Mortal Remains

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Mortal Remains Page 13

by Margaret Yorke


  ‘So do I,’ she said.

  ‘He didn’t tell you?’

  ‘No. He just left a note – he didn’t even say goodbye. He hoped to rejoin us in a few days, when we got back from Turkey. At least by the time we came here, I’d expected.’

  Patrick looked round at the towering mountains above them, the steep-sided valley below with the silvered olive trees and the greener pines. She had been here with Felix. An immense pity for her grief filled him.

  ‘I’ve given myself away. The situation must be obvious to you, Dr Grant,’ she said. ‘Not that it matters now.’

  ‘I’d no idea,’ he said, inadequately.

  She shrugged, and managed a smile.

  ‘We’d been moderately discreet,’ she said. ‘But that was over. He’d decided to end that charade of a marriage. We’d hoped to get Gwenda to agree to a divorce. But anyway he could have got one eventually.’

  ‘Did Gwenda know?’

  ‘Yes. He told her before he came away.’

  ‘How did she react?’

  ‘With bitterness.’ Lucy twisted a piece of dried-up grass between her fingers. She had shapely hands. ‘An uncle of Felix’s died in March and left him a lot of money.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘Why should you? It was rather a surprise to Felix.’

  ‘Why didn’t you do it before? Marry, I mean, or at least get together?’

  ‘He wanted to wait till his daughter was settled. And I have two sons. They’re more or less adult now. Odd as it may seem, we didn’t want to set all the young ones a bad example.’

  At least she wouldn’t be totally bereft, if she had two sons. Patrick had tried not to stare at her, but he was curious. In a way she did look ordinary, as Marlow had implied, but her face was marred by her weeping. Her eyes were lovely, though; huge, and of a deep, unusual blue, just like her dress. There was a total lack of affectation about her that was enabling her to get through this unconventional meeting without embarrassment.

  ‘How good that Felix met you,’ said Patrick, simply, and then, ‘how did it happen?’

  ‘On one of the cruises. Four years ago.’

  It had been easy for them both, aboard the Persephone. The next year, she had joined the cruise again. Then Felix had gone on two cruises a year, and so had she.

  ‘It was idyllic, really, in this sort of setting. It couldn’t last, I suppose,’ she said.

  They had spent more and more time together at home. Her cottage in Hungerford was easily reached from Oxford. Had Gwenda known about it before Felix told her?

  Talking was doing Lucy good. She must have been putting up a brave front aboard the Persephone.

  ‘What about some coffee, or a drink? You need something,’ Patrick said. ‘Shall we go to the taverna down the road?’

  ‘But I’m taking up your time.’

  ‘You’re not. I’m delighted that we met.’ Should he tell her why he was here? No – or anyway, not yet. ‘I’m staying in Delphi. I’ve plenty of time,’ he said.

  ‘You’re very kind.’

  He wasn’t. He was anxious to get her into a condition where she could stand more questions.

  They walked on down the mountain-side together.

  ‘No wonder Apollo chose this place,’ said Patrick.

  ‘It’s dramatic, isn’t it? It’s easy to shut one’s eyes and be carried backwards in time. That old oracle must have been rather a witch-like female.’

  ‘Mm. Full of dope, do you think?’ asked Patrick.

  ‘Maybe. Anyway the priests interpreted her mutterings. They could have alleged she said anything.’

  Some gardeners were at work on the Stoa of the Athenians, chipping away with trowels like those masons use, triangular and pointed. The black-clad women had scarves wound round their heads, wimple-like; they bent low, working slowly in the sunlight, dislodging flowering weeds from the crevices between the stones. One led a laden donkey away.

  ‘They must have been using trowels like that here for centuries,’ said Lucy.

  ‘Yes.’ Patrick looked at the women. How patiently they toiled; no modern weedkillers were used here.

  ‘When do you have to be back at the ship?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, not for ages. Four o’clock. There’s another party at Ossios Loukas. I said I’d get a taxi back to Itea.’

  They walked down the road and crossed over to the taverna on the corner. Below it, the path led first to the gymnasium and then on down to the Tholos. It was cool here, under the shaded roof. Lucy asked for a long, cold drink. She must be tired; she had walked a considerable distance since leaving the coach. Patrick ordered lemonade for both of them.

  When their drinks had arrived, and after she had sipped some of hers, he said:

  ‘I found Felix’s body.’

  She did not start or exclaim. She merely looked at him in silence. After a few seconds she said:

  ‘The papers didn’t mention that. Tell me about it.’

  He regarded her gravely. She was quite composed now. The big blue eyes returned his gaze steadily. She had a right to know.

  He told her, leaving out the distressing details of Felix’s condition after several days submerged.

  ‘I’m glad it was you, and not a stranger,’ she said, when he had finished, and he began to wish he had done more: offered to cope with Felix’s papers and seen his body safely on to the plane. ‘Do you think it was an accident?’ she added. ‘The police did, I know.’

  He parried this.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think. He hated heights.’

  ‘Yes. But he came here – to Delphi—’

  ‘He was all right in this sort of place, as long as he didn’t look directly over a precipice. He didn’t like standing high up above the theatre, for example, but he didn’t have to.’ She laughed, a little wryly. ‘He was always the one who stayed below and declaimed something from the stage for everyone else to listen to, above.’

  ‘You can’t imagine him walking on a cliff top?’

  ‘Not willingly.’

  Patrick plunged.

  ‘You don’t think he committed suicide, do you?’

  ‘No. Not for a minute,’ she said, at once. ‘He would never do that.’

  Now that he had met Lucy Amberley, any lingering doubts Patrick might have had about that had gone. Felix had a lot to live for. And he hadn’t had a heart attack; his death was caused by drowning.

  ‘But—what else could explain it?’ she said.

  He did not answer.

  ‘Someone—might have pushed him?’ She could hardly utter it.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t see how they got him up on the top of the cliff in the first place. And who would want to do it?’ Patrick said. ‘But why did he go to Crete? If we knew that, we might be able to find out more.’

  Lucy was shaken by the new idea but she made an effort to absorb it calmly.

  ‘I asked, in the ship,’ she said. ‘You know – if he’d mentioned anything to anyone. We’d all flown out that morning. Then he’d taken a party on a quick tour round Venice. I went aboard and got settled in – I’d been on Felix’s lightning tours before – a sprint round the Doge’s Palace and St. Mark’s, then the Bridge of Sighs.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘We intended to spend a week there after the cruise.’

  ‘He must have had a message,’ said Patrick. ‘Someone must have cabled him.’

  ‘They thought that, on board. But there was no trace of any cable. They’d have known, in the ship. Everyone thought he must have been sent for from home.’

  Gwenda: had she wired him to meet her? But why in Crete? He’d inherited money and planned to leave her.

  ‘Had he made a will recently?’Patrick demanded.

  Lucy looked shocked.

  ‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ she said. Then she realised what he was thinking. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Never.’

  Gwenda had been at home when given the news of Felix’s death. That
much Patrick knew from what Inspector Manolakis had told him. But he’d been dead for several days. Gwenda could have travelled out, killed him, and returned home in time to receive the news.

  It was fantastic. How would she have contrived to lure him to Crete?

  ‘The Greek police don’t think he was—murdered, do they?’ said Lucy.

  Patrick thought of the clever, industrious Inspector.

  ‘They seemed quite satisfied,’ he said. He would have to go back to Crete. If necessary, he must describe this conversation to Manolakis. There would be a way of tracing Gwenda’s movements; her passport would be stamped if she had used it. There was Interpol and Scotland Yard.

  He could get hold of Scotland Yard himself. Before stirring up the police in Crete again, he would get Colin to find out what Gwenda had been doing lately.

  Thinking of Colin reminded him of the other odd business, which had been driven from his mind by thoughts of Felix. By now, Jeremy Vaughan and his party of students would have arrived at Gatwick, and the mystery of the island of Mikronisos might have been revealed.

  VI

  Patrick took Lucy back to the hotel for lunch. It was only a short walk from the taverna to where he had left the car; she was glad to get into it and he saw that she was wrung out with emotion.

  Once more, the hotel lounge seemed blissfully cool. Another coachload of Americans had just arrived; some Britons were there too, and a party of Swedes. To and fro plodded the porters. Patrick’s muscles screamed in silent sympathy.

  He took Lucy to his room so that she might use his bathroom, which he thought she would like better than the cloakroom; then he left her, saying he would meet her by the bar.

  He was waiting there for her, having ordered beer for them both, when Vera Hastings appeared; she came and sat beside him.

  ‘I’ve had a lovely morning,’ she told him. ‘Those friends of yours, the Loukases, brought me back in a taxi. Wasn’t that kind?’

  ‘I’m so glad. Let me get you a drink,’ Patrick suggested. ‘What shall it be?’

  She pondered a bit, then chose ouzo, which she said she was learning to like. Their drinks had just arrived when Lucy Amberley came up to them. She looked refreshed; the traces of her tears had all been washed away. Patrick began to introduce them, but both were smiling in a surprised but pleased manner.

  ‘We know each other,’ Lucy said.

  It turned out that Lucy taught French part-time at a school near her home; she was a customer of the bank where Vera Hastings worked and they had been meeting over the counter several times a month for years. They all lunched together; there was really no option, and perhaps it was as well to form a trio and keep the emotional temperature down. After her ouzo Vera ceased to be shy, and enthused about Greece; she was bound for Mycenae on Wednesday but planned to rest the day before.

  ‘You can’t do excursions every day,’ she said. ‘I must see all I can – I’ll never have another chance to come to Greece.’

  While they were lunching the Loukases joined them. They had decided to go back to Athens that afternoon on the coach; Vera would be on it too. Patrick did not offer to drive them; he meant to take Lucy back to Itea to rejoin the ship and he did not want to be tied to a definite schedule. It might be, when they talked again after the others had gone, that she would decide to leave the cruise and press for more enquiries into the manner of Felix’s death.

  They discussed their holiday experiences during lunch. Lucy had collected herself again; she made an effort to be bright; only now and then Patrick saw her attention slide away and a blank expression come into her eyes. Continuing the cruise must be very painful for her.

  The other three hurried away after lunch to pack up their things and find the coach; Vera was nervous in case it went without them, and was clearly glad to cling to the Loukases.

  ‘It’s odd how you keep running into people on this sort of holiday. I met the Loukases in Crete originally,’ said Patrick.

  They hadn’t referred to Crete for almost two hours.

  ‘Had you thought of leaving the ship? Going home, perhaps?’ he asked Lucy.

  She nodded.

  ‘But what could I say? How could I explain? It’s better to see it out. After all, there’s plenty to do, and people are being kind – the few who knew, like Giles Marlow. The ordinary passengers know nothing about it, so they behave quite naturally to me. They may think I’m slightly demented, I seem to be so forgetful, but that’s about all. By the time we get back, I’ll have had a chance to get used to it.’

  ‘I wish there were some way to help,’ said Patrick. He wondered about her; was she a widow, or divorced? He could see why Felix had been drawn to her for she was the antithesis of Gwenda: fair, where Gwenda was dark; gentle, where Gwenda was bossy; tender, he was certain.

  She saw him looking at her with concern, and smiled.

  ‘I’ll be all right. I’ll manage,’ she said. ‘It’s just going to take some adjustment.’

  She would go back to her life as it had been before Felix: the school; her house; and spasmodic, doubtless diminishing contact with her adult sons. There were widows all over the place; people were often alone. But if you found this rare thing, this other person who made you come alive, and then lost him – how dreadful.

  ‘I don’t suppose I’ll come back to Greece,’ Lucy was saying.

  ‘You’re content about Felix? To know no more, I mean?’

  ‘No, not really. But I don’t see what can be done. It’s over, finished – nothing can bring him back.’

  ‘But if Gwenda—’ he did not finish. It could not be the answer.

  ‘There’s the daughter to be thought of,’ Lucy said. ‘You can’t be right about Gwenda, it’s too horrible to contemplate. But suppose you were, what would that girl think? She’s a nice child, I’ve met her several times. And her husband’s a good young man, quiet but determined. They’re emigrating. Gwenda won’t leave them alone, so they feel it’s the only way. They’re not telling her until just before they go. So it may be better not to probe.’

  She seemed to accept it. Perhaps she was right. But she had not seen Felix sodden, bloated, undignified in death.

  ‘I’m glad we met,’ she said. ‘You’ve helped me.’

  He took her down to Itea to rejoin the ship. He had accomplished very little, but he too was glad they had met.

  He stopped for a swim before going back to Athens. On the way, he passed numerous coaches; he was not sure which one carried the Loukases and Vera Hastings. He was glad to be alone; he had had enough of people for the day.

  By the time he reached the outskirts of Athens he had decided to ask Colin Smithers to discover the terms of Felix’s will and to make discreet enquiries about Gwenda’s movements the week before. It would do no harm. Once that idea was disposed of, one way or the other, he would make up his mind whether to talk to Manolakis.

  He took the car back to the garage from which he had hired it, settled his expenses, and then went back to his hotel. The English papers had arrived and he bought one. A tiny paragraph on an inside page announced that police had arrested a man on a plane arriving from Athens at Gatwick on Sunday evening. No details were given.

  He wondered, somewhat uneasily, if he was still a target for a contrived accident. He had felt free from threat in Delphi; the idea of personal menace was not pleasant.

  VII

  The reception clerk at the hotel looked anxious when Patrick asked for his key. The police had been enquiring for him; he was to telephone them as soon as he returned. He gave Patrick a slip of paper with the number he was required to ring. There was a cable, also. The man was too worried even to ask if he had enjoyed Delphi: this did not look the type of visitor to get mixed up in any trouble, but the clerk had seen enough of life to be surprised at nothing. Patrick said he would telephone from his room, and walked away, apparently unconcerned; but the clerk watched gravely until he had vanished into the lift.

  The cable was from Colin Smithe
rs and said, tersely:

  GRAVEN IMAGES NOT WEEDS.

  So Arthur Winterton was not carrying drugs: that was a useful piece of information to have before he rang the Greek police. Scotland Yard must have had to communicate with their Greek counterparts no matter what the smuggled cargo, for they would have to get to the bottom of the trouble. He remembered that Elsie Loukas had said her husband was an archaeologist; he had been interested in Mikronisos before the war, and apparently it had been subjected to a volcanic eruption many centuries ago. Someone must have come upon some antique remains and be doing a corner in them. He recalled how the woman had suddenly appeared from below him that day, and the reflected light that he thought came from the glasses of someone watching.

  Murcott might have gone further and found what lay below the sheer drop, and Murcott had died. It would have been easy to take his body back to the top on a donkey and toss it down to the spot where it was found. Someone had tried to push Patrick in front of a bus. But did people who stole art treasures dabble in murder? Were they so ruthless?

  Was Felix’s death linked in some way with Murcott’s? If so, why Crete? But the Psyche had been in Crete and then at Mikronisos.

  He was tired, and he wanted a shower and a drink. It was tempting to postpone telephoning the police until the next day; he had not definitely planned to return to Athens that night so they might never know when, in fact, he did get back. But they might ring again, and ask the clerk. And the matter was urgent. A man had died: two men, if there was a connection between their deaths; and someone had tried to harm Patrick himself. He telephoned.

  Twenty minutes later, a large black police car swept up to the hotel to collect him. He had snatched a quick shower in the interval, and his hair was still wet, slicked back for once from his forehead, as he hurried downstairs in response to the desk clerk’s agitated summons.

  The driver of the car spoke very little English so conversation on the way to headquarters was limited, but the officer into whose presence Patrick was taken was clearly very senior and he spoke good English. With him was a younger man whose English was fluent. They greeted him courteously, offered him a cigarette and a chair, and asked why he had got in touch with Scotland Yard.

 

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