The Excalibur Codex

XXVII

Next morning, they headed north in their hire car. For the first few miles, Jamie kept to the coast, but after the tourist hotspot of Gouvia he turned off into the less populated interior and a road that crossed the mountainous spine of the island. The narrow highway twisted through endless groves of olive trees and villages too tiny to be worth a name, where leather-featured men and women sat in the shade outside their houses selling home-grown oil, oranges, lemons and peaches. Eventually, they reached a towering height where they could view the sea again and began to descend in ever more precipitous turns. As he drove, Jamie attempted to keep one eye on the rear-view mirror, but the constant braking at every corner and the way the local truck drivers treated the narrow roads as if they were the sole proprietors made it impossible. He contented himself by pulling in two or three times where the road permitted and allowing the traffic behind to overtake. David’s threat was reason enough to be careful. The Mossad agent was out there somewhere and Jamie wanted him to know he knew. But there was more. Whoever killed Sarah Grant was out there too: a deadly threat without face or form.

He glanced at Charlotte, lying back in the passenger seat with her face to the sun, mirrored sunglasses covering her eyes. Should he have told her? The scar on her forehead was still visible beneath the make-up. Safer for her not to know, he’d decided. There were things he didn’t yet understand, niggling questions that needed answers. Adam Steele’s aide had unbuttoned her shirt to allow the sun to reach the soft curve of her breasts and they brought back a memory of the day before. Jamie felt a wave of affection for the English girl until a supermarket truck almost forced him off the road and into the ditch. He shook his head ruefully. Keep an eye on the road, you silly bastard, haven’t you got trouble enough?

Around noon they reached a magnificent clover-leaf bay, a symphony in blue and green that must once have been achingly beautiful, but was now cluttered with hotels, bars and apartments, and overlooked by villas that perched on every cliff-top site capable of construction. Jamie asked at a souvenir shop for the address he had been given and the young woman and the man who appeared to be the owner exchanged shrugs before directing him south, with the suggestion that he try Liapades. Here the roads clung to the hillsides like ivy roots on a south-facing wall and a similar instruction took him to Giannades, a hill-top village where fewer people seemed to have the Corfiot facility for the English language, but where a woman kindly drew him a map.

‘Has it occurred to you we may not be very welcome?’ Jamie steered the hire car round another twisting bend among the olive trees.

Charlotte thought it over. ‘At least he’s agreed to see us.’

‘Great. “Will you walk into my parlour? said the spider to the fly.”’

She tilted her sunglasses back. ‘It can’t be any worse than Poland, and we survived that.’

‘All the same, and much though it pains me, I wish we had Gault along for the ride.’

‘Too late now.’ She pointed to an electric security gate set into a tall drystone wall. ‘I think this is it.’

Jamie pressed the access button and waited. In an olive tree to one side of the gate he noticed a small security camera scanning the road before the gate swung open without any form of acknowledgement from the householder. Inside, an unmade track cut into the cliff led them to a magnificent villa perched above the sea like a fish eagle watching for prey. From the front terrace the ground dropped sheer past five or six hundred feet of grey rock and bushy outcrops to a narrow strip of sand that must only have been accessible by boat. This was a man who liked his privacy.

They parked the car beside a garage filled with a Range Rover and a large Bentley, and a tanned youth wearing only a pair of shorts bounded from the house and opened the door for Charlotte. ‘Kalimera.’ He gave them the traditional Greek greeting with a short bow. ‘Please follow me.’

Charlotte studied the polished muscles and honed legs as he walked away. She felt Jamie’s gaze and turned to meet it with a sardonic half-smile. ‘Don’t worry, darling. He’s very pretty, but I like my men to be the real thing.’

They followed the young Adonis inside to a large, well-lit room where the owner of the house lounged comfortably in a chair with a towel covering his waist. The walls were lined with paintings and ordinarily Jamie would have taken pleasure in studying them, instead his eyes were automatically drawn to the remarkable figure in the centre. Marmaduke Porter might have been anywhere between forty and sixty, but it was difficult to tell. He had a curiously small face, which seemed out of place on his large, quite round head, a head that perched directly on the shoulders of the largest body Jamie had ever seen. Drooping folds of flesh overwhelmed the chair beneath him and each of his enormous thighs encompassed the width of Charlotte’s waist. Thick curls that were a little too pristinely black fell to his shoulders, but otherwise his smooth skin appeared entirely devoid of hair. The young man took his place behind a pair of blubbery shoulders and, pouring oil on his fingers, plunged them deep into the flesh, kneading and grinding until Porter sighed with satisfaction.

‘You must forgive me if I continue my daily routine, but my doctor insists.’ He smiled. The voice was pure English public school and languorous, as if the speaker was half asleep, but the deep-set dark eyes that studied them were filled with a combination of shrewd intelligence and wary suspicion. Porter picked up a wine glass half filled with golden liquid and took a deep draught. ‘Too much reliance on the finer things in life, he says. But how could one live without the finer things in life, I ask you?’

Jamie smiled acknowledgement. ‘I admire your good taste. Unless I miss my guess, your collection includes at least two Cezannes and a Chagall, and the large nude dominating the far wall would appear to be one of Herr Gustav Klimt’s later works. Some people think him a little fussy, but I rather admire his worship of the female form.’

Marmaduke Porter laughed, making his great jowls quiver. ‘You know your art, but please don’t tell my insurers, Mr …’

‘Jamie Saintclair, and this is my … assistant … Miss Charlotte Wellesley. I hope this is a convenient time for us to talk?’

Porter’s eyes appraised Charlotte with new interest. ‘Related to the old Iron Duke, I trust,’ he chuckled. ‘Of course, you’re most welcome, as long as you’re prepared to take us as we are. We’re rather set in our ways, Spiros and I.’ He raised a hand and stroked the young man’s cheek, ending with what looked like a painful pinch that only made its victim smile. He whispered something and Spiros backed away, giving him space to heave himself to his feet. The towel on his lap dropped to one side, and Charlotte turned her eyes away from a symbol of manhood that matched the scale of Marmaduke Porter’s girth. Within a second Spiros had enveloped him in a voluminous white robe and Porter led the way to the balcony, where another bedewed bottle of wine and a single glass waited at a parasol-shaded table set with three chairs. The fat man took the chair facing the glittering expanse of the Ionian Sea and waved Jamie and Charlotte to the other seats. Spiros removed the cork and smirked at Jamie as he poured a generous glass of fine Meursault and turned away.

‘Mind your manners, little pig.’ Porter slapped the younger man on the rump. Spiros ran off laughing and returned with two more glasses. ‘Just our little game,’ the fat man assured them as he poured. His voice took on a more serious quality. ‘You said you wanted to talk to me about a lucrative business deal, but you were not particularly forthcoming about the detail.’

Jamie nodded, meeting the other man’s challenging stare. ‘Deal as in the past tense, but lucrative in the present, depending on the arrangements we agree and the information you provide.’

‘Naughty,’ Porter admonished with a wag of a plump finger. A twinkle of light advertised the presence of a gold ring with a large diamond buried somewhere deep in the fleshy digit. ‘Of course, there’s no guarantee I’ll agree to anything. Firstly, I have to know what’s in it for Dukey to even consider speaking to you. As you’ve noticed, my time is precious … and expensive.’

‘Our client has authorized a goodwill payment as a symbol of our good faith.’ Jamie reached into his jacket and placed a well-filled envelope on the table. Marmaduke Porter didn’t even look at it.

‘My sources at the airport tell me you arrived on a private jet,’ he said patiently. Jamie produced another identical envelope and placed it beside the first. The fat hands reached out and weighed the two packages, before slipping the flaps and running a finger across the edge of the notes inside.

‘Swiss francs.’ He nodded gravely. ‘I’m so glad to be dealing with a man who understands economics. All around you on this island you will see nothing but beauty, but it is like a peach rotting from the inside. Bite into it and you will find only corruption. Shortages and blackouts, boycotts and strikes. Even Spiros threatened to come out in solidarity with the workers and I had to chastise the little pig. The Greeks have fallen out of love with the euro. For the moment, the dollar is king, but this,’ he took out one of the crisp new notes and held it up to the light, ‘is a most acceptable substitute.’

‘Our client has also authorized payment of the sum of fifty thousand euros in the currency of your choice, dependent on the outcome of our negotiations.’

‘Fifty thousand pounds?’

‘Of course.’ Jamie smiled. ‘You must have misheard me.’

Marmaduke Porter swept the envelopes into the pocket of his robe. ‘Then you have earned the right to ask your question.’

Before Jamie could speak, Spiros returned with a tray filled with dishes of immaculately presented local delicacies: whitebait lightly coated in batter; fat langoustines glowing pink in their shells; juice-filled baby tomatoes; thick, grainy hummus; peppers, yellow and scarlet; grilled morsels of meat and chicken pierced with skewers.

‘You must try Spiros’ deep-fried zucchini,’ Porter insisted, pointing to a pile of thin slices of emerald-edged gold. ‘It is the best on the island.’ His hands scooped the discs onto a plate and hovered over a pyramid of stuffed sardines. ‘Please,’ he indicated to Jamie, ‘no business is so urgent that it cannot wait for food.’

‘Of course.’ Charlotte beamed. She took Jamie’s plate and filled it, before repeating the exercise with her own. Marmaduke Porter looked on approvingly as Spiros selected him a gargantuan pile of appetizers.

‘A toast.’ He smiled. ‘To the finer things in life.’

The food was wonderful, but Jamie’s patience was wearing thin by the time Spiros cleared the table. Porter had drunk the better part of a second bottle of the Meursault. Now he announced that he couldn’t possibly talk business so soon after lunch. It was his habit to retire for a nap during the heat of the day. They could relax by the pool. Perhaps have a swim. They shouldn’t be shy. No one worried about bathing costumes in this house. He made it obvious there could be no argument and walked from the terrace with Spiros, his hand caressing the back of the younger man’s neck.

Jamie and Charlotte exchanged glances.

‘What now?’ she asked.

‘I suppose we do what the man says.’

Her nose wrinkled. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve been skinny-dipping.’

‘Not that,’ he laughed. ‘No matter how appealing the idea is. We relax and enjoy the view, which is, you’ll acknowledge, spectacular.’ He walked to the balcony and looked over, his head spinning for a moment as it took in the vertiginous six-hundred-foot drop. The coast stretched away to north and south, a saw-toothed barrier between mountain and sea, between a medley of nameless blues and a mottled patchwork of grey and green. ‘I could do with a rest after Dortmund and Madrid …’

‘And Poland.’

‘Especially after Poland.’

He felt her hands around his waist and her head on his shoulder.

‘But not too much of a rest.’

He grinned. ‘No, I think I’ll have made a dramatic recovery by tonight.’

They walked across to the sun loungers by the mirrored surface of the infinity pool.

‘So, we don’t search the place while they’re doing … whatever it is they’re doing?’

‘There’s no point. If there was anything to find Marmaduke Porter wouldn’t have given us the run of his house.’

She lay back on one of the loungers and unbuttoned her blouse to the waist, revealing a flat, tanned stomach. ‘What do you think of him?’

Jamie tried to ignore the golden flesh and the curves emphasized by her black silk bra. ‘Arrogant, intelligent, sophisticated. An unscrupulous rogue, though that doesn’t make him any worse than the bankers who’ve put the world in its present spot.’

‘I quite like him.’ She smiled. ‘I’d been prepared for some greasy fast-talking little spiv. Marmaduke Porter has a certain charm. I may not approve of his lifestyle — Spiros can’t be any older than eighteen and he must be well past fifty — but for someone who deals in the type of business he does, he seems refreshingly honest. A man who is very comfortable in his own skin, given that there’s so much of it.’

Jamie looked over the villa, pondering what David had told him and suspecting the luxurious retreat might not be the product of years of refreshing honesty. ‘Of course, it could all be a front, and Marmaduke could be in there plotting to take us to the cleaners or sell us down the river, rather than doing whatever it is we think he’s doing.’

‘I suppose we’ll find out when they’re finished.’