“I was just explaining to Giorgo that we cannot allow him to help out as anything he would find or touch would be considered contaminated evidence by the court,” Ioli said as she gave me a look as to say back me up here. She disliked beggars. I felt for the kid, though. This could offer more experience than years of police academy training.
The eager cadet was waiting for my reply.
“You know she is right… you are not even…”
“I promise I will just stand aside, no talking, no touching…”
“No talking, no touching?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“Interfere in any way and you just might get your wish,” Ioli whispered from behind closed teeth and tramped off towards the police boat.
“Stay close to me and be careful. Anything you have to say tell me when we return, got it?”
“She doesn’t like me, does she?” he fired the question of disappointment at me.
“Focus, Georgiou!” I said and we both boarded the boat saying no more about the matter.
The speed boat fought against the fierce waves and the wind howled in our ears. The vivid sun rays danced upon the wild waves of the vast open sea. I was having problems of my own trying to avoid Ioli’s long, black hair that kept on striking me across my face.
“Medusa, move up.”
“No joke is saving you for bringing that kid along after I had already said no,” she retorted and I let her be. Her hair kept on whipping me until suddenly the wind stopped and the boat relaxed in the calmer waters provided by Delos Island. The dried up rock with the paramount temples was facing us. I could only distinguish two police officers on the island. As we approached the wooden dock, I saw another officer standing above two seated uniformed women.
“Must be the tour guides that were first to the island at seven in the morning,” Ioli said and started to brush her tangled hair back with her hands.
Lieutenant Douka leaped off the boat first and waved to follow him.
“Everything is as we found it. I personally photographed the crime scenes and put two men out to search the rest of the island.”
We stepped off the wooden dock onto the sandy beach and headed uphill.
All four of us instinctively stopped at the sight of the two tied up, decapitated bodies. Douka stepped aside while Ioli and I carefully moved forward.
“Mary, holy mother of…” Ioli said as she raised her D800 Nikon DSLR camera and began taking photographs of the boy’s headless body. She zoomed in on the complicated knots of the rope.
“Check out the knots,” she called over as I leaned besides the girl’s body. The knots were similar to Eric Blair’s.
“I want an expert on this or Google it if you can. I want to know what kind of knots these are.”
“There are called double sheet bend knots,” Douka called over. “Grandfather was a fisherman,” he explained as I looked over.
“No tape?” Giorgo, who stayed a step behind Douka, asked.
“The whole island is our scene,” Douka replied without his eyes leaving the bodies.
That’s when I realised how calm Giorgo was at the sight of the decapitated bodies. I remembered my first murder case. An old prostitute, who was violently gang-raped and beaten to death, was dumped in an abandoned car yard. I stood there trembling, trying to keep my chicken sandwich in. It was probably the only time I regretted adding mayonnaise. No training prepares you for the sight of real life, in-your-face, dead bodies.
“Breathe through the mouth, it helps. Here, have some cherry flavoured chewing gum,” the detective whose name eludes me advised.
A crazy thought spawned in my head. Giorgo. Strong, black hair, green eyes, American roots.
“Costa, have you noticed this?” Ioli said, pointing at the boy’s missing fingers.
“They are with the head,” Douka said, sickly.
“I’m no forensics, but these cuttings on the neck appear to have been made by our imperial knife,” she continued.
I stood up and walked towards her.
“Doubt he would have persuaded them to follow him here. We have to wait for the autopsy reports but I’ll bet my wage that they were drugged. He tied them up and waited for them to awake. Or did he kill them in their sleep?” I thought out loud.
“I wish they had such luck,” my kind-hearted partner answered my thinking. “If they are twins, he must have been in Mykonos searching. You don’t just bump into twins every day. Lieutenant Douka, we need to start interviewing everyone on the island. Hotels, bars, clubs. Focus on men visiting the island on their own. Get your men to make a list of men staying alone that checked out yesterday or today. Have them ask about suspicious boats. He must have docked somewhere. I doubt in any popular bay. No flight or ferry leaves without checking all single travelling men. Emphasis on black hair, green eyes, masculine build. Oh, and don’t forget to alert the coast guard to stop every one-crew boat.”
She looked up and smiled gently as she saw Douka taking notes in his brown diary. She knew she talked fast, but there was no time to waste.
“On it,” he replied, took out his cell and wandered off to give orders to his men.
“Find out when the forensics team gets here too, if you can,” the tasks kept on coming. Douka gave her a thumbs up to which she shouted “Thank you, by the way.”
My own phone came alive at that moment and I answered it knowing who it was without looking.
“Good morning, Chief.”
“What the heck do you find good about it? Damn it, Costa. I got the prime minister’s office down my throat. Can you imagine what’s going to happen when this gets out to Euronews and the BBC? Welcome to Greece, enjoy your stay, and don’t forget your head! Fucking hell! Where you at? What have you got so far?” he bawled without a single pause for breath.
“I’m here, Chief, at the scene with the bodies. We are collaborating with the local department. We are getting the whole island of Mykonos on lockdown, the forensic team and the coroner are on the way and Ioli and I are examining the bodies. Going to go to their heads as soon…”
“Where the fuck are the heads?” he snapped.
“Heads were found in temples further down. We believe the boy was killed as Apollo and the girl as Artemis. Looks like the same knife and the knots in the rope are identical to the ones from Eric Blair’s scene. The bodies haven’t been identified yet, though I am positive that they will be twins…”
“Get this bastard, Papacosta and get him quick! And keep me…”
“Informed. Yes, sir. Of course I will be…” I managed to say as he slammed down his office phone and fell back into his black leather chair.
“Bet he was a bundle of joy,” Ioli patted me on my right shoulder.
“If we don’t catch this killer before he kills again, the chief is either going to have a heart attack or burn down all the news outlets.”
“Do you think he removes their clothes as to not leave DNA evidence behind, to not leave personal items to identify them by or is it a way to disgrace his victims?” Ioli asked.
“Could be all three. Might even because it is the way he pictures the gods to be. Most sculptures and paintings do depict them in the nude or with few clothes on.”
When the scorching midday sun came right above us, I spotted a shimmering light playing around in the dry leaves of a burned to death bush. I walked over, wore my white, latex gloves and bend down.
“Oh my!” I said and cautiously lifted up the heavy, hidden object.
Ioli looked over.
“Is that real gold?”
“Looks like it,” I replied and held up the solid, gold mask with the inscription ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝΩΝ.
“Alexandros, king of the Macedonians,” I read.
“Guess we are adding rich to our profile,” Ioli said as she took the ancient artefact into her glove covered hands.
“Or smuggler,” I added.
“You think he wore the mas
k while he went all sleepy hollow on them?” Giorgo said as he stood between us.
We both turned and gave him cold looks.
“Yes, he held a five kilogram mask to his face with one hand and decapitated them with the other!” Ioli could not resist showing her irritation.
“Douka,” I called as I saw the lieutenant approaching.
“I found this mask, hidden in a bush over there. Get one of your men to ask the tour ladies for any info. Without touching it obviously. Then run it for fingerprints.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“No, you are now taking us to the heads. Let your men handle it.”
“Gianni!” he called over the rather short and corpulent office that was at the beach down below.
“Yes, sir?” he asked as he ran up with great effort towards Douka who began instructing him how to proceed with the mask.
As the flushed face, heavy breathing officer zigzagged back down the path to the dock, mask in hands and mission in mind, we turned to follow Douka upwards to the first head.
“Now there’s a sight you don’t see every day,” Ioli said, stopping at the entrance of the ruined temple.
On the ground in front of us lay the male victim’s head. Around the bodiless head, forming a depiction of the sun, ten fingers were placed.
“Apollo. God of the Sun,” I said and took my first steps ahead. Ioli took her time before closing her eyes, exhaling deeply and steadily walking towards me. Douka remained still while Giorgo sat down on a nearby rock and ducked his head between his legs. He swallowed loudly, obviously trying to keep his breakfast in.
“Check out the neck,” Ioli said as she pointed and focused her camera.
“Needle entry most likely. He was drugged,” I replied.
“Sadistic bastard,” Ioli mumbled to herself. More curses followed as she photographed all angles of the scene.
“So much hate towards people he never met. Such violence is normally seen in revenge cases. The murders must mean something to him, something in relation to his past. Something that happened to him. This is not your average psycho killings. The mythology connection is of great importance to him,” I once again thought out loud.
“Douka?” I interrupted myself.
“Yes, Captain?”
“I know we have been driving you mad with orders, but can you please find out when the coroner and the special forensic team are going to get here? It’s a shame to leave the head lying here.”
Flies had already gathered and were wandering upon his face, up his nostrils and into his opened mouth.
“There haven’t noticed me yet,” he replied as he looked down to his phone.
“Let me take you to the girl’s head and I’ll call them, see where the team is at.”
We speedily followed him up the dirt track paying no attention to the ancient ruins that thousands pay hard earned money to travel around the globe and see.
“Jesus Christ! Just when you thought things couldn’t get uglier!” an opened mouth, dropped jaw Giorgo declared as we approached the next victim.
The head had been beaten to an unrecognisable state.
“Must have taken considerable force to break the bones like that,” I commented.
“We found the bloody rock used for the… erm… beating. I’ve bagged it and have it down at the dock. It has blood all over it so I thought I leave it to the forensic team to see if any fingerprints can be lifted off it.”
“Let’s hope they can. Though I believe our killer is too careful to slip up like that. I bet he wore gloves,” Ioli replied and continued taking photographs.
“It’s a crescent moon right? Artemis was the goddess of the moon,” Giorgo stated the obvious.
“Yep. He managed to complete a double killing and get away again…” I said and I leaned down close to the bodiless head.
“I can’t make out a needle entry mark, but logic would have us believe she was drugged too. He brought them here by boat, most likely from Mykonos. And we fucking told the coastguard to be more alert!” Ioli complained.
“Douka, didn’t the coastguard get…” she continued, but the lucky lieutenant avoided her rage as he had already wandered off on the phone to the coroner.
“I’m going to go and pick them up from Mykonos,” he shouted and ran down to the dock.
“I’ll come with you,” Giorgo shouted and ran to catch up.
“So much for the help!” Ioli murmured.
“Well, you did tell the boy that he was not allowed to move, touch or breathe! Anyway, I guess he wants to follow the forensic team around. He wants to get involved in Criminalistics.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, he mentioned it as we walked here. He said it twice as you did not hear him the first time. Guess you did not hear him the second time either.”
“Shall we go to the witnesses before the team arrives?” she asked ignoring my remark.
“He just wants a bit of your attention.”
“Well the case takes up 99% of my attention, thank you very much.”
“Who gets the 1%?”
She smiled as we walked down to the dock and said, “I’m going to regret telling you this, but after dinner in Cyprus the professor promised to try and come to Crete. He wants me to take him sightseeing to Knossos and such places.”
“Interesting. Sightseeing ancient ruins. Sounds like your kind of date.”
“I did say I would regret telling you,” she said and opened the aluminium door into the guide’s office.
Mrs Nikolaou and Mrs Beaumont were sitting down nervously on the old, worn-in green sofa that took up a large amount of the little space in their container turned office. The two of them looked stunningly alike and if I did not know that one was Greek and the other French, I would have sworn that these two forty-something, blonde, medium height, attractive ladies were related. Maybe it was their unofficial uniform that confused the mind. Both wore a white sleeveless shirt, black skirts that fell knee high and black sandals. Around their necks hang their work’s laminated identity card.
We introduced ourselves and asked the ladies to relax. Mrs Nikolaou looked like she was ready to throw up while Mrs Beaumont was ashen. I would say like she had seen a ghost, but I would think that between two decapitated bodies and a ghost, these ladies would have chosen the latter.
“Would you like some water or anything else?” Ioli asked politely.
“That’s kind of you sweetie, but by all means can we just get this over and done with? I can’t wait to get home and do my best to erase this morning’s image out of my head,” said Mrs Beaumont.
“As if such possibility exists! Those poor children… what kind of monster does such a thing?” Mrs Nikolaou said in disgust as she raised her head and looked straight at me.
“The kind of monster that we are trained to catch and bring to justice, Mrs Nikolaou.”
“Call me Anna. Mrs Nikolaou is my mother.”
“Juliette,” Mrs Beaumont added with an attempted of a smile.
“What time did you arrive this morning?” Ioli asked.
“Seven o’clock give or take.”
“How do you get here every day?”
“We have a deal with Mr Gianni. He runs a service of sea taxis. He picks us up from the port at quarter to seven, Monday to Saturday,” Anna replied.
“That was the worst!” Juliette said. “We got off the boat, careless as the wind, waved him goodbye and found ourselves stranded here with two dead beheaded bodies!”
“Did you touch or move anything?” I asked.
“No! As soon as we saw the bodies we started screaming and ran back down to the port shouting for Gianni to come back, but he was too far out by then.”
“We were so scared that the killer could still be here, we locked ourselves in here and called the police. We did not open the door until the police’s arrival.”
“Did you see anything suspicious? Anyone leaving the island? Any boats as you were on your way here?” Ioli inqu
ired.
“No, no boats.”
“Did not see anyone either. Sorry we cannot help more.”
I smiled slightly and asked about the mask.
“Ah, the golden mask of Alexander the Great,” Anna said in admiration. “If it is not an imitation, which I doubt, the bodies aren’t the only reason we are going to make the news.”
“You never heard of it?” Juliette asked as neither I nor Ioli made any sort of remark upon hearing Anna’s statement.
“No, can’t say I have,” I answered in all honesty.
“It made the headlines a few years back… Well, at least amongst our circles it did. The mask is considered to be well over two thousand years old and probably even forged during Alexander’s lifetime. The mask disappeared during Ottoman times and only reappeared in 2007 when Christie’s included it in one of its auction lists. Greece demanded that it was returned to its rightful owners, the Greek people. Christie’s denied claims of looting and despite strong evidence provided by the Greek authorities and a lawsuit through European courts, the auction house went ahead with the sale. What was even more remarkable was that it was purchased by a Greek!”
“For four million English pounds!” Juliette added.
“Of course, the Greek government thought that a wealthy Greek man bought it to return it to his homeland and generously donate it to an archaeological museum, but no such move was ever made and Christie’s never revealed the identity of the buyer despite pressure by the Greek government,” Anna continued saying.
“This time I must call Jimmy,” I said to Ioli as I remembered that I was supposed to call him about Eric’s sister’s list. Not that I had any hopes that path would lead anywhere. The identity of the buyer now, is a whole different story. Could this wealthy man be our killer and why would here leave the precious mask here?
“Thank you ladies. If we need you for anything further or if you remember anything, anything at all…”
“We will call you at once!” Juliette announced rather happily. Probably happy to be leaving the island. Doubt either of them would continue working here.
“You can return with the police boat. It is on its way with the forensic team.”
Greek Island Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-2-3): Gripping, psychological mystery/thrillers destined to shock you! Page 13
