The Green Lady (34 page)

As he headed towards Dhistomo turn, the Son considered his instructions. As usual, the details had been left to him – he wouldn't work any other way. Even the pomegranate seeds, a bag of which he had in a cooler pack in the boot of the Fiat, had cramped his style. But he was puzzled by the change in policy. Until now, the murders he'd committed were given minimal coverage because of the Games. The kind of carnage he'd been authorised to carry out before the next break of day couldn't be kept from the media. People were being hung out to dry – they would be used as scapegoats after their deaths. It amused him that Alex Mavros was on the list. He had his own plans for the private dick. If his employer didn't like them, he could suck on the barrel of his Glock.

Mother Demeter, protectress of earth and fields, come to us now, we beseech you. Like your Persephone, I am a lost daughter, though I am no longer a maiden. I lie here beneath your images, hands and wrist bound, mouth taped, the life inside me swelling. Surely you cannot leave us to die in this underground place. Surely you will not let them sacrifice our young lives. Green Lady, give us back the light of day and the kiss of the wind. We are the embodiment of fertility. Save us.

And save the other girl who was placed beside us some time ago, I cannot tell how long. In the seconds of light, I saw her face. Despite the tape over her mouth, I think I know her. I met her in Paradheisos, we worked together on something. I cannot remember her name, but there was the same sadness in her eyes that I saw in my own later. Include her in your act of salvation, I beg you. We were maidens once.

Great Demeter, I too have a mother. Allow me to see her again. I must tell her what is happening inside me – it was a mistake to keep it hidden from her until it was too late. My poor mother. Does she think I am dead or the victim of some vanished killer? Maybe it would be better if she did.

Green Lady, save us. Bring us, all three, back from Hades' realm.

Mavros and Xanthakos got to the rendezvous point to find Angie Poulou standing by her car. She moved out of their headlights.

‘Good to see you,' Mavros said, shaking her hand.

In reply she opened her mouth.

‘Jesus Christ! That bastard! Have you seen a doctor?'

‘Dentist, more like,' she lisped. ‘Not yet.'

‘You've got some pretty nasty bruises too. Does your head hurt?'

‘No.' She gripped his arm. ‘My husband knows where Lia is, I'm sure of it. We have to get him to talk.'

Mavros looked over his shoulder and introduced the deputy commissioner. ‘As you see, we must follow the law.'

‘Vehicles approaching from the west,' Xanthakos said, hand on his pistol grip.

‘Duck behind your car,' Mavros said, leading Angie out of sight. ‘These should be our backup, but I'm not taking any chances.'

The cars slowed and then turned into the area behind the trees. There were four of them – Lykos's VW van, Bitsos's hire car, the Fat Man's Peugeot and the cadres' black van. The lights were doused and doors started opening.

More introductions were made. The young Communists were less than comfortable with the policeman's presence, but they stood their ground. Two were carrying fish spears, the others thick wooden clubs. Akis Exarchos stood to the side, his arms tied behind his back and a strip of masking tape over his mouth.

‘So,' asked Cadre One, ‘who's in charge of this joint operation?'

Xanthakos nodded to Mavros.

‘All right,' the latter said. ‘There are several priorities. One, we find out where Mrs Poulou's fourteen-year-old daughter Lia is. If she's in the target house, she must be protected.' He glanced at the leading cadre. ‘You and another of your men can take that on.'

The Communist nodded.

‘Two, the deputy commissioner gets the chance to arrest Tryfon Roufos, the fugitive antiquities dealer. Paschos Poulos, the Bekakos couple, Professor Epameinondhas Phis and Angeliki –' He turned to Lykos – ‘if she's there, will also be arrested, initially for conspiracy to imprison Bitsos and me. They were all present at the Hades temple above the HMC plant.'

Lambis Bitsos stepped over to the fisherman. ‘You can arrest this piece of shit on the same charge right now, Deputy Commissioner.'

‘That doesn't matter for the time being,' Mavros said. ‘Take the tape from his mouth. He may be able to help us.'

Cadre Three obliged.

‘Well, Aki?' Mavros said. ‘For a start, do you know where the people we want might be?'

The fisherman shook his head. ‘I only made my deal with Bekakos yesterday, on the phone. I don't know where the fucker is.'

‘Having second thoughts?' Bitsos said sardonically. ‘Too late for that.'

‘Be quiet, Lambi,' Mavros said. He caught Lykos's gaze in the light from the single street lamp on the roadside. ‘How about you? Any idea where they might be?'

The young man raised his head in the negative gesture. ‘Angeliki probably knows, but she never told me.'

‘All right,' Mavros said, with a slack smile. ‘Fortunately we have another source of information.' He beckoned Angie Poulou forward.

‘There's a house my husband and Rovertos Bekakos often use.'

There were sharp intakes of breath around the group as she spoke, revealing the damage to her mouth.

‘Who did that to you?' Lykos asked. ‘Your husband?'

‘No, the man he hired to kill me.'

There were more looks of amazement.

‘I can understand you might think I'm the enemy,' Angie continued, in fluent Greek. ‘But, believe me, I'm not. I want my daughter. To find her, I'll support you any way I can.'

Telemachos Xanthakos took out a map of Paradheisos and spread it over the bonnet of the HMC 4x4. ‘Isiodhou Street is here.' He pointed to the highest road in the pink section of the town. ‘As you can see, it's a dead end. The house we want is the last one. We need to block both the entrance to the street itself and this perpendicular side street, Omirou. I think it would also be a good idea if someone took the 4x4 up the line of trees here in case any of them make a run for it out the back.'

‘What about security?' Bitsos asked. ‘There are bound to be more scumbags like the ones we tied up above the HMC plant. And they'll be armed.'

Trust Lambis to bring up the biggest problem, Mavros thought. ‘Well, I see clubs, I see fish spears and I see—'

‘Pistols,' the Fat Man said.

Mavros noted who was in possession of a firearm – himself, Xanthakos, Yiorgos and Bitsos. None of the cadres were carrying.

‘All right, whoever goes up the back should have a pistol,' he said, looking at the black-clad young men. ‘Any of you done firearms training?'

Cadre Two nodded, giving no more away.

‘OK,' Mavros said, ‘you're in the vehicle at the far end of Isiodhou Street, armed. Yiorgo, you take another vehicle and block the side street.' If his friend was disappointed about not taking part in the assault on the house, he didn't show it. ‘Cadre Three, armed, in the 4x4 up there.' He looked round the rest of the group: Cadres 1 and 4, both carrying harpoons and clubs, Xanthakos, Bitsos – in charge of Akis, Lykos with his long knife, Angie Poulou, unarmed, and himself. He assigned positions to each, keeping his client with him.

Then Mavros checked the time. 04.25. As they moved to the vehicles, he had a thought he didn't share. He had no idea where the Son was or what he was planning to do. Screw the Uncertainty Principle.

T
ryfon Roufos lay back on the bed and let the girl crawl over him. She had been reluctant at first – they always were – but the trinkets, perfume and money had brought her round. He'd been doing this for decades and he knew exactly how to handle them, girls and boys. This one was pasty-faced and slightly overweight – a typical product of the workers in the white houses – but her breasts were minimally developed and that was the way he liked them.

‘Use your tongue,' he said irritably, ‘not your teeth.'

As she began to get some rhythm going, Roufos found himself thinking about the last year: the escape from Crete, facilitated by his contacts within the police and government; the suite in the house in Kifissia afforded him by Rovertos Bekakos and his wife – long-time comrades in both illicit antiquities trading and forbidden love; his ongoing trading activities, now enhanced by the finds from the Hades temple; and his participation in Hades and Persephone worship. He didn't really care about the last, but it had been worth killing a piglet and wasting good wine on the libation to see Alex Mavros confined to the underworld. The investigator had nearly been the finish of him in Crete, but he didn't have the instinct of the true transgressor – he should have killed Roufos when he could.

‘Slower,' he ordered, slapping the girl's buttocks. In his sixties, he found the prolongation of a single act more pleasurable than the frequent but brief encounters of earlier years.

Of course, Paschos Poulos had been the architect of his escape from justice. Roufos had always suspected that the entrepreneur shared his taste for young flesh but, until recent months, he hadn't realised quite how deviant Paschos was. The entrepreneur's contacts in the Olympic movement had brought Roufos a huge increase in business, ancient Greek pieces having gained a higher profile because of the Games. Fortunately Professor Phis, one of his long-term suppliers, had managed to lay his hands on many more objects. The old man really did believe in Hades and his bride and, although he liked to leer at young female flesh, he could no longer perform. Right now he was in the study, updating his digital archive.

‘All right, that's enough,' Roufos said, seizing the girl's arm and pulling her beneath him. ‘Relax. That way it won't hurt.'

The door opened. He turned to see Maria Bekakou in an open robe, her hair loose over her shoulders, with a sheepish boy beside her.

‘May we join you?' she asked.

‘Why not? What about Rovertos?'

‘He's with Paschos. Their girls were . . . reluctant. They're disciplining them.'

‘Really. I'd like to watch that.'

‘I wouldn't interrupt if I were you. Our lord and master has a short fuse.'

Tryfon Roufos nodded. It was extraordinary how much rage lay beneath Paschos Poulos's calm exterior. In some dark way it had driven his impregnation of his daughter Lia. Her disappearance had been both a blessing – what would Angie have said when the girl had begun to show? – and a curse. The people who were holding her had extracted millions of euros, which only increased Paschos's anger.

Maria Bekakou sat on the bed and rang her long-nailed fingers down the girl's back.

‘She's a tense one, isn't she? Perhaps she's worried about what will happen to her father's job and the family home if she doesn't please us.' She glanced at the boy, whose head was hung low. ‘It must be an epidemic. Priapos here can't get hard for more than a few seconds at a time.'

Roufos rolled off the bed and went to the wardrobe.

‘Time to follow our leader,' he said, coming back with two pairs of handcuffs, a peacock feather and a narrow cane. ‘These will help.'

Maria Bekakou laughed. ‘Careful, you old swine. You're making them cry.'

The antiquities smuggler shrugged. ‘All part of the fun,' he said, grabbing the girl's wrist. ‘If you cry out I'll put golf balls, plural, in both your mouths.'

The young people kept quiet.

It was after five a.m. by the time the vehicles were all in place, Mavros having confirmed that on the deputy commissioner's phone. The two of them were in Lykos's van, with Akis, whose mouth had been taped again, Lambis Bitsos, Angie Poulou, and Cadres One and Four. The large BMW that the Fat Man had followed from Athens, a gold Mercedes and Rovertos Bekakos's Porsche were parked outside the pink house at the far end of the street. There was no sign of heavy security, suggesting that Kloutsis and his men hadn't yet been reported missing. But there was a green people-carrier near the other cars and it wasn't hard to imagine who that would have carried.

‘Drive towards the house,' Mavros said to Lykos. ‘No headlights. Cut the engine about a hundred metres away and roll to a stop.'

The young man nodded and started the engine. During the short trip, Mavros glanced to his left and saw Yiorgos standing by the rental Peugeot, which he'd manoeuvred into a blocking position on the side street. Lykos cut the power and they coasted towards the parked cars at the dead end.

‘Remember, fire only in self-defence,' Xanthakos said, drawing his weapon. ‘We're doing this by the book.' He nodded to Mavros. ‘Let's go.'

They got out, the VW's sliding door making more noise than was ideal. It had been agreed that the deputy commissioner and Mavros would lead the way, with Lykos, Bitsos and the fisherman following. The two cadres would guard Angie Poulou at the rear.

Ducking behind the vehicles, Xanthakos and Mavros made it to the entrance of the property. There was a chain across the short drive, but no sign of any guards. They exchanged glances. That seemed very unlikely. Then Mavros saw a brief flash to his left. Aromatic smoke drifted across the low-level lighting in the garden.

‘Someone having a cigarette break,' he whispered.

The policeman looked away. ‘There may be another one on my side. Nothing else to do but—'

‘Go and get them.' Mavros held up his thumb and two fingers, counting them down. Then he moved away, crouching as low as he could. There was a rock covered by a succulent and he made it there without being spotted. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Xanthakos behind the thick trunk of a palm tree. Looking to the front, he made out the smoker. He was sitting on another rock, this one bare, and the only thing in his hands was the cigarette.

Mavros found a stone that filled his palm, took a deep breath and tossed it towards the house. As the guard got to his feet, head turned in that direction, Mavros rushed him, getting the muzzle of the Glock beneath the man's chin before he could react.