Mavros decided to approach Jenny Ikonomou. She’d gone into the saloon after her brother had jumped ship. This was his opportunity to ask about her involvement with Manos Floros and her arrest. Maybe she’d come clean about Andonis. He headed down the stairs and looked through the porthole in the wooden door. He saw the actress immediately, even though she’d pulled her hat lower. But, as he was on the point of pushing the door open, he realised that she wasn’t alone. There was an elderly man in a bright red anorak sitting next to her and they were exchanging words.
Mavros stepped back. He was sure that she wouldn’t open up to him in company. He’d have to wait till they arrived at Aegina. He spent the rest of the voyage in the upper saloon, watching the lights from the ships that were lying at anchor. At least Andonis’s face didn’t come out of the darkness like it used to. Despite the fact that the search for Katia had provided an unexpected link to him, Andonis wasn’t as close as he had been. Mavros wasn’t sure if that was a healthy development.
The ferry came round the point north of the town of Aegina. There was a floodlight shining on a column that had survived from an ancient temple. Mavros went outside and watched as Jenny Ikonomou and the white-haired man got into the Mercedes. He was driving. Mavros waited till the ramp came down before he went to the lower deck and got into the hire car. He was hoping the actress hadn’t noticed him in the clamour of people and vehicles preparing to disembark. He’d decided what he was going to do. Since he couldn’t talk to her now, he would follow her. He’d lost Ricardo for the evening and he might as well make the most of the trip to the island.
The port was brightly lit, the buildings on a curve around the yacht harbour. There wasn’t much to the town and soon Mavros found himself on a road that led south. He’d been to the island often enough and he knew the general layout. It was under fifteen kilometres in length and triangular in shape. The main town was at the northwestern corner. Much of the south was taken up by a mountain about five hundred metres high. The Mercedes turned left and headed for the uplands, the road gradually ascending. There was a pick-up truck between Mavros and the other car, but it pulled off in a village and Mavros was forced to drop back. He saw the Mercedes indicate right. He gave it a start and then followed up what turned out to be an unsurfaced track. The darkness was all-embracing on the mountain’s flank and he could see the glow from the actress’s car easily. He slowed down, aware that he was visible as well. Then the Mercedes turned right again, this time without signalling.
Mavros killed his lights and drove forward slowly. By the time he reached the place, a heavy metal gate had been closed across what looked like the entrance to an estate. He turned the car round, the springs complaining on the rough ground, and went back to a flat area he’d seen on the way. He parked and left the car, wishing he’d had the foresight to bring a torch. Fortunately there were lights on the track leading to the house. It was a large two-storey block with a red-tiled roof.
The actress took her privacy seriously. There were No Entry signs every few metres on the high wall. Mavros thought about his options. He could press the button by the gate and ask to see Jenny Ikonomou, but there was no guarantee she would grant his request. There was a good chance that Ricardo had told her not to speak to him again. The other option was to scale the walls and snoop around. Mavros shivered. It wasn’t just the wind and the evening chill that were getting to him. This fortified establishment would be a perfect place to shut someone away from the outside world. Could it be that Katia was here?
He went to the far edge of the compound and followed the wall towards the west. In the distance he could see points of light on the shoreline and on the mountains across the strait. He came to a section where a tree was growing against the wall. He managed to clamber through the branches, feeling them catch his hair. When he was on the top, it was hard to see the ground on the other side. Taking a chance, he jumped. The impact jarred his knees, but did nothing worse. He was in.
Keeping to the dark spaces between the lights that had been installed across the cultivated ground, Mavros headed for the house. The shutters on the land side were all closed. He noticed a single-storey block beyond the main building and decided to check that out first. There was a light in one of the windows, the shutters open. As he got closer, he made out a figure inside. Then he realised that there were bars across the window. Heart racing, he ran to the building. He crouched down beside the illuminated window and got his breathing under control. The silhouetted figure had hair hanging down to the shoulders. He edged forward slowly and raised his head to the bottom of the window.
The person inside was female—by the time Mavros looked, she’d turned side on. But the hair wasn’t Katia’s strawberry blonde and the face wasn’t that of an eighteen year old. This was a person who had been ravaged by life. Her hair was grey and lank, her face deeply wrinkled. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Her eyes were blinking continuously and her mouth seemed to have collapsed in on itself, the lips tightly closed.
Mavros raised a hand to the glass, but before he could touch it he felt a hard object jab into his back.
‘Stand up, arsehole,’ came a rough voice. ‘And slowly. This is a double-barrelled shotgun with triggers so sensitive that a baby could pull them.’
Mavros did as he was told. When he was fully upright, he came face to face with the woman behind the bars.
Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open to reveal yellow teeth. She looked like she’d seen something worse than a ghost. She made the movements of someone who was screaming, her head back and her jaws opening and closing. But no sound followed Mavros as he was marched towards the house.
Damis watched Ricardo hail a taxi in the port. He followed it, allowing a couple of cars to cut in between them. He was puzzled. He’d been on Mavros’s tail from the hospital. He could have approached the investigator when he was sitting outside the Pink Palace in the car he’d hired, but he’d decided to wait. Earlier in the day he’d heard Yannis and Panos crowing about the shooting outside the investigator’s house—how Ricardo had given them the job. Now the tables had turned. It looked like Mavros was tailing Ricardo. That made Damis’s job easier, but he couldn’t leave the city so he’d resigned himself to losing them on the ferry. Then Ricardo jumped off and left his sister and Mavros on board. Had the bald man spotted the investigator?
The taxi followed the coast road to the east. Ricardo got out at the Silver Lady. It wasn’t open yet and Damis was about to park, assuming that Ricardo would stay there, when he saw Yannis and Panos come out in a hurry. They got into the Audi. It was reversed round to the rear door. Ricardo appeared in the rectangle of light, a hold-all in each hand.
Damis called the number he’d been given. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs Chioti,’ he said, slipping in behind the Audi as it turned towards the city. ‘Have you given Ricardo instructions for a job tonight?’
‘No,’ she said, her voice brusque. ‘I’m waiting to see if the opposition have learned their lesson. You’re supposed to be handling Ricardo. I hope you aren’t going to disappoint me.’
‘I won’t,’ he said, accelerating past a lorry. ‘Do you want me to stop him if he takes action against the Russians?’
‘I’m paying you to use your initiative.’
Damis tossed the phone on to the seat, glad that she hadn’t asked him about Mavros. He wanted to keep the investigator’s current location to himself. He was thinking about how to play this. Getting Ricardo out of the way was risky, but it would advance his career with the family. Did he have the nerve for it? He decided to hold off until he saw what Ricardo did.
The Audi passed to the east of the city centre and drove into the back streets above Alexandhras Avenue. It wasn’t an area that Damis knew well and he found it difficult to keep the car in view. Eventually it stopped outside a bar called Bonzo’s. Loud music came down the street. A pair of elderly locals passed with long-suffering looks on their faces. Damis parked down the street, angling the wing mirr
or so he could see to the rear.
He saw Yannis talking to a group of denim-clad youths from the front seat of the Audi. One of them pointed to a building across the street. Damis watched as Ricardo and Panos got out and went over to the street door, the bald man bending to speak into the entry-phone. Instead of going in, the pair waited outside the door. Panos lurked in a shadowy corner at the bottom of the steps.
The door opened and a bulky figure came out. Damis recognised him immediately. It was the Russian-Greek who’d been watching the Silver Lady with the investigator Mavros. Ricardo started speaking to him.
Damis got out of his car, ducking down and crossing the street. He got as near as he could.
‘…and I can find your daughter,’ Ricardo was saying.
‘How do you know where she is?’ the Russian-Greek demanded. ‘Did you take her?’
Ricardo laughed. ‘No, of course I didn’t. I want to help.’
The bearded man gave him a suspicious look, then nodded. ‘Very well. I come with you.’ As he went down to the pavement, he caught sight of Panos. ‘Wait, I know—’ He fell to his knees as Panos punched him and put an armlock on him.
‘Get him into the car,’ the bald man hissed.
Damis knew he had to act. He stood up and went over to them. ‘Who’s your friend, Ricardo?’
‘Don’t you remember, Dami?’ Panos said. ‘He’s the—’
‘Shut up, you idiot,’ Ricardo said, looking down the street and then back at Damis. ‘What the hell are you doing here? This is none of your business.’
‘Maybe you’d like to talk to Mrs Chioti about that. She told me no action was to be taken against the Russians tonight.’ The lie came easily.
‘This guy isn’t one of them,’ the bald man scoffed. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, arselicker.’
Damis looked at Panos. ‘Isn’t he a Russian-Greek?’ he asked. ‘You saw his ID card.’
The musclemen looked confused. ‘Yes…yes, he is.’
Damis caught Ricardo’s eye. ‘There you are then. He’s a Russian. Mrs C said nothing happens to Russians tonight. So let him go.’ He took the automatic from his jacket pocket. ‘Now.’
Ricardo glared at him. ‘You’re a dead man. You’re a fucking corpse.’ He beckoned to Panos. ‘Come on, jackass. Let him go.’
Damis watched as they walked to the Audi. Yannis had got out and was staring at them. The three of them slammed their doors, then the Audi pulled away and disappeared round the corner.
‘Are you all right?’ Damis said to the Russian-Greek. ‘What’s your name again?’
‘Tratsou, Dmitri.’ The bearded man straightened up. ‘I’m fine. I can take them. They not hold me.’
Damis shrugged. ‘Sorry I spoiled your fun.’
‘Why do you help me?’ Dmitri said, his forehead furrowed. ‘You were with them the other night.’
Damis looked around. ‘I think it would be a good idea if we got off the street. My car’s down there. Come on. You and I need to talk.’
The Russian-Greek hesitated, his eyes on the young men who were standing outside the bar. ‘Go back to your mothers!’ he shouted.
Damis waited for him at the side of the four-by-four. ‘Friends of yours?’
‘They knew the fool who was with my Katia, the one who was murdered.’ Dmitri looked at him over the roof. ‘We must follow that bald pig. He said he knows where she is.’
‘That’s what I want to talk to you about,’ Damis said, getting into the car and opening the passenger door. ‘That and Alex Mavros.’
The Russian-Greek gave him a dubious look and then climbed in. They drove off into the night.
Mavros walked into the house gingerly, the muzzle of the shotgun pressing into his back. The interior of the building was that of a typical rich man’s country house from the sixties. The style was plain, the marble floors and white walls as sterile as a laboratory.
‘Keep going.’ The elderly man in the red anorak who’d been on the ferry with Jenny Ikonomou was clearly used to handling weapons. ‘The far door.’
When they got there, he pushed Mavros to one side and knocked on the door. ‘Mrs Jenny? There’s an intruder. He says he knows you.’ He jabbed his elbow into Mavros’s ribs. ‘What’s your name?’
The door opened.
The actress looked surprised. ‘His name is Alex Mavros, Thanasi.’ She dismissed the man with a movement of her hand. ‘It’s all right. Mr Mavros isn’t an associate of my brother’s. You can lower the gun.’
Thanasis looked at his captive and gave a derisive laugh. ‘You’re right, Mrs Jenny. This long-haired ponce couldn’t hurt a worm.’
Mavros followed the actress into a wide room with three French windows. Outside, he could see lights around a swimming-pool and rows of fruit trees stretching away. The atmosphere in this room was less frigid than in the hall. The walls were hung with brightly coloured abstract paintings, the sofas and armchairs in pink-covers.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ Jenny Ikonomou said. ‘We’ve had trouble with insistent male fans in the past.’
Mavros gave her a severe look. ‘The woman you’ve imprisoned in your outhouse needs help. She’s very upset.’
‘She isn’t imprisoned, as you put it.’ The actress looked away. ‘There’s a nurse with her. Please sit down.’
‘No, thanks,’ Mavros said, stepping closer. ‘Have you got anyone else locked up here? On behalf of your brother, perhaps?’
She gave him an agonised look. ‘Please, I—’ She broke off and moved away from him. ‘There’s no one else here apart from Thanasis. He’s been looking after the estate since my father had it.’
‘Is that right?’ Mavros said, shadowing her round the sofa. ‘So Katia Tratsou isn’t here?’
‘Katia?’ She looked surprised. ‘But you said she was in Italy.’
‘A white lie. No, Katia is still missing and I think your brother has taken her. You know he has a taste for young women.’
The actress closed her eyes and raised a hand to fend him off. ‘Please. I’m not responsible for Ricardo.’
‘You’re responsible for yourself. If you know he’s been breaking the law, you’re as guilty as he is. I’m going to search this house.’
‘You’re welcome to,’ she said, her voice stronger.
‘Really?’ That wasn’t the response he expected.
‘But you’ll be wasting you time. Ricardo hasn’t been here for months. Thanasis would have told me. And Katia has never been here. I invited her for Easter, but I didn’t hear from her again.’
Mavros remembered the diary extract he’d found in Katia’s room in the Pink Palace. The information that the actress had volunteered squared with it. ‘And as far as you know, Ricardo doesn’t have her?’
‘As far as I know.’
‘But you don’t discount the possibility?’
She reached for a packet of cigarettes. ‘My brother has certain…certain problems. I’ve always tried to help him.’ She blew out smoke and sat down.
‘You know he runs a night club called the Silver Lady?’ Mavros said, joining her on the sofa. ‘I think he’s involved in the gang war that’s going on in the city. He also arranged for my girlfriend and me to be met by a hail of bullets outside my apartment block last night.’
‘Oh my God,’ the actress said, her hand at her mouth. ‘I haven’t seen the news. Is she all right?’
‘It seems so. You do know that Ricardo works for the city’s biggest crime family?’
She drew on her cigarette. ‘I know about the club, yes.’
He waved the smoke away. ‘That isn’t all you know, is it?’
‘I…I’ve had suspicions.’
‘Has he ever taken one of your protegees before?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t look very sure.’
She glanced up at him, her eyes damp. ‘He…he raped a young woman on set once.’
‘She was a fourteen-year-old girl,’ Mavros said sharply, r
emembering what his mother had told him. ‘Is there anything else you know that might help me find Katia?’
The actress kept silent.
‘Nothing at all?’
‘He’s my brother, for God’s sake.’
Mavros stood up and went to the ornate fireplace. There was a photograph in a gold frame showing two children, the dark-haired girl with her arms wrapped around a younger boy. ‘What about my brother?’ he said, glancing round at her. ‘You told me you’d never met Andonis.’
‘That’s right,’ she said, stubbing out her cigarette.
‘But it’s not. I’ve learned that you were at an end-of-term party with him in the early years of the dictatorship.’ He went back to the sofa and leaned over her. ‘Manos Floros, Roza Arseni and Era Bala were there as well. You do remember them, don’t you?’
The actress gasped. Her face was pale and her breath was suddenly short.
‘Here,’ Mavros said, pouring her a glass of water from the carafe on the table. He waited till she’d drunk it down. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been looking for Andonis since I was a kid.’
‘Forgive me,’ she said, grasping his forearm. ‘I don’t know what happened to your brother. It’s true, I did meet him at youth party gatherings. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m not comfortable with that part of my life.’
Mavros wasn’t giving up. ‘What about when you were arrested? Did you ever encounter a torturer known as the Father?’
She was staring at him, tears flowing freely. ‘How do you know that I was arrested? I…I wasn’t tortured. I told them everything they wanted to know the first day.’ She started to sob. ‘I…I betrayed my friends and…and then my father got me out. Manos…Manos died because of me.’
The Golden Silence Page 26