Roger Curtis - Lights in a Western Sky

Wayne applied his mind to the problem. He realised there were two contributors to this relationship he was observing. So he took to watching Alma’s response to Fleance’s presence. As the animal appeared in the frame of the window Alma’s eyes glazed over, as if in a trance. Wayne looked from one to the other with increasing rapidity. Something had passed between the two, of that he was sure. And more significant still there was a time-lag – in milliseconds, it is true, but there all the same – between Fleance’s averting his gaze and Alma’s countenance returning to normal. It could mean only one thing: Fleance was in control.

That night, with George still away, Wayne bedded Alma. Her outpourings of affection were peppered with nuggets of pure gold minted from George’s revelations about recent supposed extra-terrestrial happenings. Before even Alma awoke Wayne was at his desk superimposing that map upon another showing the spread of the muntjac population. Surely there was a correlation. He saw in his mind the beaming face of the vice-chancellor as he received his doctorate – and the customers in W H Smith as they flicked through copies of Nature in search of his paper. These were thoughts he had to share; rashly, he shared them with Alma.

George returned to an atmosphere pregnant with expectation. Quietly entering the morning room he observed his wife staring through the window. Wayne was beside her, with an arm around her waist and a stop-watch in his hand. George withdrew silently to his study, removed his shotgun from the wall safe, then had a strong coffee to steady his nerves as he laid his plans.

For many weeks the following Saturday evening had been earmarked for a barbeque in the garden. George’s recent trip to London explained the invitation of a number of professional colleagues not on the original list. ‘Leave the arrangements to me,’ he told a mildly surprised Alma that morning, ‘but you could help by getting a few more things from the supermarket.’ Reluctantly Alma agreed, accepting that for once her relationship with Fleance could withstand a missing session. ‘Take Wayne,’ George said. ‘Strong lad, he can carry the drinks.’

While Alma and Wayne were away, George shot Fleance.

The evening promised to be a great success. The weather had held and all in the garden glowed with that enchanting pale yellow-pink light unique to an Indian summer. Heavily spiced steaks and burgers sizzled over greying charcoal. Lightly browned chicken legs and sausages were tastefully arranged on the hot plate. And there were other treats besides. George’s speciality had always been to surprise his guests with the unexpected, and tonight he produced an old favourite of Alma’s: brains deep fried in brown butter with herbs and capers, thick succulent slices of which nestled temptingly amongst the other meats and delicacies. The guests approached in single file, and George filled their plates before dispatching them to the chips and salads.

No-one enjoyed a joke more than George, but in his experience such things were never to be rushed. When all his guests had loaded their plates he made sure Alma and Wayne were served generously. With an amused smile he savoured the appreciative grunts of pleasure. Now, surely, was the time to tell. He clapped his hands for attention, lifted his plate, chose the juiciest morsel from it and began to chew with an exaggerated expression of delight. ‘I invite you all to guess…’ he began. But no-one could because at that moment the plate fell from his hands. He began to choke, and then cough violently. His face turned purple, his eyes rotated heavenwards. He fell to the ground…

In the commotion that followed few noticed the several pairs of eyes fixed upon them, deep within the recesses of the laurel bushes. As Wayne remarked later, they were probably choosing Fleance’s successor.

The Pelion Peninsula points like a fingerless appendage towards the islands of the western Aegean Sea. At its shoulder the town of Volos and, to its east, the bare mass of Mount Pelion guard its forested spine and fringing beaches against all but the more adventurous of travellers. For the previous two summers the Maxwells had holidayed there, benefiting from the seclusion and tranquillity. For Hugh Maxwell it had seemed a salve for an incident that had blighted the twilight of his career as a High Court judge, when he had, against his better judgement, presided over the conviction and hanging of an innocent man. But over the course of an otherwise successful career he had built up a resistance to the personal consequences of occasional errors and could live with it. Not so his young wife Emma, who knew more of the background to the case than she could comfortably bear. Nevertheless they stayed together. Their decision to purchase and renovate an old farmhouse had been shared, up to a point, though Emma had puzzled over Hugh’s choice of a remote location at the peninsula’s southern tip.

In those days – in the early seventies – there were few neighbours, and none close. The farmhouse looked down a deep green valley of mixed deciduous and pine forest leading to the sea a kilometre away. From the tiny harbour a rough and indistinct track led back through an ancient olive grove, then upwards through the trees, passing close to the Maxwell’s veranda before continuing more steeply to reach the old monastery of Agia Triada perched precariously high above the house. Referring to the cliff, Emma had once jokingly compared it to a barrier against the traumas of their former life; but Hugh had turned away, unamused.

These days the track saw only the occasional rambler, and it was a while before they learnt from the locals that it was part of a network of pack animal trails, once extensively used, connecting settlements throughout the peninsula. Knowing this, they one day scuffed away the soil and detritus with their feet and were surprised to find a paved – and surprisingly intact and serviceable – surface. But excursions into local history could wait, and they resumed planting the garden with oleanders and frangipani, and trailing bougainvilleas over the veranda trellis. Each evening they would sit with their glasses of rough local wine and thank providence for allowing them a few years yet to enjoy their new-found existence. But the bland deliciousness of it all had its downside in that, for the novel Hugh had promised himself he would write, the moving finger had perceptibly slowed, if not stopped altogether. The hand that should have held the pen more often than not was clutching a wineglass.

From the veranda they would watch the fishing boats in the distance: tiny specks on the deep blue waters beyond the village and its harbour. In the evenings the lights would twinkle dimly, but one evening they were joined by another, bluish and brighter than the rest, that seemed to come from a boat moored a little way out to sea. Emma remembered that moment particularly because it coincided with the first appearance of a person on the track passing the house. The indistinct grey figure had emerged momentarily from the deep shadows beneath the overhanging branches of the chestnut trees.

‘Look, Hugh,’ she whispered.

The urgency in her voice made him turn. ‘What have you seen?’

‘A figure, just for an instant, on the old track.’

Hugh peered into the gloom. ‘I can’t see anything. No-one comes here when it’s getting dark. It’s just the breeze moving the branches.’

‘It stood quite still, watching us. I’m sure of it.’

‘I’ll get a torch, take a look.’

‘No, stay with me. You’re not to leave me alone.’

The following morning Hugh and Emma climbed the track to the monastery. Most of the building was hidden behind a formidable rough stone wall. Hugh pulled on a cord beside the studded oak door that somewhere within caused a bell to be struck. A minute later the door swung open to reveal the surprised face of young monk who seemed at first reluctant to admit them. They entered a courtyard neatly laid out with beds of carefully tended vegetables, at odds with the rampant reds and purples of the bougainvilleas clothing the surrounding walls. The monk led them through a door into a dark hallway where another monk, elderly with greying hair and a shrivelled face, introduced himself as Father Petros. ‘From my cell I could see you coming up the track,’ he said. ‘Few people come that way nowadays. It’s much easier to reach us from the road higher up the mountain.’