The Silver Stain

TWELVE

Mavros and Cara Parks walked out of the hotel and followed the lit path towards the beach. The actress walked close, her shoulder brushing against his.

‘The night’s beautiful here,’ she said, stopping and looking up. ‘You can see every star sprinkled across the dome of the heavens.’

‘Don’t you get that in LA?’

She laughed softly. ‘You obviously haven’t been. The city’s lit up like an operating theatre. You can’t see anything of the night sky.’

‘Not even on Mulholland Drive?’

‘You don’t give up, do you?’ she said, turning to him and then walking on.

‘I thought you brought me out here to talk about the accident,’ he said, catching up with her. ‘Rather than warble poetically about the sky at night.’

‘Perils of an English major,’ she said, looking at him thoughtfully. ‘Besides, I grew up in Arizona. You really think that old story has something to do with what happened to Maria here?’

‘I don’t know, but something strange is going on. It seems like a good place to start.’

They had reached the beginning of the beach. Cara led him to a table at the extent of the bar area. A waiter in boots, vraka and embroidered cummerbund appeared instantly, and she ordered fizzy water. Mavros went along with that to keep sharp.

‘What do you want to know?’ the actress asked, after the drinks had arrived.

‘The accident and the boy’s death don’t interest me as much as the substitution of drivers.’

Cara stared at him. ‘Are you kidding? What do you think being a killer driver would have done to my career? Back then I wasn’t where I am now.’

‘But, as far as I’ve seen, Maria escaped punishment because the victim was out of his head.’

‘Yeah, but we didn’t know that at the time, did we? Christ, he came out of nowhere. He could have been a kid on a midnight ramble.’

Mavros wasn’t sure if she was being straight with him. If not, her professional skills were even better than he’d given her credit for.

‘So, what? You called Maria and told her to get out there as quickly as she could?’

Cara nodded.

‘And when did you tell her to take the rap?’

‘I didn’t.’ The actress’s eyes met his. ‘As a matter of fact, it was her idea. Dear Maria, she’d do anything for me. She told me to go home and leave her car in the drive — when the cops asked, I was to say I’d given Maria permission to drive the Merc. I was in shock and I had trouble driving, but I managed it. She called me from police headquarters and I went in a taxi to bail her out.’

‘You went yourself? Don’t you have people to do your dirty work?’ Mavros chose the last words carefully.

‘Dirty work? Maria stood up for me and I’m supposed to send — who? My agent? — to get her out of that stinking holding pen?’

‘I imagine most of your fellow actors would send a lawyer.’

‘Yeah, well, I must be weird, then. Besides, like I told you, Maria isn’t just my assistant, she’s my friend.’

Mavros thought about that. Was it possible that Maria Kondos was the one who was covering up? Could she be taking advantage of Cara in some way? That still didn’t explain why she left the resort under her own steam, or why she had ended up in Kornaria.

‘Good evening, Alex, Ms Parks.’

Mavros stood up as Rudolf Kersten and his wife approached the table from behind.

‘Please, don’t let us disturb you,’ the old man said, in good English. ‘We often take a turn down here in the evening.’

Mavros glanced at Cara. She was smiling at the resort owner.

‘Join us, please,’ she said, apparently relieved that their private conversation had been ended. ‘We’re enjoying the night sky.’

Rudolf looked up at the stars and the great swathe of the Milky Way — the lights at the bar were not intrusive. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it is magnificent, indeed. And the scent of the trees passing over the water.’ There was sadness in his voice.

‘Come now,’ Hildegard said, ‘you have been here a thousand times. It’s a place of joy, Rudi.’

The resort owner shook his head slowly. ‘Only in part, my dear.’

His wife gave him an exasperated look. ‘I told you to have nothing to do with that. . that damned film. It has been bad for you, all these memories coming back to life.’ Then she glanced across at Cara. ‘I am sorry, Ms Parks, but it is the truth.’

‘Don’t apologize,’ the actress said graciously. ‘Acting in this movie has made me realize how terrible the war was for everyone involved in it. How terrible any war must be.’

‘Thank you, my dear,’ Rudolf said, smiling. ‘It is important that the message gets across to the young. That is another reason for my involvement in Freedom or Death.’

The waiter arrived again, beaming as he greeted the owner and his wife. He was dispatched for more water and a bottle of raki.

‘I’m not supposed to drink alcohol any more,’ Rudolf said, ‘but sometimes I feel the need.’ He smiled softly at Hildegard. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t overindulge.’

When the drinks arrived, he poured shots of the spirit into three glasses.

‘My dear wife is teetotal,’ he said, ‘but I hope you young people will join me.’

Mavros, flattered at being linked in that way with the actress, nodded. She did the same and soon they were raising their glasses.

‘To. . to peace,’ Rudolf said, his eyes suddenly damp.

‘This is good stuff,’ Mavros said, as the old man blinked away his tears.

‘Yes, indeed,’ Rudolf said. ‘It’s from a village to the west.’ He looked across to the barman. ‘Angelos comes from there.’

Mavros remembered David Waggoner’s accusations. The waiter’s attitude to his boss was hardly suggestive of blood money having been paid.

‘You have a lot of staff from the area?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Hildegard replied, her hand on her husband’s. ‘Rudi has always made sure the local people get jobs in the Heavenly Blue.’

‘Especially those whose villages suffered under my country’s rule of terror,’ the old man said, his voice low. ‘I have been accused of buying favours, I have been accused of using my wealth to absolve myself from sins committed during the war — as you heard this afternoon, Alex.’

Cara Parks looked on in bewilderment.

‘But what I and my countrymen did during the war,’ Rudolf continued, ‘cannot be forgiven by financial offerings, even though the vendetta tradition on this island allows for such a solution. What we did was a crime for which there is no atonement.’

‘Come, dearest,’ Hildegard said, getting to her feet. ‘You are tired. Leave the young ones to their contemplation of the night’s beauty.’

Rudolf Kersten stood up slowly, his shoulders slumped. ‘And tomorrow, Ms Parks, you film the massacre, I understand.’

Cara nodded, her expression sombre. ‘I’m not looking forward to it.’

‘Ah, but you must give of your best,’ the old man said, his face animated. ‘You will give hope to all oppressed people, you will inspire the cause of freedom around the world.’

The actress, now also on her feet, looked humbled. ‘I will try,’ she said.

‘Goodnight, Alex,’ Rudolf said. ‘Come to see us before you leave.’

Mavros nodded, finding himself almost moved to bow before the old man’s nobility of spirit.

‘You won’t be on set tomorrow?’ Cara asked.

‘He most certainly will not,’ Hildegard said, her chin jutting. ‘There are some memories he cannot live through again.’

Mavros was reluctant, but there was a question he had to ask.

‘The raki and the waiter, which village do they come from?’

Rudolf Kersten gave him a direct look. ‘Makrymari,’ he replied. ‘Where the massacre the film is recreating took place.’

Mavros and Cara watched the old couple move slowly up the path towards the hotel. Neither of them had anything to say.

Shortly afterwards, Mavros’s phone rang.

‘Hey, private eye, where the fuck are you?’ Luke Jannet sounded like he’d consumed a barrel of Crete’s finest. ‘You gettin’ it on with Twin Peaks?’

‘No.’

‘Well, get your asses over here. I’ve kept you a couple of creatures with claws.’ He guffawed. ‘And I don’t mean Rosie and Alice.’

Mavros put his hand over the phone and looked at Cara. ‘Jannet wants us to join them in Chania.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Tell him I’m learning my lines.’

He relayed the message, then had a thought. ‘Mr Jannet, would it be possible for me to postpone my departure for a day or two?’

There was a long pause. ‘And why would you want to do that, my man?’

‘A couple of things to tie up. Besides, I’d like to see the massacre shoot that everyone’s talking about.’

As he’d suspected, that appealed to the director’s self-importance. ‘Well, if that’s the case, why not? We should be finished the run-throughs by lunchtime, so get yourself to the set by two p.m.’

‘The set in Makrymari?’

Jannet laughed. ‘Shit, no. We built our own village. The locals weren’t too keen on going through another mass shooting, even a staged one. All the drivers know where it is.’ The director rang off.

‘Let’s go,’ Cara said, getting up. ‘I really do have to look over my lines.’

Mavros signalled to the waiter, but he said that everything was on Mr Kersten.

As they walked back up the path, the actress took Mavros’s arm. ‘You don’t like me very much, do you, Alex?’

He turned to her. ‘No, I don’t. I mean, yes, I do. Shit. It’s irrelevant what I think. You’re one of my clients.’

She laughed. ‘Who said anything about thinking?’ She squeezed his arm. ‘Don’t you do feeling in this country? I thought Greeks were demonstrative and led by their emotions.’

‘I’m only half Greek, remember. The other part is a cold Scottish loch.’

‘A what?’

‘Loch. As in the Loch Ness Monster?’

‘Oh, a lock.’ She giggled. ‘Didn’t that raki warm you up?’ She managed to mispronounce the spirit too.

‘Oh yeah,’ he replied. ‘But the massacre talk froze me to the core.’

‘So why are you coming to the shoot?’

‘Good question. Maybe I just want to see you play a freedom fighter in a black dress.’

‘Is that right?’ They had reached the hotel entrance. ‘How about a nightcap?’

Mavros was tempted, but he had things to do and Niki to consider.

‘No, thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Cara took the rejection in her stride. ‘Goodnight, then.’ She kissed him on the cheek and headed for the stairs. Apparently he wasn’t the only resident who kept fit that way.

He was outside his room when his phone rang again.

‘Hey, Alex, it’s Mikis.’ The driver’s voice was rushed.

‘What’s up?’

‘We’ve had an episode with the bullies from Kornaria.’

‘Any casualties?’

‘Only on their side.’

‘You sure they didn’t get into the clinic?’

‘As sure as I am that two of them will wake up with broken ribs.’

Mavros glanced at his watch. It was nearly ten and his stomach was rumbling. ‘I’m coming over,’ he said. ‘Fancy something to eat?’

‘Any neo-Nazi baiting tonight?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Pity. OK, take one of our vehicles — get the driver to call me before you set off.’

‘Can’t be too careful, eh?’

‘Not in vendetta-land, no.’

Mavros went into his room and put his laptop and Nondas’s keys in his bag. He decided he’d spend the night in his brother-in-law’s place and try speaking to Maria Kondos in the morning.

After he’d gone through the procedure with the driver, a late-middle-aged man named Yerasimos, the car — a high-end saloon — swung out of the resort gate and headed east.

‘How do you find the film crew?’ he asked. Not having a car in Athens, he always talked to taxi drivers. Although some were morons, many had informed views about life and he often picked up useful information from them.

‘West Coast Americans,’ Yerasimos replied, as if that was sufficient explanation.

‘Loud, overconfident?’ Mavros encouraged.

‘Put it this way. I spent thirty years driving a cab in New York City. Californians are pussycats compared with the customers there. But I don’t think they’re very serious people.’

‘Hollywood doesn’t exactly have a reputation for encouraging intellectuals,’ Mavros said, realizing that Yerasimos would know plenty about the film crew. ‘Have you driven Cara Parks?’

‘Occasionally. She seems like a nice person. I don’t like her assistant, though. She’s got a tongue in her head.’

‘You heard she went missing?’

‘I did. Can’t say I was sorry. She’d have got on all right. She could tell anyone what she thought of them in the coarsest Greek, Cretan pronunciation and expressions included.’

That was interesting. No one had said that Maria spoke good Greek, let alone the local dialect. What might that add to the issue of her disappearance?

‘How about the director, Luke Jannet?’

Yerasimos overtook an ancient tractor smoothly. ‘Jannet? I’ve only had him a couple of times. What was that you said about loud and overconfident? I won’t be going to see his film, I can tell you that.’

‘You reckon it’ll be another Captain Corelli?’

‘Full of inaccuracies and unconvincing love affairs? Probably. But not just that. It’s an exercise in bloodsucking.’

‘Striking phrase. What does it mean, exactly?’

The driver smiled tightly. ‘You’re from Athens, right? I know that plenty of people there died during the Axis occupation, maybe you’ve even got relatives among them. But here it was different. People haven’t forgotten on Crete.’

‘You mean the massacres?’

‘Those, and the burning of villages and the torture and the beatings. It may look like everyone’s welcoming German tourists with open arms — and they are, for their money — but deep down there’s a hatred, especially among the older generation and in the villages that don’t have income from tourism.’

‘What about Rudolf Kersten?’ Mavros asked. ‘He was a paratrooper during the invasion.’

‘Ah, Mr Kersten is the exception that proves the truth of what I’m saying. He’s done so much for this part of Crete that it would take days to list everything. He’s rebuilt villages, he’s given thousands of people jobs over the decades, he’s set up scholarships for poor kids to study abroad. . he’s that rare thing, a genuinely good man.’

Mavros thought of David Waggoner. ‘But still there are some who hate him.’

‘There will always be dissenters, jealous people who got less than others.’

The lights of Chania’s suburbs were shining ahead.

‘I heard Mr Kersten was involved in the massacre at Makrymari.’

Yerasimos didn’t speak for some time, his hands tight on the wheel.

‘There are people who say that, usually inspired by that piece of shit Waggoner. The British think he was a hero, but all he did was bring down more Nazi reprisals on the heads of innocent Cretans. We didn’t need the British. If they’d dropped us the weapons, we’d have done the job ourselves but, of course, they never trusted us enough.’

That was a different angle to those Mavros had heard before. He thanked the driver when they pulled up outside the clinic. Mikis was at his door before he could open it.

‘Interesting guy, Yerasimos,’ Mavros said, after the saloon had departed.

‘Yeah,’ Mikis said, with a grin. ‘Hidden depths. Did he tell you he was in New York for years?’

‘Yes.’

‘But he didn’t tell you why he went, did he? He was involved in a vendetta. He pushed a guy who betrayed his father to the Germans off a cliff.’

A tremor of unease ran through Mavros. ‘How was it resolved?’

‘Eventually the major players died of old age and agreement was reached.’

‘Thirty years,’ Mavros said ruefully.

‘Yeah, encouraging, isn’t it?’

Mavros looked around at the men on the street — some of them he recognized, other not. The Range Rover was where it had been in the afternoon, baseball bats visible through the windows.

‘The influence of American culture,’ Mikis said, following the direction of his gaze. ‘They’re useful weapons because they aren’t lethal unless you really want them to be.’

‘As long as you don’t bore out the middle and fill it with molten lead.’

Mikis laughed. ‘Now there’s a thought.’

‘Are your boys all right for an hour or two while we go and eat?’

‘They’re organized for the whole night and I’m only a phone call away.’

He went over and spoke to the young men and then beckoned Mavros to the Jeep.

‘I’ll take you to a good place,’ the Cretan said, heading for the city centre.

‘On the harbour front?’ Mavros asked, not wanting to run into the well-lubricated Luke Jannet.

‘No, this is a family taverna in the backstreets. If you’re lucky, they might have snails.’

Mavros made no comment. Cretan snails were a delicacy he had no desire for, having had a disastrous encounter with them in the past.

Mikis parked near the cathedral and led the way down a narrow street. The taverna was under a huge spray of pink bougainvillea blooms. There were only a few tables outside and the nearest was occupied by two men, one stocky and one lanky, both of whom Mavros recognized immediately. He put his hand on Mikis’s shoulder and retreated behind him.

‘We’ve got to go back the way we came,’ he said in his ear. ‘I don’t want those guys to see me.’

Mikis stared at him and then turned, keeping himself between Mavros and the taverna. ‘Start walking,’ he said, ‘single file like in the army.’

After they were round the corner, Mikis spoke. ‘So you didn’t want to see David Waggoner. I can understand that — he’s a nasty piece of work. But the tall streak of piss?’

‘That was Tryfon Roufos, the owner of Hellas History SA and the most bent antiquities dealer in Athens, probably the whole of Greece.’ Mavros shook his head. ‘He’s also a suspected child abuser and blackmailer of the rich and famous.’

‘Charming. Do you want me to bring him in for questioning?’

‘No! What I would like to know is what he’s doing in a huddle with the British war hero David Waggoner.’

‘Want me to tail them when they’ve finished?’

Mavros smiled. ‘Did you get rejected by the police academy?’

‘You think I’d work for those bullies? No, I’m trying to learn from you. It might help me stay alive.’

‘It might help us stay alive,’ Mavros corrected. ‘No, let’s leave them to it. At least that asshole Oskar Mesner wasn’t with them. If he had been, I’d have been straight on the phone to Rudolf Kersten about his coin collection.’

‘Speaking of which,’ Mikis said, leading him down another narrow street. ‘I’ve got something to tell you about that.’ He smiled. ‘But let’s wait till we’ve had something to eat and drink. I could put a donkey away.’

Mavros followed him reluctantly. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that the taverna they were en route to offered stewed beast of burden as a speciality.