His eyes wandered from her face, to her body, gift-wrapped in silk for his viewing pleasure, then slowly back up to her eyes. The expression on his face made it crystal clear what form he wanted her gratitude to take.
‘It’s been my pleasure to have you here, Persephone,’ he said eventually. ‘And you’re right, business matters have kept me preoccupied for the last few days. But I’d like to make that time up to you. I’ve decided to spend the rest of the month on my yacht. I’d be honored if you would join me.’
Ella’s throat went dry. This was a major curve ball. Was it a test? He hadn’t mentioned any plans to leave Mykonos this summer before now. Whatever his motives, she knew she must play this very, very carefully.
‘Where will you be sailing?’ She played for time.
‘I’m not sure. Perhaps to Italy eventually. Sardinia. But maybe to some of the smaller Greek islands first. Paxos. Alonissos. I’ve heard Sikinos is beautiful this time of year. Do you know it?’
Ella could hardly breathe. Sikinos was where Sister Elena’s convent was. Why would he mention that to me? Does he suspect I know something? But why would he? How could he?
‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’ She buttered a slice of bread with Oscar-worthy nonchalance. ‘Unfortunately, I won’t be able to join you, at least not for the first part of the month.’ She toyed with her earring thoughtfully. ‘Although perhaps I could come aboard later, once you reach Italy?’
A small muscle began to twitch at the edge of Makis’s jaw.
‘Why can’t you come now? You have plans?’
She sighed deeply and continued eating. ‘I’m afraid I do. I’ve decided to divorce Nick.’
Mak sat back in his chair, surprised. ‘Really?’
‘Mmm hm,’ she nodded, avoiding his gaze in a coy manner that might have implied he was a part of the reason for her decision. ‘Being here has given me a lot of time to think. I needed that.’
‘I see,’ his voice softened.
Mak’s conversation yesterday with Miriam Dabiri had troubled him deeply. It was no secret that Miriam was jealous, that she resented his interest in Persephone and the fact that he’d tired so suddenly of her. And yet, he believed the story she’d told him, about the animated call and the disassembling of the ‘burner’ phone. It simply sounded too elaborate and specific to have been made up.
‘Be careful,’ Miriam had warned him. ‘As a friend. I don’t think you can trust her.’
His first instinct had been to agree. Persephone must be spying on him, although for whom and to what end he couldn’t fathom. But if she was divorcing her husband, perhaps there was another, less troubling motive for her secretive calls? She might be trying to hide money from her soon-to-be ex, or conceal an affair, or she might be hiring some shady investigator to look into his affairs and not want those calls traced. Divorce and secrecy often went hand in hand.
‘I have to go to Athens to see some lawyers,’ she told him now. Reaching across the table, she stroked his hand with what felt like more than just friendly affection. ‘For various reasons it makes sense for me to file here, in Europe. Depending on how Nick responds, I may also have to fly back to the States.’
‘For how long?’
She squeezed his hand. ‘I don’t know yet. But I leave for Athens in the morning. I’ll know more after my meetings there.’
‘You leave tomorrow?’ he frowned. The thought was painful.
‘Not for ever.’ She tried to sound reassuring. ‘If he doesn’t contest it – and there’s a good chance he won’t – I would love to join you on the yacht in a week or two. But I have to do this, Mak. You understand, don’t you?’
He nodded.
‘Once I’m divorced … things will be different,’ she promised him.
Gazing into her eyes, Mak wanted to believe her.
After dinner, they sat out on the terrace talking for a long time. Afterwards, as usual, he walked her back to her own suite of rooms. But this time, when she placed her hand on the door, he moved in behind her, pressing his body close against hers.
‘I don’t want you to go.’
Ella closed her eyes. She could feel his warm breath in her ear and the heat of his body against her bare back. She was afraid of him, but excited at the same time, his desire triggering her own. Turning around she kissed him, only once but with a passion that, to her shame, she didn’t have to fake.
‘I don’t want to go either,’ she whispered afterwards. ‘But I must. Goodnight, Makis.’
Turning the handle she slipped inside her rooms, closing the door behind her, her heart pounding as she waited to see whether he would force the issue and follow. To her combined relief and disappointment, he didn’t.
Back in his own bed, feeling elated and frustrated in equal measure, Mak stared up at the ceiling. The kiss was real. That much he knew for sure. As for everything else Persephone had told him tonight, on balance he believed her. But Miriam’s warnings still hovered in the back of his mind like an unwanted black cloud.
Better safe than sorry.
He would speak with Cameron McKinley first thing tomorrow morning about having her followed. Persephone Hamlin would be free to go to Athens. But until the hour she joined him aboard his yacht, Argo, Makis Alexiadis would be watching her every move.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Detective Inspector Jim Boyd pulled back the plastic sheeting and winced at the remains on the medical examiner’s slab.
‘Female, obviously,’ Lisa Janner, the medical examiner explained. Helpfully, as it was far from obvious to Jim Boyd that the slimy mess he was looking at was even human. ‘And as I said on the phone, Asian. Even with the facial features largely destroyed, you can tell from the hair. See?’ Lisa lifted up a thick strand of glossy black hair between two gloved fingers, for DI Boyd’s perusal. ‘Probably early fifties. Well off, judging from the manicured hands, expensive dentistry. Dead long before she was submerged.’
The body, what remained of it, had washed up on the banks of the Thames not far from Westminster Bridge in the early hours of this morning, wrapped ineffectually in three layers of black plastic bin bag that had done very little to protect it from the foul ravages of the river. Some poor student out for a dawn jog had found it and spent twenty minutes heaving his guts out before he had the strength to call 999. That’ll teach the smug bastard, turning his body into a temple while the rest of us are still in bed sleeping off our hangovers, thought Jim Boyd. Although he was damn glad he hadn’t found ‘her’ in her original state. If what he was looking at now was the cleaned-up version, he dreaded to think …
‘Cause of death almost certainly blunt force trauma to the back of the skull,’ Lisa went on, gently turning the slimy orb to one side to reveal the wound. ‘Although there are other relevant injuries that might have resulted in—’
‘Where’s the mark? The letter?’ It was the first time Boyd had spoken. The first time he’d felt confident he could open his mouth without vomiting.
‘Ah. That’s down here.’ Mercifully covering up the melted remnants of the woman’s features, Lisa Janner lifted the base of the plastic tarp. One foot had been completely, and very cleanly severed, as if with a guillotine. But the other had been marked along the entire sole with a large letter: ‘P’.
‘What is that?’ Jim Boyd looked closer. He felt more comfortable down at this end. ‘Not a tattoo?’
‘No. It’s a brand,’ the medical examiner informed him. ‘Like a cattle brand. It was made with hot metal. Burned into the flesh.’
‘After death?’ Boyd asked hopefully, wincing again.
‘Impossible to say.’
It took Jim Boyd a few moments to remember where he’d seen something similar recently. In the newspaper. The little toddler, washed up on the beach in Greece. Branded like an animal, and on the foot too. But that kid had been a migrant, stuffed onto one of those Libyan death boats, the poorest of the poor. What could a child like that have in common with a rich, middle-aged Asian bird
stuffed into bin bags in London.
‘Sir?’
Harrison, Boyd’s sergeant, stuck his eager, ruddy-cheeked face around the door.
‘We’ve got a name, sir. Probable anyway. Professor Noriko Adachi. She’s an academic, apparently. Lives in Japan.’
‘Japan?’ Boyd raised an eyebrow.
‘Yes, sir. The techs were able to trace a bar code on a library card found with the body. It’s from Osaka University. One of Professor Adachi’s students there officially reported her missing three weeks ago.’
Boyd frowned. ‘What was she doing in London?’
‘Don’t know, sir.’ Harrison shrugged. ‘Holiday? She entered the UK from New York on a tourist visa five weeks ago. She was in regular Skype contact with her students, but that stopped abruptly about a month ago. That’s all we have at the minute.’
‘Do you want to see any more?’ Lisa Janner asked Boyd. ‘As I say, there were other wounds …’
‘It’s all in your report, I assume?’ asked Boyd
‘Of course.’
‘Then no. Thank you.’
He turned and walked grimly from the room. Professor Adachi had not been in London on holiday. Of that much he was certain. Brandings and severed feet and bodies in bin bags tossed into the Thames? These were not random, thoughtless acts of violence directed towards a tourist. This was not a rape or mugging gone wrong. It was the calculated work of a professional killer who had reason to wish Miss Adachi dead. Someone who either feared her, or hated her, or both.
‘What did you know, Noriko?’ he muttered aloud to himself under his breath. ‘What did you know?’
Constantin Pilavos loaded a second reel of film into his Nikkon FE 35 mm and waited patiently in his parked van until Persephone Hamlin emerged from the building.
Her divorce lawyer, Anna Cosmidis, was one of the biggest legal hitters in Greece. Hence her offices, which occupied the entire top floor of a landmark building on Poseidonos Avenue, one of the most exclusive streets in Athens. Mrs Hamlin had been inside for almost two hours – God knew how much that would have cost her! – but Constantin’s orders were to take pictures of her arriving and leaving, and then to follow her to wherever she went next.
At long last she reappeared, looking businesslike in a cream skirt and fitted jacket and with her eyes hidden behind oversized sunglasses. Rolling down his window and adjusting the zoom lens, Constantin began taking more shots. Mr McKinley, his boss, had insisted on the old-fashioned camera and hand-developed prints. Makis Alexiadis, his boss, was a stickler for avoiding electronic communication wherever possible and paranoid about emails or phone calls being intercepted. It was a lesson he’d learned from his mentor, Spyros Petridis, and never forgotten.
The whole thing was overkill in Constantin Pilavos’s opinion. But as he was paid by the hour, he wasn’t complaining. So far, the Hamlin woman had done nothing more interesting than visiting her lawyer, strolling in the park, and twice attending a local gym. Constantin had captured all of it, although he failed to see of what interest his pictures would be, to Makis Alexiadis or to anyone. If Big Mak suspected Persephone of having an affair, he was wrong. As far as Constantin could tell, the woman didn’t even have any friends.
He continued snapping until she was out of sight, then started his engine.
Nikkos Anastas sat his ample backside down on an empty bench in the grounds of the Parthenon and opened his newspaper.
It was another sweltering day, hot enough that there were few people milling around at this midday hour. By the time Ella arrived and sat down on the adjoining bench directly behind him, two damp circles of sweat had already begun to spread under Nikkos’s arms and the skin on his hairy legs was starting to burn below the line of his shorts.
‘You took your time,’ he said in Greek, without looking around or acknowledging her presence in any way.
‘Divorce is a complicated business. Anna had a lot of questions.’
‘You were able to answer them? No slip-ups.’
‘No.’ Ella spoke to the ground. ‘It was fine.’
‘He’s still following you?’
‘Mmm hmmm,’ she confirmed. ‘But I can’t pick up anything from him. If he has a phone he doesn’t use it.’
‘So nothing from Mak?’
‘Not that I can detect. Sorry,’ said Ella.
Nikkos grunted. It was frustrating. Knowing Ella was being watched by Alexiadis, she had to go through the motions as Persephone Hamlin while in Athens, which made it harder than usual for the two of them to meet and plan the next stage of her mission. Nikkos had hoped that at least the goon tailing her might have provided Ella with a continued window onto Makis’s movements and plans, particularly in so far as they concerned Athena. The radio silence was an added blow.
‘When can we talk properly?’ Ella asked, her own frustration beginning to show. ‘Gabriel said you would give me instructions this week.’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Nikkos impatiently. ‘It has not been easy. Is that him? The Fiat van, next to the tobacco store?’
Ella glanced down the hill. ‘It is,’ she murmured, taking out a book from her purse and pretending to read.
‘OK,’ said Nikkos. ‘Tomorrow night there’s a big party being held at the house of Stavros Helios. It’s a political fundraiser. Persephone Hamlin’s on the guest list.’
‘Who’s Stavros Helios?’
‘A very rich man. One of the first Greeks to invest in Bitcoin,’ said Nikkos. ‘He’s also one of us.’
‘Does he know about me? About the Sikinos mission?’
‘No, no, no. Don’t worry about any of that. Just show up tomorrow night. We can talk properly there.’
‘What about van man? He’s bound to follow me. And for all we know, Makis may have other people watching.’
‘Leave all that to me,’ said Nikkos. ‘And don’t leave here for at least ten minutes. Your Greek’s improving by the way.’
‘Thank you,’ said Ella.
But Nikkos had already folded up his paper and lumbered off down the hill.
Stavros Helios’s estate was the second grandest mansion in Athens, right after the presidential palace. Designed by the same architect in the mid-nineteenth century, both were vast, white wedding cakes of buildings, complete with the usual ‘classical’ Greek touches of Doric columns, supported on enormous stucco plinths and crepidoma, and topped by an entablature depicting a variety of the ancient myths.
Of the two, however, Helios’s house had by far the larger and more beautiful grounds. Surrounded by towering poplar trees and at the end of a quarter-mile-long drive, the mansion fronted onto a series of tiered lawns, fountains and formal gardens, each with a different theme. The rose garden, occasionally opened to the public, was said to contain more rare varieties of rose than any other in Europe, including the world-famous specimens at the palace of Versailles. But it was only one of a series of different outdoor ‘spaces’, each exquisite in their own way, including a Japanese garden, a water garden, a desert garden, a sculpture garden, and a bonsai ‘forest’.
Climbing out of the chauffeur-driven limousine that Nikkos had arranged for her, Ella immediately felt underdressed in her simple white evening gown. Gazing at the other women emerging from their Bentleys and Lamborghinis in astonishing couture gowns, their bodices hand-stitched with dazzling beading, many of them sporting trains and even tiaras, she tried to remind herself that Persephone Hamlin took pride in being a rich woman of relatively simple sartorial tastes. Even so, arriving on her own and in a plain Calvin Klein sheath, Ella felt uncomfortably naked.
Removing the stiff invitation card from her silver clutch-bag, she handed it to the ‘greeter’ at the gate, an elegant woman in her fifties wearing a beautifully understated, pale pink Prada gown and with her dark hair pinned up in a bun like a ballerina.
‘Welcome, Mrs Hamlin,’ she smiled at Ella. ‘I hope you enjoy the evening.’
‘Hey. You!’
Constantin Pilavos froze
as a heavy male hand clamped down on his shoulders.
‘I’m from Kathimerini,’ he explained, turning around to face his assailant, a giant brute of a man in an ill-fitting black suit, and pulling an elegantly forged press pass for the well-known Greek newspaper from his inside jacket pocket. Ahead of him, he could see Persephone Hamlin take a flute of champagne from one of the waiting staff before disappearing into the growing throng.
‘I don’t think so,’ growled the giant menacingly. ‘You need to leave.’
‘I can assure you, my paper is on the approved media list.’ Constantin stammered nervously. He didn’t wish to anger this monster, who could crush him like a baby bird if he put his mind to it. On the other hand, if he didn’t come back with photographic evidence of Mrs Hamlin’s one and only social night out in Athens, he’d have Mr McKinley to answer to, an equally unappealing prospect.
‘Please,’ he urged the giant. ‘If you’d just check the list? Mr Helios specifically invited us to cover tonight’s event.’
‘Yeah? Well he’s changed his mind,’ grunted the giant, in a tone that made it crystal clear the conversation was over. ‘I’ll see you out.’
Lifting Constantin off the ground with no more effort than a child picking up a doll, he physically carried him back down the driveway and out of the gates. Worse, when he set him down, he proceeded to grab his camera, pull out the film, and thrust it into his pocket.
‘Don’t come back,’ he snarled. ‘We’ll be watching.’
‘Is he gone?’ Ella asked Nikkos.
‘He’s gone. But I need you to listen carefully. Cameron McKinley won’t let Persephone out of his sight for long. We don’t have much time.’
They were sitting alone on a terrace at the rear of the property. Below them, in the sculpture garden, Athens’s ruling political class were milling around, sipping Stavros Helios’s vintage champagne and generally behaving as if they’d never heard of the word ‘austerity’. Ella didn’t think she’d ever seen such a vast gulf between the lives of the rich and the poor as she had since she came to Greece. Which was saying something for a girl who lived in San Francisco. But now wasn’t the time for philosophizing.
The Phoenix Page 21
