Chapter 2

When they got to the room Annie went straight out onto the deck.

“Bloody hell, the government paid for this? That’s pretty cushy.”

“Nah, I had been booked a small room looking out towards the garden. Since I am here for the month and had no flight costs I treated myself and asked for this upgrade. But I am paying the difference.”

They had refilled their drinks at the beach bar before coming up to the room so stood for a few minutes on the deck looking out over the bay. But they weren’t there for deep and meaningful chat.

“Those shoulders look sore. Come and lie on the bed and I will go and get the Aftersun.”

When Andrew came out of the bathroom Annie was lying face down on the bed looking over at him. Her sundress was over the chair and she was naked but for tiny little knickers. Her back was worse than her shoulders and she would need to be careful for the next couple of days. Andrew threw a couple of condoms onto the nightstand and then stripped down to his boxers and straddled her hips.

Despite the fact that they both knew why they were there, for the first 10 minutes he did gently rub the cool cream into her back, getting appreciative little moans in return. When Andrew asked her to sit up she did so without any coyness. There was no point in laying her back onto the bed, she would just stick. So Andrew sat on the bed, back against the headboard and had Annie straddle his thighs as he rubbed the cream onto her front, her shoulders, collarbones and down to the line where her bikini top had saved her. Once his amateur nursing was over Andrew put the cream down and started to caress her paler skin. Annie was carrying a few extra pounds but there was an earthy robustness to her. As he started teasing her nipples she inched up the bed and they started kissing. 15 minutes of Andrew feeling her up had them both ready for action. They were quickly naked and she grabbed one of the condoms and expertly wrapped him up. Annie knee-walked up the bed and eased herself down onto him. Their yeses were simultaneous. The first fuck did not last long, for either of them, which at least spared his blushes from popping quickly. But it was nothing more than an aperitif fuck, setting the stage for further action. Grabbing a towel to protect her back Annie sat beside him on the bed.

“Lying in the sun watching all these men, then a nice little buzz from a couple of drinks, followed by a good feel up, even if it was really nice of you to work on my sunburn. I needed that after that build-up.”

“I know what you mean. Although I didn’t have an afternoon of admiring the sights on the beach but 15 minutes of caressing you had me ready to go.”

“Yeah, there were a lot of tits on display today. Some of them don’t look they had finished school yet and more than a few were as old as me Mum. Not that a few of them shouldn’t have left some mystery, but good on ‘em.”

Andrew motioned to her tan line.

“You weren’t tempted?”

“Yeah but I have been chicken so far. The other three are all anorexic and I feel like a right heifer next to them.”

“Well it is a shame but at the same time probably for the best given how red the rest of you is. Sunburned tits must be sore.”

Annie’s smile was cruel.

“That is what the other three are finding out right now. When I left to go the bar they were all sitting around topless, moaning about how sore their tits were.”

“So do you want to pop back to your room? I could escort you.”

“Pig.”

“True.”

She laughed but only for a second as Andrew pulled her to her feet and lay the towel for her back at the end of the bed. Annie got with the plan in a hurry and there was no shyness as he knelt on a pillow on the floor and kissed his way up her thigh. Now Andrew got Annie there eventually but she made him work for it. It was a slow build-up, even although she had come already. But there are worse things in the world to take your time over. She was good at keeping him in the right place, there was lots of ‘right there’ and when he finally got her over the finish line he was pleased but also ready to go himself. Annie wasn’t Helena but she didn’t lie in a daze for minutes either. By the time Andrew was wrapped up she was back to earth.

“How’s the back?”

“A little bit sore.”

“Doggie?”

Her smile and acceptance were redundant as she flipped over. She reminded Andrew of Moira, wide hips and a big arse, he smiled at the memory. He also remembered that Moira liked to fuck hard. He built up the pace with Annie and it turned out she was into it too. He loved the ripple of flesh as he slammed into her. When Andrew came he toppled forward but put his arms out to stop crushing Annie to the bed. Once he had tied the condom off he flopped back onto the bed.

“Wow, it has been a while since I had a good hard fuck like that. You had a good hold and were going for it.”

“The view was inspiring.”

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“Can I grab a quick shower?”

15 minutes later Annie was on her way back to her room. There were no promises to meet on other evenings or for a repeat. It was a holiday shag, good dirty fun, nothing more. Thinking about the alternative back at Dhekelia had Andrew laughing. His dreams were full of Annie and her big arse.

The following morning Andrew was better rested and wide-awake, after a full night’s sleep. As he started his run his thoughts drifted to the three tall girls from the previous morning. He kept an eye out for them on the run out to Ayia Napa but there was no sign. Laughing at himself he turned and headed back. It was a beautiful morning and Andrew loped along at his usual pace. The beach at the cove was not an issue and he was back at Nissi Beach having met no one and only seen a couple of people off in the distance as he was turning. It was a beautiful, calm, Mediterranean morning. Changing quickly he was out at the pool loving the sensation of swimming outdoors. If it stayed like this he wasn’t going to be doing front crawl for a month, it was magical just to backstroke away with a deep, clear blue sky above him. Now Warrender had a glass roof but Edinburgh did not have skies like this. Andrew’s watch was allegedly waterproof and as there was no clock at the pool he had to wear it swimming so that he didn’t stay too long. He reluctantly hauled himself out the water to find three very blatant stares from his three running friends. He grabbed his towel and wandered over.

“Good morning, I didn’t realise I had attracted spectators. I am Andrew, Andrew McLeod.”

The ladies were Finnish, and members of their U-20 World Championship volleyball team. Their training camp started the following week in Italy, where the Championship was scheduled to be held. The three of them were getting a chance for some relaxation before five weeks of controlled dorm room living. The blondes were Aino and Kerttu, while Lilja was the one with black hair.

“Aino forgot to set the alarm, otherwise we would have been out running with you this morning.”

Lilja made this sound like a capital offence. Andrew smiled.

“I have to admit I kept a keen eye out for the three of you as well, I was disappointed that there was no sign of you. Now though I have to go. I am out here working and am meeting my boss for breakfast in less than 20 minutes. Would you like to have a drink with me this evening? Tell me where you are staying and I will walk down and meet you there, or we can meet here, over there at the beach bar if you would prefer.”

Given that none of them had pen or paper and although they understood each other it was Finnish and Scottish trying to communicate, so they agreed on the beach bar at 8.00. Andrew watched them get back into their running rhythm before having to hustle back to his room for a quick shower. Brodie was going to throw him out of the car for being so cheerful that morning. Brodie was already in the dining room when Andrew made it to breakfast looking much more chipper than the previous day. There was little chat as they again quickly demolished breakfast and by 8.30 were on their way. Nicosia was an hour plus drive and Chambers and Houghton were going to go separately in a local SIB vehicle. Andrew waited for Brodie to give him instructions. And waited.

“Working at the British Sector HQ should not be an issue. I am trying to figure out how we can poke around at the UN HQ as well.”

That was the extent of it. No cunning plan, no dramatic insight, just let’s turn up and see what happens. On the weekend Andrew could look back and summarise what happened that Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Nothing happened. He had thought working at Earl’s Court with Susan had been boring but this was something else. He spent part of each of those days completely tuning the other three out and thinking about his project, he even got the chance to wrote out some of the ideas. He was grateful for the distraction. The other thing Andrew did to kill the endless boring hours was people watched. When he wasn’t thinking about his project he had nothing to do, was not included in most of the conversations and so stood at the window and observed.

Things had calmed since the invasion. But there were still armed Greek Cypriot and Turkish troops facing off across a no man’s land of varying widths. It varied between several kilometres where the two sides could not even see each other, and to the other extreme where someone with a good arm could throw a grenade and kill soldiers on the other side. And the UN, unarmed, were stuck in the middle trying to keep these maniacs from killing each other. There was lot to see and Andrew spent a lot of time watching the rhythm of the day. The routines of patrols, on foot, by bike, and in vehicles. Breaks, meals, dealing with the locals. Obviously this was a great place to go on deployment, it sure as hell beat getting blown up in Northern Ireland, but there was a busyness about the place. Lots to do, not that many men, there was no fat on this deployment.

Now of course Andrew watched all this not so much from a distance but isolated. As usual they were not talking to anyone else because they were trying to keep the investigation as quiet as possible. Like there was going to be any chance of that with squaddies about. They had probably sussed them out already. But the truth was Andrew didn’t need to be there. He drove Brodie to and from Nicosia and watched as the three of them went round in circles. So the first week of work was a wash out. It felt like they had made no progress. Every evening Andrew wondered if the volcano that was Chief Inspector Rob Brodie was going to erupt, but it never did. Brodie was in decent shape and so found the resort to his liking. He wasn’t icky, chasing the teenagers but instead he found solace with the fellow divorcees among the middle aged women at the resort, and out in Ayia Napa. He always made it to breakfast but he napped the whole way to Nicosia and often on the way back as well. Now it didn’t stop him being frustrated about the investigation but he wasn’t borderline psychotic like the previous year in West Germany.

Andrew’s own evenings that first week were fabulous. On the Wednesday evening before he and Brodie returned to the resort on the road into Ayia Napa they found the Cypriot equivalent of an off-licence and got some cold beer and wine. Keeping it cold was a challenge but it was good to have a cold beer out on his deck and watch the tourists as the day wound down. Andrew spotted the three Finns as they came round the headland and met them before they all hit the bar. A round of drinks later and they were sitting at a table doing the quick versions of their lives. Even in low heeled sandals or flats the three of them were tall women. All together they stood out even more. Aino was 5’10, Lilja was 5’11 and Kerttu was 6’1. Of course they did all that in metric but Andrew knew 180 centimetres was roughly 6’ so did the quick conversion. For tall women finding a man that is taller can be a challenge. The ideal of a man being taller than the woman in a couple was something that was orthodoxy. Where it came from Andrew didn’t know but having met many tall women over the years he knew that it was a source of frustration to them. And if a tiny women had snagged a tall man they took it as a personal slight.

What he did notice about the three of them was their athletic frames. There was a tightness, a fluidity to them that was noticeable. They were not super ripped or anything like that it was more they had a command of their bodies. All three of them were in sundresses and they were the epitome of health. The two blondes were tanned where as Lilja was much paler, she rivalled Andrew for paleness. Despite being so tall he had never played either basketball or volleyball at school. Heriot’s had teams in neither sport. But he had seen enough at the Olympics on television to know the basics. But no strategy. To be fair they weren’t interested in talking about volleyball with him either.

“You are lucky to be staying here for your work.”

Lilja had been taking lessons from Freya in questions in the form of statements.

“There is no luck to it. This is my second summer doing this kind of work. Often you end up stuck in some military base, not a member of the military and so you are isolated, often bored and lonely at night. So when they said we were coming here I persuaded them that we should stay away from the bases, we can’t talk about what we are doing so it would cut down on the questions. I could hardly believe it when they agreed. So here I am, able to provide morning entertainment for Finnish ladies.”

Two of them laughed but Kerttu muttered.

“There are worse things than being stuck on a military base for a month.”

There followed a minute of rapid-fire Finnish with laughter, mock outrage, the whole works. Andrew never found out what Kerttu was called but he could guess. It is a badge he wore as well. Once order was restored the conversation returned to English and to their present situation.

“You are a good swimmer. We came over to see if you were still there and when we saw that you were we just stayed and watched. We realised when we got back to the apartment that if it had been the other way round it would have not been very nice, creepy in fact.”

There was an apologetic shrug. He would think about that later.

“It allowed me to meet the three of you so it doesn’t matter. Are you hungry? Would you like to go for dinner?”

They decided to go for dinner but they wanted to walk on the beach first. It was Kerttu, the tallest, that brought up the height.

“It is nice to walk with someone who does not make us feel that we are strange for being so tall.”

“Is it that bad?”

In hindsight, given what Andrew knew from his conversations with Heloise, it was a stupid thing to say.

“It has been more noticeable maybe, this week because there are three of us. On our own it is not too bad but together we seem to get more looks. Although the star of the team, Helmi, she has it really tough. She is two metres tall.”

That was about 6’7”, the second tallest person Andrew had heard of other than Lars.

“Wow, I know only one guy taller than that, two metres five. But his wife is only 165cm.”

The pah’s of disgust were telling, tall women took tall men with short wives as a personal slight.

“But with someone your size Andrew I could wear heels if I wanted. It is just nice to have options for a change.”

Andrew was listening to them talk with interest, thinking about comments like that. He was walking on the beach with three fit and athlete women. Where was this going? Was it going anywhere? Kerttu was talking about going out in heels. Once again not being in Dhekelia seemed a great call. The conversation carried on back and forth between the four of them as they walked through the hotel and out of the grounds. There were a couple of restaurants close to the resort, and they picked the one that could seat them immediately.

“You said this was a summer job, are you still at university?”

Andrew nodded.

“Yes I am. I am an engineering student. What about you?”

He watched the three of them as they talked about their own university courses. Aino was the quietest of the three and it was more obvious when she explained that she had only just turned 18 and would be starting university in Tampere, her home town, when she returned from Italy. She was going to be studying Finnish Literature. Aino seemed shy but she did have a quick wit about her. Lilja was the oldest of the three at 20 and was a drama student in Helsinki. This was obviously her last year on the team and she herself did not think she would make the full woman’s team. Her dress was the shortest and it highlighted her powerful legs. Kerttu was between them at 19, the tallest of the three and the one with the most accented English. Which given Andrew knew exactly no words of Finnish he wasn’t going to give her shit for. She had completed the first year of a business degree at the largest university in the country, the University of Helsinki. It was a fun night out with the three of them although he had resigned himself to nothing happening. But they were hunting in a pack, Andrew just hadn’t realised yet was that he was the prey. They were finishing their beer and wine when Lilja sent the calm evening veering off a cliff.

“Do you think we are attractive Andrew?”

Thankfully he didn’t have a mouthful of beer or Aino, sitting opposite him, would have been wearing it.

“Of course I do.”

“Don’t say ‘of course I do’ Andrew. Explain to us why you think we are attractive.”

If the acting career didn’t work out then Lilja had a future as an interrogator. She was sitting there with a look of impatience and Andrew was getting no help from the other pair. He didn’t know if this forthrightness was a Finnish characteristic or whether he was just lucky.

“Okay since I appear to have no choice in this. I like that you are tall and athletic. I love how that dress shows off your powerful legs for example. You are all clever as you are at either university or college. I like that you don’t conform to the normal rules of expecting the man to make all the moves. As to why you are attractive, I either think that you are or you are not. Let me give you an example. In the last two years I have gone out with two women both 185cms (6’2”). But one I found that we had nothing to talk about and I never went out with her again and the other one is still a good friend. I find you attractive because you are assertive, I find Aino attractive because she is shy and I find Kerttu attractive because she worries about being so tall. How’s that?”

He sat back and watched the three of them look at each other. They were too polite to talk Finnish in front of him but Andrew could tell that they wanted to. He made it easy for them and excused himself to the toilet. When he came back out he stopped and stood at the end of the bar where he could see the three of them arguing back and forth. Aino spotted him and he was waved over.

“You didn’t have to stay away.”

“But it was so much fun to watch the three of you. This is where I tell you that I can secretly speak Finnish and I know what you were talking about.”