The Dead Travel Fast

by Nick Brown

  He wanted to get to the taverna early, while it was still empty, so he could get a chance to talk to her, and was relieved to see only one table occupied by a tourist couple near the entrance. He chose a table near the water and waited, hoping that she was working that night. To his relief and excitement, he saw her emerge carrying a tray with drinks for the tourists. He thought she saw him yet, for what seemed ages, she stayed and chatted at that table having served the drinks.

  Then, and it seemed reluctantly, she collected a menu and brought it across. He rose to greet her with a smile, wondering whether to offer his hand or if a kiss would be more appropriate; it was certainly the more attractive option for him. He needn’t have bothered; she dropped the menu onto the table without even glancing at him.

  “Will you want to eat tonight?”

  The coldness of the tone drove him back into his seat. She proceeded to fix the paper table cloth under the plastic clips, ignoring any attempt he made to help.

  “What would you like to drink while you wait?”

  “I’ll have a gin and tonic and I thought that perhaps later we could …”

  But once she had heard the drink order she turned and walked briskly back through the tables and disappeared inside. Some time later, the boy who helped the cook brought him the drink and said that someone would take his order later.

  He sat nursing the gin and tonic, wondering whether to eat somewhere else or wait and try to speak to her again. He hadn’t decided when one of the sons of the family, who lived in the flat above the taverna and shared the waitering, arrived with a pad. To avoid embarrassment rather than anything else he ordered the first things that came into his head. For the next hour he sat unhappily picking at his food, gazing at her as she attended the other tables. She was wearing a simple calf length dress, belted at the waist, that accentuated her height and slim waist. She seemed beautiful and unattainable.

  He sat like a pariah by the sea, almost outside the range of the electric light bulbs strewn across the branches of the overhanging trees, staring mournfully at the water. One by one the other tables emptied as the customers drifted away and, although he’d not requested it, she brought his bill, slapped it down on the table and turned away. He jumped to his feet.

  “Please, may we talk just for a moment?”

  “You have nerve to turn up here after leaving me waiting and foolish last time.”

  She started to walk off, he grabbed at her wrist to stop her but his own wrist was grasped by a rough strong hand. He turned and saw the angry face of a man he vaguely recognised, having earlier watched him mending nets on his boat. At the time he’d thought it rather picaresque, but there was nothing quaint about the face that now confronted his.

  “Never grab a woman like that in our village: understand?”

  Theodrakis tried to pull away but the grip was too strong.

  “Listen, this is a mistake. I only wanted to talk to her.”

  “Well, she doesn’t want to talk to you it seems. Hippolyta, what do you want me to do with this man who is bothering you?”

  Theodrakis had let go of her hand, it seemed a bad night had got worse. To his surprise she said,

  “It’s OK, Michales, it was a misunderstanding, that’s all.”

  Michales didn’t seem fully satisfied by this so she put her hand on Theodrakis’s arm to push him back into his seat.

  “Sit down and I will come back to collect the money in five minutes and you can say what you want then. Honestly, Michales, it’s OK.”

  The bear-like man grunted, still not sure, but after a pause during which he never took his eyes off Theodrakis’s face, rasped,

  “You be careful how you treat women here in future, cop.”

  Then he let Theodrakis’s wrist go and shambled off and Theodrakis watched him walk away with a swaying, but sure, tread. With a sigh of relief he slumped back into his chair. A few minutes later she came out; he saw she’d been crying. She stood by the table as if uncertain what she would do next, took a deep breath, then spoke.

  “Before I sit down you need to listen, in this village I am a woman who is pitied. When I finished university I could have left and gone to Athens like the others but I had a boyfriend here. A man I loved, and he was an islander who worked here, so I stayed and I worked in bars and we saved for a place of our own.

  “Only he didn’t save, he had other women: women that it seemed everyone on the island, except I, knew about. So, as I talked of our future they laughed behind my back. In the end it was my father who told me the truth; can you imagine that? So I put all my savings into a business to sell things to the tourists, but I opened it as the recession came and the tourists didn’t. Well, many less came and those who did had less money and they could not afford the things I sold. People found that even funnier, as my university course had been Business and Economics; I lost everything I had. Now I am seen as a stupid girl and after I spoke to you people noticed. My friends said ‘you’re making your biggest mistake, you will not see him again’. But I thought I knew better and then you did not turn up, so the default setting of my life was renewed.”

  Theodrakis hadn’t expected this, it was the first time anyone had opened up to him here and he felt a wash of self-pity tinged with relief.

  “I’m sorry, just give me five minutes, please sit down and let me buy you a drink.”

  She fetched two tall glasses full of crushed ice and a bottle of Metaxas and they sat drinking and watching the moon on the water. At first they said little, but gradually Theodrakis began to talk and all the words and bottled up feelings of the last weeks spilled out. She listened in silence until he was finished. Then he lit a cigarette leaned back in his chair and asked her,

  “Now, I suppose you think I’m mad and you wished I had stayed away.”

  “No, I do not think you are mad; I think that you are cursed.”

  She must have seen the sceptical expression on his face and reached across the table to gently touch his hand.

  “No, don’t say anything yet but walk with me along the shoreline and I will try to explain things to you.”

  They left the table and followed the coastal track away from the village along the bay, passing beyond the range of the last village light. At the end of the bay they stopped beneath a small chapel perched on the cliffs and stood together, in the dark, looking out to sea. He put his arms around her shoulders and moved his face close to hers. She was taller, so he had to lift his head for his lips to meet hers. She responded then pulled away.

  “I think you should come and meet my grandmother.”

  It was such a ludicrous response that Theodrakis started laughing and couldn’t stop. She laughed as well but pressed on.

  “No, listen to me, I mean it. My Grandmother has the gift of second sight. She is known on the island, if someone thinks that the evil eye has been cast on them they go to her; she has the defence. No, do not laugh now; I can see you want to, but many of the people you work with go to her. The policeman who was killed was one; he came to see her only two days before. He was a hard man, a wicked man, but even he got frightened enough to beg for protection.”

  “Samarakis? I find that hard to believe.”

  “Yes, Samarakis, and do you know when they said a cop had been murdered near Marathakampos the night we met, I thought it must have been you. When I found out it was him I was relieved and very angry.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t think of that.”

  “Yes, just like all men; you didn’t think.”

  “What did Samarakis say to your grandmother?”

  “I don’t know. Do you think she would tell me? No, of course not, but she might tell you.”

  He had no answer to that. She turned to walk back to the village; he waited a minute then followed, he caught her up and they walked together in silence. She gently took his hand and they ambled back towards the distant lights.

  The grandmother lived in a small concrete cottage on the hillside above the coast road
. When they arrived she was watching the television with the sound turned up beyond a level which Theodrakis was sure must cause permanent damage to the human ear. She was grey haired and very small, wearing the traditional village black. She greeted Hippolyta with a strange type of clucking sound then glanced towards Theodrakis asking,

  “I suppose this is the next one who will bring you trouble?”

  “Yaya Eleni, this is Syntagmatarchis Theo …”

  “I know who he is: he’s the stuck up Athenian policeman everyone laughs at, except now he thinks he’s caught the killer, but you haven’t, have you?”

  Theodrakis felt uncomfortable in this small hot shed and even more uncomfortable with the gaze of the crone; he knew there was no point lying.

  “No, I don’t think we’ve found the killers.”

  “Good, at least you are honest and there’s no need to ask me any questions, I know what you’re after. You want to know what that fat pig Samarakis came here for, don’t you?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer.

  “He came because he was frightened; he’d seen something he shouldn’t have. Yes, even that swaggering bully felt fear, so like a little boy he came to me for a charm to protect him: the poor fool. I saw death in him the moment he came through the door, it oozed out like sweat from every greasy pore in his wicked body. Because once he had seen what he did his death was certain, and you’d better pray death was all that waited for him.”

  She chuckled mirthlessly and made clucking sounds to herself before continuing.

  “Once he understood, he couldn’t wait to pass on what he’d learned, hoping that the death would transfer with it. So think yourself lucky, Athenian, that his knowledge died with him.”

  “How can you know all this?”

  “You would not understand if I told you and even if you did, you wouldn’t believe. But for the sake of my silly granddaughter, whose luck and judgement seems to get worse each day, I will give you some advice.”

  She waddled round to an ancient rush-bottomed chair and lowered herself onto its greasy seat.

  “Hippolyta, wait outside while I tell something to your man.”

  Hippolyta slipped through the door leaving Theodrakis sweating in the fetid heat of the room, standing before the crone.

  “You should never have come here; this is not your place. Here you are like a fish who tries to walk; here you can trust no one, here no one is who they seem, here no one will protect you. Yet deep inside you something has wakened that might help you; it may even save you. All this is far beyond any defence that I could give you, but here is the only help I can offer. On this island there is one person who can help you and one who can damn you. The first you do not know, the second you will recognise. That is all. Listen, I want no more of this evil; it works and moves in a more powerful world than mine.”

  Theodrakis realised it was a waste of time asking questions. He mumbled his thanks and walked to the door. As he was leaving she spoke one last time.

  “Do not mistreat that foolish girl outside. I know you understand that if you do, I will set misfortune on you.”

  Outside, the sweat drying on his body felt cold. Hippolyta linked his arm and they walked down the hill towards the village. Neither of them said anything about the visit to the crone. He walked her home and as they reached her door she said,

  “Tomorrow I don’t have to work; if you like, I will take you on one of the boat picnics that the captains arrange for tourists.”

  In normal circumstances he would have avoided this like the plague, but now he agreed instantly.

  “Good, it’s a pity we can’t go on the best one: that is on Captain Michales’s boat but I do not think you would be welcome. I will call at your hotel at nine, bring something for swimming.”

  She pecked him on the cheek and disappeared inside. Later, he sat on his balcony with the evening’s events chasing each other round his mind. Yet, despite the frightening strangeness of the evening, on balance he felt better than he had at any time since leaving Athens.

  That night he dreamed of the woman again and this time she spoke to him, but her words slipped away before he could make sense of them. She also touched him and his ejaculation was intense enough to wake him. He thought of sponging down the sheets but instead drifted back to sleep.

  Chapter 12:

  Bad Call

  He sat in the corridor waiting for the meeting, flexing his hands to see if he could loosen them up, but it did no good. His fingers and his toes felt numb and frozen when he’d woken that morning, and only warmed up slightly once he got moving. The bed had been empty but she’d left a note on his pillow, ‘Had to dash, reception will get you a taxi, lovely night ring soon. A’.

  He supposed he’d maybe trapped a nerve as he slept, reckoning he was too young for circulation problems. He was still flexing his fingers as the door to Professor Andraki’s room opened and he was invited in. Andraki seemed almost excited to see him; the colour had returned to his face, he looked flushed as if he’d run up a couple of flights of stairs. The room was even less tidy than usual: the table, desk, chairs and floor were littered with maps, papers and books. There were at least half a dozen dirty coffee cups in various degrees of emptiness strewn about. He shook Andraki’s hand, picking up the familiar scent of alcohol on his breath.

  “Good morning, Doctor Watkins, I just wanted a quick word before you start. I hope the team I picked is to your satisfaction.”

  Steve mumbled that it was, while clearing a jumble of papers off the seat that Andraki indicated he could sit on.

  “Good, good, excellent, I just wanted to ask you—”

  He finished in mid-sentence and Steve realised that Andraki had started to stare intently at his face.

  “Your ear, Doctor Watkins, I never really looked at it before before …”

  He broke off again then seemed to mumble to himself as much to Steve,

  “Lucky, you must be very lucky, you’re marked yet alive.”

  “Sorry professor, I didn’t quite catch all of that.”

  “Forgive me, I did not mean to appear rude, I just wondered how you came to, er, damage your left ear.”

  “It was in an accident.”

  This had nothing to do with Andraki and he didn’t want to think about it; he was still plagued by nightmares of that cold night on the mound at Skendlebury. He decided that maybe Andraki was drunk and said,

  “Professor, time’s moving on, I need to get to the site.”

  Andraki seemed to pull himself together like a man coming round from a dream.

  “Yes, of course, well I will come straight to the point. That land has always been off limits to us, even though it’s the oldest archaeological site on the island. It’s attracted more than its fair share of misfortune over the years and been abandoned at least three times. Remarkable artefacts are rumoured to have been found in situ and there are oblique references to it, as you know, in two of the more ancient and obscure texts.

  “What you probably don’t know is the rather unhappy local tradition about the place. Unusually, we can evidentially substantiate this as dating back to the earliest records. The tradition concerns a legend of some type of ancient, yet recurring, blood rite. The aggregation of so much reportage, as you know, is often underlain by something of significance. Now Vassilis, whose family have kept it off limits, suddenly wants a stranger to investigate it; why is that, do you think?”

  “Because of the fire, I guess, and the period’s my specialism, remember?”

  “Of course, but it is also the specialism of many Greek archaeologists who know the terrain far better than you possibly can. Why do you think it is that he takes such an interest in your career?”

  Steve could see Andraki’s cheeks flushed red and wondered at the anger, but replied calmly,

  “Well, I did save the life of his son.”

  “You consider that saving a life? There are many here who would disagree with you.”

  “What do yo
u mean by that?”

  Andraki ignored him, saying,

  “I want to be informed of everything of significance that you find. I want to be informed at once, particularly about anything found out of context.”

  “Oh, come on, you know that in an area like that stuff gets scattered all over.”

  “You know perfectly well what I mean. I must be informed of anything fixed that is out of context. Anything fixed, is that clear enough for you? You inform me at once.”

  Steve’s anti-authoritarian streak boiled over so he failed to consider the bizarre implications of the demand. Instead he bridled and channelled his response towards the studied indifference calculated to most infuriate his superiors.

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  It had the desired effect on Andraki.

  “Perhaps you wouldn’t feel quite so pleased if you knew where they think Samarakis the murdered policeman was go—”

  He stopped himself from saying more but needn’t have bothered. Steve had walked out without having registered the implication of what Andraki might have been about to let slip.

  Outside in the sunlight, the student team, Anna, Thomas and Maria were sitting in the dust under the shade of a desiccated plane tree; he waved to them and walked across to the kiosk to buy a bottle of water. While he was waiting he read the headlines of the local paper: ‘Satanist killer caught’.

  He was sufficiently intrigued to buy a copy to read in the minibus on the way to the site and if his translation was correct, it appeared all the killings had been committed by one man. The journalist suggested an inside source close to the investigations had revealed that this man was a mentally disturbed vagrant well known on the streets of Vathia, and one whom most residents of the city would recognise.

  The theme of the piece was relief; there was some muted praise for the police but the journalist posed the question: if the man was so well known, why had it taken them so long to catch him? Inside the paper, however, the editorial asked why such a man had been allowed to roam the island on his killing spree and how someone so physically and mentally disabled managed to overpower and mutilate younger and stronger victims; Samarakis in particular. It concluded with the prediction that there would be further developments.