The Oracle (34 page)

‘My life is threatened,’ said Karamanlis. ‘What must I do?’

‘Your life is threatened by this man. I know.’

‘By this man? Not by another man? This man saved one of my officers . . .’

‘It is he who administers death. Where are you going now?’

‘To Athens.’

‘This is not the road to Athens.’

‘I know.’

‘What is your next destination?’

‘Ephira. I’ll be going to Ephira, sooner or later.’

‘Where the Acheron flows. The swamp of the dead is there. Did you know that?’ His voice seemed full of pain, as though each word were costing him a dear sacrifice.

‘I know. That’s what I’ve been told, but all the leads I have point there. I’m a bloodhound, and I have to follow the trail, even if it takes me to the mouth of hell. I don’t want you to tell me if I’m going to die there. I wouldn’t give up the chase now, even if that were the case.’

‘The danger . . . is . . . not there.’ His lips were white with dried spit; the hand he held over the likeness was beaded with sweat. The animals outside were silent, but he could hear their hooves scuttling on the stony ground as if they were running frantically back and forth in their pens. The
kallikàntharos
began to speak again: ‘Your soul is hard . . . but every man must fight to survive. Avoid . . . if you can . . . stay away from the vertex of the great triangle. And beware the pyramid at the vertex of the triangle. There where east and west touch, shoulder to shoulder. It is there that the bull, the ram, and . . .’ Karamanlis drew closer to the man, until their brows nearly touched. The man’s features were taut, his forehead covered with perspiration and his face carved by deep wrinkles. He seemed to have aged ten years.

‘Tell me who he is, and where he is, now!’ he implored.

The man’s head jerked forward as if a fist as heavy as a maul had slammed against his back. The dog suddenly got up on its back legs and sniffed the air, turning towards the door with a fearful yelp.

‘He is—’

‘Who is he?’ shouted Karamanlis, seizing him by his vest. ‘Tell me who the bastard who’s been screwing me for the last ten years is!’

The man lifted his head with supreme effort. His hand still hovered over the drawing, still and solid, while the rest of his body trembled uncontrollably: ‘He is . . . here!’

Karamanlis jumped: ‘Here? What are you saying?’ He looked wildly around the room and pointed his gun at the door, as if a nightmare figure might appear there. When he turned again towards the
kallikàntharos
, the man was unrecognizable. His breathing sounded like a weak hiss. He slowly removed his hand from the sheet with a great effort and turned to speak. When the sound of his words formed in his mouth, Karamanlis shuddered with horror: it was no longer the voice of the man sitting in front of him, but of the man who for years and years he had thought was Admiral Bogdanos.

‘What are you doing here, Captain Karamanlis?’

Karamanlis staggered backwards; a gust of wind hit him from behind through the open door, dishevelling his hair and pasting his jacket collar to the nape of his neck: ‘
Who are you?
’ he cried. ‘
Who are you?
’

He stumbled back until he found himself outside. The wind slammed the door shut, banging it two or three times, loudly. The top of the mountain was no longer visible, completely hidden by huge black clouds. Karamanlis took off at a run as the rain started to pelt down. There was not a single shelter from there to his car, and he ran with every last bit of energy he could gather, panting, falling, wheeling around at every peal of thunder and bolt of lightning until he reached it. His heart was bursting, he was soaked and tattered. He switched on the engine and the heat and stripped down. He sat naked and still, sheltered from the pouring rain, trembling with fear and chilled to the bone. A car finally drove by on the road, then a truck and a camper full of foreign tourists: he was back in the world made up of people, noise and real voices. He would never again leave it of his own will. Never.

A
FTER TALKING TO
the police, Mireille returned to Odòs Dionysìou to check with the waiter at Milos’s Bar. She gave him another tip to make sure that he’d promise to call her hotel again if he saw the light under the shutter of number 17 or if he saw a black Mercedes parked anywhere nearby. The waiter assured her that if she wasn’t in her room, he would leave a message with the front desk. Then Mireille called Mr Zolotas, asking him to meet her in a bar in Omonia Square. He showed up in a dark blue suit with a polka-dotted pocket handkerchief and a gardenia in his buttonhole. Given his job, his apparel was incredibly elegant, albeit slightly démodé.

‘Well, miss, how is your little investigation proceeding?’ he asked as soon as he saw her.

‘Better than I’d hoped, but unfortunately all the information I’ve gathered isn’t leading me to any solution. I need to know more. I even went to the police, but the person I was looking for was out. He’ll be back today, they said.’

‘Can I ask who you were looking for, miss, if I’m not being indiscreet?’

‘An officer who was involved somehow in the events that followed the death of Professor Harvatis – his name is captain Pavlos Karamanlis.’ Zolotas paled. ‘Do you know him?’ asked Mireille.

‘I do. Unfortunately. He is a dangerous man. During the dictatorship he was one of the mastiffs of the repression. He never rested the night of the Polytechnic, and those he got his hands on still carry the signs, I can assure you. Be careful. Careful of what you say, and say as little as you can.’

‘Thank you for warning me. You have given me precious help, Mr Zolotas.’

‘What kind of information do you still need?’

‘Land registry. Can you consult those records?’

‘Not personally, but I know a person who can. What do you need to know?’

‘Who the printer’s shop on 17 Dionysìou Street belongs to. If there’s someone who pays the rent. If it has other entrances besides the front shutter, which has been closed for seven years, if not more.’

Zolotas took notes on a little pad with a slim pencil. He looked up at her when he had finished writing: he certainly wasn’t a good-looking man. His light-coloured eyes were protruding, his nose aquiline and his cheeks a bit jowly, but his hair was carefully combed and he reminded Mireille of one of those Hellenistic busts in the National Museum portraying a stoic philosopher or a late-generation academic. She was becoming quite fond of him.

‘What did you want to ask Captain Karamanlis?’

‘I wanted to show him a sketch I’ve made of a man to see if he knows him. I even have his licence plate number.’

‘I wouldn’t give Karamanlis that number if I were you.’

‘Why?’ asked Mireille with a disappointed tone, since she had already told the police she had it.

‘Let him look for the man, if he’s interested. Why should you help him?’

‘Because I’m interested as well.’

‘Do you trust me, miss?’

‘Yes.’

‘Give me that number. I’ll go to the automobile registry. My Greek is better than yours.’

‘I’m making progress, though,’ said the girl.

‘That’s true. In a month or two, it’ll be perfect.’

‘I’ve come here often on vacation, and I went to a classical lyceum for high school. Modern Greek’s not that hard, once you get used to your strange pronunciation.’

Zolotas arched his eyebrows: ‘Strange? But we are the Greeks here, aren’t we, miss?’

‘That’s true too.’ Mireille gave him her phone number at the hotel. ‘This is where you’ll find me if you need me. I’m going to the police tonight.’

‘Be careful, miss. Please promise me you’ll be careful’

‘I will be careful, Mr Zolotas. You don’t possibly think I could be in danger?’

‘Not if you drop everything now and go back to wait for your boyfriend in France. But if these things have remained hidden for all these years, there must be a reason. And it might well be a serious reason. Farewell, miss.’

‘Goodbye, Mr Zolotas.’

C
APTAIN
K
ARAMANLIS DIDN
’
T
get to headquarters until five the following afternoon, and went directly to his office without saying hello to anyone. He sat at his desk and used a key to open the bottom drawer. He pulled out the file with Heleni’s photographs, chose one and placed it on his desk. He then took one of the photos he had taken of her sister from his bag and placed it alongside. He had been right: they looked like two pictures of the same person. A little bit of laboratory retouching would make the illusion perfect, or nearly so.

He put back the negatives and started to read his mail. The officer on guard soon called him.

‘Captain, that girl is here for you. And hey, Captain, she’s really a nice piece of—’

Karamanlis was not in the mood for lewd remarks. ‘Take your comments and stick them up your ass. Show her in immediately.’

‘Yes, sir, Captain. Right away, Captain.’

Karamanlis did his best to seem open, honest and cordial with Mireille, and most of all not like an inquisitor.

‘You came with a likeness of a man,’ he said, ‘to see if we know anything about him.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Can I see it?’

Mireille took the drawing she had made from her bag and showed it to him. Karamanlis could barely hide his amazement.

‘You drew this, miss?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s perfect. And I know, because I’ve seen this man many times. What is it you want to know?’

‘I’m looking for information about an archaeologist who died ten years ago here in Athens. His name was Periklis Harvatis. He left a very important study incomplete, and it is essential that I find his writings. As far as I know, the people who may have been in contact with him before his death are a man who worked for the Antiquities and Fine Arts Service, a certain Aristotelis Malidis, and –’ she pointed her finger at the drawing on the table – ‘this man here.’

Karamanlis continued to stare at the drawing, and felt, despite himself, that the man’s gaze was looking right through him, watching his every move, like the eye of God.

‘Someone told you to contact me personally, isn’t that right?’ he asked.

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘May I ask who it was?’

‘A doctor. Doctor Psarros at the Kifissìa hospital.’

‘Psarros . . . yes, I remember now, I remember. He phoned me the night Periklis Harvatis died, or maybe the night after, reporting the strange conditions of the patient who had been brought in on the brink of death. I investigated Malidis: he was his excavation foreman.’

‘On what dig?’

‘I don’t know. The Service did provide a list of all the excavations in progress, but I was told I’d have to contact every single branch office for complete information. I got nowhere.’

‘Well, I got somewhere. I went to the National Library before coming here and consulted the excavation journals. On 16 November 1973, Periklis Harvatis was exploring the
adyton
of the Oracle of the Dead at Ephira. The dig was published by his successor, Professor Makaris.’

Karamanlis felt caught unawares by this girl, apparently such a doll and in reality so quick-witted. Too quick, maybe. Ephira . . . so that was where the golden vase came from. Who else could have come to Athens that night with a piece from an archaeological dig? And maybe the vase was now back. Maybe that was why Charrier and Shields were returning to Ephira, defying death there?

‘You’re better at this than I am, miss,’ he said with a grudging smile. ‘In any case, absolutely nothing against Malidis ever emerged. I had my suspicions, but I never found anything I could use against him.’

‘What about this man here? What was his relationship to Professor Harvatis?’ asked Mireille, pointing to the drawing on the table.

Karamanlis wasn’t sure how to proceed. There were a lot of things he wanted to know from the girl, but he realized he wouldn’t get them for free. He had to come up with something feasible without implicating himself.

‘Miss,’ he said, ‘this man has been a real headache for me. But I’m beginning to see through him, and I believe that with your help we’ll manage to find out everything we need to know. You told my men you had a licence plate number.’

‘Captain,’ said Mireille, ‘I’m sure that we’ll become good friends. When that happens you’ll do me a favour, I’ll give you a hand . . . but for now, let’s do things my way: I tell you something, you tell me something. Okay?’

‘Absolutely,’ muttered Karamanlis. ‘Well then, I’ll start. I’ve known this man for years under what has proven to be a false name. He knew about the existence of an archaeological find, very precious, which in all probability was brought to Athens by Malidis or Harvatis himself on the night between the sixteenth and seventeenth of November 1973. From Ephira, I must presume.’

‘You’ve inferred this from my investigation in the excavation journals, correct?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Okay, so now we’re even. If I hadn’t told you that Harvatis was digging at Ephira, you wouldn’t have been able to connect that object with Harvatis, Malidis and – let’s say – our Mister X.’