The Whispers of Nemesis (20 page)

‘In that case,' said the fat man, putting the cigarettes away, ‘I won't tempt you.'

‘Attis has offered me some new poems,' said Yorgas, at last. ‘At least, maybe not new, but unpublished.'

‘And where has he obtained this unpublished work?'

‘He didn't say. He wouldn't say. And frankly, I didn't press him.'

‘Does the provenance of the work not trouble you? Surely you must have doubts of the identity of their author?'

‘There's no doubt whatsoever in my mind. The poems are Santos's work. They are magnificent, and wholly of his style.'

‘In short, Attis has struck gold,' said the fat man. ‘You have both struck gold, in fact.'

Yorgas threw back his head, and laughed.

‘You have the usual view of the world of publishing,
Kyrie
Diaktoros,' he said. ‘You think we shall make our fortunes overnight. Alas, it is rarely so, and never so in the world of poetry. The business I now run was my grandfather's enterprise; my father inherited it from him, and I from my father. It's in my blood, and a labour of love. If it weren't, I would've closed the company down decades ago and gone to be a builder, or an architect – a profession where the returns are more dependable than in the business of the printed word. Bellerophon is proud to publish the best of Greece's writers, but the best of Greece's writers aren't the bestsellers. They sell steadily, over time, but none of them's made me rich. My offices are modest, as you've seen, and there's no chauffeur waiting at the door to take me to my appointments. Now, I freely admit to you that Santos's untimely death did me a favour, in the short term; it put his poems in the public eye. But the public eye is fickle and moves on to brighter treasures; like jackdaws, readers always seek the glittering new jewel. So when Attis tells me he has discovered new poems, I'm pleased, of course, but I'm not expecting to make millions, because the boost from Santos's death – forgive me, that sounds heartless in a way I didn't mean – has already run its course. If there are new poems, and if their provenance can be proved, then there may be sales in it, and good sales over time. But this isn't a bonanza day for me,
Kyrie
Diaktoros. It's just another day ploughing a small publisher's long furrow. And besides, Attis and I have so far struck no deal.'

‘Are you not really so sure, then, of their provenance?'

‘I'm entirely sure of their provenance, but the price he's asking may be beyond us.'

‘Really?' The fat man raised his eyebrows. ‘He's ambitious, then, for himself and his clients. And yet who could blame him, when Santos is suddenly big news, all over again? The Lazarus Poet, as they're calling him, and a second death, even more interesting than his first. A publisher's and agent's dream, wouldn't you say?'

‘I agree, and Attis wants to get the most he can. He's gone away to try his luck elsewhere, but he'll be back. There are few publishers of poetry in this country, and whilst we're all rivals in business, there are gentlemen's agreements we all observe. They won't tread on my toes, and he and I will strike a deal. I'm confident of that.'

‘So in fact, you only have to wait a while, and Santos's death – his second death – will bring you similar benefits to his first.'

Yorgas laughed, and waved a finger at the fat man.

‘I read your mind, my friend,' he said, ‘but you are barking up the wrong tree here. Attis I can't speak for; but my hands are clean. If I've accidently had a piece of luck, then I thank God for it, and I'm grateful; but I'm not the man to go manufacturing luck out of bizarre circumstances such as these, believe me.'

‘I may believe you,' said the fat man, slowly. ‘But Attis troubles me. His client is newly dead, and by coincidence he turns up a collection of unseen poems. If this is old work, where has it been hidden, and why has it come to light now? And if the poems are new – if Santos produced them before his second death – why wasn't Attis in the know? Because I don't think he was. If he knew why there were pig bones in the coffin, he wouldn't have hired me.'

‘You know how it sounds to me,' said Yorgas. ‘Looking at it logically, the man behind all this should be Santos himself.'

‘The thought had crossed my mind,' said the fat man, ‘but it crossed my mind before the body was found. If the plan was of Santos's making, then maybe Attis was a victim of it, in some way. And if that's the case, there must have been another player involved – another player who knows how Santos ended up dead at the roadside.'

‘You're suggesting we're being made fools of.'

‘Not you, friend. You have your money, do you not?'

‘I admit to that. It's I who pay Santos his share – Santos's estate, in recent years – and not the other way round.'

‘I admit at the moment to being baffled,' said the fat man, ‘but I'll find the answers in the end. And to help me, I wonder if you would do me a small favour? I need to know where Attis found these poems. That's crucial. Perhaps you could dine with him again at Georgio's. Fill him with some decent wine, and then ask questions. If he's involved in something, do your very best to wring it out.'

‘Gladly.'

‘May I call you tomorrow?'

‘You may. You have, I know, my private number.'

‘And please, I must ask you to be discreet. Whoever's hand is in this, it's vital we don't tip them off. When I get to Vrisi, things will become clearer.'

‘So what do you think?' asked Yorgas. ‘Are these poems going to make me wealthy, after all? Discover a big scandal, if you can. The bigger the scandal, the more books I'll sell.'

‘Be careful what you wish for,' said the fat man, ‘because I might follow that thought to its logical conclusion. The biggest scandal you could wish for would be murder. That would create huge interest in your Lazarus poet, and you, my friend, might easily find yourself with the bestseller you say you've never had, and a perfect motive for the crime.'

Fifteen

The train was over two hours late, delayed at every stop: a late-arriving passenger to be helped aboard; a wait for a gang of labourers to clear the line; lengthy halts for no clear reason at all.

The fat man disembarked from the train, and followed on to the station forecourt an old woman with a cat carrier, which contained not a cat but a chicken, puffed up and broody. Amongst the newer cabs on the stand, Hassan's old taxi was easily picked out; but Hassan didn't see his vehicle as conspicuous, and to draw the fat man's attention, he gave a blast on his horn. Startled, the old woman glared her disapproval, and wandered muttering away with her chicken, down the busy street.

Hassan greeted the fat man like an old friend, shaking his hand warmly and opening the passenger door. Cloying air-freshener curdled the car's over-heated interior; thrown by fast manoeuvres, the bouquet of plastic roses was wedged at the parcel-shelf's end.

‘So,' said Hassan, as the fat man made himself comfortable, ‘back to Vrisi, eh, my friend? You surprise me. You don't strike me as a man for such a place as Vrisi.'

‘Sometimes a place like Vrisi calls my name,' said the fat man. ‘Or, more accurately in this case, someone with an interest there has called. I gather you have some drama at the moment.'

‘You'd think we were the centre of the world,' said Hassan. He pulled away from the taxi stand, forcing oncoming traffic to a stop as he joined the road without regard for rights of way or legalities, and the fat man averted his eyes from the insulting gestures of an angry driver. Without indicating, Hassan made an abrupt left turn. ‘You can't move for the press, photographing the cemetery and the statue. They say the TV may come, for the funeral. But the family won't like it, if they do. The family wants to be left alone. And who can blame them, when he's dragged them from embarrassment to scandal?' He turned his head to look at the fat man. ‘Is the funeral why you're back amongst us, friend? You have an interest in the poet, don't you?' He looked back at the road, and finding himself too close to a bus's rear bumper, braked sharply but fell back only a metre or two, so the taxi's heater fans still sucked in the smoke of the bus's oily exhaust.

The fat man did not immediately reply; he gripped the edges of his seat, and watched with both fear and admiration as Hassan drove through the town's streets, weaving through the traffic, making use of the side streets and alleys as ingenious short cuts. Before long, the town gave way to more open suburbs, and they joined the mountain road. Far ahead, the peaks were still white; but amongst the forest trees, all the snow had melted, and the verges showed the first new growth of spring.

‘In answer to your question,' he said, at last, ‘the poet does interest me, it's true. He was a man with secrets, certainly, the biggest of them being that he wasn't dead. It's an unusual trick, to fake your own death, and a hard one to pull off, but I think Santos Volakis succeeded with it. And his real death now strikes me as very convenient; but the question is, convenient to whom? What have you heard about the cause of his death?'

‘They say the police told Leda that he fell on his face and cracked his head. I hear he wasn't pretty to look at, and an offence to the nose as well. He was already in a state when they found him. They only knew who he was from his ID card.' Hassan changed down a gear, and accelerated to overtake a car ahead. ‘I'm wondering if you might be a policeman yourself, friend. You ask questions as if you might be a policeman.'

The fat man laughed.

‘I, a policeman? No. There is no police force in this land which would employ me. My employers are a higher authority, who take an interest in matters of this kind, if it's appropriate, and necessary. They consider it necessary now, and so here I am. Tell me, is Attis Danas in Vrisi? A man who might be staying in the poet's house?'

‘Someone arrived this morning; maybe you mean him? He came in a town car – nothing smart, an Opel. I passed him on the road. And with the snow, Frona and Leda never left. They'll be there a while longer still, now, I assume. They made poor Leda identify the body. That's a hard task, a daughter identifying the corpse of her own father, especially when he's not in a very pretty state. They say she might not have known him, but for his papers.'

‘It's a rare daughter who wouldn't know her father, even under those circumstances,' said the fat man. ‘It was the police who fetched her for the job, I suppose?'

‘They came from the police station at Polineri. They took the body there when they found it, and sent it from there to the city mortuary for examination, whatever it is they do.'

They were approaching the first hairpin in the mountain road; the drop down to sea level was steep and cragged. Hassan touched the brake and slowed the car a little; the fat man looked down at his lap to avoid the view.

‘Still nervous, eh?' asked Hassan. ‘Relax, friend. You're in capable hands.'

‘I don't doubt it,' said the fat man. ‘Tell me, do you know where the body was found, exactly?'

‘I do,' said Hassan. ‘It was at the chapel of St Fanourios, at the roadside opposite the shrine.'

‘Then, since we will be passing, when we come to the place, I wonder if you'd be good enough to stop.'

 

When they reached the chapel, the shrine's lamp was unlit. Hassan chose a cassette of Turkish music from his small collection, and as the fat man climbed from the car, turned the volume loud and relaxed back into his seat.

The fat man bowed his head in salutation to the skulls, then left his holdall on the damp grass at the shrine's foot and crossed the road.

The forest's edge was close to the roadside, and the first trees of the dark acres were rooted above a gentle slope which rose up from the carriageway. The fat man moved along the roadside, his eyes on the sparse plants which grew on the sandy gravel, until a short distance from the shrine, in a spot overlooked by the skulls' fourteen hollow eyes, he found the grasses flattened and crushed over an area the size of a man's body, and the ground disturbed by the marks of many men's feet.

He studied the place where the body had been discovered, considering what Hassan had said: that the poet had tripped, or slipped, and cracked his head. The fat man frowned. There were, in that spot, no rocks or other hazards; and the question remained of why anyone with the level carriageway open to him would choose to walk instead on the rough verge.

Above the road, the tree trunks grew close, and the canopy of their branches was dense. The fat man made his way, head down, up the slope to the first of the trees, where he stopped and looked back at the road below. Then, maintaining the line that he had followed, he walked deeper into the trees.

The carpet of rotting pine needles had been disturbed. Whereas the needles lay level to left and right, where he now stood they were mounded into ridges and swept into crescents, where someone had obliterated other marks. All the disturbed area was dimpled with the ovals of footmarks.

He went on, further into the trees, scanning for more disturbance as he went, but finding little sign that anyone had been there before him; the hollows and dips in the softness of the needles might easily have been the scrabblings of rabbits or squirrels.