Michael Frayn - Skios

So he had somehow made the real Dr. Norman Wilfred vanish. Had abducted him. Kidnapped him.

How, though? He could scarcely have done it on his own. Particularly since he had been with her all the time, enjoying himself by watching her become ever more hopelessly entangled in the web he had spun. He must have had people working with him. They would have had to do it, not on the spur of the moment at all, but according to a careful plan made long in advance. They would have had weapons and safe houses.

So perhaps this wasn’t a joke, after all. It was something quite different. Into her mind came the picture of Mrs. Toppler talking to Oliver Fox, her hand on his arm, telling him everything. And then of Oliver Fox turning to talk to Mrs. Skorbatova. And of Mrs. Skorbatova suddenly able to understand English.

And of Mr. Skorbatov cutting the grapes with those tiny silver scissors. She thought about the way he had been holding them, the surgical ruthlessness with which he had used them, and then how each grape had vanished into his mouth, snap, like a fly into the mouth of a lizard …

Behind the bougainvillea that screened the car park the fat limousines and four-by-fours purred as contentedly as well-fed cats, while the chauffeurs tipped their seats back and settled to an hour or two of air-conditioned sleep.

In the lodge Elli yawned and phoned her mother in Ioannina.

At the barrier in front of the lodge Giorgios had taken over while the rest of the security staff had their supper break. There was nothing for him to do. All the guests had arrived long since. He sat down in the darkness under an oleander and lit a cigarette. He had scarcely taken his first consoling drag, however, when the lights of an approaching car appeared. He got himself wearily to his feet and stubbed the cigarette out. This job had certain perks, it was true, but there was even less chance for the occasional relaxing smoke than he would have had looking for gas leaks.

The familiar . Spiros or Stavros? Stavros. Giorgios wandered over and shook hands while Stavros’s passenger, a woman wearing an evening dress made of complex folds and swags of tulle, got out of the back. Giorgios and Stavros had quite a lot to talk about. Stavros’s mother was a cousin of Giorgios’s aunt, and they hadn’t seen each other since Uncle Panagiotis had run off with the girl from the ice cream bar.

“Hey!” interrupted Stavros suddenly. He jumped out of the taxi and looked round. His passenger was just disappearing under the barrier, into the darkness inside the foundation, her tulle hoisted up around her.

“Invitation!” shouted Giorgios, and ran after her.

“Thirty-two euros!” shouted Stavros, and ran after Giorgios.

* * *

There was another slight disturbance occurring in the harbor. An incoming yacht, Happy Days, registered in Izmir, had just collided with something large and solid in the darkness.

“Sorry about that,” said the man at the helm, in an expensively educated English voice. “Only paintwork, though.”

“Patrick’s arseholed again!” said a second matching voice. “Someone else take the wheel!”

“Trouble is,” said a third voice likewise, “all the rest of us are arseholeder than Patrick.”

“Look at it, though!” said a fourth voice. “Is that what we hit? It’s the size of an aircraft carrier!”

Heads had appeared over the rail above their heads, shouting in a foreign language.

“Oh my God!” said the third voice on Happy Days . “Russians! And they’re waving things at us!”

“Submachine guns,” said the second voice.

“Do beg your pardon!” the fourth voice shouted up to them. “Helmsman arseholed!”

Happy Days motored gently on into the darkness and hit the dockside with reassuring firmness. All three men who weren’t holding on to the wheel for support fell over and laughed.

“Anyway, he’s got us there,” said the third voice. “Good old Patrick!”

“Yes, but where’s he got us?” said the second.

“Skabulos,” said the third.

“Skrofulos,” said the fourth, taking a line ashore.

“Who cares?” said the third. “As long as it’s dry and it’s not rocking about.”

“And there’s somewhere we can get a few beers,” said the fourth.

“I can see a taverna!” said the second. “Look! Candle-lit tables! The works!”

“Women!” said the third. “I can see women!”

“No women for Patrick,” said the fourth voice. “He’s in a serious relationship.”

“Well, I am,” said Patrick. “So fuck off. Though since she’s in Switzerland at the moment…”

* * *

In Empedocles Christian at last roused himself from his long meditation. He brushed the gray veil of hair away from his face and tucked Oliver Fox’s passport carefully away beneath his prayer shawl. He sighed deeply. Eric Felt, dozing on the other side of the low table, started awake at the unaccustomed sound, and then gazed in astonishment.

Christian was getting to his feet.

Eric hastily scrambled up as well, and stood bulging excitedly. The moment had come.

* * *

In Parmenides Nikki looked in the bathroom mirror. Her hair had gone flat and brooding. She quickly brushed it up with her hand. She removed the sour and vengeful look from her face and restored its usual pleasant openness. She carefully clamped Dr. Norman Wilfred’s passport onto her clipboard. It wasn’t Mrs. Toppler she needed to show this passport to — it was Mr. Papadopoulou. He was the one Mr. Oliver Fox had in his sights.

And he was the one with people who could take care of things like this.

* * *

Giorgios had abandoned the chase after Stavros and his passenger, and returned to guard the barrier, still out of breath. He arrived just in time to find another taxi, Spiros’s this time, delivering two more late arrivals — an oddly matched couple, she expensively dressed and groomed, he apparently some kind of down-and-out. The man began fumbling in his pockets to pay Spiros, but already the woman was propelling him impatiently towards the barrier.

“Invitation,” said Giorgios, whereupon the woman knocked him unceremoniously aside with her handbag. Giorgios, discouraged by the pain in his elbow, and still short of breath from his last attempt to preserve the foundation’s security, watched her push her companion under the barrier. He turned back to discuss the news about Uncle Panagiotis with Spiros. But Spiros was already ducking under the barrier in his turn.

“Thirty-two euros!” he was shouting.

On the agora the last moments of pleasure were being savored before the serious business of the evening closed in. Coffee cups and brandy glasses were being drained, the crinkled silver paper off chocolates flattened on tablecloths. Legs were being stretched, bladders emptied, tables hopped, empty chairs smilingly leaned across. On the way to and from the gents’, elbows were being amiably squeezed and distant acquaintanceships renewed. In the queues outside the ladies’, hair tints were being insincerely commended and husbands half-sincerely disparaged.

Mr. Papadopoulou had sat down in the seat next to Mr. Skorbatov, left temporarily vacant by Darling Erlunder, who had got Wellesley Luft mixed up with Ludleigh Wells and was telling him how much she loved his best seller about how prayer could improve one’s orgasms. Mr. Papadopoulou was talking earnestly and sincerely, with much touching of Mr. Skorbatov’s arm and putting of his mouth conspiratorially close to the Russian magnate’s ear as he looked past the back of his head, while Mr. Skorbatov said nothing, but half closed his eyes and sketched the faint iconic suggestion of a smile.