The Silver Stain

by Paul Johnston

  ‘How long have I been out?’ My voice sounded tinny, as if it came from outside my body.

  ‘Your three-day coma has apparently rendered you unable to use the customary terms of address.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I mumbled, my interest in military discipline long gone.

  ‘Your captain – what’s his name?’

  I didn’t know if it was a test, but I found that my memory was working adequately.

  ‘Blatter.’

  ‘Indeed. Captain Blatter, who, you’ll be pleased to learn, has been awarded the Iron Cross Class One by General Student, thinks you’re a coward and a malingerer.’ The doctor gave me a tight smile. ‘I have no opinion about the former, but I seriously doubt you’ve been faking the comas you’ve been in. Here’s my difficulty. We are unable to treat head injuries such as yours on Crete. We therefore will have to send you to Athens, from where I would hazard that you’ll be returned to the Fatherland and discharged from the parachute division – meaning you’ll spend the rest of the war stamping papers or fire-watching. Meanwhile, your unit has been ordered to leave the island tomorrow to take part in a major operation elsewhere.’ He glanced at my chart. ‘So how do you feel today, Private?’

  I didn’t know what he was trying to do – maybe he felt a trained paratrooper shouldn’t be wasted even if he had a potentially catastrophic head injury, or maybe he wanted to see if Blatter was right about me being a coward. In any case, after what I’d seen at Makrymari, I had a single imperative – I was going to prove myself to the captain and then I was going to kill him. For myself? For the executed woman? I’ve never been able to decide. Maybe it was for both of us, victims of the war in our different ways.

  Blatter welcomed me back to the unit with an ironic smile and a sarcastic remark, but he had more important things to think about. A month later we were storming into the Soviet Union, but as ground forces. After the Pyrrhic victory on Crete, Hitler had decreed there would be no more airborne assaults, so we fought alongside the ordinary army troops and the cold-eyed bastards of the Waffen-SS. Blatter’s zeal began to waver after two months of the winter, but I bided my time. I wanted him to be in full disarray before I ended his life.

  That happened in early spring, when the birds on the great Ukrainian plain had started to sing again and the first shoots of grass had begun to appear under our ragged boots. We were ordered to attack a Red Army stronghold by a small river, and Blatter’s nerve finally went. I stepped up and said to his second-in-command, a Bavarian lieutenant named Wanner, that I’d look after the captain, taking my Luger from its holster and putting the muzzle against Blatter’s back.

  We moved forward in an extended line, taking heavy machine-gun fire at several points. We had artillery support and that eventually pounded the enemy into disarray, not that they surrendered. After the last of them had been mopped up, I pushed the captain into a command post filled with shattered bodies and took out my service bayonet.

  ‘This is for the woman in Crete,’ I said. ‘And for me.’

  He started to beg, dropping to his knees, which made it easier for me to slide the blade slowly into his mouth and upwards into his brain.

  That was the end of the real war for me. I fought on, robot-like, but I remember few details. I was always the first to charge forward, the first to volunteer for suicidal missions, the last to turn tail when the great Soviet advance commenced. I expected every day to be my last, but I survived. It was as if I was under the protection of some jealous god. Eventually I could refuse promotions no longer and did what I could to protect the ever-younger, doe-eyed recruits from the inevitable. I was even given medals, which I accepted on behalf of my men. My unit was finally cut to pieces in western Poland and I dropped my decorations into the River Oder as the last of the great expedition staggered back into our homeland.

  After the war I was still in some parallel world, passing through camps and offices until I was declared clean of the stain of Nazism and free to remake my life. Which I did, after I met Hildegard.

  But my heart had never left Crete and I returned as soon as I could to live out my days near the places where the dark-haired woman and I had saved each other’s lives; and where I had failed to give her death from a compassionate hand.

  When Mavros got further into the room, he saw there were two more balaclava-clad men behind the one with the knife. The latter pushed him backwards so he landed on the sofa. Then he went behind it and held the edge of the knife against Mavros’s throat. The shorter of the others sat down in the armchair on the other side of the coffee table, while the third stood alongside him. None of them were wearing Cretan boots or other garb.

  ‘You move, you lose your Adam’s apple,’ said the seated man, in Greek.

  Mavros didn’t recognize the voice, but the accent was definitely Cretan.

  He decided that moving his tongue and lips was an unnecessary risk.

  ‘You’re in luck, you know,’ the man opposite continued. The bared teeth in the balaclava’s slit suggested he was smiling. ‘I mean, you could already be dead. A vendetta isn’t something you Athenian ponces should take lightly. So we’re here to teach you a lesson.’ He paused for effect. ‘Cut his throat.’

  Mavros was instantly drenched in cold sweat, his heart thundering. The knife blade was moved round his throat, nicking the skin. Then he felt warm drops on his forearms. He was about to duck out of the position, even though he knew such a movement would only bring death more quickly, when he thought of his father. Spyros was looking at him steadily, dark-blue eyes willing him to hold his nerve. Mavros stayed still and got his breathing under control, as the knife continued its light pressure round his neck.

  ‘Enough,’ the man in the armchair ordered, a hint of disappointment in his voice. ‘You’re a cool one, Mavro. But this is your last warning. Go back to Athens by tonight or next time you’ll be drinking your own blood.’ He came over, then took a wide roll of duct tape from his pocket, pulled off a length and held it up for the man with the knife to cut. A moment later, the tape was over Mavros’s mouth. Then the rest of the roll was wrapped round his body, binding his arms to his sides and pressing his legs together.

  ‘You’d better hope you never see us again,’ the leader said, as one of the others checked the corridor through the spyhole in the door.

  They left, closing the door softly behind them.

  Spyros had faded from view and now Mavros did begin to panic, unaware how deep the cut in his throat was but feeling pain. How long would it take for him to bleed out?

  Mikis was standing by the Jeep in the hotel car park. Mavros had asked him to hang around while he made some calls. The sun was sinking over the high ground to the west and bats were flitting about the oleanders and palm trees. Despite the Kornaria vendetta, Mikis was at peace with the world. His father would sort those idiot mountain men out one way or another and, if it came to another fight, he was ready. He hadn’t told Mavros that this wasn’t the first vendetta his family had been involved in, even though they were much rarer than they used to be. An uncle on his mother’s side had been accused of stealing the woman who became his wife from a village on Mount Psiloritis. Shots had been fired, including some by the seventeen-year-old Mikis; nobody had been badly hurt and money had exchanged hands. He didn’t think the Kornariates would be so open to compromise.

  Mikis thought about Mavros. He was different, to put it mildly, and not just because of his long hair and weird eye. He was subtle and understated, perhaps from his Scottish genes, but he didn’t give up, and he was decisive when he had to be – as when he’d hit the shotgun-wielding hard man on the head with that rock. But he was secretive as well, something which wasn’t a good idea when armed men were after you. Mikis knew there were aspects to the Maria Kondos case the detective hadn’t shared, and he suspected the same applied to Rudolf Kersten.

  Then he saw them – three men in black shirts and trousers coming out of the hotel. Their pockets were bulging and one of them ha
d failed to conceal the haft of a knife up his sleeve. All three had hair cut almost to their scalps and he recognized the shortest of them. He took out his mobile and called Mavros. No answer. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the large red pickup they were getting into and noted its registration number. Then he ran like hell for the hotel.

  Mavros heard the pounding on his door from the floor, where he had managed to slide from the sofa. He tried to shout through the duct tape, but all that came out was a stifled moan.

  Then he heard Mikis’s voice, saying he was going to get help. While he was waiting, he tried to wriggle across the floor, but the blood on the tiles scared him and he rolled on to his back to reduce the flow.

  Eventually – though it couldn’t have been long – he heard voices in the hall and a key card slip into the slot above the handle. Mikis pushed past the hulking figure of Renzo Capaldi and knelt down beside him.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Alex,’ he said, bending over. ‘Are you all right? This is going to hurt.’ He picked off a corner of the tape and then ripped it from Mavros’s mouth.

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Told you.’ Mikis looked over his shoulder. ‘Find a knife or some scissors.’ Capaldi went to the desk against the wall and came back with a pair of the latter.

  ‘You’ve lost a lot of blood,’ the Cretan said.

  Capaldi, who was cutting through the tape on Mavros’s chest, shook his head. ‘Throat wounds look worse than they are, as long as the jugular veins aren’t affected, and his are OK.’

  ‘And you know this how?’ Mikis asked, easing Mavros into a sitting position.

  ‘Ten years in the Fifth Alpini.’ The Italian smiled. ‘Elite mountain regiment.’

  ‘Really?’ Mikis said, unimpressed. ‘How do you feel, Alex?’

  ‘I’m . . . I’m all right apart from my throat. Can you get a cloth or something?’

  Mikis came back from the bathroom with a pile of luxurious white towels. Capaldi raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment.

  ‘We’re going to the clinic,’ Mikis said, helping Mavros to his feet.

  Capaldi followed them out and closed the room door. ‘Anything else I can do?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mavros said. ‘Call Rosie Yellenberg and get her to advise the West Crete Clinic to expect us.’ He had an afterthought. ‘And don’t tell Mrs Kersten about this.’

  ‘Didn’t you see three men in black come in?’ Mikis demanded, as they reached the lift. ‘Three arseholes with “bad man” written all over their shaven heads?’

  Capaldi shook his head. ‘I can check the gate cameras.’

  ‘Forget it,’ the Cretan said. ‘I’ll handle it.’

  ‘So masterful,’ Mavros said, as they went out into the evening.

  ‘Don’t talk,’ Mikis ordered, getting him into the Jeep and then heading for the gate at speed. ‘Here’s what I saw.’ He told Mavros about the three men as they pulled away past a line of cars – the press pack was present in even greater strength. ‘Unfortunately I didn’t see them go in or I’d have been on their tails in a flash.’

  ‘They had a knife,’ Mavros croaked.

  ‘I noticed. I’ve got their pickup’s number, but I already know who the short guy was.’

  ‘The leader.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Mikis glanced at him. ‘Keep that towel tight on the wound or you’ll have a nasty scar.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Petros Lagoudhakis. A far-right scumbag who runs his own band of crazies. They call themselves the Cretan Renaissance, but they’re too dumb to do anything other than shout insults outside the Jewish Museum and goose-step around the backstreets. He was in the Black Eagle the night we created mayhem.’

  Mavros told him about the threat that he leave Crete that night.

  ‘It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing they’d do themselves. Someone’s paying them.’

  Mavros thought about that. Oskar Mesner was into neo-Nazi shit, but why would he want him off the island? Did he think his grandfather’s coin collection would be an easier target now the old man was dead? Or could Tryfon Roufos, the bent antiquities trader, be using local muscle? If that was the case, was David Waggoner involved too, given their close huddle at dinner in the taverna? And Waggoner was a link back to Kornaria, with his house up there.

  ‘You don’t think our friends in the mountains might have subcontracted the work?’

  ‘If they had, I doubt you’d be talking to me now. Keep quiet!’

  He pulled up to the clinic entrance. A few minutes later, Mavros was under the lights, having been sprayed with a local anaesthetic, while stitches were skilfully applied. One thing he was sure of – no way was he leaving the island. This was all getting far too personal.

  Mavros emerged from the room where he’d been treated half an hour later.

  ‘Christ and the Holy Mother,’ Mikis said, crossing himself. ‘If they’d put a couple of bolts on, you’d be a dead ringer for Boris Karloff.’

  ‘Highly amusing. Come on.’

  ‘Don’t you have to rest? They shot you full of drugs, didn’t they?’

  Mavros nodded. ‘See, I can move my head without it falling off.’ He touched the dressing that ran from under one ear to the other. ‘For the time being. Which means there’s no time to lose.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Mavros said, pointing towards the centre of Chania.

  ‘You’re not serious.’

  Mavros looked at his watch. ‘Coming up to ten. They should be in the Black Eagle by now.’

  Mikis opened the door of the Jeep for him. ‘They and about twenty others of their species.’

  ‘I take it you’ve got that Colt with you.’

  The Cretan stared at him as he put the key into the ignition. ‘You’ve lost your mind, my friend. I can’t go into a bar in the centre of Chania waving it around.’

  Mavros smiled. ‘No, of course not.’ He waited till Mikis had driven away from the clinic. ‘But I can.’

  There was a squeal of burning rubber as Mikis hit the brakes. There was a loud horn blast from the car behind. He drove on, shaking his head.

  ‘I’m not giving you it, Alex. You’re so doped up you’ll hardly be able to lift it.’

  ‘Too bad. I’m serious, Miki. How do you feel about what those wankers did to me?’

  That hit the spot. Cretans took hospitality and the safety of those under their protection very seriously.

  ‘All right,’ the driver said, ‘but I’m doing the shooting.’

  ‘Who knows?’ Mavros said, with a smile. ‘Maybe it won’t even come to that.’

  Mikis glanced at him. ‘You want a bet?’

  SEVENTEEN

  Hildegard Kersten was at her husband’s desk in their apartment, papers and memorabilia all over it. Rudi had destroyed most of his wartime documentation, though he had kept his paratrooper’s jump badge, with the gilt eagle diving earthwards over a silvered oak leaf and acorn wreath. He’d never told her why he would often look at it, though she was sure he felt no residual loyalty to the unit – at the memorial services in the official cemetery, he kept away from the other survivors. Having read The Descent of Icarus, she was sure it reminded him of the woman he had been obsessed by. She’d never been jealous of that obsession, which dated from long before she knew Rudi and was not in any way erotic or sexual. He admired the woman, seeing her as a heroine who died for her homeland rather than allow it to be overrun by the invader; he wished that he could have been a defender of his homeland too, though not the ruined Germany he had fought in during the last months of the war. The false dream of the paratroopers had long vanished by then, as had most of the men.

  She supposed she would have to get all Rudi’s things in some sort of order for the lawyer who would execute the will. There would be a pension and the use of the apartment till she died, but there was little of monetary value apart from the jump badge, which she would never sell, and his coin collection, which was to be donated to various muse
ums in Crete and mainland Greece. Oskar would soon find that out – or perhaps Rudi had already told him, prompting his stealing of the thirty coins. No, Rudi would never have done that without telling her first. They didn’t have secrets. Those coins were only a small part of the total, which numbered over six hundred. Some were badly worn Roman sestertii of negligible value, but others – the magnificent Syracusan dekadrachms, the perfect Athenian ‘owls’, the Venetian ducats and scudos – were worth a lot of money. But that was of no concern to her. She would hand them over to the museums Rudi had indicated after his funeral.

  Ah, the funeral, she thought, struggling to find the energy to proceed with the arrangements. Several of the hotel staff had offered to help. Rudi had always said that he wanted to be cremated and his ashes thrown to the winds, but that was not done in Greece and she didn’t want either the expense or the trouble involved in shipping his body to the nearest crematorium in Bulgaria, a country neither of them had ever visited. She wondered whether to ask the priest at Makrymari if her husband could be buried outside the cemetery wall. He had given plenty of money to the village over the years, even helped to rebuild the church, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to impose on the descendants of the massacre. It didn’t seem right. The easiest thing would be to bury Rudi in the grounds of the Heavenly Blue, but she had a feeling the new owners would not like that.

  The phone started to ring. For a while she left it untouched, then picked it up and murmured her name.

  ‘Grandma?’ came Oskar’s voice. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve been out of town. I only heard a few minutes ago. I’m on my way.’

  ‘No!’ Hildegard said, surprising herself by the strength of her voice. ‘No, Oskar, not tonight. I am . . . I am very tired.’

  ‘You don’t sound tired.’

  ‘What’s that? I can hardly hear you. Where are you?’

  ‘In a bar,’ her grandson shouted. ‘Raising a glass to Grandpa’s memory.’

  As if you ever cared about your grandfather, Hildegard thought.

  ‘I’ll come tomorrow and help you sort out the coin collection,’ he continued, making no effort to conceal his interest it. ‘You know Grandpa would have wanted me to have it.’