The dusty silver-green of the fragr
ant cypresses began to appear and Jade wound the window down to sniff their evocatively warm scent. ‘Why?’ she asked, as she looked at the doorknob which hung on only by a prayer.
He drummed long, olive fingers on the steering- wheel. ‘I won it.’
‘How?’
He gave a wry smile. ‘In a fight, I am ashamed to admit.’
‘Different!’ murmured Jade, but her interest was alive. He didn’t, she realised, give away much of his past. ‘Who did you win it from?’
There was a pause. She thought that either he hadn’t heard her, or that he wasn’t going to reply.
But then he did.
‘It’s a long story.’
‘I like stories. Car journeys are designed for story- telling.’
At this he grinned, which he didn’t do very often. And when he grinned he was thoroughly irresistible.
‘I grew up and was educated in Athens,’ he began. ‘But I used to come to this island every summer—even after my father died. He grew up on an island like this, you see, and he wanted me to know something of the life he’d had. A simple life. But I was the city boy; the rich boy—always the outsider.’ He swerved to avoid a rock, mut- tering something in Greek, and Jade was afraid that he would clam up just when she felt sure that she was about to get some insight into what really made him tick.
‘Don’t stop,’ she said quickly.
He gave her a brief, sideways stare. ‘There was one boy in particular—his name was Kris.’
Kris. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the name rang a bell.
‘Kris always took particular exception to my being here. His dislike grew worse over the years. He fancied himself with the ladies and—’ He made a little shrugging movement with his shoulders as his voice tailed away, and Jade didn’t have to be told what one of the problems must have been. Even if the boy had been an Adonis, he wouldn’t have got a look-in with the ladies with Constantine around.
‘And he was the leader of the other boys,’ he continued. ‘He used to challenge me to fight him and, when that wouldn’t work, to goad me into fighting him.’
‘But you wouldn’t?’
‘I don’t fight for fun.’
Jade shivered, in spite of the violent heat of the day. ‘What happened?’
‘One day, he went too far. He picked on a boy younger than himself.’
‘And you—?’ prompted Jade, with horrified fascination, thinking that this was the stuff that adventure films were made of.
‘I taught him a lesson. He’d just bought a car. We fought for it.’
‘And you won, right?’
He shrugged; smiled. ‘Naturally.’
‘But why d’you keep it?’
His face went suddenly tense. ‘Because, for a long time it was the hardest thing I’d ever had to fight for…’ His voice tailed off on a strange note as he glanced across at her, then back to the road.
Jade swallowed. ‘But was he—all right?’
He actually laughed. ‘Not for a week or so, but yes, he was all right—what did you think I’d do- kill him?’
‘I wouldn’t put anything past you, Constantine!’ she said with feeling, then turned to study his strong profile. ‘So that was the end of a beautiful friendship, was it?’