The Dead Travel Fast

by Nick Brown

  “The net is of course for you, Steveymou, only English would need such a silly object; it was the only difficult thing to arrange.”

  She slipped out of her blouse and shorts, blew out the lamp and led him to the bed.

  He stirred once in the night, surprised to feel her draped around him as they slept, her skin just cool against his no longer cold. He woke again just after dawn as the sun pushed its head above the surface of the water, filling the room with rosy light. She was already up.

  “Come, Steve, you smell so we will swim.”

  Naked, she set off down the path and he groggily lurched after her, arriving at the crumbling jetty as she dived into the sea. He stood on the rotten planking watching her emerge from the water with the grace of a dolphin. She saw him watching and waved him in; he sloughed off his jeans and dived in. The water was cool and beautiful. Alekka swam out to sea following the contours of the headland.

  He followed slowly in her wake for about ten minutes until, looking up, he saw she’d disappeared. He splashed on bewildered, becoming alarmed and almost missing a tiny rock inlet leading to a small cove with a fringe of sandy beach. Alekka sat in the shallows, concentrating on wet sand trailing through her fingers. He swam towards her. The water had a quality of translucence he’d never seen before and apart from the lapping of the water there was no sound. Naked they were like a pre-lapsarian Adam and Eve in a new and empty world. He waded up onto the beach to sit on the sand with her.

  “Steve, in this sand there are tiny pearls, take some sand in your hands and see if you can find any. They could be older than any of the old pots you are so interested in.”

  Steve scooped up a handful of wet sand and let it trickle through his fingers. They sat side by side filtering sand for pearls, silent and contented. Alekka found three and Steve none; soon the sun was high enough to be hot on their skin and the night fishing boats were crossing the bay on their way home to port. She stood up.

  “We must go now.”

  She walked into the water and he followed reluctantly; back on the jetty she put on her shorts and blouse, brushed back her wet hair and tied it with a band. It made her look young and innocent. She reached out a hand and gently stroked his cheek and gazed directly into his eyes; for a moment he thought she was going to speak a three word sentence to him. But the moment passed and instead she said,

  “Steve, there are things I must do now.”

  She hesitated for a moment.

  “I would like to meet you this afternoon on the site on my father’s estate.”

  Again she hesitated.

  “Then we can go to eat somewhere and perhaps spend the night together, I hope you would like that.”

  He was about to tell her he didn’t want to meet at the site, and perhaps she sensed this as she spoke before he could.

  “There will be no problem, Steve, I promise you.”

  She turned and lightly jumped down to the beach, shouting back over her shoulder.

  “When you have finished here go to the place we ate last night, they will have breakfast for you. Five o’clock tonight and remember be punctual: German time, not Greek time.”

  He sat on the jetty and watched as she receded down the beach. Later, after he’d eaten a bowl of yoghurt and local honey and was smoking a third cigarette, he still couldn’t work out what to think. He didn’t want to ever see the site again and Claire’s words still rang in his head; and yet. And yet this time with Alekka had been perfect.

  By the time he clocked out of the university sometime around three, after a refreshingly uneventful day, he wanted to see her. Without knowing how, he found himself driving through the winding streets of Marathakampos. The motor stalled, jerking him to a stop outside the cafenion. In a dread of anticipation he looked towards the terrace where, to his horror, he saw Father John beckoning as if wishing to impart an urgent message. As he watched, the black robed priest flickered and faded then reappeared briefly, mouth open, desperately trying to speak. Then it was gone.

  He sat in the car in shock; the engine was running and the taxi behind was hooting at him to move. He gunned the engine and drove out of town. When he reached the bypass he pulled in and cut the ignition, his heart racing. It was 4.30; somewhere he’d lost a full hour. Where had he been?

  He started the car and as he drove, he remembered Tim Thompson’s letter. In particular he remembered the black draped corpselike figure that lured him to his death, and he remembered Father John.

  Turning onto the track leading to the site he was dazed and confused. He saw her car and pulled in behind. As he was opening the car door it came to him in a flash that no one knew where he was: no one except Alekka and maybe Father John. He fumbled in his work bag for his mobile; it wasn’t there, and besides whom could he ring? Then he saw her. She too seemed uneasy, that morning had been so good, what was happening? She took his hand; there was an expression in her eyes he couldn’t read.

  “Come quickly, Steve, there is something we must do before we can leave this place; I think neither of us wants to be here.”

  This was true enough, but there was something else. The sky had a bruised and livid aspect; the waters in the bay below had darkened and begun to swell as if a storm was advancing. Above him, below the growing dark cloud, large black birds were circling.

  “Come on, Steve, we must hurry.”

  “Hurry, why? Alekka, what are we here for, what’s happening?”

  She didn’t answer, just pulled him across the dead ground towards the mound.

  “No, Alekka, what is it here you need so much?”

  “Please Steve, do not ask me that, just trust me; please trust me.”

  “Why? Why should I trust you?”

  “Because I lo …”

  A tearing wind suddenly blew hot and gritty across the burnt land, lashing dirt and burnt debris into their faces. She pulled at him with renewed energy, stumbling through the hurricane across the excavation spoil heap onto the mound. The noise of the wind was so fierce they had to shout into each other’s faces.

  “What do you want, Alekka, what’s down there causing all this?”

  “Please Steve, get it for me. Please, you don’t understand what it can do.”

  He looked into her face; her eyes were wet.

  “Please, Steve get it, I know you know it’s there. I know you would recognise something that could never belong to this site.”

  “Then why don’t you get it?”

  “We can’t, we are not permitted; surely by now you have understood something about us.”

  He knelt and fumbled beneath the burial urn in the loose soil where he knew from his earlier digging something lay hidden, something he didn’t want to touch. But as he groped around, he saw the fill was disturbed. Someone else had been here!

  “There’s nothing here, it’s gone.”

  There was a scream of loss and anger that split right through the noise of the storm; she towered above him dark hair blown across her face pummelling his shoulders with her fists in frustration. She was screaming something at him but he didn’t get it, couldn’t get it because in his mind he was back on the mound at Skendleby with Lisa, waiting for his death. Then he was up and running. She screamed after him.

  “Steve, come back Steve, please, you don’t understand, Steve Steve Steeeeveeee …”

  But he didn’t hear: he ran, mindless and terrified, into the storm.

  Chapter 19:

  Throat of Ages

  Theodrakis stared at the new pictures on the incident room wall; they turned him sick. As a reflex he took a sip of coffee, it was stone cold and he felt bile rising in his throat. Kostandin had been right, this one was different. No flint knife, no surgical removal of certain bones, this was more like an orgiastic demonstration of the damage a human body could sustain. He felt for Lucca stuck in the morgue with these remains. There was nothing that connected with the other killings, but he knew with absolute conviction they were linked. Intuitively he recognised this
as a perverted celebration: a message that said “job done”. So what happens next? He’d been asking himself that question ever since his first glimpse at the obscene images on the wall.

  “Sir, Dr Lucca wants to speak to you.”

  It took him some time to pull himself together sufficiently to understand the message.

  “Sir, are you alright? Did you hear, Dr Lucca is on the phone, he says it’s urgent?”

  Theodrakis blinked and focussed on the anxious face of the young cop speaking to him.

  “Endaxi, I’ll take it in here and when you’ve put him through ask Syntagmatarchis Kostandin to join me.”

  The young policeman hurried off and Theodrakis picked up the phone.

  “Theodrakis, come …”

  Lucca broke off and Theodrakis recognised the tone of someone who had reached his limit.

  “Theodrakis, come quickly, I think I’m losing my mind; I can’t stay here anymore but you need to see this.”

  “Hang on; I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  He let the phone fall onto the table as Kostandin shuffled in.

  “Let me have your thoughts, Kostandin.”

  “We’re fucked; simple as that. The island’s out of control, we haven’t the manpower to deal with the situation. The demonstrations are one step away from riots and the murders … the men can’t cope with them. We need help.”

  He slumped onto the sofa and Theodrakis sat with him. Kostandin offered him a cigarette and they sat together exhausted, smoking under the no smoking sign. Kostandin gave a short laugh.

  “You know, Theodrakis, when you came here everyone resented you and your superior Athenian attitude, but now it’s you we look to to get us out of all this, you’re our last hope.”

  “Thanks, very touching, but we’re out of our depth, we need help.”

  “Why not ring up one of your Athenian contacts, maybe they can send Xenarkis and the boys back to us.”

  Theodrakis thought about it: he knew deep within himself the murders belonged to him in some way he couldn’t understand. But he couldn’t cope with the civil disobedience or lead the riot police. He didn’t have the skills for that. So he scrolled through the contacts on his phone and keyed the number of one of his father’s cronies at the ministry in Athens. He was surprised to get an immediate answer. It became clear the minister had mistaken his number for an eagerly awaited call and after a brief and terse exchange of pleasantries, Theodrakis put in his request. He received a shouted response to end the conversation.

  “You don’t understand the situation here, Alexis, we’ve lost control we can’t help you. Athens is burning, Athens is fucking burning.”

  Theodrakis turned to Kostandin.

  “I think you could probably hear that: we’re on our own. Listen, Kostandin, I need you to look after the political stuff for me, keep the lid on things as best you can. I need space to deal with the murders; I’ve got some ideas and I’m going to be following some leads you won’t find in police procedures. I need you to trust me, maybe if I can at least get some type of solution that people understand the island will calm down.”

  Kostandin listened to this without expression then fished out the packet and offered Theodrakis a smoke, which he lit for him. All he said was,

  “So your friends call you Alexis?”

  Theodrakis stood up and to their mutual surprise, they shook hands.

  “But this time you have to keep me posted on what’s happening and where you are. Agreed … Alexis?”

  Theodrakis ignored Konstantin’s grin and headed for the door but as he was through it Kostandin called him back.

  “Oh, I forgot, an Englishman’s been trying to get hold of you, says it’s important. Got a strange name, Jillais or something.”

  “Thanks, text me his number, keep things as calm as you can.”

  Outside, although most of the demonstrators had dispersed, the mood was still tense and he could see a couple of overturned cars by the dock that were still burning. He walked quickly to the police morgue, trying to ignore the insults shouted at him.

  Inside the morgue was worse. Under the bright strip lighting of the sterile laboratory, Lucca sat huddled in a chair, in the corner furthest away from the travesty of a corpse on the slab. The floor was scattered with liquids, instruments and, Theodrakis noted with distaste, body parts. It looked like some maniac had been at work, which he reflected was precisely what it was. Lucca seemed to be conducting some type of discourse with himself but showed no sign of having noticed Theodrakis’s presence.

  He stood by the door for some time deciding what to do; he felt sorry for Lucca, whom he’d come to respect and like for his perseverance and courage in sticking to his grim and soul destroying work. He was a decent man and this was breaking him. But he needed information, so after a few moments he walked across the room, avoiding looking at the ruined thing on the slab, and placed his hands on Lucca’s shoulders. To his surprise Lucca spoke to him.

  “Coffee and rough brandy won’t do it this time, Theodrakis; I’m finished here. I’m going home to my family while I still have one and we’re getting off this island. Tonight, if there’s a boat for Italy.”

  Theodrakis said nothing, just gently massaged the shaking shoulders under his palms until Lucca continued.

  “This is the last report you’ll get from me, and when I finish talking I’m going to walk out and leave all this shit forever.

  “That thing over there was once a human being: it’s been ripped to pieces, torn apart by the bare hands of someone or something. This is nothing like the others; I think this was done for enjoyment. That corpse was a man, and a strongly built one.”

  He paused to get his breath.

  “This one left no evidence, no prints and no trace of bodily fluids or any of the evidence you’d expect from something so bloody and messy. I’m sure there’s no evidence here, unlike with the others. That fisherman under the cover on the other slab for instance, he drowned himself, left a note and his prints and DNA all over the girl in the river.”

  He stood up, looked at Theodrakis for the first time then avoiding the slab followed the wall to the door. Theodrakis didn’t try to stop him, he guessed if Lucca had anything left to say he’d do it in his own time; he was right. Lucca stopped at the door and turned back to him.

  “I think the others: Andraki, the fisherman, the mad man in the cells and, presumably there are others. Well, they were just surrogates, a type of murderer by proxy. But the abomination that did this last one; I think that’s the real thing, and it feels powerful enough to do it for itself now. I’ve thought about that all day. Take care, Theodrakis, you’re not just drifting through the underworld, you’re headed straight into Hell.”

  Lucca walked out of the door, leaving Theodrakis standing by the chair in a room that resembled the antechamber of Hell. He felt lonely more than anything else; Lucca had been the only one he could talk to. But he was glad that he was getting out, he was too sensitive for this. He walked out of the morgue leaving the lights on and the door open.

  Outside on the street, he was too preoccupied to notice the small group of elderly men outside a cafe who made the sign of the evil eye at him or the woman who spat on his coat. It was only after he’d walked blindly through the town for several minutes that he remembered the message from the Englishman. He checked his messages, saw that the number had been texted and called it up. He thought that at the very least the conversation would divert him from what he’d just seen.

  The phone rang several times and Theodrakis was about to give up when suddenly there was an answer.

  “Hello, who’s there?”

  “Theodrakis; are you the English man who came to visit the archaeologist?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Look, I’ve got a bag full of bones, human bones I think, they come from the site Steve Watkins was looking at. I thought you should know.”

  “Where are they?”

&nbs
p; Theodrakis couldn’t believe it; out of nowhere one of the main pieces of the jigsaw had fallen into place. He was clenching his fist in triumph when the voice at the other end answered.

  “I’ve hidden them, they’re buried.”

  “Can you get them to me today?”

  “Yeah, but later, I’m in Drakei now, I can get them about five.”

  “Good, ring me then, oh and where is Dr Watkins?”

  “I don’t know, he didn’t come back last night; I hoped you might know.”

  “Listen: don’t mention this to anyone, anyone at all. Get to the bones as soon as you can and when you have them, ring me on this number and be very, very careful.”

  He pocketed the phone and headed for the hospital. In a side ward, guarded by two very uneasy looking cops, he found Professor Andraki. Before he entered the room one of the cops grunted,

  “Rather you than me going in there, boss, but at least he’s quiet today.”

  The other cop laughed but Theodrakis could see he didn’t really find it funny. Inside the room, despite the brightness of the day, it was dark, something that the closed thin curtains didn’t account for. Andraki was hunched up on a bed most of his face covered in bandages. Theodrakis was relieved; he hadn’t wanted to see what he’d done to Andraki’s eye with the pen. The other eye was closed and Andraki didn’t appear to be conscious. So it came as a surprise when he began to speak.

  “Listen to what I tell you, policeman, they have left me for a moment but could return at any time so I will be quick. I was led to the discoveries, I understand that now: I was their instrument. The sites were not looted. I stole what they required, but they needed fresh bone, living bone. I did the first killing: the one you’ve not found yet and Samarakis, but of course you know that. I tried to resist but when you meet them you will know that’s not possible. They need the bones; find Watkins.”