The Silver Stain

EIGHT

Mavros woke up at eight, his head and body heavy. He had to report back to the Kerstens before he continued the search for Maria Kondos, although he had called after he got back to confirm that he had the coins. After a shower, a couple of excellent croissants and a Greek coffee that wasn’t a complete disgrace, he called the Fat Man’s flat in Athens.

‘Oh, boss, I was so worried about you.’

‘Cut the crap, Yiorgo. I’ve been away for under twenty-four hours.’

‘And suddenly you find you need me.’

Mavros laughed. ‘As it happens, yes. I want you to do an Internet search on some people.’

‘Great,’ the Fat Man groaned. ‘You know how much I adore modern technology.’

‘You fool no one. Ever since your blessed mother departed this life of sorrows, you’ve hardly been off that laptop you bought.’

‘One word,’ Yiorgos said. ‘Girls.’

‘And the odd, I mean huge number of conspiracy theories.’

‘Are you saying the CIA doesn’t run the world?’

Mavros sighed. ‘Check out the following please: Rudolf Kersten and David Waggoner.’

‘Waggoner?’ the Fat Man repeated. ‘Wasn’t he one of those British agents who screwed up the patriotic struggle in Crete?’

‘Try to keep an open mind till after the search, will you? Email me whatever you get asap.’

‘Yes, sir. Certainly, sir.’

‘Long live the revolution,’ Mavros replied, then cut the connection. He picked up the bag containing the coins and the money-belt and headed for the stairs.

Downstairs, Renzo Capaldi was again hovering around the door to the Kerstens’ apartment.

‘Still here?’ Mavros asked cheerfully, as he knocked.

‘How is Mr Kersten?’ the security chief asked, keeping his distance.

‘Ask me when I come out.’ Mavros followed a maid in a black dress into the living area. ‘Good morning,’ he said to the elderly couple, who rose politely from their places on the sofa.

‘Good. .’ Rudolf Kersten broke off, his eyes on the objects in Mavros’s hands. ‘What have you there?’

Mavros opened the plastic bag and let the German pour the coins on to the glass table. Then he laid the money-belt down beside them.

‘I gave a thousand to your grandson,’ he said, ‘and I’ve taken a thousand for myself, as agreed.’ Although Mikis Tsifakis had refused to accept any payment for his part in the previous night’s events, Mavros was going to give him some cash. ‘I take it those are the missing coins.’

Kersten nodded slowly, then glanced at his wife. ‘What happened with the money? I can’t imagine Oskar turned it down.’

‘He didn’t.’

Hildegard leaned forward. ‘Did you hurt him, Mr Mavros?’

‘Not more than he would have hurt me. He may try to get in here again, though. I recommend you tell Mr Capaldi to check the shutters and doors, and to set up a patrol outside.’

‘Quite remarkable,’ Kersten said, his voice low. ‘We have much to thank you for.’

Mavros shook his head. ‘It was no problem and I’ve been very well recompensed. If you’ll excuse me, I must get back to my original job.’ He glanced at the glistening coins. ‘I’d also recommend you put those and the rest of your collection in the hotel safe or — better — a bank’s. Presumably your grandson won’t be here for too much longer.’

‘We’re not sure about that,’ Hildegard said. ‘He’s fascinated by the film and the anniversary of the battle next week. The last we heard, he had no work back in Germany.’

‘If you want him to leave, you’re right not to give him any more money. That thousand should get him home. Now, I have to get back to my original case.’

Rudolf Kersten got up and followed him towards the door. ‘Dine with us tonight, Alex,’ he said. ‘I’m more grateful than I can say.’

‘Let me see how my schedule pans out.’ Mavros found himself touched by the old man’s gratitude — though the Fat Man would have said it was no more than relief that he’d got his ill-gotten possessions back.

Outside, he nodded to the bulky Italian. ‘Don’t go away. I think you’re about to be called in.’ He grinned. ‘Don’t panic. I put in a good word for you.’

One case down, another harder one to go, he thought, as he walked to the stairs. This time he was going to arrive panting whether Cara Parks liked it or not.

As it happened, the actress was breathing more heavily than Mavros when he was let into her suite. She was in a leopard skin leotard that left little to the imagination, performing high kicks. He was relieved to see that Rosie Yellenberg wasn’t present.

‘Sit down,’ Cara said. ‘Let me get a towel.’ She reappeared with one over her shoulders.

Mavros tried not to stare at her well-toned thighs, but found himself looking at her breasts before he glanced away. ‘I need you to set something up.’

‘Shoot.’ The actress poured herself a glass of water and drained it in one.

‘There’s a driver from the company servicing the crew-’

Cara Parks let out a peal of laughter.

‘Let me rephrase that,’ Mavros said, wondering if she was flirting with him. She certainly seemed less uptight.

‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘What about him? Or is it her?’

‘The former. I need him today.’

‘That handsome, huh?’

Mavros flashed her a look that gave her to understand, if she hadn’t already, that he wasn’t interested in men.

‘Consider it done.’ She wrote down the name when he said it. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Various places.’

‘Not saying, huh? Good. Make sure you don’t tell any of the others, especially dear Rosie.’

The actress’s tone was corrosive. Mavros realized the strength of character she had needed to attain the position she occupied on the Hollywood pecking order. He wouldn’t have liked her to be an enemy.

‘Have a good time last night?’ she asked, in a way that suggested she knew he’d left the resort.

‘Following some leads.’

‘Jesus, how much do we have to pay you to get some answers?’ she demanded, the tension back in her voice.

Mavros raised his hands to placate her, though she was still glaring at him. ‘I’m being paid to answer one question only,’ he replied stolidly. ‘Where’s Maria Kondos? At the moment, all I can say is, “I don’t know”.’

Cara Parks relaxed slightly. ‘You’d better hurry up. This is your penultimate day, according to Luke.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve got Matthew, Mark and John in reserve.’

Another peal of laughter rang out as he headed for the door.

‘Hey, Scottish-Greek?’

He looked over his shoulder.

‘Get yourself across to the set this afternoon. They’re flying the old planes, remember?’

He didn’t commit himself, but wondered whether that was why Rudolf Kersten had looked so apprehensive, even after he’d got his coins and money back.

Mikis was on another job, but would be at the hotel in an hour. In the meantime, Mavros went back to his room and called Niki on her work line.

‘Morning, pretty woman.’

‘Ah, the prodigal lover,’ she said, with only mild irony. ‘How’s living it up with the cream of Hollywood? Did you have dinner with the stars?’

He decided against telling her he’d just had a private audience with Cara Parks. Or that he’d started a bar fight in Chania old town last night.

‘Pretty dull, really. Still haven’t found the woman.’

‘Keep it that way. I’m flying over if you’re not back by Friday night.’

That would be an enormous distraction. Besides, he’d be off the job by then if Luke Jannet had his way — which was pretty strange, considering the director had flown all the way to Athens to hire him. Maybe he liked turning the screw for the sake of it.

‘Alex?’

‘Oh, sorry. Yeah, well, I’ll see how things go.’

‘Is she as stunning as the photos suggest? And don’t say “who?”.’

‘The delectable Cara? There you are — I’ve answered the question already.’

‘With another one. Don’t even think of touching those Twin Peaks.’

‘Sorry, I’m being waved at by an irate producer,’ he lied. ‘Talk to you later.’ He loved Niki dearly, but her constant fear that he would be unfaithful got him down. There were times when he’d been tempted, but so far he hadn’t let her down. That didn’t mean he liked being reminded of his duty.

He rang the Fat Man.

‘Christ and the Holy Mother,’ the communist said — the comrades were surprisingly unconcerned about swearing by things they didn’t believe in. ‘I haven’t got much yet.’

‘Quick question. Have you ever heard of a village called Kornaria down here?’

‘Isn’t that the place where the locals grow cannabis, and fought the cops off?

Hold on, I’m accessing a search engine. Yes, that’s right. It was last autumn. The forces of public order — it says here — attempted to reach the cultivation sheds, but they came under severe attack from the Kornariates, who loosed off anything from Second World War machine-pistols to hunting rifles at them, wounding four and driving the rest — nearly a hundred of them — back down the mountain road. There’s been an enquiry going on ever since, but it won’t get anywhere. The local MPs and other officials know all about the drug production and are doing everything they can to obstruct external interference in Cretan affairs. Fucking hypocrites!’

‘Yeah.’ Mavros was turning pages in his notebook. ‘Do a search on Dhrakakis, Vasilios,’ he said, finding the name registered to the number he had called from Maria Kondos’s phone.

‘Bingo,’ Yiorgos said, after a few seconds. ‘He’s the mayor of Kornaria. Doesn’t say much else, only that his family is the biggest in the village.’

‘That’ll do for now. Thanks, Fat Man.’ He rang off before he heard more than a couple of words of complaint.

A few minutes later, Mikis pulled up at the front of the hotel. ‘Apparently I’m your private chauffeur until further notice,’ he said, grinning widely. ‘More neo-Nazi baiting?’

‘Possibly.’ Mavros climbed into the Jeep and stuffed two hundred Euros into the driver’s shirt pocket. ‘Special request from Mr Kersten,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t want to offend such an important local figure.’

Mikis didn’t look happy, but left the notes where they were. ‘Where are we going, then?’

Mavros was looking at the map he had bought. ‘Get us to Karies and then I’ll direct you.’

‘Karies? There’s not much up there.’ He turned to Mavros. ‘Except the track to Kornaria. You wouldn’t by any chance be wanting to go to that crazy end-of-the-road place, would you?’

‘Erm, maybe.’

Mikis stopped the Jeep. ‘You need to be straight with me, Alex. I know this island. There are places you can’t go asking questions.’

‘You’re right.’ He recounted the story of his call to Dhrakakis and his idea that Maria Kondos might be in the village.

‘Sounds pretty thin to me,’ the Cretan said.

‘I’m sure he knew her,’ Mavros countered. ‘In my business you learn to tell when people are lying.’

‘That may be,’ Mikis said, ‘but Kornaria is bandit country — always has been. Not that I’ve ever been near the dump. It’s up in the middle of nowhere for a reason, you know. The Venetians never got it, the Turks steered clear, even the Germans left the locals to themselves. The headbangers from Sphakia like to think they’re Crete’s bad boys, but they’ve got nothing on the Kornariates.’

‘Wonderful,’ Mavros muttered. ‘Couldn’t I just pretend to be a dumb foreigner on a personal tour?’

‘Need to take these off,’ Mikis said, slapping the outside of his door.

Mavros remembered the stickers for Freedom or Death. ‘Yeah, maybe you should.’ He didn’t mention that David Waggoner, one of the film’s consultants, had a place near the village. He presumed he’d be on location today, watching the planes and remembering the days of death and defeat.

Mikis jumped out and peeled the decals off. ‘Plenty of these back in the depot,’ he said, getting back behind the wheel. ‘OK, let’s play it your way. You speak only English and I’ll see if we can pick up any hint of the missing woman.’

They drove out of the resort and headed east, before turning south on a road that bisected lush groves of fruit and olive trees. The sun was already high in the sky, but they were shaded from its heat and the first half-hour of the trip was a pleasure. Then the road started to climb and the foliage thinned, until soon all that confronted them were the sheer bare flanks of the White Mountains, their summits capped in glinting silvery white. Although they weren’t far from Chania as the crow flies, it was a different world.

‘Don’t be fooled,’ Mikis said, as he slipped into third gear. ‘There are plenty of watercourses that you can’t see from here and villages were built around them, even in ancient times. There’s one of those Mycenaean beehive tombs not far from here. A lot of the villages are deserted now, the people down on the coast fleecing the tourists.’ He laughed. ‘Like my family. Our village is further to the west. There are twelve people in it now, all of them over seventy-five.’

Mavros nodded. It was a common tale in the mountainous parts of Greece. Signs pointed to villages that weren’t on his map. The road was asphalt, the result of European Union grants, but it was badly potholed.

At Karies, Mikis turned to him. ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?’

‘Yes. Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll claim that my British grandfather was here during the war with the SOE.’ That way, he might also find out more about Waggoner. ‘Let’s say he was known as Panos, that’s common enough. If we get anywhere with that, we’ll ask if there are any Kondos’s in the village.’

Mikis shrugged. ‘It’s not a very Cretan name.’ He was concentrating on the much rougher track they were now grinding up. The bushes on either side were thick and thorny, but the trees were leafless and bent.

‘True. Maybe her family shortened it when they got to the States — lots of them did.’

‘Kondakis?’ the driver suggested. ‘Kondhylakis?’

‘No, let’s stick to Kondos. If she had relatives in the village, they’d know the family’s new name, wouldn’t they?’

Mikis didn’t look convinced. ‘Wasn’t it some Hollywood guy who said nobody knows anything?’ He swerved as a goat walked across the track with its head held high.

‘Impressive,’ Mavros said, meaning both the driving and the quotation. ‘William Goldman. Have you read him?’

‘No, one of the guys on the crew told me.’ Mikis laughed. ‘I’m a driver. I don’t read.’

Mavros had noticed the corner of a book under tissues and torches in the open glove compartment. ‘So you use this for wiping your arse, do you?’ He held up a new-looking copy of Nikos Kazantzakis’s Kapetan Michalis, remembering that it had been translated into English as Freedom and Death.

The Cretan crossed himself. ‘How can you say such a thing about a book by the greatest modern Greek writer?’

‘I could argue the toss about that for hours.’ Mavros was not a fan of the great man’s work, finding it overblown and under-edited, though this book — the story of a freedom fighter and family patriarch who dies in a final skirmish against the Turks — was better than most; certainly more powerful than Zorba the Greek, which largely owed its popularity to the film. Give him a poet of few words like Cavafy or Seferis any day.

‘Actually, I was only messing with you. I have a literature degree from the University of Crete,’ Mikis admitted. He stared ahead. ‘And now the fun starts.’

Mavros followed his gaze. A pickup truck with massive chrome bull bars was parked across the road, completely blocking it. Two men in high boots, vraka, and mandili, stood in the back, each carrying a shotgun, while another one in the cab spoke into a walkie-talkie.

‘Shit,’ Mikis said, under his breath. ‘You sure you want to go through with this?’

Mavros looked over his shoulder. Another pickup was drawing up behind them. ‘I don’t think we have much choice, my friend.’

‘Play dumb and British,’ said the driver. ‘If that isn’t a tautology.’

From The Descent of Icarus:

It was dusk when I came round, unaware of where I was until I managed with great difficulty to pull myself up from the floor of the ruined house. I stumbled over to the shattered window and looked out on to the small square. What I saw was a scene of unbelievable horror.

The bodies of my fellow paratroopers were now almost completely covered by those of the New Zealanders, gendarmes and local people who had defeated them. I was unable to focus and struggled to walk, so hard had the blow to my head been. But at least I was still alive — not that I took any comfort from that. I could only imagine that either 109s had strafed the enemy to destruction or that our troops on the higher ground to the rear had fired down on them. The place smelled like the slaughterhouse in my grandparents’ Bavarian town in August — iron blood, rotting guts and lacerated flesh.

Leaning on a rifle, I staggered out into the square and started looking for the woman. I was drawn to her and, if she had been killed, I wanted to lay her out and place her arms across her chest as a mark of respect. But there was no sign of her, even though there were several other women in black among the dead. Then I heard a groan from what turned out to be the sole survivor.

It was the squat British tank officer I had seen giving our men the coup de grace — an action I was fairly sure was not within the bounds of the Geneva Convention. Not that we had been observing that either. He was at the side of the street, his legs covered in blood and his face peppered with shrapnel. I dropped to my knees and lifted his head, then poured some water from my canteen into his mouth. He stared at me in amazement.

It wasn’t long before paratroopers began to trickle into Galatsi, initially observing the drills for taking possession of disputed territory and then showing themselves as it became clear there was no danger from the enemy.

‘Identify yourself!’ came a raised voice I recognized instantly.

I slowly hauled myself upright and gave my name and unit.

Captain Blatter came closer, limping from a wound above his right knee. ‘Where are the others?’ he demanded.

I nodded to the square. ‘Underneath.’ I said, provoking a glare. ‘Sir.’

Troops were pulling enemy bodies off their comrades and swearing.

‘Herman! Throat cut!’

‘My God, the lieutenant’s head’s nearly off!’

‘Two men stuck by the same Maori!’ I watched as the sergeant drew his own bayonet and stabbed it repeatedly into the dead New Zealander’s back.

Blatter ignored that. ‘What have we here? A British survivor?’

The wounded man stared up at him. ‘Waggoner, Captain David.’ He stated his regiment and serial number.

‘How many of my men did you kill, Captain?’ Blatter placed one of his jump boots on the Britisher’s legs and pressed down hard. ‘How many?’

‘My Captain,’ I said. ‘You-’

‘Silence!’ he roared. ‘You hid yourself away while your comrades were massacred. Do not think I will forget that!’

Captain Waggoner looked at me, his eyes dull, then turned back to Blatter. ‘Fuck you!’ he shouted. Blatter kicked him hard and he lost consciousness.

The regimental doctor came up to me and examined the side of my head. ‘He couldn’t have done this himself, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ he said to the captain. He was taking a risk, but the medics were a law to themselves after they proved themselves in battle, as this one had in Belgium.

‘They will pay for this,’ Blatter said, limping over to an old woman who had been nearly cut in two by machine-gun fire. ‘Your children and grandchildren will burn in hell!’ he yelled, his spittle flecking the dead woman’s swollen features.

Without being ordered, the paratroopers set about removing our dead from the heaps in the square, treating the bodies of the enemy without the slightest respect. I was glad the woman who saved me had escaped, fearing that her corpse would have been mutilated because of her great beauty.

‘With a head wound like that, you should be in hospital,’ the doctor said to me in a low voice.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘I should be beneath the ground.’

He didn’t understand my meaning. Why should he? We were the spearhead of the German armed forces, we did not crumble after a few days’ fighting. But it wasn’t the fighting that had undone me, hard and ghastly though that had been. It was the dauntless courage and nobility of the Cretan woman. I realized that if I’d found her body in the square, I would have plunged one of the long Maori bayonets into my own heart.