Rea looked into the uneven eyes of the mask and swallowed a scream.
Mavros put his mobile on the table. ‘Sorry about that, Pandeli. It was the hospital. Niki’s latest scan is clear. They don’t think there’s any damage to the brain.’
‘That’s good, my boy.’ The archivist peered at Mavros’s head. ‘Did they give you a scan too?’
‘No. It’s only a surface wound.’
‘Maybe they should have. You need your head examined, getting involved with these madmen.’
Mavros raised his shoulders. ‘It’s what I do. There’s a young woman missing and I’m not going to let those bastards have her.’
The old man gave him a sceptical look. ‘What’s she got to do with Manos Floros and his circle?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to find out. We’ve established that Jenny Ikonomou, or Zanni as she was back then, was in that group. And that she was arrested on the same day as Manos Floros.’
‘March the seventeenth 1968,’ Pikros said, nodding. ‘Manos, Jenny Zanni, and another woman by the name of Era Bala were taken to security headquarters. Now, according to statements made by other inmates during the trials of the torturers after the dictatorship, Manos and the woman Era were beaten and tortured. One of them caught a glimpse of Manos in a corridor. He couldn’t walk, he was being dragged along.’
‘The falangas,’ Mavros said. He’d always been horrified by the torture in which the prisoner’s feet were beaten. He feared his brother might have been subjected to it.
‘Yes, but that was only the beginning.’ Pikros shook his head in frustration. ‘Of course, none of this is confirmed in the official records. They were either incomplete or destroyed before the investigation. All we have to go on are the statements of witnesses or the prisoners themselves, which don’t exist in Manos’s case.’
‘What about Jenny Zanni and the other woman, the one called Era?’
‘Well, Jenny doesn’t seem to have stayed inside for long. Her father was a—’
‘High society doctor,’ Mavros completed, remembering what his mother had told him.
‘Well done, Aleko,’ the archivist said with a wry smile. ‘It seems that he got her out. He was in with the regime.’
Mavros thought about the actress’s distracted look when he’d asked about Andonis. She’d suffered back then, but how much? ‘What about the other woman?’
Pikros was chewing the end of his moustache. ‘Gone.’
Mavros felt a stab of foreboding. ‘You mean like Andonis?’
‘No, no,’ the old man said rapidly. ‘She was sent to hospital on April the fourth. Those fuckers were good at keeping records when they wanted to. From what I can find, she was in a terrible state. She was discharged after four months. One of the comrades saw her the following September, but there’s been no sighting since then. She was an only child and her parents died when she was at high school.’
‘Dead end,’ Mavros murmured.
‘That’s not all,’ Pikros said, raising a hand. ‘She and Manos were very close. There were rumours they were a couple even though, as you know, the youth party disapproved of such liaisons. She’d been told in the hospital about Manos’s body being washed up in Rhodes. The comrade who saw her said she was a broken woman.’
‘Christ.’
‘Christ indeed. Not that he did her any good.’
Mavros glanced at his notes. ‘Any other names?’
The old man removed a folded page from his jacket pocket. ‘I made a list. Next to each name is a line about what happened to them, as far as I could trace.’ His voice was sombre. ‘You’ll see Andonis is on there. Sorry, my boy. Your brother knew Manos Floros quite well, although they disagreed about strategy. I’ve left…I’ve left a blank space after his name.’
Mavros took the page, his heart pounding. He’d checked some of the names in the past when he’d been looking for traces of his brother, though he hadn’t concentrated on the Floros group as there were many other activists closer to Andonis. Several of the names were followed by the dates of their deaths in Pikros’s neat hand. Some had died during the dictatorship and others in the twenty-eight years since—often from natural causes, but several by suicide. The regime’s poison was still working its way through the body politic.
‘Who’s this one you’ve put an asterisk by?’ Mavros asked. ‘Roza Arseni. There’s nothing after her name.’
The archivist sat up straight. ‘Yes, she interests me. From the little I’ve been able to find, she was very close to Manos. According to one of my contacts, there was a foursome that stuck together: Manos, Era, Jenny and this Roza. I’d forgotten, but reading through the files, I realised I knew her father. He was a good man, a union leader in one of the cigarette factories.’ He looked down. ‘He died in the first year of the dictatorship.’
Mavros gave the old man some time. ‘I suppose it was to be expected that his daughter would join the Communist youth.’
‘Yes, and she was quite a firebrand. I heard that Manos had to calm her down more than once. She wanted to go out on the streets and firebomb the tanks.’
Mavros looked at the name again. It wasn’t one he’d ever heard. ‘So what happened to Roza Arseni?’
Pikros had his moustache between his lips. ‘She’s another one I can’t find,’ he said, avoiding Mavros’s eyes. ‘She was picked up by the security police on March the twelfth.’
‘Five days before the other three.’
‘The boy can count,’ the old man said, with a throaty laugh. ‘And she was released on April the second. That was a week after Jenny Zanni and few days before Manos was found on that beach.’
‘And then?’
‘And then, nothing. No one from the youth party ever heard from her again. She had a grandmother, but not even she saw Roza after that. The comrades went round several times. Of course, the old woman might have been covering for her. She wouldn’t have been the first to come out of the cells having been scared off political activity for life. But they said that the grandmother seemed genuinely heartbroken. She’d brought Roza up, you see. The mother had died young and the father only had time for his work.’
‘Did you check the phone book?’
‘There are a couple of women with that name, but one’s too old and the other’s too young. No, she vanished years ago. My guess is she married and became a model mother and housewife.’
‘I’d be surprised.’
Mavros looked round. The Fat Man was lurking behind the chill cabinet. ‘Why’s that, Yiorgo?’
‘Because she was a vicious cow.’ The café owner came out into the open. ‘I met her a couple of times. I saw her at a student party once. She only had eyes for poor Manos. Not that he was paying her any attention. He was in deep with another girl. I can’t remember her name.’
‘Era Bala,’ Pikros said.
‘That’s her.’ Yiorgos sat down beside them, his elbows making the unsteady table cant over. ‘She was sweet. Very quiet, though.’
Mavros glanced at the archivist. ‘Do you know what happened to her, Yiorgo? How much of this conversation have you heard?’
‘You woke me up a couple of minutes ago,’ the Fat Man said indignantly. ‘I only heard Roza Arseni’s name, you suspicious tosser. You come in here and take the place over, you—’
‘Sorry, sorry,’ Mavros said, raising his hands. ‘Is there anything else you remember?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. Andonis was at that party as well.’
Mavros felt his stomach contract. ‘And?’
‘And he told me that Manos was making a mistake trusting that Roza. He reckoned she wasn’t reliable, that she’d do anything to get her claws into Manos.’ Yiorgos raised his sloping shoulders. ‘I don’t know where he got that idea from, but you know what Andonis was like. He could see right through people.’
Pikros was examining Mavros’s face. ‘Is this about your missing girl, Aleko?’ he asked, ‘Or is it about your brother?’
&nbs
p; Mavros looked at Pikros and then at the Fat Man. ‘It looks like it may be about them both.’
She was sitting at the window, watching the water that separated the island from the mountains across the strait. The surface was being cut apart by the north wind, flurries of white suddenly appearing. The walls of grey stone that led down from the ridge opposite, they reminded her of something but she couldn’t place it. The uneven line that ran from summit to summit, it meant something to her. What was it? Looking down, she saw white birds, seagulls, rising from the undulating surface. There was as fishing boat with its bow to the wind, nets stretching into the depths where the fish lived, innocent of the fate that was about to gather around them. The fish, doomed and helpless.
With a jerk, she was back there, in the terrible room with the damp, stained walls, the stink of her own waste in her nostrils. A shrieking voice…was it hers? It was so long since she’d heard it and it sounded different—higher, more desperate. She’d always spoken in a low voice, she’d been brought up to be retiring and obedient. But now she was screaming, begging for the pain to stop.
The man with the dark eyes was bending over her, blood on his hands. ‘Tell me about your Manos,’ he said insistently. ‘What was he planning?’
Then Manos’s voice came from nearby. ‘Tell him,’ he said softly. ‘None of it matters any more. Save yourself.’
She wrenched her head round at the sound of the blow that followed his words. There was fresh blood on Manos’s face, but he smiled at her through it.
‘Tell him,’ he repeated. ‘It’s finished.’
But she wouldn’t. She’d seen the marks on Manos’s chest, the lines that dangled like rats’ tails from the hooks that had been inserted. They’d made her watch them do it, the interrogator attaching them and then pulling on the lines while the other men held Manos down. How brave he’d been. He cursed them, he sent their corrupt lords and masters to the devil, but he told them nothing. She screamed until they stuffed a dirty rag in her mouth, one of them keeping her eyelids apart with his fingers. She saw it all. But still he wouldn’t talk. Nor would she.
‘You’re a fool,’ the torturer said to Manos. Then he turned to her and gave a slaughterman’s smile. ‘Hold him up,’ he ordered. ‘It’s his turn to watch now.’
She felt Manos’s eyes on her and she tried to avoid them. She needed all her courage now and the sight of his sweet face would dispel it. But she couldn’t resist his power. She looked at him and felt her heart break into a thousand pieces.
‘I love you,’ he said. ‘Forever. But you have to tell them.’
She looked down, feeling hands on her body, hands that were pulling at her clothes. The sergeant was staring at her, one hand on his groin. Then she heard him laugh. The sound stung her soul.
‘You have a good body, my girl,’ the animal said, unfastening his trousers. ‘But your mind has been infected by the syphilis of Communism. It’s time you were filled with the seed of a patriot.’
She heard Manos howl. Again he told her to talk, but she knew it was useless. They would defile her, whatever she said. Better to keep silent, never speak. For the Party. For Manos.
She turned her head away from her lover as she was penetrated. The hands on her breasts were rough, the nails splintered, and the pain between her legs was sharp. But it was nothing to what she saw to her left, her eyes bulging in horror.
In the doorway stood Roza Arseni. There was a broad smile on her lips.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AFTER HE LEFT the Fat Man’s, Mavros went to the hospital. He spent the afternoon at Niki’s bedside. She came round a couple of times, smiled at him and then dropped back into the sleep that, according to the doctors, would do more than anything to get her back to normal. That meant Mavros had time to think. What he’d learned from the archivist and the Fat Man was distracting him, especially the mention of Andonis. But all it had done was provide him with another two missing women, both of whom may have been tortured. Was there a link to the Chiotis family’s torturers who were known as the Father and Son? Much though he’d have liked to talk to Roza Arseni and Era Bala about the Father and about Andonis, he had to concentrate on Katia. The suspicion that the Father might have tortured his brother was nagging at him. He had to let it go. He’d established years ago that there was no reference to Andonis in any arrest records or in any of the surviving files from the security headquarters. There was no record of him anywhere after he’d disappeared. The women who’d been in the Communist youth party might have been able to help him with his brother, but they had vanished. The Father was alive and hard at work. But what could he have had to do with Katia’s disappearance?
He managed to fight his way back to reality. The key to everything was Ricardo. Mavros reckoned the actress’s brother could lead him to Katia and to the Father. He had to concentrate on the bald man. There was only one thing to do. He didn’t care that he’d been warned off. The shooting had changed the rules. He was going to tail Ricardo, but this time it wouldn’t be in his client’s clapped out Lada. He called a school-friend who ran a car-hire company and got a discounted rate on a midrange Renault.
‘Are you going again?’ Niki said in a weak voice, as he stood up.
‘I didn’t know you were awake, Sleeping Beauty.’ He leaned over and looked into her eyes. ‘You’ll be fine here. The policeman is still outside.’
‘I want to go home.’
He kissed her, avoiding her damaged lips. ‘Not yet, my love.’
She smiled. ‘My love. I like that.’
‘I know you do. I’m going to have to ration it.’
She pushed him feebly. ‘Scottish skinflint. Go and see the other women in your life.’ Her eyes flickered and she sank away again.
Mavros headed for the door, wishing he could meet up with the women he was looking for—Katia, Roza, Era. He nodded to the policeman, a serious young man with a slung machine-pistol, and went out into the late-afternoon sun.
The car-hire depot was only ten minutes’ walk from the hospital. He chatted with his friend for a few minutes and promised that he’d look after the car. It was a silver hatchback with only a few thousand kilometres on the clock. He’d have preferred a darker colour, but nothing else was available. He’d have to keep his distance from Ricardo.
Mavros drove to the actress’s street. He found a parking space about fifty metres from the Pink Palace. Sitting there with a newspaper to conceal himself, he felt temptation rise. Couldn’t he just ring the bell and ask to see Jenny Ikonomou? She said she hadn’t met Andonis, but he was pretty sure she was lying. The way she’d gone into herself when the past came up suggested she had something to hide. The Fat Man and Andonis had been at a party where Manos Floros and the other women were seen. It seemed likely that Jenny had also been there. Why was she being secretive? He tightened his hands on the wheel and told himself to forget it. Ricardo was the link to Katia, not his sister. The fusillade of bullets last night proved that.
It was almost dark when he saw lights flash from the garage beneath the Pink Palace. He started the engine. The long shape of a black Mercedes reared up on to the pavement and then turned right. Glancing in his mirror, Mavros pulled out and set off after it. He could see two heads inside, the driver with the unmistakable silhouette of Ricardo and the person in the rear seat with long hair beneath a wide hat. The star of stage and screen, he reckoned. Two birds with one stone.
The Mercedes passed through the narrow streets and joined one of the central thoroughfares. Soon it turned on to the avenue that led to the coast. Mavros wondered if Ricardo was taking his sister for a night out at the Silver Lady. He didn’t think the club was exactly Jenny Ikonomou’s style, but you could never tell with actors—they liked to pretend that they shared the pleasures of their fans. When the Mercedes took the Piraeus turn, he had to revise his ideas. Ricardo put his foot down and Mavros struggled to keep up. He only just succeeded, the black car being caught behind a pair of trucks as the lanes narrowed bes
ide the railway. He followed it through the dingy streets to the port area. It swung in without warning and he realised it was heading for a ferry.
The boats on the front were for the nearby Argo-Saronic islands. The asphalt apron where they lowered their ramps allowed little space for vehicles to queue. There were enough vehicles to give Mavros some cover but not enough to suggest he wouldn’t get on, despite the increased traffic in the period leading up to Easter. He remembered that Jenny Ikonomou had a house on Aegina and bought a ticket for that island after Ricardo had driven on to the ferry. Once Mavros was onboard, he stayed in the car until Ricardo and the actress had got out of the Mercedes. They were standing on the catwalk near the ramp, so he went to the raised walkway on the other side of the hold and passed through the cabin to the steps leading to the top deck. He watched the couple as they remained close together, deep in conversation. The ferry’s engines were started and diesel fumes mingled with the rank smell of the brown water. In the lights, orange peel and drink cartons were bobbing on the viscous surface.
Mavros stepped back as the actress turned towards the ferry’s superstructure. When he moved forward again, he saw the ramp begin to rise slowly. As the angle steepened, Ricardo hurried down the stairs and across the ridged metal surface, then jumped down on to the asphalt beyond. The sailor by the winch shouted at him and received a dead-eyed stare in return.
Mavros swore, provoking a snigger from the teenage boy who was lighting up behind him. He watched as Ricardo passed through the gate, his arm raised towards a passing taxi. So much for tailing the bald man. He didn’t think he’d been spotted, but that didn’t change anything. He was stuck on the ferry, an hour and a half to Aegina and the same back. He stayed outside as the ship backed away from the quay. It ploughed through the harbour at low revs, heading for the narrow exit. The gamey smell that he’d always associated with Piraeus was still in his nostrils, but now it was cut with the tang of the open water beyond the harbour walls.
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