A Darker God

by Barbara Cleverly

  “While you are still conscious, tell me—was this an accident?”

  The eyes told him—No.

  “Did someone push you from the window … deliberately?”

  A nod of the head confirmed.

  “Did you see the person who pushed you out?”

  Another nod. Weaker this time. Montacute, sensing that he was losing her, hurried to ask: “A name? Can you give me a name?”

  The eyes closed. The narrow lips twitched, then struggled to part. With swift fingers, Montacute took out his handkerchief and dipped it in the glass of water. Gently, he sponged the trembling mouth, sensing this was what the woman herself wanted. She was clearly fighting to stay alive, straining every sinew to communicate some awful truth to him, and he would fight with her against the encroaching paralysis to receive it. He leaned closer, murmuring encouragement.

  A cold touch pricked his cheek like the tip of an icicle as something slid up from under the enveloping wrap. He recoiled in horror as he understood that the dying woman was using the last threads of her strength to push towards him an object she was clutching in her hand. Her eyes pleaded with him to notice it. He nodded and gently pulled a fold of the wrap aside to reveal the jewelled hilt and then the blade of a short sword that he recognised.

  The blood-caked lips came unstuck at last and Lady Merriman whispered in his ear.

  The watcher strolled by on his way to the taxi rank at the corner of the square, catching the exact moment when her head lolled back. Unconscious? Certainly. Dead? Most likely. It looked as though the Englishman was going to have his hands full for the next day or two. Time to give Soulios the news he’d been waiting for. Husband and wife dead within hours of each other. With unbelievable luck.

  There only remained the daughter.

  Chapter 18

  Freddy Wentworth chose to bite the bullet and do his duty before breakfast. A swift telephone call established that the General was already at his desk and expecting that someone would call. Freddy sighed, straightened his tie, and set off for Konstantinou’s headquarters.

  The Chief of Security held court in a smart modern office on Queen Sophia Avenue. Handy for the consulates, the banks, the Royal Palace, and the government offices, and not the least military looking. Lulled by the atmosphere of a busy office about them, the clack of typewriters, the ringing of telephones, and the coming and going of serious-faced young men, the General’s interviewees could almost put themselves at ease. Almost. No one could ever count himself at ease standing before the General, Freddy thought. And the General was notorious for preferring to conduct his interviews standing.

  The elderly, aristocratic figure, in impeccable uniform, rose from his chair to greet Freddy when he entered and sat down again, gesturing to him to take a seat on the other side of the desk. Bad sign? Freddy made out the sketch of a charming smile under the luxuriant grey moustache, even a flash of teeth. Freddy looked aside. He really didn’t want to see the General’s teeth. He always tried to avoid meeting his gaze also, though he was ashamed of his lapse into what must appear unpatriotic shiftiness. The piercing grey eyes were the only clear feature in a face which always looked to Freddy like a relief map of highland terrain. Crags, valleys, scars, and sinkholes provided cover for the surprisingly youthful and un-rheumy eyes which glared out, chilly and somewhat hypnotic. It was not surprising to Freddy—the frequency with which people changed their views in the General’s presence, came to an accommodation, and crept out backwards wondering what on earth they’d promised. The man was now retired from active army duty. Officially. But the stories of his wartime exploits continued to do the rounds of the embassies and the clubs. Freddy hoped they were exaggerated but feared they were no more than faithful illustrations of the pitiless nature of this formidable old warrior.

  “Oh, it’s you, Wentworth. I wondered who they’d send,” said the General. He had no small talk. “I was rather expecting that new Scotsman of yours … Grant, is it? Haven’t yet had the pleasure. Perhaps someone will bring him round to show me. Now, before you start accounting at length for the murder of one British citizen by another on Greek soil, I will say—leave it to the police. We have no interest in domestic squabbles. Our C.I.D. have this in hand. Clear?”

  Freddy opened his mouth to confirm, but the General didn’t wait to hear his agreement.

  “Two points, Wentworth: First—I express my dismay that this should have happened in such a public place and in this particular public place. For obvious reasons. And I hold your Embassy responsible.” This time he waited for Wentworth’s acknowledgement of guilt. Apparently satisfied with the nod and grunt he received, he pressed on: “Secondly: I have reaffirmed my original advice on the planned appearance of the Prime Minister at the opening night of these English revels.

  And I remind you that this advice is clear and consistent: Mr. Venizelos should not attend. He does so without our blessing and with all our forebodings. This, however, in no way affects our professional attentions. The Prime Minister will be as effectively protected by my men as he has been on the occasion of all other assassination attempts.”

  “One could wish the protection squads of other countries were as diligent,” said Wentworth, regretting at once his remark, which sounded unduly obsequious to his ears.

  The General took the compliment as no more than a statement of fact. “You’re thinking of that near tragedy in the Gare de Lyon in Paris? Supreme carelessness! Two bullets he took. And survived! The man’s made of steel!”

  “Indeed. Admirable constitution for a man of his years. I understand he’s just been released from hospital. A touch of the dengue fever is what they’re saying …”

  “Came out far too early! And why? Had to get a train to … Belgrade … Salonika … Constantinople … God knows where! Never stops! And that wife of his is just as bad.”

  “Work hard, play hard, what!”

  “It’s the playing that gives me indigestion. Unnecessary risk-taking in my book. Now—I’ve personally reconnoitred the site of his next little outing and declared it a security nightmare. Theatre?” The General showed his teeth again. “Shooting gallery, more like! Space for ten thousand assassins, all able to draw a clear bead on the P.M. And he, I understand, is to be conveniently picked out by spotlight? The guests would have to be searched for secreted arms before entry. These guests! All dolled up in evening gear. As many women as men. Again, I say: nightmare!”

  He listened with half an ear as Wentworth murmured his agreement. And then, with barely concealed wrath: “A frivolous entertainment! But I have word from on high—and I mean as high as you can go—that the frivolity on offer is to be staged as planned. With a week’s grace to get the funeral out of the way. We are speaking of next Saturday. Got that, Wentworth?”

  Freddy nodded. “Right you are, sir. That’s three points then. All noted.”

  The General glared. “Then I look to you to expedite the matter. There are some who value the Greek-English cultural links … and who fancy a night out at the theatre … regardless of the cost to me and my men in …” He broke off and chewed his moustache in frustration.

  “You were saying, sir?”

  Konstantinou looked again at Wentworth, eyebrows raised in slight surprise to find him still sitting opposite. Freddy got to his feet and, mumbling he knew not what, shot out of the office, doing his best to remember what he’d agreed to.

  Chapter 19

  A hammering at the front door interrupted the breakfast party in Mrs. Rose’s dining room.

  To Letty’s surprise, Thetis had rejected the idea of having a tray brought up to their bedroom and had joined the other guests downstairs. She had listened to the introductions to the five hearty English people gathered there and offered in return the quiet, polite phrases expected of a newcomer to the communal table. Conscious of the discreet scrutiny she was under, she’d exclaimed with pleasure at the sight of a large brown pot full of Lipton’s tea circulating around the table and had admired the ef
fect of the sunlight streaming through a jar of marmalade.

  “We always bring supplies from home for Mrs. Rose,” confided Mrs. Colonel Armitage, flattered by the remark. “Cook makes wonderful marmalade—good and bitter. So difficult to find abroad. Do try some, my dear.”

  Letty fussed about finding for Thetis on the sideboard the scrambled eggs, toast, and glass of goat’s milk she’d asked for. The choice surprised Letty and made her feel queasy, but she was pleased in a nannyish sort of way that her guest had an appetite.

  Thetis seemed to have weathered last night’s emotional storm and emerged determined to move on. Letty approved.

  “You’ll enjoy the milk,” Colonel Armitage had assured Thetis cheerfully. “Put roses in your cheeks!”

  “Well, of course,” his wife added kindly. “And you may drink it with confidence. It’s good milk. Good enough for the Embassy! ‘We drink milk from the same goat’—you’ll hear that said—it’s a charming way of saying, here in Athens, that we are neighbours. They milk the animal right here on the doorsteps every morning before daylight so it’s bound to be fresh. You’ve just arrived, have you?”

  Thetis listened to Mrs. Armitage’s hints and wrinkles on Athenian life with patience and even managed convincingly to slip an ingenuous question or two into the conversation. Letty looked at her freshly cold-creamed face, hair still damp from her bath, the luxuriant curls combed straight, parted in the centre, and tucked neatly behind her ears. The green linen dress she’d brought in her bag was flattering and not too badly creased, and she smelled unobtrusively of Letty’s eau de cologne. The embodiment of proper English womanhood. Very far from the tearful, abandoned girl who’d talked through her despair for most of the night, and even further from the vengeful Queen Clytemnestra. A many-faceted personality, Letty decided, and wondered how many more sides would be revealed.

  Mrs. Rose came in and caught Letty’s eye. “There’s a gentleman at the door asking to speak to you, Miss Talbot. Will you come?” Oddly, she didn’t announce his name, though Letty noticed she was holding a calling card in her hand.

  “A gentleman?” Letty wondered. Not Gunning, then, whom she had been expecting. Mrs. Rose would have put him straight in the guests’ parlour and stayed to chat with him and not left him standing about on the doorstep.

  “The parlour’s empty—you may use that if it looks as if you’re in for a long interview. Call if you need me—I shall be in the office,” Mrs. Rose finished mysteriously.

  “Crikey! You look awful! Have you been up all night, Chief Inspector?” Letty said unguardedly.

  “Well, I can’t return the compliment,” he replied easily. “You look as bright as a buttercup, Miss Talbot. Yellow suits you.” He put his hands on either side of his head and squeezed. “I looked in the mirror this morning and saw a pumpkin head. Sorry to frighten you! This is what two hours’ sleep on top of two murders can do for you. Tell me—is there somewhere we could …”

  “Come in,” said Letty. “We can use the guests’ parlour. Unless you want to drag me off to the clink?”

  “The parlour would be wonderful.” He sniffed the air as he closed the door behind him. “I say—is that coffee I smell …?”

  “It certainly is, Inspector Montacute,” Mrs. Rose called flirtatiously down the corridor, advancing on them with a tray in her hands. “Fortnum’s best. I’ll put this on the sideboard in the parlour. You can wait on yourselves, I think?”

  Best coffee. Best china, too. Mrs. Rose apparently judged the inspector worthy of her Wedgwood. Letty wondered whether she might be the only woman in Athens who had not been charmed by the man. Perhaps she should make an effort. “Let me guess—milk, one sugar lump?” she said sweetly, pouring out. “I thought so. But—Inspector! This is too much! Two murders, did I hear you say? Another one? Poor you! I’m very sorry and all that for the second victim, whoever he may be, but I hope you won’t find yourself too distracted by his case from Andrew’s death? I’m not at all sure how you manage these things.”

  “Not distracted at all.” He took a sip of his coffee, unusually silent, and looked around the book-lined room, wondering where to settle. In the small parlour, with its chichi collections of reminders of home—Doulton vases, Staffordshire figurines in a row on the mantelshelf, embroidered fire screen, spindle-legged chairs—the inspector appeared dangerously large and intrusive. At a gesture from Letty, he moved to sit at the central table the guests used for work or games and she joined him.

  “Is there something I can do for you?” she prompted him.

  “Probably not, but I thought I’d better check … on the off chance … You see how desperate we are … You had some conversation last night at the theatre with Thetis Templeton. I noticed the two of you exchanging more than addresses, it seemed to me?”

  “Not much more. We made a few rude and thoughtless remarks—you understand the tension that gripped us both—though neither of us realised at that moment that it was a grief we had in common that was turning us waspish. Then we apologised and began to get along more easily,” she said, trying to remember accurately.

  “Did she confide anything about her circumstances here in Athens? In her cousin’s household?”

  “Nothing more than the address in Kolonaki.”

  “She didn’t give you an inkling of where she might possibly—Oh, dammit! I’ll come to the point. The girl’s run off! She’s a missing person. We’ve got people looking for her all over Athens. Hotels … railway station … the seaport. We haven’t a clue where she might have hidden herself and wondered if you … well, no … you can see we’re clutching at straws.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’ve come clean! You only had to ask. I do know where she is. Don’t worry—she’s safe and well. Has frightful old Maud got the wobbles and repented? ‘Come back, Thetis, all is forgiven.’ Huh! She must have been alarmed to have rousted out the police force to do her retrieval for her! But it won’t get her far. Thetis is never going back, you know.”

  Montacute croaked something unintelligible.

  “Very well, I’ll fetch her and she can tell you that herself. She arrived late last night, running away from Maud.”

  “She’s here—in this house?”

  “Yes. She shared my room.”

  “You’re telling me you spent the night in close proximity to Clytemnestra?”

  There was more than surprise in the inspector’s voice. Concern? Alarm, even.

  “Well, yes. If you’d call the three-foot gap between single beds close proximity. And I’d call her Thetis Templeton. She was perfectly comfortable. You can check for yourself—she’s only a few yards away, tucking into her scrambled eggs. She won’t want to see you! And I insist on sitting in on the interview. For propriety’s sake, naturally—this is Greece, after all, where an unmarried girl may not speak to a man unless she’s accompanied by six male cousins and her granny. But also to make certain you don’t bully her. I think I know your sneaky ways … armlocks and suchlike.”

  Letty hurried off to beckon at the dining room door, indicating that Thetis should accompany her to the parlour, and the girls entered together.

  “Ah. Your Majesty.” Montacute shot to his feet, opening with what sounded to Letty like a flourish of embarrassed bonhomie, and she rather wished he wouldn’t. But then she remembered she’d seen the two as actors striking sparks off each other. They must, inevitably, have arrived at some kind of an onstage relationship, if not an understanding. An understanding Letty was not privy to.

  “Oh, hello there! It’s old Bossy Boots, isn’t it? I poked you in the ribs … I say, I’m most frightfully sorry about that.”

  Thetis sailed in and approached the inspector, genuinely pleased to see him, Letty would have sworn. She stared up into his face and her smile vanished. “Oh, dear! Poor old thing! You look as though you died last Tuesday. Are you investigating your own death, Percy?… Tell me, Letty, when was it we last saw the inspector alive?” She seemed eager to enjoy a joke with her old s
parring partner.

  He was unable to find an immediate response to her overtures. Thetis tried again: “Have you caught him yet?”

  “Caught whom?”

  “Well—the killer … Andrew’s killer. Geoffrey Melton. Surely you’ve worked it out? Everyone else has. They were all putting money on it last night over the pink gins. And we’ve all decided that if you can’t get him for murder you should nab him for some other misdemeanour. You’ve only to look at the man to know he’s guilty of something.”

  Montacute was not entertained by Thetis’s slant on crime-fighting and he replied stiffly: “It is believed Mr. Melton has taken refuge in the Embassy where he works, and we are hoping to be granted an interview shortly. I’m not here to talk about the killing of Professor Merriman, miss. I’m afraid I am the bearer of further bad news.” The tone was formal, even chilly.

  “‘Miss’! For goodness’ sake—I’m Thetis, she’s Letty, and we both intend to call you Percy. Or Percival if you’re inclined to prance about on your high horse,” said Thetis. “Oh, do settle down and tell me what exactly you want to talk about. Though I think I can guess! And if I’m right I shall need a cup of fortifying coffee.” She went to the tray and poured out a cup for herself. “How about you, Letty? No? More for you, Percy?”

  He shook his head, uncomfortable with the girl’s familiarity. She sat down opposite him at the table and they stared at each other.

  For rather a long time, Letty thought.

  “Maud’s sent you, hasn’t she?” said Thetis, deciding to break the silence.

  “In a manner of speaking”—Montacute hesitated—“you could say that. Can you run over for me the events of last evening, please? I’m aware that you spent some time in the bar at the Grande Bretagne and I know what you drank and in whose company. You arrived at your cousin’s house at just after nine o’clock. Take it from there.”