Crying Blue Murder (MIRA) Read online

  Mavros turned into the paved street and stopped in his tracks. There was a crowd of villagers blocking the road farther down, their arms raised and their voices shrill. Most of them seemed to be women. Moving forward, he realised they were outside Rena’s house. He started to run. As he got closer he made out the words fonissa and poutana—murderess, whore.

  ‘Let me pass!’ he shouted in Greek. ‘Let me pass. I have a room in that house.’

  Heads turned and voices began to drop.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Who’s he?’ he heard a woman ask.

  ‘He’s not from here,’ another replied, staring at him.

  ‘Rena?’ he called. ‘It’s Alex. Let me in.’

  There was pause, silence falling over the crowd.

  ‘Rena?’

  ‘Alex?’ came a low voice from inside. ‘I don’t want to open the door. They’re going to hurt me.’

  ‘Murderess!’ screamed an elderly woman in black. ‘She killed her husband and now she’s killed another man! Get her!’

  Arms came up again and Mavros was jammed against the door. His face was drizzled by spittle from the baying crowd, and for a moment he thought he was going to be crushed. Then the noise dropped as a pair of heavy bodies forced their way towards him.

  ‘All right, mate?’ the Englishman Roy asked, his shaven head gleaming in the sun. ‘What’s this, then? A local custom?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Norm, facing up to a pair of red-faced island women. ‘Burn the witch?’

  ‘Not far off,’ Mavros said, getting his breathing back under control. ‘You guys are making a habit of rescuing me.’

  ‘Yeah, we’re gonna start charging you for it,’ Roy said, a grin spreading across his face. ‘Trace!’ he shouted. ‘Jane! Over here! Our mate Alex has got himself in trouble again.’

  Mavros watched as the two women pushed their way through the islanders. The crowd had lost its impetus and people were beginning to drift off. Trace didn’t look too sure, but Jane was holding her arm, a determined expression on her face.

  ‘Rena?’ he said at the door. ‘It’s okay now. The British are here. You can let us in.’ After a while he heard bolts being drawn. He glanced down the street through the dispersing bodies and saw the policeman Stamatis leaning against a wall and flicking a string of worry beads. It was obvious that Rena wouldn’t have got much protection from him. Farther down the road one-armed Manolis was staring at him, his face set hard.

  ‘Quick!’ the widow said when she opened up.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Norm said, taking a boxer’s guard. ‘We’ll look after you.’ He ushered Mavros and the others in. ‘Got any beer?’

  Rena closed the door behind them and bolted it, then smiled weakly. ‘Yes, I have beer. Come and sit down.’ She led them down the dark passage and pointed to the table under the pergola.

  Mavros followed her into the kitchen, catching sight of the donkey Melpo munching hay at the end of the yard. ‘What happened, Rena?’ he asked.

  She was still smiling, but he could tell her from the colour in her face and her breathing that she’d been badly frightened. ‘They think I poisoned my husband, God rest his unclean soul, and now they think I killed the American.’ She lifted cans of beer from the fridge, shaking her head. ‘They are illiterates. They don’t know any better.’

  ‘The policeman didn’t seem to care what they did.’

  Rena gave a bitter laugh. ‘He’s in old Manolis’s pocket. That family hates me because I look after poor Kyra Maro.’

  ‘Where’s the American’s body?’

  ‘I took it to the police station. That idiot Stamatis didn’t want it in there so the doctor had it moved to the back of the medical centre.’

  ‘Is a search being organised for the woman Gretchen?’

  Rena bit her lip. ‘Stamatis asked people, but they said it was too late in the day. I tried to get the men in the kafeneion to help, but they ignored me. They think she will be back soon.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe she will. If she didn’t slip like her man.’

  Mavros looked into her eyes. ‘Is that what you think happened to Lance?’ He was remembering the look on his landlady’s face when she’d been up on the ridge, the way she had stared at him as if he were a criminal—or an unwelcome witness. He only had her word that she was in the fields when the American fell.

  Rena held his gaze and then lifted her chin. ‘I don’t know. But as soon as I’ve served the others, I’m going to look for the woman. Are you coming?’

  Mavros dropped his head and didn’t answer. He waited for her to walk into the yard. He couldn’t risk going back out to the hills. What would Theocharis do about their agreement if he heard that he’d been snooping around in the vicinity of the dig? He thought of Andonis and wondered what his brother would have done in his place.

  He went outside before Rena came back from the table. The British couples were drinking, their voices raised in excited chatter.

  ‘Are you coming with us, then, Alex?’ Norm said, pushing a chair in his direction. ‘Your friend Rena’s been telling us she’s off to look for the American woman. Christ, what a thing to happen to her bloke.’

  ‘You’re going to join the search?’ Mavros asked, declining the beer that he was offered.

  ‘Yeah, we are,’ said Jane, giving her companions an ironic look. ‘Make a change from sitting around getting pissed all the time.’

  ‘Not necessarily a change for the better,’ Roy said.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Jane. ‘We’ve got the hire car. That wreck’ll take us as far as the road end. Then we can go on foot. It’s about time we saw more of the island than the beaches.’

  ‘You will come with us, Alex?’ Rena said, her eyes on him.

  Mavros closed his eyes and tried to make contact with his brother. Andoni, he pleaded, where are you? I can’t decide on my own. What would you do if you were here? Gretchen is probably hurt and frightened. Would you help her? Yes, you would. You’d help her without hesitating.

  Coming back to himself in the shaded yard, Mavros nodded and reached for the can of Amstel. ‘Yes, okay,’ he said in a low voice. He was trying to convince himself that Theocharis wouldn’t see him and that, even if he did, he wouldn’t necessarily take the search for the American woman as a breach of their arrangement—trying but not succeeding. ‘Have you got a torch, Rena?’ he asked. ‘There are some caves we’ll need to check.’

  The widow nodded then turned to the kitchen, her head bowed like the condemned prisoner she’d been until the people round the table had come to her rescue.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ‘WE’LL never all fit in that,’ Mavros said, his eyes on the ancient Renault Farma. It was a model he hadn’t seen for a long time, the yellow bodywork pitted with dents.

  ‘Course we will,’ Roy said. ‘You and Norm can stand up in the luggage compartment and lean on the canopy struts.’ He grinned. ‘Don’t worry, the women will hang on to you from the back seat.’

  Rena squeezed in beside Trace and wrapped an arm around Mavros’s calves. When they were all on board, Roy started the engine and raced up the track past the Astrapi, narrowly missing the walls.

  Mavros was trying to keep his head down. At least the wind was behind them, but it was still blasting as fiercely as before. The sky to the south was grey, the northerly having blown steely clouds over Trigono’s hills. Although it was early in the autumn, he reckoned the first rains weren’t far away. He glanced down at the widow. Her head was below his knees, her black hair in a tight knot under the habitual scarf. He was surprised at the softness of her hand on his legs. Despite the work she’d been doing in the fields, her skin was smooth. He wondered if she bathed it in some herbal concoction made from the dried leaves that festooned her kitchen. The light brown varnish on her nails was incongruous as well.

  The overloaded vehicle crested the hill between the village and the central plain. Mavros felt the wind hit the back of
his head even more violently, then they were over the brow and into a sheltered area. He looked ahead towards the great massif, the medieval tower and the rest of the Theocharis estate dwarfed by the louring hills. The rocks and scree glinted dully in the cloud-filtered light, the ridge hanging like the wall of a huge natural dam.

  He tried to make sense of what had happened on the slopes of Vigla during the day. The American’s death, the disappearance of his wife, partner, whatever Gretchen was—those events seemed to be the surface manifestations of something more complicated and sinister than he’d realised. What had happened in the cave? And where was Eleni? Why had she been so frightened of Aris? He had the feeling that it wasn’t just disquiet at what Theocharis was planning to do with the ancient figurines—she seemed genuinely afraid. Then he remembered the blow he’d taken to the back of his head. Could he really have misjudged the location of the stone surface so badly? And if he had, why hadn’t Eleni returned with help? Despite the flat tyres on her motorbike, which were another mystery, she should have been back by the time he was picked up by Aris and Mitsos.

  They passed the farm buildings where he’d seen the donkey Melpo being mistreated by old Manolis’s brother. He looked down at Rena’s head again and ran through suspicions he couldn’t ignore any longer. She’d been on the massif, she could have been near the American when he fell, and she’d given him a frightening look when he saw her on the ridge. Why? What if she really had done away with her husband, as the villagers thought? Could she have had something to do with Lance’s death? But if that was the case, for whatever twisted reason, why would she be leading them back out there now? Then he remembered her fight with the Dutchman. Rinus had been up on the track too. Could he be involved? And why was there what looked like a genuine Cycladic figurine in a suitcase beneath her bed? He shook his head and cursed under his breath. Everyone on Trigono seemed to have something to hide. He wasn’t much closer to finding out anything significant about Rosa Ozal, but he was sure she was connected to all this in some way.

  Roy was driving at speed through the central part of the Kambos, the ruined windmills and the bullet-pocked church on their left. On their right the gate to the Theocharis estate was closed, a watchman patrolling behind it. Mavros felt an urge to burst in, find Eleni and ask her where she’d got to. Then it struck him that she might be in danger. No, he couldn’t believe that. Aris was loudmouthed and hot tempered, but he didn’t think the big man would harm the archaeologist. After all, she worked for his father.

  ‘Shit!’ Roy shouted, leaning forward. ‘Who’s that idiot?’ He jammed his foot on the brake and swerved to the side of the asphalt.

  A motorbike was moving quickly towards them in a cloud of dust, the rider apparently only seeing them at the last moment and skidding to a halt.

  ‘Sorry,’ came a male voice. The helmet visor was lifted. ‘Where are all you people heading?’

  ‘Could ask you the same question, Rinus,’ Norm answered. ‘What scared you? You were going like a rocket.’

  The Dutchman pulled off his helmet and ran his eyes over the occupants of the car, passing over Rena quickly and acknowledging Mavros with what looked like relief. ‘You’re not going to believe this. I…I found two bodies.’ He licked his lips and pointed up to the ridge. ‘In an old herdsman’s hut beyond the wall. I’m going to get help.’

  Mavros jumped down and approached him. ‘Who are they?’ he asked, taking in Rinus’s shallow breathing and nervous eyes. ‘What happened to them?’

  Rinus wiped his forearm across his forehead. ‘It was terrible,’ he said, the words rushed. ‘A man and a woman, naked, blood all over their faces, their arms and legs tied.’

  ‘What?’ Rena gasped, the hostile glare she’d been directing at the Dutchman replaced by a frown. ‘What do you mean? Are they alive?’

  Mavros held up a hand. ‘Did you recognise them, Rinus?’ he asked. ‘Who were they?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, his voice rising, ‘yes, I recognised them.’ His eyes were wide as he looked at Mavros. ‘The woman was that crabby American who comes into the bar, Gretchen’s her name. And the man…the man was Mikkel, as in Mikkel and Barbara. Oh Jesus, I don’t know what could have happened to…’

  ‘Are they alive?’ Rena repeated, jumping down and gripping the Dutchman’s arm.

  Rinus took a step back as if he’d been slapped in the face. ‘I don’t think so. They’re…they’re in an awful state.’

  Rena was staring at him. ‘You fool,’ she said. ‘There are birds and dogs up there, they could—’ She stopped when she saw the look Mavros was directing at her.

  ‘You have to show us,’ Mavros said. ‘Now.’

  Rinus shivered and then nodded. ‘Yes, I have to show you,’ he mumbled. ‘But what about the doctor? The police?’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Roy said. ‘I’ll take you lot to the end of the road then head back to the village.’

  ‘You what?’ Trace screamed. ‘You can’t leave us out here.’

  ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he said. ‘This should get the villagers out in force.’

  Jane nudged her. ‘Come on, Trace, it’s an emergency. We have to do our bit. You were happy enough coming out to look for the woman.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Trace muttered. ‘But we didn’t know she was dead then, did we?’

  ‘Turn your machine round,’ Rena said to the Dutchman. ‘You’re coming with us.’

  Mavros watched as Rinus pulled his helmet back on and started the BMW’s engine. Then he revved hard and raised another cloud of dust as he burned off up the track. As he climbed back on to the Farma, Mavros wondered if he was even more anxious than he should have been. He clutched at the strut as Roy moved off with a jolt. But if Rinus had killed Gretchen and Mikkel, why was he volunteering information about them?

  He had time to think about this as they walked up the steep track that led past the dig to the ridge. He caught sight of his mountain bike behind the bush where he’d left it in the morning. He’d forgotten about that. It seemed like days ago; so much had happened since then. What did it all mean? Who had attacked the man and the woman? It was now looking possible that Lance’s death wasn’t an accident. There was someone violent and calculating out on the hills. He felt a tightness in his chest that was due not only to the hard climb. Then he remembered his brother Andonis, remembered the risk he was taking by being in the vicinity of the Theocharis estate. Jesus Christ, what was he doing?

  They finally reached the ridge, Rena, Rinus and Mavros a long way ahead of Norm and the Englishwomen. Jane was holding Trace’s arm and looking ahead with undisguised curiosity.

  ‘They’re over that way,’ the Dutchman said, one arm raised beyond the wall towards a heap of ruins on the southern side.

  ‘Keep going,’ Rena said, her voice firm.

  Mavros watched as Rinus moved off, his eyes restless, avoiding hers. The widow seemed to have a hold over the barman. As they approached the remains of the old hut, he wondered what it might be. Then he felt his heart begin to beat faster, his feet moving more rapidly across the bare, stony earth. The wind was still on the back of his head, blowing dust into the broken skin of his wounds.

  And then Rinus was over the collapsed walls, his eyes bulging and his jaw slack.

  ‘No,’ he gasped. ‘This can’t be. It isn’t possible.’

  Mavros and Rena stepped over the unsteady pile and looked down into the hollowed space of what had once been the building’s only room.

  There was nothing to be seen but lichen-covered stones and the dry stalks of the previous spring’s thistles.

  Aris Theocharis closed the door of his father’s underground gallery and walked up to the terrace. The wind was buffeting the tower, throwing leaves and dust into his eyes, but he didn’t care. He went over to the wall beyond the pool and sat on it, facing the old stone building and trying to calm the raging in his head. The old bastard. What was he doing making his own son look like a fool in front of that asshole dealer Rouf
os? What was he doing throwing him out after the bitch Eleni had made the presentation about the Cycladic statuettes? Like he didn’t know how to negotiate, like he didn’t know how to behave himself during a deal. The old fucker. He leaned back into the wind, feeling the open space beneath him. As for that cow Dhimitra, she’d pay for the come-andfuck-me grin she flashed him when the old man told him to leave them. She was nothing more than a street whore painted gold and stuffed with silicone, a street whore with a dope habit that she thought she could control. Yes, she’d pay for that, she’d pay for it in his bed later. Dhimitra liked to be tied up, liked to be splayed and mounted from behind. She’d get a surprise tonight.

  Aris put his hand on his groin and kneaded it, his jaw loose. A Filipina maid came on to the terrace with a brush and he shot her a look, grunting as she hurried away with her head down. They were all bitches and he knew how to exact payment from them—yes, he knew. He’d learned how to handle women in the fuck-joints and the S and M clubs back in New York City. They needed a firm hand and a hard heart. He had those, he’d always been in charge, he hadn’t just inherited money from the old bastard. But they bored him, the hookers and the pathetic amateurs who wanted to see how low they could sink. Since the beginning of the summer he’d felt the need for young flesh, new blood. Trigono was virgin territory.