The Lisbon Exchange

The Audi was parked under the lime trees at the lay-by, and Marcus knew before his eyes had finished registering the German plates that he was leaving Arta that morning. It was a Tuesday in late September. The air had the cool small wind off the gulf that came in before the heat lifted, and the road was empty except for the car. Hirecar white. Plates issued in the last six months. Whoever had parked it had done so within the last twenty minutes, because the bonnet was ticking and the engine was still close enough to warm to register through the windscreen as a faint shimmer. He kept his pace. A man did not change his pace because of a car. At the kafeneion he took his usual table, and Kostas brought him coffee without being asked. Kalo proí. A nod. The small economy of two men who had seen each other every morning for fourteen months and had agreed, by long silence, that there was nothing much to say. Marcus drank the coffee. He watched the harbour and the road back up to the village. He watched the small white fishing boat at the second mooring that old Yiannis Karoulis had been working on with an electric sander for three days running and would probably never quite finish to his satisfaction. He watched a stray cat cross the cobbles