The Oracle

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  Bogdanos neared the window: a dark vehicle was parked a hundred metres up the road with its parking lights on. ‘Good, everything is working as planned. Come this way.’ They walked into the next room, a kind of garage where a little truck was parked, a small Toyota pickup covered at the back by a tarp. Bogdanos lifted up a flap. ‘Get in here. And stay put. This belongs to the fishing coop, and the police have seen it a thousand times. Someone will be bringing you north. There will be roadblocks up to Gythion. After you’ve passed the city, the truck will slow down at a certain point; you’ll get out then and continue on foot. The person driving must not see you for any reason, understand? Bear up, at Aighia there’s a truck stop that opens at six, you can get some fried eggs ommatia and stewed beans. A couple of hundred drachma, and you’ll feel like a new man. We’ll see each other as soon as possible, my son.’

  Bogdanos lowered the tarp and returned to the lighthouse chamber. He lit a candle and passed it in front of the window three times. The car responded by flashing its headlights three times. A minute later two men left the car and walked towards the wall of the lighthouse, but Bogdanos retreated into the shadow of the window, his face hidden.

  ‘There’s been a setback,’ he said. ‘You’ll have heard about the murder at Dirou; the police are sifting through every inch of the peninsula. I couldn’t bring the vase – it was too dangerous.’

  ‘I can see your point,’ said Norman.

  ‘When can we see it?’ asked Michel.

  ‘Soon,’ replied Bogdanos. ‘But you’ll have to do what I say first. Leave me your car and take the truck you’ll find in the garage. Drive through Gythion and then leave it at the Esso motel on your left just outside the city, five kilometres after the railroad crossing. You’ll find your car back at your hotel tomorrow morning.’

  ‘But why should we trust you? What’s the reason for this switch?’

  ‘Someone may have followed you or noticed your car. I don’t want to run any risks.’

  ‘Prove that you really have that vase,’ said Michel.

  ‘The vase was taken from the basement of the Archaeological Museum in Athens on the night between the eighteenth and nineteenth of November 1973, just before Captain Karamanlis of the Athens Police could get hold of it. Someone must have told him exactly where it was: in a bucket full of sawdust in a closet.’

  ‘Okay, we believe you,’ said Norman, astonished. ‘We believe you . . . we’ll do as you say.’

  ‘Tell us your name,’ said Michel, possessed by sudden anxiety. ‘So we can reach you if we need to.’

  ‘People like me have many names and no name at the same time. Go through that door, get into the truck and drive away. Now. Each of us will take his own road.’

  A minute later Claudio heard the engine starting up and the old pickup began to gain speed. He looked out of the tailgate and saw the ruins of the old lighthouse standing out against the starry sky and the glittering waves. For a moment, he thought he saw the figure of Admiral Bogdanos raising his hand to say goodbye. As the truck drove steadily on, its irregular sway rocked him into the only dream which could keep him alive: the eyes of Heleni, her voice, her hands, her live, warm body, eternal. And the dream surrounded him like a tepid springtime wind that melts the ice and releases the waters to run clear through the ditches.

  God, would the eternal winter of his existence ever end? Bogdanos knew, he had to know. He knew everything . . . he was not like other men . . . his mind took unknown, mysterious turns. He had pulled him back from the brink of his ‘normal’ life; he had opened up his old wounds, made him return to a past he had thought long-buried. And he had led him through hell. Could he ever make peace with the memory of Heleni? Maybe this was the bitter drink he had to swallow to its dregs in order to keep on living. But in the end, would he live, or would he die?

  One thing was certain, Bogdanos was always right; he was right when he told him what awesome strength the sight of the guilty would unleash in him. How many more were there? How many times again would he be invaded by that force, that destructive frenzy that left him exhausted yet ominously at peace? But there was one of them, one in particular, whose ordeal he was patiently awaiting. The one on whom he would vent all the pent-up misery of the violence he had suffered. The one for whom he had already chosen the message of death.

  CAPTAIN KARAMANLIS HAD dismissed his driver and driven himself down all the streets of Kharoudha, a sleepy, silent town. No trace of the blue Rover, as he had suspected. He imagined that Michel Charrier and Norman Shields – because he had no doubt that it was the two of them – must have turned west towards the eastern coast of the promontory. He meant to find them and have them followed. Discreetly, without them realizing it. He returned to the provincial road and at the fork turned right towards Kotronas. It was his lucky night; just a few kilometres later he saw a blue Rover with English plates leave a self-service petrol station and turn west. He did a fast U-turn and was behind him in a few minutes, keeping at a distance so as not to be noticed. The car reached the western provincial road and turned north towards Kalamata, until it had to pull over at the Oitylos roadblock. Karamanlis stopped as well, eager to continue the chase. He slowed down at the roadblock to allow himself to be recognized, but did not stop to speak with the officers who had changed shifts with the first patrol.

  The Rover proceeded at a moderate speed to Skardamoula, where it parked in front of a small hotel. A man got out, closed the door, walked up to the front desk and then walked off shortly later on foot. Could he have been following the wrong car? How could there be two Rovers with British plates driving around these lonely streets so late at night? What if the man was the killer himself ? Had it been a trick to get through the roadblock? Why hadn’t the police stopped him? He got out of the car and entered the hotel.

  ‘Police,’ he announced to the night porter. ‘Who was the man who walked in here a minute ago?’

  ‘Don’t know. I’ve never seen him before.’

  ‘But he parked his car in the hotel lot.’

  ‘That’s right. Said he’d been instructed to by the owners, who are guests here.’

  Karamanlis thanked him: ‘Don’t mention that I’ve been by. Just a mistake on my part. I wouldn’t want the owner to become alarmed.’

  ‘No problem,’ answered the clerk, and turned back to his crossword puzzle.

  Karamanlis got back into the car and set off in the same direction as the man who had walked away from the hotel: he had a few questions to ask him. He drove slowly, keeping his eye on the left side of the road until he saw him. The man was walking quickly, both hands in his pockets. He was wearing a pair of cotton trousers and a dark cotton jacket, with lightweight canvas shoes. Karamanlis accelerated, drove up to the first curve and turned the car around so he could shine his lights into the man’s face. He recognized him immediately: same sharp gaze, same commanding expression, his face hard and deeply lined.

  It was Anastasios Bogdanos.

  Ten years had passed over his features like water over a basalt rock. He was about to step on the brake pedal, but he didn’t. He drove a little further up the road and then got out so he could follow the man on foot. He saw him leave the street and walk up to the top of a small promontory facing the sea. He sat there, hands between his knees, perfectly still, contemplating the glittering expanse of waves.

  FROM HIS VANTAGE point, Claudio Setti could see the curving road that led to Gythion. From the cab he heard an indistinct buzz of voices alternated with long silences and the sound of a radio. The pickup slowed down a couple of times at the roadblocks, but Claudio was not alarmed. He watched emotionless from the back of the truck as the police and their cars vanished in the dark.

  They passed Gythion and took the road that led north. The roll of the truck made him drowsy. The low music on the radio reminded him of the tune which had comforted him during the most intense moments of his life, a popular ballad that his mother used to sing to him when he was a child. He had lost her when
he was very young, and that song was the only thing he remembered about her.

  Ten kilometres later the truck slowed down and stopped at a railway crossing, and Claudio shook himself awake. As it started to move forward again, Claudio jumped out. He lingered for a few minutes behind the line inspector’s booth, then headed off on foot. Those strangers had helped him to slip through an impressive display of police force without even sensing they had a passenger.

  He began to feel a little better, stronger and more confident, although he hadn’t eaten for hours and hours. He walked at a brisk pace through the warm night, accompanied by the crowing of roosters and barking of dogs. As dawn was breaking, a tractor gave him a lift to the tavern at the gates of Aighia. The owner brought him fried eggs ommatia and stewed beans with fresh bread.

  It all tasted good and only cost him two hundred drachmas.

  12

  Areopolis, 26 August, 8 a.m.

  CAPTAIN KARAMANLIS WAS woken up by the ringing of a telephone. It was one of his men from headquarters in Athens.

  ‘Captain, I found an Interpol dispatch we had on file that I’m sure you’ll be interested in: two months ago, an official of the British embassy in Belgrade was found murdered in Yugoslavia, a certain James Henry Shields. He was hunting in Macedonia along the Strimon valley. An arrow through the heart. And the corpse was found with his mouth and eyes closed up.’

  Karamanlis was quiet for a minute, considering the news. ‘Doesn’t sound so strange, after all. He was a man with a dangerous job.’

  ‘There’s more: a slip of paper with a message in ancient Greek was found in his jacket pocket. That’s why I thought you’d be interested; it made me think of the Roussos and Karagheorghis murders.’

  ‘Do you know what the message said?’

  ‘It apparently didn’t make sense . . .’

  ‘Read it to me, for Chrissake!’

  ‘Yessir, captain. The Yugoslavian police report says: “You in your day have witnessed hundreds slaughtered, killed in single combat or killed in pitched battle, true, but if you’d laid eyes on this it would have wrenched your heart.” ’

  Karamanlis fell back on the bed: the third crime that completed the picture. How couldn’t they be connected to that night ten years ago? But what did the murderer want to say? What message was there in his words? The officer on the phone shook him from his thoughts: ‘Captain, Captain, are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, I’m listening.’

  ‘Is there something more you want to know? Shall we ask for further clarification?’

  ‘Vassilios Vlassos, Sergeant Vlassos: where is he right now?’

  ‘I’ll check for you right away, sir. Vlassos . . . here it is, Vlassos is on leave, on holiday.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At Portolagos.’

  ‘What kind of a shithole of a place is Portolagos? I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘It’s a town in Thrace. Vlassos knows a woman there.’

  ‘Contact him immediately and tell him to watch his ass. There’s a good chance that there’s someone who wants to knock him off in an imaginative way like Roussos, Karagheorghis and that other poor devil. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir, of course. I’ll do as you say immediately.’

  ‘And let my colleague in Salonika know that I’ll be getting in touch with him as soon as I arrive.’

  ‘Will do, sir.’

  Karamanlis hung up, took a notepad out of his pocket and jotted down the message found on Shields’s body before he forgot the exact words. He washed and dressed quickly, stuffing his things into a little suitcase. Before leaving, he called police headquarters at Kalamata and instructed them to keep an eye on the blue Rover parked at the Plaja hotel and keep its occupants under surveillance without being noticed. He was in his car just a few minutes later.

  There was a map in his glove compartment. He spread it over the steering wheel and pointed his finger at the rest and relaxation site chosen by Sergeant Vassilios Vlassos. It was a little town in eastern Thrace, not far from the Turkish border, halfway between Xanthi and Komotini. It looked like it was right in the middle of a swamp or a lagoon. Hard to tell. Not much of a vacation spot. He folded up the map and started off at a steady speed. No need to kill himself; he’d easily get there by tomorrow evening.

  He also thought there was no need to worry about Bogdanos, at least not for the moment. His intuition told him that he’d be seeing him somewhere in the vicinity of Portolagos, and maybe the puzzle would start to unravel. He radioed headquarters and advised them to close down the roadblocks: the murderer had almost certainly got away. And they’d surely need more than a roadblock to stop him.

  If he had figured it right, Vlassos would be next, then him. Yes, the murderer wanted to leave him until last, dulcis in fundo. Right, he thought, go ahead and save the best for last, you bastard, you son of a bitch, but I’ll be there this time, waiting for you in that fucking swamp. I’ll be there and I’ll be ready for you.

  When he passed Sparta it was late in the morning, and he stopped at Corinth to get something to eat for lunch. He also called his wife to tell her he’d be away for a few days.

  ‘But when will you decide to retire?’ asked the poor woman. ‘You have enough years added up. With your retirement pay we could find a new house and get new furniture . . .’

  ‘Irini, does this seem like the time to talk about this? Come on, don’t be angry. I’ll bring you some feta from Komotini.’

  Retire . . . as if it were that easy. In his line of work, there was just one way to go out. When you’d settled all your accounts. Or when someone faster and smarter than you took you out of business once and for all. Poor Irini. She was a good woman, simple and so affectionate. He’d make her happy, he’d bring her some olives from Kalamata and some cheese from Komotini.

  He drove past Athens, staying on the highway for Thermopylae and Lamia. Retire . . . why the hell not, after all. Irini was right – it was no good working until you were decrepit. You should retire when you could still enjoy life, take a trip or two, go to the sea, to the mountains. Their children had grown up – Dimitrios would soon be getting his degree in architecture in Florence, and Maria had begun to study medicine in Patras. She was so beautiful, it amazed him to think that he and his wife had managed to bring such a lovely child into the world, so sweet. All he had to do was lie in wait for the bastard and kill him like a dog: legitimate self-defence and that would be the end of that, party over. But who the hell could it be? Couldn’t be the Englishman. But what about his French friend?

  No. Only a madman would come back after so many years and risk his own skin. What did the Frenchman know anyway? Very little, when it came down to it. No. It had to be some relative of the girl, or of the boy. But how could they have found out about it? How could any of their relatives possibly know about James Henry Shields?

  No. None of those hypotheses held water. One was crazier than the next. He realized that it frightened him to admit that there was only one solution to the mystery: Claudio Setti. Only Claudio Setti could know enough to want Roussos, Karagheorghis and Shields dead. If Setti weren’t already dead . . . if he himself hadn’t seen a photograph of the boy’s corpse. Yeah . . . just a photograph, after all. Well, dammit, even if it were the devil himself he’d find him and kill him. He couldn’t wait to have his chance.

  He arrived in the evening at Salonika and stopped in a hotel near the sea. Before stretching out to sleep, he stuck his loaded long-barrelled Beretta calibre 9 under his pillow. He felt close to the front line.

  Two weeks went by without a thing happening. Vlassos would get up late and go to the local café for breakfast. He’d stay there gossiping with some other slugs until nearly lunch-time. From their gestures they were talking about women and soccer. Every day, every blessed day. In the afternoon he slept until late, then usually took a boat into the middle of the fucking swamp and sat there like an idiot with a fishing pole in his hand for hours. He’d smoke, pull in the line
and then smoke some more. He caught a fish every now and then, ugly, warty things. Karamanlis had begun to hate him.

  Portolagos was the most horrible place you could imagine. The mosquitoes bit even during the day and there were millions of them. He wondered how anyone in his right mind could live in a place where the mosquitoes bit all day long. He’d spread on the insect repellent every day, but after a while it made him break out in a rash, which was even worse. He got to the point where if someone felt like shooting Vassilios Vlassos in the back, they’d be doing him a favour.

  The most unbearable part of it all was the surveillance after dark. Every night, or nearly, Vlassos went to visit his woman. She lived in a wretched house at the other end of the lagoon, near the bridge for Komotini, an old military bridge covered with wooden beams. Alongside the house was an ancient acacia tree surrounded by bushes whose branches held an unbelievable quantity of mosquitoes. There was no other place Karamanlis could hide. From there he could keep an eye on the territory all around, but to stay on the safe side, every once in a while he’d creep up to the window to see what was going on inside. They made love with the lights on and what he saw was more embarrassing each time.

  The woman was a sort of fleshy giantess with enormous breasts and round, massive buttocks. The black, luxuriant hairiness under her arms stood out against her white skin, as did her pubic hair, which trailed down the inside of her thighs nearly to her knees. Vlassos dived into that sea of flesh with the ardour of a copulating boar, and he always succeeded in making that immense female tremble and sigh like a young girl in the arms of her one true love. When he lay back panting, she would kiss him and lick him all over like a cow with a newborn calf. Karamanlis, who had a delicate stomach for some things, often felt a wave of nausea overcoming him. But hell, from a certain point of view, Vlassos was admirable – a man his age who could still stay in the saddle for hours, dammit, and with a creature on whom any normal man wouldn’t know where to start. Lord knew what he’d be capable of with a nice fresh young girl. Yeah, young and beautiful . . .