by Alison Fell
What Kober omits to mention – possibly she was not consciously aware of it – is the tragic coincidence of the dates. Her dear friend John Franklin Daniel had died on December 17th, the same date on which her father had died 13 years previously.
52
If he’d expected Wiltraud to be a pushover, Yiannis had been sorely mistaken. The initial interview had been a washout. Severely businesslike in her blouse and skirt, Wiltraud had sat with her hands clasped in her lap and answered his questions without expression. Yes she had been at the commune that night, helping Wolfgang with the tax returns. Later she’d baked a strudel with the children and had gone to bed early. Prys and Jean-Yves, she said, had been away that night, delivering to outlets on the south coast.
‘You say that ‘Pema’ went back to Albania?’
Wiltraud shrugged and studied her hands. ‘I think so. I don’t really know.’
‘Did he return at any point?’
Wiltraud shook her head. ‘No’
Yiannis was losing patience with the seamless insistence that Kruja/Pema had left 2 months ago;, not least because, despite himself, he was beginning to be convinced. Kruja and Pema were undoubtedly the same person, but what if that person had indeed left Halcyon, and had got himself into trouble all on his lonesome?
‘And he didn’t communicate with you in any way?’
‘No,’ Wiltraud said again, with a glance at her watch.
By now he was hardly listening to the answers, rather playing for time as his mind sped off up various winding hill roads which might at any point turn into impassable goat-paths. If what they were saying was true, Kruja could have left the commune but remained on the island. Maybe the poor kid had simply had enough of life in the Berchtesgarten, and had sloped off to shack up with some hippy girl for the duration.
Alternatively, he could have been purged. Karen had regaled him with hair-raising tales of psychological terrorism in the commune she’d belonged to in Melbourne; the main reason she’d run away to Greece was to put such hot-house experiments behind her. Kruja might have transgressed in some way – coupled up with one of the women, perhaps, become jealous and troublesome, upsetting the equilibrium of the group … and later, perhaps, sneaked back to meet her in a secret tryst?
He gazed at Wiltraud, undecided. This was clearly getting nowhere. In Greek he asked Kyriaki if they could break off the interview. ‘Let’s get the guys in. See if a good long wait won’t take the gloss off her.’
Prys and Jean-Yves had indeed been delivering, it seemed, to shops in Matala, Makriyalos and Soudia.
‘And the proprietors?’ asked Kyriaki, who once again was running the show. ‘You can provide details?’
‘No problem.’ Prys’s eyes wrinkled into a smile that said he knew a fishing expedition when he saw one. ‘Want me to write them down?’
Although possessed of a broken front tooth, the prominent pointy ears of a goblin, and a face which had weathered several dirty wars, his sexual aura was palpable; he had Alpha Male written all over him. Yiannis couldn’t help noticing the disturbing effect this had on Kyriaki and Ridotti – if such things can be judged by the crossing and recrossing of legs, and the way their fingers fussed with shirt-neck or skirt-hem, as if to button down tight against the enlivening assault of pheromones.
Kyriaki looked up from her notes. ‘I see you served in Iraq.’
‘That’s right, ma’am. Second Battalion, the Parachute Regiment.’
‘And why did you leave the army?’
Yiannis knew she was just going through the motions: even from here he could see the words ‘honourable discharge’ on the sheet.
‘You could say I felt like a quiet life.’
Prys responded to the rapped out questions with a radiant good humour. Yes of course he knew Pema – a quiet type, didn’t give much away. Good with animals, although he didn’t know shit about organic farming. But a willing worker, right enough.
‘Was he particularly close to anyone?’ Kyriaki asked. While Ridotti translated Prys cocked his head, eyeing Kyriaki with the friendly appetite of a man about to tackle a fillet steak.
‘You mean a girlfriend? Not that I know of. More’s the pity, eh?’
Yiannis raised a finger, and Kyriaki nodded her assent.‘Was pressure put on him to leave?’
‘Pressure? No way. We could do with more like him, to be honest.’ His gaze drifted back to Kyriaki, who by now had a definite rose in her cheeks.
‘And his state of mind? Was he unhappy in any way? Did he behave strangely, for instance?’
With obvious reluctance Prys focussed his attention on the less appealing figure of Sergeant Yiannis. ‘He could be a bit of a star-gazer, if that’s what you’re getting at. But the lad was no space-cadet. Hey, he had a university degree, for starters!’
Yiannis glanced uncertainly at Kyriaki, who signalled her agreement.
‘That all, then?’ said Prys, stretching lazily.
‘For the moment.’
Prys planted his hands on his thighs and eased himself up. ‘By the way, I wouldn’t waste your time on Jean-Yves, unless the lovely lady’s French is tip-top.’
The prediction, unfortunately, proved to be right. The boy from the banlieus spoke no more than a few basic words of English, and Ridotti was unable to follow the few French sentences they managed to squeeze from him. For most of the time he sat in a frozen slouch, his long legs stretched out under the table, on his face an expression of sullen fright which suggested more than one run-in with the Paris flics.
Finally Kyriaki slapped her file shut and stood up, and Yiannis followed suit. Clearly it was time to call a halt; until another interpreter could be brought in the whole exercise was pointless.
‘Are we holding him?’
Kyriaki gave him a hard look. ‘Is it really worth it?’
Yiannis shrugged. Probably it was not. All the same, the implicit accusation made him feel defensive. Understandably, she was frustrated, but it was hardly his fault if they seemed to be hitting a brick wall. Ridotti, too, looked despondent, as if infected by the atmosphere of failure that pervaded the room. Obviously it was time for an alternative approach, but right now he had no idea what that was.
‘So it’s your German friend next?’ Kyriaki sounded resigned.
The prospect of crossing rapiers with the steel-rimmed Gauleiter did little to lighten his mood. Another factor was that he hadn’t eaten for hours, and what little blood sugar remained in his system certainly didn’t seem to be making it to his brain.On impulse, he said, ‘Look, he’ll keep. Why don’t we go round to the Foka for half an hour?’
Kyriaki glanced at her watch, frowning. She shrugged. ‘Well, I could certainly do with an ouzo.’
They took a table indoors, away from the noise of the traffic which jostled at the chaotic 5 way junction. While Kyriaki nibbled glumly at olives, Yiannis tore through a mixed mezedes of gigantes in tomato sauce, grilled sardines, artichoke hearts and stuffed vine-leaves. Sated, he felt ready, if not for anything, then for most things this long and difficult day might yet decide to throw at him.
When Kyriaki tipped her head back to drain the last of her ouzo, her exposed neck looked pale and vulnerable, the jugular vein pulsing blue under the skin. Staring at the tiny crucifix that lay against her clavicle, he realised what he wanted to do.
‘Let’s get Wiltraud back in,’ he heard himself say. ‘Forget Wolfgang for the moment.’
53
When she shuts down the laptop Ingrid feels immensely sad, in a familar, autumnal way: that sense of fruitfulness being at an end, that panicky grasping at the remnants of summer.
Switching off the light to deter mosquitoes, she opens the French windows to air the stuffy room. From the balcony she can see the fairy-lights of the Shoestring terrace glimmering through the trees. She hears music, too, in some melancholy register, but she can’t make out what it is.
In a fit of rebellion she drags her silk skirt out of the wardrobe, and the silk top tha
t goes with it, and puts them on. At the mirror – she tells herself she’s dressing up for Alice, and if the patrons of the Shoestring see her as a lone female on the prowl, then good luck to them – she feels a stir of anticipation, as though a slippery part of her mind has managed to erase the tape – the morning, after all, seems a long time ago – so that she can look forward in all innocence to the pleasure of facing Yiannis across the table, twining her fingers through his, taking him home, afterwards, to the passionate civilities of her bed.
In the dim light of the balcony she paints her nails defiantly silver, and holds them up to the moon for comparison. There are exhalations of jasmine on the air, and a faint smell of roasting meat drifting across from Demosthenes’ garden. Down on the beach empty sunbeds are scattered at odd angles, like an abandoned gypsy camp; the waves lap at sand which has the metallic grey gleam of mud.
If she were to ring him, bite the bullet, what would she say? That those you need too badly turn you to jelly, and you hate them for it? That when you’re accustomed to thinking of yourself as unlovable, giving up the idea isn’t just difficult, it’s like abandoning your native country?
She slips Hutchinson into her bag, cigarettes. The phone card is in her wallet but that doesn’t mean she has to use it.
54
Self-conscious under Kyriaki’s surveillance, Yiannis was losing confidence. The critic who’d taken up residence in his head told him he should start again from the beginning, neglecting none of the details that had previously appeared trivial, and proceed in a logical manner. But as he gazed at Wiltraud a sense of unreality overtook him. There was something stagey in her dress and demeanor that brought to mind the various manifestations he’d encountered so far: the efficient, melancholic medic, the shy seductress in her see-through kaftan, and now this pin-tucked Madonna of the boardroom.
If Margrit was a monolith, he decided, Wiltraud was protean – the many-faceted goddess indeed.
‘Someone was with Kruja that night,’ he said flatly. If the slow erosion of questioning wouldn’t rock her foundations, maybe outright confrontation would. He saw her pupils dilate for a split second before she lowered her eyes. ‘It was you, wasn’t it, Wiltraud. The saliva swabs we took will prove it.’ Ignoring the faint intake of breath from Kyriaki, he stared at Wiltraud, willing her to break. If the allegation was false, all the better, for in a moment of almost extra-terrestrial lucidity he’d sensed that the more unjust the accusation, the more gravely it would disrupt her sense of moral rectitude. ‘There was, shall we say, an exchange of bodily fluids.’
Wiltraud flinched visibly. She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips before folding them tight. The message her eyes sent was pure martyr: how could he deal so unfairly with one whose healing skills had succoured his beloved cat?
How indeed, thought Yiannis.
‘He was alone.’ She spoke with such quiet vehemence that for a moment he wondered if he’d heard correctly. In a silence dense enough to lean on, he felt Kyriaki tense, and prayed that she’d say nothing. ‘It was I who found him.’ Wiltraud’s voice was thick with emotion but the words were distinct. She put her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking suddenly with sobs.
Yiannis and Kyriaki looked at each other, astonished. There was nothing sham about the tears that seeped between Wiltraud’s fingers like a mountain spring from a rock, nor, indeed, about the drops of blood that simultaneously appeared on her sparkling white shirt-front. Buffeted by the pressure-waves from her epicentre, he felt as though he were witnessing the collapse of an entire civilisation, a disintegration all the more radical for being long overdue.
‘Nose bleed!’ Kyriaki snapped. Digging a packet of Softex out of her bag, she pushed it across the table. ‘Tell her to put her head back.’
‘Put your head back,’ he and Ridotti said in tandem. Automatically, Wiltraud complied, groping for a tissue and holding it to her nose.
Kyriaki buzzed the constable in – a new one, a compact, wary-faced woman with the look of a wardress. ‘Get some ice from the kitchen, and a roll of paper towel.’
Wiltraud’s body quivered with the spasmodic effort of her breath. ‘I tried to stop him going, but he wouldn’t listen.’ The admission brought on a fresh outflow of tears, and a concomitant increase in gore.
‘Take deep breaths,’ Yiannis advised. ‘Don’t try to talk now.’ When Kyriaki frowned at him he rotated his forefinger in a gesture that said, All in good time. He certainly didn’t intend to wring a confession from someone in such a state – not to mention the state of her shirt, the implications of which should surely have struck Kyriaki by now. He could already hear the jeers of the press pack outside: Gave her a good going over, did you, Sergeant?
The constable reappeared with a plastic bowl of ice-cubes and a roll of kitchen towel. Stripping a length from the roll, she wrapped it round some ice cubes and, supporting Wiltraud’s head with one hand, held the pack to the bridge of her nose. Presently her breathing slowed, although it was still perturbed now and again by staccato sighs. The flow of blood had stopped, as had the tears. She sipped from the glass of water the constable held to her lips and gazed around with the dull, distant look of one who has temporarily forgotten where she is.
‘You’d like to wash your face?’ Yiannis suggested.
Wiltraud nodded, and was ushered out. When she returned he saw with relief that the front of her blouse was soaking wet: either she or the constable must have mopped it down, and had managed to get rid of most of the stains. He waited until she had composed herself.
‘You’re okay to continue?’
Wiltraud inclined her head. She looked, he thought, relieved; her face was softer than before, more open, as though washed clean not only of blood and tears but also, perhaps, of deceit.
‘So you tried to stop Pema,’ he prompted.
‘Doing what?’ Kyriaki said, taking the words out of his mouth.
Wiltraud’s lip quivered. ‘He was young. He was impatient. You should not tamper with such things, not without preparation.’ She brushed damp strands of hair back from her forehead, her eyes appealing to Yiannis. ‘I asked Margrit to stop him but she said it was his own journey, we should not interfere.’
Yiannis watched her pull another tissue from the packet and harry it between her fingers. ‘This journey of his – what was it, exactly?’
‘I don’t know.’ Wiltraud hesitated, glancing primly down at the shredded tissue. ‘It is the men’s affair. Between them and …’ She looked not at Yiannis but through him, her eyes focussing on the wall behind, like someone trying to decipher the tiny letters on the bottom of an optician’s chart. ‘… the Goddess.’ Although her voice had sunk to a whisper, as if merely pronouncing the word was a transgression, her shrug betrayed a vestige of embarrassment.
Kyriaki’s response was instant and denigratory.‘Po po po po!’ she exclaimed, the plosives tripping off her tongue like the sound of distant artillery.
With an effort, Yiannis controlled his expression. ‘This was an initiation of some kind?’ he asked, with a sangfroid he was far from feeling.
Kyriaki interrupted before Wiltraud could answer. ‘Ask her about Wolfgang. He was there that night, wasn’t he?’
Yiannis asked.
Wiltraud sniffed and brushed away new tears with the back of her hand. ‘Wolfgang tried also to stop him. There was an argument, I heard them shouting outside. Then Pema went off.’
‘To?’ said Yiannis, restraining his impatience.
‘Anemospilia. This is where the men go for … their gatherings.’
For a moment he was thrown off balance. ‘The hill sanctuary? How did he get all the way up there?’
‘I don’t know. Hitchhiked maybe.’
Yiannis looked at her reproachfully. ‘Come on, Wiltraud. You drove him, didn’t you.’
‘No!’ she cried, shaking her head furiously.
He raised his eyebrows in disbelief. ‘So you followed him?’
Wiltraud gave a minute
nod. ‘All night I was worried, I couldn’t sleep. When he didn’t return I got up and drove there.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you found him there?’
‘His body, yes.’
Kyriaki was on the edge of her seat by now, ready to pounce. ‘Ask her if it was clothed!’
Wiltraud shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut as if to defend herself against the memory.
‘You’re quite sure he was dead?’ Yiannis asked.
‘I have a medical training, Sergeant. There was no mistake.’
There was no mistaking the condescension either. Old habits die hard, thought Yiannis. Back on her high horse, even when she knew it was a worn out nag fit only for the knacker’s yard. He said sarcastically, ‘Yet you didn’t feel the need to call the emergency services? You realise, surely, how serious that is?’
Although Wiltraud said nothing, her face betrayed her agitation. She knows she’s in deep shit, he thought. Outside the tiny window a door slammed open, filling the shaft with noise: the clatter of crockery, fierce roars from a broadcast of a Panathinaikos game. The commentator was describing the match as a friendly but it didn’t sound very friendly to Yiannis.
‘And then the body just rose up like Lazarus and strolled all the way down to Panomeli?
Wiltraud sat back in her chair, a sullen twist to her mouth; guilt, he thought, was written all over her.
‘Did you move Pema, Wiltraud?’
The dead, Yiannis knew, were heavy beyond belief, as though only the soul itself had fended off the forces of gravity, and once it had gone, the body succumbed with relief to the age-old pull of Mother Earth. 70 kilos could feel like 100, and Wiltraud was neither tall nor particularly strongly built. No way could she have transported the corpse to Stavlakis’ olive grove.