The Dead Travel Fast (3 page)

He turned his head to look at the driver, saw he was pinned back against the headrest, whose white leather upholstery was stained a slimy red. The twin forks of a time-hardened olive branch had burst through the shattered windscreen and skewered him to the seat. Steve forced himself to look at the injured man
and understood the cause of the whimpered speech delivered in simple, almost nursery, Greek,

“Can’t die, not me, not here, help me please; help, can’t die, not meant to.”

One of the branch ends had gone through the flesh under his left armpit and the other had pierced his right shoulder, tearing a huge gash in his throat en route. Steve could see the blood gushing from this wound; he’d plenty of experience tending to accidents on excavations, and knew that if the arterial bleeding wasn’t slowed the man would die soon. He screamed to the woman to call an ambulance but she’d gone. The young man fixed him with the terrified look of a child, his large brown eyes imploring succour.

Moving the twigs and olive leaves away from where branches had pierced the flesh, he could see the wounds clearly. They confirmed his initial diagnoses, the bleeding from the throat was the killer; the rest could wait. Now he was doing something he felt calmer, his hands stopped trembling as he probed the bloody torn flesh for the source of the bleeding.

The terrified eyes of the young driver tried to follow his actions, mutely beseeching Steve to save him: he’d stopped crying and was silent. Steve found the gash from which most of the blood was pumping and tried to pull the flaps at the edges of the tear together. But the blood made it greasy and each time he tried his fingers stumbled and slipped against each other and away from the wound.

He let go and bent to rub his fingers in the dust below the car to give them extra purchase; something he had only ever done before when bowling occasional off spinners on the cricket field, an image he was surprised to find flashing across his mind. He moved back to the bloody throat, caught the agonised but trusting look in the young man’s eyes, noticed how pale his face now looked and murmured to himself without thinking, “Drained of blood, he’ll die soon.”

This time his gritty fingers found a precarious purchase on one flap of the wound and while trying not to let slip the hold of his left hand, he felt for the other fine lip of the wound with his right. Twice, three times he thought he had it, only for it to elude him
and vanish back into the gore of the ruined neck. Then he had it: only a tenuous grasp, but if he could keep it, enough.

He carefully pulled the edges of the laceration together until they overlapped and applied as much pressure as he could without losing his grip. The pumping of the blood decreased, then reduced to slow ooze that seeped between his fingertips. He just hung on there, frozen in the same position, not daring to move any part of his posture in case he lost his slight hold on the slippery nubs of torn flesh.

He could never gauge how long he remained suspended there, all his senses concentrating on the feeling of his fingertips; it could either have been minutes or hours. But one thing he did notice was that, crouched down against one of the olive trees near the car, there was a man. Steve knew he hadn’t been there when he’d arrived. The man said nothing, did nothing, just watched. He was partly in shadow, Steve couldn’t see him clearly; he was wearing some type of dark woollen cloak like the older island goat herders. His face was partly obscured by leaves so that he resembled a creature of the ancient forest, like the carving of a Green Man Steve had once unearthed on an excavation in Cornwall.

This freezing of time was shattered by the sound of a siren. Steve daren’t turn his head to look, for fear that any movement would loosen his fingers’ precarious grip and the blood would begin to pump again. He couldn’t feel his fingers now and sweat was pouring down his forehead into his eyes making them sting; he felt like he once had in an assembly at school in the moment before he fainted, having stood for twenty minutes listening to the head teacher droning on. But he was aware how pale the young man was and how his breathing was faint and irregular, so the gentle touch on his shoulder took him by surprise. A paramedic moved next to him, looked carefully at the dying young man almost drained of blood then turned back to another medic behind him. The second man moved to the car and steadily placed two clips where Steve’s hands were and the first man gently steered Steve away.

He leaned against a tree and tried to light a cigarette with shaking hands, saw two police cars arrive and their occupants run to
the accident; he saw his own car being moved to the side of the road. He heard, as if in a dream, one of the cops shouting and frenzied activity. Then there was someone beside him taking the unlit smoke out of his mouth. He looked down and saw that it was filthy with the blood from his hands. A fresh one was placed between his lips and lit for him.

As he took a deep drag, the figure spoke one sentence then moved off to disappear into the wood, and Steve saw it was the Green Man who’d silently watched him. By the time the smoke was finished the medics, augmented by several others he’d not noticed arrive, wheeled the young man on a trolley, with a drip suspended over him, to the road and into the ambulance. A policeman came over to Steve and began to lead him.

“You go with him to hospital.”

“Why?”

“Because you must.”

By now he was at the step leading into the ambulance. He climbed in, the door shut behind him, the siren started and they moved off. He sat in shock as they gathered speed, his brain trying to make sense of what had happened to his day, and the things he could make least sense of were the words the Green Man had spoken before he merged into the trees.

“You meddled with what you don’t know, for us and for you it would have been better to let him die.”

Whilst Steve was entering the ambulance, the black police car he’d watched reached its destination. Theodrakis climbed out, feeling sweat sticking the fine silk shirt to his back. A local cop was trying to pacify a small crowd gathered in front of the police station. Pushing through them, he climbed the three steps and shoved the re-enforced glass plate doors which slid apart with a swish.

This was a new building, concrete with tile cladding, built just before the economic crash and designed with an eco-friendly system of temperature control which had either broken down or been turned off as an efficiency saving. So the interior was no cooler than outside in the sun’s glare. He noticed, strictly against European regulation, each desk carried a whirring electric fan with a spider’s web of leads to the few accessible plug sockets that the vast open plan office provided. The desk’s occupants sat sweltering, shirts open, sipping at iced coffee or water, the only difference from a municipal police office of the past was that nobody smoked: that law apparently did apply here.

Theodrakis guessed the number of empty seats indicated that smoking was happening elsewhere. He picked his way through the maze of desks, aware of all the eyes in the room following him as he passed through a set of double doors at the back. Behind the door was a corridor with a series of office doors on one side and windows looking on to an internal courtyard on the other. The courtyard was crowded, the air thick with smoke; he followed the
corridor to the end and entered a small meeting room devoid of natural light.

Three men in crumpled lightweight suits sat round a small conference table. Despite the ceiling lights the room seemed dark and the hot, still air was oppressive. The table was cluttered with plastic coffee cups; some had obviously been there for ages and there were sticky patches of spilt liquid seeping into the scuffed surface of the table.

A tall thin man with a prominent Adams apple, who Theodrakis recognised as a senior civil servant from the government offices in Vathia, motioned him to sit.

“It seems that the great benefit of your experience hasn’t had much effect yet, Theodrakis: we’ve got another one for you.”

Theodrakis ignored the sarcasm, he expected it by now and wasn’t going to give them the pleasure of a reaction. After all, what else could you expect from these provincials with their inbuilt inferiority complexes? However the message made his stomach churn, not another one so quickly, this wasn’t the pattern: he sat and listened.

“As usual everybody seemed to know about it before we did. You’d better get a grip on this, Theodrakis, its making us look fools and people are frightened. On this island when they get frightened they like to take the law into their own hands and, considering the results of your expert intervention, it’s hard to blame them.”

He favoured Theodrakis with a smile like a fridge door opening - it was the coldest thing in the room - and indicated to the man on his right to speak. This was Samarakis, squat and solidly built with a thick dark moustache following the lines of his permanently downturned mouth. He led the investigation prior to Theodrakis’s arrival.

“You had better do as Kirios Adamidis says while there is still law and order on this island, or your clever friends in Athens will lose confidence in your undoubtedly superior abilities. They’ve found another body near the top of the Potami rapids, this one was found by a tourist; that will look good in next year’s holiday brochure. I’ve got some men up there keeping the area clear, but it’s spooked them so the sooner you get there the better.”

He paused to pull out a pack of cigarettes, then remembering where he was put them back in the pocket of the crumpled jacket and continued.

“You know, this is the first time that I can genuinely say that I’m pleased you’re here, Theodrakis, because if you weren’t it would have been me having to sweat my way up there.”

He laughed and looked across at the other two who smiled with him.

“Oh, and one more thing, I don’t suppose you know much about the river. This stretch of rapids is just downstream from the source, it’s high up, you can do the first bit in a four by four but from there on it’s rough going and for most of it you have to walk the river bed. I used to enjoy it as a kid; I wouldn’t much like to do it now. You can go up or downstream, either way you get just as wet, so I hate to think what damage it will do to your expensive Athenian shoes and suit.”

He laughed again; Theodrakis was wondering whether to tell him that the shoes were English and the suit Italian when Adamidis gestured quiet and then spoke.

“Come, Inspector Samarakis, that’s enough. You had better start to think how you handle this with the press. Theodrakis, if this is another genuine case I want to see some results, this filthy business is hurting our island which has already suffered enough. If, God forbid, this is another one I want you to brief my friend, Professor Andraki.”

He gestured at the unhappy looking third man who appeared even more worried after Adamidis had finished speaking. Professor Andraki was small and slim with a neat, grey speckled goatee beard. He politely inclined his head towards Theodrakis but avoided eye contact.

“The professor has an unusual field of experience in local matters which, sadly, you might find useful. Now I must not delay you any more, Inspector.”

Having been dismissed Theodrakis got up and turned to go, reflecting that except for a greeting he’d said nothing; but he hadn’t let them provoke him, that was something at least. As he reached the door Samarakis said,

“Enjoy your paddle in the water, Colonel Theodrakis.”

In the police compound he found the four by four and its driver waiting.

“There’s some fisherman’s waders in the back, boss, you can change into them as I take you up.”

Theodrakis grunted, conveying to the man that he’d heard, and they set off. During the drive he had time to mull over how much he hated this case and this island. The first hate was easier to explain than the second: the case made no sense, it scared him, polluted his every waking moment and his dreams, but worse, in some way he couldn’t quite grasp, it seemed familiar: like it had a particular personal connection and this made no sense.

The island undermined him. He encouraged the local’s perception that his antipathy was just the reluctance of a metropolitan Athenian to be stuck in a province far away on the fringe of Asia. But really he felt alone and out of his depth here. Every day he woke up in his impersonal rented room gripped by anxiety, the very air of the place oppressed him. His police colleagues resented him and expected him to fail; wanted him to, it felt like.

He hadn’t helped himself by not making any effort to connect with any of them, just played up to the stereotype of Athenian hauteur and disdain. So he was resented and disliked, and the longer he was here the more difficult it became to undo the damage his first impressions had caused: now anything he did or said compounded them.

He shuffled his legs into the musty-smelling filthy waders then took off his jacket and pulled the straps up over his shoulders. He thought about removing his tie but decided not to; let them laugh if they want. By the time he’d finished, the vehicle was off road and following a dirt track that wound its way up the increasingly steep slopes of the mountain. After ten minutes, the track finished at the edge of a ravine where two police officers in waders smoked and chatted as they waited for him.

Outside the car the heat was intense. Somewhere down below he could hear the river snaking its way through the gorge, it sounded a long way off and he wondered how they’d reach it. He hated heights. The two officers dropped their cigarette butts onto the bare earth and carefully ground them into the dirt: the fear
of fire cut deep here. His lack of animation seemed to puzzle the officers and after a period of silence the older man said,

“It’s down there, sir, we’ll help you, it’s a steep path and some of the steps are missing.”

Theodrakis nodded and followed them to the edge where a narrow path led almost vertically down through trees to the river. With one man behind him and another in front helping, they slipped and shuffled down, creaking in their waders. Theodrakis, despite his vertigo and anxiety, couldn’t help thinking what an absurd sight they made in fishing boat gear sliding down the side of a mountain in the full heat of the day.

When they reached the river he was soaked in sweat; down in the shadows of the gorge it was almost dark and several degrees cooler. The river levels were low at this time of year, to Theodrakis’ relief; he dreaded to think what it must be like here in winter in full spate. Now it just wound its way round the large boulders that littered the narrow bed, and didn’t seem more than a metre deep in the worst bits. As if sensing his thoughts, the older cop took his arm and pointed downstream.

“It’s about half a kilometre down there boss, not too difficult if we’re careful, half way there’s a bit where we have to use a fixed rope to get over one of the rapids. Other than that we just have to avoid a couple of deep pools, follow me and you’ll be alright.”

Theodrakis grunted then followed him into the cool water, his footing unsure on the slippery rocks beneath the surface. They made slow progress. It wasn’t too bad, but he wondered to himself why people came on holiday to do this sort of thing. Even swinging down the rapids on the rope was easier than he’d feared, but he slipped at one point allowing cold water to pour into the waders soaking him. What waited at the bottom of the rapids drove away any physical discomfort.

At first, all he saw was a circle of people dressed in a combination of uniform and beachwear, standing up to their knees in water with their backs to him. The circle fragmented as they turned towards the noise that Theodrakis and his minders made splashing towards them.

Then he saw what they saw. Half submerged in the shallows
by the bank, stuck, snagged by a jagged branch of a fallen tree, was a body. The group parted ranks as if expecting him to perform some act of re-animation and he heard a cop who he didn’t recognise say,

“We’ve left her as we found her, Kyrie Syntagmatarchis; we thought that is what you would want.”

Feeling he was in a dream, Theodrakis noted the formality of address and wondered why such circumstances made people more polite; the man went on.

“She’s been here some time, the body’s not intact, you know, animals, fishes, Christ knows what else.”

Theodrakis could see her now and he knew the “what else” was no animal or fish; he felt bile rising from his guts but more was expected of him. He snapped out.

“Where’s the police doctor, we don’t want her having to lie out here all day, what have you been doing? Just standing here watching like a herd of goats?”

He knew this wasn’t fair, could tell by the vomit-splattered rocks how affected some of the men were, but only anger and lashing out could get him moving. He didn’t want to look too closely at the body, he could already see it was some days old and had been washed downstream until it snagged in the branches. So he didn’t have a site for the attack either, it could be anywhere upstream, it could have been done somewhere else and the body dumped here.

The only piece of luck was that the extreme dry summer meant the water level was much lower than usual so the body was part exposed above the surface. He forced himself to look closer: fair hair matted the head, so probably a foreign backpacker which would explain the lack of any missing person report having been filed. To his relief he saw the police pathologist making his way through the stream towards him and waved him over.

“Lucca, get what you can here then take her back to the lab and call me with whatever you come up with.”

The man grunted assent and began his grisly investigation. Theodrakis was tired, he wanted to be away from this place, he wanted more than anything else to be on his own. He told his
driver he was going to follow the path down to the main road and to fetch the car and pick him up there, then splashed downstream until he reached the path where he sat on a fallen tree and lit a cigarette. The hand holding the lighter was shaking so much that it took several attempts. To his surprise he found that he wanted to cry, not out of any sense of sympathy or even horror, but because he felt alone and helpless.

None of this made any sense, or not to him at any rate. He knew he wasn’t a weak man but on this island with no one to trust, no one to confide in, he was out of his depth. Perhaps the Devil had come amongst them as the locals believed. He ground the cigarette butt out under his foot then flung it into the stream, realising the fear of fire was beginning to affect him too.

He began the walk to the road, stumbling along the pitted surface in the fisherman’s waders feeling ridiculous, and wondering what his Athenian friends would think if they could see him. The four by four was waiting where the path met the road. He told the driver to take him back to Karlovasi and slumped into the back seat.

He reported his progress, or rather lack of it, and then had his car drive him back to his solitary apartment in Vathia. Inside he didn’t bother to open the shutters or turn on the lights. He was sweating and itching, the latter a legacy of the waders. Overcome with lassitude, he threw himself down on the bed fully dressed and without even bothering to take off his shoes drifted into an uneasy sleep.

In his dream he was trying to make his way across the shallow water at the fringe of a beach towards a woman with night-black hair who was standing on shelf of rock above the shore. As he walked towards her, she flickered between wearing a long black robe and nudity. He knew she had to tell him something important but he couldn’t find her number in his phone. Then, when he managed to find it, the phone started to ring. The woman laughed and spoke.

“Now you have spoiled it, your shoes will be wet.”

He jerked awake: the room was dark but the ringing continued and he recognised the tone of his mobile. By the time he fished it
out of his jacket it stopped and was flashing “missed call” at him. He groped in the darkness for the light switch and pressed dial back and heard Lucca’s voice.