‘A clerk,’ said Elsie.
‘Oh – a writer, do you mean?’ Vera asked.
‘You left under a cloud, didn’t you?’ Patrick said.
Elsie had stiffened. Her eyes looked very black, the pupils dilated.
‘I was thinking about that,’ said Vera, now playing her part as if she had rehearsed it. ‘Why were you afraid of being court-martialled? You mentioned it at Delphi. Wrens never were. We used to joke about it. That’s right, isn’t it?’ she appealed to Ursula.
‘Perfectly correct,’ said Ursula. ‘And there were no Wrens in North Africa until 1942.1 worked on the scheme for sending out the first group.’
‘You were not in the British Forces at all,’ said Patrick, but he said it in German. Vera looked bewildered, Ursula determined, and Elsie, who seemed now to be surrounded by the others in a threatening group, looked hunted.
‘I don’t speak German,’ she said, in English.
‘I think you do,’ said Patrick. ‘You understood it in a shop in Crete and you’re understanding me now.’ No one knew if George understood German, so the conversation must go on in English, and he switched languages. ‘What’s that tune? How does it go? Beethoven wrote it. He was another German. Fur Elise. For Elsie.’ And he hummed the opening notes. ‘You knew Felix Lomax, didn’t you? You met him in Venice and he recognised you, in spite of your dyed hair. What had you done, Elise, that made him follow you to Crete, and was so terrible that you killed him to prevent George learning about it?’
Vera was looking at him in horror, quite uncomprehending. But Elsie rallied.
‘You must be mad,’ she said to Patrick and pushed past him. ‘We’re missing the guide’s talk.’ And she walked away from them towards the rest of the group.
‘She’s cool, you have to admit,’ said Patrick, looking after her.
‘What—what’s going on?’ asked Vera. She looked shocked.
‘I wonder if it worked,’ said Ursula. She and Patrick were both looking up at Nikos and George, who were now talking together, Nikos with a hand on George’s arm. ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘Anyway, we must get you out of this, Vera. You must come back with Nikos and me. I’ll explain in the car. It’s all right, really it is. But you mustn’t stay with the tour.’ She looked at Patrick. ‘She’ll hardly tackle all of us, but she’ll be desperate now. Won’t you come too?’
He shook his head.
‘No. I’m staying with George,’ he said. ‘But please go with Ursula, Vera. I’ll tell the guide you felt ill.’
And indeed she had gone rather pale.
‘Felix Lomas was that friend of Lucy Amberley’s. The one who died,’ she said.
‘You knew him?’ Patrick asked.
‘Oh yes,’ said Vera. ‘He came into the bank with her once. And I read about his accident in the Athens News.’ She stared at Patrick and then looked over at the group of tourists, in the midst of whom stood Elsie, apparently intent on the guide’s discourse. ‘But—?’ her voice trailed away.
‘We don’t know the whole story. Ursula will tell you what we think happened,’ Patrick said. ‘Now, please will you do as we ask? You could be in danger, because you were a genuine Wren and you know that Elsie was not.’
The group was moving off now towards the coach, Elsie on the heels of the guide. George and Nikos were coming down the steps between the tiered seats back to the stage, in silence; Nikos, a pace behind the other man, nodded at Ursula and Patrick. Owing to the remarkable acoustics of Polyclitus’s enormous auditorium, they had heard every syllable of what had been said below them; and Elsie, because she had not read about this nor witnessed the guide’s paper-tearing demonstration, did not know what had happened.
George was ashen under his normal olive colour; when he looked at Patrick, there was agony in his eyes.
‘Niko, I’m taking Vera to the car,’ said Ursula. ‘You come when you’re ready.’
‘Yes.’ Nikos had time to give her a warm look; then he spoke urgently to George in a low voice. The two women went off together and Patrick walked along behind the two Greeks; Nikos seemed to be advising George, who looked as if a thunderbolt from Jupiter himself had struck him, and no wonder.
There was someone following along behind Patrick. It was not Elsie; she was ahead with the rest of the tour. He glanced over his shoulder and was astounded to see Inspector Manolakis, last seen in Crete, wearing tourist clothes and huge dark glasses. He opened his mouth to speak, but Manolakis shook his head very slightly and went on walking.
Patrick took his cue and looked away. The policeman had been up in the auditorium and heard the whole thing too.
VI
George followed Elsie into the coach and they took their former seat, at the rear. Patrick hung back so that he was one of the last to board; he could not bear to look at George, whom he had just destroyed. He resumed his seat.
A figure loomed beside him and took the vacant place; it was Manolakis. The guide cast them an anguished look; she was a plump woman of about forty, upset already because her flock had got separated in the theatre, and now she had exchanged a British lady for a policeman in plain clothes. She feared for her job and described the next stage of their journey, which would take them to Nauplia for lunch, with extra diligence in several languages on her intercom.
‘May I introduce myself? My name is Dimitris Manolakis and I am on holiday for a few days in Athens. I am a bank clerk,’ said the inspector suavely. ‘I missed my own coach, so the guide kindly said I was to take this place. You are English, sir?’
‘Yes, from Oxford. You speak very good English, Kirie Manolaki,’ said Patrick, hoping he had used the vocative correctly and scored a point thereby.
‘I like to practise,’ said the other, with calm.
And he did, for the whole journey to Nauplia, talking about trivialities and asking precise questions about grammar every few minutes. Patrick wondered what Elsie and George were discussing. Or were they silent? He felt the packets of sweets in his pocket. It had been wise to bring them, but they wouldn’t be needed now. No one was going into an insulin coma. But Elsie might have contrived to lead Vera apart from the rest; somehow she had done this to Felix, so that if he had screamed he had not been heard.
They had lunch in a large, modern hotel overlooking the sea at long tables especially laid up for the party.
‘It’s marvellous how the hotels cope with all these tourists,’ Patrick said to Manolakis as they entered the hotel and were greeted by flagging but still smiling waiters.
‘Cope? Cope? What is that, please? A bishop’s robings, yes?’ asked Manolakis.
Patrick patiently explained the verb.
‘Ah yes. I remember that.’ Manolakis took a small book from his pocket and wrote in it. He passed it to Patrick, who hoped to read a cryptic message therein, but all he saw was a crabbed script and the words cope, manage, with a Greek word alongside.
‘Quite right,’ he sighed. He felt the initiative had gone from him, but at least Vera was safe. He went into the men’s room.
George was there. He was washing his face with cold water. Patrick decided that the best course was to behave as if he did not know George had overheard the scene in the theatre, unless George himself did otherwise.
‘I felt a bit sick in the coach,’ said George. He looked at Patrick pleadingly. ‘Sit with us at lunch, won’t you?’
But it was impossible. Elsie had already secured places for herself and George among strangers. Manolakis, too, had taken a seat between one of the pair who had met on the coach and were now the happiest of men, and a stout Swedish woman. He looked prim, just like a rather subservient bank clerk. Patrick spared time to admire his impersonation; he must be a first-class policeman, too, for his presence here was by no means coincidence. He hadn’t been satisfied, in Challika, about Felix. The smell of things, Colin called it; a copper’s hunch. Patrick’s own tendency to develop it had led Colin to suggest he changed his career before now.
The only pla
ce left for Patrick was on the far side of the two homosexuals, next to the elder one, with a youngish German woman on his other side. He ignored the man; in any case he had no choice, for the other was intent on charming his new friend. Patrick talked to the German woman in her own tongue throughout the meal. He found that she was travelling alone, so he invited her to sit in Vera’s place and flirted with her mildly all the way to Mycenae. Manolakis was obliged to sit with her former travelling companion, a Belgian lady who spoke no Greek and very little English. The inspector did not seem to include French among his accomplishments, and they travelled in silence.
The guide lectured them diligently over the loudspeaker, describing the citadel and the tombs. She gave her spiel in English, French and German. When they reached Mycenae and got out of the coach the atmosphere was at once totally different from that of Epidaurus; this was a place of tragedy, and the aura of menace clung here still. The ruins brooded over the surrounding plain and there was a sense of doom in the air.
Schliemann had excavated this place: a German archaeologist. Patrick’s thoughts flew off at a tangent, and he disciplined them sternly back to the present while the guide talked about the Treasury of Atreus, once thought to be the burial place of Agamemnon but in fact older still. They went into the enormous beehive tomb and stood awed inside. Manolakis was close to Patrick now; so were Elsie and George. The guide pointed out the entrance to the smaller burial chamber beyond the first great tomb, and a number of people filed through it.
Patrick stepped through the entrance. Now the reason why Nikos had given him the torch became clear; he stood on a rough earth floor in total darkness. Here and there, people lit cigarette lighters or struck matches, and wan lights flickered in the gloom. Patrick moved further in, the torch in his hand. Someone pressed against him, and he moved on slowly; how big was this place? Sweat sprang out on his brow. Damn it, she could jab a needle into him now and no one would know what was wrong with him. Why hadn’t he told Manolakis about the insulin? He wouldn’t scream: of course he wouldn’t. Britons didn’t scream if they were being injected with death before thirty strangers. How quickly would it take effect? He licked his dry lips. If only she could be caught in the attempt; that was what he had hoped for.
He felt a movement behind him, very close, and swung round suddenly, switching on his torch, the beam high. It lighted Elsie’s face as she stood next to him. She blinked and stepped backwards and at the same moment, he felt a sharp pain in his hand. There was a clatter, and an exclamation. Elsie had dropped her handbag.
In a second, there was a bustle as people helped her to gather up her dropped belongings; Patrick withdrew towards the outer tomb trying to keep calm; his hand seemed to be damaged, but it had not felt like the thrust of a hypodermic.
Manolakis was suddenly beside him, leading him out into the fresh air, where Patrick, to his surprise, found that the palm of his left hand was bleeding.
‘You are all right,’ Manolakis told him, firmly.
‘Yes, of course I am,’ said Patrick, indignantly. Did the fellow think he would pass out at the sight of his own blood? He mopped at it with his large white linen handkerchief, which he then wrapped round the wound. It was a nasty cut, the type that bleeds freely, but not serious enough to require stitching. Manolakis glanced round. No one seemed to be watching them; those who were not helping Elsie with her possessions were photographing the entrance to the tomb, or each other. The policeman slipped something out of his pocket. It, too, appeared to be a white linen handkerchief, but as he unwrapped it and held it in his palm for Patrick to see, he revealed a slim, stiletto knife. He wrapped it up again and replaced it in his pocket, then led Patrick on towards the citadel where their guide was impatiently waiting, looking at her watch. The schedule was tight and if the tourists strayed, so did her timetable.
‘Try not to let her see you were hurt. She thinks she has lost the knife in the tomb. She will be happy to leave it there,’ said the inspector in a soft murmur.
‘It’s all right. It’s not serious,’ said Patrick. His relief at finding he had merely avoided a stabbing, not an injection, was profound. He was stupid to have thought she would try that, though; how could she load a syringe in the dark, much less press it home?
‘We’ll move a little away. Then we can see if we must get you something to—to—’ his English deserted Manolakis as he sought for the word for a dressing. ‘To stop blood,’ he said firmly. ‘It is some hours till we reach Athens.’
It would be a pity if he bled quietly to death in the coach while they waited for more evidence against Elsie, thought Patrick, melodramatically. Was this not enough? But it wasn’t; of course not. Specific proof of the crime against Felix was what they wanted.
The guide was talking about Schliemann’s finds and instructing her hearers to look at them in the Archaeological Museum. She frowned as Manolakis, talking about Orestes, led Patrick off to the top of the acropolis. Here they were able to inspect the damage; it was not at all severe, and some sticking plaster would soon hold the sides of the small wound together, but they had none.
‘One of the ladies will have some, in her handbag,’ said Manolakis. ‘Or the coach driver.’
‘We don’t want Elsie Loukas to see, though. It’s all right, it’s stopping,’ said Patrick. He wrapped his handkerchief round it more tightly; Manolakis tied it in position. ‘I’ll put my hand in my pocket, then it won’t show,’ he said. What a fuss.
‘It is clean. No germs,’ said Manolakis, earnestly.
Fancy knowing the word; Patrick did not know the equivalent in either French or German.
‘Your English is getting better every minute,’ he said.
They sat together in the coach returning to Athens, to the chagrin of the German woman whose acquaintance Patrick had been so busily cultivating. On Manolakis’s advice, Patrick tucked his hand under the lapel of his jacket in a Napoleonic manner, to raise it and thus help the bleeding to stop.
‘She’s a diabetic, Elsie Loukas,’ he informed the policeman. ‘I think if you inject a healthy person with insulin they go into a coma.’
‘I think you speak truth,’ said Manolakis. ‘And it is hard to find in the dead one, unless you look for it – how do you say it – because you believe it is there. There is a new test in recent years.’
‘So if she put Felix Lomax in the sea unconscious, he’d be sure to drown,’ said Patrick. ‘And it would seem to be an accident.’
‘It would seem to be.’ Manolakis repeated the intricate construction, docketing it away in his mind for future use, Patrick was sure.
‘You suspected this?’ he asked.
‘I knew it was not as easy as it would seem to be,’ said Manolakis, triumphantly. ‘But there is no proof.’
‘Her first husband,’ said Patrick, thinking aloud. ‘She said he was an archaeologist, killed in Crete. She was posing as British, so of course that meant her husband was British too. If he was German—’ his thoughts went back to Schliemann. German archaeologists had been interested in Mikronisos before the war. ‘His name was Freddie. That may have been Friedrich. She just changed her own name round, after all. If you could discover who he was—? I expect it was true that he was killed in Crete, but by the British or the Greeks. It would be difficult to trace him.’ He told Manolakis what Elsie had said about Mikronisos. ‘There might be records of archaeologists interested in the island,’ he suggested.
‘We would need help from Germany,’ said Manolakis. ‘It could be tried. It would not be quick.’ And even if something were found, by then the Loukases would have left Greece.
Felix could be exhumed and his remains tested for insulin, but even if it were found where was the link with Elsie? Unless they could force her to tell them, how would it ever be known? And George! What about George? In all their theorising, they had forgotten him.
‘I think she does not realise that her husband heard you, at Epidavros,’ said Manolakis, thoughtfully. ‘I would not like it if I
had in error married myself to one who had killed my people.’ He meditated briefly. ‘We younger ones are not so bitter, it is true. But the older men – like Loukas – it is different.’
Manolakis was perhaps a year or two younger than Patrick; quite old enough to remember the war and what had happened in Crete; he might have run errands for the andartes. He could have had relatives who were massacred.
What would George do? Did he believe what he had heard?
The coach stopped at old Corinth on the way back, and Patrick regretted his inability to appreciate the scene of St. Paul’s activities. Manolakis had resumed his bank clerk role and even asked questions of the guide, which unnerved her since she was well aware of his true identity. Everyone was tired by this time, and most people would have preferred to drive straight back to Athens without stopping, as they did, for more refreshments on the toll road. Elsie disappeared into the cloakroom, and Manolakis spoke to one of the kafenion assistants who produced a first-aid box. The policeman took it into the men’s room, bidding Patrick follow. Here he carried out a neat cleaning-up operation on Patrick’s hand, bathing it and securing the wound with gauze and plaster. The job was just complete when George came out of one of the cubicles. He looked at Patrick’s hand, and at the bloodstained handkerchief which lay on the washbasin beside him, but he made no comment.
‘That’s fine. Thanks,’ said Patrick in a bright voice to the inspector. He dropped the handkerchief into a waste-bin; it was of no further use to him. Then he went out of the cloakroom leaving the two Greeks together. Perhaps Manolakis would say something to George. But he followed Patrick, clearly having maintained his incognito. When George reappeared all three started to admire the sunset.
Elsie did not return until just before the coach left. She was pale but looked composed.
‘Ah – there you are, honey,’ said George, going up to her. He seemed better himself now; the grey, pinched look had gone from his face and his voice was normal as he greeted his wife. It was a brave effort, for Greeks are not good dissemblers. The two were dropped at the Hilton on the way in to the centre of Athens; Manolakis left the coach when it stopped outside another hotel, but with no more than a casual goodbye.
Mortal Remains Page 17
