On occasion it would take aim, hit the window with a splash and the salt water would run down the glass. It was as if all the lights of the world had been turned on or the sun had burst through the roof of the small ancient building that had once been a place of worship, a mosque. Everything seemed suddenly to brighten and come alive. He was a man whose very presence made things pulsate, the adrenaline run. The Cretan proprietor of the Rhadamanthys smiling broadly and waving his arms, rushed forward to shake the newcomer’s hand, greet him with a bone-crushing bear hug. Not satisfied, he kissed him: a short, sharp kiss hard on the lips, then roughly pushed him away. He slapped the man affectionately on the cheek. Arms round each other, the two men walked to a table across the room from her, the restaurateur announcing loudly the man’s arrival to the hovering waiters and the cooks somewhere out of sight in the recesses of the building. Three men and a woman, all short, plump and dark, and smothered in huge white aprons stained with cooking, rushed from the kitchen to greet the man.
