Hand of God

42

The next day I caught the lunchtime flight to Paros aboard a DHC-8-100, a propeller plane with more vibrations than the Beach Boys and none of them good. Paros was just one of a group of islands known as the Cyclades which, from the air, resembled a betting slip torn up and its pieces scattered on a bright blue carpet. Paros wasn’t the smallest island of the group although you could have been forgiven for thinking that it might have been when you saw the tiny airport with its postage stamp of a runway.

I hired a little Suzuki 4x4 at Loukis Rent-a-Car immediately opposite the sleepy little airport terminal, and using the directions from the guy in the office I set out for the southwest tip of the island, where Bekim’s house was to be found. The island itself was like a large links golf course — scrubland with drystone walls and very few trees. But for the omnipresent noise of cicadas you might almost have thought yourself in a remote part of Ireland suffering an unusually severe heat wave. The locals were just as wizened and peasant-like. Nearly every building I saw was made of white stone with all of the doors, window frames and shutters, balcony railings, and gates painted the same shade of blue, as if only one colour could be obtained at the local hardware shop. Either that or everyone on the whole island was an Everton supporter.

Less than fifteen minutes later I was driving up a rutted track to a collection of rectangular white buildings surrounded by empty rough land that bordered a perfect little private beach. Bekim’s house resembled an outpost in some forgotten French colony. I parked my car around the back in the shade and tried to call Prometheus, to see how he was making out with Nataliya’s iPhone, but I couldn’t get a signal.

Inside, the house was much less traditional, with open-plan rooms, polished wooden floors and the sort of Eames furniture that belonged in an episode of Mad Men. On the wall, in pride of place opposite a huge fireplace, was a wonderful painting of a football match by Peter Howson which, instantly, I coveted. In the dining room was another picture by Howson, this one a portrait of Henrik Larsson painted during his seventh season for Celtic in 2003–2004; again I wanted it. Elsewhere I found numerous modern sculptures in white marble and polished black granite by an artist called Richard King that were as beautiful as they were tactile. As far as I could see there was no television and no telephone, and very little post on the doormat, or anywhere else, for that matter.

In the kitchen I made myself some Greek coffee, sat down at the kitchen table and flicked through some old copies of the Athens News, an English-language newspaper. It made depressing reading. On most of the front pages there were colour pictures of the Hellenic police taking on rioters outside the Greek parliament building. On another front page I saw a thuggish-looking man holding a big black flag with a symbol that looked a bit like the UN logo; inside the branches was a sort of small golden labyrinth. Except that this wasn’t really a labyrinth at all, but a sort of simplified swastika. I turned the page and found another photograph, this time of a man wearing a black T-shirt with the same sign. According to the caption the man belonged to the Order of the Golden Dawn, the far-right political party. And suddenly I knew the kind of T-shirt that Sara Gill’s attacker had been wearing. He was a neo-Nazi; a fascist.

I finished my coffee and then conducted a thorough search of the house which yielded precisely nothing else of interest except that Bekim had a peculiar fondness for tinned Heinz soups and spaghetti hoops. There were cupboards full of the stuff. I was on the point of concluding that the whole trip had been a waste of time when the back door opened and a small hobbit of a woman came into the kitchen, carrying a basket of cleaning things. She gave a scream and dropped the basket to the floor when she saw me and, having apologised for giving her a fright, I explained that I was a friend of Mr Develi’s.

‘He no here right now,’ she said and it was quickly obvious that the woman — whose name was Zoi — had no idea that her employer was even dead. I thought it best not to tell her, at least for the present: it was information I wanted, not tears. ‘He is playing football in London.’

‘Yes, I know,’ I said dangling the door key. ‘It was Mr Develi who gave me this key.’

She nodded, still suspicious.

‘I’ve been staying on the mainland, in Athens, and Bekim said I should come and stay here if I got the chance.’

That much was true at any rate.

‘You stay here tonight?’ she asked.

‘Yes. If that’s all right. Just until tomorrow.’

‘You want me to fix a bed for you?’

‘No, I think I can manage.’ I looked around. ‘Have you worked for him long?’

‘I clean this house for Mr Develi since he came to the island. Eight years ago. He like it here very much because Paros is quiet and people leave him alone. Most locals don’t even know that he is such a famous footballer. He very private here. Like other rich people who live on Antiparos.’

Antiparos was the neighbouring smaller island to the west.

It felt strange to hear Bekim described in the present tense; as if he wasn’t dead at all. Of course, in this woman’s mind, he was still very much alive.

‘Bekim Develi. The Goulandris family. Tom Hanks. His wife, Rita Wilson, she is Greek. Everyone like it here because nobody knows they’re here. Is a big secret.’

I couldn’t help but wonder about that, given the alacrity with which Zoi had told me of their presence on the island.

‘Do you cook for him, too? Bekim, I mean.’

‘No. He say he very fussy. He doesn’t like Greek food. Only Greek wine. Just very plain English things. Eggs, bread, salad. I bring him these things but always he prepares his own food.’

It seemed strange to have a holiday home on a Greek island if you didn’t like Greek food; then again most English tourists in Greece seemed to subsist on a diet of hamburgers and chips.

‘I can cook for you if you like, Mr...?’

‘Manson. Scott Manson.’ I picked up a photograph on one of the kitchen shelves and showed it to her; it was a team photograph taken at the end of the last season when we’d just learned we’d made it to the fourth spot and had qualified for Champions League football. I couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened if we’d come fifth. Would Bekim still be alive? ‘That’s me there,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she said, more reassured now than before. ‘That is you.’

‘I’ll probably go into town tonight and find something to eat in a local taverna,’ I said. ‘So there’s no need to trouble yourself.’

‘Is no trouble. I like to cook. But as you wish, mister.’

‘Otherwise I can make do with a plate of tinned spaghetti. Like Mr Develi.’

She pulled a face at the thought of that. ‘Ugh. I don’t know how he can eat things out of a tin.’

‘He sounds like a difficult man to work for,’ I said.

‘Mr Develi?’ Zoi frowned and shook her head. ‘He is a wonderful man,’ she said. ‘No one ever had a better person to work for than him. He is kind and generous like no one I ever met. Other people who know him will tell you this, too.’

‘Really? I thought you said he was very private here.’

‘He has friends on the island. Of course he does. There’s the artist lady in Sotires, who knows him best, I think. Mrs Yaros. She and Mr Develi are very good friends. She’s a sculptor. Lots of sculptors live on Paros. They used to come here for the fine marble but now all the best marble is gone, I think. I think maybe she know him better than anyone around here.’

‘I’d like to meet this Mrs Yaros. Do you think she’s at home?’

Zoi nodded. ‘I saw her this morning. In the supermarket.’

‘What’s her address?’

‘I don’t know the address. But her house is easy to find. You drive away from here, turn left, go for three miles, past old garage, turn right and her house is at the top of a steep hill. Is grey and white. There is a big blue gate. And sometimes a dog. The dog isn’t friendly, so you’d best wait in the car until she comes to fetch you.’

‘Thanks for the advice.’

I finished my coffee and then got back into the car. Even though I’d parked it in the shade the little Suzuki felt as hot as a crematorium. I switched on the air conditioning, started the engine and drove back down the track towards the garage. A few minutes later I was through the blue gate and driving up a steep, paved slope which had the little Suzuki straining to reach the top. But for the tip about the dog I might almost have got out and walked. The slope levelled out at the edge of a terraced garden and, above the sound of the engine, I heard what sounded like a dentist’s drill. For a moment I thought I might have got the wrong house. Then, in an open workshop/studio, I caught sight of a slight figure in a mechanic’s blue overalls, covered in a fine white dust. It was hard to make out if this was a man or a woman because of the protective mask he or she was wearing. I steered under the shade of a carport and waited for the dog or its owner, but when neither came I opened the car door cautiously and called out.

‘Mrs Yaros? Forgive me for dropping in on you like this. My name is Scott Manson. And I’m a friend of Bekim Develi.’

By the time I had walked to the workshop the figure in the overalls had switched off the compressed air cylinder that powered a tiny drill being used to fashion an impossibly beautiful spiral of marble that looked like a piece of material falling through the air, removed her mask and tossed a mane of blonde hair from one shoulder to the other.

I recognised the woman immediately. It was Svetlana Yaroshinskaya, better known to me as Valentina.