A Darker God

by Barbara Cleverly

  “You make him sound damn dangerous.”

  “I believe he is. And I believe he has something more in mind. I’m a minnow in his scheme of things, a sprat to catch a mackerel. His sights are on something—someone—infinitely grander. He’s blaming someone for the whole fiasco. And not just a small cog in the wheel like Andrew …”

  “Whom he denies killing?”

  “Yes. He spoke of Andrew and Maud. ‘I’m delighted they’re dead,’ he said. ‘My spirits lift. They will lift further when I have dealt with the one who now holds my property; they will soar when…’ And then he stopped. Something like that. Wait, wait—” She held up a hand to silence William. “And he was talking about the injustice of the deportations: ‘… And the injustice goes uncorrected, even unacknowledged. The men who signed away Greek and Turkish lives sleep easy in their beds and climb the ladder of political success. A ladder whose rungs are slippery with the blood of children.’ That’s the way he spoke. Elemental. Ponderous. Though perhaps he was keeping it simple for me.”

  “And you’re gathering from all this turgid verbiage that some politically successful chappie is about to come a cropper while Gunay stands by hooting with laughter?”

  “No. William, he’s not standing by. He’s actively going for the moving force! ‘Three lives for three innocent lives, and one above all for a nation’s pains,’ he said. Which one, William? Oh, my God! Who signed that wretched treaty?”

  “Treaty?”

  “You know what I’m talking about!”

  “The Lausanne agreement. Well, Greece and Turkey, of course, and various representatives of the Great Powers.”

  “Names, William! Whose signatures? Who picked up a pen, signed the document, and set two million people on the move? And sent Gunay’s family along with many thousands on both sides to their deaths?”

  “Crikey, girl! I’m not the Encyclopaedia Britannica!”

  “You’re the nearest thing I’ve come to it in my life. Well, no … actually my father is nearer.”

  “Well, if you’re lining up ducks in a shooting gallery, I can tell you that many people were involved in the planning. Lloyd George way back, Lord Curzon concerned about British access to the Black Sea, Venizelos worried witless about the massacres of Greeks in Smyrna, the evictions the Turks were already perpetrating … his hand was forced … Fridtjof Nansen, the Norwegian hero, was doing what he could on behalf of the League of Nations …”

  “You know what I want! The signatories.”

  “The three I can remember are: Eleftherios Venizelos, naturally; his opposite number Ismet Pasha, representing Turkey; in the British corner, the Right Honourable Sir Horace Rum-bold.”

  Letty smiled. “Somehow I think Sir Horace is not on Gunay’s list. Nor is this Ismet Pasha … Gunay would arrange to kill a Turk in Turkey, surely?”

  Gunning nodded. “Sounds reasonable to me.”

  “He wants to kill Eleftherios Venizelos.” Her voice was hushed. “I’d never understood that strange phrase the Watchman uses in the play: ‘I have the weight of an ox on my tongue.’ But I had to shift a great weight to say those words, William.”

  “And, sadly, I can’t argue with them. I think you’ve probably guessed what he’s up to. We’ll warn Theotakis.”

  “William? You don’t seem very concerned! Can’t you see that his only chance of getting the Prime Minister in his crosshairs is when he shows himself in public? You said it yourself—assassinations take place in public spaces: a stroll in the park, a railway station, the theatre. He’s arranged to kill him at the performance next Saturday. Perhaps Demetrios had time to report back his keyhole evidence, but I think Gunay knew the play was going ahead anyway. Yes! He mentioned the Saturday performance! He knew!”

  “He couldn’t possibly—”

  “He did! And I didn’t tell him. He must have got it from someone on Thetis’s telephone list. She was at it for two hours, telling people about the change of plan. One of her contacts who expressed surprise, then delight, and then reached for his diary and wrote in an entry must have passed on the news. Perhaps Gunay’s organisation is just that, and has deeper roots and wider branches than we guess at?”

  “The Embassy, the Army, and the whole of the Police Force are aware.”

  “Ah. Yes. But I say again, William: You don’t seem very concerned.”

  “I’m not. Sorry, Letty!” He was grinning at her. “If you’ll let me get a word in edgewise … There’s something you should know. I have something to report, too! You were snatched away just moments before the good news came through to Thetis on the telephone. Come and have a hug and stop frowning! All’s well! What you and Gunay both were not to know when you had your cliff-top summit meeting is that Helena Venizelos has finally talked her husband out of attending. An excuse will be made—probably on the grounds of a recurrence of the dengue fever he’s just recovered from. Everyone will be frightfully disappointed—not least Gunay!—but they’ll settle back with a sigh of relief to simply enjoy themselves. The only explosions they’ll need to be nervous of will be coming from those infernal flashbulbs the Athens News cameraman uses!”

  “And the social and cultural event of the year will appear on the front pages the world over … or round about page seven in the case of the London Times.” Letty spoke with forced cheerfulness.

  Gunning picked up her lingering uncertainty and said again, warmly: “It’s going to be all right, you know. Your hero and mine—he simply won’t be there in the arena, offering himself as a target, for any of Gunay’s apes to take a potshot at!”

  Chapter 39

  Box up the cats, will you, Maria?”

  Letty noted the dismay on the maid’s face and the delay before she whispered: “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Oh, don’t bother. I’ll do it myself. They know me better. Just put some food out for them, something delicious, shut the kitchen door, and I’ll come down in five minutes and catch them. William?” she called from the drawing room. “William, where are you?”

  “Yes, Mistress? Do you want me boxed up as well?”

  “No, twerp! But I do want you to escort me through the Plaka. It’s very early … six o’clock. Thetis isn’t even up yet … We should catch young Demetrios before he goes out on his errands.”

  “You know where you’re going?”

  Housewives brushing steps and watering gasoline cans still bright with summer flowers stopped to watch them as they walked through the sun-dappled narrow streets, Letty with map in hand and Gunning with squawking wicker basket. It seemed that an island village had been pricked out and transplanted onto the thin and rock-strewn soil at the foot of the Acropolis, thriving in places where roots had struck, decrepit and dying off in others.

  After a good deal of argument—“I told you to keep the Parthenon at your back … No, turn the map sideways now … Haven’t we just passed that old man …?”—Letty declared they had reached the street Gunay had mentioned.

  “There! It must be the house in the corner … Do you see? I’m supposed to turn up unaccompanied, so I think you should skulk here by the fountain and keep an eye out while I introduce myself. Not sure who I’ll find inside. This isn’t the address Theotakis had for the Gunay clan.”

  “How would we know where they all are? I expect there’s quite a web of them. Let’s hope this isn’t the home of the one you shot.”

  Every inch the cheerful English matron, Letty knocked on the door and spoke to the woman who opened it a crack. She made some play with the cats, who, strangely, thought William, seemed to offer some sort of a passport. The door opened wider and the Greek housewife came outside and looked around. Gunning gave her a cheerful wave and turned back to his newspaper. Seemingly satisfied with what she saw, the woman went to knock on a door two houses away, opened it, called out a name, and went inside. The familiar form of Demetrios appeared, tousle-headed and pulling on his shirt. He greeted the cats with delight, took one out and draped it around his neck, and stroked the other.
After a moment for the reunion, Letty firmly put them back in the box again and placed it on the doorstep.

  She strolled a few paces off with the boy and went to sit with him on the empty steps of a café not yet open for business. The talk was earnest and, in the case of Demetrios, accompanied by a good deal of gesticulation. A lot of finding and fiddling and polishing seemed to be going on. Finally, Letty spoke quietly to him and shook his hand. She got up and asked a question about the cats. Demetrios nodded, picked up the box with alacrity, and went back inside.

  It wasn’t until she turned to him that Gunning realised the extent of Letty’s distress.

  With frozen features and barely able to find her words she said simply: “We must get back and see if he’s telling the truth. I know in my bones he is, but my head and my heart will not accept it. Poor Andrew! He must have suffered!”

  They sat uncomfortably in the drawing room making conversation. Thetis had joined them after breakfast and they waited for Montacute to arrive. Letty had refused to discuss her conversation with Demetrios and insisted on the inspector’s presence before she started on an explanation. She had also insisted that an urgent summons be made through Montacute for Dr. Peebles. The doctor, still a little peevish, Montacute reported, conceded that he might be able to fit in a visit after he had attended to two emergency house calls in the area. They might expect him towards ten o’clock.

  Montacute arrived just before nine. He made enquiries about the state of Letty’s health and listened to her account of her abduction. She moved swiftly through the events, clearly preoccupied with other matters.

  “But never mind all that—it’s Gunay’s little surprise we’re gathered to unwrap this morning. I’ve seen Demetrios, who, he claims, holds evidence of the deaths of both Andrew and Maud. At least, he doesn’t hold it—he discovered it. It’s right here in the house. We’ve been walking past it every day. I haven’t investigated yet. I thought we’d do it together. Will you all come down to the hall with me?”

  They followed her down the staircase to the black-and-white-tiled hallway and looked about them at the unremarkable space. A gilt French side table held a bowl for visiting cards and a vase with a spray of flowers. A long-case clock ticked solemnly in a corner. As they stood in silent puzzlement, the clock whirred and clicked, cleared its ancient throat, and began to chime nine.

  Letty waited for it to finish before pointing to the one other piece of furniture the hall contained. Every hallway had one, seen on every entry but unremarked by anyone: an umbrella stand. This was a capacious cylinder of beaten bronze and contained two carefully rolled umbrellas—one man’s large black one and a lady’s shorter green one. The heads of three walking canes projected: one ivory, one silver, and one carved ebony.

  “I won’t touch it. I leave it to you, Percy,” Letty said.

  “The umbrella stand?” he said. “But we’ve turned it out. It’s been checked.”

  He advanced on it, lifted it, and turned it on its side, tipping the contents onto the floor.

  “Not as thoroughly as young Demetrios, apparently. He was always looking for jobs to do. Keeping the hallway neat was one of his tasks. The day after Andrew and Maud died, he decided the umbrellas looked untidy. They’d been carelessly rolled. He unfastened them and rerolled them to his satisfaction. As you see them now. Having time on his hands, and no Maud any longer to catch him idling and shout at him, he paused to play with the walking canes. Pretty handles, you notice. The ivory-topped cane—exotic carving of an Indian goddess, I think—was Andrew’s father’s old cane. He never used it.”

  “Rather fascinating object for a young man of twelve,” Montacute remarked.

  “Or any age!” said Gunning, picking it up and examining it.

  “The silver one was left behind by a guest at their last soirée. The ebony-headed cane belonged to Maud,” Thetis explained. “Very Art Déco. Was she ever pleased with it! Used it every time she left the house. She was using it on the night Andrew died.”

  “And that’s the one that caught Demetrios’s attention,” Letty said. “Will you take a closer look at it, Percy?”

  With a face where dread struggled with eagerness, Montacute picked it up. “Heavy,” he commented. He ran a forefinger over the elegantly carved hand grip. He turned it in his hands and inspected the silver ferrule at the end. “Ah!” His fingers slipped, questing, along the length of the cane and caressed the carving again. He twisted the handle and grunted in frustration. “How in heaven’s name did the lad ever find the place? Good God! There it is! Stand back! Don’t crowd me!”

  With a slicing swish, he drew a slim length of metal from the cane. Metal whose gleam was dulled by a dark brown stain.

  “Very short blade for a sword cane,” he commented. “But deadly. The best-quality Toledo steel, five inches long, bayonet shape with a blood channel along its length. And it hasn’t been cleaned.”

  Thetis stared at it, turning pale. “You’ll have to excuse me,” she whispered. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  They retreated back up to the drawing room, Montacute taking the cane with him.

  “Andrew liked to think the women in his life were protected,” Letty said. “Maud hadn’t the wits to use a gun, so he must have found this disgusting implement for her. I’ve heard of sword sticks … my French grandfather was reputed never to leave the house without one. But that was Paris in the days of the apaches. Whatever was Maud doing using one?”

  It was Thetis who answered her question: “Those tourists who were kidnapped and murdered. Maud was quite spooked by that. It’s when she started to carry that thing about with her. She told everyone she had arthritis. Perhaps she did. How would I know? I never really listened! Percy, that’s Andrew’s blood on that blade, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. “Tests will reveal, and all that … but yes, I think we can assume the worst. I say, Miss Laetitia, do you think you could cast your mind back over the evening in question … I know you’ve already given a clear statement but in the light of this evidence …?”

  “Yes, of course. We weren’t concentrating on Maud particularly, were we?” Letty frowned, remembering. “She got to the theatre early and went, shall we say, to confront Andrew in his lair backstage. To beat him about the head with her discovery that he was not only having an affair with her cousin but was contemplating divorce in order to marry her? She was always creeping about. She could have overheard something? Perhaps Andrew himself, pushed beyond endurance, told her he wanted a divorce? She would never have tolerated that. He poured out a glass of water for her. She was wearing gloves, so … no prints. They quarrelled. He was subservient to her usually, I think because he pitied her, but he had a razor tongue and occasionally could strike with it. I’ve heard him do that. Perhaps he said something that tipped her over the edge. Years and years of suffering his infidelities and now to crown it all—the shame of divorce. I’m sure that would have been the trigger.”

  Montacute groaned. “Something snapped! How often I’ve heard that! The sword stick clicked and she stabbed him. Slim blade, you see. One lucky thrust would do it. Straight in and out. A single stroke powered by insane rage. She was a tall woman, the wound’s in the right place. And then, the next stage is normally—panic sets in. And in the rush of energy that comes to people in extremis, she hauled him about and put him in the bathtub. Giving her time to think and plan.”

  “And then she tapped her way across the orchestra and sat down by my side, ready for the rehearsal,” said Letty.

  “Leaving traces of blood as she went,” said Montacute.

  “And then she gloated!” Thetis snapped. “All that bereaved-widow stuff she put on for us! The tapping of the tub and the ‘Joke’s over, Andrew!’ nonsense. The clutching of the bosom and the ‘Take me home now, William’! Devil! I wish I had pushed her out of the window! She sat there, smirking in her black gown and her pearls, provoking me. Taunting. She was spilling over with hatred. Quite mad. I’m only surprised she didn
’t attempt to kill me as well.”

  “Thetis,” said Letty thoughtfully. “Can we be quite sure she didn’t try?”

  A tap on the door announced that Dr. Peebles was waiting below.

  When he was shown up, the doctor introduced himself to everyone and, with a meaningful glance at his wristwatch, agreed that he had arrived earlier than anticipated. One patient had made a recovery in the night and he was ahead of time. A brisk Scotsman, he was not prepared to be at the beck and call of the English policeman, apparently. Now, could he possibly be of any assistance at all to the Athens police? he asked waspishly … They only had to ask …

  Montacute rode the implied criticism good-naturedly and asked him to reveal what had passed between him and his patient on the night of her husband’s murder. He stressed that absolute openness was vital, as the life and liberty of another depended on his statement.

  Mollified, the doctor launched into his recital. “A word first about Lady Merriman’s general condition. In a word: poor. She was a concern to me. She had a few peripheral and nonthreatening ailments … age, don’t you know … we all have our twinges and this climate is sometimes a bit harsh on an English constitution, but she had a quite serious heart condition. There were signs some months ago of the way things were going. I had warned her to take things easy, but—you know what she was like—never still. Indefatigable. I think also she secretly considered herself invulnerable. I was summoned to attend her at about eight on the night she died. She had just returned from the theatre, where the discovery of her husband’s murder had been made. She was agitated. Very. Her heart was—a layman might well have said—at bursting point. She had clearly suffered the most enormous stress. I offered her a sedative, which she refused to take. I was angry at the rejection of assistance. I told her the truth, which perhaps a doctor ought rarely to do …” He hesitated.

  “We know how provoking she could be, Doctor,” Thetis murmured, encouraging him.