Greek Island Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-2-3): Gripping, psychological mystery/thrillers destined to shock you!

by Luke Christodoulou

  I had called the police in Lemnos and had ordered them to not allow him to exit the island. I planned to tell Ioli myself about everything I had discovered and then go to Lemnos to arrest him.

  The plane finally landed in rainy London and my phone searched for a network. Soon, multiple messages arrived in my inbox. One stood out amongst the rest.

  Captain Papacosta, this is Lieutenant Andreas with the Lemnos Police. We informed the airport and port authorities of your request only to be told that Michael Johnson had already left the island on a flight to Athens. We have notified central authorities and he will not be permitted to exit the country.

  I immediately called Ioli. This was not the way I planned for her to find out, but I had to warn her.

  The mobile number you have called is currently unavailable, please call again later…

  “Fuck!” I yelled, causing many passersby to turn and give me disapproving looks. I honestly could not remember when was the last time I cursed. I even ducked slightly expecting my mama’s hand to slap me once again on the back of my head. My nearly five-hour flight to Athens left in half an hour. I called headquarters and warned them of the situation and asked for backup to immediately go to my apartment.

  As soon as the plane came to a horizontal position, I was out of my chair pacing up and down the plane’s corridor causing panic to my fellow flyers.

  “I’m ok. I’m not a terrorist. I’m just agitated,” I informed the worried flight attendant. Lines of comforting words and three glasses of straight scotch later, I was back in my chair playing worst case scenarios in my mind’s home theatre. The not knowing was eating me up. So many advances in technology and still no signal on planes. Once again, I was out of my prison of a chair and banging on the culprit door, demanding to talk to the pilot. He was quite polite considering my menacing manner and he got in touch with Athens for me. Still no word of Ioli or Michael. The worst case scenario was underway.

  Finally the plane started to descend to Athens. I stepped off the plane and ran to the exit. My luggage of two trousers, a few shirts, three boxers and four pairs of black socks became even more unimportant to me and the brown, leather carrier bag was left to travel round and round until the police hauled it away to x-ray it.

  A patrol car awaited me outside to deliver the fact that neither of them had been located. The car sped down the Attiki Odos highway and entered the grand city. Minutes before arriving at police headquarters, the car’s silence was broken by an incoming message over the police radio.

  “Patrol vehicle AE135, please come in.”

  “This is AE135, center control go ahead,” the driver replied.

  “Ioli Cara and Michael Johnson have just been confirmed by a taxi driver that they are together. He claims to have dropped them off at the King George Palace hotel. The swat team and all available vehicles have been dispatched to the location.”

  “Get me there, now!” I barked and closed my eyes in pain of regret. You always tell your partner and I had kept Ioli in the dark. If she came to any harm it was in my hands.

  I held my gun tightly between my hands and ran up to the hotel room door and exhaled in relief to hear Ioli talk. The swat team rammed the door down and I leaped into the room.

  Minutes later, I was leaving the room in fear and trepidation for Ioli’s life. She was losing blood fast as the paramedics lifted her into the back of the ambulance. I jumped on and sat beside her, taking her cold hand into mine.

  “Come on Cara. You’re a fighter. Don’t you give up on me.”

  “Sir, you need to stay calm and sit back and let us do our job,” the paramedic ordered.

  “I am so sorry,” I whispered in her ear, kissed her forehead and sat back as ordered.

  *****

  Chapter 40

  Hospitals are such cold places. The lack of colour and the lack of smiles combined with an overdose of death spread the chill through the narrow halls. I took refuge in a grey, metallic chair and my body’s exhaustion got the best of me. Waves of drowsiness overcame me and I fell asleep. My sweet daughter, my companion in my dreams awaited me once again.

  “Is Ioli going to come and play with me, daddy?” she asked and laughed as she ran through the park.

  “I hope not, baby. She still has work to do.”

  “When are you going to come to me, daddy? You do still want to come, right? Living is not worth it without me,” she whispered as she twirled around me.

  “Daddy catches bad guys, maybe one of them will send me to you one of these days,” I smiled back to her.

  “Captain Papacosta?”

  “Yes, baby girl?”

  “Captain Papacosta?” the doctor raised his voice yanking me out of my dreamland. The look on his face startled me.

  “What time is it? Is the surgery over? How’s Ioli? Talk to me, man. Don’t just stand there!”

  “The three hour surgery is over. She is alive…”

  “Thank God! Sweet mother of Christ…”

  “However, she is still in coma and on life support. The next few days will be critical. We can only hope and pray for the best. We have notified the family and…”

  The rest of his words turned into low frequency noise. The words coma and life support constantly repeated themselves inside my mind.

  The only highlight of the next day was meeting Ioli’s parents. Mr Cara was an original Cretan. Tall, manly, proud and with a long, thick, well maintained moustache. Mrs Cara was the epitome of a Greek woman of her era. Though hard working, she never looked tired and in her eyes you felt Greece come alive.

  I would show up every day at lunch time with two chicken pita gyrous filled with extra tzatziki. Her favourite. If Ioli woke up I knew it would be for lunch or maybe even dinner. I would say my “good day” to her parents and leave the food by her side. The next six hours I spent with my new friend. My grey, metallic hallway chair. Then, it was down to Gianni’s Grill House to order pork chops with fries for her dinner. I would say my “good evening” to her parents and replace the food trays.

  On the fourth evening of replacing trays, Ioli’s mother asked me to stay. Her father Gianni was asleep on the uncomfortable looking armchair under the glass window.

  “You have trouble relaxing,” she said in a low voice. “Just like my daughter, always moving, always thinking. Sit down, my child.”

  I mechanically pulled out a plastic chair and sat opposite her. She placed her hard working, worn in, wrinkled hands upon mine.

  “You really care for her, don’t you?”

  “She is one of a kind. You have an amazing daughter, Mrs Cara.”

  “On that we agree,” she said with a warm, motherly, gentle smile that did not manage to change the sorrow in her eyes.

  “I’m so sorry…”

  “What are you sorry about?” she interrupted me.

  “I should have protected her; I should have been there for her. This is all my fault. If only I had…”

  “If was planted and it never grew, my grandma used to say. No need for ifs. Anyway, you can apologise to her when she wakes up, not to me.”

  She read the look on my face and anger painted her next words. She leaned forward and spoke from behind her teeth.

  “Now you listen here, boy. Don’t you go looking sad on me. She will wake up, you hear me?”

  I nodded in response, lost for words. She sat back into her armchair.

  “Let me tell you a few short stories, Captain. When Ioli was born, doctors told me that due to my constant working, as they so tactfully put it, she would have problems breathing right. Her lungs had not fully developed or something like that. I sat there besides her incubator thinking of a lifetime of things that my poor child would not be able to do. A month or so later this old doctor walks up to me with these tests in his right hand, explaining to me that my baby is fine and her lungs had performed some sort of miraculous recovery. When Ioli was seven, she was out riding her bike with the neighborhood boys when a pickup truck came round the cor
ner and knocked her flying off the bike and threw her to the ground. Once again more foolish doctors advised me to not have high hopes as most likely she would have difficulties walking. Years of physiotherapy later and I had a teenage daughter wearing God knows how many inch high heels, capable of running in them!” she said and chuckled. She looked straight at me and continued. “I will never forget the day the barn of the Zampetaki family, next door to us, caught fire. Their youngest, a four year old boy, was in there playing. Ioli must have been seventeen at the time. Without any hesitation what so ever she ran into that barn searching for the screaming boy. You can imagine the shock on my face when the barn collapsed right before our eyes. Maria Zampetaki walked up to me to comfort each other over our loss, but I knew and I was right. She came out of those wooden, burnt black, charcoal ruins, boy in arms with only a few hairs burnt at the edges. And you think a silly bullet is enough to take my Ioli out? No sad looks, Captain. You keep bringing in the food and my girl has a good appetite!”

  I stood up and with tears in my eyes I kissed her on the cheek.

  “Now I know where Ioli gets everything good from. I’ll see you tomorrow, Mrs Cara. Food in hand, of course!”

  I kept my promise and the next day, at lunch time, I walked into the small room with gyrous in my hand. I stroked her black hair and turned to leave when I heard her weak voice say, “those better fucking have extra tzatziki in them! Come in here, every day, busting open my nose with your cheap food from that shit hole grill house of yours!”

  I had no reply. I just turned and smiled in relief.

  “Child, watch your language!” a teary eyed Gianni said.

  “As if she ever listened to that before,” Anna laughed and hugged her daughter.

  “Is someone going to feed me or what? I’m starving. What do they put in these tubes? Liquid vegetables?”

  *****

  EPILOGUE

  Ioli was not the only one to survive surgery that day. Michael pulled through too though with a small ‘present’. Due to lung puncture and the infection that followed, he had to wheel around an oxygen tank for the rest of his life. He did not seem to mind or so it seemed. He did not speak a single word throughout his trial. He did not even move a facial muscle as the judge announced his sentence. Life without any chance of parole.

  In the dark cell room numbered 17, Michael sat on the left bunk bed, face in hands and was lost in his thoughts.

  ‘‘Where are you now Alexander the Great? Huh? To see your Gods dead by my hand! They think they have stopped me!’’ he whispered to himself and laughed out loud.

  ‘‘Seven down and only a few to go! I will kill my demons! I will kill ALL the Gods!’’

  ‘‘Yo, psycho, keep it down. I don’t want to listen to your crap!’’ yelled his cell mate, clearly annoyed by his behaviour.

  Michael lifted his head up slowly and looked straight at the man. He stared at him for a good whole minute and then said very calmly ‘‘and what do you do for a living?’’

  The man stood there, taken aback by the odd question.

  ‘‘Listen dude, I am a captain in the army and I have just killed my wife so watch it, will you? You don’t want to piss me off,’’ he threatened, but Michael heard nothing after the word army.

  ‘‘Army you say! Well, won’t you make a perfect Ares!’’

  THE END…

  Greek Island Mystery # 2

  (Stand-alone thriller)

  THE

  CHURCH

  MURDERS

  By Luke Christodoulou

  Author of The Olympus Killer (Amazon #1 Bestseller)

  Copyrighted Material

  To my daughter Ioli. You crazy, little bundle of joy… I love you.

  Also, a huge thank you to my editing and proofreading team! You guys rock!

  THE CHURCH

  MURDERS

  1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

  2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

  3 And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

  4 And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

  5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

  6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

  7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.

  8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

  Book Of Revelations: Chapter 6, 1-8 (King James Bible)

  Chapter 1

  The winter sun vanished behind the verdant hills that bordered the outskirts of the Megalopolis of Athens and light surrendered its place to darkness.

  The same dilemma every December. Did I hate that it got dark from 5 pm more than I hated the suffocating heat of the summer? Spring. Now, there is a perfect season. Maybe I was just getting grumpier as I unwillingly approached the threshold of my life’s fifth decade.

  I turned on my Audi’s headlights and smiled upon hearing the sound of the skies rumbling above. I loved driving in the rain and my black car needed to shed off gathered dust.

  Route 56 is a bore. One long, straight line of a road, always loaded with traffic and with a view of endless, grey, dull apartment blocks. Others would have taken the Metro to Piraeus, but I never did have much so-called common sense. I was in no rush to see the department’s shrink and my empty apartment did not mind if I returned home early or late. I turned off the motorway and headed down to Akti Miaouli. Outside, the wind was busy playing around with dried up leaves and the clouds above shot down fat drops of rain.

  I parked opposite the modern, glass building that housed Dr. Ariadne Metaxa’s private office. She worked office hours, every Tuesday and Thursday, at police headquarters, but I preferred to attend her private practice. It gave me time to unwind from work and put on my fake, friendly and joyful mask before visiting her. I did not need a psychologist meddling inside my brain. I needed her clearance to get back to active duty.

  I exited my car and stood for a moment in the pouring rain, enjoying every drop that ran down my face, before running across the bustling road. Everyone, without an umbrella, was running to cover themselves from the menacing drops. Some get cleansed by the rain, some just get wet. I pushed the buzzer-bell that bore her name and waited for her assistant’s annoying voice to be heard. I do not mean to be harsh, but if you are going to hire someone to answer the phone and the door, at least avoid a girl with a grating voice.

  ‘Doctor Ariadne Metaxa’s office. How may I be of assistance?’

  Lower your voice.

  ‘Captain Papacosta. I have an appointment.’

  ‘Come right up, Captain. The doctor is waiting for you.’

  Of course she is. I have an appointment.

  I pushed open the heavy, metal door and walked towards the elevator. Dr. Ariadne’s office was located on the 14th floor. An entire side of her office was made of glass, offering an incredible view of the busy port of Piraeus; one of the few perks of visiting her here. That and the much more comfortable chair.

  Her lanky assistant was already standing and had her hand, palm up, indicating the office’s wooden door.

  ‘Go right in, Captain,’ her words came out from behind crooked teeth, accompanied by a warm, inviting
smile. Good hearts can always make up for shrill voices and bad dental hygiene.

  ‘Thank you,’ I exhaled the words and smiled back as warmly as I could. As I walked into the dimly lit room, the door closed behind me. Dr. Ariadne rose from behind her huge, mahogany desk where she had been preoccupied, reading a medical journal. She walked towards me slowly with an air of confidence that lived with her permanently; her red hair stroking her bare shoulders and her emerald eyes glowing as they focused on my pitiful appearance. I stood there with soaked brown hair, drops of rain combined with mild sweat running down my face, wearing a plain, old pair of jeans and a white T-shirt under my black, leather jacket. In contrast, from her cleavage to her knees, a red, tight dress draped Dr. Ariadne’s body, silver high heels graced her feet and she looked as if she had just walked out of the hairdressers. She wore red well. Like fire, it shined upon her white, pale complexion. She must be one of the whitest women in Greece. She surely avoided the Greek, wrinkle-inducing sun. A highly intelligent woman, just a step away from forty, with a Mensa membership to prove it.

  Her soft hand fitted into mine.

  ‘Good evening, Captain. Lovely rainy day, is it not?’ her modulated voice filled the artful and minimally decorated room. She sat down first in her crimson armchair and her flat-line smile invited me to sit in the armchair facing hers. Below us, ships were entering and exiting the port, enjoying a good wash courtesy of the plummeting water. I twisted and I turned until I found a comfortable position to relax in. I knew I would be here for a good hour, but I asked anyway.

  ‘Doc, you know why I’m here. I need you to give me the all-clear to get back to the field. It’s been a week and I cannot take another day sitting behind a desk doing the chief’s paper work!’

  ‘I could sign the paper and you could be on your way, back to your work in under a minute. However, that would mean, I was not doing my job. You were sent here for a reason.’