The Holy Machine

54

After some time, I made my way down the dark donkey track to the village. Although it was now the early hours of the morning, it seemed that the whole village, from aged crones to tiny children, was gathered either inside or outside of the single store. Bottles of wine and raki were being passed around. The policeman was drinking with the priest. A CD player was blasting out bouzouki music. Arm in arm the shepherds Petros and Andreas were dancing with the young men who’d tried to pull the shell of Lucy from out of the fire. There were many cheers and shouts of laughter.

‘Did you see when I shot her?’

‘If Markos wasn’t afraid of a little heat, he’d have held onto me and I’d have been able to fish the demon’s body out.’

‘We’d have knifed her there and then if she hadn’t dived out of the window.’

‘But did you hear that noise?’

‘I tell you I hit her fair and square with that shot. That body of hers must have strong armour.’

No one paid the slightest attention to me. Except for a few children, no one so much as glanced in my direction.

I went over to my car. The bags that Lucy and I had left in the upstairs room had all been piled up neatly against the front wheel, and someone had scratched a symbol onto the paintwork on the door: a Greek cross, the emblem of the Greek Christian Army.

I climbed in and started up the engine, with an empty seat beside me. Then I drove very slowly away.

No one even looked round as I headed off into the darkness.

I drove all through the night, lurching and bumping along those crumbling roads, the car creaking and groaning, loose stones cracking against the doors and windscreen.

Trees, rocks, buildings, loomed momentarily into the headlights and vanished again.

Occasionally there was a goat or a rabbit.

Once I passed a priest, striding along alone in the middle of the night.