The Dead Travel Fast

by Nick Brown

  Kostandin looked almost pleased that someone else was giving orders; he got up and shambled downstairs to organise the men. About fifteen minutes later Theodrakis watched a small phalanx of cops in riot gear charge into the acrid gas shrouding the weeping and choking crowd. They’d had enough and dispersed almost before the baton wielding cops reached them. Kostandin struggled to recall his highly strung men, who seemed keen to displace some their stress and fear onto the fleeing crowd with their batons. But within minutes the area was clear and the cops were joking as they stripped off their riot gear.

  Theodrakis and Kostandin agreed the demo in Lion Square was too big to handle, especially now there was apparently no central government, and they weren’t sure what was the correct action to take. Instead they deployed some men in normal uniform to supervise the crowd until it dispersed. They’d arrest the hardcore activists later. Neither man was happy about this and most of the cops didn’t like their government’s handling of affairs any more than the demonstrators; the only difference was the cops had jobs and wanted to keep them.

  Kostandin sent out for coffee and they slumped in silence onto the sofa in the chief’s room. Theodrakis noticed that while Kostandin’s crossed ankles stretched over the carpet, his legs only just reached the floor. When the coffee arrived, Kostandin took a sip then said,

  “There’s something else you should know: Lucca had to give the body of a suicide the once over, a fisherman from Aghios Konstantinos. He’d tied himself to a cast iron anchor chain and threw himself off the harbour wall. A bloody heavy chain, I’m surprised he could lift it but you can never really tell how strong some of these wiry built guys are.”

  Theodrakis wondered where this rambling was leading.

  “Anyway, the water’s not deep and he spent the night hanging above the anchor with his head less than half a metre below the surface so the first boat out in the morning found him; a nasty shock for them, I guess. You know, he must have judged the length of the chain pretty accurately.”

  “Kostandin, get to the point, fascinating though this may be to you.”

  “Sorry, I’ve been up all night trying to make sense of what’s going on here. The point is that before he topped himself, he posted us a note saying why he’d done it but with all that’s been going on it took us some time to put the two together.”

  Theodrakis listened with a growing sense of unease, anticipating that what was to come wouldn’t be good.

  “The note was a type of confession, a very strange confession.”

  Theodrakis could feel the hairs on the back of his neck prickling.

  “In it he confesses to the murder of Anna Macrie, your girl in the river, remember?”

  Theodrakis nodded but said nothing the memory of finding her still upset him; he lost the appetite for the coffee slowly cooling in its plastic beaker.

  “He had all the detail of how he killed her, even about how he got her to the river and put her in the water; it all matches what we found.”

  He broke off for a moment. Theodrakis saw he was on the verge of tears but he ploughed on.

  “Reading that note you feel you’re in the presence of real evil. Turns out you were right about the body being washed downstream later. Sorry, I’m not telling this very well am I?”

  “No, you’re OK, take your time if you need to.”

  “Lucca says the forensics confirm he was the killer.”

  “Very nasty, but it doesn’t get us much further.”

  “No, wait there’s more. He said he had no reason to kill her. He’d never seen her before. Said he couldn’t remember having done it afterwards. Then sometime later, out at sea, it came back to him. Everything came back and that’s why he had all the detail so well. It hadn’t been him though; well, it had been his body but it hadn’t been him in it.”

  “So who was it, then?”

  “The Devil. It was the Devil and he saw him; saw the Devil and it told him what the bones were for and how many more were needed for the curse to work. So he stayed out at sea till dark then came into harbour, wrapped himself in the anchor chain, and jumped.”

  A couple of weeks ago Theodrakis would have laughed at such superstitious and credulous nonsense but now he just listened in silence.

  “I’m sorry, Theodrakis, I can’t shake this off; I don’t know what to do with it.”

  “Did he say where bones were, how many they needed and what would happen when they’d got them?”

  “No, it was a suicide note, not a fucking autobiography.”

  Theodrakis stood up and walked to the window, stood for a moment looking over roof tops to the sea, he wanted Hippolyta, he wanted to be sick. Instead he asked,

  “Is Antonis fit to be interviewed?”

  “I don’t know, none of the men will go near him, but he’s not making the noise the other two are, so he may be. I wouldn’t go in there though, all the same.”

  “You won’t have to. Take me to him, you can wait outside, post two reliable men just down the corridor within earshot.”

  Theodrakis didn’t want to conduct the interview. The memory of the session with the old man was too fresh in his mind, but since his meeting with Vassilis he had no choice - and besides, the absence of any superior gave him a free hand.

  They walked down the hot, fetid corridors to the most remote cell, passing the noise of screaming from another room en-route. The cell holding Antonis was down a short passage at a dog-leg angle to the others. The corridor lights were flickering as if the bulbs were about to blow. The two cops waited at the end of the passage and Kostandin walked with him to the door and unlocked it.

  Inside it was cold, deep cold, but the cell’s occupant was unaffected. Theodrakis knew it was the prisoner who’d lowered the temperature, illogical as this was. He recognised Antonis from Professor Andraki’s office; hardly an auspicious beginning. Later, when he tried to remember the details of the brief interview, it seemed filtered through a hallucinogenic haze. Antonis had been curled up on the pallet which constituted the cell’s only furniture but as the door opened he jerked upright, reminding Theodrakis of a puppet when the puppeteer pulls the strings.

  “I see you again, Athenian, and still you are no wiser. Your men have made another blunder and if it didn’t amuse me so much I would walk out of here.”

  There was nowhere for Theodrakis to sit and he rejected the idea of sitting on the pallet next to Antonis. So he leaned against the wall by the door, which he was disconcerted to hear closing.

  Hoping it wasn’t locked and that Kostandin was still outside, he began the interview.

  “Tell me why you are in here.”

  “Because your men are fools, fools who fear me and now wish they’d not locked me up.”

  “Well, tell me what they suspect you of then.”

  “They suspect me of many things; they’re just superstitious peasants in uniform, just like all the others who have lived on this island through the centuries. They think that I’m the murderer, just like the crowd outside.”

  He put his head back and laughed, then looked round as if someone was behind him.

  “Your father will be worried about you?”

  “Father? Oh, you mean Vassilis: not worried in the way you imagine, no, he is more worried about my suitability for the task.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “I don’t think you are sufficiently prepared to be able to cope with the answer to that, policeman.”

  “Why not try me?”

  “No, believe me; you wouldn’t thank me if I did. But I will tell you that in arresting me, you have moved as far away from the real perpetrator as it’s possible to get. I’m surprised you didn’t understand that from your conversation with Vassilis. You pride yourself on your intelligence, do you not?”

  “I notice that you said one perpetrator, and yet you know we have arrested multiple killers.”

  “Only because your men are stupid and incompetent.”

  The room was growing colder
as he spoke; again Antonis turned to look behind him. Theodrakis saw he wasn’t as cocky now.

  “Still, if you claim to know, why not tell me about the one who is responsible for these killings?”

  “You are beginning to waste my time, Syntagmatarchis. It seems, after all, that you are a clown.”

  Then he changed. His face went dead white, his eyes rolled up, staring at something that Theodrakis couldn’t see. The light flickered and went out; Theodrakis felt someone else in the room. It was freezing and smelled of decaying earth. Antonis looked terrified, his jaw locked with the mouth wide open. From somewhere within him came a voice, stentorian and distorted. It sounded far away but reverberated against the cell walls, rolling round and round trapping him in sound. It spoke direct to Theodrakis.

  “Deep down in the part of your mind where fear dwells you know who I am, who I have always been. This one was not so easy to enter and will, I think, be even more damaged than the others as a result. For you, there is nowhere to run. Time has run out.”

  There was an electrical smell of burning; the cell lurched like a boat in rough seas. Then, to Theodrakis’s relief, the light came back on and the temperature stabilised. Antonis reached out a hand to him. He was whimpering like a small child.

  “Please, I want to go home now; I don’t like it here anymore.”

  “Just answer this next question and I’ll see what I can do.”

  But he never got chance to answer; there were the sounds of commotion outside and Kostandin burst into the room.

  “Theodrakis, there’s been another; but not the same, it’s changing, the pattern’s changing; what’s happening? When will we wake up?”

  Chapter 18:

  Paradise Lost

  Steve didn’t call Giles the next day, events overtook him. Handing over the bones and the responsibility lifted the sense of dread engulfing him. He parked the car outside his apartment and was fumbling for his door keys when he heard his name called. Looking round, he saw Claire outside the bar at the table by the water’s edge where he and Michales liked to sit late at night.

  “Steve, I saw your car and I’ve ordered you a beer; I bet you can use one after a hot day on site.”

  He thought he could use one too; she kissed him on both cheeks, as he sat down she was still holding his hand. This was unusually affectionate; he didn’t think she liked him much after he’d excavated the chamber at Skendleby and unleashed Hell.

  “I’m glad to have caught you on your own, Steve, I wanted a word; we’ve been so worried about you.”

  She put out a hand and stroked his cheek; he thought maybe he’d misjudged her, this was certainly the loving woman that Giles talked about, and he began to understand why his friend was so in love. Hippolyta brought the beer, smiled at Steve, ignored Claire and walked back inside.

  “And I have to say, Stevie love, that I’m a bit more worried since last night. Tell me, how serious are you about that woman?”

  “Alekka? I don’t really know, it’s been kind of unexpected.”

  “You mean like Lisa.”

  Steve didn’t want to be reminded about Lisa: of the moment at Skendleby when she stopped kissing him and he felt her sharp teeth shredding his left ear as she brought the flint knife down into the side of his neck. He was reminded about it often enough in his nightmares. These dreams always ended at the point the black disarticulated presence came jerking out of the tree line and Lisa fled screaming in rage. So any comparison with Alekka was the last thing he wanted.

  “I don’t mean she’s the same as Lisa of course, Steve, it’s just we don’t want to see you hurt again, or threatened.”

  She smiled at him with her mouth and her eyes and he envied Giles the love bites. He was right, she was wonderful. If he’d met her first it would have been him with her and not Giles. The fact that he had seen her first and thought her mad he conveniently forgot. She still held his hand.

  “It’s just that you haven’t got a very steady record with women have you, Stevie? And.”

  She paused and it was obvious she was teetering on the brink of saying something more but stopped herself.

  “You were going to say something else Claire?”

  “No, it’s none of my business and I’m probably worrying over nothing.”

  “But, there is a but isn’t there, come on Claire tell me.”

  “I’m only saying this because we care about you Steve and not because of what the locals are saying about her. I’m sure most of that could be jealousy and I hate gossip. But I felt something when I met her last night, something bad, dark, frightening, so much so that it’s still making me shudder.”

  She stopped and took a sip of her drink, looked at Steve, licked her lips and said,

  “Perhaps I’ve got everything out of proportion since I conducted the exorcism on Lisa, but last night that feeling of horror returned. Alekka means you harm, Steve; I sense danger for you.”

  “I wish you hadn’t said that Claire, I really like her.”

  “Why are you the only one with access to the site, Steve? Which came first? That or your relationship with Alekka?”

  “Alekka showed me the site the first time I met her.”

  “Why do you think they waited so long to have it investigated? Sounds like they were expecting you.”

  “No, that’s not right, no way; it was the fire that uncovered the site.”

  “But they knew it was there before the fire. Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So it didn’t need looking at as long as it was hidden. Remind you of somewhere else, Skendleby for instance?”

  “No way.”

  “Well, is there something hidden there they don’t want anyone else to see or is it just such a fantastic archaeological heritage site that they want to open it up to the island?”

  Claire giggled as she said this, took another drink ran her tongue over her lips and patted Steve’s hand.

  “No, it’s not a great site, hardly anything really, but something’s wrong with it. I found a secondary burial at least five thousand years old. It’s got no real context, but there’s something under it. Something much older; something too old to be there. There’s human bone from millennia before the Neolithic. If that’s in context something seriously weird is going on.”

  “So what could be that old and so important that they want kept secret? And why can’t they get it themselves? I’d think long and hard about that if I were you, Stevie boy.”

  “You think the same thing hasn’t occurred to me?”

  “Well, perhaps you should tell me all about the site and what you’re expected to find. Better to tell me than Giles, his professional appetite could get whetted by this. I’m more objective.”

  “I think that would be a relief. Thanks Claire, let me get you another drink.”

  But half an hour later, after Claire had gone back up to the villa, he wasn’t sure. She’d wanted more detail on the bones than he was comfortable with. He sat on in the bar until the call he was expecting from Alekka came. He didn’t know if he wanted to see her or not, but when his mobile rang he answered eagerly.

  “Steveymou, I do not want to come to your silly village, you will please meet me at the beach taverna at Limnionas in one half hour.”

  Limnionas, when he arrived, was in the magical transition between daylight and twilight: twenty metres out to sea the sun sparkled on the water while beneath the shadow of the mountain, the shallows were dark indigo. The moon was palely visible in the blue sky and the heat of the day had dissipated. It was perfect.

  Alekka was sitting on the terrace watching the sea lapping the beach less than ten metres away. In denim shorts and a diaphanous white blouse, he’d never seen her so beautiful; nor had he seen her look so troubled. If Claire hadn’t warned him he was being exploited he’d have thought Alekka was vulnerable.

  He padded along the beach and slipped into the seat next to her before she noticed him. She smiled, gently placed a hand behind his neck an
d pulled his face towards hers to be kissed. The waitress brought him a drink. Alekka had already ordered the food so he sat back with her arm still round his shoulders and they gazed out across the sea towards where the gathering twilight occluded Patmos, the island of Revelations.

  In the few days that remained, Steve looked back on this night as a glimpse of what might have been. She’d arranged they were the only diners at this exquisite place and he relaxed into the vibrations of the languorous velvet night. They ate lobster, grilled squid and an unctuous fish soup, washed down with chilled Samina Gold, followed by honey cakes; serenaded by the lapping water being washed across the shingle at the sea’s edge. Every time he tried to speak she shushed him.

  “Tonight is not for talk; tonight is for the beauty of this beach which has seen many things: the hero Miltiades stopped here on his way to glory at Marathon, a friend of Pythagoras was exiled here by the tyrant Polycrates. But for tonight it is ours.”

  She stood up, took his hand and led him along the terrace and down to the beach. They didn’t follow the path back to the cars as he expected. Instead they followed the edge of the sea along the full curve of the bay, she in bare feet and him in the heavy work boots. Glancing back over his shoulder, their footprints in the sand looked as if they had been made by a nymph and a monster from the island’s mythical past. The bay ended where a headland covered in wild olives stuck out into the sea. The only light was from the moon, but as they drew close to the trees he could vaguely discern a light flickering through the branches.

  “See that light up there, Steve? Tonight, that is ours; we will sleep amongst the ancient trees above the water.”

  At the foot of the headland lay the ghost of an old path leading up from a ruined jetty into the grove. She led him along the twisting way, surefooted in the dark as the flickering light grew brighter. They entered a glade where a small single-floored villa, old enough to have walked out of the pages of a fairy tale, waited. Five steps on to a veranda with a small table on which an ancient Hellenistic oil lamp was softly glowing. In the single chamber beyond, Steve could see a large bed with crisp white sheets hung with a mosquito net.