Follow a Stranger

wearing blue denim jeans and a loose matching jacket.

Her thick, white ribbed sweater gave her a boyish look,

emphasised by the fact that she had tied her blonde hair

at the back into a ponytail. The severe style gave a new

vulnerability to her face, of which she was unaware.

Marc was sitting at the table, eating rolls and dark

red jam. He eyed her lazily. “You look about seventeen,”

he commented.

Kate took a boiled egg from the silver covered dish and

came to sit down opposite him.

He leaned over and teasingly cut a slice of toast into

thin strips for her. “Little girls like to have soldiers to dip

into their eggs, don’t they?”

She gave him a dignified frown. “What time do we

leave?” she asked forbiddingly.

He laughed aloud, his mood clearly relaxed and

carefree this morning.

They walked down to the small quay a quarter of an

hour later. Marc helped her to climb aboard his neat little

yacht, cast off and jumped on board himself. The wind

took the sails and Kate looked up at them with pleasure

as, white and free, they slapped to and fro above her.

“Watch your head,” Marc ordered curtly, and she

ducked down at once as the beam swung round.

The wind blew behind them all the way to Epilison, the

neighbouring island on which Pyrakis lived. They made

the crossing in an hour and a half.

The island looked beautiful as they skimmed closer.

Blue, shadowy hills, golden sands, white houses,

shimmering in the early morning sun, in an unreal