The Dead Travel Fast (4 page)

“Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis, thanks for getting back to me, I’ve not got a full report for you but I’m pretty sure the instrument used on her was similar to the one in the other attacks, the marks and patterns match. You know how we’ve never been able to identify the type of murder weapon? Well, it could be we’ve been looking in the wrong direction, I don’t think it’s any type of metal at all, I think its flint, obsidian or something like that. I thought you’d like to know. I’ll give you a fuller report tomorrow.”

Theodrakis mumbled his thanks and rang off. He sat with his head in his hands, it didn’t make any sense or perhaps it did; only be in a place like this would a serial killer use prehistoric technology.

Late Saturday morning, Steve was shaving when the phone rang. He answered it with one side of his face masked in foam, just managing to grab it before it switched to messaging.

“Hello Dr Watkins, it’s Professor Andraki here, I’m sorry to disturb you at home but do you think you would be able to come and see me at the department? There’s something I’d like to consult you about. I hope that Monday about ten would be convenient.”

Steve agreed, hoping this might lead to a more fulfilling role at the university: Andraki ran all the archaeology on the island. After thanking him Andraki hesitated for a second and then said,

“Oh, and I passed on your contact details to Vassilis, I hope you don’t mind.”

After the call Steve walked back to the bathroom, more cheerful at the prospect of some interesting work and his ego boosted at being acknowledged an authority. He’d just made the first downward stroke of the razor when the phone rang again.

“Hello Doctor Watkins, is secretary to Kirios Vassilis here. I ring to thank you for what you did to save the life of the boy Antonis. Tomorrow there will be a little gathering to give thanks for how he survives and you, you of course, are guest of honour. I send car for you in the morning.”

Steve finished shaving; it looked to be turning into a pretty good day. But late that night, as he sat nursing a final drink with Captain Michales, he told him about the calls. The captain’s expression gave nothing away as he replied,
“The first concerning dead people; well, that I would not like but it’s your work I think: so perhaps it will be good for you. The second with Vassilis; that is not so good. You will need to be very careful with that one. I go to bed now: fish in the morning you understand. Perhaps tomorrow you should go to church.”

He got up and slouched off towards his house. Steve watched him go. There was something reassuring about the steady rolling walk: something almost graceful for such a strong and weathered man. The bar lights went out; he leaned back onto two legs of his chair and sat for a moment watching the reflection of the fat yellow moon as it stretched and shifted over the gently rippling waters of the Aegean.

Next day, not more than half an hour after waking, Steve sank back into the rich leather upholstery of the limo. The shaven-headed driver accelerated out of the steep bends leading up into the hills. It was before eleven and outside the day was already hot, but in the back with the air-con at full blast it was refreshingly cool. Despite the refusal or inability of the driver to reply to the remarks Steve had addressed to him in his best practised Greek, he felt a pleasurable anticipation. Once up amongst the vineyards, the car left the road to take the hidden entrance of a dirt track that he’d not noticed before.

The track twisted and turned up away from the road towards the mountains. Steve lost all sense of direction; since taking the track they’d passed no houses, only one dilapidated shepherd’s hut. Yet the track was in surprisingly good condition and so, he guessed, must be privately maintained. Then, as the road seemed in danger of running out of mountain to climb, they crested a sharp rise and there was the house.

Steve couldn’t tell where the rock ended and the house began, so cleverly had it been designed: it seemed to grow straight out of the mountain spur and hang over a sheer drop towards the sea. The limo drove through elaborate iron gates into a spacious courtyard. The car stopped and the driver, with surprising grace and lightness of foot for such a big man, got out and held open Steve’s door.

“You get out here.”

It was only the second thing he’d said since picking Steve up.
Opposite him, standing in an open doorway, an ancient woman in the uniform of a maid from a previous age was waiting. She beckoned him to follow her into a marble-floored atrium with a high and exquisitely sculpted two storey high ceiling.

“Wait here and Kirios Vassilis will see you when he is ready.”

The walls were hung with oil paintings, none of which were less than three hundred years old and two of which Steve thought he recognised, although due to the lack of natural light he couldn’t be sure. The only furniture in the large space was two Second Empire chairs either side of an ivory inlaid escritoire on which stood an exquisite black figure-ware wine jar which Steve knew, from his work in the new museum at Pythagoreio, was finer than any exhibit on display.

He decided not to risk sitting on either of the chairs, so wandered from painting to painting becoming increasingly uncertain of the nature of his visit. Then, after what seemed an age, the woman returned, opened one of a pair of double doors and indicated that he was to follow her. He followed through a long passage with a number of turns to another pair of doors at which she knocked and then, hearing a voice shout, opened.

The startling change in lighting temporarily dazzled him, so his first impression of Vassilis was tonal rather than visual.

“Welcome, Doctor Watkins, we are in your debt and in my family such things are not taken lightly.”

The voice bore the hallmarks of an Oxbridge education spoken through a near eastern filter. Steve took the proffered handshake: the hand was large and fleshy, the cold grasp almost nonexistent. As his eyes adjusted to their surroundings Steve took his first clear sight of his host.

Vassilis was tall, fleshily built with a sallow complexion, his face fat-lipped with a strongly aquiline nose and jet black hair slicked back from his forehead. His eyes were heavily lidded and almost lazily half shut, part concealing the striking green of the iris. The room was a cross between a richly furnished study and a highly selective archaeological museum, with a vibrantly patterned mosaic floor. At its far end were French windows leading to a vast terrace. Following the direction of Steve’s gaze at the floor, Vassilis said,

“Yes, you would be correct in your surmise, Doctor Watkins, the floor is genuine, although obviously re-laid, and the same applies to all the other artefacts that I see you find so fascinating. Later I will allow you time to study them at your leisure: a privilege afforded to few of the current rather primitive inhabitants of our island. Come follow me to the terrace.”

Steve followed, wondering what he meant by current inhabitants; Vassilis continued,

“We tend to keep them at a distance as far as social intercourse is concerned; such company as merits engagement is supplied from the ranks of the expatriates, augmented by a few local savants of discerning taste. But there are compensations as you can now see.”

They’d reached the terrace which projected over a shelf of rock overlooking a series of terraced levels as the land fell away to the Aegean glistening hundreds of feet below. To the right of the terrace, steps led down to what appeared to be a private park. Vassilis gestured to some comfortable rattan chairs circling a table in the shade and sat down.

“You will have gathered from my observations that my ancestry and tenure rather pre-dates the current denizens of the island, who only re-settled here a couple of centuries ago. We have therefore to take especial care of our bloodline, which is of course why my family is so much in your debt, Doctor Watkins.”

The maid silently glided on to the terrace and placed a tray with a terracotta jar and two richly glazed beakers on the table.

“Ah, a cool jug of sherbet, it wets the appetite I find. I trust you will take some with me, you must be parched in this heat.”

The maid returned with some small plates of meze for the table, poured and handed Steve a beaker, Vassilis motioned her to leave. The drink was wonderfully cool and trickles of condensation flecked the surface of the jar. For a while they picked at the delicacies and looked out across the mountain over towards the sea as Vassilis told Steve about the house and the archaeological exotica it contained. Then he became formal.

“So, on behalf of my son, I would like to thank you. He at present is recovering in a private facility, not in the hospital where
he was taken of course. But he will be here next week for the cricket match and you will receive his thanks then. No need to look so surprised, Doctor Watkins, you must understand that things are different in my demesne than they are on the rest of the island. We look at things differently here, it gives experience a particular savour. As my friend Pico della Mirandola once said, ‘Magic calls up the living forces of nature.’ But I talk too much, your guide is here already.”

Steve followed the direction of Vassilis’s gaze and saw a young woman standing behind his chair. She was tall, amply fleshed, almost heavy featured, yet at the same time strikingly beautiful, thick black hair tied back with a red ribbon. She wore a simple long white dress split to the knee and gold sandals. Steve, who hadn’t said a single word to Vassilis, was even more overawed by her and felt so out of his comfort zone that he wouldn’t have been surprised if a Lapith or Centaur followed her onto the terrace.

“Permit me to introduce my daughter, Alekka, Doctor Watkins, she will show you some of the surprises our little estate contains and generally keep you entertained until we gather for our feast of thanks and celebration this evening. I must apologize for the moment; there are matters to which I must attend. But I think you will find Alekka a livelier and certainly more attractive companion.”

She held out her hand which was firm and cold, smiling with her eyes as well as her mouth, and when she spoke her breath carried the trace of mint.

“I also thank you on behalf of my brother Antonis, and I think that as an archaeologist you will find much to interest you on our walk round. Very few on this island get to see what I will now show you. Come, we will start with what is most recent.”

He followed her to the steps leading from the terrace and along a path sloping gently down through an area of lawn and flower-beds. Steve wondered how much of the island’s precious water was needed to transform this barren mountainside into the facsimile of an English garden. But there was a greater surprise waiting for him. They passed through a fringe of orange and lemon trees and onto an area landscaped flat with, at its centre, a cricket
square on which a series of sprinklers were playing. Before he could express his surprise, Alekka gave way to a shout of laughter and clapped her hands.

“It was almost worth all the effort and expense wasted on this silly toy of my father’s just to see the expression on your face. It reminds him of his time in England, it is one of the few in Greece and I think the best, even though we use it only twice a year. Next Sunday there will be a game and you will be here, I hope.”

Steve, struggling to come to terms with his surroundings, asked her who played here.

“There are some rich countrymen of yours who live here, because it would not be good for them to remain in their own land, and also some special people from other islands. It is easy for them to get here, look: over there is where they land their helicopters.”

Steve looked and saw a landing area sufficient for a number to land and park up. She took his hand; he relished the cold firm grasp.

“Now, we turn round and walk towards the sea and look at what is old here. This I think will be of more interest to you oh Kirios, archaeologist.”

They walked out of the cricket field back through the lawn, passed across the rear of the house to stand on a small plateau overlooking the sea. Below them were the terraces he’d seen earlier, on the nearest some ancient stone foundations of buildings.

“That, where you now look, Doctor Watkins, is all that is left of a very old village.”

Aware of the island’s history, Steve asked her if the village had been deserted during the last evacuation two hundred years ago.

“No, it was abandoned long before and for worse reasons. On this island these superstitious people believe that this village was cursed; they will not come here or even talk about it.”

“But it doesn’t bother your family?”

“No: in fact most of the good stone from that village you will find in the walls of our house. Now look further down to that flat space just above the sea. They say that somewhere under that scrub and bushes something very ancient is hidden, buried, and it is that which so frightened those villagers.”

“And that doesn’t bother your family either, I suppose?”

“No, of course not, why should it bother us? But no one goes there these days.”

Steve gazed down to the sea gently shimmering under the sun and drank in the beauty of the place. He was close enough to Alekka to catch the scent of her perfume and hear her soft breathing. He was possessed by an urge to kiss her and say that, in some way, this place had always been waiting here for him. Instead he asked,

“How long have your family lived here?”

She smiled at the question but answered seriously.

“For ever I think, our clan, our family I mean, is very old, older than anything else that you will find on this island.”

While she was speaking Steve, like any good field archaeologist, was looking at the ground under his feet and scraping at it with his boots. He knelt down and picked up a couple of small sharp objects, which he spat on and then rubbed vigorously before showing her.

“What is the significance of this, please?”

“These are bits of obsidian: they’ve been worked to make tools, this one here is an offcut of some small tool like a knife and if you look around carefully you can see other bits scattered all around. They’re Neolithic at the latest, so there are things here even older than your family.”

She looked at the flints for a few seconds then threw them down the slope towards the sea.

“You see, Steve, like I told you, we are here a very long time.”

Feeling she didn’t get the significance of the flints he elaborated.

“The really interesting thing is that these flints wouldn’t occur here naturally, so this place must have been important enough for them to be brought here.”

She laughed and he realised that she found him amusing.

“Yes, just like cricket pitch, but I am no longer interested in your little rocks, and we have something else to see before we rejoin my father.”