"Where in god's name have you been for the last hour? I've called and called and left messages galore. You're hot and so are your co-writers."
Kjersti explained about the phone switching itself off. She was cut off in mid-flow.
"Most important of all, a Cyprus TV station wants Iphi on their early evening schedule. Can you deal with that? Next,..."
"Stop, stop, stop. I'm in a park stretching after a run."
"For god's sake, Kjersti, this is money. For you, and therefore for me. Re-arrange your sorry athletic ass into a civilised state and get ready. People, as in editors, want to interview and commission. The chance to set the scene for your proposed book is yours to grab, or lose."
"I'm on my way. Give me thirty minutes."
"Faster. Please!"
Iphi's phone buzzed. It buzzed again. And again. Stephane lifted it. Useless. Everything on its screen was in Greek.
Should he disturb Iphi? He didn't have the heart. She and Aris had not reappeared, which suggested engrossment.
An apartment door burst open. Guiltily he dropped Iphi's phone. It wasn't her, but Kjersti, streaming sweat and panting as if she'd sprinted a marathon. It took a full two minutes for her breathing to stabilise. While he waited, Stephane was again struck by how similar her figure was to Eleni's. Except Kjersti possessed subtly muscled curves and lacked Eleni's domineering attitude. Minimal chest though.
"Where's Iphi?"
"In her bedroom."
"Drag her out."
"I'm not sure that's a good..."
Kjersti ignored him. She strode down the corridor, banged once on the bedroom door and marched in... and out. Back with Stephane, she accused him.
"Why didn't you warn me?"
"You didn't give me a chance. You took matters into your own hands, as seems to be your habit?"
Their mutual recriminations lapsed with Iphi's entrance, dressed in a t-shirt which could have had nothing underneath. Heavy legs, thought Stephane; top much richer than Kjersti's.
"Did you have to do that, Kjersti?"
Kjersti declined a direct reply. Instead she barked. "They want you on TV, this evening, about the death of the Archbishop. You need to get to the studio within a couple of hours. Wake up, girl. This is your moment, the one you never talk about which hangs over your sex-sodden head."
Iphi choked back the damnation she longed to call down on Kjersti's sweat-soaked body. Could Kjersti be right? Her words penetrated as she repossessed her phone from Stephane. Aris trailed in, wrapped in a large towel.
"What's going on?"
Nobody replied. Stephane took it upon himself to repeat what little he knew.
Aris's happiness was unambiguous. He hugged Iphi with genuine delight. His towel fell loose. He took no notice. Kjersti and Stephane averted their eyes.
"It's the big time for you. Don't dare mess up."
In the Old Town, Eleni accepted condolences about her uncle from the fire chief. He enquired about her father.
"He wasn't surprised but he's not taking it well."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
He let a respectful moment pass before he proceeded. Eleni appreciated his delicacy.
"I have more news. First, you will soon be able to enter the garage. We brought in extractor fans and they're proving effective. The gas concentration has dropped. It should be safe within the hour."
To Eleni, that hour would be a lifetime. What should she do? She could recheck the Kampanarió. She volunteered as much.
"There is more to tell. Additional analysis of the gas fumes suggests they are natural gas."
"What do you mean?"
"Some clever dick at the lab took a deeper look than expected. His analysis indicates the hydrocarbon footprint is similar to samples obtained from the Aphrodite drilling. You know? The gas finds off our south coast, close to Israel's enormous Leviathan field."
"What are you telling me?"
"Whatever caused that flame the two nights ago was fed by a natural gas source from underneath or close by the Kampanarió."
"You mean the Old Town sits on a gas field? That makes no sense. The geology can't be the same as under the sea. You're crazy."
"Don't blame me. I'm the messenger. You do need to know the government has ordered in heavy equipment. There's talk of drilling alongside the Kampanarió, near where the flame gushed. I'll have someone find you when it's safe to make your way into the garage."
He left Eleni confused. The implications spun in her head. She needed a sounding board.
Her father was her normal one. He was incapacitated. Grief rendered him useless. Xerxes didn't have the brain cells. Costas? As she'd told Kjersti, he was in suspended animation. Stephane? He could evaluate. Could she persuade him?
A dull fear elbowed in. She might not be able to. If she failed, it would be her own fault. He didn't answer when she called his number. She left a message, imploring him to call her back. She hated herself for her pleading.
To consume the hour, she approached the Kampanarió. Outside, nothing had changed. Inside, it was the same. She circled the base where the Kampanarió's steel framework pierced the concrete plinth. All looked solid.
There? She heard it again. A creak. It didn't repeat. It sounded like tortured metal. She scurried round the base a second time, looking for distortions. Nothing she could see. She'd have to bring in precision equipment to verify all the angles remained correct and in accordance with her design.
"Miss Eleni? The fire chief says you can enter the garage. When you finish, he asks you report to him what you find, even if it's nothing?"
After Aris confirmed the TV station's interest, and that Iphi would appear on the early evening talk show, pandemonium broke loose. Iphi consumed the time showering and fretting about her hair and what to wear. Kjersti aided, insisting on simplicity. It was current affairs TV, not the seduction of Aris.
Iphi distraction was too great to react to this barb. Kjersti felt relief. That was one crack too far, given that she'd bust into Iphi's bedroom at just the wrong moment.
Aris and Stephane prepared notes. To be thorough, and as much because they were outsiders in Iphi's beautification, they pulled all three stories together. The programme editor's advice was that Iphi should be ready to sustain the less than flattering portrait her article had painted.
Aris drove all four of them to the TV station. They were late, though by not more than ten minutes. On arrival, the TV people abstracted Iphi for make-up. They commended her choice of clothes, dark grey trousers which made her slim and a close-fitting pale blue man's shirt which gave a professional appearance while being suitably suggestive. Kjersti smirked as she overheard the compliments.
Another assistant emerged to ask if Aris, Kjersti and Stephane wished to be part of the studio audience. Stephane couldn't see the point: it would all be in Greek. Kjersti and Aris were keen. Stephane's objections were overridden when the assistant informed them this programme added English subtitles.
Before she pointed them to the cafeteria and disappeared into the bowels of the building, she dropped a bombshell. Iphi would appear with Metropolitan Alexopoulos. Aris remembered: he was one of the two bishops who'd withdrawn from the election which delivered the elevation of the late Ioannis.
Aris blenched. Kjersti noticed. She demanded an explanation. Stephane listened agog. To Aris, Alexopoulos was intelligent, a misogynist who revelled in his misogyny, a righteous domineer who consumed opponents for breakfast, or dinner. A pious bully.
Aris shuddered at the prospect of Iphi facing Alexopoulos. All he could imagine was Iphi's dismembering by one of the powerful. This could do her no good. Kjersti attempted to reassure him. It didn't work. Neither did cafeteria coffee, which only hyped their nerves further.
The assistant reappeared. It was time to head to the studio where the audience members were taking their seats. They found three places reserved for them at the back. Fifty-odd people filled all the seats in front.
The producer ex
ited his control room. In a swift five minutes, he set out the rules of behaviour, principally that they ask questions only if they had a microphone and the live camera pointed towards them. He explained that the red light on a camera was how they knew which one was live. He raced through the programme order. The Bishop and Ms Hadjikyriakos would be at the top. Two politicians would follow. The programme would end with a local windsurf champion and her new fiancé.
By the end of this Stephane was quaking. Kjersti was calmer. Aris couldn't keep still, however much Kjersti tried to distract him. Stephane admired her patience and care. Consideration wasn't a quality he expected of her.
The audience lights dimmed. The host stepped onto the stage and took his seat in the centre. He tested his microphone. They waited.
After a couple of minutes, two monitors lit, one which the audience could see and one which those on the stage could watch. The previous programme closed. Just before it did, a countdown commenced. At 'Live', rather than the 'Blast Off' Stephane voiced in his head, the red light lit on the camera pointing at the host.
He began with a summary of who was to appear that evening. He talked of the late, lamented Archbishop Ioannis. At mention of his name, a two-minute biographical video-collage played on the monitor screens.
When that finished, the camera's red light re-lit as the host spoke his words of introduction about the bishop. Next, he encouraged the audience to welcome Metropolitan Alexopoulos. They did as asked.
The Metropolitan, in his black Ryasa cassock, Kamilavka tall hat and Epanokamelavkion neck veil, emerged to take his seat. His appearance, to Stephane, was of a gloomy scarecrow with a scraggy beard and the countenance of death warmed up. He cast a baleful presence.
The host asked an innocuous question about Ioannis. The Metropolitan mouthed smooth words, simultaneously unctuous and anodyne. It was clear he couldn't forget Ioannis had prevented his own election. It still rankled. The host waited patiently before posing his next question.
"Your Excellence: what do you think were the greatest contributions Ioannis made in his short reign as Archbishop?"
Outside the ramp, Eleni waited for the fire chief. He insisted he must accompany her. For his and her safety. She wanted to disagree and get on with her search. Her architect's training bade her be patient.
He came around a fire truck. He'd kept his mask and tank. She hoped they were superfluous. They descended the ramp to the upper level. Taking care, they walked to the far end above which stood the Kampanarió.
The garage smelled of gas. He assured Eleni it was safe. He showed her a measurement tool, for oxygen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and other noxious gases. All the indicators were green.
They came to the corner. On the two outer sides, the Kampanarió rested on the outer walls of the car park. Inside, seven vertical pillars linked to a cross-lattice of buttressing supports. Eleni's solution had produced a design of little elegance, but it looked functional and strong.
Eleni and the fire chief examined all the steel and masonry. There was nothing untoward.
Then the fire chief dropped to his knees. He refocused his torch.
"Is that what you would expect?"
Eleni kneeled beside him. At first, she couldn't see what he was talking about. Then it stood out. A crack in the concrete floor on the inside, away from the main garage walls. It should not be there. Had it been there for long? Maybe it was the natural settling of the Kampanarió.
Except, except.
She took his torch and shone it to the ceiling. She discerned a similar, though fainter, hint of a crack.
"Do you have any tape?"
The fire chief rummaged. He pulled out a small reel of duct tape. Eleni took this and broke off three short strips. She cleaned the floor with her sleeve and stuck down the three pieces at right angles to the crack.
"To see if anything moves?"
"Yes. It's crude. It may be that nobody has noticed this and it is natural settling. Or it may be worse. This is a simple test. I will have to come back with some calibrated glass. I think we should go to the level below."
The fire chief nodded. He spoke over his radio to his command truck. Rather than walk all the way round and down the ramps, they took the pedestrian stairs.
Her worst fears materialised. They did not need to kneel. There was a clear separation between the main garage floor and the plinth on which the pillars and lattice cross-bracing stood.
"Is it what I think?"
"Which is?"
"That the base of the Kampanarió sinks on one side, as if there's a void beneath. If it continues the Kampanarió might keel over?"
Eleni couldn't speak. In two short sentences he'd encapsulated the problem, and the consequence.
"Can you stop it?"
Before she could reply, he knelt again. He sniffed. There was gas here. He placed his measuring tool beside the crack. The readings changed.
"Not dangerous at present. But this would account for the build-up before there was ventilation. We must keep that running or we will risk an explosion."
He thought for a minute. Eleni's mind was empty, of all but one thought. If the Kampanarió continued to sink at this corner it would collapse across the western semi-dome. Its collapse would fell Nea Hagia Sophia. Thank God her uncle was dead.
"Shall we put some tape here too?"
"I'm not sure there's any point."
"That bad?"
"Yes. All work on the Basilica must cease until we resolve this. It's the only safe course. The most urgent task is to establish the sink rate and what there is below. That will be tough."
With a faint shudder and creak the plinth sank again. Only a millimetre or two but it was clear to both Eleni and the fire chief the threat was live; the Kampanarió's base still moved. They headed for safety.
Metropolitan Alexopoulos droned on. He possessed an inexhaustible talent to bore and annoy at the same time. The host fidgeted as Alexopoulos puffed his candidacy to be the next Archbishop. He offered the minimum about Ioannis.
The host decided it was time to halt the charade. He turned away from his interviewee and spoke again to the camera, starting with a summary of articles published abroad which gave a contradictory view about the late Archbishop. He did not explain as he built the tension. He said his next guest was an up and coming local journalist. He invited the Bishop to remain before introducing "Ms Iphigenia Hadjikyriakos".
Iphi walked on stage and took her seat with an elegant economy of movement. Aris was incredulous. She looked as good as Kjersti promised, professional and assured. The grey and the pale blue worked. Kjersti congratulated herself. She would have been happier still if she'd overheard the control room producer's compliments on her stage presence.
"Ms. Hadjikyriakos, or may I call you Iphigenia?"
"You needn't bother with either. My family has called me Iphi from when I was small. Everybody has since. Why don't you?"
The audience's enthusiasm drowned out the host's next words. They loved her insouciance and informality, a colourful contrast to the self-obsessed, grim-visaged Alexopoulos. From the control box, the host heard in his ear-bud: 'She's a natural. If she doesn't screw up, sign her up'.
The host resolved to help Iphi screw up. He fought to re-establish ascendancy.
"Iphi. Thank you. I believe you've published an article today describing the late Archbishop in different terms to those most of us acknowledge or what His Excellence here has said. What did you find?"
His voice dripped disbelieving contempt. The audience registered the change and its new lack of warmth. Iphi took no notice.
"At its simplest, Ioannis was a miserable, greedy, crooked, self-aggrandising cleric promoted beyond his abilities but not his avarice. He had no time for his flock in general, nor for parishioners in distress in particular. He broke his oath of celibacy. Oh, and if you didn't know, he died of AIDS."
Total silence followed.
Host and audience digested her bald statements.
The camera cut to the Metropolitan.
His attitude was assured, contemptuous, dismissive. Kjersti, Aris and Stephane were dumbstruck. It was the first they'd heard of Ioannis's death being attributable to AIDS.
"How can you make such allegations?"
"Not allegations. Facts. Provable facts. I can make them because I know them to be true."
Before the host could intervene, Iphi was in full flow. In spellbinding terms, she laid out how the Archbishop, before he had been elected, ignored a priest raping a teenage girl and then rejected that poor girl's pleas for help when she found herself pregnant by the rape.
Still at Alexa's, Evdokia applauded Iphi on the television. She was enjoying the performance. The contrast with the irrelevance and self-congratulation of the Metropolitan was acute.
Just before going on air, Iphi had called with a question. If it was necessary, would Evdokia object to Iphi using her name? Would Evdokia sustain in public what she had experienced, from the rape to the abortion and her consequent sterility?
It hadn't taken long to decide. She had little to lose. Her fury at the waste Nea Hagia Sophia represented eclipsed all other considerations now that Nikolaos Constantinou was dead. She said as much to Iphi before adding one other fact almost no one knew.
Iphi again questioned whether she would corroborate this. With less certainty, Evdokia had agreed. Anything which vilified His Abominable Beatitude was valid.
Iphi had reassured her. She would not identify Evdokia unless there was no other choice. Evdokia admired her sang-froid, especially just before entering the lion's den of live TV.
Now she and Alexa roared Iphi on. It was clear from the television Iphi had the audience in her hand, both in the studio and at home.
"Evdokia? Did you tell Iphi about the AIDS diagnosis?"
Evdokia bowed her head. She knew what was coming.
"I swore you to secrecy. I performed that test. They can work out that I am one of only three or four who could know. I might lose my job, and my medical qualifications."
Resurrection (The Corruption Series Book 4) Page 38