, she’d thought, looking round their small flat. When he realised that Katie’s only relative was an older sister working for a busy secretarial agency to keep a roof over their heads, this so-called engagement would be a thing of the past.

Camilla had never been to Greece, but she had a shrewd idea that marriages there were still very much tied up with property, and the size of a bride’s potential dowry. Katie had no financial qualification to recommend her to the family of a young waiter on the make.

For a time, it had seemed as if Katie was having second thoughts about her romance as well. She had been silent and preoccupied, and spent a lot of time alone in her room. She’d lost weight too, and there were shadows under her eyes.

But then another letter arrived, and Katie, bubbling with renewed happiness, had revealed that Spiro was flying to London at the end of June.

But his flight had landed without him, and Katie had eventually returned to the flat alone, almost distraught with worry.

And now Camilla had to make her see reason.

‘Surely he’d have sent word if he’d been delayed,’ she said. ‘I think,’ she added carefully, ‘we’re going to have to accept, darling, that he’s simply changed his mind…’

‘He can’t have done.’ Bright spots of colour burned in Katie’s cheeks. ‘We’re going to be married. He—he has to come here. Oh, Camilla, he’s simply got to.’

Camilla looked at her in sudden horrified understanding. She didn’t have to ask why, she thought. It was all there in Katie’s tear-bright eyes and trembling mouth, in the curious blend of dignity and shame in her face as she looked back at her sister.

Her voice broke. ‘Oh, no, Katie. For God’s sake—not that.’

‘It’s quite true. I’m going to have Spiro’s baby. But it’s all right, because he loves me, and we’re going to be married as soon as it can be arranged.’

Camilla’s voice was weary. ‘You’ve actually told him you’re pregnant?’ She gave a mirthless smile. ‘And you wonder why he wasn’t on that plane.’

‘You’re not to say that.’ Katie’s voice shook with intensity. ‘You don’t know him. He’s decent and honourable.’

‘So decent, so honourable he couldn’t wait to seduce a girl on her first trip abroad.’ Camilla shook her head, her throat aching with grief and bitterness. ‘Oh, Katie, you fool.’ She sighed. ‘Well, now we have to decide what to do for the best.’

‘I know what you’re going to say.’ Katie’s face was suddenly pale. ‘Don’t even think it, Milla. I’m having this baby.’

‘Darling, you haven’t thought it through. You’ve got your university course—your whole life ahead of you. You can’t imagine what it would be like trying to cope with a baby as well…’

‘But that isn’t what I’ve chosen. I’m going to marry Spiro. It isn’t the life I’d planned, I agree, but it’s the life I want—the only one, now and forever.’

‘Katie—you can’t know that.’

‘Mother knew it, when she met Father. And she was younger than me,’ Katie said unanswerably. ‘And you can’t say they weren’t happy.’

No, Camilla thought. She couldn’t say that. Her parents had loved each other deeply and joyously until a jack-knifing lorry had brought that love to a premature end, leaving her at nineteen with the sole responsibility for a vulnerable adolescent.

And what a hash I’ve made of it, she castigated herself. She needed her mother’s wisdom to tell her how to support Katie through this crisis. I don’t know what to do, she thought, and felt a hundred years old.

She felt even older when she woke the next morning. It had been a terrible evening. Katie had managed to telephone the restaurant in Athens, only to be told with polite but impersonal regret that Spiro no longer worked there. Nor could they say where he’d gone.

I bet they can’t, Camilla had thought, seething. They’re probably inundated with calls like this.

All night long, Camilla had heard the sound of Katie’s desolate sobbing through the thin partition wall. She’d tried to go to her, but Katie’s door was locked. Besides, what could she do, or say—she who had never been even marginally tempted to fall in love herself? She was the last person in the world to know what comfort or advice to offer, she’d told herself unhappily.

To her surprise she found Katie already up, and making breakfast in the tiny kitchenette. Her sister looked wan and red-eyed, but her face was set with determination.

‘I’m going to find him, Milla,’ she said.

‘But you can’t trail round every restaurant and taverna in Athens asking for him. It would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.’ Dismayed, Camilla took the beaker of coffee Katie handed her.

‘Not Athens.’ Katie shook her head. ‘Spiro comes from an island called Karthos. It’s in the Ionian Sea, south of Corfu. I shall go there. His family must know where he is.’

Camilla took a wary sip of the strong black brew. ‘Katie,’ she said hesitantly, ‘has it occurred to you that Spiro may not—want to be found?’

‘That’s not true,’ Katie said calmly. ‘If it were, I’d know it here.’ She put her hand on her heart.

The simplicity of the gesture and the profound trust it implied made Camilla’s throat ache with unshed tears.

He’s not worth it, she thought savagely.

There were a thousand arguments she ought to be able to use to stop Katie embarking on this crazy and probably fruitless quest, but somehow she couldn’t think of one.

Instead, she said, ‘Then I’m going with you.’

‘Milla, do you mean it?’ Katie’s face was transfigured. ‘But what about the agency? Will Mrs Strathmore give you the time off?’

‘I’ve a whole backlog of leave I haven’t taken.’ Camilla gave her a reassuring smile. ‘And Mrs Strathmore can lump it. She won’t sack me. She relies on me to handle the ghastly clients the others won’t work for. I’ll call in and explain on the way round to the travel agency.’ She tried to sound positive and encouraging, but her heart was in her boots.

What the hell will we do if we don’t find him? she wondered. Or, even worse, supposing we find him and he doesn’t want to know?

She sighed silently. They would cross that bridge when they came to it.

‘We’ll find him.’ Katie seemed to have read her thoughts. Her voice and face were serene. ‘It’s fate. The Greeks have always believed in fate.’

And in the Furies, Camilla thought grimly. The so-called Kindly Ones inexorably pursuing the erring, and wreaking their vengeance on them.

Well, she would be a latter-day Fury, trailing Spiro Xandreou, no matter how well he might have covered his tracks.

She said, ‘There’s no such thing as fate,’ and surreptitiously crossed her fingers under the kitchen table.

* * *

The Hotel Dionysius was small, fiercely clean, and frankly basic. Camilla sat at a plasticcovered table in a corner of the outside restaurant area, a tall glass of freshly squeezed orange juice in front of her. She was sheltered from the glare of the midday sun by a thatched roof, interwoven with a sprawling and healthy vine. Beyond the hotel’s tiny garden with its hibiscus hedge lay the main square of Karthos town.

The island was only a remote dot in the Ionian Sea, but it was bustling with tourists. So far Camilla had heard French, German and Dutch being spoken, as well as English, and she and Katie had been lucky to get the last two vacancies at the hotel.

She’d left Katie sleeping in their whitewashed shuttered room on the first floor. She was beginning to feel the effects of her pregnancy, and had been miserably sick on the flight to Zakynthos, and the subsequent long ferry trip. The temperature on Karthos was already up in the eighties, and she’d agreed with little fuss to Camilla’s suggestion that she should rest and leave the initial enquiries for Spiro to her sister.

Camilla had been sorely tempted to cancel this whole wild-goose chase after a reluctant telephone call to Lorna Stephens’ Greek uncle. She’d explained, without going into detail, that she was anxious to trace a young waiter from the restaurant Clio, and wondered if he could help.

To judge by the cynical sigh, and muttered, ‘Po, po, po,’ no further explanation was needed. ‘You know the name of this man, thespinis?’

‘He’s called Spiro Xandreou.’

‘Xandreou?’ Across the miles, she heard the sharp intake of breath. Then, ‘I regret I cannot assist you. But I advise you most strongly, thespinis, to proceed no further in this.’ A pause. ‘Most strongly.’ And he’d rung off, leaving Camilla with a host of unanswered questions.

She’d been warned off, she realised uneasily. She could only hope that Spiro wasn’t some kind of thug—a member of the Greek mafia, if there was such a thing. Maybe he wasn’t on Karthos at all, but in gaol somewhere.

But how could she tell Katie her suspicions, and burst the bubble of optimism and anticipation which encircled her? Maybe she just had to let her find out for herself, she concluded resignedly.

Camilla sighed silently as she finished the iced fruit juice.

But where on earth should their search start?

‘You enjoy?’ Kostas, the hotel’s burly proprietor, arrived to clear the table. He had a thick black moustache, a booming laugh, and he smoked incessantly. But the warmth of his welcome had been quite unfeigned, and to Camilla’s relief he spoke better than rudimentary English. The questions she needed to ask were omitted from the usual phrase books.

She nodded vigorously. ‘It was delicious, thank you. Just what I needed.’

‘To travel in this heat is not good.’

As he turned away, she said, ‘Kostas, do you know a family called Xandreou—with a son named Spiro?’

The genial smile vanished as if it had been wiped away. He looked startled, and almost apprehensive. ‘Why do you ask?’

She said lightly, ‘Oh, our families used to be—acquainted. I believe they come from here, and I’d like to see them again. That’s all.’

There was a silence, then, ‘Xandreou, you say?’ Kostas shook his head. ‘I don’t know the name. You have come to the wrong place, I think, thespinis.’

‘I don’t think so.’ She gave him a level look. ‘You’re sure you haven’t heard of them?’

‘Certain.’ He paused. ‘You are on holiday, thespinis. You should relax. Go to the beach—enjoy the sun—drink some wine. Make other friends—and don’t waste time looking for these people.’

And if that wasn’t an oblique warning, she’d never heard one, Camilla thought, watching him walk away between the tables, which were already filling up for lunch.

It was the same message she’d got from Athens: keep away from the Xandreou clan.

Everyone knows them, but they don’t want to talk about them, she thought, a prickle of wariness running down her spine. Yet, somehow, for Katie’s sake, she had to penetrate this wall of silence.

She picked up her bag, and walked to the steep outside stairway which provided an alternative access to the bedrooms.

There’d been some cards on the reception desk advertising car and motorbike hire. She’d rent a scooter and take a preliminary look round. The brochure on the island had warned that most of the best beaches were out of town, and it might be pleasant to find some deserted cove and laze around for a while before the real business of their trip began.

‘Journeys end in lovers meeting’, she thought. I only hope it’s true.

She was halfway up the steep outside staircase that provided an alternative access to the bedrooms when a voice below her said urgently, ‘Thespinis.’

Glancing down, she saw one of the hotel waiters, who’d been serving an adjoining table while she spoke to Kostas. He gave her an ingratiating smile. ‘You want Spiro Xandreou?’

‘Why, yes.’ Her heartbeat quickened in swift excitement. ‘Do you know him?’

‘Since boys.’ He touched a fist theatrically to his chest. ‘I too am a man of Karthos.’

‘Then can you tell me where to find him?’

The young man shrugged, sending a slightly furtive glance back over his shoulder. ‘Is not easy for me, you understand…’

Camilla understood perfectly. She extracted a thousand-drachma note from her wallet, and handed it over.

He whispered hoarsely, ‘He is at his house—the Villa Apollo.’

‘Is that near here?’

‘Ochi.’ He gestured towards the craggy hills which formed the island’s hinterland. ‘Is long way.’

‘Is there a bus?’

‘No bus. Nothing there—only villa. You get car, or motorbike.’ He handed her one of the cards displayed in Reception. ‘My cousin rent—very cheap.’

With you on commission, no doubt, she returned silently. But she thanked him politely, and went on up the steps.

‘Thespinis,’ he hissed again, and she paused. ‘Thespinis, whatever occur, you don’t say to boss I told you, ne?’

‘Not a word,’ she said, and watched him vanish into the hotel.

Katie was still out for the count. Camilla wrote her a brief note saying she was going to explore, and replaced the simple button-through dress she’d worn for the journey with white shorts and a sleeveless top, with her initial in red and gold embroidery over the left breast. She gathered her thick chestnut hair into a barrette at the nape of her neck for coolness, and slid her feet into comfortable canvas shoes.

She found the rental place easily enough. It was basically a dirt yard, with chickens pecking round between the scooters. Andonis, the owner, wore a grubby singlet and a three-day growth, and had the kind of gleam in his eye which made Camilla regret she hadn’t changed into something less revealing.

She was able to hire a scooter with a disturbing lack of formality, although the actual cost was rather more than she’d bargained for. She enquired about a safety helmet, and Andonis stared at her as if she were mad, then spat on the ground.

‘Karthos roads are good,’ he said flatly. Her request for a map of the island met with more luck, however. A photocopied sheet, dog-eared and much folded, was produced.

Camilla stared at the web of roads, wondering where she would find the spider.

‘I’m looking for a particular house—the Villa Apollo,’ she said. ‘Can you mark it for me?’

He whistled through the gap in his teeth. ‘You want Xandreou?’ He gave her another lascivious look. ‘So do many women. He’s lucky man.’

Well, his luck’s about to change, Camilla thought grimly. Andonis’s remark, and the grin that accompanied it, had only confirmed all her worst fears. Katie’s honourable lover was nothing more than a practised Casanova, she realised with disgust.

Andonis made a laborious pencil cross on the map. ‘Villa Apollo,’ he said. He gave her another openly appraising stare. ‘You should tell me before. Maybe I make special price for Xandreou’s woman.’

Presumably they arrived in convoys, Camilla thought with distaste.

She distanced Andonis, who was disposed to help her on to the scooter, with an icy look.

‘You’re mistaken, kyrie. I’m not—what you say.’

The grin widened, unabashed. He shrugged. ‘Not now, maybe, but who knows?’

‘I do,’ Camilla said curtly, and rode off.

This was obviously what they’d all been trying to warn her about, she thought, as she headed out of town on the road Andonis had indicated.

Innocent Katie had given her heart and her body to a worthless piece of womanising scum. Well, he wasn’t going to get away with it.

‘Xandreou’s woman’, she thought with contempt. What a tag to be branded with.

But I’ll make him pay for it, she vowed under her breath, if it’s the last thing I do.

‘Whatever occur’. The waiter’s words sneaked unexpectedly back into her mind.

An odd thing to say, she thought. Almost like another warning. And, in spite of the intense heat, she felt suddenly, strangely cold.

CHAPTER TWO

CAMILLA brought the scooter gingerly to a halt on the stony verge, and wiped the sweat from her forehead.

Much further, and she would run out of road. Already the surface had dwindled to the status of a track, yet there was still no sign of the Villa Apollo. Had Andonis deliberately sent her to a dead end?

She eased the base of her spine with a faint grimace. He’d certainly given her the maverick of his scooter collection. The steering had a mind of its own, and the brakes barely existed. If she had to do an emergency stop…

Not that there seemed much chance of that. So far she hadn’t passed another living thing, except for a donkey, a couple of tethered goats, and a dog on a chain who’d barked at her.

The road, rising steeply, was lined on each side with olive groves, and their silvery canopy had protected her from the worst of the sun. Some of the trees, with their gnarled and twisted trunks, seemed incredibly old, but they were still bearing fruit. The netting spread on the ground beneath to catch the olives bore witness to that.

Camilla turned and looked behind her, as if to remind herself that civilisation did exist. Below her, in the distance, glimpsed in the gaps between the clustering olives, were the multicoloured roofs and white walls of Karthos town, topped by the vivid blue dome of a church. And beyond that again, azure, jade and amethyst, was the sea.

I could be on a beach now, she thought wistfully, if I weren’t riding this two-wheeled deathtrap up the side of a mountain.

She sighed, as she eased the clinging top away from the damp heat of her body, imagining herself sliding down from some convenient rock into cool, deep water, salty and cleansing against her skin.

One more bend in the road, she told herself. Then I go back.

She coaxed the scooter back to life, and set off, trying to correct its ferocious wobble on corners. In doing so, she nearly missed the Villa Apollo altogether.

She came to a halt, dirt and gravel flying under the tyres, and stared at the letters carved into the two stone gateposts ahead of her. And beneath them the emblem of the sun—the sign of the god Apollo himself, who each day, according to legend, drove his fiery chariot through the heavens.

Camilla dismounted with care, propping her machine against the rocky bank. With luck, someone terminally insane with a death wish might just steal it.

Beyond the gateway, more olive trees shadowed a steeply lifting driveway.

Right, she thought, tilting her chin. Let’s see this irresistible Adonis who causes such havoc in people’s lives. Hands in pockets, she set off up the gradient, moving with a brisk, confident stride that totally masked her inner unease. Knowing she had right on her side did little to calm her nerves, she discovered.