The White Sea

by Paul Johnston

  Mavros had been surprised that Loukas, the elder grandson, hadn’t been named after Kostas in the traditional way.

  ‘Anyway, Dinos is the black goat of the family.’

  ‘He’s only in his mid twenties,’ Loukas put in, ‘but he’s already been in rehab seven times. It never works.’

  ‘You’ve no idea how hard it is to shake off heroin addiction,’ Evi said.

  Mavros was taking notes. He had the perfect source to confirm these details.

  ‘So there are no power struggles going on in the family companies?’

  Loukas glanced at Evi. ‘Certainly not. My father was CEO of the group and he reported to our grandfather, the president, on a daily business – sometimes every hour. As for the business in general, despite the crisis we are holding are own. Many of our competitors are not.’

  Mavros nodded, wondering if the group’s financial standing might have driven its enemies to play dirty. It was clear that the old man still ran things. Then again, his grandson seemed to be coping.

  ‘I’ll need a financial breakdown of all the companies in the group.’

  Loukas stared at him. ‘Are you capable of understanding such a thing? Have you any idea how many companies there are? Let alone the issue of confidentiality.’

  ‘We’ve already covered the latter. As for understanding it, no, I’m not an accountant. But I have an associate who is.’ That was only partly true, but he wanted to see which way the young man would jump.

  ‘It’ll take some time to put together.’

  Mavros stood up. ‘Goodbye to you both.’

  ‘No, wait!’ Evi said, reaching out to him.

  ‘I’m not an idiot. You can access up-to-date information about every company on the computer. How else can the group function?’

  Evi glared at Loukas.

  ‘Does this mean you’re going to take the job?’ the acting CEO said.

  ‘I’ll get back to you about that by midnight. You understand I have to satisfy myself about the information you give me.’ Mavros handed over his card. ‘If you don’t want to email material, you can send a courier to that address.’

  ‘Persephone and Hecate Publishing,’ Loukas read. ‘That rings a bell.’

  ‘We’ve met Alex’s mother, Dorothy, at receptions,’ Evi said.

  Her brother nodded. ‘She dresses more acceptably than you do.’

  ‘Keep on giving me reasons to turn you down,’ Mavros said, with a grin.

  Evi took his arm and they walked to the lift. ‘Pay no attention to him. He’s on a massive power trip. I sometimes wonder if he really wants Pappous to come back.’

  Waiting for the lift, Mavros gave that further thought.

  ‘Please help us,’ Evi said, clutching his hand.

  ‘Make sure the company information comes through,’ he said, enjoying the rare experience of giving orders to the super-rich.

  Jim Thomson was in bed but he wasn’t asleep. He’d woken from a dream that was more real than anything he’d experienced for decades. Again he checked to see that the sheets were dry. It was quiet in Kensington, though the all-night noise of central Melbourne came across on the wind. But he wasn’t in the southern seas, he was back in the Aegean …

  … after he’d been thrown overboard. The lights of the ship had gone and he couldn’t see any others wherever he turned. He stopped struggling like a drowning kitten. He was a good swimmer, he’d been in the junior water polo team before he went to university. But the water in the pools had never been as cold as this. Late October nights might still be all right for hardy tourists to skinny dip, but deep water was a different proposition. He looked up at the sky. Orion was sinking in the west, which meant most of the night had gone. When he was young he went out with his uncle in the fishing boat and learnt about the constellations. What he wouldn’t have given to be back in the old Ayia Kyriaki now …

  Then he took a heavy blow to his back. He turned and put his hands on the end of what seemed to be a log – the moonlight wasn’t bright enough to be sure. He manoeuvred himself along it to the other end. It was buoyant, presumably a hard wood that had resisted saturation. He tried to get on top of it, eventually succeeding when he located a rusted iron strut he could hold on to with his hands. The piece of wood, perhaps a stanchion from a ship, sank a bit but held him above the surface. He kept his feet in the water to stabilise the rudimentary craft.

  And then he drifted away, on the cusp between consciousness and the abyss below.

  FIVE

  ‘Lieutenant.’

  The big cop was leaning against a pillar at the front of the Gatsos building. ‘Signed up for the job then, hippy?’

  Mavros followed him to the car. ‘That’s no way to talk to a citizen who’s done nothing wrong.’

  The policeman got in and started the engine. ‘Brigadier Kriaras is going to be very unhappy if you haven’t.’

  ‘I’m deciding at midnight.’

  ‘Doing a bit of research first, are you?’

  Mavros was impressed by the big man’s acuity, if not his driving.

  ‘Do you have to go so fast?’

  The officer’s foot pressed the accelerator even harder. He wove between lanes skilfully, eyes flicking between windscreen and mirrors.

  ‘Obviously you need as much time as possible to make the right decision.’

  Normally that would have put Mavros off the job automatically, but he was too scared to consider that. They were in the centre of Athens in under fifteen minutes.

  ‘How fast can you do it when you turn on the siren?’ he said, wiping his forehead.

  ‘Under ten if I run the lights.’

  Mavros decided against imagining what kind of chaos that would cause. He opened the door when they arrived outside his mother’s building.

  ‘Thanks for the ride.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. I’ll be back tomorrow.’

  The engine revved and Mavros stepped swiftly away. Back tomorrow?

  He went up the stairs, panting by the time he reached the second floor. He had to do something about his fitness. Then again, he had a thousand euros in his wallet. He should go out on the town. No, that would be unprofessional.

  ‘Hello, dear,’ said his mother, heading back to the desktop computer after letting him in.

  ‘Are you working?’

  ‘Just answering some messages.’

  Mavros looked over her shoulder. ‘I thought we weren’t going to publish that book.’

  ‘I couldn’t resist. It’s really very funny. For a change this foreigner who came to live in Greece excoriates the locals.’

  ‘Who’s going to buy that?’

  Dorothy looked up, her eyes twinkling. ‘I should think it’ll go down very well in German translation.’

  ‘But we’ll have to pay a translator.’

  ‘Bravo, dear, you’ve finally got the hang of publishing.’

  No, I haven’t, Mavros thought. The company will go to the feral cats as soon as Mother packs it in.

  ‘You haven’t heard from Anna by any chance?’

  ‘I have. She’s coming round in half an hour.’

  ‘Good.’

  Dorothy peered at him suspiciously. ‘You aren’t being ironic.’

  ‘No, I want her help.’ Mavros and his sister had a loving but fraught relationship. They could manage a day together at most, but then Anna would start picking at her brother’s lifestyle – though she’d laid off slightly since he’d been working with Dorothy.

  Mavros had a shower and a sandwich, then joined his mother in the saloni, where she’d lain down on the sofa.

  ‘Have you overdone it?’

  ‘I’m having a little breather.’

  He looked at her. She seemed to have begun to shrink and her limbs were painfully thin. Still, the doctors had been happy enough with her recent tests.

  The bell rang. Anna’s face showed on the screen by the door and he slid the heavy chain off. She kissed him on the cheek as she came in.

>   ‘You’re clean,’ his sister said, as she walked past him, heels clicking on the marble tiles. ‘For a change.’ She was wearing a close-fitting pale blue trouser suit and a white blouse, her hair as jet-black as ever, though he was sure she’d been dyeing it for some time.

  When he got to the main room, she had already greeted Dorothy and was opening a paper bag.

  ‘You must try this, Mother. It’s a Chinese herbal supplement. The experts swear by it.’

  Dorothy was always suspicious of her daughter’s gifts. ‘Who are these experts?’

  Mavros let them talk but when the conversation began to flag, he struck.

  ‘What do we know about the Gatsos family, the shipowners?’

  Anna, gossip columnist par excellence despite her preference for the job description ‘features writer’, looked as overjoyed as if she’d been asked to deliver an all-expenses-paid lecture at Harvard.

  ‘They’ve given me a heap of stories over the years,’ she said. ‘How long have you got?’

  ‘If I could butt in,’ Dorothy said, the edge to her voice suggesting her maternal rights were being trampled over. ‘I’ve known Kostas Gatsos for over thirty years. He even lent the company money at a reasonable rate of interest once. I paid it back, I’m pleased to say. I met his wives, the poor women, his children and his grandchildren – apart from the drop-out.’

  ‘Dinos,’ Mavros supplied.

  ‘You’re surprisingly well informed,’ Anna said. ‘For an ex-private investigator.’ She exchanged a look with Dorothy.

  ‘Go on, Mother,’ he encouraged.

  ‘Kostas was always charming, definitely had an eye for the ladies, even when his wives were alive, but you never really knew what was going on behind that wrinkled face. I could take him for about five minutes – he was quite gallant with me.’

  Mavros wondered if he’d ever heard that adjective except on a Victorian TV series.

  ‘Unlike he was with his own women. Marguerite was the first one and …’ Dorothy broke off, stymied by amnesia.

  He shook his head at Anna, who was desperate to come out with the other name.

  ‘It was Russian,’ Dorothy continued. ‘Though the nearest she’d ever been to Moscow would have been the suburbs of Thessaloniki. She was a fortune hunter if ever there was one.’ She smiled. ‘Tatiana. I rather doubt that was her real name.’

  Anna had her laptop open and was tapping away.

  ‘Yiorgia Tsimba,’ she announced.

  ‘Alcoholic,’ Dorothy added. ‘The story was that Kostas let her do what she wanted with whoever she wanted and she afforded him the same privilege. Their daughter Eirini was pretty much the same, though she wasn’t as attractive as Tatiana. Her husband’s an awful man – handsome enough in his day but downright sleazy.’

  ‘Vangelis Myronis,’ Mavros said.

  ‘That’s right, dear.’

  ‘What about Pavlos?’

  Anna was following the exchange in bewilderment.

  ‘Nice enough man,’ Dorothy said, ‘but no spine to him. Kostas was still running the family companies. Terrible that Pavlos was killed so horribly.’

  ‘His wife, Myrto, spends most of her time in Paris, I hear.’

  Anna’s eyes opened even wider.

  ‘That’s right. Little love lost there. She had a fondness for cocaine. I wouldn’t be surprised if old Kostas banished her.’

  ‘Apparently you’ve met two of the grandchildren, Loukas and Evi.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. They were at one of those charity galas. Nice young people. He seemed very sharp. Shame she’s such an ugly duckling.’

  ‘Mother!’ Anna said, seizing her opportunity. ‘That’s a very harsh way to describe Evi.’

  ‘You know her too?’ Mavros said.

  ‘I interviewed her last year. She owns a donkey sanctuary.’

  ‘Really?’ Mavros looked at his sister. ‘Any rumours about her not being her father’s daughter?’

  ‘Some. But why do you care?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in a minute. This Tatiana died over ten years ago. Has Kostas’s name been attached to other women since then?’

  Dorothy looked away. Sexual shenanigans, as she called them, did not interest her.

  ‘I can give you …’ Anna moved her finger down the screen. ‘… fourteen names. And that’s only the high society ones. It’s said –’ her voice dropped to a stage whisper – ‘that he uses expensive escorts.’

  ‘The old goat,’ Dorothy said, eyes still on the photographs of her husband and lost son. Recently she had been looking at them more frequently, as if she were reaching out.

  ‘Could you put together everything you have on the Gatsos family and email me it ASAP?’ Mavros said.

  ‘I could,’ his sister replied, leaning back in her chair. ‘If you tell me why you’re interested.’

  Mavros laughed. ‘It isn’t much of a quid pro quo, I suppose. But don’t tell a soul. Loukas and Evi – well, Evi mainly, I think – want me to find their grandfather.’

  Dorothy’s gaze turned back on him. ‘You aren’t serious, Alex. What will the police say?’

  ‘They have the police in their pocket – at least, that’s the way it looks. I’m going to pull that scumbag Kriaras’s chain to find out how far he’ll go.’

  Anna’s fingers were moving at speed over the keyboard again. ‘So you’re a missing persons specialist again.’ She glanced at their mother, whose expression was neutral.

  ‘I’m thinking about it. I’ll decide by midnight. That’s why I need all you’ve got. Is Nondas around tonight?’

  Anna’s husband was a financial mover and shaker. In recent months his career had become markedly less secure than it used to be.

  ‘He’d better be. He’s cooking dinner.’

  Mavros knew that wasn’t evidence of his being henpecked. Nondas was a Cretan who loved food, especially that not produced by his wife. He was just the person to run an eye over the Gatsos group’s records. He’d have to be sworn to secrecy, though.

  ‘Alex, are you sure you want to do this?’ Dorothy asked.

  ‘There are 250,000 very good reasons for taking the job.’

  Anna and Dorothy had an eyebrow raising competition, the former winning.

  ‘A quarter of a million? Euros?’

  ‘Well, not dhrachmes. And another quarter million if I find him.’

  ‘It’s a tidy sum, even with the tax deducted.’ Dorothy was fastidious about fiscal matters.

  ‘He’ll probably get paid in Switzerland,’ Anna said lightly.

  ‘He most certainly will not,’ her mother said. ‘This country’s been ruined by overseas banking and tax evasion.’

  Mavros raised his hands. ‘Point taken. Even though I may not accept the offer.’

  Anna stared at him. ‘You’d be crazy not to.’

  The street doorbell rang. Mavros admitted a courier, who came up and handed over a slim envelope.

  ‘Give that to Nondas, please,’ he said to Anna. ‘I’ll call him about it.’

  ‘So I’m being kept in the dark,’ his sister said sharply.

  ‘Need to know basis only, dearest.’

  ‘That’s enough, you two,’ their mother said. ‘Time for tea.’

  Anna and Mavros reverted to childhood mode, the former going to help Dorothy in the kitchen and the latter calling his brother-in-law. Unsurprisingly, Nondas was very interested indeed.

  Kostas Gatsos’s torn fingertips were painted with antiseptic before he was shut up in his unlighted cell. The pain wouldn’t go away and he was unable to do anything except moan until his mouth dried up. He moved through the darkness with his good hand outstretched and found the water bottle. He managed to grip it between his thighs and unscrew the cap. Then he went back to the corner with the mattress and lay down. Eventually he fell into a tormented sleep and found himself in a world of polished steel tools and crates of weapons, from which he emerged drenched in sweat.

  The trial. Who could be behind it? Was
the woman in the crocodile mask really the daughter of the chief officer? He had only a vague recollection of the event, having left trusted men to silence the fool. They must have allowed the officer to get out in Glyfada, before thinking better of it and picking him up again. Of course, they’d never owned up to him about that. The sailor’s head was smashed against the rocks in a deserted inlet and the copies of the manifests recovered. End of story, he had thought.

  Apparently not. But why a pretend trial? It wasn’t as if he’d done worse things than other shipowners. If people wanted to get at him they would surely demand money, which, given the state of his hand, he’d happily give them; though he would have them tracked down afterwards. The fact that the people were all masked was to his advantage. They didn’t want him to see their faces, suggesting he would be freed at some stage in the future. But no – the woman had identified herself.

  Kostas tried to ignore the throbbing in his fingers by thinking about who could have organised the kidnap and trial. He was still surprised by the shooting of Pavlos. Would any of his business rivals have gone so far? He didn’t think so. Could victims of his activities have got together and hired a professional gang? The man in the middle, the one with the balaclava, was the one who’d shot his son. He seemed to be in control but he wasn’t a common villain – he sounded educated beyond the level of the thugs he’d occasionally dealt with and was running the whole ludicrous process knowledgably and, when he chose to, savagely. No, none of his competitors had the balls to set a thing like this up.

  But who did that leave? The government? They were spineless cretins panicking about the economy and they wouldn’t want to risk the secret donations he provided. The armed forces? He had good relations with the chiefs of the three services; they saw him as a steadfast ally, again because money changed hands. Some far left or anarchist group? They would have abused him verbally and made him read out lengthy statements for broadcasting. No, this was way beyond amateur night performers.

  Who, then?

  Kostas went over his professional dealings, recalling the people he’d beaten to deals by undercutting their offers – bribery was an essential tool – or ripped off. The latter was par for the course in shipping. If you had tonnage in the right place and there was cargo to be urgently moved, you could charge enormous amounts. The trick was knowing where to have your ships. The more you controlled the better and the better your market information the more clout you had. Would even a rabid Marxist have put him on trial for that?