The Dead Travel Fast
Author: Nick Brown
Date: 2014-05-30 07:00:00+00:00
Description: When archaeologist Steve Watkins fled to the Greek island of Samos to escape the horror he had unearthed at Skendleby, he'd hoped to have found refuge. But the ancient terror that had spawned at Skendleby was waiting for him. Across the island an enigmatic and haunted detective, Theodrakis, is baffled by a series of brutal ritual killings infecting the island like a plague and spreading violent anarchy. Now the fates of these two men will be drawn together; against a backdrop of mayhem, fire and violence they begin to uncover the horrifying cosmic significance of this most ancient evil.
Publisher: Clink Street Publishing
Rights: © 2014 Nick Brown

Praise for Skendleby

“Gripping and genuinely creepy”

New Edition

“Echoes of the ghost story master MR James”

I Like Horror

“I wish the book had been longer”

Sexy Archaeology

“The perfect read for nights by the fire”

Spectral Times

“Archaeology, psychic healers and sinister monsters in one spine-tingling tale”

3 AM Fright

The Dead
Travel Fast

Nick Brown

For my sons, Greg, Marcus and Guy

Hector turned to take the second spear from Deiphobus

But he was no longer there. He’d never been there.

Nothing real; just a phantom created by the Goddess Athena.

A glamour conjured to make him stand his ground and so meet his death.

The Iliad Homer (reworked version Nick brown)

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,

Wherein he puts alms for oblivion.

Shakespeare; Troilus and Cressida

Contents

Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
First Bites

Chapter 1: The Letter
Chapter 2: Better to Let Him Die
Chapter 3: A Walk in the River
Chapter 4: Two Invitations
Chapter 5: Something Snaps
Chapter 6: Slow Turn
Chapter 7: The Keeper of the Dead
Chapter 8: Fire
Chapter 9: A Voice From Hell
Chapter 10: Frozen Flesh
Chapter 11: Second Sight
Chapter 12: Bad Call
Chapter 13: Flint Knife
Chapter 14: Past Arrival
Chapter 15: Here Among the Vanishing
Chapter 16: Pass the Parcel
Chapter 17: The Centre Cannot Hold
Chapter 18: Paradise Lost
Chapter 19: Throat of Ages
Chapter 20: Marsyas
Chapter 21: The Warning
Chapter 22: Embodiment
Chapter 23: The View From the Cliff
Chapter 24: Realm of Decline
Chapter 25: Things Fall Apart
Chapter 26: The Devil’s Bargain
Chapter 27: The Dead Travel Fast

Envoi: Stained with Mystic Horrors
About the Author
Also by Nick Brown
Copyright

First Bites

“Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis, sir, sir please, the Devil is amongst us.”

Theodrakis, shaken out of his daydream, looked at the young policeman running towards him along the harbour wall. He inhaled one last draw from the cigarette before throwing the butt to the ground, saw how white faced the boy was. But what could you expect when you were so far from Athens, stuck on this island of time warped communists and peasants?

“Oh, Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis, come quick, there’s been another one, sir; another, sir, she’s in the water.”

The boy reached him and Theodrakis placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Get your breath first, boy, then tell me clearly.”

“They’ve found another, in the sea, messed up badly, could have been someone’s sister. The Devil is back amongst us just like the warning said. God be with us.”

God be with us indeed, Theodrakis thought, it’s like being transported back in time to the Dark Age stuck here. He loosened his black silk tie, the only compromise with the heat and shabby dress of his colleagues that he allowed himself, and followed the young policeman along the waterfront to the harbour’s edge.

The walk gave him the opportunity to study the wreaths, charms and other protections against the evil eye that the locals had nailed to their front doors. Similar charms were attached to the prows of the fishing boats next to the painted all-seeing eye, presumably to augment its powers.

Some holiday resort, he thought, no wonder it’s always empty. And it was true, Aghios Spiridos was empty; never anyone in the bars and cafes lining the seafront, neither Greek nor foreigners. The economic crisis had obviously hit here just as hard as in Athens, only here people’s reaction to it was not as direct as it was in the capital. Here it was more secretive, more sullen. There was a constant sense of unease in the atmosphere he couldn’t quite put his finger on. How did the place manage to keep going and what had he ever done to deserve being posted here?

There were more than enough murders, acts of political terrorism and kidnappings to occupy his particular, if peculiar, talents in Athens where he belonged. But he knew the answer despite his dissatisfaction: there was no one on Samos with his skills, unsurprisingly, so he’d been ordered here, simple as that. He reached the harbour’s edge. A small group of men, mostly fishermen with time on their hands, were gathered staring down towards the water. As he drew level the group made way to let him through: he saw what they saw.

Below, bobbing on the water, was a small boat, and in it were two sick looking policemen staring at a large bundle covered with tarpaulin. Used as he was to the contents of such bundles he felt his heart lurch. Perhaps it was the smell of rotting fish along the harbour, maybe the effect this place had on his nerves. He pulled himself together. The policemen in the boat saw him and looked relieved; it was clear to Theodrakis they had no idea what to do next. He took control.

“Costas, whatever it is you’ve got there needs to be shifted; this isn’t meant to be a sideshow.”

Costas nervously rubbed a pudgy hand across the stubble of his lower face then began to tug the edges of his moustache.

“We found it where the message said it would be, the message was right again, Boss: he’s back amongst us, the saints protect us.”

Theodrakis was about to tell him that the next idiot who mentioned “him being back amongst us” would find himself assigned to a month of doing nights in Kokari dealing with the German drunks when Costas pulled back the tarpaulin.

A prickling of horror raised the hairs on the back of his neck: this one was young, had been beautiful, not now, bleached white, drained of blood. It was the same pattern; the usual pieces had been taken. Next to him, the young policeman noisily retched up his morning coffee and pastry into the sea.

Chapter 1:
The Letter

Hotel Massena
Nice

Dear Steve,

I bet you’re surprised to read this after what you and Giles did to me; I’m as damned as you are now. You never told me what you were meddling with at Skendleby; just sent me to do your research and laughed at me behind my back. You never cared you were putting me in the same danger that ruined you. Well now I’m finished too, something’s playing with me. I don’t know if I’m haunted or mad, but you know all about that, don’t you?

Something led me to the references and documents you wanted but I think it’s finished with me now. I don’t think I’m coming back.

I found out where you are from that young witch that Giles cleared off with. But don’t think running to Greece will save you, Steve; I’ve learnt neither time nor distance means anything to these things. Read this letter carefully: excuse the mood swings: all I can say to explain them is the terror comes in waves, as I think you’ll soon discover. It won’t help you much but at least, unlike me, you will have been warned.

Ever since that last meeting in the archaeology unit at Christmas I felt I was being followed. It started in Ryland’s library when I was looking for the missing Davenport papers. All day I heard the sound of strange mutterings in the next bay but when I went and looked there was no one there. The gothic architecture and dim lighting there can play on your nerves. When I returned to my desk there was a note on top of my papers with the address of a private collection in Venice.

Who put it there and how did they know I was going to Venice for Christmas? Giles laughed when I told him but he didn’t really find it funny, he turned pale. You broke every rule in archaeology trying to re-bury the remnants in that tomb; he lost his job and you had your breakdown.

I used to like Venice: but it’s not a good place in winter when you’re alone and unsettled. I spent a few days doing the cultural tourist bit during the day and trying to strike up conversation with strangers, without much success, in the evenings. I’m used to living alone but over there I was isolated and lonely, so I decided to follow up the contact that had been left for me in Ryland’s. It wasn’t difficult to get the phone number from my hotel reception and I called it up.

The voice at the other end didn’t seem surprised; in fact, it seemed to have been expecting me. It was a difficult voice to place, spoke good, if heavily accented English with a husky tone; could have been a man or woman. There was no hesitation in agreeing to meet and show me the papers. But strangely not at the site of the collection which apparently was being restored, like everything in Venice. Instead I was to meet him - by this time I’d established that it was a man - at eight that night in a bar over towards the north side, not far from where Titian died. When I asked for fuller directions he said it would be easy to find and put down the phone.

That night was cold and damp, fine rain hanging like a mist, muffling sound so the footsteps you heard could have been just behind or some distance away round the corner. Not far from the hotel, I realised the directions bore little relation to actual streets I was walking. By the time I crossed the Rialto Bridge and walked through San Bartolomeo Square I was lost in a warren of tunnel-like passages.

I knew I was near a canal as I could hear the wash and slap of slimy water being sucked against its banks. So I followed the sound until I came to the canal path lined by tall, dilapidated buildings. In the murk I couldn’t tell whether they were old warehouses or palaces. Normally I’d have wanted to investigate but there was something repellent about the damp, rotting stone in that desolate place. I hurried on, lost, with little option other than follow the canal path until I reached a bridge. The bridge led to another dismal track between high blind walls; the silence was disturbed by the sloshing of water pouring out of rusted downspouts clinging to every wall.

I’d never felt so alone, except, of course, as I write this: but now, in a strange sort of way I have you, don’t I, Steve? No one’s ever loved me or wanted to listen, but you will. You must wonder why I’m writing this, wonder where it’s all leading. But you won’t be laughing this time, Steve, will you? No, not after all you’ve been through. I suppose I’m telling you all this to put off the moment when I have to stop writing because after that I don’t know what there’s left for me to do. Soon you’ll understand the dread beyond terror that I’ve reached. Still, I get ahead of myself.

Eventually the track opened into a small square with a weathered and peculiar statue in the centre and a couple of winter-dead trees dripping water. At the end of the square there was a scruffy bacaro with peeling paintwork, its interior lit by a single old fashioned bare light bulb. It fitted the description and as I came nearer I recognised the name, “The Blind Man’s Place.” I had no idea how I found it and wondered why we couldn’t have met at the “Alla Botte”, the “Alla Vedora” or one of the other better known ones.

The bar’s interior was no more appetising, and apart from a solid woman of indeterminate age behind the counter reading a magazine while spooning some slop out of a bowl into her mouth, it was empty. I ordered a glass of red wine and a plate of sardines, which was all the place offered, and went to sit on a rickety chair at a scuffed wood table to wait. The silence was of a quality that put you on edge and apart from a large and surprisingly ornate mirror, the walls were bare. From time to time I looked at my reflection in that mirror and was surprised at how timid and shabby I looked.

Then, from some deep recess in my memory, I remembered Somerset Maugham being in the Venice Accademia looking at a Veronese painting. As he stared, the painted face of Christ turned from the canvas to look at him. Maugham was, like me, an atheist but the incident profoundly unsettled him. Once I thought of this I couldn’t make myself look at the mirror for fear of what I’d see. I decided to leave at once but noticing I hadn’t finished the wine - well, I had paid for it - I sat back down. It was the most costly drink I ever took; if I’d left when I had the chance maybe things would have been different.

As I put the empty glass on the table the door opened and a man entered, bringing the dark with him. He wore a floor length black wool coat with a broad brimmed black hat pulled down tight over his forehead, almost like a cartoon villain. In different circumstances he might have seemed funny; but not there.

He limped to my table and I saw his face covered with a thick black beard. The visible skin was pale white but disturbed by red blotches and pustules suggesting the skin itself was polluted. The contrast between the black, red and white was compelling; I couldn’t tear my eyes from that face, or from the faded and stained binding round his throat. He apologised for being late but, to my relief, made no attempt to shake hands. He passed me a packet wrapped in brown paper, refused, again to my relief, the offer of a drink and turned to go.

“I have things to attend, Doctor Thompson. Call on me at the address on that packet at eleven on Wednesday; I have something further to show you. These documents you must now consider as yours; your responsibility until they tire of you.”

That was it, an exchange of less than a minute. But it was long enough to blight my life thanks to you and Giles. If you’d let me in on what happened at Skendleby I’d never have followed those documents to Venice.

I can’t remember how I got back to my hotel and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t find that bar again; in fact I’m not even sure it existed in the first place, so strange were those days. I looked at the documents: the bulk of the package comprised a sixteenth century journal of travellers’ tales in Italian written for publication. It was of no interest except it mentioned some English knights in one of the less well-known crusades against the Lithuanians during the reign of Richard II, who, for reasons not stated, stopped off at Venice. It was a brief passage and was only included, I imagine, as it suggested that one of the knights was the future king Henry IV, then Henry of Lancaster, who, as it happens did join the Lithuanian crusade; so far so dull.

There were three other documents; the first was a will in Medieval Latin, interesting only in that it was witnessed by one Sir Hugh Davenport. I immediately suspected this must be an ancestor of the Davenports whose grisly secret you excavated, much to your cost. The second was the copy of a death bed confession written during the same period in medieval French. It was an unsettling piece which under normal circumstances I would have dismissed as the product of morbid pathology, but which, there in Venice, disturbed me so much that when I went to bed I locked it in the safe.

The last document was just a fragment of parchment in a crude early code. I left it alone; the contents of the confession had driven away any desire to know more. Some frightful thing or person had driven the dying man to make this confession, a plea for his soul to be saved from “that which pollutes and drags it to Hell.” Although anonymous I’m certain it was written by the same man whose will I’d previously read. The description of the thing scaring him to death bore a sickening close resemblance to my acquaintance of earlier that evening.

The next day I tried to book an early flight home but it was holiday season so there was no availability. I stayed in my room drinking. Surprised? Remember, Steve, I’m not a drinker like you or Giles. Still, the day passed and nothing happened and the following day, with only twenty four hours to go until my flight, I began to recover some of my confidence. Then the phone rang.

He only spoke one sentence.

“If you come to me at the palace I will show you something every academic dreams of; one chance only, the directions are at reception.”

I waited in the room for about twenty minutes, sweating in anxiety, but I knew I’d go: what else was there for me? Like he said, the directions were waiting at reception. Outside, the weather had changed cold and bright, the frost on the cobbles sparkled in the sunlight. This time the walk was easy and I didn’t get lost.

The palace backed on to one of the major canals and the door swung open as I knocked. Inside, the furniture was under dust sheets as if the owners were away. A voice called to me to come up to the first floor and as I climbed the wide marble staircase I noticed all the shutters were closed. On the first floor corridor the only light came from an open doorway at the far end. I followed the corridor past the covered chairs pictures and mirrors towards that light. The room was large and faced onto the canal, the shutters and windows were open; it was bright but deathly cold in that room. When my eyes adjusted I saw him in the corner furthest from the light standing next to an easel bearing a shrouded painting. In daylight he looked worse than I remembered and I heard myself blurt out,

“What are you?”

He replied as if the question amused him,

“Better for you, I think, to ask what I do: my purpose, to quote one of your English phrases is ‘to keep an eye on things’ but I see you miss the irony; a pity I thought you Englishman appreciated irony. Like last time our meeting will be short. You must break the code; understand the text: it will show you a way of looking at things you would not have imagined.”

He crossed over to the shrouded painting, wincing in discomfort at the light.

“Come, I have something to show you, something rare. Something that looks at things differently. Once you have seen it I do not think we will talk further. Once you have seen it you will think that you don’t want to look at things differently, that you don’t want to break the code. And you won’t want to, but you will not be able to help yourself.”

He pulled the cover from the painting. I recognised it: “The Flaying of Marysas”, smaller and not the original of course. As if he read my thoughts he said,

“It is Titian! A genuine Titian but not one you will ever have read about. It’s been kept away from those who should not know of such things, those who do not possess that particular cultivated taste required to appreciate the ecstasy. But look closely, it’s not like the version of Marysas that you know. However this is the one you will never forget. This is the one which will change your perception.”

I looked: he was right, it was different; the original is sufficiently disturbing but this, this was a perversion. I can’t even write about it now, the things staring from its fringes should never even have been imagined, they inverted any sense of goodness, it looked beyond morality into darkness and its vision contaminated everything.

I turned and as I ran I heard him call, “Look to see me in the Palais Lascaris.” Outside, I threw up in the road then ran on; people out for a walk on that beautiful day scattered as I approached.

The next day I flew home, but I knew that although I could leave Venice I couldn’t escape and so it has proved. Back home I threw myself into my work but I was never comfortable, never easy. I even wished that you and Giles were still there, but then you had gone through your breakdown, taken to drink and abused even Jan’s patience, and Giles took six months unpaid leave; it was either that or be suspended from his post.

So, I was alone. Living for your work and living alone makes you vulnerable, not that you would ever understand that. Bit by bit the thought of the code wormed its way into my troubled mind. I knew I should leave it well alone, but it whispered to me at night as I tossed and turned, sleepless in bed. It was there as I ate my lonely meals or went for walks along the river.

Then, out of the blue, I was called out to Skendleby. The new owner of the Hall, Carver, a vicious piece of work, had tried to build an extension for a swimming pool without planning permission. Several of the locals reported him to the council and as part of his retrospective application I was asked to assess the likelihood of damage to the historic landscape.

A good thing too, his plan required the demolition of the medieval Davenport chapel. Carver was eager to demolish it; I sensed it frightened him. He turned quite nasty with me after understanding I couldn’t be bribed to turn a blind eye. He threatened me which increased my determination to present a strong case against him.

That’s when I took the final wrong decision that’s led me here. Once I started to research the evidence I realised there were documents missing: deliberately lost or even destroyed. I began to consider that there might be a link with the coded document. Even from the surviving evidence, it was clear that the Davenports associated the chapel with some type of malevolent legacy as local folk lore has always maintained; but of course you know all about that, don’t you, Steve?

I interviewed the last Davenport, Sir Nigel, a decent old boy recovering from some kind of stroke. He sent you his regards. I found that odd, I couldn’t see you and him having much in common, or is that something else you kept quiet?

Any way I digress, it’s getting late. What I found really odd about Davenport was that he seemed relieved that the Hall was no longer his responsibility. In fact he seemed genuinely pleased he’d sold it on to Carver, and that in some way Carver deserved it and had been tricked into it like Karswell was in the M. R James ghost story The Casting Of The Runes.

I think Davenport was right about Carver deserving it, but giving up the family legacy seems a bit extreme just to get at him. That’s what hooked me; because, if after all the centuries, his family had struggled to keep it, he was happy to be out of it, there must be some good reason and that brought me back to the code. Now, looking back, I see I was led back to that cursed document: I’d been strung along, played. Well, I found out why the Davenports feared the place alright.

The code was crude; not difficult, once you recognised the simple pattern and re-positioned the letters, even though the writing was poor and crabbed. I’ve always been good with puzzles and had plenty of time to do them. Yet I thought this had defeated me because I found it hard to credit what I was reading. You don’t expect to read about demons in historical family documents and if, or when, you do, you laugh.

I don’t think anyone would laugh after reading this. I won’t read it again, I thought of burning it but something stopped me; perhaps my training as an archivist. I’ve hidden it away where no one can read it, but if in desperate times you need it look in my reading record in Ryland’s. It’s another code, crack it and you’ll find the thing and if you ever come to that I pity you.

Sorry, I’m starting to ramble again: back to the point. I’m not going to tell you much; it would stop your sleep. The fragment of code was written by Sir Hugh Davenport, if that’s what he still was. But I will tell you why this gruesome story should be of interest to you, Steve.

In November 1387 Davenport betrayed his master Sir Thomas Molyneux in a skirmish at Radcot Bridge. He then disappears from the record until 1392 when we find him in the service of Henry of Lancaster on his progression to the crusade in Lithuania. But as we know, the war ended before they arrived, leaving them at a loose end; so Henry decided to proceed across Europe and visit Jerusalem. In November they reached Venice. Davenport’s journal becomes very strange on the subject of his arrival in Venice; it talks of a man or thing that follows them. The text is unclear.

What is clear is that he is the only one who can see it. He travels no further with Henry, perhaps he is dismissed or perhaps he betrays Henry as he did Molyneux. Henry’s journal notes his relief at the absence of “that which did till of late greatly disturb us.”

Davenport lives in Venice for a time and sets himself up as a magus or sorcerer; a type of English Pico della Mirandola. He spends his time “attempting to see things as they truly are, not as people see them”. The way he describes what is true I cannot bring myself to write about, except that it’s what I saw at the edges of that hideous painting in Venice and I know I will never feel clean again. If I’d not seen it myself I’d say he made it up because his mind was destroyed, and perhaps it was. He spread evil and pollution then moved on to Nice.

Nice, where I sit in my hotel room as the shadows grow and lengthen while I write this. “Look to see me at the Palais Lascaris,” that thing had shouted to me in Venice, and here I am. I never meant to come here, I tried to fight it.

Here, although it’s high summer, I feel chilled. I hear whispering but there’s no one there when I look, like the footsteps in Venice. Today I went to the Palais Lascaris. It’s a dark tall narrow building in the warren of filthy alleys in the old town. On each dark floor there are pictures and tapestries, musty with age and strange. Yet when you have learnt to “see things differently” they are truly terrible, not only at the margins, but all the way through; be very glad you can’t see them.

He was there. I didn’t see him. Every time I looked he’d gone but I knew he was there, waiting for me. The worst thing there is a picture “Ruines Avec Obelisque”, distorted, black at the heart. I had followed the Davenport trail, you can see him in the pictures and you can see where he went from here. And do you know where he went, Steve? I think you are beginning to guess, perhaps you are beginning to sweat a bit, I hope so.

He went to Samos, where you are, where you went to escape. Soon you will see him. I don’t think you’ll want to laugh at me or anyone else ever again.

The shadows are moving; they taunt me. I will finish this now. All my life I have written, I think these are the last words I shall ever write.

Dr T. Thompson.

Tim Thompson sealed the envelope and walked through the shadows to the door. Outside it was dark. He posted the letter in an alley leading from Place Massena to the sea. On the other side of the alley was a restaurant called El Vino. He knew there was little time. He was calm now, and hungry, so took a table outside under the street light and treated himself; the credit card bill was irrelevant. He ordered foie gras with apricot compote, the house speciality, steak in sauce and the most expensive Bordeaux on the list. The service was attentive.

Then he walked back along the alley towards the steps leading up to Place Massena. In the shadows at the foot of the steps he made his appointment. He recognised the dark coat and hat, the pale bearded face, the red pustules. One disfigured hand held his shoulder, almost tenderly; he felt a line of freezing cold across his throat, he felt a warm sticky flow soaking his chest.

Then he felt nothing.

Chapter 2:
Better to Let Him Die

The light in the square dazzled, flashing back off the marble paving, too bright even under the large parasol advertising Samian ouzo shading his table. Steve stuffed the letter back in its envelope and concentrated on rinsing the fine coffee grains out of his mouth with the by now tepid water from the accompanying glass. He’d swallowed the sludgy grounds: an involuntary action of surprise at recognising the spidery handwriting. He swilled the water round his mouth, then spat it onto the paving where it instantly evaporated.

It was before nine but he felt the beginning of the day’s sweat staining the creased cotton of the shirt under his armpits. He was surprised to get the letter, hadn’t thought Thompson knew where he was, and the postal service here was irregular at the best of times, which these were not. He didn’t want to read it here and besides, it was so long, more like an essay than a letter. But his real reason was that he feared its contents. He wanted no reminding of his Skendleby ordeal, he’d come here to escape.

He had been taking his usual full Samiot breakfast of Greek coffee, water and a small glass of raki in the old triangular square in Karlovasi when Mandrocles, one of his students who earned some extra money as an assistant janitor, brought him the letter. He owed his temporary post at the University of The Aegean to a previous postgrad student with whom he’d had a brief affair during an excavation on Cyprus some years ago. Unusually after his liaisons, they’d stayed on good terms. Lucky, because her father was well connected in the Greek higher education bureaucracy. In his desperation to get work away from Britain, Steve had tried all his contacts, and she’d produced a result.

It helped that he had a solid reputation in Europe as a fine field archaeologist, if unreliable and careless as an administrator, or lover for that matter. There wasn’t much for him to do at the university, about which the most imposing thing was the name, but Steve was grateful to be there. He spoke reasonably fluent if ungrammatical Greek, even though everyone immediately switched to English when he was around. He liked the lifestyle; he had no personal responsibility and little in his work. In fact, he’d had to hustle to become involved with a survey of Neolithic and Pre-Neolithic activity on the island and with the new archaeological museum in Pythagoreio. This suited him; he could move around the island and work almost entirely without supervision. The bi-weekly change of the island’s tourist population brought him a regular supply of short-term partners and no obligation or responsibility. He still had nightmares and his hair remained white; but he felt he was beginning to rebuild his life and, more important, to feel safe.

He liked Karlovasi, its faded prosperity, the disused and dilapidated warehouses and merchant’s houses that fringed the sea contrasting with the restless and lively student quarter. He liked the shabby little university and the cafes; but this time he was not going to get involved with any of his students. The consequences of that in a Greek community were too serious. So, he lived on the other side of the island in a small fishing village that doubled up with tourism to make ends meet. He had taken a long-term letting of an apartment overlooking the sea from a Dutch woman married to a Greek boat captain.

He loved the murmur of the sea brushing the shingle below his window, the infinite view over the constantly changing water where on clear days he could see Patmos. Loved the brooding presence of Mount Kerkis, either baked by heat or obscured by cloud. The place calmed him, soothed his fears, his relationships in the village were casual with no obligation beyond a polite friendliness on either side which suited him just fine.

Suited him so well that one night drinking ouzo with Captain Michales under the stars, watching the green and red harbour lights flashing on and off, he mentioned that he wanted to stay permanently and become Greek. Michales made the facial gesture of incomprehension at the strangeness of foreigners that’s part of the Greek DNA, then, rearranging his craggy face into an even more intimidating expression, he leaned forwards and delivered the longest speech Steve had heard from him.

“Listen, Dr Steve, you could live here amongst us for a hundred years, two hundred years even, and you would still not be accepted as one us, would never be treated as one of us.”

He’d leaned back and favoured Steve with one of his surprisingly warm, if rare, smiles before continuing.

“But for you, I think, that is not so bad. Have you seen how we treat each other? Especially in winter, after the tourists go home and we are tired of being polite and having to speak English or German all day and all night. When the seas are too rough to fish and everything is shut down and the only place to go is Lekatis bar to drink. See how we are then, look, see over there Ephialtes who you say you like so much. Well, last year he broke a chair over the head of Stefanes, his friend, just because he had thrown a scrap of meat to a dog and Antonis did not like that one dog. Since then they not speak and that is what is like. No, you could not become one of us.”

He paused, deep in thought.

“But maybe you just stay and be treated like now, like honoured guest, not part of family or one of us. Believe me, that is much better for you. No feuds, no lawyers, no hitting, we keep you out from all that: for you just laughter and drink. Now I have arranged your life, so you will buy me one ouzo, then we go home.”

Afterwards they’d finished the ouzo and gazed at the headland across the bay to the east, where the sky was imperceptibly beginning to lighten and the pre-dawn breeze was ruffling the surface of the waters. Steve stumbled the few short yards home, banging into parked cars and scooters, then fumbled for what seemed ages to get his key into the lock before falling, fully clothed, onto the bed. He woke next day with a foul taste in his mouth and a splitting headache, but without the feeling of anxiety that was his usual waking companion; he didn’t exactly feel good, but didn’t feel frightened either and since the horror of the Skendleby excavation that was as good as it got.

Pulling out of the memory, Steve left some euros with the bill on the saucer and walked across to the periptero to buy some cigarettes. Like at most Greek street kiosks, there was an animated conversation taking place between the owner and the customer at the counter. The voices were raised and a fine range of shrugs, facial grimaces and expansive hand gestures were on display. In England it would have looked like the last stage in a verbal exchange before the first punch was thrown, but in Greece it was a normal transaction and probably between long standing friends. To Steve it was now routine, and he passed the time while the conversation gradually petered out in trying to improve his knowledge of written Greek by reading the headlines of the national and local Greek newspapers on display on the carousel.

The news was grimly familiar, the same two topics spread across each front page: the economic crisis and the alarming spread of wild fires. This latter was seen as a symptom of dramatic change in world climate, which had caused the unusually dry winter and the intense heat of early summer accompanied by gale force winds. Each of the papers took an apocalyptical tone; wherever Steve looked he saw scare stories, and according to his Greek acquaintances, this wasn’t alarmist journalism: there was plenty to be scared about. The global financial crisis hit Greece particularly hard, and in a land of sharp divisions, with a recent history of civil war, the fear of anarchy loomed large. Although there were some, particularly the young, who welcomed the prospect of rapid and violent change.

He knew this from a conversation he’d had back in the village. The elder son of one of the fishermen home from university in Athens for the summer was helping out as a waiter. When business was slack, he’d sit and talk with Steve. He’d been involved in the demonstration in the capital that degenerated into a riot. He, like all his friends, was angry and looked forward to the autumn when he predicted the increase in direct action would topple the government. But, as always, there was no commonly held opinion on who to blame and the arguments split the community. Some blamed the Americans, some the communists; the only real consensus was that the bankers and the Euro played a major role.

The panic caused by the fires was worse. The island was heavily forested and dry as tinder; there were rumours that some of the fires had been started deliberately and in a fire near Vathia two goat herders, arrested on suspicion of arson, had been almost torn apart by a small mob of locals as the police tried to take them away. The island was divided and tension was rising with the thermometer.

However, there was something else, only covered in the island papers, which Steve found morbidly disturbing: a body had been fished out of the water near Aghios Spiridos. A body marked in a particular way that the police would not disclose, but which the papers linked with unsolved murders earlier in the year. The reports stated that the local police were now under the direction of a senior homicide detective from Athens but were no nearer to closing the case.

Under the headline “Devil strikes again in Island horror”, the piece suggested that the killings bore the marks of satanic ritual and that perhaps ancient traditions, rather than the police, might be the only answer. Steve felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck, but before he could read more the conversation in front of him abruptly ended and the heavily moustached man behind the counter asked him what he wanted. He bought the smokes and, as an afterthought, the paper which he put into his sack alongside the unread and toxic letter from Tim Thompson.

The heat of the day was increasing and he tried to stick to the shade as he walked from the square to his parking place by the river. The river had run dry even earlier this year and was now little more than a wide stinking trench of cracked and dried mud strewn with rubbish. As he walked across the waste ground by its banks, which was signposted a civic car park, his scuffed boots kicked up clouds of thick white dust from its surface. Inside the old Fiat, which he had on long term loan from a local car hire firm as it was no longer considered safe to rent out, it was sweltering despite the fact he’d left the windows open.

He threw his sack onto the backseat and began the regular painful process of negotiating the cars blocking him in and the potholes scattered across the rocky terrain. Then, after a prolonged wait at the new traffic lights, which seemed designed to hold up traffic from all directions before allowing one common thirty second window of opportunity, he turned onto the main road to Pythagoreio.

It was a relief to be out of the town and driving through the spruce and pines that lined the steeply climbing road as it snaked its way through the ridges flanking Mount Kerkis. Here it was cooler and, apart from the speeding taxis, driven by men with one hand out of the window holding a cigarette and the other clutching a mobile phone to their right ear, the road was quiet.

After climbing for ten minutes, the road levelled out and the sea could be seen on both sides of the island. Steve drove this road every day of the week but still hadn’t tired of the beauty of this view with the sea sparkling in the sunlight below him and the mountain looming above. For a few kilometres, the road followed the ridge through some of the best kept vineyards on Samos falling away gently on either side into the valleys.

He was startled by the sound of a siren as three police cars, one unmarked and black, swept past him at speed on the other side of the road, almost forcing him into a ditch. As he took evasive action he caught a glimpse of the clean shaven, pale face of the man in the back, obviously the senior officer, staring out of the window at him. The man was wearing a jacket and tie, most unusual for Samos.

He was watching this alarming cortege in his rear view mirror as it careered into the distance when a bright red sports car flashed round the bend behind him, and on seeing his old Fiat began hitting its horn and flashing its lights. The driver looked young behind his black glasses and Steve wasn’t disposed to give way, thinking that such an expensive machine would be unlikely to want to risk a collision with the shed he was driving. But he was mistaken; as Steve was trying to occupy the centre of the road going round a bend, the sports car pulled out, the driver gunning the engine and forcing him to swerve into the side verge. He had to focus all his attention into avoiding the ditch, but not before he caught a glimpse of the driver grinning through designer stubble and giving him the finger. The sports car, a Ferrari he thought, something else not often seen here, disappeared round the bend.

By the time Steve got his car back onto the road he was angry and shaken. The other driver had been more than just reckless: he’d enjoyed forcing the old Fiat off the road. He continued on through the vines, but the day had changed and his mood soured and wishing the sports car would crash didn’t do enough to lift it. Rounding another bend just before the sharp right turn towards Ormos-Marathakampos, he was flagged down by an old local woman in the middle of the road. She shouted to him through the car window.

“Kirios, Kirios, come quick, bad problem.”

She grabbed his arm and began jabbing her fingers frantically towards a copse of trees on the other side of the road. He saw tyre marks swerving off the road and the rear of the red Ferrari poking out of the undergrowth amongst the trees. The rear wheels were off the ground, the front of the car wedged at an angle into the wood. Steve moved nervously towards it, leaving the Fiat in the middle of the road, its driver’s door flapping open, the engine running.

He heard the whimpering before he saw the man and paused, fearing what he’d find. He was pushed forward by the shouts of the woman.

“Yes, Kirios, in there, go, you must go now. “

The heat of the sun was reflecting off the shiny red paintwork of the Ferrari; Steve hesitated, shifting from foot to foot in indecision, not wanting to move further but knowing he had to. There was a horrible bubbling sound at the back of the whimpering. Steve couldn’t stand it, wanted to stop it, so he forced himself on. At first he couldn’t understand why the driver hadn’t moved; the front of the car wasn’t badly smashed up, it had pulled up short of the tree trunk. Only some low growing branches of the old gnarled olive seemed to have come into contact with the car.

He turned his head to look at the driver, saw he was pinned back against the headrest, whose white leather upholstery was stained a slimy red. The twin forks of a time-hardened olive branch had burst through the shattered windscreen and skewered him to the seat. Steve forced himself to look at the injured man and understood the cause of the whimpered speech delivered in simple, almost nursery, Greek,

“Can’t die, not me, not here, help me please; help, can’t die, not meant to.”

One of the branch ends had gone through the flesh under his left armpit and the other had pierced his right shoulder, tearing a huge gash in his throat en route. Steve could see the blood gushing from this wound; he’d plenty of experience tending to accidents on excavations, and knew that if the arterial bleeding wasn’t slowed the man would die soon. He screamed to the woman to call an ambulance but she’d gone. The young man fixed him with the terrified look of a child, his large brown eyes imploring succour.

Moving the twigs and olive leaves away from where branches had pierced the flesh, he could see the wounds clearly. They confirmed his initial diagnoses, the bleeding from the throat was the killer; the rest could wait. Now he was doing something he felt calmer, his hands stopped trembling as he probed the bloody torn flesh for the source of the bleeding.

The terrified eyes of the young driver tried to follow his actions, mutely beseeching Steve to save him: he’d stopped crying and was silent. Steve found the gash from which most of the blood was pumping and tried to pull the flaps at the edges of the tear together. But the blood made it greasy and each time he tried his fingers stumbled and slipped against each other and away from the wound.

He let go and bent to rub his fingers in the dust below the car to give them extra purchase; something he had only ever done before when bowling occasional off spinners on the cricket field, an image he was surprised to find flashing across his mind. He moved back to the bloody throat, caught the agonised but trusting look in the young man’s eyes, noticed how pale his face now looked and murmured to himself without thinking, “Drained of blood, he’ll die soon.”

This time his gritty fingers found a precarious purchase on one flap of the wound and while trying not to let slip the hold of his left hand, he felt for the other fine lip of the wound with his right. Twice, three times he thought he had it, only for it to elude him and vanish back into the gore of the ruined neck. Then he had it: only a tenuous grasp, but if he could keep it, enough.

He carefully pulled the edges of the laceration together until they overlapped and applied as much pressure as he could without losing his grip. The pumping of the blood decreased, then reduced to slow ooze that seeped between his fingertips. He just hung on there, frozen in the same position, not daring to move any part of his posture in case he lost his slight hold on the slippery nubs of torn flesh.

He could never gauge how long he remained suspended there, all his senses concentrating on the feeling of his fingertips; it could either have been minutes or hours. But one thing he did notice was that, crouched down against one of the olive trees near the car, there was a man. Steve knew he hadn’t been there when he’d arrived. The man said nothing, did nothing, just watched. He was partly in shadow, Steve couldn’t see him clearly; he was wearing some type of dark woollen cloak like the older island goat herders. His face was partly obscured by leaves so that he resembled a creature of the ancient forest, like the carving of a Green Man Steve had once unearthed on an excavation in Cornwall.

This freezing of time was shattered by the sound of a siren. Steve daren’t turn his head to look, for fear that any movement would loosen his fingers’ precarious grip and the blood would begin to pump again. He couldn’t feel his fingers now and sweat was pouring down his forehead into his eyes making them sting; he felt like he once had in an assembly at school in the moment before he fainted, having stood for twenty minutes listening to the head teacher droning on. But he was aware how pale the young man was and how his breathing was faint and irregular, so the gentle touch on his shoulder took him by surprise. A paramedic moved next to him, looked carefully at the dying young man almost drained of blood then turned back to another medic behind him. The second man moved to the car and steadily placed two clips where Steve’s hands were and the first man gently steered Steve away.

He leaned against a tree and tried to light a cigarette with shaking hands, saw two police cars arrive and their occupants run to the accident; he saw his own car being moved to the side of the road. He heard, as if in a dream, one of the cops shouting and frenzied activity. Then there was someone beside him taking the unlit smoke out of his mouth. He looked down and saw that it was filthy with the blood from his hands. A fresh one was placed between his lips and lit for him.

As he took a deep drag, the figure spoke one sentence then moved off to disappear into the wood, and Steve saw it was the Green Man who’d silently watched him. By the time the smoke was finished the medics, augmented by several others he’d not noticed arrive, wheeled the young man on a trolley, with a drip suspended over him, to the road and into the ambulance. A policeman came over to Steve and began to lead him.

“You go with him to hospital.”

“Why?”

“Because you must.”

By now he was at the step leading into the ambulance. He climbed in, the door shut behind him, the siren started and they moved off. He sat in shock as they gathered speed, his brain trying to make sense of what had happened to his day, and the things he could make least sense of were the words the Green Man had spoken before he merged into the trees.

“You meddled with what you don’t know, for us and for you it would have been better to let him die.”

Chapter 3:
A Walk in the River

Whilst Steve was entering the ambulance, the black police car he’d watched reached its destination. Theodrakis climbed out, feeling sweat sticking the fine silk shirt to his back. A local cop was trying to pacify a small crowd gathered in front of the police station. Pushing through them, he climbed the three steps and shoved the re-enforced glass plate doors which slid apart with a swish.

This was a new building, concrete with tile cladding, built just before the economic crash and designed with an eco-friendly system of temperature control which had either broken down or been turned off as an efficiency saving. So the interior was no cooler than outside in the sun’s glare. He noticed, strictly against European regulation, each desk carried a whirring electric fan with a spider’s web of leads to the few accessible plug sockets that the vast open plan office provided. The desk’s occupants sat sweltering, shirts open, sipping at iced coffee or water, the only difference from a municipal police office of the past was that nobody smoked: that law apparently did apply here.

Theodrakis guessed the number of empty seats indicated that smoking was happening elsewhere. He picked his way through the maze of desks, aware of all the eyes in the room following him as he passed through a set of double doors at the back. Behind the door was a corridor with a series of office doors on one side and windows looking on to an internal courtyard on the other. The courtyard was crowded, the air thick with smoke; he followed the corridor to the end and entered a small meeting room devoid of natural light.

Three men in crumpled lightweight suits sat round a small conference table. Despite the ceiling lights the room seemed dark and the hot, still air was oppressive. The table was cluttered with plastic coffee cups; some had obviously been there for ages and there were sticky patches of spilt liquid seeping into the scuffed surface of the table.

A tall thin man with a prominent Adams apple, who Theodrakis recognised as a senior civil servant from the government offices in Vathia, motioned him to sit.

“It seems that the great benefit of your experience hasn’t had much effect yet, Theodrakis: we’ve got another one for you.”

Theodrakis ignored the sarcasm, he expected it by now and wasn’t going to give them the pleasure of a reaction. After all, what else could you expect from these provincials with their inbuilt inferiority complexes? However the message made his stomach churn, not another one so quickly, this wasn’t the pattern: he sat and listened.

“As usual everybody seemed to know about it before we did. You’d better get a grip on this, Theodrakis, its making us look fools and people are frightened. On this island when they get frightened they like to take the law into their own hands and, considering the results of your expert intervention, it’s hard to blame them.”

He favoured Theodrakis with a smile like a fridge door opening - it was the coldest thing in the room - and indicated to the man on his right to speak. This was Samarakis, squat and solidly built with a thick dark moustache following the lines of his permanently downturned mouth. He led the investigation prior to Theodrakis’s arrival.

“You had better do as Kirios Adamidis says while there is still law and order on this island, or your clever friends in Athens will lose confidence in your undoubtedly superior abilities. They’ve found another body near the top of the Potami rapids, this one was found by a tourist; that will look good in next year’s holiday brochure. I’ve got some men up there keeping the area clear, but it’s spooked them so the sooner you get there the better.”

He paused to pull out a pack of cigarettes, then remembering where he was put them back in the pocket of the crumpled jacket and continued.

“You know, this is the first time that I can genuinely say that I’m pleased you’re here, Theodrakis, because if you weren’t it would have been me having to sweat my way up there.”

He laughed and looked across at the other two who smiled with him.

“Oh, and one more thing, I don’t suppose you know much about the river. This stretch of rapids is just downstream from the source, it’s high up, you can do the first bit in a four by four but from there on it’s rough going and for most of it you have to walk the river bed. I used to enjoy it as a kid; I wouldn’t much like to do it now. You can go up or downstream, either way you get just as wet, so I hate to think what damage it will do to your expensive Athenian shoes and suit.”

He laughed again; Theodrakis was wondering whether to tell him that the shoes were English and the suit Italian when Adamidis gestured quiet and then spoke.

“Come, Inspector Samarakis, that’s enough. You had better start to think how you handle this with the press. Theodrakis, if this is another genuine case I want to see some results, this filthy business is hurting our island which has already suffered enough. If, God forbid, this is another one I want you to brief my friend, Professor Andraki.”

He gestured at the unhappy looking third man who appeared even more worried after Adamidis had finished speaking. Professor Andraki was small and slim with a neat, grey speckled goatee beard. He politely inclined his head towards Theodrakis but avoided eye contact.

“The professor has an unusual field of experience in local matters which, sadly, you might find useful. Now I must not delay you any more, Inspector.”

Having been dismissed Theodrakis got up and turned to go, reflecting that except for a greeting he’d said nothing; but he hadn’t let them provoke him, that was something at least. As he reached the door Samarakis said,

“Enjoy your paddle in the water, Colonel Theodrakis.”

In the police compound he found the four by four and its driver waiting.

“There’s some fisherman’s waders in the back, boss, you can change into them as I take you up.”

Theodrakis grunted, conveying to the man that he’d heard, and they set off. During the drive he had time to mull over how much he hated this case and this island. The first hate was easier to explain than the second: the case made no sense, it scared him, polluted his every waking moment and his dreams, but worse, in some way he couldn’t quite grasp, it seemed familiar: like it had a particular personal connection and this made no sense.

The island undermined him. He encouraged the local’s perception that his antipathy was just the reluctance of a metropolitan Athenian to be stuck in a province far away on the fringe of Asia. But really he felt alone and out of his depth here. Every day he woke up in his impersonal rented room gripped by anxiety, the very air of the place oppressed him. His police colleagues resented him and expected him to fail; wanted him to, it felt like.

He hadn’t helped himself by not making any effort to connect with any of them, just played up to the stereotype of Athenian hauteur and disdain. So he was resented and disliked, and the longer he was here the more difficult it became to undo the damage his first impressions had caused: now anything he did or said compounded them.

He shuffled his legs into the musty-smelling filthy waders then took off his jacket and pulled the straps up over his shoulders. He thought about removing his tie but decided not to; let them laugh if they want. By the time he’d finished, the vehicle was off road and following a dirt track that wound its way up the increasingly steep slopes of the mountain. After ten minutes, the track finished at the edge of a ravine where two police officers in waders smoked and chatted as they waited for him.

Outside the car the heat was intense. Somewhere down below he could hear the river snaking its way through the gorge, it sounded a long way off and he wondered how they’d reach it. He hated heights. The two officers dropped their cigarette butts onto the bare earth and carefully ground them into the dirt: the fear of fire cut deep here. His lack of animation seemed to puzzle the officers and after a period of silence the older man said,

“It’s down there, sir, we’ll help you, it’s a steep path and some of the steps are missing.”

Theodrakis nodded and followed them to the edge where a narrow path led almost vertically down through trees to the river. With one man behind him and another in front helping, they slipped and shuffled down, creaking in their waders. Theodrakis, despite his vertigo and anxiety, couldn’t help thinking what an absurd sight they made in fishing boat gear sliding down the side of a mountain in the full heat of the day.

When they reached the river he was soaked in sweat; down in the shadows of the gorge it was almost dark and several degrees cooler. The river levels were low at this time of year, to Theodrakis’ relief; he dreaded to think what it must be like here in winter in full spate. Now it just wound its way round the large boulders that littered the narrow bed, and didn’t seem more than a metre deep in the worst bits. As if sensing his thoughts, the older cop took his arm and pointed downstream.

“It’s about half a kilometre down there boss, not too difficult if we’re careful, half way there’s a bit where we have to use a fixed rope to get over one of the rapids. Other than that we just have to avoid a couple of deep pools, follow me and you’ll be alright.”

Theodrakis grunted then followed him into the cool water, his footing unsure on the slippery rocks beneath the surface. They made slow progress. It wasn’t too bad, but he wondered to himself why people came on holiday to do this sort of thing. Even swinging down the rapids on the rope was easier than he’d feared, but he slipped at one point allowing cold water to pour into the waders soaking him. What waited at the bottom of the rapids drove away any physical discomfort.

At first, all he saw was a circle of people dressed in a combination of uniform and beachwear, standing up to their knees in water with their backs to him. The circle fragmented as they turned towards the noise that Theodrakis and his minders made splashing towards them.

Then he saw what they saw. Half submerged in the shallows by the bank, stuck, snagged by a jagged branch of a fallen tree, was a body. The group parted ranks as if expecting him to perform some act of re-animation and he heard a cop who he didn’t recognise say,

“We’ve left her as we found her, Kyrie Syntagmatarchis; we thought that is what you would want.”

Feeling he was in a dream, Theodrakis noted the formality of address and wondered why such circumstances made people more polite; the man went on.

“She’s been here some time, the body’s not intact, you know, animals, fishes, Christ knows what else.”

Theodrakis could see her now and he knew the “what else” was no animal or fish; he felt bile rising from his guts but more was expected of him. He snapped out.

“Where’s the police doctor, we don’t want her having to lie out here all day, what have you been doing? Just standing here watching like a herd of goats?”

He knew this wasn’t fair, could tell by the vomit-splattered rocks how affected some of the men were, but only anger and lashing out could get him moving. He didn’t want to look too closely at the body, he could already see it was some days old and had been washed downstream until it snagged in the branches. So he didn’t have a site for the attack either, it could be anywhere upstream, it could have been done somewhere else and the body dumped here.

The only piece of luck was that the extreme dry summer meant the water level was much lower than usual so the body was part exposed above the surface. He forced himself to look closer: fair hair matted the head, so probably a foreign backpacker which would explain the lack of any missing person report having been filed. To his relief he saw the police pathologist making his way through the stream towards him and waved him over.

“Lucca, get what you can here then take her back to the lab and call me with whatever you come up with.”

The man grunted assent and began his grisly investigation. Theodrakis was tired, he wanted to be away from this place, he wanted more than anything else to be on his own. He told his driver he was going to follow the path down to the main road and to fetch the car and pick him up there, then splashed downstream until he reached the path where he sat on a fallen tree and lit a cigarette. The hand holding the lighter was shaking so much that it took several attempts. To his surprise he found that he wanted to cry, not out of any sense of sympathy or even horror, but because he felt alone and helpless.

None of this made any sense, or not to him at any rate. He knew he wasn’t a weak man but on this island with no one to trust, no one to confide in, he was out of his depth. Perhaps the Devil had come amongst them as the locals believed. He ground the cigarette butt out under his foot then flung it into the stream, realising the fear of fire was beginning to affect him too.

He began the walk to the road, stumbling along the pitted surface in the fisherman’s waders feeling ridiculous, and wondering what his Athenian friends would think if they could see him. The four by four was waiting where the path met the road. He told the driver to take him back to Karlovasi and slumped into the back seat.

He reported his progress, or rather lack of it, and then had his car drive him back to his solitary apartment in Vathia. Inside he didn’t bother to open the shutters or turn on the lights. He was sweating and itching, the latter a legacy of the waders. Overcome with lassitude, he threw himself down on the bed fully dressed and without even bothering to take off his shoes drifted into an uneasy sleep.

In his dream he was trying to make his way across the shallow water at the fringe of a beach towards a woman with night-black hair who was standing on shelf of rock above the shore. As he walked towards her, she flickered between wearing a long black robe and nudity. He knew she had to tell him something important but he couldn’t find her number in his phone. Then, when he managed to find it, the phone started to ring. The woman laughed and spoke.

“Now you have spoiled it, your shoes will be wet.”

He jerked awake: the room was dark but the ringing continued and he recognised the tone of his mobile. By the time he fished it out of his jacket it stopped and was flashing “missed call” at him. He groped in the darkness for the light switch and pressed dial back and heard Lucca’s voice.

“Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis, thanks for getting back to me, I’ve not got a full report for you but I’m pretty sure the instrument used on her was similar to the one in the other attacks, the marks and patterns match. You know how we’ve never been able to identify the type of murder weapon? Well, it could be we’ve been looking in the wrong direction, I don’t think it’s any type of metal at all, I think its flint, obsidian or something like that. I thought you’d like to know. I’ll give you a fuller report tomorrow.”

Theodrakis mumbled his thanks and rang off. He sat with his head in his hands, it didn’t make any sense or perhaps it did; only be in a place like this would a serial killer use prehistoric technology.

Chapter 4:
Two Invitations

Late Saturday morning, Steve was shaving when the phone rang. He answered it with one side of his face masked in foam, just managing to grab it before it switched to messaging.

“Hello Dr Watkins, it’s Professor Andraki here, I’m sorry to disturb you at home but do you think you would be able to come and see me at the department? There’s something I’d like to consult you about. I hope that Monday about ten would be convenient.”

Steve agreed, hoping this might lead to a more fulfilling role at the university: Andraki ran all the archaeology on the island. After thanking him Andraki hesitated for a second and then said,

“Oh, and I passed on your contact details to Vassilis, I hope you don’t mind.”

After the call Steve walked back to the bathroom, more cheerful at the prospect of some interesting work and his ego boosted at being acknowledged an authority. He’d just made the first downward stroke of the razor when the phone rang again.

“Hello Doctor Watkins, is secretary to Kirios Vassilis here. I ring to thank you for what you did to save the life of the boy Antonis. Tomorrow there will be a little gathering to give thanks for how he survives and you, you of course, are guest of honour. I send car for you in the morning.”

Steve finished shaving; it looked to be turning into a pretty good day. But late that night, as he sat nursing a final drink with Captain Michales, he told him about the calls. The captain’s expression gave nothing away as he replied, “The first concerning dead people; well, that I would not like but it’s your work I think: so perhaps it will be good for you. The second with Vassilis; that is not so good. You will need to be very careful with that one. I go to bed now: fish in the morning you understand. Perhaps tomorrow you should go to church.”

He got up and slouched off towards his house. Steve watched him go. There was something reassuring about the steady rolling walk: something almost graceful for such a strong and weathered man. The bar lights went out; he leaned back onto two legs of his chair and sat for a moment watching the reflection of the fat yellow moon as it stretched and shifted over the gently rippling waters of the Aegean.

Next day, not more than half an hour after waking, Steve sank back into the rich leather upholstery of the limo. The shaven-headed driver accelerated out of the steep bends leading up into the hills. It was before eleven and outside the day was already hot, but in the back with the air-con at full blast it was refreshingly cool. Despite the refusal or inability of the driver to reply to the remarks Steve had addressed to him in his best practised Greek, he felt a pleasurable anticipation. Once up amongst the vineyards, the car left the road to take the hidden entrance of a dirt track that he’d not noticed before.

The track twisted and turned up away from the road towards the mountains. Steve lost all sense of direction; since taking the track they’d passed no houses, only one dilapidated shepherd’s hut. Yet the track was in surprisingly good condition and so, he guessed, must be privately maintained. Then, as the road seemed in danger of running out of mountain to climb, they crested a sharp rise and there was the house.

Steve couldn’t tell where the rock ended and the house began, so cleverly had it been designed: it seemed to grow straight out of the mountain spur and hang over a sheer drop towards the sea. The limo drove through elaborate iron gates into a spacious courtyard. The car stopped and the driver, with surprising grace and lightness of foot for such a big man, got out and held open Steve’s door.

“You get out here.”

It was only the second thing he’d said since picking Steve up. Opposite him, standing in an open doorway, an ancient woman in the uniform of a maid from a previous age was waiting. She beckoned him to follow her into a marble-floored atrium with a high and exquisitely sculpted two storey high ceiling.

“Wait here and Kirios Vassilis will see you when he is ready.”

The walls were hung with oil paintings, none of which were less than three hundred years old and two of which Steve thought he recognised, although due to the lack of natural light he couldn’t be sure. The only furniture in the large space was two Second Empire chairs either side of an ivory inlaid escritoire on which stood an exquisite black figure-ware wine jar which Steve knew, from his work in the new museum at Pythagoreio, was finer than any exhibit on display.

He decided not to risk sitting on either of the chairs, so wandered from painting to painting becoming increasingly uncertain of the nature of his visit. Then, after what seemed an age, the woman returned, opened one of a pair of double doors and indicated that he was to follow her. He followed through a long passage with a number of turns to another pair of doors at which she knocked and then, hearing a voice shout, opened.

The startling change in lighting temporarily dazzled him, so his first impression of Vassilis was tonal rather than visual.

“Welcome, Doctor Watkins, we are in your debt and in my family such things are not taken lightly.”

The voice bore the hallmarks of an Oxbridge education spoken through a near eastern filter. Steve took the proffered handshake: the hand was large and fleshy, the cold grasp almost nonexistent. As his eyes adjusted to their surroundings Steve took his first clear sight of his host.

Vassilis was tall, fleshily built with a sallow complexion, his face fat-lipped with a strongly aquiline nose and jet black hair slicked back from his forehead. His eyes were heavily lidded and almost lazily half shut, part concealing the striking green of the iris. The room was a cross between a richly furnished study and a highly selective archaeological museum, with a vibrantly patterned mosaic floor. At its far end were French windows leading to a vast terrace. Following the direction of Steve’s gaze at the floor, Vassilis said,

“Yes, you would be correct in your surmise, Doctor Watkins, the floor is genuine, although obviously re-laid, and the same applies to all the other artefacts that I see you find so fascinating. Later I will allow you time to study them at your leisure: a privilege afforded to few of the current rather primitive inhabitants of our island. Come follow me to the terrace.”

Steve followed, wondering what he meant by current inhabitants; Vassilis continued,

“We tend to keep them at a distance as far as social intercourse is concerned; such company as merits engagement is supplied from the ranks of the expatriates, augmented by a few local savants of discerning taste. But there are compensations as you can now see.”

They’d reached the terrace which projected over a shelf of rock overlooking a series of terraced levels as the land fell away to the Aegean glistening hundreds of feet below. To the right of the terrace, steps led down to what appeared to be a private park. Vassilis gestured to some comfortable rattan chairs circling a table in the shade and sat down.

“You will have gathered from my observations that my ancestry and tenure rather pre-dates the current denizens of the island, who only re-settled here a couple of centuries ago. We have therefore to take especial care of our bloodline, which is of course why my family is so much in your debt, Doctor Watkins.”

The maid silently glided on to the terrace and placed a tray with a terracotta jar and two richly glazed beakers on the table.

“Ah, a cool jug of sherbet, it wets the appetite I find. I trust you will take some with me, you must be parched in this heat.”

The maid returned with some small plates of meze for the table, poured and handed Steve a beaker, Vassilis motioned her to leave. The drink was wonderfully cool and trickles of condensation flecked the surface of the jar. For a while they picked at the delicacies and looked out across the mountain over towards the sea as Vassilis told Steve about the house and the archaeological exotica it contained. Then he became formal.

“So, on behalf of my son, I would like to thank you. He at present is recovering in a private facility, not in the hospital where he was taken of course. But he will be here next week for the cricket match and you will receive his thanks then. No need to look so surprised, Doctor Watkins, you must understand that things are different in my demesne than they are on the rest of the island. We look at things differently here, it gives experience a particular savour. As my friend Pico della Mirandola once said, ‘Magic calls up the living forces of nature.’ But I talk too much, your guide is here already.”

Steve followed the direction of Vassilis’s gaze and saw a young woman standing behind his chair. She was tall, amply fleshed, almost heavy featured, yet at the same time strikingly beautiful, thick black hair tied back with a red ribbon. She wore a simple long white dress split to the knee and gold sandals. Steve, who hadn’t said a single word to Vassilis, was even more overawed by her and felt so out of his comfort zone that he wouldn’t have been surprised if a Lapith or Centaur followed her onto the terrace.

“Permit me to introduce my daughter, Alekka, Doctor Watkins, she will show you some of the surprises our little estate contains and generally keep you entertained until we gather for our feast of thanks and celebration this evening. I must apologize for the moment; there are matters to which I must attend. But I think you will find Alekka a livelier and certainly more attractive companion.”

She held out her hand which was firm and cold, smiling with her eyes as well as her mouth, and when she spoke her breath carried the trace of mint.

“I also thank you on behalf of my brother Antonis, and I think that as an archaeologist you will find much to interest you on our walk round. Very few on this island get to see what I will now show you. Come, we will start with what is most recent.”

He followed her to the steps leading from the terrace and along a path sloping gently down through an area of lawn and flower-beds. Steve wondered how much of the island’s precious water was needed to transform this barren mountainside into the facsimile of an English garden. But there was a greater surprise waiting for him. They passed through a fringe of orange and lemon trees and onto an area landscaped flat with, at its centre, a cricket square on which a series of sprinklers were playing. Before he could express his surprise, Alekka gave way to a shout of laughter and clapped her hands.

“It was almost worth all the effort and expense wasted on this silly toy of my father’s just to see the expression on your face. It reminds him of his time in England, it is one of the few in Greece and I think the best, even though we use it only twice a year. Next Sunday there will be a game and you will be here, I hope.”

Steve, struggling to come to terms with his surroundings, asked her who played here.

“There are some rich countrymen of yours who live here, because it would not be good for them to remain in their own land, and also some special people from other islands. It is easy for them to get here, look: over there is where they land their helicopters.”

Steve looked and saw a landing area sufficient for a number to land and park up. She took his hand; he relished the cold firm grasp.

“Now, we turn round and walk towards the sea and look at what is old here. This I think will be of more interest to you oh Kirios, archaeologist.”

They walked out of the cricket field back through the lawn, passed across the rear of the house to stand on a small plateau overlooking the sea. Below them were the terraces he’d seen earlier, on the nearest some ancient stone foundations of buildings.

“That, where you now look, Doctor Watkins, is all that is left of a very old village.”

Aware of the island’s history, Steve asked her if the village had been deserted during the last evacuation two hundred years ago.

“No, it was abandoned long before and for worse reasons. On this island these superstitious people believe that this village was cursed; they will not come here or even talk about it.”

“But it doesn’t bother your family?”

“No: in fact most of the good stone from that village you will find in the walls of our house. Now look further down to that flat space just above the sea. They say that somewhere under that scrub and bushes something very ancient is hidden, buried, and it is that which so frightened those villagers.”

“And that doesn’t bother your family either, I suppose?”

“No, of course not, why should it bother us? But no one goes there these days.”

Steve gazed down to the sea gently shimmering under the sun and drank in the beauty of the place. He was close enough to Alekka to catch the scent of her perfume and hear her soft breathing. He was possessed by an urge to kiss her and say that, in some way, this place had always been waiting here for him. Instead he asked,

“How long have your family lived here?”

She smiled at the question but answered seriously.

“For ever I think, our clan, our family I mean, is very old, older than anything else that you will find on this island.”

While she was speaking Steve, like any good field archaeologist, was looking at the ground under his feet and scraping at it with his boots. He knelt down and picked up a couple of small sharp objects, which he spat on and then rubbed vigorously before showing her.

“What is the significance of this, please?”

“These are bits of obsidian: they’ve been worked to make tools, this one here is an offcut of some small tool like a knife and if you look around carefully you can see other bits scattered all around. They’re Neolithic at the latest, so there are things here even older than your family.”

She looked at the flints for a few seconds then threw them down the slope towards the sea.

“You see, Steve, like I told you, we are here a very long time.”

Feeling she didn’t get the significance of the flints he elaborated.

“The really interesting thing is that these flints wouldn’t occur here naturally, so this place must have been important enough for them to be brought here.”

She laughed and he realised that she found him amusing.

“Yes, just like cricket pitch, but I am no longer interested in your little rocks, and we have something else to see before we rejoin my father.”

She must have seen by his expression that she’d disappointed him; she took his hand with a smile and began to pull him back onto the path that led to the house.

“Today is a beautiful day, Steve; a special day. There will be other chance to come and meet with your silly little rocks.”

Before they reached the house, she turned to the right, where beyond a grove of trees in a natural glade stood a church which Steve attributed to the middle ages. It was small but beautiful; made of dressed stone probably robbed from the Island’s classical buildings.

“You see, Steve, I told you we would see something better than your old stones; this is beautiful and very old: come on inside.”

She pulled him to the door. Inside the church was lit by large candelabra and perfumed by incense. The walls were painted with exquisite murals, brightly coloured, depicting what he thought must be scenes from the Bible, but none of which he could place. As he looked more closely he noticed that the artist had arranged the scenes with great skill. The eye of the observer was drawn, after the first glance, away from the centre of the mural towards the fringes. At the margins of the pictures unexpected things were happening. He was going to look closer when he heard the sound of something moving behind the altar and, on turning round, saw a black shadow move through a doorway out of the room. Alekka took his hand again and pulled him towards the door and the light.

“That is Father John, our priest. You will meet him later when we eat. Now I am fed up of looking at old dead things; I want life and what it offers, come, we go back to the house.”

When they got back to the room with the terrace it was empty but, as if she had been waiting, the ancient maid appeared. Alekka turned to go.

“I will leave you now, Steve, but see you for a drink before dinner; this place is very lovely at night. Electra will show you to your room where you can rest and shower then change into the clothes you will find laid out for you. You will join us please on the terrace at seven, the sunset here is special I think.”

He followed the maid Electra down a long flight of stairs leading into the heart of the mountain, then along a cool carpeted corridor ending in a whitewood door. Inside was a large chamber with a window cut through the rock looking out over sheer cliffs falling away to the sea. Beneath the window stood a chaise longue on which a white linen suit and silk shirt had been laid out with a pair of soft leather, ankle high boots. Steve had not expected to be staying, but the realisation that he was delighted him. He threw himself onto the large bed and lay on his back, thinking of Alekka.

He woke suddenly, taking a while to get his bearings. Through the window he could see it was still bright but that the angle of the sun had shifted, he checked his watch, and it was past six. At the stroke of seven, freshly showered and feeling good in the perfectly fitting clothes, he walked onto the terrace to join the strange group gathered with drinks to watch the sunset. Later, when he tried to recall that night it was without any ordered sequence; just a series of brightly lit, intense images. The blood-red sun sinking behind the mountains at one end of the bay as the shadows crawled up the mountain at the other was a spectacular backdrop. As the darkness was rising they moved from the terrace to an elegantly laid table set below in the cool of gardens. On the terrace he’d been introduced to the other guests by Alekka, who acted as his personal hostess: they were an odd mix.

At the table, Vassilis insisted that he occupy the place of honour at his right and he watched in disappointment as Alekka moved down to the far end. Across the table was the wife of Dougie, an English resident. Dougie looked to Steve like a gangster tax exile; he told him he’d made a packet out of arms exporting before political correctness got in the way of business and ruined the country. Brandi, his wife, who apparently liked a drink, was, he guessed, in her late thirties, younger than her husband. She was a tanned blonde wearing a dress with a low cleavage and, as the wine flowed and the evening progressed, rubbed Steve’s leg with her bare feet under the table. Usually he would have responded to the invitation; tonight it was an embarrassment. Vassilis said to Steve without bothering to lower his voice,

“Contrary to what you might think we do produce some excellent wine in Greece: this one, for instance, is from my estate near Patras: but for her the vinegar that the local peasants drink would be enough.”

Brandi giggled then hiccupped; Vassilis tapped his glass with a knife then stood up and proposed a toast.

“We will drink to the health and happiness of Doctor Steven Watkins to whom I, and therefore all of you, owe a debt of gratitude. He has preserved a very special bloodline, and so here on this island he is protected and what he wants, he gets.”

He sat down and as Steve listened to the polite applause that followed, he wondered at the curious choice of words, seeming to contain elements of some kind of warning. However, with each succeeding course and the accompanying wine his focus blurred; shortly after Brandi had got up from the table and staggered off towards the house, Vassilis had grasped Steve’s elbow.

“Ah, there is coming someone whom I would like you to meet.”

Steve followed the direction of his gaze as a figure appeared to detach itself from the dark. As it moved to within the range of the low lights and gentle candles its blackness seemed to deepen rather than diminish.

“Permit me to introduce Father John. He, amongst the many other demands made upon his particular talents on the island, looks after our spiritual needs and tends to our ancient chapel, which I believe you have seen and which is by far the oldest here. Indeed you were lucky to have seen it; we are very careful about who is granted access. Lucky also to be here at this time to meet him, as owing to a rare and quite complicated condition he prefers to avoid daylight.”

Steve felt Vassilis found this speech amusing. It was courteous yet masked some hidden joke. He had no further time to brood on it as Father John was now moving into the seat recently vacated by Brandi; Vassilis continued.

“The hour is late, and as I still have much to complete today I must ask you to excuse me: you have done me great service, I am in your debt and I invite you to stay with us next weekend for the cricket match: perhaps you would like to take part. Antonis will be back with us then, but of course he is still too weak to participate. I now must bid you goodnight and leave you to the estimable Father.”

He stood to leave and Steve noticed, to his dismay, that Alekka also got up from the table and after blowing him a farewell kiss in which he tried to read a message, she followed her father towards the house. Most of the guests had dispersed leaving just himself and Father John at his end of the table.

“I have, of course, heard of you, Kirios Watkins, and would like to add my thanks for the way in which you have preserved something rare and very special. I would, of course, have joined you earlier had it not been for the particular nature of my metabolism but I am sure you will forgive me for this, shall we say, weakness.”

Whatever the meaning of this was, it washed over Steve. All he could focus on was the appearance of the creature sitting opposite him. It was, he knew, the priest he had seen lurking in the shadows of the chapel earlier but up close and at night he was a far more alarming proposition. He was clothed from chin to ankles in a long black cassock with a scarf of some similarly dark material covering his throat and a black broad-brimmed hat pulled down almost to his eyebrows. Steve had drunk plenty of champagne and wine and was feeling quite chilled but one glance at the priest’s face killed any impulse he might have had to laugh at the exaggerated costume.

The face, where not covered by a straggly deep black beard, was a pallid, almost chalk, white, scarred by some type of virulent red acne and the contrast of the sick red with the dead white was not easy to look upon. Father John studied him carefully through eyes strangely glassy and bloodshot, like those of someone who had stared too long at the sun. Steve felt the eyes scrutinising him and dropped his own gaze.

Later, he remembered little of the time he sat with the priest in the cool and perfumed night air; except he felt mesmerised as he listened. He knew they’d talked about the history and legends of the island, and how the forces that shaped the past were still at work. He thought the priest had shown him a beautiful prehistoric flint knife he’d found by the church. Large black carrion birds swept across the lawns and settled in the nearby trees, the leathery rustle and creaking of their wings disturbed him. The priest laughed.

“Ah, see our friends of the night; crows.”

Steve asked,

“But birds like that don’t live here, and anyway they are not meant to fly at night, are they?”

The priest laughed.

“Do you not recall the writings of your English man of letters Robert Burton: in his fascinating study of melancholy he says, if I recall correctly,”

then he quoted from memory.

“God permits the Devil to appear in the form of crows and such like to scare those who live wickedly.”

He made a noise that might have been a chuckle.

“But do not worry, my friend, for here it is not you they will worry, and I hope that you and I in the weeks to come will enjoy many hours together.”

Steve couldn’t remember how he got back to his room, but that night he dreamt again the awful dream where crows swooped from the Skendleby trees to dismember the Reverend Ed Joyce.

He woke in bright sunlight, sprawled across his bed fully dressed, to the sound of knocking at his door. He opened it to find the shaven headed driver.

“Kirios, you have slept too long. Now it is late, I will drive you direct to where you work.”

Chapter 5:
Something Snaps

Theodrakis’s head ached as he walked through dazzling sunlight in Central Square towards the dilapidated university building standing in the shade of some straggly trees. These, like the building’s neoclassical facade, had been allowed to go to seed.

As usual he’d slept badly; wasn’t sure if he’d really slept at all, just lain awake in a delusional dreamlike state. But he figured he must have slept because at one point in the night he heard birds scratching their claws and beating their wings on the closed shutters. He hated birds and was repelled by the thought of their feathers or bodies touching him. He reassured himself it must have been a nightmare.

He crossed the short walkway leading from the square to the double doors, one of which stood half open. They’d seen better days and needed a coat of paint and new handles. The door scraped on the floor as he pushed it open: inside was a dark and deserted vestibule with a broken drink dispensing machine standing in the centre of a floor paved with black tiles decorated with white zigzags. The tiles were cracked and the floor dirty; the space exuded an atmosphere of deep melancholy. There was no reception and no one answered his call, so he followed the only corridor which had any lights on and by good fortune, at the end of it, was a door bearing the name of Professor Andraki. He knocked and went in.

Inside, sitting either side of a desk, were Andraki and a man with close cropped white hair. He was good looking with a youngish face marred by a damaged right ear and deep worry lines. Andraki introduced him as Doctor Steve Watkins, an English archaeologist working at the university. He was clearly anxious that Watkins should leave the room before the police business commenced so after shaking hands he ushered him to the door. Theodrakis sensed Professor Andraki was uneasy; his hands shook and his breath carried the distinct aroma of aniseed, which indicated he’d already hit the raki.

“You must forgive me, Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis, but I do not feel well and I don’t think that I can be of any more help in this business. You must understand I am an academic, which is why I was first consulted, I have given all the help I can, I have a family you understand.”

Theodrakis didn’t understand, but knew if he remained silent Andraki would continue to talk and give him time to consider how to best steer the conversation. As he expected, after a pause, Andraki rattled on.

“Now things are becoming too much: there is Vassilis telling me I must give more interesting work to that Englishman as well as being made to be a part of these murders, and all because I supplied some helpful information.”

He came to a stop and sat in his high backed chair looking like a frightened child. Theodrakis found himself pitying the man as he continued to struggle his way through the broken narrative which obviously caused him so much anxiety.

“Listen, please, Syntagmatarchis, you must believe me, I must have been a little crazy when I told the police what I had observed at those sites. I think I am a little crazy, unwell, I cannot sleep, please, you are obviously an educated man, get them to leave me alone.”

Theodrakis used this plea as his cue.

“Professor, believe me, I am no happier to be here doing this than you are; by the way do I detect from your accent that you too are Athenian?”

“Yes, and I wish that I was still there, but you understand the way the Greek education bureaucracy works, we get moved around just like you.”

“Well, we Athenians must stick together. Listen, you tell me what you can to help me and I’ll do what I can to keep you out of this mess.”

“Including from that animal, Samarakis?”

“Especially from him.”

“Do I have any other choice?”

“No you don’t really have any other choice, Professor; but I think that I could persuade them that all further contact comes through me. I am sure they would agree to that, but I would need a clear understanding of what your observations actually mean and you are the only person who can give me that.”

So in this way, Theodrakis came to hear how Professor Andraki got himself tangled up in the investigation.

“When they discovered the first body, I was looking at some Neolithic burials near the Geometric period burial site in Pythagoreio. One morning I saw that one of the larger grave sites had been disturbed: well, more than disturbed, it had been vandalised, not just robbed, an attempt had been made to damage it, to desecrate it, you understand? Why do that after all these thousands of years?

“I was angry of course, and a little confused, but there wasn’t much I could do so I just filed a report and put it out of my mind. Then a few weeks later, and I am sure you can see where this is going Syntagmatarchis, one of our post graduate survey teams contacted me. Another site from the same period had been similarly desecrated. A site that is unique on the island or anywhere else for that matter. We’d kept this site a close secret to avoid unwelcome attention until we could record and analyse it in detail prior to publication.”

While he was talking Andraki grew paler, and by the time he stumbled to a halt he was dead white. Theodrakis was himself beginning to feel uncomfortable in the close, airless room and worried that the Professor might become too unwell to continue. He suggested they go outside and perhaps get a coffee; Andraki agreed with alacrity, obviously keen to leave his office. They walked across the main square to a smaller one and sat under the shade of a cafe umbrella.

On the walk Theodrakis noticed the number of workless men begging on the streets seemed to be increasing and their behaviour becoming more aggressive. Many of these weren’t Islanders which caused further friction; some were Albanians who in better times worked as waiters in the tourist season. One of these, a shabby man with a vivid birthmark across the left side of his face, noticed Theodrakis staring, made a gesture with his fingers at him and then spat in the gutter. Theodrakis ignored him, reflecting that Island society was disintegrating but the situation was worse in Athens.

He ordered a mineral water for himself and a coffee for Andraki, then added a raki which the professor said he needed to settle a nervous stomach. This medicine disappeared in two swallows and settled the stomach sufficiently to allow Andraki to continue his narrative.

“The damage done to this site might have destroyed unique evidence, so of course I went back to the Police and this time they were interested. Not because of the archaeology of course, they couldn’t care less about that, but because it coincided with the discovery of the second body. It was also the day that the island news agency received the murderer’s curse.”

Theodrakis interrupted him,

“But that was shown to be a fake.”

“Well, that was the official line, but when you consider the message alongside the clay tablets it’s not so easy to dismiss.”

“Just stop there a moment: what do you mean by the clay tablets?”

“It was decided to keep it quiet but I thought that you would have known about that.”

This rattled Theodrakis; why didn’t he know about it and what else was being kept from him?

“Well, tell me about it anyway, I’ll order you another raki for your digestion.”

Andraki ignored the sarcasm; but he wanted another drink, the nightmare was getting too close.

“When the curse was delivered to the news, it was in a sealed envelope which also contained an old baked clay tablet with some form of ancient script on it and the police wanted me to tell them what it meant. It was unlike any I’d seen but had similarities to early Uruk period script from Mesopotamia. It was a curse like the ones we know from the later Fara scripts, but too old to translate with any certainty. But we assumed it was similar in content to the modern paper one.”

This Theodrakis did know about, the paper had foolishly printed it so that almost every islander could now quote it from memory:

“Something more ancient than anything on your polluted island now walks amongst you.”

He snapped back at Andraki,

“You know there isn’t an actual clear link between that ambiguous gibberish and the murders. Any deranged oddball could have written it.”

“Yes, and that’s what the police thought until the paper received the second message. By this time the editor had learned to apply a level of discretion so it wasn’t published, but the tablet that accompanied this one was slightly later in date. No don’t stop me now or I may not start again and I want to get all this out of my system. The written message as you know said only ‘Look for me in that place of terror’. But the tablet was in a type of script in use at Ur about four and a half thousand years ago, at least fifteen hundred years later than the first one. Both tablets were genuine, Syntagmatarchis, I know that, it’s my specialism; I have excavated at both Eridu and Shuruppak.”

“Well, then you will know that the tablets are not related to Samos.”

“That’s what I would like to believe, yes; but ask yourself, is it not curious that the tablets and modern curses claim to be from the murderer and that every time we find a body another Neolithic site on the island is vandalised?”

“So there have been more than two?”

“Yes, and I am convinced that now we have your body from the river we will find another; only this time I will have nothing to do with it, this has damaged me enough already.”

Theodrakis could see he believed what he said but had one more question.

“You said that the script of the second tablet was later; were you able to understand it?”

“Oh yes, I could transcribe it and read it all right: there are thousands of tablets written in the same script. It’s a form of Sumerian but the odd thing is that it was made at a time when Sumerian was no longer used. I think that both tablets refer back to something much older to a time before metal, in fact to the Neolithic. The very context of the sites disturbed here on Samos; odd, so much coincidence, don’t you think?”

“So what does it say?”

“I am not sure it will help you much but it reads ‘E-temen-ni-gur-ru’. This roughly translates as ‘house whose foundation platform is clad in terror’. And I don’t think that gets you much further. The precise meaning is impossible to construe but it indicates something has been built over some pre-existing feature associated with dread. I find it hard not to connect that with the fact that Neolithic burials are being disrupted on this island. Any link with the gruesome murders I don’t want to know.”

He sat back and downed the second raki. Theodrakis sat confused. Andraki got up to leave; as he turned to go he asked a question almost as an afterthought.

“Oh, one thing, Syntagmatarchis, here is a question you probably should be asking yourself. Why did your colleagues not tell you any of this? What are they trying to hide?”

Theodrakis watched him walk away across the square and then ordered a raki for himself, not caring how out of character this was. His mind was spinning dangerously and he needed something to arrest it. What Andraki said made weird sense of what Lucca had told him about at least one of the murder weapons being some type of flint blade.

But what really shook him was closer to home: his colleagues not only disliked him, they were deliberately withholding evidence from him. He couldn’t believe that any level of dislike would persuade cops or their civil service bosses to do that. After all, this was their island and their women were also at risk, they were as scared of this as everyone else. He shouted to the waiter for another drink and as he waited he remembered a cult film he’d watched with a group of friends as a student.

Something about a cop who had been lured to a remote island to solve a kidnapping case but ended up being ritually sacrificed himself. He thought it might have been an English film and remembered they had laughed about it at the time. It didn’t seem funny now, on a different island in similar circumstances. He sat nursing the drink and brooding.

Sometime later he got up, left some money and set off for the police station. He would have it out with them; either they were straight with him or he would inform Athens about the state of policing on the island.

He knew influential people and his father was a man to be reckoned with. Walking to the police station through the stifling hot streets, his anger grew as he concocted how he’d confront them. He knew what he was planning was imprudent but his frustration and the raki drove him on.

As he reached the flight of steps leading up to the station entrance, the automatic doors slid open and the slovenly figure of Samarakis shambled out. He knew that of all the people he might have confronted about this, Samarakis was the least appropriate but before he had time to reconsider they were face to face.

“Been for any more paddles in rivers have we, Mr big shot Athenian?”

Samarakis laughed at his own joke and as Theodrakis opened his mouth to reply he said,

“And you’ve been drinking I see, nice that some of our local customs are rubbing off on you.”

Before he could say more Theodrakis had him by the throat.

“Listen you fat ignorant pig, I know you’ve been withholding information from me; so what does that make you? Not laughing now, you fat fuck, are you?”

He could see the surprise in Samarakis eyes as clearly as he could see his spittle flecking the podgy cheeks. Samarakis tried to shake him off and gasped out.

“Look, people are watching; stop this, it’s doing neither of us any good.”

And now shocked himself, he dropped his hands letting Samarakis breathe and talk more easily.

“Listen maybe we’ve not been fair to you, you know, overdone it a bit, but you’ve not helped yourself. We’ll talk later; I’ll fill you in properly but not here, like this, better tomorrow.”

Theodrakis said nothing but watched as Samarakis shuffled off noticing that around his neck he wore a charm to ward off the evil eye. The small crowd that had gathered to watch dispersed, and Theodrakis stood for a moment on the steps alone and shamed. He couldn’t bring himself to enter the building, nor could he face going back to his apartment in Vathia. It was at that moment, feeling at his lowest ebb, he remembered someone on his first day recommending a small fishing village on the other side as somewhere to chill. He walked back into town, brought a new shirt and toothbrush, and flagged down a taxi.

Later, sitting on the balcony of his hotel room overlooking the sea, he considered his options. He’d been dropped off at the hotel by the taxi driver who told him he’d have no trouble getting a room. Normally during the tourist season the place was packed, but not this last couple of years. In fact, the hotel was more than half empty and the man watching football in the empty bar who welcomed him gave him a choice of rooms. He chose the best they had: a sea view with balcony and air conditioning. He lay down on the bed and slipped easily into a deep and mercifully dream free sleep.

When he awoke, the sun was setting behind the mountain diffusing the room with soft light; he was hungry so after throwing some water over his face he grabbed his jacket and went out. He felt free, no one knew he was here, his problems could wait. The harbour was lined with a scattering of tavernas and bars, all of them half empty except for a scruffy one that was obviously the haunt of the local fishermen. This bar had a large group of men talking loudly clustered round a backgammon table.

He recognised, to his surprise, the Englishman he’d seen with Andraki that morning amongst this group, and he envied him. He followed the waterfront to the last taverna by the harbour mouth; only one table was taken and the waitress was sitting by the entrance reading. He’d intended, out of some strange instinct of loyalty, to eat at the hotel, but this place appealed to him and he sat at the table nearest to the water and gazed out beyond the harbour to the mountains fringing the bay.

A slight breeze ruffled the surface of the water and he watched the refracted reflection of the sun on the sea fade as night came in. The waitress looked up from her book and came over to the table. She was slim with short black hair and unusually tall. When she took his order a smile lit up her face, rendering her beautiful. He ordered a beer, followed by another, then feeling hungry asked for the menu. She laughed.

“There is no menu tonight: we have some octopus stifado or we could make an omelette if you prefer.”

He opted for the stifado and a jug of white wine. The food was surprisingly good, the wine thin and harsh. But the night air was cool and the stars hung over the bay. He asked the waitress to sit down and help with the wine. She agreed to sit, as he was by now the only customer, but declined his offer of the wine, preferring a coke.

Her name was Hippolyta. She’d not managed to find a suitable job after university so had borrowed money to open a shop for tourists; after a year the economic crash scuppered tourism and the shop went bust. Now she was in debt and a waitress. They talked until the place closed and when he asked if she worked here every night, she said no but told him she’d be there tomorrow.

Later, as he sat on his balcony looking at the stars, he tried to imagine somewhere else out there in the multiverse where one of the infinite versions of himself had had the courage to ask her out.

Chapter 6:
Slow Turn

Steve heard her before he saw her: the siren blasts from the car horn not only startled him but everyone else in the village. He looked out of the window to see the silver sports car, roof down, with Alekka at the wheel.

“Kirios Steve, you must be quick, Saturday morning is almost gone and you have a match of cricket to play.”

He was both alarmed and pleased; no formal arrangement had been made for this weekend and he hadn’t been sure if anyone would collect him. He was not sure about the cricket though.

“I don’t have anything to play in.”

“Do not worry, we have all the cricket costumes and protectors that you could need.”

He quickly swilled and spat out a shot of mouthwash and ran downstairs. As he closed the door behind him he remembered he’d left his phone on charge in the flat, but the proximity of Alekka drove the thought from his mind. He climbed into the passenger seat and she leant across and lightly kissed him on the mouth.

“Why I let you kiss me, Steve, I do not know after you make no attempt to call me since you leave my father’s house last Sunday.”

He recognised this as a tease but was pleased by its implications so he said nothing, just sat back in his seat and stared at her bare brown legs as the car accelerated away from the curb and sped through the narrow twisting back lanes of the village towards the main road. Had he bothered to look, he would have seen two old village women swathed in traditional black make a gesture with their first and fourth fingers then spit into the road. The car shot straight over the cross roads without pausing and up the hill, screaming round each bend. Exhilarated by speed, danger and the beautiful driver, Steve luxuriated in the rush of hot air and sunlight. When they came to the roundabout where a right turn bypassed the small hilltop town, Alekka, instead of turning, carried straight on, and noticing that Steve was going to ask her why, she braked abruptly.

“If you want to see why we are taking the slow way, look over there.”

He turned his head towards the bypass and saw about fifty metres from the exit there was a police barrier.

“Death has been discovered there, Steve, and they are very frightened because it’s one of their own. They only knew about it early this morning - a shepherd found the body.”

“What? You mean a cop’s been killed?”

“Yes, either that or suicide, they are not sure, they say the body is one of those who are investigating the demonic killings.”

To most people, the word demonic would have seemed either quaint or just the mistranslation of a more ordinary word; but not to him after Skendleby. He privately hoped it was suicide brought on by personal problems but asked,

“How can you say that if they’ve only just found the body?”

“Because we know everything, Steve. My family knows everything that happens on this island, sometimes before it happens; I thought you already understood that.”

She laughed and gently put her hand on the back of his neck just below the hairline and spoke while looking tenderly into his eyes.

“Oh, Steveymou, you look as if you are afraid of me now, it was a little joke, I thought you English loved to make a joke of all things in life. I know these things because the entire island knows. There was an argument, perhaps even a fight, depending which version you believe, between the two senior police who investigate the murders. The pale Athenian and Samarakis: The entire world saw it. It was on the steps of the big new police building in Karlovasi.

“So I have a good idea whose body they examine over there: that fat pig Samarakis is a very bad man to cross and he has many wicked connections. But we will not talk more of it, as I see it has begun to spoil your day, Steve; and it is a day that was going so well, was it not?”

She didn’t wait for a reply, just gunned the engine and sent the car screaming through the narrow silent streets of Marathakampos. It had disturbed his day and to an extent, he figured, that even she couldn’t guess. It took the whole of the nerve jangling car journey before he regained his earlier sense of anticipation.

The car tore into the courtyard and screeched to a stop. He saw several expensive black windowed cars parked up and members of staff carrying baggage from them into the house, and he hadn’t even remembered a toothbrush.

“You get out here, Steve, and go to my father’s terrace; there you will find a surprise, then you play cricket. You will find the uniform laid in the changing tent. Today will be busy, but tonight after the party you might like to walk with me in the garden.”

She reversed at speed out of the courtyard and the car screeched noisily away. He entered the house and followed the sound of laughter and voices, emerging shortly after onto the crowded terrace. Vassilis saw him and motioned for silence which instantaneously followed his gesture. He moved towards Steve took him by the arm and led him to the centre of the crowd which reshaped itself into an audience around them.

“This is Doctor Steve Watkins, the man who saved the life of my son, who would now like to thank him in front of you all for the gift of his life.”

In the shadows under the awning at the far side of the terrace Steve recognised the young driver threading his way through the throng of guests. He was pale but apart from a dressing round his neck looked in much better shape than Steve had expected. He crossed to Steve, mumbled thanks in English and then kissed Steve on both cheeks, looking unhappy at having to perform such an act in public. In fact, Steve felt he resented being brought face to face with his obligation. Vassilis led a round of applause as the kiss was delivered and himself embraced and kissed Steve on both cheeks. Then raised his arms above his head in an archaic gesture and pronounced,

“It is fitting that Doctor Watkins is able to take the place of Antonis in our island team, and now we will process to the chapel for the blessing. Afterwards we will take a stirrup cup and pour a libation before we go to meet our opponents on the cricket field.”

He led the way down the steps towards the chapel; Steve found it hard not to laugh, but didn’t have time to think further as a soft hand gripped him by the arm and looking round he saw Brandi next to him, this time sober. She squeezed his arm and whispered in his ear,

“You and I have unfinished business, I’ll catch you up later at the party, until then enjoy your little game with the boys.”

Then she headed away towards the garden with the other women and Steve realised that this was to be an all-male ritual. Everything he hated. They filed into the incense laden air of the chapel, each making a little genuflection before standing at a pew. Vassilis gestured for them to sit.

Father John slithered from the shadows behind the altar looking even more creepy than Steve remembered, so much so that he didn’t want to look at him so, instead, he looked at the wall paintings; but they were even worse, so he sat with his eyes closed wondering when he would wake up.

To his relief the blessing, whatever it meant, was short and didn’t involve any contact with the corpselike priest. There followed a bizarre ritual that stopped just short of a being a parody of the Eucharist as a large silver chalice was raised in the air and passed round all the seated men. As he waited for his turn, Steve felt like an unwelcome guest at one of the drinking societies for rich public school boys when they reach university. It also crossed his mind that Vassilis was playing a cruel practical joke on them simply because he had the power. Like Stalin who, after dinner and drink, liked to make his generals and senior politicians dance with each other while he stood changing the records and watching.

There was no more time to reflect on power and humiliation as the chalice reached him. Inside was a reddish liquid which at first he feared might be blood but turned out to chilled sparkling red wine. When everyone had drunk, the chalice was returned to Vassilis who carried it outside and set off towards the cricket pitch followed by his congregation.

A sizeable crowd, gathered under large sunshades, already fringed the boundary and as Vassilis appeared they applauded him as he walked across to the square, where he held the chalice briefly above his head before pouring the dregs onto the wicket. The two captains who followed him stood as he tossed the coin then moved away towards an elaborate marquee set up at the far end of the ground. A large and florid Brit, who had been introduced to Steve, although he had forgotten his name, took him by the arm.

“Come on, you’re with us; your kit will be laid out in the tent, looks like poor old Dougie lost the toss as usual and we’ll have to field in this heat.”

Steve, already sweating with discomfort and feeling like a walk on part in someone else’s nightmare, asked him,

“Have you done this before?”

“Too bloody right I have: no one with any sense would consider saying no to one of Vassilis’s invitations: the Greeks because they’re scared shitless by him, and us because we have to live on this island. Things might be a bit uncomfortable for us if we had to go back home. Still, the party afterwards is always good particularly if you fancy a turn with Brandi.”

“Brandy?”

“Dougie’s wife, someone is normally prepared to take her off his hands for a bit.”

He said this with an expression that was half smirk, half leer, but lacked the charm of either. They reached the marquee which had a changing area for each team at opposite ends. There was a locker for each player with their names on, and inside Steve’s a complete brand new kit was laid out. He changed in a daze. It was all so strange that he was almost enjoying it; the care that was being taken of him was very flattering, and of course there was Alekka. While he was lacing his boots Dougie asked him,

“What do you do, Steve? You’re in for Antonis who, naturally, did anything he bloody well wanted to.”

The rest of the team laughed at this, but not too loudly; and Steve told them he didn’t mind as he hadn’t played for a bit and was rusty.

“Well, you’re bloody well going to have to do something; Vassilis expects it.”

“Bowl then, I guess.”

“What? Seam up medium I’ll bet. Better be good, we’re expected to win so I’ll bring you on once we’re through their openers; they’re the only decent bats they’ve got, the rest just slog so you shouldn’t do too much damage. Till then, double up between long off and fine leg.”

Steve had seldom been made to feel so unwanted and was impressed Dougie accomplished it with so few words. Somewhere outside, a loud bell rang and they left the shade of the marquee for the glare of the field. He saw Vassilis sitting on a large chair under an awning surrounded by courtiers like Xerxes above Salamis.

Suddenly he was nervous: he hadn’t played for years and there was now a large crowd. Alekka waved to him as he followed the rest of his team onto the field and he jogged off to his position on the boundary, now geographically as well as culturally peripheral to the rest of his teammates.

He stood in the heat as the opening bowlers, both of whom looked pretty quick, got carted all over the field. To his relief no catch came his way, and all he had to do was retrieve the ball from beyond the boundary rope on half a dozen occasions. This suited him, he didn’t want to be humiliated in front of Alekka. He was looking into the crowd trying to see where she’d moved to when he heard his name shouted by a red faced Dougie.

“Steve, replace Toggers at point, then take the next over at the marquee end.”

Steve now felt very nervous. He’d watched while Toggers’s bowling had been smeared all over the field and Toggers, or The Togster as he referred to himself, looked like a candidate for both a coronary and sunstroke. Fielding close at point made the game seem too immediate, and he fumbled the only ball that came to him. At the end of the over he made his way to the wicket where, after asking him what field he wanted, Dougie took the decision himself by taking out the slip and pushing the field deep to such an extent that it felt like the umpire, the non-striking batsmen and Steve were contagious.

He decided that instead of bowling the off-spin he had at school and university it might be safer to try and send down a couple of seam-up overs as accurately as he could and then retire to the safety of the boundary. He paced out a run then turned to bowl: the first ball went straight back over his head for six. He pitched the second a couple of yards shorter and it went over square leg for another six. He could feel his face reddening with embarrassment and heard Dougie and the others shouting at him; either abuse or encouragement, he couldn’t tell which.

Maybe the off-spin was a better bet. He measured a shorter run as the two batsmen and umpire laughed at him. The first ball didn’t even land but flew straight off the bat and over the boundary. He wanted the earth to swallow him up; his hands were sweating so much he couldn’t grip the ball so rubbed his right hand in the dirt by the crease.

He noticed as he ran in to bowl that the batsman wasn’t even bothering to take his guard; just looking at where he’d hit the next six. He aimed down his left arm and let the ball go with a flick of the fingers. This time it pitched and the seam gripped on the wicket, the ball straightened and hit the top of off stump. He threw his hands in the air and bellowed an unnecessary euphoric appeal. The crowd cheered, his teammates ran to congratulate him and he remembered why he used to love this game.

Dougie was right; after the openers they weren’t up to much and quickly folded. Steve bowled another three respectable overs, took a second wicket and walked off at the break feeling pretty good, waving modestly at Alekka who he saw applauding him. He was even disappointed that he wasn’t needed to bat as his team easily knocked off the runs for the loss of only three wickets.

When the final wicket fell, both teams and the crowd moved to the small rostrum where Vassilis presented Dougie, the winning captain, with the winner’s trophy, a heavy and expensive looking crystal vase decorated with a representation of the islands ancient temple. It was only as he was heading back to the house, having shaken hands with all the players, that he looked around him and saw how beautiful the setting of the ground was. Set high above the sea and fringed with olives and citrus trees it resembled a film set, even the parked-up helicopters conspired to give the place an aspect of exotic excitement and he felt impatient for the night to come on.

Later, showered and changed, Steve joined the party in the garden as below them the burnished red sun sunk into the waters of the Aegean. The gardens were lit by candle lanterns and two sheep were turning on spits. He took a glass of champagne offered by one of the servants and set off to find Alekka. Before he could, he was called over to join a group that included Dougie, Toggers and others from the team whose nicknames he couldn’t remember and got stuck in a bantering conversation which revolved around money, cars and golf: none of which Steve either had or could play. Then a gong sounded loudly and he followed them through a gap between two trees into the far garden where a long table, able to seat the sixty-odd of them, was laid.

Above, on a natural rock projecting out of the mountain, a young woman dressed in an ancient Greek Peplos with an olive circlet holding her hair, played a great harp. This time he was not seated near Vassilis and it occurred to him that this was because Antonis seemed to resent him, so he sat amongst the cricketers eating, drinking and feeling the enjoyable post match lassitude he remembered from his cricketing past. He was not anxious about Alekka. He just knew that at the right time she would come for him; and she did, dancing out of nowhere as fruit and liqueurs were being passed around.

By this time several of the party had drifted off to wander in the gardens and along the paths above the sea. Alekka looked at him, held out her hand; he got up and took it, and they walked away from the candlelit table into the darkness of the trees and the sound of the harp faded behind them.

“Come walk with me, Steveymou, and I will show you my favourite place on this island where no one will disturb us. But you must promise not to talk about how well you played that stupid game.”

Shortly, after the lights faded behind them, they heard a disturbance and the sound of a woman moaning in either pain or pleasure in the grove to their left. Alekka tugged at his hand pulling him towards a path leading in the direction of the sea.

“That woman, the wife of Dougie, shames him and all you English; if she was one of us things would be done.”

Steve said nothing as she led him further into the darkness. After a while he realised they’d begun to climb a steep gradient. There was a change in the feel of the air as they walked out from the cover of the trees and the sea lay moonlit hundreds of feet below. They’d emerged into a natural arbour in the cliff; a small gently sloping patch of grass perched high up flanked by sheer slabs of rock.

“I have loved this place all through time, this place is for me only, yet tonight I share it with you.”

Under normal circumstances he might have wondered about the phrase ‘all through time’ but tonight he felt that, having been tested on the cricket field, this was his reward. The place was magical, away from the world and for a while they stood together in the perfect stillness looking out across the glimmering Aegean. He could smell her perfume, hear the rustle of the thin material of her dress when she moved, and feel the place where their hips touched and her sweet breath kissed his face.

He waited for her and after a time that could have been seconds or hours she turned to him, as he had expected, and put her arms round his neck pulling his face towards hers. The kiss, soft at first, then urgent, sucked him in. Her tongue and gently biting teeth teased and excited him and his hand slipped down to her buttocks feeling the firm flesh beneath the thin material. She began to move her hips and press against him and he knew what would follow.

But it didn’t. Suddenly she stiffened and pulled away.

“Steve, we must go to my father now, he needs to see you.”

Strangely, despite his frustration and the lack of logic, he knew she was genuine and as sorry as he was they’d had to stop. She took his hand and they walked back through the woods to the house. Vassilis was in his study sitting within the narrow cone of light from an antique lamp; the rest of the room was shrouded in dark but Steve felt the presence of other people in the room he couldn’t see. Vassilis called him over and gestured for him to sit.

“I am sorry, Doctor Watkins, but your stay must be cut short, there are things on the island which demand my urgent attention.”

Steve could not stop himself blurting out,

“What things?”

Vassilis was not used to being questioned as Steve knew, but he answered him patiently in the manner of one explaining something to a child.

“This might surprise you but as yet we do not know; fire is near, it is circling as if dancing with these killings. Something is changing, changing irreversibly.”

While he said this, Steve sensed a movement in the darkness and the creak of wooden floorboards told him that someone was leaving the room. He turned to look and saw a shadowy figure move towards the door; he was certain it was Antonis. The figure joined hands with Alekka and together they left the study.

“Don’t worry, you will see her again soon; all I can tell you is that this in your best interest, it is better that you do not stay here tonight, think of it as being a precaution that we are taking, as caring hosts, for your safety.”

Steve started to speak but Vassilis raised a pudgy hand to silence him.

“Believe me, there are things you have no wish to see, you are a stranger and do not understand what transpires. Perhaps you have a part to play; but not yet I think. I will explain no more. Change, you see, can only be understood in retrospect. Are you familiar with the 17th century Japanese master Basho? No, I thought not, this quote is as close as I can get to your purpose.

“‘Breaking the silence

Of an ancient pond

A frog jumped into water

A deep resonance.’

“Now Dieter will drive you home.”

Steve turned and saw the shaven-headed driver standing behind him, though he’d heard no sound. Dieter motioned him to follow and as Vassilis turned back to his desk he saw the sepulchral figure of Father John emerge from the gloom and move to join him. Not a word was exchanged on the journey, which passed like a dream. In his apartment he saw his phone had a voice message waiting for him. He hoped it was Alekka and retrieved it.

“Hi, Steve, it’s Giles. I can’t explain on the phone but Claire and I have to see you, we’ll be on the first available flight either Monday or Thursday. There’s something else, I don’t suppose you get much news over there. Tim Thompson is dead; killed in Nice, the circumstances are unclear. Listen, Steve, I think you need to be careful OK? See you soon.”

Steve slumped onto the sofa and sat in the silence, and then he rummaged in his workbag and took out the unread letter from Tim Thompson.

Chapter 7:
The Keeper of the Dead

At least it was cool in the police morgue. Lucca drew the sheet back over the body to give it some sense of decency, he felt sick, knew he shouldn’t, knew it was meant to be part of the job. But what he’d had to examine, eviscerate and reconfigure these last few months wasn’t what he had signed up and left Italy for.

This one was the worst: one of their own; it made it too personal, too close to home. The thought of home made him grimace; this stuff, these mutilated unresting dead came home with him and filled his dreams. Made him not want to touch his wife or small children with his slender-fingered hands, no matter how hard he scrubbed them in the lab sink at the end of each day.

This one was extra pressure; every cop on the island needed him to find some evidence that would let them nail the bastard who was doing it. Before, they had wanted to nail him of course, but now they all felt threatened. To kill the others was bad enough but they’d been strangers, in fact some of them had been foreigners, tourists, and the way some of them walked about the place it was almost like they had been asking for it.

But this was a cop: it could have been any one of them lying on that table, under that sheet with an identification tag on their big toe, while back in darkened houses their wives, mothers and children wailed and mourned. It didn’t matter that it was a cop none of them had liked: now he was dead he was their brother, and this bastard who had done these terrible things to his body might now have them in his sights. Whatever the political bosses might say the old women had got it right; he had risen and now he moved among them spreading his contagion.

This one wasn’t the same in another respect too, it had been butchered differently; just as horrible but the pattern of killing and harvesting was horridly dissimilar. Perhaps it was meant to send an alternative message, or worse, perhaps it was a different thing doing the killing. The word ‘thing’ came to his mind more easily than man or person, as Lucca couldn’t envisage how a human being could do such things. How could a human being take so much care, expend such patience and time over these works of horror?

He heard the door of the morgue lab open and a pale man in an elegant suit came in.

“Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis, I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I’ve no doubt of that, you probably expected that I was still in for questioning. However even the police authority on this island is not stupid enough to think for a moment that I was involved in this; there’s no evidence and whatever else they think of me, they credit me with some intelligence.”

“So, it’s still your case then?”

“Unfortunately yes. I can’t put it off any longer, you’d better show him to me.”

Lucca pulled back the sheet and waited as Theodrakis looked over the body. He pulled a scented handkerchief from his pocket and held it over his mouth and signalled to Lucca to replace the sheet.

“He looks more frightening dead than he did alive, how could such a bull of a man allow this to happen to him? Lucca, would you mind if we discussed this somewhere else? I don’t think I can do it in here with him lying there like that.”

Lucca replaced the sheet and they walked to the door and as he reached to turn off the light Theodrakis said,

“No, leave it on, he shouldn’t be alone in there with the dark.”

After that Theodrakis didn’t speak again until they were some distance away from the building; they walked towards Lion Square where there was a selection of coffee houses and cafes. Theodrakis stopped at the first table of the first bar and asked the waiter who was sitting reading a paper for two large Samos brandies.

“Listen Lucca, I need one of these and I’m not drinking alone, when he comes back I’ll ask for some coffee.”

The waiter appeared with two tall glasses with an inch of the sweet sticky liquid in the bottom of each, Theodrakis picked his up with a shaky hand, drank half with one swallow and ordered two more and two espressos.

“Drink your brandy, you’ve got a lot of talking to do. I need to know how this one was different and your conclusions, if any, on what it signifies.”

Lucca took a sip of the brandy and felt it burn its way down his throat. The only conclusions came from a nightmare, but he had some nevertheless. First he asked a question of his own: one that had been worrying at him for some time.

“What about the bones? What does he do with the bones? Where does he put them?”

“Go on, expatiate.”

“Well, on each body, even Samarakis, bones are taken, carefully removed, mainly long bones from the left hand side of the body. Some are relatively easy to get at but others take skill and precision, five from each body except Samarakis where I think he was either short of time or felt the body was not important enough to warrant so much effort. Why take these bones? If it’s a message it’s one no one understands. Why haven’t we found any of them? Does he keep them and if he does, where? There are a lot of bones from five bodies and that’s only the ones we know about.”

He reached for his coffee and as he raised it to his lips caught a glimpse of the square; the small group of ragged men standing over at the far side by the National Bank had increased in number. These days Greeks struggled to find work but it was much harder for the immigrants, particularly the illegals. He sensed Theodrakis getting impatient, so continued.

“Listen, hear me out before you say anything, but it’s not only what was taken from Samarakis: it’s the way it was done. Have you considered that there might be more than one killer?”

Theodrakis rinsed the brandy round his mouth before answering.

“That makes no sense at all; we have a series of extreme murders with no precedent, no motive, nothing, so it’s hardly likely that someone else has suddenly hit upon the same idea for killing. That would stretch coincidence beyond credulity, don’t you think? And it can’t be a copycat murder because, for obvious reasons, we’ve not released any of the details of how the murderer operates.”

“I know how it sounds, but I’m certain that whoever butchered Samarakis is not the same person who killed the others. In my business you recognise the patterns, the way the knife was used. The way the cuts were made are all different, for instance all the others were done by someone using the knife in the right hand; this one was left handed.”

Lucca felt relief at having shared this dreadful suspicion with someone else and hoped that Theodrakis would have some logical explanation to prove him wrong. He swallowed the dregs of his cold coffee and noticed that the group of men in the square was still growing, some were shouting. Theodrakis asked him,

“What about the weapon, the knife, was that different too?”

“All the bodies could have had different blades used on them, but if you mean was it a flint blade like the others then I’m pretty sure it was.”

“That’ll give the archaeologists a field day, I can just see the headlines: ‘Stone Age man alive and well on Greek island’, although looking round this place perhaps it’s not so strange.”

He said this without a trace of humour, just bitterness. He turned to look at Lucca and softened his tone.

“I hope you’re wrong. The victims weren’t connected as far as we can establish and there’s no indication of any sexual element. So why would two people on a quiet island suddenly start killing strangers and mutilating their bodies with Stone Age technology?”

“Are you sure that the intention was to mutilate? The careful way it was done is more like ritual than frenzy. It’s not only the cutting; the tearing of the left ear lobes is common to them all.”

“You think this is some type of religious craze or something? Maybe we should bring all the priests in for questioning.”

“I’m only observing what is put before me, Syntagmatarchis, you’re the detective.”

He got no further; there was a sudden increase in shouting and the sound of breaking glass at the far end of the square. They got to their feet and saw that the ragged men had been joined by younger ones dressed in black with scarves covering their faces. They were throwing stones at the bank and there was smoke. People in the square scattered as the group began to smash the windows of parked cars. Theodrakis could see a number of political banners being waved alongside the black anarchist flag. He took Lucca by the arm.

“The uniform boys can deal with this; let’s get out of here before it gets nasty.”

The disturbance in the square slowed the traffic on the busy dual carriageway to a standstill. Picking their way between the crawling cars and stepping over the wilting bushes of the central reservation, they reached the far side and walked through the thin strip of car park until they reached the sea wall that stretched to the deep water births of the ferry port. They leaned back against the wall and Lucca fumbled for a cigarette; across the road in the square the rioters, having made their mark, dispersed and the traffic began to move again. No police had arrived.

Looking down, Theodrakis saw the asphalt paving was cracked. It was a deep crack about ten centimetres wide stretching several hundred metres; through it, he could see the sea sloshing about beneath his feet undermining the foundations of the sea wall and the road. A metaphor for the island, for Greece, and for him in particular.

A small group of black clad anarchists walked across the road and passed them, talking cheerfully; they’d removed the scarves and bandannas from their faces and looked like any other students. Theodrakis thought of challenging them but immediately changed his mind; what would be the point? He was shaken out of his internal communion by Lucca.

“There’s something else, Samarakis was killed the night you and he clashed on the police steps. He directed the investigations until you were sent from Athens. I’m certain he wasn’t killed by the creature we’re looking for, I think it was a copycat murder, the only people who know anything about the method of the murders are cops and politicians and not many of them. Do you really think there’s no connection between one of us and the killings?”

“That’s just wild talk, Lucca, even if you’re right about another killer; it doesn’t fit with any of our lines of investigation. From what you’ve said there must be a deal of DNA evidence.”

“So, you do have some leads, do you? That’s a relief. I don’t want to have to work on any more bodies like these. With regards to the DNA, the results are held up somewhere in the system, I’ll chase them up. I’d better get back; I’ll have a full report for you later. Thanks for the drinks.”

Theodrakis watched him go. He didn’t have any leads, didn’t have a clue. He just felt homesick and down. Staring at the ferries and cruise ships made it worse; they were going to leave the island today, he couldn’t even imagine when he would be able to go. He watched the surface of the sea shifting and shimmering for a while then made his way back to the bar.

Some time later, he called in to the central police station to check if anything had happened in his longer than expected absence. It hadn’t, and apart from a few sullen stares he received from old stagers who had been cronies of Samarakis he was ignored as usual, but as he was leaving the building Costas on the desk called him back.

“Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis, the old man was back today, he asked for you.”

“Which old man?”

“You know the confessor, he owns up to all the crimes committed on the island and lots that aren’t. He’s already owned up to one of the murders.”

“Presumably he came to confess to the murder of inspector Samarakis then.”

“No, that was the strange thing; he was quite agitated about that. He said he didn’t want that one pinned on him. He said some kind of imposter had done that. Talking about killing the boss got some of the lads a bit worked up and I had to step in before he got roughed up too much. As I was putting him out, he said he wanted to see you to prove he hadn’t killed the boss: he said this killing had been different and he could tell you how.”

“And you didn’t think to keep him here till I got back?”

“Keep him here? It’s obvious you’ve never been close enough to smell him, Sir, anyway he’s gone in the head but harmless.”

Theodrakis was sure Costas was right, but then how could the old man know it was a different style of killing?

“Smell or not, have him pulled in and this time let me know.”

He walked back to his lodgings, picking up a copy of the local paper on the way. He read it eating the mountainous and sticky macaroni pie his landlady had made earlier for his dinner and reheated. There were two main stories: the killing of Samarakis and fires. Fires that the paper suspected were being started deliberately, to further damage the island which had already suffered at the hands of the bankers. Even a rationalist and cynic like Theodrakis was infected by threat and paranoia after he finished reading. Still, it was good copy for the paper and tomorrow they’d have the disturbance in Lion Square for a front page.

That night he dreamt the dream of the woman with the thick black hair again, and this time it was more frightening than erotic. He tried to blame it on the macaroni but it disturbed him, she seemed too real. He turned on the light and tried to read but couldn’t concentrate so he opened the window and stared out into the night.

He thought of the waitress and wished he’d had the resolution to go back and see her the second night. He wondered if she’d been disappointed. It was near morning when he got to sleep and he didn’t sleep for long as he was woken at first light by a roaring sound above him. He groped his way to the window to see helicopters passing overhead. His landlady must have heard him because she shouted up,

“Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis, it has come. Fire, they say all the other side of the island is ablaze, we have truly been cursed.”

Chapter 8:
Fire

Steve couldn’t sleep, and by the first blurry streaks of dawn gave up trying. He’d read the letter three times. The first time skim read it, missed the detail but caught the terror, interspersed with flashes of malice. He decided not to read it again until the morning and went to bed.

The instant he closed his eyes, the image of Father John appeared to him. Thompson’s description of the creature in Venice was so very close to the priest of Vassilis’s chapel. He turned the light on and went to the fridge for a bottle of water, and stood looking out of the window at the night. The longer he stood there trying not to think about the letter, the more he could feel it lying open on the coffee table pulling at him. The second reading was worse; it was clear his escape to Samos had been organised to fulfil some purpose and the things that frightened him so badly at Skendleby were waiting here for him.

The letter shook in his hands. Before Skendleby he’d have laughed it off as a practical joke, but he knew better now. He read it a third time to try and pick up any message or nuance he might have missed.

When he finished, something uncharacteristic happened: he was overcome with pity for its nerdish author who, despite his pomposity, never deserved this. He’d been their dupe and paid with his life for their actions. He couldn’t get the idea of the frightened Thompson waiting in his Nice hotel room for what was coming for him out of his mind and wished he could turn back time and save him. Then he began to think of his own position on the island as a peculiarly grimy dawn streaked the horizon.

He caught the whiff of smoke before he heard the shouting outside; he turned his head towards the source of the noise and saw one of the taverna owners standing on a jetty with his back to the sea, looking inland towards the mountains through a pair of binoculars. There were a few early morning fishing boats getting ready to head out to sea whose skippers had dropped their gear and were talking and asking what he could see. Steve’s first reaction was relief; something was happening, he could escape from the letter. He scrambled into some clothes and went down to join them.

Outside on the quay not much could be seen except a black cloud over the forested ridge that bisected the island: fire, according to relatives phoning from Marathakampos, had been first noticed about an hour before dawn.

Half the village had crowded into the taverna to sip coffee and speculate about the fire and who started it. They were sure it was arson because how else could a fire start at that time of night? By then it was light enough for the helicopters to fly and the first of them was hovering fifty metres out to sea filling the great bucket that hung below it with sea water to drop on the blaze. The fire service and army were on the ridge and the volunteer fire reserve had been alerted. This last was unnecessary, as everyone was awake and had gravitated towards the bars and tavernas on the waterfront to share stories and wait for news of the size of the blaze.

By the time the sun cleared the slopes above Spatherai across the bay, the smudges of smoke over the ridge had congealed into one black grey mass which was creeping down the hills towards them. By midday a decision was made that it would not be possible to contain the fire along the line they’d originally intended, and they must pull back to protect a line running up from just south of the village to Marathakampos near the ridge top.

This meant abandoning farms and vineyards on the slopes of the mountain and praying that the fire would burn itself out before it reached the coastline south of the village. If it didn’t, a large ribbon development of bars, shops, apartments and restaurants running for several kilometres along the beach front would burn. By three the beach front was evacuated by the army, and the tourists were brought into the village in army trucks from where they were to wait until their tour companies moved them out to accommodation on the far side of the island. Every table at the village’s tavernas was occupied while the street was clogged up with a long column of refugees, eyes streaming either from the smoke or tears, each clinging to the one item of luggage they’d been allowed to bring. The two shops were rapidly stripped of all food and drinks in an effective burst of panic buying.

Steve was sitting at his usual table in the company of a family of four, who’d hired an apartment in the village independently and so had no choice other than to sit it out with the locals. Next to them was a young Swedish couple with a baby who’d chosen the wrong day to visit this part of the island. They’d abandoned their car and had nowhere to stay. So those who had nowhere to go sat and drank morosely, whilst those on package tours waited for their holiday reps to assign them a seat in the convoy of trucks and coaches that the army would escort out of the fire zone.

Steve knew if the village started to burn, he’d have a seat on Captain Michales’s boat which would put out to sea. So he observed the reps going about their business with grim humour. Some of them were calm and smiling while others spread panic with their wild-eyed exhortations to their customers not to panic. But, when they’d all been packed into army trucks and driven away, the place suddenly felt empty and the noise of the helicopters and fire planes seemed louder.

By late afternoon it was preternaturally dark; the mass of cloud extended over the sea and shut out the sun. Soon it would be night and the planes and helicopters would return to base. Then the wailing started; no one knew who started it, but within seconds everyone knew why.

Half way across the bay on the other side of the village from the fire there was smoke on the hillside. What made it worse for Steve was that it looked to be not far below where he figured Alekka’s house must be. In fact, it seemed centred on the area she’d shown him, the place where she had said something ancient was hidden, something that the inhabitants of the local village still feared. He remembered Tim Thompson’s letter.

A member of the village council started shouting down a loud hailer and making a confused noise; one of the boat captains took the thing off him and then went to each of the tavernas along the waterfront asking all the able-bodied men to move out to the new blaze to try and contain it until the overstretched fire service could redeploy some of its men. Villagers, including Steve, began to pile into trucks and vans which headed off up towards the fire. Looking behind him, he saw some of the old women go down on their knees and start to pray. The mother of one of the taverna owners shrouded in impeccable black was screaming out to anyone who would listen,

“Who can now doubt that we are cursed, two fires at once: one in the night and the other as night falls. We must drive out the evil, our island is cursed; it is happening again.”

As the pickup he was squatting in the back of passed her, Steve found it difficult to disagree. The convoy rattled along the rough track that followed the shoreline for a couple of kilometres before turning inland for the old road that wound its way up towards Spatherai. They emerged from the dark pall that hung over their village into bright sunlight, but drove towards another shroud of smoke that was gradually spreading to cover the far side of the bay. After twenty minutes, they were flagged down by a nervy and very young army officer with a smoke streaked face standing at a crossroads a few hundred metres from the village. He waved them out of the cars and trucks and showed Captain Michales the line of a firebreak he wanted to cut out.

“Listen to me kid, we have come to save the village of our neighbours. Not to cut them off behind a firebreak.”

“If you want to help you will go where I fucking tell you, this fire has more than one seat, it’s being driven from three different sources; we can’t save your neighbours houses and if we don’t hold it here this wind will drive it right across the island. Then we’ll all burn in Hell, do you want that?”

He pulled out an automatic hand gun from his holster and began to wave it in the air while pointing with his other hand towards the line of the firebreak. Steve noticed that there were two smudgy streaks running from below the boy’s eyes down his face. Michales gave a shrug of resignation and turned to the volunteers.

“Better do as he says before he wets himself.”

He picked up an axe and walked towards the start of the fire break pausing only to say to the officer as he walked past him,

“After this is over, boy, make sure you stay out of my village because gun or not, I’ll teach you some manners.”

Steve saw that the line had been well chosen; it cut through a patch of thin stony ground that only supported isolated trees and scrub, with forest on either side. He guessed it was not the young officer who had picked this site. Michales deployed the villagers and they began to clear the scrub and trees. It was hot and hard work, made worse as the acrid smoke crawled down the slope and began to sting their eyes and rasp in their throats.

After fifteen minutes his arms and back ached and his body ran with sweat. More volunteers arrived to help and gradually, a bare strip of earth and rock was created that split the vegetation like one swipe of a razor across a bearded face. Behind them three of the volunteer fire tenders and their crews were damping down the woods, while two helicopters were flying over them dumping bucket loads of water on the blaze. The man working next to him told Steve that planes and copters from other islands, and even the mainland, were on their way to help which was reassuring as whenever the wind shifted and dispersed the smoke he caught a glimpse of a ten metre high wall of advancing flame. His neighbour, a volunteer from Koumadrai higher up the mountain, stopped work to take a swig from a water bottle and then passed it to Steve saying,

“But soon it will go dark; the planes and choppers will go back to base until first light and if we cannot hold the fire at this line until then the island is finished, it will be worse than 2000. No tourists will come, we will be ruined, perhaps we will all leave the island like we did in the old days. For who would want to stay in a place with no jobs or money, just arsonists and the Devil murderer?”

Steve wasn’t quite sure that he understood the speech fully, or translated it correctly, but the passion behind the words was compelling. He was about to pass the bottle back with a word of thanks when he saw people in the trees ahead moving towards the fire, they appeared to be dragging someone. He handed back the bottle and pointed to them.

“Look over there, those people are going towards the blaze, we should warn them.”

“Let them go, they know what they’re doing well enough; a pity they could not have done it a few hours earlier.”

“What do you mean?”

“Work it out. Who would you be dragging towards the fire if you lived in that village?”

Steve realised the question was rhetorical and waited for the answer with a growing sense of anxiety; the man paused for a moment to drink from the bottle, rinsed some water round his mouth and spat it out before speaking again.

“They have caught the fire starter, a foreigner, immigrant, a man who lives off us and then tries to burn our island. Well, now he will be able to enjoy his work at close quarters, fitting don’t you think?”

He laughed and slapped Steve on the back.

“Good that sometimes there is justice, now forget that bastard, we must work more.”

Steve picked up the scythe he was using to clear the scrub and roots and started back to work, but couldn’t do it; he ran to where Captain Michales was working.

“Did you see them drag that man towards the fire?”

Michales ignored him and just grunted.

“Get back to work.”

“We have to do something, it’s murder.”

“Listen, we have to stop this fire here otherwise plenty more will die.”

“Well, at least call the police.”

Michales laughed.

“Where you think to find police? They do nothing when there is no fire, what you think they will do now the whole island burns. It’s not your business, either you work with us or go home.”

He went back to swinging his axe, and Steve realised he meant it and no help was going to be offered; he didn’t understand; it was one of the locked doors that island society lived behind. He hovered for a moment, shifting from one foot to the other, then started to run uphill towards the approaching wall of flame. He heard shouts for him to stop but kept going. Ahead, above the grove where the man had been dragged, he saw the tops of some of the taller trees catch light as the wind swept the fire down across the mountain onto the lower slopes.

As he reached the grove the group of men were coming out of it, blood splatter staining their clothes. He rushed past them into the trees, the crackle of the leaves on the boughs above bursting into flame loud in his ears. At the centre of the grove, swinging like the hanged man in the Tarot, a figure hung upside-down, a leg strapped to the overhanging boughs of two trees. Steve recognised him as an Albanian who helped out in one of the village bars at weekends. His shirt was ripped off and streams of blood ran down to the dry earth from his battered face and wounds carved into his chest. Like Flaying of Marsyas by Titian, except here there was no dog licking at the blood: every living thing that could had run.

The Albanian waiter was mewling like a wounded animal and had wet himself. Steve stared at him, shaking with fear and disgust; he didn’t want to have to touch this awful ruined thing. He couldn’t make himself either cut it down or turn and run back out of the grove.

He did neither; he was seized from behind and thrown backwards against a scrub oak tree. Several men crowded round him, the point of a sharp knife was pricking his throat and he felt the trickle of blood oozing down the skin of his neck. The face of the man holding the knife was close up against his and he could smell ouzo breath as the man spoke.

“You have no place here English, if you love this foreign bastard you can join him, you can talk about how much you love each other as you cook.”

Then the man was pulled off him and the grove was filled with scuffling men; he saw Captain Michales knock down the man with the knife then shout to the others. He spoke rapid Greek. Steve couldn’t catch all of it, but the gist was if they left the man to die the army would hand them over to the police and if they killed the Englishman they’d have to kill Michales and every other man from the village as well.

It seemed to work; the men shuffled sullenly out of the glade. Michales cut the Albanian down and someone passed him a hip-flask of rough brandy. When he managed to get to his feet, he was told that if he wanted to live he should get off the island on the first boat out. Steve watched in a daze. The Albanian thanked the Captain but not him and then disappeared limping into the woods below. As they returned to the firebreak Michales took his arm in a firm grip.

“You make enemies yourself and now you make enemies for me I think; you must hope that your friend Vassilis will put word round the island that you are not to be hurt because you are in a bad moment. Go to the trucks and bring us up some water to drink then go back to your place in the line and work.”

Steve stumbled back to the pickup, his hands shaking so much he kept dropping the bottles. His legs felt weak and he had to sit in the lee of the truck to pull himself together. He’d seen the side of island life the tourists don’t and he wished he hadn’t. He felt he had done the right thing, but again maybe he’d got it wrong.

He felt alone here, alone and very vulnerable. He’d run from Skendleby for safety and peace, but the veil obscuring the real nature of life had been ripped and he’d glimpsed things that put him outside the protection of the natural world. He took some deep breaths to settle himself then collected a pack of water bottles and made his way back to the line.

By nightfall the firebreak was finished and it was quieter; the planes and helicopters returned to their base in Pythagoreio for the night. Now they’d try and stop the fire from crossing the break and hope to extinguish any sparks the wind carried across. He looked down the pitifully thin line of men and fire tenders entrusted with this.

Then, for the first time in hours, he remembered the other blaze across the bay threatening his village. When he turned to look back towards it he saw, through the dark, a thin straggle of light from the fire tenders and army trucks that defended a line snaking down the mountain. It was breached by a series of breakthrough fires, which were the advance guard of the huge wall of flame creeping inexorably down the slopes towards the village.

Chapter 9:
A Voice From Hell

The prominent Adam’s apple bobbled in Adamidis’s throat as he spoke. Theodrakis knew it was impolitic to stare, but the sight exerted a morbid compulsion he couldn’t resist. They were back in the claustrophobic windowless room of the new police station in Karlovasi. This time, for obvious reasons, Samarakis was not present but his death hung heavy over the meeting. Andraki looked even worse than he had when Theodrakis last saw him.

He had never really understood Andraki’s role in all this; he didn’t hold any position of real importance on the island and now that his archaeological background may be of some use, he seemed to have mentally disintegrated. Adamidis must have realised he didn’t have their full attention and snapped out.

“Perhaps this will be of more interest to you then, Theodrakis; there have been messages of concern from Athens. Yes, I thought that would grab your attention; it must be a great deal of concern for them to turn their precious attention to our backward little island, particularly when the whole of Greece is drifting towards economic ruin and civil disorder. But here, it seems, they think things are even worse and for once they have judged accurately. Do you realise how close we are to a breakdown of law and order? Riots and demonstrations in the towns and half the island on fire.”

He lost any pretence of self-control and began to shout.

“Fire that has been deliberately started! Do you know that a suspected arsonist, an illegal, of course, was almost killed by a mob over near Spatherai yesterday? And do you know what most people on this island, not just the stupid or retarded, but the majority think is the cause? The murders: the fucking murders they sent you over here to clear up for us, as we were obviously too incompetent to solve them ourselves.”

He took a deep breath and continued at lower volume.

“Now they’re angry that, despite us enjoying the special talent of their blue eyed boy, the murders have speeded up and included a senior police officer; a man who shortly before his death was publically threatened by you. In fact, Theodrakis, that’s about the only time you have seemed to have shown any purpose since you got here.”

Adamidis spluttered to a halt and mopped his brow with a neatly folded handkerchief that he took from the top pocket of his jacket. The silence in the room was palpable and for a time Theodrakis thought it might never be broken; at last Adamidis re-folded his handkerchief and continued in a more measured manner.

“My point, Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis, is that these murders are no longer just a crime, they are the pulse beat of the island, a contagion that spreads other evil in its wake. Now they and the fires have spread across the mountain. So it no longer matters if there is a curse because people believe there is. This has changed how they behave and madness consumes them. The killing of Samarakis reduces our credibility, it makes fools of us. So you will go across to Marathakampos and you will make an arrest. Am I making myself perfectly clear?”

Theodrakis chose not to respond; the proposition, although driven by a certain logic, was ridiculous and would put justice on the same footing as crime. They had no leads and no suspects. He was saved from having to reply by a knock at the door. The station adjutant entered and whispered to Adamidis. Theodrakis was able to let his thoughts drift, he would quite like to go across to the other side but he wouldn’t base himself in Marathakampos; he would go to the fishing village where the waitress worked. The message changed things, and when Adamidis turned to speak again it was in a very different tone.

“It seems, Theodrakis, that your trip to Marathakampos will have to wait.”

He paused for a moment as if to increase the drama of his next sentence, and as he waited to learn of the new development Theodrakis felt sweat trickling down his back in the hot and airless room.

“Apparently, following your instructions to observe a suspect, an arrest has been made in Vathia; you should have told us you were making progress; I would have not spoken so harshly. Obviously you need to get back there at once.”

He favoured Theodrakis with his chilly smile, which was the nearest he ever came to warmth. Theodrakis was baffled, if pleasantly surprised; he couldn’t imagine how his men in Vathia would have put together the evidence to arrest anybody, never mind the island’s killer, but it got him out of this room and restored some of his credibility in Adamidis’s eyes. He looked at Professor Andraki and saw that this unexpected breakthrough seemed to have afforded him little satisfaction. Adamidis noticed the exchange of glances.

“Ah, that reminds me of the purpose of our good friend the Professor in this meeting: apparently he has been informed by a very influential highly placed source on the island of the presence of a certain archaeologist, with specialised expertise which might be helpful to you in this case. An Englishman if I remember correctly, and any suggestion from this particular source needs to be regarded as an instruction. But meeting him will now have to wait; off you go, Theodrakis, let’s hope you can wrap this up speedily.”

He offered his hand, as much as a form of dismissal as a courtesy, and Theodrakis left the room with an internal sigh of relief. He couldn’t, as seemed to be the pattern, remember anything he had said during the meeting but nevertheless his stock seemed to have risen. He ordered a squad car in the main office and exited through automatic doors which opened with their calming swishing noise. Outside he waited on the steps for the squad car to take him to Vathia. It pulled up almost immediately, which was a relief as the steps reminded him of the last time he’d seen Samarakis alive.

Although in terms of distance the coast road from Karlovasi to Vathia was short, it never took much less than an hour as the single lane route had to twist and turn its way round every coastal creek and inlet. Often the car’s progress was impeded by the slow pace of a laden down donkey, a painfully slow tanker or ancient truck. The bends were so narrow that even the police driver who habitually overtook at great risk to life on corners was forced into a mode of some circumspection. To Theodrakis this was one of the benefits of the journey, as it postponed the enigma of arrival and its inevitable disappointments. This time, the protracted length of the journey was especially welcome as it would give him some time to try and puzzle out what the hell was going on.

He was none the wiser by the time the car pulled into the compound of the Vathia police headquarters. He was relieved to be entering the station by the back door, protected by the compound barrier, as he’d caught a glimpse of the crowd and press outside the main entrance as their car swept past. Once inside, he went straight to the ops room where the records of the case were laid out. The room was empty but before he had time to shout for the duty officer Costas came lurching down the corridor towards him.

“Syntagmatarchis, we have him ready for you in the interview room.”

“Who? Who have you got in the interview room and how did you get him?”

“The old man you told us to watch, we pulled him in.”

“I said talk to him not arrest him, we don’t have evidence. Or do minor details like that not bother you?”

“But we do have evidence boss, once we got him in we fingerprinted him, we thought it was a waste of time, we’ve known him for years, he’s mad but harmless. But they matched the ones we got off Despina Karamanlis the second murder, the only ones we have, he must have got careless then.”

Theodrakis couldn’t believe the old man was the island’s “Devil Killer”, and he saw from Costa’s face as he finished speaking that he too still had doubts. But almost, it seemed, to convince himself, Costas rambled on.

“And Doctor Lucca has got the DNA evidence back at last; we have top priority with the labs now so we could have a match within hours.”

He looked up at Theodrakis’s face and recognised the sceptical and typically stuck up look on the Athenian bastard’s face, but carried on in spite of it.

“Boss, he confessed and now we have evidence, fingerprints and soon DNA.”

“Who charged him?”

“Syntagmatarchis Kostandin.”

“Kostandin. Well that explains why the press know; he’ll eat and drink well tonight.”

Theodrakis knew he should have kept the thoughts to himself and could see Costas resented his comments; they tended to stick together, these island types. It was too late to take the words back, and before he had chance to say anything Costas came back at him in a tone that failed to conceal his resentment and anger.

“You know the pressure we’re under to make an arrest on this one, you know how jumpy people are getting, and you know what they’re saying about our failure to catch this bastard. The lads can hardly go out for a drink without some old crow cursing them or some smartarse cracking a joke. Most of us go back to houses full of frightened women and kids at night. We thought you’d be pleased.”

Theodrakis conceded to himself that he probably had a point but said only,

“I’ll interview him in thirty minutes, make the arrangements.”

Costas grunted and turned to walk back down the corridor but before he turned the corner Theodrakis heard him mutter just loud enough for him to hear,

“With a decent boss we’d all be eating and drinking well tonight.”

Theodrakis let this go; he half agreed with the man anyway. He’d stopped thinking of himself as the boss some days ago. The only way he felt he could cope with the case and the island was to mentally detach himself and to some extent, apart from the nightmares which he couldn’t control, it worked.

Perhaps it worked too well, as he was beginning to feel as if he ceased to exist: he rarely spoke at meetings, did all he could to avoid the case and his colleagues. He remembered reading once that during Custer’s last stand, some of his terrified soldiers just sat down and covered their heads so they could try to shut out what was happening and stop it existing and that’s how they died. This was how he was beginning to see himself; in hiding, waiting to be found out.

Half an hour later he walked into the interview room, a dark and windowless box made worse by the feral smell of the long-unwashed body of the disturbed old man. The policeman standing on guard looked ready to faint and Theodrakis sent him to the canteen to fetch some coffee. Ignoring the stench, he sat down across the table from the old man who smiled at him.

“Forgive me for having kept you in here for so long, some coffee is coming.”

As he said this, the door behind him opened and Costas shuffled into the seat next to him; he neither spoke nor looked at Theodrakis. The coffee arrived and the old man gulped his straight down. He didn’t seem effected by the scalding heat; both Theodrakis and Costas had to blow on theirs to cool it. Theodrakis started the tape.

“Before we start the questions you need to understand that we have your confession, we have your finger prints on the body and before this interview is over we will have evidence of your DNA on the body as well. Do you understand what that means for you?”

The old man nodded before replying,

“So, if you have all that then you will also know that I didn’t do the others, particularly the fat cop, they got others to do them.”

He looked directly at Theodrakis after he said this and then beamed at them as if they were friends sharing a joke. He wiped some coffee spill out of his dirty white beard then asked,

“Can I have another of those with something a bit stronger in it? I’ve been here for a long time, you know.”

Costas grunted like a maddened boar and reached across the table to grab the old man round the neck.

“Listen, you murdering mad bastard, you’ll get nothing from us but a fucking kicking before they sentence you to death.”

Theodrakis restrained him and Costas sat back down; his face was covered with sweat, he seemed to have difficulty controlling himself. Theodrakis put a hand on his shoulder and spoke to the policeman standing behind him.

“Fetch him some more coffee and put a heavy slug of something in it.”

He felt Costas start to rise in protest and increased the pressure of his hand on his shoulder.

“Leave this to me.”

Theodrakis felt strangely calm. The old man beamed across the table at him. They waited in silence until the drink arrived, the old man put it back in one gulp.

“Good that was; if we get this done quickly, can I have another?”

“Go on then, tell me about how you killed Despina Karamanlis, that’s who you say you killed.”

“I never knew her name but it was the second body you discovered; but there’s others you still don’t know about.”

“Yes, she was called Despina, why did you kill her?”

“I was instructed to kill her; I had to. You know how they work.”

“Who are they? Please explain that to us.”

“Oh nice try that, yes, you’d like me to tell you that wouldn’t you, policeman? You’d like that but you know I can’t.”

He sat back and chuckled as if Theodrakis had told a particularly clever joke. The room felt much cooler; Costas was leaning back in his chair to put as much distance as possible between himself and the old man.

Theodrakis sensed unease in the room, could hear the young policeman behind him shuffling about. He felt strangely detached and sensing he’d get no more satisfactory an answer to his last question, changed tack.

“But you will tell us about how you killed her, won’t you, that’s what you came here for isn’t it?”

“Well, shredding the ear was the most difficult, you can see that can’t you, Syntagmatarchis? Wouldn’t have been so bad if she’d been young and pretty like some of the others but they gave me an old one. I’ve never been lucky and my teeth aren’t up to much so biting through the lobe was a bit tricky and, of course, she struggled, the old sow.”

He stopped and stared across the table at Costas then grinned at Theodrakis saying,

“The fat one’s looking a bit queasy isn’t he; I don’t think he can cope with this. Shall I wait while you fetch a tougher one?”

Theodrakis looked at Costas and saw how pale he’d grown. Behind him the young policeman crossed himself and made the sign that protects from the evil eye. The room was now very cold but the fetid smell had faded. It was as if he and the old man were holding their conversation in another dimension where only they could understand the rules. The man leaned forwards, whispering,

“I’ll carry on shall I, Syntagmatarchis? It’s just you and me now, I don’t think your men can hear us anymore. Let me tell you how I got the bones out, but you’ll have to work out for yourself why I had to take them.”

Then his voice seemed to change, the rough island accent disappeared to be replaced by a dry, well-spoken tone that sounded ancient to Theodrakis.

“It’s the old way always with the bones; they are where we started; they have to be kept hidden. It was hard to get them out, but it was as if someone else was doing it.”

Then there was a laugh and the voice mocked him.

“Do you really think, Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis, that this old wreck is capable of carrying out what he is describing? I’m afraid that’s all we have time for now, but look to hear from us again.”

There was a noise behind him as the door opened and a voice said,

“Christos, it’s cold in here, are you all right, sir?”

Theodrakis shook himself as if trying to wake up; the room gradually settled back to its usual equilibrium. Costas, next to him, was silently shaking and the young policeman guarding the door rushed outside. The old man cradled his face in his hands. He was quietly weeping and had started to smell again. The cop who had come in looked towards Theodrakis for assurance.

“Sir, what was going on in here?”

“Forget that; tell me what you interrupted us for.”

“Dr Lucca needs to see you urgently, Sir.”

“OK, but first fetch two men and get this suspect locked up in the strongest cell we have, and make sure every time anyone has to visit him he doesn’t go alone.”

Looking at the old man weeping he found it difficult to credit what had happened, but at the same time he believed it with a desperate certainty. Costas gripped his arm.

“I’m sorry boss, I let you down in there.”

“No, you didn’t, but don’t go round talking about this, OK? And make sure the old man stays locked up. I’m going to see Lucca but I’ll check in with you afterwards.”

This time, to his relief, he found Lucca not in the morgue but in the lab shifting through a pile of papers.

“Theodrakis, you look like you’ve seen a ghost, perhaps this time I should take you out for some rough brandy.”

Theodrakis smiled.

“You can’t even guess how much I’d like that, but there’s not time and I don’t think I’d be able to stop at one. So, just tell me what’s so urgent.”

“OK, but I don’t think you’re going to like it any more than I do. We only have definite evidence from one murder; Despina Karamanlis. But that’s not the bad part.”

He paused as if he didn’t want to continue. Theodrakis had a premonition that what he was about to hear would change his life. Everything froze for an instant but at the same time become elastic, Theodrakis felt not only could he hear the ticking of the clock on the wall but also sense every shift in its mechanism.

“The bad part is that the evidence we do have, and as you know in messy killings like these there tends to be a considerable amount of it, indicates very strongly that no two killings were done by the same person. I’ve asked them to double check for contamination but the evidence on your old man has been re-calibrated and it’s spot on; I’m sorry.”

Theodrakis said nothing so Lucca continued.

“I know it makes no sense. With so many messy killings you’d expect people noticing the state of the murderer and reporting stuff to us but there’s been nothing. I’m going to check again but if the tests stand, it would seem you’ve got the same unbelievable modus operandi but a different killer for each victim.”

Theodrakis wanted to be surprised but wasn’t. He felt victimised that all this had landed on his doorstep. He placed a hand on Lucca’s shoulder saying,

“Thanks. Double check to make certain and don’t breathe a word of this until you hear from me; we don’t want to make things worse by spreading panic. When you’re certain, call me.”

He walked back to the station where Kostandin met him at the front desk.

“What’s been going on? This place is full of rumours about your interrogation and the lads who were in with you aren’t fit for anything, even Costas.”

“I’m not sure, there are some things I need to check.”

“So what’s the line for the press? They’re still hanging around.”

“I know, I just had to walk through them. Tell them the usual stuff; you know how it goes, we need more time to question a suspect and have other lines of enquiry to follow up.”

“Do you know what you’re doing, Theodrakis?”

“I’m not sure, do you?”

Theodrakis needed to get away and think and not have to answer any more questions and then it came to him; he’d go across the island and find the waitress. Fed up of waiting for an answer, Kostandin pressed him.

“So, what are you going to do?”

“Adamidis wants me to pursue some leads on the other side; so you keep that old man locked up. Oh, and listen, there’s something about him that affects the men so make sure no one sees him on his own. I’ll let you know how I get on.”

He turned and walked out ignoring the shout of, “What do you mean affects the men?” from Kostandin. He left the building by the back to avoid any lurking journalists and found Costas still looking pale, smoking in the compound. As he walked past Costas asked,

“What happened in there, boss, what the fuck’s going on?”

Theodrakis called back over his shoulder,

“Truly the Devil is back amongst us.”

Chapter 10:
Frozen Flesh

Steve examined his hands while waiting for Professor Andraki to find the map: his finger nails were torn and filthy and his palms scarred and calloused. It was twenty four hours since the fire had burned out but his hands still stung and his face felt raw. He had never been particularly frightened of fire before, but the past forty eight hours changed that. Changed it to such an extent that he feared he was being sucked back into the nightmare he’d inhabited in Skendleby.

The early morning call from Andraki had therefore come as a relief, or at least as a welcome distraction. Andraki hadn’t said much, just,

“I have had a request from Vassilis. He says that there is a major prehistoric site on his land that he fears may have been damaged in the fire; please call in to my office this morning.”

So by eleven, he was sitting in Andraki’s office at the University, and it was clear from his greeting Andraki wasn’t happy.

“Vassilis wants a field survey of the burnt area conducted, he wants it done immediately; as if we have the resources to throw at his least whim. He insisted that you lead the survey.”

Andraki couldn’t keep the exasperation out of his voice. Steve smelt drink on his breath; it was early to have started on the bottle. When he’d first arrived at the university there’d been no indication that Andraki had a drink problem; but now? He listened with interest, however, as the Professor continued.

“I am controller of archaeology here, but it appears that despite that, what he says I obey and for more reasons than just his donations to the university. But I have said too much. I understand you are a friend of his and that woman who purports to be his daughter.”

He crossed himself, sat down at his desk and put his head in his hands. Steve sat and watched him in embarrassment while pondering what Andraki meant by purports to be his daughter. He didn’t have to wait too long as it was clear that Andraki wanted this meeting over as quickly as possible.

“I am sorry to have spoken like that, Doctor Watkins, my nerves are not good and I have been unwell of late. I hope you will not take what I just said seriously; I have only the greatest respect for Kirios Vassilis. Please do not.”

He came to a stop, unable to say what he wanted, but Steve understood.

“Don’t worry professor, I have no intention of mentioning any of this to him nor to his daughter.”

Andraki looked up and Steve saw the expression on his face;- it was a mixture of relief and something else, something disturbing that Steve didn’t want to think about. Andraki got up and moved across to a battered old map table.

“I have a large scale map of the area here for you and the names of three graduate students you can use.”

Eventually he found the map, spread it out on the table and they identified the most likely position to start the survey. Then he folded the map before handing it over along with the names of the students. Andraki slumped heavily back down into his chair and Steve stood up to leave. As he reached the door, Andraki spoke one last time.

“Doctor Watkins, thank you for your tact and understanding. I will see you in my office before you start tomorrow morning.”

There was a pause, but as Steve was turning the door handle,

“And, Doctor Watkins, you should be very careful.”

Steve turned round to ask him what he meant, but Andraki was already reaching in the top drawer of his desk for the bottle so he let himself out, closing the door behind him.

Outside he was blinded by the sunlight. When he’d located and put on his shades he saw it was a beautiful day, there was even a faint breeze off the sea and, even better, this side of the mountain there was no smell of burning. The only hint that not many hours before a major disaster had been narrowly averted was the drone of helicopters across the other side, scouring the land for any indications of smoke.

People were going about their business as usual and the world didn’t seem so threatening. He stood for a moment outside the faculty door and decided that the survey could wait; he would wander down to one of the student bars on the town beach and have a beer watching the sea. He never got there; as soon as he walked out of the shadow of the university building he heard his name called.

“Stevie, Steveymou, over here.”

He looked across the road and saw Alekka leaning against the side of the silver sports car. She was wearing a short summer dress and very high heels which emphasised her shapely, powerful legs. Steve forgot about the sun, the bar and the sea and crossed the road to join her.

“I find it hard to think that this is a coincidence.”

“Of course it is not, silly boy, but I think that you are not unhappy to see me, it has seemed such a long time since we were together.”

She reached her right hand out to take his in a handclasp and placed her other on the back of his neck and he felt the delicious coldness of her touch; she brushed his lips with hers, then disengaged and slid back into the driver’s seat. He watched this manoeuvre with interest as the already short dress receded up her thighs. She noticed him watching and laughed as she gathered her dark hair into a band. He climbed into the passenger seat and plugged in his seat belt, which he noticed she hadn’t bothered to do.

“So, how did you just happen to be parked here?”

“My father of course, but you must know that already I think. He knew you would be with poor little Andraki as he had instructed, and so sent me to fetch you.”

She must have noticed a look of disappointment spread across Steve’s face and added,

“But for me of course that was most wonderful thing, because I wanted to see you and was beginning to wonder if you still liked me as you do not ring.”

“So we’re going to see your father then?”

“Of course, but after if you like we will have time together and there are things on the island I can show you.”

He was about to reply but the car accelerated away from the kerb with a screech of rubber and proceeded to bully its way out of the town. Steve shrank back into his seat and tried not to look. Shortly before midday, they reached the Vassilis estate and Alekka pulled up in the courtyard and turned towards him. She wore an expression Steve had not seen before: a mixture of concentration and concern, which he found difficult to interpret.

“I will take you to my father, he is in the garden near the chapel, and I think Father John may be with him.”

Steve was about to protest at this last detail but she stopped him.

“Steve, you do not yet understand all things about my father. He likes you of course, but not only because you save my step-brother Antonis; in fact, I am not sure you did anyone a favour when you did that. He likes you for other things as well; you have experiences that could be useful to us. I think it was not coincidence that brought you here. He will tell you things that the logic in your head will reject; but inside you they will seem true. Listen carefully, not only to my father but also to Father John, if he chooses to say anything. This is a difficult time, the island is in a bad moment and I think for you there will soon be danger; but not from those two. They need your help in some way that is not yet clear, but you travel the same road. When the talking is done I will come and collect you. Now follow me please.”

She turned and walked quickly away and he followed, but not even the view of her bottom undulating beneath the thin material of the dress lifted his new mood of disquiet. They found Vassilis sitting at a table in the shade of the grove by the chapel; Father John could be seen some yards away in the deeper shade at the glade’s heart. The table was set with a light lunch of fruit, cheese, bread and olives, a jug of water and a pitcher of wine.

Vassilis was dressed in a soft broad brimmed hat and what looked like an old fashioned artist’s smock. Steve felt he wouldn’t have looked out of place knocking about Arles with Van Gogh and Gauguin in the nineteenth century. He didn’t look at Father John. Vassilis waved him to sit at the table.

“Please eat and drink what you like, Doctor Watkins, I commend the wine to you. It’s grown in small quantities from our own vines, you passed them on your way here, light yet fragrant; probably the only wine grown here worth drinking. Thank you for coming to visit at such short notice but I hope you will appreciate the rather more interesting, and suitable, task that I suggested Professor Andraki confer on you.”

Steve helped himself to food and wine; he knew despite the courteous words this was a power relationship: Vassilis commanded and people obeyed. Yet he was pleased to have the survey, the area had interested him since Alekka had first showed it to him, so he asked,

“I’m really grateful for the chance to investigate the area, but why did you choose me?”

“I think in your heart you know why.”

Vassilis smiled and patted Steve on the knee, then, as if conceding a great favour, said,

“But I will tell you all the same. In that ground there are things of great age: things you will feel are familiar to you because of your experience of one particular site. Yes, that’s right, the one you wish to forget. But no one can ever forget something like that, Doctor Watkins, can they? You thought you’d escaped didn’t you? A new life in the sun, but no one escapes what is intended. You must face what troubles you. I remember my good friend Michel De Montaigne saying, during a lively philosophical discussion about fear, that it is not the thing itself that is important or to be feared, it is what we make of it.”

Vassilis paused to beam with pleasure at this memory.

“So, you have been brought here to see if you can be more successful second time round. And yes, you did hear correctly, before you ask. I arranged the job for you on Samos. But even I did not foresee that you would save the life of Antonis; such is the way in which the gods play with us, is it not?”

He paused to pour himself a glass of wine and favour Steve with what was intended as a reassuring smile before moving on.

“I know you understand far more of this than you let on, Doctor Watkins, but I fear I might be pushing you a little too quickly so let me ask you a more prosaic and therefore less troubling question. What do you know of the history of this island? No, please do not attempt to answer, the question was rhetorical.”

Ignoring his own wine glass, he poured another glass for Steve. Father John, although still deep in shade, had moved closer as if to hear better, and this disturbed Steve more than the teasing yet somehow threatening nature of Vassilis’s conversation. There was something about the bloodless priest that made him shudder, yet was familiar. Vassilis began again.

“I do not mean the classical history concerning Polycrates, Pythagoras or Alcibiades and the Athenian fleet; nor the famous Romans who holidayed here. Although it is true the island troubled them, particularly Alcibiades, no, I mean the pattern of abandonment that was established. You know that for periods the island was completely deserted, that all its occupants fled in terror, and you will know then from your research the many different reasons that are trotted out for each period of exile. None of them, although each one is true up to a point, tell the real story. Nor is it true that the island was totally abandoned; Father John and I and our bloodline never left.”

As he said the word bloodline he had turned his head with the suggestion of a smile towards the priest who, Steve noted to his alarm, moved closer as Vassilis spoke.

“No, there is one very ancient common factor that explains all the evacuations, although at different times it manifested itself through different symptoms, rather like a contagion mutating with each infestation. But you have to be able to see things differently to understand the real causality, as my friend Montaigne so elegantly expounded in his discourse.”

He again paused to favour Steve with his thick-lipped smile.

“We understand, Doctor Watkins, that what appears to the common herd as a random yet deadly mixture of murder, fire, economic ruin and public disorder is in fact merely the first deadly symptoms of something older and infinitely more threatening. I think you are beginning to understand why you are here, and why I want you to excavate that feature which we have watched over through the ages. You, the man who excavated, albeit foolishly, Skendleby; does it surprise you that we know about that when you thought it was a secret? Well, mutatis mutandis, as they say.”

Steve asked,

“You want me to excavate a feature because you think something there is making all this happen?”

“Exactly, ridiculous isn’t it. Who would believe such nonsense? Still, the police have no idea and they too have brought someone onto the island to investigate for them. Do you know that the local peasants believe the Devil has returned to walk amongst us, the socialists believe the bankers have caused it, the Greens that it is a particularly vicious local strain of global warming? And there is even a sect in the USA, also represented here, that believe that after they have been evacuated to Heaven the world will burn, probably sometime in October. So with all that going on, it won’t do any damage if you conduct a minor excavation on my land, will it?”

Steve shook his head.

“I think, Doctor Watkins, that you will know what it is when you see it. But I see Father John desires a word.”

The priest was very close now, shrouded only by the shade of the immediately overhanging trees. Steve tried not to look into the blistered white face as the priest spoke in thin dry tones.

“Peter Heylyn, a seventeenth century divine once told me ‘things have a secret inclination to change the one into the other and to make Pythagorical transmigration (as it were) into each other’s being’. You might find that useful.”

He finished the sentence with a dry cough as if the strain on his vocal chords had been too severe and turned away, merging into the sylvan gloom. Vassilis watched him fade with a smile then said to Steve,

“I wouldn’t be so alarmed by the good Father, it cost him considerable effort to tell you that. I think that one day, when you need him, you will recognise him for the friend he is. Now, as we have discussed weighty matters for so long and I am sure that you are tired, I will go to attend to other concerns and leave you here to relax; Alekka will then return to collect you. I have, as ever, enjoyed your company. I will see you again in the very near future.”

Vassilis made a gesture of blessing then followed Father John into the grove heading towards the chapel; he walked slowly but immediately disappeared amongst the ancient trees. Steve felt as if he was watching an old film that had jumped a few frames, erasing a necessary time passage.

He hadn’t eaten much and only drunk two small glasses of wine but felt pleasant lassitude creeping over him. He would sit back into his chair, listen to the drone of the insects in the wood and perhaps close his eyes for a few moments.

Two cold hands were caressing his cheeks; he pushed his head languorously back towards them, hoping to stay in the dream.

“So, you are worn out so easily that old men leave you in sleep?”

There was a murmur of laughter and cold hands transferred to his forehead, pulling his head back to rest against her breasts while she gently massaged the pressure points above his temples after having gently run her hands over his damaged left ear.

“You have slept many hours, but there is still time for you to swim before I show you the best place to eat on the island, and there you can tell me what it was that tore your ear. So get up now.”

They walked back through the gardens towards the car and he noticed she was carrying two beach towels. She drove more carefully along the coast rode from Karlovasi and after about twenty minutes pulled off the highway to follow a short dust track down to the sea. The car pulled up in a tiny bay: a few metres of fine shingle framed by two jagged rock outcrops where the water shimmered in the early evening sunlight.

“There, you have a short time to swim, to wake you up and give you big appetite.”

“Are you going to swim with me?”

“No, maybe later; afterwards. Here you don’t need swimming shorts and I have towel.”

He wondered about swimming in his boxers, but understood the implications in her words so rushed in naked. The initial cold shock of the sea was replaced by a delicious cool, restoring power and energy. He was almost disappointed when she told him it was time to go and walked back to the car, leaving the towel spread and waiting on the beach.

The drive in the open top dried his hair while the salt prickled his skin and he began to feel hungry. They turned off to the right on a narrow road that twisted and turned up the mountain and soon the sea was glittering far below. The car veered suddenly down the narrowest of tracks, crossed a stream over a wooden bridge just wide enough to take all four wheels, turned a blind bend then braked to narrowly avoid hitting a tiny ancient chapel.

They parked in the small square shaded by species of plane tree, the trunks of which were painted with white distemper. Across a plank footbridge were a dozen rickety tables spread across four terraces on different levels. These were bisected by a noisy stream gushing out of the side of the rock. A waitress waved, and Alekka sat down at a table in a niche in the mountain where tree roots wove in and out of rock above their heads. Their view followed the spring through the groves and vines down to the indigo sea. The waitress brought them a homemade aperitif and briefly bent to fill a jug with water from the spring mouth; but no menu.

“She knows what we will eat: some local herbs and flowers in a light batter then rabbit stifado and a jug of their wine, I like the red so that is what we will drink. If when you finish, you do not think this the best you have eaten, then I have misjudged you.”

They finished as the sun passed behind the mountain and its only trace shimmered far out at sea. Alekka rose, waved to the waitress, and they returned to the car.

“Do not look so worried, Steveymou, there is no need to pay, all is taken care of here. Now we go somewhere with a lovely view where we can swim without salt; now is the best time.”

She drove along a winding track; dusk turned to twilight and they arrived at a small hotel high on a rock spur. They left the car and climbed the last thirty metres up a near-vertical path. The hotel was softly lit but deserted. Alekka led him through the vestibule and out onto a large terrace where a swimming pool projected over a sheer drop down to the sea. Twilight deepened; all they could see were isolated lights of scattered houses and a ship on the horizon.

“I have a room here where we can change, come follow.”

They entered a small suite with a large balcony. She shut the door behind her and looked at Steve.

“Now we change.”

She pulled the sundress over her head and stood shaking out her hair. She was wearing only a pair of white briefs and Steve was surprised to see her skin was scarcely darker.

“Do you not like what you look at, Stevie?”

She stepped out of the briefs and he reached for her.

He woke some time later with moonlight on his face and lay a while, unable to get back to sleep. He remembered her asking him what happened to his ear and tried not to think about it. But he couldn’t stop himself. He was back on the mound at Skendleby with Lisa’s teeth shredding his ear; the sharp pain as they met through the membrane and he waited for the sharp knife to gouge into the place where his neck met his shoulder.

The memory was so strong and frightening that he had to get out of bed, he padded onto the balcony and began his calming down process: deep breathing and a methodical listing of the mundane things he’d do over the next few days. He’d got as far as Thursday and his breathing was more regular when he remembered that was the day Giles and Claire were flying in to tell him something they couldn’t talk about over the phone. They’d told him Tim Thompson was dead, though, and that brought the letter back and the murders on the island and what Vassilis had told him that afternoon. He’d not escaped here; he had been lured.

He couldn’t stay alone on the balcony he needed Alekka. As he approached the bed he saw her lying naked in the moonlight, alabaster or more accurately bone white, in her sleep. Beautiful like a classical figure etched on a sarcophagus, dead white. Suddenly chilly, he slid under the sheets and snuggled up to her; she was ice cold.

Chapter 11:
Second Sight

Again the hotel was half empty. So Tuesday early evening found Theodrakis smoking on the balcony of the same seafront room he’d taken last time. This time he was in even worse shape; how had it come to this? How had he come to this? The urbane and arrogant society Athenian with his disdain for the provincial and his well-placed connections had become an empty shell, a broken husk. The carapace of silence he’d constructed to keep away the island and the murders protected nothing.

He was lonely, frightened and unable to act. He wanted to hide somewhere and live like the slovenly peasant Oblomov in the Russian novel he’d read as a student. But even in this, he knew he deceived himself. Because deep down in some level of his subconscious, unsupported by any kind of logic, he believed that he had a better conception of what was happening on the island than anyone else. Except, of course, the killers.

He didn’t believe the Devil walked amongst them in the way that the islanders did, and he didn’t buy the official line that it was the work of a particularly creative serial killer; although if pressed, he’d admit to himself that the Devil version was probably closer to the truth. His problem was that this intuition came from his recurring dream of the pale, dark haired woman standing on the rock shelf above the sea. The dream held some message for him, if only he could decipher it. The recent evidence from Lucca and his interrogation of the madman in the police station at Vathia bolstered this belief.

The killing of Samarakis was more difficult to understand and he needed more time to think about that. This was the killing Lucca recognised as the most obviously different and it happened the day after his public attack on Samarakis. That attack had shaken Samarakis so much that he had promised to hand over all the evidence they’d been keeping from him; so his murder less than twenty four hours later seemed too close to be coincidental.

It must have been done to keep the corrupt cop’s mouth shut. Clearly whoever killed him had an insider’s knowledge of the modus operandi of the other killings. But why kill Samarakis when they could have killed him? Maybe it was intended to incriminate him, but if that were the case why had his superiors been so quick to exonerate him and keep him on the case?

He lit another cigarette from the butt of the last and gazed down at a group of local boys kicking a ball in the street between the taverna tables. He knew he was on a collision course with whatever was causing the deaths and that given time, piece by piece, he’d come to understand it.

But this didn’t help with his job; he’d no practical idea what orders to give any more than the local cops did. The confession of the madman had been an accident as much as anything else and this confirmed the study he’d read at Police College of the three celebrated English murderers: Sutcliffe, Fred West and Dr Shipman. They’d been caught through their own complacency or chance. The police could have had all of them much earlier but had failed, despite all the expense and time lavished on the cases. So it didn’t much matter whether he behaved in the way his colleagues expected or sulked in his tent like Achilles, the end would be the same; but the Achilles option took pressure off, and that helped.

He wouldn’t be able to explain this to the others. How could you explain that you felt stopping the killings depended on understanding something you didn’t yet know? But this is how it had worked out two years ago, in the kidnapping of the right wing Athenian industrialist Karamanlis. Then, he’d waited until he knew what to do, and that time had enabled him to get an insight into the mindset of the kidnappers and broker the deal that released Karamanlis alive.

The Media called it the Black Flag kidnapping after the syndico-anarchist group who had carried it out. It had made him well known for a few days and established his reputation. It also made him unpopular with his colleagues, whose more orthodox approach had been strongly criticised. Also, he reflected bitterly, it was probably why he had been sent here. Here, where he’d no idea what the next move was. He decided to shower but as the first jet of water hit him he heard his mobile chime.

“Theodrakis, it’s Kostandin, you won’t like this but you’ve been overruled; they’ve gone public on the arrest. Are you still there? Can you hear me?”

“Yes, go on.”

“The story is that we’ve arrested a suspect who will be charged with murder in the morning. Did you get that? All the killings: the old man’s being given them all! So you need to be careful what you say.”

“I’ll remember that. Who made the call, local or national?”

“It was Adamidis; the story was hurting him and the island too much.”

“Thanks for telling me, I appreciate it.”

“What are you …?”

He got no further; Theodrakis killed the call. Telling the press was a great piece of stupidity which would lead to embarrassment in the future; however he was unsurprised, and perhaps it would give the island a couple of anxiety free nights. But for him, he thought as he got back under the shower, it brought time. Now he didn’t have to make a move; that had been done for him. All he had to do was wait for the consequences.

Twenty minutes later he was back on the balcony, washed and perfumed, in a tailored black suit and white silk shirt. He watched a moth fluttering round the electric light for some moments then went out.

He wanted to get to the taverna early, while it was still empty, so he could get a chance to talk to her, and was relieved to see only one table occupied by a tourist couple near the entrance. He chose a table near the water and waited, hoping that she was working that night. To his relief and excitement, he saw her emerge carrying a tray with drinks for the tourists. He thought she saw him yet, for what seemed ages, she stayed and chatted at that table having served the drinks.

Then, and it seemed reluctantly, she collected a menu and brought it across. He rose to greet her with a smile, wondering whether to offer his hand or if a kiss would be more appropriate; it was certainly the more attractive option for him. He needn’t have bothered; she dropped the menu onto the table without even glancing at him.

“Will you want to eat tonight?”

The coldness of the tone drove him back into his seat. She proceeded to fix the paper table cloth under the plastic clips, ignoring any attempt he made to help.

“What would you like to drink while you wait?”

“I’ll have a gin and tonic and I thought that perhaps later we could …”

But once she had heard the drink order she turned and walked briskly back through the tables and disappeared inside. Some time later, the boy who helped the cook brought him the drink and said that someone would take his order later.

He sat nursing the gin and tonic, wondering whether to eat somewhere else or wait and try to speak to her again. He hadn’t decided when one of the sons of the family, who lived in the flat above the taverna and shared the waitering, arrived with a pad. To avoid embarrassment rather than anything else he ordered the first things that came into his head. For the next hour he sat unhappily picking at his food, gazing at her as she attended the other tables. She was wearing a simple calf length dress, belted at the waist, that accentuated her height and slim waist. She seemed beautiful and unattainable.

He sat like a pariah by the sea, almost outside the range of the electric light bulbs strewn across the branches of the overhanging trees, staring mournfully at the water. One by one the other tables emptied as the customers drifted away and, although he’d not requested it, she brought his bill, slapped it down on the table and turned away. He jumped to his feet.

“Please, may we talk just for a moment?”

“You have nerve to turn up here after leaving me waiting and foolish last time.”

She started to walk off, he grabbed at her wrist to stop her but his own wrist was grasped by a rough strong hand. He turned and saw the angry face of a man he vaguely recognised, having earlier watched him mending nets on his boat. At the time he’d thought it rather picaresque, but there was nothing quaint about the face that now confronted his.

“Never grab a woman like that in our village: understand?”

Theodrakis tried to pull away but the grip was too strong.

“Listen, this is a mistake. I only wanted to talk to her.”

“Well, she doesn’t want to talk to you it seems. Hippolyta, what do you want me to do with this man who is bothering you?”

Theodrakis had let go of her hand, it seemed a bad night had got worse. To his surprise she said,

“It’s OK, Michales, it was a misunderstanding, that’s all.”

Michales didn’t seem fully satisfied by this so she put her hand on Theodrakis’s arm to push him back into his seat.

“Sit down and I will come back to collect the money in five minutes and you can say what you want then. Honestly, Michales, it’s OK.”

The bear-like man grunted, still not sure, but after a pause during which he never took his eyes off Theodrakis’s face, rasped,

“You be careful how you treat women here in future, cop.”

Then he let Theodrakis’s wrist go and shambled off and Theodrakis watched him walk away with a swaying, but sure, tread. With a sigh of relief he slumped back into his chair. A few minutes later she came out; he saw she’d been crying. She stood by the table as if uncertain what she would do next, took a deep breath, then spoke.

“Before I sit down you need to listen, in this village I am a woman who is pitied. When I finished university I could have left and gone to Athens like the others but I had a boyfriend here. A man I loved, and he was an islander who worked here, so I stayed and I worked in bars and we saved for a place of our own.

“Only he didn’t save, he had other women: women that it seemed everyone on the island, except I, knew about. So, as I talked of our future they laughed behind my back. In the end it was my father who told me the truth; can you imagine that? So I put all my savings into a business to sell things to the tourists, but I opened it as the recession came and the tourists didn’t. Well, many less came and those who did had less money and they could not afford the things I sold. People found that even funnier, as my university course had been Business and Economics; I lost everything I had. Now I am seen as a stupid girl and after I spoke to you people noticed. My friends said ‘you’re making your biggest mistake, you will not see him again’. But I thought I knew better and then you did not turn up, so the default setting of my life was renewed.”

Theodrakis hadn’t expected this, it was the first time anyone had opened up to him here and he felt a wash of self-pity tinged with relief.

“I’m sorry, just give me five minutes, please sit down and let me buy you a drink.”

She fetched two tall glasses full of crushed ice and a bottle of Metaxas and they sat drinking and watching the moon on the water. At first they said little, but gradually Theodrakis began to talk and all the words and bottled up feelings of the last weeks spilled out. She listened in silence until he was finished. Then he lit a cigarette leaned back in his chair and asked her,

“Now, I suppose you think I’m mad and you wished I had stayed away.”

“No, I do not think you are mad; I think that you are cursed.”

She must have seen the sceptical expression on his face and reached across the table to gently touch his hand.

“No, don’t say anything yet but walk with me along the shoreline and I will try to explain things to you.”

They left the table and followed the coastal track away from the village along the bay, passing beyond the range of the last village light. At the end of the bay they stopped beneath a small chapel perched on the cliffs and stood together, in the dark, looking out to sea. He put his arms around her shoulders and moved his face close to hers. She was taller, so he had to lift his head for his lips to meet hers. She responded then pulled away.

“I think you should come and meet my grandmother.”

It was such a ludicrous response that Theodrakis started laughing and couldn’t stop. She laughed as well but pressed on.

“No, listen to me, I mean it. My Grandmother has the gift of second sight. She is known on the island, if someone thinks that the evil eye has been cast on them they go to her; she has the defence. No, do not laugh now; I can see you want to, but many of the people you work with go to her. The policeman who was killed was one; he came to see her only two days before. He was a hard man, a wicked man, but even he got frightened enough to beg for protection.”

“Samarakis? I find that hard to believe.”

“Yes, Samarakis, and do you know when they said a cop had been murdered near Marathakampos the night we met, I thought it must have been you. When I found out it was him I was relieved and very angry.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think of that.”

“Yes, just like all men; you didn’t think.”

“What did Samarakis say to your grandmother?”

“I don’t know. Do you think she would tell me? No, of course not, but she might tell you.”

He had no answer to that. She turned to walk back to the village; he waited a minute then followed, he caught her up and they walked together in silence. She gently took his hand and they ambled back towards the distant lights.

The grandmother lived in a small concrete cottage on the hillside above the coast road. When they arrived she was watching the television with the sound turned up beyond a level which Theodrakis was sure must cause permanent damage to the human ear. She was grey haired and very small, wearing the traditional village black. She greeted Hippolyta with a strange type of clucking sound then glanced towards Theodrakis asking,

“I suppose this is the next one who will bring you trouble?”

“Yaya Eleni, this is Syntagmatarchis Theo …”

“I know who he is: he’s the stuck up Athenian policeman everyone laughs at, except now he thinks he’s caught the killer, but you haven’t, have you?”

Theodrakis felt uncomfortable in this small hot shed and even more uncomfortable with the gaze of the crone; he knew there was no point lying.

“No, I don’t think we’ve found the killers.”

“Good, at least you are honest and there’s no need to ask me any questions, I know what you’re after. You want to know what that fat pig Samarakis came here for, don’t you?”

She didn’t wait for an answer.

“He came because he was frightened; he’d seen something he shouldn’t have. Yes, even that swaggering bully felt fear, so like a little boy he came to me for a charm to protect him: the poor fool. I saw death in him the moment he came through the door, it oozed out like sweat from every greasy pore in his wicked body. Because once he had seen what he did his death was certain, and you’d better pray death was all that waited for him.”

She chuckled mirthlessly and made clucking sounds to herself before continuing.

“Once he understood, he couldn’t wait to pass on what he’d learned, hoping that the death would transfer with it. So think yourself lucky, Athenian, that his knowledge died with him.”

“How can you know all this?”

“You would not understand if I told you and even if you did, you wouldn’t believe. But for the sake of my silly granddaughter, whose luck and judgement seems to get worse each day, I will give you some advice.”

She waddled round to an ancient rush-bottomed chair and lowered herself onto its greasy seat.

“Hippolyta, wait outside while I tell something to your man.”

Hippolyta slipped through the door leaving Theodrakis sweating in the fetid heat of the room, standing before the crone.

“You should never have come here; this is not your place. Here you are like a fish who tries to walk; here you can trust no one, here no one is who they seem, here no one will protect you. Yet deep inside you something has wakened that might help you; it may even save you. All this is far beyond any defence that I could give you, but here is the only help I can offer. On this island there is one person who can help you and one who can damn you. The first you do not know, the second you will recognise. That is all. Listen, I want no more of this evil; it works and moves in a more powerful world than mine.”

Theodrakis realised it was a waste of time asking questions. He mumbled his thanks and walked to the door. As he was leaving she spoke one last time.

“Do not mistreat that foolish girl outside. I know you understand that if you do, I will set misfortune on you.”

Outside, the sweat drying on his body felt cold. Hippolyta linked his arm and they walked down the hill towards the village. Neither of them said anything about the visit to the crone. He walked her home and as they reached her door she said,

“Tomorrow I don’t have to work; if you like, I will take you on one of the boat picnics that the captains arrange for tourists.”

In normal circumstances he would have avoided this like the plague, but now he agreed instantly.

“Good, it’s a pity we can’t go on the best one: that is on Captain Michales’s boat but I do not think you would be welcome. I will call at your hotel at nine, bring something for swimming.”

She pecked him on the cheek and disappeared inside. Later, he sat on his balcony with the evening’s events chasing each other round his mind. Yet, despite the frightening strangeness of the evening, on balance he felt better than he had at any time since leaving Athens.

That night he dreamed of the woman again and this time she spoke to him, but her words slipped away before he could make sense of them. She also touched him and his ejaculation was intense enough to wake him. He thought of sponging down the sheets but instead drifted back to sleep.

Chapter 12:
Bad Call

He sat in the corridor waiting for the meeting, flexing his hands to see if he could loosen them up, but it did no good. His fingers and his toes felt numb and frozen when he’d woken that morning, and only warmed up slightly once he got moving. The bed had been empty but she’d left a note on his pillow, ‘Had to dash, reception will get you a taxi, lovely night ring soon. A’.

He supposed he’d maybe trapped a nerve as he slept, reckoning he was too young for circulation problems. He was still flexing his fingers as the door to Professor Andraki’s room opened and he was invited in. Andraki seemed almost excited to see him; the colour had returned to his face, he looked flushed as if he’d run up a couple of flights of stairs. The room was even less tidy than usual: the table, desk, chairs and floor were littered with maps, papers and books. There were at least half a dozen dirty coffee cups in various degrees of emptiness strewn about. He shook Andraki’s hand, picking up the familiar scent of alcohol on his breath.

“Good morning, Doctor Watkins, I just wanted a quick word before you start. I hope the team I picked is to your satisfaction.”

Steve mumbled that it was, while clearing a jumble of papers off the seat that Andraki indicated he could sit on.

“Good, good, excellent, I just wanted to ask you—”

He finished in mid-sentence and Steve realised that Andraki had started to stare intently at his face.

“Your ear, Doctor Watkins, I never really looked at it before before …”

He broke off again then seemed to mumble to himself as much to Steve,

“Lucky, you must be very lucky, you’re marked yet alive.”

“Sorry professor, I didn’t quite catch all of that.”

“Forgive me, I did not mean to appear rude, I just wondered how you came to, er, damage your left ear.”

“It was in an accident.”

This had nothing to do with Andraki and he didn’t want to think about it; he was still plagued by nightmares of that cold night on the mound at Skendlebury. He decided that maybe Andraki was drunk and said,

“Professor, time’s moving on, I need to get to the site.”

Andraki seemed to pull himself together like a man coming round from a dream.

“Yes, of course, well I will come straight to the point. That land has always been off limits to us, even though it’s the oldest archaeological site on the island. It’s attracted more than its fair share of misfortune over the years and been abandoned at least three times. Remarkable artefacts are rumoured to have been found in situ and there are oblique references to it, as you know, in two of the more ancient and obscure texts.

“What you probably don’t know is the rather unhappy local tradition about the place. Unusually, we can evidentially substantiate this as dating back to the earliest records. The tradition concerns a legend of some type of ancient, yet recurring, blood rite. The aggregation of so much reportage, as you know, is often underlain by something of significance. Now Vassilis, whose family have kept it off limits, suddenly wants a stranger to investigate it; why is that, do you think?”

“Because of the fire, I guess, and the period’s my specialism, remember?”

“Of course, but it is also the specialism of many Greek archaeologists who know the terrain far better than you possibly can. Why do you think it is that he takes such an interest in your career?”

Steve could see Andraki’s cheeks flushed red and wondered at the anger, but replied calmly,

“Well, I did save the life of his son.”

“You consider that saving a life? There are many here who would disagree with you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Andraki ignored him, saying,

“I want to be informed of everything of significance that you find. I want to be informed at once, particularly about anything found out of context.”

“Oh, come on, you know that in an area like that stuff gets scattered all over.”

“You know perfectly well what I mean. I must be informed of anything fixed that is out of context. Anything fixed, is that clear enough for you? You inform me at once.”

Steve’s anti-authoritarian streak boiled over so he failed to consider the bizarre implications of the demand. Instead he bridled and channelled his response towards the studied indifference calculated to most infuriate his superiors.

“Yeah, whatever.”

It had the desired effect on Andraki.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t feel quite so pleased if you knew where they think Samarakis the murdered policeman was go—”

He stopped himself from saying more but needn’t have bothered. Steve had walked out without having registered the implication of what Andraki might have been about to let slip.

Outside in the sunlight, the student team, Anna, Thomas and Maria were sitting in the dust under the shade of a desiccated plane tree; he waved to them and walked across to the kiosk to buy a bottle of water. While he was waiting he read the headlines of the local paper: ‘Satanist killer caught’.

He was sufficiently intrigued to buy a copy to read in the minibus on the way to the site and if his translation was correct, it appeared all the killings had been committed by one man. The journalist suggested an inside source close to the investigations had revealed that this man was a mentally disturbed vagrant well known on the streets of Vathia, and one whom most residents of the city would recognise.

The theme of the piece was relief; there was some muted praise for the police but the journalist posed the question: if the man was so well known, why had it taken them so long to catch him? Inside the paper, however, the editorial asked why such a man had been allowed to roam the island on his killing spree and how someone so physically and mentally disabled managed to overpower and mutilate younger and stronger victims; Samarakis in particular. It concluded with the prediction that there would be further developments.

They drove through the charred wasteland left by the fire onto the grounds of the Vassilis estate which seemed unaffected, and turned down a rough and dusty track leading to the sea. The minibus pulled up on the broad flat terrace that Alekka had shown him on his first visit. The covering of coarse grass, thorn and scrub had been burnt off, but otherwise there was little damage. At the far end of the terrace Steve could see the ruins of the deserted village; he spread out the map on the bonnet of the bus so that they could orientate themselves. He was trying to pinpoint the area, where, according to Alekka, lay the buried site of great antiquity, when Thomas, a bearded post grad in his thirties, tapped Steve on his shoulder.

“Look, they’ve found it for us.”

Steve turned to follow the direction Thomas indicated and saw a flock of great black birds circling low above the ground. He was reminded, against his will, of what Father John told him about crows, reminded again when Maria said,

“That’s so creepy, like out of a horror movie or something; are birds like that meant to live here, Tom?”

Steve answered for him.

“Well, if they are or not, that’s more or less where the site’s meant to be so we may as well start over there, come on.”

They grabbed their gear from the bus and trudged across the uneven surface of the burnt ground towards the black carrion. The birds continued to circle low without touching the ground until they were within about twenty five metres, then with an accelerated beating of wings they climbed rapidly and flew off towards the sea with a racket of carking and cawing. The oldest and largest bird circled back onto the charred black stump of a scrub oak some twenty metres distant, from where it watched them.

The fire had burnt off most of the vegetation, down to the thin stony earth that filled in between the rocky protrusions, and Steve noticed a scatter of flints and potsherds. The area the crows circled was different.

However ancient the site, it was apparent was that it had been tampered with very recently. In one sense this was fortunate, as otherwise locating the feature would have been time-consuming and difficult. Yet this thought made Steve uneasy: who would have known where to dig other than an archaeologist with detailed local knowledge? If this was the case, who was it and why? He remembered Andraki describing the desecration of the pre-Geometric burial site in Pythagoreio.

The interference here was crude, looked like it had been done in a hurry and perpetrators wanted to get away as quick as possible. There’d not been any archaeological technique applied, but maybe an archaeologist had sold the information to grave robbers. But that made little sense as virtually nothing with saleable value would be turned up at a site like this. He could tell the others were thinking the same and it was spooking them.

They were standing on a slightly raised, circular area about five metres in diameter, covered in the charred remains of thorn and gorse. Before the fire it would have been hidden, now it seemed almost obscenely exposed and hacked about. Someone had dug a series of experimental holes searching for something, and then apparently having found it, a much larger hole.

This hole was too small for four people to work on so Steve asked Tom and Maria to take an area about the size of a football pitch with the feature at its centre, divide it into a grid and methodically walk each square collecting, recording and bagging every artefact they found. A process similar to that undertaken by police on the murder investigations which were being carried out all over the island.

He and Anna then made a photographic record of the site as they found it. It was hot, too hot really for such work which normally was not done in high summer, but, as Andraki had told him, these were exceptional circumstances. After recording the site and the damage inflicted on it they carefully collected some of the objects that had been turned up in the dug earth, mainly worked obsidian blades of surprisingly good quality.

By the time these were bagged, the sun was directly overhead and causing heat shimmer to distort perspective. The heat thrown back from the recently burnt earth was intolerable so Steve called a halt and they carried their finds back to the mini bus. Thomas raised the sun awning on a series of poles and they slumped into the shade.

After passing round the water they lay still for a while too hot and dried out to talk, then, after the effect of the water enabled sweat to form small streaks in the film of dust that coated their bodies, they began to eat, then lay down to doze away the next couple of hours.

They weren’t easy hours for Steve; there was something horribly familiar, not so much déjà vu as about to be seen. The site was all wrong: for a start why was it there? The land was poor with no other Neolithic stuff anywhere near. It wasn’t like any Neolithic site he’d worked on: not here, not Cyprus, not the Middle East. There was only one site it reminded him of. Skendleby: a site no one had been meant to find, and it would have been better if no one ever had.

He estimated what they had here was a secondary burial inserted into a feature from an earlier period. The burial, probably a cremation pot, had been robbed. Why? There wouldn’t have been anything worth robbing: so why dig it up? The flint blades he couldn’t figure, they were high quality and manufactured someplace else. He felt a sense of dread about the site but it was exciting archaeology.

So, by the time the sun was falling from its zenith and the temperature was moving towards the tolerable, he was almost impatient to get back to investigating the desecrated feature. He crouched at the edge of the main hole to sift through the loose earth that had slipped back into the void, while Anna sifted the material on the surface. His trowel immediately struck rock and he realised that the hole had been cut into the main feature.

In the next hour he uncovered enough dressed stone to be sure he was near the foundation of a painstakingly constructed building. For a moment he entertained the possibility that he’d discovered something to rival Lerna or Sesklo. He paused to catch breath and wipe the sweat from above his eyes and was about to shout to the other two to come across to look when Thomas grabbed him by the arm.

“Steve, I think you should come and see what we’ve turned up.”

Steve saw his face was pale and thought maybe he’d also found something equally mega, that this was going to help rewrite the Neolithic textbooks. He was so excited he didn’t register when Thomas said,

“Steve, I have a bad feeling about this, I think we need to call the cops.”

Steve was already fantasising about the collection from Lerna in the museum at Nafplion and thinking of the Samian equivalent. Then he saw Maria crouched on her hands and knees above a pool of vomit and his fantasy disappeared with a jolt.

“Steve, look at this: we started finding it in this quadrant as we got close to the feature.”

He was interrupted by a bout of dry retching from Maria behind him.

“Look, the closer we get, the more we find.”

Steve looked and saw bone.

“So, what’s the big deal, you know there’s always fragments of bone round sites.”

“Steve, look closely: this is human bone, and once you clean it up a bit and remove smear from the fire it looks recent.”

“OK, but let the lab nerds analyse what it is when we get it to them.”

“Look at the piece that Maria just found and think again.”

Steve followed Thomas to the spot the where the fragment landed after she’d thrown it away in disgust.

“See that: Steve, it’s a human shin bone and there’s no sign of burn on it, look, it’s blood-stained and there’s sinew, ligament and muscle still attached.”

Steve looked at it, Thomas was right; it was a human shin bone, fresh, untouched by fire. He felt queasy.

“OK, I’ll get the lab to take a look at it soon. Remember, the first rule of archaeology; never make a snap judgement, get a second informed opinion.”

“Steve! There’s no fire damage. You know what that means. It was put here after the fire; the fucking thing’s brand new. The police can’t know about this yet, think about it.”

“All right, I’ve got the picture, there’s no need to go on. Listen, we’re finished here for the day; you bag up the bone you moved, leave the rest. I’ll get it looked at.”

“By the police?”

“Just leave it to me.”

“Should we be moving anything? It’s all evidence.”

“Well, we’re not harming it, are we?”

“What about the context?”

“Fuck the context, we know where it was found, mark the spot if you’re so bothered; and listen, no mention of this to anyone, this site could be really big for us. We don’t want it getting messed up. The bones will probably turn out to be animal, or it could be some type of practical joke.”

“What if these bones are connected to the murders?”

“Oh, come on, if there’d been some weird stuff about cutting out bones don’t you think it would be all over the papers? Or are you suggesting that the murders were carried out in the anatomy labs of a hospital? Grow up, for Christ’s sake.”

He realised he was shouting and saw that both the girls were staring at him and Maria was crying. He softened his tone.

“Sorry; sorry, we’re obviously wound up. Look, you can trust me to do the responsible thing about the bones, I promise. But you need to be responsible too; if there’s been some sort of crime here or even just a practical joke, then we all have to keep quiet about it, that’s what the police would say.”

He looked at each of their faces and saw they weren’t convinced.

“Obviously we’ll have to close the site down for a bit, so I’ll text you over the next couple of days, keep you in the picture, yeah?”

Thomas gave him the bag with the bloodied bones and as he passed them across, Steve could see from his eyes that although he didn’t trust him, he was glad to have handed over the responsibility. They packed up and walked back towards the bus, but before they reached it a silver sports car pulled up alongside. Alekka got out and came towards them; Steve could see she was agitated.

“Steve, have you seen my brother Antonis here?”

Steve stopped to talk but the others walked on with their eyes averted; he saw Anna spit on the ground and Thomas cross himself. If Alekka noticed this, she chose not to react.

“No, no one’s been here but us. Is there a problem?”

“No, no problem but I have not time to talk. I will ring you soon.”

She walked quickly back to her car and screeched off. They took down the awning and packed up the bus. On the drive back to the university no one spoke. When he dropped them off he just said,

“I’ll deal with the authorities and when it’s OK to start again I’ll text you. Remember, not a word to anyone.”

They shuffled off together in silence. Steve knew they didn’t trust him and he didn’t blame them, he didn’t trust himself. But he was spooked; this was frighteningly familiar.

That night he sat in the bar by the harbour drinking ouzo; he needed time to think. Needed someone to talk to. After half a bottle he decided to wait until Giles arrived on the afternoon plane. He’d been at Skendleby, if anyone would understand he would.

Telling the others to keep quiet hadn’t been about protecting the integrity of the site. He was afraid of what an investigation would dig up, and he wasn’t going to make the Skendleby mistake a second time. The thin sliver of moon disappeared behind a wisp of cloud and he decided to go back to his apartment. As he walked by his car he remembered the bones locked in the trunk and shivered.

Chapter 13:
Flint Knife

Theodrakis woke early, and by the time Hippolyta arrived to collect him he had sourced a pair of swimming shorts from the village general store. Normally a tourist picnic boat trip was something he would have found distasteful, however in his present circumstances it presented several attractions; not the least of which were a day with Hippolyta and a temporary state of anonymity as part of a group.

Out on a boat no one could find him or expect anything from him. So he took time considering how he should dress for the occasion. His wardrobe didn’t extend to sports casual and he had to settle for the trousers of a cream linen suit worn with a yellow polo shirt and some expensive Italian loafers: just the type of outfit de rigueur at a Glyfada soiree. In his opinion, Hippolyta hadn’t taken similar time over her wardrobe and wore what appeared to be a man’s shirt, several sizes too large, and a pair of flip flops. These latter he appreciated as without heels she wasn’t so much taller than he was.

She drove them through the nearby resort of Kampos, which like all the vacation strips on the island seemed depressingly empty, to a small wooden jetty at the far end. There they found a collection of about thirty holiday makers waiting to board an old pleasure boat moored at the pier end.

Hippolyta pushed through the tourists to the boat where she was greeted by a bulky unshaven man wearing a grubby T shirt bearing the legend ‘Captain Zorba No Problems’. She greeted him with a kiss, introduced him to Theodrakis and let him help her across the gangplank onto the boat. Captain Zorba escorted them to the best seats and only when they were comfortably established did he admit the other passengers. Most of these were middle aged and heavily built, but friendly and determined on a good time.

Theodrakis was the only passenger not wearing shorts or a bulging swimming suit. A group of Northern Europeans squeezed themselves into the remaining seats in the prow. Theodrakis’s new neighbour, a man with a large bare belly and chest covered with scars, grunted amiably and offered him a swig out of a hip flask. Theodrakis refused politely so the man took a large gulp himself, belched, and passed the flask to his companions, who all accepted.

A teenage boy, also wearing a ‘Captain Zorba No Problems’ shirt, untied the ropes and they pulled away from shore. Hippolyta tied her hair back, put on a sun hat and told him that they would sail for about forty minutes to where the captain had laid his nets last night and then stop to gather them in. He would describe different fish they caught, which would later be grilled for lunch.

He didn’t know what to say and she seemed similarly nervous so they sat in companionable silence and watched the coastline as it passed. The day was warm, but the breeze generated by the ship’s motion was refreshing and the drone of the engine comforting. They were squeezed together so he enjoyed the feel of the naked skin of her arm against his.

He felt good, relaxed by the boat but stimulated by Hippolyta and wanted the day to go on forever. Even when a party of Germans attempted to start everyone singing drinking songs he stayed in his blissed-out zone, and in any case the singing didn’t catch on. A pod of dolphins followed the boat for a while and as everyone scrambled for their cameras Theodrakis watched a sleek dolphin arch up out of the water, with sunlight glistening on its svelte skin, before splashing back under the waves.

It seemed so natural and clean that he felt tears starting at the back of his eyes. Hippolyta noticed, asked if he was all right and slipped her arm through his. Sometime later she pointed forwards and said,

“Look, there it is.”

He looked and saw in the distance a white rectangular plastic container bobbing on the water.

“Yes, there, that’s the float, that’s where the nets are, that’s where we catch our fish.”

She was beaming with childish anticipation and he thought that maybe she was as happy as he was.

“When we get to the float, he will haul in the nets and then gut and clean the catch; he’s not as good as Captain Michales but it is quite interesting and sometimes funny.”

Captain Zorba came round with a collection of plastic cups which his son filled from a large and much-used styrofoam container of ouzo and water. When all the cups were filled, the Captain started the winding gear and the nets began their journey up from the sea bed. Only two people on the boat were British, but the talk was delivered in a form of English that everyone seemed to understand and as Hippolyta predicted, it was a good act.

The captain drew up a bucket of sea water, took out a sharp gutting knife and stopped the net as each fish appeared. Anyone who looked nervous about the growing pile of fish gasping and wriggling their last on the deck had a fish thrown to them by the captain, to the amusement of everyone else. Soon Zorba was well into his act.

“This fish here is Scorpios fish, is bad if the spikes stick in you. For us is no good, but if you are careful you can make soup with this fish. This one is small so I throw it back.”

He paused for effect.

“I throw back because I feel very big fish coming up next, very big fish, perhaps shark or dolphin.”

Theodrakis neighbour shouted out at this.

“Gut, then ve eat dolphin, plenty for all.”

Everyone laughed and Hippolyta whispered,

“This is always the joke he ends with, the heavy fish is really the rock that weights the nets.”

Theodrakis sat back getting ready to laugh as Zorba moved to the climax.

“Here it comes, get ready to shout hoopah.”

But he didn’t shout hoopah and Theodrakis didn’t laugh. All eyes were on the net as first a white human arm appeared over the side of the boat followed by the hair, matted with seawrack, then the head and the rest of the naked body. Theodrakis pulled Hippolyta’s head into his chest so she couldn’t see what he did. The body hadn’t been in the water long, no more than a day; the fish had hardly got to work on it.

But the hallmark of the killer was plainly stamped, and hanging naked in the nets above the deck made the imprimatur of mutilations somehow look worse. For an instant there was deep silence on the boat, broken only by the whooshing sounds of a squid slowly asphyxiating in the pile of dying fish on the deck. Then the screaming started.

Hours later, after the police at the dockside had taken the body away, Theodrakis walked through the demonstrators in Lion Square, Vathia, to report to Adamidis. The protest had attracted a large crowd, more than even the organisers had expected and it seemed that all strands of island life were represented. The banners ranged from the official protest rejecting the Euro-zone bail out terms and calling for pensions to be protected to the anarchist demands for bankers to be hanged; the mood was angry but Theodrakis hardly noticed.

It was difficult to push his way through the crowd and even more difficult to talk his way into the civic building where Adamidis had his office. Fortunately, one of the cops on duty recognised him and persuaded security to open up.

Once through the solid doors he entered an entirely different and much quieter world; in fact too quiet, and the tension he could sense inside the old high ceilinged building was so palpable it unsettled him. He removed his jacket to brush off the grime and dust, noticed that his yellow polo shirt was sweat-stained at the armpits, and quickly put it back on.

A secretary led him down the dimly lit and stale-smelling internal corridor leading to the office from which Adamidis monitored the island. Despite the polystyrene tiles and strip lighting of the recently lowered ceiling, installed as part of a project to modernise the building, it conveyed a sepulchral atmosphere of decay. The secretary knocked softly on the door at the end of the corridor then pushed it open and indicated Theodrakis should enter.

Adamidis was seated behind a vast dark wood desk beneath a fan mounted in the ceiling. He didn’t look well and offered no greeting, just motioned Theodrakis to sit.

“Don’t think that you can just sit there and say nothing this time, Theodrakis. We’re all in the shit on this one and if I go down, you go down first, understand?”

Theodrakis understood that despite having been urged to speak, this question was rhetorical so he remained silent.

“We can’t hush this up; can’t hush any of it up now. Not now your little fishing trip has demonstrated at first hand, not only that the murderer is still out there but also what he does with the bodies. You can bet those tourists will be on their mobiles selling the details to every fucking tabloid in Europe.”

He put his head in his hands and for a moment Theodrakis felt sympathy for him. After a while, he sat up again and continued.

“So, you’ve found another who has ‘died unknown, dazed with dreadful face’.”

Theodrakis knew he was quoting but couldn’t place the source.

“We know this country’s fucked, the economy’s fucked, the climate’s fucked and that’s what those angry scared people out there are shouting about. But they’re the lucky ones aren’t they? They are the lucky ones because they don’t know what we know: how fucked we really are. So now I want you to tell me truthfully what you think it is that we’re really up against and how we deal with it.”

Theodrakis let out a breath of ironic laughter.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what it is or what we do about it. You know as well as I do that all the evidence from pathology points to every murder using the same prehistoric weapons and mutilating the bodies in an identical manner. That suggests they all followed the same guide book to conduct a common ritual.”

Adamidis ignored the bitter sarcasm, just sat silent, head lowered.

“Yet the evidence is equally clear that each murder was committed by a different person and we have to accept that, especially now that, thanks to your press release, everyone will know that this latest murder was carried out while the main suspect was in a police cell.”

He waited for Adamidis to respond but there was no reaction, just silence interrupted by the whirring of the fan and the ticking of the electric clock on the wall; so for the first time he tried to explain to his superior what he actually thought.

“I don’t think we can treat this as a murder case, none of our procedures are adequate. This is more like some type of epidemic and the killers are just its agents, perhaps like the rats that spread the Black Death. I know it sounds incredible but it’s logical. That mad old man killed one and we got him; but it takes us nowhere. It’s likely that we will get others, but by then it will have moved on and we’ll be no wiser. I think we need to try and understand the significance of the missing evidence.

“We have to find the bones; once we have those, particularly if they are all in one place then we have a context and we might understand something about the ritual. At least we have a pattern now; we know it’s not random, so we need to study this pattern, to interrogate the evidence in a different way, to try to see it in a different way. The bones are the key.”

He paused, surprised that Adamidis hadn’t tried to shut him up, then articulated his wildest theory: the one that gave him nightmares.

“I think this could be an infection of the mind, a type of possession if you like. Half those people out there demonstrating believe these murders involve a curse or black magic; we know this is just superstitious nonsense, but their belief makes it real to them. You know from psychology it’s a short step from believing something to making it real, even police college teaches that. How many murderers claim that they were driven to kill by voices only they could hear? I think there’s something on the island encouraging this. Something beyond the a priori that we don’t perceive. I also know that there are things that you’ve kept hidden from me, things that Samarakis was going to tell me before he was killed.”

Again Adamidis said nothing, so he pressed on.

“I think we should try other lines of enquiry: we should find out where the bones are, we should deviate from procedure and try hypnosis on that mad man in the cells. When I interviewed him he underwent personality change, it was like interviewing two people, one of which was hidden inside. It spooked all the cops in the station. Let’s see if we can put together a picture or pattern, however strange or warped, of what the purpose of this thing is.”

He paused again, for a moment undecided whether to continue, but Adamidis was staring expectantly at him so he did.

“I need you to tell me what you’ve been hiding and if things like this have happened on this island before. As you said earlier your career’s ruined, this place is going to Hell; what have you got to lose?”

There was a silence then Adamidis took his head out of his hands and sat up straight.

“What you say makes no sense but then neither does anything else at present and you’re right about us withholding information from you. The first of these killings occurred shortly after Professor Andraki discovered that some ancient sites had been disturbed and robbed. Then the killer sent that message to the press, no one could make any sense of it; we thought it was some kind of code. No one could crack it so, as a last resort, we showed it to Andraki and he identified it as what he thought might be a type of very early Mesopotamian proto script. To prevent panic we were advised to keep it from the public.”

“Who has the authority to instruct you? I thought you were most senior here.”

“Most senior, yes. Most influential, no. I’ve said all that I intend to; if you want to know the rest you need to talk to Andraki again. Then if you still want to know more and are prepared to sell your soul, try Vassilis.”

He looked Theodrakis in the eyes and contorted his mouth into a mirthless smile, made a dismissive gesture that made Theodrakis think of Pontius Pilate and said,

“That’s all; go.”

Adamidis placed his head back in his hands, the overhead fan whirred above his head and the clock ticked; Theodrakis turned and left the room.

He didn’t want a squad car so took a taxi to the university in Karlovasi. He slumped in the back ignoring the driver’s diatribe about bankers, German money men, Greek politicians, communists, murders sent as a curse and anything else that came into his angry mind, which started as soon as the taxi started and ended forty minutes later in Karlovasi. The university vestibule was dusty and deserted as usual so he followed the corridor to Professor Andraki’s office. As he got close he heard raised voices: Andraki’s in protest, and perhaps fear, and another voice higher pitched and malicious. He waited outside to hear more but the door opened and a man came out. He was young, dark haired and unnaturally pale and as he brushed past Theodrakis he paused as if he recognised him.

“I see you Athenian, clown and victim, you and Andraki, you could be made for each other.”

He made a sound between a hiss and a cat spitting, and Theodrakis noticed the bloodshot film across his eyes, then he was gone. Andraki was dishevelled, red faced and breathing heavily. The office was in an even greater state of disorder than it had been on his previous visit, and Theodrakis wondered at the rate at which Andraki was deteriorating. He waited for him to compose himself before questioning, but it was Andraki who spoke first.

“That thing was Antonis, the son of Vassilis of whom you have heard; even Vassilis doesn’t deserve a creature like that as a son, if that is what he really is.”

“What was he so upset about?”

“Upset? That’s too mild, too human a word for Antonis, the little shit should have died in that car, would have but for that English man who is now fucking his sister. Saves the brother and the sister drinks his soul, not much thanks that, is it?”

Theodrakis understood none of this, Andraki seemed deranged. To give him time to calm down he walked across to the desk and examined the collection of flint artefacts scattered there. He noticed several blades. After some moments he turned back to look at Andraki, who seemed calmer.

“Professor, I have just come from Kirios Adamidis, there has been another killing and we are exploring a new avenue of enquiry.”

“Which will be a cul-de-sac like all the others. I use the French deliberately with its suggestion of arse end.”

This was not what he expected from Andraki, whom he’d considered a fastidious man like himself, apart from the drinking of course. It was this last thought that put into place something else he found odd. There was no trace of alcohol on Andraki’s breath, the man was sober.

“Professor, I think you could be very helpful. I want to know more about the prehistoric, or more precisely the Neolithic aspects of this killing.”

“Then you would be better talking to the English man. Vassilis places more faith in him than in me, the leading Greek scholar. I’m sure Watkins will be prepared to take time off from screwing that overheated bitch to talk to you.”

“Thank you, Professor, I will bear that in mind, but for now it is you to whom I must talk. I’m interested in the fact these killings started shortly after you reported an ancient burial site had been disturbed. Would that have been a Neolithic site?”

“That just displays your ignorance of Aegean archaeology; there are no major Neolithic burial sites, and few, if any, known burials on Samos. The burials in question are from the very much later Geometric, although it is possible that the site overlies earlier evidence.”

“So where did all those implements on your desk come from? They are Neolithic, are they not?”

“Yes, but from a variety of sites and some were imported from other islands.”

“Professor, you are party to the facts that indicate the murderer uses Neolithic blades to kill, blades like those on your table perhaps. Where would he get hold of such blades?”

“How would I know that?”

“Well, what about the bones, was it not a tradition in Neolithic times to take selected long bones of the dead to collective burial sites?”

“I see you have bothered to research the subject, Syntagmatarchis, but like many lazy students you have been too superficial. The practices you allude to pertain to the British and elements of European Atlantic Neolithic only and, as I understand from recent research, even there the jury is still out. What you so confidently refer to as Neolithic is, in reality, a wide range of different cultures, with different practices spread across thousands of years. I can promise you there is no tradition of disarticulation for collective burial in the Aegean, and as for associated ritual murder, well I don’t think you will find evidence of that anywhere.”

Theodrakis had been through a very stressful time and began to feel anger building up, anger which was now aimed at Andraki.

“Nevertheless, Professor, the bones have been taken and believe me, we will find them; and when we do then perhaps I will consult the Englishman you seem so fond of. But for now I think I will take that collection on your desk with me to help with enquiries.”

“You can’t do that, it’s a private collection.”

“Just watch me, Professor, and while you’re at it tell me what you really know about the curse and the ritual.”

He walked across to the desk to collect the flints, wondering what he would carry them in. As he was sweeping them into a pile he was conscious that Andraki had joined him at the desk. He ignored him and leant across to gather in the flints at the desk’s far side. As he did so, he noticed a half open drawer that looked to have a couple of bigger blades wrapped in a piece of cloth inside. He reached for them and as he did he felt sharp pain as something struck then skidded off his shoulder blade. He tried to turn, but only ended up stretched out on his back on the desk; above him Andraki was stabbing at him with a flint blade that already dripped blood. He pushed his hands out to protect his face and felt the flint slash through the palm of his right hand and slide on, so that he managed to grab hold of the wrist with his left.

Andraki’s face was above his; he was breathing heavily and spittle flew from his fleshy lips, moistening Theodrakis’s face. He tried to use his shredded right hand but it bloodily slipped off whichever part of Andraki it touched. The hand holding the knife bore down towards his face forcing his own back with it; he was not strong enough to resist. He felt Andraki’s other hand, strong, but with a strangely soft and girlish texture, grip his neck and begin squeezing his windpipe. He’d never been a hard man, never been a fighter and knew he was going to die. He had no thoughts about this, only terror.

He squirmed and wriggled about on the desk trying to shake free like the dying squid on the boat deck as it tried to return to the sea. He shut his eyes so that he wouldn’t see the flint point inexorably boring its way towards his face, and his ruined right hand thrashed uncoordinatedly across the cluttered surface of the desk. His spasming fingers grasped something; a pen, and through some instinct beyond thought he thrust it towards where he knew Andraki’s face must be. There was a squeal and his face was covered with something hot and sticky, the grip on his throat relaxed, the hand with the blade fell away and a horrible squealing began.

He opened his eyes Andraki had moved away from the desk and was bent double with his hands covering his face; spouting between them like some terrible antennae was the handle of the pen. He didn’t need to look more closely to know where the pen had lodged. He looked down at his boat trip outfit, now blood-soaked, and was sick.

Theodrakis wasn’t a malicious man, he called the ambulance before the cops but, when he had, he was seized with a level of rage he’d never experienced. The whimpering sounds gnawed at the anger rising within him, and before he could stop himself he walked across to where Andraki crouched holding his face where the pen had entered his eye and kicked him as hard as he could in the balls. Then, in horror at what he’d done, he retreated to the far corner of the room where he slumped in the corner with his hands over his face to wait for whichever of the emergency services could be bothered to arrive first.

Chapter 14:
Past Arrival

As it transpired, the bones remained locked in the trunk of Steve’s car. That long night he tossed sleepless in bed; the idea of them lying there silent gnawed at him and by early morning he decided his nerves were too stretched for him to wait for Giles. He’d take them to Andraki. Once he made this decision, he managed to drop into an uneasy sleep.

He was woken by the man in the truck that sold plastic chairs and potatoes shouting his wares through a megaphone on the truck’s roof. One of the things that pleasantly surprised Steve about the village was that, not only did such practices still exist in the world, but that here, at least, they seemed to thrive. But today the amplified if unintelligible grunting, and the roar of the truck crashing through its lower gears as it clattered along the track beneath his window, gave him no pleasure.

His head throbbed from the last night’s drink as he tried to get himself together for his trip to Andraki. The face that gazed back at him from the shaving mirror was liverish, and his furred and yellow tongue looked too fat to be healthy. He swallowed a half cup of coffee made from the type of powder that he thought had ceased to be used in Western Europe decades ago but was ubiquitous here, and left the apartment. The chair and potato truck was right outside his doorway with the engine running and the cab door open. The driver was sitting drinking at a table with a couple of old fisherman cronies about twenty metres away; they all seemed to be shouting at once. It seemed so normal, and he wished he were a part of it.

Inside the car he had to stop himself from checking whether the bones had made their way out of the locked trunk and were now on scuttling about on the back seat. He knew this was ridiculous, but since Skendleby he didn’t believe in the everyday world that other people existed in. So he got out of the car to make sure the trunk was still locked and having reassured himself drove off.

Once he’d crossed the spine of the island the fire damage was behind him and the sea, stretching towards the Turkish coast, was sparkling ahead. He thought how good it would be to see Giles and Claire at the airport later. He found a spot to park near the university by the statue of Anaxagoras who had predicted that the earth rotated round the sun fifteen hundred years before Galileo. A hero now but, like Galileo, he’d been persecuted by his contemporaries.

The statue had the bland bearded face common to all statues of Greek philosophers, and Steve thought it would also serve as a template for statues of university archaeologists if ever any of them were so elevated. He was thinking about this when he blundered into the temporary police barrier erected across the University main entrance. The bored looking cop on duty showed no inclination to answer his questions and just waved him away, so he wandered over to a group of students gathered across the road to smoke and pass the day awaiting further developments.

“What’s going on over there, then?”

“Don’t know but we think someone’s been murdered.”

“I heard a cop’s been killed.”

“Christos told me it was in Andraki’s room, he said there was an ambulance.”

No one really knew but the general consensus was that Professor Andraki was involved either as victim or assailant and that he’d been whisked away in an ambulance or police car. Steve felt a griping in his guts, certain the bones in his car were linked to whatever had happened here. He remembered how vehement Andraki had been that anything out of context be reported back to him.

What could be more out of context on an ancient site than disarticulated twenty-first century bones with scraps of soft tissue still attached? He tried to ring Alekka but only got her answer phone; he didn’t want to go to the police until he knew more so decided to go back home and wait for Giles. He returned to the car with its grisly cargo and drove back over the mountain spine towards the village. As he entered Marathakampos he realised he was out of cigarettes and rather than pay the tourist prices in the village store, he stopped off at a cheap cafenion on the main street.

He parked Greek style: just stopped the car in the road and walked off through the tables under the awning and into the bar. There was a very old man in a corner away from the window singing to himself, otherwise the place was empty. Eventually the owner, a one-eyed fat man in a greasy stained vest, walked out of the back room to serve him. He bought forty cigarettes and ouzo to settle his nerves which he took to a table outside.

He sat under the trellis of vines watching passing traffic manoeuvre round the obstruction caused by his parking. He began to feel that he was being observed. When he couldn’t resist the compulsion any more he looked round and saw a man in a black robe and broad-brimmed hat sitting under the deepest shade of the trellis. He hadn’t been there when he arrived and no one had come in since he had. The apparition lifted its hand as if it were a great effort and beckoned him over.

Steve couldn’t see the man’s face in the shadows but was horribly certain it was the cadaverous priest from the Vassilis estate. He sat havering in indecision and watched as the pale and bony finger beckoned again. He stood up and walked across to the priest’s table; up close he looked even worse. The red pustules on the dead white skin were weeping, the skin was so thin Steve could see the bone. He preferred to avert his eyes from the bandage wrapped round the throat and the discolouration that was leeching through. He wondered could such a thing be considered alive.

“Welcome, Doctor Watkins, I thought I would find you here.”

The voice was dry and thin like newspaper rustling in the wind. How could he have expected to find him in this dirty, depressing cafenion?

“Father John, how are you?”

He mentally kicked himself for asking such a stupid question. He needn’t have worried, the priest ignored the question and gestured for him to sit. He sat at the edge of the table furthest away and waited to hear whatever it was that Father John had to tell him. Despite his surprise he’d worked out that although he didn’t know how the priest found him he did know this meeting was not by chance. He didn’t have long to wait. Father John gestured him closer then spoke.

“Listen carefully, I do not want to have to repeat myself.”

Steve reluctantly drew nearer.

“There is no need to be so afraid, I mean you no harm and one day you may need me. Andraki has been infected, you will not see him again.”

Steve was about to ask what he meant but Father John raised an almost translucent hand to silence him.

“Listen, don’t speak; finish your work on the site without delay, your friend who arrives today will help. Bring what you find to Vassilis, show it to no one else; talk to no one else. No one, you understand.”

There was a silence; the priest’s eyes were closed and Steve thought maybe he was asleep or perhaps dead, but they opened and with an obvious effort he added,

“Bring the woman too, now go.”

Steve needed no second invitation; he got up and walked quickly to his car. The walk took less than a few seconds but when he looked back the table in the shade was empty. He pulled off immediately; half way down the mountain to the village he wondered how the priest could have known about Andraki or Giles arriving later today and why Vassilis would want to see Claire. He assumed that it was Claire he had meant by ‘the woman’. But he hadn’t mentioned the bones and Steve couldn’t figure out if that was good or bad.

The mobile lying in the coin tray bleeped as he was negotiating the hairpin bends leading down to the village. He saw it was Alekka. He didn’t share the local’s skills in driving this road with one arm holding a cigarette and the other holding a phone, so he pulled up into the grove.

“Steveymou, I am sorry I could not talk to you earlier but I look forward so much to seeing your friends from England tonight.”

Steve was pleased but thrown by this; he hadn’t told her about Giles and Claire arriving and made no arrangement for her to meet them. In fact, he’d wondered when he’d see her next. But this was a minor quibble compared to his desire to see her and show her off to his friends and he soon forgot it. A few minutes later as he was parking up outside his apartment Captain Michales slouched across.

“Steve, I will tell you about big things that have happened here, come have one drink.”

The idea of a drink appealed, but the ouzo he’d just drunk was lurking as an incipient headache at the front of his skull.

“Sorry, I’ve got to get to the airport but I’ll be in the bar tonight and you can meet my friends.”

He ignored the captain’s grimace and got back into his car; he’d intended to hide the bones before he went to the airport but with Michales showing up he couldn’t, so he drove off. He’d checked the airport staff weren’t on strike and was reasonably sure, or as sure as you could be in Greece these days, that the flight would get in roughly on time.

But when he pulled into the approach road to the terminal he saw there was trouble. The airport staff were working, but the taxi drivers were on strike and they were out in force to prevent any bits of private enterprise by other drivers. There were scuffles outside the arrivals hall, flustered holiday reps were ushering their charges into a variety of coaches and mini-buses, some of the more battered had obviously been brought out of either retirement or the scrap yard. The taxi drivers let these through but tried to prevent any private cars picking up individuals, so there were a number of distressed families with their luggage sitting in the sun with no way of crossing the mountains to begin the holiday. He recognised Yanni, a taxi driver from the village, and explained what he was doing.

“When your friends come on the London flight, show them to me and I will bring them to you, we don’t want to upset tourists but we will not let cockroaches take our work.”

So Steve passed the time until the London passengers got through baggage reclamation hiding the sack of bones, which had begun to smell, under the spare wheel. The sight of Giles shepherding Claire through the crowd brought tears to his eyes, it had been so long since he’d been with people who knew what he had gone through at Skendleby. He pointed them out to Yanni and moments later they were slaloming through the mass of obstructively parked taxis towards the main road. In the car conversation was muted, how could you pick up normally after what had happened? Giles and Claire were tired, and gradually lapsed into staring out of the window at scenes of breathtaking beauty alternating with the blackened tree stumps and scorched earth of fire damage.

The accommodation Steve had reserved for them was in a small development of eight houses in an olive grove overlooking the sea, a few hundred metres above the village; a great place for a holiday but now, like much of the accommodation on the island, empty. So they had the grove, the pool and the views to themselves. They fixed up to meet in the bar at seven and Steve left them with mixed emotions.

Back in the village he couldn’t settle, and by six he was nursing a drink in the bar. Slowly the village and alcohol worked their magic and he sat back inhaling the mixed scent of drifting tobacco smoke and sea air. He stared at the sea: flat and limpid with occasional dazzles. Condensation gathered on his glass and he began to feel lulled, time didn’t matter; feral cats dozed and stretched, eyes half closed in the dust under a tree. He rolled a smoke and gazed out towards the horizon where Patmos drifted in and out of focus in the heat haze.

He sensed, rather than saw, a man take a seat at the table behind him and ask for a coffee. After a while he turned his head and recognised the detective he’d seen in Andraki’s office. He looked pale, his left hand was heavily bandaged and he was writing in a leather backed notebook. As he sat and watched and the fragrant smoke dispersed into the air he felt an urge, suppressed for years, to write himself. Without thinking he asked for a sheet of paper, the detective looked surprised but with an air of reluctance tore out a leaf from the notebook and passed it across.

He began to write and as he did he temporarily forgot Alekka, the numbness in his fingers and the other anxieties infesting his consciousness. He lost himself trying to distil thought into the minimum number of words. Sometime later he put down his pen and re-emerged into the world. He looked round and saw that the fastidious detective was re-reading whatever he’d written. He looked up and their eyes met and, on an uncharacteristic impulse, Steve asked,

“May I see what you’ve written?”

“If you can read Greek then help yourself.”

Steve stretched out his hand and Theodrakis passed across the paper; on it was a short poem neatly written and despite the crossings-out, beautifully symmetrical.

‘The rattle of Tric Trac the prattle of logos

Life sweet and sharp as a pear.

Is it

The slit eyed cat in the dust who watches the bird on the twig?

Or

The slow rotation of an ancient potsherd through crumbling
earth?

Through time’s passages the planets turn.’

Steve handed it back.

“That’s good; far better than I could manage.”

“Thank you that is most kind but it reads like a poor pastiche of Elytis don’t you agree? Perhaps you would show me the use to which you put my paper?”

“If you can read English help yourself.”

“I read it fluently, thanks to a year’s internship in Cambridge.”

Steve looked down at his scrawl with crossings out spreading like a rash across the paper then passed it across; Theodrakis took it with the semblance of a bow in return. He read and then re-read it before handing it back.

“Strange don’t you think how both of us, strangers here, end up in the same cafe writing poems full of images of the past? Instructive for me to see how ancient death affects you, and how great are the similarities between your work and mine. I know who you are, and before long would have come to question you. You are the English archaeologist who works for Vassilis.”

“I know Vassilis, but if I work for anyone it would be Professor Andraki.”

Steve saw a spasm of emotion distort Theodrakis face so he continued.

“Perhaps you can tell me what is going on with Andraki, there was a police cordon round his office this morning.”

“No, all I can say is that the statement of who you work for is now wrong on both counts. But I am more interested in what you have to say about bones and death in your poem.”

Steve missed most of this; Giles and Claire with their arms round each other were almost at the table. He was about to get up when Theodrakis asked him,

“Please tell me. What happened to your ear?”

But he got no answer; Giles had reached the table.

“Sorry to be so late, Steve, but we got sort of distracted and time seems to run to a different drum beat here.”

Claire giggled and Steve began introductions. Theodrakis saw her, turned his head away, gathered his things and got up to leave.

“I must go, I have an appointment but we fellow poets will soon meet again and you can give me your answers then; I will be in touch.”

With a perfunctory nod to Giles, he rushed off towards the hotel. Claire kissed Steve on the cheek and said,

“What’s wrong with him? It was like he’d seen a ghost.”

Steve noticed too but hadn’t bothered, as the detective was weird and beyond the normal conventions of social discourse, and anyway Giles was unusually enthusiastic and vocal.

“Great place, Steve, really chilled. We had a lie down and after Claire dropped off I went down to the pool and sat looking out across the olive groves to the sea, beautiful. I can’t believe we’ve got the whole place to ourselves.”

Steve was surprised at how pleased he was his friends liked the place, and gave Giles a rundown of all the hidden pleasures of the island while Claire sat staring out across the rippling waters of the bay. They finished their drinks then ambled along the quayside to Maria’s taverna to eat, stopping from time to time so that Steve could introduce his friends to the locals. Halfway through eating, as if conjured out of nowhere, Alekka appeared at the table, lightly kissed him on the forehead and demanded, “So, Steve, are you going to introduce me to your friends about whom you tell me so much?”

She turned with a smile to Giles and he saw from the expression on his friend’s face that he was impressed; they shook hands and then she turned to Claire. It was more an impression than anything more concrete but as the two women locked eyes, the atmosphere round the table chilled several degrees. After a pause long enough to have become uncomfortable, Alekka looked away and said to Steve,

“I am sorry, I have no time tonight, but I would like you to call me later.”

She walked away from the table and into the night and before Steve thought of anything to say by way of apology Claire sniggered,

“What a real lulu; well you certainly know how to pick them, Steve.”

Later, when Claire, pleading tiredness, went back to the house to sleep and the two men were sitting over glasses of brandy, Giles leaned forwards in his chair.

“That was strange, people have started to react to her like that.”

“It was probably because of that letchy look you gave Alekka.”

“No, it’s more than that. We had a weird experience in France, stopped off at a roadside bar in the middle of the Central Massif and walked into this large room full of locals and bikers drinking. It was real noisy in there but by the time we reached the bar the whole room was silent; it was eerie, everyone watching her, but the bartender ignored us.

“After a while an old guy with a scarred face and squint walked up and said it was a private bar and we weren’t welcome. It wasn’t private and I don’t think he meant unwelcome only in there. Same thing at the hotel that night; said they’d no record of our booking but after a load of argument they put us up in a type of fixed caravan that hadn’t been used for years a couple of miles down the road. We, or Claire mainly, were made to feel like lepers. Then the car packed up and the zombies at the local garage claimed they couldn’t get the parts and we got trailered home. Tell the truth I was glad to get back, strange thing was it didn’t seem to bother her, she just laughed. I’m glad to be here Steve, but I’m tired and I don’t think I want to talk about Tim tonight, maybe tomorrow.”

He got up and Steve hugged him, something he wouldn’t have done before Skendleby. Giles cut back through the village backstreets towards the villa, Steve watched him noticing the black shapes of birds circling his accommodation.

Chapter 15:
Here Among the Vanishing

Theodrakis walked rapidly from the bar. Why had the shock of seeing the English woman been so unsettling? He was early for Hippolyta and needed time to compose himself, so he walked the length of the seafront then followed the harbour wall to its end. He sat on one of the concrete blocks dumped outside the wall to protect it from the winter storms, lit a cigarette with surprisingly steady hands, and tried to put events into a credible sequence.

The fight with Andraki, once it ended, gave him the least anxiety. Afterwards, when Andraki had been taken off in the ambulance and the cops had arrived, he felt calmer than he had at any time since he arrived on the island. Like he’d felt during the political kidnapping in Athens when he gained his reputation.

He was better when he took control. It was a good result; he was sure Andraki’s DNA and prints would be all over at least one of the victims, and from what he saw on the desk he was pretty certain they had one of the murder weapons. He was unhappy about the surge of anger that had led him to kick Andraki in the balls: that had been a first and he’d enjoyed it. He’d need to watch that.

He analysed his feelings for Hippolyta; was he in love with her? If he was this was also a first, at least with a woman. Not that he was sure he had ever really been in love with a man either; he was too sexually insecure for that, too worried he’d be unable to function when put to the test. He was celibate but was this to protect himself from the humiliation of failure or a genuine preference?

He knew from private practice that he was in good working order but this had deserted him in the few fumbling failures that constituted his sex life with a consenting other. He knew he’d reached the fumbling stage with her, and that worried him because she was special and he didn’t want to screw it up through being unable to perform.

The uncertainty over one woman conjured his fear of the other: the English woman. She’d flashed him a look of distilled hate. There was something terrible hiding inside her which recognised and hated him. Yet no one else seemed to feel that, she’d been giggling with the Englishman, Giles, who’d obviously just been doing with her what he feared to do with Hippolyta.

Something in her frightened him so much he’d given up questioning Steve and run off. He’d seen the English woman before, but only at night in his dreams standing on the shelf of rock above the sea taunting him. Things were changing; her presence had shifted the balance.

The cigarette burned down to his fingers. He stood up, flicked it into the water and set off back down the sea wall. The walk to her apartment took about five minutes and he saw no one else on the street except the boat captain he’d met in the bar, who scowled at him. He rang the bell and waited, wondering how he would play what happened next. She opened the door wearing a long bath robe, her hair was still damp and hung limp over her shoulders. He started to speak but she stopped him.

“No talk; come.”

She took his hand and led him into the flat and he saw a small, sparsely furnished but very clean living room which incorporated a compact kitchen area. The room spoke of thrift, effort and hard times, but it was a brief glance, as she led him through to a smaller room half filled by a three quarter bed. Perhaps it was better this way; what could they have talked about? He’d nearly been killed and the shadow of the blanched and sea-damaged cadaver hanging above the boat would haunt any attempt at conversation.

The fumbling wasn’t as problematic as he’d feared and when she touched him he was hard. The earth didn’t move for either of them, but life changed and he lay awake afterwards with one of her legs spread across his and an arm over his chest. The night was hot and their sticky bodies adhered; she slept, he didn’t. He felt cramped but secure and happy. In bed she seemed bigger than when standing up. Her body was better muscled and her powerful legs seemed to dwarf his, and to his surprise he liked this.

His mind was working; he made decisions. In the morning he’d go to see Vassilis, he’d go unannounced. It was time to move the game forwards now he understood enough to have some cards to play.

Sometime before first light he drifted into an untroubled dream-free sleep, and only woke late when she entered the bedroom with a tray of coffee, fresh bread and honey. She swept back the curtain over the small window to reveal the view of a concrete wall. He thought that whatever the flat lacked in space and comfort, it also lacked in location, despite being within spitting distance of the sea. She sat on the bedside and they shared breakfast, neither knowing what to say about the change in their relationship. Then he called for a squad car to drive him to the Vassilis estate.

“Will you come back here tonight?”

“If I can; I hope so. I will ring you.”

In the car he thought of what his father would think of him staying in such a poor flat with such a woman, if his father now thought about him at all these days, which he doubted. As the car turned onto the track leading up to the house his phone rang.

“Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis, it’s Lucca. You were right about Andraki, you can put him down for Samarakis. There’s traces of him all over that one and I think maybe the body in the water too, but that’s trickier and we’ll need more time. What’s happening to us?”

“We’re drifting through the underworld, Lucca. Once you accept that, everything becomes clear and easier to deal with. Thanks for the results but I also need an estimate, as accurate as possible, of how many killers we’re dealing with and I want to know the moment you have it. I also need to know when Andraki can be questioned, get Kostandin onto it please. Let’s hope that our great leaders don’t have any bright ideas for a press release this time.”

“You’ve obviously not picked the rumour that Adamidis has been removed from his position; gossip of strange behaviour has attracted attention.”

Theodrakis laughed at that, it would need to be very strange to attract attention here at present, but before he could reply the squad car swept round a corner and into the compound of Vassilis’s house.

“Thanks Lucca, keep me informed.”

His first impression of the Vassilis estate, compounded during his visit, was that it was unreal; like a fairytale version of the lair of a sinister recluse. It was nothing like the villas and palaces of the vulgar rich he’d experienced visiting his father’s friends as a boy. The homes of the wealthy Athenians were not like this; it made him more curious about the occupant and the first sight of his host confirmed the conjecture.

Vassilis was in full magus mode when he was ushered through to the terrace and introduced. It took Theodrakis some time to adjust his vision sufficiently to the sharp contrast between the gloom of the corridors and the glare of the terrace, but when he could focus without blinking, his first impression was that there was some elaborate and subtle game being played. His host was wearing a type of long-sleeved, deep blue, silk kaftan which reminded Theodrakis of the illustration of a wizard in one of the books from his childhood. It only needed a pointed hat to replace the skull cap Vassilis had opted for and the illusion would be complete.

Was this some type of practical joke? But that was impossible; Vassilis had received no forewarning of his visit. Only he and the driver knew the destination, and the driver only knew once they’d turned off the main road onto the track a few minutes back. It wasn’t a joke and up close there was nothing remotely risible about Vassilis.

“What an unexpected pleasure you bestow on us, Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis; but I fear perhaps its purpose is not strictly social.”

Vassilis extended a limp hand and as Theodrakis took it he was surprised that such a large and powerfully built man would practise such a weak and cursory handshake. It was as if he detested human contact. However there was nothing else weak about him; rather the hooded, deep green eyes and fleshy features were intimidating and for the second time in minutes Theodrakis was reminded of an illustration in one of his books: a picture of the notorious magician Aleister Crowley.

“My apologies, Kirios Vassilis, but I have an urgent problem which I hope you will be able to help me solve.”

Vassilis made no reply but motioned to Theodrakis to sit at a large marble table at the far end of the terrace under the shade of a gnarled and ancient vine. He had a moment to look at his surroundings and the breathtakingly beautiful view across the mountain to the shimmering sea far below. Vassilis made no visible sign but an old woman brought a tray to the table. She set down a pitcher of cool wine and a bowl of olives. The pottery was so distinctive that Theodrakis recognised the beautiful decoration of leaping goats from a visit to the new museum in Pythagoreio. Vassilis noticed.

“I see you are a man of discerning taste, Syntagmatarchis. Yes, they are original, in the Wild Goat style imported here in the 6th century B.C., and rather better than the ones in the museum I’m sure you will agree. We tend to do things in style here, but I know you are not paying a social visit. However before your questions, let me pose you one.

“Why has it taken you so long to come to me?”

“Because it’s only been in the last twenty four hours that I’ve come to suspect that my murder investigation is merely a symptom of something else, something much more frightening.”

“Things are usually not what they seem, Syntagmatarchis Theodrakis: for instance would you be so kind as to direct your gaze towards our chapel over there beyond the formal garden, and tell me what you see.”

“I see gardens, the chapel, a statue and two old Cyprus trees.”

“So you see a statue, but you do not see our friend and protector, Father John?”

“No, there’s no one there.”

“But of course there is no reason why you should see him, rather like Schrödinger’s cat.”

“I’m sorry I’ve lost you, Kirios Vassilis, are you being metaphorical?”

Vassilis paused.

“A metaphor, yes, that would be an informed way of describing him.”

Vassilis was regarding him with interest and when he continued it was in a more intimate way, and Theodrakis felt he’d passed a test.

“Forgive me if I have confused you, Syntagmatarchis, let me begin again. You are baffled by these murders, they make no sense, in fact they defy the possible. You are an unusual man to be a police officer, you think too much and you have reached the stage where your logical mind is being overruled by your instinct because you are an intuitive thinker, aren’t you. Do tell me if I am mistaken.”

“No, you’re not mistaken, when I look at this case from a procedural perspective it makes no sense as a murder enquiry. Looked at with an open mind it seems more like contagion, the type of thing that spreads plague.”

“Good, another good metaphor. Please indulge me for a few minutes: I am going to tell you some things that your logic will reject but which your intuitive mind will recognise. But first, do take some of our excellent wine while it is still cool.”

Theodrakis took the goblet and drank, the wine was cool and exquisite. He sat back to listen, aware of another turning point in his life.

“You are, of course, correct in your hypothesis that your murders are merely a symptom, although admittedly a terminal one, of the contagion sweeping this island. To prolong the medical analogy, we have reached the crisis. It is in fact a contagion that occurs in various parts of the multiverse and for a time I hoped we had seen the last of it here. But, like the plague with its rats, it inhabits hosts which enable it to spread.

“This island has experienced several outbreaks and in most cases it has only ended when the entire population emigrated. You will be aware of course that our history books record several such evacuations and there were others before the invention of writing. You will find the gaps in the archaeological record substantiate what I say.

“Now listen to this with an open mind; whoever said that the past is a foreign country where things are done differently was closer to the truth than he realised. You cannot escape the past because it does not go away. When your scientists finally come to understand time and existence they will appreciate the tangible reality I describe, unfortunately that is unlikely to be for centuries. A ripple in the multiverse is a cataclysm in your primitive one.

“The escalating situation here is a consequence of archaic destructive forces on the move: things the peasants here would see as the Devil, and they are almost correct, even though their reasoning is of course the credulous superstition of children.”

He refilled Theodrakis’s glass.

“I think you should drink a little more, Syntagmatarchis, it will help you cope with what I am about to tell you.

“The dead travel fast but they need assistance: evil gathers, it aggregates and fashions conductors of power. There is only a thin membrane between this world, which you of course think is the only one, and all the others. But, and pay great attention to this, there are certain gruesome fetish objects that contain elements of all these worlds and which become more powerful as each age adds its own particular contribution of evil. They cannot be destroyed, and have therefore to be separated from their owners and kept hidden. That way their power is limited to a psychic pollution of their immediate environment. You can use your primitive understanding of radioactive material to fashion an analogy.”

He paused for a moment, favouring Theodrakis with an expression close to a smile which the policeman found disconcerting.

“You will, of course, think this nonsense but try and regard these murders as part of a process to create something worse. The bones, which you have so clumsily attempted to keep secret, are central to this. They will become the next link in a pre-existing chain which, at present through our stewardship, luckily is hidden. But something searching for this link is now very close.

“I don’t expect you to understand this but I have shared a truth with you of which very few of the living are aware. Now it’s your turn tell me the truth about your investigations.”

He finished and looked at Theodrakis, who paused to take a sip of wine while he thought how he should respond, then decided that as he had come here for help and it was too late to go back he may as well unburden himself.

“I am dealing with a series of ritualistic killings that appear to have been committed by different people; some of these people we have already charged: we have their fingerprints, DNA. And in some cases confessions and yet …”

He paused.

“And yet I’m convinced they didn’t do it. Sounds mad doesn’t it? Let me tell you about the old tramp. This man, a harmless unfortunate dependent on hand outs and living on the street, is well known to the police because of his habit of confessing murders; according to him he’s committed all the high profile murders of the modern age and some much earlier such as Julius Caesar, who he claims to have killed in a cafenion in Vathia ten years ago.

“He turned up at the station to confess to one of these ritual murders, but the strange thing was that he was keener to tell us what he hadn’t done: he hadn’t killed Samarakis; this was a departure from the norm and he was obviously terrified of whatever he thought it was that had. When they checked him out his evidence was all over one of the victims. He wouldn’t have had the strength to kill in that way but he could tell us exactly how it was done: he knew all the procedures we’d kept out of the news.

“So I interviewed him and something inside him came out to taunt us, for a time we were in the presence of a quite different entity. So much so that one of the men in the room with me is still off work with some type of mental breakdown.

“Also, in my judgement there is no way Andraki could have killed Samarakis. So whatever the papers say, we are nowhere near the killer.”

He paused but had gone too far now to go back; he’d gambled on making this disclosure to Vassilis and in a way it was a relief to share this mind-destroying material with someone else, so he carried on.

“But the worst part of this is the ritual: the cutting out and taking of the bones. Where are the bones? What does this thing need them for?”

This last sentence he blurted out like a child. Vassilis regarded him with an expression that Theodrakis thought might be pity, maybe even affection. He poured more wine and as the detective gulped it down, he started to answer.

“I know what it wants them for. Sadly, I don’t know where they are and without that the knowledge is useless. You can take comfort though; this nightmare doesn’t really concern you. You are merely a modern walk-on part in a tragedy that extends back before time as you would recognise it. Our curse is to watch and contain it: as a punishment for our part in letting it loose in the first instance. We watch through the ages. But we wear out and some of us are corrupted.”

This made no literal sense to Theodrakis, but he believed it down in some submerged level of consciousness. Vassilis pointed to the weather-beaten roof of the chapel where, with a raucous cackle, three giant crows took off and flew high up to circle above them.

“Look, see there, Syntagmatarchis, we are not completely alone, we have some helpers, albeit reluctant ones. Birds that have the reputation of being ill-omened by most of the ignorant and, to be fair, not without good reason.”

Now Vassilis, who Theodrakis noticed had drunk none of the wine despite having lifted the goblet to his lips, seemed to come to a decision and said,

“You will know I am hated on this island. Hated but feared and the latter is the more important, and I, as the most visible member of our little group, play up to that reputation. We do not encourage enquiry. You will have noticed my costume I am sure; it is a style I once preferred to the current inhibiting fashion. I have nothing but contempt for your society and the, shall we say, service I am compelled to provide.

“Your fellow poet, that pathetic archaeologist, has had contact with my brothers in England. That is why he ran here to escape, not knowing that I arranged for him to come and he is too stupid to recognise it. Now others have arrived. This I did not foresee and fear they will prove to be a catalyst; things will accelerate and deteriorate unless they can be stopped. And if they are not stopped, the present problems of this feckless country will seem as nothing by comparison with what is to come. That is all I will tell you at present, any more would disturb you excessively.

“But you have enough to be going on with. Find those bones quickly; use Watkins, he may be a fool but he is the perfect agent for what we face.”

Theodrakis was surprised to hear Vassilis use the collective ‘we’ but hadn’t time to think about it as Vassilis had one last statement to pass on.

“One last thing concerning the source of the evil you have seen but not recognised. As a poet, you will no doubt be able to place these few words

‘Things fall apart the centre cannot hold:

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world’

The blood dimmed tide is loose’.”

He looked at Theodrakis as if judging him then spoke with the manner of someone bringing a conversation to an end.

“Yes, I thought you would know it. Yeats, as a minor adept, understood a small part of this; I think you might have liked him. Now go; your eyes have been opened, you will know what to do. Do it quickly.”

Theodrakis saw the ancient servant women was standing behind him waiting to show him out and he followed her like someone in a dream. Outside in the compound there was a strikingly beautiful woman waiting by the squad car, much to the discomfort of the driver. She waited until he was close and said,

“You saw her too: saw what I saw. Be very careful.”

She turned and walked into the house.

Chapter 16:
Pass the Parcel

Late in the afternoon, they finally drove off the rough track onto the scorched land surrounding the Vassilis site above the sea. It was Giles’s fault they were so late. He’d taken Claire to Limnionas for a swim. Once there she’d been compelled by the beauty of the place and desperate to explore. They’d followed a track above the sea until it wound its way down to a rocky cove. Giles sat down on the tiny fringe of beach letting the water at the sea’s edge nibble at his toes and lost all sense of time gazing at the sparkling patterns created by the current: here smooth and deep blue, there disturbed, glinting, pale.

He came to himself and looked for Claire; eventually he saw her standing above him on a shelf of rock. She was naked with her arms outstretched as if frozen in a Mexican wave with her night dark hair part covering her face. She was in a world of her own; he was uneasy and decided not to call to her. He went back to watching the sea and when he turned again she’d gone. Some time later, he heard the sound of stones slipping as she slithered and scuffed her way back down the path to join him. He looked at his watch, surprised how late it had grown, and realised he was delaying Steve, who’d lent them his car.

All this he told Steve by way of apology as they drove to the site in late afternoon, rather than morning. What he didn’t say was that when the still-naked Claire reached the beach she’d made love to him with an urgent brutality that took him by surprise. Her normal modus operandi was slow and gentle. Not that he was complaining, she was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to him: beautiful, caring, and generous. But he’d changed his T-shirt to a shirt with a collar to hide the bite marks on his neck: the bites on his lips and left ear he couldn’t do anything about. Steve commented,

“You’ve been having fun then; I thought you were meant to leave that type of thing behind you in the sixth form.”

He hadn’t graced this with a reply; just explained he’d left Claire to get a taxi back from Limnionas so he could join Steve on the site visit. He did mention, though, the increasingly rancid smell inside the car. Steve hadn’t reacted well to this. They drove the rest of the way in stony silence.

The setting of the site, despite fire damage, was still beautiful but didn’t have a good feel to it. Steve told him that one of its secondary functions was possibly an unusual Neolithic inhumation. Giles had seen enough of them to last a lifetime. So while Steve scratched around on the mound, Giles walked the area looking at the pot and flint scatter. By this time they were talking again and carried on a shouted conversation across a distance of around thirty metres.

“Steve, I still don’t understand what you’re meant to be doing up here for your girlfriend’s dad.”

“I told you I’m doing him a favour, it’s his land.”

“Funny sort of favour don’t you think? He’d have been better off getting it surveyed by the local archaeologists.”

“He doesn’t want people nosing around.”

“So what are we doing then? Hang on, that’s interesting, it’s the second of these I’ve found.”

“What?”

There was a pause; Steve shouted again.

“What?”

“This can’t be right. Steve, this is fucking human bone! Fresh human bone; what’s going on here?”

There was no answer.

“Steve, did you hear? I’m picking up fresh human bone, we need to get the police.”

Still no answer.

“You knew about this, didn’t you? You bloody knew it already. For Christ’s sake what are you mixed up with?”

“Giles, you’d better come over here.”

Steve sat slumped at the side of the mound, his feet hanging over the edge of the small trench. He looked like he was about to cry.

“Steve, what’s going on?”

Giles got no answer but looked into the trench and saw the edge of a cremation urn that Steve had been in the process of excavating. He sat down next to him and said gently,

“Think of the killings, Steve, this could be evidence, it might be your girlfriend next. You have to tell the police or at least that detective you were talking to.”

“And say what; that I had a bad experience in England and it’s followed me here?”

“Don’t be stupid, this has nothing to do with that; these are modern killings and these bones are fresh.”

“Look in the bottom of the trench, Giles. Trowel through some of the fill from the older level behind the urn, see what you find. Then tell me this has nothing to do with it.”

Giles took the trowel and went down on his knees to work. Soon he unearthed bones: long bones, fingers, shin and arm; old bones; some older than the urn burial. Others were more recent but he estimated still several hundred years old. They were mixed up and out of context but there was nothing fresh here, nothing connecting them with the murders. These had been buried for centuries at least. He was trying to explain this; Steve cut across him,

“Doesn’t this seem scarily familiar to you, Giles? Can’t you see the bones in there are the same as the ones you’ve found on the surface?”

“How would you know what I found? You didn’t bother to look.”

Steve didn’t answer; just sat, head bowed, watching his legs kicking the side of the trench and during the silence Giles filled in the blanks.

“There’s more, aren’t there? You’ve found more, haven’t you? What have you done with them, Steve? What are you playing at?”

Giles fired the questions not waiting for a reply, not that Steve looked like providing one. Then he shouted,

“That smell in the car, that’s bone isn’t it: you’ve hidden bones in your fucking car, haven’t you? What are you playing at? You’re concealing evidence. Why, why are you doing it? Are you completely fucking mad?”

“I’m scared. Not mad, scared. At first I thought I was doing it to give me more time on site but that wasn’t the real reason. Giles, I think that this whole site is some type of set up and that I’m the fall guy. I was lured to this island, it wasn’t a lucky break.”

He stopped and the two men stood silently thinking back to the horror of Skendleby. Then Steve began to tell him, in a quiet and almost controlled voice, about the site.

“You’re right about them being out of context though, the mixing is deliberate, they must be used and reused for some kind of ritual and I think the ones outside are being kept for the next episode.”

Giles tried to speak.

“No, don’t stop me, Giles, I’ve had this shit going round in my head since the students found the first human bone. I need to get this out, you have to listen.”

He took a deep breath as if steeling himself then continued.

“First, let me tell you why I’m doing this. Two people told me I had to do it: Professor Andraki, who has since attacked a policeman and is suspected for at least one of the killings and been locked up, and Vassilis, who seems to run the island. He owns this land, he claims he’s Alekka’s dad but I’m not sure about that.”

He stopped, lit a cigarette with trembling hands.

“And they both asked me to pay particular attention to anything I found that was out of context, tell them only, not the police, them. No one else is meant to know. Now tell me Giles, what could be more out of fucking context than those bones?”

He didn’t want an answer, when Giles tried one he was cut off.

“No, don’t interrupt ‘cos if I stop I don’t think I’ll be able to start again.”

This time Giles stayed quiet.

“Now I’m going to give you the archaeological reasons why this is so bad.

“There’s bone from several time periods and they’re deliberately mixed up, which means from time to time it’s opened up and reused. Think about that, Giles: the place is still used. There’s bone in there from thousands of years before the Neolithic, yet there are people who still know about it and use it. What sort of people would be capable of doing that?”

Giles tried to speak but Steve hushed him.

“No, no, let me finish. The new bones are scattered on the surface around the site like they’re waiting to be used. Like we think they were left out to let the flesh rot in some British Neolithic communities. But all of them, the ones inside the feature and the ones scattered around, are all the same type, all long bones. The worst thing is that there’s bone here that predates the Neolithic: pre-date the ritual, how can that happen? It’s like time’s been warped. Remember the bones at Skendleby: it’s happening again.”

Giles said nothing; then, after an uncomfortable silence,

“Giles, I think I’ve been set up. I came here to get away from all this and ended up mixed in everything I ran away from.”

“Steve, why not tell Alekka, couldn’t she get her dad to take the pressure off?”

“Giles, you never listen properly do you? I’m not sure she is his daughter, I’m not even sure she’s alive. She’s so cold, after we make love I’m cold, my fingers go numb.”

A year ago Giles would have laughed and called him paranoid; out here with the bones he felt a trickle of fear lift the hairs on the back of his neck. Claire had said last night there was something badly wrong with Steve’s Greek girlfriend: something you shouldn’t trust. He had complete confidence in the blend of psychic power and intuition that was the basis of Claire’s judgement. She’d saved his soul and transformed his life, and he loved her with a sincerity of which he’d never believed he was capable. He also knew that Steve was badly damaged, mentally dislocated and needed careful handling.

Standing in the slanting late afternoon sunshine on this weird site with its strangely elongated shadows, he was wondering whether it had been a good idea to come here. But Claire said she loved the place and it had certainly charged her sexual performance in a way that, although stimulating, he’d not quite got used to. He decided to calm Steve down and persuade him to act rationally.

“Steve, all we need to do is to give this site a quick once-over then take the recent bones to the police right? Then it will become a crime scene and be off-limits and you’re in the clear, yeah? Then you can take a few days off to show me and Claire round the island, chill out and forget the scary stuff.”

“That’s not how things work here Gi, it’s not England.”

“Have you got a better idea?”

“No, I’ve not got any ideas; I just don’t want trouble. I’m not going to have anything more to do with this site and I’m not going to the police. I’ll tell Vassilis about the bones and let him deal with it.”

“You can’t do that, you have to tell the police.”

“If you’re so keen, tell them yourself, you can have them. Come on, it’s getting late, let’s get away from here. Look, perhaps you’re right about some of this, maybe I am too wound up. I’m seeing Alekka tonight, I have to clean up, maybe she can tell her dad.”

Giles didn’t want to push him any further and they still hadn’t talked about Tim Thompson or his letter. He wanted to get off this ground before the sun went down. So they packed up, Giles slipped the two human bones into a collecting bag and they trudged across the burnt stony ground towards the car. The ghost of Tim Thompson hovered above them. The crows watching from the ruined walls of the deserted village rose into the air and flew slowly away.

The drive back was no relief; the rancid stench from the bones hidden in the back was stronger, but neither of them felt inclined to mention it. When Steve dropped Giles off, he got out and walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk. He reached inside and rummaged around for a moment before pulling out a bundle wrapped in an old blanket.

“Please take these, Giles, and bury them in the grove while we decide what to do; I can’t keep them any longer. I’ll talk to Alekka about them tonight. I don’t think either of us wants more of this today; I’ll call in tomorrow morning.”

Giles accepted the atrocious bundle, knowing Steve was handing the responsibility across with the bones but, since Skendleby, he’d felt responsible for him so he took them. Steve passed him a spade from the back of the car and he made his way into the grove to prepare a temporary burial.

Chapter 17:
The Centre Cannot Hold

He woke with a jerk as the door opened and couldn’t remember where he was. Hippolyta brought the breakfast tray across and laid it on the bed.

“Don’t get too used to this, it’s not a regular service but last night you seemed so worn down.”

It was true, last night he’d fallen asleep as soon as they got into bed; yet, unusually, enjoyed a deep and dreamless sleep. She was still wearing the T-shirt she slept in, she climbed back into bed and side-by-side they worked their way through the contents of the tray. However, the day ahead couldn’t be put off indefinitely, and after draining the last dregs of the coffee and kissing her on the lips, which were sticky sweet from the honey, he got up and squeezed into the tiny shower cubicle. He heard the doorbell as he was drying and shortly after, the smokey voice of Captain Michales from the hallway.

“I have a message for the policeman who I think must be here.”

He didn’t hear her reply but he guessed it must have been affirmative as Michales continued.

“It’s from the English. Not Steve, the new one, he wants to talk to him, says it is urgent, perhaps it is not so bad your policeman is here; I have already too many women to watch over.”

Then the door shut and Theodrakis felt it was safe to leave the bathroom but before he could ask for more detail, his phone rang.

“Theodrakis, it’s Kostandin we‘ve got big trouble here, we need you.”

“OK, I’m leaving now.”

“Better tell whoever you’re with you won’t be back for a while.”

The line went dead and Theodrakis was left wondering; he hated being left in the dark, it fuelled his anxieties. He dressed hurriedly, reassured Hippolyta he’d keep in touch and left the apartment.

The taxi to Vathia took forever; he tried to call Lucca but only got his messaging service. There was an angry demonstration in Lion Square, a consequence of the Athens government having fallen during the night, the driver told him. He hadn’t time to worry about his friends and family in the capital, because as the cab rounded the corner they were stopped by a nastier crowd. The driver managed to reverse the cab and drive him through backstreets to about a hundred metres from the compound at the rear of the station.

“I’m not taking you any further; it’s too dangerous, get another taxi next time.”

Theodrakis didn’t leave a tip; just made an undignified dash for the compound gate, praying his electronic fob key would work first time for a change. To his relief it did and he scampered into the building in time to hear the first stone crashing into the re-enforced glass windows at the front. Inside it was pandemonium: the clerical support staff were in the rooms at the back while the police, some with helmets and riot shields, were couched in the spaces between the windows at the front. He saw the senior desk sergeant and shouted across to him,

“Who’s in charge here?”

“Syntagmatarchis Kostandin, I think, sir, he’s upstairs in the chief’s room.”

Theodrakis raced upstairs and found Kostandin on the phone.

“What’s going on and who’s in charge?”

“I don’t know, and you are, in that order. Have you got any instructions for me?” Kostandin managed a strained grin as he spoke. “No, really it’s true, it’s all blown up on the mainland. Xenarkis has been shipped out with all the specials and thirty local men to help restore order in Athens, they’ve called reinforcements in from all the islands. The situation there collapsed into anarchy not long after they flew out so I think they’ll be too late. Where’ve you been, Theodrakis?”

“No time for that now, I’ll tell you later, are you in touch with the island commander?”

“I’ve already said it’s you. Adamidis is under sedation, Xenarkis is probably circling over Athens trying to land and Samarakis is dead. Welcome to your command.”

“We’re the same rank.”

“Yes, but you hold central office rank, political rank, I’m only local so it’s you, and do you know? I’m relieved.”

“What’s going on out there?”

“In Lion Square, it’s the normal crowd of communists, anarchists and students as far as we know. We, as you will have noticed, have our own difficulties so we can’t get there to find out. I’ve told our few men stuck on the spot to keep out of harm’s way.”

“So, who are those people out there? They don’t look like the normal protesting class, they look like farmers and fishermen. I saw old women among them.”

Kostandin looked tired and worried; he slumped onto a chair, mopped his face with a grubby looking handkerchief before he answered.

“That’s not a protest, that’s a lynch mob, and before you ask who they want to lynch he’s called Antonis and his father is …”

Theodrakis answered for him.

“Vassilis. Why, for God’s sake? Why did you arrest him?”

“We had no choice; most of my men hate the nasty little shit as much as the crowd out there. We did it to protect him. He’s been hanging round at nights, people have always feared and hated him. Since his accident he’s got worse, they say Vassilis can’t control him anymore. Rumour is he attacked a girl who works one of the bars in Kokari. He’d been stalking her. They believe he’s the killer behind all the murders and that everything we’ve done up to now has been a cover-up. That Englishman screwing Vassilis’s daughter should have let him die.”

Theodrakis felt the start of a migraine. He wanted to sit down, say nothing and let Kostandin deal with the situation but he knew that option was long past. He looked out of the window: these were poor people, poor and frightened, unused to demonstrating, with no leaders and no tactics. Not like the Athenian protesters; they shouldn’t be too hard to shift. He was about to give some orders when he noticed that Kostandin was still speaking.

“There’s more. We’ve got problems inside as well. The old man in the cells and Andraki in the hospital secure unit; none of the lads will go near them, they either shout frightening things or just howl. Don’t laugh until you see it, believe me it’s not funny; since we’ve had Antonis in here they won’t stop screaming.”

Theodrakis put up a hand to silence him, and outside the shouting lessened in intensity.

“Have we got tear gas here?”

“Yes, but surely you’re not going?”

Theodrakis cut him off.

“If it works on an Athenian crowd then you can bet it will work a lot quicker here. Send out a couple of canisters then baton charge, they’ll scatter soon enough, I don’t think those people really want to be out there anymore.”

Kostandin looked almost pleased that someone else was giving orders; he got up and shambled downstairs to organise the men. About fifteen minutes later Theodrakis watched a small phalanx of cops in riot gear charge into the acrid gas shrouding the weeping and choking crowd. They’d had enough and dispersed almost before the baton wielding cops reached them. Kostandin struggled to recall his highly strung men, who seemed keen to displace some their stress and fear onto the fleeing crowd with their batons. But within minutes the area was clear and the cops were joking as they stripped off their riot gear.

Theodrakis and Kostandin agreed the demo in Lion Square was too big to handle, especially now there was apparently no central government, and they weren’t sure what was the correct action to take. Instead they deployed some men in normal uniform to supervise the crowd until it dispersed. They’d arrest the hardcore activists later. Neither man was happy about this and most of the cops didn’t like their government’s handling of affairs any more than the demonstrators; the only difference was the cops had jobs and wanted to keep them.

Kostandin sent out for coffee and they slumped in silence onto the sofa in the chief’s room. Theodrakis noticed that while Kostandin’s crossed ankles stretched over the carpet, his legs only just reached the floor. When the coffee arrived, Kostandin took a sip then said,

“There’s something else you should know: Lucca had to give the body of a suicide the once over, a fisherman from Aghios Konstantinos. He’d tied himself to a cast iron anchor chain and threw himself off the harbour wall. A bloody heavy chain, I’m surprised he could lift it but you can never really tell how strong some of these wiry built guys are.”

Theodrakis wondered where this rambling was leading.

“Anyway, the water’s not deep and he spent the night hanging above the anchor with his head less than half a metre below the surface so the first boat out in the morning found him; a nasty shock for them, I guess. You know, he must have judged the length of the chain pretty accurately.”

“Kostandin, get to the point, fascinating though this may be to you.”

“Sorry, I’ve been up all night trying to make sense of what’s going on here. The point is that before he topped himself, he posted us a note saying why he’d done it but with all that’s been going on it took us some time to put the two together.”

Theodrakis listened with a growing sense of unease, anticipating that what was to come wouldn’t be good.

“The note was a type of confession, a very strange confession.”

Theodrakis could feel the hairs on the back of his neck prickling.

“In it he confesses to the murder of Anna Macrie, your girl in the river, remember?”

Theodrakis nodded but said nothing the memory of finding her still upset him; he lost the appetite for the coffee slowly cooling in its plastic beaker.

“He had all the detail of how he killed her, even about how he got her to the river and put her in the water; it all matches what we found.”

He broke off for a moment. Theodrakis saw he was on the verge of tears but he ploughed on.

“Reading that note you feel you’re in the presence of real evil. Turns out you were right about the body being washed downstream later. Sorry, I’m not telling this very well am I?”

“No, you’re OK, take your time if you need to.”

“Lucca says the forensics confirm he was the killer.”

“Very nasty, but it doesn’t get us much further.”

“No, wait there’s more. He said he had no reason to kill her. He’d never seen her before. Said he couldn’t remember having done it afterwards. Then sometime later, out at sea, it came back to him. Everything came back and that’s why he had all the detail so well. It hadn’t been him though; well, it had been his body but it hadn’t been him in it.”

“So who was it, then?”

“The Devil. It was the Devil and he saw him; saw the Devil and it told him what the bones were for and how many more were needed for the curse to work. So he stayed out at sea till dark then came into harbour, wrapped himself in the anchor chain, and jumped.”

A couple of weeks ago Theodrakis would have laughed at such superstitious and credulous nonsense but now he just listened in silence.

“I’m sorry, Theodrakis, I can’t shake this off; I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Did he say where bones were, how many they needed and what would happen when they’d got them?”

“No, it was a suicide note, not a fucking autobiography.”

Theodrakis stood up and walked to the window, stood for a moment looking over roof tops to the sea, he wanted Hippolyta, he wanted to be sick. Instead he asked,

“Is Antonis fit to be interviewed?”

“I don’t know, none of the men will go near him, but he’s not making the noise the other two are, so he may be. I wouldn’t go in there though, all the same.”

“You won’t have to. Take me to him, you can wait outside, post two reliable men just down the corridor within earshot.”

Theodrakis didn’t want to conduct the interview. The memory of the session with the old man was too fresh in his mind, but since his meeting with Vassilis he had no choice - and besides, the absence of any superior gave him a free hand.

They walked down the hot, fetid corridors to the most remote cell, passing the noise of screaming from another room en-route. The cell holding Antonis was down a short passage at a dog-leg angle to the others. The corridor lights were flickering as if the bulbs were about to blow. The two cops waited at the end of the passage and Kostandin walked with him to the door and unlocked it.

Inside it was cold, deep cold, but the cell’s occupant was unaffected. Theodrakis knew it was the prisoner who’d lowered the temperature, illogical as this was. He recognised Antonis from Professor Andraki’s office; hardly an auspicious beginning. Later, when he tried to remember the details of the brief interview, it seemed filtered through a hallucinogenic haze. Antonis had been curled up on the pallet which constituted the cell’s only furniture but as the door opened he jerked upright, reminding Theodrakis of a puppet when the puppeteer pulls the strings.

“I see you again, Athenian, and still you are no wiser. Your men have made another blunder and if it didn’t amuse me so much I would walk out of here.”

There was nowhere for Theodrakis to sit and he rejected the idea of sitting on the pallet next to Antonis. So he leaned against the wall by the door, which he was disconcerted to hear closing.

Hoping it wasn’t locked and that Kostandin was still outside, he began the interview.

“Tell me why you are in here.”

“Because your men are fools, fools who fear me and now wish they’d not locked me up.”

“Well, tell me what they suspect you of then.”

“They suspect me of many things; they’re just superstitious peasants in uniform, just like all the others who have lived on this island through the centuries. They think that I’m the murderer, just like the crowd outside.”

He put his head back and laughed, then looked round as if someone was behind him.

“Your father will be worried about you?”

“Father? Oh, you mean Vassilis: not worried in the way you imagine, no, he is more worried about my suitability for the task.”

“And what would that be?”

“I don’t think you are sufficiently prepared to be able to cope with the answer to that, policeman.”

“Why not try me?”

“No, believe me; you wouldn’t thank me if I did. But I will tell you that in arresting me, you have moved as far away from the real perpetrator as it’s possible to get. I’m surprised you didn’t understand that from your conversation with Vassilis. You pride yourself on your intelligence, do you not?”

“I notice that you said one perpetrator, and yet you know we have arrested multiple killers.”

“Only because your men are stupid and incompetent.”

The room was growing colder as he spoke; again Antonis turned to look behind him. Theodrakis saw he wasn’t as cocky now.

“Still, if you claim to know, why not tell me about the one who is responsible for these killings?”

“You are beginning to waste my time, Syntagmatarchis. It seems, after all, that you are a clown.”

Then he changed. His face went dead white, his eyes rolled up, staring at something that Theodrakis couldn’t see. The light flickered and went out; Theodrakis felt someone else in the room. It was freezing and smelled of decaying earth. Antonis looked terrified, his jaw locked with the mouth wide open. From somewhere within him came a voice, stentorian and distorted. It sounded far away but reverberated against the cell walls, rolling round and round trapping him in sound. It spoke direct to Theodrakis.

“Deep down in the part of your mind where fear dwells you know who I am, who I have always been. This one was not so easy to enter and will, I think, be even more damaged than the others as a result. For you, there is nowhere to run. Time has run out.”

There was an electrical smell of burning; the cell lurched like a boat in rough seas. Then, to Theodrakis’s relief, the light came back on and the temperature stabilised. Antonis reached out a hand to him. He was whimpering like a small child.

“Please, I want to go home now; I don’t like it here anymore.”

“Just answer this next question and I’ll see what I can do.”

But he never got chance to answer; there were the sounds of commotion outside and Kostandin burst into the room.

“Theodrakis, there’s been another; but not the same, it’s changing, the pattern’s changing; what’s happening? When will we wake up?”

Chapter 18:
Paradise Lost

Steve didn’t call Giles the next day, events overtook him. Handing over the bones and the responsibility lifted the sense of dread engulfing him. He parked the car outside his apartment and was fumbling for his door keys when he heard his name called. Looking round, he saw Claire outside the bar at the table by the water’s edge where he and Michales liked to sit late at night.

“Steve, I saw your car and I’ve ordered you a beer; I bet you can use one after a hot day on site.”

He thought he could use one too; she kissed him on both cheeks, as he sat down she was still holding his hand. This was unusually affectionate; he didn’t think she liked him much after he’d excavated the chamber at Skendleby and unleashed Hell.

“I’m glad to have caught you on your own, Steve, I wanted a word; we’ve been so worried about you.”

She put out a hand and stroked his cheek; he thought maybe he’d misjudged her, this was certainly the loving woman that Giles talked about, and he began to understand why his friend was so in love. Hippolyta brought the beer, smiled at Steve, ignored Claire and walked back inside.

“And I have to say, Stevie love, that I’m a bit more worried since last night. Tell me, how serious are you about that woman?”

“Alekka? I don’t really know, it’s been kind of unexpected.”

“You mean like Lisa.”

Steve didn’t want to be reminded about Lisa: of the moment at Skendleby when she stopped kissing him and he felt her sharp teeth shredding his left ear as she brought the flint knife down into the side of his neck. He was reminded about it often enough in his nightmares. These dreams always ended at the point the black disarticulated presence came jerking out of the tree line and Lisa fled screaming in rage. So any comparison with Alekka was the last thing he wanted.

“I don’t mean she’s the same as Lisa of course, Steve, it’s just we don’t want to see you hurt again, or threatened.”

She smiled at him with her mouth and her eyes and he envied Giles the love bites. He was right, she was wonderful. If he’d met her first it would have been him with her and not Giles. The fact that he had seen her first and thought her mad he conveniently forgot. She still held his hand.

“It’s just that you haven’t got a very steady record with women have you, Stevie? And.”

She paused and it was obvious she was teetering on the brink of saying something more but stopped herself.

“You were going to say something else Claire?”

“No, it’s none of my business and I’m probably worrying over nothing.”

“But, there is a but isn’t there, come on Claire tell me.”

“I’m only saying this because we care about you Steve and not because of what the locals are saying about her. I’m sure most of that could be jealousy and I hate gossip. But I felt something when I met her last night, something bad, dark, frightening, so much so that it’s still making me shudder.”

She stopped and took a sip of her drink, looked at Steve, licked her lips and said,

“Perhaps I’ve got everything out of proportion since I conducted the exorcism on Lisa, but last night that feeling of horror returned. Alekka means you harm, Steve; I sense danger for you.”

“I wish you hadn’t said that Claire, I really like her.”

“Why are you the only one with access to the site, Steve? Which came first? That or your relationship with Alekka?”

“Alekka showed me the site the first time I met her.”

“Why do you think they waited so long to have it investigated? Sounds like they were expecting you.”

“No, that’s not right, no way; it was the fire that uncovered the site.”

“But they knew it was there before the fire. Right?”

“Yeah.”

“So it didn’t need looking at as long as it was hidden. Remind you of somewhere else, Skendleby for instance?”

“No way.”

“Well, is there something hidden there they don’t want anyone else to see or is it just such a fantastic archaeological heritage site that they want to open it up to the island?”

Claire giggled as she said this, took another drink ran her tongue over her lips and patted Steve’s hand.

“No, it’s not a great site, hardly anything really, but something’s wrong with it. I found a secondary burial at least five thousand years old. It’s got no real context, but there’s something under it. Something much older; something too old to be there. There’s human bone from millennia before the Neolithic. If that’s in context something seriously weird is going on.”

“So what could be that old and so important that they want kept secret? And why can’t they get it themselves? I’d think long and hard about that if I were you, Stevie boy.”

“You think the same thing hasn’t occurred to me?”

“Well, perhaps you should tell me all about the site and what you’re expected to find. Better to tell me than Giles, his professional appetite could get whetted by this. I’m more objective.”

“I think that would be a relief. Thanks Claire, let me get you another drink.”

But half an hour later, after Claire had gone back up to the villa, he wasn’t sure. She’d wanted more detail on the bones than he was comfortable with. He sat on in the bar until the call he was expecting from Alekka came. He didn’t know if he wanted to see her or not, but when his mobile rang he answered eagerly.

“Steveymou, I do not want to come to your silly village, you will please meet me at the beach taverna at Limnionas in one half hour.”

Limnionas, when he arrived, was in the magical transition between daylight and twilight: twenty metres out to sea the sun sparkled on the water while beneath the shadow of the mountain, the shallows were dark indigo. The moon was palely visible in the blue sky and the heat of the day had dissipated. It was perfect.

Alekka was sitting on the terrace watching the sea lapping the beach less than ten metres away. In denim shorts and a diaphanous white blouse, he’d never seen her so beautiful; nor had he seen her look so troubled. If Claire hadn’t warned him he was being exploited he’d have thought Alekka was vulnerable.

He padded along the beach and slipped into the seat next to her before she noticed him. She smiled, gently placed a hand behind his neck and pulled his face towards hers to be kissed. The waitress brought him a drink. Alekka had already ordered the food so he sat back with her arm still round his shoulders and they gazed out across the sea towards where the gathering twilight occluded Patmos, the island of Revelations.

In the few days that remained, Steve looked back on this night as a glimpse of what might have been. She’d arranged they were the only diners at this exquisite place and he relaxed into the vibrations of the languorous velvet night. They ate lobster, grilled squid and an unctuous fish soup, washed down with chilled Samina Gold, followed by honey cakes; serenaded by the lapping water being washed across the shingle at the sea’s edge. Every time he tried to speak she shushed him.

“Tonight is not for talk; tonight is for the beauty of this beach which has seen many things: the hero Miltiades stopped here on his way to glory at Marathon, a friend of Pythagoras was exiled here by the tyrant Polycrates. But for tonight it is ours.”

She stood up, took his hand and led him along the terrace and down to the beach. They didn’t follow the path back to the cars as he expected. Instead they followed the edge of the sea along the full curve of the bay, she in bare feet and him in the heavy work boots. Glancing back over his shoulder, their footprints in the sand looked as if they had been made by a nymph and a monster from the island’s mythical past. The bay ended where a headland covered in wild olives stuck out into the sea. The only light was from the moon, but as they drew close to the trees he could vaguely discern a light flickering through the branches.

“See that light up there, Steve? Tonight, that is ours; we will sleep amongst the ancient trees above the water.”

At the foot of the headland lay the ghost of an old path leading up from a ruined jetty into the grove. She led him along the twisting way, surefooted in the dark as the flickering light grew brighter. They entered a glade where a small single-floored villa, old enough to have walked out of the pages of a fairy tale, waited. Five steps on to a veranda with a small table on which an ancient Hellenistic oil lamp was softly glowing. In the single chamber beyond, Steve could see a large bed with crisp white sheets hung with a mosquito net.

“The net is of course for you, Steveymou, only English would need such a silly object; it was the only difficult thing to arrange.”

She slipped out of her blouse and shorts, blew out the lamp and led him to the bed.

He stirred once in the night, surprised to feel her draped around him as they slept, her skin just cool against his no longer cold. He woke again just after dawn as the sun pushed its head above the surface of the water, filling the room with rosy light. She was already up.

“Come, Steve, you smell so we will swim.”

Naked, she set off down the path and he groggily lurched after her, arriving at the crumbling jetty as she dived into the sea. He stood on the rotten planking watching her emerge from the water with the grace of a dolphin. She saw him watching and waved him in; he sloughed off his jeans and dived in. The water was cool and beautiful. Alekka swam out to sea following the contours of the headland.

He followed slowly in her wake for about ten minutes until, looking up, he saw she’d disappeared. He splashed on bewildered, becoming alarmed and almost missing a tiny rock inlet leading to a small cove with a fringe of sandy beach. Alekka sat in the shallows, concentrating on wet sand trailing through her fingers. He swam towards her. The water had a quality of translucence he’d never seen before and apart from the lapping of the water there was no sound. Naked they were like a pre-lapsarian Adam and Eve in a new and empty world. He waded up onto the beach to sit on the sand with her.

“Steve, in this sand there are tiny pearls, take some sand in your hands and see if you can find any. They could be older than any of the old pots you are so interested in.”

Steve scooped up a handful of wet sand and let it trickle through his fingers. They sat side by side filtering sand for pearls, silent and contented. Alekka found three and Steve none; soon the sun was high enough to be hot on their skin and the night fishing boats were crossing the bay on their way home to port. She stood up.

“We must go now.”

She walked into the water and he followed reluctantly; back on the jetty she put on her shorts and blouse, brushed back her wet hair and tied it with a band. It made her look young and innocent. She reached out a hand and gently stroked his cheek and gazed directly into his eyes; for a moment he thought she was going to speak a three word sentence to him. But the moment passed and instead she said,

“Steve, there are things I must do now.”

She hesitated for a moment.

“I would like to meet you this afternoon on the site on my father’s estate.”

Again she hesitated.

“Then we can go to eat somewhere and perhaps spend the night together, I hope you would like that.”

He was about to tell her he didn’t want to meet at the site, and perhaps she sensed this as she spoke before he could.

“There will be no problem, Steve, I promise you.”

She turned and lightly jumped down to the beach, shouting back over her shoulder.

“When you have finished here go to the place we ate last night, they will have breakfast for you. Five o’clock tonight and remember be punctual: German time, not Greek time.”

He sat on the jetty and watched as she receded down the beach. Later, after he’d eaten a bowl of yoghurt and local honey and was smoking a third cigarette, he still couldn’t work out what to think. He didn’t want to ever see the site again and Claire’s words still rang in his head; and yet. And yet this time with Alekka had been perfect.

By the time he clocked out of the university sometime around three, after a refreshingly uneventful day, he wanted to see her. Without knowing how, he found himself driving through the winding streets of Marathakampos. The motor stalled, jerking him to a stop outside the cafenion. In a dread of anticipation he looked towards the terrace where, to his horror, he saw Father John beckoning as if wishing to impart an urgent message. As he watched, the black robed priest flickered and faded then reappeared briefly, mouth open, desperately trying to speak. Then it was gone.

He sat in the car in shock; the engine was running and the taxi behind was hooting at him to move. He gunned the engine and drove out of town. When he reached the bypass he pulled in and cut the ignition, his heart racing. It was 4.30; somewhere he’d lost a full hour. Where had he been?

He started the car and as he drove, he remembered Tim Thompson’s letter. In particular he remembered the black draped corpselike figure that lured him to his death, and he remembered Father John.

Turning onto the track leading to the site he was dazed and confused. He saw her car and pulled in behind. As he was opening the car door it came to him in a flash that no one knew where he was: no one except Alekka and maybe Father John. He fumbled in his work bag for his mobile; it wasn’t there, and besides whom could he ring? Then he saw her. She too seemed uneasy, that morning had been so good, what was happening? She took his hand; there was an expression in her eyes he couldn’t read.

“Come quickly, Steve, there is something we must do before we can leave this place; I think neither of us wants to be here.”

This was true enough, but there was something else. The sky had a bruised and livid aspect; the waters in the bay below had darkened and begun to swell as if a storm was advancing. Above him, below the growing dark cloud, large black birds were circling.

“Come on, Steve, we must hurry.”

“Hurry, why? Alekka, what are we here for, what’s happening?”

She didn’t answer, just pulled him across the dead ground towards the mound.

“No, Alekka, what is it here you need so much?”

“Please Steve, do not ask me that, just trust me; please trust me.”

“Why? Why should I trust you?”

“Because I lo …”

A tearing wind suddenly blew hot and gritty across the burnt land, lashing dirt and burnt debris into their faces. She pulled at him with renewed energy, stumbling through the hurricane across the excavation spoil heap onto the mound. The noise of the wind was so fierce they had to shout into each other’s faces.

“What do you want, Alekka, what’s down there causing all this?”

“Please Steve, get it for me. Please, you don’t understand what it can do.”

He looked into her face; her eyes were wet.

“Please, Steve get it, I know you know it’s there. I know you would recognise something that could never belong to this site.”

“Then why don’t you get it?”

“We can’t, we are not permitted; surely by now you have understood something about us.”

He knelt and fumbled beneath the burial urn in the loose soil where he knew from his earlier digging something lay hidden, something he didn’t want to touch. But as he groped around, he saw the fill was disturbed. Someone else had been here!

“There’s nothing here, it’s gone.”

There was a scream of loss and anger that split right through the noise of the storm; she towered above him dark hair blown across her face pummelling his shoulders with her fists in frustration. She was screaming something at him but he didn’t get it, couldn’t get it because in his mind he was back on the mound at Skendleby with Lisa, waiting for his death. Then he was up and running. She screamed after him.

“Steve, come back Steve, please, you don’t understand, Steve Steve Steeeeveeee …”

But he didn’t hear: he ran, mindless and terrified, into the storm.

Chapter 19:
Throat of Ages

Theodrakis stared at the new pictures on the incident room wall; they turned him sick. As a reflex he took a sip of coffee, it was stone cold and he felt bile rising in his throat. Kostandin had been right, this one was different. No flint knife, no surgical removal of certain bones, this was more like an orgiastic demonstration of the damage a human body could sustain. He felt for Lucca stuck in the morgue with these remains. There was nothing that connected with the other killings, but he knew with absolute conviction they were linked. Intuitively he recognised this as a perverted celebration: a message that said “job done”. So what happens next? He’d been asking himself that question ever since his first glimpse at the obscene images on the wall.

“Sir, Dr Lucca wants to speak to you.”

It took him some time to pull himself together sufficiently to understand the message.

“Sir, are you alright? Did you hear, Dr Lucca is on the phone, he says it’s urgent?”

Theodrakis blinked and focussed on the anxious face of the young cop speaking to him.

“Endaxi, I’ll take it in here and when you’ve put him through ask Syntagmatarchis Kostandin to join me.”

The young policeman hurried off and Theodrakis picked up the phone.

“Theodrakis, come …”

Lucca broke off and Theodrakis recognised the tone of someone who had reached his limit.

“Theodrakis, come quickly, I think I’m losing my mind; I can’t stay here anymore but you need to see this.”

“Hang on; I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

He let the phone fall onto the table as Kostandin shuffled in.

“Let me have your thoughts, Kostandin.”

“We’re fucked; simple as that. The island’s out of control, we haven’t the manpower to deal with the situation. The demonstrations are one step away from riots and the murders … the men can’t cope with them. We need help.”

He slumped onto the sofa and Theodrakis sat with him. Kostandin offered him a cigarette and they sat together exhausted, smoking under the no smoking sign. Kostandin gave a short laugh.

“You know, Theodrakis, when you came here everyone resented you and your superior Athenian attitude, but now it’s you we look to to get us out of all this, you’re our last hope.”

“Thanks, very touching, but we’re out of our depth, we need help.”

“Why not ring up one of your Athenian contacts, maybe they can send Xenarkis and the boys back to us.”

Theodrakis thought about it: he knew deep within himself the murders belonged to him in some way he couldn’t understand. But he couldn’t cope with the civil disobedience or lead the riot police. He didn’t have the skills for that. So he scrolled through the contacts on his phone and keyed the number of one of his father’s cronies at the ministry in Athens. He was surprised to get an immediate answer. It became clear the minister had mistaken his number for an eagerly awaited call and after a brief and terse exchange of pleasantries, Theodrakis put in his request. He received a shouted response to end the conversation.

“You don’t understand the situation here, Alexis, we’ve lost control we can’t help you. Athens is burning, Athens is fucking burning.”

Theodrakis turned to Kostandin.

“I think you could probably hear that: we’re on our own. Listen, Kostandin, I need you to look after the political stuff for me, keep the lid on things as best you can. I need space to deal with the murders; I’ve got some ideas and I’m going to be following some leads you won’t find in police procedures. I need you to trust me, maybe if I can at least get some type of solution that people understand the island will calm down.”

Kostandin listened to this without expression then fished out the packet and offered Theodrakis a smoke, which he lit for him. All he said was,

“So your friends call you Alexis?”

Theodrakis stood up and to their mutual surprise, they shook hands.

“But this time you have to keep me posted on what’s happening and where you are. Agreed … Alexis?”

Theodrakis ignored Konstantin’s grin and headed for the door but as he was through it Kostandin called him back.

“Oh, I forgot, an Englishman’s been trying to get hold of you, says it’s important. Got a strange name, Jillais or something.”

“Thanks, text me his number, keep things as calm as you can.”

Outside, although most of the demonstrators had dispersed, the mood was still tense and he could see a couple of overturned cars by the dock that were still burning. He walked quickly to the police morgue, trying to ignore the insults shouted at him.

Inside the morgue was worse. Under the bright strip lighting of the sterile laboratory, Lucca sat huddled in a chair, in the corner furthest away from the travesty of a corpse on the slab. The floor was scattered with liquids, instruments and, Theodrakis noted with distaste, body parts. It looked like some maniac had been at work, which he reflected was precisely what it was. Lucca seemed to be conducting some type of discourse with himself but showed no sign of having noticed Theodrakis’s presence.

He stood by the door for some time deciding what to do; he felt sorry for Lucca, whom he’d come to respect and like for his perseverance and courage in sticking to his grim and soul destroying work. He was a decent man and this was breaking him. But he needed information, so after a few moments he walked across the room, avoiding looking at the ruined thing on the slab, and placed his hands on Lucca’s shoulders. To his surprise Lucca spoke to him.

“Coffee and rough brandy won’t do it this time, Theodrakis; I’m finished here. I’m going home to my family while I still have one and we’re getting off this island. Tonight, if there’s a boat for Italy.”

Theodrakis said nothing, just gently massaged the shaking shoulders under his palms until Lucca continued.

“This is the last report you’ll get from me, and when I finish talking I’m going to walk out and leave all this shit forever.

“That thing over there was once a human being: it’s been ripped to pieces, torn apart by the bare hands of someone or something. This is nothing like the others; I think this was done for enjoyment. That corpse was a man, and a strongly built one.”

He paused to get his breath.

“This one left no evidence, no prints and no trace of bodily fluids or any of the evidence you’d expect from something so bloody and messy. I’m sure there’s no evidence here, unlike with the others. That fisherman under the cover on the other slab for instance, he drowned himself, left a note and his prints and DNA all over the girl in the river.”

He stood up, looked at Theodrakis for the first time then avoiding the slab followed the wall to the door. Theodrakis didn’t try to stop him, he guessed if Lucca had anything left to say he’d do it in his own time; he was right. Lucca stopped at the door and turned back to him.

“I think the others: Andraki, the fisherman, the mad man in the cells and, presumably there are others. Well, they were just surrogates, a type of murderer by proxy. But the abomination that did this last one; I think that’s the real thing, and it feels powerful enough to do it for itself now. I’ve thought about that all day. Take care, Theodrakis, you’re not just drifting through the underworld, you’re headed straight into Hell.”

Lucca walked out of the door, leaving Theodrakis standing by the chair in a room that resembled the antechamber of Hell. He felt lonely more than anything else; Lucca had been the only one he could talk to. But he was glad that he was getting out, he was too sensitive for this. He walked out of the morgue leaving the lights on and the door open.

Outside on the street, he was too preoccupied to notice the small group of elderly men outside a cafe who made the sign of the evil eye at him or the woman who spat on his coat. It was only after he’d walked blindly through the town for several minutes that he remembered the message from the Englishman. He checked his messages, saw that the number had been texted and called it up. He thought that at the very least the conversation would divert him from what he’d just seen.

The phone rang several times and Theodrakis was about to give up when suddenly there was an answer.

“Hello, who’s there?”

“Theodrakis; are you the English man who came to visit the archaeologist?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

“Look, I’ve got a bag full of bones, human bones I think, they come from the site Steve Watkins was looking at. I thought you should know.”

“Where are they?”

Theodrakis couldn’t believe it; out of nowhere one of the main pieces of the jigsaw had fallen into place. He was clenching his fist in triumph when the voice at the other end answered.

“I’ve hidden them, they’re buried.”

“Can you get them to me today?”

“Yeah, but later, I’m in Drakei now, I can get them about five.”

“Good, ring me then, oh and where is Dr Watkins?”

“I don’t know, he didn’t come back last night; I hoped you might know.”

“Listen: don’t mention this to anyone, anyone at all. Get to the bones as soon as you can and when you have them, ring me on this number and be very, very careful.”

He pocketed the phone and headed for the hospital. In a side ward, guarded by two very uneasy looking cops, he found Professor Andraki. Before he entered the room one of the cops grunted,

“Rather you than me going in there, boss, but at least he’s quiet today.”

The other cop laughed but Theodrakis could see he didn’t really find it funny. Inside the room, despite the brightness of the day, it was dark, something that the closed thin curtains didn’t account for. Andraki was hunched up on a bed most of his face covered in bandages. Theodrakis was relieved; he hadn’t wanted to see what he’d done to Andraki’s eye with the pen. The other eye was closed and Andraki didn’t appear to be conscious. So it came as a surprise when he began to speak.

“Listen to what I tell you, policeman, they have left me for a moment but could return at any time so I will be quick. I was led to the discoveries, I understand that now: I was their instrument. The sites were not looted. I stole what they required, but they needed fresh bone, living bone. I did the first killing: the one you’ve not found yet and Samarakis, but of course you know that. I tried to resist but when you meet them you will know that’s not possible. They need the bones; find Watkins.”

He sat up and the bandages slipped, giving Theodrakis a glimpse of what he’d done to the eye. He didn’t have long to look as the expression on Andraki’s face changed; he was staring horrified at something hovering above him. He tried to make the sign of the cross, failed and looked at Theodrakis as he struggled to speak. He managed one word,

“Vassilis …”

Then his face melted into a picture of agony, and before Theodrakis could reach out to him he slumped back. Theodrakis shouted for a doctor. One of the cops came into the room then quickly backed out; he followed.

“Look, I know you’re too scared to go back in there but stay at the door. Ring Syntagmatarchis Kostandin and tell him what’s happened here, wait for his orders.”

Theodrakis called up a squad car and directed it to the Vassilis estate. It seemed he was expected; the gates to the compound were open and the aged maid was waiting to usher him into the presence of Vassilis on the terrace. For Theodrakis the day had been one shock after another and for a time he sat, silent, opposite his host who wordlessly studied him. The maid brought a drink for Theodrakis, but this time there was no pretence of Vassilis drinking.

“Tell me what you have discovered, Theodrakis, and please do not leave anything out as I fear events are beginning to move with alarming rapidity.”

“I think I’ve found some of the bones harvested from the unfortunate victims of the killings. It would appear that your protégé archaeologist was hiding them. Now why would he do that, I wonder?”

“It is enough that we have the bones, I don’t think you can fully appreciate the consequences if we had not.”

“I think you should also know, Kirios Vassilis, that I fear that Andraki has died of a seizure brought on by his state of mind.”

“I know you do not believe that, is there more?”

“Yes, we have a new type of murder: frenzied and inhuman, I’ve never seen anything like it. One final thing, I interviewed your son in the cells, he is disturbed but there is no evidence and the men don’t like having him in there so we had to let him out.”

“I think it would have been better for him and for us if you had kept him in custody.”

“Oh, I almost forgot, before he was taken over, Andraki said your name, I think he was trying to warn me. Have I anything to fear from you?”

“From me, yes; if you crossed me, Theodrakis, you would have everything to fear and nothing could save you.”

There was a silence and they sat across the table like poker players approaching the endgame. Theodrakis felt his nerves begin to prickle. He was operating so far outside his experience that he began to question his own reason. He picked up the glass of wine and drained it in one; Vassilis refilled it for him.

“Drink that too, it will settle your nerves. You will need nerve when you have heard what I have to tell you. I ask that you believe what I am going to say, I will not even attempt to explain what I am or for how long I have been it. But I know that you realise what you are facing is beyond your understanding. Just believe that if you do what I ask of you, then you will have acted correctly and your world will owe you a debt that neither you nor it will ever understand.”

The effect of the second glass settled Theodrakis sufficiently for him to recognise he had no other choice. He fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette and as he was lighting it, he noticed it was growing dark. Ten minutes ago the sun had dazzled. Now the air was still and clouds were amassing, there was the feeling of a storm gathering. Far below, the blue sea was a bruised and leaden hue. He looked back to Vassilis and was struck how the heavy features of his face resembled a mask.

“Endaxi, I’m listening.”

Vassilis smiled indulgently then began.

“There are things we need to fear, things the local peasants, stupid as they are, understand better than cosmopolitan cynics like you. Although they have no idea what it is that really threatens them, they are right to fear it. The things they fear gather strength, these are the things you are hunting. For millennia they have been kept in check. But last year, something that should never have been found was released by thoughtless English archaeologists. A thing we had watched and kept imprisoned over the ages. No, don’t raise your eyebrows like that; better to think of the bodies you have just seen.

“This entity is striving to regain its power; to do this it needs something. A very old thing that changes and grows with the centuries as it is augmented. But each iteration needs refreshing to empower its owner.”

Vassilis paused.

“Do you wish to ask a question?”

“Yes, what is this thing?”

“It is a necklace, a beautiful necklace. Its name when it was last active was The Throat of Ages. Charming, don’t you think it would make a good title for a movie? It has been made of bones over the millennia, both here and elsewhere, places you could never imagine.”

“And you expect me to believe a necklace could cause so much trouble?”

“Why not, an atom is not so big, but look what the splitting of the atom led to.”

“Bones are hardly nuclear fission.”

“No, not unmodified, but if you consider radioactive material as an analogy you would be getting closer. But forget that, concentrate on this. The power that can use the necklace is loose: it has harvested the bones it needs for the next iteration.”

Theodrakis saw it had grown darker and time seemed to have stopped as Vassilis continued to wind him into Hell.

“Fortunately, we now have the bones as without them the ritual cannot take place, so there is time: the necklace must be moved.”

“So why have you waited this long to move it, then?”

“Two reasons. The first is that we cannot touch it ourselves for reasons it would take too long to explain to you. Suffice it to return to the nuclear metaphor; for us it is toxic and it would either destroy us or even worse.”

“And what could be worse than that?”

“For us? Perhaps nothing, but it is possible that it might corrupt us and turn us to its power, which would be worse for you and your world amongst others. The risk is too great.”

“And your other reason?”

“There was no need. As long as the thing was confined in its tomb at Skendleby, the necklace was quite safe.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“It’s being done as we speak: Alekka is on the site now with Watkins, the archaeologist. He let the thing out in England, so he can attempt to correct that by being the one who will take the necklace to a safer hiding place.”

“But won’t this thing corrupt him?”

“Most certainly, if he were to keep it long enough, but Alekka will show him where it must go; he will have it for less than twenty minutes.”

“And so he will come to no harm?”

Vassilis laughed as if Theodrakis had said something particularly amusing.

“Oh dear me, yes, he will come to considerable harm.”

Outside the preternaturally black sky was riven by a flash of forked lightning which split the sea and a violent wind rose up as the storm broke. The noise was so great that Theodrakis almost failed to hear his phone ringing, but he managed to answer it.

“Theodrakis, its Giles. I think we may have a problem. When I got back to the bones, they’d been disturbed and I can’t be certain but I think there are some missing …”

Chapter 20:
Marsyas

Steve reached across for the fresh bottle of Mythos: he knew it was a mistake. He’d already downed three but the condensation on the glass felt so cool against his skin; he took a long swallow. In the twenty four hours since he’d run from Alekka he hadn’t been sober, he was too scared to be. Once he’d got the car going, his brain operated on its panic default setting: run. Without knowing how he got there, he found himself outside a scruffy apartment in Pythagoreio, a place near the airport where from time to time he rented a room to facilitate his short term liaisons, no questions asked.

He took a room, found an anonymous bar behind the harbour and drank until his heart stopped pounding. He’d woken up late afternoon scared and feeling like death, so headed out for a bar; not the same one, that might attract attention. Now he was sitting at a table under a shade watching the sun set over the path to the beach, phone turned off, trying not to think.

He was still sane enough to realise that thinking was a mistake and every time he tried it, the horrors returned. He should have listened to the warning Claire tried to give him yesterday.

“Hey, spinner, you coming to the party then?”

It took Steve some time to understand that the shouted question was directed at him, so in the meantime just stared in confusion at the large, florid-faced Brit in the Hawaiian shirt who was looking at him expecting an answer.

“Come on, you remember me: The Togster. Well, are you coming? Banksy here says there’ll be plenty of totty up for it, and if you’re desperate Brandi’s got the night off from Dougie and she’s got the hots for you.”

While he was speaking, memories of the cricket match began to reconstruct themselves in Steve’s scrambled brain. At length he recognised Toggers, the equally ghastly Banksy and the other two red-faced men in loud shirts and shorts, carrying beach towels. It was the only offer he had, so he finished his beer and joined them. On the way they passed groups of shabby, destitute men sitting on walls and benches: the casualties of the recession, of the bankers and politicians. Men who during the day queued for diminishing state handouts, jobs or just begged. Hopeless men who wanted work, but now lived on the fringe of the law and who were the first at every increasingly violent demonstration. Men who truly believed that the Devil is back amongst us. They stared, hollow-eyed and hostile, at the laughing, boozed up cricketers as they passed.

It was a private party on a stretch of beach where the remains of the ancient city walls join the sea, an area where the great and good throughout history had come to party, from Anthony and Cleopatra to Bill Clinton. They could hear the party long before they saw it and it was in full swing when they arrived. Steve was relieved at this; the walk had reminded him how little in terms of lifestyle, aspiration and values he had in common with his erstwhile teammates. There was a formidable sound system complete with DJ and a free bar.

Steve had just helped himself to a lethal cocktail which seemed to be the party special when he saw Brandi - wearing just heels and a see through blouse that appeared somehow to have become soaked through - unwrap herself from her overweight, sweaty dancing partner and sashay towards him.

“Hey, lover, long time no see.”

Her words were slurred; seemed she’d made an early start and had time to sample a few party specials.

“You’ve got away from Vassilis’s bitch daughter, lucky for us.”

Steve hadn’t time to reply; she lurched towards him and engulfed his face in wet, open-mouth kiss. Part of him responded, but not enough to make him do something really stupid; he was trying to stay anonymous and fucking Brandi on the beach would place him at the centre of expat gossip. But he didn’t need to worry too much about how to respond, as he felt a hand on his shoulder and saw Brandi rapidly step back. Turning, he found himself staring at the pale, ravaged features of Antonis.

“I need to talk to you, Watkins; I think you have made a bad mistake.”

Steve was inclined to agree, and the more he stared at Antonis the stronger the agreement became. He was deathly white, his eyes dark stars in sunken craters. If anything he looked worse than he had when he was dying from loss of blood. Even in Steve’s alcohol-fuddled brain, it was clear that whatever DNA Antonis sprang from, it was breaking down. But the physical aspects, bad as they were, paled compared with the feeling of loss and despair Steve could feel pouring off him in waves. For the second time he felt sympathy for this repulsive creature and it was this, not fear, that conditioned his reply.

“OK, we can sit at one of those tables, do you want a drink?”

He realised how stupid this was as soon as he asked.

“What my sister sees in you I don’t know, especially when you ask such stupid questions, Watkins, and I don’t want to talk here, this is not a good place for me.”

Suffering obviously hadn’t improved his disposition and Steve snapped back,

“Well, it’s here or nowhere, plenty of people here. It makes me feel safer.”

“It’s far too late for you to ever feel safe again.”

“All the same, here or nowhere.”

“All right, but when you have heard what I have to say I don’t think you will feel so happy in this place.”

They moved to a table as far from the powerful speakers as possible. Steve could see Toggers and Banksy dancing with two young, prettyish, dark-haired girls, who he vaguely placed as Albanian sisters who waited at a bar in Karlovasi. It didn’t take much to figure out what commodity linked them so closely to the Togster. It was a sour world and about to get sourer; when had everything started to go wrong?

“You shouldn’t have left my sister like that; do you know what harm you have caused?”

“I know what harm it might have caused me: anyway, it’s none of your business.”

“All of it is my business; do you think you are a free agent here, Watkins? You, who are the puppet of my father. Do you know what a price my sister must pay because of her feelings for you?”

Antonis was shouting and as he furiously worked his jaws Steve thought he could see splits appearing in the skin around his cheeks.

“You are a man of no value, no character, a worthless piece of shit. Do you think we would have wasted breath on you if you hadn’t unleashed the demon in England and you didn’t still have a part to play? Can’t you see what’s happening to us? Look at me; soon I will be no more substantial than Father John. We may suspend time, but the laws of entropy still apply. Do you know the price my sister pays because of her foolish love for you? No, you see nothing but your wasteful little self, you are no better than those two animals over there making prostitutes of those girls.”

Steve was on edge. People were staring at them; Antonis’s appearance alone was hardly discreet but his rage was compelling. He’d been right, they should have talked someplace else. But he needed to make sense of what Antonis said about Alekka.

“What do you mean about Alekka? She attacked me.”

“You get nothing right, do you? Even saving me was a mistake; she would never attack you. In that, she is almost as stupid as you.”

Antonis controlled himself and finished quietly; he looked to be deteriorating by the minute.

“We have become the centre of attention; we must not talk here anymore. You leave now and I will meet you in one half hour in the bar you were in before.”

“How do you know what bar I was in?”

“And how much more naive can you become, Watkins? I would have joined you there but those creatures got to you first. We cannot leave together so you go now.”

He turned and walked towards the sea and Steve slunk away into the night. As the noise of the party diminished with distance, he found himself walking through groups of the dispossessed men. This time they didn’t just stare; the insults they threw at him were easy to translate. But even without the words their anger was palpable, throbbing in the air.

A lean, dark-haired man with several days’ stubble deliberately blocked the path. Steve began to ask him to move over when he hawked and spat onto his shoes then stared into his eyes, hoping for a reaction. Steve ignored the sputum on his shoes and kept his eyes down; the man moved aside, making a scornful remark to his friends who laughed. Steve moved off as quickly as he could without panicking; he saw that some of the men had sticks and knives and one had a large coil of netting obviously liberated from a fishing boat. There was something in the air tonight; even through all his fear and alcohol he could sense it.

Back at the bar he sat at the same table wondering whether to stay or run: but where could he run to? And besides, he needed to hear what Antonis was going to say about Alekka. So he bought a drink and waited, but not for as long as he anticipated. Somewhere towards the beach there was shouting: baying voices raised in anger, and short moments later Antonis, unsteady on his feet, came stumbling out of the night towards him.

“Watkins, where is your car, we need to go from here.”

“It’s not here, what’s all that shouting?”

“The mob, they are behind me. You must hide me.”

“Why, what happened?”

Antonis began to move away, Steve grabbed hold of him.

“Tell me.”

“That woman Brandi was drunk, she grabbed hold of me; I was repelled and pushed her away, perhaps I was a little rough. Now let me go.”

Steve kept hold.

“Not till you tell me about Alekka.”

But there would never be time for that. A crowd of shouting men appeared, running at them from all directions. Antonis only had time to say,

“Now you have killed me, finished us all.”

Then they were all over him; Steve recognised them, saw the sticks and the rope, then he was pushed to the ground and Antonis was swept away. On his hands and knees, winded, he watched them go; what could he do? He got to his feet and did the only thing he could think of: he rang Alekka. But there was no answer. The sounds from the lynching party were more distant but it sounded as if the crowd had grown. He could clearly hear shouts.

“We have got the Devil: now we finish it!”

They were moving up towards the castle of Logothetis and the graveyard, and after hovering indecisively he set off after them. Tracking them was no problem; the noise grew as more screaming Maenads and rioters joined the procession. He could see the leader’s torches cresting the rise.

He’d no idea what he could do, but he couldn’t walk away and he needed to know about Alekka. By the time he had caught up, near the graveyard at the foot of the castle, he’d sweated out most of the alcohol. The crowd was raging: a potent mix of fear, drink and desperation and someone was going to pay for it. Pay for their pain in agony and blood, and he didn’t dare get too close: they might turn on him. He’d heard Vassilis’s name cursed and if they linked him with Alekka he could be next.

He climbed a small rise behind the crowd; from there he could see men holding Antonis at the edge of a small grove of cypresses: they were stringing ropes from trees. He couldn’t hear Antonis from this distance, but could see he was trying to say something. He never got the chance, he was lifted off the ground and held upside down; nets were fixed to his ankles. Steve felt a sudden jolt from the terrible realisation of what was about to happen; he needed to vomit.

Then, to his relief, he saw them: cops, two of them pushing through the fringes of the baying mob. But that was as far as they got; they were surrounded by wild gesticulating figures shouting in their faces and turned back. The crowd parted to let them out jeering as they went. He heard an old crone shout.

“Don’t you want to see real justice, people’s law? Watch us kill the Devil in the old way.”

There was cheering from those near to her. Steve watched the police withdraw, then pause, and he waited for them to call for backup. But they didn’t; they shifted into a patch of darkness at the tower’s base and lit up. The baying from the grove was augmented by a sound somewhere between a sob and a scream, and something in Steve snapped and he found himself hurtling towards the cops.

“What’re you doing? Get in there and stop it, you can see what’s happening.”

The older of the cops threw down the butt of his smoke; Steve could see strain etched into every line of the man’s perspiring face.

“This is none of your business, English; they are right, justice is being done.”

“That’s not justice, it’s murder.”

“You think so? Then tell me how you kill a thing that’s not alive.”

Steve, out of control, screamed at them.

“Listen, listen to that sound, it’s a man in agony. Jesus, how can you stand there? You’re cops, you have to help.”

They turned away, trying to ignore him.

“I know your commander. Theodrakis. I have his number, I’ll …”

He didn’t get any further. The younger cop grabbed him from behind and the elder took his jaw in one calloused hand, forcing him to meet his gaze. He could feel the fear pouring off them like sweat.

“Last chance, English, you go now or we will take you to that grove and tell the men with the knives that you are the one fucking the Devil’s sister, what do you …”

He never finished the sentence; the air was ripped apart by a screech of pain of such anguished volume that it cut straight through the howling and shouting. For a second there was silence, followed by some cheering; but not from the entire crowd. It seemed the atrocity of the death throes had shocked the humanity back into most of them. They began to melt away into the dark. Steve felt the rough hand release his face as the cops slipped away with the rapidly dispersing crowd and he fell to his knees.

In an instant the place was deserted; Steve could see the empty grove. It was a site beyond Hell. Great, black, birds appeared from nowhere and perched on all the branches of the scrappy trees in some parody of a funeral vigil.

Between the trees a burning brand left stuck in the earth flared and flickered, picking out the details with a shimmering clarity that no horror movie ever could match. From Steve’s position the detail was occluded and shifting, but it was impossible not to recognise what was hanging there. He climbed unsteadily to his feet and stumbled across the deserted space. He couldn’t help himself. The nightmare hadn’t ended at Skendleby; he was still walking through it.

Nothing was real anymore, nowhere was safe. He tripped and almost fell, realised his eyes were closed then steadied himself and forced them open. Straight in front, not more than ten metres, Antonis was hanging upside down. He doubled over and wretched up everything he had ingested in the last twenty four hours in three convulsive heaves. Then he placed his hands over his eyes and wept.

After an interval he couldn’t gauge, he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder, and on looking round saw he was staring into the face of the old man who had appeared when he had saved Antonis’s life.

“I told you it would have been better to let him die. This thing hanging from the trees is your legacy. You should never have come here, but now you must look upon your accomplishment. Look and listen, perhaps he will still have something for you.”

Steve was about to ask what but realised he was on his own; the man had faded but the words remained. He made himself look again at the thing in the trees. It reminded him of a painting he had seen as a boy, ‘The Flaying of Marysas’, but far worse.

They’d used fish gutting knives to skin him: sharp but not designed for such delicate work. There must have been a few of them all cutting at once working from the knees downwards towards the face. The knives had taken more than skin, although there was enough of that hanging in bloody skeins that tumbled down over the top of the head. He hoped he’d never see such a strange mix of colours again. It didn’t resemble Antonis; it didn’t really resemble a human being, more like the sort of thing a Turner prize-winning artist might fuck about with and sell for a fortune.

The face wasn’t as bad when he could make himself look at it, perhaps it had been too difficult or perhaps Antonis’s final dying shriek had come before they really got to it. As he was staring at the face, hoping he would faint or wake up, the dead eyes shifted their focus from the infinite to him. They did it with a snap, so quick it made him jump backwards about a metre. From there he watched, rooted in Hell, as the mouth opened and without the lips moving a voice said,

“Where is Alekka? You must find her.”

Chapter 21:
The Warning

Even before he ended the call with Giles, Vassilis was in his face.

“That was about the bones? Can you fools get nothing right?”

“The Englishman isn’t sure, he thinks they’ve been disturbed and some are missing; maybe only one.”

“There only needs to be one missing for us to be ruined: it only needs the right one to give the charm its power, to make the Throat of Death live again. If that has happened.”

He paused, and Theodrakis wasn’t sure if he was trying to control himself or because the news had dealt him such a heavy blow that he couldn’t respond. The idea the latter might be the case shocked Theodrakis more than he cared to admit, but he didn’t have to wait long; Vassilis pulled himself together.

“If that has happened then I think we are all of us ruined. We must …”

He was cut off by a streak of forked lightning striking the sea and a simultaneous deafening crack of thunder. Across the room a door burst open and Alekka rushed onto the terrace.

“It’s not there, he couldn’t find it.”

“Where’s Watkins?”

“Steve’s gone; he thought I was going to hurt him, he rushed off in his car. I couldn’t catch him. He must be so confused and terrified. How could he think I would hurt him?”

“Control yourself, you forget what you are. As for Watkins, at least he was consistent: useless to the end. You need to know that some of the recent bone harvest is missing thanks to the incompetence of that other vacillating English inadequate.”

He turned to Theodrakis.

“I must insist you work to my direction now, there is much about yourself that you do not know; I think over the coming days you will discover what you really are and why I brought you to Samos. Tomorrow you will bring the other Englishman to the site where it was hidden; he is also an archaeologist, although a lesser one. We can no longer depend on Watkins and we need to look for it thoroughly this time. It is not possible that it has gone, the conditions are not conducive for them to approach it after all the care we have taken.”

Alekka began to speak and Vassilis turned on her.

“Take that stupid look off your face. Accept what you are and what you need to do. Forget about the novelty of feelings; stop behaving like a lesser being. Tomorrow you will join them on that site and direct their actions. Theodrakis, go and find the Englishman, do not go back to Vathia, stay in the village with your waitress. Stay with her grandmother; she is an ignorant peasant but does have some slight power that might help protect you. Come back at dawn, Alekka will meet you.”

Theodrakis stared at him with his mouth open. He couldn’t understand how things had moved so fast or most of what Vassilis said. He began to empathise with how Lucca must feel. Vassilis turned and walked out followed by Alekka; as she passed, he thought he saw streaks of moisture below her eyes. He was left alone on the terrace; he had been given his instructions, now they had no time for him. Any of the resolve or clarity he felt as he’d begun his meeting with Vassilis evaporated. A large shaven-headed man moved, with a surprising lightness of foot, onto the terrace.

“Your police driver was too frightened to wait: once the storm started he went. Follow me, I am to drive you.”

He went with him and sat in a daze in the back of the limo as it purred its way down round the sharp bends towards the village. The storm must have been highly localised because in less than a mile the weather had reverted to beautiful early evening. The limo drove down onto the harbour front, basking untroubled in sunlight, and he was dropped off outside the bar: empty apart from Hippolyta sitting at a table talking with Captain Michales.

When she saw him a look of pleasure lit up her face, which changed his gloom to temporary delight; even Michales directed a grimace at him which he correctly identified as a neutral greeting. She rushed between the tables towards him wearing old jeans with white T-shirt and flip flops; looking, to him, like a super model. She threw her arms round him and he felt himself shudder with the release of tension; the world was still alright if this existed.

“Where have you been, Alexis? I am so happy to see you: Yaya Eleni said you must come to her, she has had a dream, a bad one full of omens.”

The relief dissipated, there was some awful synchronicity here; how could Vassilis have known this? Could there be some link between him and the old crone? Hippolyta must have read his expression.

“No need to worry, she has your safety at heart, she said you should stay there tonight, there is room, although I will have to share with her.”

“Not the sleeping arrangements I’d been looking forward to, but she may have a point.”

“Worse for me: you’ve no idea what sleeping with Yaya is like.”

He tried to keep the image out of his mind, preferring to wonder at how easy their relationship had become.

“And I’ve no wish to know either but first I must see the Englishman, Giles.”

“He’s up at the ‘Olive Villas’ with that woman. Earlier on you could hear her moaning and screaming without shame at what she made him do to her, even down here.”

“What time do you get off?”

“Early: tonight will be even quieter than usual, now the German tour company has decided to take its customers home because of the troubles. I think I can leave anytime. When you have seen Giles come back here, I will feed you then we will go to Yaya Eleni.”

She kissed him and he set off up the hill. Giles was sitting on a lounger by the pool; he looked tired and pale. Above he caught a glimpse of Claire, naked, flitting across the balcony. She flashed an unfriendly glance at him. Giles gestured for him to sit and he fetched a chair from a shaded arbour, not feeling a lounger appropriate to the conversation.

“I’ve been trying to get hold of Steve; he went off last night and won’t answer his phone.”

“Dr Watkins, it appears, has gone missing; he was with Alekka on the excavation site until about an hour ago, then apparently was spooked by the storm.”

“What storm? It’s been fine all day.”

“Dr Glover, Giles, why do I get the impression that you know a lot more than you are prepared to tell me?”

“Because it wouldn’t do you any good and I’ve got enough problems as it is. We came here for a break, not this nightmare, although it seems to have given Claire a new lease of life, too much life maybe.”

It seemed to Theodrakis that he added the last bit as an aside to himself; he reckoned if he said nothing, eventually Giles would tell him all he needed. He certainly didn’t look like someone relaxing on holiday; he looked like a man reaching the end of his tether. Both Englishmen seemed dwarfed by the women in their lives. He sympathised as he found Alekka and Claire in particular disconcerting. None of this added up, nothing on this island was what it seemed; like Prospero’s island, a mix of Heaven and Hell. But which was the illusion? He’d been right about Giles needing to talk, though.

“Anyway, you know much more than you say too and this last year has taught me a thing or two about who to trust.”

“Tell me then, who do you trust?”

“Claire.”

“Only Claire?”

“Well, there’s a vicar at Skendleby; maybe him too.”

“Well, now you need to trust me. Not only because I can have you arrested and then left to rot in gaol for a couple years and believe me, in the current chaos here, no one would find you. But mostly because, like Watkins, you’re confused and frightened because you depend on a woman who is metamorphosing into something you don’t understand and are beginning to fear.”

He knew he’d hit the mark even though Giles said,

“Not me, Claire’s not like that; Alekka maybe.”

“Perhaps, but you need to get those bite marks on your neck and shoulders cleaned up, they’ll become infected.”

He saw Giles blushing, and having made his point and further destabilised him he asked,

“Where are the bones?”

“Over there in the grove, about five trees in.”

“The tree where those great black birds are roosting, I imagine?”

“That’s the one; they’ve been there since the other night.”

Theodrakis hated birds like these, filthy carrion, but he restricted his comment to,

“Unusual, surely.”

“Very unusual but not the first time I’ve met them. I don’t think they’re necessarily bad; I think they’re watching over the bones.”

Unlikely as this sounded, particularly the use of the word met, Theodrakis let it pass; merely asked,

“To prevent any more going missing? You are certain some have gone?”

“I think so, I’m pretty sure one, at least, is missing. They’d all been disturbed and not by an animal. Somebody had gone through them carefully looking for a particular one.”

“But only you and presumably Ms Vanarvi knew they were here.”

“No, only me.”

Theodrakis wondered what had prevented him from telling her.

“Claire and I are the only ones staying here.”

“Well, someone else obviously knew. This isn’t your first experience like this I think, am I correct?”

“Sort of.”

“That’s why you’re frightened and yet, remarkably, not surprised and, it seems you’ve kept this to yourself; not told Ms Vanarvi.”

Giles looked uncomfortable and mumbled something about not wanting to worry her which Theodrakis dismissed as implausible but didn’t bother to contradict.

“Giles, I’m sorry there’s no time for you to understand me better, but if you wish ever to leave this enchanted island you must do what I say. Tomorrow morning as rose-fingered dawn touches your villa I will collect you here. Be ready with the bones; tell no one, talk to nobody. One last thing, and I tell you this as a friend, don’t try to run: not only because my men would pick you up but because I think something far worse would get to you first.”

Giles said nothing, just stared back at him, but Theodrakis knew he’d follow instructions: he had no choice.

“If Watkins makes contact inform me at once. Having outlived his usefulness, he’s a dead man walking.”

Giles nodded. Theodrakis stood up and moved off. As he passed in front of the house, he felt the woman watching him; it didn’t feel comfortable. The bar was still empty when he got back except for a middle-aged English couple attempting, and failing, to talk Greek to Captain Michales. Hippolyta brought him a dish of octopus with bread and horiatiki salad, the day’s special: in these straightened times it was every day’s special.

He had no appetite but picked at the food to please her. He didn’t want to go straight to Yaya Eleni’s and, he suspected, neither did she. There was something else they needed, as much for comfort as anything else, so they went to her apartment. Afterwards they showered, dressed then locked the door and walked up the hill to the concrete oven for the night.

The crone was waiting outside the door, drowsing in an old hard backed kitchen chair, but creaked to her feet as they approached. She greeted Hippolyta with a hug and some clucking sounds and ignored Theodrakis.

“So, you have brought this one back: the one who has caused all the trouble. But then you have always been a headstrong, silly girl. Now go inside to the kitchen, I have things to tell your policeman.”

Then she deigned to regard Theodrakis.

“Before I let you in the house with my great granddaughter I need to check you for certain signs.”

He struggled to control his fastidious disinclination when she cupped his face between her two leathery hands and gazed rheumy-eyed, at uncomfortably close range, at his face. While she was doing this he wondered how his father would react to the proposition of such an in-law, and in spite of himself giggled. Yaya Eleni took no notice except to remove her hands from his face. For a moment she put her two thumbs together with their palms pointing up and studied them carefully, then hawked and spat on them. Then, to his considerable disgust, she wiped the spittle across his eyelids and replaced her hands either side of his face. What happened then surprised them both: with a sudden grunting noise she pulled them away as if burnt and lurched back, an expression of shock on her wizened features.

“You are not like other men: you are more like Vassilis. Perhaps that will serve you well.”

“I thought you saw Vassilis as some type of Devil.”

“And so he is.”

She paused and spat on the ground twice.

“An ancient Devil whose ways sometimes walk alongside ours. Certainly not the Devil that brought the killings. He, or something like him, has always been on this island. Still I wish you were not the man that silly girl chose; not because you have a bad heart but because death walks one pace behind you.”

Theodrakis had put up with as much of this as he cared to.

“Thank you, I know you are trying to be helpful, but no one knows better than me that death walks behind me. It walks behind me and in front of me and has ever since I set foot on this island. It’s why I’m here.”

She screeched back at him,

“Your death policeman, not any death, your death: a woman, a woman with dark hair needs it, it stands in her way.”

He thought of Alekka, but why should she want him dead? He was about to ask her how she knew when he saw she was swaying on her feet. A viscous white film was spreading across her eyes. She made a sound like the mewling of a cat then in a strained voice rattled out,

“And not here, somewhere else, colder and darker.”

Now he was frightened: if this was an act, it was a very good one, but she hadn’t finished.

“God be with us, how could I have missed it? It’s you, of course, it’s you watching!”

He grabbed at her, but too late; she’d fainted, collapsing to the ground like a sack of rotting potatoes. He shouted for Hippolyta and checked to see if she was still breathing, then they carried her into the fetid kitchen and laid her on the ragged sofa in front of the blaring black and white television stuck on the same channel. Hippolyta fussed over her and Theodrakis went back outside; he needed to smoke. Eventually she came out.

“She’s come round; I’ve put her to bed. What did you do to her?”

He just shook his head. What could he say?

In the night, after Hippolyta had gone to sleep with her grandmother, he lay awake on the lumpy sofa in the heat of the kitchen imagining lice and fleas crawling all over him. It was almost a relief to think about what tomorrow would bring and what he had to do. He played the crone’s words over and over in his head: was any of this real? Had she meant Alekka who would be with them on the site? What would he find and why was he here, when the policing of the whole island was now his responsibility? What did Vassilis expect of him and what would happen if he didn’t deliver?

He set his phone to wake him before dawn but didn’t think he’d need it. Somehow he managed to grab snatches of fitful sleep. Sleep broken by noises, like the claws of large birds shifting and scraping on the corrugated iron roof.

Chapter 22:
Embodiment

Tired, stiff and wretched he settled into the back seat of the taxi; the battery on his phone was flat. He should have checked in with Kostandin. He itched all over, probably psychosomatic but it felt like every micro-parasite on the island inhabited that sofa and had jumped ship to burrow under his skin. The birds were still on the roof, heavy and brooding; they watched as the taxi spluttered into life and moved off, then rose into the air and circled the shack before lazily following the car to ‘Olive Villas’. At the villas, they slotted into spaces left by the birds already roosting there.

To his surprise Giles was waiting, holding a bulging plastic bag; he looked as bad as Theodrakis felt. Behind him was the woman, her long black hair hanging across her face. She was amused. Surprisingly, she indicated to Giles to sit in the front seat with the driver. Theodrakis waited for her to kiss Giles goodbye. She didn’t: to his horror she opened the back door and slid in next to him, close up invading his body space; she was enjoying this.

“Ms Vanarvi, this is police business, a murder investigation, you’ll have to stay here.”

“I don’t think so. This isn’t about murder, even though all through the night I could sense a death, maybe two, in the air.”

“All the same, I must ask you to get out of the car.”

“Why don’t you like me, pussycat? Most men find me beautiful. Giles here can’t get enough. Isn’t that right, lover?”

Whatever reply Giles may have made was drowned out by her peal of laughter; she certainly didn’t look worn out like her baggy-eyed and pale partner. She looked as if she could barely repress excess vitality; she bordered on manic.

“It’s nothing to do with liking you …”

Her laugh cut him off.

“But you don’t like me, do you? I could tell from the moment you saw me. I frighten you, don’t I? In fact I don’t think you like women at all, do you? Oh dear, perhaps we all frighten you; poor baby.”

She laughed again then leaned forward to the front seat and wrapped her arms round Giles’s neck. When she spoke it was to Giles, but the meaning was meant for Theodrakis.

“He doesn’t want me to come, honey. I don’t think he realises that if I don’t go then you don’t either. I don’t think he understands that there’s more knowledge and experience of this in my little finger than there is in the whole of his admittedly tiny little body. I don’t think he recognises that I am the one who has been sent here to deal with this, not him. I don’t think he realises who I am and what I do.”

The voice, playful at the beginning of the speech, was harsh and malevolent by the end. He couldn’t think of a reply; it was like sitting mute in front of Adamidis again, drained and powerless. A bad day couldn’t have started worse: what would be the end? What had he set running?

The taxi crawled up the mountain as the sun rose over the vampire village of Spatherai and transformed Mount Kerkis from dark violet to dazzling honey. By the time they reached the track leading to the site, it was already too hot. George the driver wouldn’t take them the whole way.

“This is as far as I go, ring when you want picking up. I will collect you here, no closer.”

The car turned and drove off. Theodrakis could see George touching the statue of the Virgin hanging from the mirror. Giles was behind Claire, who appeared to know the way. He turned and followed, his shoes kicking up clouds of dust from the track. It was too dry; the other side of the island fires had broken out and he’d seen on Yaya’s TV this area was on red fire alert.

The birds were here already, scattered about perched on rocks and humps. The three oldest occupied the desiccated limbs of the dead stump of oak overlooking the burial. He heard a car behind him pull up sharply and Alekka got out. He turned to greet her, but might as well not have bothered; her anxious eyes were focussed only on Claire.

Alekka had been trying to contact Steve and locate Antonis but managed neither; she’d wanted to be first on site but things were unravelling too fast. The tryst with Steve had backfired. Instead of controlling him, it re-awakened emotions from somewhere long in her past that had lain dormant over time. When she had tried to help Antonis to remember what he was and function as programmed he’d not responded; just replied with a sardonic grin on his face, “The laws of entropy are running and can’t be reversed.”

He was right but it shouldn’t be so soon, this hadn’t been predicted. Yet it was clear to her that when they dug that thing up at Skendleby they’d released powers even Vassilis couldn’t anticipate. The laws of time and space were warping and the arrival of the woman was the catalyst, quickening everything. She should have known when she began to entertain feelings for Steve that she was dissolving.

She understood eventually she and Antonis would decay and have to be replaced; but not so soon, and certainly not in this cycle. Father John was affected, he also was fading too rapidly; she sensed he was near but couldn’t see him. Things were falling apart, the order was changing. The birds sensed it: the old power had awoken.

The hardest thing was the return of feeling: it robbed her of the ability to act logically. Apart from a brief starburst of happiness, she knew only the morbid sadness of doomed love and paralysing fear. Now the epicentre of that fear was standing a few yards away wearing that cruel mocking smile that filled her dreams. She felt like Hector standing before Achilles and seeing nothing but inescapable death in his eyes.

“Alekka, did you hear?”

The voice pulled her out of her daze; it was the Englishman, Giles.

“Sorry, I was thinking.”

“I said, do you know where Steve is? I can’t get hold of him, he’s not answering his phone. I thought he might be with you.”

She’d hoped Giles would tell her where he was, perhaps he was dead; perhaps Antonis had killed him like he’d threatened to. No, she’d have felt that. The witch must have put the fear of the Devil into him. She was shivered by the sudden premonition she’d never see Steve again. Giles was muttering,

“He was meant to do this, he‘d been working on this site, he knew what to look for, not me, it’s not fair.”

Invoking the metaphysics of fairness was so typical of everything weak about men, it made her laugh and regained her some self-control.

“So, what are you going to do? Curl up in a ball like a little baby and suck your thumb?”

She saw the look of shock on his face and a trace of anger: good, that was better.

“No, of course not, but I need a better idea of what I’m supposed to be looking for.”

“You will know it when you see it.”

The witch Claire had wandered off, why? Surely this was what she’d come for so why disappear now? It made no sense.

“Ms Vassilis, I would like to ask a couple of questions before we start.”

Theodrakis the policeman: where did he stand? Vassilis had told her he was certain he was an important piece of the jigsaw so why had he brought the witch with him, why bring the one who could doom them all? She tried to look into his mind to work out what he wanted but only got a vague sense of unease and physical discomfort; so she was right, her powers were diminishing quickly. Soon she would have no advantage over them. It must have started when she began to love Steve and her body temperature returned. She welcomed this at first. How stupid she had become. But still there was something in the policeman she was inclined to trust and he was far stronger than he made out. He was standing next to her now; she could see insect bites on his face he was scratching at.

“What are we meant to do now?”

“Why did you bring that woman?”

“I had no choice. Look, there’s something about her. Something frightening, although Giles thinks she’s perfect: she threatened me in the car and he didn’t notice, thought she was joking.”

“Of course; Steve too thinks she is wonderful, I think there is some glamour she covers herself with that people see and love.”

“Then why doesn’t it work on us?”

“Exactly: perhaps you now begin to see what you are. I will explain later. Giles is coming over, you stay with him if the woman comes back I will try to lead her off. You make sure you get hold of it when we find it: don’t let him touch it for more than a few seconds. Get it off him; put it in a bag hold the bag by the handle away from your body: it will damage you. Ah, hello Giles, so you have decided to help us after all; good, you will find the tools you need in the trunk of my car, it’s open.”

Giles sloped off looking confused and hurt. Theodrakis took her arm.

“Don’t be too hard on him. There’s more to him than you think, he’s suffered a great deal and we may need him in the future.”

Alekka noticed the use of the collective pronoun; it made her feel better.

“Theodrakis, when you find it you must take it to Vassilis but you must not give it to him, let him direct you in what to do with it. Do exactly what he says but do not let him touch it, even if he asks or threatens. If you gave it to him you would bring disaster on him, us and on people and life forms you could not even dream of.”

Theodrakis opened his mouth to ask her what she meant but Giles was back.

“OK, I’ll dig but you need to direct.”

Alekka nodded and they followed her to the site. Even to her untrained eye it was obvious it had already been sifted through more than once and Giles’s first words confirmed this.

“The upper levels have been turned over since I was last here; look, there’s material from different levels and cultures all mixed up.”

Theodrakis asked,

“So it’s gone then?”

“Not necessarily, it could’ve been buried deeper. Whoever’s been looking was rushed. Steve didn’t find anything and didn’t stick around long enough to do a proper job, and from the look of this whoever else has tried just hacked it about.”

“So someone got here before Steve and took it?”

“I’m not sure if they got it. They made so much mess they could have just made it more difficult for themselves; but they got here before Steve, look you can still see some of his trowel work over the mess. Could be that what we want is further down.”

He looked at Alekka.

“What am I looking for and where is it supposed to be?”

“A sealed lead casket somewhere down under an ancient burial urn.”

“OK, I guess this is the urn, looks like a secondary Neolithic burial. I’m not sure anyone got underneath it though. Could you tell me if …”

He never finished the question and Alekka never got to answer it.

“Hiyya, honey, still busy with your buckets and spades?”

There was a peal of laughter and Claire was walking towards them. Alekka looked at Theodrakis and walked across the dry-burnt earth to intercept her.

Theodrakis saw desperation and a plea in the look; he watched her walk away, long legged and beautiful, to meet Claire. What a great gift Steve let slip. The two women stood a few paces apart, like Homeric heroes before single combat, then walked off towards the high cliffs above the sea. Theodrakis felt a terrible stab of anxiety.

He spent the next two hours pacing round the pit where Giles worked; the man was more skilled than he’d assumed, working down in a methodical manner, even commenting on artefacts of significance he found as worked the layers. Giles’s academic interest irritated Theodrakis intensely: he wanted this business finished so he could get away from this awful place. Giles’s last comment killed all hope.

“Sorry, it’s not here.”

“How can you be sure? Go down further.”

“There’s no point. I’ve reached an undisturbed level.”

“So?”

“If it’s undisturbed then it’s not been touched since it was laid down. It’s natural, not touched by humans, it’s thousands of years ago, it’s an event horizon. Everything above has been sifted. So unless this thing was hidden about two hundred and fifty thousand years before the Neolithic, which it wasn’t, then it’s gone.”

Theodrakis felt a rush of misery wash through him; he shambled across to the pit and sat next to the sweating Giles on the lip of the excavation. He wished Alekka were here, he wanted Hippolyta. Athens felt so far away now, might as well be on another planet, another universe.

They sat next to each other in silence. Theodrakis had watched some time ago as the birds had lifted from their perches and flown towards the sea. Almost as if they knew how the search would end before Giles did, or maybe they were needed somewhere else. The silence was total.

Then a woman’s voice from close by.

“Someone needs to teach Steve how to pick his girlfriends better, they get worse; if it’s possible to be worse than a possessed psychopathic murderer.”

There was a gush of silvery laughter then,

“But this one’s right off the scale, a real lulu.”

Theodrakis saw the look of pleasure and relief on Giles’s face as he climbed to his feet to rush towards Claire. He watched him run across the burnt ground towards her, his feet kicking up dust. She waited for him on the spot she had met Alekka. She looked vital, bursting with life and very beautiful. She folded Giles in her arms, her head nestling on his shoulder, and said loud enough for Theodrakis to hear,

“Whoa, steady on lover boy, you’ll have to wait for that till we get back to the apartment.”

Then the laugh again, sounding triumphant this time. She spoke to Giles but her eyes never left Theodrakis. She hadn’t even bothered to ask if they’d found it, she was taunting him and loving it. Eventually, feeling like Priam begging Achilles for the body of his dead son, he forced out the question,

“Where’s Alekka?”

“Oh, she decided to go swimming.”

Again, the pealing laughter.

Chapter 23:
The View From the Cliff

Alekka felt her legs trembling as she walked across dusty scorched earth towards the woman; her throat was dry and in her memory she recalled that before the change this feeling had been called fear. To experience feeling again was disorienting, it subverted logic and circumscribed action. Time was running out. The creature Claire looked completely in control: standing relaxed, chewing at a grass stalk, a mocking smile playing across her lips. She was wearing a short summer dress with nothing underneath, brazen, lascivious and cruel, yet Giles, Steve and the men in the village saw her as perfect.

“Claire, I thought you might like to walk. I can show you some interesting and beautiful things.”

Claire laughed and Alekka knew she was enjoying this, actually found it funny.

“Come on Alekka, you must be able to come up with something better than that. All you want is to get me away from that pit where they’re wasting their time.”

She laughed again showing two rows of perfectly white, small, sharp teeth.

“No, I mean it it’s so boring over there and I would like some company and perhaps you can tell me some things about Steve.”

“Oh I could tell you some things about Steve alright, honey. In fact I can tell you everything about Steve, but I don’t think you’d like the most recent bits.”

Alekka shivered; what could she know? Did she know where he was? She lowered her eyes from Claire’s gaze, intimidated; perhaps she should go back, she couldn’t deal with this woman. The birds were following but keeping their distance as if they too feared. Vassilis had miscalculated: this was something much more powerful than he had reckoned. She needed to get away from here, this had been a mistake. Then, behind Claire, in the mid distance, a faint impression of Father John materialised: insubstantial but knowable. He gestured towards her, indicating the path leading to her special place above the sea. If he were here and instructing her then maybe it would work out. As she was thinking this he evaporated into the heat haze, but any indecision was pre-empted by Claire.

“But to tell you the truth, honey, I’m bored too so a walk would be OK. As a matter of fact Steve told me about a place up here where you take your lovers; he said it was pretty spectacular.”

She paused and laughed to herself.

“The view that is; although from what Steve said I’m sure the other couldn’t have been too bad either.”

Alekka felt her cheeks burn with shame and anger but in her heart felt deep hurt, how could she have lost her glacial control so quickly? How could Steve have talked to this woman like that? Then she realised that she was being played and began to think.

“Well, if you think that you can keep yourself off Giles for the time it’ll take to get there, I’ll show you.”

“Oh, miaow: nice try, honey, perhaps today might turn out to be fun after all.”

All the time as they talked Claire had been rotating the grass stalk around her lips; now she spat it out.

“Come on then, let’s go for a girly walk.”

She put out her hand for Alekka to take. It was like ice.

They followed the track towards the cliffs and the birds, at a distance, followed circling in the air behind them. Alekka could feel Father John somewhere close, at least she could feel his mind reaching out to her. And gradually as they walked Alekka realised that his plan was right. If she got Claire to her place high above the sea she could engineer a situation to push her off the edge to her death, assuming she was capable of dying, hundreds of feet below on the jagged rocks where the sea undermined the cliffs. Beside her, Claire was giggling to herself and as they walked on this grew to laughter until her shoulders began to shake and she pulled up.

“Anyone watching us would see two beautiful dark haired women, close friends walking on a summer’s day. It could be part of a tourist advert for Greece, make a change from riots and tear gas.”

She stopped, overcome with convulsive heaves of laughter.

“And what is so funny, please?”

“The irony of course, honey: we’re not friends, we’re not even women and we mean death to each other. Beautiful death, and of course to us that’s only temporary.”

“Why do you feel you can talk like this to me?”

“Because before either of us gets back, there will have been a reckoning and anyway, who would believe you if you told them, apart from that decaying old ruin Vassilis?”

“You would be foolish to underestimate him, particularly here on his ground.”

“Oh, bless: loyalty, that’s so sweet. Every time I think I’ve reached the limit of your stupidity you go one further, push the volume up to eleven. You know I’m getting so much pleasure out of you it will almost be a pity when I finish this. Pity Vassilis doesn’t return your loyalty.”

Claire’s face continued to wear the same sardonic smile whatever she said and Alekka felt the fear begin to return. She wanted to defend Vassilis, let the woman know how powerful he was, but there was no time. Claire carried on.

“Vassilis is nothing compared to me, just a street corner conjuror, he’s no more power than those fools at Skendleby who have enabled me to grow so strong. Stronger by the day; I’m creating feelings and passions that grow too strong for this body. But after so long without pleasure and sensations, I think I can be forgiven for indulging myself. We all deserve a treat, don’t you agree Alekka?”

She directed a look at Alekka, the suggestion of which would have been impossible to misunderstand. She couldn’t live with this, she had to get away: she was athletic and strong, she must be able to outdistance Claire. Claire was watching, her face a mask of amusement and something else, something lasciviously unsettling.

Alekka was about to turn and run when she saw him again, Father John, behind Claire on the path to the cliffs. His form was more fragmented as if the pieces hadn’t knitted together, as if he were a work in progress assembled by someone else. But she felt the thoughts his mind directed towards her.

“Keep going, Alekka, draw her to the cliffs, I will be there and together we will be strong enough for her.”

Claire watched her.

“Still with us are you, honey? For a moment there I thought you were about to leave. That would have spoiled all the fun.”

“No, I’m going nowhere; that would make things too easy for you.”

And she meant it. This was her place, she had to stop her here, and with Father John she could. Her indecision was gone: she would buy Giles time to find the fetish necklace and trust Theodrakis to deliver it to Vassilis. Then the balance of power would be restored. As for her, she would help Father John destroy this succubus in the sea.

If Claire had any idea of this she didn’t show it. She smiled at Alekka and linked her arm. Again there was the shock of the ice cold flesh as Claire’s arm insinuated itself with hers.

“Must be strange for you with your newly warm body to feel the chill of this one.”

“I think it must be more of a shock for Giles.”

“Oh, he doesn’t notice, poor little lamb, he feels and sees what I make him feel and see.”

She broke off to laugh.

“Except, I have to admit, when I get a bit too enthusiastic to try and test how much pleasure this body can give me. It’s still like a new toy and I think at times it’s a bit much for him. But he doesn’t notice the cold; people only see what I intend them to see. You need particular powers of intuition to see beyond the beautiful, caring Englishwoman.”

“Don’t kid yourself. We’re not the only ones to see through you.”

Claire smiled.

“Oh, you must mean that little hermaphrodite policeman. Well, it would appear he doesn’t seem to like me very much. I suppose that I’ll have to get round to him. But not quite yet, I get too much amusement watching him with that beanpole of a girlfriend; I can’t imagine what they get up to. Can you?”

“He has strengths that you don’t see.”

“I hope you don’t mean the beanpole’s ancient grandmother, that smelly old woman. She’s minor league even compared with Vassilis.”

Alekka said nothing, just kept going, the cold of Claire’s grip spreading up her arm. She wanted to shut her ears to the voice but the voice wouldn’t stop.

“No, there’s no real competition. I’m the only Prospero on this island now, sugar. Oh look, aren’t those the cliffs you were going to show me? We’ve got here so soon. Doesn’t time go quickly when you’re having fun?”

Alekka looked up, they were almost there; she could see the slight gap in the rock that led to the cliff bower. The birds were circling above it, they were agitated. She hoped Father John was in place. They had to walk through in single file. Claire stepped aside for Alekka to lead. Now there was no turning back, she was trapped. The birds rose up into the distance as she walked out onto the fringe of grass high above the sea churning in the tiny narrow cove below. The spume of foam breaking over the rocks looked miles away. Claire followed behind her and they stood facing each other a few short paces from the drop. Alekka knew she only had one chance and had to grab it.

“Look, come here; I will show you a most beautiful sight.”

She took Claire’s hand and led her to where the grass ended at the cliff edge. She saw Father John behind them, it had to be now. With a hand behind Claire’s back she pointed down into the void and pushed.

Next instant she was hanging over the drop, held round the throat by one of Claire’s hands, her legs kicking in the air. Claire’s face was terrible, turning her bowels to water; she felt for the first time the paralysing, bladder-draining effects of absolute fear. Then she was thrown back onto the grass, the breath knocked out of her; she looked for Father John. Claire laughed.

“Is this what you were looking for?”

She clicked her fingers and pointed to the cliff edge where the priest appeared.

“You little fool, this is merely one of my projections. Every time you began to see sense and think of running I made him appear to you, make you think your pathetic scheme could work. And of course, you fell for it every time.”

She knew the end had come. She had no cards to play; she had never had any cards to play. Claire read her thoughts.

“Yes, you’re right, I lured you here and all the time you thought you were being so clever. Now, just to let you drain the full cup of despair before the end, know this. Those men will find nothing in that pit. They won’t find it because it’s not there. Everything you hoped for is gone.”

Alekka couldn’t meet her gaze. She lay crumpled on the grass looking at the blood and scratches on her bare legs, waiting for the end Claire had promised.

“Look at me, look at me now or I will take the trouble to hunt down whatever’s left of Stevie and bring him here for some of the same.”

Alekka lifted her eyes.

“Now look at what I really am. What I have become.”

Alekka screamed, prayed for blindness, writhed in agony on the patch of freshly wet grass, and clasped her hands over her face. There was a laugh.

“There, now that you really understand despair you can look up. Don’t worry, I’ve put it away. To tell the truth I’m not that much fonder of it than you are. Now open your eyes, you don’t want to die in darkness do you?”

She managed to look up: it was Claire again.

“Well, we may as well get this over.”

Claire offered her a hand up. Alekka wondered if it was worth begging; a remembered image came to her of Hector begging Achilles to return his body to his father. It hadn’t worked and this wouldn’t work. She took the hand.

“Oh, look you’ve wet yourself and your lovely long legs are all cut and bleeding, what a waste.”

Claire stood close, looking at her, then put her hand round the back of her neck and pulled her face gently towards hers.

“I’ve still not tested all the pleasures this body brings me.”

Alekka could feel Claire’s breath on her face, her lips were open, close to her own. She was smiling, relaxed and expectant.

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll try you out and if you’re as good as you look then maybe I’ll let you stick around for a while. Pity to waste the body warmth you’ve just rediscovered, lover; you never know, you may get to like it. No harm done, ‘cos I know after what you’ve seen you’ll be too scared to cause any trouble.”

She nibbled at Alekka’s ear and nipped the side of her neck.

“It might be fun to see how Giles reacts; perhaps he’d want to join in.”

She relaxed her grip and began to run her hands gently round Alekka’s hips, slid them under dress. Alekka felt the cold inching gently towards her groin. They were standing near the edge and Claire began to turn her round and move her lips closer. Alekka pushed against her, slipped free and stepped backwards.

For a split second, her eyes remained on a level with Claire’s while her legs slipped from rock to thin air, and in that second she saw a brief flash of something else in those eyes: shock, maybe regret. Then she was gone, falling, but her mind seized on the image; perhaps the possession had not been complete, perhaps there was a dialectical struggle inside the soul where the real Claire that people still loved fought a rearguard action. She wished she could tell Vassilis: something else she’d got wrong.

Then an impact as she smashed into a projection of the cliff wall, the sound and pain of bones breaking, flesh tearing. The force of the collision bounced her rag doll body off the rock, changing its trajectory: now she was face down bloodied and semiconscious, disoriented and fading. Strangely, no longer frightened, she’d done her best through the lives she’d spent serving Vassilis. As images flashed through her jumbled mind, she caught a glimpse of the village where she’d been born, spinning at a primitive loom with stone weights, next to her mother. Why this image? Then Steve’s face: where was he? Why had he run from her? She forced her eyes open and through the streaming blood saw the rocks and foaming water close up, rushing towards her.

Chapter 24:
Realm of Decline

Theodrakis sat on the ground watching the taxi bump its way over the stony track towards the road; he couldn’t go with them, he had to see Vassilis. The birds were back, spread out on stumps and rocks; they were watching him, expecting something. Whatever it was, they weren’t going to get it. He’d nothing left to give. Something desperate had happened; they’d found nothing, the fetish had gone and whatever Alekka was trying to do, failed. There was, though, still enough of the detective in him to make him think about Claire’s performance before she got in the taxi.

She’d been triumphant and taunting as earlier, but there’d been something else. Something that kept cutting across her thought pattern, interfering with her wavelength. She was laughing and gloating. Then mid-stream she’d falter like a dementia sufferer suddenly gone blank as if something she couldn’t control was pulling her back.

He sat mulling it over and staring at the supermarket bag with the bones that lay by his feet. His phone was ringing but he ignored it; Alekka didn’t come back. He was thirsty and looked for the water bottle, it was empty. He noticed the shadows were lengthening, the day was fading; soon the sun would dip behind Mount Kerkis. He climbed stiffly to his feet and picked up the bones. He stared for a moment at Alekka’s car; knew she wouldn’t be coming back.

The path up to Vassilis house was steeper and longer than he’d imagined and by the time he’d sweated and stumbled up it, twilight had softened the landscape. As the archaic housekeeper showed him through to the terrace he entertained a brief hope that Alekka might be here, but the first glance at Vassilis banished any hope.

“Welcome, Theodrakis, no need to say anything, your face tells the story. I’ve been reflecting that although Aeschylus was the greatest ancient poet, Sophocles was perhaps the closest to truth when he said the best a man could ever wish for was never to have been born.”

Theodrakis said nothing; he’d no heart for poetry. Vassilis didn’t expect a reply anyway.

“I know you failed; you and Alekka. I felt her departure some hours ago and for her, as Aeschylus put it, ‘life’s sentry watch is over’.”

He walked across to Theodrakis, took the bag of bones out of his hands and threw it over the terrace, down the rock face.

“The one we needed is gone. If Watkins had brought these to me when he found them, then things could have been different. Thank you for what you have done, even though it has come to nothing all we can hope is that the necklace is lost and she has not possession of it.”

Theodrakis noticed there was someone sitting on a chair in the shadows by the wall. He was wearing worn black robes and broad brimmed hat like a priest in an ancient sepia photograph.

“So, now you can see Father John. I fear this indicates that you too are changing.”

Before Theodrakis could think of anything to say, Vassilis indicated a tray with a flask of wine and one glass, which had appeared on the table even though no one had brought it in. The glass was half full of white wine. He picked it up, drained it in one go and refilled; the wine was chilled, aromatically scented and honeyed; he could feel it restoring life to him as it icily slid down his throat. He was tired and his head began to spin; he sat down.

Vassilis sat watching him with a look akin to sympathy.

“Take one more glass, Syntagmatarchis, then listen to what you must do.”

Theodrakis refilled his glass; everything was a dream now, he was so far out of his comfort zone. Somewhere in his jacket he heard his phone break into its ringtone then die. The battery must have finally given up the ghost. How would he contact Hippolyta and what could he tell her if he did? He drank the wine, emptied the glass. The priest was now sitting next to him; he’d not noticed him move. Outside it was dark; three ancient and battered-looking crows perched on the terrace railings blending into the night.

“Theodrakis, may I call you Alexis? My time here is ended; the curse has come upon us. The ‘Throat of Ages’ is lost, or worse. I have failed. However it is not the end, the game moves on but the odds have worsened. What happens next will take place somewhere else, England perhaps.”

Vassilis paused, stood up and walked across to the edge of the terrace; the oldest, most battered of the crows hopped onto his shoulder. Theodrakis couldn’t resist a shudder of revulsion. There was a touch on his own shoulder, he flinched and turning round saw himself looking into the face of the priest. His eyes were struggling to focus; under the shadows of the wide-brimmed hat he thought he was looking at a black, beak-dominated face, similar to a crow. He shut his eyes and when he opened them, saw the features had reassembled themselves into the corpse face of Father John.

“You must find Watkins then bring him to the monastery of St Spiridon on the mountain. You must be there at five o’clock by your time. Do not be late, the journey will cost me greatly.”

Theodrakis was disturbed by a flapping of wings as the crows rose into the air and flew off; when he turned back the priest too had gone. Vassilis beckoned him over to the terrace edge.

“See down there in the darkness is the cricket pitch, such a strange game, a pity you never got to see it. Well, there will be no more games here.”

Theodrakis had no idea how to respond to this; he needn’t have bothered. Vassilis hadn’t finished.

“My responsibilities were never to the island; still, I have grown fond of it over the millennia. So I want you to finish your work here. You have closed your case: there will be no more murders, well, not related to these anyway. The purpose of the murders has been achieved. Father John too, after tomorrow’s appointment with you, is finished on the island; he has changed greatly since he arrived here in the fifteenth century. Back in those days he was called Davenport and was not a good man. Take one more small glass of the wine.”

Theodrakis went back to the table to pour but found the glass already full.

“Pouring that wine was the last service you will receive; I have released the staff back to their souls. Things will presently become too hot here, if you will forgive a little joke that only the passage of time will permit you to understand.”

Vassilis touched him on the forehead as if bestowing a blessing and Theodrakis could feel the cold contact of the fingers stinging his skin and a tingle of something working its way into his brain.

“Now, listen very carefully. Carry out Father John’s instructions exactly, there is no room for slippage, we may still need to work with Watkins. But first, purge the island of the murders. You have a freehand to expedite this; the mainland is on the verge of civil war, no one will be interested in what happens here. Use whatever scapegoats you think necessary, let them know that the Devil no longer walks among them. No, don’t question, when the time comes you will know what to do. Remember what Malraux said: ‘Heroes are people with a certain power that does not belong to them’.

“This hasn’t ended for you; look to receive advice from a most unexpected quarter. When you leave here, follow the track to the road, there you will find George’s taxi, he will drive you back.”

Vassilis turned as if to leave, then hesitated; Theodrakis had the impression he was suppressing a smile but in the dark it was difficult to tell.

“You may even find yourself in a place where you can make up for your failure to see cricket on the island, inspector.”

Theodrakis started to ask him what he meant but realised he was alone: Vassilis was gone, if he’d ever been there at all. Behind him, the great mirror on the wall by the table cracked from side to side.

He groped his way along the unlit interior passages of the mansion to the entrance; the place was deserted, long deserted, it smelt dank and musty. The walls were crumbling, the compound was empty and overgrown. It reminded him of Sleeping Beauty’s chamber. The glamour creating the illusion had faded.

The taxi was at the end of the track as Vassilis had promised, George pulled away as soon as he was inside but before he’d managed to close the door.

“This is the last time I will ever collect anyone from here, policeman.”

Theodrakis didn’t bother to reply, he knew neither of them would be coming back. He was dropped off at the bar. Hippolyta wasn’t there. She wasn’t at the apartment either, so he set off up the hill to the crone’s shack. Yaya Eleni was sitting outside the door by the road on a battered kitchen chair in her faded black weeds, resembling a sinister glove puppet. She appeared to be sleeping but he knew she was watching and as he drew close she stood up and gestured behind her towards the shack with her thumb.

“She’s in there.”

Before Theodrakis could get past her she reached up and touched his face but as he was bracing himself for a repeat of the spitting routine she snatched her hand away as if his skin was burning.

“You’re marked, changed. He has laid hands on you.”

Then she began to shriek like the chorus in an ancient tragedy.

“Aiee, aiee, it has moved on. It has come back to our door.”

She slumped back onto her chair. The shout had brought Hippolyta outside. She greeted him with a sharp stinging slap across the face.

“All day I have worried and called you. Not once have you answered and now here you are frightening my grandmother.”

Then she threw herself at him: a mixture of assault and embrace, which as she was physically stronger than he was meant that they struggled for a while before he managed kiss her to silence and make his apology.

“I need to get to a phone charger, is yours here?”

“No, at my place, so that is why you did not answer?”

“Yes and no, but I need to ring headquarters.”

“OK, but first I must see to Yaya.”

There was no need, the old woman was on her feet; she walked into the shack and slammed the door on them, so arms wrapped round each other they headed for her apartment.

Seconds after connecting to the charger his phone began ring.

“Theodrakis, its Kostandin, where the fuck have you been, I’ve been after you all day.”

“Sorry, my phone was …”

“You have to know what’s going on here! Where are you?”

“Across the island in the village, look, I can be with you in an hour, send a car.”

“No, listen, I can’t cope with this any longer, get a taxi, come now, I need every man we have. We are losing the island. Where have you been?”

“Try and calm down, tell me what’s happened.”

He turned to Hippolyta.

“Get me a taxi.”

Then returned to listen in horror as Kostandin ranted down the line.

“There’s been another but worse, some of our men saw it.”

“What do you mean, our men saw it? Calm down, you’re not making sense.”

“The mob did it, we have no control anymore. You were meant to deal with this.”

“OK, OK, tell me what’s happened.”

“From a tree, they hung him from a fucking tree about thirty minutes ago.”

Theodrakis felt a terrible sense of premonition; he took a deep breath as Konstantin’s breaking voice rose in pitch and volume.

“They hung him from a fucking tree and then they …”

There was a pause at the other end and some garbled voices; it was apparent Kostandin was giving orders. Then he was back.

“They hung him from a tree and then they skinned him alive and and …”

“Go on, Kostandin, tell me, I’ll be there soon.”

“And we watched. Our men just fucking watched; they agreed with it. They were complicit. We’re nothing now, we’re part of it. I’ve had enough, you can have it all, I’m going home.”

“Kostandin, just tell me who was it. Who did they hang from the tree?”

But the question was rhetorical; he already understood who it was. So Konstantin’s answer when it came was only corroboration.

“Antonis. Vassilis’s son. The one you ordered us to release.”

Chapter 25:
Things Fall Apart

George the taxi driver grumbled all the way from the village to the police department. The fact that Theodrakis ignored him made no difference; he continued to spout his interior monologue about the island’s woes with particular reference to the inadequacies of the police, who he saw as agents of corrupt Greek politicians and, surprisingly, the Germans.

Vathia simmered as they arrived, the streets heaved with a brooding volatile crowd. Once it became apparent that the taxi was headed for the police offices, people began to bang on the sides and roof. Theodrakis was almost used to this now and slumped back in his seat with his eyes closed.

But as they entered the square he saw one ominous change: the place was littered with sleeping bags and grimy bedrolls. This had become an occupation, common enough in the volatile and violent chaos of Athens but not here. It was hot, perhaps the hottest night of the year, which intensified the promise of imminent combustion.

But there was no violence, that at least was something, and he was able to leave the cab and walk up the steps to the office unimpeded apart from a murmured swell of complaint and the odd curse. No one even spat at him for which he was grateful.

Inside he walked into a febrile atmosphere. The mood in the central open plan office made him think of the last days in the Führer’s bunker or fighting for places on the last helicopter out of Saigon. He saw Kostandin cascading down the central staircase to meet him, panic etched into every line of his face. This wasn’t leadership. What had happened?

“Theodrakis, there are things you need to hear, terrible things, my God you should hav …”

“OK, but not in front of the men, think about setting an example; go to your office.”

He followed Kostandin to the stairs, then turned to address the staff, all of whom had turned to stare at him.

“Get back to work. It’s your job to keep this island safe, not to stand around like panicked goats. Think yourself lucky that unlike those poor bastards out there you still have jobs. And anyone I see making the sign to ward off the evil eye gets sent right out there on patrol in the square. Understand?”

He noted with satisfaction that they started to shuffle back to their desks and duties, even seemed relieved to be bossed about, happy that someone seemed to be in control. He followed Kostandin up the stairs, feeling better. After the metaphysical horrors of Vassilis this was comfortably normal; it almost felt good to be back. Things changed once he shut the door of Konstantin’s office behind him.

Kostandin embraced him kissing him on both cheeks.

“Thank God you’re back, Alexis.”

Theodrakis flinched at the contact and winced at the use of his first name. But then he’d left the man to cope on his own; like Theodrakis he had no family, no one to go home to. He wondered for a moment if it wouldn’t be better to have Samarakis back.

“OK, Kostandin, sorry to have been out of contact, now give me a situation report, a calm considered one.”

“If you’d been here you wouldn’t be calm or considered.”

“And if you’d been where I’ve been you’d have wet yourself with terror. Now give me the fucking report.”

Theodrakis saw that Kostandin was relieved; it hadn’t been said but he was now in sole command and Kostandin could just follow instructions like the others: he’d cope better with that.

“The report please, Kostandin.”

“Yes, sorry, you’re right of course, it’s just I’ve been trying to run the whole Island. Since the coup in Athens it’s anarchy right across the country. On this island with economic collapse, the murders and fires, people are pushed beyond their limits: it’s too much to take. Just look down there, and it’s the same in Karlovasi. But in Pythagoreio we appear to be dealing with something much worse, unlike anything else, it’s like the whole town’s gone mad.”

“Yes, I understand it must have been very difficult, now go on.”

“A few hours ago we had reports of an outbreak of mob rule in Pythagoreio. There was a lynching; our men couldn’t stop it, didn’t even try. Vassilis’s son, they skinned him alive and now the town’s out of control. Our reports say there’s a crowd of them marching on Vathia, on us. They’ll join the demo here. You won’t have heard but it’s a permanent camp out there, we can’t disperse them, we haven’t the men. We’ll be swept away.”

“Why didn’t you contact the army, get them to send men from one of the bases? There are two within fifteen kilometres.”

“You don’t understand; all the ones who will obey orders have been shipped to Athens, the rest, the conscripts, either won’t do anything or have deserted and gone over to the people.”

“We represent the people, Kostandin, remember?”

“If that’s what you want to believe, but there’s worse. They have a hostage, a live one who they aim to skin out there.”

“Come on, that’ll just be rumour …”

He got no further; there was a tumult of noise, shouting and screaming from outside in the square. Kostandin moved across to the window.

“Well, it looks like you’ll be able to judge for yourself, seems like they’re here, and one last thing: Andraki and the old man are dead, Andraki looks like a heart attack, the old man hung himself in his cell.”

“What with? Wasn’t he searched?”

“These aren’t normal times. But think about it, all the suspects we have for the murders are dead.”

Theodrakis joined him at the window in time to see the advance guard of the march from Pythagoreio sweep round the corner and into the square. It was like a scene from Hell. The leaders carried torches and burning brands which created a hideous chiaroscuro straight from the underworld. They were greeted by waves of cheering from the Vathians. The cheering came nearer to the building and he saw that a small knot of the marchers were carrying something, stopping to show it to the crowd as they marched. A single chant now replaced the fragmented shouts: after a couple of iterations, Theodrakis caught it.

“We have cut the Devil. We have cut the Devil.”

Near the door, a man detached himself from the crowd and carried the object towards the steps leading up to the building. It wasn’t a bearded wide-eyed brigand in a torn shirt screaming imprecations, it was a neat man of about forty, could have been a bank clerk, someone’s husband or dad and for Theodrakis, this made it worse. When he reached the building he tossed the package up onto the top step then melted back into the crowd to prolonged cheering. Kostandin looked at Theodrakis then rushed out of the room and shouted down to the office.

“Get out there and bring that in.”

Moments later the door opened and a sergeant brought in the package to the accompaniment of wild cheers from outside. He brought the slimy packet to Kostandin, who brought it to Theodrakis.

“Shut the door.”

Kostandin complied and they inspected what the crowd had delivered: a package the size of a pack of butter wrapped in brown paper. A leaking package. Kostandin placed it on his desk.

“Open it.”

Kostandin hesitated.

“What about procedures: preserving evidence?”

“Fuck that. Open it.”

He began to unwrap the unwholesome mess very gingerly. It wasn’t easy, the reeking liquid had stuck the layers of paper together and Kostandin had to tear through the whole wet mess. It was difficult to be clear when he reached the content, as the texture of the brown paper had melded stickily with some other wrapping which was part of the content. When Kostandin realised what this was he gagged and threw up over the package, the desk and his shirt front.

Theodrakis tried to control himself but couldn’t; he gave way to waves of barking laughter.

“Once we couldn’t find any bones, today I’ve seen enough to sink a battle ship.”

He slumped onto the sofa wiping his eyes, recovered his composure and said,

“But not the ones we needed.”

He saw Kostandin staring at him in horror.

“Sorry, Kostandin, I’ll take a proper look now.”

He moved to the table where amongst the vomit he saw two severed fingers wrapped in several layers of human skin, freshly stripped from a body. He couldn’t think of an appropriate comment: what a sick comedy life was.

“No word of this to anyone yet, understand?”

He walked back to the window wondering if the other marchers carried the rest of the body; what should he do? It was something he didn’t have long to worry about.

There was frenzied shouting outside: the square was packed but a small group were forcing their way towards him. In their midst was a figure with bound hands and a grain sack pulled over its head. There was a new chant now and he caught part of it; something about a she-Devil. The rest he couldn’t work out and he didn’t get time to. They’d dragged the figure to the steps where they pushed it to its knees. He and Kostandin watched in speechless anticipation as the sack was roughly yanked off its head. In that split second he finally got and understood the chant.

“Now we’ll skin the she-Devil’s lover.”

Chapter 26:
The Devil’s Bargain

In the garishly illuminated Devil’s playground of flickering light, burning torches and street lamps, Theodrakis could see his face clearly. Bruised and blood smeared, he’d taken some rough handling, confused and lost like a child. A man behind him pulled his head back forcing him to stare up at the window. Once the sack had been pulled off, people around could clearly see the ravaged remains of his ear and began to murmur that he’d been marked. Kostandin asked,

“Who is it? Why him?”

“It’s an Englishman, an archaeologist called Watkins; I‘ve met him, he writes poetry and had the misfortune to love Alekka Vassilis.”

The memory of Alekka gave him a griping sensation in his gut, she’d died trying to purge the island of this evil, now she was blamed. He felt himself hating Watkins: if he’d handed over the bones to him or Vassilis when he’d found them, none of this would have happened. He should ring Hippolyta, he’d promised to let her know when he got to police headquarters. But as he reached for his phone he heard a scream below him; Watkins was pulled to his feet and dragged towards a large municipal sign supported on two steel poles. It was obvious from his screams of fear that he knew what would happen next, even though Theodrakis didn’t.

“Oh Christ, they’re going to do it here.”

Kostandin’s voice was loud in his ear.

“Do what here?”

“They’re going to string him up and flay him like Antonis.”

“Not here in front of all those people, there’s women and children there.”

“They’re doing it, they’ve got ropes, see.”

Theodrakis was sweating, could feel his heart’s irregular pumping. Even here in the police headquarters he couldn’t get away from Vassilis and his alternative universe. It was the new normality and everyone danced to its demonic beat.

“How can they do it?”

He knew Kostandin didn’t expect an answer, but he needed a logical thought process to keep himself focused.

“Because once they’ve come this far, reality disappears, people see what they want to see, whether it’s there or not like Braque’s squirrel, or believe that something can both be dead and alive like Schrödinger’s cat.”

Kostandin’s expression told him to cut out the philosophy and act.

“Get the men together, we’re going out there to stop this.”

“They won’t go anymore, Theodrakis; not for me and certainly not for you. And even if they did, that crowd out there would chew us up and spit us out. We’ve no tear gas left; no water cannon and the men won’t use guns.”

Theodrakis believed him and in any case, didn’t like the idea of street fighting.

“OK, but the officers who watched as they strung up Antonis, where are they, here or Pythagoreio?”

“Here, you know one of them: Costas.”

“Get them.”

Costas and a younger cop, Antoniou, who Theodrakis didn’t know, duly arrived. They looked terrible, both had dark rings round their eyes and a bluish five o’clock shadow covered their slippery jowls. They were like men walking through a nightmare. Neither seemed pleased to see Theodrakis and his first words reinforced the impression.

“I want you to go out there and arrange for me to meet the leaders.”

“You can’t be serious, they’ll kill us.”

“I very much doubt that, Costas: from what I’ve heard they see you as sympathisers, if not helpers.”

The two exchanged glances, then Costas trying to look confident said,

“They might until they knew what we were going to ask them.”

“Nevertheless, you will both go out.”

“You can’t make us go out there.”

“No, but I can charge you with being accomplices to murder and have you locked up in the cell where the old man killed himself. Leave the lights off with you two alone in that block with whatever it was that made him do it. Tell me, how do you like the sound of that? From what I remember you didn’t enjoy the time we spent interviewing him, so I don’t imagine a long time in the dark with his ghost will be too appealing.”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“Try me, but first listen to what I want you to tell them out there. About the deal I’ve got to offer.”

Minutes later, the front door of the police headquarters opened just enough to let the two men with a megaphone out onto the steps; they were greeted by a hail of abuse, some objects were thrown. Costas began to shout through the megaphone while Antoniou took a direct hit to the head and slumped to the floor. Costas was hit and staggered, but he must have got his message across as some of the mob’s leaders stopped the stone throwers. Then a small group including the bank clerk approached the steps.

Theodrakis watched from the first floor window as they talked. There was shouting and waving of arms, a shaven-headed man who looked like a night club bouncer leaned forwards and slapped Costas across the face. For a second Theodrakis worried he’d get dragged into the crowd and lynched next to Watkins, but the bank clerk intervened and after what seemed an eternity but couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes, Costas squeezed back through the narrow gap left by the door into the building. Once inside he fell to the floor in a dead faint. Kostandin threw a plastic beaker of water into his face and had him pulled to his feet. By the time Theodrakis had got down the stairs he was able to speak.

“They will hear you, but it has to be out there. You alone, no one else.”

Theodrakis had half expected this, but he felt the blood drain from his face as fear swallowed his soul. Would he ever see Hippolyta again? He wanted to ring her, hear her voice. He’d promised to keep in contact but what could he say? And if he did get through to her, would he still have the courage to go out into the crowd? He felt Kostandin’s arm on his shoulder.

“Don’t go out there, Alexis: they hate you, they’ll tear you to pieces, you’ll end up like Antonis, a bleeding lump of meat hanging from a net. We can hold out in here.”

“And what about Watkins?”

“Forget Watkins, he’s dead anyway.”

“I can’t.”

He forced himself to move, found himself by the door then through it and outside. The noise cut out like a light switched off, and the lull of quiet he faced was curiously worse than the cacophony that preceded it. He couldn’t have felt more exposed if a spotlight were trained on him. He froze like a rabbit in the headlights: why was he out here? It was a mistake, his confidence had led him to his death.

But maybe not quite yet.

A channel opened up in the crowd leading to the street sign where Steve lay, trussed, waiting to be strung up. Standing round him, he recognised the group of men who interrogated Costas. He followed the channel moving through a sea of hostility, he was jostled, cursed, spat at and one great, bearded, mad-eyed brute in a sweaty T-shirt punched the side of his head. He felt the man’s rings break his skin, the pain helped, made him angry, he wished he’d told Kostandin to shoot the ringleaders if they killed him.

Now in front of him, they stood in a circle of torches with Steve on the ground as an altar piece. The flickering light of the flaring torches lent the scene an unworldly atmosphere from an early surrealist movie; it felt no more real than the Vassilis demesne.

But the breath of the man confronting him was real enough: raw spirit and onion.

“You have two minutes to live, Athenian.”

The man was stressed out of his head, why had he been stupid enough to imagine that a rational conversation was possible? These people were driven beyond reason: economically ruined by bankers and tax-avoiding politicians. Burnt out by fires fuelled by global warning, deserted by tourists seeking cheaper deals elsewhere and stalked by demonic killings. It was no wonder an atavistic relapse into the Middle Ages was the modus operandi.

“Tell us what you came to say, Athenian.”

A softer, more humane voice: Theodrakis peered through the torchlight and saw it belonged to the bank clerk.

“But it’d better be good. As you see, we’ve gone too far to stop now. Why do you want to save this Englishman?”

Theodrakis made his move, hoping his voice wouldn’t betray his fear. He could feel warm blood trickling from the cuts on his head down the side of his face.

“Listen to me; we’re all on the same side.”

There was rough laughter at this and the bank clerk replied,

“Most of your men maybe, but not you, Athenian.”

Theodrakis tried to focus all his attention on this man; it wasn’t comforting. He was looking into two small black eyes, irises little more than pinpricks sunk beneath puffy lids. He was dealing with someone who felt that life owed him, owed him more than he’d got and now he could revenge years of being slighted and put down by superiors. People like Theodrakis. Unless he got what he wanted it wasn’t only Watkins who’d die here.

“You’ve killed Antonis but what about the others? You haven’t got them.”

The bank clerk chuckled at this, and the others laughed after he did. Theodrakis noticed this: so there’s a hierarchy here, win him and I get them all.

“Don’t be so sure, two minutes after we string him up and start with our knives we’ll certainly know where the Devil’s bitch is.”

“I can promise you that won’t work.”

Theodrakis felt more confident now there was dialogue; it was similar to negotiating with the anarchist death squad kidnap units.

“And why is that, Athenian?”

The man had a mocking look on his face, but he was interested.

“Because there are only two people on the island who know where she is, and he’s not one of them.”

He saw out of the corner of his eye Watkins listening too.

“And who would they be, Athenian? Let me tell you that if you’re wasting our time then you will beg for death before we finish skinning you.”

“One of them is another Englishman.”

He paused to let them take this in.

“And I am the second.”

Watkins was struggling with his ropes now, trying to sit up. He managed to say,

“Don’t tell them.”

He was silenced by a blow across the head then thrown back in the dust. The bank clerk looked at Theodrakis; he wanted to believe, but didn’t want to be tricked in front of men who deferred to him. He didn’t want to lose power but Theodrakis also guessed that he was less keen on violence than the others because he understood that cop killing, even one as unpopular as Theodrakis, was a rubicon other cops wouldn’t cross. After that there’d be no way back, no forgiveness. So he kept talking.

“And how can you be so certain of this?”

Now everyone within the circle of weird light was listening, Theodrakis was the focus, and outside the light of the torches the murmuring of the mob sounded like a swarm of bees as the message spread incrementally to the circumference. This was his moment.

He looked in turn into the faces of each of them, ending with the bank clerk. Like with hostage negotiations it came down to the one thing he was good at: judging the opportune moment. He paused for effect, forced a half smile of confidence across his lips and then,

“Because we killed her this afternoon.”

There was a groan of soul-shredding anguish from Steve on the ground and Theodrakis could have kissed him for it; he believed him. An amazed muttering spread; some believed him, others didn’t, there was confusion. He kept his eyes fixed on the bank clerk.

“So, we’re all in it together.”

The man wanted to believe him and before anyone could shout him down he changed his pose, stood straight, one leg slightly in front of the other and said, in a stronger voice intended to reach well beyond the inner circle,

“And to prove it I offer you something even better.”

Everyone was listening now, heads thrust forward, desperate to hear. Now he could sense they wanted him to deliver. They didn’t want to fight the police. These weren’t the hated Athenian riot police; these were their own people relatives, sons, fathers, husband’s brothers and sisters. They didn’t even really want to skin the Englishman. He drew out the silence for as long as he thought it would last, then took a deep breath.

He threw his arms into the air like a classical actor ready to bring the curtain down and shouted with all the power of his lungs.

“I can give you the Devil himself. I can give you Vassilis.”

Chapter 27:
The Dead Travel Fast

The square slowly emptied, leaving only the homeless and the protest camp contingent who arranged themselves in groups round their pitiful bedrolls. Some small fires were lit, bottles were passed round. Theodrakis watched from the first floor window as groups of his officers patrolled the now quiescent square. His hands shook and he almost spilled some of the ouzo that Kostandin was pouring into the plastic beaker.

“What happens now, Alexis?”

“First, I try to stop shaking, then I ring my girlfriend, and if I can manage that I’ll begin thinking about how to get the Englishman to the monastery of St Spiridon.”

He could tell by the look on Kostandin’s face that this wasn’t the answer he’d expected. But then Kostandin hadn’t been out in the square: didn’t know what it felt like to be centimetres from death.

“No, I mean what do we do about Vassilis? Tomorrow they’ll go up there and burn him out.”

“Nothing.”

“We can’t do nothing, they’ll kill him.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible.”

“Be serious, we can’t let it happen.”

“We have to let it happen: it’s the deal I made.”

Kostandin’s hands were on his shoulders and he could see the desperation in his face; the look of a man pushed beyond his limits, the beginnings of breakdown and tears. He removed the hands, then said as calmly as he could,

“Please just give me a couple of minutes to make a call and get my thoughts in order. Then I’ll explain; remember I’m running this, you’re absolved of responsibility, just trust me.”

He didn’t wait for a response but walked out of the room onto the corridor and leaned over the stair rail to make the call. Some of the men below in the office saw him and cheered. Somehow he’d become their hero, more he suspected from his claim to have killed Alekka than anything else.

He couldn’t suppress a burst of giggling: he was one of them now, he’d crossed a line and joined them in the Middle Ages. When he got through to Hippolyta he was surprised that she knew what had happened; Yaya Eleni had told her, he didn’t even wonder how the crone had found out. But she told him she loved him. No one had ever said that to him before, now all he had to do was stay alive; avoid Hell and then maybe they could get out of all this. Someone had come up to him while he was talking; he looked round and saw Costas, he was holding a mug which he offered to Theodrakis.

“I thought you could use this, boss; proper coffee with two shots of Metaxas. I treated myself to some. I don’t think the others know how hard it was for us out there. But we pulled it off, didn’t we?”

Theodrakis felt like kissing him, it might be for all the wrong reasons but for the first time in his life he was on the inside, now it was his island too.

“Yes Costas, we pulled it off and we’re alive, strange isn’t it?”

The coffee tasted good, he could feel the smooth fire of the brandy coursing through him and knew he had to harness this new burst of energy. He shouted for Kostandin.

“Come down with me, I’m going to make an announcement, after that I’m leaving you in charge for a bit.”

He recognised the look of panic flash across Kostandin’s face, but knew he could trust him to keep things going in his absence. The pressure was off the police now, everyone was in this together.

Downstairs it was crowded, expectant like they knew what he was going to say. He saw the men who should be patrolling the square squeezing through the doors and pushing their way into the packed room to listen. He recognised the significance of the moment, decided not to join them on the floor, unobtrusive, but to compensate for his lack of height and stay three stairs up, visible like an orator. He stood silent looking down, thought for a moment what an advantage height was, one that the tall take for granted. He opened his mouth to speak when out of nowhere he remembered reading in Quintilian at university in Athens that to speak well, an orator needs to feel emotion himself before he can rouse others. Yet now he felt no emotion at all: he felt calm.

But the pause for thought had worked. In the dead, expectant silence below him he saw the hundreds of eyes waiting, silently pleading for his words, for deliverance. It was the early hours, the darkest hour before dawn and the coolest, yet he felt the heat rising from the packed bodies waiting below like a physical barrier.

“I know how tough these last months must have been for you, but while Greece needed you in her darkest hour, you stood firm.”

He paused, thinking to himself where the hell did this crap come from?

“And now I can tell you that your courage has been rewarded.”

A swell of murmuring like surf on the beach. He raised his hands for quiet and the surf died.

“The case is almost over. I can promise you there will be no more murders. By our prompt action these last few hours, we have uncovered the criminals. Those that confessed have taken their own lives and two others died whilst resisting arrest.”

He wanted to choke on this hypocrisy but carried on.

“This has been a great example for the rest of Greece, of the police and the people acting together. While Athens burns, here on Samos there has been unity. There is one more arrest to make and later today I will prepare the necessary papers for the arrest and questioning of the Devil himself: Vassilis.”

There was an interruption, a young trainee cop spluttered,

“But the crowd will have got him b …”

He was silenced by an elbow in his ribs from Costas. Theodrakis carried on.

“I understand your point but we are police officers, we are bound by the correct procedures, by our Grafficocratia.”

Some of the more cynical started to smirk at this, but remembering this was inappropriate, restored their solemn expressions.

“But the killings are over; the Devil no longer walks amongst us. I would like to congratulate you on behalf of the whole nation. This has not been without cost and we must remember the sacrifice of our heroic colleague, Syntagmatarchis Samarakis. Today we will concentrate on restoring normality to our towns and communities that is our priority. I am issuing a press release to this effect. Later we will deal with Vassilis. Once again, dear friends and colleagues, I thank you for your magnificent dedication and courage.”

There was a prolonged outbreak of cheering; some of the men even began to chant his name, like a football crowd. Ninety percent of him felt sick to the stomach, the other ten per cent was thrilled. He turned to Kostandin and read the look of contempt in his eyes. He felt he owed him a full explanation but felt suddenly too weary. Back in his office he tried.

“Kostandin, believe me, this will not have the consequences you think it will, and even if it does it will not be in a way you would understand.”

All he got back was a look of blank misunderstanding tinged with disappointment. He tried once more.

“But I promise you the killings are over, now all this island faces is …”

He tried to stop because it had suddenly become a joke.

“Is just the same as the rest of Greece: complete economic ruin and probably revolution.”

He slumped onto the sofa, covered his face and gave way to hysterical laughter. Laughter that he couldn’t control; he knew it was just a reaction to what he’d been through, but he couldn’t stop. When he gained enough control to take his hands from over his face Kostandin had gone. Then he remembered Watkins.

He wasn’t easy to find; eventually the desk sergeant remembered that he’d been put in one of the cells for his own safety, a logic that defied Theodrakis. He didn’t look particularly safe: his faced was etched with suffering like Christ’s in the final Stations of the Cross. He was sitting on the hard bench, rocking back and forwards muttering to himself. But he recognised Theodrakis and asked,

“She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Yes, I think so, I’m sorry.”

“But you didn’t kill her?”

“No, I wish I could have saved her.”

“I knew she’d gone, I felt it.”

Theodrakis said nothing. The cell stank. Standards were slipping.

“Who was with her?”

Again he said nothing.

“It was Claire, wasn’t it?”

Theodrakis nodded.

“Oh God, poor Giles.”

Then, to the watching Theodrakis, it seemed that Watkins just slipped away; his body was still there rocking backwards and forwards but his mind was elsewhere. He tried to match what he was looking at with the man whose poem he had read just a few days ago sitting in the sun outside the bar. He should have questioned him there, found out about what had happened to him in England. What had ripped his ear and turned his hair white, what had made him write that horrific verse about living death in an ancient tomb.

Were there things he’d missed; things that would have avoided some of this? Too late for that now, but Vassilis wanted Watkins saving, repairing, knew he would be needed in whatever grotesque events were going to happen in some other place. He sat on the bench next to him took out his phone and called Giles.

Two hours later, having released the press statement and grabbed some sleep on a sofa, he was drinking a black coffee when Giles was shown in, looking pale, in poor shape and worried but pleased to see Theodrakis.

“Thank you for agreeing to help out with this, Dr Glover.”

“It’s OK, I would have been at a loose end anyway, Claire’s got to go back to England, she got a call from a friend who’s in trouble. She’s flying out later today.”

“A bit sudden.”

Theodrakis wondered why she had to leave so quickly; she’d seemed to be enjoying herself, acting as if she was untouchable. Which she was he supposed, he could hardly have arrested her without evidence for the murder of someone who never really existed with no motive and no body. So why leave the island?

“Yeah, but in a way it’s a relief, she’s been through a lot in the last few months and was getting a bit hyper here. I’m not sure the place suited her and Greece doesn’t seem a safe place to be these days.”

Theodrakis could only agree with this. He felt awkward with Giles and knew the feeling was reciprocated; there were things they couldn’t trust each other on, or rather one thing: Claire. He left a message with the duty sergeant for Kostandin who’d gone home for a few hours’ sleep, and had a squad car pull up by the back door. Then he and Giles got Steve to his feet and hustled him into the back seat. They sat either side of him as if he was a prisoner, driving through the square. No one threw anything or shouted: Kostandin would be all right.

Once round the other side of the island they got stuck behind a snaking convoy of pickup trucks packed with armed, wild-looking men. They were headed for Pyrgos and beyond that the Vassilis estate. The driver didn’t need to be told that this wasn’t part of their script. At the first opportunity he turned off onto a barely adequate track that cut across country. Giles must have noticed something but had the sense not to ask. Steve sat slumped and mute between them, like a collapsed concertina squeezed of air.

They rattled along the track, vision obscured by dust thrown up by the tyres, until after about forty minutes they crested a rise and saw the sea shimmering below them and in a natural fold of the land above it, the monastery. St Spiridon didn’t look much: drab, weathered brick surrounded by a wall that seemed too high for a monastery. It wasn’t an easy place to find and at first glance appeared abandoned; the vegetable gardens surrounding it had run wild through neglect and an air of melancholy decay presided as it languished under the pitiless Aegean sky. Steve was oblivious, but not Giles.

“What are we doing here? It’s like the end of the world.”

“This is where they’ll look after him.”

“You’re joking, there’s no way we’re leaving him here, it’s deserted; no one’s been here in years.”

Theodrakis looked round. Giles was right, there was something wrong about this. In the front of the car the driver crossed himself.

“Nevertheless, this is …”

Giles cut him off.

“No way, I’m not leaving him here, I’ll take him back to England, Claire can heal him, she’s done it before.”

Theodrakis was wondering how he could explain that Claire was the last person he needed when Giles sat upright and began to stare out of the window, as if he’d just recognised somebody or something he wished wasn’t there. Then, without warning, he got out of the car and walked towards the monastery gate. Half way he stopped and appeared to be talking to someone. Someone only he could see. Next to him in the back of the car, Steve seemed to have come round; he was staring out of the window towards Giles and fumbling at the door handle.

In the front, the driver had his hands over his eyes mumbling a half remembered prayer for protection. Then Giles was back by the car opening the door and helping Steve out. Theodrakis was in a dream; he started to get out but Giles spoke to him, soft, yet authoritive.

“No, it has to be me, better if you stay in the car. I’ll take him, you were right, this is where he belongs.”

He watched as, with Giles supporting Steve, the two men stumbled towards the monastery gate. It appeared to Theodrakis that they thought someone was with them, at least they seemed to be listening to someone and Steve was replying. As he watched for an instant Theodrakis caught a fleeting glimpse of something ragged and black with a dead white face, then it was gone; Father John. He saw Steve was at the door, going through the door and looked back at Giles.

The door slammed: Giles was outside. Theodrakis watched as he tried the handle but the door wouldn’t open. Then he appeared to be listening again but only momentarily, then with a shrug of his shoulders he turned and walked back to the car. He got in and said one word to the driver.

“Drive.”

No second invitation was required.

Some time later, Theodrakis and Giles sat on the terrace of a bar in Koumadrai looking over the sickening drop down towards the sea. Just below them, an aircraft was making the terrifyingly steep turn to avoid the mountain and land at Pythagoreio airport. They drank raki, the strongest, and sent one to the car for the driver. When the glass was empty, Theodrakis asked the question filling his head since the monastery.

“What happened back there?”

“We met someone.”

“Someone I couldn’t see.”

“Not this time, but you have before and perhaps will again. I think you know who it was.”

“Father John?”

“If that’s what he’s called over here.”

“Why you and not me?”

“We have unfinished business. He had something to tell me and anyway Steve’s my friend, not yours.”

Giles looked into his empty glass, his face was ash grey. Theodrakis prompted,

“What did he tell you?”

“That I’ll have to do something that will hurt me very much. Not very comforting.”

“And Steve?”

“Steve‘s staying.”

“And that’s it?”

Giles stared at him a moment before replying, Theodrakis couldn’t read his expression.

“I learnt it the hard way; you need to understand the dead travel fast. So for now, yes that’s it. Can we have another drink now, please? I need one.”

Envoi:
Stained with Mystic Horrors

Apart from an almost imperceptible whiff of something burning in the distance, it was a perfect evening. The type of beauty particularly Greek: a zephyr breeze, the softening of the light, the darkening of the sea. A vague sparkle of white sail near the ochre horizon where a yacht headed towards Patmos.

“So, Athenian policeman, you and your men knew nothing about the attack on Vassilis?”

Michales winked as he spoke, a conspiratorial wink, and raised his glass to Theodrakis.

“Stin Yassou.”

Theodrakis drank with him, noting the personal ending of the toast; Michales had come to accept him, it seemed. But the mention of Vassilis cut. Whatever his motives for guaranteeing there’d be no police guarding the Vassilis estate, it was something he would have to live with now. Have to consider whether he could stay in the police. He sat facing the sea, not wanting to look landward at the column of smoke high above on the flanks of the mountain, over Vassilis’s demesne.

“So, will you stay on our island and make an honest woman out of Hippolyta? If you don’t, Yaya Eleni will hex you.”

He was about to reply she’d be somewhere towards the back of a long queue when he realised he was no longer looking at Michales. He was face to face with Samarakis: the dead Samarakis and death hadn’t been kind to him. He tried to scramble out of his chair but couldn’t move.

“It’s no good trying to shout out either, no one can see or hear us; they just see you and the good Captain Michales enjoying a drink together.”

He stared at the slippery, putrefying mass across the table from him and heard himself squeak like a child.

“What do you want?”

“I want to be alive, I want to be out of Hell, but it seems instead I must deliver a message to you.”

The face across the table seemed fatter, with looser jowls than Theodrakis remembered; yellowish, punctuated by dark crimson lesions like the artwork in a horror comic. Unsettlingly, a turbid dripping trail of thick viscous material was oozing onto the table. The analytical part of his brain wondered why, if they wanted to scare him, they couldn’t be more sophisticated. He felt as if he was dreaming but knew he wasn’t. The mouth opposite hung open and didn’t move as it spoke.

“You will end up in a different land: a colder, clinically violent place. Better brush up on your English.”

There was something that almost approximated to a laugh, then,

“I may be dead and in Hell, but you are the one cursed.”

The voice changed; for a moment Theodrakis heard Vassilis speaking.

“An imperceptible ripple in the universe is a cataclysm in yours; these economic and environmental disasters are just symptoms of things you have yet to diagnose. Remember Lucretius: there is always ‘something bitter which gives distress even among the flowers’. Look up, the evil is moving on.”

Theodrakis looked up; in the sky above, the Thomson Holidays plane he’d watched landing had taken off and was flying over Mount Kerkis, climbing into the violet twilight, headed for England. He looked down to ask the question he desperately needed an answer to and saw the face of Michales almost shouting across the table at him.

“Policeman, what have you been thinking that makes you ignore the woman who loves you?”

He looked up and saw Hippolyta.

”Take me home.”

Captain Michales sipped his ouzo, watching them disappear down the length of the harbour front; their arms tightly intertwined as if they imagined something might try to drag them apart. Then he got up and slowly walked to his boat to lay the nets for tomorrow’s trip.

“Could you put your seatbelt on for me, at all? Will you want any perfumes or gifts later on, at all?”

Claire looked up at the stewardess and smiled. The young woman in the seat next to her put down her copy of Heat magazine to ask what brands the plane carried, then turned to Claire and said,

“My boyfriend always gives me money for some: he’s a footbawla.”

Claire smiled encouragingly and the voice continued, trilling,

“Hiyaa, I’m Kylie, that’s a pretty necklace you’ve got. Did you get it here?”

Claire nodded.

“Thought so, it’s lovely, really unusual, like different types of ivory, looks quite old, like ethnic innit.”

Claire nodded and turned to look out of the window leaving Kylie to her iPhone. She ran her fingers across the mass of little bones surrounding her neck. It felt perfect, it was made for her; nothing had ever felt as good as this necklace, this “Throat of Ages.”

Outside, down on the mountain she could see flame, buildings were burning.

In the dark and heat below, while Captain Michales steered his boat out of the harbour mouth and Theodrakis and Hippolyta tumbled into bed, a lone dolphin disturbed the calm of the sea. Claire’s fingers played with the new bone in the necklace, the one she had added herself. It was slick, white and slippy, still smelt slightly of life but it added power. She sank blissfully into her seat as the flames on the mountain engulfed the demesne. She smiled her most beatific smile.

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.”

Samos/ Bramhall 2011- 12

Map and illustration by Gaius Brown

About the Author

Nick Brown has an archaeological background and is the author of Luck Bringer and Skendleby. He lives with his wife, sons and a presence on the borders of Skendleby.

Also by Nick Brown

The Ancient Gramarye series

Skendleby

The Dead Travel Fast

The Luck Bringer series

Luck Bringer

Copyright

Published by Clink Street Publishing 2014

Copyright © 2014 Nick Brown

First edition.

The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN: 978–1–909477–06–3
Ebook: 978–1–909477–07–0