Plantation A Legal Thriller
Page 82
Chapter 82
The next morning, when it arrived, promised an unusual day.
Ashby was awake when his Breguet watch buzzed at five o’clock. A short time later, in the middle of shaving, the telephone rang : it was the loss adjuster in Lagos.
The information requested the night before, had been obtained. And at great expense and inconvenience. That was as may be, said Ashby but the information was extremely important. Was it actually correct ? What a question – it was perfectly correct. And for the next half hour, he listened carefully to what the adjuster told him as the line was bad.
Half an hour later, the phone rang again. This time, it was Stefanides who was down the corridor. He’d heard from Demos that Christoforou had left the lodging house before midnight. Demos had followed him to an address in Athens near Piraeus and was keeping an eye on him. He would tail him when he left.
“Your plan – maybe it’s working. My compliments,” said Stefanides.
“We’re not there yet. He could still change his mind. Let’s wait and see what happens a bit later on.”
At nine o’clock, Nikos, his wife, Stefanides and Ashby all had breakfast together in the hotel restaurant and waited. They were still there an hour later when Ashby said “We’ve heard nothing more from Demos but it should be about now that Christoforou will make his move – if he’s going to keep the rendezvous. Should we get started ? We don’t want to keep him waiting, do we ?”
Just before they left at a quarter to eleven, Stefanides had a message that Christoforou had left Piraeus and was travelling north to the city centre.
As it was a Sunday morning, the traffic in Athens was more subdued than usual. They took a taxi from the hotel which eventually edged its way to the streets below the Parthenon. From there, they got out and walked. There weren’t too many tourists which was a blessing and after paying the admission charge, the four of them followed the stone path leading up to the monument which appeared to be in a permanent state of reconstruction.
“An unusual place for a meeting,” remarked Nikos to Ashby.
“It had to be somewhere inconspicuous yet open – somewhere that he wouldn’t find threatening. There are only tourists here. Christoforou is expecting a large amount of money from the shipowners, so he mightn’t be coming here alone. And for that, we need to be prepared. Is everything in place ?” he asked Stefanides.
“Ready to go.”
“Good. We will all need to keep out of sight. The contact point is in front of the Erectheum and the Caryatids at noon – in approximately twenty minutes. Nikos, perhaps we could keep watch from the end of the Parthenon closest to the Erectheum where we won’t be seen.”
As the morning wore on and it reached five minutes to twelve, the stream of tourists increased as the monument was only open until three. Suddenly, they noticed a tall, thick-set man with glasses and a flat cap heading up the pathway leading to the front of the Parthenon. He appeared to hesitate until he saw the Erectheum, then headed straight for it.
When he reached it, he stopped, looked around him, waited and lit a cigarette. Whether he was accompanied and had brought protection, was difficult to say. When he’d turned to look in the opposite direction, Ashby made his move.
“Good morning, Captain Christoforou – a beautiful morning isn’t it ?” said Ashby, as he walked across to the caryatids.
“You are mistaken. My name is Kyriacou.”
“It’s time to stop the play-acting, Captain. You will have plenty of time to explain it to the police.”
From nearby, Stefanides slowly moved in with four plain-clothes officers. One of them spoke to Christoforou in Greek which immediately caused him to pull out a knife and start yelling at the others to keep away.
Some of the tourists saw this and ran away screaming in terror, dragging their children away with them. The police, Stefanides and Ashby all froze where they stood while Christoforou ran down the pathway, scattering frightened sightseers before him. In the melee, there were tourists trying to get in to see the monument and others trying to avoid the absconder. In the confusion, someone knocked the weapon out of the Captain’s hand, then felled him to the ground with one blow which was no mean feat as he was quite a large man.
The police ran and handcuffed him. Only then was it discovered that the hero of the hour was not a tourist but Demos. As a precaution, Stefanides had positioned him near the entrance to the monument.
“That was the easy part,” said Ashby. “Now we have to get a confession out of him and he won’t be saying anything, even if we produce absolute proof that he sank his ship.”
“Leave it to us,” said Stefanides. “We’ll get him to talk. You needn’t worry about that. ”