by Tim Sullivan
After Debbie had been wheeled away by the theatre staff in their scrubs and shower caps, Ottey emerged with Helena. Cross stood up.
'Mrs Paphides would like to speak with us,' said Ottey. Interesting, thought Cross, mainly because he'd made a wrong assumption that she wasn't much of an English speaker, although he'd witnessed her shouting at Philippos the night she'd discovered he'd been giving Alex his testosterone. Cross admonished himself for making such a judgment based on her appearance. He was pretty sure it was racist of him. He had made the assumption, with her being dressed all in black with a scarf around her head, peeling vegetables in the restaurant, that she didn't speak English. How wrong he'd been. They went to the hospital café and sat and listened.
She was not only fully aware of Alex's plans for London and his nationwide expansion, she was supportive.
'Who'd you think did his mood boards he took to the designers?' she asked. 'Alex discussed everything with me. I love my two boys equally. What mother doesn't? But they were very different. Alex was much more ambitious. He discussed everything with me because he couldn't with his father or brother. They are very alike, those two. Alex was much more like me. I started this restaurant. Everyone thinks it was Phil, but he was just the chef. A bloody good chef, but I was the brains. You probably think it was Phil who encouraged Alexander but you’re wrong. It was me. When Alexander couldn't make the numbers work and Kostas wanted nothing more to do with it, Alex started looking elsewhere. That's when Tony F introduced him to Hellenic and Angelo. I wasn't happy. He has a bad reputation back home. Very bad. He mixes his good businesses with others not so good. Alexander persuaded me that Angelo wanted to have a legitimate business in England. He was really grateful, and the deal, I have to say, was good. Reasonable targets. Proper organised roll-out once they'd worked out if the concept was working.'
Ottey was completely taken aback by the way this woman spoke. It was absolutely not what she was expecting. A bit like Cross, she castigated herself inwardly for judging her before she spoke to her.
'So everything was going well?' said Ottey.
'Did Kostas know about Alexander still going ahead?' asked Cross.
'Of course. They talk about everything, those two. No secrets. The only one who didn't know was Phil. Because it would have broken his heart. He's a sentimental old fool. He pretended to support Alexander when it all started. But secretly he was so happy when it fell through and he thought Alexander had given up on the idea. But would the boys be happy just running our restaurant, was always the question I asked myself? That was our life's work, not theirs. I had great respect for them having ambition. Much better than just taking what they'd been handed down. What kind of a life is that? Where's the self-respect? But Kostas was going to stay in Bristol. It suited him better. Alexander, though, told him the door was always open. That was kind.' She lost control of her emotions for a second as she thought about her late son affectionately. 'But recently something happened with Angelo, and Alexander didn't want to go ahead any more.'
'What was that?' Ottey asked, partly to give this woman a chance to take a breath.
'Alexander found out that Angelo wasn't being entirely honest. Now there's a surprise. One of the biggest criminals in Athens turns out not to be a man of his word. He's a criminal, detectives. All this nonsense about legitimate business in the UK was all lies. He's a gangster. He wanted to clean money. Launder money using the new restaurants. When Alexander found this out Angelo actually offered him a deal – a small percentage of the money he'd washed. Alexander said no. That's where he was the night he died. Calling it all off. Angelo wanted to have one more attempt at persuading him. But Alexander said no.'
'Are you sure?' Cross asked.
'Yes. He told me and Tony.'
'What was his reaction?'
'Tony? The truth is I think he was scared. He's frightened of Angelo. He'd introduced them and now Alex was pulling out. This wasn't going to look so good for Tony. He may be a big man in the gym all the time but he's all mouth. He should stick to fruit and veg if you ask me.' Ottey smiled; she liked this woman.
'And that's what I think,' Helena finished.
'What is? You haven't actually told us what you think.'
'Hellenic had him killed. Angelo killed him.'
'No. They didn't,' said Cross firmly. Helena sat there for a moment and thought about this. It was a shock. It was what she believed. What made sense to her, and she'd probably thought the police would be grateful for the tip.
'Yes, they did,' she repeated. Cross and Ottey made no answer. The silence seemed to carry a weight of inevitability and certainty for her. She looked down at the floor, a little confused maybe. After all, she had been so sure. She'd worked it all out.
'They left almost immediately after their meeting and flew straight back to Athens. There would really have been no reason for them to kill your son. It was just a deal that they couldn't make. There wasn't that much at stake for them. They could just leave it,' said Ottey.
'But it was the person who came to see them after Alex's meeting which confirmed it for us,' said Cross. The woman thought for a moment and then looked up.
'Kostas,' she said quietly.
'Did you know?' asked Cross.
'No, but it makes perfect sense. Kostas has always felt he lived in the shadow of his older brother. It would be just like him to do this. Show us all that he could be the smart one. Silly boy. I'll talk to him.'
'There won't be any need,' said Cross. 'As soon as Alex was killed, Hellenic's interest cooled. It would've drawn too much attention to them. Not an auspicious start to a business venture when one of the principals is murdered.' She nodded slightly. Ottey gave him a look, so he turned back to Helena. 'I meant no disrespect,' he said. The grieving woman smiled at him as if she understood him a little, Ottey thought. Helena was obviously a good reader of people.
Chapter 22
Cross decided to indulge in a little organ practice that night. Sometimes he would come to the church just for its tranquillity. Tonight was such an occasion. He wanted to clear his mind of what he was now sure were certain irrelevancies in the case. Make a fresh start. He wanted to expunge Hellenic, Tony Franopoulos and Alex's side-business in sports drugs. On occasions like this, he would come and sit in the pews for ten minutes or so, relishing the peace and quiet. The church was also always cool, sometimes freezing in winter, as they couldn't afford the heating to be on when the church wasn't being used. To his embarrassment, the priest had started putting on the heating every Wednesday night, when he came to do his weekly practice. He remonstrated with Stephen, who replied that he couldn't have George practising with cold fingers as he could hear him in the rectory next door. It was, therefore, a selfish and completely self-interested gesture on his part. It was an argument George had no chance of winning. Then, one evening, when he was having tea and cake with Stephen, he came up with a solution. The priest was a good baker and had to rebuff his congregation's annual attempts to enter him in The Great British Bake Off. One year, a group of his congregants went even further and applied for him.
He should've noticed, when they came round for tea, that they were suddenly taking pictures of his cakes and scones on their phones. He had thought it flattering, though puzzling, at the time. It was when he got a phone call from a researcher on the programme that he realised what they'd been up to. He, of course, declined. This was then followed up by one of the producers trying to persuade him. That having a vicar – 'I'm a priest, actually' – would be wonderful not only for the programme, but surely for the Church across the country. He replied, politely, that it wasn't that straightforward; he would have to approach the local bishop to get permission which, with the present incumbent, he felt would be virtually impossible. The producer then replied that she knew for a fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury was a huge fan of the show, and that maybe the programme could get in touch with him. Stephen had replied again that he was a priest, a Catholic priest, so that wouldn'
t do them any good – unless of course the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, was also a fan, he joked. She thought for a moment and then said she wasn't sure, but she could check. He reiterated that he wasn't interested.
He thought this was the end of the matter until he received an email from the executive producer of the show, asking him whether he would be interested in taking part in a one-off charity special. Competing against an Imam, a Rabbi, a Sikh Granthi and a Buddhist Monk. It would be fantastic for a greater understanding of multiculturalism in the country, as well as inter-faith relations. But when Stephen asked who the other contestants were, they confessed that he was the only "preacher-baker" they had found, and that was the end of that.
He always made individual cupcakes for Cross, as he knew this was preferable to him. On occasion, Cross helped Stephen with the church accounts. He was just as proficient as the church's regular accountant, Stephen had discovered. Quicker and, of course, he didn't charge. On this particular evening, a couple of days after Cross had discovered the "heating for his practice" issue, he asked Stephen if he could just catch up with the bills.
'But you only checked the accounts two weeks ago, George.'
'I'd just like to keep ahead.'
So they were provided and Cross quickly found what he was looking for: the gas and electricity providers for the church and the particular tariffs it was on – there were so many these days, to entice customers, it was bewildering. Cross felt there was something fundamentally wrong in some people paying higher prices for the same gas and electricity than others who had taken advantage of some new offer. How could you justify neighbours, living next to each other, having a differential of hundreds of pounds a year when they were using the same quantities of power? Of course, it was the elderly and vulnerable, who had no understanding of the plethora of different companies, different tariffs, fixed or not-fixed, who suffered the most. Anyway, that evening Cross got two power bills, looked at the tariff costs, analysed the kilowatts and cubic metres and the total amounts of charges. When he got home that night, he calculated what the extra charge for heating the church during his practice came to and, from then on, made a donation in the collection box for the exact amount, every time he practised. Stephen knew what was going on – it wasn’t difficult, as suddenly the collection box had money in it every Wednesday night, regularly – but his protests fell on deaf ears.
Cross hated thinking about cases when he had nothing in front of him. Nothing solid evidentially, that is. Clare had performed the MRI and confirmed what they already suspected. Alex wasn't suffering from a hamstring injury. As Cross played the organ that night he realised he was now speculating. This was something he hated others doing, because he felt they sometimes did it way too often and that it was much easier than doing real police work. But because they were "discussing" the case, they fooled themselves that they were indeed working. But he was allowing himself to do that this once. To run through the possibilities. He had come down to two. That Alex had been killed by a stranger, which he dismissed out of hand, as how would the stranger have known about the Tenerife trip and then texted Matthew to cover his tracks? Or delay the discovery that Alex was missing?
He was sure it had nothing to do with the cycling club. The name Danny had given them, when he came into the station, turned out to be a dealer known to the drug squad. He had been to the gym to score some performance-enhancers for his brother, who was an amateur bodybuilder, not to have a beef with Alex. This really only left one option to examine, in Cross' mind, and at the moment it didn't really make any sense – and that was to look at the two families themselves. Alex's and Debbie's. But Kostas had an alibi. He'd told them right at the beginning, understanding the importance of their need to exclude him from the investigation as soon as possible and thereby not waste any valuable time looking into him, that he'd been to a meeting in the early evening then returned to the restaurant. He had dozens of witnesses and the hotel CCTV bore witness to his story. Cross was curious as to what that was about though, even so.
At the end of his practice on this occasion, he had come to the conclusion that Debbie's parents warranted further investigation. As he left the church, he found the priest sitting in the stalls, having listened, as he often did.
'I can't say I recognised that, George,' he said, getting up from his pew.
'Johann Kuhnau's Biblical Stories. A late seventeenth, early eighteenth-century German composer. He was appointed organist of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig at the age of twenty-four. So young,' Cross mused.
'Gosh. Speaking of which, I hear you haven't taken up the offer to play the St Mary's Redcliffe organ yet.'
'No,' he replied.
'Well, I enjoyed that very much. A pleasant surprise, as it's not your usual evening.'
'No, it was a spontaneous decision. But from now on I can't have dinner with my father on a Thursday night. Something we've done for over twenty years. So I need to change my night.'
'Is everything all right with Raymond?' the priest asked, concerned.
'Yes. He's going to start volunteering at Aerospace Bristol. Thursday is the only evening they can manage, apparently.'
'Well, that's marvellous.'
'Yes, but not very convenient. I will now be coming on Thursday night, instead of Wednesday nights. I assume that will be all right, as the church never seems to be in use,' Cross said, with an unintentional lack of tact.
'Yes, of course. That's bridge night, but we play in the hall, so it's not a problem. Do you play, George?'
'I don't.'
'That's a shame. One of our regular players has died. It's her funeral next week. She's played her final hand, you could say.'
'If you feel it necessary to employ a cliché, then you certainly could, yes,' replied Cross, and went to gather up his bike. Stephen smiled, not just because he found Cross' eccentricities quite touching but because it made him think Thursdays might come in quite useful for his 'George Cross organ recital' campaign.
Cross cycled back to his flat, his mind now clear and refreshed, ready to start the investigation anew in the morning. It was another of his innate skills, that he was able to compartmentalise bits of any investigation. Those that became irrelevant found their way quickly and irrevocably into his mental trash.
A meeting at the MCU was convened, this time by Ottey. She wanted to get everyone up to speed with the change of direction they were going to make, after the events of yesterday and viewing the hotel CCTV footage. Cross was obsessed with everyone being up to speed, and that no-one wasted any more time chasing old leads that had now been dismissed. Carson was less impressed. While he appreciated Cross' instincts – actually that was completely the wrong word; it was Cross' evaluation of the facts, at any given point in time in a case, and his analysis of what was pertinent and relevant that he admired – he found Cross' willingness to throw out days, sometimes weeks of work wholesale, difficult. As did many of the others who had done this work. But what he knew was that Cross wasn't working on instinct. He was working on facts that he determined to be conclusive. Carson's issue was trying to justify these, often ninety-degree, turns in a murder investigation to the higher-ups. Particularly when only a few days previously, he'd used his salesman-spin to tell them how well the investigation was progressing in the direction they'd decided to pursue. This man never learnt from his mistakes. He was always too happy to tell them how efficiently the department was working – under his expert command, being the implication – and how much extraordinary progress they were making in a case, so he could bask in the short-term praise and approbation. Then he would have to go back, only days later, and inform them that the amazing progress he had sold them at the beginning of the week was now being completely thrown out, as it transpired it was completely wrong. One name always seemed to crop up as being the party responsible in these conversations with the brass – DS George Cross. It certainly didn't enhance his reputation with middle-management.
Ottey was, like
Carson, slightly apprehensive about the sea change in this investigation. When they had discovered Alex trading in drugs, albeit performance-enhancing ones, and then his connections with Hellenic and Angelo Sokratis, it seemed to make sense that the answer would lie somewhere therein. But that was, she realised, a rookie-mistake. Things so often weren't what they seemed. But she felt Cross owed her some reassurance, at the very least. At the end of the meeting, Ottey and Cross went to visit Jean and Andy.
'George...' she started. He knew instinctively what she was going to ask. This wasn't the first time this had happened.
'Yes I am,' he said.
'What?' she asked.
'Certain we should be moving on. You need to put everything we had before to one side. I don't believe any of it is relevant. It would be easier if you discarded it. Completely.'
'But don't you find it a bit strange that we've been pursuing leads, convinced we were onto something, and then dump them just like that?'
'No.'
'Why not?'
'Because I was never convinced.'
'Oh yeah, I forgot you're perfect.' He didn't reply for a moment, during which he decided that she wasn't being serious. It was irony, so he felt no need to point out that he was no such thing.
'It's always a mistake to be "convinced" early in an investigation, as it narrows your focus, which means you are inevitably going to miss something.'
'But you follow early leads with conviction.'
'Indeed, but there is a distinct difference – semantic to an extent, granted. But being convinced of something in a case is not the same as pursuing something with conviction. Which you should always do to fulfil the pursuit of it adequately. Being convinced of something before you have sufficient proof – proof which your conviction will either give you or not – can be essentially misleading,' he finished. She thought he had a point. She just wasn't sure, as she parked the car outside Debbie's parents' house, that she knew exactly what it was.