‘And when will that be?’ the Fat Man demanded with a scowl. ‘In five hundred years?’
‘Maybe.’
‘That Flora Dearfield woman. I can’t believe a history professor was working for the Soviets without any of us knowing.’ ‘It’s not exactly unheard-of. Everyone told lies back then.’
‘You realise that in effect we’re telling lies by keeping silent about all this,’ the Fat Man observed.
‘Yes, but we’re also staying alive.’
‘And the murderer Dearfield,’ Yiorgos said, his voice rising. ‘He should be strung up for what he did. He betrayed the ELAS band to the enemy, the fucker.’
‘Let it go,’ Mavros said with a sigh. ‘The British thought they were doing the best for Greece by supporting the king against the Communists. The Americans continued the policy. The fact is, whatever you and the comrades think, most Greeks never wanted to live in a hardline socialist state.’
‘What happened to the American woman?’ the Fat Man asked, after a sulky silence. ‘When I saw you outside the Laskaris tower, I got the impression she had her eye on you.’
Mavros glanced away. ‘It was too complicated.’
‘She was quite a looker,’ Yiorgos conceded. ‘But it would never have worked. You can’t sleep with the enemy. Are you seeing her again?’
‘She’s gone for good, my friend.’
The café owner hauled himself to his feet. ‘Just as well. That mad woman Niki Glezou came round here this morning. I think she may have got over whatever it was you did to her.’
‘Jesus.’ Mavros didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘Anyone else on my tail?’ His mobile phone had been returned to him by the police commander Kriaras, but he hadn’t switched it on. He was sure the authorities would be scanning his calls for some time.
‘Lambis Bitsos. He looked like he wanted to eat your balls.’
Mavros groaned. The exclusive he’d promised the crime reporter was now locked up tighter than a miser’s hoard. He’d have to keep his head down till Bitsos was distracted by another story.
‘Alex?’ The Fat Man’s voice was softer. ‘I’m sorry I got in the way down in the Mani. I shouldn’t have agreed to watch the Laskaris tower. But I didn’t tell the comrades that I saw you or Iraklis.’ He bent over the table. ‘I know my mother was hassling you about me. I hope that didn’t distract you from more important things.’
‘More important than you?’ Mavros got up and slapped his friend’s shoulder lightly. ‘Stick to what you’re good at,’ he said, heading for the door with a smile on his lips. ‘Making your customers deliriously happy. And, Yiorgo? Don’t ever send a woman round to my place again, okay?’
The Fat Man grunted and started loading his tray.
Outside, Mavros breathed in the Athenian air, a fresh northerly blowing the pollution cloud away over the Argo-Saronic Gulf. Walking towards his flat, he passed a group of men whose cheap clothes marked them out as refugees or illegal immigrants. They were engaged in muted but intense conversation, the language sounding like Arabic. The sallow skin of their faces was in contrast to the scarlet-and-white-check scarves they wore on their shoulders.
Mavros found himself thinking of the words that the renegade CIA man Peter Jaeger had spoken after the terrorist had been despatched without mercy.
The last red death.
If only.
AFTERWORD
THE IRAKLIS GROUP does not correspond to any real terrorist organisation, nor should its victims be identified with the casualties of terrorist attacks in Greece—the author has the deepest sympathy for them and their families.
The following books in English proved particularly useful:
On history: David H. Close, The Origins of the Greek Civil War and Greece since 1945; George Kassimeris, Europe’s Last Red Terrorists: The Revolutionary Organisation 17 November; Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941–44; Mark Mazower (ed.), After the War Was Over: Reconstructing the Family, Nation, and State in Greece. 1943–1960; C. M. Woodhouse, Something Ventured and The Struggle for Greece 1941–49. None of the writers should be held responsible for this fictional portrayal of life and death in modern Greece.
On locations: No traveller to, or student of, Greece should be without the Blue Guide. Visitors to the southern Peloponnese are fortunate to have Patrick Leigh Fermor’s legendary Mani; Deep into the Mani by Peter Greenhalgh and Edward Eliopoulos is no less essential. Lakonia features substantially in Kevin Andrews’s moving civil war memoir The Flight of Icarus. Apart from Henry Miller’s effusions in The Colossus of Maroussi, Argolidha—heartland of Greek myth and history—has surprisingly escaped the attention of major modern writers. John Fowles’s The Magus, a benchmark for writers of fiction set in Greece, includes a magnificent description of the view from Athens to the Peloponnese (admittedly in pre-pollution times).
Further information about the background to The Last Red Death can be found on the author’s website: www.paul-johnston.co.uk
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
MIRA is a registered trademark of Harlequin Enterprises Limited,
used under licence.
Published in Great Britain 2009.
MIRA Books, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,
Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1SR
© Paul Johnston 2003
Originally published by Hodder and Stoughton
ISBN: 978-1-408-91097-9
The Last Red Death (A Matt Wells Thriller) Page 44
