The Last Red Death (A Matt Wells Thriller)

by Johnston, Paul

  ‘Pity the weather’s so shitty,’ Mavros said. ‘Kitta looked like an interesting place.’

  Grace glanced at him. ‘Why did my mother do that painting of it? Do you think…’ She left the question uncompleted.

  ‘Do I think Iason Kolettis had a connection with the place?’ Mavros looked ahead: another old man with a donkey was coming out of the gloom, like a ghost, with his head lowered. ‘Who knows? It was hard enough getting the locals to talk about Dhimitrakos.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what Laskaris was keeping from us,’ she said, indicating right to turn on to the Areopolis road. ‘That the killer came from here.’

  ‘There was nobody called Kolettis in the phone book, not that there would be if it was a false name. But you’re right. Laskaris is holding things back. I suppose we could try again with him tomorrow.’ Mavros didn’t feel optimistic about getting the old poet to open up any further.

  Grace made no comment, concentrating on the driving.

  There was little traffic, but several of the vehicles they passed were lacking tail-or headlights, as if the notoriously well-armed locals had taken pleasure in shooting them out. To Mavros the region seemed strikingly alien. There was none of the rural charm of other areas—the walls around the fields were crumbling and there were few animals to be seen. The sparse olive trees were low and stunted, as if the wind had sucked the sap from them. Stray dogs with protruding ribs darted across the road in the headlights, their eyes flashing dementedly. Even the churches were sinister, none of the whitewashed walls and bright red tiles that were common elsewhere in the Peloponnese—the Mani’s places of worship were shrunken like mummified corpses, with walls of grey and brown stone that had absorbed centuries of rain and dust, and roofs that were caving in. Fortunately it was under twenty kilometres to the main town. They were there not long after six o’clock.

  ‘Keep your eyes open for those towers that have been turned into guest houses,’ Grace said as they turned off the main road and entered a wide square with an imposing bronze statue.

  ‘This is the Plateia Athanaton, the Square of the Immortals,’ Mavros said, looking up from the guide. ‘And that’s Mavromichalis, one of the the old warriors who defeated the Turks in the War of Independence.’

  ‘Good for him,’ Grace said, slowing down as they passed a periptero, the usual display of newspapers hanging from wires. ‘Where to now?’

  Mavros glanced at the kiosk and blinked. ‘Stop!’ he shouted, opening the car door before she complied. He ran across the sodden paving stones and stared up at the national daily that was moving to and fro in the wind.

  Grace appeared by his side. ‘What is it, Alex?’

  Mavros pointed at the photograph beneath the banner headline. ‘The composer Randos,’ he said, feeling an icy stab in his gut. ‘He’s dead.’

  The Fat Man had reached his ancestral village of Anavryti in the early afternoon, his mother having forced him to keep his speed down even on the fast sections of the road. He had hoped to be able to drop her off and make a start on the mission he’d been given, but Kyra Fedhra had refused to let him leave.

  ‘But, Mother,’ he complained, ‘it’s Party business.’ Although Kyra Fedhra had mixed feelings about the Communists, not least because her committed husband had spent much of his life in prison, she understood that her son had certain responsibilities and normally allowed them to take precedence. Not this time.

  ‘Rubbish,’ she said, as she tore about the old building, opening shutters that had been sealed since the previous summer. ‘And you’d better be back in time for the dinner I’m planning for the family on Christmas Eve.’

  Yiorgos Pandazopoulos raised his shoulders. ‘I don’t know—’ he began.

  ‘Well, I do,’ Kyra Fedhra interrupted. ‘Now, get those bags in from the car. When you’ve done that, go and buy bread before the bakery closes.’ She gave him a humourless smile. ‘Then you can help me clean the house.’

  He had gone out into the freezing streets to unload the Lada, feeling the eyes of the passers-by on him. There were only a few who acknowledged him, his father’s leftist past causing the majority of the villagers to despise the family. Anavryti had been a typical Peloponnesian monarchist stronghold and even now there were many who hadn’t forgotten the old days. Shivering in the mountain air, which was now clogged with mist, the Fat Man cursed his mother for bringing him down here. He managed to avoid the trip she made every summer by claiming pressure of business in the café—not that many tourists ventured through the filthy door—and in recent years she had preferred to stay in the big city for Christmas. What had possessed her to come down this winter? Maybe she thought it was the last chance she’d get to see the village where she and her husband had grown up.

  At last Kyra Fedhra was satisfied with the house, the diesel stove that Yiorgos had finally managed to light pumping some heat out into the damp kitchen.

  ‘You will be back as soon as you can, my boy?’ his mother said, peering at him and handing him a blue plastic bag filled with provisions. Now he was about to leave, she was suddenly solicitous.

  The Fat Man nodded as he accepted it. ‘I’ll telephone you when I’m on my way,’ he said, realising his mistake when she gave him a sardonic look. The phone had been cut off years ago when they had been short of cash. ‘I mean I’ll telephone Aunt Malamo.’

  Kyra Fedhra gave him a sharp smile. ‘And don’t imagine that you will escape her kreatopita.’

  Yiorgos groaned. Despite his fondness for food of all kinds, his aunt’s cooking had been the bane of his childhood; her meat pies contained material that few other housewives would use even in times of hardship, such as chopped udder.

  He drove the Lada down the winding road towards the highway that led to the port of Yithion and the Mani beyond. It was only then that the full import of the news he had heard on the radio earlier in the day struck him. For reasons he couldn’t fathom, the comrades had sent him to keep an eye on Kostas Laskaris and report on all his visitors. The dead composer Randos had been one of the old poet’s closest friends in the Party. What kind of filthy game was he being drawn into by the big players, the ones who could crush him like a fly?

  Mavros punched numbers on the phone in the hotel bedroom. He and Grace had given up any idea of looking for a picturesque place to stay when they saw the newspaper, settling instead for the box-like Hotel Mani in the main square. At least it had plenty of vacant rooms—one for each of them—and, although the marble corridors were freezing, the bedrooms were equipped with electric heating units that fanned out waves of warmth.

  He started speaking in Greek to the journalist Bitsos in Athens, feeling Grace’s eyes on him. The suspicion that she could understand the language flitted across his mind. He returned her gaze and spoke even more rapidly. Her expression remained the same and he let the thought go.

  When Mavros put down the phone, she sat on the bed beside him. ‘Well?’

  ‘Bitsos didn’t have much to say. Neither do the police. They reckon it was either an accident or suicide. There was no sign of a struggle.’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘I don’t believe it was an accident. You saw how he kept the shutters down when he was on his own.’

  She was looking at him. ‘So, was it suicide? Do you think what we…what I said could have affected him so much?’

  Mavros chewed his lip. ‘I doubt it, Grace. Randos wasn’t a depressive, like a lot of musicians and artists. He was famous for shooting his mouth off and getting outrageously drunk at parties, not sitting on his own and thinking how futile his life was.’ He glanced at her. ‘Besides, there’s something else.’

  ‘What is it?’ she said, when he didn’t go on.

  ‘Bitsos said that the kittens were on the ground next to him.’

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘You mean they’d been put out of the window?’

  His lower lip was between his teeth again.

  ‘Jesus Christ, he must have—’ She gazed at him. ‘Oh, no, I see what you me
an. He loved those little creatures. He’d never have harmed them. You think someone murdered him?’

  ‘I reckon so. Fortunately we’re not in the shit. His wife came back after we were there—one of the neighbours saw her and noticed the time—so even if the people who were on our tail wanted to frame us, they’d have a job.’ He shook his head. ‘Not that it would be beyond them to produce a false witness if they wanted to.’

  ‘They?’ she said. ‘Who do you think they are?’

  ‘You tell me,’ Mavros replied.

  She looked away, feeling the hostility that was radiating from him. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘Just this,’ he said, standing up and leaning over her. ‘Ever since we hooked up, things have started to happen. We get followed to Randos’s place and from your hotel, the composer ends up dead and Kostas Laskaris clams up tighter than a dead man when we visit him.’ He moved his face close to hers. ‘Is there anything you want to tell me, Grace? Remember, I can walk away from this any time I want.’

  She was silent for a few moments, and then she pushed him back gently, the fingers of her right hand splayed on his chest. ‘Stop it, Alex,’ she said. ‘I didn’t ask for any of this to happen. I…I just want to find the guy who killed my father. Why are you giving me a hard time, for God’s sake?’

  He held her gaze briefly, then moved towards the window. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.’ He was still struggling with what the old poet had told him about his brother, Andonis, and felt the urge to tell Grace about him. He managed to resist that. He had taken on the case to find her father’s killer—Andonis was his own issue.

  ‘That old Mediterranean temperament of yours coming out?’ she said with a smile. ‘I could do with a drink.’

  They left the hotel and found an underpatronised café where they could talk without the shouting that was a standard feature of kafeneia.

  ‘I don’t think you’ll get a cocktail here,’ Mavros said.

  Grace laughed. ‘I want a beer, not a Screwdriver.’

  A young man appeared at their table, his shaven head proving that bad haircuts weren’t confined to the capital city.

  Mavros ordered a couple of Amstels and they took some hits. He began to relax. Then a piece of music started to play on the radio and he tensed again.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘“O Erotas Kaiei”,’ he replied, his voice low. ‘“Love Burns”. One of Randos’s recent hits.’ The waiter and a couple of other young men began to sing along. ‘“The world makes us suffer, but love burns away the pain.” Laskaris wrote the lyrics.’

  They listened to the lilting rhythms of the song and its naked emotion. It concluded to cries of ‘Bravo’ from the young men in the overheated room. A pair of old men who had looked sullen were clapping.

  ‘That was beautiful,’ Grace said.

  ‘You see how popular Randos was? Even down here, in the most right-wing corner of Greece.’

  She nodded. ‘It’s hard to think of an American composer who would provoke a reaction like that in a bar in the Midwest, let alone one with a major poet as his lyricist. I wonder if my father ever saw that side of Greece.’

  They ate dinner in an adjacent restaurant, amazed to discover that what looked at first glance to be a quiet kitchen offered literally dozens of dishes.

  ‘What on earth are they going to do with all that food?’ Grace asked, as she finished a plate of veal in tomato sauce.

  ‘Who knows? Feed all the old people in the Deep Mani?’

  ‘An unofficial welfare service?’

  ‘Why not? People look after their own in this country.’

  After a brandy on the house, presented by the waiter with a flourish, they headed back to the hotel.

  Mavros stopped outside her door; his own was further down the corridor. ‘What time do you want to get going in the morning, Grace? If we’re planning to stop in at Laskaris’s tower after we talk to Dhimitrakos, we’d better not hang about.’

  ‘Eight?’ she said, then put her key into the lock. ‘Good night, Alex.’ She went in without looking at him.

  It was only a few minutes later that Mavros heard a light tap on the door. He opened it. His eyes widened as she pushed him inside and her mouth met his. She had swathes of his hair in her hands to keep him where she wanted him.

  ‘Surprise,’ she said, when they broke off for air. ‘I thought you might need some company tonight.’ She looked at him. ‘What’s the matter?’

  He was studying her face. ‘This is a bit unexpected.’

  ‘That’s in the nature of surprises, Alex.’ Grace kissed him again, this time more urgently. She nudged him towards the bed, her hands running down his back then coming forward to his belt buckle.

  ‘Look,’ Mavros stammered, ‘I’m not sure if this is a good—’ He felt her hands on his groin.

  ‘Sure it’s a good idea,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ he said, pushing her away gently. ‘Remember Niki?’

  Grace was still smiling. ‘The one who landed a good low punch? How could I forget her?’

  Mavros picked up her harsher tone. ‘Well, I can’t forget her either,’ he said. ‘We’re a couple. I don’t cheat on her.’

  Grace’s expression was blank now. ‘Very noble, Alex. Very politically correct.’

  ‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘it isn’t a good idea for us to get involved. We need to concentrate on the case.’

  ‘Involved as in emotionally involved, you mean?’ Grace asked. ‘I wasn’t planning on getting emotionally involved, for Christ’s sake. I got the hots for you, that’s all.’ She turned towards the door. ‘Good night again.’

  Mavros watched the door close behind her, then locked it and sat on his bed. That was a development he could have lived without.

  The old soldier Geoffrey Dearfield lay in the first-floor bedroom in the Palaiologos house and listened to his wife’s gentle snoring. He could see the hands of his watch in the light that was coming through the shutter slats from the garden, armed men patrolling outside the fence as they had done during the war. Three o’clock. He’d drunk too much the previous evening; he knew it would keep him awake, but he had needed the numbing effect of alcohol to damp down the fear that was increasing by the day. These murders—which he was sure were by the Iraklis group—and now the sudden death of the Communist composer Randos were swamping him. Something terrible was happening in his adopted country and the guilt he’d suppressed for years had at last begun to get the better of him. The guilt and the fear—they had their roots in the enclosed plateau on Taygetos, the frightful scene he had come upon too late. Kapetan Iraklis had been in command, the guerrilla fighter’s face rising up before him again. Oh, God, he thought, why were the scenes from the Second World War so vivid, as if they had happened yesterday? Suddenly he was back there, watching himself as a young man.

  ‘Hurry,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘The gunfire came from beyond that ridge.’ Captain Geoff Dearfield, Royal Engineers, but now seconded to the Special Operations Executive and acting as a liaison officer with the Greek resistance, was striding up the scree-ridden slope in the southern Peloponnese.

  ‘We must be careful,’ his guide, Fivos, called. He was trying to keep up, the stitching of his Greek Army-issue boots coming apart. ‘The enemy column was long and heavily armed.’

  The Englishman looked up at the bare peaks, the spine of Taygetos less high than it was above Sparta but still eagle-haunted and forbidding as it ran down to the sea at Cape Matapan, or Tainaron as the Greeks called it. His breathing was regular, the training he had undertaken in Egypt standing him in good stead.

  ‘Why would the guerrillas have engaged them?’ he asked bitterly. ‘We’ve been developing a strategy of pinning the Germans down in the plains, not inciting them to run all over the place.’ Although the Italians had initially been the occupying force in this area, their surrender the previous September had left the Germans in control—and they
were now supplemented by the Security Battalions made up of anti-Communist Greeks.

  Fivos raised his chin. ‘I don’t know. The ELAS unit may not have had any choice. There are many impassable places where it could have been trapped.’ He had been a student at Oxford before the war and his English was good. When the brass hats discovered he had grown up in Lakonia, he was immediately transferred from the Greek Army of the Near East to Special Operations. The fact that he was staunchly monarchist had increased his appeal.

  Dearfield slowed his pace as he approached the ridge. It had been some minutes since the gunfire had ceased. He glanced at Fivos and dropped to his knees, then crawled towards the edge. When he got there, he moved his head forward carefully, having removed his beret.

  ‘What are they doing?’ he whispered, his heart pounding as he took in the scene a couple of hundred feet below. ‘My God, what are they doing?’

  Fivos swallowed hard. ‘The butchers,’ he gasped. ‘They are—they are executing the survivors.’

  Dearfield watched as a woman in torn combat gear squatted down by a man wearing the kilt of a battalionist and pulled his head back, then slit his throat with a bayonet. ‘But that man’s a Greek,’ he said, aghast. ‘They’re killing their own people.’

  Fivos’s face was ashen, his eyes damp. ‘This is what they do to traitors,’ he said. ‘But they are the real traitors to their country. EAM and ELAS are made up of Communist brigands. They will give Greece to the Slavs and the Russians.’ He pulled his service revolver from its holster.

  ‘No,’ Dearfield said, putting a hand on the Greek’s arm. ‘If they have the nerve to execute Greek prisoners, they will not hesitate to kill you and me if we fire on them. We are heavily outnumbered. But I will go down there and remonstrate with their leader.’