'I'm up!' she shouted suddenly. 'I'm safe. But stay where you are. Don't move for a moment.'
A minute later, he felt her grasp on his right ankle. Both her hands were round it, and she was pulling on it. 'Now!' she cried. 'Wriggle yourself backwards.'
Again he did as she told him. As he levered himself up, hand over hand, she knelt above Ifim, hauling with all her might on his leg. The support that gave him enabled him to thrust himself back up the steep gradient. After three minutes of frantic exertion, he rolled over beside her on the edge of the road.
Both of them were so exhausted that for several minutes they lay quite still; then he slowly sat up and muttered: 'That was a near one for both of us.'
Stephanie propped herself on an elbow, looked at him and replied, 'It came to that. But you didn't have to come down for me, Robbie. I owe my life to you. I . . . I'm terribly grateful.'
He gave her a faint smile. 'I owe my life to you. If you hadn't got me out last night, by now I'd be feeding the fishes. That makes us quits. But it was a piece of luck for both of us that I was still alive and kicking to come down and get you. Up there on that cliff above us, first Cepicka did his best to murder me, then that charming husband of yours came after me with a gun.'
'Tell me what happened after . . . after Vaclav pushed me over.'
'I had already dealt with Cepicka. I threw him down into the road and he broke his neck. Barak didn't know that, because it happened round the corner from where you and he were standing. About a minute later, I was looking down here and saw you having a row with him, then he gave you a shove and over you went. I yelled something and he turned. I suppose he thought that Cepicka would have made a corpse of me by that time. Anyhow, when he realized that I'd seen him murder you—or that's what we both thought then—he pulled a gun to take a pot at me. But I dived down behind the boulders. When next 1 looked, he was ramming the Ford with the Mercedes, and he kept on until he had sent it over the precipice. I suppose he means to say that there has been an accident and you went over in it. When he had put an end to the Ford, he came up to put an end to me; knowing, of course, that as 1 had seen him do you in, unless he killed me it was a sure thing that I'd get him for murder.
T took cover again in a sort of outsize rabbit warren of great, tumbled rocks. Thank God, he failed to find me. But, by that time, another character had come on the scene—a goat-herd whom 1 had noticed half a mile away up on the mountain-side just after I had pitched Cepicka down into the road. Barak and the goat-herd sniffed round for a bit, then they went off together. Shortly after you ceased to play an active part in matters, and while I was under cover, Barak must have carried Cepicka's body to his car. I saw it later, rolling about on the back seat, and it was still in the car when Barak finally drove off towards Tripolis, taking the goat-herd with him.'
After a moment, Robbie added: 'As you are still alive, for which thank God, I can't get him for murder now; but we can get him for attempted murder.'
'Where was the goat-herd at that time?' Stephanie asked. 'Did .he see everything that happened?'
'Oh no. He was up on the mountain-side. He must have seen me throw Cepicka over the cliff, because up there our figures would have stood out clearly. But he couldn't have seen you and Barak quarrelling down here, or Barak when he used the Mercedes to push the Ford over, because the cliff would have masked this section of road from his view.'
'Then I'm afraid you wouldn't get anywhere by accusing Vaclav of attempted murder,' Stephanie said thoughtfully. 'It would only be your word against his, and my testimony wouldn't be worth much because it would be believed that I was lying to help you defend yourself by bringing a counter-charge.'
'A counter-charge?' Robbie echoed. 'Why should I be charged with anything?'
Stephanie shook her head unhappily. 'How Vaclav will handle it I don't quite know; but he's very clever. I've an idea, though, that he will soon be telling the police something like this. You took me away from him. He came after us with his friend Cepicka. They first missed us, then ran into us on this bend. I was driving and tried to pass them. There was an accident. The Zephyr went over with me in it. Remember he believes me to be dead. You managed to jump out. Naturally, you were half off your head with rage. Cepicka had been driving the Mercedes and you held him responsible for my death. He got out. There was a violent quarrel and you threatened to kill him. In an endeavour to escape you, he shinned up that gully. You went after him, seized him, threw him down into the road and broke his neck.'
Having paused for a moment, Stephanie went on: 'You see, Robbie, that is all the goat-herd can actually have seen; so that is all the evidence he can give, and he will be an independent witness. That, I'm sure, is why Vaclav took him with him into Tripolis. It is a wicked twist of Fate ... wicked. But we must face it. Within a few hours, the police will be hunting for you, and it is you who will be wanted for murder.'
23
On the Run
Robbie could not deny the logic of Stephanie's reasoning. 'I suppose you're right,' he admitted. 'But, damn it all, I was acting in self-defence. If I hadn't •killed Cepicka he would have killed me.'
'I know.' Stephanie sat up and began to brush some of the dirt off her clothes. 'You can't prove, though, that it was Cepicka who chased you up that chimney, and not you who chased him. Nor can you prove that Barak forced the Zephyr over the precipice or that he did his best to kill me. And no one is going to believe what I say. After all, would you? It will be said that we ran away from Athens together and that for three weeks my husband lost all trace of me. Then he learned that we were at Olympia, and persuaded me to return to him. But, after one night, you turned up at Pirgos and carried me off again. He and his friend Cepicka gave chase; then comes his version of what happened.'
'There is one thing that won't fit. According to the story you suggest he will tell, the cars met by accident head on and you went over in the Ford. Only I managed to jump out. Yet you are still alive.'
'Seeing the crash coming, I might have opened the car door and tumbled on to the slope where you found me, without any of you realizing that I hadn't gone over with the car.'
'What about the shots Cepicka fired at me? It's so still up here that the goat-herd must have heard them.'
Stephanie gave a mirthless laugh. 'Oh, Robbie, be your age. Is it likely that Vaclav will admit that they were fired by Cepicka? He'll say that it was you who fired them, and that it was terror of you that led Cepicka to dash round the corner of the cliff and try to get away from you by shinning up that gulley. The fact that you haven't got a gun will cut no ice, because you could have thrown it away.'
'I'm in the devil of a fix, then. But if the police once start hunting for me, they are certain to get me in the end; so I suppose the best thing I can do is to go to them with my side of the story and pray to God that the truth will prevail.'
T wish I thought it would, but I'm afraid that our having spent three weeks together, and the independent testimony of that goat-herd, are going to weigh the scales against you. And, once you give yourself up, you'll have no further opportunity of securing proof that you were justified in killing Cepicka.'
k 285
Robbie turned to stare at her. 'I don't get you. How could I possibly secure proof of that?'
'You might, if you continued your snooping. If you could get proof that Vaclav and the others are up to something contrary to the interests of Greece and you have been trying to find out what it was, that would provide a motive for their attempting to kill you. Your plea of self-defence would then be credible. What is more, you would have earned the gratitude of the Greek Government and have it on your side.'