Crying Blue Murder (MIRA) Read online

  ‘I go up there every day,’ Dinos said. ‘The goats can get over the old wall. I must stop them going to the edge of the cliff.’

  ‘You can see very far from the top, I suppose.’ Mavros kept his voice level, displaying no more than passing interest. He didn’t want to scare the herdsman off.

  ‘Yes, to all the islands.’ Dinos swept his arm round in a great sweep.

  ‘There are islands near Trigono, are there not?’

  ‘Aspronisi, Mavronisi, Eschati,’ the herdsman recited.

  Mavros nodded, a smile on his lips, then he put his hand on Dinos’s arm and caught his eye. ‘I imagine you see boats too. Fishing boats.’

  The islander stiffened and tried to pull away, but Mavros didn’t let him.

  ‘You saw Yiangos and Nafsika, didn’t you?’ Mavros had moved close, his mouth up to Dinos’s ear. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone your secret.’

  The herdsman was breathing hard and suddenly he let out a long groan, his chest heaving.

  ‘It was Aris Theocharis’s boat that hit theirs, wasn’t it?’ Mavros said quietly. He felt sympathy for the simple boy who had obviously bottled up what he’d seen and was burning with guilt. ‘I won’t tell anyone you told me, I promise.’

  Dinos fought to get his breathing under control. He blinked tears from his eyes then leaned his head against Mavros’s shoulder. ‘He hit the trata but he didn’t help Yiangos and Nafsika until it was…until it was too late,’ he said, sliding his tongue over chapped lips. Then he jerked away and started running up the slope towards his goats.

  Mavros squatted down and thought about what he’d heard. His call to the boatyard on Paros had made him pretty sure that Aris had been involved in the accident, but this unexpected confirmation had thrown him. He didn’t think it would be worth much in a court. The Theocharis family lawyers wouldn’t need long to discredit Dinos’s testimony on the grounds of mental deficiency, even if the old man failed to bribe the goatherd or his family into silence. But it gave him something to hold against the multimillionaire.

  He had the feeling that he’d soon need everything he could find to defend himself against Trigono’s self-appointed lord and master.

  January 8th, 1943

  Disaster has come to Trigono; disaster that I am, at least in part, responsible for. But I must be firm. I must not allow myself to be diverted from the objectives of my mission.

  We were unlucky on several counts. Or perhaps we brought the wrath of the enemy on our own heads. I cannot be sure. The Italians have continued to claim that during ‘a cowardly act of sabotage’ two of their garrison, a sentry and, worse, an officer doing his rounds at the supply depot, were killed in ‘the most barbaric fashion, their throats slit like animals in a slaughterhouse’. So say the proclamations that have been posted in Paros, Andiparos and Trigono. I knew nothing about this during the operation, although I remember Griffin disappearing on his own into the dark on more than one occasion. When I questioned him this morning he said in his terse way that he was not to blame and I had to take his word for that, but he has a wicked look in his eye, a cold, inhuman stare. Rees is in awe of him and since the raid he has kept his distance.

  Perhaps Trigono would have escaped retribution if the trail of footprints from British army boots hadn’t been followed to the cove on the south of Paros: and if a goatherd on the hillside above hadn’t sighted the Ersi on her voyage back to Trig. The Italians beat that information out of the poor boy. Apparently his jaw was broken and one eye badly damaged. There are fears that he will lose the sight in it. But even those terrible injuries pale into insignificance in comparison with the Italians’ actions here today.

  From the summit of Vigla we watched as the enemy approached the harbour of Faros in three commandeered kaïkia, Agamemnon having learned from a runner sent by Ajax that they were on their way. The word had been spread around the village that everyone should be as compliant as possible. At any rate, the majority of the locals knew nothing about us. According to Maro, Ajax and his men were tight lipped even with their families. I was worried about Maro and wished that she could be with me in the hills. Obviously that was impossible as it would only have drawn attention to her, as well as raising her brother’s suspicions about the two of us even more. When I saw him yesterday, he gave me a searching look and then turned away to talk to the Sacred Band group. He deals only with Agamemnon now.

  The Italians came round Cape Fonias and moored in the port, men immediately moving through the village in pairs. We could only sit and wait helplessly, hoping that they didn’t harm any Trigoniotes and that they wouldn’t pick up any hint of our presence. Until midday there was no sign of trouble. Then we saw a larger group of enemy soldiers on mules come over the brow of the hill above the Kambos and head towards the buildings of Myli, where the hut I used before I came up to the caves is located. We watched them as they moved down the track and waited. There were men and women working in the fields around the windmills and we saw them suddenly rush towards the old church. They were soon shut up inside, an Italian on the door, his rifle at the ready. I wondered what was about to happen, a sense of foreboding settling over me like a cloud of poison gas.

  Agamemnon crawled up the hill behind us and raised his binoculars. ‘They have learned from the Germans in Crete,’ he said, his voice taut. ‘The enemy herded villagers into churches there. You can be sure they will be interrogating them.’ I could feel his eyes on me. ‘Did any of the islanders see you when you were living down there?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I replied.

  ‘What about the girl Maro?’ he asked, moving closer so that I could smell his sour breath. ‘She was taking supplies to you, was she not?’

  I kept my eyes on the buildings in the distance. A man had just been dragged out of the church. ‘When Ajax was injured, yes,’ I replied, my heart beating fast. I sensed his disapproval. ‘She won’t tell the Italians anything. I am sure of that.’

  ‘I hope so, for our sakes and for the sake of the island,’ he said. ‘If they find even the slightest trace of enemy presence, they will feel justified to act as harshly as the Germans.’ He jabbed his elbow into my side. ‘Have you any idea how little value our oppressors put on human lives?’

  I saw a puff of smoke between the windmills then heard the crump of an explosion in the clear air.

  ‘Grenade,’ Griffin said, his ear cocked. ‘And another.’

  There was a long rattle of gunfire, a combination of rifle shots and the repetitive drill of sub-machine guns. We listened as the sounds continued, then saw the men on the door move away. They were joined by others and they all directed their fire at the church.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Rees said under his breath. ‘How many people are in there?’

  ‘Sixteen,’ Griffin replied. ‘I counted them in.’ He turned and gave a tight smile. ‘I wonder how many will be walking out.’

  Agamemnon stared at him, an expression of disgust twisting his face. ‘My God, Lieutenant,’ he said, ‘what kind of men are you?’ He withdrew to the ridge and rejoined his unit.

  At last the Italians ceased fire and opened the doors to the church. Soldiers entered and soon reappeared, dragging six men and one woman out. At first I thought they were dead, then I saw them stand up, their legs unsteady. Relief dashed over me. And then I made out that they were being attached to the mules by long ropes. The Italians set off at a brisk pace, their captives forced to run after them or be dragged along the stony road. My heart was pounding as I tried to make out the faces of the islanders, in particular the woman. But all I could see were black clothes and bare legs. Could it be Maro? Would she have been in the fields? I didn’t know and everything suddenly shifted. My life went into an uncontrolled descent, like a paratrooper’s whose chute fails to open.

  We waited until they had disappeared over the hill, a cloud of dust marking their passing towards the village. Ordering Griffin to stay on watch, which he didn’t like, I took Rees with me down the slope. Ov
er to our right the Greeks were also making their way towards the mills, Agamemnon running with great strides over the bushes. I wondered if Myli and its buildings were part of his family estate, but dismissed that unworthy thought.

  As we approached the scene of the shooting. I heard shrill screams above my desperate gasps, loud wails similar to the ones I’d heard from the hut during the exhumation. Scarcely able to breathe, I followed Agamemnon round the last bend between the high walls.

  The body of an elderly man lay in the clear space in front of the church, women on their knees around him. There were explosion craters near by, smoke rising from the devastated mills. I assumed the man had been killed during the firing, but Agamemnon turned to me from the body and said that he must have died of heart failure. There was no mark on him. Going towards the church, which was pocked by dozens of bullet holes, I counted the islanders and came to nine including the dead man. Nine plus the seven captives came to sixteen. If Griffin’s numbers were correct, there were no casualties apart from the old man. That was a miracle. The Italians must have been trying to frighten the locals with the gunfire and grenades. Taking hostages meant that they had effectively neutralised us. Their assumption was that the islanders would no longer help or harbour us. That way they could avoid casualties by leaving the southern massif uncombed.

  ‘Who was the woman they took?’ I demanded of a tear- stained peasant woman. ‘Was it Maro Grypari?’ She stared at me blankly and I felt the fear rise up in me. I grabbed her arms and shook her. ‘Was it Maro Grypari?’ I heard myself shout.

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ Agamemnon said, detaching the woman from my grasp and giving her into the care of another female islander. ‘Do you care about anyone apart from the girl you are corrupting?’ he said bitterly. ‘Do you know why they did this, Lieutenant? Do you know why they terrified these people and destroyed the mills and defaced the church?’

  The cloud of foreboding I had felt now enveloped me completely. ‘Why?’ I asked, my voice weak.

  Agamemnon stepped up to me and spoke in a low, hard voice, his spittle soaking my face. ‘Because they found a book in English in the hut over there.’ He was pointing at the hovel where I’d lived after my arrival on Trigono. No, it couldn’t be. I knew I had lost my copy of Byron, but I’d assumed it was in one of the caves or on the slopes I’d been crawling over for weeks. Then it came back to me. The last time I read from it had been the night before Maro came, the night before we first made love. I hadn’t needed it after that, I had been so caught up in my own dream of love and war. Oh, God, what have I done?

  Agamemnon was staring at me, his eyes bulging. I thought he was going to hit me, but he managed to restrain himself and stepped away to talk to the islanders. Before I lowered my head I saw their empty expressions, their damp eyes looking at me without accusation, only with profound sadness. They seemed to understand that I had involved myself in things that were far beyond my powers.

  Back in the cave I tried to come to terms with what had happened. By my carelessness I had brought destruction on Myli; I had indirectly caused the death of the old man; I had probably consigned seven innocent people to the horror of the occupiers’ prisons. And what had I achieved? Our sabotage had interrupted the power supply for a few hours and destroyed part of the Italians’ stores, which they had no doubt already replenished. They clearly still had plenty of ammunition and any deficit of food they would have taken from the local population.

  But soon I thought again, regrouped, as we were taught to do in basic training. This is still a just struggle, a struggle that must continue. We will have to lie low for some time. That will give us the opportunity to plan more operations. I can’t expect to see Maro much in the near future, but our love can wait. It is strong enough to survive this setback. The war is the priority. I must be as clear about that as were the ancient warriors—Leonidas and the Spartans who died at Thermopylae, the original Sacred Band of Thebans who perished en masse at the hands of the Macedonians of Philip and Alexander in the great defeat at Chaironeia. In fact, I must be cold and deadly like Griffin. Yes, I must become ruthless if the enemy is to be prevented from hurting more innocent people.

  A devastating thought has just struck me. Perhaps my love for Maro is weakening me, corrupting my ability to fight. Perhaps Maro is actually my fatal flaw, my own Achilles’ heel. If I really was the soldier I was trained to be, I would reject her. Send her back to the harsh discipline of her family.

  But am I man enough to do that?

  As Mavros reached the beginning of the flat area and turned to take in the panorama of Trigono’s northern sector, he thought he saw a sudden movement on the heights of Vigla to his left. Raising his hand to his eyes and blinking in the wind, he saw two heads above the line of the hill. One was indistinguishable, but he recognised the white sunhat habitually worn by the crabby American anthropologist Gretchen. Presumably she had dragged the unusually laid-back Lance out here again. He wondered what more she could expect to learn about anger management out on the hills—unless discovering how long her partner could last without laying into her was the subject of her studies. Then he remembered that she was also a specialist on funerary practices. Did she have an interest in the graves Eleni was excavating?

  He was glad to see that the archaeologist’s motorbike was standing by the fence, but less happy to spot the muscle- bound form of Mitsos emerge from his tent.

  ‘What you want?’ the ex-seaman said in heavily accented English, his eyes narrowing as he took in the damage to Mavros’s face.

  Resisting the temptation to give him an earful of abuse in Piraeus argot, Mavros pointed to the plastic roof of the excavation. ‘Eleni?’ he asked.

  ‘Working,’ Mitsos replied. ‘You not be here.’ He pulled a mobile phone from the back pocket of his jeans and pressed a button. ‘Calling boss.’

  Mavros raised his eyes to the sky. ‘Eleni!’ he shouted. ‘It’s Alex. Come and save me from King Kong.’

  There was a pause during which Mitsos told someone— Panos Theocharis? Aris?—that the foreigner was at the dig again. Eleni appeared from the shelter and sauntered across, wiping her hands on her grimy T-shirt. Her face was drenched in sweat and she didn’t give him more than a cursory glance.

  ‘You wait,’ Mitsos said, putting the phone away. ‘Boss coming.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Eleni asked in Greek, listening to the watchman’s sullen explanation. ‘Wanker,’ she cursed. ‘You don’t have to tell them about people I invite.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he replied, keeping his eyes off her.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ Eleni said to Alex, pointing to the lock which Mitsos opened reluctantly. ‘Animal,’ she said under her breath. ‘What are you doing out here?’ she asked, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her arm. ‘Still looking for Rosa?’ She stared at him. ‘My God, what happened to you?’

  ‘I fell over on the way back from the bar last night,’ he replied, following the archaeologist under the roof and into the inferno. He didn’t want to tell her about the attack in case that put her off answering his questions. ‘I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Come into the passage,’ she said. ‘It’s much cooler.’ She looked over her shoulder. ‘You sound very serious.’

  ‘I am serious,’ he said, lowering his head as he went under the heavy lintel. ‘I’m serious about finding Rosa Ozal.’ He glanced to each side as they moved down the passage. The burial chambers were as he remembered them, the skeletons in the positions where they’d been preserved for over four millennia. He breathed in the smell of the dusty space. ‘I’m still trying to find out what she did on Trigono before her sudden departure.’

  Eleni stopped. She turned and looked at him in the artificial light, the generator’s hum penetrating to the subterranean corridor. ‘And?’

  Mavros returned her gaze. ‘And…it seems that another woman left the island in similar circumstances.’ He was watching her carefully. ‘Just a few days ago.’


  The archaeologist’s eyes widened and her lips parted. ‘Another woman?’

  Mavros was curious to see if Eleni would admit that she knew Liz Clifton, as proved by the photo in her album.

  ‘Yes. A very attractive woman with an austere look to her. Blonde, in her thirties.’ He focused on Eleni’s face in the confines of the hewn passageway. She kept quiet and he decided to tell an untruth. ‘You were seen in a clinch with her.’

  ‘What?’ The archaeologist’s expression cracked, the aura of calm assurance gone. ‘Where? Who by?’ The questions came rapidly.

  Mavros decided to increase the pressure by bending the truth. ‘Rena saw you together.’

  Eleni gave a bitter laugh. ‘You shouldn’t believe anything that woman says, Alex.’ She drew closer to him. ‘Do you know what they say in the village?’

  He raised his shoulders. ‘How would I?’

  Eleni’s voice was low. ‘They say she murdered her husband.’ Her eyes locked on his. ‘And that she seduces the boys. Including Yiangos, the one who drowned.’

  Mavros inhaled deeply, the inert metallic air making his nose twitch. The idea of Rena killing anyone seemed ridiculous. Then he remembered her fight with the Dutchman. He forced himself to concentrate on Eleni. ‘Why are you being so evasive?’ He stared into the dark brown eyes that suddenly were no longer raised to his. ‘I saw the photographs of you and Elizabeth Clifton in your album.’

  Suddenly the archaeologist’s mouth was half open, the tongue protruding. She took a deep breath and looked at him, then nodded. It seemed she was finally going to come clean about Liz and Rosa.

  And then a voice boomed down the passage from the covered trench outside.

  ‘Eleni? Are you there?’ It was Aris Theocharis, speaking Greek. ‘Come out.’ There was a pause. ‘Alex? Alex Mavros? I know you’re in there. Come out before I turn the lights off.’ There was a burst of coarse laughter. ‘We’re coming to get you.’