Greek Fire

by Winston Graham

  “No. Go on.”

  “Where was I? ‘Your masters. Mm-mm.… They expect a man to have not thought of self-advancement. Do you too? I believe no creed is above criticism or dogma too sacred to be submitted occasionally to the lights of common sense. I have too high a regard for your intellect to suppose you think otherwise. Regards.’ And it is signed, ‘George.’ Does that mean anything to you? Was he your lover? It doesn’t sound so to me.”

  “Is there a key to this door?”

  Mme Nicolou put her hand inside her kimono and scratched with great concentration and satisfaction. She scratched like a bitch after a flea. “ No, dear. My husband lost both keys before he died.

  He was careless. But then nothing mattered to him but sex. It was his religion, his meat and drink. So I had a bolt fitted.”

  “A bolt? Where?”

  “At the top there. Men have always followed me. At one tune my dressing room was never less than two deep. Never less. In Sofia. I remember once in Sofia——But why have you bolted it now? I sleep lightly in the afternoon.”

  Maria stood with her back to the door. Her heart was beating. She knew now the extent of Philip’s cowardice and betrayal. “There’s—a man outside. He has been trying to make up to me and I don’t want anything to do with him. Go on.”

  “Go on? What with? Oh, the letters. You look upset. Has this man been annoying you?”

  “No. Go on.”

  “And your husband only dead a week. They have no decency, men. You may not believe it, Mme Tolosa, but I was brought up very strictly. My mother warned me when I was thirteen——”

  “This is the second letter. Read it.”

  There was a gentle knock on the door.

  “Shouldn’t we open it?”

  “No.”

  “Well.… This begins like the last. ‘Dear Anton, Mm-mm.… I hope you got everything as promised. Your rebuke might have come straight out of the party ink-pot. Oh, I know and agree with most of your arguments, but I claim the right to an independent voice now and again. Anyway, I’m sure you won’t wish to dispense with my valuable assistance. D’you realise it amounted to eighteen thousand pounds sterling last year? Incidentally have a care how you receive Mlle d’A. She may be all we wish her to be, but she’s also a famous actress and expects to be treated as such. Let Manos meet her. He has the approach that women like. All that she brought is now delivered into your hands——’ ”

  There was another, louder knock on the door.

  “ ‘—into your hands.’ Mme Tolosa, do you think this man will soon go away? Perhaps I could speak to him? I shall have to go upstairs in a few minutes. It’s a trouble I suffer from.”

  “I want you,” said Maria, “ to call the police.”

  Mme Nicolou put down the letter as if it was hot. Her face

  seemed to try to break up. “ The police? What are you talking

  about? They were here last week! I couldn’t stand another visit

  like last week: it reminded me of when the Germans were here. I

  can’t stand it! Tramp, tramp, I can’t stand the sound of the boots.”

  She put her hands up to her face and began to cry.

  Maria gripped her shoulder. “ Tell me, where is the telephone?

  You have one in here?”

  “No … There—there is only the one in the hall.”

  “Is there another way out?”

  “There’s a back door. But I don’t want to be left a-alone. This

  man might rob me.”

  “He wants only me. Don’t open the door to him until I’m gone.”

  She grabbed up the two letters and put them back in the wallet.

  Then she slid through into the little scullery with its bubbling stove

  and copper pans. Coffee was steaming in a pot on the side.

  She opened the door to the street. A tall young man stood there.

  He had a long narrow nose, smiling eyes, and a pert girlish mouth. He said: “Hullo, sweetheart,” and smiled and put up a hand to

  her face and pushed her violently back into the scullery. He followed

  her as she fell and shut the door behind him.

  Chapter Twenty

  Gene was there ten minutes before her, and as soon as he saw her he knew what her phone call had meant. She came stumbling into the cellar, half blind after the brilliant light outside, lurched against the stove, making the tin chimney sway and rattle, came up against a chair and clutched the back with both hands.

  “I’ve lost it!” she said in a sobbing voice. “They took it from me! Philip had sold us to save his own skin! Now there’s nothing left!”

  He tried to make her sit down, and poured her a brandy, but she swept the glass off the table and it tinkled to pieces on the flag floor. Tears began to run down her face, over the bruises on her cheek and the cuts on her mouth and chin. But even now, though she had recently fought two men and been knocked down and kicked by them, they were not tears of weakness but of anger. She cried like a man, harshly and coughingly.

  He heard the story through, while men brought in and arranged the furniture overhead ready for the evening auction. When she had finished he said:

  “The letters were all signed?”

  “I’ve told you. I saw only two. They were both written to Anton and signed George. I know no more than you about the last eight.”

  “There was also this identity card?”

  “It is not an ordinary identity card but I think a Communist Party membership card. I am not sure; I turned at once to the letters.”

  “You saw the name on the card?”

  “Yes, it was George Lascou.”

  Something was scratching among the waste paper in the cellar. The movements upstairs had stopped.

  Gene said: “ I hope nobody knows that you know that.”

  “I don’t care what happens to me now. I have been cheated, robbed in every way. There is nothing more to lose!”

  “Were you followed here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He went across the cellar and slid a grating aside.

  “Yes. Zachari is outside.”

  “Zachari?”

  “The young man with the nose. You’ve torn his suit. No wonder he kicked you.”

  “So I have led them to you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. There are six ways out of this cellar.”

  He came back and lit a cigarette. “Maria, do you know who Lascou is?”

  “Yes. I have not played quite fair with you. I think I have almost known that all along.”

  “How?”

  “Juan mentioned Lascou’s name twice in front of me. But it was then only a name. When he died I suspected but could not be sure. Then you put me off by saying Avra. But gradually this week-end I had come to the conclusion. Lascou was in the news. I have not wasted this week-end.”

  “What have you done?”

  “That does not matter. What is there to do now?”

  He frowned down at his cigarette. He was not a man who took defeat easily, but to go on now would be the act of a fool. For her sake as well as for his own, the right way was to cut losses and go.

  But would she go? Even if he told her to, would she go? He looked at her and knew she would not; and a worm of satisfaction moved in him that he could find an excuse for not letting up.

  He blew away a spiral of smoke. “The letters won’t be destroyed yet. Lascou has been out of town all day. He’s addressing a public meeting in Piraeus at six, so he’s not likely to be home before eight. As these things you had are dangerous to him, he must want to see them and destroy them with his own hands. Otherwise he would never have any peace of mind.”

  She threw back her mane of hair: “Well?”

  “He’s likely to have them delivered to his flat, which is on the top floor of——”

  “Yes, I know where it is. Well?”

  “I think I could take a chance on getting them there.”

  “He has a secre
tary and others about him.”

  “The advantage is they’d not be expecting me.”

  “You would have a bullet in your back.”

  “Not in his flat, I think. For the next month at least he must be above scandal. If I failed I should be arrested. But that may happen anyhow.”

  She stared at him sombrely. “ If you got these papers, now that you know what they are, what would you do with them?”

  “Hand them to the Army Intelligence.”

  “Would he be shot?”

  “I don’t know. But it would finish him in the way that matters.”

  Her eyes hadn’t moved from him. “It is very unlikely you could do this.”

  “But worth a try.”

  “Did you know that Lascou’s wife lives in a separate flat on the opposite side of the top floor?”

  “How do you?”

  “I have not wasted my week. Between the flats there are communicating doors. It would be easier if you called on Mme Lascou first.”

  “It might be.” He had been watching her. “Maria, don’t take a hand in this yourself.”

  She said: “I went up on Sunday, carrying laundry. I got right to the door of her flat without being stopped and could have gone in. I did not go in. But I think you could get in that way.”

  Chapter Twenty One

  Gene did not take Maria’s advice. While a woman looking like a laundress might get into Mme Lascou’s part of the building during the day, a man at night would need a better excuse. And his quarrel was with Lascou.

  He left the cellars before Maria and slipped into the cinema next door. When his watch told him it would be dark he came out and took a devious back-street route for Constitution Square. He blamed himself bitterly for not having been more active in saving the letters, but his self-critical faculties, always alert, hadn’t even the satisfaction of being wise after the event.

  The Square was crowded. People were taking advantage of the first pleasant evening to sit out of doors, drinking coffee and gossiping. The tobacco and newspaper kiosks were doing good trade. The moon, shining between the trees, was only another streeet light hung too high for the best effect. The Parthenon was flood-lit. The windows of the penthouse of Heracles House were in semi-darkness.

  Gene turned in at the swing doors past the concierge, walking like a man with a purpose. The lift was in use and he had to wait until the libre sign flashed on in green at the side. He opened the door and stepped in, noting that the concierge had not turned. He chose the sixth floor. The lift wafted him up.

  Three concerns shared the sixth floor, a lawyer, a ships’ broker, a tobacco exporter. The business day was over and there was no one about. At the end of the passage was the door leading to the fire escape. He looked about as he came up to it but there was no one to see him push it open and step out on the steel platform. He wedged the door with a bit of cardboard so that it would not lock behind him.

  Up here the moon had more say in things. Midgets moved irrationally about the chequered floor of the square, their lights hung at a uniform level a few feet above their heads. The gardens and the palaces beyond bloomed in the soft night air, and fashionable Athens twinkled discreetly as it climbed the slopes of Lycabettus.

  Moving under the shadow of the platform above, he quietly climbed the fire-escape steps up to it. A smooth concrete ledge a foot or so wide ran a complete circuit of the building at this floor level. Gene didn’t know whether there was any architectural reason for it or whether it merely existed to satisfy the architect’s latent and otherwise carefully suppressed urge for decoration; but when one came level with it one found it had the disadvantage of a slight slope downwards and outwards so as not to provide a lodgment for rain.

  He lowered himself on to the ledge and his rubber soles landed comfortingly on solid concrete. Though it was a secure foothold, no handholds were provided, and it meant edging one’s way along, face and hands pressed to the wall and body thrusting against the building to counteract the slope of the ledge and the subtle gravitational or psychological pull of empty space and a seven-storey drop.

  The building was a great rectangular block of ferroconcrete and the angle of the corner he must get round to reach the balconies and the french windows of the penthouse was an exact right angle. To do it there had to be some moments when a man was delicately balanced. He leaned his face against the concrete and carefully wiped his hands down – the sides of his trousers. Then he put one hand firmly on the wall he was leaving and stretched the other to lay it flat round the corner. Having gripped the angle so far as he could, he put out a foot and groped until he had a firm footing on the other side. Then he began to transfer his weight.

  As he got his body half way round a button of his jacket caught on the edge of the corner. It seemed to upset his balance, and just for a few seconds the whole weight of the building appeared to lean forward upon the angle of concrete that bisected him. Then he withdrew an inch the way he had come and deflated his chest and curved it inward and the button got past. Soon he was round to the other side.

  From here to the first balcony was about fifty feet, and this side he was less exposed to the lights from below. A sudden police whistle startled him once, but it was not blowing at him.

  The balconies did not project but were recessed into the main structure, and the stone balustrade was within his reach, so he was able to pull himself up. This was one of the balconies attached to the large salon, and had a fountain in its courtyard. The windows were wide open. The room was lighted now, but in a subdued way. Two shaded lamps burned beside the fireplace, that was all. There was no one to be seen. He stepped in.

  Considering its size, the room wasn’t an easy one to hide in. There were places enough for a casual moment or two, behind a Louis XV settee or in the shadow of one of the statues, but nothing for a long wait.

  Up here the sound of voices from the square was like the murmur of the sea. Four doors to the room. A light was burning under the door to the entrance lobby, but the others were in darkness. He chose the nearest, the one he had seen Lascou and Major Kolono come out of on Saturday night.

  The door creaked noisily as it opened on a study. By the light coming in from the salon he could see a filing cabinet, beside it a cupboard, a telephone on a desk, a tape recorder. A black jacket was hanging over the back of a swivel chair. As he hesitated on the threshold, voices and footsteps came from the entrance lobby.

  It happened so quickly that he had only seconds to make a choice. He stepped inside the study as the other door opened and more lights suddenly lit the big room.

  Wisely he didn’t try to shut the door behind him; there was no time; Lascou’s voice and another, probably his secretary’s. Gene slid behind the door, there was nowhere else; the bright lights from the salon showed a plain square room, oddly workmanlike after the decorations of the others; some bookshelves, a safe, a radio.

  “… disposed of right away,” George was saying. “How long has Mandraki been here?”

  “Over an hour, sir.”

  “Well, I’ll not keep him waiting any longer. Shut the windows, will you.”

  The light clicked on in the study and George came in.

  He had not even waited to take off his coat. If he shut the door after him Gene would be standing like a dummy. But he didn’t shut the door. He dropped his brief case and a package on the desk and then moved out of sight. Presently there was the noise of the opening of a heavy metal door, and he came into view again with two clips of new banknotes in his hands. They were 1000-drachma notes. He opened a drawer and took out a long thick envelope and put the notes in. They crackled as they disappeared and he licked the flap and sealed the envelope.

  All this was done with his back half turned to the other half of the room.

  “Otho.”

  “Sir?”

  “Give this to him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The oiled head of his secretary came half into the room and a hand accepted the enve
lope. Lascou followed him out of the room as he withdrew, but then suddenly turned back and picked up the package he had put on the desk. He went out again but did not switch off the light.

  “See that he leaves by the side entrance.”

  “I take it you don’t want to give him any further instructions?”

  “I don’t want to see him again. And Otho.”

  “Sir?”

  “I don’t want to be disturbed for a quarter of an hour.”

  “Dinner is ordered for nine, sir.”

  “Then let it wait.”

  Gene did not hear the secretary go out, but after a while he concluded he had gone. For some minutes he waited for Lascou’s return to the study. But it didn’t come. Then he heard the clink of a glass.

  The French clock in the salon began to strike nine.

  When it had finished Gene moved. As he did so he touched the door and it gave a loud creak. That finished it. He stepped into the salon.

  George Lascou was rising from a chair to face him. In the empty fireplace ashes smouldered, and on a small occasional table were some faded letters a waterproof wallet and a glass of marc: Lascou had one hand in his pocket. When he saw Gene he withdrew it holding the smallest gun Gene had ever seen. It was about the size of a cigarette case.

  Gene said: “ I guess your doors need oiling.”

  Lascou’s surprise drew at the corners of his mouth and eyes: the years of comfort and good-living had slipped away, he looked hungry and alert.

  Gene said: “ I came about those letters.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “Through the window.”

  Another clock was striking nine. The little crow’s feet on Lascou’s face softened and smoothed themselves out as the normal secretions began to work again, the reassurances of thought and position; he sat back in his chair.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I told you. I came about those letters.”

  “What letters?”

  “The ones you wrote years ago to Anton Avra.”

  “These?” said George, pointing with his revolver to the faded papers on the table. “I was just reading them as I destroyed them. I didn’t write badly in those days.”