“My husband has sent for me,” she said.
Katerina could not be sure, but it looked as if the woman shuddered as she spoke.
“He is in Athens and will remain there for some time. I have been instructed to prepare for a boat that will leave in two days’ time. If I tell the soldiers that you have become my nursemaid, they will not question it. The general’s rule is absolute, and I am his wife.”
“You would do that?” Katerina said breathlessly. “For me?”
Ingrid faced her.
“You love this man Stefanos?”
Katerina smiled. It was the first time she had since Leni’s death.
“As the clouds love the sky,” she said softly. “As the trees love the sun, the waves love the shore, the night loves the stars.”
“Then you must find him,” Ingrid said.
Katerina fell to her knees, seized the woman’s hands, and pressed her lips to her fingers.
“You mean it? I can come with you?”
Ingrid rose slowly, drawing Katerina up until their eyes met. Two women, face-to-face.
Equals.
Friends.
Survivors.
“Yes,” she said. “I mean it.”
Fifty-nine
The call from the police came early on Saturday morning.
Skye was on her way across the hillside when her phone rang, and she paused to answer it.
The officer at the other end of the line had a mercifully good grasp of English and did not indulge in any small talk before coming straight to the point.
“We believe that the animal remains belong to a goat,” he said. “Not a very big one, but yes, a goat.”
Chrysí. Katerina had written an account of what had happened to her much-loved animal in the letters. Skye steeled herself, braced for a wave she couldn’t dodge.
“The other bones are human. A very young infant. A baby girl.”
Sadness settled over her, a sudden weight, stones sewn into her clothes.
“Do you know who she was?” she murmured.
“There is no DNA match on our systems here in Greece. However, we made contact with the owner of the house where the other bones were discovered to make a request for a sample. Ifthere is a match there, we will also test the infant remains using the same DNA. They may be related.”
Unlikely but not impossible.
“Did the other bones belong to an adult?” she asked.
“Nai. The pathologist report has determined that he was a man, probably the age of forty to forty-five, something like this. There are injuries on the bones that suggest he did not die in a natural way.”
“You mean he was murdered?” Skye said, glancing up to find Theo striding toward her. The dog tags she’d given him not ten minutes previously were dangling from one hand. Having heard her question, he cocked an inquiring brow.
