The Green Lady Read online

  ‘I . . . I don’t . . . I don’t know. They . . . they don’t . . . tell us things . . . like that.’

  ‘Really? I thought you were a senior celebrant.’ The probe did its work in another spot.

  After the squealing stopped, the prisoner managed a few more words. ‘Yes . . . but I . . . I don’t make . . . the decisions.’

  The Son, tall and muscular, with his thick hair cut short and dyed blonde, walked away. Apart from latex gloves and thick socks, he was naked, as he always was when he extracted information. Sometimes, even with male subjects, he got excited and there was no point in constricting himself. He went to the sink and ran water over his head. It was hot, even for August, even in the hills above Thiva. The ramshackle farmhouse had been deserted for years and no one came up the rough track. The fields were untended and there were no livestock on the surrounding slopes. It was the usual story. When the older generation died out, their kids, already big shots in Athens with beach houses and luxury cars, ignored the rural property that had kept the family going for centuries. It had no value now that farmers, buoyed by EU grants, lived the good life in the valleys. Like all Greeks and half the world, they would be watching the idiocy taking place in the Olympic Stadium.

  He opened the door and went outside. To the south the glow from Athens was visible over the hilltops, but westwards were only steep mountainsides and, far above them, the sparkle of long dead stars. How many years would it be before Greece was a similar burned out ruin? Unlike the Father, the Son was a realist about his country. He’d never been taken in by the rubbish the old man spouted about the virtues of army, church and family. The Father, a security policeman and torturer during the dictatorship, had been a rancid hypocrite. He’d made big money freelancing for the Athens crime bosses, who were connected to the dictators and their henchmen. So much for army, church and family, especially since the old bastard had pushed his wife down the stairs to her death. The Son had taken steps to make sure nothing like that would happen to him.

  The man in the mask was making a curious noise, but the Son paid little attention. He was thinking about his success over the last two years. After being forced to leave Greece – and there would be a reckoning for that – he had plied the trade the Father had taught him throughout the Balkans. There was no shortage of customers. He had also added to his talents, as gang bosses were often more interested in killing their opponents than extracting information from them. He’d become a fully functioning hit man, able to take out people by rifle, bomb, pistol and knife – as well as a few specialities he’d come up with himself. It had cost him a large proportion of the old man’s gold to take lessons from a retired Committee for State Security man in Bulgaria, but it had been worth it. Petrov had been a good teacher and he knew his craft, but he had a serious weakness – he drank vodka by the litre. That meant the Son couldn’t trust him even with the little he had said about his background. The Father had been a perfectionist, suspending his victims from the ceiling with fish hooks and lines. The Son was more practical. Whatever did the job – such as the piece of burlap he’d found in an outhouse, stinking of goat’s cheese.

  He closed the door and went over to his prisoner.

  ‘For the last time, where is she?’

  The man was silent and motionless, his head still forward.

  The Son bent over him, his nose twitching. He could smell death better than a master of wine could identify a vintage. He unwrapped the mask and let it drop to the compacted earth floor. The prisoner’s eyes were wide open and crimson veined, his lips lacerated where he had bitten through them. He’d succumbed to shock or suffocation, or perhaps had choked on his own blood.

  Gathering up the tools of his trade, the Son smiled. No matter. It was obvious the fool didn’t know anything. He’d have killed him anyway, though in a more imaginative way. Now he would move on to the next name on the list of worshippers he’d been given. He took the pictures with his camera phone that he’d been ordered to pass on to his employer.

  The Son went out to the pickup truck – a battered, five-year-old Nissan that didn’t stick out from the crowd, but packed a hefty punch under the bonnet – and took a plastic petrol can from the cargo space. He doused the dead man with enough fuel to mess up the crime scene investigator’s job, even if he was found quickly. Then he laid a trail of petrol to the door, lit a match and dropped it. There was a noise like an ox belching and then the corpse combusted.

  ‘His soul flew past the barrier of his teeth and departed, lamenting bitterly, for the halls of Hades,’ the Son said, leaving the door open until the fire was well established and taking a few more photos. He knew he had mangled the lines from Homer’s Iliad, but he didn’t care. The fact that the Father would have broken a stick over him for doing so made him laugh out loud.

  TWO

  The alarm woke Mavros from a troubled dream, in which Niki was pursuing him with a large pair of scissors in her hand. He showered and put on a loose white linen shirt and cream trousers. He considered shaving, but dismissed the idea. His stubble wasn’t too long and the woman had cut him off.

  ‘Morning,’ the Fat Man said, coming out of the kitchen with a tray of baklava, sweat streaming down his face. ‘How about this for a change?’

  ‘Just coffee,’ Mavros mumbled.

  ‘You know that isn’t how it works in the holy mother’s halls. The deal is coffee and pastry, no negotiation.’ Yiorgos went back into the furnace to make the brew. He had leased a run-down café next to the ancient market for decades and Mavros had used it as a makeshift office, mainly because the coffee was the best he’d ever found in the city. The fact that the Fat Man had known both his father and brother also played a part.

  ‘One sketo for the half-breed, one varyglyko for the chef.’

  ‘That’s what you’re calling yourself now, is it?’ Mavros said, after gulping down a glass of water. ‘You should cut down on sugar. Your heart must be thundering like an elephant’s.’

  ‘Then I’d get all bitter and twisted like you,’ Yiorgos said, straight-faced.

  ‘Ha.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Meeting a client.’

  ‘Can I come?’

  Mavros headed for the door, grabbing his sunglasses. That was one of the problems with living in the Fat Man’s house. He was fascinated by Mavros’s business and was always trying to get involved. He had succeeded once, a few years back, and they had both almost lost their lives.

  ‘No,’ Mavros said, over his shoulder. ‘I don’t want you scaring off the lady.’

  ‘Oh, it’s a lady, is it? I wouldn’t want to cramp your style, Mr Cool-as-Michael-Caine-in-linen.’

  ‘Besides, I’m just a parasite on the hide of the capitalists,’ Mavros said, parroting his friend’s standard gibe about his profession. ‘Turn on the TV. You’ll be able to abuse Greek athletes doing their best for their country.’

  ‘Sport is—’

  ‘The cocaine of the masses, I know. See you later.’

  ‘Go to the bad,’ the Fat Man said, grinning.

  Mavros walked up to Ippokratous and caught the bus to the Acropolis. The shabby thoroughfare had been tarted up because the cycling road race would be passing down it. That meant private citizens had got low-interest loans from the city council to repaint their external walls. There were also flags and bunting all over the place, some of them a hangover from the Independence Day celebrations in March. Mavros saw a scrawny cat clawing its way though bags of rubbish in a dumpster. At least it was still alive. There were rumours that the city’s stray dogs had been rounded up and gassed, though the council denied it.

  The bus turned on to Akadhimias, heading for Syndagma Square. The neoclassical buildings of the national library, university and academy looked splendid, Mavros had to admit. He still harboured a deep love for Athens and there was no question that the Olympics had stimulated regeneration. But, looking at the elderly women in black and the skinny immigrant workers, he wondered h
ow much of that regeneration was only on the surface. No, he wasn’t going to become the Fat Man. He still believed the Olympics would do more good than bad. Then a ticket inspector got on and started bullying an old man whose mind clearly wasn’t all there.

  ‘This ticket hasn’t been cancelled,’ the official, a young man with slicked back hair said in an outraged voice. ‘You’ll have to pay a fine.’

  There were murmurs of dissent from the other passengers.

  ‘Name?’ the inspector demanded, pen hovering over his penalty notice pad.

  Mavros went up to him. ‘There’s no need for that,’ he said. ‘Can’t you see the old gentleman’s confused?’

  ‘That’s what they all say. Besides, this is none of your business.’

  Mavros caught his gaze and held it. ‘Leave . . . him . . . alone,’ he said, moving closer.

  ‘You can’t threaten a public—’

  The young man’s eyes sprang wide open as Mavros grabbed his groin.

  ‘I’m not threatening anyone, sonny. Just let him off and see how popular you’ll be.’ He squeezed harder.

  ‘Very well,’ the official said, his voice high and his face red. ‘But this is your last warning, sir.’

  There was a spontaneous burst of applause from the other passengers. Mavros let the young official go and looked at the old man. He didn’t seem to understand what was going on.

  ‘Can I help?’ Mavros said. ‘Where do you want to get off?’

  Cloudy eyes took him in. ‘I . . . I don’t know.’

  Mavros turned back to the ticket inspector, who was preparing a rapid exit at the next stop. ‘He needs help. You don’t only issue fines, do you?’

  The young man stared at him and then nodded meekly. ‘I’ll hand him over to the route controller in Syndagma.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Mavros watched as the official helped the old man off and led him to the grey kiosk. Mission accomplished.

  ‘Bravo, my son,’ said a middle-aged woman in black. ‘May the Lord look favourably on you.’

  Not very likely, Mavros thought, smiling thanks at her. Although he wasn’t a member of the Communist Party, he definitely wasn’t religious; but he did believe in doing the right thing, no matter what it took. Maybe that would have rubbed off on the ticket inspector.

  He got off the bus at its terminus on the south side of the Acropolis. This perspective was less familiar to him than the opposite side. He used to live over there, with a superb view of the Erechtheion and the Parthenon’s perpetual scaffolding, until the rent became too onerous. He still missed his old flat. There had been good times in it, many of them with Niki.

  Mavros walked up the path through the pine trees on the slopes of Philopappos. He had strolled there before and knew its history. One of the disputed sites of the prison where Socrates had been held before his state-sponsored poisoning by hemlock was nearby and the hill was also known as the Mouseion because of a temple to the Muses on its flanks. There had been ancient fortifications, part of the great strategist Themistocles’s walls, as well as less edifying later military uses. The Venetian general Morosini had bombarded the Turkish-held Acropolis from the hill in 1687, resulting in the explosion that wrecked the Parthenon. Philopappos had also been the apple in the eye of numerous conspirators as an artillery location, the last being the Colonels during their coup in 1967. In the past when he had such thoughts, Mavros’s brother Andonis would have flashed before him. Now there was nothing. After years of pleading by his mother and sister, Mavros had finally let Andonis fall into the abyss.

  Mavros felt the sweat build up all over his body and cursed the Fat Man’s pastries. He needed to get on his exercise bike, but the heat hardly encouraged that. He came out of the trees and looked up at the Tomb of Philopappos himself, a marble tower over ten metres high with friezes and statues commemorating the eponymous grandee from the second century AD. There was a small group of young people in identical T-shirts around the base, and he made out the tones of an American classicist in full lecture mode. As for the mystery woman, not a sign. He skirted the tomb, slipping on the smooth stones, and took in the view. Although there was a heat haze, over the glinting blue sea he could see the triangular peak of the mountain on the island of Aegina and, beyond, the distant mountains of the Peloponnese stepping southwards.

  ‘Mr Mavros.’

  He turned and took in a statuesque woman in her mid-forties. She was wearing a loose-fitting grey dress that displayed well-turned ankles, but it was the face beneath the straw hat that seized his attention. It was finely constructed, with almond-shaped pale blue eyes, a narrow nose and unpainted lips, the cheekbones high enough to suggest Slavic or Russian roots. She could have been beautiful, but her expression was infinitely sad and there were dark rings beneath her eyes. Brown hair with blonde highlights hung untended on her shoulders.

  ‘Alex,’ he said, extending a hand. She clasped it briefly and then pulled away like a frightened animal. ‘You have the advantage of me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You haven’t told me your name.’

  The woman stepped away to the path that led southwards, forcing him to follow.

  ‘How did you know who I was?’ Mavros asked, catching up.

  ‘I did an Internet search. You really should consider setting up a website.’ She glanced at him. ‘Though the number of times you feature in the newspapers probably makes that unnecessary.’

  She was definitely English, Mavros thought, the flattened vowels and dropped consonants suggesting her origins were humble. As she walked, he realised that her full breasts were unrestrained by a bra, a serious no-no in the Greek capital. There was a rock at the side of the path and she sat in the shade under it.

  Joining her, he said, ‘Great view. Wish I could be in the water rather than looking at it.’

  ‘You don’t recognise me,’ the woman said, ignoring his attempt at small talk.

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘Well, I have been on the television rather often recently.’

  Mavros studied her profile. There was something familiar about her. He suspected she usually wore make-up and had her hair under control.

  ‘Never mind. Before I tell you what I want from you, I need your assurance that you will tell no one about this meeting or anything said during it.’ Her voice was almost a monotone and speaking seemed to require an enormous effort.

  ‘I always observe client confidentiality,’ he replied, ‘though I reserve the right to share information with trusted associates when necessary.’ He didn’t have any official associates, but he’d once been burned when a plastic surgeon found out he’d used his sister Anna, a gossip columnist, to dig the dirt.

  ‘Very well,’ the woman said, ‘but you’ll be hearing from my very expensive lawyers if you cross me.’

  Mavros smiled tightly. ‘This isn’t exactly a promising start. You can’t force me to take the job.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose I can.’ The woman looked towards the sea, her hands with only a simple gold wedding ring on one of the long fingers clasped around her calves. ‘My name is Angie – Angela – Poulou and I have lost my . . .’

  It was strange hearing herself confessing to a stranger, even though Alex Mavros had the long hair of a priest. She had been required by her fiancé to join the Orthodox Church before they were married. She took the instruction seriously, almost as seriously as learning the Modern Greek language. In six months she’d been baptised into the first and was close to fluent in the second. The wedding had been in the small chapel on the Poulos estate on the island of Evia. A few of her friends from the modelling world had made the all-expenses-paid trip, but she had already lost touch with most of them. Modelling had never been something she took seriously and her full figure had meant that she was restricted to lingerie ads and department store catalogues. She had always assumed something better would come along and it had, in the form of Paschos. The sole heir of Greece’s second largest industrialist, he had been
handsome as hell, his stocky frame muscular and his black hair glistening. Mum back in East Ham couldn’t believe her daughter’s luck. She made it to the wedding, drinking far too much champagne and screaming with mirth as she tried to join in the dancing. Three months later she was dead of a cerebral aneurysm and Angie, an only child herself, had no close relatives left in England; her father was a drunk, who’d alienated family and friends and was found dead in the street when she was ten.

  So Greece, and especially the huge house in the northern Athenian suburb of Ekali, had become home. Paschos had taken over from his father when he was twenty-nine and now, thirty years later, had made Poulos A.E. the biggest private company in the country, with interests in construction, minerals, shipping and consumer goods. He had lost most of his hair, was three stone heavier than he should have been and spent almost all his waking hours on the phone or in meetings. The last five years had been even busier, as he was vice-president of the company managing the Athens Olympic Games.

  Angie couldn’t help smiling when she saw the look of recognition on Alex Mavros’s face. He had seen her on the television the previous night during the opening ceremony. She was relieved that her boredom – no, worse, her disgust – hadn’t been obvious. But he didn’t yet know the reasons for that feeling. She told him, but the narrative was disjointed and incomplete. He took the occasional note in a small book.

  The fact that she was sixteen years younger than Paschos hadn’t worried her at the beginning. She was overwhelmed by her translation to the ranks of the hyper-rich. Her husband didn’t talk about money, apart from asking once a year if the monthly allowance he gave her was enough. She refrained from pointing out that it would feed, clothe and house the population of a small country. She had read in the press that Paschos had a personal fortune of over a billion dollars, but she suspected there was even more than that in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. For the first couple of years, she had thrown herself into a life of extreme luxury, buying the most expensive jewelry, haute couture and shoes. She had three horses, as well as the latest BMW saloon and 4x4. Apart from the estate on Evia, Paschos had villas on Mykonos, Crete and Corfu, as well as properties in Monte Carlo, Gstaad, Manhattan (with a view over Central Park) and Barbados. She herself had spent time and his money renovating an old house on Pelion, with access to skiing in winter and deserted beaches for much of the year. She spent time in all those places, rarely with her husband but with a group of other rich men’s wives. None of them seemed to care that she had grown up in a council house – they were dedicated to having the best possible time they could. Many had children, but rarely saw them, hiring the best nurses and nannies. After two years of increasingly empty jetsetting, Angie was relieved when she fell pregnant. Now she had something real to dedicate herself to.