‘Good. It did not suit you.’

‘Thank you. Efharisto.’ She tossed her head shyly.

‘That is what you used to do,’ he said, his eyes soft with a mixture of surprise and tenderness.

‘Sorry?’ Penny shrugged her shoulders, mystified. ‘Have we met before?’

‘You really do not remember?’ His light blue eyes pinned her to the spot.

‘Remember what?’

‘On Zanthos. We went out together two or three times.’

A few feet away Nell listened, fascinated, pretending to mix a salad dressing.

‘But we can’t have,’ Penny insisted. ‘I would have remembered. It’s not that I have had so many boyfriends I would forget.’

‘Again, Penelope, that is so like you. The honesty. No – how do you say – feminine wiles?’

Nell suppressed a giggle. Feminine wiles were the last thing Penny would use.

‘We went out. You and me, and your friend . . .’ Nell dropped her whisk when he pointed to her. ‘The last time we went to the temple of Apollo in Zanthos.’ He suddenly looked almost angry. ‘And you had to tell me my own history. How it was Apollo who pulled the sun across the sky in his chariot each day in Greek mythology!’

‘I only got that from Moira,’ Penny could feel his anguish and wanted to reach out to him. ‘She’s a classics lecturer now.’

Suddenly the occasion he was describing came vividly back to her. How they had innocently agreed to go to the temple with these two Greek boys, and the boys had just wanted to go to bed with them.

‘But that boy was called Christos!’ she suddenly remembered, her outraged virtue surfacing almost comically. ‘And his friend with Nell was Spiro!’

‘I remember him!’ Nell piped up, the salad forgotten. ‘He thought it was so funny when you talked about gods and goddesses. The only religion he knew was the Orthodox Church, which wouldn’t let him near Greek girls, so he thought we English girls were fair game.’

Nikos delved into the pocket of his leathers and produced a crumpled black-and-white photograph.

It was of two young girls, one fair, one dark, the sun setting on the Temple of Apollo behind them, and two Greek boys, each with an arm round them, one pointing sassily towards the camera.

‘Oh my God,’ Penny breathed. ‘It’s us!’

She stared at Nikos. ‘You’re Christos!’ she accused. ‘Did you make that up because you had a wife and children or something?’

‘I was nineteen! Christos is my middle name; I just changed it, that was all.’

‘Why on earth did you keep the photo?’

Again he looked at her intently, as if it were crucial she understood.