The Oracle (21 page)

‘Then these signs – the abstract delivered to the University, the photo on your windscreen – could be a trap set by Karamanlis. We are the only two witnesses who know that Claudio and Heleni were his prisoners.’

‘And that the terrorist story was invented by the police to cover up their deaths.’

‘But why now, after so many years?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe someone else found out about it. Maybe he’s been threatened, blackmailed. Or even, even . . .’ A startling thought wrinkled his forehead. ‘No, maybe we’re worrying about nothing. We’ll probably just meet up with your run-of-the-mill fence who’ll want a lot of money from us.’

‘No, all this is too much for a run-of-the-mill fence. Maybe it’s even too much for Pavlos Karamanlis. Norman, listen, it’s like we’re working our way through some complicated maze. What I think is that everything is connected: the deaths of Roussos and Karagheorghis, the death of your father, the reappearance of the vase of Tiresias. Karamanlis being called into this and us too. It can’t just be chance.’

Norman fell silent and kept his eyes on the narrow dirt-road full of twists and turns, squeezed between the walls of the rocky gorge that led to the pass. Michel broke the silence.

‘Norman.’

‘Yes.’

‘No more secrets. If there’s anything else that you know and haven’t told me, even if it’s going to hurt me, tell me now.’

‘No, there’s nothing else. Whatever else comes out of this, we’ll face it together.’

They reached the pass and Michel took his foot off the accelerator. For an instant, they could see the waters of the gulf of Messenia and the gulf of Laconia glittering to the east and the west. The whole promontory stretched out to the south, down to Cape Tenaros. The mountainous ridge, deeply eroded and worn away on the sides and crest, looked like the back of a dragon plunging into the sea.

‘Why have us drive up this mule track when there’s the low road that goes through Kotronas?’ asked Michel.

‘Obvious, my friend. Our man wanted us to admire this gorgeous panorama.’

‘I’m glad you still feel like joking.’

‘I’d say it’s evident why he had us come this way. There’s been a crime and the roads are crawling with police. This little affair of ours is hardly legal, and he’s not asking for a small sum. I’m sure he doesn’t want the police sniffing around half a million dollars.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s one o’clock. The rendezvous is in half an hour, at an abandoned lighthouse six kilometres from the coastal road. We’re to start measuring from the end of this road, heading south. We’ll be told what to do there.’

Michel turned left and began the descent.

C
APTAIN KARAMANLIS TAPPED
the shoulder of the officer driving the squad car: ‘Stop at that roadblock,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if there’s anything new.’ His driver pulled over and Karamanlis approached the policemen posted at the block. ‘Anything to report?’ he asked.

‘Practically nothing.’

‘That son of a bitch can’t have vanished into thin air. Did you check all the outgoing vehicles?’

‘All of them, sir.’

‘No suspicious vehicles coming through?’

‘I’d say not. Just a short time ago a car with English plates passed through with two tourists aboard, a Frenchman and an Englishman. They were going to Kharoudha to fish for a week. They weren’t new to the place, both of them spoke Greek very well.’

Karamanlis nodded then got back in the car and told the driver to proceed southward. A thought suddenly came to mind; he had the driver stop and got out again. ‘What were their names?’ he shouted towards the police. ‘Do you remember their names?’

‘The Frenchman was called Charrier, I think, Michel Charrier,’ shouted back the policeman.

‘What car were they driving?’

‘A blue Rover.’

Karamanlis jumped back into the car. ‘Get going,’ he told the driver, ‘and drive as fast as you can. To Kharoudha.’

A
T THAT MOMENT
Michel had just reached the Cape Tenaros provincial road. He turned right after checking his milometer; after exactly six kilometres he pulled over, leaving only his parking lights on.

‘We’re here,’ said Norman. ‘Now we just have to wait for the signal’

‘H
OW ARE YOU
feeling, son?’

‘Weak. And very tired.’

‘The sea is being watched too closely. We couldn’t risk leaving by boat. We had to use this gallery. Others still have to pay their debt: you must not fail me.’

‘But won’t we be even more at risk on the ground, Commander?’

‘On the ground there’s someone waiting to take you away. To your next assignment. Now, stay where you are. Let me go ahead. I’ll call you in a minute.’

Claudio heard a creaking, and a square of light opened above his head: a trapdoor, leading upwards. Admiral Bogdanos’s figure stood out dark against the light. ‘You can come up now. There’s a stairway cut into the rock.’

Claudio made his way up the slippery steps and found himself in an empty, dusty chamber full of broken glass, with unhinged shutters on the single window. The swash of the undertow could be heard nearby. ‘Where are we, Commander?’

‘On the other side of the peninsula, on the eastern coast. This is the abandoned lighthouse of Kotronas, in disuse since the last war. Back then I used to use this passage to reach my submarine beneath the cliffs of Hierolimin.’

‘Do you mean that we’ve crossed Cape Tenaros underground?’

‘Exactly. And we’ve done it faster than the coastguard boats; they’ll still be near Hierolimin, fighting the Meltemi and the rocks. As the poet says, “
Ephtes pezòs iòn è egò syn neì melàine
”.’

‘I understand ancient Greek: it’s a line from the
Odyssey
. “You arrived sooner on foot than did I on the black ship”,’ said Claudio, without recalling the exact reference.

The older man nodded, and a fleeting melancholy crossed his blue eyes. ‘They are words said to a friend who died before his time.’

Bogdanos neared the window: a dark vehicle was parked a hundred metres up the road with its parking lights on. ‘Good, everything is working as planned. Come this way.’ They walked into the next room, a kind of garage where a little truck was parked, a small Toyota pickup covered at the back by a tarp. Bogdanos lifted up a flap. ‘Get in here. And stay put. This belongs to the fishing coop, and the police have seen it a thousand times. Someone will be bringing you north. There will be roadblocks up to Gythion. After you’ve passed the city, the truck will slow down at a certain point; you’ll get out then and continue on foot. The person driving must not see you for any reason, understand? Bear up, at Aighia there’s a truck stop that opens at six, you can get some fried eggs
ommatia
and stewed beans. A couple of hundred drachma, and you’ll feel like a new man. We’ll see each other as soon as possible, my son.’

Bogdanos lowered the tarp and returned to the lighthouse chamber. He lit a candle and passed it in front of the window three times. The car responded by flashing its headlights three times. A minute later two men left the car and walked towards the wall of the lighthouse, but Bogdanos retreated into the shadow of the window, his face hidden.

‘There’s been a setback,’ he said. ‘You’ll have heard about the murder at Dirou; the police are sifting through every inch of the peninsula. I couldn’t bring the vase – it was too dangerous.’

‘I can see your point,’ said Norman.

‘When can we see it?’ asked Michel.

‘Soon,’ replied Bogdanos. ‘But you’ll have to do what I say first. Leave me your car and take the truck you’ll find in the garage. Drive through Gythion and then leave it at the Esso motel on your left just outside the city, five kilometres after the railroad crossing. You’ll find your car back at your hotel tomorrow morning.’

‘But why should we trust you? What’s the reason for this switch?’

‘Someone may have followed you or noticed your car. I don’t want to run any risks.’

‘Prove that you really have that vase,’ said Michel.

‘The vase was taken from the basement of the Archaeological Museum in Athens on the night between the eighteenth and nineteenth of November 1973, just before Captain Karamanlis of the Athens Police could get hold of it. Someone must have told him exactly where it was: in a bucket full of sawdust in a closet.’

‘Okay, we believe you,’ said Norman, astonished. ‘We believe you . . . we’ll do as you say.’

‘Tell us your name,’ said Michel, possessed by sudden anxiety. ‘So we can reach you if we need to.’

‘People like me have many names and no name at the same time. Go through that door, get into the truck and drive away. Now. Each of us will take his own road.’

A minute later Claudio heard the engine starting up and the old pickup began to gain speed. He looked out of the tailgate and saw the ruins of the old lighthouse standing out against the starry sky and the glittering waves. For a moment, he thought he saw the figure of Admiral Bogdanos raising his hand to say goodbye. As the truck drove steadily on, its irregular sway rocked him into the only dream which could keep him alive: the eyes of Heleni, her voice, her hands, her live, warm body, eternal. And the dream surrounded him like a tepid springtime wind that melts the ice and releases the waters to run clear through the ditches.

God, would the eternal winter of his existence ever end? Bogdanos knew, he had to know. He knew everything . . . he was not like other men . . . his mind took unknown, mysterious turns. He had pulled him back from the brink of his ‘normal’ life; he had opened up his old wounds, made him return to a past he had thought long-buried. And he had led him through hell. Could he ever make peace with the memory of Heleni? Maybe this was the bitter drink he had to swallow to its dregs in order to keep on living. But in the end, would he live, or would he die?

One thing was certain, Bogdanos was always right; he was right when he told him what awesome strength the sight of the guilty would unleash in him. How many more were there? How many times again would he be invaded by that force, that destructive frenzy that left him exhausted yet ominously at peace? But there was one of them, one in particular, whose ordeal he was patiently awaiting. The one on whom he would vent all the pent-up misery of the violence he had suffered. The one for whom he had already chosen the message of death.

C
APTAIN
K
ARAMANLIS HAD
dismissed his driver and driven himself down all the streets of Kharoudha, a sleepy, silent town. No trace of the blue Rover, as he had suspected. He imagined that Michel Charrier and Norman Shields – because he had no doubt that it was the two of them – must have turned west towards the eastern coast of the promontory. He meant to find them and have them followed. Discreetly, without them realizing it. He returned to the provincial road and at the fork turned right towards Kotronas. It was his lucky night; just a few kilometres later he saw a blue Rover with English plates leave a self-service petrol station and turn west. He did a fast U-turn and was behind him in a few minutes, keeping at a distance so as not to be noticed. The car reached the western provincial road and turned north towards Kalamata, until it had to pull over at the Oitylos roadblock. Karamanlis stopped as well, eager to continue the chase. He slowed down at the roadblock to allow himself to be recognized, but did not stop to speak with the officers who had changed shifts with the first patrol.

The Rover proceeded at a moderate speed to Skardamoula, where it parked in front of a small hotel. A man got out, closed the door, walked up to the front desk and then walked off shortly later on foot. Could he have been following the wrong car? How could there be two Rovers with British plates driving around these lonely streets so late at night? What if the man was the killer himself ? Had it been a trick to get through the roadblock? Why hadn’t the police stopped him? He got out of the car and entered the hotel.

‘Police,’ he announced to the night porter. ‘Who was the man who walked in here a minute ago?’

‘Don’t know. I’ve never seen him before.’

‘But he parked his car in the hotel lot.’

‘That’s right. Said he’d been instructed to by the owners, who are guests here.’

Karamanlis thanked him: ‘Don’t mention that I’ve been by. Just a mistake on my part. I wouldn’t want the owner to become alarmed.’

‘No problem,’ answered the clerk, and turned back to his crossword puzzle.

Karamanlis got back into the car and set off in the same direction as the man who had walked away from the hotel: he had a few questions to ask him. He drove slowly, keeping his eye on the left side of the road until he saw him. The man was walking quickly, both hands in his pockets. He was wearing a pair of cotton trousers and a dark cotton jacket, with lightweight canvas shoes. Karamanlis accelerated, drove up to the first curve and turned the car around so he could shine his lights into the man’s face. He recognized him immediately: same sharp gaze, same commanding expression, his face hard and deeply lined.

It was Anastasios Bogdanos.

Ten years had passed over his features like water over a basalt rock. He was about to step on the brake pedal, but he didn’t. He drove a little further up the road and then got out so he could follow the man on foot. He saw him leave the street and walk up to the top of a small promontory facing the sea. He sat there, hands between his knees, perfectly still, contemplating the glittering expanse of waves.