The Silver Stain

‘No, this is a family taverna in the backstreets. If you’re lucky, they might have snails.’

Mavros made no comment. Cretan snails were a delicacy he had no desire for, having had a disastrous encounter with them in the past.

Mikis parked near the cathedral and led the way down a narrow street. The taverna was under a huge spray of pink bougainvillea blooms. There were only a few tables outside and the nearest was occupied by two men, one stocky and one lanky, both of whom Mavros recognized immediately. He put his hand on Mikis’s shoulder and retreated behind him.

‘We’ve got to go back the way we came,’ he said in his ear. ‘I don’t want those guys to see me.’

Mikis stared at him and then turned, keeping himself between Mavros and the taverna. ‘Start walking,’ he said, ‘single file like in the army.’

After they were round the corner, Mikis spoke. ‘So you didn’t want to see David Waggoner. I can understand that — he’s a nasty piece of work. But the tall streak of piss?’

‘That was Tryfon Roufos, the owner of Hellas History SA and the most bent antiquities dealer in Athens, probably the whole of Greece.’ Mavros shook his head. ‘He’s also a suspected child abuser and blackmailer of the rich and famous.’

‘Charming. Do you want me to bring him in for questioning?’

‘No! What I would like to know is what he’s doing in a huddle with the British war hero David Waggoner.’

‘Want me to tail them when they’ve finished?’

Mavros smiled. ‘Did you get rejected by the police academy?’

‘You think I’d work for those bullies? No, I’m trying to learn from you. It might help me stay alive.’

‘It might help us stay alive,’ Mavros corrected. ‘No, let’s leave them to it. At least that asshole Oskar Mesner wasn’t with them. If he had been, I’d have been straight on the phone to Rudolf Kersten about his coin collection.’

‘Speaking of which,’ Mikis said, leading him down another narrow street. ‘I’ve got something to tell you about that.’ He smiled. ‘But let’s wait till we’ve had something to eat and drink. I could put a donkey away.’

Mavros followed him reluctantly. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that the taverna they were en route to offered stewed beast of burden as a speciality.

THIRTEEN

As it turned out, the food in the small taverna Mikis knew was excellent, the lamb succulent and the mountain greens a subtle blend of sweet and bitter. The owner’s casked wine had a faint taste of flowers to it and they got through a kilo quickly.

‘OK,’ Mavros said. ‘Time to talk.’

Mikis grinned and discarded a toothpick. ‘If I wasn’t such a pushover, I’d be charging you for this.’

Mavros had a vision of the fight on the way back from Kornaria. ‘“Pushover” isn’t the word that immediately comes to mind. Anyway, I can pay you, as I did before. One thing you can say for the production is that there’s plenty of cash around.’

‘Except this doesn’t directly concern the film people,’ Mikis said.

‘Really?’

‘But it may have something to do with that mismatched pair we saw round the corner.’

‘Roufos and Waggoner? I’m all donkey’s ears.’

‘I was going to ask you about that,’ the Cretan said, laughing. ‘All right, here it is. I got this from my old man, among others. The story goes that during the war, in late 1943 after the Italians had surrendered and the Germans got even more jumpy, a group of resistance fighters found a hoard of silver — ancient stuff, coins and other things — in a cave up in the White Mountains.’

‘Has this got something to do with Rudolf Kersten?’

Mikis held up his hand. ‘I’ll get to that. And before you ask, it wasn’t near Kornaria.’

Mavros let him continue, taking notes.

‘The andartes wanted to rebury it and split it up after the war was over — at least, that was what their leaders ordered them to do. They were from different villages, so there was some dispute.’

Mavros imagined the half-starved mountain men, few of whom would have possessed more than a coin or two after years of fighting, coming to blows over this sudden source of wealth.

‘And then other people got to hear of the find.’ Mikis raised an eyebrow suggestively.

‘David Waggoner.’

‘One out of two. It wasn’t his area, but the British commander there had been sent back to Egypt after being wounded and Waggoner — Lambis — was temporarily in charge.’

Mavros nodded. ‘And the other guy?’

‘A Communist, one of the few EAM people with any influence in western Crete. He was known as Kanellos. Maybe he had cinnamon-coloured hair.’ Mikis drained his glass. ‘As you can imagine, he was keen on the silver being used for the good of the people.’

‘Meaning, not divided amongst the andartes.’

‘Correct.’

‘So then what happened?’

‘You should ask Waggoner.’

Mavros gave him a stony look. ‘Maybe I will. But he’s not the one sitting opposite me.’

‘All right, all right. What I heard was that Lambis wanted to send the hoard to Alexandria on a submarine. He ordered it to be brought to a monastery called St Athanasios that’s in the middle of nowhere on the south coast, just a few hundred metres from a small beach that had been used for landings more than once.’

‘And?’

‘The Germans were waiting for them. Over twenty andartes were killed, while Waggoner managed to get away with a bullet in his shoulder. The silver was taken to the German headquarters building in Chania and that was the last anyone heard of it. The rumour was that Kanellos had betrayed the mountain men and Waggoner rather than lose the silver to the British imperialists.’

Mavros knew there had been such betrayals during the occupation. He looked at Mikis. ‘There’s more?’

The Cretan nodded. ‘In the Sixties, workers found a safe in the foundations of a building scheduled for demolition near the harbour front.’

‘The German headquarters?’

Mikis raised his head in denial. ‘That had been thoroughly checked years before. No, this was a private house. The owners had been Jews, but there weren’t many left after the Germans had finished with them.’

‘And the silver was in the safe?’

Mikis shrugged. ‘So some people said. The problem was, it disappeared a week after it was found.’

Mavros sat back in his chair, unsure where this information left him.

‘You mentioned Mr Kersten,’ Mikis said, waving for the bill. ‘Some people, the few around here who don’t like him — maybe egged on by Waggoner — say he got hold of the safe’s contents and that his collection of silver came from it.’

‘And what does your father think about that? What do you think?’

The Cretan counted out banknotes, brushing away Mavros’s attempt to pay. ‘I’ll tell you what I know. After he came to live here, Rudolf Kersten spent a lot of his own money buying up silver ritual objects and ornaments that had belonged to the Chania Jews. He contributed towards a museum to their memory — it’s only a couple of streets from here — and he donated the pieces he’d bought.’

They walked up the quiet lanes. Mikis’ story had been fascinating, though it hadn’t added anything to the Maria Kondos case. But it had provided more background to the curious relationship between Rudolf Kersten and David Waggoner, as had the meeting between the former SOE man and the dubious antiquities trader.

After parting from Mikis, Mavros looked up into the star-dotted night between the balconies. He had the