The Last Cut. Michael Pearce

       4

      In the Gardens the dancing was continuing furiously. The women had formed into a long line, their hands on the hips of the one in front of them, and were snaking about all over the place. The men had dropped back into a stationary row and were clapping the rhythm. The women danced up to them teasingly and then withdrew. Owen could see Rosa about half way down the line, plainly enjoying herself.

      The dancers’ families had turned out in support. He recognized Rosa’s parents and formidable grandmother surrounded by lots of little children, themselves dressed for dancing, who must be cousins. Rosa belonged to a large extended family and to marry her was to marry the whole Greek community. Georgiades, a communal backslider, had had little choice in the matter. The marriage had been arranged; by Rosa.

      Georgiades himself was nowhere to be seen. Owen began to walk round the group to greet Rosa’s family but then spotted him, beyond the dancers, among the bougainvillea, sitting on the edge of a gadwal talking to the ghaffir.

      ‘Lizard men!’ he was saying in appalled tones as Owen came up. ‘I wouldn’t meddle with them if I were you!’

      ‘Don’t worry!’ said the ghaffir fervently. ‘I won’t!’

      Owen stepped back behind a bush.

      ‘Mind you,’ said Georgiades, ‘it could already be too late.’

      ‘Too late!’

      ‘Yes. I mean, you saw him, didn’t you?’

      ‘No! All I saw was his trail. I mean, I knew at once that it was a lizard man, you can tell by the marks, it’s their tail. But that’s not the same thing. I didn’t actually see him, not him himself –’

      ‘Well, then, you were a lucky man!’

      ‘I know, I know!’

      ‘I mean, you could so easily have seen him. It must have taken him some time to make that hole –’

      ‘Ah, no, it wasn’t like that. I mean, they don’t work like that. Not lizard men.’

      ‘They don’t?’

      ‘No. They don’t do it themselves, they get men to do it for them. That’s why you don’t see them. And that’s the way it was here. The wood wasn’t gnawed, was it? It was cut. If a lizard man had done it himself, it would have been gnawed. You don’t see lizard men with tools, do you?’

      ‘Well, no –’

      ‘No. He got someone to do it for him. Someone who had the tools. Then he came along afterwards, wriggled through the hole, took what he wanted and then was on his way.’

      ‘Well. I still think you were lucky. Because you could so easily have seen him at that point, couldn’t you?’

      ‘Yes, but I try to take care. I mean, that’s always the risk in a job like mine. You’ve got to be careful you don’t see too much. If you just go blundering around, you can easily walk into something, and then, bang! The next minute you’re in trouble.’

      ‘So what do you do?’

      ‘I creep. Then if you come across something, if you see something, or, more likely, hear something, like that night –’

      ‘So you did see him?’

      ‘No, no. like I said, you don’t see them. They get someone to do it for them.’

      ‘Ah, so that was the one you saw?’

      ‘I didn’t see anyone. But –’ the ghaffir lowered his voice – ‘I knew he’d been there.’

      ‘Well, the hole, of course –’

      ‘No, no, not that.’

      ‘How, then?’

      The ghaffir laid his finger along his nose.