A Darker God (5 page)

He balanced the spine of the leather-bound
Iliad
in his hand and wasn’t surprised to see it fall open at the second chapter—the list of Greek ships setting sail for the war at Troy. There was a lifetime’s historical and geographical research to be done from those pages and he’d promised himself that if he ever retired, or had the luck to win a fortune on the football pools, that was the kind of detective work he’d spend his days on.

Percy noted again that, among the invading Greek fleet, quarrelsome old Agamemnon was top dog, managing to raise the largest number of ships for the punitive expedition.

The Great King’s friend, wise Nestor of Pylos, came next, contributing ninety. The island of Crete had brought in a contingent of eighty. Lagging about halfway down the list came Athens with an undistinguished fifty.

With a mischievous apology to the poet, Percy improvised:

Good humour restored, he grinned. “Greece, land of flawed heroes! Shove over, Achilles—here comes Percy!”

Chapter 3

Late June 1928. Athens, Greece
.

T
he golden death mask of Agamemnon gleamed, alluring yet menacing in the filtered morning sunlight.

Two men strolled towards it from opposite sides of the display cabinet in the Athens Museum and leaned forward at the same moment to examine it more closely. The dark head and the fair one bent, forming a triangle with the golden face. And what a face! This was the dark man’s third visit and would not be his last. Spectacular, barbaric, beautiful, and mysterious was Percy Montacute’s verdict on the old warrior. But was he indeed—Agamemnon?

Percy turned and murmured as much in a knowing way to the other admirer.

The fair-haired Englishman burst out laughing. “Almost certainly not, I fear. Probably his great-grandpapa. But I
can
identify
you
correctly! Captain Montacute, isn’t it? Percy! Salonika! We played the Ugly Sisters, you and I, in the Christmas panto for the troops in ’17. Well, well! Montacute’s son. How is your father? Haven’t seen the old bugger for years!”

Percy appeared genuinely surprised and pleased. “Good Lord! Colonel Merriman! Sir! My father was well when last I saw him. But how are
you?”

“Be delighted to tell you, my boy, but not here.” Merriman glanced around him. “Ladies beginning to direct Gorgon stares in our direction. This place gets worse than the London Library. Not the spot for two raucous fellows like us with ten years of life to catch up on! You
are
still a raucous fellow, I hope? I had heard you were enforcing the Law? That could dampen the spirits somewhat. Come on! There’s a café just along the street … why don’t we …?”

When they’d settled with their coffee at a table in the shade of a parasol, Merriman leaned to Montacute and asked: “Now, before we start chewing the fat, tell me straight: Were you following me?”

Caught off balance, Percy hesitated for a second. Had he been so obvious? They’d warned him that Merriman was nobody’s fool. He was pleased with his reply. It had just the right degree of offended incredulity. “Certainly not! But, professionally, sir, your question troubles me. Do you suspect you’re being followed? If so, as a copper, I may be just your man—unless it’s a more serious matter and a psychoanalyst might be what’s called for?”

Merriman grinned. “Still got all my marbles, I’m glad to say. And sincerely glad to hear
you’re
not on my trail! Slight case of the jitters these last few days, though, I have to confess. Survival instinct. You know … you look up and out of the corner of your eye you see a face, a figure you’re sure you saw a minute or two ago hovering some yards away … With me, the phantom usually takes the form of a taxi driver!”

Percy laughed. “Lucky man! It takes the rest of us half an hour with a megaphone to attract one in this city! No, if I’d been following you for any clandestine motive, you wouldn’t have noticed me. I’m rather good at that. But I prefer to announce myself to my friends. I’ve been meaning to drop my card in at … Kolonaki Square, isn’t it? I’ve been somewhat engaged since I stepped off the boat …”

“Ah, yes! I’ve been following your exploits on the front page of the
Athens News!
Exterminating bandits in a spectacular way. More heads for your mantelpiece, I understand? You’ve lost none of your Celtic dash, Captain!”

“I’m Detective Chief Inspector now, sir. With the C.I.D., Scotland Yard. Seconded to Athens. My recent history, in a nutshell. And you, Colonel?”

“Now Professor—Sir Andrew, if you can believe it! Digger, classicist, and writer. Writer …” The professor looked thoughtfully at the smiling younger man and walked straight into a trap Montacute had been planning to set before him at their next meeting. “I’m working on something that might interest you. An enthusiasm we have in common … Still travelling with your
Iliad
under your pillow?… Agamemnon! I’m hacking out a translation of Aeschylus’s play with a view to staging it. No shortage of willing actors in this city. It’s stuffed with classicists of all nationalities. A lively young chap like you needs to extend his social life … take an interest in something other than his work. Shall we have another of these? Delicious stuff, Greek coffee … a thimbleful’s never enough.”

Merriman ordered more coffee and settled in for a deeper conversation. “You must come and meet my wife, Maud. She’ll propel you into Athenian society! Maud knows everyone! Look, are you free to come to dinner on Saturday? Maud’s cousin is arriving from England to spend the summer with us, so you won’t be the only new bug there. And we’ll see if we can’t rustle up some pretty girls to sit opposite. There are some particularly fetching American nurses in town. Am I tempting you?”

“Delighted!” said Percy. And he was. It had been so easy. But he was remembering also, and with pleasure, the all-too-rare boozy evenings in the Mess when Colonel Merriman had breezed through, raising the spirits of men like him. In the doldrums militarily, enfeebled by dysentery and malaria,
sweltering in heat or shivering in cold, the young officers felt the better for the colonel’s optimism, the connections he made for them with the world outside the fortifications, and, not least, his risqué stories. They’d laughed themselves sick at a play he’d sketched out on the back of an ordnance list and produced within sight of the enemy who, they could be reasonably certain, were watching. Soccer and theatre always caught their attention and no hostile shots were ever fired for the duration of the performance. Percy remembered, the morning after the rowdy musical performance, unhooking a sheet of paper from the barbed wire of the compound fence. In Bulgarian
and
English it had complimented the British on their performance. Much enjoyed. And would they please supply them with the words for the song “Boris the Bulgar”?

Percy was glad that Merriman was back in his life again. He just hoped it wouldn’t fall to him to push the charming firebrand under a bus.

    Andrew Merriman bade a cheery good-bye to his refound friend, exchanging addresses and promises of further contact. With narrowed eyes, he watched the tall figure of the inspector shouldering his way along the avenue through the crowds. Merriman resented surveillance, even from someone as congenial as young Montacute. A bit of a thug, the professor remembered, and a bonnie fighter. A man you’d want at your shoulder, not at your back. Well, the best place for an undeclared foe was within range of your sword arm. Andrew would keep him close.

He made his way back to his grand double-fronted house overlooking Kolonaki Square. “Finished my research, my dear,” he said to his wife, putting his head round the door of the morning room, where Maud was taking a late breakfast on a tray. She’d clearly had another of her bad nights. “I’ll just
pop up to the library and put a few last touches to the translation while it’s fresh. The second act I thought was a little stilted, didn’t you? Could do with a bit of polish before we go public with it. Oh … by the way … I met an old friend while I was communing with Agamemnon. I’m quite certain the meeting was predestined! I asked him to dinner on Saturday. Scholar. You’ll like him. I haven’t mentioned it to him yet—and perhaps I’ll leave this to you—but I’ve marked him down for a part in the play. Wonderful voice! See if you aren’t enchanted when you meet him.”

Neatly sidestepping any of Maud’s attempts to engage his attention further, he bustled off.

The professor had been telling nothing less than the truth when he complained to Montacute of a suspicion of scrutiny. Any malignant interest directed at him, whether from inside the house or external to it, raised the fair hairs on the back of his sunburnt English neck. And his hairs were telling him that he was at this moment being overlooked.

His reaction to the unseen stimulus was a purely physical one, the mind somehow being left out of the circuit: the chill between the shoulder blades, the tension in fingers that crept, undirected by him, towards his waist, where he’d grown used to feeling the reassuring weight of a gun belt. He was experiencing the same feeling that, more than once in the war years, had drilled into him like a phantom bullet and sent him diving for cover. It had earned him a reputation for luck with the men—the most valued attribute in battle—along with a ready following and a rude nickname. His years of soldiering had honed this natural protective mechanism to a fine edge but it had always been there from his childhood, a gift, not to be called on, but calling him.

He was eager to get started. His desk stood ready: research texts; dog-eared books in German, French, and Italian; maps and photographs in orderly piles; a ream of fresh paper laid
out, awaiting his pen. The feeling of foreboding struck him again as he closed the door, and he held tightly to the handle until the shudder passed. The order had been delivered to his household along with his regular daily instructions: “no interruptions until two o’clock.” The servants would respect it but his wife never paid attention to requests or commands.

He’d told her a cheerful lie when he’d announced he was busy with the
Agamemnon
. He’d brushed aside her offer of help. Maud was reasonably happy for him to slip off to work on the play; you could say she was heart and soul behind the project. She saw it involving her with the cream of the expatriate society of Athens and planned to while away her summer co-directing the amateur dramatics. She would be deferred to, admired, consulted, busy: a personage on the Athenian scene. His wife wasn’t so happy to see Andrew whiling away his time on his other task: his true magnum opus.

He calculated he’d be allowed a half an hour to settle, then she’d sidle in with a discreet cough, a placatory smile, and a bunch of flowers for his desk. She’d make a fuss over the placement of the wretched vase, taking care to cast her slanting glances over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of what he was writing. As a variation, she might flutter in with a cascade of apologies, hunting for her spectacles. And, sure enough, she’d find them in whatever improbable place she’d planted them the previous evening. But not today.

With a grimace, he turned the key in the lock. He’d be made to pay for that defiant gesture later.

He rebelled less frequently these days against the constant marital surveillance. But he’d played a trick on her last week. Maud knew he’d been in consultation with his man of law here in Athens. Such things always agitated her. On a sheet of his best writing paper, he’d written the address of his lawyer and followed it with a fanciful change to his will:

    Maud hated dogs and had had a row with the Director of the B.M. He’d left the paper for her to find.

He’d regretted it. Schoolboy humour. Was this to be his last defence against the increasingly suspicious woman he’d married? Was this the pathetic depth to which she’d reduced him? Maud hadn’t been deceived or amused. She’d silently turned up the basilisk stare a notch and doubled her vigilance.

At least the prospect of the forthcoming visit from her English cousin had raised her spirits. Maud was beginning to grow weary of Greece and talked more and more frequently of her longed-for return to London. The new arrival would provide someone fresh for her to show off to. Someone to hold handcuffed by her skeins of wretched knitting wool, a captive audience for her endless tittle-tattle. Andrew checked his watch. Oh, Lord! Had he left orders for someone to call him in good time to get out the Dodge and motor down to the port to meet the boat? He relaxed as he remembered leaving a note for the housekeeper the previous evening. For a moment he wondered about this London cousin he’d never met. Some mystery there. He’d been introduced to all Maud’s other sane and living relations: appalling chaps, every single one—fellows who had no interests other than golf and making money to spend on building villas next to golf courses in Surrey. If this unknown cousin (at least never spoken of by Maud until very recently) was considered less palatable even than those, then Andrew was in for a miserable summer. But Maud had hinted at some scandal … a court case narrowly avoided … change of scene an absolute requirement until the clouds blew away …
Andrew grinned. A scallywag might at least enliven the scene. Ah, well—in the half-hour drive back from Piraeus they’d have time to get acquainted. For better or worse.