Crying Blue Murder (MIRA) (35 page)

Lungs bursting and throat gummed up, Mavros rounded another outcrop and stopped to orientate himself. He was close now. The angle of the ridge that he’d seen through the natural windows in the cave was almost identical, the great wall between Vigla and Profitis Ilias rising up to his left. Craning his head forward, he ran his eyes over the grey slabs of rock and the barren slopes. Although the other hillsides were dotted with clumps of gorse and hardy green bushes, the area near by was bare scree cut with mounds of dark red earth from the mine shafts. It was near one of those ore casts that the body lay, the white shirt catching his eye.

Mavros ran down towards it. Slowing as he approached the body, he looked around for prints or other traces but saw nothing. He kneeled down by the damaged head and immediately realised that there was no chance the man had survived what he calculated was a fall of at least fifty metres from the saddle above. And then he remembered who he’d seen wearing the trainers with the knobbly tread. He stepped over the body and looked at the face, the upper teeth driven into the lower lip and the eyes rolled to display bloodshot white.

It was Lance, the partner of the bad-tempered American anthropologist. Mavros felt for a pulse but couldn’t detect one. The wide patch of blood and soft matter on the stones and earth suggested that the unfortunate man had sustained his massive head injuries at this location.

Mavros swung his satchel round and took out his mobile phone. The signal indicator was blank and he couldn’t pick anything up by lifting it higher or by moving around. He was completely blocked in by the hills. He ran through his options. Go for help or look for the woman. Where was Gretchen? From what he’d seen, she and Lance went everywhere together. Maybe she’d already left to find help, but he couldn’t let himself assume that. The first thing to do was to leave Lance where he was and find a spot in line with a phone mast so he could call the police. At least that way he wouldn’t be too far away if Gretchen appeared. He looked back at the dead man, unwilling to abandon him without some cover, but all he had were the clothes he was wearing.

Then Mavros heard a rattle of stones, a miniature cascade down the slope, and gave a smile of relief. Back-up had arrived and it had transport. He shouted and waved, stopping only when he saw the look on the rider’s face.

A demon from the pit couldn’t have glared at him with more malevolence.

M
IKKEL
had parked the Suzuki inside the gateway to a barren field on the outskirts of the village in mid-morning. He could see the Bar Astrapi from the position he took up at the uneven wall. Although he was aware that Rinus often didn’t appear until the early afternoon to clean up, he wasn’t taking any chances. Because of potential witnesses he didn’t want to risk taking on the Dutchman in his flat in the
kastro
, and he knew that Rinus kept the motorbike he was so proud of in the storeroom at the back of the bar. Sooner or later he’d go out for a ride on it—he did most days—and Mikkel would be on his tail.

He had a long wait. By the time the wind started to blow hard, Mikkel had chewed his nails down to the quick. The back of his neck, which he usually took care to protect, was blistering in the sun and Rinus still hadn’t shown up. A few locals on their way back from the Kambos waved at Mikkel with curious expressions, but he knew that they didn’t really care what he was doing; he was foreign and there was no point in trying to account for the ways of his kind.

The German spent the hours at the wall replaying his life with Barbara, trying to concentrate on the good times: the openings of new design ranges when she’d moved around the crowded display rooms back home with her head held higher than a queen’s; the days on Trigono long ago when she’d smiled at him and even let him touch her; her laughter in the bars before the combination of drugs and alcohol ruined her. She’d always been self-obsessed and overbearing—she said all creative people were—but when she was high she could turn into a wild beast. That was how it always went when Mikkel thought too much about his relationship with her: the bad times prevailed—the times when she swore at him and humiliated him in front of embarrassed guests, mocking him for being an accountant rather than an artist. For years he had managed to block out Barbara’s bad side, but he was struggling now.

‘Jesus, Barbara,’ he heard himself say over and over again, the wind scattering the words across the stony earth. ‘Jesus. Why did you let the little pimp destroy you? Why did you ever let him lay a finger on you?’

Mikkel retched as he was overwhelmed by shame. Barbara had been screwing the Dutchman, and no doubt plenty of others who came on to her after he walked home from the bar nursing alcohol-induced headaches. He’d been suppressing the suspicions for years but now they had conquered him. Before he left the house he’d opened the freezer lid again and looked at the bruises on his wife’s ankles. Though the skin was now sparkling with ice crystals, the blue-black marks beneath were still clear. Was Rinus strong enough to hold Barbara’s larger frame under the water? Of course he was. She had probably passed out from the muck he supplied. The bastard. He deserved to die in a crumpled heap on the roadside and that was what would happen—as soon as he woke up from his drunken, doped-up coma.

And finally the Dutchman did appear, walking at an unusually quick pace, his head turning from side to side. He looked nervous as hell. That made Mikkel even more sure of his guilt. Rinus went into the Astrapi and came out again almost immediately, putting his back into wheeling the powerful BMW across the concrete terrace. Then, with another worried glance around, he put on his black helmet, dipped the visor and started the engine. He was off down the road to the Kambos before Mikkel could get back to the Suzuki, but that wasn’t a problem. The island was small and there weren’t many roads. Besides, he didn’t want the Dutchman to spot him until they were in a more deserted spot.

Mikkel kept his speed down until Rinus crested the brow of the hill between the village and the central plain, then accelerated hard before gliding to a halt just below the summit. The cloud of dust that the BMW was raising made the Dutchman easy to track, the northerly wind blowing it to the dun-coloured massif beyond. Mikkel watched as his prey passed the ruined windmills and the church at Myli, cutting along the eastern wall of the Theocharis estate. Where was he going? There were nothing more than rough tracks in that area. The thought that Rinus might not just be going for a recreational ride struck him. Could he be meeting someone? He drove down the slope quickly in case the barman glanced back. As he passed the abandoned graveyard, Mikkel saw the dust cloud move up the flank of the hill towards the archaeological dig. He thought he could see someone up on the ridge. Perhaps Rinus was going to see Eleni—after all, they seemed to be close, they were always talking at the bar like conspirators. Shit. He didn’t want her to see what he was going to do to the Dutchman. Shit. He sped up even more, feeling the wheels of the four-by-four judder as the asphalt ran into the potholed track.

And then Mikkel caught sight of a figure standing in the narrow space between the walls straight ahead of him. He gave a long blast of his horn, but there was no movement in response.

‘For God’s sake,’ he shouted, jamming his foot on the brake and screeching to a halt a few metres in front of the heavily built man. Pressing the electric window button, Mikkel stuck his head out. ‘Please,’ he said in Greek. ‘I want to get past.’ He looked up in surprise at the islander, recognising the impassive features. ‘Please, I—’

The last thing he saw was the fisherman Lefteris’s thick-fingered fist as it was swung at lightning speed into his face.

Mavros looked up the steep fall of scree, shielding his eyes against the sun. ‘Rena?’ he shouted. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ He felt her eyes burning into him, her face set in what seemed to be a rictus of hatred. Only after a long time did her eyes move to the crumpled form on the ground beside him.

‘Wait,’ she said. ‘I’m coming.’ She got off the donkey and led it down the slope with encouraging noises.

Mavros watched as the woman and the beast of burden negotiated the difficult surface of the hillside, stones tumbling down around him. He stepped forward to shield the body of the American, aware that it was an unnecessary action but doing so all the same. He tried to make out Rena’s face as she descended. Why had she been looking at him as if she had caught him molesting a child? Could she have had anything to do with Lance’s fall? He gauged the angles and wondered about it. No. She would have been on her way back from the fields she worked on the terraced slope farther along the ridge. She was probably just shocked by the scene, maybe thinking that he had something to do with it.

‘So,’ the widow said as she reached the bottom, turning to check that the donkey Melpo had cleared the last of the stones safely. ‘What happened here? Is this part of your investigation?’

Mavros examined Rena’s face at close range, puzzled by the change in her. Although her expression was no longer full of loathing, there wasn’t any friendliness in the way she was regarding him. ‘No, of course not,’ he replied. ‘I saw the body from there.’ He pointed to the small holes in the rock through which he’d been looking from the cave.

Rena’s eyes opened wide. ‘You were inside there?’ she asked, her tone expressing surprise. ‘You were in the caves?’

‘Yes,’ Mavros replied. ‘Do you know them?’

The widow nodded slowly, her head inclining to the left. ‘I’ve seen the entrances to some over there, yes.’ She shivered. ‘But I don’t go inside. I can’t stand the dark and the dirty air, never mind the bats.’ She shook her head. ‘Theoldpeoplesay that miners used to live in there before the war. The Theocharis family treated them like slaves, let them rot.’ She glanced down at the American. ‘What do you think happened to him?’

Mavros raised his shoulders. ‘I don’t know. It looks like he fell from the ridge.’ He stripped off his T-shirt and made to lay it over the dead man’s head.

‘Don’t,’ Rena said, touching his arm. ‘He doesn’t care any more and I’ve seen worse. The wind’s chill now. You’ll need your shirt.’

Mavros pulled the T-shirt back on. She was right. Even though the small valley they were in was sheltered, his skin was already covered in goose pimples. ‘Did you see him or anyone else when you were working?’

She shook her head, manoeuvring Melpo round so her head was facing the opposite direction. The donkey had been tugging away from the body. ‘The fields are out of sight from here and from where he’d have fallen.’ Her chin jutted forward as she turned her hands up and looked at the soil-encrusted skin. ‘Anyway, I’ve been busy.’

Mavros stepped back and ran his eye around the higher ground on each side. ‘I can’t understand where his woman has got to. They’re always together and I saw them from the bottom of the track earlier on.’ He held up his phone and checked the signal again. ‘Nothing.’

Rena was looking at the dead man dispassionately. ‘You must help me lift him on to Melpo,’ she said in a calm voice.

Mavros shook his head. ‘The police will want him to be left where he is. The area must be—’

‘You’re not in the big city now,’ Rena interrupted. ‘If we leave him here, the crows will have his eyes before we reach the Kambos.’ She stared at him. ‘Do you want his woman to see that?’

Mavros shrugged then nodded his acquiescence. The local policeman was unlikely to be an expert on crime scene procedures, and Lance had probably just slipped. If anyone asked, he could always say that the unfortunate American had still been alive when they moved him and that Rena was taking him to the village doctor.

‘We’ll approach Melpo from her hindquarters so she doesn’t panic,’ the widow said. ‘Wait. There’s an old blanket under the saddle. I’ll wrap it round the man’s head.’

Between them they got Lance on to the donkey.

Mavros stood back, wiping his hands on his jeans. ‘If you meet anyone with a phone, ask them to call the police.’

‘Aren’t you coming?’ Rena asked, her brow furrowed and her expression dark again.

He shook his head. ‘I want to see if the American woman is anywhere near by.’

She looked at him uncertainly then made a clicking sound and led the donkey towards the track. Lance’s arms and feet were hanging close to the rough ground, his swaddled head jerking up and down against the bottom of the wooden saddle. Then Melpo and her burden were round the wall of rock and Mavros was alone again. But Rena remained in his thoughts. What had she meant when she said she’d seen worse? Worse sights than a man with his head broken apart? And why had she been staring down at him with such belligerence?

Not for the first time Mavros found himself wondering what secrets were concealed beneath the normally placid face that the widow displayed to the world.

January 23rd, 1943

Our secret place. Despite the disaster at Myli and the horrors
that the hostages must be undergoing in the prison on the
mainland, the last week has been wonderful. The island has
been bathed in bright sunshine. This time is the
‘Alkyonidhes Meres’
, the unexpectedly warm halcyon days when, in ancient
myth, the kingfishers laid their eggs on nests floating on the
sea’s placid surface. The air has been so limpid that you
almost believe you could stretch out a hand to touch Santorini
or Anydhros despite the great expanse of light blue, shining
water
.

And Maro has been here to share these days with me.
Agamemnon has been asking where she is and her brother has
been looking at me with eyes burning with malice, but at her
request I have denied all knowledge of her whereabouts. No
one else knows the location of our cave, not even Rees or the
madman Griffin, so she is safe with me. She is very skilful at
melting into the landscape when we go out at night to take in
the glories of the moon and the constellations. I have been able
to push away the bitter memories of the events at Myli and get
them into perspective through her love. Such unquestioning
devotion has helped me to plan our next operation, an attack
on the main Italian supply depot on Naxos. This will be much
more difficult, the distances greater and the Italians now very
much on the alert. The attitude of the Greeks, both islanders
and Sacred Band, has not helped. It has taken days of pleading
for them to agree to supply a boat, but they will not come with
us. I don’t know what Agamemnon’s idea of warfare is. In my
view sending his men to keep watch on the ridge is hardly
going to weaken the enemy’s resolve. It seems that it is up to
us to show them how to make life difficult for the Italians
.

So tomorrow night we will set off from Vathy in the fishing
boat to be provided by Ajax, trusting in Rees’s seamanship and
the navigation skills that I learned in the desert. The explosives
will be carried down by locals and Sacred Band men. I plan to
use half of our stock, leaving the rest in the store cave for future
use. Base has advised that further supplies will arrive by kaïki
in a week’s time, so I will be able to plan several more operations.
Assuming, of course, that the Naxos show works out
.

Oh God, I have to stop myself turning into an unfeeling
machine of destruction. The piercing beauty of the Greek
landscape helps, as it has done throughout my sojourn on
Trig, but the most valuable support has come from the lover
I never expected to meet here or in any other place on earth.
Maro is with me in the fight, but her presence also reminds
me that there is more than war in this blood-drenched time.
She understands the war and the need for sacrifice. If I
allowed it, she would willingly come with us, but I have told
her that she must stay in the cave. I cannot contemplate
harm coming to her. She understands the war and yet she
also humanises me. She makes me realise that there are
more important things than the struggle, things that will last
beyond the fighting. She laughs when I tell her that I will
marry her when it’s all over—that I will work in the British
School in Athens and spend the summers on Trigono, that
she will be with me all the time, that we will never be parted.
If we can survive on Trigono in wartime, survive the Italians
and the hostility of her family, we can survive anywhere. Ah,
Maro
.