Country roads
The road snaked upwards and towards the distant forested slopes of mountains. Dust swirled around its edges where the heavy trucks pulled off the tarmac and on to the white verge as they let faster cars overtake on the long slow climb. The crunch of stones being ground to fine particles mixed with the whining roar of their labouring engines and the air was filled with a choking smell of diesel fumes. Asthmatic, ponderous, they shuffled up the slow hillside in the late afternoon heat.
High above them the village nestled softly in the pines. Famous for its lonely monastery hanging over the slopes on a rocky outcrop, the pretty cluster of houses, shops and tavernas offered spectacular views across the island. Up here it was cool and quiet, the air fresh and sweet with the sharp tang of pines, the sky a softer blue as it blended into the forest.
Andreas called to his wife, Elena, and started the engine on their new Cayenne, and then reversed carefully out of the shady parking bay, still enjoying the novelty of the video display which mean he didn’t have to crane his neck but could watch his manouevres on screen. She climbed in and shut the door, wafting the smell of new leather around the car as she did so. Beneath the big wheels the gravel crunched and Andreas swung the car round and set off along the track leading to the main road.
At the junction he wound down his window to greet the old shepherd walking his goats back along the track. The wizened face loomed in through the open window for a moment and cracked into a wide smile, stumps of teeth punctuating pink gums.
‘Kalimera, good afternoon, and where is my beautiful mistress going today, why is she leaving this paradise?’
Elena laughed, it was the same ridiculous line every time but she still enjoyed it.
‘We’re off down into the city for some shopping, then we’ll meet my daughter, the architect. She wants to leave her daughter with us this weekend, so we’ll collect her and bring her back here. Maybe she can play with the goats and help you milk them?
He nodded delightedly. The daughter had become a firm friend, she with her insatiable curiosity and childlike enthusiasm and he with a sense of responsibility to impart the important values of village life before she became totally corrupted by the strange city dwellers on the coast below.
‘She will be most welcome. I’ll make sure they are ready for their Saturday surprise visit! Was that your daughter’s new boyfriend visiting you last night?
Elena frowned.
‘We didn’t have any visitors last night. Her boyfriend’s still the old one and he’s on a business trip to London. What do you mean?’
‘My apologies, beautiful mistress. I saw someone up here around dusk and assumed it was a visitor for you. Strange that he would walk along our track since there is nothing here apart from your house and my mountainside?’
Her frown deepened, the lines running across her forehead in different puzzled directions.
‘I can’t imagine who it was, or why they didn’t at least ring the bell — we were at home all night.’
The old man stroked his cheek thoughtfully, speaking as if drawing the words out by hand.
‘Well, he didn’t stay long anyway. I saw him when I was walking down to the goats. When I came back I caught a swirl of dust and heard a car moving off. I assumed he’d finished meeting you and was leaving’
She was on the point of asking more but sensed Andreas’s impatience — he’d been like a fidgety cat all morning and was obviously desperate to get down to the city. Probably got his mistress to meet, she thought. He’ll drop me at the centre, say hello to Victoria and then make some excuse about some business he needs to finish and will meet up with us later at the restaurant.
‘I’m sure there’s a simple explanation — we’ll talk more tomorrow but we need to get going now. Have a lovely afternoon!’
He dipped his head in acknowledgment and stepped back from the car as Andreas swung it on the main road and pulled away.
‘What do you think that was all about?’ she asked him as they passed the village centre, its police station and car park on the left, filled with tourist buses. Like ants in a weary column people were weaving their way towards the restaurant further down the hill, its deck inviting them aboard for a short rest beneath its leafy green vine leaves.
‘Some stranger lost and turned down the wrong track, I suppose — old Philemon said he didn’t stay long. This place would be so much nicer if we didn’t have these bloody tourists crawling all over it’.
He spat this last remark from the side of his mouth as he simultaneously braked and hammered the horn. In front of them a rental car, easily distinguished by the red number plate, hesitated, the tourists inside pausing to gawp at the lovely village
At the bottom of the hill he slowed and turned right on to the main highway running down to the sea. The car felt a little sluggish in the turn and he made a mental note to drop in to the Porsche dealer and talk to them about it. It’d give him an excuse to visit, a chance to relive the pleasure he’d felt when he first went in to buy the car. There was something about the atmosphere; quiet, air-conditioned, insulated from the noise and dust and heat outside, which mirrored his own desire to distance himself from those struggling in the streets outside. He felt he’d finally made it; buying this car was a powerful way of affirming that — and a good way of reminding those outside of the fact! His long days at the bank, climbing up through the slow-moving ranks, had finally paid off, especially in the last couple of years when his work centred so much on the computer systems. It had been a lucky break when his boss had suggested he go on that course, beginning to build the IT skills which the branch was going to have to master.
From there he’d shown enough promise to get transferred to the Limassol headquarters and within that glass castle he found a happy — and very profitable — home. His days in front of the screens had moved to spending more time with clients, matching their needs to tailored services, his skill lying in translating those needs into executable code which would move money and trades around. Their wish was his command and, like the genie of old, they thought he was in their power whereas he had one or two secrets of his own.
It had been easier than he thought to begin to move money in a new direction, from their accounts and towards the new one which he had set up in his wife’s maiden name. He was careful to make the amounts small; that way they’d appear to get lost in the sea of other charges and mini-taxes which the complex inter-bank transfers imposed, like toll house keepers on the new electronic highways. Gradually he spread his net, exploring deeper waters where some of the bigger fish swam but always being careful, that was the secret, not to get greedy or to rush things.
Ahead of him on the road was a large lumbering truck, pulling laboriously uphill in the other direction. The road was full of curves at this point, the steepest part of the descent and so he braked gently and swung the car a little further to the left. Once again he felt the sluggishness but this time much stiffer, so that he was beginning to have to wrestle with the wheel. The truck loomed closer, its diesel fumes belching black from the straining exhaust stack, as he tried to turn from its path. Pressing down on the brakes to buy some more time he felt a soft spongy push and then nothing, the pedal sliding to the floor without resistance. By now the steering wheel was locked, frozen in its position no matter how hard he wrenched at it.
Two thoughts collided in his head a fraction of a second before the car collided with the truck and the fireball erupted. The first was the realisation that no amount of careful German engineering could anticipate someone cutting the hydraulic lines on the car, making it uncontrollable. And the second was that his internet fishing expeditions had perhaps strayed too far and too deep into dark waters….
