The Green Lady (11 page)

‘I don't think so.'

‘And if Mr Bekakos tells him?'

‘You're barking up the wrong tree. Find some other way to get Lia back.' Angie Poulou rang off.

Mavros lay on his bed, tossing away the notebook in which he'd been scribbling as they talked. He'd often heard expressions involving canines and mistaken wooden growths from clients. They were almost always misleading.

He'd seen how conspiratorial Maria Bekakou had looked, both with Kriaras and her husband. She was the nearest thing to a lead he had, not least because she had expressed something akin to hatred for the girl who had gone missing and because Rovertos had said there was too much at stake. Meaning what, exactly?

B
rigadier Nikos Kriaras stepped out of the helicopter at the far end of the ancient stadium at Delphi and walked towards the gaggle of uniformed personnel. It was nine-thirty in the morning and he was feeling bilious from the flight between the mountains – Parnassos's bulk to the north had been particularly distracting – as well as apprehensive about what he was about to see. Scene of crime technicians had marked out lines of footprints that he avoided. As he approached, his tame inspector at his heels, a bulky figure in full dress uniform approached and saluted. Although the local chief was technically in command, there was no pretence about who was really calling the shots.

‘Is the area completely sealed off?' Kriaras demanded, looking around. There were officers along both stepped sides of the stadium, and he saw men further up the mountainside.

‘Yes. Fortunately another of the
phylakes
came up early in the morning because the victim owed him money from a card game.'

‘Have you made clear to your personnel and to the site staff that this is a matter of national security and that anyone speaking to the press will lose both their job and pension?'

The chief nodded. ‘Everything you told me on the phone has been carried out. But I don't understand—'

‘Correct,' the brigadier said. ‘You don't understand and that situation is not going to change.'

The uniformed officer accepted the rebuke without comment. He was two years from retirement and he wasn't going to mess with a big gun from Athens. Though what the murder of a
phylax
, gruesome though it was, had to do with Greece's national interests was beyond him.

‘Where's the victim?'

‘The medical examiner has had him removed, as you requested. They'll be in the hospital in Amfissa by now. My men have taken numerous photographs.'

‘Let me see.'

Kriaras followed the chief into the shade and watched the stream of images on the technicians' cameras. The victim, Vangelis Gilas, was in his late fifties, a former merchant seaman from Itea who had sustained an arm injury in his twenties and been taken on as a
phylax
, no doubt because he'd promised to vote for someone. His service record was clean and he was popular with his workmates, though some of them found him rather dour. This much the brigadier knew from conversations when he was in the air. There was nothing to explain why he had been found sitting naked behind the start lines, his clothes in a pile beside him, stabbed in the heart. His head was five metres away at the top of the path that led to the main site, eyes wide open and reflecting the sun.

‘Very well. Hand over the memory cards to the inspector here.' The brigadier frowned at the commissioner. ‘All of them!' He turned to his subordinate. ‘Talk to the scene of crime people and call me when you've finished. I'm going to check the victim's house.'

The chief caught up with him as he walked down the stadium. ‘The ME just called. Do you want to talk to him?'

Kriaras took the phone and ordered the man to report.

‘These are initial findings, you understand?'

‘Of course. A team from Athens is on its way to pick up the body. This is a code red case, so keep everything about it to yourself.'

‘I've already been told that by the Public Order Ministry,' the ME said, with a hint of resentment.

‘All right. What have you found?'

‘First, there's a puncture mark in the victim's upper back. Without doing a toxicology analysis I can only speculate, but I think the man was drugged with a needle, I estimate gauge twelve. The effect was probably not prolonged, as I understand there are two sets of footprints leading from his house to the stadium. The head was removed with a single blade, extremely sharp – the same weapon that was plunged into the dead man's heart. I'd say the killer is experienced. He waited till his victim bled out – there's a large patch of blood on the seats behind the starting lines – then cut off the head cleanly.'

‘Time of death?'

‘The ambient temperature was twenty degrees at midnight and the body is still in rigor. I'd say your man was killed between then and three a.m. The post-mortem should narrow that down.'

‘Very well. Thank you.'

‘There's something else, Brigadier.'

There always is, Kriaras thought gloomily.

‘Inside the victim's mouth are five pomegranate seeds, bright red and apparently fresh.'

‘Five? You're sure of that?'

‘In the oral cavity, yes. Obviously there could be more in the oesophagus, stomach and so on.'

Kriaras handed the phone back. There had been seven of those objects in the burned man's gut. Now five. Did that mean there was an unknown victim somewhere with six seeds? He turned to the chief.

‘I take it no witnesses have come forward since we first spoke.'

‘None. Nothing much goes on in the upper town at night, according to the resident officers. There are no bars or tourist attractions, just houses. As you'll see, the victim's isn't overlooked.' They stopped at the open gate. ‘The
phylax
would have had a set of keys for all the site entrances. We haven't found them.'

‘So the killer retraced his – or her – steps to this gate, having led the victim up here.'

‘It looks that way.'

The chief stopped outside a single storey house, the red roof tiles faded.

‘I see what you mean about it not being overlooked,' the brigadier said. ‘The dead man can't have touched these bushes in decades.'

‘Maybe that was deliberate.'

Kriaras frowned. ‘Don't speculate. That's my job. Have the technicians finished here?'

‘They're still going through the rear rooms. So far, there are no prints except the victim's. Obviously the killer was wearing . . .' The chief broke off as his interlocutor walked away.

Kriaras went in the open door. He was glad to see there was no obvious police presence to get the neighbours talking, though the chief and his uniform weren't helping. They would soon come up with a story about the dead man being involved in antiquities theft, but the manner of his death would not be made public. He went back to the door. Could the victim have opened it to his killer? He kneeled down outside and saw fresh scratches around the wide keyhole. The lock had been jemmied. The murderer must have immobilised Vangelis Gilas, perhaps before gaining access. Could he have used a tranquilliser gun? That wasn't beyond his capabilities.

The brigadier got up and glanced around the kitchen, then went into the
saloni
. The small statue in the wall niche caught his attention – an austere ancient god with signs of worship beneath him. He would tell his inspector to pack it up and take it to the helicopter. There was a professor at the university in Athens who knew about the deities of pre-Christian Greece.

‘I'm leaving,' he told the chief, leading him outside. ‘You'll be provided with a story by the end of the day. I want the only copies of all relevant reports driven to me by eight p.m. You are personally responsible for deleting them from your officers' computers. Make sure the crime scene is cleaned up and the tourists allowed into the stadium as soon as possible. And think about this: if any of your people talk, you'll be sharing a shit-bucket with a cell full of illegal immigrants till your dying day.'

The chief cursed under his breath as the helicopter lifted off shortly afterwards. The arrogant fuckers from Athens. They ignored you for years, then they trampled all over you like elephants on heat. He hoped Kriaras and his bum boy crashed into the gorge in a ball of flames.

After Angie Poulou's call, Mavros considered his options, such as they were. Then he went downstairs, where the Fat Man was snoring on the sofa. He turned off the TV and gently shook his shoulder.

‘No, Marilyn, don't go aw . . .' Yiorgos looked up at Mavros. ‘You bastard. I was in the middle of—'

‘I seriously don't want to know. Listen, we've got work first thing in the morning. Are you up for it?'

‘Yes!' his friend said. ‘What do you want me to do? Put the squeeze on that shit sucker Poulos?'

‘Not quite yet. But what you can do is this . . .'

He was woken by the Fat Man's heavy paw at six a.m. They drank a quick coffee and wolfed down some
galaktoboureko
, then took the trolley up Alexandhras Avenue to the hire car depot. His friend had a clapped-out Lada, but that would be about as useful for tailing as a double-decker bus.

‘Remember,' Mavros said, ‘the trick is to keep close enough to your target so she doesn't do a disappearing act on you and far enough away so she doesn't spot you.'

‘Yes, yes, I can handle it.' Yiorgos was like a child let loose in a department store on Christmas Eve. He put his hand in the pocket of a remarkably uncrumpled white shirt. ‘Look, I've written down the registration number of her Mercedes.'

‘Very good. Keep in touch by mobile.'

‘Yes, who knows? We might end up a long way apart.'

‘Or the Bekakos couple might park in that multi-storey near his office and stay there all day.' Mavros immediately felt guilty about urinating on the Fat Man's parade. ‘No, I'm sure we'll find something useful out. If you end up tailing Maria on foot, try to hear what she says but don't blow your cover.'

‘What cover?' his friend asked, looking at his swollen midriff and grinning.

Mavros had a feeling this was going to end in an ocean of salty tears, but he smiled. The fact was, the lawyer and his sour wife were the only leads he had. He was hoping the former would take him to the mother-lode.

He hired the same small Citroen, this time for three days. His friend took one look at the Fat Man and found a Peugeot saloon that had seen better days but would bear his weight. They drove up Kifissias Avenue, Yiorgos practising his tailing on Mavros. He didn't do badly, considering the large numbers of official Olympics vehicles on their way to the athletes' village and various venues. The great arch of the main stadium was absorbing the sun like an ancient archer's bow at rest.

They parked at opposite ends of the street from the Bekakos house and waited. Mavros hoped the couple weren't early risers. As it turned out, they kept normal hours. The lawyer's Porsche appeared first. Mavros went after it, nodding to Yiorgos as he passed. He was apprehensive about how the Fat Man would do, but there was no time to worry about that. Rovertos Bekakos had his phone to his ear almost all the time. At first Mavros thought he was going into the centre, but he turned right and headed for the national road. He went north and accelerated hard. The Citroen struggled to keep up, managing to do so only because of the large amount of traffic. That thinned as they went over the ridge at the last of the suburbs. Mavros wasn't the world's greatest driver and he had to floor the accelerator to keep Bekakos in view. After a time, the lawyer indicated and took the exit for Thiva. The road from then on was slower and Mavros managed to get to within three vehicles. They bypassed the ancient city of Oedipus and continued to the junction north of Livadheia. It was then that it occurred to Mavros to turn on the radio.

The local station was broadcasting about only one topic: the demonstration that was blocking the road between Paradheisos and the Hellenic Mining Corporation's bauxite works. Now he knew where Rovertos Bekakos was heading.

Akis Exarchos had borrowed the tractor from a friend who supported the action, but didn't want to take part. He arrived outside the Ecologists for a Better Viotia office in Kypseli at six-thirty in the morning, the trailer loaded with rocks from a nearby quarry.

‘Ah, here he is,' said the young bearded man known as Lykos, the Wolf. Like the other one, he was an Athenian, but at least his family had a small farm in the prefecture.

Angeliki, Lykos's wife, girlfriend, no one knew exactly what, smiled at him too. She was of medium height with long black hair, wearing combat trousers and a camouflaged T-shirt that was too big even for her substantial breasts.

‘Aki!' she said. ‘You are our hero. What would we do without you?'

The fisherman's cheeks reddened. The young woman always made him feel awkward. She was clever and he had a hard time following the fervent speeches she made about the aluminium plant's despoiling of the earth and polluting of the sea. But she and her man inspired him, as they had done many of the locals. Even some of the workers in Paradheisos turned up to listen, though they never participated in the protests. Not that there had ever been a demonstration like the one planned for today. There weren't many protesters, but they were going to make a difference. And, in case things turned nasty, Akis had his shotgun and a selection of fishing spears under a tarpaulin. It was time the ecologists were taken seriously.

Lykos led the procession of five vehicles in his battered VW van, Angeliki hanging out of the window and broadcasting through a megaphone.

‘Stop the polluters! No more mining! Close down the works!'

The few workers who were up and about in Paradheisos showed little enthusiasm for the slogans. They probably imagined the procession was headed for the main square, which is where they'd held sit-ins before. But those had been carefully calculated diversions. This morning they were headed elsewhere.