A Darker God (44 page)

“Not the faintest! And we haven’t finished yet. I’ve ordered up some food and more champagne. Will red mullet—I chose it myself in the kitchen—some roast chicken and a salad do you?… A month’s pay? Something like that. Discretion, Dom Pérignon, and French bed linen—they don’t come cheap!”

“Had you thought—we haven’t got any money with us? I’ve nothing but what I was standing up in—that ghastly tattered heap on the floor there—and you never have anything but coins about you.”

“Don’t worry! When I crept down to view the fish I telephoned Kolonaki. Got hold of Thetis. She was there with Montacute. They’re sending Harry out with some banknotes and a bag of things Thetis is sorting out for you. She was worried about you checking into a hotel without luggage.”

Letty gurgled with laughter. “She’s packing for
me
now! That girl and I will soon have no secrets from each other.”

“Not so sure of that …” he began. “I can tell you something that might rather surprise you—”

But, for once, Letty wasn’t about to listen to his gossip. Her laughter had stopped abruptly. “Luggage! Good Lord! He was
lying!
I thought so but I couldn’t put my finger on it … William, pass me that bathrobe, would you? I can’t think, naked.”

“Who was lying?”

“Soulios Gunay. He said farewell, in rather a marked manner,
I’m now thinking. And said he was catching a boat at once from Piraeus. But, William—there was no luggage in the luggage compartment in the taxi.”

William was not impressed. “He’d sent it ahead.”

“Yes, of course—the larger pieces that are to go in the hold—anyone would. But anyone would at least have a smaller case or bag to hand, and he hadn’t even an overnight bag for his shaving kit and cologne. And Gunay is a well-groomed man. He travels with more than a toothbrush in his pocket.” Eyes glinting, Letty came to a conclusion. “He’s still in Athens. He hasn’t got to the end of the line yet.”

“Dangerous for him. The police know so much about his background. Why would he risk staying on?”

“Because he’s got one more killing on his list! I’m trying to remember … He made one or two odd remarks … Strange how danger sharpens your perceptions … I really don’t think he could be bothered to chuck me over the cliff, you know. When he knew I wasn’t Andrew’s flesh and blood I ceased to count as a victim in his scheme of things. But being the man’s heir-well, that put me in a different category completely. I was someone he could bargain with once he’d frightened the life out of me with a sight of the drop into the Aegean—”

“Ah, yes, this bargain, this pact with the Devil, are you ever—?”

“Soon … soon … That’ll keep. Listen—Gunay didn’t kill Andrew and Maud and he’s given me the means of proving it. I intend to do that tomorrow morning. Though he had been planning their deaths. He lost his wife and two children in the expulsion from Greece. He was seeking three victims in retribution.”

“Two down and one to go, are you saying?”

“Not that simple. I offered Maud’s cousins and he wasn’t the least bit interested. I think he wrote off the third. He’s a merchant, William; he would know when the moment had
come to cut his losses. You see, he’s not a wild-eyed madman. He’s rational. Ready to adjust. And very closely focussed on what he wants to achieve.”

“You make him sound damn dangerous.”

“I believe he is. And I believe he has something more in mind. I’m a minnow in his scheme of things, a sprat to catch a mackerel. His sights are on something—someone—infinitely grander. He’s blaming someone for the whole fiasco. And not just a small cog in the wheel like Andrew …”

“Whom he denies killing?”

“Yes. He spoke of Andrew and Maud. ‘I’m delighted they’re dead,’ he said. ‘My spirits lift. They will lift further when I have dealt with the one who now holds my property; they will soar when…’ And then he stopped. Something like that. Wait, wait—” She held up a hand to silence William. “And he was talking about the injustice of the deportations: ‘… And the injustice goes uncorrected, even unacknowledged. The men who signed away Greek and Turkish lives sleep easy in their beds and climb the ladder of political success. A ladder whose rungs are slippery with the blood of children.’ That’s the way he spoke. Elemental. Ponderous. Though perhaps he was keeping it simple for me.”

“And you’re gathering from all this turgid verbiage that some politically successful chappie is about to come a cropper while Gunay stands by hooting with laughter?”

“No. William, he’s not standing by. He’s actively going for the moving force! ‘Three lives for three innocent lives, and one above all for a nation’s pains,’ he said. Which
one
, William? Oh, my God! Who signed that wretched treaty?”

“Treaty?”

“You know what I’m talking about!”

“The Lausanne agreement. Well, Greece and Turkey, of course, and various representatives of the Great Powers.”

“Names, William! Whose signatures? Who picked up a pen, signed the document, and set two million people on the move? And sent Gunay’s family along with many thousands on both sides to their deaths?”

“Crikey, girl! I’m not the
Encyclopaedia Britannica!”

“You’re the nearest thing I’ve come to it in my life. Well, no … actually my father is nearer.”

“Well, if you’re lining up ducks in a shooting gallery, I can tell you that many people were involved in the planning. Lloyd George way back, Lord Curzon concerned about British access to the Black Sea, Venizelos worried witless about the massacres of Greeks in Smyrna, the evictions the Turks were already perpetrating … his hand was forced … Fridtjof Nansen, the Norwegian hero, was doing what he could on behalf of the League of Nations …”

“You know what I want! The signatories.”

“The three I can remember are: Eleftherios Venizelos, naturally; his opposite number Ismet Pasha, representing Turkey; in the British corner, the Right Honourable Sir Horace Rum-bold.”

Letty smiled. “Somehow I think Sir Horace is not on Gunay’s list. Nor is this Ismet Pasha … Gunay would arrange to kill a Turk in Turkey, surely?”

Gunning nodded. “Sounds reasonable to me.”

“He wants to kill Eleftherios Venizelos.” Her voice was hushed. “I’d never understood that strange phrase the Watchman uses in the play:
‘I have the weight of an ox on my tongue.’
But I had to shift a great weight to say those words, William.”

“And, sadly, I can’t argue with them. I think you’ve probably guessed what he’s up to. We’ll warn Theotakis.”

“William? You don’t seem very concerned! Can’t you see that his only chance of getting the Prime Minister in his crosshairs is when he shows himself in public? You said it
yourself—assassinations take place in public spaces: a stroll in the park, a railway station, the theatre. He’s arranged to kill him at the performance next Saturday. Perhaps Demetrios had time to report back his keyhole evidence, but I think Gunay knew the play was going ahead anyway. Yes! He mentioned the Saturday performance! He knew!”

“He couldn’t possibly—”

“He did! And
I
didn’t tell him. He must have got it from someone on Thetis’s telephone list. She was at it for two hours, telling people about the change of plan. One of her contacts who expressed surprise, then delight, and then reached for his diary and wrote in an entry must have passed on the news. Perhaps Gunay’s organisation is just that, and has deeper roots and wider branches than we guess at?”

“The Embassy, the Army, and the whole of the Police Force are aware.”

“Ah. Yes. But I say again, William: You don’t seem very concerned.”

“I’m
not
. Sorry, Letty!” He was grinning at her. “If you’ll let me get a word in edgewise … There’s something you should know. I have something to report, too! You were snatched away just moments before the good news came through to Thetis on the telephone. Come and have a hug and stop frowning! All’s well! What you and Gunay both were not to know when you had your cliff-top summit meeting is that Helena Venizelos has finally talked her husband out of attending. An excuse will be made—probably on the grounds of a recurrence of the dengue fever he’s just recovered from. Everyone will be frightfully disappointed—not least Gunay!—but they’ll settle back with a sigh of relief to simply enjoy themselves. The only explosions they’ll need to be nervous of will be coming from those infernal flashbulbs the
Athens News
cameraman uses!”

“And the social and cultural event of the year will appear
on the front pages the world over … or round about page seven in the case of the London
Times.”
Letty spoke with forced cheerfulness.

Gunning picked up her lingering uncertainty and said again, warmly: “It’s going to be all right, you know. Your hero and mine—he simply won’t
be
there in the arena, offering himself as a target, for any of Gunay’s apes to take a potshot at!”

Chapter 39

B
ox up the cats, will you, Maria?”

Letty noted the dismay on the maid’s face and the delay before she whispered: “Yes, Mistress.”

“Oh, don’t bother. I’ll do it myself. They know me better. Just put some food out for them, something delicious, shut the kitchen door, and I’ll come down in five minutes and catch them. William?” she called from the drawing room. “William, where are you?”

“Yes, Mistress? Do you want me boxed up as well?”

“No, twerp! But I do want you to escort me through the Plaka. It’s very early … six o’clock. Thetis isn’t even up yet … We should catch young Demetrios before he goes out on his errands.”

“You know where you’re going?”

Housewives brushing steps and watering gasoline cans still bright with summer flowers stopped to watch them as they walked through the sun-dappled narrow streets, Letty with map in hand and Gunning with squawking wicker basket. It seemed that an island village had been pricked out and transplanted onto the thin and rock-strewn soil at the foot of
the Acropolis, thriving in places where roots had struck, decrepit and dying off in others.

After a good deal of argument—“I told you to keep the Parthenon at your back … No, turn the map sideways now … Haven’t we just passed that old man …?”—Letty declared they had reached the street Gunay had mentioned.

“There! It must be the house in the corner … Do you see? I’m supposed to turn up unaccompanied, so I think you should skulk here by the fountain and keep an eye out while I introduce myself. Not sure who I’ll find inside. This isn’t the address Theotakis had for the Gunay clan.”

“How would we know where they all are? I expect there’s quite a web of them. Let’s hope this isn’t the home of the one you shot.”

Every inch the cheerful English matron, Letty knocked on the door and spoke to the woman who opened it a crack. She made some play with the cats, who, strangely, thought William, seemed to offer some sort of a passport. The door opened wider and the Greek housewife came outside and looked around. Gunning gave her a cheerful wave and turned back to his newspaper. Seemingly satisfied with what she saw, the woman went to knock on a door two houses away, opened it, called out a name, and went inside. The familiar form of Demetrios appeared, tousle-headed and pulling on his shirt. He greeted the cats with delight, took one out and draped it around his neck, and stroked the other. After a moment for the reunion, Letty firmly put them back in the box again and placed it on the doorstep.

She strolled a few paces off with the boy and went to sit with him on the empty steps of a café not yet open for business. The talk was earnest and, in the case of Demetrios, accompanied by a good deal of gesticulation. A lot of finding and fiddling and polishing seemed to be going on. Finally,
Letty spoke quietly to him and shook his hand. She got up and asked a question about the cats. Demetrios nodded, picked up the box with alacrity, and went back inside.

It wasn’t until she turned to him that Gunning realised the extent of Letty’s distress.

With frozen features and barely able to find her words she said simply: “We must get back and see if he’s telling the truth. I know in my bones he is, but my head and my heart will not accept it. Poor Andrew! He must have suffered!”

    They sat uncomfortably in the drawing room making conversation. Thetis had joined them after breakfast and they waited for Montacute to arrive. Letty had refused to discuss her conversation with Demetrios and insisted on the inspector’s presence before she started on an explanation. She had also insisted that an urgent summons be made through Montacute for Dr. Peebles. The doctor, still a little peevish, Montacute reported, conceded that he might be able to fit in a visit after he had attended to two emergency house calls in the area. They might expect him towards ten o’clock.

Montacute arrived just before nine. He made enquiries about the state of Letty’s health and listened to her account of her abduction. She moved swiftly through the events, clearly preoccupied with other matters.

“But never mind all that—it’s Gunay’s little surprise we’re gathered to unwrap this morning. I’ve seen Demetrios, who, he claims, holds evidence of the deaths of both Andrew and Maud. At least, he doesn’t hold it—he discovered it. It’s right here in the house. We’ve been walking past it every day. I haven’t investigated yet. I thought we’d do it together. Will you all come down to the hall with me?”