The Messenger of Athens

by Anne Zouroudi

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I’m surprised to see you still here. I thought you’d be catching the ferry that’s just docked.’

  ‘Chief of Police, you do me a disservice,’ said the fat man. ‘I could hardly leave without notifying you of my findings.’

  ‘Still determinedly detecting?’ smiled the Chief of Police. ‘Might I ask what you have detected, so far?’

  ‘In truth, very little,’ answered the fat man. ‘But it is early days yet, early days. Tell me, which of these houses is the Asimakopoulos house?’

  The Chief of Police raised his chin and laughed.

  ‘So that’s what brings you up here,’ he said. ‘Hot on the trail. The husband as prime suspect, I suppose. Don’t trouble yourself. He didn’t do it.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’ asked the fat man. ‘Because he told you so?’

  ‘I’m telling you, don’t waste your time. He’s not the type.’

  ‘Anyone can be the type, if they’re pushed to it,’ said the fat man. ‘The crime passionel. Spontaneous crime. Opportunist crime. I’m sure it’s an area of which you have experience.’

  The Chief of Police looked at the fat man for a long moment, then shrugged.

  ‘Talk to him if you like,’ he said. ‘He didn’t do it. No one did it. It was suicide.’

  ‘So which is the house?’

  ‘You can’t see it from here. Ask the neighbours.’ He depressed the clutch, and put the car in gear.

  ‘By the way,’ said the fat man, ‘you say you hail from Patmos.’

  The Chief of Police frowned, and flicked a speck of dust from his trouser leg.

  ‘My people are from Patmos, yes,’ he said, uncertainly.

  ‘I have good friends there,’ said the fat man. ‘Perhaps you know them?’

  ‘Patmos is a large island,’ said the Chief of Police. ‘One can’t know everyone. I’ll wish you good hunting, Detective. I have business to attend to.’

  He let out the clutch, and drove away. The fat man set off across the meadow, painstakingly picking his way through the mud and the goat dung.

  The path emerged on an alleyway paved with stones, interrupted all along its length by steps, a couple going up, three going down, to follow the contour of the hillside. At intervals, houses had been built on plots hewn out of the rock; beyond their terraced gardens, they faced the lower slopes of the mountains across the valley, where the white-walled cemetery lay. Above the clay-tiled roofs, darting swallows called. A cowering mongrel dog approached the fat man, and, head down and fawning, sniffed his shoes. The thin hair of its coat was in patches scratched away, where fleas had been tormenting it; a sore beneath its eye was weeping creamy pus. The fat man bent to stroke its head, but the dog slipped away, disappearing behind a derelict house where down-headed thistles grew high around the doorway. He whistled to the dog, and called to bring it back, but from the empty house came only silence.

  The fat man continued along the street. A small child played on a trio of steps, running a yellow dumper-truck along their length, parking the truck in a garage he had constructed by setting flat stones across their perpendicular. The truck’s axles were rusted from being left out in the rain; the boy’s face was streaked with the red dirt of the mountains, and mucus ran from his nose to his upper lip. As the fat man approached, the boy watched him with mistrustful eyes, swiping away the tickling mucus with the sleeve of his sweater.

  The fat man gave the boy a broad smile, and crouched beside him so their eyes were level. The boy’s eyes were clear and brilliant blue; his face was solemn.

  ‘Hello, son,’ said the fat man. ‘That’s a fine truck you have there. They didn’t have trucks like that when I was a boy.’

  The boy regarded him silently.

  ‘May I see it?’

  Abruptly, the boy whisked the truck out of sight behind his back, setting his lips in a line of defiance.

  ‘You’re very wise, son,’ said the fat man. ‘Never trust a stranger with your valued possessions. Do you like chocolate?’

  The boy did not reply. The fat man unzipped his holdall, and from somewhere within produced a bar of milk chocolate, wrapped in silver foil embossed with colourful, juggling clowns.

  The boy met the fat man’s eyes with his own.

  ‘This is for you,’ said the fat man. ‘But you have to ask your mother first if you may have it.’

  The boy blinked.

  ‘Go on,’ said the fat man. ‘Go and ask her. I’m sure she’ll say yes.’

  The boy dropped the truck clattering to the pavement, and ran into the open doorway of a nearby house. The fat man picked up the truck, and thoughtfully spun the little plastic wheels, front, then rear.

  ‘Can I help you?’ A girl, no more than seventeen, stood in the doorway, holding the boy in her arms. Her sleeves were rolled to the elbows, and her hands were red, and damp. On her fingernails, the burgundy polish was chipped and flaking; the fingernails were bitten to the quick.

  The fat man lay the truck down on the steps, beside its garage, and held up the chocolate.

  ‘I offered this to your son,’ he said, ‘but I told him he must ask you first.’

  The boy pointed to the chocolate, and wriggled to be put down. The girl, hesitating, held him firm.

  ‘I’m looking for the Asimakopoulos house,’ said the fat man. ‘Perhaps you can point me in the right direction.’

  The girl loosened her hold on the child, and, sliding to the ground, he ran to the fat man, hand outstretched. The fat man gave him the silver-wrapped bar, and the boy sat down on the steps, tearing at the foil.

  ‘Say thank you, Petro,’ said the girl; but the child said nothing. He broke off a piece of chocolate and chewed it, wiping his nose again on his silvered sleeve.

  ‘It’s three doors down,’ said the girl. ‘The house with the green door.’

  ‘Many thanks,’ said the fat man, taking a step in the direction she had shown him. But the girl did not go back to her chores inside the house; she folded her arms, and stood watching the boy fill his mouth with chocolate.

  The fat man hesitated.

  ‘I wonder,’ he said, turning back to the girl, ‘will I find the family at home at this time?’

  ‘Oh, they’ll be there,’ said the girl. ‘Angeliki, she’s mostly there, if she’s not shopping.’

  ‘My business is with Andreas Asimakopoulos,’ said the fat man. ‘I was told I’d find him here.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Him.’ She unfolded her arms, and called to the boy. ‘Petro, don’t you get in a mess with that chocolate!’

  ‘I’m sure Mr Asimakopoulos is very upset by the death of his wife,’ said the fat man. ‘Isn’t he?’

  The girl tossed her head, giving a suggestion of the flirt she had been, before she was roped to domesticity.

  ‘He makes a show of being upset,’ she said. ‘How genuine it is, only he knows.’

  ‘Did he not care for his wife, then?’ asked the fat man. ‘I was given to understand he did.’

  ‘Who gave you to understand that?’

  ‘People,’ said the fat man, evasively. ‘People hereabouts.’

  ‘He beat her,’ she said. ‘He used to drink too much, then go to work on her. Are you from the insurance?’

  ‘What insurance?’ asked the fat man.

  ‘That’s what I think happened,’ she said. ‘He took out life insurance, then bumped her off to collect it.’ She picked up a broom which leaned against the outside wall, and began to sweep the pavement before the door. ‘Don’t pay. I wouldn’t pay, if I were you. He doesn’t deserve a single cent.’

  ‘I’ll bear your words in mind,’ said the fat man. And winking at the chocolate-smeared boy, he walked away.

  The ruby-flowered geraniums in their terracotta pots were in need of dead-heading, and no one had swept up the dry, yellowing leaves they had dropped. The fat man knocked, a second time, and from within the Asimakopoulos house, he heard a woman’s footsteps, light but slow.

>   Angeliki Asimakopoulos opened the door only a crack; her face remained in shadow. There was a glistening of spittle at the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Mrs Asimakopoulos?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘My name is Hermes Diaktoros. I’ve come from Athens.’

  ‘I don’t want to buy anything,’ she said. Her voice was slow, and blurred. ‘I never buy at the door.’

  ‘I’m not selling anything,’ said the fat man. ‘I’d like to speak, if I may, with your son Andreas.’

  ‘I don’t think he can see anyone at the moment,’ she said, tentatively. ‘I’m sorry, but . . .’

  ‘I wanted to talk to him about his wife. About Irini.’

  ‘They said there’d be no more questions,’ she said, uncertainly. ‘Mr Zafiridis told us—’

  ‘I don’t work with Mr Zafiridis,’ interrupted the fat man.

  ‘I don’t think Andreas will want to talk to any more policemen. My husband says we’re none of us to talk to the police again.’

  Behind her, a man spoke, too low for the fat man to hear his words.

  She glanced over her shoulder, back into the house.

  ‘It’s just a salesman,’ she said.

  But the fat man called past her, ‘Andreas Asimakopoulos, is that you? I’m here to give you my assistance! I’m here to investigate the death of your wife!’

  There was silence, then the scraping of a chair pushed away from a table. A large, black-haired hand removed Angeliki’s delicate one from the door’s edge, and her face was replaced there by a man’s. The five-day stubble of his beard was growing through grey; his eyes were red, and the skin beneath them sagged with the weight of misery.

  ‘I’m not answering any more questions,’ he said, withdrawing behind the closing door.

  ‘Wait,’ said the fat man. ‘I’ve come from Athens to help you. I’m here to find out who killed your wife.’

  The door reopened, and Andreas stood before the fat man. Bitterly, he smiled.

  ‘You want to know who killed my wife?’ he asked. ‘Come in then, and I’ll tell you.’

  The shutters on the windows were all fastened; the light was dim, the room chilled, as though it had long been given up to melancholy. There was whisky on the table, a bottle three-quarters empty, a glass one-quarter full. Andreas motioned the fat man to a chair.

  ‘Drink?’ he offered. ‘I’m just having a little eye-opener myself. First of the day.’

  ‘Please just wait a moment, Andreas,’ said the fat man.

  Angeliki stood uncertainly behind his chair, twisting her hands. The fat man turned to her. The buttons on her blouse were misfastened; one button at her neck was spare, one buttonhole at her waist unused.

  ‘I wonder, madam,’ said the fat man, ‘if you’d be good enough to make us coffee. I take mine without sugar. You’ll know how your son takes his, I’m sure.’

  Silently, she left them. Andreas put his hand out to his glass, but the fat man covered its rim with the palm of his hand.

  ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Before you take that drink, you and I must talk.’

  Andreas ran his tongue over his lips.

  ‘Say what you have to say quickly, then,’ he said, ‘because I’m thirsty.’

  ‘I want you to tell me about what happened to Irini. Everything you know about her death.’

  Andreas threw back his head, and breathed a sigh which seemed to carry a lifetime’s misery.

  ‘I already told Zafiridis,’ he said.

  ‘Zafiridis won’t talk to me. He and I are not on the same team.’

  Andreas smiled.

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ he said. ‘Police is police, wherever you come from.’

  ‘I’m not a policeman, Andreas.’

  Andreas sat back upright in his chair, and looked at the fat man indignantly.

  ‘If you’re not the police, what the hell’s my wife to do with you?’

  ‘I work for a different authority,’ said the fat man, ‘a higher authority. Call me a private investigator, if you like.’

  ‘Her family sent you, then. You’re acting for them.’

  ‘I’m acting in their interests, certainly.’

  ‘They think I did it, don’t they?’

  ‘What they think is immaterial – you’ll find me totally impartial. I intend to discover for myself exactly where the responsibility lies.’

  Andreas placed his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands, hiding his face from the fat man. Around his neck, half-hidden in his greying chest hair, a crucifix glinted gold.

  ‘There’s no point in any investigations,’ said Andreas, wearily. ‘She’s gone. That’s it. It’s nobody’s business but mine. Leave me to grieve in peace. And for Christ’s sake, give me my drink.’

  But the fat man moved the tumbler away.

  ‘Mr Zafiridis did tell me your wife’s death was suicide,’ said the fat man. ‘But I don’t think she killed herself. I think someone else did.’ He paused. ‘It’s true that some think that someone was you.’

  Andreas raised his head, and regarded the fat man through his tear-blasted eyes.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘they can all just go fuck themselves. I loved my wife very much. I had no reason . . .’

  He stopped.

  ‘You were going to say,’ said the fat man, ‘that you had no reason to kill her. No motive. But I’m afraid you did, Andreas. You had the strongest motive a man could have to kill his wife. Jealousy.’

  Andreas gave a small bark of laughter.

  ‘If you’ve come to blackmail me,’ he said, ‘you’re wasting your time. I already paid Zafiridis, and I gave him plenty. He’d keep our name clean, he said. He said there’d be no more questions. Now you’re here, so it looks like money poorly spent, wouldn’t you say? Well, I’ll tell you what I told him. I didn’t kill her. She jumped off a cliff because that bastard used her and threw her away. I know who it was, and his time will come, believe me. He might as well have put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger himself. He’s the guilty one! If you’re looking for a killer, he’s your man. Go and talk to him about the death of my wife.’

  ‘Be assured,’ said the fat man, ‘he is high up on my list. Where were you when your wife died?’

  ‘I wasn’t with her,’ he said. Slowly, he shook his head. ‘That’s all I know. I wasn’t with her, and I should have been.’

  ‘Were you there when the . . . when Irini was found?’

  Andreas flinched from the memory. Noise, dust. Decay.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘For my sins, I was there. I reported her missing when I came home from Plati. She wasn’t there. I thought she’d gone. I thought at first she’d gone with him.’

  ‘How did you know she hadn’t?’

  ‘Because I saw him. Whilst I was making a fool of myself, asking around after my own wife’s whereabouts, I saw him going about his business as if nothing was going on. And I was glad to see him, so glad, because I knew then she wasn’t with him. So I thought then she’d gone to her mother’s, and I called, sure she’d be there, but she wasn’t. It was her mother who called the police.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call them?’

  ‘Because I had inside knowledge, didn’t I? I didn’t believe it was a police matter. I knew how things stood between us. I knew it was a miracle she hadn’t gone before.’

  ‘Did you ever beat your wife, Andreas?’

  There was a rattling of china as Angeliki carried in a tray from the kitchen. As she slid it on to the table, the tip of her tongue poked her lip in concentration, like a small child doing its best. She lay coffee and water before the fat man, coffee before Andreas.

  ‘He won’t drink it,’ she said. ‘It’s whisky or nothing, these days. He’ll drink himself into an early grave.’

  Andreas lowered his head back into his hands, but Angeliki, oblivious of her gaffe, went on.

  ‘Try the water, sir,’ she pressed the fat man. ‘It’s from our own well. It’s the sweetest water anywhere. Go
on, try it.’

  Obligingly, the fat man took a sip from his glass. The water was cold; it held the taste of stone.

  ‘It’s excellent,’ said the fat man, politely. ‘Fit for the gods.’

  Satisfied, smiling, she left them. Thin wisps of steam rose from the coffee. Cautiously, the fat man sipped at it. It was sweet.

  Andreas’s eyes were on the whisky bottle.

  ‘Did you beat her, Andreas?’ asked the fat man, quietly.

  ‘Oh, they’ll all be running to tell you that,’ said Andreas, bitterly. ‘That’s how they see me, now. The wife-beater who drove his wife – like Mother says – to an early grave. Do you think that’s where I wanted her?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said the fat man. ‘So why don’t you tell me how it was?’

  ‘I loved my wife; that’s how it was. We were happy. I was happy. I thought she was too. Just goes to show . . .’ He sniffed, and rubbed at his nose with the back of a hard-skinned hand. The fat man thought of the small boy, playing with his truck in the street. ‘Things changed. Not overnight, but fast enough. One day she can’t do enough for me, the next when I walk in a room, she walks out. There were new clothes, and make-up – and she was never home. Always out and about, walking, walking. When she wasn’t walking, she was mooching by the window, looking for him. Look. I’m island born and bred, but I’m not a fool. I knew there was another man; I could smell him. It was like he was in the house with us, all the time. I couldn’t stand it, the way she was, the way she despised me. She didn’t want me there, in my own house. I did beat her. Once; it was only once.’

  ‘Once too many, my friend,’ said the fat man, sternly. ‘There can never be any place for violence between a man and a woman. By beating her, you desecrated the love you say you had for her.’

  ‘Do you think I’m not sorry? Well, let me tell you: I regret it more than anything I’ve ever done. No man was ever sorrier. It was the lying, and the thinking she was going to be with him; it maddened me, it made a madman of me. I didn’t do it again. I left her alone, after that. I took myself off, spent my time at sea, came home from time to time to see – what a jerk I was, a total jerk – I came home to see if things had changed. I thought she’d get it out of her system. I thought I’d come home one day and it’d all be over. I prayed it would, and I was fool enough to think God was on my side.’ He gave another mirthless laugh. ‘God! What a yellow-bellied cuckold I was! I thought the best way was to leave them to it, for a while. Get out of the way. What I should have done was take the old man’s shotgun, and shoot him like a dog. Straight through the heart . . .’