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the horizon. Blithely oblivious to the angst going on around him, Professor Gordon took a paper bag out of his backpack and peered inside.
    ‘Anyone hungry? I seem to have far too many garlic-sausage sandwiches here.’
    That did it. The combined odours of garlic and diesel kept them bent grimly over the gunwales for the remainder of the trip, while the old boat pitched and rolled its way across the Ionian Sea to Katastrophos.

CHAPTER THREE
    I t was late into the night. Darkness had fallen slowly over the cobalt sea, veil upon veil, turning it first to lead and then silver under the full moon. Corrie had begun to believe her honeymoon hex had struck again and they were doomed to drift ‘ for two nights and two days … wandering in the swell of the sea … hearts boded of death ’ like Homer’s luckless Odysseus. Suddenly Charon shouted ‘ Ayoo ’ and pointed a finger, its nail black beyond scrubbing, at a row of lights, twinkling in the far distance.
    Fifteen minutes later they dropped anchor at Katastrophos Island and tied up at the tiny landing stage belonging to the Hotel Stasinopoulos. Exhausted, the small band of ten disembarked on wobbly legs, pathetically grateful to be on dry land. Old Charon hovered at the end of the gangplank, his grin a dentist’s nightmare. As the group tottered past, he held out his hand optimistically. Sid put a business card in it.
    Hotel Stasinopoulos was the only hotel on the island and with just eight bedrooms; the guests and staff now filled it to capacity for the first time in living memory. Yanni and Maria Stasinopoulos, the owners, greeted everyone with typically polite Greek island hospitality, despite the late hour. Then they fell upon Professor Gordon as though he were an old uncle with vigorous handshakes and cries of ‘ Kalós írthate !’ Welcome! He hugged them both in return and showing little sign of weariness, he introduced the rest of the bedraggled travellers.
    Despite Yanni and Maria’s insistence, nobody but the professor could face anything to eat, and without even signing the register, which could wait until morning, everyone trooped up to their rooms with hot drinks before falling gratefully into bed.
    Jack’s face fell when he saw the twin beds. It was clearly not what he had in mind for a romantic honeymoon.
    ‘Don’t worry.’ He flexed his muscles and spat on his hands. ‘I’ll push them together.’
    ‘No, I don’t think so—’ Corrie began.
    ‘It’s all right. It won’t take a minute.’
    At first, Corrie was too tired to argue, then, fearing he would do himself an injury that would blight the rest of their honeymoon, maybe even the rest of their married life, she pointed out that the beds were set into concrete and cemented to the floor.
    Although they were both exhausted, neither could sleep. They tossed and turned in the oppressive heat, listening to the relentlessly cheerful chirping of the cicadas outside the window. Jack lay on his back, his arms behind his head. Suddenly, apropos of absolutely nothing, he said into the darkness:
    ‘Why do people do it, Corrie? Why kill someone just for money? I mean, how much money does one person need to be happy? And how can they ever be happy knowing that they’ve taken a life to get it? I’m pretty hard-nosed after twenty years in the Force, but I still don’t understand it. Probably never will, no matter how long I stay in the murder squad.’
    Corrie sat up and put on the light. She assumed that exhaustion and sleeplessness had conjured up demons from Jack’s last murder case. A young man from a decent, loving family, engaged to be married and with a promising career as a doctor, had foolishly got into massive debt through gambling. His debtors had threatened both him and his fiancée and pressured him into supplying drugs to pay off his debts. Eventually, under the intolerable strain of getting deeper into crime and with discovery imminent, he had lost control and stabbed the drug dealer.