The Messenger of Athens: A Novel (24 page)

Towards the sea, a solitary eagle drifted in slow circles.
Beside the closed door there stood a wooden chair, painted blue, entwined with delicate, painted flowers and crawling with painted ladybirds. The fat man took a seat upon the flowers, and, waiting, watched the view.

F
rom below, there came a sharp whistle, and a shout. The fat man had been sleeping; the hands of his watch had moved on half an hour. A long-legged dog ran amongst the hillside scrub, catching its rough coat on the thorny bushes. Behind, a man was following. His gait was uneven; not quite a disability, but a limp. Seeing the fat man, the dog stood and, sniffing the air, began to bark. The man planted his staff firm on the ground, and looked up towards the fat man. The fat man raised a hand in greeting, but the man, not responding, demanded silence from the dog, and came on up the hillside. His hair was dirty dreadlocks on his shoulders; his soldier’s fatigues were worn and torn, his army boots were pale with dust. He stood close to the fat man; he stank, of goat musk and sour sweat (yet light within the stench, the fat man caught the scent of meadow hay, and the sweetness of fresh milk). He had a black cloth patch across one eye; the other eye was clear, and brilliant blue. With that eye, he surveyed the fat man.

“Help you?” he said.

The fat man held out his hand.

“I’m Hermes Diaktoros, from Athens,” he said.

“I know who you are, now I’ve seen you close.” He turned, to avoid taking the fat man’s offered hand, and
whistled to the dog; it came to him, and sat down panting at his feet.

The fat man lowered his hand.

“In a small place, word gets about,” he said. “You know me already; and I know you too, Lukas.”

But Lukas didn’t answer. He put his hand on the dog’s head, and scratched behind its ear.

“I wonder if I could trouble you for a glass of water,” asked the fat man, invoking the obligation of hospitality. A request for water could never be refused.

Lukas pulled a heavy key from his pocket, and turned it in the lock of the wooden door. He went inside and closed the door behind him; moments later, he reappeared carrying a glass of water which he handed to the fat man. The fat man drank it down. Lukas snatched back the empty glass.

“Now leave,” he said.

The fat man folded his arms across his chest.

“Before I go,” he said, “you and I must talk. About Irini Asimakopoulos.”

“I’ve no time for talking,” said Lukas. “I’ve chores to do. Animals to feed.” He looked across to the chicken-wire pen, where the kid forlornly bleated.

“I won’t take much of your time,” said the fat man. “Just a question or two.”

Lukas put his hand down to his crotch, and scratched there. The dog rolled back onto its hips, and, lifting one back leg high, nibbled at an itch on its scrotum.

“You’ll excuse me for speaking plain,” said Lukas. “I’m well known for speaking plain. I don’t talk to policemen.
Never. I don’t trust them.” He called out to the kid, whose bleating was both sadder and more desperate. “I’m coming, sweetheart,” he said, and she seemed to understand, because the bleating ceased. He turned back to the fat man, and added, “No offense.”

“None necessary,” said the fat man, cheerfully. “You and I have much in common, Lukas. I don’t trust policemen either. That’s why I’m here.”

“Word is, down town, you’re big police. To ruffle Zafiridis.”

“I may ruffle Zafiridis, if I get the chance,” replied the fat man. “But I’m an investigator, not a policeman. I’m here to find out how Irini died. I think you’ll find the police have closed their case.” He slapped his thigh. “I almost forgot. I brought you something.” He reached for his holdall, and, unzipping it, produced a loaf of crusty, fresh-baked bread which he held out to Lukas. “In case you didn’t get to the baker’s today,” he said.

Silently, Lukas regarded the fat man. He took the loaf, and went inside the house. When he returned, he carried a baby’s bottle filled with milk, and gave it to the fat man.

“If you’ll feed Angelina, I’ll see what’s to eat with that bread,” he said.

The fat man smiled.

T
hey ate feta and olives with the bread. The fat man was patient, and ate without speaking; when the loaf was half gone, Lukas spat out an olive pit, and said, “So what’s your business with Irini?”

The fat man said, “I want to know how she died. I want to know
why
she died.”

Lukas shrugged, as if all was clear.

“Some people say it was an accident. Some say suicide.”

“Do you believe that, Lukas? Do you believe she killed herself?”

Lukas didn’t answer.

The fat man cast his eyes over the empty landscape.

“Living up here,” he said, “I’ll bet a man learns to notice the smallest thing. Things no one else sees.”

“I’ve got good eyes,” said Lukas. “Never needed glasses. Not like my aunt. Her eyes are bad. She needs an operation, but she won’t let them do it.” He ripped another piece from the loaf, and cut again into the slab of feta.

“Did you ever see Irini?”

Lukas bit into the bread.

“I saw her sometimes, lately,” he said. “She’d fixed herself a garden, village topside. I walk by that way when I go to my aunt’s. If she was there, I’d go and chew the fat. I gave her some tips on growing vegetables. Goat shit, I told her, that’s the stuff for tomatoes. But she wasn’t much interested in vegetables. She wanted to grow flowers. I can’t see the point in growing flowers. You can’t eat them, can you?”

“I see logic in your horticulture,” said the fat man, “but not much madness. Why do they call you ‘mad’?”

“That should be obvious.” The dog lay quiet at Lukas’s feet. He bent, and gently stroked its head. “Because I’m different. They can’t understand why anyone would want
to be different, so they say I must be mad. Maybe they should just call me ‘Different Lukas.’ But that wouldn’t be the same, would it? It would point up their prejudice, wouldn’t it? And people don’t like to face their own shortcomings. And they can’t understand why I live up here, away from them. But the reason’s simple: their noise and their squabbles and their traffic and their damned church bells,
they
drive me crazy. Up here, a man can think. I keep my animals for company. Animals are kinder than people, in the main.”

“Most people find company in marriage,” said the fat man.

“That’s another strike against me, then, as far as they’re concerned. I never married.”

The fat man brushed a breadcrumb from his breast.

“Why didn’t you marry?” he asked.

“You married?” asked Lukas.

“No.”

“Why are you asking me, then? Seems to me you must already know a good reason not to marry. But I’ll tell you my reason. Men and women don’t mix. Don’t think the same way, don’t want the same things. Women want houses, and children. Men want food and sex. Here, they all marry to have sex. How long does that last? Six months? A year? Soon as the woman’s pregnant, she doesn’t need her man. That’s it. It’s all over. Except they’re stuck with each other for the next fifty years. Men and women should be kept separate. Meet up to fuck at weekends.”

“And what about love, Lukas?” asked the fat man, softly. “There’s not much love, in your ideal world.”

“You know what I think?” Lukas leaned back in his chair, and held his hands behind his head. “Love’s the worst affliction known to man. Life’s greatest curse. I fell in love once.” For a moment, he was silent, and turned his face from the fat man. “She’s married now, to someone else.”

“I’m sorry.”

Lukas turned back to the fat man with a grin, but the muscles of his face were tight, and the grin did not fit with the sadness welling in the goatherd’s eyes.

“No need for sorry, friend,” he said. “I reckon I had a lucky escape. Life’s easy; I take what I can get. Tourist season, there’s plenty for all. If I ever thought I was falling in love again, I’d take the next ship out of here.”

“I cannot disagree with you, Lukas, that such a course of action would be sensible,” said the fat man. “But others are not so prudent. I’ve seen your cousin, Andreas. The loss of Irini has almost cost him the will to live. He’s taken it very hard.” He shook his head. “Very hard.”

“I was at the funeral,” said Lukas. “I saw him there.”

“Irini’s dead, poor girl, and your cousin’s life’s in tatters,” said the fat man. “Don’t you agree that whoever is responsible should be found, and punished?”

“Of course,” said Lukas, vehemently. “Only a fool wouldn’t want that.”

“Then you must help me.”

Lukas slammed his hands down on his knees.

“I can’t tell you, dammit,” he protested. “It’s more than my life’s worth to tell you anything.”

“But you do know something.”

Lukas hesitated. “I saw something.”

“What did you see?”

On his shirt cuff, there was a length of cotton where the fabric was frayed. He rolled the thread, backwards and forwards, between his thumb and forefinger.

“It didn’t mean anything at the time,” he said. “I didn’t know that she was dead.”

The fat man laid a hand on Lukas’s forearm, and applied a little pressure in a squeeze.

“Lukas, you have to tell me what you saw.”

He looked the fat man full in the face.

“If I trust you,” he said, “if I tell you, you must swear never to repeat it. You must never give my name. Or they’ll make sure I’m not around to tell the story twice.”

“I give you my word. Now tell me. What did you see?”

“The day after she disappeared, I saw the police car, the Suzuki.”

“Looking for Irini?”

“You might have thought so. But it was very early, barely light. I wasn’t far away. I’d some beasts penned up there, for milking, and I went to give them water. I saw someone get into the police car. He wasn’t in uniform, but I knew him anyway. It was Harris Chadiarakis.”

“Ah, yes.” The fat man recalled the man: the bovine desk sergeant. “And what was Mr. Chadiarakis doing?”

“Nothing. Just got in, turned the car around, and drove off. I saw him, clear as I see you now, parked at the top of the cliff where she was supposed to have fallen.
But this was two full days before they found her
. When I realized
where
they’d found her, I was scared. I thought, the police
were supposed to have been looking for her, but it seemed to me they knew where she was, all along. So I kept my mouth shut. Except I told Nikos. He told me to forget everything I’d seen. And if you say anything, I’m a dead man. But I see the misery of my poor cousin now, and if those bastards…”

“Lukas,” interrupted the fat man, “listen to me. I’ll make use of what you’ve told me, but no one will ever know where I got the information. That’s a promise.” He glanced at his watch. “I must be on my way. It’s a long walk back to town. But I’ll leave this for you. A little ‘thank you’ for information received.” From a pocket tucked away inside his jacket, the fat man withdrew a pint bottle of golden liquor, unlabelled. He held it out to Lukas. “You’ve a good heart, friend,” he said, “and you’ll appreciate this. It’s a little-known specialty, from the North.”

Taking the bottle, Lukas unscrewed the cap, and sniffed at the liquor.

“It smells,” he said, “of warm honey.”

He made to put the bottle to his lips, but with a shake of his finger the fat man stopped him.

“It’s not for every day,” he said. “You must treat this liquor with respect. Where I come from, they use it as an antidote to love. So, if you ever find a woman getting a foothold in your heart, take a shot of that, and keep your heart where it belongs—with you!”

They laughed, and Lukas clapped the fat man on the shoulder. The fat man picked up his holdall, and crouched to tickle the mongrel beneath its chin.

At the first bend in the track, he looked back, and would have waved goodbye; but on the lonely hillside there was no sign at all of either man or dog.

T
he fat man walked briskly back to the road and headed in the direction of the village. Approaching the turn for St. Savas’s Bay, he glanced at the gold-plated watch on his wrist, and decided there was enough light left in the waning afternoon to pay another visit.

At the seafront, the onshore breeze blew cold. Nikos’s terrace was deserted, but the door to his kitchen stood open, and from within a radio played the primitive music of the islands: harshly scraped fiddles, a woman’s nasal chant. The fat man stepped up to the door, and knocked. Immediately the radio was silenced.

“Nikos!”

He caught the chink of glass as a bottle was replaced amongst the liqueurs and whiskies. Then came a light belch and a profanity.

The fat man knocked again.

“Nikos! It’s me, Diaktoros! Are you there?”

“I’m here.” Nikos stood before him in the doorway; his smile was unconvincing, and the sagging skin beneath his eyes spoke of insomnia.

The fat man frowned.

“Forgive my bluntness,” he said, “but you look unwell, my friend.”

Nikos laid a hand across his belly.

“I have a bit of pain sometimes,” he admitted. “It
comes and goes, but lately the coming has been longer than the going.” He winced, and his face grew pallid.