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

by Anne Zouroudi

  ‘It does look that way,’ said Marianna, doubtfully. ‘But that makes no sense.’

  ‘What makes no sense is that your families have been at war for three generations over one tree. So here is my suggestion. I will buy you a young tree, and you may plant it on your land, anywhere you wish. In fact, I will buy you two trees, as a form of damages for harvests you have lost. Does that seem fair?’

  ‘No. One tree or a hundred, they’re thieves.’

  ‘Not intentionally, I don’t think. Without these plans to hand, who would know where the dog-leg should go? In disputes like this, where the origins lie in family lore, disagreements are often exaggerated or fabricated. Plant new trees, and let it go. Your family owes a huge debt to this community. You were the root cause of an outbreak which resulted in four deaths. If you wish, I can dig deeper, and find which of your clan was the guilty party, but as matters stand, Sakis will bear the brunt of the disgrace, and his family will have to weather the economic storm his departure will cause them. My offer to you is this. If you will from now on be good neighbours to them, I will extend my help to you, and ensure Dmitris gets the best possible care. In fact I have made up my mind to help him anyway, but if you don’t wish to co-operate in healing the rift between you, I shall make your lives difficult in other ways. Look again at the plan. You see the road you share? You’ll notice it is, in fact, on Papayiannis property. I suggest that means you have no legal right to drive on it. If they knew that, I don’t doubt that they would immediately close access to you. Then you’d be faced with the considerable expense of building yourselves a road, on your own land. But if it isn’t drawn to their attention, I don’t believe they’ll notice. Now, as far as their business is concerned, I think it likely that in Sakis’s absence, much of the burden will fall on Amara. She lacks your experience, and would need guidance and help. What do you say?’

  Marianna considered.

  ‘If you would do your best for Dmitris, we would all be grateful beyond words,’ she said. ‘And if you do, I shall ensure there’s no further unpleasantness from this family. I cannot guarantee friendly relations, but I can ensure there’s no more interference, or nastiness. And I’m sorry, profoundly sorry, if this family’s played a part in those deaths. I feel we should do something to make amends.’

  ‘The whole story will soon be out, and there’ll be speculation as to the source of the bacteria. Whether you choose to name the guilty party, is up to you. It may be you yourself, and if it is, then you must decide whether to admit it, whether you can take your punishment as Sakis is being man enough to take his. If it isn’t you, maybe you can prove your value as the head of the family, and persuade the guilty party to put his name forward, or maybe you’ll risk your family’s anger, and give that name to the police. It’s all up to you, Marianna. It’s all a question of balancing your family’s honour against doing what is right.’

  As they walked back down the road, she said, ‘I have a question for you.’

  ‘Ask it.’

  ‘Did Sakis kill his father?’

  ‘Keep your eye on the newspapers,’ said the fat man. ‘No doubt they’ll be printing the whole story, by and by.’

  Seventeen

  The fat man drove unhurriedly to the vineyard, and pulled off the road before the house came into view. Across the valley was the crag where Meni had pointed out the eagle’s nest. There were no eagles flying now, but the trees where they had nested were swaying in the rising wind which portended a change in the weather. Behind the distant hills, the clouds were bloated with rain.

  He left the car at the roadside, and walked lightly up the track to the house, catching strains of music as he grew close, a piano prelude similar to the Fauré which the cassette player was broadcasting to the vines.

  From the orchard, he heard the clip of secateurs. On a ladder propped against the trunk of a peach tree, Meni was half-hidden amongst the branches, scrutinising for the right places to make her cuts. In his white shoes, the fat man moved silently through the grass. Meni tossed another pruned branch to the ground.

  At the foot of the ladder, he called up to her. There was a rustling of branches as she pulled them aside to see who was there, and she peered down myopically, giving a smile of recognition as she brought him into focus. Placing her booted feet carefully, she descended the ladder, and held out her hand, then withdrew it and pulled off her suede-palmed glove before holding it out again. Her hair was untidy from the wind; dead leaves clung to her home-knitted sweater. Over the fresh scents of sap and cut wood was the edge of the perfume he’d noticed before, faint traces of iris and musk.

  ‘Kyrie Diaktoros! Kalos tou, kalos tou!’

  They shook hands; her grip was warm and confident.

  ‘You remembered my name,’ he said. ‘I’m flattered.’

  ‘You’re a memorable personage. I remember your good manners. I told you, you’re a rarity in Dendra.’

  ‘You might be surprised to see me back so quickly. I’m here for two things. Firstly – though I hardly dare ask – for more wine. I promised my four bottles to Lefteris, after my brother drank all Lefteris’s stock. I’m here partly to see if we might replace it.’

  She was doubtful.

  ‘My stocks are very low, as I said to you. Most of it was drunk at this year’s feast. But there might be a bottle or two. Let’s go and see.’

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your work,’ he said, as they headed towards the house.

  ‘I was taking care of my babies, but they’ll wait. Maybe I mother them too much, but they respond with excellent crops.’

  She led him into the kitchen, still in its state of disarray. The pale-blue knitting had grown closer to being a small jacket.

  ‘Shall I get you coffee?’ she asked. ‘There’s some orange and almond cake left, if you’d like a piece. It’s one of those that improves with keeping. As I expected, my daughter ate very little. She eats like a sparrow. But then, girls do, don’t they?’

  ‘Do they?’ asked the fat man, quietly. ‘Tell me, Meni, how girls eat. Tell me about your granddaughter.’

  He crossed to the window sill, and picked up the photograph of the laughing woman and beaming child. The woman was Meni’s daughter. The child was not the boy she had been carrying when she came to visit; it was a little girl, dressed in rose-pink frills with a ribbon in her hair.

  ‘I saw her picture at the newspaper offices in Neochori. What was her name?’

  Meni gave a smile of sad remembrance.

  ‘Meni, of course. She was named Meni, after her yiayia. After me.’

  Her eyes were filled with heartbreak.

  ‘Find us some wine and some glasses,’ said the fat man, ‘and let’s you and I sit down and talk.’

  She opened the cellar door, and patted her pockets for matches to light the oil lamp, but finding none, began to search amongst the clutter on the dresser and the table.

  The fat man reached into the pocket of his raincoat.

  ‘Please, allow me,’ he said, and offered her a box of matches.

  Under her knitting she found the book of matches she had used on his last visit.

  ‘No need,’ she said. ‘I have these.’

  She used the last match in the book to light the lamp, and brought up two bottles for the fat man, along with a different wine, which she opened and poured. So dark it was almost black in the glass, the flavours of the purple fruit which had made the wine were intense, but it lacked sweetness, and was so dry it was almost bitter. Meni cleared a space amongst the disorder on the table, and they sat down.

  ‘I made this wine for her, purely from the Burgundy vines,’ said Meni, as the fat man tasted it. ‘It’s not the best wine I make, but it suits its purpose. It’s my grieving wine. There were a dozen bottles. Now there are six left.’

  ‘You honour me with such a select vintage,’ said the fat man. ‘Tell me about her.’

  ‘She was only three years old,’ says Meni. ‘The light of all our lives – mine,
her mother’s, her father’s. They waited a long time for her, and we’d about given up hope. There were medical problems, and it seemed for a long time there’d be no children at all. Then my daughter made a pilgrimage to Kalkos, and said prayers to the miraculous icon of the Virgin, who’s blessed a number of barren couples, and only months later, she was pregnant. So little Meni was our miracle child. So pretty, and so sweet-natured, always laughing. She was an absolute delight in every way. Of course I used to spoil her, and she wrapped me round her little finger. I wrote to tell my husband he was a grandfather. I felt sure if he were out there, that above anything would bring him home. I sent him pictures as she grew, but I’ve heard nothing. It doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘What happened, Meni?’

  ‘We became ill.’

  ‘All of you?’

  ‘They were visiting. It was the last day of their stay, and I’d made lunch. I remember exactly what we ate – fish soup, and a sorrel salad, lemon potatoes and roast pork. I helped the child to eat. She had a good appetite, always. She was a good child, who’d eat whatever she was given. That evening, I started to be ill. I was here by myself, and for two days I could hardly move from the bed. Even water made me ill, but I have no phone, and couldn’t call the doctor. On the third day, a neighbour came to call. My son-in-law had phoned her to get a message to me to let me know they’d all been struck down too, and little Meni hadn’t survived. The neighbour fetched me the doctor, and as soon as I was able, I went to them.

  ‘My daughter was inconsolable. How could I have consoled her anyway, heartbroken as I was myself? We buried the child, and my daughter took to her bed. She had some kind of breakdown. My son-in-law’s a good man, but he coped badly too, and took to drinking. That happy household became a mausoleum. They put my daughter on sedatives, and all she did was sleep.

  ‘We weren’t alone, of course. Others were dead. I told myself we’d had a lucky escape, but with the depths of our grief for Meni, it felt like the cruellest sentence Fate could have given us, to have her taken and to be still alive ourselves.’

  ‘And at the time, what did you think had caused it?’

  ‘At first, I thought it was the sorrel. Too much of it is poisonous, and I was devastated, thinking I’d made us all ill, even though I knew in my heart none of us could possibly have eaten enough to be harmful. But when we knew others were ill too, we had no idea where to look. The fish was fresh and cleaned, the pork was well cooked, and the rest were vegetables. A doctor came and asked us what we’d eaten, and seemed as baffled as we were. There was talk in the town of ice cream, but I’d eaten none. My daughter and little Meni had, but not that day.’

  The fat man sipped his wine, and waited for her to go on, but she seemed lost in thought.

  ‘And then?’ he prompted.

  She looked down into her glass, and spoke as if reading the story from the dark surface of the wine.

  ‘I went up to the roof one evening, as I often do. I went to console myself as best I could with the view, rather than with wine. The infection had left my stomach very weak, and I was on a diet of dry biscuits and water, a little toasted bread. That was no hardship to me. In my grief, I had no appetite anyway. But here I was, contemplating the view and the meaning of life, when there down below, near to where the cave entrance had been, I saw movement. So I got out my binoculars, and took a look. And you’ll never guess what I saw.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I saw the Papayiannis men, the two of them, Donatos and Sakis. I know them well enough to recognise them, even from a distance. They must have had a truck nearby – I couldn’t see it, but a track to one of the upper farms runs very near here, two hundred metres away at most. They were behaving very strangely. They’d got a number of barrels, moulded plastic, like I used to keep diesel in for the generator – and they were emptying them on to the ground. And when all the barrels were empty, Sakis made a bonfire, and burned them. I watched for a while, wondering what they were up to, until I realised what they were doing. They were pouring away their oil! It made no sense to me. Why would they do that? So I watched, and puzzled, and the truth began to dawn on me. They were destroying the oil because it was the source of the outbreak!’

  The fat man nodded.

  ‘Yes, it was. And then you, of course, went straight to the authorities, and told them what you’d seen.’

  She looked at him.

  ‘No, I didn’t. I watched them until they were done, until after dark when they doused the fire, and went away. And I cried, because those men had done a terrible thing – they had provided me with the poison I gave to my granddaughter! I prepared the food that day, I fed her, I killed her! All night I was awake. I couldn’t sleep. I was overtaken by a rage so strong, by anger so intense, it seemed to light its own fire deep in my belly. All I could think of was revenge. They had made me kill my beautiful Meni, and all I wanted was for them to suffer. If I went to the authorities, who knew what might happen? Maybe they have friends and family in the right places, people who would call me a mad old woman, and send me on my way. What evidence was there? All soaked away into the ground, and the containers burned! No, I couldn’t go to the authorities. Those people do their jobs if and when it suits them. And I didn’t know what was wrong with the oil. I still don’t know. If it was something that wasn’t their fault, maybe a court would look lightly on them, especially if they had the right connections. So I decided it was up to me. I decided I would act on behalf of my little Meni, and of the other three who were dead. I’d make the Papayiannis’s suffer, if it was in my power. And it was.’

  ‘So you began a hate campaign. Those nasty, malicious acts which the Papayiannis’s blamed on the Kapsis’s, were your work, weren’t they? You poisoned their olive trees. I found the copper nails.’

  ‘Copper nails? Where would I get copper nails?’

  ‘They are commonly used in roofing. I saw your matches, and when you took me to see the eagle’s nest, I noticed the tools up there.’

  ‘The Papayiannis’s love their trees. They’re Sakis’s pride and joy, as mine are to me, now I’ve lost Meni.’

  ‘How can you claim to be a lover of trees, when you tried to destroy those beautiful, ancient olives?’

  ‘I love nothing that they own. They’re the source of their livelihood. What better way to hit them in the pocket?’

  ‘But what about Sakis’s wife, his sons and daughters, all his dependants? You were playing with their livelihood too.’

  ‘They’re all of the same blood.’

  ‘And what of the bad blood you stirred up between the two clans? You must have been aware that others were being blamed for what you were doing?’

  ‘I needed a smokescreen. The Kapsis’s provided one.’

  ‘The kleftiko at the feast – were you responsible for their disaster there too?’

  ‘The pits burn overnight. I went up to the church, hauled a couple of buckets of water from the well, found their pit and doused it. And although it wasn’t ladylike, I added a little extra of my own, for good measure.’

  ‘But the Papayiannis clan blamed the Kapsis’s, and poor Dmitris took the brunt of their anger. He may be scarred for life. Do you have no conscience about him?’

  She poured more wine into the fat man’s glass, and drank some of her own.

  ‘I can’t be blamed for that. Dmitris is an unfortunate victim of the Papayiannis’s, as am I. What’s your interest in my conscience, anyway? And I’m flattered, of course, but what’s your interest in me?’

  ‘You took the administration of justice into your own hands.’

  She smiled, and the light of mania was in her face.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said, and raised her glass in a mock salute, to him, to herself and her actions. ‘I’ve made life unpleasant for them, as unpleasant as I could, and I’m proud of it. Are you going to arrest me for urinating on a barbecue, or hammering nails into a tree?’

  The fat man shook his head.

  ‘I�
��m no policeman, Meni,’ he said. ‘I’m one who understands the broader picture, and how all the threads of a situation are woven together. Without that broad view, it is impossible to know whether one acts justly, or not.’

  He pushed his chair back from the table to cross his legs, and as he did so, seemed to notice for the first time the muddy splashes his shoes had picked up on his walk to the house. Bending down to his hold-all, he unzipped it and took out a bottle of shoe whitener, and as Meni watched, he shook the bottle, removed the cap, and dabbed whitener first on one shoe, then the other; and when he was satisfied his footwear was at its best, he recapped the bottle, tucked it into his bag and refastened it.

  ‘What were we saying?’ he asked, with an almost genial smile. ‘You mentioned arrests, I think, so I should probably tell you that by now, Sakis Papayiannis will have handed himself in to the police. I have persuaded him to make a confession of his part in Dendra’s five deaths relating to the outbreak.’

  ‘Four deaths,’ she corrected him. ‘There were only four.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘There have been five. Those four who died from the contaminated oil, and Donatos. Maybe you’d like to talk to the police yourself. Go voluntarily, as Sakis is doing.’

  She seemed surprised.

  ‘Why should I want to do that? He has blood on his hands, and it’s right that he should be dealt with. I’ve done nothing of that magnitude.’

  ‘Ah, but you have,’ said the fat man. ‘You poisoned Donatos, over a long period of time, and most unpleasantly.’

  ‘That’s absurd! How could I have done that?’

  ‘You fed him cyanide, in the praline you made for him from the old variety of almonds. I had my suspicions after I ate a piece myself. I have a very strong stomach, but something made me ill that day, though I put it down at first to overeating. Then I wondered about the ice cream I had eaten at the gelateria. But when I thought about Donatos’s symptoms and your orchard here, I began to see there might be a connection. Cyanide poisoning in low doses results in breathlessness and redness in the face – symptoms which might easily be confused, in a man of Donatos’s age, with heart failure. I had only a few nuts, and felt how unpleasant the effects are. The risk of poisoning is so great with bitter almonds that in some countries, the trees are now illegal. But there’s a difficulty with cyanide poisoning which you and I need to overcome. I myself need to make a small confession.’