The Silver Stain

FIVE

After eating a sandwich in one of the Heavenly Blue’s numerous bars, Mavros spent the afternoon following up leads. He was called by the hotel’s security manager, one Renzo Capaldi, and told that Maria Kondos had not left in any of the hire car company’s vehicles. He went back to room 243 and checked the mobile phone. Although it was an advanced model, the messaging service hadn’t been activated, which seemed odd — unless she never turned it off and answered every call. There were no texts in either the in- or out-box, which also struck Mavros as unusual, though, again, maybe she always spoke rather than wrote. The possibility that someone — perhaps the missing woman herself — had deleted texts couldn’t be discounted, though the fact that none had been received recently suggested it wasn’t a mode she employed much.

Then he got somewhere. There was a missed call, timed at 9.21 on Sunday evening. He checked the code with the switchboard — it was that of a village called Kornaria, about thirty kilometres away in the foothills of the White Mountains, he was told. He came up with a cover story and pressed ‘Call Back’ on Maria Kondos’s mobile.

‘Yes?’ answered a deep male voice in Greek.

‘I’m a friend of Maria’s. Is she there?’

‘A friend of whose?’ the man asked, but the pause before he spoke gave Mavros the firm impression that he was prevaricating.

‘Don’t mess me around, friend,’ he said brusquely. ‘Maria Kondos gave me this number. Tell her to come to the phone.’

There was more hesitation. ‘Who are you?’ the man demanded, his tone also more aggressive. ‘I don’t know any Maria Kondos.’

You don’t know any Maria Kondos, Mavros thought, but you repeat her name in its ungrammatical form without hesitation. ‘Do I have to come over and drag her out of there?’ he shouted. ‘She owes me money and I need it now!’

The gears in his interlocutor’s mind were grinding almost audibly. The sensible thing for him to have done would have been to cut the connection, but his Cretan machismo wouldn’t permit that.

‘She owes you money? I don’t believe you! I’ll find you and cut your balls off!’

‘Not if I find you first,’ Mavros countered, wondering how to get Maria to the phone.

‘Fuck your mother and your sister,’ the man said.

The line went dead. When he tried again, it was engaged. Someone had stepped in before the Cretan bull had said too much, or perhaps he’d come to his senses. Mavros had seen a map of the island on top of one of the piles of papers on the floor. He scanned it and found Kornaria. It was isolated and at the end of a very windy, unsurfaced road, and seemed like an improbable place for a Greek-American to be. The impression that the man knew her didn’t mean she was in the village, and setting out on a long and tricky drive on the off-chance didn’t seem like the best use of his time at that juncture.

Besides, he still had a suspicion that Maria had never left the hotel. There was one way to confirm that, at least in terms of the land side of the resort — he would check later if boats came and went from the beach. He went down to reception and asked where the security office was. A young lad in Cretan costume led him, his high boots squeaking on the marble.

A large man in a suit whose tenor voice Mavros recognized opened the door.

‘Mr Capaldi,’ he said, smiling.

‘Ah, hello.’ The door stayed only half-open. ‘You need something else?’

‘I want to see the CCTV recordings from Sunday evening.’

The Italian stood motionless. ‘You have authorization for this?’

Mavros shrugged. ‘Call Mr Kersten.’ He took out his mobile. ‘Better still, I’ll call him.’

Capaldi’s hand came up quickly. ‘Not necessary. Come inside.’

They went down a passage and into a small room. The Italian squeezed into a desk chair and waved Mavros to a battered armchair.

‘No, thanks. Tell me, did you check the Sunday evening traffic recorded at the main gate?’

Renzo Capaldi suddenly looked like a schoolboy caught with his hand down his trousers. ‘No. I was not told to.’

‘It didn’t occur to you that Ms Kondos might have left on foot?’

The Italian laughed dismissively. ‘People do not walk out of the Heavenly Blue, especially not the film crew. There is the press, the photographers.’

‘So you won’t mind if I check?’

Capaldi accepted that without enthusiasm and installed Mavros at a screen connected to a large server. He showed him which keys to use to stop and restart the sequence of images, and to speed up or slow them down. Mavros decided to start from nine thirty on Sunday evening, shortly after Cara Parks had last seen the missing woman. At first he found the pixelated images hard to make out, but soon he became accustomed to them. There were regular processions of cars turning in and out of the gate. Those entering mainly came from the west, presumably film personnel coming back from the airfield at Maleme. Those leaving mostly turned east, probably heading for the bars and restaurants of Chania.

Then, when the timer at the top right of the screen showed 22.17:23, he caught sight of a female form in a knee-length black dress approaching the gate. Her face wasn’t visible, but her hair was similar to Maria Kondos’s. She waited until a van came in and left on the opposite side of it from the camera, speeding up to remain obscured. She disappeared into the darkness beyond the furthest light just over a minute later. Mavros spoke Capaldi’s name as he went back to the first sight of the missing woman.

‘See this?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ the Italian said apprehensively.

‘Is it her?’

‘Could be. Can’t see face.’

‘“Could be” will do for me,’ Mavros said. ‘I want you to do the following — take the number of every car that turned east for an hour after she left. If you have a record of the driver or registered owner, I need that too. All right? Call me on 171 as soon as you can.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Renzo Capaldi said, without irony. He seemed to have realized the seriousness of the situation.

Back in his room, Mavros booted up his laptop and went on to the Internet, accessing a site that illicitly provided a reverse phone directory. The number he had called in Kornaria was registered to a Vasilios Dhrakakis, farmer. Then he entered the missing woman’s name in a search engine. There were plenty of references, but as he went through them it became clear they were all articles about Cara Parks that referred to her assistant en passant — which made Mavros wonder. He was no connoisseur of glossy magazine-style journalism, but he was pretty sure that the hired help didn’t often get namechecked. Then, on the third page of listings, he found something much more interesting.

‘Actress PA in Youth Auto Death’ was the headline in a Los Angeles newspaper, dated August 9th 2000. It seemed that Maria Kondos, aged 32, assistant to ‘rising star’ Cara Parks, hit and killed Michael ‘Zee-Boy’ Timmins, a seventeen-year-old African American boy, while driving Cara Parks’ Mercedes late at night. The case against her fell apart when the defence produced witnesses, who saw Timmins stumbling down Mulholland Drive on what the post-mortem proved to be a crack cocaine high. He also had a police record as a member of a major drugs gang, the Letter-Men.

Mavros sat back and thought about that. It seemed unlikely to have any connection with Maria Kondos’s disappearance after three years, but he wondered how she’d been affected by the ordeal. That was a question he could ask Cara Parks.

There was a knock at the door. Renzo Capaldi was standing there with some printed papers.

‘Here’s what you wanted, Mr Mavros,’ he said, eager to please. ‘Seventy-one cars turned towards Chania in that hour. Twenty-eight of them were taxis.’ He handed over a sheet with licence plate numbers. ‘Do you want me to find out the drivers’ names and where they took their passengers, if they weren’t dropping off?’

Mavros nodded and saw the big man’s shoulders slump.

‘And the other forty-three were either vehicles belonging to the hire company of the film crew or were used by individual guests or visitors.’ He gave Mavros the second sheet, which showed licence numbers and names.

‘Thanks,’ Mavros said, running his eyes down the names. He recognized Tsifakis, the company owned by the driver Mikis’s father, on nineteen of the cars. Of the remaining twenty-four, only one name stuck out — that of David Waggoner. He mentioned it to Capaldi.

‘Oh, the old British colonel. He doesn’t stay here, but he’s in and out every day seeing people on the production. He’s got one of those Range Rovers — as big as a tank.’

‘And the others?’

‘Guests who have long-lease villas in the resort. They’re the only people here this month apart from the film crew.’

‘OK,’ Mavros said. ‘Concentrate on the taxi drivers — I’ll need a contact number, preferably a mobile, for each one.’

Capaldi went off down the corridor, surprisingly light on his feet for such a hulking figure.

Back in the room, Mavros highlighted the hired vehicles used by the production team — Rosie Yellenberg would probably be able to link each of them to particular members of the crew.

His phone rang.

‘Alex, is it nice down there?’

‘Hi, Niki. All right, I suppose. I haven’t had a chance to see anything of the island except from the Learjet.’

There was a sigh. ‘I wish I’d been on a Learjet.’

‘OK, I’ll get them to send it for you tomorrow morning.’

‘Ha-ha. I miss you. Is there something wrong with that?’ Niki’s voice was wistful.

‘Er, no. I miss you too,’ he said, hurriedly. He did miss her, it was just that he hadn’t had a chance to think of her since he’d arrived.

‘Making any progress?’

‘It’s too early to say. I-’ He heard the bleep that indicated he had another call. ‘Shit, I’ve got to go. Sleep tight, my love.’ He pressed the button. ‘Hello?’

‘Mr Mavros, we’d be grateful if you could some to Ms Parks’ suite.’ Rosie Yellenberg’s voice was as hard-edged as before. ‘Immediately.’

Wonderful, Mavros thought. Then again, there were things he needed from his employers.

He suddenly had a vision of the old-fashioned record player his father had insisted on keeping for his Beethoven and Mahler. It had a great trumpet for a speaker and a label showing a dog listening to a picture of the same. His Master’s Voice, he remembered: except, in his case, it was His Mistresses’ Voices.

As he left the room, he realized how unimpressed Niki would have been by that thought.

This time the gorilla opened the door to Ms Parks’ accommodation without comment. Mavros walked into the living area to be confronted by more people than he had expected. Luke Jannet was sprawled in an armchair, a glass of some dark spirit in his hand. Behind him, perched on a dining chair sat Alice Quincy, an open laptop on her knees and a hands-free connection leading from her phone to her right ear. Cara Parks was at the end of the sofa where she had been sitting earlier, while Rosie Yellenberg was at the other. The atmosphere was icy, and not just because the air con was working hard.

‘It’s Philip Marlowe,’ the director said, proving that he wasn’t completely illiterate culturally. ‘Pull up a chair, man.’ It sounded like the drink wasn’t his first.

Mavros nodded to him, and then to the others. He sat down in an excessively comfortable armchair and immediately felt his presence, such as it was, diminished. He should have remained standing.

‘Hello, Alex,’ Cara Parks said hopefully. She looked like she’d been crying.

‘Give us a progress report, Mr Mavros,’ Rosie Yellenberg said, her lips hardly opening as she spoke. ‘This time we’re all staying to hear it.’

Mavros smiled and ran through what he had been doing. The producer said he would have the names of the crew members who had been driving the vehicles he had highlighted the next morning.

‘One of them was me,’ Jannet said, slurring his words. ‘Took some of the extras out for a night on the town.’

‘Young, female extras,’ Cara said, in a low voice.

The director raised his glass to her. ‘At least they’ve been doing what their contracts say — working.’

‘Have you spoken to the resort owner?’ Yellenberg asked.

‘Yes, he’s been helpful.’

‘Should be, considering what we’re paying,’ the producer said acidly. ‘What did he give you?’

It was time to draw a line in the sand, Mavros decided. ‘This isn’t how I work, Ms Yellenberg,’ he said. ‘Most of the information I dig up turns out to be useless. I’d be wasting your time and mine if I went through it all.’

She accepted that with ill grace.

‘You do what you have to do,’ Jannet said, his eyes hardening. ‘We’re giving you another two days.’

Mavros shrugged. ‘That’s up to you. In the meantime, what can you tell me about David Waggoner?’

‘That old-’

Yellenberg raised a hand to cut the director off. ‘Alice, give Mr Mavros a summary of the appropriate file.’

The director’s assistant’s fingers flew over her keyboard. ‘David Waggoner, Colonel, the Hussars, retired. Commanded a tank during the Battle of Crete, awarded the Military Cross. Escaped to Chora Sfakion and evacuated to Alexandria. Trained with SOE and landed by submarine near Treis Ekkliseies, November 4th 1941. Officer in command of Chania and environs until April 17th 1943, when he was sent back to Egypt with a shoulder wound. Returned by parachute-’

‘That isn’t what I want,’ Mavros interrupted — he could find the old soldier’s history easily in an online encyclopedia. ‘I meant, what impression do you have of him? He told me that he knows Ms Kondos by sight.’

Luke Jannet laughed loudly. ‘You think that pompous Brit got the hots for Maria and kidnapped her?’

‘No,’ Mavros answered bluntly, seeing Cara Parks smile out of the corner of his eye. ‘There seems to be some animosity between him and Mr Kersten. Could that have any bearing on the case?’

‘I don’t see how,’ Rosie Yellenberg said, turning to the actress. ‘Do you?’

Cara shook her head. ‘I’ve only spoken to Mr — what is it? Waggoner? — a couple of times. He told me about the Cretan women who got involved in the fighting. I don’t remember Maria ever saying more than “hello” or “goodbye” to him.’

‘If I might add something,’ Alice Quincy said, her cheeks reddening. ‘I did see Mr Waggoner and Maria next to each other in the queue for coffee and doughnuts on set one morning.’

‘Were they talking?’ Mavros asked.

‘I couldn’t say for sure,’ Alice answered. ‘I think they might have been.’

Mavros smiled at her. ‘Thank you.’

‘Anything else?’ Jannet said, getting to his feet unsteadily.

‘Not at this stage,’ Mavros said.

‘Well, I’m off for an early one,’ the director said. ‘Tomorrow we’re doing some aerial shots so don’t hit the dirt if a Messerschmitt comes over at head height.’ He headed for the door. Alice Quincy followed him with her head bowed, making Mavros wonder exactly what her duties included.

‘If you wouldn’t mind, Rosie,’ Cara Parks said, holding her gaze on the producer until she too withdrew. ‘Come and sit a bit closer, Alex.’

He did so. ‘Are they giving you a hard time?’

She nodded. ‘And my agent and my lawyer and. . oh, forget it. All I want is Maria back. I appreciate what you’re doing. Are there any other angles you could follow up on?’

‘I’d recommend that laminated posters with a recent photo of Maria are put up both in the resort and on the roads and villages in the surrounding area.’

‘Good idea. The technical guys can fix that. We should give a description and say when and where she was last seen, shouldn’t we? In Greek and English?’

Mavros was impressed by the speed of her thinking. ‘Yes. I’d advise offering a reward for information leading directly to her return as well. We’ll get a lot of scam artists, but they shouldn’t be too hard to rumble. There might be one person who saw or heard something important.’

‘How much?’ the actress asked.

‘Five thousand euros?’

‘Make it ten.’

‘OK.’

They spent five minutes constructing the text, Mavros translating it into Greek.

‘The photo?’ he asked.

‘I’ve got some in my laptop. I’ll find the best. Rosie can hand over all the material to the geeks.’

‘The hotel will be able to find people to put the posters up.’

‘Right.’ Cara Parks smiled, this time less tentatively. ‘You know your job, don’t you?’

He raised a hand. ‘You might not like what I’m about to ask you.’

‘Try me.’

‘The night of August 9th 2000, Mulholland Drive.’ Mavros watched her face. Her eyes widened, but she held his gaze.

‘You have been busy.’

‘Wonderful thing, the Internet.’

‘If you can sort the truth from the lies. What do you want to know?’

‘Was it usual for Maria to be driving your car?’

Cara was silent for a few moments. ‘Not exactly usual, no. It happened occasionally, still does.’

‘Would you care to tell me why she was driving it that particular night?’

The actress pursed her lips. ‘Sure. If you care to tell me what it has to do with Maria going missing on Crete. You think the dead boy’s gang hired an international assassin?’

‘I don’t know enough about the Letter-Men.’

‘Believe me, they were assholes. Most of them were wiped out in a gun battle with a Mexican outfit last year.’

Mavros poured himself a glass of wine from the bottle in a silver stand.

‘I’m sorry,’ Cara said, ‘I should have offered.’

‘I’m sorry, I should have asked.’

She laughed. ‘I like your style, mister.’ Her expression grew serious again. ‘OK, here’s what happened. Confidentially.’ He nodded. ‘I was going to see this guy up on the Drive — a producer I’d got entangled with. Thing was, there was another man I was seeing, an actor. He used to get real jealous, would drive past my house and check if my car was at the front.’

‘I thought you people lived on estates with high walls.’

She smiled. ‘High railings and thorny plants in my case. You can see through if you try hard enough and I’d told the security guys to leave him alone. So Maria was driving the Merc back. She’d left her car at my place so she could get home. It had worked before. I’d given her a wig so she looked like me from a distance.’

The lives of the rich and famous, Mavros thought — just a scuzzy as anyone else’s.

‘Then that kid came out of nowhere, stumbled straight into the car. Maria wasn’t even going fast, but he flew through the air and hit the road head first.’

Mavros was still watching her closely. ‘I don’t know much about the Californian legal system. Was it an easy case to defend?’

‘The best lawyers can do anything,’ Cara said.

‘So you paid?’

‘Of course,’ she said, looking shocked. ‘It was my fault that Maria was driving back so late.’

He nodded. ‘Imagine the scandal if it had been you at the wheel.’

Cara Parks looked away, her face suddenly pale. ‘Yeah,’ she said softly.

Mavros left a few minutes later. He hadn’t learned much about Maria Kondos, but he knew more about the star. Cara Parks was convincing on the big screen, there was no doubt of that. Close up, on the sofa, things were harder to hide. He was almost certain she had been driving her Mercedes when it hit and killed Michael ‘Zee-Boy’ Timmins.