by Gavin Scott
“And that would have meant Prince Atreides’s precious King George would never have regained the throne,” said Runcorn.
“So he was prepared to do anything to stop Alexandros leading ELAS,” said Lawrence Durrell.
“Including killing my friend because he just happened to get in the way,” said Venables bitterly. “If it wasn’t Ari’s bullet that killed him, Kostopoulos, I very much hope it was mine.”
* * *
As Forrester was explaining to Kostopoulos that both Kretzmer and the stone had gone over the cliffs at Bohemond’s castle and the search could now be called off, Brother Thersites emerged to announce that the bullet had been successfully removed from Alexandros’s shoulder and he had retired to his room to sleep. Venables went in to have the wound in his scalp stitched, and when he had been patched up Forrester accompanied Thersites back to the monastery and explained that his labours were not yet over.
There was a wounded German to be looked after.
Before the monk would agree to treat Kretzmer, however, he insisted they consult the Abbot, and it was only after a long conversation that Vasilios agreed that Forrester’s decision had been the right one. Instead of trying to tend to the German in his hiding place, however, he sent a party of monks with a stretcher to bring him to the monastery, where he was secreted, late that night, in the same infirmary where Giorgios Stephanides was still recuperating.
As a result it was not until just after midnight that an exhausted Forrester returned to the kastello. He was at the front door when he saw a tall, lean figure disappearing, with an awkward gait, down the street in the direction of the harbour, carrying a suitcase.
It was a matter of seconds before he realised who it was, and then, despite his own weariness, he was hurrying after him as fast as he could go.
* * *
Alexandros was bent over the engine compartment of his caïque as Forrester approached the waterfront, and by the time he reached the boat itself the engine had burst into life.
“You can cast off for me, if you like,” said Alexandros, entering the wheelhouse. But Forrester ignored the suggestion.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to take up my command,” said Alexandros.
“With ELAS?”
“Who else?”
“You’re going to start a civil war because some pathetic little royalist tried to kill you?”
“That pathetic little royalist killed the best poet in Greece. He nearly killed my best friend and he killed the young Englishman everyone was so fond of. He would have finally got rid of me this afternoon if he had been a better shot.”
“But he’s dead,” said Forrester. “He paid for what he did and it’s over.”
“You think he acted alone?” said Alexandros. “Don’t be a fool, Duncan. Who do you think sent him here? The royalists, obviously. His cousin the king. The generals who surrendered to the Nazis instead of fighting one. And the damned politicians who were turning this country into a fascist state in the 1930s and just want to get on with the job.”
“You’ve no proof of that.”
“Duncan, you helped provide the proof yourself. You worked out that Michaelaides’s death was because they were trying to poison me in Athens. You identified the explosive Atreides used. You saw that the artist was killed because his drawings proved who had planted the explosive. And my own wife saw Atreides go into the castle before the Englishman was shot. Don’t try to unmake your case because I’m not doing what you expected me to do.”
“If you decide to lead ELAS, Ari, there’ll be civil war, and thousands of people will die as a result. Tens of thousands.”
Alexandros cast off the last rope; now only the power of the engine kept the caïque against the quay.
“There’ll be civil war anyway, Duncan, you know that, and thousands of people will die anyway, and if I’m not in the fight the wrong side will win.”
“And the communists are the right side? Some of them are as big a bunch of bastards as the right. You know that as well as I do.”
“Which means it’s better if I’m in control instead of one of the bastards. Duncan, you may not see it now, but this whole campaign to get rid of me has made everything clear. I was wavering before, not sure where my duty lay, but I now see it clearly, for me and for Greece. You helped me to do that, my friend, so I thank you. I will see you when the war is over.”
And with a brief salute, Alexandros spun the wheel and headed the caïque out to sea.
27
THE AFFAIR
When Forrester woke the next morning the bed beside him was empty and the sun was high.
He was still lying there, looking up at the pattern of light on the ceiling and letting the tumultuous events of the previous day run through his mind, when Sophie appeared with breakfast on a tray. He smiled, took a deep gulp of the strong, milky coffee, and listened as she told him what was going on in the rest of the house.
She herself had been awoken by a cry of distress from the main bedroom and had gone in to find Penelope Alexandros almost literally tearing out her hair, a note from her husband crumpled on the bed. Sophie had tried in vain to calm her but Penelope had rushed out of the house, gazed in anguish down at the harbour, and then rushed up the path into the woods.
Then as the news of Alexandros’s departure reached the monastery, Giorgios Stephanides appeared, still heavily bandaged, and it was clear the General’s defection had shaken him to the core. Pulling a rucksack over his shoulder, he went into the woods after Penelope.
Inspector Kostopoulos denounced the General angrily, claimed that his departure was a slur on his, Kostopoulos’s honour, and promptly departed for Athens on the boat that had brought him and his military escort.
Durrell had been almost equally appalled at Alexandros’s departure. The British government had a strong interest in Greece remaining a democracy and the news of Alexandros’s decision to join the communists had to be conveyed to London as soon as possible. Forrester and Sophie reached the quayside as Runcorn and Durrell made the boat ready and Helena Spetsos chivvied them impatiently.
“Are we going to wait all day? Or are we going to go after him?”
“We can go after him as soon as you like,” said Ariadne Patrou, “but we will not catch him if he does not want to be caught, and I don’t think he does.” Venables was already on the bridge, and gave Forrester an ironic, slightly melancholy salute as he caught his eye.
“Do you really think Alexandros is going to make such a difference?” said Forrester as he helped Durrell and Runcorn cast off the lines.
“I’m afraid so,” said Durrell. “I very much fear that what’s happened on this little island in the last few days is the beginning of a terrible disaster for millions of people.”
And with that, the last line was cast off and the minesweeper curved out into the bay.
* * *
Sophie wanted to go to look for Penelope, but Giorgios Stephanides came down to the kastello later that morning to say he had found her and she did not want to see anyone. From the hints he dropped it seemed she was roaming through the woods, maddened by her loss, and as soon as he had gathered some supplies he was going back to be with her until calm had returned. Forrester could not help thinking she had become one of the maenads of old, and felt a secret relief that he and Sophie did not have to try to calm the distraught woman.
Convincing Yanni Patrakis that the hunt for Kretzmer was over and the issue between them resolved took some time, and it was not until the Cretan had personally visited the monastery infirmary and inspected the pale, weak German for himself that he was convinced Forrester and Sophie were finally safe from their enemy. He said very little to Kretzmer but examined the stone with great interest.
Yanni did not leave the island straightaway, however: it seemed that amidst all the events of the past few days, he had come across a comely widow from Limani Sangri, and decided to stay on for a while to see how thi
ngs developed. Besides, he told Forrester, the fishing in that vicinity was very good, and with few boats around the size of his, there was very little competition.
For the next few days Forrester and Sophie spent most of their time at the monastery, Sophie assisting Brother Thersites in nursing Kretzmer back to health, and Forrester working with him on their first tentative attempts to relate the hieroglyphs on one face of the stone with the mysterious Minoan script on the other.
Not entirely to his surprise, Forrester found the German’s almost feverish intensity both stimulating and challenging. It was as if the physical battle between them had been transformed into a mental contest in which the enemy now was those ancient and impenetrable symbols.
But absorbing and satisfying though this was, Forrester was troubled. It was not just the fact that as a result of Atreides being identified as the killer Alexandros had given his backing to a cause Forrester believed would be disastrous not just for Greece but for all southern Europe. It was also the fact that his instincts told him there was something deeply flawed about the evidence that had convicted the royal cousin.
To calm his mind, and as a respite from the intense intellectual effort on the stone, Forrester took long walks across the island. He passed through the grove many times and examined the fallen shrine again and again. He went back to Bohemond’s castle with the diagrams that he, Yanni and Sophie had created, and retraced his steps on the day that Keith Beamish was shot. None of this activity proved that Atreides could not have been behind both the collapse of the shrine or the shooting at the castle, but all of it reinforced his growing conviction that there was something very skewed about the official verdict.
Several times as he walked the island, trying to tug aside this mental curtain, he had sensed the presence of someone watching him, and was almost certain it was Penelope Alexandros. But he had as little appetite for meeting her as she apparently had for meeting him.
And then came Kretzmer’s bombshell. He did not intend it as a bombshell. The remark came quite casually, as they were taking a break from considering a Minoan symbol, and concerned a certain Major Heinz Baumann, whom Kretzmer had met on the Eastern Front.
The major had, he told Kretzmer in the midst of a particularly vicious bombardment, been the commandant of a small Greek island earlier in the war, where he had been persuaded to go easy on the islanders by a gravely beautiful woman of much local influence with whom he had had a torrid affair. Kretzmer did not know either the name of the island or the Greek seductress, but Sophie came into the room as he was finishing his story, and almost dropped the tray she was carrying.
Afterwards, as she and Forrester walked back to the kastello, she said, “That was what Penelope was talking about. That night when she talked to me at the lookout.”
“What?” said Forrester. “I don’t understand.”
“She was talking about sacrifices,” said Sophie. “Sacrifices women have to make during wars. Sacrifices she’d had to make to keep the islanders safe. Sacrifices men wouldn’t understand.”
“You think she was the woman Baumann was talking about?”
“I’ve no idea. It doesn’t matter. But I’m sure she was referring to exactly the same situation.”
“You mean that she slept with one of the German commandants here? To protect the island?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. She wanted to talk about it, but she couldn’t.”
Forrester stared at her. “Blackmail,” he said. “Somebody knew what had happened and was blackmailing her.”
“I’m sure of it,” said Sophie.
“Blackmailing her to say that Atreides had gone into the castle before Keith Beamish was shot.”
“Yes.”
They sat down on a patch of turf overlooking the village.
“What about Socrates?” said Forrester. “He testified that he smelt the explosive on Atreides. Why would he lie?”
“To protect her.”
“Of course,” said Forrester. “He must have known about her and the German commandant. Whoever was blackmailing Penelope approached him and said that unless he denounced Atreides, the truth about what had happened during the war would come out. And of course he would have done anything to make sure Alexandros didn’t find out, whatever lies he had to tell.”
Sophie’s face darkened. “Does that mean whoever was doing the blackmailing was the killer?”
Forrester considered. “I think it does,” he said at last.
28
THE CHOICE
Forrester looked balefully at the unshaven Greek peasant next to him, his head on the table, his sheepskin jacket reeking of sweat, his snores rattling the empty ouzo bottle that lay beside him. But in all truth, the man’s stink was hard to distinguish in the general odour of unwashed humanity that filled the bar, stirred only when the door opened to admit another gang of stevedores rolling in from the dockside. Recorded bouzouki music thudded through the thick air, intensifying the headache that had been building behind Forrester’s temples for an hour now.
He had been in this northern Greek port for three days, leaving word in all the most likely places that he needed a guide to take him towards the Yugoslav border to find ELAS. He had spoken to old wartime comrades, Turkish smugglers, shifty union officials, shady businessmen. Finally one of them, a scrap metal merchant out of Salonika, had agreed to meet him at this bar if he discovered anything.
But the man had not shown up, it was late in the evening, the noise hammering off the low ceiling was increasingly intolerable, and the sheer mass of humanity in the place was claustrophobic. Forrester stood up to leave – as someone close beside him said, “I want you to try this, old chap, and tell me what you think.”
David Venables slid onto the bench on the other side of the table and put a bottle and two glasses between them. Slowly, Forrester sat back down.
“You look as if you’d seen a ghost, Duncan. It can’t be that much of a surprise, surely.” Venables filled the glasses. “I haven’t given up on the travel book, despite not having poor old Keith on the team, and my researches continue.” He patted the familiar cavas manuscript bag. “Your health!” He raised his glass.
Forrester remained motionless.
“Suit yourself,” said Venables, and drank. He wiped his lips and grinned at Forrester. “It’s not poisoned, you know.”
“Really?” said Forrester. “You surprise me.”
“I don’t quite take your meaning, old chap.”
“Oh, I think you do,” said Forrester. “You’re quite a dab hand at poison, I think.”
“Ah, you’ve already been drinking,” said Venables equably. “And on that assumption I’ll let it pass.” He refilled his glass.
“Your assumption is wrong,” said Forrester. “I’m not remotely drunk and the accusation is not made lightly. I believe you were responsible for the death of Jason Michaelaides.”
“The poet? Why on earth would I want to kill Jason Michaelaides?”
“I don’t think you did,” said Forrester. “I think the real target was Ari Alexandros, and Michaelaides got in the way.”
“Why on earth would I want to kill Ari Alexandros?”
“Again, I don’t think you did,” said Forrester. “I think you simply wanted Ari to believe someone was trying to kill him and Michaelaides was an unintended casualty. I’m assuming you put a bit of poisoned tiropita on Alexandros’s plate at the Archbishop’s party and Michaelaides ate it by mistake. It wouldn’t even have killed him if he hadn’t had a heart condition. So your little scheme didn’t have the effect on Alexandros that you intended.”
“And what in your disordered mind did I intend?” said Venables.
“You intended to make him think that the royalists were trying to kill him. If he believed that, it would almost certainly prompt him to join ELAS.”
“Rubbish.”
“Unfortunately for you,” said Forrester, “Ari decided the best course was to retire to the comparative safety
of Hydros and re-establish his relationship with his wife. Thus obliging you to follow him there.”
“But as you know, Forrester,” said Venables, filling his glass again, “I didn’t follow him. I went to visit Lawrence Durrell in Rhodes.”
“And took Constantine Atreides and Helena Spetsos with you. You knew that Durrell was planning a tour of inspection of that part of the Aegean, and you knew Helena would insist he visited Hydros. Her obsession with Alexandros was the perfect cover. And Atreides the perfect fall guy for whatever you were able to pull off there.”
“How did I know that Durrell was planning a tour of inspection? How could I possibly have a piece of information like that?”
“I’ll get onto that later,” said Forrester. “But first I want to look at your next attempt to convince Alexandros that the royalists were out to kill him.”
“I made no such attempt,” said Venables firmly.
“You planted the plastique at the shrine so that it would collapse as Alexandros was waiting for me in the grove. You may not have intended to injure Stephanides, but the fact that he turned up and took the brunt only helped. It made Alexandros even angrier, so that all you needed to do was to point the finger at Constantine Atreides and your job was done. Unfortunately for you, your friend Keith Beamish had been sketching up there that morning.”
“And as you very well know, providing the proof that Atreides planted the explosive.”
“That was your stroke of genius, of course,” said Forrester. “But let’s consider whether Keith Beamish might not have discovered who had planted the explosive in an entirely different way. Would you mind showing me your satchel?”
Venables stared at him, and then shrugged. “Why not?” he said, bringing it out onto the table. “It has the same contents as it did when you first met me under that pub table during the blitz.” He emptied the bag. A few pens fell out, and an oilskin package. Venables opened the package to reveal a pile of manuscript pages.
