“For a start, I don’t fancy being caught sitting here in the car, clutching our cheese sammies. Restricts your movements a bit. Do you fancy a walk, Miss Laetitia? This is probably all a load of cobblers and in five minutes when they’ve revealed themselves to be German archaeologists we’ll be left feeling silly. But better safe than sorry, eh?”
His tone was intended to calm her but Letty saw that the young man was in a state of tense anticipation. She jumped out of the car, slipped her satchel onto her shoulder, and joined him, putting her right arm lightly through his left. They began to walk towards the truncated columns, two tourists, exclaiming and admiring. Letty managed not to look back as she heard two car doors slam shut behind them. Harry flicked a look backwards without breaking stride.
“Two, middle-aged. Walking together for the moment. No sign of papers or a guidebook. And they’re not chatting and exclaiming. Armed, I think. They’ve got that look about them. Right hands too carefully placed, not swinging naturally. Fifty yards off and closing,” he muttered.
“We’re being herded away from the road and towards the sea.”
“Yes. This isn’t good. Listen. I want you to go, without appearing to panic, to hide yourself behind that column over there … Do you see? The tallest one, off to the left? It’s solid enough to repel an assault by Big Bertha. I’ll keep them busy. Stay out of their way by any means possible. Run if you have to. Drive away if you have to. No matter what I’m doing. The village is your best bet. They’ve got a gendarmerie there, did you see it? Make for that.”
“But suppose they are just casual visitors with an ungainly walk … in the middle of a quarrel?” Letty whispered. “You could start an international incident if you challenged them. How can we tell?”
His eyes gleamed with purpose. “I’ll test them out to see if they’re innocent tourists first. Don’t be alarmed. We’ll know by their reaction what their intentions are. As soon as you’re hidden, I’ll surprise them. Go!”
He was easing his Browning from his belt and placing himself between her and the advancing pair as she walked swiftly off. He called no warning. He fired before the men had a chance to split up. The power of the Browning shocked Letty, cowering in safety some thirty yards behind the barrel; it shattered the complacency of the two men as the bullet zipped between their heads and only an inch or so above them. She watched for their reaction.
The shrieks and screams of offended tourists? A spluttering: “What the hell do you think you’re playing at, sir!” A sarcastic: “I say! Geese flying low today, are they?” No. Not even the instinctive crash to the ground of army men. Without a word exchanged, the two separated and eased away in opposite directions, crouching, guns now openly drawn, to take shelter amongst the rocks. Forming a triangle with the sergeant, concealed behind a stone fragment, uncomfortably at its apex. Two shots announced to him that he was pinned down from two points. Letty reckoned that it would be just a matter of time before he ran out of ammunition or they ran out of patience.
And then? Letty’s initial fear was being numbed by outrage and puzzlement. Who on earth were they? Were they road bandits out to rob innocent tourists? Steal their car? The men’s own car was a good one, and they appeared well dressed. And any motorcar reported missing would be stopped at the port or the borders. They must know that. She thought: not bandits. Perkins had been uneasy ever since they’d left Athens. Expecting something like this? She reckoned so, and her anger started to simmer. Were they out to kill the policeman? Yes. That much was not in doubt.
The thought struck her belatedly, in all the excitement. They would eliminate him to get at the real target—herself.
Why? She had no idea. But she could work out the method. Nothing simpler. They’d chosen their killing spot well. Last summer the body of a French tourist had been found at the bottom of the steep precipice below the temple site, swishing in and out with the foam. His camera was still around his neck. Tourists equipped with the latest Kodak or Leica were seen to take enormous risks to get a sensational shot. The two men would grab her by the shoulders and ankles and swing her out and over and the last thing she would see would be the craggy cliffs of Salamis spinning between the deep blue of sky and sea.
Salamis. Letty could think of many less heroic places to die. The Athenian forces, cornered here, had turned on the invading Persians and, with immense courage and a dash of low cunning, had routed them. And she had no intention of dying at Salamis, either.
The sun beat down on her back and she shifted her constricted position slightly behind her column. What would be their tactics? She thought as her father had trained her: “Don’t be caught off guard, Letty—anticipate!” They’d pick off the sergeant first, of course. And, however determined Harry was, geometry was all against him. Two would always be able to find a way around his defences, held, as he was, by the rock that at the same time protected and constricted him. One distraction or one concerted dash and the sergeant was dead.
He might take one with him but, inevitably, she’d be left facing the armed man remaining. She calculated that they would be unwilling to sacrifice one of themselves. Realistically, they’d probably shout out, offering terms, tricking him into giving up his gun—and surrendering her into the bargain. They didn’t know the sergeant. She barely knew him herself and yet would have staked—was staking—her life on his loyalty.
A shot blasted against the column sheltering Perkins. And another from the second angle. None against hers. They had discounted her. They were stunning him with their firepower, she reckoned, softening him up to accept the deal she calculated they were about to offer.
Letty decided it was time to adjust the geometry and even up the odds. She slid a hand into her satchel and took out the Webley. Calculating that she was just within a reasonable range if she was very careful, she picked out and read the positions of the concealed men ahead of her by their shadows. Short in the overhead sun but enough to distinguish an elbow here, an extended foot there. One, the closer of the two, was taking such care to avoid the Browning—or, more likely, he was so dismissive of the girl’s potential to harm him—he was allowing a segment of his lower body to poke out. Letty seized the chance. She took aim, breathed out slowly, and fired at the projecting rear end.
A screaming ricochet harmonised with a high shriek of pain. She fired again to confirm her views. Harry’s Browning made a basso profundo contribution from the other side of the pavement. And then his voice rang out, firm and clear, shouting in English, then in Greek: “You have two minutes to get out of here. Take your wounded away. Move! Now!”
She watched the pair as they moved, one supporting the second, who was bleeding copiously from a head wound, back towards their car. A gesture from Harry kept her in her place and she peered around, watching his progress as he darted between sheltering columns, easing forward, gun trained, unwavering, on his quarry. When they drew level with the police sedan Letty stiffened with alarm and raised the Webley to fire a warning shot. Had Harry seen the danger? He had. The Browning blasted out, the bullet kicking up splinters of marble in the space between the men’s feet and the vulnerable tyres, within inches of the now brimming and eminently explodable fuel tank. The shot announced that here was a confident marksman who wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet into any selected part of a man attempting to sabotage his motorcar.
Letty smiled to see the pair turn hurriedly aside and increase their pace towards their own vehicle.
Only when they moved off and turned left back towards Eleusis did the sergeant beckon her forward.
They sprinted for their open-top, praying that it would start, and moments later were pushing at top speed back in the opposite direction on the Athens road.
“Well! Thank you for showing me the Mysteries, Miss Laetitia. As you said in your commentary: a life-and-death experience. I wonder what that was all about! Anyone you know?” the sergeant enquired mildly.
She shook her head. “Bit of a puzzle! I was aiming for the man’s bo
ttom! Now—how is it he walked off clutching his top?”
“I’d say you missed. But the bullet struck rock, and a splinter got him in the forehead. The chap was losing a lot of blood. Splashed all over the pavement. Whatever happened, I think we’ve defiled the site.”
“We’ve spilled blood along the Sacred Way.” Letty couldn’t repress a shiver. Reaction was setting in. “We won’t be invited back until we’ve done penance.”
“They say confession’s good for the soul these days, too. Anything else you’d like to declare, hidden away in that innocent-looking old schoolbag, miss? Duty obliges me to ask: any other essentials for seeing the sights of the Aegean … besides a Baedeker and a popgun?”
“It’s a Webley. And don’t scoff! It did its job. Better than its job, in fact! If I’d hit what I was really aiming at, he wouldn’t have been able to walk away.” Letty pursued her dispiriting scenario: “His friend would have made a run for it and he’d have been stuck there on-site with us. How awkward! We’d have had to load him into the car, cursing and bleeding, and take him to hospital.”
“Pity, that!” said Perkins grimly. “It would have given me a chance to beat some information out of him first. Lost opportunity, Montacute will say … Should never have let them get away …” Then, struck by an unwelcome thought: “The Governor! What on earth are we going to tell him?”
Letty looked at the suddenly concerned young face and reflected that the presence of two armed men bent on murder had roused no more than a stiffened jaw and a gleam in the sergeant’s eye, but the thought of his boss’s displeasure distressed him. Resentment of Montacute boiled within her once more. “Tell him? Hah! More truth than he cares to hear!” Letty gave Perkins an evil smile. “I’m working on a few phrases. Phrases involving ‘decoy duck’ (that’s me)… ‘dereliction of duty of care towards a subordinate officer’ (that’s you)… ‘wilful endangerment of a member of the public’ (that’s me again). Oh, I’ve got plenty to tell the Guv! Can I feed you a digestive biscuit, Harry, while you drive? Action always gives one an appetite, don’t you find?”
“I’d love a digestive! Thank you … Cat’s paw! That’s a good one, Miss Laetitia,” Perkins said, rallying. “‘You made a cat’s paw of me!’ You could always try him with that.”
Chapter 28
All the same, William,” Letty said thoughtfully, “to attack a police inspector once before lunch might be written off as a misjudgement, but—twice? It begins to look like a campaign. And couldn’t you at least have hit him somewhere it wouldn’t show? That eye is just red and swollen at the moment, but in an hour or two it’s going to be all the colours of the rainbow. And people are going to ask questions.”
“I shall listen with interest to his answers,” said Gunning crisply. “And if I don’t like them I shall blacken the other one.”
“I do wish I could be allowed to settle my own scores. Given time to consider it, I’d have come up with something.”
“No you wouldn’t. You’d have thought about it, dallied with a few entertaining fantasies involving the excruciating pain and shame of the guilty party, and then collapsed into giggles at the very notion. With you, Letty, the clouds are never in front of the sun for long. This way it’s all over, sorted out in a second by one clunking fist.”
“But the man knows you’re a priest, William! It was hardly a fair fight.”
“What is a fair fight? There’s no such thing, Letty. Ever. The only fights are those you engage in, intending to win. And you win them by whatever means you may. But I don’t need to explain that to a girl who has the forethought to slip a Webley into her satchel before leaving for a picnic. And uses it to shoot a man in the bum. Are you ever going to tell me where you got the gun?”
“It seems I’m not the only girl in Athens prepared for eventualities …”
Letty gave William information she’d held back from Montacute on their return from Eleusis. The inspector had launched into an improvised enquiry into the expedition, conducting it in Andrew’s library. She and Perkins had stood one on either side of the inspector, and they’d delivered a concise, concordant, and mutually admiring account of the events in the temple ruins. William, loitering effetely by the bookshelves with a copy of Pindar’s Odes in hand, had listened without comment, but she’d been aware of the agonised looks he’d thrown her way. So as to avoid adding to his tension, she’d deliberately played down her own involvement in the attack but the sergeant, interpreting her reticence as nothing more than good old British understatement, would have none of it. He’d launched into a highly coloured appreciation of her contribution.
When he was happy that Perkins had revealed all that could be useful to him, Montacute dismissed him with a word of commendation and the instruction to go and repeat his story to Chief Superintendent Theotakis at once, and the three of them were left considering their next move. Montacute was unusually downcast and reflective, Letty thought, and she waited quietly to hear his acknowledgement of a lapse, a dereliction of duty, a mistake. She wondered what words he would find to apologise for involving her and his officer in a life-threatening situation. It would not be easy for him and she prepared herself graciously to cut short his stumbling words.
Finally he broke his silence: “Ha! I was right!” he said with satisfaction. “Demetrios’s family are in this up to their necks!”
With a snort of disgust, William had stalked to the desk, reached out, and hauled Montacute to his feet by his tie with one fist and smashed the other into his face. The two men stared at each other for a moment in silence and then, abruptly released, Montacute had mumbled his excuses and left the room, groping for a handkerchief to cover his eye. They listened as he lumbered down the corridor in the direction of the cloakroom.
“Your new friend Thetis is full of surprises.” Gunning began to speak urgently, taking advantage of the inspector’s absence. “This gun—which I note, in his confusion, he didn’t have the gall to require you to hand over—was given to you by Andrew? Or so Montacute’s supposed to think?”
“He didn’t seem disposed to question that.”
“Perhaps it’s not the first such he’s encountered? I can’t think it’s the only one such out there in the world, lost in the satin depths of ladies’ handbags, buried in drawers under layers of scented linen,” Gunning speculated.
“I find I could become quite censorious of Andrew, you know.”
Gunning smiled.
“He’ll be back in a minute, William. What will you do if he’s decided to carry on fighting? Or arrest you? He could, you know.”
“He has more sense! He’s an annoying nuisance and damned careless of your safety, but I can’t help liking the man. He’ll see that tap as due punishment for something he feels but is incapable of expressing.”
“Can it be so difficult to say: ‘I’m sorry I nearly got you both killed’? He must have realised.”
“Oh, yes. He was clearly shaken by what you and the sergeant had to say—he just couldn’t bring himself to admit his responsibility. He’s no chevalier-servant like me, you know, ready to apologise at every turn, flirt with ladies, leap to his feet to retrieve a ball of knitting wool. I was taught from a very young age to watch for signs that a lady was about to leave a room, and whatever I was occupied with, I would drop it and hurry to the door to hold it open for her. It’s automatic with me. That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about. I rather think Montacute’s lip would curl at the idea of such a chivalrous response.”
“Lacking basic training, are you saying?”
“Not fair to speculate from such a short acquaintance. I comment. I can’t explain.”
“I don’t know what his background may be, but I’d say courtly behaviour has not featured in it,” said Laetitia.
“But you know, Letty, you shouldn’t despise that—after all, he’s showing you exactly what you’ve always claimed you wanted to see in a man. Respect for you as the equal you are. He expects no favours, he gives none, simply bec
ause you’re a female. It’s an unusual trait. Perhaps we should value it.”
The inspector strode back into the room holding a wet handkerchief to his face as a compress. With a flourish he removed it to reveal an eye fully closed and beginning to colour.
“Always fancied myself in a black eye-patch,” he said, grinning at them. “And here’s my chance. Captain Blood, I believe you invoked, Gunning, following on your first assault? With some prescience, it seems. Now, I believe I have been none too gently reminded that an apology is called for. Am I right?”
Gunning nodded. Letty stared.
“So. You have it. Please accept my regrets for involving you in a dangerous situation, Miss Laetitia, in equal measure with my thanks and admiration for a job well done.”
“I’m touched and pleased to hear your courteous, if succinct, response, Inspector. The sergeant and I did what we had to do. And now I’d be interested to hear your explanation of the extraordinary behaviour of these gentlemen of the road …”
“I’ve been making enquiries. Telephone overheating!” he said with satisfaction. “The boot boy has a wide family. All Athenians by birth. Christians by religion—as far as they claim one. Uncles and cousins aplenty. All with solid occupations, doing well for themselves in difficult times, none with criminal records. One or two of the men have army experience, and I believe it’s a couple of these you traded bullets with today, Miss Laetitia.”
“But why should the new boot boy’s uncles be out to kill Laetitia?” Gunning wanted to know. “It’s ludicrous! She can be deeply annoying and we’ve all wanted to chuck her from a height, I know, but these are men who are unacquainted with her. And have nothing to gain from her death. Anything you feel you ought to declare, Letty? You didn’t get involved in reprehensible activities when you were here in the spring?”
She shook her head in bewilderment.
The inspector cut in, impatient at the interruption: “I think we’ve got something! We had an address for Demetrios, you remember, from the daybook? I sent Philippos out to the local café in the Plaka to ask a few discreet questions. He was lucky enough to run into a neighbour with a resentful attitude. Over a second cup of coffee, the man lowered his voice and began to grumble. ‘Uncanny, the way those Volos boys always seemed to land on their feet … Business about to go bust and what happens? Some guardian angel gives them an injection of cash and they’re off again … Well-furnished homes, lamb joints on the table every Sunday … The missus always has the latest hats…’
A Darker God Page 24