‘Why don’t you tell the police, Tim?’ Gwyneth Littlejohn turned to her husband.
‘Oh, come on, dearie, you know what they’re like here. Unless they’re heavily bribed and indeed unless they suspect a crime is an offence under their law, they aren’t going to stir a stump. Anyway, it’s not clear that anything criminal except a border-crossing is going on, and that’s not a crime in my book.’
Gwyneth Littlejohn supposed he was right. ‘However,’ she said firmly to Theodora’, ‘you can’t go alone, my dear.’ She laid a hand on Theodora’s. ‘And Tim can’t take you tomorrow; he’s got sick communions and then a PCC. I’ll drive you.’
Theodora folded the map over her knee and Gwyneth Littlejohn drove. The map was worse than useless since it marked only the Greek names of villages, and one of the few tasks which the Turks had performed thoroughly was that of changing the signposts and village nameboards from Greek to unrelated Turkish names. Hence, though Theodora had been aghast at the idea of Gwyneth Littlejohn coming with her, she had to admit she knew what she was about and she was grateful.
They’d set off at dawn and made good speed over the track towards the mountains. The sun came up as the pine forest dwindled and they reached the rocky, single-track road which would bring them eventually to Montevento. On the map and from the windows of the Littlejohns’ guest room it had all looked quite near and possible. As they approached, the reality, however, was different. The road was steep and deeply rutted with rockfalls precipitated by the winter rains. Hairpin bend followed hairpin bend monotonously. Progress was slow.
‘How would someone crossing the border get up here?’ ‘There’s more than one way up. Coming from Kyrenia this is the fastest way. Coming from Nicosia there’re two ways, and they both come round the back.’
‘Are there tourists?’
‘Oh, yes. Increasingly. At first the Turks were very suspicious of anyone. Now they’re still suspicious, but they want the currency and the good name. It doesn’t mean they put labels on things or offer the odd signpost, in any other language. But they don’t actually gun you down if you want to get to a site of historical interest.’
Theodora wasn’t sure how reassured she was by this.
‘The Germans,’ Gwyneth prattled on, ‘have done a lot to help really. The Turks trust them from the ’14–’18 war, of course. And the Germans are great cultural travellers. Very pushy, very well informed and determined.’
Gwyneth completed the blind corner and stamped on her brakes. The back of the coach said in gothic letters. ‘Gottfried Hellman, Kultural Tourischen, Heidelberg’.
‘See what I mean?’ said Gwyneth in triumph. ‘Still, we can fall in behind him and let him do the work.’
An hour and a half later, at eleven-thirty, they turned yet one more corner and came out on to a plateau, brownish green in colour from a strong growth of ryegrass. They found themselves looking down on the monastery which had been built in a dip in the hills, and gazing up at the castle perched behind. There were no other vehicles apart from themselves and the coachload of Germans. The monastery’s small dome and single block of cells looked toy-like in the distance. There was utter silence. Then the door of the coach was flung open and a babble of German filled the air. Theodora watched them descend. Most were middle aged, many of the men wore hats and all wore raincoats. Amongst the last to edge down the high steps was a figure faintly familiar to her: for a moment when he turned his face towards her she recognised her illshaved friend from the plane and hotel.
‘What do you want to do?’ asked Gwyneth.
Theodora turned her gaze towards the castle which looked, doubtless misleadingly, about a mile away.
‘I don’t think I want to mix it with the German party in the monastery. I wonder if it would be a good idea if I went and cased the castle while you stay here and keep an eye open for new arrivals?’
‘Right you are,’ said Gwyneth. ‘What are we looking for?’
‘Well, certainly a Kostas or a Stephanopoulos, and then anyone who contacts them.’
‘Were you a Guide?’ asked Gwyneth unexpectedly.
Theodora admitted she had been a patrol leader. Gwyneth Littlejohn nodded. ‘I thought I recognised a fellow Guide. I was commissioner for Llandryneth for nearly fourteen years before I met Tim. And I don’t think the skill has deserted me.’
She suddenly clutched her person about knee level and plunged both hands deep into a concealed trouser pocket. From it she produced two large red handkerchiefs and sprang to attention with the pieces of cloth clasped in front of her.
‘Ready to transmit message,’ said Theodora suavely.
‘Off you go,’ said Gwyneth. ‘And don’t take any more risks than you need.’
Theodora started the climb in good fettle, but a hundred yards up, the steep, irregular steps found her sweating and panting. Life in Betterhouse had made her soft. Have to do some regular exercise when I get back – if I get back – she resolved. Halfway up she stopped and looked down. The German party were in an orderly file nearing the monastery. The Suzuki and Gwyneth were parked under the one tree some distance away. Far to the right, Theodora thought she glimpsed a glint, as of sun on the windscreen of a miniature car, its grey form scarcely discernible against the rock, appearing and disappearing round the circuitous track.
She turned once more to her task. The stairs gave out and the steps became simple footholds cut into the living rock. She was still nowhere near the castle entrance. She looked up at it and, with an experienced eye, took in the curtain wall and the enceinte. The entrance was a single round arch with the remains of one tower. Leading off from either side were battlements crumbling back into mountain rock. Behind them the second set of walls looked in better condition. Eleventh century with thirteenth-century additions, she thought as she caught sight of the chapel and vaulted hall. Clumps of valerian and small ferns fringed and softened the unmortared masonry; in and out of the crevices lizards scuttled and rustled.
There was no nonsense about signs telling visitors to beware of fallen masonry, of which there was a considerable amount on the ground. The ministry of works was conspicuous by its absence; poor access for the disabled, too, Theodora thought, swinging herself over the insecure piles towards the inner wall.
Here officialdom had belatedly caught up. An irregularly painted notice, much blistered and peeling off, offered in Turkish and English museum, chapel and bar. All human needs, Theodora thought with scepticism, and made for the final set of steps which let to the battlements of the inner walls.
At the top she found a broad paved walk running between the machicolations. The sun-warmed stones invited. She selected an embrasure and sat down. The silence was absolute, except for a raven cawing somewhere below her. The view through the slit was like a miniature in a manuscript, toy mountains in the distance, red poppies near at hand and below, oh heavens, the red flash of Gwyneth embarking on a semaphore message.
Theodora focused her field glasses and Gwyneth sprang into view. She picked out the letters with difficulty and read: ‘English priest in car.’ Who on earth? For a moment she wondered if Geoffrey had by some chance arrived. Gwyneth was still signalling. ‘Has parcel, entering castle.’ Theodora read the ‘end of message’ sign and looked down towards the entrance. Because the battlements curved and the entrance tower was well set in, it was difficult to see whether any one was entering. She began to walk slowly round the battlements, leaning out over them every twenty yards to see if visibility had improved.
At the third attempt she was dismayed to see half a dozen mackintoshed figures filing through the archgate. The German party had completed their visit to the monastery in record time. She scrutinised each, but could see no one whom she could identify by the description of ‘British priest with a parcel’. Not one of them looked like an Anglican.
She looked back to where she had last seen Gwyneth, but of her there was now no sign. Perhaps she had better descend and check the German crowd as they moved t
owards the keep, as they surely must do. Germans would want to see the museum and the chapel. They’d know about vaulting. If she didn’t hurry she’d miss them. She began the descent, carefully measuring and placing her steps on each worn stair. She seemed to have got a second wind, or else the descent was easier. At the bottom she met a figure picking its way daintily over the fallen masonry and holding a sunshade aloft. The woman glanced at Theodora and said with a smile and in excellent English, ‘It is amazing what we do in the name of culture, isn’t it?’ Theodora wished she felt she could have answered in as good German, and wondered with regret whether she really looked as English as all that.
At the bottom of the stair it was possible to command the whole of the approach from the entrance arch. No one of the remainder of the party looked like an English priest. Hell’s teeth, had she come all this way only to miss her quarry? Where was he? What was going on? She tossed up between the chapel and the bar. Where, after all, would you negotiate a deal? She struck off towards the bar, not really believing in its existence in this remote place. It would presumably be a roofed building. She spotted a roof at the far end of the battlement. Once more she raced up the stairs and jogged round the broad path. At the far end there was a door which looked as though it had not been opened in many years. From the other side came the sound of music. Cautiously she turned the handle. Four interested male faces turned towards her. They were seated at a wellappointed bar with glasses in front of them. Abruptly the music ceased and a voice said, ‘This is the BBC World Service.’
I think I’ve had enough of surprises, Theodora thought. She ordered an orange juice and took it out on to the minuscule balcony. All I want is an English priest carrying a parcel. All I get is Germans hunting culture and Turks improving their English. She sipped her juice disconsolately. Far away in the distance she could see the tiny monastery and, walking purposefully towards it, a black figure. She downed the juice and set off at a pace which would have pleased the former Guide commissioner for Llandryneth.
At the door of the monastery chapel she paused, drew breath, and then edged inside. It was dark and smelt of incense and damp. It would have held no more than a dozen people, she estimated, and at the moment it was quite empty. To the left of the iconostasis was a door in the wall. She crossed quickly towards it. It was ajar. She pulled it open and stepped out into a tiny, sunlit court, in the middle of which was a wellhead, an almond tree, and two figures on a stone bench, seated slightly apart. One of the figures was familiar: a heavy-looking man with a growth of beard. The other was slight and younger and, to Theodora’s eye, unmistakably English. Between them lay a parcel.
‘Kallistos Bury,’ said Theodora firmly, ‘where is Jessica Stephanopoulos?’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Celebrations
‘This is Sir Solomon Piatigorsky,’ said Dame Alicia with pride. There was a general murmur of well-bred applause. The party in the first mistress’s lodgings after St Veep’s Lent concert was always a select affair. The parents of pupils who had performed were invited, together with anyone else Dame Alicia felt would add lustre to the occasion. Admiral Topglass of the US navy, Mrs Bennet, a governor of the BBC, Sir Nicholas Hapgood from the Treasury, had all merited invitations. Theodora reckoned she’d been invited to be paraded before the ecclesiastical governors to show she was presentable. The bishop had been approving, ‘Of course, I knew your dear father.’ The canon of Exeter had been jocular, ‘Stretches you a bit, coping with our youngsters, I expect,’ he’d said, his hand comfortably round a glass.
Geoffrey had been invited because Oenone had wanted him, and Dame Alicia was very relieved to have the Stephanopoulos muddle sorted out without its having hit the press, and was therefore disposed to meet Oenone’s requests in case she might be tempted to spill the beans. Not, she thought, that she didn’t trust Miss Troutbeck, but there had been unsavoury gossip about her brother. He’d just been released from police questioning about the murder of one of his pupils. She hadn’t inquired because obviously there must have been a mistake. The Troutbecks were a perfectly pukka family. She’d looked them up and Anne Aldriche had vouched for them. But it was as well to be on the safe side.
Cromwell oozed over to Theodora to rescue her from the canon. ‘You saw The Times?’ he inquired of the grateful Theodora.
‘To be honest, I wrote it.’
‘The safest way in specialist matters.’
A muted paragraph had recorded the remarkable fact that the art world had recently been delighted by the reuniting of the famous Venetian Triptych, a set of three icons painted in Cyprus in the fourteenth century by an Italian master, the whereabouts of which had been uncertain since they disappeared from Ayia Maria, Montevento, Cyprus in the 1920s. It appeared that the three panels were now in the hands of the Greek Orthodox Church, its original owners, and were to be installed in the iconostasis of the Orthodox Church of the Resurrection, Strachan Square, London, at a special ceremony this Easter. The priest in charge of the church, the Reverend Kallistos Bury, had said they were delighted by the kind donation on the part of the Turkish authorities, and he was sure it would do much to heal old wounds and improve Turkish-Greek relations in the future.
‘A pretty piece of diplomacy,’ said Cromwell.
‘You could say that.’
‘Theo’s really rather good at that sort of thing,’ said Geoffrey, who had prised Oenone away from the bishop and dodged the canon to join them.
‘How did you manage the hat-trick?’ Cromwell pursued.
‘You mean getting hold of the maesta?’
‘Partly.’
‘Vouniki, the Betterhouse Vouniki, had it from young Kostas.’
‘Snatched from school.’ Geoffrey contributed. ‘The Vounikis were part of the firm redoing the electrics. I don’t know whether they intended to kill the boy, but it happened. They’ve arrested poor Harry’s cousin, I understand.’
‘I have to admit I hated that bit. I know no evil of Harry himself. It seemed treacherous setting the police on. But then of course, there was the boy and,’ he turned to Oenone, ‘there was Ralph to consider. The police weren’t eager to give him up?’
Oenone smiled her gratitude to Geoffrey. ‘I shall always be in your debt.’
There was a pause. ‘Poor kid, poor young Kostas,’ Cromwell said.
‘Yes, well,’ Theodora took up the tale, ‘Kostas’s father was certain he wasn’t going to have any more of his sons killed because, of course, the other twin, Peter, might have posed a threat to the Vounikis.’
‘Why on earth didn’t the Kostases go to the police?’ Oenone asked.
‘The police might have wanted to know how the Kostases came to be in possession of the maesta in the first place,’ said Theodora.
‘So they decamped to Cyprus for safety,’ said Cromwell.
‘No, actually,’ said Theodora. ‘He’d booked seats for both the boys and himself to go because he had plans to sell the maesta and it would have been more convenient to do that in Cyprus than in London. But when the maesta was stolen and his son killed, he didn’t take up the seats.’
‘Why didn’t he sell it before?’ Oenone inquired.
‘I think they had plans to do just that. You remember the photograph of the maesta your uncle took with Dick Pound in 1974?’
Oenone nodded.
‘I rather think that was part of the sales pitch which the Kostases, Jeremy Troutbeck and Dick Pound had in mind to make for the icon before the Turkish invasion rather clouded things.’
‘So they put the scheme on ice,’ Oenone relished the diction so untypical of her usual style. ‘It would explain why Uncle Jeremy never spoke of it and why Dick Pound put himself to the trouble of getting the Kostases out of the island so swiftly.’
‘How did the Vounikis become involved?’ Barbara Brighouse had joined the group as a rest from being pleasant to parents.
‘They’d already had a bust-up with the Kostases,’ said her brother. Indeed Kostas père had had a
go at one of the Vounikis with a knife and done six months for it. The Vounikis are a Cypriot family but, of course, Turkish not Greek. The word got round that the Kostases were looking for buyers and that the Greek government might be interested in purchasing so as to make some political capital out of this precious national art treasure, etc. So they thought they might as well put a spoke in that particular wheel and pay off old scores at the same time.’
‘What I think is so clever of Theodora, ‘said Oenone (Theodora forgave the patronage instantly), ‘is your recognising a member of the London Vounikis in Cyprus when they all look alike to me.’
‘And they’re all so invisible too,’ Theodora agreed. ‘Actually it was the evening you dined with us at the Paradise Garden Betterhouse that I first made the attempt to try and separate them out. Of course I didn’t realise then that Harry was a member of the Vouniki clan. In fact, I wasn’t aware he was Turkish. My only impression was that everyone who served in the restaurant looked alike. I remember looking at Harry, Mr Vouniki, and then at the waiter, and then at the one behind the bar, trying to tell t’other from which. The only difference I could see was the tendency to grow a beard late in the evening on the part of the older pair. It was when I saw the barman on the plane to Cyprus and later in the Rotunda and later still amongst the Germans, I began to suspect there had to be a Paradise Garden involvement, whatever their nationality.’
‘How come the Vounikis were willing to let Kallistos Bury have the icon?’ Cromwell inquired.
‘Well,’ said Geoffrey and Theodora together, and then stopped. Dame Alicia hoved into view with Stella Stephan-opoulos in tow.
‘I was just saying we mustn’t talk politics. But its quite difficult not to when most of the fathers in the room are involved in them at a very high level,’ said the dame.
‘Power,’ said Cromwell, looking round the room. ‘It’s very unattractive.’
Dame Alicia chose to suppose he was being ironic. Of course, she knew and he knew that in the end the only things that matter in this world
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