The White Sea

by Paul Johnston

  No, this was personal. He couldn’t tell if the dead chief officer’s daughter was typical of the masked accusers. There were certain … episodes that he hoped would not come to light. If they did, he stood to lose a lot more than his fingernails.

  Kostas took refuge in the Victorian poetry that had kept him going in the toughest times. It was his most private secret, which gave additional solace. The other shipowners could play at charity and build their research foundations. He had no need of a mausoleum. The words of the immortals raised him to their sublime level. Even in this desolate hole, racked by pain, he remembered Tennyson’s lotos flowers and fruit:

  Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore

  Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;

  Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.

  Mavros put his laptop in a shoulder bag and took a cab to the Fat Man’s. If the call he was about to make went as he hoped, there would be more comings and goings before midnight and he didn’t want his mother disturbed. He dialled the number he’d memorised, having been told not to write it down if he wanted to stay a free man.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘As in Mavros. What’s the matter? Embarrassed by your name?’

  ‘Embarrassed to be calling you, more like, Briga—’

  ‘Be quiet! I hope you’re in a secure location.’

  ‘Yes, for a cab it’s quite salubrious.’

  There was a pause. ‘You’re calling me from a taxi? Are you out of your mind?’

  Mavros smiled. He’d forgotten how enjoyable it was to rile Kriaras. Then he remembered how little he trusted the bastard. ‘I need all the files.’

  ‘I presume you’re talking about the disappearance of a well known individual?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘So you’re taking the job?’ The brigadier sounded relieved.

  ‘I’ll decide by midnight. You’d better get those files round to my friend’s place within the hour.’

  ‘The Fat Man’s? I’m not letting that Communist lump of lard see confidential material.’

  ‘Who says he’s going to see it? There’s plenty of other things for him to work on.’

  ‘It goes against the grain to let you have the files too.’

  ‘Up to you. The family in question will be very disappointed.’

  ‘All right. I’ll send an officer round.’

  ‘Please can it be the lieutenant? He’s got such a sense of humour.’

  ‘You’ll soon be laughing out of a different orifice.’ The connection was cut.

  Mavros frowned as he put his phone away, feeling that Nikos Kriaras had somehow put one over him. He looked out the window. Two figures in rags were leaning into a rubbish bin.

  ‘This is what it’s come to,’ the driver said. ‘People scavenging for food. My grandfather says it reminds him of the war.’

  ‘Does he?’ Mavros decided against pointing out that over a quarter of a million Greeks had died during the famines brought about by the Axis occupation. Then again, the current crisis was under a year old.

  SIX

  Jim Thomson woke up. His body was in Kensington, Victoria, but his mind and spirit were on the pebble beach where he’d found himself all those years ago. The wooden stanchion was beneath him, the water running up his legs. He rolled off and got to his feet, then immediately collapsed. After several attempts he managed to get out of the wet. There was a line of dusty bushes about ten metres away and he took cover in a space between two of them. The sun was up on the other side of a cliff, but it hadn’t reached where he was. He struggled out of his sodden clothes, not feeling the numerous small wounds any more. Then the first rays hit the far end of the beach and he staggered to the light. It took some time, but eventually the cold left his body. It was then he realised he was desperate for fresh water. He looked around and followed the stones up a watercourse. He found a pool of water and transferred palm-fulls to his parched mouth. Then he made his way back into the sun, revelling in it like a child on an outing. Pangs of hunger soon struck him. He had spread his clothes out, but they needed longer to dry.

  He sat looking across the sea. There was no land in any direction from the beach, only the warm blue sky and high trails of cloud. He couldn’t see any boats or larger vessels. Then he heard goat bells. He retreated into cover between the bushes and watched as a line of the animals came down the steep slope, the leader with large horns that curved backwards. He was so desperate for food that he considered braining one of the smaller goats with a rock. As he reached for a suitable weapon, he heard a series of shouts. More goats came down the incline and a figure in a faded dress, army boots and a black anorak appeared, carrying a herdsman’s crook.

  He pulled his hand back, feeling vulnerable without clothes. Soon he heard steps crunching across the pebbles. He peeked out and watched the woman rapidly shed clothes. As she ran into the water, he took in a well proportioned body and brown hair tied in a scarf. He saw an old knapsack by her clothes and wondered if there was any food in it. He couldn’t stop himself running out. Yes! A chunk of bread and an onion. He grabbed them and turned back.

  ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ The woman swam quickly back to the shore, seized her stick and came after him. ‘Give me that back.’

  He had eaten half the bread by the time she reached him. She poked the crook at him, unashamed by her nakedness. Stiff nipples pointed from her heavy breasts. There were drops of seawater all over her skin, as well as in the dense triangle of brown curls below her abdomen.

  ‘Come on, out of there,’ she said, hooking him by one ankle and pulling hard.

  He yelled as some of the wounds on his leg opened. Then his other ankle was caught and he was dragged fully into the open. He dropped the bread and put a hand over his groin.

  ‘Bit late to be shy, isn’t it?’ The woman squatted down in front of him, legs closed and breasts flattened against her thighs. ‘Who are you?’

  He didn’t want to say his name: it belonged to the life he’d escaped so fortuitously and, besides, he was ashamed of it.

  ‘Iakovos,’ he said, pressing the fingers of his free hand on the blood dripping down his ankle.

  She looked at the cuts. ‘What happened to you? Lose your boat?’

  ‘I …’ He clutched at the first idea that made sense. ‘I was on a friend’s yacht and we … we hit heavy seas and I … went overboard.’

  ‘And the water dragged you over the rocks.’ She turned to her right. ‘There are some sharp ones off that point.’

  ‘Yes, there certainly are. Where … where am I?’

  ‘Ikaria,’ the woman said, with a smile. ‘Welcome!’

  He realised she was younger than he had first estimated – late twenties, perhaps. The joints of her fingers were thick and her legs were covered in scratches, presumably from the scrub on the slopes. Working on the land took a toll of people’s bodies; he knew that from the children of farmers in the Party, who returned from harvest with sunburned arms and necks, and swollen fingers.

  ‘I’m Marigo,’ she said, getting up and walking to her clothes. ‘They call me “the mad one”.’

  He knew nothing about the island of Ikaria except that it was isolated and relatively large. He managed to escape attention on Marigo’s family farm for months. Her father was incapacitated because he’d accidentally fired into his legs when hunting, resulting in a double amputation, while her mother was a tutting but kindly soul. Her uncle, who was friendly with the drunken police chief, managed to obtain a new ID card for him under the name of Iakovos Kambanis.

  He married Marigo and helped her with the goat herding, cheese-making and Easter slaughter. They were very happy.

  ‘What’s this about?’ the Fat Man demanded, as he opened the door to Mavros.

  ‘Top secret.’

  ‘My favourite.’

  Mavros looked at his watch. ‘The problem is, we have to get through a load of materia
l by midnight.’

  ‘Or we turn into pumpkins?’

  ‘Yes, like you used to be.’

  ‘Ha. Exactly why is it you go around wearing a semi-inflated life preserver?’

  ‘It’s my money-belt.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘If I take this job, there’s a quarter of a million euros up front and the same at the end if successful.’

  Yiorgos gave him a smarmy smile. ‘Can I massage your life preserver, great master?’

  ‘No, but you can get my laptop up and running. Anna’s sent me a lot of her old articles. Go through them and take a note of anything suggestive – I mean unusual – about the Gatsos family.’

  ‘Whoah!’ The Fat Man held up a hand. ‘The shipowners?’

  ‘Well, not the poet.’

  ‘I’m not soiling my eyes with anything to do with those bloodsuckers. The old fucker who got kidnapped deserves everything that’s coming to him. If he’s still alive.’

  Mavros took the computer from him and booted it up. ‘Old Party prejudice, eh?’

  ‘What else? Shipowners are leeches on the body of the people, international thieves and money-launderers, exploiters of the—’

  ‘Workers, I know, I know. These particular ones are also a gift horse that I’m seriously considering looking right in their perfect teeth.’

  Yiorgos gave him a sheepish look. ‘250 grand, half a million even, is a lot of money.’

  ‘Some of which will be headed your way – if you get down to work immediately.’

  The Fat Man grabbed the laptop.

  There was a long ring at the doorbell.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Mavros said, picking up the entry-phone. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Police.’

  ‘Oh joy. Fourth floor.’ He waited and then opened the apartment door. ‘Lieutenant. That is a lot of filing. I’ll take it.’

  ‘No, you won’t.’ The big man barged past him, giving the Fat Man a dubious look. ‘This is the Communist?’

  ‘He doesn’t pay his dues any more,’ Mavros said, wrestling the stack of pale blue folders from the cop. ‘Good evening.’

  ‘I’ve got orders. The files don’t leave my sight. And no taking notes.’ The policeman grinned. ‘Until you accept the job offer.’

  Now Mavros understood what Kriaras had said at the end of their conversation. Typical, though not completely unreasonable.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Yiorgos said. ‘This gorilla’s going to sit in my flat until midnight?’

  ‘’Fraid so. Why don’t you make him a coffee? That should win him over.’

  ‘He can—’

  ‘How do you take it?’ Mavros asked.

  ‘Metrio.’

  ‘There you go, Yiorgo. I’m sure our guest would appreciate a couple of pieces of your galaktoboureko as well.’

  ‘He can—’

  ‘No, he can’t,’ Mavros said sternly. Eventually the Fat Man complied, muttering as he went to the kitchen. ‘So what’s your name? Haris, Lambos, Lambis, Lambias, Babis, Babos—’

  ‘Babis, if you must know, but I prefer “lieutenant”.’

  ‘You can whistle for that.’ Mavros opened the top file. It was a compilation of documents about the crime scene, Kostas Gatsos’s villa on Lesvos. At the bottom was the local police’s original report, but they had been ordered to do nothing after they had ascertained that the owner was missing and had evacuated the staff. The guard who had been shot in the thigh had died from loss of blood. Kriaras’s special operations team had flown in at first light and carried out a detailed search. It wasn’t stated anywhere, but obviously a minister or perhaps even the prime minister himself had ordered in the experts.

  Yiorgos appeared with the coffee and custard-filled pastries. He looked as disgusted as if he’d been told to serve the former king.

  ‘Thank you,’ the officer said, without looking up.

  ‘He’s called Babis,’ Mavros said, ‘but he prefers “lieutenant”.’

  ‘Babis, Babis, Babis,’ the Fat Man said. ‘On second thoughts, I prefer “lieutenant” too. No familiarity.’ He went over to the laptop.

  ‘Good coffee,’ Babis said. Then he bit into the galaktoboureko and his eyelashes fluttered like a teenager’s on his first date. ‘Christ and the Holy Mother, did you make this? It’s the best I ever had.’

  ‘Another satisfied customer,’ Mavros said, running his eye down pages at speed.

  ‘Can I charge him?’ Yiorgos said.

  Mavros ignored that. ‘I see you were at the scene.’

  The policeman nodded. ‘Where the brigadier goes, there go I.’

  Mavros glanced at him. ‘Was that a paraphrase of Shakespeare?’

  ‘Might have been.’

  ‘Standards at the academy really have gone up. All right, since you’re here talk me through this.’

  For the first time, the cop looked at sea. ‘I haven’t been ordered to do that.’

  The Fat Man laughed. ‘Good little lieutenant, only does what he’s told.’

  ‘Never mind him. Call your boss, if you like.’ Mavros grinned. ‘Or act on your initiative.’

  ‘All right, but the Communist goes.’

  The Fat Man stood up, gesticulating wildly. ‘This is my home, you can’t order—’

  ‘Take the laptop into your bedroom,’ Mavros said. ‘Please. It’ll save a lot of time.’

  Yiorgos unplugged the machine and stomped off, the effect diminished by the flapping of his threadbare slippers. The door slammed convincingly though.

  ‘OK, let’s have it, Lieutenant Babi.’

  The big man stood up as if he was about to give a speech. ‘Special ops team arrived at the villa north of Molyvos at 0745 on September 2nd. Local units had sealed off the grounds and surrounding roads. Two bodies were found inside—’

  ‘Pavlos Gatsos in the dining room and Boris Zyvkov in the entrance hall.’

  ‘Correct. A female member of staff was unconscious there too. Seven others were found locked in the wine cellar, along with two security guards. All their mobile phones had been taken.’

  ‘The other guards were Vadim Gudunov and Gleb Tishin. They gave up without a fight.’

  ‘Correct. Witnesses reported four intruders dressed in black combat gear and wearing balaclavas. All armed with pistols and machine-pistols, as well as knives and grenades.’

  ‘The road through the estate is asphalt so there were no tracks.’

  ‘Correct. The same goes for the road from Molyvos to Eftalou. It’s likely that some if not all of the intruders – there may have been more than four – arrived by boat at the jetty below the villa.’

  Mavros was turning pages. ‘And the coast guard at Molyvos has no record of any vessel that was unaccounted for. Please don’t say “correct” again.’

  The policeman smiled, revealing unusually even teeth. ‘That is … correct. The straits between Lesvos and Turkey are patrolled around the clock, but no suspicious vessels were identified. The relevant logs have been checked.’

  ‘So I see. As for the crime scene, the technicians picked up traces of earth from the garden and a few fibres from black combat gear, manufacturing source unidentifiable.’ Mavros raised a finger.

  Babis nodded, smiling.

  ‘Pavlos Gatsos was killed by a single bullet from a 9 x 19 Parabellum cartridge, both of which were found at the scene.’

  ‘Corr—. That’s right. The bullet was found in the frame of a painting on the rear wall and the cartridge was on the floor near the French windows.’

  ‘A common round, so no need to bother picking it up. The bullet and cartridge that killed Boris Zyvkov were also located.’

  ‘Ballistics confirmed that there was no record of the weapon in their archive.’

  ‘Did anyone hear gunfire?’

  ‘No external witnesses report that, but the villa is nearly two kilometres from the nearest houses, only one of which was occupied at the time – by an elderly and distinctly deaf woman.’

  Mavros went o
n turning pages. ‘So we have a group of operatives that managed to arrive and depart without attracting attention and take out what the report refers to as “experienced security personnel”. Plus one of them showed no mercy to Pavlos Gatsos. Surely he would have been worth a ransom.’

  The lieutenant rubbed his close-cut hair. ‘But there hasn’t been a ransom demand.’

  ‘Yet.’

  ‘Statistics show that people taken for ransom are usually killed quickly if a demand isn’t made because they’re injured, they try to escape or the kidnappers lose their nerve.’

  Mavros looked at him. ‘These people are professionals. They’re waiting for a reason.’

  ‘That’s what the brigadier thinks.’

  There were files detailing searches made of the neighbouring coastline and the surrounding countryside. ‘I see there’s a Mount Lepetymnos, 968 metres, not far away. Was the whole of it covered?’

  ‘So the local officers say. There are a lot of trees, I can tell you that much, but not much else.’

  ‘Caves?’

  ‘Does the report mention any?’

  Mavros checked. ‘No sign of recent occupation.’

  ‘There you go.’

  Mavros stretched his arms and sat back in the Fat Man’s lumpy sofa. ‘The thinking is that they’re not on the island any more, is it?’

  ‘Correct. The brigadier thinks they’ve got Gatsos in Turkey. The police over there are aware of the case, but they’re only going through the motions. I don’t blame them. It’s a big country and we haven’t got a clue where the victim might be. If the kidnappers are really professional, they may have even taken him further away. To Russia, for example.’

  ‘True. Apart from the small matter of who organised the kidnap – which you lot have no ideas about – we’re left with the question of motive.’ Mavros glanced at the files. ‘There’s nothing in here about that.’