Decision at Delphi

by Helen Macinnes

  At Athens, that evening, as soon as the Renault’s number had been reported and recognised, the small garage had been revisited. It was now empty. All three cars, and the owner, had vanished. So a search was started in Athens, too, complicated by the darkness, by the rush of late-evening, traffic. The green-and-white car, again pretending to be a taxi, again with its false number, had picked up Miss Hillard. It was found abandoned, opposite the Church of St. Dionysios, near the Swiss and Argentine legations. Its licence plate linked it to Christophorou; its damaged bumper linked it to the garage and the other cars. After intensive questioning, the police discovered that a grey car, with a diplomatic label stuck on its rear window, had been parked just at that same place for about ten minutes that evening. One elderly servant had noticed a cab stop beside the grey car; people and some luggage, she thought, had been transferred, but it was dark and she had not been close enough to see clearly.

  Now, the search was on for the grey Fiat. But all these details, which could be recited in a matter of minutes, had taken time to be unravelled, put together, made into a sensible pattern, for there were some people who had been too helpful: they would say anything, when questioned, rather than admit they knew nothing. So the Fiat must have had an hour’s full start before the alarm went out. And it must have taken another, less usual, route to the north, travelling by the eastern road, which swept over the hills above Marathon, curving past Tanagra, to turn westward to Thebes.

  There, it had taken a rough country road to skirt the town, and had almost been stopped by two local policemen. Both were injured, one critically. The car, running without lights, had come at them out of the darkness, swerved round the small farm cart drawn partly across the road, jolted over a corner of flat field, and came back on to the road again. It had not been seen after this incident near Thebes.

  So both cars had vanished. Only one thing was certain: both the blue Renault and the grey Fiat were travelling north. It had been assumed that they were heading toward Bulgaria. (Albania was difficult to reach: the road was mountainous, and dangerous with spring rains. Yugoslavia, obviously, was hardly to be considered.) But now—and Elias allowed himself a certain touch of self-congratulation—the escape might be taking a different pattern. It could be possible that, from the cars’ point of disappearance, just south of Levadia, the Renault and the Fiat were circling westward to the Parnassos area. There, Christophorou might plan to stay hidden for several weeks, until it was safer to travel towards one of the borders. That, ended Elias very sombrely, was something to be considered most seriously. That was what he would report back to Athens when they reached Tripolis.

  “How big is this Parnassos area?” Strang asked.

  “Altogether?” Elias considered. “It is a district, not just one mountain,” he explained. “There are villages to be included, too. Let us say less than six hundred square kilometres.”

  More than two hundred square miles. Strang’s moment of hope vanished. “God in heaven!” he said softly. He tried to imagine the vast stretch of Parnassos, twin peaks surrounded by a bastion of other mountains, all of them forming a huge mass of rock sloping into steeply falling hills, with ravines, gorges, high meadows, torrents, caves, precipices. Some of its lower slopes edged into forests, others were bare hills, others halted in a broad ledge where a little village could perch—as at Delphi—and then continued their plunge down wooded cliffs to the floor of a valley far below. He tried to remember the odd details he had collected about Parnassos when he had been making notes on Delphi for his work. It was a place of violent storm and earthquake, of constant mists veiling the upper slopes, of eagles sparing over the deep clefts. No one, unless he was a suicidal maniac, climbed the peaks without a guide, and a fully trained guide at that. So Christophorou would be nowhere near the peaks themselves; nor on the open mountainsides, nor on the barer hills. His hiding place would be somewhere among the ravines and caves and torrents and forests of the lower slopes. “Parnassos,” said Strang, slowly, bitterly, “the home of the Muses.”

  “Ah,” Elias said, “the Greeks never called it that. It was the foreigners, the Roman poets who came to Delphi and saw the Temple of Apollo there, who said Parnassos must be the home of the Muses. But they did not understand Parnassos.”

  True enough, Strang recalled now. Parnassos had been the mountain consecrated to Dionysus and the Maenades, the wild Bacchantes. It had been the place of secret initiations, of savage orgiastic rites, of wild pagan ceremonies. The ancient Greeks had understood the symbolism of nature and the elements too well to make Parnassos the home of the Muses.

  “It is strange, is it not,” asked Elias, “that such a lie becomes accepted as the truth? But then, in life—” he shrugged his shoulders.

  “Yes,” agreed Strang, and he thought of Alexander Christophorou, and of Myrrha Kladas’s prophecy. “What kind of lies will Christophorou think up for his trial?” he asked. “If you catch him, that is.”

  “Plenty,” Elias said. “But we have proof, now, that he killed Sideros and Elektra. That farmer’s boy near Thebes—it was the silencer to Christophorou’s revolver that he found.”

  Strang did not look impressed.

  Elias said quickly, “It was especially designed. We traced the maker by his markings. His records say that, four years ago, it was ordered by Mr. Alexander Christophorou.”

  “Christophorou will say the revolver and silencer were stolen.”

  Elias smiled. “Of course. But we also have found the locksmith who made two keys for Christophorou: one for the back door into the yard, one for the padlock on the gate. The locksmith had to visit the house to take the correct impression for his work. We found him by questioning the caretaker who used to live in that house two years ago. Also,” Elias said with great satisfaction, “we have at least two witnesses who know the man called Demetrius Drakon. We have two other witnesses who know the man called Odysseus. And they will all point to Christophorou and say, ‘That is the man.’” Elias was silent for a moment. “But it is strange, most of all, that the death of a man and a woman who lived on lies should make people tell the truth. We would have found no witnesses against Christophorou if Sideros and Elektra had not been murdered.”

  “You will have to catch him first.” Strang remembered Myrrha Kladas’s words. He took a deep breath. “Pringle?” he asked. “How badly was he hurt?”

  “Not much. He leaped aside. A cut on his leg. Perhaps concussion. Nothing serious,” Elias said cheerfully.

  Strang was silent for a long moment. And then the question which had lain at the back of his mind rushed out. “Will they hurt her?”

  “I think,” Elias said slowly, “that Christophorou wants to hurt you. He is a man who knows how to hate. But he is also a most practical man. If he finds he cannot escape, he will use the American girl to make a bargain. We give him his freedom in exchange for her.” Elias shrugged his shoulders. “That has happened before. Last year, we caught six spies who had come secretly over the Bulgarian border. Bulgaria offered us some of the children who had been kidnapped, ten years before, in exchange for the six Communist agents. They were valuable men. What could we do?”

  “What?” asked Strang, his face suddenly white.

  Elias looked at him in surprise. “We got back more than two hundred of the children,” he said. “April, 1958, they returned. After ten years...” And now he had his own bitter thoughts.

  He sat in silence until they entered Tripolis. As they drove up the long straight street of whitewashed walls and yellow mimosa trees, Elias pointed and said, “Costas will take you to that café. You will eat, both of you. I shall join you when I have telephoned Athens. It may take a little time.”

  Strang looked at him.

  “Yes, you will eat,” Elias said severely, as the car stopped and he got out. “You are sick with worry. To make your body sick, too, will be of no help to us. That is an order! I am in charge here.” He drew himself up to his full five feet four inches. He added, gently, “We
may hear better news. We have had our share of bad luck. It is time for the good luck to begin.”

  “You’re an optimist,” Strang said wearily.

  “How else have we survived?” Elias asked, quite simply, as he left.

  They did hear better news. And it was, as Elias was quick to admit, entirely due to Cecilia herself. “She has not lost her head, that girl,” he said. “She thinks. She does not give in. She has the will to fight. And that means hope—for all of us.”

  Strang nodded. It was strange how two small objects, a lipstick in a crumpled empty pack of American cigarettes, could raise up just enough hope to change the face of this journey. It was no longer a useless rush across the Peloponnese towards Corinth, and then on to the mainland of Greece. It had become something urgent, purposeful.

  As they came down the twisting, turning road from the last of the mountains they had to cross, and gathered speed on the long highway across the Argive plains, Strang reached over to tap Costas on the shoulder. “Time to take a rest,” he said. “I’ll drive now.”

  27

  A lipstick, a crumpled empty pack of cigarettes...

  The idea had come to Cecilia after the car had jolted around a farm cart, had jumped across a corner of a field. There had been two men beside that farm cart. A scream would have been useless, because the roar of the engine and the screech of brakes as the car had accelerated and skidded around the cart had drowned out even the shriek of “Anastas!” from the woman who sat in the front seat beside the driver. But I could have thrown something out, Cecilia thought, if I had had it ready, if I had been able to open the window in time. That way, they would have known I was in this car. Because if people are guarding this road, then there is a search for someone. It may not be for me, but there is a search going on. And when a search is going on, even small things are noticed. But I missed the chance, I missed it. When we came on that farm cart, I was still too bewildered to think of anything, still feeling too sick and frightened, still trying to remember what had happened.

  But the sickness had almost gone now, the dull ache round her head did not matter any more, and the sense of helplessness, which the blackness of the night, the speed of the car, the two voices talking an unintelligible language had made so complete, had left her. People are searching this road, she thought, and the hideous feeling of total loneliness began to vanish.

  The woman looked around as Cecilia moved into a corner of the back seat, and raised her hand. She had a revolver. That was only to give her authority, Cecilia decided; if they were going to kill me, they could have done that back in Athens.

  “I need some air,” Cecilia said slowly. They had not spoken any English, perhaps they didn’t even understand it, but she repeated, “Air,” as she wound down the window about six inches. The woman leaned over and aimed a sharp blow with the revolver barrel at Cecilia’s wrist. She pulled her hand back in time—the blow only grazed her fingers—but she gave a little moan and let her head rest, quite helplessly, against the side of the open window. The woman tested the handle of the door to make sure it was securely locked. She watched Cecilia with suspicion, but as the man spoke to her, she turned away to reach for a map and a small flashlight. Perhaps the speed of the car made her feel that Cecilia was safe enough. Or perhaps the fright she had had, back at the road block, had made her feel a little sick, too. At least, the window stayed its few inches open, blowing a welcome stream of cold night air into the suffocating warmth of the car.

  They are not sure of the way, Cecilia thought. Certainly, the man and woman were engrossed by the road ahead. They kept looking to their left. Perhaps there was a small branch road near here, Cecilia thought. She drew around her the blanket that had covered her when she lay unconscious on this seat. The woman gave a quick look round, said something in Greek, and pointed to the window. Cecilia shook her head. “I feel sick,” she said. “Very sick.”

  The woman turned back to her map at a question from the man. A small, intense argument started up.

  Under the cover of the blanket, Cecilia drew her bag on to her lap. She opened it. Her fingers found her comb. Useless: anyone might own a small brown comb. A pack of American cigarettes: that was better. She emptied the cigarettes into her bag. Someone finding cigarettes in place might just smoke them and think nothing more than that he had made a lucky find. But what was needed was a strange find—something to puzzle, to be talked about. She found her lipstick—that, too, was American. It would weight the empty pack nicely. Desperately, she closed it inside, folded the top over, pressed the metal foil together. The woman looked around again. Cecilia’s eyes were half closed. She wondered if the woman could hear the sudden quick beat of her heart.

  “Ochi, ochi!” the woman said angrily, as the man slowed down at a rough road. The car regained its speed. So they were searching for a branch-off, Cecilia thought; and perhaps the next opening would be the right one. That is where I’ll have to drop this little package. If I can just get my hand up, near the opened top of the window, if I can just... She raised her hand to her head and let it rest there.

  The man’s eyes looked up for a moment, studied Cecilia in the rearview mirror. But he seemed satisfied. His eyes went back to the road. The woman was pointing ahead, talking quickly. The car slowed, turned to the left. Cecilia’s hand dropped the neatly packaged lipstick as the front wheels bumped over the first ruts of the side road.

  The woman had turned to look at her, perhaps thinking she might try to open the door as the car’s speed slowed on the rough surface. Cecilia didn’t draw her hand away. She kept it at the side of the window as if she were holding it there to steady herself from the jolts. Her head drooped against her arm, her eyes half closed. She actually did feel a return of the nausea. Her hands were trembling. Then she felt the attack of fear pass over and leave her. The car had not been halted; no one had got out to search. And now, instead of fear, there was a growing excitement. It was extraordinary what a small piece of resistance could do for one’s morale.

  What next? she wondered, as her hands began searching blindly in her bag again. There was Ken’s book—the Cavafy poems—but she wanted to hold on to that, somehow. Even touching it was a comfort. And besides, she couldn’t tear out pages without drawing attention to herself. She had to keep up the illusion that she was weak and thoroughly tamed. And pages would blow away in this open road with the first touch of a breeze. It had to be something heavy enough to fall straight, and lie. Her compact was the next choice, a difficult one, though, for it was not easy to hide in the palm of her hand. She would have to wait for the right moment. It came, about half an hour later, when they left the rough road—it ended as it had begun, in a series of deep ruts of hard-dried mud—and the jolts were so bad (the man had not eased up sufficiently, in time) that even the woman on the front seat bounced around like a ping-pong ball. She turned her head to look at Cecilia just one second too late to see the compact disappear. She spoke urgently, as if she sensed something was wrong. Or had she heard the sound of the compact smashing on the road? The man swore and put on the brakes. The car stopped, and the woman got out and walked back along the road, her flashlight sweeping across it like a brush.

  There was a falling sensation inside Cecilia’s stomach. Please, she prayed, oh please let the woman think that the noise was only a loose stone cast up by the wheel. Suddenly, the man called a warning. There were, Cecilia saw as she glanced back, the lights of a car far behind them coming along the highway which they had entered. The woman had not yet reached the intersection. She gave one last sweep of the flashlight, turned, and ran back. She climbed in quickly, speaking reassuringly, rapidly, and glanced around—as the car leaped forward into high speed—angrily at Cecilia. She had found nothing, it seemed. But she leaned over and closed the window.

  Well, thought Cecilia as she drew a deep steadying breath, it had been a nice little game while it lasted. She pulled the blanket more tightly around her shoulders—the draught from the opened window had a
lmost frozen her in the last fifteen minutes—and pretended to be falling asleep.

  She listened to the two voices, talking, talking. She wished she knew Greek. Anastas, the man was called. And the woman had a strange name. It sounded like Kseneea. Cecilia puzzled over that. Not that the names mattered to her—except as a little proof that the man and the woman were so sure of her, now, that they were talking freely. Xenia? Anastas and Xenia. Where were they taking her? What part of the country was this? South or west or north or east? Outside, there was nothing but the lonely highway, running between dark fields or dark hillsides; inside, the two strange, unintelligible voices.

  Cecilia’s small moment of triumph left her. Oh, Ken, she thought. Ken. She felt hot tears sting her eyes. She bit her lip, and forced herself to stop crying. Tears were of no help, no help at all. Ken would be looking for her; so would all the others. But no one could help her if she let herself be blackmailed by fear. Not tears, but anger. Not fear, but determination. These were the answers. She might have little hope, but at least she was not going to think her way into despair.

  The car drove on through the black, anonymous night. And as she rested, with her eyes closed, she thought of Ken and what he would do if he were here, dear, darling, stubborn, determined Ken. He wouldn’t yield one inch. He wouldn’t accept the fact that he was helpless. He would resist, and go on resisting. He’d say, “Damn your eyes, all of you!” And so shall I, she thought. That is all I can, meanwhile. That is one thing they cannot stop, unless they kill me. They cannot stop resistance.

  So she rested, for there was nothing she could do while the car travelled at this speed. But when it stops, she thought, I am going to be one of the most unhelpful, most intransigent, most ornery prisoners that these two barbarians, have ever snatched. From her handbag, she began, carefully, slowly, to transfer every useful little object she could find into the pockets of her coat.