An Inch of Time by Peter Helton

for washing and laundry. After three trips to the cistern, each time lugging back a big yellow container of water, eighteenth-century Greece was in danger of losing some of its romance.
    Yet in the courtyard at dusk, as Margarita served supper, with paraffin lamps, candle lanterns and mosquito coils lit and the wine flowing once more, it all began to make sense again, feeding some deep-rooted yearning for a simpler life that never was. The enthusiasm of Morva’s three students for talking about the afternoon’s work, of artists they admired and paintings they had seen seemed inexhaustible. After a few glasses of rough local red and a meal of pot-roast lamb, I felt that the past was perhaps not such a bad place to be.
    I had withdrawn to my monkish cell just after midnight and fallen asleep the moment I dropped on to the bed. What woke me in the middle of the night I couldn’t tell; my brain was too busy trying to work out where it was. I was glad when I remembered. Unfortunately, as I sat up in the dark, my brain also remembered all the wine I had drunk. Sensing more than seeing them, I found the matches and lit the paraffin lamp by the bed, then opened the door to the night. In the courtyard, I found nothing but starlight and the clean fragrance of the night.
    I was about to turn back when I saw it, on the far side of the ghostly hamlet: a light. For less than a second it illuminated the side of a ruined building, then vanished, leaving nothing but a doubtful trace on my retina. Behind me the house stood dark apart from the light falling from my door. For a few minutes I stood at the entrance of the courtyard, staring into the darkness, listening. All I heard was the call of a distant owl, and when no more light appeared, I began to think I had imagined it.
    I turned around to go back to bed and stopped in my tracks. Through the half-open door of my room I saw a distorted shadow move across the wall. I had a visitor. Walking carefully beside the narrow shaft of light that fell across the ground, I managed to get to the house without making too much noise. Breathing as quietly as I could, I stopped by the door and listened. All I could see through the narrow opening were my bags against the bare wall opposite the bed, but I thought I could hear tiny noises. I swung the door wide and stepped inside. Briefly, Derringer looked up from the patch of the bed I had vacated, sighed and closed his eyes again. It took me a long while to get back to sleep.

SEVEN
    I was glad to see that Derringer ignored Morva’s chickens, since I was enjoying my breakfast eggs and didn’t want the supply interrupted. The chickens in turn seemed to have delegated a black hen to keep an eye on him while the rest scratched in the yard. The students had trooped off to their easels, leaving Morva and me alone at the long table.
    â€˜Am I making more coffee?’ she offered.
    â€˜No, it’s time I started to work for my money.’
Before it runs out completely
, I added mentally.
    â€˜How are you planning to go about it?’
    I shrugged. ‘The usual way. I’ll stick my nose in where it isn’t wanted, ask a lot of questions and make a nuisance of myself. Except I’ve never had to do it in a foreign language before.’
    I could hear the laboured prattle of a moped engine in the distance. A couple of minutes later Margarita arrived, carrying more shopping bags. Morva exchanged a few words with her, among which I recognized my name. For a long second Margarita looked at me with something like horror, an expression Morva missed as just then Derringer jumped on her lap. Margarita muttered a few words, lifted her shopping bags off the table and disappeared inside.
    â€˜What did you just tell her?’ I asked Morva who had turned her attention to the cat.
    â€˜Mm? Oh, I told her you weren’t just a painter but a private detective as well. She’ll be chuffed; she watches all the cop shows on