The Golden Silence Read online

  The radio was on, low enough not to disturb the Father. As he drove past Thermopylae, the Son heard a breathless reporter talking about what he called ‘a machine-gun battle’ outside a nightclub on the coast road. Elements of the criminal underworld were said to be involved.

  It looked like the stakes were being raised every night. That made the Son lick his lips.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IT WAS LATE when Mavros got back to his flat. He opened the door as quietly as he could because Niki had said she might spend the night. Checking the bedroom, he saw that the bed was undisturbed. He went into the main room and fumbled for the light switch above the TV, then pressed the button on the remote control. Simultaneously, he heard the voices of Niki and of his reporter friend Bitsos. He jerked his head round.

  ‘What time is it?’ Niki said sleepily, sitting up on the settee. Her hair was in a state of chaos and her eyes were gummed up.

  Mavros glanced at his watch. ‘Just after two.’ He took in the scene on the screen. Policemen were conrdoning off a car park outside a nightclub. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I saw it earlier,’ Niki said with a yawn. ‘Some lunatics firing off their popguns at one of the clubs.’ She patted the surface beside her. ‘Sit down, Alex. Don’t I get a kiss?’

  Mavros complied, his nostrils filling with Niki’s sweet scent. On the TV, Bitsos, his cadaverous face and bald head not looking their best in the glare of the lights, was midway through an account of what had happened.

  ‘…here at the Silver Lady. The two dead men are believed to have been security personnel. Fortunately no one else was hit in the crossfire, but there was considerable damage to customers’ cars.’

  ‘Morons,’ Niki said, leaning against Mavros. ‘Can’t they find a way of ripping off the public without killing each other?’

  ‘Sh,’ he said, leaning forward.

  ‘According to eyewitnesses,’ Bitsos was saying, ‘the shooting started shortly after ten-thirty when this Mercedes—’ the reporter pointed at the luxury car behind him, its windscreen cobwebbed with cracks ‘—in which well-known businesswoman Mrs Rea Chioti and her driver were travelling, pulled up outside the club. It is owned by one of her family’s companies.’

  Niki stood up, holding her unzipped skirt with one hand. ‘How come those Chiotis people aren’t behind bars? Everyone knows they’re behind half the crime in the city.’

  ‘Because they have very good lawyers.’

  ‘And because they know the right politicians.’ Niki walked past him. ‘I’m going to bed. Maybe you’ll join me when there’s something less fascinating on the TV.’

  ‘I won’t be long,’ Mavros said, ignoring her irony.

  Lambis Bitsos was now interviewing a policeman, who was displaying the standard mixture of mock horror at the iniquity of contemporary society and blithe confidence that the wrongdoers would soon be apprehended.

  ‘And what will the new head of the organised crime division be doing about this latest outburst of violence on the streets of the nation’s capital?’ Bitsos asked.

  ‘Well done, my friend,’ Mavros said. ‘Nail them to the spot.’

  ‘Commander Kriaras will be making a statement tomorrow morning,’ the officer responded robotically.

  Mavros shook his head. ‘Commander Kriaras hasn’t got a clue.’

  He watched as Bitsos signed off with a typically downbeat assessment: ‘Unless the authorities can control this latest outburst of violence, the prospects for a safe and successful Olympic Games are faint.’ Even though there were more than two years to the games, journalists couldn’t resist tying them to any story.

  ‘Goodnight, Lambi,’ Mavros said, hitting the off button. ‘And sweet dreams.’ The reporter was by a long way the most pessimistic person he knew. Being called to murder scenes in the middle of the night had that effect.

  As he took his clothes off in the bedroom, Niki rolled over. ‘Where have you been tonight? Was Dmitri plying you with vodka?’

  ‘I had a couple,’ he said, sitting down with his back to her.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Niki moved closer and put a hand on his thigh.

  ‘Nothing. I’m just tired.’

  The sheets rustled as she sat up. ‘What have you discovered?’ she asked, suddenly awake.

  ‘Nothing,’ he mumbled. He didn’t want to alarm her.

  ‘You’re not fooling anyone, Alex. Turn round.’ Her hand was tighter now, the fingers pressing into his flesh. ‘Have you got something on Katia?’

  He removed Niki’s hand and slid under the covers. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you. Dmitri’s the client and I haven’t advised him yet.’

  ‘Don’t give me that procedural bullshit. Tell me what you’ve found.’

  ‘All right. It doesn’t look too good. I managed to track down Katia’s boyfriend. He’s a dope dealer, would you believe?’

  ‘Christ and the Holy Mother! Dmitri will go crazy.’

  ‘It’s not a conversation I’m looking forward to. The guy seems to have hit his own goods big time since Katia disappeared.’

  ‘You mean he hasn’t seen her?’

  ‘So he says. I believe him. He seems genuinely cut up about her. He thought that her father had taken steps to separate Katia from him.’ He frowned.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Dmitri hurt him before Katia disappeared. Now I see what you meant about him being impulsive.’

  ‘He has a temper. When the family was in the camp, he got into more than one fight.’

  Mavros turned to her. ‘And it didn’t occur to you to mention that to me? Thanks a lot, Niki.’

  She pursed her lips as she did when she went into battle, then seemed to think better of it. ‘Sorry. I didn’t want you to turn down the case.’ She came closer and hooked a bare leg over his. ‘So, what do you think?’

  ‘A beautiful young woman like that? She’s a prize catch for all sorts of miscreants. She never talked about leaving home or wanting to travel?’

  ‘No, she seemed content with her parents in their new country. Christ, Alex, what are you going to do?’

  ‘The usual thing. Talk to all her friends and contacts—neighbours, school, night classes.’

  ‘You don’t sound very optimistic.’

  He shrugged. ‘There were photos of her in the boyfriend’s flat. She looked happy with him. If he doesn’t know where she is, it’s not too likely that anyone else will.’

  ‘What can you do?’

  ‘What I always do. Use my intuition.’

  Niki studied him for a while, then lay down and turned over.

  Mavros turned out the light and let the darkness smother him. Sleep wasn’t quick to come. He was haunted by the image of the lovely young Russian-Greek and the distraught faces of her parents. Not for the first time, he was in danger of letting a case get too much of a grip on his emotions. He didn’t know any other way to do his job. Then, as he felt himself sinking at last, it struck him that his long-lost brother had been absent from his thoughts all evening.

  He wasn’t sure how pleased he should be about that.

  Damis was wide-awake, the snores of the other bouncers reverberating through the thin walls of the flat. It was provided by their employers, in a shitty apartment block a couple of streets back from the coast road. The Silver Lady was nearby, but that was all it had going for it. The furniture was old, the heating operated either on sauna level or not at all, and the traffic noise was constant. Living with Yannis the Driver and Peasant Panos would have been bad enough without the slimeball Lakis keeping back part of their pay as rent.

  Damis could have closed the window, but he needed the breeze. Growing up beneath the mountain on the island of Evia had given him a feeling for nature. Even after years in the city, he still thought of the fields on the lower slopes, the barley rippling in the breeze and the stony heights where eagles circled. But he never went back. His parents were old and confused, looked after by his sister. She didn’t talk to him because of the w
ork he’d chosen, though she accepted the money he sent every month. He found himself wishing he was back in the island’s open spaces, but he clenched his fists and concentrated on the real world. The one populated by animals like his colleagues.

  ‘Fuckin’ hell, Dami,’ Yannis had said after Mrs Chioti had swept from the office at the back of the club. ‘You could have got us all killed.’

  Panos didn’t look too aggrieved but he followed Yannis’s lead. ‘Yeah, why did you make me stand next to her? I wanted to fire back at the bastards.’

  ‘Boys, boys,’ Damis said, his arms outstretched. ‘I just made your careers. She’s got her eye on us now. Didn’t she say she’d be in touch?’

  Yannis gave an ironic laugh. ‘And you believed her? You arsehole. Grow up.’

  ‘Yes, you’d be well advised to do that,’ said Lakis the Boss, coming in the rear door. His face was white and his tone even sharper than usual. He didn’t like being upstaged by his bouncers. ‘Mrs Chioti has more on her mind than you idiots.’

  Damis had raised his shoulders and smiled at him, unperturbed.

  But now, in the narrow room in the apartment, he wondered. Lakis was probably right. How likely was it that La Chioti, as they called her in the popular press, would concern herself with an impulsive hired hand, even if he had protected her from a sniper? Was he condemned to years of frisking scumbags with more money than brains before he got another break? He didn’t know if he could stand it. And even if he was lucky, where would that leave him? He’d heard of a guy at one of the family’s other clubs who’d been singled out for a special job. He was found in a back street with his neck broken and no one thought it was an accident.

  Sure that sleep wouldn’t come, Damis started doing his exercises—multiple sets of stomach crunches and press-ups. He only stopped when the burning in his limbs was unbearable, even though his breathing was still under control. He’d wait as long as he had to. This was what he’d been working towards for years, this had been his motivation ever since Martha’s agony had started. He bowed his head as he thought of his first girlfriend—her large brown eyes with the fine lashes, her smile, the way she would run her fingers through the hairs on his arms. They used to go up the hillsides back home, Martha’s arms wrapped round his torso as he forced his underpowered motorbike up the dirt roads. They used to lie in the new grass at springtime, the poppies nodding in the wind off the sea far below. But she’d gone from him a long time ago, her features ravaged and the flesh shrunken from her limbs. She lived but she was dead to every world except her own, and that one made her writhe and babble, her eyes bulging as if she was being strangled. Martha had gone to hell.

  Damis let his muscles slacken. He would win the fight, he told himself. He would win for Martha. He lay down on his bed and waited for dawn.

  Mavros was back at his client’s apartment block by ten in the morning. Some of the neighbouring flats were empty, but others contained people to question. A middle-aged man with heavily powdered cheeks and enough mascara to crack an egg was unsympathetic to Katia’s disappearance—‘Silly girl, she was too pretty for her own good’—but Mavros put that down to jealousy rather than any involvement. The other residents, mainly mothers with pre-school children and old people, were concerned for the young woman and her parents, particularly the stricken mother. But none had any knowledge of her activities, or of any friends she might have had.

  Sitting on the stairs, Mavros ran his eye down the list of names he’d copied from the entry buttons outside the street door. There were two flats closed for the duration. According to the neighbours, one was occupied by a couple who spent the tourist season working in a hotel on Crete and the other was a sailor’s—he hadn’t been seen for over a year. Neither of the doors showed any sign of being forced, so he discounted those names. That left only Mrs P. Arpazoglou. Given that he hadn’t yet come across anyone who’d struck him as the building’s gossip-merchant, he hoped he was about to strike lucky.

  He rang the bell and stood back from the door.

  After a few moments, a strident voice rang out. ‘Who is it?’ Scuffles behind the polished wooden surface suggested that the occupant was observing him through the spy-hole.

  ‘I’m a friend of the Tratsou family,’ he said in a reassuring voice. ‘The name’s Mavros.’

  ‘Is it about Katia?’ said the overweight old woman in housecoat and slippers who opened the door. She could scarcely contain her excitement, eyes glinting above puffy cheeks. ‘Oh, the poor mother. The young of today have no—’

  ‘Could I ask you some questions?’ Mavros interrupted, sure that he’d found the block’s busybody. The old woman’s flat faced to the front, her first-floor windows and balcony giving a good view of the street and the bar on the corner.

  ‘Of course, my boy,’ she said, smiling coquettishly as she peered at his business card. ‘You’re a private investigator? Oh, dear, that means it’s serious.’ With people, especially women, of the older generation, the card was often more use than a bribe. It made them feel that being nosy was a virtue. ‘Well, I can tell you some things about that girl. Let me make us some coffee.’ She bustled towards the kitchen.

  ‘No, thank you,’ Mavros called. ‘I’m afraid my time is limited.’

  The old woman turned. ‘Of course.’ She came back and waved him to a sofa that was covered in clear plastic. The flat was spotless. There were flowers on the table and family photographs on most of the surfaces. ‘My husband,’ she said, catching the direction of his gaze. ‘He’s deceased.’

  ‘My condolences,’ Mavros said, taking in the man’s careworn face. ‘You knew Katia, then?’ he said, taking out his notebook.

  ‘Indeed I did,’ Mrs Arpazoglou said, collapsing into a large armchair opposite him. ‘She was a very studious girl.’ She gave a tight smile. ‘On the surface.’ She leaned towards him. ‘She had a long-haired boyfriend—’ she broke off, giving Mavros’s hair a disapproving glance ‘—who had a motorbike. I saw her talking to him outside that accursed bar.’

  Mavros took out the photo of Katia and Sifis that he’d taken from her room. ‘Is that him?’

  She nodded avidly. ‘Yes. Isn’t she with him now?’

  Mavros ignored the question. ‘Did you see her with anyone else at any time?’

  The old woman shook her head. ‘Only him. And her father.’ A sly smile spread across her thick lips. ‘I saw her father grab hold of his arm and give the young ruffian a stern talking-to.’

  ‘And then he stopped coming to the bar?’

  ‘Yes. But Katia was still seeing him, I’m sure of that. She used to come back from her night classes with a certain look on her face.’ The old woman’s tone was prurient. ‘I know what she was doing.’

  Mavros tried to conceal his distaste. ‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’

  Mrs Arpazoglou played hard to get for a time, twisting the rings on her swollen fingers. The temptation to share the knowledge was finally too much for her.

  ‘Katia wanted to go on the stage,’ said the old woman, her tone disapproving. ‘Or on the television, like those shameless girls showing off their bodies every time you switch on.’

  Mavros looked at her sceptically. Apart from the posters on her bedroom walls, nothing that he’d heard about Katia suggested she was stage-struck. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Well,’ the old woman said, leaning forward conspiratorially, ‘I was coming in from the local street-market one morning and Katia happened to be on her way out. She held the door open for me—I was pulling my trolley, it was full of fruit and vegetables—and a piece of paper she was holding dropped to the floor. I’d stopped to catch my breath and I happened to see it. I remember it very clearly. It said, “Girls! Interested in acting? Interested in appearing on TV?”’ She leaned back, nodding at him. ‘There, she’s run off to some terrible stage school.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you have the piece of paper?’

  ‘No, Katia realised she’d dropped it and ca
me back for it. She almost snatched it from my hand.’

  ‘But Katia was devoted to her studies. She wanted to be a doctor.’

  ‘Ha! Girls these days only want to flaunt themselves.’ She gave him a superior look. ‘Besides, she told me she needed it. These were her very words: “Please give me that back. I need it.” She was very impatient with me.’

  Mavros wasn’t convinced, but he made a note. ‘Your memory is very good,’ he said, smiling to flatter her. ‘Can you tell me anything else about the flyer? Was there a name on it?’

  ‘I don’t remember. It was red, bright red. I tell you, she’ll be spending all the money her father gives her on stage lessons.’

  Mavros didn’t tell her that Katia had very little money on her when she left home; or that, according to her father, she didn’t have a bank account. He wondered why the woman was so resentful of Katia. Probably, like the man in the make-up, because she was young and beautiful.

  ‘Well, if there’s nothing else,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘I’d be grateful if you kept our conversation to yourself. I’ll inform the family of what you’ve said.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ the old woman said, heaving herself to her feet. ‘I don’t talk to them if I can avoid it. Russian-Greeks are the lowest of the low.’

  Mavros left, swallowing the abuse that the old woman deserved. She was a racist as well as a jealous old cow. Her husband was in a better place now. He hoped he’d find more to go on that her bright red flyer.

  He spent the rest of the morning talking to the neighbourhood shopkeepers. Several knew Katia by appearance and had nothing but good words for her—how she was polite, helpful to elderly customers and the like. None of that was much help. Then he went to her school, a large concrete block that housed a middle and a senior school. He knocked on the door of the staffroom during a break between lessons. Katia’s teachers were complimentary about her abilities, and hadn’t noticed any dropping off in her enthusiasm or her work rate in the weeks before she vanished. He could see that most of them had liked her, but with classes of over thirty and extra coaching every day, they didn’t have time to pay attention to individual pupils.