Theodora listened carefully, watching Oenone’s beautiful regular profile. When he’d finished there was a pause. Then Oenone said, ‘Your man,
McGrath, is it? Is he reliable?’
‘I don’t honestly know. He must be a suspect too in terms of opportunity.
He was on the same landing as the class at about the right time, at the
other end of it, on his own account, mending chairs in his workroom.’ ‘McGrath’s right about Dick Pound and Uncle Jeremy being friends,’
Oenone conceded. “There are lots of photographs. He’s also right about
Uncle Jeremy being a collector. I’m not sure his taste was aesthetic so
much as antiquarian. He liked really odd or grisly objects, serpents-withskulls-in-their-jaws-type stuff.’
I’m not surprised Ralph was frightened of his father, Theodora thought. ‘I don’t know what he brought out of Cyprus. I don’t remember anything
like icons in the house. I do know that when he died some of his stuff went
to Dick Pound.’
‘Would it be worth inquiring what that was?’ Geoffrey asked. ‘I thought Pound was dead,’ Theodora said, recalling her Uncle Hugh.
‘I told you so,’ she looked at Geoffrey.
‘Yes,’ said Oenone. ‘Quite true. He crashed in the jungle about two
years after Uncle Jeremy was shot.’
‘Who would have got his stuff?’ Geoffrey went on like a hound, Theodora
thought, watching him keep to his line of inquiry.
‘His wife, surely,’ Oenone answered, ‘Dame Alicia.’
Geoffrey turned towards Theodora. ‘Ah, how very convenient. Theo, I
wonder if you could make inquiries?’
‘No,’ said Theodora. ‘No really, Geoffrey, I couldn’t. I’ve only spoken to
Dame Alicia once – or rather been spoken to by her. She told me what a
great opportunity it was for me to be allowed to teach at St Veep’s, and
what a lot of famous people sent their talented daughters to the place.
And that was it. I really couldn’t, on the strength of our acquaintance, ask
her what was in her dead husband’s effects.’
Geoffrey’s expression suggested her scruples were unreasonable but
would have to be indulged. He turned back to Oenone. ‘Oenone?’ ‘I suppose the question might look more natural coming from me,’
Oenone admitted. ‘What would be the significance? I mean, what is the
connection between Uncle Jeremy’s effects, say an icon which originated
from Cyprus, even from the Kostas family, and the death of their boy?’ Theodora couldn’t help but admire the way Oenone had threaded her
way through a narrative which, to be honest, Geoffrey had left her to infer
rather than made explicit.
‘Well, I can’t quite see my way yet,’ Geoffrey admitted. ‘But I had a word
with Springer after I’d done with McGrath. I asked him if he thought what
McGrath said about the Kostas twins carrying an icon round with them
might be true. He hummed and hawed a bit but finally he said he’d
thought for some time that the brothers were used by their dad as a sort
of safe deposit for goods which presumably for one reason or another
Kostas père didn’t want to keep at home for a space.’
‘How’d he know?’ Theodora was curious.
‘Springer circles round the school in the off-hours. It’s his way of keeping
in touch. He can’t teach, so his only way of knowing even vaguely what’s
going on is a bit of snooping. He’d come on the Kostases last term defending
themselves against a bit of peer-group pressure in the locker room. Only
he’d been scared because one of the Kostases had had a knife and of
course his dad had just done six months for taking a knife to one of the
Vouniki clan. Springer was apprehensive that he might have something
serious on his hands so he’d reported it to the governors. They’d gone to
three days exclusion, but hadn’t called the police or anything.’ Theodora thought back to the meeting with Springer the other evening.
‘What had the Kostas boys been defending with the knife?’ she asked.
‘Did Springer know?’
‘He couldn’t make them hand over whatever it was there and then, but
he’d questioned them the next day in the presence of his deputy and he
thought it might have been a collection of medals or something, because
they’d spoken of defending the honour of their family. I got the impression
that Springer was unfamiliar with their concept of honour, knowing their
background, but took it to mean military reputation.’
‘So what you’re saying is that the Kostas twins had a habit of – and a
reputation for – carrying valuables round the school in their bags, and
that this might have given a cause for the killing, either accidental or
intended, of one of them,’ Oenone summarised.
‘Would that someone be inside the school or outside?’Theodora asked,
thinking of McGrath.
‘The school’s very easy to get into,’ Geoffrey said. ‘It has two blocks: the
junior block, which is more or less obscured with builders’ scaffolding at
the moment; and the senior one. The death took place in the senior one.
The side entrances are locked after the main influx at nine a.m. Then
latecomers and visitors are supposed to report to the office just inside the main doors of the senior block. They are, of course, understaffed. My impression is that people come and go pretty much as they please. And of course when there are workmen about it’s particularly difficult to keep
tabs on them.’
‘You mean, pretty well anyone could have walked in and got at the
Kostas boy.’ Oenone looked more cheerful than hitherto. ‘If only we could
persuade the police to look further afield than Ralph. If only they’d bail
him. He might know something, something about his father perhaps. I do
hate to think of him in that smelly place.’ Oenone’s nose wrinkled at the
memory of the police waiting-room.
‘How about another mouthful?’ Geoffrey said with immense tact. ‘A
little fruit, a sorbet to cleanse the palate? Some coffee?’
The invisible waiter appeared on the instant at his elbow. Sorbets
came; goat cheese came; hot coffee came and a cold, sweet white wine
labelled ‘Aphrodite’.
Oenone turned suddenly to Theodora. ‘Have you any news on the
Jessica front? I gather Anne Aldriche asked you to look in on Stella.’ Theodora admired Oenone’s intelligence.‘No, nothing. Though it’s odd,
isn’t it, that she too was interested in icons. Indeed, she possessed a
rather beautiful one given to her by her grandfather.’
Oenone nodded. ‘She passed round a copy of it at her confirmation
class. Something to do with the art club.’
‘No,’ Theodora said with unusual emphasis. ‘No. The copy which she
gave to Cromwell just before she was kidnapped was not a copy of the
icon in her room. The one in her room was of a Virgin and child. The one
she gave Cromwell was of an annunciation. Cromwell thought it was a
copy of her own icon, and presumably that was what Jessica had told
him, or perhaps let him infer. But I remember that the one which Stella
Stephanopoulos showed me in her room was quite different. The other
one, the Virgin and child …’ Theodora stopped. She really didn’t want to
share with Oenone the knowledge that Cromwell had shown a sli
de of
the Virgin and child kept in Jessica’s bedroom.
‘So where did she get the one she copied to give to Cromwell?’ Geoffrey
inquired.
‘I wish I knew. I wondered at first if she had copied something from the
Church of the Resurrection which she’d visited with the art club earlier in the
term. But when I’d finished with Cromwell this morning I went across and
looked in the church. I couldn’t find anything remotely like it, and indeed if
there had been anything like it, Cromwell would surely have noticed it.’ ‘Would there be icons there which weren’t on show?’ Geoffrey inquired. ‘I tried to get hold of the priest, Kallistos Bury. He’s an acquaintance of
Gilbert’s. Gilbert Racy,’ Theodora explained to Oenone, ‘runs the retreat
house of St Sylvester’s next door to our church.’
Oenone’s interest had fallen back to the merely polite. Her cousin’s
plight interested her, Jessica’s did not, or at least not in the same way. ‘Did you get anything from him?’ Geoffrey asked. Since he had got
from Oenone her promise to delve into the Pound/Troutbeck connection,
he was more relaxed about Theodora’s problems. Theodora, however,
felt that Geoffrey had done his bit for Troutbeck, and now she wanted him
to give a similar consideration to the Stephanopoulos affair. ‘I didn’t actually get to meet Bury,’ she went on determinedly. ‘His
housekeeper told me he was away on retreat for Lent.’
Theodora recalled the unsatisfactory conversation with the shrivelled
Greek woman in the house next to the Resurrection. She had not even
been allowed over the threshold. ‘All I learned about Jessica was that
she was part of a group which met once a week to learn how to use icons
in prayer.’
Geoffrey looked briefly interested.
‘I thought she was being confirmed as a Anglican,’ Oenone said with
distaste. ‘How duplicitous these Greeks are.’
Theodora leaned across the table. She was determined to compel his
interest. ‘Geoffrey, there’s one other odd thing about the Stephanopoulos
case: the driver of the kidnap car was a Greek Cypriot. He was reading
Kupriakos Alethinos.’
‘Really?’ Geoffrey’s tone was neutral. ‘How do you know?’ ‘The school chaplain passed close enough to the kidnap car to get a
clear view. And there’s one other thing. The Stephanopoulos family use
the Kostases’ transport firm.’
‘Use?’
‘Well, they had a business card on their salver in the hall with the
Kostases’ firm’s name on it.’
‘More than one Kostas transport firm perhaps?’
‘Not with a south London telephone number on it.’
‘What are you suggesting?’
‘I just wondered if there was someone collecting icons.’ There was silence as they all digested this hypothesis. ‘By the way,’
Theodora asked finally, ‘did you manage to get hold of the other Kostas
twin?’
Geoffrey looked conscious for a moment. ‘No, I agree that it might
make things easier if I could get him to talk. I’d just about got myself geared up to go and see the Kostas family after I’d had my go with Springer and McGrath. But when I mentioned it to Springer, he said Mr Kostas had rung in earlier in the morning to say that he wanted Peter to
leave school at lunch-time and that he’d be away from school for a bit.’ ‘Did he give any reason?’
‘He said he had business and he was taking the boy with him.’ ‘Where?’
Geoffrey looked even more uncomfortable. ‘Springer said he rather
thought Cyprus.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ancient History
When Theodora checked the ansaphone on their return to the vicarage, the voice on it was very quiet. It said. ‘Message for Miss Braithwaite, timed at twenty-one-twenty, Wednesday, from Stella Stephanopoulos. It was so good of you to talk on Monday. We’ve had no further news, but I wondered if we could possibly meet tomorrow, Thursday. Perhaps you could call and tell me times and places convenient for you?’
Theodora played the message through twice. The second time Geoffrey halted in his passage through the hall and listened.‘I suppose her phone’s being tapped,’ he said.
The same thought had occurred to Theodora. For a moment she felt a frisson of fear. ‘Would something have happened to Jessica, do you suppose?’
‘Pray,’ said Geoffrey firmly. ‘There’s nothing more you can do until you see Mrs Stephanopoulos. Ring now and say where you’ll meet her.’
At least Geoffrey’s taking the Stephanopoulos problems seriously, Theodora thought, as she lifted the phone to make contact with Mrs Stephanopoulos’s answering machine.
On Thursday morning Stella was late.Theodora leaned against the double doors of the front entrance to St Veep’s. From there she could command a view of the whole square. She eyed the broad pavement immediately outside the school. It struck her there would be room for no more than four cars here at any one time; the rest would have to line up round the square. To her left was the gate for the seniors, to her right the one for the juniors. The shrubs in the gardens of the brown brick villas of the square were beginning to be brushed with green. Forsythia, garish and early, showed. At the far end of the square she could just glimpse the white portico of the Church of the Resurrection.
Where, she wondered, was Jessica; far away or near at hand? Had anyone in the houses seen anything peculiar on Monday afternoon? For a moment she almost envied the police and their resources. Surely some information would be forthcoming soon. People couldn’t just disappear into limbo.
When Stella did appear she was on foot, accompanied, as far as Theodora could tell, only by the bull terrier. He greeted Theodora as an acquaintance of long standing.
‘Would it be a good idea to talk in the church? It should be fairly secluded,’ Stella indicated the opposite side of the square.
They walked round, the three of them, in silence. The only sound was of their different footsteps: Theodora’s, firm and measured, acted as base to the soprano of Stella’s tapping and hurried treble, and the rasping of the terrier’s nails on the pavement.
Secure as it seemed in the shadow of the portico, they hesitated for a moment. Stella broke the silence between them with, ‘Do you know this church?’
‘Yes,’ said Theodora. ‘I came here yesterday.’
‘May I ask why?’
‘I came to try to talk to the priest, Kallistos Bury.Your daughter, Jessica, had a passion for icons. She was attending a group of his which was studying how to use icons as a device for prayer and meditation. Did you know that?’
Stella hesitated. ‘I sort of guessed there was something like that. Of course Kallistos Bury was known to us. He’s on the embassy list. He’s not Greek. He’s a convert. Rather an intellectual young man. He seems to have read himself into Orthodoxy while at Oxford and then gone for the Orthodox priesthood.’
Theodora silently digested the information. ‘Jessica also came here with the art club one Saturday earlier in the term to study the iconostasis,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you knew?’
Stella nodded.
‘I wondered if her passion had any connection with her disappearance?’
Stella didn’t answer. Instead she secured the dog’s lead to an iron hoop at the base of one of the pillars, pushed the small door set in the large one and plunged inside. Theodora followed her. With neo-classical churches, Theodora reflected, there was always an even chance of their being dark. It depended what the nineteenth century had done to the windows: if they had replaced the clear glass with stained, it would be dark. But Theodora knew this was not the case here: she was prepared for the stage-set which opened ou
t before them. The nineteenth century had left the windows alone. The door swung to behind them, and they beheld the large drawing room, flooded with noonday light. The coffered ceiling gleamed white and gold; the white marble floor gave back the light; the pews which had originally ruled out the space of the interior had been swept aside by the requirements of the Greek Orthodox liturgy. A single huge brass chandelier depended from the nave ceiling just in front of the iconostasis. The silence was absolute.
Stella and Theodora stood for a moment, breathing in the incenseladen air, bonded together by light and silence.
‘If only it could always be like this,’ said Stella, almost whispering.
They settled on a couple of chairs pushed against the wall at the back of the church. Reluctantly Theodora turned to her task.
‘Was there any special reason you asked me to meet you today?’
Stella nodded. ‘This,’ she said, and produced from her bag a small brown envelope. There was no address on it, but typed in Greek characters were the words ‘Stella Stephanopoulos’.
Theodora opened it. Inside was a piece of cheap writing paper, to which had been pasted words extracted from a Greek newspaper or magazine.Theodora gazed at the familiar Greek characters for a moment. Then she turned to Stella in surprise. ‘But I don’t understand. What do they mean?’ Theodora translated literally lest she should have mistaken something. ‘“You will give us the two holy icons. We will give you again your daughter. You must give us the two so that we shall give you all your daughter without harm. You must do this within three days. You have our gratitude so you do not inform those in power. We will send you a certain message.”’ Theodora paused. ‘What do they mean? Who sent it? When did it come?’
‘It came yesterday, Wednesday,’ Stella answered quietly, ‘about seven in the morning. Before the morning post which, by the way, the police are handling. It must have come by hand therefore. The maid said she found it on the mat when she came down first thing.’
‘And do you know what it means, what it refers to?’
Stella spread her hands in a minute gesture of helplessness.
‘What does your husband say?’
Stella looked shocked. ‘Of course, I haven’t told him.’
‘Why on earth not?’
‘He would be very angry. I cannot cope with George’s anger.’
Oh dear, oh dear, Theodora thought. How very difficult this is all going to be. Why on earth didn’t Mrs Stephanopoulos trust her husband and confide in him like any normal married woman? But then, Theodora knew, there were no normal marriages, and trust and confidence between people were the exception not the rule.
Holy Terrors Page 13