Chapter Seven
‘Ladies, I need some help.’
Stella and Frankie were in organisation mode behind the reception desk a few mornings later, and Winnie was halfway up a stepladder putting a fresh coat of white paint on the window shutters.
All three of them turned to look at Corinna as she came through their open front door on a waft of Chanel and a clatter of tan high-heeled sandals.
She looked spectacular in an orange silk shift, her long hair in a businesslike chignon and her lipstick a perfect match with her dress.
‘What can we help with?’ Frankie smiled and closed the ledger.
Stella poured Corinna a glass of water from the iced jug on the counter and handed it over. ‘Too early for a shot of island gin in it?’ she said, knowing that a little after ten in the morning was hardcore even for a Skelidos native.
‘You might all need a shot when you’ve heard what I’ve come to ask,’ Corinna said. ‘It’s my brother.’
Winnie frowned, wondering what Corinna’s brother could have to do with them.
‘Have we met him?’ Stella asked, doubtful.
God, Winnie thought. I hope she’s not about to ask one of us to go on a blind date with him. If she does, it’s definitely not going to be me.
Corinna shook her head. ‘Oh, believe me, you’d know if you’d met him. He lives over on the mainland, but he’s broken his collarbone in an accident a couple of weeks back and wants to come over and spend some time on the island to recuperate.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Frankie said, instantly sympathetic.
‘Not as sorry as I am,’ Corinna said. ‘I adore him of course, but if I have to have him in my house for six weeks I’ll go crazy. It’s a small house and he’s a big man with even bigger opinions.’
‘Ah,’ Frankie said, starting to see where the conversation was headed.
‘So you’re thinking …’ Winnie said, climbing down the ladder and placing her paintbrush on the top of the paint pot.
‘Well, you have all of these rooms available, and you need guests to stay afloat.’ Corinna waved her hand in the general direction of the staircase and looked from one to the other of them, nodding as she spoke.
‘A nice six-week booking to get the ball rolling? You’ll hardly know he’s here, I promise.
He’s always on his phone doing one business deal or another.
Give him the Internet and he’ll be no trouble at all. ’
‘Even though he’s a big man with even bigger opinions?’ Stella laughed, seeing straight through Corinna’s words.
‘Did I say big? I meant … gregarious.’
Winnie didn’t doubt it; any brother of Corinna’s was sure to be a force of nature.
‘I think we can squeeze him in,’ Frankie said, looking at Stella and Winnie for confirmation as she spoke.
They both nodded; much as they were enjoying having the place to themselves, they couldn’t call themselves a B without guests they’d be packing their bags and going home to England. The thought had her reaching for the pen again until Stella smacked her fingers away.
‘Go and have a gin or something, will you? You’re making me twitchy.’
‘Kalimera?’
They looked up as a woman walked in and gazed at them enquiringly.
‘Kalimera,’ Frankie tried, and the woman let forth a long string of Greek that none of them had a prayer of understanding.
Winnie watched her, trying to guess what she might be saying from her body language.
She was in her late fifties or sixties at a guess, and dressed in a black dress with a kitchen apron around her waist. Her greying hair was fastened at her nape, and her lined face was free of makeup.
She gestured around at the villa as she spoke, and then stared at them as if they ought to know exactly what she meant.
When they stared back, mystified, she huffed with frustration, fell to her knees and made motions as if she was scrubbing the floor.
‘Does she think our floor is dirty?’ Frankie asked, affronted after scrubbing it herself the previous day. After a few seconds of charades she got off her knees and crossed behind the reception desk and started to rummage in the cupboard behind there.
‘How do we stop her?’ Stella whispered. ‘She might be about to rob us.’
‘No clue,’ Winnie said, watching the woman as she pulled an annoyed face and shut the doors again.
They’d emptied out the cupboard last week, moving the contents under the sink.
As they watched, the woman pulled a large cotton hankie from her apron pocket, spat on it, and started to clean the reception desk with gusto, shoving the ledger and pen aside as she went.
‘Ah! Stella, do something!’ Winnie spluttered. ‘She’s wiping her saliva all over the ledger!’
‘Do you think she wants to do the cleaning?’ Frankie said. The cupboard had housed all of the cleaning products, which presumably was what the woman had expected to find when she flung open the doors.
‘Not if she’s going to spit on everything, she isn’t,’ Stella said. ‘Do we even need a cleaner?’
Winnie reached for the phone on the desk. Flipping open the diary to the small list of numbers she’d amassed, she dialled Panos and quickly asked him if he’d mind chatting to the woman on their behalf.
The woman looked at the receiver suspiciously for a moment before taking it, and then at Winnie through narrowed eyes.
‘Panos?’ Winnie said, and the woman’s face cleared as she lifted the receiver to her ear and started a rapid-fire exchange. After what seemed to be half an hour but probably was more like five minutes, she handed the phone back with a ‘you talk now’ gesture at Winnie.
‘Panos? It’s me again, Winnie,’ she said.
‘Ah, Winnie. I come by for my gin supply later today, yes?’
Winnie frowned. ‘Well, yes, OK, but can you tell me what this lady wants from us, please?’
He laughed. ‘It’s Hero. She work for you.’
‘She does?’ Bloody Ajax! Was there anything else he ‘forgot’ to mention when they bought the place?
‘Sure she does. You don’t know this thing already?’
‘Well, no. This is the first time we’ve met.’
‘Right,’ Panos said, drawing the word out. ‘Hero has worked at the villa for many years, different owners. She come in to help clean, she does the sheets, and washing, you know the things.’
Winnie wasn’t certain that she did. ‘What do I pay her?’
Panos mentioned a small sum of money, and then added ‘and four bottles of island gin on Friday’.
‘Four a week?’ Winnie said. That seemed a heck of a lot of gin for one small woman.
Hero must understand more than she let on, because at that she nodded, grinned and held up four fingers.
‘Thanks, Panos. I’ll see you later, OK?’
Winnie hung up the phone and lifted her shoulders at the others.
‘Well, this is Hero,’ she said. ‘And she works here.’
Frankie and Stella looked taken aback.
‘She does?’ Frankie said.
‘Hero? As in action hero?’ Stella said. ‘Is she going to take us all out if we say we can’t afford her?’