Nemesis of the Dead Read Online Free PDF

somehow. She relaxed, knowing instinctively that Jack would keep it secret. He had already asked her not to tell anyone he was a policeman. It was a profession, he said, second only to undertaking for making people feel uncomfortable on holiday. She and Jack were incredibly close when it came to understanding each other’s feelings. Almost telepathic. He would sense immediately that their honeymoon status was not something she would want to advertise.
    ‘That’s a coincidence,’ he blurted. ‘My wife and I are on honey … ouch!’ Sometimes, thought Corrie, telepathy needs a helping hand – or foot.
    ‘I’m Coriander Dawes,’ she said amiably, ‘and this is my husband, Jack. Congratulations to you both. You look very happy.’
    Tim and Ellie smiled shyly and re-entwined.
    ‘Dobson,’ muttered ‘short-and-portly’ gruffly. ‘Ambrose Dobson.’ Then he added, almost as an afterthought, ‘This is the wife, Marjorie.’
    ‘Pleased to meet you.’ Marjorie smiled as if she might like to chat further but her husband took her arm.
    ‘Come along, Marjorie. We’ll sit over there and wait for the ferry.’ He steered her towards a rickety wooden seat further down the jetty.
     
    At seven o’clock they were still waiting. Corrie had always been fascinated by Greek mythology but now, watching the sun begin to set over Homer’s wine-dark sea, she began to feel a compelling affinity with the gods of ancient Greece that was totally unexpected and a bit spooky. It was almost as if she could feel their presence, watching and waiting to amuse themselves with mere mortals, like cats toying with mice. More substantially, her stomach began to rumble. So much, she thought, for their romantic dinner under a vine-covered pergola at Hotel Stasinopoulos.
    The quayside was practically deserted. It was that time of the evening when holidaymakers are indoors getting dressed up for the clubs or a meal at their favourite taverna . Apart from the Katastrophos group, there was just one young woman, sitting cross-legged on the sea wall reading a Greek magazine propped up on her backpack. She was dressed in the old hippy style with braided, purple-streaked hair, black lips and eyes and an awesome array of tattoos.
    ‘I suppose we’re in the right place,’ said Corrie, drowsily. ‘I can’t see anything remotely like a ferry – only that tatty old fishing-boat.’
    Just below them, a salt-encrusted vessel with six inches of dirty water sloshing around in the bilge, bobbed gently up and down on its moorings. Jack checked the travel documents again.
    ‘This is the place all right. I expected more people to be waiting here, though.’
    ‘But didn’t you say very few tourists visit Katastrophos?’
    ‘Yeah. Apparently the ferry can only carry a handful of passengers and the service is sporadic, which seems to mean “when the ferryman feels like it”. I guess the island is very remote. People who go there, go mainly for a specific reason. It isn’t the kind of place travel agents normally recommend. Obviously you and I and Tim and Ellie are here for a private, romantic honeymoon. I suspect the Dobsons are here because he’s a miserable old sod and doesn’t want to socialize with anybody.’
    ‘You don’t know that. He might just be shy,’ said Corrie charitably.
    The prospect of being alone with Jack had seemed like bliss when Corrie was at home. Now, she was slightly uneasy about being cut off completely from civilization for two weeks with not even a mobile phone for comfort. They would never find a signal on an island in the middle of the Ionian Sea. Mindful of her honeymoon hex, she was starting to wonder whether it might not be safer to stay where they were on the mainland. These mental meanderings were cut short when a taxi pulled up and a tall, stooping, spindly-legged man in shorts and a fluorescent orange anorak jumped out. He ran round to the boot and dragged out several pieces of expensive-looking Louis Vuitton