by Leo Kanaris
‘There was a robbery going on and someone called the police.’
‘I called the police,’ said George, ‘and it wasn’t a robbery.’
‘What was it?’
‘Debt collection.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Never mind. Can I go up to the house?’
‘Do you have some ID?’
George showed his card and was allowed through.
The bodies were lying like fingers on a hand, half in shadow, half in the light that spilled from the porch. Mrs Kakridis lay face down, a pulpy mess of bloodstained hair at the base of her skull. Behind her, lying partly across her legs, was the ‘big man’. He too had his face to the ground, a crimson stain between his shoulder blades. Head to head with him was another man, who had fallen on his side. He looked as if he was asleep. A short distance away, behind the big man, their feet almost touching, lay Pezas, on his back, mouth and eyes open, gaping at the night sky. He had taken two bullets in his chest.
George stopped, paralysed by the sight of his friend. All he could think was, ‘Stupid idiot! Why the hell didn’t you listen to me?’
He glanced around. Police officers were photographing, discussing, dictating notes into miniature recording machines. On a balcony to the left of the porch he saw Kakridis, pacing and talking energetically into a phone.
George knew there was something missing… The Mercedes. It should be here, unless it had got away. He scanned the garden. Up against the perimeter wall, to the right of the house, he spotted a dark shape. He walked over. As he came closer he saw that it was a car, parked oddly. In fact it wasn’t parked at all, it was stopped, with its front end buried in the garden wall. A figure was collapsed over the steering wheel. George shone the light of his torch over him: he too had been shot, with a wound in the neck that must have sliced the carotid artery. The man’s left shoulder, his arms, his entire torso glistened with blood. So, thought George, Pezas got three of them.
A new police car swung into the drive, its headlights sweeping across the garden. As it pulled up, a rear door opened and Sotiriou stepped out. Kakridis glanced at the new arrival, nodded, and carried on with his phone call.
Sotiriou went straight over to the four bodies, knelt by each one in turn, and said something to an assistant which George could not catch.
Kakridis finished his phone call and vanished from the balcony. A few seconds later he appeared at the front door. He hesitated a moment, then moved slowly down the steps towards Sotiriou.
George was thirty metres away, out beyond the lights. He could not hear their conversation. He noticed that Kakridis had lost his arrogant bearing. He seemed to have aged twenty years. They stood talking, their eyes fixed on the bodies at their feet.
Sotiriou raised his head and caught sight of the Mercedes against the garden wall. He began to walk towards it, Kakridis following.
They had not seen George. Or if they had, they hadn’t registered who he was. They walked past him, enveloped in their conversation.
‘Is that your car?’ asked Sotiriou.
‘No,’ said Kakridis.
‘What were these people doing here?’ asked Sotiriou.
‘They were stealing paintings.’
‘Who let them in?’
‘My wife.’
‘Did she know them?’
‘They claimed to be art collectors. Clients of the gallery.’
‘Where were you when the shooting happened?’
‘In my study.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Talking to one of these men. The one who’s sitting in the car now.’
‘About what?’
‘What the hell do you think? I was telling him to get off my property!’
‘Then what happened?’
‘We heard shouts. He ran out, I followed, there was shooting… By the time I got out here I saw this.’
‘So they weren’t art collectors?’
‘No way.’
‘You’ve never met them before?’
‘Never!’
‘Why did they start shooting?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘So, there’s one in the car, three on the ground, your wife…’
Kakridis threw up his hands. ‘God knows who, how many…’
‘One of the men down there is a private detective,’ said Sotiriou. ‘His name is Hector Pezas.’
Kakridis did not react.
‘What was he doing here?’
‘I wish I knew.’
‘Did you know him?’
‘No.’
‘Did your wife know him?’
‘She never mentioned his name.’
‘How did he get in?’
‘I don’t know.’
They walked slowly up to the porch.
George waited on the lawn. The ease and fluency of Kakridis’s lying was incredible. He could invent fictions even in a state of shock. A true professional. He walked towards the house.
Sotiriou saw George first. He did not seem pleased.
‘Mr Zafiris? Have you just arrived?’
‘About ten minutes ago.’
‘What brings you here?’
‘Hector Pezas called me.’
Kakridis looked up and recognised him with a start.
‘Hector called me when he saw this trouble starting,’ said George. ‘He went to help. Against my advice.’
‘What was he doing here?’ asked Sotiriou.
‘He was working for Mrs Kakridis. We both were.’
‘In what capacity?’
George began to explain.
‘Mother of God!’ Kakridis broke in. ‘Why are we listening to this?’
‘We should let him have his say,’ said Sotiriou.
‘She didn’t let these men in,’ said George. ‘Mr Kakridis did. He knew them and had dealings with them.’
‘Bullshit!’ said Kakridis. ‘And this man has been trying to blackmail me for the last month.’
‘Nothing of the kind, Mr Kakridis! I came to help a friend, who died trying to save your wife. And she died trying to save you!’
‘Leave my property, Mr Detective! Your lies aren’t wanted here!’
‘We’ll see who’s lying,’ said George.
Sotiriou eyed the two men sceptically.
‘I’m going to ask you both to make sworn statements,’ he said.
‘Fuck your sworn statements,’ said Kakridis. ‘This man is a liar, a blackmailer, and a shit. He’ll have no problem swearing to any libellous crap that passes though his head.’
‘Just get the transcripts of our phone conversations,’ said George. ‘Mine and Hector’s. There’s enough in there to back up everything I’ve said.’
‘Get out!’ shouted Kakridis.
George stood his ground. ‘When you discover who these “art collectors” are, you’ll see that Mr Kakridis has been doing business with them for some time now, commissioning work…’
Kakridis raised his fist. ‘Get out of here before I kill you.’
Sotiriou took George by the elbow and urged him to leave.
‘Pay your bills, Mr Kakridis!’ he shouted. ‘The Georgians will be back. Who’ll protect you then?’
Sotiriou propelled him away.
‘Kakridis is lying,’ he said. ‘Get those transcripts. Listen to the conversations.’
‘We need an order from the Public Prosecutor.’
‘For a phone tap, surely not a transcript?’
‘It comes to the same thing. Invasion of privacy.’
‘I give you full permission to transcribe my calls.’
‘What about Hector?’
‘He’s dead!’
‘That complicates it even more. He can no longer give permission for his part of the conversation to be made public. So it has to go to the Prosecutor.’
‘OK, let it go to the Prosecutor!’
‘He won’t take it on. The minister is immune from prosecution. You know that. It takes a special parliamentary
committee…’
‘Oh God! Here we go again!’
‘Have you no more evidence than that?’
‘The only one with more is Ghiotis.’
‘He died this afternoon.’
‘No! So this bastard gets away.’
‘I can’t take this any further,’ said Sotiriou. ‘Until I get some hard evidence, not from the phone, I’m stuck.’
‘Do you at least believe what I’m telling you?’
‘I have to keep an open mind.’
‘Talk to those two hoodlums who whacked my place. They’re part of this.’
‘We will. Their testimony will be suspect, of course…’
George threw up his hands.
‘OK. I give up. Let the bastard carry on, and I hope he kills one of your friends next.’
‘I’m sorry about Hector,’ said Sotiriou ruefully.
They had reached the gate.
‘I’d better get back now,’ he said at last. ‘Go home, Zafiris. Try to forget this.’
‘I’m going,’ said George.
*
It was a warm night, scented with jasmine from the gardens along the street, with gusts of thyme from the wild land opposite. Ahead, the lights of Kifissia glowed, with the cypresses of the cemetery silhouetted against an opalescent sky. Soon Hector would be in the earth. George would have to find another man to help with gadgets and difficult days. The thought of him dead was sickening, unreal, and unjust beyond belief. Pangs of sorrow and pity twisted through him. But Hector had gone into the dark, and there was no calling him back.
As he walked towards Kifissia, past gleaming jeeps and executive cars, armoured gates with sensor lights and security cameras, past high stone walls that hid immense villas, he thought with bitterness of Kakridis, the shark who had surfaced just briefly from the waters where he usually hunted. George had almost netted him. But almost wasn’t good enough. He had slipped away at the last moment, back into the slimy black world of menace, corruption and bought loyalty. There he would continue to survive until a beast even more vicious and unscrupulous than himself came along one day and destroyed him. Whether that was a Georgian killer or an Athenian policeman scarcely mattered now. The Georgians, being more organised and determined, would probably get him first. It was only a question of time.
Epilogue
Six weeks later, in mid-August, George was in Andros. His life had slowed to an easy summer pace. Swimming, eating, a few errands in town. He managed to forget, for hours at a stretch, the bad time he had been through. Then something would remind him – a remark, a colour, a scent, a sudden image in his mind’s eye – and he was back in Kefalari, with four bodies on the ground and a black Mercedes, a corpse at the wheel, smashed into a garden wall.
One morning the postman brought a letter from Aegina, the name and address on the envelope a little masterpiece of calligraphy. He opened it, glanced at the first few lines, and flipped to the signature: Abbas. He turned it over again and read slowly from the beginning.
Dear George,
After you left the island a few puzzles remained in my mind. The arrest of Stelios Tasakos was far from settling everything. The doubts and uncertainties continued to nag me until at last I had to put a hold on the rest of my life and find some answers.
Question: why did Leonardos Kotsis try so hard to protect Stelios? Answer: the boy is his nephew.
There is more to this family business than meets the eye. Kotsis, Tasakos, Yerakas, Kakridis, Petrakis: a line of blood and marriage runs through this story like an underground river of which we were unaware. Everyone is related to everyone else. They look out for each other, they have circuits of protection and loyalty which are invisible to outsiders. Hurt one and you hurt them all.
Yerakas, Kakridis and Petrakis are not just relatives but business partners. Yerakas handles the projects and finance. Kakridis clears the political pathways for their ventures, and Petrakis does the legal work. They make a formidable team. The attempt to blame Colonel Varzalis for the death of John Petrakis was motivated by family solidarity as well as a desire for revenge. Given the vast resources of his enemies, the colonel was lucky to get off so lightly.
Bill Preston may not be so lucky. Constantine wants the house in Mykonos to give to his son (married to a daughter of Kakridis). Bill is trying to stop him, and even though he’s paying a first-class lawyer I don’t fancy his chances. He’s a foreigner, with the full weight of the Greek establishment against him.
As for my case, the one against ‘Ernest Hemingway’, I’ve decided to drop all charges. The adventure of the past three months has opened my eyes. I was wasting my money and time. The guy is a well known liar and conman. I don’t need to prove that in court.
Rosa Corneille continues to see auras, even in the bright sun of high summer. She tells me, in confidence, that Constantine Petrakis is unwell. His aura is ‘kaput’ and the rest will inevitably follow. Please don’t repeat this to anyone, but it will be interesting to see if events bear out her beliefs. Stranger things have proved true, against all rational expectation.
Stelios Tasakos is being held by police and undergoing psychological investigation. They are, apparently, looking after him with surprising tact and benevolence. His father seems to have a great burden off his mind. It can’t be pleasant to have your son in the care of police psychiatrists, but if the young man is crazy that’s a whole lot better than looking after him yourself. Perhaps by letting the light of acknowledgement into that miserable house, some of its darkness may disperse. It’s a shame poor John Petrakis had to die for the cleansing to begin.
The colonel, meanwhile, is attempting to donate his house, including his library and art collection, to the state. His friends – led by me – are doing their best to dissuade him, since the state will not look after it. The house will simply be locked up and left to rot. The alternative is almost as bad: his son and daughter inherit, are forced to sell it to pay for tax, and the collection will be broken up. I am trying to put together a ‘third way’, by which he sets up a private foundation. With the colonel, however, it is always two steps forward, followed very quickly by two steps back. He agrees, then forgets he has agreed, and we start again from square one. If you hear that one (or both) of us has been committed to an asylum, don’t be surprised.
I hope your experiences in Aegina were not so unpleasant as to prevent you returning for a visit. Each sunset, in my philosophy, is an opportunity for a drink, each drink a chance to adjust our minds to the troublesome kaleidoscope of life. You have my number and I hope you’ll use it.
You did a good job. Be glad of that.
Abbas
Copyright
Published in the UK by Dedalus Limited,
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ISBN printed book 978 1 909232 83 9
ISBN ebook 978 1 910213 01 8
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First published by Dedalus in 2014
Codename Xenophon copyright © Leo Kanaris 2014
The right of Leo Kanaris to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Printed in Finland by Bookwell
Typeset by Marie Lane
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.