‘You’re right, it was a mean trick, cowardly. But his name was already being mentioned. Everywhere that sold food was under suspicion.’
‘So why did you choose him?’
‘Quite simply because we have no family connections with the man. Most others we have some blood ties with – Dendra is a small place, and I have many cousins and second cousins. Renzo as a foreigner has no connection to us. And with him being – how can I put this? – of a dubious sexual persuasion, people’s prejudices allowed them to believe the worst of him.’
‘You said you had solid information that he was the outbreak’s source, and you have almost ruined him. You crippled his business, his livelihood. His life.’
Sakis looked the fat man in the eye.
‘I’m not proud of what we did,’ he said. ‘But they can’t touch Papa now, and I’m ready to face the consequences. Though I’m sorry for what’ll happen to the mill. We’ve never missed a season’s milling for over a century. Even through the war, the Papayiannis mill was making oil. There’s no one else trained to use the equipment. So I suppose it’ll all just sit and rust whilst I do my time.’
‘You never know,’ said the fat man. ‘Your vision was inspiring, and it deserves to succeed. What about your wife?’
‘Amara? What about her?’
‘Does she know anything of what you’ve done?’
‘Nothing. I shielded her from it, the same as Papa never told Mama. How will I tell her?’
‘I suggest that you’re direct and honest. What kind of woman is she? With help and guidance, might she not be able to run the place for a while?’
Sakis shook his head.
‘There’s no one to help her.’
‘Don’t be so sure. And since you have been honest with me, and shown remorse, I may be able to help you, in some small way.’
‘How?’
‘There’s a woman who works for a newspaper, an editor, who’s looking to make her name in the business. Maybe your story will appeal to her. I think you would have told the truth at the time, if you hadn’t been torn by loyalty to your father. Maybe she would take up your cause, campaign on your behalf and by the power of public opinion help you secure a minimum sentence. And like you, she owes recompense to Renzo for damaging his good name. By telling the real story, she can put that right, and give him some positive press.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I must go. There are others I must speak to before I leave.’
The fat man stood. Sakis remained in his chair, his eyes bloodshot from tears and from the brandy, his back bowed as if he already felt the pressure of trials to come.
‘What do I do now?’ he asked.
‘Speak to your wife, and your mother. They must be the first to hear the truth. Then take yourself to the police, and tell them everything.’
Sakis gave a snort of contemptuous laughter.
‘Those fools? What will they do?’
‘You may not wish to involve yourself with them, but they’re where the process must begin. And Sakis, do something for me. The poor storks don’t deserve your anger, so leave the nest intact. Many people regard them as bringers of good luck, though that may seem a dubious claim to you at this moment. But they are thought to care for their aged parents, and so doesn’t it seem fitting that you should encourage them to stay here, as your father would have wanted you to do? In any case, you’ve drunk far too much brandy to be clambering on the roof any more today.’ He stepped forward, and patted Sakis’s shoulder. ‘Be brave, son. When your dues are paid, I have a feeling this business will prosper very nicely. And don’t underestimate your wife. You may find she rises very well to a challenge.’
He turned to go.
‘Just a moment,’ said Sakis. ‘You haven’t kept your side of the bargain. You haven’t told me who killed my father.’
‘You’re right,’ said the fat man, retaking his seat. ‘I haven’t. Pour us a little more brandy, and I’ll tell you everything I know.’
Sixteen
‘Kyria!’
As Marianna Kapsis came out of the oil press, the fat man’s call reached her over the creak and grind of machinery and the banter of the working men. She was smiling, the residue of laughter at some joke, and pulling a cardigan around her against the wind, which was gaining strength.
The fat man was seated on a trolley used for wheeling the crop into the mill, his back propped against a full sack, holding up an olive to study its form. He got to his feet, slipped the olive into his pocket and picked up his hold-all.
‘They told me at the house I’d find you here. Supervising operations, no doubt.’
‘We meet again,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you this time?’
‘It’s more what I can do for you. I’ve come to bring you news about your neighbour, Sakis Papayiannis.’
Her mouth pursed into sourness.
‘Why should I want news of him? Nothing that family does is of any interest to me. If you’ll excuse me, as you see this is a very busy time.’
‘Forgive me. I thought you’d want to know why he’s going to be arrested.’
‘Arrested?’
‘It relates to the death of his father.’
‘Mori! What on earth is going on?’
‘As I say, I came to bring you the news, but as you’re too busy to hear it, I’ll let it permeate through the usual channels of gossip. Yassas.’
He turned to go; she touched his arm to stop him, but withdrew her hand very quickly as if sensing it was something she ought not to have done.
‘Of course if my neighbour is in trouble I should like to hear.’
‘Naturally.’
‘Come and have a seat. Let me get you something.’
She sat him at the table where they had talked before, sheltered from the wind which fluttered the mauve petals of the crocuses below the windows.
‘What will you have? There’s tea, glyfoni or fraskomilo. Or would you prefer coffee?’
‘Glyfoni, thank you. No sugar. I have to watch my weight.’
For a few minutes, she was gone. A man came out of the mill, and wheeled in the trolley where the fat man had sat. The small bicycle he had helped repair lay on its side beside a log pile. The fat man wandered over to it, and pressed its tyres with his thumb. The front tyre was flat.
Marianna brought out a tray of tea and shortcake biscuits, and unloaded it on to the table. The fat man took his seat, and when the plate was offered, took one of the biscuits and placed it in his saucer. He sipped the rapidly cooling mint tea.
‘So.’ Marianna prompted him with a smile which wasn’t warm. She drank, leaving lipstick on the rim of her cup. ‘Tell me what’s happening with my neighbours. Did Sakis murder the old man? It wouldn’t surprise me. I’m sure the old sinner was impossible to live with.’
‘You’re uncharitable,’ he said. ‘Do you think you should speak ill of the dead?’
‘Should I speak well of a man like him? I’m no hypocrite. I had no love for him in life, and I’ve none now he’s dead, either.’
‘You didn’t like him. That’s common enough. It seems to be human nature to fall out with one’s neighbours. But he had his good points, and he might have had several more useful years in him, if he’d lived.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ She lay down her cup. ‘Did Sakis have something to do with his death? Is that why he’s been arrested? I didn’t really mean . . . I never knew that it had got so bad!’
‘In what way, bad?’
‘Oh, those two were like dogs at each other’s throats! They agreed on nothing! But to have fallen out so badly that Sakis would do away with him . . .’
‘Ah, now.’ The fat man gave a slow smile. ‘You’re indulging in a dangerous sport, putting two and two together and coming up with five. Sakis will soon be in custody, that’s true. That the old man is dead, is also true. But that the one is a direct result of the other, is not true. Though I grant you that the events are connected, even if the path of their connection is cir
cuitous. And part of the connection, is you.’
‘Me? I have nothing to do with that family.’
‘Marianna.’ He sat back from the table and looked at her, noting her discomfiture in being so familiarly addressed. ‘That really is not true, is it?’ Beneath her make-up, she blushed. ‘You and your clan spend a great deal of time and energy fuelling the fires of your feud – so much time, that literal fires have come into the game, with tragic consequences for Dmitris. I have just come from talking to Sakis, and he told me a very interesting story.’
Amongst the chickens scratching across the yard, a cockerel stretched its wings as it prepared to crow.
‘That’s a fine bird, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘And he has the yard and the flock to himself. Doubtless he has seen off any rivals to win his place as cock of the roost. I find cock fights distressing, but they are nature’s way, I suppose, of assuring survival of the fittest. There are regular casualties, no doubt, and this fellow will only be crowing until a stronger, younger bird wins the challenge against him. When that happens, the harem will be unperturbed. They accept new leadership without demur. I wonder if that will be true of the Papayiannis clan, when they find out the natural succession will be disturbed by Sakis’s long absence? Who will rule the roost whilst he is gone? Will they put forward a woman, as your family have done? Will Amara be up to the job? You’re a strong woman, Marianna, to have taken up the reins and held on to them. But I wonder if your control is all it might be.’
‘What do you mean?’ Her face, again, became sour.
‘I am only wondering if you truly run this household, this clan, or whether things go on over which you have no control, about which you only learn after the fact? We shall come to that. But I was going to tell you Sakis’s tale, was I not? When cockerels outlive their usefulness, they tend to end up in the pot. But Sakis’s story was of a cockerel which ended up somewhere more unusual. It ended up floating in a vat of his olive oil.’
There was the briefest of silences.
‘I expect it fell in,’ she said. ‘The stupid birds are always getting where they shouldn’t be.’
‘Maybe. But that would, regardless, make this a very unusual bird. A flightless bird, which levitates to the top of an oil vat, falls in and closes the lid behind itself. All this, whilst in all likelihood having been dead for some time? Please, Marianna, don’t take me for a fool. It’s something I dislike almost as much as being lied to. The cockerel was put in that vat as an act of pure malice. It was a wicked act, which resulted directly in the deaths of four people, and now, with Donatos, there are five.’
‘What do you mean, deaths?’
‘That cockerel was the cause of Dendra’s poisoning outbreak. The oil was infested with its bacteria, and it was that which killed those people.’
‘Don’t be absurd. The poisoning was down to the Italian. Everyone knows that.’
‘And yet no charges were ever brought against him. His premises were never closed.’
‘There was no proof. The proof was eaten, or cleaned away. I don’t say it was deliberate, but for certain it was him.’
‘Why do you say that?’
Frowning, she hesitated.
‘Everyone knows it. It’s common knowledge.’
‘It’s common gossip. That doesn’t make it true.’
He took a bite of his biscuit.
‘I forgot to ask about Dmitris,’ he said. ‘How is he?’
She ran her hand through her hair, and hooked a piece of it behind her ear.
‘They describe him as comfortable, but he doesn’t look comfortable to me. He looks desperately unwell. So I assume by comfortable, they mean he is in no pain. The long-term outcome’s uncertain.’
‘And how would you feel – how would your family feel – if there could be more certainty?’
‘That’s a ridiculous question. Certainty’s not something that can be manufactured.’
‘That isn’t true. The right doctor, with the right facilities, might do much for Dmitris. He might be left with very little scarring, and a future as bright as it was before his – let us call it an accident.’
‘It was no accident.’
‘If the cockerel in the oil was an accident, as you suggest, then Dmitris’s misfortune was an accident also. That is how I see it. You are stuck in a cycle of offence and retribution, and I am here to tell you, that is now to stop.’
Her eyebrows rose.
‘Forgive me, but what do our family affairs have to do with you?’
‘More than you think. For now, that doesn’t matter. But I could arrange the best of care for Dmitris, so he could emerge from this episode almost unscathed. Doctors cannot work without finance, so let us call what I would do for him an act of philanthropy. I think he deserves my help. In my opinion, he is less a victim of his contemporaries in the Papayiannis clan than of a legacy inherited from you older generations. He has grown up in a culture of spite and malice. Who put the cockerel in the oil, Marianna? Was it you?’
‘Me? Never!’
He shrugged.
‘If it wasn’t you, you know who it was. And if you won’t give a name, then by default as head of the household you’re responsible. And as head of the household, please, tell me why.’
‘You have no proof it was anything to do with my family, and it’s a libel to say it was. And if anyone from that family repeats the claim, we’ll see them in court.’
‘And perpetuate the feud, and fan the flames. Just remind me, Marianna, what is this feud all about? What is it that’s caused all this bitterness and anguish, all this violence and death?’
‘They’re common thieves,’ she said. ‘They stole our land. That’s how they have money for new equipment. Half the crop going to their mill should be going to ours.’
‘Is that why you’ve poisoned their trees?’
‘No one’s touched their trees. I’ve seen some of them are failing, and I assumed some kind of blight. If they’d take advice, I’d give it, but they’d never listen.’
‘And what about the kleftiko? A mean trick, wasn’t it, to put out their fire? Was it the boys, perhaps? Did they think it would be funny?’
‘You have my word, that wasn’t anyone from this family. The Papayiannis’s leaped to their conclusions, and blamed us. They blame us for everything.’
‘Of course they do. You’ve made that rod for your own backs. There’s something I want you to look at.’ Unzipping his hold-all, he found the envelope sent from the lawyer’s office. ‘I think what I have here would be most meaningful from a different vantage point. Will you join me in a short walk?’
Vehemently, she shook her head.
‘I can’t possibly. As I’ve said, I’m very busy, and you must excuse me.’
‘That’s your choice,’ he said, starting to put away the envelope. ‘If you cannot make time for me, then I cannot make time to help Dmitris.’
‘Very well,’ she said, irritably. ‘But I hope we’re not going far.’
He walked her back along the road between the olive groves, down the line of the fence dividing the two properties.
‘Tell me about this feud,’ he said, as they walked. ‘Tell me what set you all at each other’s throats.’
‘It’s an old dispute from my husband’s grandfather’s time. Came one harvest, Papayiannis’s encroached on Kapsis land. They stripped the crop from trees which weren’t theirs. When they were challenged, punches were thrown. It grew from there. Now they’ve put up this fence, enclosing our land. They’ve perpetuated the insult. We’ve let the fence stand, but the theft isn’t forgotten.’
They passed the ailing trees, and the fat man laid his hand on one, as if offering comfort. At the fence’s end, he stopped, placed his hold-all on the ground and slid the papers from inside the brown envelope. Away amongst the Kapsis trees were the noises of harvest – the knocking of sticks on the branches, the patter as the olives fell into the nets, the low voices of the workers. Amongst the Papayiannis trees, w
as silence.
‘I want you to look at this,’ he said. ‘I had my lawyer request this plan from the land registry.’ He unfolded a large-scale plan showing both the Kapsis property and the Papayiannis’s, and the neighbouring land at their borders. ‘Here is the road, and here is your house.’ She nodded her agreement. ‘And here is the boundary line between you and them. If what you say is correct, there should be a discrepancy between the boundary marked on this map – the legal boundary of ownership – and the line of this fence they set. Do you agree?’
‘Yes, I agree,’ she said. ‘From what I was told, the discrepancy is the best part of an acre.’
The fat man seemed surprised.
‘As much as that? Let’s take a look, shall we?’
He held up the plan so she could see it, and match it to the features in the landscape.
‘Here’s the Papayiannis house,’ he said. ‘And if we look over here, it seems to me as if the boundary line should be directly in front of a chapel.’
‘That would be Agios Yiorgos,’ she said. ‘It’s hard to see from here. But there, you can just see the blue dome, above the trees.’
‘And the other key feature is this outcrop, here,’ said the fat man, ‘this change in contours which should be easy to spot, behind us.’ He turned, and there it was. ‘So the boundary of your properties is an almost direct line from chapel to outcrop. I notice there is a dog-leg here, a small anomaly, about halfway along. So let us see.’ He looked towards the chapel, and back towards the outcrop. Marianna looked too, and frowned. ‘It seems to me that the fence is exactly in line with the plan, except that the dog-leg juts on to their land, rather than yours. But from here, it would appear the area of land it encloses – it’s only a very small area, isn’t it? – contains a single tree. Can that be right?’
The Feast of Artemis (Mysteries of/Greek Detective 7) Page 21