The Golden Silence Page 5

Mavros pointed to the photos he’d spread out on the coffee table. ‘Is he there?’

  Dmitri touched one of the prints. It showed a handsome young man with long hair and a carefully trimmed goatee beard. He was sitting on a motorbike.

  ‘Where did Katia meet this Sifis?’

  Dmitri got up and went to the window. ‘Down there, at the bar. She never go in, I tell her not to, but this bastard, he see her passing when she come back from evening classes.’

  ‘Have you seen him since Katia disappeared?’

  ‘He not come round here any more.’

  Mavros heard the certainty in his voice. ‘What did you do?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t run to the police.’

  ‘Nothing bad. I just tell him what will happen if he see Katia again. He believe me.’ The Russian-Greek smiled briefly. ‘His motorbike need to go to the repair shop.’

  ‘Have you been down to the bar asking for him?’

  ‘Yes. They not tell me anything. But, Alex, listen to me. Katia cannot be with this fool. She swear to me she want university, not boyfriend from bar. She swear to me.’

  ‘All right. You don’t know where Sifis lives?’

  ‘No. Is lazy bastard who does not work. Katia know that. She will not be with him.’

  Mavros went over to the window and looked down at Bonzo’s. The young men he had spoken to were still hanging around on the corner. ‘Did you tell the police about Sifis when you reported Katia’s disappearance?’

  The Russian-Greek grunted. ‘Greek police? Worse than Soviet pigs. They treat us like criminals. Don’t give shit about Katia. They do nothing to find her.’

  Mavros knew he was right. Thousands of people went missing every year in the city and the police had other priorities, especially if the subject was over eighteen like Katia. It was also the case that repatriated Greeks were often viewed as second-class citizens.

  ‘Here,’ Dmitri said, ‘have a vodka.’ His wife had brought in a bottle.

  Mavros accepted a glass and knocked it against his host’s. ‘Good health.’

  ‘And to my daughter.’ The sturdy man’s voice broke.

  Mavros gave him time to calm himself. ‘What did Katia have with her on the day she didn’t come home?’

  ‘I write this down also.’ Dmitri turned over the piece of paper. ‘Normal clothes. Jeans, pink blouse, yellow anorak. And satchel. She go straight to evening class after school, Friday March twenty-second.’

  Mavros pointed to a city centre address. ‘At this place?’

  ‘Yes. They say she was at lesson normally. And other students see her leave.’

  Mavros would be checking that. ‘Does she have a mobile phone?’

  ‘Yes, I gave her last Christmas and she always take with her. I try every day, but is always switched off.’

  ‘Tell me about Katia. I haven’t got much of an impression of her so far.’ He glanced at the list. ‘She doesn’t seem to have many friends.’

  ‘No close friends, I think. Is difficult for her, coming from former Soviet Union.’ Dmitri shrugged. ‘And maybe I push her too hard to study. But she wants it herself, she wants to be a doctor.’

  ‘What about interests outside school? What does she do in her free time?’

  The Russian-Greek gave a melancholy laugh and filled their glasses again. ‘What free time? She study, she sleep. Finish.’

  Mavros thought back to the bedroom. ‘She listens to music and she has posters of pop stars on her walls.’

  ‘All kids have this, yes?’ He raised his glass. ‘Good health.’

  Mavros sat back, the vodka tingling in his throat. The missing Katia was proving to be a hard one to fathom. And now he had to ask her wounded and overprotective father if she’d ever had anything to do with drugs. Sometimes he wished he was in another line of work.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SILENCE. ALL AROUND was silence.

  Then Stratos Chiotis heard the faint rattle of his own breathing.

  Where were they? Not the cretinous nurse who thought the fact that he couldn’t speak meant his mind had turned to mush. She was in her chair. Not the guards with the bulges in their jackets and the earpieces. He caught glimpses of them when he was wheeled out on to the terrace on good days. What good were they to him now? It would have been better if the opposition had got to him. No, where were the ones he had worked with, the ones he had spent his life with? All gone before him into the darkness and still he lingered on the surface of the earth. Bent and twisted like an earthquake victim, his chin pressing into his chest and his back curved like a bow. If he’d been a Christian like his long-departed mother, he’d have believed he was being punished for his numerous sins. But he hadn’t been to a church in years, he wasn’t enough of a hypocrite to profess belief. He wondered if some malevolent god was laughing at him. All his life he’d carried a weapon and now, when he needed to end his life, he couldn’t ask for one. He couldn’t even raise a finger.

  At least the television and radio were switched off. Rea—cold, decisive Rea—told the nurse that he couldn’t follow them. She was wrong, but he’d lost interest anyway. There was nothing but politicians shouting at each other, tuneless music, and fatuous advertising. The world was inhabited by idiots, he knew that better than anyone. Now that he was alone, locked inside the body that had betrayed him, he combed through his life continuously. His parents came across from Turkey with the exchange of populations in 1922, only to work themselves to death in the slums of Piraeus. He started to organise his brothers and cousins when he was ten. They stole anything they could get their hands on, standing up to the bigger boys and the policemen with their batons. Then the country was occupied by foreigners. There were countless opportunities for black-market dealing, for collaborating with the Germans and Italians, for selling out the idealistic fools in the resistance. By the fifties he’d established the Chiotis family as a force in the criminal underworld. They ran nightclubs and brothels, smuggled drugs and other contraband through the port, and took shopkeepers for all they were worth. He took personal charge of the most important angle—paying off the policemen and politicians who were greedier than any thief.

  Then the game got harder. His brothers were shot down one by one in the sixties as rival gangs toughened themselves up. It looked like the Chiotis family’s operations were doomed. But the Colonel’s coup in ’67 changed everything. He already knew the men who counted, he’d been working with them for years. Suddenly it was possible to run officially sanctioned businesses as well as the established lines of gambling, drugs, prostitution and protection. That was what saved the family. He made sure they were so well-connected, his nephews and nieces so completely clean, that no policeman or official could move against them after the dictatorship fell.

  Rea had been the final surprise. He’d recognised her ambition the first time he saw her, he’d been told what she was capable of. She’d been loyal to him throughout their marriage, helping him as he became less capable. Still he hadn’t imagined that she could take over the business, never thought she could be so ruthless. It was as well that she was. The local competition was eating into the family’s share of the market, and the new boys—Fyodor’s Russians, the Serbs—were making things worse.

  But, for all her virtues, Stratos felt sorry for his wife. She was even harder than he’d been in his heyday, but she’d yet to appreciate the lesson that he’d needed all his life and the horror of a failing body to learn. You could live for yourself, you could sacrifice everything and everyone to your own ends, but you’d finish up empty inside, a husk of a human being. For him, it was too late to change anything. He’d killed too many people, destroyed too many innocent lives, but maybe Rea still had a chance. Could she look beneath the mask and save herself? Could she break the silence and speak to the ones she’d betrayed? If not, her life would be as worthless as a cockroach’s.

  Like his.

  Mavros went down the stairs to the darkened entrance hall in Dmitri’s block. As he s
uspected, his question about Katia and drugs had been greeted with indignation and a voluble denial from her father. Mavros believed Dmitri knew nothing, but his experience told him that parents rarely had a clue about their children’s experiments with illicit substances. As far as he could tell, Katia was a pretty straight kid. Except that she had an ex-boyfriend with long hair and a motorbike, who was several years older than she was. It was time to check out the bar that Sifis had frequented before the Russian-Greek saw him off.

  Mavros crossed the street. The young guys he’d spoken to were no longer on the corner, but their bikes were there. He went up the steps to the entrance of Bonzo’s. The two-storey building would originally have been a wealthy Athenian’s house, the dilapidated neoclassical portico and carvings suggesting that it was at least a hundred years old. It was dwarfed by the modern apartment blocks that had grown up around it. There would have been plenty of money on offer from developers to clear the site and produce another modern monstrosity. Obviously the owner was making more from booze and whatever else was trafficked in the bar.

  Inside the street door there was a bouncer wearing a tight black T-shirt that emphasised his inflated biceps.

  ‘Hair OK, age not so good,’ he said with a loose grin. ‘You sure you’re into this scene?’

  ‘You sure you’re into it?’ Mavros asked, raising an eye at the muscleman’s shaved head. He decided to try his luck. ‘I’m a friend of Sifis.’

  ‘Oh, Sifis.’ The bouncer laughed. ‘You’re the wrong sex for him.’ His brow furrowed. ‘Haven’t seen him around for a while. Probably found himself another squeeze.’

  So Sifis was a lady’s man, Mavros thought. Maybe his client had been right to be hostile. ‘I’ll see if anyone else I know is in,’ he said, pushing open the inner door. He was immediately buffeted by a wave of guitars. Having a conversation here wasn’t going to be easy. He saw the young men from the street at the bar, bottles of beer in their hands and heads nodding to the beat. Homing in on the one who had made the crack about his hair, he tapped him on the shoulder.

  The guy turned quickly, a flash of alarm on his chiselled features. When he recognised Mavros, he relaxed and nudged the nearest of his friends. ‘It’s the Grandfather,’ he shouted above the din.

  Mavros leaned close and put his mouth to the young man’s ear. ‘I want to talk to you. Outside. It’ll be worth your while.’ Dmitri had told him that he’d cover reasonable expenses.

  There was suspicion in the young man’s eyes. Then he shrugged and started towards the door, beckoning to one of his friends. Mavros went after them, narrowly avoiding the elbows of a spaced out girl who was jerking about to the music.

  The two guys were waiting for him on the pavement, their hands on their hips and their faces set hard.

  ‘Relax,’ Mavros said with a smile. ‘This won’t take long. But I’m only talking to one of you.’ He knew they’d close ranks if they outnumbered him.

  ‘All right,’ said the guy he wanted to speak to. ‘But my mate’s staying in view.’

  Mavros nodded and led him down to the corner. ‘What’s the problem? I’m not a cop.’

  ‘Never thought you were. Those fuckers don’t come into Bonzo’s.’

  No doubt they were paid to keep clear, Mavros thought. ‘What’s your name, my friend?’

  The young man hesitated. ‘Zak. What’s yours?’

  ‘Alex. Listen, Zak, I’m not interested in what goes on in the bar and I don’t give a shit what you and your friends get up to. I’m going to ask you one question and I’ll give you a twenty for the answer, okay?’

  ‘A twenty?’ Zak said with a sardonic laugh. ‘Such generosity.’

  ‘I might be prepared to up that, depending on how we go.’

  ‘All right, try me.’

  ‘How can I get in touch with Sifis?’

  Zak’s eyes widened. ‘Sifis? Who the hell’s Sifis?’ he asked innocently.

  ‘Come on, you and your pals are regulars here, aren’t you? The slob on the door knows Sifis, so I’m betting you do too.’ Mavros took out his wallet.

  ‘Put that away, man,’ Zak said, glancing around. ‘People will think I’m dealing.’

  ‘Just tell me where to find Sifis and I’ll let you get back to the music.’ He gave an encouraging smile. Underneath the patina of bravado, Zak was a standard nervy kid.

  ‘Why do you want to find him?’

  Mavros decided to come clean. ‘Do you know a girl called Katia?’

  Zak’s expression softened. ‘Katia? The Russian one? She’s a real looker. I don’t exactly know her, but I saw Sifis with her a couple of times.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Yes, but then they started going to his place. Her old man was giving them grief.’

  Mavros stepped closer. ‘And where is his place?’

  Zak’s head moved back. ‘Who are you, man?’

  ‘I told you, the name’s Alex.’

  ‘But what do you do?’

  ‘I look for missing people,’ Mavros said, looking into young man’s eyes. ‘Did you know that Katia’s been missing for a month? Did you know that her parents are climbing the walls?’

  Zak glanced towards his friend. ‘No, I didn’t know that. I haven’t seen Sifis for weeks.’

  ‘How many weeks?’

  ‘I don’t know. A month, maybe two.’ Zak looked down. ‘He lives at Schina Street, number four. His surname’s Skourtis.’

  ‘Anything else you want to tell me about him?’

  The young man jerked his head back in a negative gesture.

  ‘All right, here’s your money.’

  ‘No, man, keep it. Use it to find the girl. She was a sweet one.’

  Mavros nodded. ‘And, Zak? I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell him I’m coming.’

  The young man raised a hand and turned away.

  Mavros watched him and his friend go up the steps to the bar. Buttoning his jacket, he noticed a movement at a window in the block across the street. The bearded Dmitri was staring down at him.

  Mavros returned his gaze and then moved away. He’d made it clear to his client that he wasn’t to interfere. As yet there was nothing he could tell the worried father. Nothing that would ease the pain that was consuming him and his forlorn wife.

  Rea Chioti went into the master bedroom, dismissing the nurse who got up as soon as her employer came in. Stratos was in the hospital bed that had been brought in when he started to slide out of the king-size one that they hadn’t shared for five years. There he was, curled in on himself like a foetus in the womb, confined by the rails at the side. He’d never served time in jail, but he was in solitary confinement now.

  ‘I’m going out, Strato,’ she said, noticing that his eyes were half-open. The doctors had told her that it was important to maintain normal communication with the patient. She was sure that his mind had been destroyed by his condition—he never reacted to words directed at him—but she felt she had to perform this last conjugal duty, if only for a few minutes each day. ‘I have a meeting at the Silver Lady.’ She stepped closer and leaned over him, wondering if he could see her or smell the scent of her perfume, perhaps hear the rustle of the silk she was wearing. ‘Go into the darkness, old man,’ she said, touching the shrivelled skin on his wrist.

  Rea turned away, thinking that there had never been anything akin to love between them, only mutual usefulness. Stratos wanted a young bride to show his associates and the competition that he was still vigorous, while she needed the fresh start he’d given her. The best thing about her husband was that he didn’t ask questions. He probably already knew the answers, but at least he didn’t hark back to the disaster that was her old life.

  Before Rea left the villa, she went into the study and checked the various phones. No messages had been left on the land lines and nothing had come through on her mobiles. That meant the Father and Son were on their way. She allowed no one else to communicate with them, for security and for reasons of her own. Only Strat
os knew about those and he wouldn’t be telling anyone now.

  After she’d walked across to the portrait above the fireplace, her heels ringing on the tiled floor, she stood still for a time. Even though the golden mask was behind the steel door, even though it was concealed as it had been by the weight of the earth across the centuries, she could still feel its power—as if it was calling to her, as if the woman whose face it recorded was reaching out from the other side. But there were others, more recently dead, who were trying to find her as well.

  Rea blinked and stepped away. Picking up the small bag that held her cigarettes and phone, she went into the hall. The guard on the door nodded to her and spoke into the microphone on his lapel. After a brief pause he opened the heavy door and escorted her to the Mercedes. The men by the gate had snub-nosed machine-pistols in their hands. The driver raised his hand to his cap and waited for her to slide into the leather seat beside him. After her husband was confined to his bed, she’d taken to travelling in the front. It made her feel more in control.

  ‘Where to, Mrs Chioti?’ the man asked, keeping his eyes off hers.

  ‘The Silver Lady.’ The rule was that destinations were never given out in advance. Stratos was once driven into an ambush by a chauffeur who’d been got at by the opposition. He escaped uninjured; the traitor ended up in the foundations of a new apartment block.

  There were few lights on the single-track road down the hillside, but that changed as soon as they approached the main coastal highway. Rea sat back and took in the cars flashing by—people heading for the fish restaurants and clubs, young couples trying to find a deserted spot to make out, an endless procession of vans and trucks. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the lights of the second Mercedes close behind. Her husband had never moved anywhere without back-up and she saw no reason to change the system. But she wished that, just once, she could drive herself, unaccompanied by guards and minders.

  The club was about ten kilometres south of Athens, near the yacht marina where Stratos kept the larger of his cabin cruisers. She saw the huge, spotlit form of the silver woman some time before they reached the car park. It was almost full, the security man initially failing to recognise her car and directing them to a customer parking place.