Acropolis, right in the shadow of the Parthenon. It was a warren of streets so narrow the word alley was a compliment. All throughout the Plaka there were buildings with names from ancient times and monuments, which made the little neighborhood a tourist mecca. Yet there were still many Athenians who made their lives here and had shops and apartments, as though the true Greeks refused to surrender this one last little portion of their city to foreign visitors.
Yannis could admire that. But it didn’t mean he had to like the Plaka. It was so damned easy to get lost there, that was the biggest problem. He had lived in Athens most of his life, had been a policeman, and now a detective, in the city for three decades. It was embarrassing and a little unsettling to find himself lost anywhere in his home city. He was always careful to keep track of his path in the Plaka. And not only to avoid embarrassment. Athens was an ancient city, and this was its ancient heart. In his career as a policeman he had learned a great many things about what lay hidden in the shadows of the world.
And the alleys of the Plaka were nearly always in shadows. He didn’t like it here.
Yannis grumbled and wiped his forehead again, feeling the dampness spreading beneath his arms and a trickle of sweat run down his back. He was too old and too fat for this job, but most days he managed all right. Most days, he didn’t leave his car and walk blocks to get to the scene of a crime. But he didn’t like to drive into this maze. Getting lost was only one problem. There were too many people, and some of the shopkeepers thought nothing of blocking part of the already narrow way. If he came upon an obstacle, he would have no way to turn around.
He reminded himself of all of these things as he marched along Thalou Street. It was barely past breakfast and yet already the restaurants were preparing for lunch. His stomach grumbled at the scents of souvlaki and loukanika cooking. Yannis began to plan his own afternoon repast, musing lovingly over thoughts of dolmodakia and a tyropitta as a small after lunch snack. A little cheese pie never hurt anyone. He smiled at the thought.
His smile was erased the moment he turned on to Pittakou Street. The sun did not reach this far. The tops of the buildings hid the place away. Though the sky was blue and clear as the Aegean, down along this short road it was as gray as the black heart of a thunderstorm. Nothing but shadow. The scents of the food seemed to disappear. He could still see the faces of the tourists passing by, and the smiles of shopkeepers as they tried to draw people into their stores. It was the Likavitos Festival in Athens, now. A time of jubilant celebration, of music and wine, drawing families from all over Europe.
Bad luck, he thought. Bad luck and bad timing. Not that there was ever a good time for horror to slip from the darkness and taint the world of daylight. Murder was never good for business. Athens had more than its share of crime, mostly theft. But the murder of tourists was very bad for business. By lunchtime he would have his captain breathing down his neck. By the end of the day, the mayor would be laying it on Yannis as though he himself were the murderer. The newspapers would be starved for crumbs of information. But that was nothing to what he would face if the international press became involved.
CNN, he thought grimly. Sewer rats.
Yannis paused to push wispy strands of gray hair away from his face. Again he mopped his forehead, and he took a moment to rest. He lay his hands upon his belly as though he might relieve himself of the burden of carrying it for a moment. His father had been skeletally thin, but his mother… from her he had inherited his bulk and his shambling gait. She had been proud of it, the old witch. As though her size had been her greatest ambition and proudest accomplishment. Yannis was as heavy as he had ever been and was still half the weight that had finally killed his mother.
Water, he thought. He needed a drink of water. Although coffee would be an acceptable substitute.
At last, having no way to put off his venture into that gloom-dark street, he started on again. Halfway along there was yet another turn, this one barely an alley. It was a curving, cobblestoned path that at first glance could have passed as a delivery entrance for some of the buildings on Pittakou Street. At the end of the path was the Epidaurus Guest House.
There were a few people out in front of the place, but not as many as Yannis would have expected. He grunted to himself. Would you want to stand out here in the shade, with all the buildings far too quiet? The answer was no. The sounds of the Plaka could be heard from here, even distant music, but it was as though he had stepped into another world and the way back to the other might be gone when he tried to return.
Ha! he thought. You’re getting morbid in your old age.
His mouth twisted as though he had sucked on something bitter. Yannis had reason to be morbid. He had been witness to the monstrous and the terrible far too often in his life.
An officer in the uniform of the Athens police nodded to him and waved him in. Yannis did his best to hide the exhaustion he felt after wending his way through the maze of the Plaka. He said nothing to the officer, asked him nothing. The young ones hardly knew enough to fill an ouzo glass.
The Epidaurus was like many guest houses in the area. On the outside it was kept up reasonably well. The interior was barely passable. Its location near to the Acropolis brought in tourists who would consider it quaint, but though clean, the place was in disrepair. The walls needed painting and the wooden floors were scuffed and faded. There was nothing beneath those high ceilings to bring beauty to the place. No art on the walls, no elegant furniture or drapes on the windows. The prices were too high, but people paid them, and the owners spent not a penny to improve their lodgings.
Yannis thought the owners were miserly and their guests were fools. But he had a low opinion of most people. He was a curmudgeon, well-liked only by other detectives, and only then because, despite his appearance, he was skilled at his job.
There were two other detectives there when he arrived, but Yannis had seniority. The two men, Dioskouri and Keramikous, were pale and seemed nervous. When they noticed him they immediately broke off conversation with a pair of uniformed officers and a crook-backed old man who must have been the owner, and came to him instantly, faces etched with relief.
'Lieutenant,' Dioskouri said, adjusting his glasses and running a hand over his wiry black hair. 'You’ve got to come in and see this. We don’t know what to do.'
It was all Yannis could do to sigh and not roll his eyes. Dioskouri was a broad-shouldered boy from the wine country, and his Greek was spattered with the dialect of his birthplace. It gave him away as young and naive, though he was past thirty.
Keramikous was altogether different. He was a tiny man, both thin and short, his stature barely that of a teenaged boy. Yannis was uncertain of his age, but he marked it at somewhere south of forty. Keramikous was balding, his hair already as gray as Yannis’s. He seemed fragile and withered, the oldest young man Yannis had ever met. But he was a good detective and a family man, and for that Keramikous had his respect.
'Niko,' he said, studying Keramikous, surprised at the pallor of the veteran detective. Despite the summer heat that brought beads of sweat out on his forehead, the man shivered as though in a fever. 'Niko, tell me the story.'
The tiny man shook his head. 'It’s useless to tell you.' He spoke the Greek of a born Athenian, with the edge of the city in his voice. 'Come and see for yourself.'
His partner hesitated. Keramikous gestured to him, indicating that he should stay with the owner. The stooped old man seemed about to weep, his eyes red and moist, the skin beneath them swollen. The expression on Dioskouri’s face was enough to embarrass even Yannis. He had never seen a man look so grateful.
Coward, he thought.
But that was before he saw what was in the breakfast room.
Keramikous led the way. It wasn’t a very large room, just broad enough for half a dozen small tables and a sideboard laden with milk and juice, a bowl of fruit and boxes of dry cereal. There were pastries as well. This wasn’t breakfast as far as Yannis was concerned, but it was enough for tourists.
The glass floor-to-ceiling windows in the rear of the breakfast room looked out upon the guest house’s one bit of beauty, a large courtyard garden. The flowers were in full bloom, and their scent traveled in through the shattered windows on the breeze. Somehow the sunlight touched the garden, though it would not bless the street outside.
The only reason that Yannis had even a moment to notice any of these things was that at first his eyes could not make sense of the things that he saw in that room. His mind simply did not comprehend. Two of the tables, it appeared, had been given over to some strange artistic impulse. Seated in chairs were a trio of granite statues, intricately carved, startlingly realistic. There were cracks in the stone. One had a finger broken off and it lay on the
