A Sudden Death in Cyprus

by Michael Grant

  ‘No, no, no, of course not, I never for a moment …’

  And just like that I had the location of the camp in Kofinou, and a contact person who would be very happy to speak with me, at least according to Fotos.

  Now I had a different issue. Could I trust Fotos or not? Should I? Was there some better option? I could get someone online to do a job of translation for me, or I could ask Fotos. On the surface the online option would seem safer, but there’s a problem with the internet: it’s a permanent criminal exhibits storage facility. What I committed to email could be shared endlessly.

  ‘Father, I have a bit of a confession.’

  He smiled, sensing a joke. ‘Then what a convenience that I am a priest.’

  ‘I … uh …’ Quirky smile, hesitation, long pull on my Esplendido. ‘Well, some people – people of the police variety – have the mistaken notion that I have some skill at investigation. I was given a document, an inventory of a certain victim’s possessions …’ I paused for the two seconds it took Fotos to reach the unavoidable conclusion that this involved the Paphos beach knifing. ‘And the police officer kindly translated it for me, but I have to confess my aural memory is not all it might be, especially when I’m hearing information while simultaneously distracted by impure thoughts directed at a delicious plate of fish.’

  Lying, fiction writing, pretty much the same thing.

  ‘Is that your confession?’ He played along. ‘Impure thoughts about fish?’

  ‘We still don’t have time to go into my sins, not even if we just stick to gluttony.’ I paused to produce a wry, abashed smile. ‘No, the confession is that I have forgotten half of what this policeman translated. I was wondering …’

  I opened my iPhone, swept around for a bit and turned a photo of the inventory sheet around so he could see.

  Did he believe me? He seemed to. He was a young priest and maybe still a bit naive. I hoped.

  Anyway, I got my translation, which I wrote down carefully so as not to forget again, then hurried back to my villa, checking to see whether there were any parked cars with bored police inside. Nope. Not yet.

  I spread my notes out on the kitchen island, pausing only to start the coffee maker.

  This was the list, minus various items of clothing, dresses, skirts, slacks, tops, bras, panties, and three scarves, with labels from Marks and Spencer, John Lewis, Galeries Lafayette, Anthropologie – all mass-produced and untraceable, and all painstakingly detailed by police officers with no interest in fashion:

  €5,000 – mixed denominations

  UK passport name: Rachel Faber

  UK passport name 2: Amanda J. Hynson

  UK driving license: Rachel Faber

  Cannon digital SLR camera – wiped data card

  Book: Little Town, Big Trouble by Lee Child

  Guide book: DK Eyewitness Travel: Cyprus

  Book: Lonely Planet Greek Phrasebook and Dictionary

  MacBook Air laptop

  iPhone

  MacBook charger

  iPhone charger

  All of that, I knew. The electronics were tantalizing, but I was no better than anyone else at breaking into an iPhone or laptop. In lazily-written thrillers there’s always a guy in some picturesquely squalid basement room surrounded by glowing lights and Marvel action figures who only needs to grumble and tap a few keys. Those people don’t actually exist. Anyway, I wasn’t in possession of either the phone or the laptop.

  MiraLAX

  Ambien (label removed)

  Benadryl – over the counter

  Ibuprofen – over the counter

  Purse-size first-aid kit

  Hairbrush

  Comb

  Portable hair dryer

  Mousse

  Spirit gum

  Artificial nails

  Artificial eyelashes

  Lipstick – Show Me the Honey (Lancôme)

  Lipstick – Berry In Love (Lancôme)

  Lipstick – Boom Meringue (Lancôme)

  I paused to google the lipstick colors. As I expected, they were quite distinct and different and I smiled: good fugitive tradecraft that. Easy to run to the ladies’ room, apply a different lipstick, wrap a scarf over your head, add sunglasses, stuff your sweater or coat in a bin, and walk out a different person.

  I travel with two stocking caps in different colors, an extra pair of very noticeable sunglasses, and cotton balls to puff out my cheeks and lips. (I can do a credible Vito Corleone when necessary.) And like poor Rachel/Amanda or Amanda/Rachel, I keep a small bottle of spirit gum. In an emergency, you can fashion a temporarily-plausible mustache out of clipped hair and spirit gum. In fact, I’d had occasion to use it once, though in that case I sliced a few inches off the back of a ponytailed professor and … But, long story and not relevant.

  Purse

  Wallet

  Swiss Army knife

  Small coil of wire

  Six plastic cable ties

  That stopped me, as it must have Kiriakou. You might use cable ties to secure loose items in your luggage. Then again, you might use them as effective non-magnetic, airport-travel-safe handcuffs.

  And maybe she had pictures to hang with that wire. Unless. Unless she also had … I scanned down the list, looking for sticks, rods, something … yep, carabiners would do it. Very innocent – carabiners have a dozen valid uses. You wouldn’t necessarily be wrapping wire around them to form a garrote.

  I stood back and digested the fact that Rachel/Amanda might be a fugitive like me, but was definitely a bit more bloodthirsty. Garrotes are not the weapon of choice for nice people. It is not a weapon of self-defense. The thing about a garrote is that its only use is for committing murder from behind.

  I scanned down the list for other weaponry. The Swiss Army knife maybe, under very limited circumstances. The scissors? Meh.

  A small refillable spray bottle, empty.

  And? And, a small bottle of Tabasco sauce. It was the sort of thing lots of people carried, people who liked spicy foods. But you could also dump it into a spray bottle, maybe dilute it with just enough alcohol, and voila, homemade pepper spray.

  ‘Rachel slash Amanda,’ I muttered, ‘You were a bad, bad girl.’

  I googled her names. Too many hits to be useful.

  The list held nothing else of interest, at least nothing I spotted, aside from the credit cards and their possible charges.

  Those fictional guys sitting in basements who can instantly hack into the NSA mainframe? They don’t exist, but guys who can pull up a credit history? They’re a dime a dozen.

  I swapped SIM cards in my phone, fiddled around till I got a connection. I opened my WhatsApp, scrolled till I found the guy I was looking for, and typed:

  Me: Hey. It’s John Johnson from that conference in Vegas.

  Not me: Sure.

  Me: I have a couple numbers.

  Not me: I have a number, too. It’s the number 500. Also the symbol: $

  Me: Routing and account?

  He sent me his bank account information. Surprise! A Cayman’s bank.

  I opened my bank app and did the requisite swiping and tapping, then went back to WhatsApp and typed in the credit card account numbers.

  Nine minutes later I had the complete readouts on Rachel and Amanda. It seemed my buddy Cyril Kiriakou was not being entirely forthcoming.

  I could ask. It would be risky, though. Kiriakou might be the kind of guy who kept a close eye on credit inquiries involving him. But nothing ventured …

  Me: I also have a name for a deeper dive.

  Not me: I also still have room in my bank account.

  Me: Cyril Kiriakou. But you might need the Greek spelling. Hang on.

  This took some doing, but I was eventually able to Google something I was pretty sure was the policeman’s name in Greek script. I cut and pasted it into the app.

  Me: Location Cyprus. Occupation cop. Age approx. 50. Dark hair. 5'8" give or take.

  Not me: That’s harder and it’s the mi
ddle of the fucking night here. Tomorrow first thing upon seeing deposit receipt.

  Me: Fair enough.

  I made a list of questions for myself. In no particular order:

  Who has 2 passable UK passports?

  Why?

  Who knifed her?

  Why?

  What warrant’s out for her?

  Kiriakou. Bent?

  WTF is this all about?

  Profit?

  Run?

  Minette and then run?

  WTF was a cop doing at Dame S. party?

  That seemed like a swell list, an excellent example of my sleuthing skills as well as my list-making skills. It occurred to me that there was one question I could answer fairly easily.

  I hiked up the hill to Dame Stella’s house and found her husband, Sir or Lord or whatever he was, Archie Weedon. He was harassing a gardener who appeared to be spreading mulch in a flower bed.

  He looked up sharply when I said, ‘Good afternoon.’

  He was a tall man, early seventies, thinning gray hair combed back over a shiny scalp. He wore very fine fawn wool slacks, a crisp white shirt open at the neck and a navy blazer. No tie, so I suppose he was dressing down for yard work. For a second, I caught sight of the guy he must have been before his brain started to turn to Swiss cheese: stern, steely, arrogant. But then he blinked and the steely look was gone, replaced by benign befuddlement.

  ‘I’m David Mitre, I rent your villa. I was at the party,’ I said.

  ‘Party?’ he asked, and frowned in confusion.

  ‘Yes, I was just wondering if I might speak with Dame Stella. A matter of no great importance, so if she’s busy …’

  She wasn’t, or at least she was willing to have me drop by with a rent check a few days early. She was sitting by the pool and invited me to join her for tea, and in the spirit of comradeship I actually drank some, hiding my shudder of disgust. Dame Stella was wearing an open, thin wrap over a one-piece bathing suit.

  You’re rich, have great legs and a husband who surely isn’t keeping you overly-amused. I could have a hundred large out of your hands and into mine inside of a week. I did not say.

  ‘A little bird tells me you made a substantial contribution to the church’s poor box,’ she said, smiling approval.

  ‘Well, you’d mentioned the work they do …’ A modest shrug.

  ‘Are you playing up to me, David?’

  ‘It’s a lifelong habit of doing whatever beautiful women tell me to do,’ I said.

  She liked that just fine. ‘And squaring accounts with the Almighty?’

  I grinned to hide the suspicion that she knew more about me than she should. ‘Why would I need to curry favor with the Almighty?’

  She laughed, and it was more snort than she intended, but she said, ‘I suspect a man like you has a few … indiscretions … on his conscience.’

  ‘My … indiscretions … leave neither party to them requiring or wishing for forgiveness,’ I said, playing along. ‘Well … not usually.’

  That apparently exhausted her need for flirtation, because she asked, ‘How are you getting along with Chante?’

  ‘Her? Oh we are, oh … just bestest friends.’

  ‘She can be abrupt.’

  ‘She can be damn rude,’ I countered. ‘I want to thank you again for inviting me over.’

  ‘I hope that policeman wasn’t a sad bore.’

  ‘Nah. He was fine. Friend of yours?’

  ‘Kiriakou?’ She did nothing to hide her distaste. ‘Kiriakou is not a friend. An acquaintance of Jez’s, they play golf together with my husband sometimes. But it is wise to stay friendly with authorities, so when he asked if he could come …’

  ‘He invited himself?’

  ‘He very nearly pleaded. He is a big fan of your writing. And as I said, he is a friend of a friend.’

  ‘Jez? I …’ I made a confused face.

  ‘Jeremy Berthold. Jez. He’s, you might say, the unofficial head of the British expat community. You were introduced.’

  Oh, you mean the big old guy gone to seed who likes to play literary critic? The Oxbridge twat with the stoned trophy wife and the fifty thousand dollar Patek Philippe for which I could probably get a good twenty grand? Okay, fifteen grand? I did not say.

  ‘Kind of a beefy guy? Ginger? We just exchanged polite non sequiturs.’

  ‘Yes, that’s him,’ Dame Stella said, not sure whether I should be reproved for describing him as beefy. ‘He’s been here for years and years and I suppose struck up a friendship with the policeman.’ That last word came with a sauce of distaste.

  It was too hot a day for the cold chill that shivered my spine. ‘And Kiriakou wanted to come just to meet me? Huh.’

  ‘I do hope he wasn’t too taxing.’ She reached over to lay her hand on mine on the table.

  ‘Not all,’ I said, and put my free hand over hers, giving a brief squeeze and standing up. ‘Well, I have to run.’

  I wasn’t sure if I meant that literally.

  TWELVE

  I set off toward the divided capital of the divided island with the unpleasant fact that Kiriakou had traded on a friendship just to get in the same room with me. I listed the possible reasons as, 1) Kiriakou really was a fan, 2) he somehow saw me as a concern or even a threat, 3) he had some other reason to want to be at the party and I was just the excuse.

  The number 2 selection was what worried me. If the answer was number 2, then the source would have to be the Specials, K. and D. I couldn’t see why they’d rat me out and then try to use me.

  Or. Or Kiriakou had spotted me at Theo’s bar, knew I was an eyewitness, and wondered why I had broken the sound barrier leaving the scene. In which case: why was a Cypriot policeman watching a murder and doing nothing to intervene?

  The drive to Kofinou was an hour fifteen along the A6 which follows the south shore before heading north toward Kofinou reception center, refugee camp, whatever they called it. An hour fifteen if you obey the speed limits, but it was a bright, stunning day, so I put the top down and did it in fifty-five minutes.

  The initial, successive rushes of terror had faded a bit, weakened from too-long prolongation. Weakened as well by the sense that I was at least doing something now. So much of the fugitive lifestyle – sure, it’s a lifestyle – involves waiting and hoping, waiting and fearing and hoping, unaware of what enemy armies may be forming up to come after you. You live in a constant state of cringe.

  Now at least I had the vague outlines of what was happening. Emphasis on vague. I had a scrap of a hint of a promise from Agents Kim and Delacorte. And I had something outside of narrow self-interest to add motivation, something which had some resonance for me. I had never spent serious time in prison, just some incidental jail time, but I shared the criminal brotherhood’s moral taxonomy of crime.

  At the top of that taxonomy are the bosses, the royalty of hard, smart guys who run gangs or crime families. Below them come all those who successfully crime for cash, your drug dealers, your bank robbers, your embezzlers, your con men, your better class of burglar. Emphasis on successfully, because crooks are capitalists and have the same underlying moral code as every CEO ever profiled by Forbes Magazine: money is good, money creates its own justification.

  Less successful crime-for-cash activities – sticking up liquor stores, street muggings, shoplifting – are treated the way you might treat a child practicing the French horn: that’s sweet, honey, now go to your room while I take an Advil. No one hates these types, we just don’t think they’re especially cool.

  Then there is a connected but separate branch on the crime family tree: the violent criminals. Here, too, success is important. If you pulled off a righteous murder for the honor of your gang: respect. If you did a manslaughter or aggravated battery because of some intolerable insult: okay. Doesn’t make you a hero, but okay. If you’re just some out-of-control asshole who murders for no good reason, you may be feared, you will certainly be treated with care, but you are not an objec
t of respect.

  Down below the successful cash criminals, down below the righteous murderers, below the less successful cash criminals, come the creeps, chief among them the rapists. The only people who like rapists are other rapists. The rest of the criminal world has mothers and sisters and wives and girlfriends and are not fond of the rapist species. There is no rapist’s track to achieving respect in the joint.

  Then, down there, way, way down there at the very bottom, are guys who prey on children. A stone-cold gangster with three kills on his sheet and five more no one knows about, may also be a father with a couple of kids to his credit. And that man believes the moral gap between himself and a child predator is as vast as the gap between homo sapiens and the herpes virus.

  I’m not quite ready to elevate murderers to high moral status, no matter their motivation, but I’ve had nice, long conversations with killers and gangsters when I would never exchange a word with a short-eyes beyond ‘get the fuck away from me.’

  I suppose the truth is we all need someone to look down on, and being at no great altitude myself, I could still at least despise those people. Now, for the first time since, well, ever, I could just about convince myself that I was doing something decent other than writing stories.

  ‘David Mitre,’ I intoned, ‘aka Alex Lobach, aka Carter Cannon, aka Frank Mates, etcetera: defender of children.’

  Sure. Why not? And if it got Delacorte off my back (or even onto hers) that would be absolutely great. Win-win.

  I swiped Bluetooth on my phone and pumped music to the car stereo: Toots and the Maytals singing about the stressful effects of pressure.

  You got that right, Toots. You too, Maytals, when the pressure drops on you, you gonna feel it. But music in the car with the top down and a bright sun overhead does take the edge off.

  The refugee reception center in Kofinou is conveniently located near absolutely nothing but hills, rocks and the rusting hulk of an abattoir. That is not a metaphor: there used to be a functioning slaughterhouse quite close at hand where the refugees could enjoy the smell of dead pig. Who doesn’t enjoy dead pig smell? Especially when it’s an animal you consider unclean?