Crying Blue Murder (MIRA) Read online

  ‘Good morning, Fat Man,’ Mavros said as he went through the main room with its back-wrenching wicker chairs and out into the shaded courtyard.

  The sole occupant didn’t look up from the book propped against the chill cabinet with its meagre selection of cheese and vegetables. ‘Morning, Alex.’ Although the standard diminutives of Alexandhros were Alexis or Alekos, Mavros had always been known by the foreign form. Cynics like the Fat Man reckoned he stuck with it because he wanted to be different.

  The courtyard, confined by the high walls of the surrounding buildings, was given shade by a wooden pergola that supported a spreading vine. As it was late summer, the branches were hung with bunches of dusky green grapes. The wasps and other insects they attracted were being enticed through short lengths of bamboo into plastic bottles containing sugared water; once in, they never found their way out and eventually drowned.

  ‘When are you going to pick those grapes, Fat Man?’ Mavros shouted as he sat on the canvas-backed chair he always used. ‘It’s like a zoo in here with all these creatures. Or a slaughterhouse, more like.’

  The café owner—Yiorgos Pandazopoulos by name, but never addressed as such except by the hygiene inspectors, tax officials and policemen he despised—peered out into the yard. ‘I like watching them die slowly,’ he said, a slack grin appearing on his heavy features. ‘You should get into it, Alex. Just imagine they’re right-wing politicians.’

  Mavros groaned. ‘For God’s sake, give it a rest. And bring me my sketo, if it isn’t too much trouble.’

  ‘Right away, sir,’ the Fat Man replied with mock servility.

  Mavros shook his head. ‘You’re living in the past, my friend. The old ideologies are dead and buried. No one cares about them any more.’ He looked up at the drowsy wasps in the bottles above and breathed in the scent of grapes that were beginning to rot. ‘Everyone in Greece is too busy making money these days.’

  Shortly afterwards the Fat Man shuffled out, a stained white apron stretched over his swollen midriff, and placed a minute cup and a glass of water on the metal table with incongruous delicacy. ‘Go to the devil, Alex,’ he said, staring belligerently at his only customer. ‘What do you know about this country? You’re not even a real Greek.’

  ‘Don’t start that again,’ Mavros said, taking off his sunglasses and running a hand through the swathes of thick hair that had swung down and obscured his vision. Then he picked up the cup and breathed in the dark, unsweetened liquid’s sublime aroma. Whatever else anyone said about the Fat Man, he made the best coffee in the city.

  ‘Don’t start what again?’ the café owner said, planting his thick legs apart on the gravel floor. ‘Are you or are you not half Greek, half Anglos?’

  ‘Wrong!’ Mavros shouted. ‘I’m half Greek but not half Anglos. How many times do I have to tell you? Anglos means English. My mother is Scottish.’

  The Fat Man had raised his eyes to what was visible of the fume-choked sky. ‘Screw you, Alex. You know well enough that Anglos means British in the common tongue.’

  ‘Well, it shouldn’t,’ Mavros replied, blowing over his cup. ‘Anglos is English and Skotsezos is Scottish. You know which blood I’ve got in my veins.’

  ‘Anyway, who cares about that half?’ the Fat Man said. ‘They’re all capitalists on that rain-soaked island. Your father was Greek, you’ve lived in Greece most of your life, you did your national service here.’ His brow furrowed. ‘You’ve no right to give up the struggle, you traitor. Your father won’t be resting in the grave, he’ll rise again as a vampire…’

  ‘Come on, my friend, give me some peace,’ Mavros said, glaring at the imposing figure. It always amazed him how difficult it was for even committed communists to free themselves from the superstitions of the Orthodox Church that they had imbibed as children. ‘Vampires? What kind of shit is that?’

  ‘And what kind of shit is that job you do?’ the Fat Man demanded, changing his angle of attack. ‘Private detective? Private nose in other people’s business, I say.’ He leaned over his customer. ‘You’re no better than an underwear-sniffing cop.’

  Mavros had his hand over his eyes. He had woken up with his head throbbing and it was worsening by the minute. ‘Go away, will you, Fat Man? I’ve spent the last week looking for a fifteen-year-old junkie who went walkabout. The parents— remember those boutique owners from Kolonaki?—won’t pay me the balance of my fee because they say he was on his way home anyway. I don’t need this from you, not this morning.’

  The Fat Man was nodding his head. ‘See? What do you expect if you work for bourgeois wankers from the arsehole of Athens.’ Kolonaki, ‘Little Column’, the area to the northeast of the parliament building, was the most upmarket district in the city. By coincidence, and to the delight of people on the left, kolos also meant ‘arse’. ‘Oh well,’ the café owner said, his tone softening, ‘everyone has to work, I suppose. Do you want some galaktoboureko?’

  Mavros looked up. ‘Have you got any left?’ The Fat Man’s mother made a tray of the custard-filled filo pastry every morning, but it had usually been devoured by the early-morning trade and his interlocutor by this time.

  ‘For you, Alex, anything,’ the Fat Man said, the irony less sharp than it could have been.

  ‘Bring me a couple of aspirins as well,’ Mavros called, glancing at the ponderous form in the kitchen and flicking the pale blue worry beads he’d been using to distract himself since he’d given up smoking a year ago. He’d known Yiorgos since he’d roamed the backstreets around the hill of Strefi in central Athens as a kid. The Fat Man was eighteen years older than Alex, making him fifty-seven, but he’d always had a soft spot for the boy. Mavros was sure that Yiorgos had initially befriended him because his father, Spyros Mavros, was a high-ranking member of the Communist Party. But a deeper friendship had developed over the years, one based on their mutual antipathy towards authority in any shape or form. Except Mavros had taken that a lot further than his friend by steadfastly refusing to join the Party. He had seen too much of the damage caused by strongly held beliefs. What Yiorgos said about everyone having to work was a bad joke. His mother, now in her early eighties, kept the café going with her cooking and cleaning, but only just. The Fat Man survived by running illicit card tables late at night. If pressed, he justified himself by giving a sly smile and characterising Marx and Lenin as political gamblers.

  The pastry and pills arrived, Mavros washing down the latter with the unchilled tap water the Fat Man had brought. He took a forkful of the galaktoboureko and closed his eyes as the glorious flavour of the filling flooded his taste buds. ‘Aaach,’ he moaned. ‘How does she do it? It gets better all the time.’

  The café owner nodded, his jowls wobbling. ‘The crazy old woman won’t tell me the trick, you know.’ He shrugged. ‘So when she goes…’

  ‘Come on, Fat Man,’ Mavros complained. ‘I’m eating my breakfast and you’re talking about dying?’

  ‘What’s the point of keeping quiet about it? We’re all going to die some time.’

  Mavros looked at his watch and waved him away. Any minute now a potential client would be arriving. He took his notebook from the pocket of his jeans and reminded himself of the name. Deniz Ozal. Turkish, but the accent on the telephone was American. He said he’d been given Mavros’s name by Nikos Kriaras, a police commander the US embassy had contacted on his behalf. Apparently his sister had gone missing. So Mavros had told him to come to the Fat Man’s. That was his version of the café owner’s test. Any clients who turned tail at the sight of the run-down dive weren’t serious enough for him. The Kolonaki boutique owners, dressed up in the latest outfits from Paris, had probably been excited by the sensation of slumming; and by the smell of the galaktoboureko, which the husband had paid substantially over the odds to sample.

  Mavros sat back to enjoy the remaining mouthfuls of his portion.

  The door to the main room opened not long after he had finished eating. He looked up and watched as a middle-aged ma
n of medium height with a thin moustache walked in with an assured air. He glanced at the Fat Man, twitched his head dismissively then turned towards the yard. He took in Mavros with a piercing look, running his eyes all the way up from the dark blue espadrilles to the mane of hair, concentrating finally on the firm, stubbled jaw, the aquiline nose and the dark blue eyes.

  ‘You the private dick?’ he said in English.

  ‘I’m the dick,’ Mavros confirmed with a loose smile. ‘And you’re Deniz Ozal.’ He pointed to a chair with a wicker base.

  The man was wearing a pair of tailored olive-green trousers with a matching short-sleeved shirt that he hadn’t tucked in. The bulge of his stomach was still obvious. He rested his heavy briefcase on the floor, looked over his shoulder to establish that no one else was in the vicinity, and sat down opposite Mavros.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, wincing. ‘How do you people sit on these chairs all day?’ He peered at what Mavros was sitting on. ‘Oh, I get it. The torture gear’s for the tourists.’

  Mavros glanced at his canvas chair and shrugged. ‘You can have this one if you want.’

  ‘Nah, forget it,’ Ozal said. ‘Do me good to remember the shit my ancestors went through.’ He laughed, displaying straight white teeth. ‘After all, Turks and Greeks are basically the same, aren’t they?’

  Mavros raised his eyebrows. ‘I wouldn’t recommend that as an ice-breaker at social gatherings around here.’

  Deniz Ozal nodded. ‘Tell me about it. I’m as bad as it gets as far as most Greeks are concerned—Turkish blood plus American nationality. That’s probably why I get screwed so much every time I come to the so-called cradle of democracy.’

  Mavros nodded. Ozal had a point. The historical enmity between Turks and Greeks had survived into the twenty-first century despite the moves of a few well-meaning politicians and the occasional outburst of fraternal aid after earthquakes; while American military involvement in the civil war that followed the Second World War and the CIA’s machinations during the dictatorship of 1967-1974 had not been forgotten or forgiven by many Greeks.

  ‘What are you then?’ Ozal demanded, his eyes locked on Mavros.

  ‘I told you, I’m the dick.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ the Turkish-American said irritably. ‘You know what I mean. Are you Greek or what? Your English is perfect.’

  Mavros raised his shoulders. ‘My father was Greek, my mother is Scottish. But I’ve lived here all my life, apart from four years of university in Edinburgh.’

  ‘Edinburgh, Scotland, huh? Cool city. I went to an antiques auction there about five years back.’ Deniz Ozal leaned forward and cocked an ear as his seat creaked. ‘So how good a dick are you, Alex? It’s okay if I call you that? What have you got that I should buy?’ He turned towards the Fat Man, who was deep in his book of card games. ‘Hey, can I get a cup of coffee here? What’d’ya call it? Varyglyko?’

  Mavros nodded. Strong and extra sweet. ‘What have I got? Didn’t Kriaras tell you?’ He’d known the police commander for ten years. When something came up that the official police didn’t fancy, it would often be shunted in his direction.

  The Turkish-American opened his arms. ‘Sure he did, but you and him could be best buddies running a scam for all I know. You give me a sales pitch and I’ll tell you if I like it, okay?’ He leaned forward again. ‘I’ll tell you one thing. You don’t look like any private dick I’ve ever seen. Haven’t you got a set of decent clothes? Haven’t you got an office? And what kind of hairstyle do you call that?’

  Mavros blinked and put his hand to his forehead. If he was going to offload this guy, now was the best time, before he found out what the job entailed. He’d made the mistake in the past of sticking with a client he couldn’t get on with for the sake of what seemed on first impressions to be an interesting case.

  ‘Well?’ Ozal said impatiently. ‘What have you got, Alex?’

  Mavros watched as the Fat Man lumbered across the gravel with the coffee and a glass of water.

  ‘Thanks, pal,’ Ozal said. ‘Efcharisto.’ His accent and intonation were good. ‘Hey, anything to eat?’ He looked at Mavros’s plate. ‘What did you have?’

  The Fat Man was already on his way back to the kitchen. Mavros knew for sure that, even if there was any galaktoboureko left, Ozal wouldn’t get it. The café owner was even more anti-American than the Party’s Central Committee.

  ‘I wouldn’t bother,’ Mavros said. ‘You don’t want to eat in here.’ He moved his eyes around the yard and up to the wasp traps dangling from the pergola.

  Ozal followed his line of gaze. ‘Jesus, I see what you mean. Look at those poor suckers.’

  Maybe it was because he’d left his potential client hungry, maybe it was because at least this one wasn’t an Athenian snob, but Mavros decided to go along with him. ‘All right, Mr Ozal—’

  ‘You can call me Deniz, Alex,’ the Turkish-American said with a wink of complicity.

  ‘All right, Deniz. What have I got? I studied law at university in Scotland, specialising in criminology. After my military service back here I worked in the Public Order Ministry, implementing legislation, liaising with the police, that kind of thing. Then I got involved in a special study of the private investigation sector in this country. This was about ten years back when it was really taking off. People didn’t have much faith in the police—they still don’t—and there were plenty of cowboy operators…you know what I mean?’

  ‘Very funny,’ Ozal said with a grunt.

  Mavros smiled. ‘Who were no better than the criminals who were preying on their clients. That was when I realised I could do the job as well as any of the competition. Plus, it got me out of the office, as well as the barber’s shop. It also allowed me to wear whatever I liked and it made me responsible only to myself.’ He smiled again. ‘And to my clients, of course.’ That was Mavros’s usual sales pitch. What it didn’t include was any reference to the intense frustration he’d felt when he worked as a civil servant—frustration caused by political interference, bureaucratic incompetence and the gradual realisation that his conception of justice, which was based on the individual’s rights and needs rather than those of the faceless state, wasn’t shared by anyone else in the ministry’s echoing marble halls. But he didn’t think many of the people who wanted to employ him would be too interested in that.

  Deniz Ozal sipped the coffee, his look of suspicion turning to one of beatific joy. ‘Shit, this is great coffee.’ He turned round. ‘Hey, big guy. Excellent coffee. Poly kalos kafes.’ The Fat Man looked up blankly then went back to his book.

  ‘You speak Greek?’ Mavros asked.

  Ozal shook his head. ‘Nah, just a few words I’ve picked up on visits. Anyway, keep going, Alex. You haven’t told me about the cases you’ve cracked.’

  Mavros shook his head slowly. ‘And I’m not going to. You’ve heard of client confidentiality?’

  ‘Good answer,’ Ozal said, grinning. ‘But you’ve got experience tracing missing persons?’

  ‘Kriaras must have told you that,’ Mavros replied impassively, concealing the curiosity that had suddenly gripped him. Finding people who’d disappeared was his speciality— more than that, it was his raison d’être.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Give me some idea of what you can do, Alex. I don’t wanna go into this blind.’

  Mavros studied him then nodded. ‘All right. For a start, I’m completely independent. I’ve got contacts where I need them and I know how the various systems work, but I only use them when I have to. Meaning I can avoid the bureaucratic snarl-ups that this country’s famous for.’ He paused as Ozal nodded approvingly. ‘Second, I know the press and the other media, and I know how they work. I make sure they don’t know anything about me and what I’m doing unless I want them to.’ Ozal gave another nod. ‘Third—and maybe most important for you— I have a hundred per cent success rate.’ Mavros tried to ignore the customary stab of guilt. He really had succeeded in every case he’d taken on, apart from the one t
hat meant most to him. But that wasn’t business, that was family.

  The Turkish-American looked sceptical. ‘Is that right?’

  Mavros nodded. ‘It is. You know how I’ve managed that?’

  Ozal laughed, an unpleasant grating sound. “Cos you’re the fuckin’ Greek version of the Continental Op?’

  ‘There’s that,’ Mavros replied, his expression intent. Obviously the man was a fan of Dashiell Hammett’s stories. ‘And there’s the fact that I only take on cases I have a feeling for.’

  Ozal took out a packet of unfiltered cigarettes from his shirt pocket and used a heavy gold lighter on one. ‘What does that mean, have a feeling for? Have a feeling that you’ll be able to handle them without screwing up?’ He held out the packet.

  Mavros shook his head and moved his hand to clear the smoke. ‘Not exactly. I have to feel interested in the case or I won’t take it.’ He smiled and opened his eyes wide, then flicked his worry beads across the back of his hand. ‘Now it’s your turn to make a pitch.’

  The Turkish-American blew out another cloud of acrid smoke, this time in the direction of the nearest humming wasp trap. ‘All right, smart guy. See what you think.’

  Deniz Ozal began to speak in a low voice and gradually the sound of traffic and the cries of the souvenir hawkers faded from Mavros’s ears. Soon he was hooked.

  Island of Trigono, 1500 hours, September 27th

  The sun was glinting so brightly from the flat surface of the water in the harbour that Nafsika had difficulty seeing the surrounding boats, let alone the mountainous bulk of the island across the straits.

  ‘Let’s go!’ At the rudder Yiangos was smiling, but there was tension in his voice. ‘It’s time.’ He gunned the engine and waited as she loosed the forward mooring rope. When she sat down next to the pile of dark red net, he steered away from the quay and headed for the far end of the breakwater’s line of boulders.