Skios: A Novel by Michael Frayn Page A

lecture inside it—that was the main thing. Someone at the foundation would get rid of the woman in his bathroom. Someone would take charge of locating his luggage for him, and in the meanwhile provide him with everything he needed. He would presently be sitting down, shaved and showered, at a table beside the water. Breakfast! Yes! Freshly squeezed orange juice, certainly, and sugary Greek croissants, with perhaps a crisp rasher or two of bacon. He had eaten only a pizza out of the guest-quarters freezer since he had got off the plane. His breakfast would be interrupted, of course, by people coming up to introduce themselves in the usual tiresome way. “Dr. Norman Wilfred? Such an admirer … so looking forward…” This, though, he would bear, philosophically, with breakfast in front of him and clean socks on his feet.
    The path was rough underfoot, but so steep that he was striding towards the coffee and the socks with wonderful swiftness. It was a remarkably long way down, though. He had been going for twenty minutes or more before he reached the first of the foundation’s buildings.
    It was deserted. The windows were broken, and the front door leaned wearily forward on its one remaining hinge.
    The sight was curiously disheartening. The foundation was evidently less well endowed than he had supposed. The sun was getting noticeably hotter as he set out again down the path. He could see another glimpse of tiles among the trees below him, but ten minutes later, as he got a little closer, he discovered that they were a jumbled heap, with no walls left to support them.
    He had allowed himself to be inveigled into lending his prestige to an organization that was plainly on its last legs. Or could he possibly have taken a wrong turning somewhere? Perhaps he should retrace his footsteps to check. But at the thought of how much time and effort he had invested in getting to where he was, and how much more still he would have to invest to negate his initial outlay, and to do it uphill instead of down, he hesitated. He looked uphill. He looked down. He could feel the coffee and sweet croissants calling out most eloquently to him. But where was the voice coming from?
    He caught a brief glimpse of people moving about among the trees below him. The decision had made itself.
    He hurried down the path to catch whoever it was before they disappeared. He found himself going even faster than he had expected, because the ground had somehow alarmingly removed itself from under his feet, and got itself bouncingly and painfully under his bottom and the back of his skull instead. His flight bag came tumbling down the hill behind him, like Jill after Jack. The people he had glimpsed lifted their heads abruptly to watch him, startled by the speed of his approach.
    Except that they weren’t people. They were goats.

 
    17
    Slowly and silently Georgie eased back the bolt. Slowly and silently she turned the handle and edged the bathroom door open a few inches.
    No one. She tiptoed out into the bedroom and listened.
    Nothing. She crept out into the corridor, and looked cautiously into each of the rooms of the villa in turn.
    Yes, she was alone.
    She went back into the bedroom to fetch the intruder’s belongings and put them out in the garden, but he didn’t seem to have any. She bolted the front door, and another door at the back of the house that gave access to the pool. She checked that all the windows were fastened.
    She switched on her phone. It glowed a dull and recalcitrant red at her, but it seemed to have recovered its spirits a little all the same, and managed to utter a grudging little acknowledgment when she pressed Oliver’s number.
    “Hi!” said his voice. “I know it sounds like me…”
    She ended the call before it taxed the phone’s limited goodwill any further. At once it rang. “Patrick,” said the screen. She ended the call. The phone rang again. “Patrick,” it said. She ended the call. It rang again. “Nikki,”