Byron's Shadow

by Jason Foss

  ‘Lisa,’ Flint drew his eyes away from the scenery. ‘Sorry about last night.’

  ‘It takes two. Don’t let it worry you. You’re getting a complex. It’s Freudian guilt, you can’t have good sex without guilt.’

  ‘You said you loved me.’

  ‘But I didn’t mean it. Sorry.’ The Greek woman in the headscarf was knitting furiously in front of them and obviously spoke no English. Two more locals one the opposite side of the coach had their interest fixed firmly on monstrous hunks of bread.

  ‘Once, perhaps,’ she added.

  ‘Embury’s death rather cut us off short.’

  ‘It would have ended, believe me. You were young and impulsive; it was a holiday romance.’

  She was right, of course. As a couple, they were unsuited and always had been. Jeffrey Flint picked up his notepad and doodled away the hours.

  *

  A white Citroën was parked outside the most expensive hotel in Marathon, a spare jacket dangling from a coat hanger behind the driver’s seat. Within the hotel bar, the man in the light suit could have been mistaken for an executive as he opened his briefcase and took out a file of notes. Angelos re-checked the ferry timetable and his map. Raffina, why Raffina? Another minibus had been stolen, and this too had been found intact. Events were striking an odd parallel with those of a decade before. As for the boxes stolen from the museum, they obviously contained — had contained — something of value to Dr Flint, otherwise the risk would have been preposterous.

  Of course, Raffina could simply be a multi-layered bluff within a bluff. Back to the ferry timetable: where could one travel from Raffina? Euboea? Andros? Tinos or Mikonos? None of these options made sense, unless Dr Jules Torpevitch had somehow involved his Turkish wife. The American diggers had come to the attention of Angelos just a little late: the irritant would have to be neutralised.

  Angelos went to the bar to demand service, papers tucked under his arm. Doctor Flint was not alone in touting maps and notepads wherever he went. The Greek needed to understand the Englishman in order to find him. He already knew so much about Jeffrey Flint; his disguises, his habits, his eccentricities, his vanities. Flint was extremely bright, had more friends than he deserved and grew more devious with every day that passed.

  The Scotch Whisky was very expensive. Angelos ordered a double without glancing at his change, then leaned with his back against the veneer, thinking of old movies. Flint watched the movies, he claimed to be a connoisseur and would recognise this figure snorting whisky in a hotel bar. Angelos gave a grunt of self-congratulation as he saw through his prey; one can become too clever. Was it not an old cliché of detective films that a murderer returns to the scene of the crime?

  *

  The gaunt rock of the Palamedhi frowned down on Nauplion. Flint looked up once more at its zig-zag steps and the crenellations running along the skyline, sensing the way the present was dominated by the past. A local bus from Leoferas 25 Martiou carried them close to a campsite and they walked the rest of the way. As the site was almost full, the gatekeeper gave them a bad pitch, one at the very extremity of the campsite, which suited their purpose.

  Dusk was creeping around the hills and the sun had retired after another day of blasting the soil dry. In a niche of conifers bleeding resin, bats flitted around their heads as they struggled with the ex-army sandfly tent, its ropes, guys and rock-hard ground. Once the tent was imperfect but upright, the pair fell into their improvised bed, groaning, complaining of aches and exhaustion and the effects of the sun, comparing insect bites, and making soft puns and private jokes.

  ‘Do you remember our first night in Nauplion?’ he asked. ‘Just you and I, outside Andreas’ taverna...’

  ‘Don’t start on romance, I’m too tired.’

  ‘This is not romance — it’s research. Do you remember that old fellow who was snotty about me digging in the olive grove?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘His name was Costas — he brought that confounded pen back to our table.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Do you think Andreas would remember him?’

  Lisa sighed. ‘Imagine if you walked into your local in Leeds and found Fred the barman. “Hello Fred”, you say, “remember a chap called John who was in here seven years ago?’. “What does he look like?” he asks. “Dunno,” you say, “it was dark and I was pissed at the time”.’

  ‘Point taken. But will you go and ask Andreas tomorrow?’

  ‘If I wake up tomorrow. Goodnight Jeff.’

  Lisa rolled over and fell asleep almost instantly. Flint lay by her side, so close, but so distant.

  *

  Pushbikes did not require passports as surety. Jeffrey Flint laboriously worked his way up into the hills towards Palaeokastro in a slow, reversed imitation of his escape. It was a bitter homecoming to the dull whitewashed village and he was unsure what to expect. With taut calf muscles he passed the familiar red petrol pump, the house where the first bicycle had been commandeered, and the taverna Mikos. He cycled up to the taverna and brought himself to a welcome halt.

  Only two old regulars were seated outside the bar, the timeless domino game still in progress.

  ‘Mikos?’ he asked.

  They indicated the rear of the building and Flint passed through to the place where Mikos maintained a walled vegetable plot. Mikos was beside the toilet block, fussing over his cesspit.

  ‘Mikos, can I speak to you?’

  Mikos looked around sharply at the voice, but clearly had trouble placing the face. Slowly he raised an accusing finger. ‘You?’

  ‘I need your help to find the killer of Sebastian Embury,’ Flint said with as much courage as he possessed.

  ‘You?’ The finger and the accusation were still there. Mikos stood up and wiped noxious grey matter from his hands with a kerchief.

  Flint launched straight into his sales pitch, allowing Mikos no time to work up anger, or to discover public spirit. He told him about Byron Nichols, the pen, the mystery witness, Athens, Owlett, anything to convince Mikos that there was a case worth investigating.

  ‘Why did you come back?’ Mikos said in a quiet, distrusting voice.

  ‘Because I am innocent.’ Flint brought out his passport as phony proof.

  ‘Huh!’ Mikos began to walk down his vegetable patch, towards a group of plane trees.

  ‘Someone stole a bicycle from this village,’ he said. ‘And many years ago, someone killed my friend, Mister Embury. My guest!’

  The crimes might not have been listed in order of importance. A wedge of plane trees hugged the interface of ancient and modern settlements, with twenty-three centuries of secrets lying buried beyond.

  Mikos sat down in the shade, with his back to a low wall. ‘Mister Embury was my friend, a good friend. The police say it was you that killed him.’

  Flint sat a few yards apart, ‘Not me — his killer is still out there and the police can’t find him, or they won’t find him.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Mikos already seemed convinced, but his natural suspicion fought against it. ‘There is a story that you have been asking questions and seeking the truth. A man came around, yesterday night, asking for you.’

  ‘Who? A policeman?’

  ‘No, not a policeman. He was not from the Argolid, but an Athenian.’

  Mikos continued with a familiar description and Flint began to feel cold beneath the shade. The ghost in a white Citroën, the smooth-speaking chic Athenian had out-guessed him and was already here. Lisa could not be told, it would destroy what remained of her endurance. Who was he?

  ‘I did not like him,’ Mikos continued. ‘He told me you had changed your hair and that the girl Lisa now looked like her Greek mother.’

  Flint felt the noose tighten around his throat. ‘Did this man give his name?’

  ‘No. No name, and he had no badge, but I saw he wore a very fine watch, a Rolex, in gold. He also had a gun.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Here,’ Mikos
tapped his left breast, ‘like on the television. He said you would come here and he told me I was to telephone him at Hotel Daedelus in Nauplia.’

  Daedelus! It could not be coincidence. Flint began to feel nervous once the gun in the shoulder holster had been mentioned: someone meant business. Was it the same man who came to see Embury in the car, the night Lisa came to dinner here?’

  ‘I cannot remember, it was so long ago. I remember that the car was black and the men were not from Nauplion — that is all.’

  Time was clearly running out; the man in the White Citroën could return at any time. Flint needed answers and asked his questions rapidly. ‘Do you know who owns the olive grove at the top of the site?’

  ‘The Government owns it; it is part of the city of the Romans. The Pinakoulakis family rent it and work the olives.’

  ‘But it contains nothing special, no shrine, no extra site that only the locals know of?’

  Mikos shook his head, confused by the line of questioning. ‘You must ask Doctor Dracopoulos, he guards the site, he will know.’

  ‘How old is Dracopoulos? Did he fight beside Stylanos Boukaris?’

  ‘No, I think not.’

  ‘So tell me about Stylanos Boukaris. Why is he so famous?’

  ‘Everyone knows Stylanos Boukaris, the kapitanos from Anatoliko. He was a bold fighter against the Nazi Germans. When the war against the communists began, Stylanos would not take sides. He said he would not fight his brother Greeks and so put aside his gun and took up his books. My father was taught school by Stylanos, he was schoolteacher before he was kapitanos, did you know?’

  Mikos described the familiar statue in detail.

  ‘How did he die?’ Flint asked.

  ‘He was taken,’ Mikos said with dramatic emphasis. ‘One night in winter, the communists came for him. There was shooting in the hills and he was never seen again.’

  ‘What of his son, Vassilis?’

  ‘Ah.’ Mikos gave an ‘Ah’ which was part respectful, part derisive. ‘Great men should have great sons, but I do not like lawyers. Lawyers and politicians are not good for poor people.’ Mikos then gave a wary look, ‘But he is your friend?’

  ‘I thought he was. I heard a story he had been wounded in the war.’

  ‘Yes, he cheated death three times, he was known as lucky Boukaris.’

  Three escapes from death? Vassilis had clearly lived in interesting times, as the Chinese would say. ‘And is he a friend of Doctor Dracopoulos?’

  Mikos made a ‘pouf’ sound. ‘Lawyers and Doctors are the same kind of people; fine restaurants and big cars.’

  ‘I need to know more about Dracopoulos, and about Stylanos Boukaris.’

  ‘If you spoke Greek, you could talk to the widow Esfratiou,’ said Mikos, nodding with deep satisfaction. ‘She sweeps the church in Anatoliko and keeps the statue clean. She knows all the stories from the village. She tells everyone that she was the last person to see Stylanos Boukaris alive.’

  Chapter Thirty

  Tents hold a special, warm intimacy. Lisa’s head was over his heart. Flint heard her breathing begin to slow, assumed she was falling asleep and closed his own eyes.

  ‘I hate bleeding-heart life stories.’ Unexpected, Lisa’s voice purred in the darkness. ‘But for the benefit of your ego, I’m going to tell you why I could never love you.’

  ‘Fine.’ It was a long way from fine, but Flint was always a willing listener.

  ‘I met this feller when I was at college. He was gorgeous, really gorgeous. He played in a rock group at weekends and I used to go along to his gigs and pretend I was a groupie. God, the things you do when you’re young and stupid!’

  Nostalgia showed through and her voice attracted sparkle. ‘He asked me to become their singer, but I can’t sing for toffee. I was absolutely in love with him, do anything for him, you know how it is. So do you know what we did? Do you know what daft stupid thing we did? We got married. I was at college, he was just doing a few odd jobs, but this was real love, Jeff, the sort you buy in teenage magazines. I worshipped him, he was so cool and so romantic and he loved me! Me, at last, someone actually loved me after all those years of being dragged around airbases and posted off to boarding school.’

  She sighed. ‘This is sounding like one of those awful ‘True Confessions’ stories, isn’t it? I ought to shut up.’

  ‘Go on, please, confess.’

  Lisa said nothing for some time. A pair of voices laughed somewhere across the campsite. A car droned along the coast road.

  ‘So, guess what happened next?’ Her voice clouded.

  ‘Baby?’

  ‘No, well, only partly, but that’s forgotten now, that would have been the end. No, he wanted to “go on the road”, travel around, make a name for himself. So, I went too; bye bye college, bye bye English Lit. We had a great time, for a year, it was terrific. Then reality hit us. His band was useless, they never stood any sort of chance of making it beyond college discos. So we went back to Devon, I got a job, he didn’t. He formed a new band, but it wasn’t the same, the fun had gone, and they were still useless.’

  Flint resisted making any trite comments. Lisa had fallen quiet again. He thought she was crying, then thought he was mistaken.

  ‘Ever been beaten up, Jeff?’ Her voice was even quieter now, husky and flat.

  ‘When I asked the wrong sort of questions,’ he mumbled.

  ‘But you’ve never been beaten up by someone you worshipped?’

  ‘That how it was?’

  ‘Oh yes. I kept saying I’d stand up to it, but I was never ready. I would be tired, lonely, wanting him to come back to me. If he came back, he’d come back drunk — end of story.’

  Then she added: ‘I would have made a rotten mother anyhow.’

  Flint had to guess at the detail, it was time for that trite comment.

  ‘That’s unforgivable.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose it is.’ Her voice brightened, ‘So, I waited until it became a pattern, waited until I felt better, then left him. All the lads and this tart they found for a singer went up to London one week to try to fix up some gigs. I brought a bloke from the market round, sold everything in the flat and bought a ticket to Cyprus. I found a job in a bar, got drunk a lot, slept with lots of men I didn’t know and felt a bloody sight better.’

  Total silence fell. Flint thought it was up to him to break it. ‘So you were still married when I met you?’

  ‘I was, and not ready for anything but a good night on the town. You were fun and sexy — still are — but look what you’ve got me into. I have a way of picking lost causes. I knew you were never going to be anything; I’d be sharing my life with Bob Dylan and Humphrey Bogart and Julius Caesar and Che bloody Guevara. I wanted my fat rich old man.’

  ‘I’ll introduce you to Vassilis Boukaris.’

  ‘Yes, the bastard who repossessed my hotel. That’s the only reason I’m still here. I don’t give a stuffed tomato for Sebastian Embury; I want my hotel back.’

  She was deadly serious and Flint suddenly saw a trap opening before him. Whoever had put pressure on Boukaris had a powerful card to draw Lisa away from him; perhaps her confession was a subconscious effort to unload her guilt in advance.

  ‘So we’re just good friends?’ he said, with his mind following another track.

  ‘If you like.’ Then she added. ‘Ok, come on. Act like we really are madly in love and you can’t resist me.’ She rolled on top of him.

  ‘I can do that,’ he said.

  *

  Mrs Kondyaki opened the door cautiously. Scarface and a group of Athenian detectives poured into her Athenian flat. Half the neighbourhood knew an Englishman had been her guest, but the policemen shuffled inside and heard her story anew. Flint’s known associates were refusing to co-operate: too many people were interfering in the case and Scarface was becoming annoyed. Jeffrey Flint and his accomplice were becoming more eccentric with every new revelation; the stolen and abandoned minibus was a further galling
enigma. Flint was still in Greece, taunting the police, acting out some bizarre fantasy that he would clear his name. It could only be a matter of time before he made a mistake and was caught.

  *

  The Land Cruiser swayed from side-to-side as it lurched across the uneven ground of the campsite. Flint could hear an Al Stewart song growing louder as the vehicle drew nearer.

  Flint gave Max a clap on the shoulder as he dismounted, welcoming him, thanking him again and again. ‘As you can guess, I’m pleased to see you. Where are the rest of your team?’

  ‘Ah, I think we might have a problem there.’

  ‘Where’s Jules?’

  ‘The cops took him in, right after you left.’

  Jules too. The only life raft for Flint’s conscience was that it had been the police who found him first. ‘You’re sure it was the police?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Pretty blue and white cars, sexy uniforms?’

  ‘No, plain clothes...they just drove up in this long white car…’

  ‘A Citroën?’

  ‘European...they asked for Jules, Jules came out of his tent and they just pulled him into the car. I wasn’t there...’

  The life raft had been leaking badly and gently slipped below the waves.

  ‘And everyone else?’

  Max seemed to have lost his image as the great leader of men. ‘I couldn’t ask them. Hell, they had flights booked, they saw what happened to Jules. What was in it for them?’

  ‘What’s in it for you, Max?’

  The American hid his embarrassment with activity. He opened his rear door and hauled out his rucksack. ‘Aw, I said I’d help. I can’t go back on my word.’

  ‘Philotimo,’ Flint said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Greek pride. There’s a lot of it about.’

  ‘D’ya still want me along?’

  ‘Yes, wonderful, pleased you came.’ Flint’s mind was fixed only on Jules and the multitude of evil fates that could overtake him.

  Max had noticed a pair of bare feet sticking from the moth-eaten sandfly tent. ‘Hey Elena, the cavalry’s here!’ He boomed, bending over to look within the tent.