The Oracle (9 page)

An hour later, Karamanlis passed near the door of the cell where Claudio was being held and he stopped, astonished. A strange sound was coming from within, a song, he would say, although he couldn’t understand the words. A gentle, pain-filled melody that rose higher and sweeter, a disturbing, desolate rhapsody. The officer felt a sense of annoying discomfort – the absurd song rang out like an intolerable challenge. He beat his fist against the door, shouting hysterically: ‘That’s enough! Stop that, damn you! Cut it out with this whining!’

The voice fell away and the long hall was plunged back into silence.

T
HE LARGE BLUE
car came to an abrupt stop in front of the police barracks guardhouse. The light blue flag with its three gold stars on the left bumper indicated that a highly ranked officer was aboard. The driver got out and opened the rear door, snapping to attention before his superior. The man was dressed in the elegant uniform of the Greek navy. He smoothed his jacket and adjusted the gloves over his long, sturdy fingers. The sentry looked over distractedly and then, struck by the man’s steely gaze, stiffened into the present-arms position.

The penetrating intensity of his stare, the dark cast of his skin and the deep wrinkles that creased his brow suggested that his stripes had been earned in long years at sea, amidst wind and fire.

He entered with a strong stride, briefly touching his hand to his peaked cap, and walked straight to the front desk.

‘I’m Admiral Bogdanos,’ said the officer, showing an ID card that he rapidly returned to his inside jacket pocket. ‘I must speak immediately with the chief of police.’

‘Just a moment, Admiral. I’ll call him immediately.’ The sergeant lifted the telephone receiver and dialled an internal extension.

Sitting on the other side of Karamanlis’s desk were Roussos and Karagheorghis, charged with making Heleni Kaloudis and Claudio Setti disappear as though they had never existed. At the telephone’s ring the captain interrupted his careful instructions and answered with an annoyed tone: ‘What is it? I said I wasn’t to be disturbed.’

‘Captain, there’s a certain Admiral Bogdanos here, and he says he must speak with you immediately.’

‘I can’t now. Tell him to wait.’

He had spoken so loudly that the navy officer, standing right in front of the sergeant, heard him. His eyes flashed with anger: ‘Tell him to report to me within one minute if he doesn’t want to end up court-martialled. Remind him that a state of emergency is in effect.’

Karamanlis got to his feet. ‘It’ll be dark soon,’ he was saying to his men. ‘Carry on exactly as I told you.’ He took his cap from the coat rack and went to the entrance. He strode down the corridor leading to the front desk, opened the glass door, and found the navy officer standing in front of him, legs wide, arms crossed behind his back.

His eyes dropped to the cap sitting on a chair. He was probably a member of the joint chiefs of staff, or the Junta itself. Karamanlis attempted to put on a tough demeanour nonetheless.

‘May I know, Admiral, why you have interrupted my work at such a delicate moment? And may I see your identification and your credentials?’

The officer gestured peremptorily with his gloved hand and turned away, walking to a corner of the room reserved for the officer on duty. Karamanlis followed him, abashed.

‘You are a fool,’ hissed the admiral, turning abruptly. ‘How could you think of holding foreign citizens prisoner? Citizens from two of our most important allies? Haven’t you seen what the foreign press is writing about us? We stand accused of infamy; important loans to our National Bank have been suspended. All we needed was for you to create a diplomatic incident! The French boy, Charrier, and the Italian, Claudio Setti, what the hell have you done with them?’

Karamanlis felt his knees buckle: he had to be a secret-service agent to know so much!

‘Well? I’m waiting for an answer.’

Karamanlis tried bluffing: ‘Your information is incorrect, Admiral. We are holding no foreigners here.’

The officer froze him with a stare: ‘Don’t make your situation any worse than it is, Captain. Anyone can make a mistake, and I can understand how, due to an excess of zeal, you may have taken certain initiatives. But if you don’t collaborate, you’re risking much more than your career. My superiors have entrusted me with correcting this damned business immediately, before it gets out of hand. Now talk, for God’s sake.’

Karamanlis gave up: ‘Charrier was interrogated until he revealed the names of his accomplices. We sent him to France with a travel order. He left on the 4 p.m. Air France flight yesterday.’

Bogdanos reacted angrily, nervously punching his left hand: ‘Damn it! This will set off a scandal. The French government will be up in arms; we’ll never hear the end of it.’

‘The boy won’t say a thing. He’s the first to want this story buried.’

‘What about the Italian?’

‘He’s . . . dying.’

‘An interrogation, I presume?’

Karamanlis nodded.

‘I imagined as much. Turn him over to me now. If he dies, we have to simulate an accident and invent an explanation for his relatives and the Italian press.’

‘I’m taking care of it, Admiral.’

‘Goddamn you, do as I say or you’ll have to explain all this to a military court, I swear it. I don’t trust you. I’ll take care of this matter personally.’

Karamanlis hesitated a moment: ‘Follow me, then,’ he said, walking towards the hall. They went out of a side door which led on to a little courtyard at the back of headquarters. A car with two officers aboard was just about to go through the gate.

‘Stop!’ shouted Karamanlis. The car jerked to a halt. He took the keys from the man at the wheel and opened the trunk. A tangle of bloody bodies appeared: a young man and a young woman.

‘So this is Heleni Kaloudis,’ said Bogdanos. Karamanlis was startled. He never would have imagined that the secret services were keeping him under such strict surveillance.

‘She was already half dead when she got here. She had been wounded at the Polytechnic. I tried to get her to tell us what she knew. She was already nearly dead . . .’

They suddenly heard a moan from something moving in the trunk.

‘Christ, he’s still alive. I’m holding you accountable for this, Captain. I should have you arrested. Don’t leave the station, and wait for orders from the Military Staff Office.’ The admiral turned to one of the policemen: ‘Go to the front courtyard and have my car brought round to the back, immediately.’

The officer looked at Karamanlis for approval.

‘Do as he says.’

The admiral had Claudio Setti, still unconscious, transferred to the back seat of the vehicle.

‘Bury that body,’ he ordered, indicating Heleni’s corpse curled up in the trunk, and staring at Karamanlis with disgust. ‘This whole story has been handled horribly. The army should never have dirtied their hands with it; that’s what the police are for.’

It had become dark. The car with Heleni’s body in it took off fast heading north, and the blue car holding Admiral Bogdanos followed it through traffic, taking the opposite direction at the first roundabout.

C
LAUDIO WAS RACKED
with pain as he regained consciousness; coloured lights whirled above him and he heard a deep, hoarse voice. How long would it be before they finished him off? He prayed it would be soon. He couldn’t imagine living with the memory of what he had seen.

‘Now turn right,’ said the voice, ‘and pull over under those trees.’ The driver did so and turned off the engine. ‘Flash your headlights twice, then switch them off.’

Claudio realized that he was inside a car, lying on the back seat, arms and legs free of constraints. There was an officer wearing a navy uniform in the front passenger’s seat. He pulled himself up slowly until he could see out of the bottom of the window. A man was approaching the car, walking quickly in the shadows of the tree-lined street. He stopped a few metres away and the street lamp lit his face. It was Ari! The custodian at the National Museum who had let them into the basement and then sent them to the doctor. Was it he who had betrayed them?

The man sitting in front opened the door and Ari came closer. Ari’s eyes filled with astonishment as he recognized him: ‘You? Holy Mother in heaven! But . . . the uniform . . .’

‘Don’t ask questions, there’s no time. The police could be here at any second. The Italian boy is safe: he’s here in the car, but he’s been beaten to a pulp . . . inside and out. See if you can do something for him. His French friend was sent back to his country, expelled. Probably with a travel order. The girl’s dead, I’m afraid. I got there too late.’ He gestured to the driver, who opened the back door and helped Claudio out.

‘You brought a car, I hope.’

Ari roused himself from the state of shock that had nearly paralysed him: ‘Yes . . . yes, there’s my car, it’s parked next to those trees.’

Claudio was transferred to the old Peugeot that had brought Periklis Harvatis to Athens just two days earlier, and lay down like a dog. He didn’t have the strength even to speak.

‘What do I have to do?’ asked Ari. ‘How can I find you if I need help?’

‘Take him far enough away that no one will recognize him.’

‘What about Professor Harvatis? The mission he entrusted me with?’

A gust of cold wind swept through the trees, strewing the ground with dead leaves. The man took a long breath and turned back towards the street as an old bus rattled by, jolting at each pothole and threatening to fall to pieces at any minute.

‘The . . . vase,’ he said, looking Ari in the eye again. ‘Is it still in the museum basement?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you haven’t said anything to anyone?’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Take it away from there, now, tonight, and hide it. I’ll come to you when it is time. Now go.’

‘But please . . . tell me at least—’

‘Go, I said.’

‘But how will you find me? I don’t even know myself where I’m going.’

‘I’ll find you, don’t worry. It isn’t easy to escape me.’

Ari turned and walked towards his car. He started it up and took off.

‘Where are you bringing me?’ asked Claudio’s voice behind him.

‘Where no one can find you. And now lie back and sleep, if you can, my son.’

‘Let me die. You can’t imagine what I’ve seen . . . what I’ve suffered.’

‘You’ll resign yourself and you’ll go on living . . . to see that justice is done. Your time has not yet come, my boy, because you’ve been pulled alive from the maw of hell.’ Ari slowed down so he could turn off on to the road for Piraeus.

‘Wait,’ said Claudio. ‘Stop just a moment, please.’ Ari pulled over to the pavement and Claudio struggled to pull himself up into a sitting position. He lowered the window and leaned out to look back. Admiral Bogdanos’s blue car had vanished. At the edge of the street was a man, wearing a hat low over his eyes and wrapped in a dark coat, who was lifting his hand in the direction of the centre of the road. The old bus stopped, moaning and squeaking, to let him on. It left again, spitting out a great cloud of black dust that was instantly dispersed by the wind, now stronger and colder. Claudio rolled up the window and saw that Ari was looking back as well.

‘Who was that man who brought me here? Why did he do it?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Ari, turning the key again to start up the car. ‘I swear to you that I do not know, but I’m sure that we’ll see him again. Lie down now, we’ve got a long road ahead of us.’

Claudio curled up on the seat, pressing his knees against his cramp-ridden stomach. He suffocated his desperation and rage, his inconsolable pain, his infinite solitude, hands stuffed hard against his mouth.

An hour or two passed, or maybe just a few minutes, he couldn’t say: the car stopped and Ari came round to open the door and help him out.

‘We’re here, son. Come on, lean on me.’

T
HE RING OF
the telephone interrupted the dark thoughts of Captain Karamanlis, who was sitting in his office in front of a barely nibbled sandwich and a glass of water. He lifted the receiver: ‘Central police headquarters, who is this?’

‘This is Dr Psarros from the municipal hospital of Kifissìa. I have a suspicious case to report.’

‘Captain Karamanlis here. Go ahead.’

‘Saturday night, a dying man was brought in. Periklis Harvatis, inspector of the Central Antiquities and Fine Arts Service, according to the ID in his pocket. He didn’t pull through, despite our efforts; time of death approximately one hour after admittance. The man who brought him into the hospital came back some time later and asked to see him. He was acting so strangely that I notified the district police, but by the time an officer got to the hospital he had disappeared without a trace. We were unable to ascertain under what circumstances the patient was reduced to such a precarious state.’

‘The man who brought him in – do you know who he was?’

‘The name he left at the front desk was Aristotelis Malidis, but it may have been a cover.’

‘Were you able to certify the cause of death?’

‘Cardiac arrest. We’ve asked for permission to perform an autopsy, but given the current situation, the medical examiner has been busy elsewhere.’