Nemesis of the Dead (10 page)

Ellie was writhing on the ground, clutching her stomach.

‘Oh no, not Ellie,’ Corrie heard Jack whisper under his breath. ‘Please God, not Ellie. This is all my fault.’

Corrie wanted to ask what he meant but everything became frantic, with people rushing about trying to help but not helping.

Tim scrambled up from the jumble of arms and legs on the dance floor and dashed to his wife’s side. He tried to hold her in his arms but she fought him off, raving and delirious.

‘Whatever’s wrong with her?’ he begged. ‘Help her, please, somebody help her.’

Corrie and Jack were on their knees, trying to calm Ellie down, but nothing seemed to work. It was as if she couldn’t hear them and now she was wheezing, fighting for breath.

‘She’s really bad, Corrie,’ said Jack, desperate. ‘This should never have happened and I don’t know what to do for her.’

Corrie shook her head helplessly. ‘Neither do I.’

‘Why are there no bloody doctors on this island and where the hell is Sky?’ yelled Jack in frustration. ‘Somebody fetch Sky!’

Marjorie was nearest and shot off up the stairs. It seemed like an age but it was only moments before she reappeared with Sky, who wasted no time when she saw Ellie’s condition. It was significant, Corrie thought afterwards, that in an emergency nobody questions the qualifications of the person who strides confidently past the anxious crowd saying, ‘Stand back – let me through.’ They’re just relieved that somebody, who appears to know what they’re doing, has taken charge of the situation and relieved them of responsibility. So it was when Sky appeared.

‘There are too many people crowding her. Please stay back,’ she ordered. She knelt and examined Ellie in the same cool, dispassionate way in which she had tended Maria. It was while she was taking her pulse that Ellie began to jerk and twitch violently, as if having a fit, then she shivered once and went limp. Sky leaned over her, listening, then she sat up abruptly.

‘Her heart has stopped.’

Tim’s cry of anguish was animal-like in its intensity – like a bull elephant trumpeting its grief. He grabbed Sky’s hand.

‘Don’t let her die, please! She mustn’t die. I couldn’t bear it.’

In that instant, Corrie was terribly reminded of Orpheus and Eurydice, married and so happy until Eurydice died from a poisonous snake-bite. Orpheus was distraught and pleaded for her life with Hades, God of the Underworld, just as Tim was pleading now.

Sky shook him off and struggled out of her sweater to give herself freedom to move. Then she bent quickly to her task. Placing the heel of her hand in the centre of Ellie’s chest, she put her other hand on top and locked her fingers. Arms straight, she began pressing and releasing fast, counting each compression out loud in Greek. Then she stopped, tilted Ellie’s head back, pinched her nose and, taking a deep breath, blew into Ellie’s mouth. She took another breath and blew again.

Nobody spoke. The only sounds were Tim’s desperate choking sobs and the irrepressible cicadas. Biting her lip with tension, Corrie glanced up at Diana and was surprised to see silent tears running slowly down her cheeks.

Sky returned to the compressions, then more breaths – again and again. Time seemed to stand still with everyone praying to their god, to the saints, to anyone they thought might listen – pleading for some sign of life. Ellie was so painfully, heart-breakingly young, not yet out of her teens. It was inconceivable that she should die here on this bewitched and bewitching island, the victim of some mysterious food bug.

Sweat began to drip down Sky’s forehead into her eyes and Marjorie leaned carefully across and mopped it gently with her handkerchief. Sky paused almost imperceptibly, trying to judge whether there was any point in carrying on but Tim, tears streaming down his face unchecked, sensed her hesitation and begged her to keep going. Just when everyone had silently given up hope, Ellie trembled, very slightly, then she drew in a long shuddering breath on her own. They must have heard the cheers of relief on the mainland.

Unsmiling but perfectly composed, Sky dismissed their praise but she did allow Tim to hug her briefly.

‘Thank you, oh thank you. I’m so grateful. What’s wrong with her? Will she be all right?’

Sky looked solemn. ‘I believe your wife has ingested the same toxin as Maria. Her symptoms are the same – erratic pulse, vision disturbance, seizures and stomach cramps – but in this case much more severe, resulting in heart stoppage. This indicates that she has probably had a larger amount.’

‘Well, that knocks your salmonella egg theory on the head, Cuthbert,’ drawled Diana. ‘The kid didn’t eat any eggs.’

‘I’ll ring for an ambulance and get her to hospital at once,’ said Tim, taking out his mobile phone without thinking.

‘Ambulance?’ croaked Sid. He was ashamed to find himself choked up and shaking, much more affected by events than he cared to admit. He pulled himself together and put a hand on Tim’s shoulder.

‘This is Katastrophos, son – not the Isle of Wight. The closest they get to emergency services here is an old monk on a donkey who comes and tells you which saint to speak to. Isn’t that right, Prof?’

‘I fear so,’ said the professor. ‘The sea has no timetable, no sense of urgency. You can be trapped on this island for days at a time when the weather has turned sour and destroyed all communications. And, of course …’ he steepled his fingers philosophically, ‘… your mobile phones are of no use whatsoever.’

Tim helped Ellie gently into a sitting position and almost immediately, she began to vomit violently, with hardly a gasp between spasms, as though she would never stop. This time no emetic had been necessary. Tim kept insisting Ellie should be taken to the mainland and hospital.

‘What about the hotel phone? Aren’t the wires mended yet?’

Yanni shook his head, his face bleak. ‘Still no
tiléfono
to get help,’ he said, struggling with the words. ‘It was very bad storm. And no ferry will come until next Saturday.’

Tim was frantic. ‘But there must be fishing boats, surely. Couldn’t we take Ellie across in one of those?’ he pleaded.

Jack put an arm around his shoulders. ‘I don’t think so, Tim. You’ve seen the boats in the harbour. Most of the larger ones were badly damaged in the storm and as for what’s left – I wouldn’t risk an owl and a pussy cat, let alone a sick girl. What if there was another storm when you were halfway across? There just isn’t anything reliably seaworthy.’

Jack’s face was lined with worry. Corrie watched him take Sky to one side and put a hand on her arm. She shrugged it off and turned her face away. Jack stood with his back to Tim and spoke quietly so he couldn’t hear.

‘Sky, I don’t know the extent of your medical experience, but the way you did that CPR makes me think you have considerably more than the average person. In your judgement, will Ellie make it? If we can’t move her to hospital until next Saturday, will she survive? Could you look after her here in the meantime? What are her chances, do you think?’

She glared. ‘How should I know? I am not God.’ Her expression was cold and obdurate, like a hostile witness, refusing to answer his questions. ‘You appear to have taken charge here, Inspector Dawes. You are the one giving the orders.
You
decide what to do.’ She walked abruptly away from him then turned and spoke over her shoulder. ‘You could start by finding out what poisoned her. Then maybe you could obtain an antidote instead of wasting time on pointless speculation.’ She returned to Ellie, who was still vomiting painfully but at least she was alive.

Jack watched Sky go. Apart from her strange and unprovoked hostility, there was something odd about what she had just said. He tried to remember her exact words but already they had slipped away from him.

Two hours later they persuaded an exhausted Tim to leave Ellie’s bedside where she was sleeping fitfully, watched over by Sky, wordless, unsmiling and vigilant. They sat him down at the big olive-wood table and closed around him, as if trying to provide some sort of comfort. Sid gave him a shot of Metaxa and watched to make sure he drank it. The poor bloke was shattered.

‘We were on honeymoon – I promised to love and cherish her, but I didn’t, did I? I almost let her die. She
would
have died if it hadn’t been for Sky. I should never have brought her to this terrible island. She’s too precious and fragile. It’s all my fault.’

Tim had reached that final stage of despair where he had begun to blame himself, looking for ways he could have protected Ellie better and prevented this whole, ghastly nightmare from happening.

‘What on earth made her so ill?’ he kept asking, over and over. ‘I know the goat’s innards were awful and smelly but she’s vegetarian and she didn’t touch them. Wouldn’t even sit near the plate. She got up and changed her seat twice. And she certainly didn’t eat any contaminated eggs like Maria. All she had was salad and half a glass of wine. I don’t understand it.’ He looked around at them for an explanation.

Corrie frowned. ‘I know foreign water can sometimes give you a dodgy tummy but I can’t believe there was anything in that Greek salad poisonous enough to nearly kill someone.’

‘She’s a fit enough young woman,’ agreed Marjorie. ‘Not what you’d call strapping, perhaps, but it’s hard to imagine anything could have affected her so drastically that it stopped her heart.’

‘Bloody funny that when Corrie stopped preparing the food, someone else gets poisoned,’ said Sid, darkly.

‘What do you think, Professor?’ asked Jack, pointedly. ‘I’m sure you must have some ideas about what it was a young, healthy vegetarian swallowed that nearly killed her.’

‘Yeah, you’re the great plant expert, Cuthbert,’ taunted Diana. ‘Give us the benefit of your genius.’

Professor Gordon, who had remained, throughout, a quiet observer on the periphery of the crisis, now became interested and he launched into what threatened to become one of his more technical lectures.

‘Well, naturally, I could provide you with an educated guess or two. There
are
plants on Katastrophos that contain toxins – quite potent ones, if you know where to look – but I’m positive Ellie didn’t eat any accidentally in her salad. A few rogue leaves picked by mistake by Ariadne would never have that violent effect. No, for an organic poison to be that powerful, you’d first need expert knowledge to identify the appropriate plant – possibly even cross-pollinate using another plant of the same species to modify the genes and increase its potency. Then you’d need to know how to extract the toxin without impairing it and finally distil it into a concentrate. But all that, of course, could not occur accidentally. It would require exceptional skill and expertise and some suitable equipment.’ He looked openly at Jack. ‘And in any case, why would anyone want to do it?’

‘And even if someone did go to all that trouble,’ reasoned Corrie, ‘how would it find its way into Ellie’s salad?’

It was a question that would continue to vex everyone except Jack, who was sure he knew the answer and the reason why – insane though it seemed.

‘I’ve read about foreign plant poisons,’ said Sidney, knowledgeably. ‘There’s a fungus that gradually eats away your gristle. It starts by—’

‘Sidney!’ they chorused. ‘Shut up!’

After a while Tim started to fret, wanting to get back to Ellie, so there was little more anyone else could usefully do that night. They trudged wearily to bed although it was doubtful whether anybody slept much. It had been such a sudden and shocking experience and one not easily forgotten. Never mind a hex, thought Corrie, this is turning into the honeymoon from hell. There were 1,400 Greek islands to choose from and Jack had to pick Katastrophos. She yawned and started to get undressed. Jack was quiet and distracted and Corrie was puzzled. She had recognized the beetle-brows and jutting jaw when he was asking Professor Gordon what he thought caused the sudden illnesses. It was Jack’s ‘interrogation’ face.

‘Why were you giving Cuthbert the third degree?’ she said accusingly. ‘You’re not on duty now, you know, and it’s very rude to grill people like that, especially when they’re on holiday.’

Jack shrugged. ‘I wasn’t “grilling” him as you delicately put it, I was just accessing his expertise like I would any specialist witness. It’s the only way to get information.’

‘Oh no you weren’t. I know that look. You think he’s responsible in some way, don’t you? You think he left one of his plant experiments lying around in Ariadne’s kitchen and it somehow contaminated Maria’s food and then got into Ellie’s salad.’

He looked at her but didn’t answer.

‘Jack, that’s absolutely barmy. He’s meticulous about keeping his experiments secure – he even wears those surgical gloves to avoid any possible contamination. He’d never be careless enough to allow anything poisonous to get into the food by mistake.’

‘What if it wasn’t a mistake?’ muttered Jack.

Corrie pulled a face. ‘What? You think he poisoned Maria and Ellie on purpose? Deliberately used them as guinea-pigs to test something? Now you really are being ridiculous. He’s eccentric and a bit arrogant, I admit, but not sadistic. He might poison a few rats but he wouldn’t harm human beings. And he’d certainly never hurt Maria. He’s been coming to Katastrophos for years. You saw how they welcomed him – like a favourite old relative! In any case, he was down on the ground with you and the other men when she was taken ill.’

‘What about the way he went for Ellie when Tim said she was vegetarian? And then Ambrose because of his plant-based medication. Corrie, the man’s clever but he’s also a fanatic. You heard him earlier on. He was virtually bragging that he was skilful enough to do it.’

Corrie sighed. ‘Jack, you’re being melodramatic. He’s a professor of botany with a brilliant mind, not a psychopath. He’s committed to preserving living things, not killing them. His life’s work is based on finding new medicines to cure people.’

‘It’s plants he’s passionate about. I don’t believe he’s overly concerned about people.’

‘OK,’ agreed Corrie, humouring him. ‘Let’s suppose you’re right – although I don’t believe it for a moment. Suppose he has some crackpot notion that if people eat plants, they deserve to be poisoned by plants. We’d all be potential victims, not just Maria and Ellie. He’d be planning to bump us all off, one by one, and I think somebody would notice eventually, don’t you? There’d only be Diana left. He wouldn’t experiment on her; he simply adores her.’ She became thoughtful for a bit. ‘I’m surprised he doesn’t pay her more attention, though. Did you see her dancing with Sid? That slimy old creep Ambrose was leering at her. Cuthbert must be very trusting. He doesn’t seem to notice other men fancying his wife. It’s funny how the assumption of dominance implied by paying for everything is quite obvious in Ambrose and Marjorie’s marriage but totally absent in the professor and Diana’s. Don’t you find that odd?’