Page 108 of Villa of Secrets

‘Will you give me the diary? I’d like to read some. I can’t recall much of what I wrote.’

‘It’s pretty powerful stuff, Bubba. I don’t want you getting upset. I’ve just read about you shooting the German to save the Andartes in the villa. My heart’s still thudding. Can you hang on until you are a little stronger?’

Bubba’s eyes glazed for a moment, then she nodded and quipped, ‘Perhaps you’re right. I’ll sit outside and do my gymnastics for a while.’

Chapter 45

The Andartes surrounded me, Kopay, and the wounded soldier. One of them took the machine gun from my hands. Trembling, I sank to my knees. Nathanial lifted me onto his wide shoulders.

‘She saved our lives, men. And thanks to the little one, we add more firepower to our arsenal. That’s six machine guns she’s brought us! Come, we must honour our hero!’ he boomed.

The rebels clapped and whistled in admiration as I was carried shoulder-high to the villa. Josie painted the German’s wrist with iodine and then bandaged it before he was tied to a chair in the cellar. Two men went out to bury the dead soldier. Nathanial poured raki for everyone, and we slammed our glasses down and knocked it back. I kept glancing at the door in the hope Giovanni would appear, but he didn’t.

‘He’s gone, little one,’ Nathanial said quietly, guessing what was going through my head. ‘He’ll be back, don’t worry.’ He dished out more raki, but I told him I wanted to return to the hut on Mount Filerimos.

‘Then Tassos will also go, and stay with you tonight.’ He caught my nervous look. ‘Don’t worry, little one, you’ll be perfectly safe. Go now, before it gets too dark.’

One of the rebels put a record on an old wind-up player. The men sat in a circle, hitting the raki hard and watching Josie perform Tsifteteli, the sensual Greek belly dance.

As I passed through the front door, I turned and gave them a wave. They were true friends who had looked after me when I needed them. Nathanial had buried Irini and helped me with my grief. There had always been someone in the background, keeping an eye on me, making sure I was safe. The Andartes leader had married me to Giovanni. I was sad to leave them all.

Tassos, Kopay, and I squeezed through the wall of trees. I looked back at the villa once more, remembering the first time I had seen it, then we set off, up through the forest to Filerimos. My heart went out to Giovanni. Such a weight of guilt he carried. I hoped he would stay safe in the army. After all that had happened, even if I never saw him again, I had to know that he was alive and I prayed he would find happiness when the war ended.

Most of all, I hoped he would come back to me.

The three of us walked in silence, our surroundings silver in the full moon.

Tassos heard it first. He stopped, rested a hand on my arm, and turned his eyes towards the sky. Then I recognised it too, the drone of a distant plane. As it neared, anti-aircraft fire rocketed from the airport viewing tower. We both leapt when an explosion ripped open the night and illuminated the top of the hill.

‘Here!’ Tassos yelled, dragging me behind a fallen tree. ‘Get down!’

The whine of a falling bomb had me petrified rigid. Memories of the Levi’s house rushed back. Tassos threw himself over me, knocking me down. There was a second of silence, an explosion that deafened me, and terrible pain in my ears. In the same moment, a rush of air blew dirt and grit and forestry detritus through the trees around us. A thick branch crashed to the ground right in front of the tree trunk. I curled up against Tassos, sure we were going to die.

When I put my hands over my ears, I felt warm, sticky blood. In a few moments, the whistling in my head stopped and I heard a cacophony of explosions chasing each other down the mountain. Then an entirely different hit; not the dull noise of bombed earth and splintered forestry, but a hard, yet shattering, sound that pulsed through me.

‘Dear God! It’s the villa! Run! Run!’ I screamed.

We leapt to our feet and raced back the way we had come. Even before the wall of trees that hid the villa, there were chunks of pink masonry scattered about the forest floor. Motes swirled in the air like smoke. We pushed through and, where the villa had stood, there was nothing but an enormous pile of rubble, dust rising in clouds, and the silence of death all around us.

Then, a moan so horrible it made my flesh crawl.

I raced towards the sound and stared at the head of Nathanial. Oh! I thought he had been decapitated, but as I dropped to my knees, his eyes flicked open. Pleading. Half of his face had gone. His jawbone and strong teeth had been stripped bare and the bone shone pink in the moonlight. The Juliet balcony had crushed his chest, and below that was nothing but a mountain of rubble.

Hardly moving his lips, he said quietly, ‘Shoot me.’ With each breath, blood bubbled from his mouth and nose.

Oh! Tears raged down my face as I drew my pistol.

‘It’s an order . . . shoot me, little one.’

My hand was over my mouth, and I sobbed air in through my fingers. There was no hope for him. And he was clearly in agony. I placed my hand over his eyes and closed them, bent forward and kissed his forehead.

‘Now,’ he whispered through his teeth.

I squeezed the trigger. And he was gone. Oh!

I threw my head back and howled into the night. Tassos raced to my side, understood the situation and nodded.

‘It’s called a mercy killing,’ he said. ‘You did right.’