The Oracle

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  Karamanlis had nearly convinced himself that he’d been wrong about the whole thing. Vlassos was a sitting duck while he was out there fishing on the swamp. Anyone could have killed him, a thousand times, easily. Roussos, Shields and Karagheorghis had all been murdered in solitary, hidden places. The killer certainly wouldn’t want to wait until Vlassos was back on duty, armed and in similar company. Maybe he’d just dreamed the whole thing up? Well, just as well then, just as well. Although now he had no idea where to start looking.

  On the last night of Vlassos’s holiday, Karamanlis noticed that the sergeant hadn’t gone out fishing as he usually did. He must have stayed at home to pack his bags. The captain decided to take some time off for dinner, and then go back to keep watch on the house until one or two in the morning. Then he’d return to the boarding house to sleep as he had every night, with his ears wide open, of course. Not that Vlassos needed him, really. He had been warned by the police, after all, and he surely kept a gun in the house. And probably wore a gun by day as well.

  He reached a little town called Messemvria just east of Portolagos and sat down at the only tavern, in front of a panful of lamb chops and fried potatoes. The town papàs was sitting at the next table and lots of the people there spoke Turkish, the border being so close.

  The tavern owner came to his table with a half litre of retsina. ‘His treat,’ he said with a backward jerk of his head, putting two clean glasses on the table. Karamanlis raised his head and his gaze – travelling past the hats and bald heads of the other taverngoers, above the blue fog of cigarette smoke – encountered the steady eyes of Admiral Bogdanos.

  So the situation was finally starting to sort itself out. He gestured for the man to join him at his table, without showing particular surprise. Bogdanos got up, rising above the layer of smoke like a mountain peak over a stretch of clouds. He sat opposite Karamanlis as he poured some wine into the glasses.

  ‘You don’t seem surprised to see me after so many years,’ said Bogdanos.

  ‘I’m not. I saw you around Dirou a couple of weeks ago and in my heart I knew I’d see you again.’

  ‘Really? And what made you think that?’

  ‘Because this is where police sergeant Vassilios Vlassos from headquarters in Athens is spending his holidays. And something could happen to him, like those poor devils Karagheorghis and Roussos, or like Mr James Henry Shields.’

  ‘It seems that you’ve already drawn some pretty firm conclusions from this chain of crimes.’

  ‘It sounds like you have too, if I’m not mistaken.’

  ‘You’re not mistaken. So you really shouldn’t be here just now – you’ve left Vlassos all alone, and the killer might have been waiting for just this moment to strike, safe and undisturbed.’

  Karamanlis brought his fist down on the table, jingling the silverware on his plate and rolling the wine in his glass. ‘You’ve got guts to come here and preach to me – it’s thanks to you that we have a crazy nut getting his kicks out of butchering my men, and Lord only knows when we’ll see the end of this story. And I want you to know that as far as I’m concerned there’s only one answer to this: Claudio Setti did not die, as you had assured me. He’s alive and kicking and having fun chopping us into pieces one by one. And making fools out of us with his idiotic messages.’

  Bogdanos seemed to back down: ‘I must honestly admit that everything does seem to lead to this conclusion . . .’

  ‘Fine. I’m glad that my hypothesis meets with your approval. And just how do you justify this pretty mess? I’d say you didn’t keep up your end of the deal.’

  ‘I’m no butcher. You can’t imagine that I would have physically eliminated a prisoner myself. I simply gave an order and I have no reason to believe that it wasn’t carried out.’

  ‘Right,’ said Karamanlis. ‘You keep your hands clean. You leave the dirty work to someone else. Anyway, it’s us now in the sights of that bastard. I don’t give a shit about your gentlemanly demeanour. Suppose you tell me what you know about what happened to Claudio Setti, and what the hell you were doing in Dirou and what the bloody hell you’re doing here.’

  Bogdanos drew back: ‘Careful of what you say, Karamanlis. You are in no position to give me orders or make any demands. I’m here to look for an explanation for these crimes. To find the killer, and eliminate him, if possible. We won’t be sure until we do . . . and then we’ll be able to call the game. I can guarantee that you will never see me again. But time is growing short. They’re starting to ask questions at the Ministry, starting to link a number of coincidences . . . we have to finish this game off. Now.’

  ‘You sent me a photograph of his corpse . . .’

  ‘It was sent to you by the person who carried out my orders. A trustworthy person. What did you expect in such a case? An official autopsy report? I had no reason to doubt the elimination of the . . . subject in question. But now it seems to me that we’re wasting time needlessly. Where is Vlassos at this moment?’

  ‘At his house, I think.’

  ‘You think. Dammit, Karamanlis, I wonder how a man of your experience . . . Let’s go now, before it’s too late.’

  They walked out on to the square of Messemvria, lit by a single bulb hanging on the front of the parish church. They both got into Karamanlis’s Fiat 131, because Bogdanos had no means of transport. As if he’d dropped out of the sky. They raced down the low road that led to the provincial highway in a cloud of dust, turning left for Portolagos. It wasn’t even ten o’clock when Karamanlis stopped his car near Vlassos’s house. The kitchen light was on. He was home, thank God. Karamanlis approached the window and looked in: there was an open suitcase on the table with some clothing in it, and a pot boiling on the gas stove. Some milk, maybe. He knocked on the window, several times, and then called out. No answer.

  ‘He’s gone out, dammit,’ said Bogdanos behind him. ‘See if you can get in and look around the house.’

  Karamanlis went to the front door. It was open. He made a rapid round of inspection. Everything seemed to be in order, but it was obvious that Vlassos had left in a hurry – he’d left the flame burning in the kitchen, the suitcase open, the light on. Karamanlis turned everything off and walked out into the courtyard: ‘Something or someone made him leave suddenly: he didn’t even switch off the light and there was a pot of milk boiling on the stove.’

  ‘Where could he have gone?’ asked Bogdanos.

  ‘The only person who can fire up his ass like that is his woman. Maybe she called him.’

  ‘Or maybe someone used her to lure him out, God damn it.’

  ‘Don’t curse, damn you. If you had done your job right we wouldn’t be here chasing after this animal in this shithole of a town.’

  Bogdanos looked at his watch. ‘Where is this woman’s house?’

  ‘Not far from the military bridge.’

  ‘Let’s get moving then. We may already be too late.’

  They got back into the car and headed towards the bridge; in just a few minutes they were in front of the woman’s house. The door was open here as well. The lights were on and the radio was blaring a Hadjidakis concert. The room was in a great mess, furniture was overturned and dishes broken: the lady had obviously tried to defend herself. Bogdanos frowned: ‘Just as I feared. They’ve kidnapped the woman and used her to set a trap for Vlassos.’

  ‘But where have they taken her?’

  ‘The swamp. That’s where we have to look for them.’ A gust of cool air rippled the surface of the water.

  ‘Damn. Now even the weather’s turning on us,’ mumbled Karamanlis.

  ‘Looks like it,’ replied Bogdanos. ‘That’s what they were predicting, anyway. No doubt our man already knew.’

  They decided to separate so one could search the western bank while the other searched the eastern side, but Bogdanos held Karamanlis back: ‘Stop. Over there.’

  ‘I don’t see anything.’

  ‘A light. I saw a light for a second. What is there in that direc
tion?’

  ‘A little island with a church dedicated to Haghios Spiridion. There’s a procession on the saint’s day, the fifteenth of July, but it’s closed for the rest of the year. On one side it’s connected to the eastern shore by a pier about fifty metres long. Vlassos sometimes goes there to fish.’

  ‘How far is it from here?’

  ‘A kilometre and a half, more or less.’

  ‘Which side is the entrance on?’

  ‘The west shore.’

  ‘Let’s try approaching it from two sides. I’ll go along the shore and head towards the pier, you take a boat and approach from the south. The murderer might try to escape on the water.’ They separated. Karamanlis took a flat-bottomed boat with a little outboard motor and began to row silently towards the island. Bogdanos checked his watch again, then set off on foot along the shore, heading towards the pier. The weather was getting worse. Stronger gusts of wind lashed the surface of the lagoon, raising spray and puffs of foam. The northern horizon flashed with lightning, and thunder rumbled from the mountain peaks, muffled by the waves of the Aegean. The tolling of the church bell of Portolagos sounded, nearly extinguished by the gusty wind. It was half past ten.

  VASSILIOS VLASSOS STOPPED, panting, in front of the door to the little Haghios Spiridion church. He couldn’t hear a sound, except for the creaking of the wave-beaten wooden pier and the shrill whistle of the wind. A slight glow emanated from the window, like that of a flickering candle burning in front of a sacred image.

  Vlassos pulled out his Beretta and approached the window, but couldn’t see a thing except for the pews inside the church, reverberating with the uncertain lamplight. He decided to go in the right way, by the door: he kicked it open and dived in, rolling sideways on to the floor behind one of the pews, gun tight in fist.

  What he saw knocked the breath out of him: his woman was tied, nearly naked, to a column in the iconostasis like a grotesque and blasphemous Saint Sebastian. She was gagged and in front of her, on the floor, a candle wrapped in red paper was burning brightly.

  A sharp, clear voice rose from behind the iconostasis. The close space made it sound very near, strangely intimate: ‘Welcome, Sergeant Vlassos! You’ve come to get your woman, haven’t you?’

  Vlassos boiled with impotent rage: ‘Let her go. I’ll do anything you want. Let her go, you—’

  ‘You care very much about your little turtle dove, don’t you? Good. If you really do care, throw your gun over here, towards the altar.’ Vlassos hesitated. ‘You can’t even imagine what it means to see your woman tortured to death, to witness her agony and her death, can you Vlassos?!’ Vlassos tossed the gun to the ground and it skidded over to the balustrade. The woman shuddered at the noise and whimpered for help.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ said Vlassos. ‘Don’t be afraid. I won’t let him touch you. I know who you are,’ he said, raising his voice. ‘You’re the one who slaughtered Roussos and Karagheorghis. But she doesn’t have anything to do with it, dammit. Let her go and the two of us can work it out. Listen, I’ll tell you everything. It wasn’t our fault, it was Karamanlis. He was the one who told us—’

  ‘There’s nothing that you can tell me, Vlassos. I already know everything. I’m the one who has something to tell you. Come forward. Slowly.’

  Vlassos got up and walked down the little nave towards the iconostasis. He already had a plan worked out: he would pretend to comply, then rush forwards towards the woman and stamp out that damn little candle. In the dark they’d manage to get away. He took another short step towards the halo of light.

  A blinding flash of lightning, accompanied by a deafening clap of thunder, lit up the inside of the church suddenly, shone on the pale flesh of the prisoner and revealed an unreal figure at the top of the iconostasis: a hooded man gripping a bow. The arrow shot out with a clean whistle and ran through his groin. Vlassos screamed and fell to the floor while another arrow pierced his arm and yet another stuck in his thigh.

  The wind died away and the rain began to pelt down. Vlassos twisted on the blood-soaked ground, crying, waiting for the coup de grâce. Nothing happened. He heard the sound of breaking glass shattering on to the floor, and then a low, pressing voice saying something like, ‘You have to get out immediately. They are here already, they were waiting for you. Go. Now. Go, right away.’ Scuttling, two, three gunshots, shouts, then nothing.

  KARAMANLIS, SOAKED WITH the rain and holding a torch in his hand, set aground at that instant. Bogdanos walked towards him, smoking gun in hand: ‘One minute. Just one minute sooner and we would have got him.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Karamanlis with a strange smile. ‘This time I’m ready.’ He took a walkie-talkie from an inside pocket. ‘All units,’ he said. ‘Captain Pavlos Karamanlis here. Attempted homicide at the church of Haghios Spiridion in the lagoon of Portolagos. Suspect escaped on foot two minutes ago. Converge on this site. Block all exits, keep the entire perimeter of the lagoon under surveillance. You’re all dead if he gets away this time.’ Then, turning to Bogdanos: ‘Which way did he go?’

  ‘That way,’ he said, pointing towards the mountains. ‘I think I’ve wounded him. You’d better take care of your man in there – what a mess.’

  They transferred Vlassos on to the boat along with the woman, covering them as best they could. Karamanlis started up the motor: ‘Aren’t you coming?’

  ‘No. I want to take another look around.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said Karamanlis. ‘My men will be surrounding the area – as you can see, this time I wasn’t caught unawares.’

  He sped off towards Portolagos, watching Bogdanos’s profile for a moment against the lightning-lit sky under the pouring rain. Then nothing. His men were waiting for him with an ambulance. Vlassos was still alive, although he had lost a great deal of blood.

  The fury of the storm was lessening and Karamanlis ran towards his car with a plastic bag on his head to protect himself from the last bursts of rain. He thought he heard gunshots towards the mountains. Had Bogdanos succeeded in killing that bastard? A crescent moon appeared amidst the black thunderclouds torn by the meltemi wind, and a few stars glittered diamond light in the clearing sky. Echoes of gunshots? Or of thunder? Could Bogdanos control the elements as well?

  He called an officer over and asked him to point out where all the patrols and roadblocks had been positioned. He closely examined the geological features of the area: no gorges, no caves, very little vegetation. The only access to the sea was being constantly flooded with searchlights. The perfect trap. All he had to do was wait. He warned his men not to let up for a moment, then took off for the hospital, where he was brought directly to the operating room.

  The patient’s blood pressure had been stabilized thanks to a transfusion, but the surgeon had managed to extract only one of the three arrows, the most life-threatening, the one that had run through his large intestine, made a neat exit just beneath the hip bone and cleanly amputated one of his testicles.

  The surgeon stopped for a moment to wipe the sweat from his forehead as his assistants were stitching the wound up. ‘Good God,’ he said to Karamanlis. ‘What reason can there be for such awful cruelty?’

  Karamanlis glanced at the arrow they’d just extracted, still bloody. Words had been carved into the shaft. ‘The reason?’ he asked, putting on his glasses and scanning the letters. ‘Here’s the reason for you.’

  The surgeon turned the shaft between his fingers. The phrase that had been carved there, by someone with a steady hand, was as mysterious and disturbing as a curse.

  ‘You put the bread into a cold oven.’

  13

  Portolagos, Thrace, 9 September, 11.30 p.m.

  THE DAMP, DARK night was shot through with cries and shouts, pierced by the beams of torches, rent by the insistent barking of dogs. Flattened against the wall inside the old farmhouse, Claudio trembled with tension and anxiety, still foaming with rage at not having been able to finish off the most hated of his enemies. He was a
ppalled at the unexpected turn that events had taken. He had assumed that the events set into motion would take their inexorable toll, as all the other times the commander had planned and prepared his work for him.

  He felt like a hunted animal, a scorpion trapped in a ring of fire. In his hands he clutched the deadly Pearson steel-plated bow with which he had riddled Vlassos’s body, gripping it spasmodically. He was prepared to fight to the death. He’d let himself be ripped apart by the dogs rather than surrender. The suspicion that Bogdanos had delivered him to his enemies began to worm its way into his mind, as the shouting of men and the barking of dogs grew closer and closer.

  He heard a sound like snapping branches. He opened the door slightly and glanced towards the unbroken stretch of scrub and bushes that extended in the direction of the swamp. He could barely make out the shape of a man on the path, still at quite a distance, amidst the mist rising from the swamp on the rain-laden summer night. It could be none other than Admiral Bogdanos. Claudio couldn’t believe how – in that situation, at that time of night, with everything that had happened – his step could be so tranquil, so light and sure. Powerful yet unheeding at the same time.

  When Bogdanos walked in, he nearly attacked him: ‘Why didn’t you let me slaughter that pig? And why did you make me come here? We’re surrounded. They’ll find us any minute.’

  ‘Let’s move to a safe place, son, and then I’ll explain everything. This old farmhouse was once a monastery and the well is connected to an ancient Roman cistern the monks used to store fresh water. Follow me, we don’t have much time.’

  They walked out into the rear courtyard towards a well which seemed long abandoned.

  ‘I’ll lower you down with the chain. About halfway, you’ll find the entrance to the passage that leads to the cistern. Swing back on the chain and slide in, then wait for me there. I’ll lower the other end so I can drop down as you pull it taut. Take this torch. Leave me the bow – I’ll bring it down myself.’