The Green Lady Read online

  ‘I need that knife,’ he called. ‘At least one of them’s alive.’

  There was silence, then the blade dropped point down into the earth by his foot. He cut the ropes and gags, helping Ourania to sit up. She coughed and asked for water in a croaky voice.

  ‘Hold on while I get Lia up,’ Mavros said, turning to the other girl. Her lower abdomen was swollen and her bladder had voided. ‘Lia? Wake up.’ He put two fingers against her throat and got a weak pulse. ‘Lia?’

  Suddenly she shook violently and opened her eyes. Her hands went straight to her belly and cradled it. ‘Are we . . . are we safe?’

  Then Mavros understood. She was pregnant, presumably by her father. He pulled her and Ourania up, their legs as unsteady as new-born lambs’, and asked Lykos to help them out. He did so reluctantly, the Son’s pistol on him. The girls stood on the opposite side of their grave, Mavros climbing out and supporting them. They trembled at the sight of the heavily armed man.

  The Son pointed at Lia. ‘You’re the one.’ He moved his gaze to Mavros. ‘All right, I’ve fulfilled my original commission. Unfortunately for you, I’ve since had new orders. That’s why I killed the people in Paradheisos. You’re last on my list. Come on.’

  Mavros squeezed the girls’ arms. ‘Hold on,’ he said, ‘you can’t leave them with Lykos. He’ll just bury them again.’

  ‘Not my problem. Come now or I’ll shoot the pair of them.’ The Glock was aimed at Lia’s burgeoning belly.

  Mavros moved round the piles of earth, then realised the girls were being pushed after him by Lykos.

  ‘Stop!’ the Son ordered.

  Lykos kept shoving until they were all close, then burst out between Lia and Ourania, one of the spades aimed straight at the Son’s throat. Mavros thrust his shoulder against the young man and he fell to the left, smashing his head against a stone. The spade missed its target by only a few centimetres. The Son got a shot off, but it passed through the gap that Lykos had just made.

  Mavros turned to comfort the girls, looking over his shoulder. ‘Don’t kill him,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t on your list, after all.’

  The Son glared at him. ‘Are you sure of that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re right.’ The assassin cocked his ear. The sound of a helicopter could be heard in the gorge. ‘Here comes the airborne cavalry. Well, Alex Mavro, it seems I owe you, if not my life, at least some part of my anatomy. And obviously I can’t leave them alone in case that little scumbag comes round. So, although our business isn’t finished, I’ll let you live.’ He grinned. ‘That should really piss Kriaras off.’

  ‘Nikos Kriaras?’ Mavros said, his jaw dropping. The cop was a dubious operator, but he’d never put him down as a murderer by proxy. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘For what it’s worth, I think the job started off with him doing favours for his friend Poulos, but as time went by that friend became more trouble than he was worth.’

  Mavros watched the Son move towards the VW bus. ‘I don’t suppose you’re expecting me to thank you.’

  ‘No.’ The Son threw his weapons into the front seat and climbed in after them. ‘And I don’t suppose you’re expecting me to say this.’ He laughed cruelly. ‘Your brother’s alive. And we’ll meet again.’

  With that he slammed the door, started the engine and drove away in a cloud of dust.

  Mouth dry, Mavros raised his arms and waved at the helicopter, encouraging the girls to do the same. It could have been that he felt he owed the Son, multiple murderer though he was, the opportunity to get away, but what he really cared about was keeping him alive and at liberty so he might lead him to Andonis in the future.

  The helicopter circled and then came down in a bare field fifty metres away.

  Waiting for Kriaras and the tall figure of Telemachos Xanthakos, Mavros spoke softly to the girls. He told them everything would be all right. As for himself, he knew that he would be unable to rest until he found Andonis, which was doubtless the Son’s intention. And there was no guarantee that his brother really was alive. He might have been in Hades’ halls for over thirty years, the Son exacting the kind of revenge to be expected of a hardened hunter cheated of his prey.

  The sun finally cleared the mountains of Viotia and Mavros blinked back tears. He hadn’t only saved two innocent girls; he had raised his beloved brother’s ghost, invisible and intangible though it remained.

  EPILOGUE

  ‘What a staggering waste of money,’ the Fat Man said, as the Olympic Games closing ceremony got into full swing.

  ‘Mm,’ Mavros said. He was sprawled on the couch in Yiorgos’s saloni, a bottle of Amstel in one hand and a copy of Seferis’s poetry in the other.

  ‘Don’t you agree?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘And those tossers can’t even sing in tune.’

  Mavros looked at the screen, but he couldn’t even raise a moan. He was thinking about Lia Poulou. She should have been at the Olympic Stadium with her parents, but instead her mother had taken her to a clinic in London. He was sure she would return without a fetus in her womb, not that he blamed her or Angie. His client had given him a generous bonus. He’d wanted to ask about her husband’s suicide, but he didn’t really care. The world was a better place without Paschos Poulos.

  ‘For the love of Lenin!’ the Fat Man yelled, as fireworks exploded around the arena.

  Mavros didn’t react, unable to get the stricken face of Lia Poulou from his mind. The girl had mentioned Demeter frequently and seemed still to be under the sway of what had been drummed into her by Lykos and Angeliki, even though they had turned out to be worshippers of different cults. He hoped Lia would get over that.

  As for the others, Maria Bekakou had been charged with child abuse, Telemachos Xanthakos having witnessed her with the under-fourteen in Tryfon Roufos’s room. So far, she hadn’t talked. Mavros was sure a deal would be done and her silence ensured. He remembered her meeting Brigadier Kriaras in the brasserie. The Father’s and Son’s details were in a secret police file. Mavros had tried to publicise their involvement in the gangland case when he’d first confronted them, but no newspaper would print the full story. Kriaras, perhaps under command from his political masters, had obviously brought back the younger enforcer, but he had played a dangerous game. The Son wasn’t a man to cross.

  ‘Come on,’ Yiorgos said, chinking his bottle against Mavros’s. ‘At last the Games are over.’ He nodded at the blank screen, all the lights having been briefly turned off. ‘What’s up with you, Alex? You found the girl, most of those paedophile bastards are worm-fodder, we’re in the money . . .’

  Mavros sighed. ‘Do you think Lia Poulou will ever be the same again? Do you think her mother will?’

  ‘At least that bastard Poulos can’t torment them any longer.’

  ‘True. And maybe the aluminium plant will be cleaned up.’

  The Fat Man looked dubious. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What are the comrades saying about Tatiana Roubani?’

  ‘That her resignation was due to ill-health and her service to the party has been exemplary.’

  ‘My father will come back to haunt her.’

  ‘Is that right? Don’t tell me you’ve become a Hades worshipper too? Typical Greeks, eh? They couldn’t even agree over which defunct deities to worship.’

  Mavros thought about the rival cults. Lykos had been keeping quiet, as had Angeliki, who had been picked up by the police in Thiva; she had taken refuge with a friend after escaping from Kypseli. They would be the scapegoats, sent down for long terms for the kidnapping of Lia Poulou. At least the girl had collapsed joyfully into her mother’s arms when they were reunited, failing to notice the disaster area that was Angie’s mouth.

  ‘One of the cadres must have given the cops the location of the girls’ grave. Otherwise, how did Kriaras know to direct the helicopter there?’

  ‘Good for whoever it was,’ Yiorgos said. ‘They were pawns.’

  ‘They could have hung arou
nd at the denouement.’

  ‘You think they’d have stopped the Son? I still don’t understand why he didn’t kill you.’

  Mavros looked at his friend. ‘He wants me to suffer. Saying that Andonis is alive was the perfect way to achieve that.’

  ‘So you don’t believe him?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if I believe him or not. I can’t let it lie.’

  The Fat Man lumbered over to the TV and turned it off. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Exactly what the Son wants – pursue him.’

  ‘But you said it before – he’s protected.’

  Mavros smiled grimly. ‘And I know who’s protecting him – or was. Plus, Kriaras added my name to the list of targets. I’m not going to let him get away with that.’ His phone rang. ‘Hi, Lambi, what’s up?’ There was the sound of loud carousing in the background.

  ‘Come down to the coastal strip,’ the journalist said. ‘I’m having a ball, not to mention several lovely young ladies.’ Bitsos had written up a huge story about Paschos Poulos’s death, although some of his copy had been struck out by his editor, under pressure from the politicians, and more delayed till after the Games. ‘I’m enjoying my new-found hero status.’ The journalist hadn’t been reticent about highlighting his role in the case.

  ‘Have a good one,’ Mavros said, cutting the connection. The idea of Bitsos pawing young flesh, admittedly over the age of consent, wasn’t enticing. Besides, he couldn’t help thinking about the losers – Akis Exarchos, who had sacrificed himself, probably because he couldn’t live with having turned traitor; Ourania, who had told her parents she couldn’t live in Paradheisos any more; and Lia – how would she grow up into any kind of normal woman? And what about the Son’s victims? The burned man had been identified as a high school literature teacher, who’d made the sole mistake of worshipping the Olympian gods – as had the beheaded man at Delphi and the mutilated female professor in Trikkala. They had been killed to put pressure on Lia’s kidnappers, but Lykos and his aunt hadn’t buckled.

  Then there was his own family. They and Niki had spent a frightening couple of days before he was able to tell them the danger was over. He didn’t think the Son would do anything to them now that he had Mavros well and truly hooked. At least Telemachos Xanthakos had come out of the case well. They were in touch and he hoped he’d see more of the unusual policeman.

  ‘So you’re meeting the mad woman tomorrow,’ the Fat Man said.

  ‘Do you mind?’ Mavros had called Niki when he got back to Athens and she’d agreed to have lunch with him. His name had been prominent in Bitsos’s articles and she’d congratulated him on saving Lia. There had been warmth in her voice.

  ‘I suppose you’re going to move in with her,’ Yiorgos said, heading for the kitchen.

  ‘It’s a bit early to say, Fat Man. Even if I do, I’ll still be round here all the time to sample your pastries.’

  ‘Speaking of which.’ His friend reappeared with a mound of honey-drenched filo.

  ‘What on earth is that?’

  ‘Don’t you recognise it? Look, I even made the temple.’ Yiorgos pointed at the side.

  ‘You made an edible replica of the mountain overlooking the HMC plant?’ Mavros said incredulously.

  ‘Yes. There’s even a tunnel going down to where you were imprisoned.’ The Fat Man grinned. ‘And at the bottom, I put a miniature figure of Hades.’

  Mavros shook his head. ‘And what about Demeter, the Green Lady?’

  ‘She isn’t in season, you fool. I’ll do her next spring.’

  Spring and fertility, Mavros thought. It had been a nightmare for Lia Poulou, but perhaps things would turn out better for Niki and him – if she took him back.

  ‘Here,’ said Yiorgos, handing him a plate. ‘Eat your portion of Viotia.’

  Mavros obliged. Paradheisos hadn’t lived up to its name and the Olympian gods were long gone, but the Fat Man had made his own version of ambrosia – even if the pomegranate seeds on the top were a flourish several kilometres too far.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Many thanks to Kate Lyall Grant and her excellent staff at Crème de la Crime for turning this one round quickly. Great jacket, people, and best review ever, Kate! And to my peerless agent Broo Doherty of Wade and Doherty for devotion well beyond the call of duty.

  Just after I finished this book, my traitor body presented me with a third bout of cancer. Yet again, Drs Haris Katsifotis and Miltos Seferlis and their superb team at the Polykliniki Athinon saved my posterior or thereabouts. They really are my heroes. My sister Claire braved Omonia Square at night to keep me company in hospital, while brother Alan provided essential music and related magazines.

  My friends did their utmost to keep me going. Victoria Crosses to Robert Wilson, Julia Wallis Martin, John Connolly and the dedicatees. I’d also like to acknowledge the moving support I received from Facebook and Twitter friends, many of whom I’ve never met in the flesh. Paul Johnston and Alex Mavros have their own pages on the former, while you can follow me at @Paul1Johnston on the latter. You know it makes sense. My website www.paul-johnston.co.uk also provides information about this book and the rest of my, ahem . . . oeuvre.

  Finally, my deepest love to Roula, Maggie and Alexander. Long live Kloutsis.