“That’s not what I meant—it’s obvious that Andrew can’t go any faster.”

Anna shook her head, her mouth forming into a sarcastic smile.

“I am still here, you know,” Worstead shouted up, but they ignored him.

“What?” Lockhart asked Anna. “What?”

“Forget it. You two carry on at your own pace. I’m going on ahead.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We can all go together.”

But Anna was already marching off. Lockhart ran after her.

“Don’t be like this—it’s boring.”

“Not as boring as walking at Fatty’s pace.”

“You’re totally overreacting.”

“And you were being condescending to me—‘I don’t want to hear this bickering’—you sound like a bloody teacher.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Well—it was along those lines.”

“Anyway, don’t call him Fatty.”

“Stop being so self-righteous. It doesn’t suit you.”

Lockhart stopped walking. As Anna carried on, he shouted after her.

“Well at least I don’t behave like a spoiled brat!”

Anna turned around and flashed another sarcastic smile.

“Sometimes I’m glad I’m single,” puffed Worstead as he drew level with Lockhart.

Lockhart grinned as he marched through the night. That was their first row, and like the many to come, it blew over quickly. They had apologized to each other that night, as they shared a small bed in a shepherd’s cottage, Worstead snoring on the floor at the other end of the room. That was the first time that Anna had touched him, and he had come after she had only stroked him a few times. She had then started to giggle, which started Lockhart off. Their laughter woke Worstead, who had shown much indignation that his beauty sleep had been disturbed.

The vegetation on the path to Kasteli was thicker than ten years ago. Perhaps that shouldn’t have surprised him, but Lockhart had expected it to be the same. He wondered whether the place had changed, whether that room in that little cottage was still there. Lockhart remembered it being a typical Cretan village—whitewashed houses, goats wandering the dirty streets, children running around, old men sitting underneath trees, their faces lined with decades of sun and labor. All the women seemed to do was to shout at the children and goats, and sweep the paths at the front of their cottages. They had stayed for a few days, witnessing the return of the shepherds early on the Saturday night and joining them in what passed for a bar to drink raki and retsina. Lockhart and Worstead were in their element, although Anna had found the lecherous curiosity a little hard to bear.

Kasteli had been a place of life and innocence, and not the blackened ruin that Lockhart was now walking into. He had known something was wrong before he could even see the village—menace hung like foul breath in the cold air. With his eyes streaming, he started running around the rubble and burned timbers, looking for—what? If he was looking for the past, there were only stinking and charred tokens of it. All that remained were signs of death and horror. One of the few walls was pockmarked with an uneven line of bullet holes at chest height. The Church of St. Demetrios in the center of the town was still standing, but it was a shell. The roof had collapsed, and the interior was a pile of burned rubble. The air smelled strange, slightly sweet and yet mixed with an odor of rotten cheese.