by Gavin Scott
“I think I can absolve Kretzmer of that,” said Forrester. “I know for a fact he was holed up at Limani Sangri when the colonel was injured.”
“But you think he killed Mr. Beamish?” said Alexandros.
“It’s possible,” said Forrester. “But I simply don’t know.”
“What we should be asking ourselves,” said Sophie, “is whether anyone else here had a reason to do it.”
Everyone stared at her, and to Forrester’s surprise he saw the colour rise in Penelope Alexandros’s cheeks – but it was Ariadne who spoke.
“I’m sure Helena had nothing to do with it,” she blurted out. “She knew it was just harmless flirting. I mean, with Keith and me.”
“Shut up, you little fool,” said Helena. “Nobody imagines I gave enough of a damn about that stupid Englishman to bother killing him.”
“I hadn’t, until this moment,” said David Venables, “but that ‘stupid Englishman’ was my friend, so let me ask you, point blank, Miss Spetsos, did you kill him?”
“You are a fool to even ask,” spat back Helena.
“I may be a fool,” said Venables, “but I did ask and you haven’t answered.”
“The question does not deserve an answer,” said Helena, and then, sensing the hostile looks focused on her from around the table, added quickly, “but still I will give you one. No, I did not kill your friend. I did not care about him enough to kill him.”
“I appreciate your sympathy,” said David Venables, looking her in the eyes. “I will bear it in mind.” Without warning he turned his gaze on Constantine. “Do you mind me asking you, Prince, where you were when Keith was killed?”
“Why do you ask me?” replied Atreides with apparently genuine surprise. “I stayed outside the castle until the end – you know that.”
“But you’d come back by the time Keith was killed.”
“After he was killed,” said Atreides firmly. “I had nothing to do with his death. Why would I want to kill that sweet young man? He was an artist. I have nothing but respect for artists.”
Forrester stepped in before Venables could renew the interrogation and turned to Penelope.
“Mrs. Alexandros,” he said, “perhaps you can shed some light on what happened. After all, you had the outsider’s perspective. Did you see anything as you rode down the hill towards the castle?”
But Venables was not to be deflected so easily. “In fact, why were you coming to the castle at all?” he demanded.
“I live on this island,” said Penelope sharply. “I do not have to account for my movements.” She turned to Forrester. “To answer your question, Captain Forrester, as I rode down the hill I simply saw lots of people scattered about the castle. I saw Sophie up on the tower. I saw another figure on the battlements – which must have been Mr. Beamish. And I saw Prince Atreides climbing in over the rubble.”
“Before or after the shot?” asked Forrester. Again, he was certain, the colour rose in her cheeks. He saw Venables staring hard at her.
“Before.”
Forrester felt the ripple of reaction that ran around the table.
“No!” said Atreides. “After!”
“Is it possible you’re mistaken, Mrs. Alexandros?” said Durrell. “After all, you were galloping downhill at the time, and there was a lot going on.”
“And we mustn’t forget that sound travels considerably slower than light,” said Runcorn.
“All this is true,” said Penelope. “But you asked me what I saw, and I told you.”
“This discussion is foolish,” said Atreides. “Whether I went into the castle before or after the shot, it was not I who fired it. Surely it’s obvious that the killer was the German soldier.”
“Speaking of whom,” said Durrell, “what are we going to do about him? I’m assuming, General, you don’t really want him roaming about the island?”
“I notified the authorities in Lemnos about the murder,” said Alexandros. “This group of islands is governed from there. I have also told them about the attempted murder of Colonel Stephanides and the presence of the fugitive, and I’ve suggested they send a police detective to deal with one and soldiers to track down the other.”
“And when will they arrive?” asked Runcorn.
“That’s the problem,” said Alexandros. “Neither a detective nor any army unit is stationed in this part of the Aegean at present. Lemnos will have to send to Athens, and it may be some days before either policemen or soldiers arrive.”
“So if you want to catch your Nazi, Forrester, and get your Minoan rock back, you’ll have to organise another expedition,” said Durrell.
“Not on the cards at present,” said Forrester. “I blame myself for what happened to Keith Beamish today, and I’m not putting anyone else’s life at risk. If the man gets away with the stone, he gets away with it. I think we should all stay close to the kastello until the soldiers arrive. Do you agree, Ari?”
“I do,” said Alexandros.
“Even if one of us is a murderer?” asked Venables. “Because if it wasn’t Kretzmer who shot Keith and tried to kill Colonel Stephanides, it was almost certainly someone here. And if so, they might well try again.”
“In the name of God,” said Penelope Alexandros, “can you stop talking about murder? I’ve had enough of it, more than enough. Will you please all leave it alone?”
“Of course, Mrs. Alexandros,” said Runcorn. “In fact, dear lady, and General Alexandros, I rather wonder if we shouldn’t all get out of your hair. You provided a wonderful, indeed literal port in the storm for us, but you’ve had nothing but trouble since we arrived. Durrell and I have been talking it over and it seems to us the best thing might be for us all to leave the island as soon as possible.”
“Needless to say,” said Forrester, “the same offer applies to us.”
“I appreciate your consideration,” said Alexandros, “but the authorities on Lemnos specifically asked me to ensure you remain here until they can send someone. I’m sorry, but it seems we are stuck with each other for the next few days.”
There was a silence around the table.
22
INTO THE WOODS
Once again, as the moon rose, Forrester, Yanni and Sophie met on the quayside below the kastello.
“What do you think, Yanni?” said Forrester. “Do you think Kretzmer killed Keith Beamish?”
“He could have done, boss, but it could have just as easy been one of the others. Nobody knowing where they all were when gun was fired.”
“We may be able to work it out though,” said Forrester. He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a small leather-bound volume with three sheets of tracing paper tucked in it. “I found this in Ari’s library. It’s a nineteenth-century antiquarian’s description of the castle, including a site plan.”
He opened the book at the page marked with the tracing paper and showed them the thickly inked diagram of the castle’s layout. Then he took a pencil and a sheet of the semi-transparent paper and made a tracing of the diagram. “That’s the sea wall from which he fell after the shot,” he said, passing the page to Yanni. As Patrakis took the tracing between his weathered fingers, Forrester began a second tracing, speaking to Yanni as he worked. “Who did you see near there?”
The Greek thought for a long moment and then jabbed his finger at the page. “Angry woman was here, English professor there, blond writer there, and dead man’s friend there.”
“Helena, Runcorn, Durrell and Venables,” said Forrester, marking their positions on the map. “Were they going in the same direction as you or running away?”
“I know not, boss,” said Yanni, “I was in big hurry.”
“Never mind,” said Forrester. “Let’s put each one down with an arrow for which way you think they might have been going, and a question mark if you’re really not sure.”
Yanni complied, and the tracing paper began to fill up with annotations. Then Forrester turned to Sophie and went through the same exercis
e with her on the second tracing. In some cases she was able to corroborate Yanni’s account, in others modify it, and in yet others to give Forrester the whereabouts of people Yanni had not seen. When she had finished Forrester made a third tracing and put down his own recollections of where everyone had been. Finally he put all three pieces of paper on top of one another and studied the results.
“Helena is still a possibility, isn’t she?” he said at last. “All three of us put her where she was close enough to have done it.”
“I know I was the one who was insisting we consider her a suspect,” said Sophie, “but in the cold light of day I find it very hard to believe she could really hate Keith Beamish that much. She knows Ariadne is a total flirt, and her whole goal is to get Alexandros back, not to cling to her little playmate. Besides, it was obvious Ariadne was just cosying up to Keith to annoy Helena. He was pretty much the innocent party.”
“Up to a point,” said Forrester, “but remember he told us up at the grove that he’d had his eye on Ariadne since Athens – and so Helena Spetsos could have been getting more and more steamed up about him for some time.” He looked at the diagram again. “What about Runcorn? None of what we’ve got down here rules him out, does it?”
“And he was absolutely determined to get us to the castle even after you warned everybody that Kretzmer might be there,” said Sophie. “If he’d wanted to kill Keith he must have realised that was the ideal opportunity.”
“The problem is,” said Forrester, “I can’t think of any reason why he would want to. As far as I know he and Beamish scarcely knew each other. They were only introduced a few days ago in Athens through Venables.”
“As far as you know,” said Sophie. “Might they have met each other in England? During the war? Might Keith have been one of Runcorn’s students, or a researcher?”
“And then there’s the possibility that Helena Spetsos has some kind of hold over him, based on what you saw at her house in Athens,” said Forrester. “Runcorn does seem to have been one of the voices urging Durrell to visit Hydros – that could have been on Helena’s orders.”
“What about your friend David Venables?” asked Sophie. “Did he have any reason to kill Keith?”
“On the contrary,” said Forrester. “Keith was his collaborator on the book he’s writing. Without his illustrations the whole project may fall to pieces. Besides, they were friends.”
“And you yourself have known Venables for years, haven’t you?”
“I have. He’s a passionate, opinionated man and outspoken on most subjects under the sun, but I’ve never noticed any murderous inclinations. He was a naturalist before he was a broadcaster. You know, studying voles and foxes and things.”
“Really?” said Sophie. “It’s hard to imagine him sitting in a hide waiting for hedgehogs to mate.”
“Well, I’m not sure he did much of that. He made his name with a lot of very witty broadcasts for the BBC, making the animals sound like human beings.”
“Which they’re not,” said Sophie.
“I think he knew that. But it went down well with audiences when everyone was so worried about the war.”
“I remember you saying he was rather cynical.”
“Yes. He may not have seen animals as human beings, but I think he does see human beings as animals.”
“Perhaps that’s what makes him a man of the left, as he always reminds us. What about Lawrence Durrell?”
“Again, I can’t think of any reason why he would have anything against Keith Beamish. Plus, he’s the one person we all seem to believe was well away from the place where Keith was shot. I distinctly remember him beside me in the chapel as we were reading those rather eerie inscriptions.”
Sophie took the tracings from him. “So the wild card is Constantine Atreides, isn’t it? He’s the one none of us are sure of.”
Forrester looked at the pages over her shoulder. “Connie did make rather a point of staying outside the castle when everyone else went in.”
“And Penelope Alexandros said she saw him go into the castle before the gunshot,” said Sophie.
“She did,” said Forrester.
“In fact,” Sophie went on, “why is he here on the island at all? Why is he one of the party?”
“I must ask Venables about that. Venables was the one who instigated the trip to Rhodes to see Lawrence Durrell and I think Atreides just tagged along.”
“And once they were en route, he and Helena Spetsos persuaded Lawrence to include Hydros in his itinerary.”
“I’ve discussed that with Larry, and interestingly it seems most of the persuading came from Charles Runcorn, because of his Bohemond obsession.”
“Although Runcorn could have been acting for Helena Spetsos, after their little mise en scène in Athens.”
“Quite possibly. But let’s not get distracted from Connie Atreides. He’s absolutely desperate that Alexandros doesn’t throw his lot in with the communists, because if the General joins ELAS and they win a civil war, there’ll be no chance of King George coming back to Greece.”
“So he’s probably here to put pressure on Alexandros not to do that?” said Sophie.
“I think he may well be,” said Forrester.
“But what good is killing your English artist?” said Yanni. “That not helping Atreides persuade the General to say no to the Reds.”
Forrester looked at him. “Not as such,” he said. “But…”
“But what?” asked Sophie.
“I’m thinking back to the attack on Giorgios Stephanides,” said Forrester. “Who were the witnesses?”
“You and me,” said Sophie. “After all, we practically walked in on it.”
“But there was one other person in the grove that day, wasn’t there?” said Forrester.
Sophie looked at him, puzzled – and then realised. “You mean, in the morning, when we went through the first time.”
“Who?” said Yanni.
Forrester turned to him. “Keith Beamish,” he said.
For a moment all three sat there, digesting this.
Sophie was the first to speak. “You’re thinking he might have seen something, something that implicated Constantine Atreides. Something that showed Atreides was behind what happened to Giorgios Stephanides.”
“But Atreides was not trying to stop the colonel going to the communists,” said Yanni. “It is the General who matters.”
“True enough,” said Forrester. “Giorgios is just a loyal lieutenant. But what if Connie had been going for Ari, and accidentally got Giorgios?”
“With plastique?” asked Sophie. “Does Atreides even know how to use plastique?”
“I don’t know, someone might have taught him. And of course it didn’t go as planned, did it? Anyway, if Keith Beamish had got some clue he was involved, Atreides would have a motive to shut him up.”
“What clue might Keith have got?” said Sophie. Forrester looked at her, realising.
“Remember what he said on the walk to the castle. About how he liked drawing things glimpsed through the trees? He may have been thinking about something he’d seen in the grove.”
“Oh my God,” said Sophie. “Of course.”
“Something he drew,” said Forrester slowly. “Something he drew in that sketchbook of his.”
“And he didn’t realise the significance of what he’d drawn, until I started talking about the killer’s movements.”
“And Atreides had to kill him before he spoke out,” said Sophie.
“We have to find sketchbook, boss,” said Yanni.
“The problem is,” said Forrester, “if whoever killed Beamish, whether Atreides or anyone else, did so because he knew there was a clue in the sketchbook, he would’ve taken the sketchbook as well – or at least the relevant page. We might find it but we certainly wouldn’t find the drawing with the clue, whatever it was.”
“Perhaps Atreides still has the page on him, or hidden somewhere,” said Sophie.
�
��I can’t see why he would,” said Forrester. “He would have destroyed it right away. And let’s not forget we’re building on very slender foundations in assuming it was Atreides behind either the original attack or Keith’s murder.”
“Except that Atreides is the one person whose movements we can’t be sure of before Keith was killed,” said Sophie.
“Which isn’t much to go on, is it?” said Forrester.
* * *
As Forrester slipped into sleep that night, the dreams rose up to engulf him. There was Kretzmer, as tall as a house, walking across the rooftops of Athens and hurling the head of Jason Michaelaides across the gulf that separated them. There were Alexandros and Helena Spetsos, Thompson submachine guns cradled in their arms, racing across an Olympian mountainside, firing at a pursuing German patrol. But as the Germans came closer Forrester saw, beneath their helmets, his own face, Sophie’s, and that of Charles Runcorn. And then the whole party was all together on Yanni’s boat in the middle of the storm, and Penelope and Ariadne were throwing icons overboard whilst Atreides lifted something wrapped in sacking out of the hold and held it aloft. As the wrappings blew away in the wind Forrester found himself looking into the reproachful face of Keith Beamish, the flesh melting from his bones, leaving behind only a gleaming skull.
Forrester’s eyes snapped open in fear and for a long moment he felt himself hovering between consciousness and sleep, until he heard Sophie’s soft breathing beside him and remembered where he was. For a moment he gazed at her sleeping face and felt profoundly reassured she was with him in the midst of all the madness. But his body was thick with sweat now and his mind in such turmoil he knew there was no prospect of sleep. Slowly, determined not to wake her, he eased himself out of bed and got dressed. At first he just intended to sit by the window looking out over the sleeping village, but his thoughts were racing so fast he knew he had to get out.
The house itself was in the grip of the peculiar silence of a crowded building where everyone is asleep. Beneath his feet the tiles were cool and smooth; when he stopped to listen he could hear the ticking of a distant clock. He looked into the main room and even in the darkness it felt as if the eyes of Ari’s pirate ancestors were observing him from the portraits. He ran his fingers over the leather-bound spines of the books on the shelves and the pin-pricked map on the wall.
