The Feast of Artemis (Mysteries of/Greek Detective 7)

by Anne Zouroudi

  Xavier’s face fell.

  ‘How can I go?’ he asked. ‘I’m all my mother has.’

  ‘Really?’ The fat man looked over to the counter, where Dora scraped sliced onions into a Tupperware box; Miltiadis watched her with a certain light in his eyes, and when Dora noticed, she mimed a flirtatious kiss.

  ‘Ah,’ said Xavier.

  ‘You may be freer than you think. And I think you have fire in your belly, and might do Greece some good. Give it some thought. Keep up your good work and be a thorn in the government’s side. And don’t be despondent about your vigils. See how it goes this time. Maybe attendance will improve on this occasion.’

  He ate the last of his gyros, and rose to leave.

  ‘It’s been a pleasure, Xavier. But we are never as tied as we think. May I take one of those?’

  Xavier handed him a leaflet. The fat man called out his thanks to Dora.

  ‘I’ll be in tomorrow, tailor, to pick up those trousers,’ he said to Miltiadis.

  ‘Right you are,’ said the tailor. ‘And by the way, I’ve remembered who it was told me about Renzo. It was Sakis Papayiannis.’

  In Neochori, the last diners were late leaving the restaurant. Arethusa put the chairs up on the tables, and fetched the broom and dustpan from the closet. In the kitchen, her father clattered pans and plates, whistling the folk tune that had been her favourite when she was a little girl. Wearily, she swept dirt into the pan, and went out on to the terrace to drop it in the dumpster.

  The wind was freshening; leaves from the overhead vine were dancing in mad circles, the telephone lines were singing between their poles. A sheet of paper had blown in from the street, and was pinned against the dumpster. Arethusa lifted the dumpster lid, and tipped the pan inside, knocking it against the hard plastic to loose all of the sweepings, then bent to pick up the paper. As she was about to screw it up and drop it in the rubbish, a few words on it caught her eye. She read it through; then she tucked it into the pocket of her apron, and slammed the dumpster lid shut before going back inside.

  Fourteen

  The next morning, with the day promising a little warmth in the sunshine, the fat man asked Lefteris if he might breakfast on the terrace outside. He took a seat on an ornate but cold cast-iron chair at a cast-iron table, and in a few moments Lefteris followed him out. He asked the fat man to stand, and slipped a welcome cushion on to the chair, then brushed away a few fallen leaves from the table, and with a flourish covered it with a cloth.

  ‘Have you seen anything of my brother?’ asked the fat man.

  ‘He was out late,’ said Lefteris. ‘I gave him a key, but I don’t know what time he came in. I believe he had company, from the giggling and whispering on the stairs. I can’t help but wonder how he’ll be feeling this morning. I was suffering with a sore head myself, and he left me and Tomas to go out and drink more. I’ve seen nothing of Tomas yet, either. We got through a few bottles between us. We finished every drop I had of the Lachesis. I’ll have to go up there, and see if Meni’s got any more.’

  ‘Take what I’ve got in the car,’ said the fat man. ‘I don’t have much, but I feel guilty for foisting my brother on to you. Everywhere he goes, he drinks them dry.’

  ‘Ah, but he’s such good company, isn’t he? I haven’t laughed so much since I can’t remember when. I’ll get your breakfast.’

  Whilst Lefteris was gone, the fat man enjoyed his surroundings: the freshness of dew on the rose leaves, the cool green of the walnut and lemon trees. The last swallows were gone; in the eaves of the old building, the mud nests were deserted. Down below, a motorbike roaring up the lane braked sharply at a warning shout. The shutter on the back of a delivery van rumbled shut, and as the van drove off, the music blasting from its radio faded away. In the remaining quiet, a donkey’s hooves clipped along the cobbles.

  Lefteris brought out breakfast, including a few slices of sausage steaming from the pan.

  ‘The butcher just brought this, and Stavroula thinks you should try it,’ he said.

  The fat man picked up his fork and tried a piece of the dark meat, which was salty and well spiced with paprika and pepper. He chewed, swallowed, and tried another piece.

  ‘This pork has an interesting texture,’ he said.

  ‘That’s because it’s not pork,’ said Lefteris. ‘It’s wild boar. Made, I’m proud to say, from an animal I shot myself. There’re plenty of them, up in the mountains. In fact my cousins and I are going hunting, later on today. Your brother said he’d like to join us. He tells me he’s a crack shot, even with one arm. Maybe you’d like to come, too?’

  The fat man laughed.

  ‘Lefteris, take a piece of advice from me,’ he said. ‘Fetch your gun, and your dogs, and get out of here before my brother reappears. One-armed or two, Dino and rifles are a potentially fatal mix, for obvious reasons. And apart from the unlikelihood of his being sober, he’s too fond of talking to be anything but a hindrance to you. Every animal and bird would hear him coming from miles away. As for me, I have things to do that won’t wait, and so I must decline, though I wish you the best of luck.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Lefteris. ‘We’ll do our best. Maybe tonight we’ll have something good in the pot for you to try.’

  When the fat man called in at the post office he’d named to his lawyer’s secretary, the delivery he was expecting had arrived, and was sitting in the pigeonholes of the Poste Restante.

  Outside, he took the papers from the envelope, looked them over and nodded with satisfaction; then he slipped them into his hold-all, and went on his way.

  The fat man found the turning for Argiri lake without difficulty, and followed the road as it led upwards to the high hills, into a landscape recovering from the devastation of forest fires, where blackened stalks of Aleppo pines poked from the green of shrubs and grasses already re-establishing themselves. At the road’s summit, he caught his first view of the lake, a near oval of water made silver by the reflections of clouds, met along one shore by marshland, on the other by healthy trees which had escaped the fires. A kilometre further on, an unsigned track led off in the lake’s direction, but finding the track too rough for the low-slung Tzen, he pulled over under a myrtle tree and continued on foot.

  The afternoon was cool, the foliage on the track’s verges still wet from the previous night’s rain. A breeze tickled a stand of towering bamboo, raising a rattle from the leaves and rigid stalks. Hold-all in hand, the fat man walked briskly, until he rounded a bend to find a BMW saloon parked with its nearside wheels in the long grass, its wheel arches and the lower panels of its doors splashed with mud. He looked through the driver’s window, but there was little to see: a road map in a seat pocket, a sweet wrapper in the open ashtray, a woman’s umbrella on the rear seat.

  He walked on, following the track down into the gloom of the pine woods lining the northern edge of the lake. The track narrowed to become no more than a footpath. As he made his way through the trees, he heard the mellow splash of water on the shore, and the breeze carried the dankness of the marsh, and the malodour of waterlogged vegetation. The path had been churned by others’ feet, and in places he stepped off it to avoid sinking into a mire, finding drier routes over the fallen pine needles.

  At the water’s edge, black-headed terns ran in the shallows; a long-necked egret prodded the reeds for frogs. Along a stretch of rock-strewn sand, a man sat on a low camping stool, his knees folded almost to his chest. He was thin, and losing his dark blond hair; he wore rimless glasses and an unclipped goatee, which together with his khaki slacks and tweed jacket gave him a Scandinavian air. He had made a table of a broken branch, and balanced on it was a jar of water, and a well-used paintbox whose blocks of colour were all worn hollow. A sketchbook was open on his thighs as he worked on a watercolour view. He glanced up at the fat man, then his eyes went back to the lake.

  ‘Dr Fitanidis?’

  The doctor dipped the bristles of his fine brush in water, swirled the brush in pa
int, and put a tiny detail into his impression of the far shore. Reviewing his painting, he asked, ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘My intrusion on your private time is unforgivable,’ began the fat man.

  ‘You’re right, it is. So please, don’t intrude.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think of it, if it weren’t necessary,’ said the fat man. ‘But you’re very well protected at your place of work.’

  ‘With good reason. My time there is extremely valuable.’

  He rinsed his brush, dabbled it in green paint, then in brown.

  ‘I understand how valuable your time is,’ said the fat man. ‘And I would under no circumstances intrude there either, were it not a question of life and death. Or maybe I should say, of quality of life, and death.’

  The doctor’s focus moved between his paper and the view.

  ‘So what’s so important that you’ve come all this way?’ he asked.

  ‘It concerns a patient of yours, Dmitris Kapsis.’

  The doctor looked at him, and looked away.

  ‘Are you a relative? I haven’t seen you at the bedside.’

  ‘In all honesty, I am not.’

  ‘Then you’ll understand I can’t discuss his case with you. Now, if you wouldn’t mind. My time here is both short and precious to me.’

  ‘I’m not a relative, but I’d like to be his benefactor. I did try to see you this morning, but your secretary did an excellent job of despatching me.’

  The doctor smiled.

  ‘My niece. A highly capable girl. The common view at the hospital is that I hired her for her beauty, and to some extent that’s true. I see some very ugly things in my work, Kyrie . . . I didn’t catch your name.’

  ‘Diaktoros. Hermes Diaktoros, of Athens.’

  ‘Kyrie Diaktoros. In my work, I move through a world of disfigurement and pain. My niece is a cheerful reminder that there is beauty, too. My staff take her to be my mistress, and the reason for my disappearance, most afternoons. Their explanation for my absences flatters my male ego, especially since the truth, as you see, is far more pedestrian. Here I commune with nature, and find solace for the world’s woes. That, and not an adulterous affair, is my weakness.’

  ‘I would call such a pastime more strength than weakness.’

  The doctor applied paint to paper, working on the details of the trees.

  ‘So, since you’ve found me, if you have the boy’s good at heart, question me, and if I feel able to do so, I’ll answer,’ he said. ‘But allow me, please, to continue with my little effort here. It’s coming out quite well, but if it dries, all will be lost.’

  ‘Please do,’ said the fat man. ‘And I won’t keep you long. I merely wish to know what Dmitris’s prospects are.’

  The doctor rinsed his brush, and dipped it in discoloured white paint.

  ‘You’ll have seen the effects of fire on the way to the lake,’ he said. ‘Two years ago, parts of these hills were decimated by a blaze which smouldered for days. Fire is cruel enough to solid wood and bark, Kyrie Diaktoros. On soft human skin – well, you don’t need me to paint you a picture. I don’t mean to be flippant. Happily, sometimes I can be of help to those afflicted. I have a gift for healing, which I used to think came from God. There was a time when I believed in God as someone, or something merciful. Now I see my calling as a means to thwart Him. My life’s work is to undo some of the miseries He causes, especially the miseries caused by fire.’

  ‘But weren’t Dmitris’s burns the work of human hands? I heard he was tripped, or pushed.’

  ‘Perhaps. But what of babies coming deformed from their mother’s womb? Fine minds destroyed by stroke and dementia? Accidents which put athletes in wheelchairs and take limbs from children? Blindness, deafness? Are these from human hands?’

  Briefly, the fat man was silent.

  ‘I have no answer to give you,’ he said. ‘But in Dmitris’s case, what can be done?’

  The doctor shook his head.

  ‘What can be done and what I can do are not the same. I supervise the practical necessities of his care. Burn victims lose a great deal of fluids from leaking capillaries and open wounds, so we’re hydrating him, though that’s a process which needs careful management. Over-hydration causes swelling, which leads to problems of its own. Skin and tissue are a natural barrier to bacteria, and when they’re lost, the patient becomes vulnerable to infection, so we’re giving him intravenous antibiotics and, distressing and painful though it is for the boy – and his family, who watch him suffer – his bandages are changed several times a day. We’re feeding him the large number of calories he needs for the tissue to repair itself, as far as it’s able. Before long, there’ll be grafts, and I’ll do my very best for him. But burns are traumatic injuries and psychologically damaging, especially when they’re disfiguring. Dmitris will need plenty of support, or he may give up trying to recover. And in all this, I’m hamstrung by my budget, by a lack of equipment and by my staff, who are well meaning and committed but trained to a certain point and no further. I’m afraid he won’t be handsome again, whatever I can do. That was his worst piece of luck, to be here instead of London, or New York, or Switzerland. In any of those places, he might do better.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Their facilities are vastly superior to ours. A special burns unit might do wonders for him. The Americans especially are way ahead of us.’

  ‘So if he were in America . . .?’

  The doctor laid down his brush.

  ‘I’ve seen what they can do there. Alas, as so often, Dmitris’s outcome will depend on money, or lack of it. That’s why I come here. Look around you. Here in this place, money has no influence. These wild things – plants, animals, birds – will live or die, without help or interference. As underfunded doctors, that’s our tragedy. We know what may be done, but lack the resources to deliver the very best care.’

  ‘But if you had those resources? If they were made available to you? Could the Kapsis boy be helped, then?’

  ‘If the facilities and staff were in place, of course. Though it would not be a quick job, even so. Deep scarring may take years to heal. But with state-of-the-art equipment, medicines, the right nursing care, he might do very well.’

  ‘Then I must see what I can do.’

  ‘And so must I. Be assured I will do whatever’s in my power to help him.’ He leaned back from his painting. ‘Finished, I think. As much as any creative piece is ever finished. Painting is a little like reconstructive surgery, in that regard. I’m always tempted to go back, change and improve, if the first results are not entirely satisfactory. It’s usually possible, at least up to a point.’

  ‘I like it very much,’ said the fat man. ‘You have a real eye for the landscape.’

  ‘Because the landscape talks to me, and I listen. If you like the picture, take it, be my guest. I’ll do another before I leave.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Was there something else? You said matters of life and death. The Kapsis boy is poorly, but in no danger of dying.’

  ‘But there was a death at the hospital, last night,’ said the fat man. ‘A much older man, Donatos Papayiannis.’

  ‘I wasn’t there last night, so I’m afraid I know nothing about him. What did he die of?’

  ‘Almost certainly, the cause would have been recorded as heart failure. But I wonder if that was correct. He had symptoms which mimicked heart failure to an extent, but I have another idea, and if you think I’m right, I wonder if you might instigate the appropriate tests.’

  ‘What were his symptoms?’

  ‘Chronic shortness of breath, a redness in the face, general malaise.’

  The doctor frowned.

  ‘And what were you thinking?’

  ‘I met Kyrie Papayiannis, and his symptoms reminded me of a case I saw many years ago,’ said the fat man. ‘I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but I’ve been wondering if it’s possible he might have been poisoned.’

  Fifteen


  At the Papayiannis estate, the idle machinery was silent behind the closed mill doors; on the yard, the olives in their ranks of bulging sacks were past their prime. Except for an out-of-date newspaper in the abandoned fork-lift truck, there was no sign of the men who worked the oil press, and there were no voices, no whirring pickers to be heard from the orchards, where only the wind disturbed the silver-leaved trees.

  The fat man parked next to Sakis’s red pick-up. The dent from Donatos’s accident was still conspicuous on the wing.

  Up on the roof of the house, straddling the ridge, Sakis was pulling sticks from the stork’s nest, throwing handfuls to the ground, where they broke and scattered. Bedraggled quills and white down from the nest’s soft lining blew around the yard.

  From the bottom of the ladder, the fat man shouted up. Sakis – in leather gauntlets, with a hat pulled down over his ears – appeared not to hear, but the fat man was persistent, and raised his voice to such a volume he was impossible to ignore.

  Sakis dropped a handful of fouled twigs by the fat man’s feet. Shards of soiled bark peppered his toecaps.

  ‘We’re closed,’ Sakis shouted. ‘The mill is closed!’

  ‘I haven’t come to the mill,’ called the fat man. ‘I’ve come to talk to you.’

  ‘Another day.’ Sakis wrestled more sticks from the nest.

  ‘It must be today, and soon. Or you’re likely to have other visitors who are less welcome than me.’

  ‘If you’re referring to my beloved relatives, they’ve all enjoyed my father’s funeral, and gone away. Watch yourself there.’ He tossed down another handful; as they fell, the fat man stepped agilely out of the way.