The Messenger of Athens

by Anne Zouroudi

  A single puff of cloud passed overhead, and threw cold shadows as it hid the sun from view. Along the road, not far away, two black-clothed women walked, and talked with heads bowed low.

  She sighed, and saw the beauty of this narrow place; just across the bay, the mainland held a million possibilities. There might be a life with Andreas; she tried to force from her mind a man who mattered more. The pills carefully hidden by St Elizabeth had been thrown away so they could take their chances; maybe Nikos was right, and motherhood was her key to peace of mind.

  She picked her way through the garden’s desecration, searching for survivors and what might be salvaged. There seemed, at first, to be nothing, but, looking closely, there was much: the root crops were untouched, some herbs still grew, and – unnoticed in a corner – the pale-blue-flowered forget-me-nots still flourished.

  She gathered up the broken stalks of chick-peas.

  Out on the road, the black-clothed women drew close.

  Seventeen

  The fat man found Theo where his informant had suggested.

  For a short while, the fat man watched him working from across the courtyard. The builders had finished their part of the renovation, but had left behind their litter – a pile of drying sand flattened with bootprints, oddments of broken bricks and breeze-blocks, empty packs of cigarettes and the damp dog-ends of many smokes. Theo had removed the rotting, cracked-glass window-frame; the new pine-wood frame he had made leaned against the mottled smoothness of the freshly rendered wall. He held a chisel and a hammer, and was chipping at the rough stones which lined the window opening; the chink-chink of metal hitting stone was soothing in its rhythm. Then Theo paused; his hands went to his sides, and, laying his forehead on the cold plaster, he closed his eyes, as if too weary to work on.

  The fat man took a step forward, but a shard of broken glass snapped beneath his foot, and Theo, startled, turned. Seeing the fat man, his shoulders tensed; without speaking, he put the chisel blade to the wall, and knocked it with the hammer.

  ‘And so we meet again.’ The fat man used a tone of bonhomie, of bygones being bygones. ‘I came to see if you were ready to talk to me, Theo.’

  In silence, Theo chipped splinters from the stone.

  ‘Are you working alone?’

  The sun cast dark shadows on Theo’s face.

  ‘How did you know where to find me?’ he asked. His back still to the fat man, he spoke into the empty house, where his words echoed off the unpainted ceilings and the bare-boarded staircase.

  ‘Your brother told me,’ said the fat man. ‘I found him very anxious to be of help.’

  Theo gave two sharp hammer blows on the chisel.

  ‘I’m warning you,’ he said, quite calmly. ‘You stay away from my family. You’ve got no right to come here making trouble for me. Whatever your business is here, it’s not with me. I’m a happily married man.’

  Sardonically, the fat man raised an eyebrow.

  At the corner of the courtyard grew an olive tree; its pale-leaved branches cast shade where the old well-head had been. Its ancient trunk had been built into the courtyard wall, a vertical cornerpiece where two stone planes met; year by year, the knotted, slow-growing wood had grown around the stones which touched it, enveloping their hard edges within itself.

  The fat man stood beneath the olive tree, and ran a fingertip along the curving furrows of its bark. Amongst the leaves, a few hard, green olives remained; the fat man plucked one, and, holding it before his eyes, turned it to examine its structure and its form.

  ‘This is a fine old tree, wouldn’t you say?’ he asked, but Theo gave no answer. ‘Though I always think the olive is the most stupid of trees.’

  For a moment, Theo paused in his hammering, and the fat man sensed his wish to challenge and deride him for crediting a tree with stupidity. But Theo remained silent, and hit the chisel another blow.

  ‘Consider the orange tree,’ went on the fat man. ‘An orange tree understands the need for prettiness, and charm. The perfume of its blossom is a metaphor for sweetness. And the fruit of the orange tree is seductive; it asks the hand to reach up and take it. Please eat me, it says. And why does it do that? Because it knows that it needs help to spread its seed.’ He touched his fingertip to his temple. ‘Because it’s smart. It knows that, sometimes, a helping hand is beneficial. The fruit will fall to the ground in any case, of course. But the clever old orange tree wants its seed to travel far, and it knows how to do it. It asks to have its fruit picked, and so its seed is carried far away. It works the system to its advantage. Give and take. You know what I’m saying, Theo?’

  Theo moved the chisel to a stone above his head, and hit it; it brought a shower of powdery mortar down on to the sill, and the backs of his hands.

  ‘You should wear something to protect your eyes when you do that,’ said the fat man. ‘Now, this fellow here.’ He slapped the trunk of the olive tree. ‘He’s a stubborn old fool. In its natural state, there’s nothing less attractive than an olive.’ He held up the olive he had picked. ‘It’s a fruit so sour, even a goat won’t touch it. One bite, and your tongue shrivels like a raisin.’ He pitched the olive over the courtyard wall. ‘Yet this tree has the same aims in life as the orange tree. It wants to spread its seed. And we want its fruit. You’d think, the fruit being so unpalatable, the tree would make it as easy as it could to give its fruit away. But no. The olive tree makes it hard. To get the fruit we want, how do we have to take it? We beat this poor old man with sticks! Just consider – a venerable old tree, and a cruel beating, every harvest. It’s a tree without brains! We need it, it needs us. Why hold so tight on to its seed? Why not yield its harvest with good grace, like the orange tree? And do you know what, Theo? I think you might be one of life’s olive trees. Not easy plucking. Shall I have to beat you to get what I want?’

  Theo laid his tools down on the sill.

  ‘Tell me about you and Irini.’

  Theo turned to the fat man, and, drawing the saliva slowly from his cheeks, spat on the ground.

  ‘I’ve told you already,’ he said, ‘and I won’t be telling you again. I didn’t know the woman. So you can take that, shove it up your aunt’s arse, and fuck off.’

  The fat man plucked a leaf from the olive tree, and let it fall to the ground.

  ‘Have it your way, Theo,’ he said. ‘For now. We’ll meet again. And when we do . . .’ he crossed the courtyard, and stepped into the street, where the olive he had thrown lay at the heart of a pool of rainwater, ‘maybe I’ll begin to understand what it was she saw in you.’

  Eighteen

  It was mid-afternoon, and the businesses in the port were closed up for siesta. Beyond the clock-tower, a young boy dropped a hook-and-line into the oily water; small, shimmering fish rose to nibble his scattered bait, then disappeared back into the shadows between the moored boats. The police car was not there; where it had parked, a rectangle of dry concrete made a pale island on the rain-wet harbourside.

  Inside the police station, the fat man was pleased to find that the man he sought was alone. The sergeant sat at his almost empty desk, his jacket fastened and tight across his broad chest, the three silver chevrons on his arm angled towards the door. Spread below his capped ballpoint pens, a copy of Ta Nea was open at the sports pages. As Chadiarakis read, his dark eyebrows were pulled low in concentration; the stub of his forefinger followed the lines of print, and his wet, red lips mimed the words he read.

  As the fat man entered, the sergeant looked up from his newspaper. Seeing the fat man, sly gratification crossed his face.

  ‘The Chief’s looking for you,’ he said. He closed his newspaper and folded it in half, running his forearm over the crease.

  ‘By coincidence,’ said the fat man, ‘I, too, am looking for someone. And I seem to have found my quarry before your chief has found his, because it’s you I’m looking for, Sergeant Chadiarakis.’

  But the sergeant showed no curiosity in the fat man’s business with h
im.

  ‘The Chief phoned the Met in Athens,’ he said. ‘He asked why they’re interested in the Asimakopoulos case. He wanted to know why they sent you. And no one in Athens has ever heard of you! Oh, he’s gunning for you, my friend.’ He lounged back in his chair, folding his hands across the swell of his belly.

  ‘How absolutely absurd!’ said the fat man. ‘Of course there are people in Athens who have heard of me. What you mean is, none of those who have heard of me is employed by the Metropolitan Police. Do you mind if I sit?’

  Considering the fat man’s words, the sergeant drew his dark eyebrows together in puzzlement.

  The fat man lay his holdall on the floor, and, lifting the chair from behind the undersized constable’s desk, he placed it before the sergeant, and sat down.

  The fat man smiled.

  ‘And why, by the way,’ he asked, ‘should the Chief of Police be gunning for me simply because I don’t work for the Metropolitan Police? Thousands upon thousands of people don’t work for the Metropolitan Police. The vast majority of the population, in fact. Is he “gunning” for them, too?’

  ‘You impersonated a police officer,’ interrupted the sergeant, sitting up at his desk. He removed the cap from one of his ballpoint pens, and opened the drawer in his desk where he kept the right forms. ‘That’s an offence.’

  ‘With respect, I impersonated no one,’ said the fat man. ‘Are you saying that the Chief of Police took me to be a police officer? I wonder why? No, Harris – do you mind if I call you Harris? – your chief’s mis-assumption that I am a fellow officer must be corrected. Please tell him when you see him that I am employed by a different authority. And by the way, where is the Chief of Police? Will he be back in the office this afternoon? I have a matter to discuss with him. Actually, it concerns you.’

  ‘Me?’ The sergeant was wary.

  ‘I believe it my duty as a citizen to inform him that you have been using a police vehicle for non-police business.’

  ‘What non-police business?’

  ‘And, more interesting still, that you were seen at the cliff where Irini Asimakopoulos was found.’

  The sergeant’s eyes moved slowly to the fat man’s face; he lowered his chin to his chest, spreading his jowls over the tight collar of his shirt.

  ‘Naturally I was there,’ he said, carefully, ‘as a member of the search party; of course I was there.’

  ‘My information is,’ said the fat man, ‘that you were ahead of the search party by two whole days.’

  The sergeant gave a tight-lipped smile, causing a tiny run of saliva from his mouth’s corner to his chin. He wiped the wetness away with the back of his hand.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said.

  ‘You were up there in a police car, in civilian clothes. Alone. At least I think you were alone.’

  ‘You may think what you like.’

  ‘I have a witness who saw you there.’

  Sergeant Chadiarakis gave a small laugh, and spread his hands in feigned exasperation.

  ‘I wasn’t there,’ he said. ‘Why would I have been?’

  ‘Now that,’ said the fat man, ‘is an excellent question.’

  The instep of his left shoe was smeared with green – a grass stain, or the stain of sheep or goat dung. The fat man drew his shoe-whitener from his bag and, bending below the level of the desk, dabbed at his shoes; in bending, his voice was indistinct, but the sergeant, paying very close attention, caught every word.

  ‘A major search, with the army and a helicopter, is an expensive prospect,’ said the fat man from below the desk. ‘Scrambling a helicopter makes a big hole in a small budget. A budget like yours, for example. Money’s tight, I’m sure.’ He applied the whitener to the other shoe. ‘So I wonder what the Chief of Police would say if he found out that a helicopter was not required? That all the cash he’ll pay out for that search could have been saved? I’m sure that cash was earmarked for something. A new desk or two, perhaps? A motorbike with blue flashing lights which would impress the ladies?’

  He replaced the cap on the bottle of whitener, and dropped it back inside his holdall. The sergeant was not smiling any more.

  ‘I wonder, Harris,’ said the fat man, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing his cigarettes and lighter. ‘Do you mind if I smoke, by the way?’ The sergeant shook his head, and watched the fat man closely as he lit a cigarette and inhaled with obvious pleasure.

  The fat man took the cigarette from his mouth and held the smoking tip before his eyes.

  ‘Some things in life,’ he said, ‘are so enjoyable, yet so bad for us. I’m getting too old for these things; they slow you down so, don’t they? My father’s always telling me I should give up. So I suppose I must. One day. But not today.’

  He put the cigarette back to his lips, and drew in smoke.

  ‘What was I saying?’ he asked. ‘Ah yes. I was just wondering, wasn’t I, how secure you feel in your job, Harris. It’s a good job, I know. A man in your position earns a lot of respect in a place like this. A lot of . . . “respect”. A lot of money, potentially. Little gifts here and there – something for the New Year, something at Easter. An excellent pension to look forward to. That uniform is worth a great deal. I’m afraid it would be an awful lot to lose. But if someone told the Chief that you’d misused the police car, what would happen, Harris? Does he have friends just waiting to step into your shoes? Cousins and brothers-in-law in Patmos just waiting for a nice, comfortable posting such as this? A word of your misconduct in his ear – finito la musica. You’d be a cop in disgrace, Harris. And life would taste a lot less sweet then, wouldn’t it?’

  He drew again on his cigarette, and exhaled a stream of acrid smoke towards the sergeant, who blinked, twice, slowly, to protect his eyes.

  The fat man smiled at him.

  ‘So, Harris.’ For a long moment, he said no more. The sergeant reached uneasily for a ballpoint.

  ‘Speak to me, Harris,’ went on the fat man, ‘or I will make your life a misery to you.’

  ‘I have nothing to tell you,’ said the sergeant, sullenly.

  ‘Tell me what you know.’

  The sergeant lay his pen back in its place.

  ‘I can’t,’ he said.

  ‘Why not? Because you killed her?’

  Wearily, the sergeant shook his head.

  ‘I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘But you know who did, don’t you?’

  The sergeant glanced anxiously towards the door; the fat man leaned forward, and put his face up to the sergeant’s.

  ‘Tell me, Harris,’ he said. ‘My threats are never idle.’

  The sergeant looked into the fat man’s eyes, then away through the window to the grey sky and the sea. His expression was of sadness, and regret. The fat man stubbed out his cigarette, and waited for the sergeant to speak.

  ‘I didn’t kill her,’ the sergeant said at last. ‘I moved the body. That’s all.’

  ‘Moved it from where, to where?’

  ‘Moved it from where it was to where it was found.’

  The fat man dropped his head, and pinched the septum of his nose until the urge for sharp retort had passed.

  ‘Are you saying,’ he asked, ‘that you threw her over the cliff?’

  The sergeant passed a hand over his face, then, eyes closed, rubbed at his forehead.

  ‘What did it matter?’ he said. ‘She was already dead.’

  ‘Do you have a daughter, Harris?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘I’m sure they’re lovely girls. But if one of them died, unexpectedly . . .’

  ‘God forbid!’ said the sergeant, crossing himself. ‘God forbid!’

  ‘But what if one of them did die? If one of them had an accident like the one we’re going to talk about? What would you want for your daughter, Harris? I think you’d want her at home, with you, where you and your wife could take care of her. I think your wife would want to dress her in her best clothes, and have her family there to w
atch her, and the priest to pray for her. Isn’t that what you’d want?’

  The sergeant was silent.

  ‘So if it were your daughter – I want you to be perfectly honest with me – would it matter to you if someone – anyone, an officer of the law, say – threw her body over a cliff? It wouldn’t matter, I suppose, if she were already dead?’ The sergeant shuddered, as if he felt again the coldness of Irini’s corpse. ‘Are you a hard man, Harris, a man without a heart? Or is it simply imagination, and empathy, that you lack? How can you say to me it didn’t matter?’

  ‘She was dead! It didn’t matter! Not as much as . . .’

  He stopped, and, knowing that he’d said too much, laid his head in his hands.

  ‘As much as what, Harris?’ pressed the fat man. ‘As much as shielding the living guilty? Now you tell me this: why would you, an officer of the law, shield someone guilty of murder?’

  Again, the sergeant was silent.

  ‘All right, let me answer my own question. You wouldn’t do it for money. Murder is too serious a crime. So what motives remain?’ He tapped one forefinger with another, counting. ‘There’s love. Or there’s family. Or both.’

  Still the sergeant didn’t speak.

  ‘Tell me who it is you’re shielding, Harris,’ said the fat man, ‘or I’ll pin it on you.’

  The sergeant raised his head; his eyes were bright with tears.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ he said.

  ‘But I can,’ smiled the fat man. ‘I have a witness who saw you at the scene. A witness who doesn’t like policemen. Who would be prepared to swear he saw you dumping poor Irini’s body. It’ll be big news, Harris, a national story. I could write the headlines myself: COP KILLS YOUNG WIFE. Your face will be on every front page in the country. That’s something to make your daughters proud, now, isn’t it? So tell me.’