EQMM, May 2012 (8 page)

"I'm sorry about the state of the place,” she mumbled, fidgeting with her wedding ring. “I'll put the kettle on. I take it you'd like a cup of tea while we're waiting for the police to arrive?"

"That'd be lovely. Thanks."

George swung round suddenly. “What the hell was that?"

"What? I didn't hear anything."

"A noise."

"The police?"

"Didn't sound like it. It could be the bastard who chucked the brick come back for another go. I'll go and see."

As he moved towards the hallway he glanced back over his shoulder. Karen Ablet was watching him anxiously.

"Be careful, won't you,” she said, almost in a whisper.

He smiled reassuringly. “Perhaps you'd better pull the kitchen blinds down. And I'll switch the light off. We don't want to make it easy for them if they decide to come round the back, do we?"

She made for the window and as the thin blind fell into place he turned off the light and the room was plunged into darkness. Then, as soon as George's eyes had adjusted to the filtered moonlight, he scooped a pair of damp tights from the drying rack and stretched them in his hands until they were taut.

Karen Ablet's head was outlined against the blind as she fumbled for the kettle, a standing target just waiting for him. He crept up behind her and slipped the soft nylon swiftly over her head before twisting until the tourniquet tightened around her neck. He closed his eyes and squeezed, the thin nylon biting into his hands. But in his excitement he felt no pain. Nothing could stop that feeling of power. The power over life and death.

Karen Ablet's hands fluttered like trapped birds making their bid for freedom against the cage of death, and it wasn't until she had been still for half a minute that George loosened his grip and let her lifeless body slump onto the kitchen floor.

He knelt down beside her and arranged her clothing. He always arranged their clothing properly . . . just as he liked it. He struggled to roll the tights onto her limp, unresisting legs and then he laid her on her back with her hands folded across her chest, his ritual completed.

He stayed kneeling by her body for a while, staring at her contorted face in the dim light. This would be his last time in Manchester. He had claimed three lives there now—and even though the name was false and the car stolen, the police had seen his face. GHB Investigations would disappear into the night and reappear under another name in another place. He had begun with one killing in Glasgow, then he'd gone on to Edinburgh for two more before travelling south. Next time he would go to London: It was bigger and more anonymous, with more streets to watch and more lone women. George smiled to himself as he caressed Karen Ablet's lifeless body. Three was enough in one city. He was moving on.

Pete Fields considered himself experienced in the business of terror. The brick had tested the waters. When he had shattered the front-door glass and no lights had come on in the house, he'd known that there was nobody at home. Now, round the back of the house it was the same story. The place was in darkness. It would be the ideal time to strike, when the house was empty and there'd be no loss of life to tarnish the image of the Cause. Julian Ablet was going to pay for his crimes against the defenceless creatures he routinely tortured to death without a pang of conscience. He was going to lose his home.

Fields knew all about Canley Street because he'd hired a strange, seedy little man called George Billings to watch the house, spinning him a plausible yarn about wanting to buy the place. Billings wasn't the type who would ask questions, so long as the money was right, and he had provided detailed reports on the comings and goings at number five. Hiring Billings meant that Fields hadn't had to run the risk of keeping watch personally, and he felt rather pleased with himself. It had all worked out rather well.

But now was the time to act. He lit the rag in the neck of the bottle, hurled it through the kitchen window, and ran down the garden as the back of the house exploded in flames.

"Police have identified the woman who died in a blazing house in Canley Street late last night as Mrs. Karen Ablet, aged thirty-five, wife of research scientist Julian Ablet, who had recently received threats from an animal-rights organisation. A spokesman for the fire service said that the fire had been started deliberately. Police are still trying to identify a middle-aged male who also died in the blaze, probably trying to escape from the burning house."

"And now for the rest of the news. Manchester police have issued a statement saying that there is every indication that two recent murders of local women are linked to three similar murders up in Scotland, one in Glasgow and two in Edinburgh. Some newspapers have dubbed the killer ‘The Pantyhose Strangler’ and police admit that they are still no nearer catching the culprit. Now on to the weather. . . ."

Copyright © 2012 by Kate Ellis

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The third in a series of stories about the young Gordianus the Finder that
EQMM
has been running, “O Tempora! O Mores! Olympiad!” will appear later this year as part of Steven Saylor's latest novel. Other recently published stories that will feature in the book are “Styx and Stones,” from the anthology
Down These Strange Streets
, edited by Charlaine Harris, and “Something to Do With Diana,” from
The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction,
edited by Mike Ashley.

Have you ever seen anything like it?” said Antipater. “Have you ever imagined such a spectacle?"

I had not. Romans love a festival; a play or two put on in a makeshift theater, an open-air feast, chariot races in the Circus Maximus—all these things I had seen many times in my eighteen years. But no celebration in Rome could compare with the free-spirited chaos, or the sheer magnitude, of the Olympiad.

Greeks love an athletic competition. One could almost say they live for these events, where naked young men show off their manly prowess in fierce competitions. Several cities in Greece host such contests, but the Games at Olympia, held every four years, are the grandest and most well-attended. They are also the oldest. Antipater and I had arrived for the 172nd Olympiad. Multiplying that number by four, I realized that the Games at Olympia had been going on for nearly seven hundred years. When the first Olympiad was held, Romulus and Remus were mere infants suckling at the she-wolf's teats, and Rome did not yet exist.

This would be the third Olympiad Antipater had attended in the span of his long life. It was to be my first.

Simply to reach Olympia proved to be an ordeal. From Ellis, the city that administered the Games, the journey took two days. The road was jammed with wagons and pedestrians. Antipater and I rode in a hired mule-cart along with several other travelers, proceeding on the crowded road at a pace that bored even the lazy mules. Food and wine, sold at roadside stands or from moving carts, were plentiful but expensive. Water was harder to come by. After a long, hot summer, the river that ran alongside the road was nearly dry. Local landowners with access to a spring charged exorbitant fees for drinking water. Bathing was out of the question.

On the first night out we slept on the ground, for the rooms at every inn were already taken, with some guests sleeping on the rooftops. Many travelers brought their own tents. Some of the richer visitors, accompanied by entourages and slaves, brought entire pavilions. Competition for flat, smooth patches of ground amid the rocky terrain was fierce.

"Where will we sleep when we reach Olympia?” I asked.

"About that, Gordianus, you need not worry,” said Antipater, and I did not ask again. On our journey to see the Seven Wonders, I was learning to trust my old tutor about our travel arrangements and not to question him too closely. Having faked his own death in Rome, he was traveling incognito, for purposes that had never been made clear to me. In public, I addressed him not as Antipater of Sidon, but by his assumed name, Zoticus of Zeugma.

On the second day, as we drew near Olympia, the road became so congested that the cart came to a standstill.

"Let's walk the rest of the way,” said Antipater, climbing cautiously from the cart. He stepped behind a boulder and I followed him, thinking he meant to relieve himself and ready to do so myself. But as soon as we were out of sight, Antipater produced an eye patch and affixed a putty nose to his face.

I laughed. “What's this, Teacher? Do you intend to put on mime shows when we finally reach Olympia?” The query was half in earnest. Like all poets, Antipater loved to entertain an audience.

"I am disguising myself because I do not wish to be recognized in Olympia,” he whispered.

"But that hasn't been a problem so far.” Antipater's poems were famous, but his face was not. Before we left Rome he had shaved his beard, and that had proved an adequate disguise. No one had yet recognized him.

"True, Gordianus, but as you can see, the whole of the Greek world is arriving in Olympia. There's no telling whom we might encounter. So while we are here, I shall sport a false nose as well as a false name."

I laughed. “How peculiar you sound! It must be the putty, pinching your nose."

"Good. My voice shall be disguised as well."

Instead of returning to the crowded road, Antipater insisted that we follow a winding footpath up a hillside, saying it would be worth our while to see the lay of the land. When we reached the crest of the hill, I turned around and saw below us the valley of the river Alpheus, with Olympia laid out like a city in miniature.

Properly speaking, Olympia is not a city but a religious center. Its only purpose is to host the Games, which are dedicated to Zeus. I had expected to see a racetrack or two, some public squares for the wrestling and boxing competitions, crowds of spectators here and there, and of course the Temple of Zeus, which contained the famous statue by Phidias, the Wonder of the World we had come to see. But everything about Olympia was of a magnitude far exceeding my expectations.

I took in the awesome natural beauty of the setting, an alluvial plain dotted with poplars, oaks, and olive trees, with pine-covered hills in the distance. Looming just behind Olympia was Mount Kronos, not a particularly high peak but imposing because it stood alone, and famous because of its history; on its summit Zeus wrestled his father, the king of the Titans, for control of the universe. In the valley below, Apollo once took on Ares in a boxing match, and emerged victorious. Off to the east, where the stadium now stood, Apollo defeated Hermes in a footrace. Heracles himself paced out the running track for them—and there it was, freshly groomed and ready to be used by this year's contestants, covered with raked white sand that sparkled under the bright sun.

At the heart of the complex was the famed Altis, the Sacred Grove of Zeus. Enclosed by a wall, the Altis still contained a number of trees—including the fabled olive planted by Heracles, from which the winners’ wreaths would be harvested—but where once a wild forest grew, there now stood a host of temples, shrines, civic monuments, and colonnades, erected over the centuries. The Altis also contained thousands of statues, some of gods, but many more depicting nude athletes, for every winner of an Olympic event was entitled to be immortalized in bronze. Dominating all else was the massive Temple of Zeus with its soaring columns and a roof made of marble tiles. The frieze that ran all the way around the temple, below the roof and above the columns, was decorated with gilded shields that glittered under the afternoon sun.

Outside the Altis were a great many buildings of practical purpose, including assembly halls, barracks for athletes, and an opulent lodge where only the most important visitors to the Games would be housed.

Thronging the entire site, filling the valley and spilling onto the hillsides, were tens of thousands of visitors. I had never seen so many people in one place.

We descended into the valley and were swallowed by the festive crowd. My eyes and ears were given no rest. Here was a juggler, and there a poet with a lyre reciting verses. A hawker announced the upcoming program of recitations, musical recitals, and philosophical debates. A herald called for family members of contestants to register for a limited number of reserved places in the stadium. A buxom fortuneteller at a makeshift stall loudly proclaimed to a doddering graybeard that he would live to be one hundred, then took the fellow's money, pushed him aside, and called for the next customer.

Men rushed this way and that, or stood in groups, talking, eating, and laughing. A religious procession passed by, headed by a priestess in a trailing white gown followed by little boys carrying trays of burning incense. The sweet smoke mingled with the scent of freshly baked flatbread from a nearby food vendor, and then with a confusion of perfumes as a party of visiting dignitaries—Egyptians, to judge by their
nemes
headdresses—passed in the opposite direction, carried on gilded litters.