The Green Lady (15 page)

A vague recollection crystallized in the brigadier's mind. ‘He said he'd rather be the humblest farm labourer on earth than a ruler of the dead.'

‘Very good. Worshipping Hades was a perversion to the overwhelming majority, even of non-citizens and slaves. We know very little about the few cults that existed – for example, there was a temple to the god in Elis, but it was open only once a year and to the priest alone. Who would pray to the bringer of his own end?' Phis gave a crooked smile. ‘Apart from this person in Delphi.'

Who's gone to meet Hades without his head, Kriaras thought.

‘However, there is another approach to Hades worship.'

‘Please enlighten me.'

The professor cackled. ‘There is very little light in the realm of the unseen one.' When the brigadier didn't respond, he continued. ‘Anyway, Hades as Plouton was worshipped jointly with his wife, Persephone. You remember that myth, I imagine.'

‘Persephone daughter of Demeter, the earth goddess, abducted by Hades and forced to stay with him during the winter months?'

‘Quite so.'

Nikos Kriaras was interested now. He had remembered something else. ‘Weren't there pomegranate seeds in that story?'

Epameinondhas Phis nodded and opened his mouth to give another lecture.

M
avros was about half a kilometre away from Kypseli when his phone rang – an unknown Athens number. It was probably Angie Poulou. He stopped and answered.

‘I saw you on the TV news. Is Lia in Viotia?'

There was something in her voice that Mavros couldn't put his finger on.

‘Did you also see your friend Rovertos Bekakos?' he asked.

‘He's not my friend.'

Again, her tone was interesting, though perhaps she meant only that Maria fulfilled that role. Then again, Maria was playing a strange game, meeting Kriaras and also Angie's husband – he was prepared to bet she didn't know about what the Fat Man had seen and heard at the airport.

‘Anyway, he was down there because of the protesters at the HMC plant. Why were you there?'

When in doubt, tell the truth, Mavros thought. ‘I followed him from his home.'

‘You what?' There was no doubt about how Angie Poulou sounded now – scared. ‘If he saw you, he'll tell Paschos.'

‘He saw me all right. You needn't worry. There's nothing to connect me to you.'

‘Maybe not, but he'll start digging. Rovertos is very good at that.'

‘That'll explain why he comes to the bauxite works so often then.'

There was a short silence. ‘Was that a joke?'

‘Not entirely. Tell me, apart from the trip to Kithairon when she disappeared, did Lia often visit Viotia?'

‘Occasionally. I keep bees on the slopes of Mount Helicon. She came with me. Sometimes she would go with Paschos to that weird multicoloured town.'

‘The inaptly named Paradheisos? There are worse places on the western outskirts of Athens, but you probably haven't seen them. No, you're right. Paradheisos is weird.'

‘Have you found anything out about my daughter?'

‘To be honest, no. But the investigation's still a live one.'

Angie Poulou sighed. ‘Tell me you think Lia's still alive too.'

‘Given the amount of money she's worth, I'd have to say she is. Don't give up hope.'

‘Thank you,' his client said in a small voice and hung up.

Mavros drove on. He
did
believe Lia was still breathing, even after three months, but what he hadn't told Angie was that the case was getting both complicated and nasty. If the Son was burning and beheading people, it was unlikely to end well. But why would Poulos have hired him? What was the significance of his victims? The trick would be minimising the body count – and he was sure that he'd soon be on the torturer's list. He considered calling Nikos Kriaras, but decided against it. For one thing, he was already involved. For another, it was likely that the brigadier would be calling him after his appearance on the TV.

He drove into Kypseli. It was a pretty village, built round a small curved bay. On the hill behind he could see the bee hives that would have given the place its name dotted over the flank of a low hill. The nearer ones looked in disrepair. There were a few fishing boats tied up beside a wooden pier, but they too were in less than pristine condition. This was a place in decay and it was obvious why – across the larger bay, the dark cloud was pumping from the plant's high chimneys. He could make out a couple of large ships berthed, presumably loading finished aluminium. He wondered how much those cargoes were worth.

Not that the inhabitants of Kypseli were taking it lying down. There had been signs by the roadside objecting to the pollution all the way from Paradheisos. From there, a high headland blocked out the HMC works and the wharf, so the workers could pretend that they lived in rural bliss – apart from the muck in the sky. In Kypseli, almost every building had a banner hanging from its eaves. ‘Put your carcinogenic waste in your own garden, Poulo!' read one; another, ‘We can't work, we can't even swim – shut down the HMC works!' As he parked in the three-sided square, Mavros realised that he hadn't seen a single person. It was siesta time, but even then there would usually be some sign of life. He got out and looked around. The Ecologists for a Better Viotia office was easy to spot. It was the only building with its door open and people visible inside.

Mavros thought about how to play this. He could either be the ecologist from Athens come to offer support – running the risk of his lack of technical knowledge soon being uncovered – or he could come clean about his profession, without specifying who he was working for. The latter had a pretty obvious downside. As soon as he asked if anyone knew Lia, they'd think he was working for the owner of the plant they hated so much – he couldn't disclose that his client was actually the wife. He would be Mephistopheles to them and they'd clam up tighter than a bent doctor's hand around a bribe. Or they themselves were Lia's kidnappers and the same would happen – or worse. He decided that tweaking the truth was the better part of valour.

He went into the building and was greeted warmly by both Lykos and Angeliki. The man from the tractor gave him a more restrained look and went back to painting a banner.

‘So, Alex,' Lykos said, after giving him a bottle of water, ‘what brought you down to the Inferno? That's what we call the HMC plant.'

‘Can you keep a secret?'

‘We're all friends here,' Angeliki said.

‘I'm a private investigator.'

There was an immediate froideur in the room, despite the lack of air-conditioning. Akis Exarchos went over to the single computer and tapped at the keyboard.

‘And I've been employed to check out Rovertos Bekakos.'

Normal warmth was resumed.

‘That bastard,' Lykos said. ‘We can give you a bucket-load of shit on him.'

Mavros smiled. ‘I was rather hoping so.'

‘Who's your employer?' Angeliki asked, her boldness touching in its naivety.

‘I can't—'

‘No, of course he can't, my love,' Lykos said, putting his arm round her. ‘If he
had
given a name, I wouldn't have believed him.'

Mavros nodded, relieved to be off the hook.

‘From what I see on the Internet, you're a missing persons specialist,' Exarchos said.

Mavros tried to trump that, taking a card from his wallet. ‘As you can see, it says “Private Investigations” here. Sure, I do a lot of missing persons work, but not exclusively.' He went back to what he had been about to say. It was speculation, but he had a bad feeling about the lawyer, remembering the way his eyes had followed the girl down the street outside his office. ‘There are other rumours about Bekakos.'

All three of them were staring at him now.

‘For instance, that he has a penchant for underage girls.'

Angeliki turned to Lykos and gave him an unfathomable look.

Lykos shrugged. ‘That's no good without proof. He'll have us shut down in an eye-blink. It's only because my aunt's an MP – one of the few good ones – that we're still operating.'

Mavros asked who that was and heard the name Tatiana Roubani, the veteran Communist parliamentarian whom he'd recently seen on TV. She had been in the student resistance against the dictatorship and had known his brother, Andonis.

‘Do you think Bekakos has been preying on the workers' daughters in Paradheisos?' Lykos asked.

Mavros was intrigued by the activist's question. Could his guess be right?

‘Have you heard anything of the sort?' he asked

‘Actually, I have.'

Mavros disguised his unease. Could that be what had happened to Lia Poulou? A pederast kidnapping his employer and friend's daughter, then successfully dissembling during the search for her? Had he abused local girls too? That was vile enough to have the ring of possibility, considering the lawyer's visits to the area. But his wife had been with him on many of those. Was she in on it?

‘Yes,' Lykos said. ‘A girl of fourteen. We run a workshop in Paradheisos two evenings a week, even though the mayor – who works for the company, of course – has tried to stop it and we have to change venue all the time. But there are good people in the town. Some of the HMC workers, especially the wives who aren't employed at the plant, are worried about the pollution.' He turned to his partner. ‘She spoke to Angeliki.'

The young woman's face reddened as she picked up the story. ‘The bastard. He scared the poor girl out of her skin. She didn't have it in her to speak to her parents, but somehow we got through to her on the ecological side. She stayed behind and started crying when we asked if we could help. Then it all poured out.' She glanced at Lykos. ‘It's one of the reasons we raised the profile of our activities. And that piece of shit was in the middle of things today.'

‘I'd have killed him,' Akis Exarchos said, shaking his head. ‘But you and that cop turned up and Angeliki told me to hold back.'

‘That would have ruined us,' Lykos said. ‘The media would have portrayed us as terrorists and the plant would have gone on spewing out its filth.'

‘Yes, but did the girl identify Bekakos?'

‘Not by name,' Angeliki said. ‘But she described someone who resembles him and we know he was in Paradheisos that day.'

‘Come on, my love,' Lykos said. ‘You know it was him.'

‘When was this?' Mavros asked.

‘She was a bit vague about the date,' Angeliki replied. ‘Around the beginning of June.'

Mavros dropped his gaze. ‘What did he do to her?'

‘He didn't actually rape her,' Angeliki said. ‘But he got her clothes off. There was more, but she wouldn't say.'

‘Definitely enough to get him arrested,' Mavros said. ‘Where did it happen?'

‘In her home, would you believe? The father, an HMC forklift driver, was on shift and the mother was in the corner shop she runs.'

‘No siblings?'

Angeliki raised her head in the standard negative way.

‘It was early evening,' Lykos said, ‘still light. Maybe someone saw his expensive car.'

‘But will they talk?' Angeliki said doubtfully.

‘They might,' Mavros said. ‘I might be able to offer an inducement.' He didn't give details. He needed time to think.

Silence fell. Akis went back to his painting.

‘So,' Lykos said, ‘have you got anything to give us on Bekakos, Alex?'

It was payback time. Mavros played the only card he had. ‘I know he's been down here with his wife offering people deals if they agree not to sue the company. I was hoping you could help me out with that.'

‘Fair enough,' Lykos said. ‘The simple fact is that there's been an increasing number of deaths from cancer in Paradheisos and Kypseli over the last five years.' He glanced at the man with the banners. ‘Akis's wife Yiorgia was a recent victim.'

‘My commiserations,' Mavros said.

The thin-faced man raised his head and studied him, before murmuring thanks. He had a hungry look and Mavros didn't fancy his chances if he got on his wrong side.

‘The thing is,' Lykos continued, ‘bauxite mining and processing needn't be anything like as damaging to the environment as it has been here, especially in the last few years. If you look at the mountains in Viotia and Fokidha, you'll see access roads for the heavy equipment all over them, serious deforestation – with all the consequences that has for the general environment – and great heaps of waste from the mining. Until recent changes in the law, it was mostly strip mining on the surface, but now there's underground work going on too.'

Mavros frowned. ‘None of that sounds like it would cause a spike in cancer rates.'

‘No,' the young man said, ‘but the plant across the water is another story. It was supposed to be cutting edge technology when it opened back in the Sixties, but people didn't care about damage to the land and air quality back then. The bauxite ore is heated in pressure vessels and combined with sodium hydroxide – a dangerous chemical that's also used as drain cleaner. There should be effective filters, but what do you think?' He pointed to the dirty cloud above the bay.

Akis Exarchos came over. ‘The problems really started when the Greek Mining Corporation was taken over by Poulos A.E. ten years ago. They're only interested in cutting costs and increasing profits, not in looking after the workers and the rest of us who live in the area. You'll have noticed the different coloured houses in Paradheisos.'

Mavros nodded.

‘We've been gathering information. Over eighty per cent of the cancers and other lethal medical conditions have been suffered by people who live in the white houses, those nearest the shore.'

‘The ordinary workers,' Mavros said.