by David Carter
Christos heard Ploutos coughing nervously, but he was nowhere to be seen. He was hiding in the kitchen, keeping out of the way. Christos pictured him there, leaning on the worktop, dreaming of his new wife, and counting the seconds until he could head home and take her into his arms.
‘I need to go next door,’ said Christos, ‘I need the bathroom.’
Skeiri scowled.
‘Unless I can use this one.’
‘You can’t!’ snapped Kephalos, ‘that’s impossible! We’re searching for DNA.’
‘Hurry up, and don’t be long,’ barked Skeiri, enjoying his authority over the older man, ‘and don’t discuss the case with anyone. Understand?’
‘Of course.’
Christos let himself out, glad to stand outside in the humid air of the alley. He breathed in deeply three times before knocking on the door of the neighbouring house going down the hill. He knew the owners, and he’d be sure of a warm welcome. But there was no reply, and the need for the bathroom was becoming pressing. He tried the other neighbour, and racked his brain to remember who lived there, but drew a blank. The door opened and a man of about fifty stood before him, a man he did not recognise.
‘I’m Sergeant Sharistes, Police, we’re working next door, there was an incident. I need to use your bathroom.’
‘You mean the murder?’ drawled the man.
‘Yes.’
‘You’d better come in.’
The bathroom was basic but neat and clean, and Christos availed himself of the facilities, washed his hands, and came out. While he sat there, he thought about the man upon whose lavatory he was performing. He was Greek and local, his accent betrayed that, yet Christos had no recollection of seeing him before. If he had, he would remember him, and it was a surprise because he imagined he knew everyone, at least every local, living on the island.
When he emerged from the bathroom, the man was standing nervously in the middle of the room. He stared across at Christos through his unmatched eyes.
‘You found him yet? The killer?’
‘No, not yet, but we will.’
The man grunted, drew out a cigarette, and lit it with a match. ‘Want one?’
Christos declined.
‘What’s your name? I haven’t seen you about.’
‘I don’t go out much,’ and he added as an afterthought ‘My name’s Costas Zakas. I’ve seen you around once or twice.’
Christos nodded and thanked him for the use of his bathroom and left.
Back in Nicoliades’ house, Skeiri was dictating into a handheld machine, equipment Christos had never seen on Carsos before.
‘You took your time.’
‘Touch of diarrhoea, must have eaten something.’
Perhaps he should mention the stranger he’d stumbled on, but not until he’d checked him out. He fantasised he’d found the killer, albeit accidentally, and that would be a slap in the face for the city jerks.
‘Callia’s waiting for you, she hasn’t got all day.’
Christos nodded and did an impression of someone hurrying up stairs. She hadn’t moved, her pencil poised over the page, as she smiled benignly up.
‘Ready?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Start with his hair.’
Christos nodded and eased himself closer to her warm body. An old man had to make the most of whatever pleasures came his way.
It was the middle of the afternoon before Skeiri and Kephalos decided they had gleaned every last piece of forensic evidence at the crime scene. They sent Ploutos on errands to buy more rolls and fingerprint everyone known to have been in the house, the boy, the grandfather, Aris, and one or two others they’d identified. They even took Christos’s prints, much to their amusement, as they forced his fingers deep within the indelible ink.
Later, they left the house and returned to the station, where Christos completed his mundane daily tasks, emailing reports to the mainland, detailing fresh crimes of bicycle theft, drunkenness, and two stolen credit cards. Mainland HQ had scaled down their interest in his messages. Carsos had witnessed its once in a decade murder; there would be little of interest from him for months, and maybe years.
Callia finished her drawing of Mr Nichols and disappeared to draw pictures from the young boy’s memory. Kephalos peered through his microscope at priceless specimens, while Skeiri re-read every report in an effort to unearth a fact or figure that no one else had detected, confident in his superior intellect to do so. Christos was beginning to feel hemmed in, in his own office. He couldn’t wait for the strangers to depart and for things to return to normal. In the meantime, he was checking out the odd-eyed man he had never seen before.
Just before six o’clock Skeiri called for everyone’s attention.
‘Right, team,’ he said, clapping his hands together. ‘Tomorrow morning at eight we’ll hold an FSS, check what progress is being made, and take it from there.’
‘What’s an FSS?’ queried Christos.
‘Furtherance Skull Session,’ said Callia, pleasantly enough.
‘A what?’
No one answered Christos a second time, but looked at him pitifully. It wasn’t surprising he hadn’t kept up with police procedures and jargon, tucked away on his little island in the middle of nowhere.
‘Geez!’ cursed Christos under his breath. Why invent a three-word phrase that meant meeting? No doubt some clever dick detective had volunteered for an exchange visit with the FBI in New York, and had returned with American speak, aplenty. Furtherance Skull Session, my backside! He laughed aloud, and they stared at him as if he suffered from Tourette’s. Christos imagined it was the kind of tripe being taught at the police academy up at Khalkis, and he wasn’t sorry he was nearing retirement.
‘We’ll start again in the morning, fresh and ready,’ droned Skeiri.
Everyone nodded and said goodnight, and left Christos alone in the office, as he cruised the files in an effort to discover something interesting about Johnny odd-eyes.
IN THE MORNING CHRISTOS arrived at the office at ten to eight, keen to be early, ready to make a lasting impression, eager to be first there, but all four of them were waiting outside. Callia smiled at him. They seemed to appreciate he was making an effort; it wasn’t his fault he was a little slow, and provincial.
Christos fought hard to suppress a yawn and unlocked the door. Once inside, Kephalos removed the cuttings and notices from the right side of the notice-board and replaced them with blank sheets of paper, neatly pinned together until the whole end of the board was covered white. He pulled a table close to the board and set four chairs out in a line before it. All were invited to sit, only Skeiri remaining standing, a black felt-tip pen poised in his hand.
‘The FSS is open,’ he said, as if he was opening the Olympic Games. ‘If you have anything to add, speak up.’
Christos noted the assembled crowd were nodding, and he nodded too.
‘The deceased,’ and Skeiri took a photograph from the table and pinned it to the top of the board. ‘Nicoliades Emperikos.’
The photograph was one Christos had taken, a particularly gruesome colour print, the pain written on the man’s face, the blood curling away.
‘Thirty-nine years old, blood group A, he did not have aids, nor any sexual diseases.’
What a relief that would have been to Nic, thought Chris, and maybe something of a surprise.
‘He was killed by a single knife wound to the back, a wound that penetrated his body to fatally damage the heart. The last people to see Nicoliades Emperikos alive were, we believe, an English couple. Their passports stated their names to be Brian and Brenda Nichols, but it is possible these were fake. We are looking into that. We have many sightings of them, and Callia has drawn pictures as prompted by witnesses.’
She stood and approached the board, and pinned up six pictures of what looked like six different women. Christos recognised several of the drawings as being the ones he thought were from a previous case he’d glimpsed earlier.
Skeiri smiled at her and she sat down next to Christos. The lack of any similarity between the drawings was painful. Kephalos grimaced at the pictures, but it was left to Ploutos to say what everyone was thinking.
‘They’re no bloody good!’
Callia winced; certain it was a slight on her artistic ability, and even thicko Ploutos must have picked up the vibes. He leant forward and whispered in her ear, ‘Sorry, Callia, I don’t mean your drawings aren’t any good, just that they are all unalike.’
She smiled through gritted teeth, and Skeiri said, ‘As they are somewhat different we’ll take the picture dictated by the trained eye of the policeman. Yours is a close likeness of the girl, I take it?’
They stared at Christos, and after some delay he nodded. What could he say? He knew the picture prompted by him had not caught the girl’s likeness at all.
‘The girl was accompanied by a man, Brian Nichols; we have conflicting reports whether he was her husband or brother, or neither. Sergeant Sharistes met this man on the quayside too. Here is the drawing.’
Again, Callia approached the board and pinned the picture, not so confidently, next to the girl’s. Christos was certain the drawing was a better likeness; it couldn’t have been less. Callia smiled at Skeiri briefly and took her seat. Christos noticed that smile before. It was an affectionate smile, like a mother might smile at a gurgling child, or a dog fancier at his favourite bitch. But perhaps it was more than that. It was a loving smile, and when Callia noticed Christos examining her face, she wiped that look away in an instant.
Perhaps Skeiri was plugging Callia. He’d heard stories it was a perk highly ranked officers enjoyed. Not that it had ever happened to him, but he had never achieved the rank of Inspector, nor had he enjoyed the pleasure of a young woman officer serving beneath him, so to speak. He laughed at the thought and determined to do a little detecting of his own. Next time Skeiri passed by he would sniff his body for evidence of herbal bathing. A picture of the two of them frolicking naked in the bath flashed through his head, and the meeting brightened enormously. That image would remain with him for weeks. The boss was talking again, but Christos was lost in thoughts.
‘The man, it’s a good likeness?’ Skeiri repeated.
‘Yes,’ replied Christos. ‘If anything it’s a better one than the girl’s.’
Skeiri sniffed like a fox and continued.
‘So far, we have established no motive, and recovered no murder weapon. Any ideas?’
There was a silence as if they were waiting for Christos to speak, so he did.
‘They left in a hurry on the same cruiser. I’d bet my pension on the knife being at the bottom of the Aegean,’ and no one doubted that for a second.
‘Motive?’ persisted Skeiri.
‘I’ve been giving that a great deal of thought,’ said Chris.
‘And what have you deduced?’
‘Two strangers come to the island, they have never been here before, and within twenty-four hours they murder a barkeeper. I don’t believe it was an accident, a crime of passion, or anything of the kind. There wasn’t time for that. I think they came here with one thought in mind, to murder Nico.’
Short silence. Brains engaged.
‘And why would they do that?’ asked Kephalos in a hurry, a note of disbelief in his voice.
‘Nicoliades was an inveterate womaniser. Sometimes things could get a little out of hand, rough, you know the kind of thing. Perhaps he became involved with the wrong woman. Maybe he overstepped the mark.’
As he spoke, a picture of handcuffs seeped into his mind. He had removed them from the house, and it was just as well he had. He wouldn’t have enjoyed explaining to Skeiri and the crew how official police issue cuffs were hanging up in Nicoliades’ bedroom.
‘You mean he was a pervert?’ blurted Ploutos, becoming interested in the whole business. Perhaps there was a tabloid story to be had. It was well known newspapers paid a decent kickback for juicy tip offs, and if that was the case, he wanted to be the first to break the news. He had big commitments, and ambitions outside the force, and those plans needed extra cash.
‘No, certainly not,’ insisted Christos, ‘but he, how shall we say, liked a little variety in the bedroom.’
Callia shifted in her seat.
‘Do you have any evidence for this line of thinking?’ asked Kephalos.
‘Not as such, it’s just that I know, I knew, Nicoliades well. I know how he operated.’
‘I’d prefer to concentrate on actual evidence,’ sniffed Kephalos. ‘May I?’
‘Of course,’ said Skeiri, sitting in the chair that Kephalos vacated.
‘Here are three different fingerprints I lifted from the front door.’
He pinned three impressive blown up prints to the notice-board.
‘I believe one of these prints is the killer’s,’ determined to seize the attention of the FSS.
‘One will be the postman’s, I’d bet on that,’ said Christos.
‘Agreed.’
‘And another could belong to the fool who messed about with my sign.’
Kephalos nodded again.
‘That is quite possible. You still have the notice?’
Christos nodded and fumbled in his pocket.
‘That still leaves one. We can check the postman’s, that will eliminate one of them, and we can try to locate the graffiti writer, but if we can’t find him, one of the two remaining prints could be the print of the murderer.’
There was a little murmuring and nodding and it seemed progress was being made. The murderer’s fingerprint could be up there in plain sight.
‘Excellent, Kephalos,’ said Skeiri, ‘I thought that all along.’
‘Is it a man’s print?’ queried Callia.
‘Yes, definitely.’
Callia again: ‘Have we found the girl’s prints in the house?’
‘We found dozens of different girl’s prints, but from what we know, that is no surprise.’
‘If the English girl went inside, we may have her prints among them. If she didn’t, I think someone would have seen her hanging around outside,’ said Christos. ‘No one saw her, as far as I know.’
‘How confident are we the English are responsible?’ asked Callia.
There was another silence as answers were being thought of.
Christos said, ‘Nicoliades wasn’t a saint, far from it, but I don’t know anyone who had a grudge big enough to warrant killing him.’
‘He was in debt,’ snapped Skeiri.
That silenced the FSS, and it surprised Christos. He had always assumed the bar was a goldmine, but the bank statement produced and pinned to the board proved he owed the bank 60,000 euro, and that didn’t make any sense.
‘Any explanation?’ asked Skeiri.
Christos shrugged his shoulders. He couldn’t imagine how his friend could have been in hock to the bank for so much. True, he splashed the cash a little, but never frivolously, and he never seemed short of readies. There certainly hadn’t been any major improvement work done on the bar in recent years, no capital expenditure, so that couldn’t explain it, and why hadn’t he, Christos Sharistes, thought to look into Nico’s finances? He should have done, it was a basic error: always look at victim’s finances, their computers and mobile phones; it was enough to make you weep.
Skeiri, still sitting in the chair, said, ‘We have to keep an open mind. It’s most likely the English are responsible, but we can’t rule out someone else. Tomorrow my report will go to Scotland Yard with the fingerprints, pictures and descriptions. The photofit pictures will be ready too. We’ll see how efficient the mighty Scotland Yard really are. If the killers are English I am confident they will be found.’
‘Do we have any proof these Nichols people left the country,’ asked Callia.
Skeiri smiled at her, unable to help himself.
‘We have no record of that,’ he said, in an altogether softer tone.
She fired back, ‘So they could still be in Greece
?’
‘It’s possible, though I believe unlikely. We have searched everywhere, time and budgets permitting, and could find no trace of them once they’d returned the boat.’
‘All in all,’ summed up Kephalos. ‘We don’t have a lot to go on, and we haven’t made a great deal of progress.’
That negativity put a dampener on things, and it wasn’t a comment that would endear him to Skeiri. The mood became despondent as they looked at the boss for inspiration. He sensed their expectancy.
‘Keph, you stay here and finish your scientific investigations; the rest of us will go out and knock on doors. Callia, you come with me, Sergeant Sharistes, you take Ploutos and show him round.’
Strange how I end up with Ploutos, thought Christos, and he gets the girl. A full day of knocking on doors drew about as much appeal as holidaying in Turkey. They had been reduced to door-to-door enquiries, a sure sign an investigation had stalled. City slickers and skull sessions had produced the same result. A total blank.
Christos walked up the hill in the sunshine, Ploutos at his side. They barely exchanged a word. Christos had no wish to speak for he was a worried man. He’d removed evidence from the crime scene, and was concerned it might return to haunt him. He was worried because he’d convinced himself the murderer was foreign, but increasingly he found himself wondering about the boss-eyed stranger of a neighbour. Could it have been a neighbourly dispute? And why was Nico in debt? There were too many loose ends, and he hated loose ends. It would be a long day and he couldn’t wait to comfort himself opposite Helen in the Ace of Clubs.
Chapter Thirty-Four
A GRUMPY WALTER RETURNED to his desk and sat heavily down. Karen glanced across at him. He looked reprimanded and miserable which wasn’t unusual, and she would love to know why. ‘Problem?’ she said, guessing he wouldn’t say. He scratched the side of his face hard and loud. He must possess barbed wire for bristles.
