Free The Last Refuge by Craig Robertson Page B

young. Especially women. We must harness everything that we have here and make this somewhere the rest of the world is jealous of.’
    ‘And you think that can be done?’
    ‘What? Of course it can. We have every natural asset that we need. Wind, wave, water. We have a youthful populace that we can convince to return with the promise of change. We can be at the forefront of renewable energies and wireless technologies. We maybe have oil out there, too, to fund it. We can be whatever we want to be.’
    ‘Then you choose carefully. Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.’
    ‘Don’t make fun of me. Are you making fun of me?’
    ‘Sorry. I think it’s great that you . . .’
    As I spoke, I became vaguely aware of the door opening and the chill of the night sneaking in. But it was only when I saw Karis’s eyes open wide and stare in that direction that I became fully conscious of someone else having entered the bar.
    I was still talking, but followed her gaze and saw a tall, broad-shouldered man at the door, a blue woollen hat pulled over his dark hair. He must have been about thirty, good-looking in a rough-hewn kind of way. His dark eyes were on Karis, his face expressionless.
    She wasn’t hearing a word I was saying, and there was a worry in her eyes that I hadn’t expected. The wild, free spirit that I had been chatting to hadn’t suggested a tendency towards anxiety.
    ‘You okay?’ I had to repeat myself.
    She turned back towards me, as if remembering that I was there. Her hesitancy gave the lie to her sudden smile. ‘Yeah. I’m fine.’
    ‘Your boyfriend?’ I asked.
    Her green eyes were at once hot and cold. ‘I don’t have a boy -friend.’ Her tone could have frozen the ocean. ‘If I had a boyfriend I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you. I’m not like that. Anyway, I should get back to my friends. I only came back so that I could say no to you rather than you say it to me. Goodbye.’
    Karis pushed her glass away from her, stood up and turned away. She brushed past the big guy without looking at him and sat back down at her own table, her back to me as well as the newcomer.
    Any doubts on my part that it was he who had spooked her were dispelled when I watched him stare at her as she went by, then turn his head towards me. If looks could kill, I’d have been pushing up daisies on the turf roof of one of the local houses.

Chapter 13
    Karis and her friends left just half an hour later, the beer samovar drained of its last golden drop. As they passed by, I heard one of them mention Sirkús, the funky Seventies bar upstairs on a corner of the western port, across the road from the Hotel Torshavn. Part of me wanted to follow them there. Follow her. But it made no sense to do so.
    I also felt like I was trapped by the hulking, glowering presence of the guy who had scared Karis off. He stood leaning against one of the vertical support beams, beer in hand, daring me to match his stare. If I left it would be as if he had scared me off, too, and I wouldn’t give him that. The only options were to challenge him or to ignore him, but I was angry at being forced into either.
    Another man came into the bar and sidled up next to him. A slightly shorter, slightly slimmer version. The same dark hair and eyes. The same sculptured jaw. A brother maybe. Whatever the bigger guy had said, little brother turned and sneered at me. Then a glare of intent. Going out on the street after the girl seemed like a doubly bad idea. I didn’t want to be in the dark winding alleys of Tinganes with these two.
    Fight or flight. An old dilemma.
    My mind was just about made up when a third figure wheeled unexpectedly into view. A slender, blond-haired man in jeans and a white cotton shirt with a broad grin on his tanned face cut across the other two men and sat himself down next to me. This was becoming a familiar occurrence.
    He put a hand across my shoulder in greeting, as if we were long-lost friends, and