Crying Blue Murder (MIRA) Page 22

  Mavros followed the narrow street into the kastro and went up the steps to Rinus’s flat. Although he could hear music playing at low volume, there was no answer to his knocking. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he picked up the sound of careful footsteps behind the door. There was a crack in the panelling and he saw a shadowy movement through it. An image was flickering on the screen of a large television, and to the side of it he could see a pile of video cassettes. It seemed that the barman wasn’t receiving visitors—or perhaps he just wasn’t receiving Mavros. Short of breaking the door down, there wasn’t much he could do.

  He headed back past Rena’s house, skirting a heap of fresh donkey droppings, towards a car and bike hire place he’d noticed earlier. Although the sun was high in the sky, its rays making the back of his neck tingle, he’d made his mind up— no motorised transport. The island was already too redolent of diesel and tractor oil. He pointed to the solitary mountain bike outside the ramshackle office and made a deal that didn’t strain his wallet. The broad-girthed girl watched him with ill- disguised contempt as he checked the tyre pressures and adjusted the seat height. Push-bikes were for kids or demented tourists—sensible people drove.

  Mavros cycled out past the Bar Astrapi, feeling his thigh muscles stretch. The bike was in surprisingly good condition; there probably hadn’t been much call for it over the summer. He was going out to the dig to surprise Eleni. He reckoned she was as good a lead to Theocharis as any, despite her antagonism towards Mavros after he’d spurned her advances. But more important, the photo in the album proved that she knew Rosa Ozal. He wasn’t planning on confronting her over that until he’d regained her confidence, but he was curious. Why had she been lying to him?

  He freewheeled down the slope to the Kambos, glancing to the right as he passed the farm where he’d seen the donkey being beaten. This time there was no sign either of the old bastard with the stick or of the sad-eyed creature. He remembered reading in a Greek novel at school about an island farmer who drove his decrepit mule over a cliff with a big stone lashed around it when it could no longer work. The thought that the animal he’d tried to save may have suffered that fate made him shiver.

  At a dusty junction in the middle of the Kambos, Mavros saw an old church, the whitewash fresh on its walls but the stonework beneath heavily pockmarked. He stopped and dismounted, rubbing the backs of his legs. He took the guidebook from his bag. The Theocharis estate, the old tower hovering in the haze, was farther to the west. This had to be Ayios Dhimitrios, the church that once served the deserted village of Myli where the windmills to grind the corn produced in the fertile plateau had been built. Now the two round structures were only a single storey high, the upper walls collapsed around their bases. Going closer to the church, Mavros examined the holes around the door. There were a lot of them, some narrow and deep, the other indentations more spread out. They looked very like they’d been made by bullets of varying sizes. Glancing back at the ruined mills, he wondered if there had been action here during the war.

  Behind Ayios Dhimitrios a narrow path wound between two high walls to a graveyard. Mavros clambered over the remains of the gate and walked around between uneven metal crosses and dirt-encrusted marble slabs. The place was almost completely overgrown, the crops of mallow and thistles that had leaped up in spring now brown and withered. No one had been buried here for a long time. Over in the corner was the ossuary. He moved towards it, stepping over the desiccated vegetation, and forced the door open. Like the graveyard, it was no longer in use. Only one tin box rested in the corner. He kneeled down in front of it and wiped the dust away. A cross had been painted on the top, along with the name Eirene Kasdhagli and the dates 1917-1937. Just a girl, he thought. Only twenty when she died, her bones abandoned to moulder here alone.

  He pulled the door shut behind him and left the young woman’s remains in peace. Maybe Rena would know something about her. Walking back between the stunted crosses, he caught sight of a low hut about twenty metres away, the wall facing him completely shattered and the end walls leaning inwards like the converging sides of a triangle. It looked like the building had been blown out by some explosive device. He shook his head, wondering what had happened in Myli.

  Back on the bicycle, Mavros followed an asphalt road southwards, the great curtain of the hills looming. Up on Profitis Ilias—the Prophet Elijah—he could see the customary chapel on the highest point whence, according to the scriptures, the holy man ascended to heaven. The breeze carried the undulating sound of a pipe to him. Stopping for a moment, he made out a figure surrounded by grey, black and white shapes on the flank of the hill. Maybe it was the simple lad he had met the other day. There was nothing simple about his music. The notes soared and danced like birdsong.

  The road became a heavily potholed track. Mavros went along it to the west, where it eventually joined up with the ascent to the dig. He stopped to catch his breath and lifted his eyes to the wall of scarred rock that rose up from the lower, bush-dotted slopes. He saw a couple of other figures ahead and rubbed the dust from his eyes with his forearm to look more closely. They were behind an outcrop about two hundred metres from the level area of the dig, their heads craning to the west. He followed the direction of their gaze and two more people came into view. This pair were moving around each other like fighters eyeing up an opponent. With a shock, Mavros realised that the one dressed in a black blouse and skirt was his landlady, Rena. Suddenly she went into a clinch with the other figure.

  Mavros left the bike by the side of the track and started to run up the incline, his breath catching in his throat. After what seemed like a lot more than the minute that he calculated from his watch, he came within shouting range of the antagonists. He ignored the two observers behind the rocks and focused on Rena. She was still grappling with her opponent, who was now kneeling.

  ‘Rena!’ he bellowed. ‘What are you doing?’ He moved forward again.

  The black-clad woman let go of the other person and watched as he approached.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded. ‘Rinus?’ he said in surprise as the barman straightened up, his jeans torn at the knee. If he was out here, who’d been watching a video in his flat? ‘What the hell is going on?’ He glanced over his shoulder and saw a single head above the rocky bluff to the left—the other watcher had ducked out of sight. To the rear of Rena a donkey stood with a wooden saddle on its back, its head lowered over a patch of thistles. A high-powered motorbike was on its side behind Rinus.

  Rena’s face was red, her arms still extended towards her opponent. ‘This man is a pig, Alex,’ she said. ‘He nearly…he nearly hit my donkey.’

  Rinus laughed breathlessly. ‘Pity you weren’t on it, bitch,’ he said in a low voice.

  Mavros looked at the animal again and realised that it was the one he’d seen being beaten. The marks of the old man’s stick were still visible on its thin flanks. At least it was still alive, although it didn’t seem to be endowed with much luck.

  ‘Are you all right, Rena?’ he asked, stepping between them.

  She nodded, her eyes defiant. ‘Oh yes, I’m all right, Alex. But if you hadn’t come, I would have crushed this skouliki, this worm, into the dirt.’

  Mavros glanced at the Dutchman. Although his eyes were also belligerent, he was hanging back and it was pretty clear that Rena would have got the better of him. ‘Maybe you should climb back on your bike and hit the road, my friend,’ he said.

  Rinus took up the suggestion quickly, struggling to right the BMW 750 and then mounting it. Once he was on it and had kicked the engine into life, he leaned towards them. ‘Tha se kapso, poutana,’ he said to Rena, mangling the Greek words. I’ll burn you, whore. Then he revved hard and shot off down the steep track.

  Mavros watched the dust cloud as it drifted away over the fields of the Kambos, then turned his eyes to the outcrop of rock. Two figures were now on their way down from it, both of them in white shirt and shorts. He recognised the American couple, Gret
chen and Lance. Neither of them was looking in his direction. He would catch up with them later.

  ‘That wasn’t just about the donkey, was it, Rena?’ he said, watching as she ran her hand down the creature’s neck.

  She held her eyes on him for a few seconds. ‘Well…the donkey was part of it. I’m very…how do you say?… sensible?’

  Mavros smiled. ‘Yes, you’re very sensible, but right now I think you mean sensitive.’

  Rena’s cheeks reddened again. ‘Yes, sensitive. I am very sensitive about poor Melpo. Some bastardhos has been hitting her.’

  Mavros decided to keep what he knew about this to himself.

  ‘You see, I keep her in a field in the Kambos when I’m not using her. I think old Thodhoris likes to think she is me. That family doesn’t like me.’

  Mavros nodded slowly. ‘I saw a man there.’ He remembered the scene outside the cemetery. ‘Is he another brother of Kyra Maro? He looks like Manolis.’

  Rena looked at him thoughtfully and inclined her head. ‘Yes, they are brothers. You are very clever, Alex. Already you have learned much about the island.’

  He raised his shoulders, trying to conceal his interest. Why did the family of the old woman Maro dislike her? Because she helped the relative they shunned?

  She led the donkey gently on to the track, head tilted up. ‘I must do my work now,’ she said.

  ‘What work have you got up here?’ Mavros asked.

  ‘There are some small fields farther on.’ Her chin jutted forward. ‘They belong to Kyra Maro. I work them to grow food for Melpo.’ She stroked the donkey’s sparse mane. ‘What are you doing on the hills, Alex?’ she asked, her eyes on his.

  ‘I’m a tourist, remember?’ He smiled. ‘I’m touring the island.’

  She nodded, her face blank. ‘Of course.’ She turned away up the track, the donkey’s hooves kicking up grit and small stones. ‘Goodbye.’

  Mavros watched her go then raised his eyes towards the rocks that concealed the excavated area. The bulky figure of the watchman Mitsos was there, staring down at him. After meeting his gaze for a while, Mavros started walking towards the dig. Several things puzzled him about the stand-off between his landlady and the barman. Rena hadn’t answered his question and he was sure there was more between them than Melpo’s hide. She had spoken about Rinus to him in unflattering terms before. What was the Dutchman doing up here? Had he been to see Eleni? Or Mitsos? And was he in the flat when Mavros knocked? Rinus might just have been able to make it out here before him on the BMW, though he hadn’t seen or heard the bike on the other roads in the Kambos. Finally, what had the Americans been doing hiding behind the rocks? They had watched Rena and Rinus square up, but they hadn’t intervened.

  As he went to find Eleni, the element of surprise lost now that the watchman had spotted him, Mavros failed to come up with any answers. Life on Trigono was getting more complicated by the hour.

  Panos Theocharis was sitting in the shade by the pool, his eyes on the naked and oiled torso of his wife. Dhimitra, supine on a lounger, was well aware of his gaze. She gave him a lazy look then slid her hand down her belly and under the fabric of the sarong she was wearing on the lower half of her body.

  ‘Where is Aris?’ she asked in a low voice.

  Theocharis knew she was taunting him. The same thing happened every September. His son came to Trigono and blundered around antagonising people, sticking his nose where it wasn’t wanted—and screwing Dhimitra. Panos didn’t blame his wife for taking advantage of a functioning male organ. He couldn’t get hard these days. Even the most extreme videos that his supplier dredged up from the backstreets around Omonia had little effect. And when Aris wasn’t around, Dhimitra comforted herself with the servants and estate workers, and with young male tourists whose initial delight at their good fortune was soon replaced by admissions of their inadequacy—for Dhimitra only liked men who gave it to her without any kind of reserve. Maybe, Theocharis reflected, he should be proud that his son was one of the few men who could satisfy her. But he wasn’t. Aris was a braggart and a waster who was bleeding the family dry.

  ‘Where is Aris?’ he repeated, getting up and shuffling over to the belvedere with his stick. ‘How would I know, woman? The idiot is probably entertaining a bevy of tourist bitches on the Artemis.’ He regretted the outburst immediately. There was no point in trying to make Dhimitra jealous. She was ruled by her appetites and, underneath the patina of wealth that he’d given her, she was coarser than a three-client-anhour Piraeus tart. But that was what had led him to her. He’d got so sick of the society women at the gallery openings and the weekend villa parties with their refined accents and their alley-cat morals. At least Dhimitra was open about her needs. Unlike his first wife, Tatiana. Latterly Aris’s mother had fallen for a communist and was soon opening her legs in the name of fraternal goodwill for any comrade who raised an eyebrow at her.

  ‘Pano,’ his third wife called. ‘Come and sit by me.’

  ‘In a minute,’ Theocharis said, wondering what she wanted from him now. He looked out over the estate, the silver-green leaves of the olive trees below the tower trembling in the breeze. In the distance he could see the white blur of the village against the southern cliffs of Paros. He blinked, feeling the strain on his eyes, and focused on objects at closer range. The roof of Eleni’s house was visible through the foliage of the orange trees.

  That made him think about the archaeologist. She’d been behaving strangely in recent months, even more so in the last few days. What had she been doing showing that foreigner around the dig? Alex—what was his other name?—Alex Cochrane, that was it. There was something very wrong about him. First Theocharis had taken him for a common thief or a dealer, but he didn’t display any sign of cold-blooded calculation when confronted by the collection. So what was he? An undercover ministry official? You could usually see through them in a matter of minutes. No, the man was smooth, his smoothness was too well practised. He definitely wasn’t the innocent writer on holiday that he purported to be. Not that writers were ever innocent in Theocharis’s experience. They were even more single-minded in their search for profitable material than antiquities dealers, and much more two-faced. What was it about his surname? Cochrane. It had set off an alarm bell deep in his mind the moment he heard it.

  ‘Pano,’ Dhimitra said, her voice more strident. ‘Come here.’

  Theocharis moved back, dragging his sandals on the shining tiles. He knew this was going to hurt in some way.

  ‘Pano,’ she said as he sat down in the chair next to her lounger. Her hand slid over his knee. ‘I want to go into the village tonight.’

  ‘But you’ve only just come back from the village,’ he complained. ‘There’s no life in the place now. The season’s over and the restaurants and bars are all closing.’

  A smile crept across her glossed lips. ‘Most of the places are shut, it’s true. But I know one or two that are still lively.’

  ‘Well, don’t be too late,’ Theocharis said, giving up the fight. There was no question of him going, he knew that well enough. When Dhimitra expressed a wish to taste Trigono’s night life, she never included him in her plans. All he could hope was that she’d be discreet, and that she wasn’t falling back into old, destructive habits. No doubt she would be going with Aris, and he certainly wasn’t capable of upholding the family’s dignity.

  A servant appeared, keeping his eyes off Dhimitra’s bare flesh.

  ‘A vodka and tonic,’ she said, eyeing the young man up.

  ‘Iced water,’ Theocharis said. He dismissed the boy with a movement of his head.

  His wife was watching him. ‘You’re so sharp with them,’ she said. ‘If you’re going to turn the islanders into slaves, you might at least be polite to them.’

  The museum benefactor turned away. Whenever his wife started lecturing him about how to behave, he conjured up a vision he’d had of her in the dressing room at the nightclub not long after he’d started taking her out. The
door had swung open and he’d walked in on her with the bouzouki player from her band, her red taffeta skirt halfway up her back and her upper body bent forward over a chair. He couldn’t identify the orifice the musician had penetrated, but whichever one it was, Dhimitra was grunting in delirious abandon.

  Anyway, he had more important things than social graces on his mind. It was time to decide what to do about this supposed writer, Alex Cochrane. Apparently he’d been asking questions about Rosa Ozal, and that made Theocharis even more suspicious. Mitsos had just called to say the snoop was on the track leading to the dig, along with several other people. He needed to talk to the watchman about how to handle this. Whatever was going on, Eleni had some explaining to do. Christ and the Holy Mother, he appealed silently. What was it about women? They were all the same— Dhimitra, Eleni, Rosa Ozal, that other one with the tight face and the superb body. Why could they never keep their painted, faithless mouths shut?

  But at least they gave him something to think about, something to take his mind off the feelings he had begun to experience from reading the idiot British soldier’s diary. Guilt? Fear? Those emotions had finally taken hold of him after so many years of self-control. Could it really be that he was fated to live with the same doubts and agonies that had racked George Lawrence?

  Panos Theocharis looked out over the dusty earth towards the glinting blue of the Aegean. The colours were vivid now, but when the sun sank in the west Trigono would again become what it always had been—a well-worn threshold to the eternal dark.

  Mavros carried on up to the excavation plateau, the sun doing more now than just tingling on his neck. He’d left his bag where he’d dumped the bike, and it was a long way down just to get the suntan lotion. He had his ID and wallet in his pocket, so the only potentially compromising thing that any inquisitive passer-by would find was his Greek mobile phone. He decided to take a chance and leave it where it was. There wasn’t much of a signal out in the hills.