What’s going on ‘ere then?

My thoughts exactly…

I am sitting at home quite happily watching the lunchtime news over my belly, my empty lunch plate to one side and a cold bottle of water to the other. I’ve been writing since seven in the morning and am half way through an hour off before getting ready to go to the bar to cover for a coupe of hours when…

Phone rings and cuts out. Missed call from Petros. Odd, what could he want with me?

Never mind, go back to the news of forest fires and a celebrity with a boob popping out – the Star channel never quite seems to get the right mix…

Phone rings and keeps ringing. It’s Petros telling me has hasn’t got any credit – well, he must have some – and can I phone Neil?

Strange, Neil has a perfectly good phone of his own. But I ring and Neil’s phone rings and rings and is finally answered by Terri. That’s not as strange as it sounds as the two of them have been working together at the gallery preparing for and hanging the ODAS exhibition. Terri imparts strange news:

Neil has gone to the police station with his camera and left his phone. O.k., probably to take photos of the latest batch of refugees, but why should I phone him?

The answer comes a few minutes later as I am about to step into the shower. Neil is at Stelios’ office, the accountant, and Takis the police chief wants to see me and Neil together. I decide I really ought to get dressed first and do so before checking the time and dashing out. Passing Yiannis at the bar I tell him I have to go down town and have no idea why and I may not be back in time… that’s o.k… what’s going on? No idea! I carry on down the Kali Strata passing Terri at the shop and picking up Neil’s phone. What’s going on…no idea! And later on the steps I pass Maria who is trying to ‘give away’ fresh herbs and water to passing tourists for five euros a throw. ‘Why has the photographer been taken to the police station?’ she asks… no idea!

Still no idea when I reach Stelios’ office and Neil explains that one of the policemen came to collect him from the shop and escorted him to the station where Takis asked him questions about photographs and other things Neil couldn’t quite understand so Takis asked him where I was and sent him to get me. Neil had left his phone so he grabbed Petros who didn’t have (much) credit and called me so I rang and got Terri, meanwhile Neil was on his way to Stelios as he couldn’t remember my phone number to call me from the police station even though my number is exactly the same as his but with a different last number and anyway it didn’t matter as Stelios had my number and even called the police to see what exactly it was they wanted but they wouldn’t tell him so Neil phoned me and here I was sweating my way around to the cop shop with no idea why.

Phew.

And Takis wasn’t there. The other policeman who spoke perfect English but had no idea what was going on either, phoned Takis and then asked us to wait in his office. But he asked us to go through the main door, which we did, and then round and under the stairs and into the police chief’s office where the French windows were open, open directly onto the terrace where we had just been standing but that’s the police for you. So we sit and wait while refugee families wander in and out helping themselves to water and saying hello. We resist the temptation to open folders, see what’s on the computer and look through the open draws of the police chief’s desk as we are not like that and instead wait patiently…

…until the other policeman calls us outside again (we use the French windows) and tells us that Takis has got held up and not to worry about it, if he needs us again he will call.

So; what was all that about then?

No idea. Still. Not heard a word. And I’m not bitter at being dragged down from the village to the other side of the harbour in the midday sun in a heat wave in July for no apparent reason. Honestly, I’m not, I’m just intrigued. And what made it all worth while was the typically Greek thing: the cop who came to find Neil drove from the police station, around the harbour (in traffic control time I may add) to the Symi Visitor office and then walked up the Kali Strata to the shop, got Neil, walked down again, got into the car and drive around to the police station.

Oh lord!