that's OK. Then you're available on the dot when we need you. Unless your wife would object?'
'Glad to see the back of me.' Nick grinned. 'Sorry about the traffic snarl-up, but no one can follow us into this.'
They had arrived at Omonia Square, the Piccadilly Circus or Times Square of Athens. Everywhere intersecting roads converged, the traffic was solid. The square was surrounded with second-class hotels, department stores. Nick tapped his hand on the wheel as he waited.
'Refugees from abroad flock to this area. The police don't mind. They know where to look if they're after someone. Miracles will never cease. We're on the move again.,.'
On the veranda of his farm deep inside Devil's Valley Petros was lecturing his two grandsons viciously. He gestured with a heavy fly-swatter as they stood in front of him.
'You, Dimitrios, are telling me again that several men crept up behind you that night at the mine, then clubbed both of you. Is that still your story?'
'It is the way it happened…'
'Liar! Cheat!' Petros moved with savage speed. The end of the fly-swatter whacked Dimitrios across the back of his left hand. Reinforced with leather, the swatter brought up an ugly weal. And Petros was still sitting in his chair. 'You lie in your teeth,' he snarled.
'It was like that…' Constantine began, then stopped when Petros turned to him. He braced himself for the blow but Petros relaxed in his chair, studying the end of the fly-swatter as he talked in a calm tone.
'You were both staring down inside the mine. You saw the legs of a man protruding from under the bucket. Had you shot him without hesitation – as I would – you would have turned round and seen the single man coming up behind you, the man one of you probably glimpsed before he knocked you both out. Clumsy fools.'
'Why do you say that?' Dimitrios ventured. He sucked his injured hand.
'Because I know the mine, know that for hundreds of yards it is surrounded with loose rock chippings. One man trained in field warfare, one very clever man, might make his way silently across those rocks without making a sound. One man,' he repeated. 'I refuse to believe that several men managed it. You are covering up for your idiocy. It was a trap, you realize that?'
'A trap?' Constantine sounded genuinely puzzled.
'Of course. One man – the man inside the mine – lets you see him. He leads you to the mine. His companion then creeps up behind you both. Constantine, you said you saw a rifle barrel just before it struck you. He did it like this.' Holding the fly-swatter by the middle of the handle, Petros swung it first one way, then the other. 'Were they the English?' he growled. 'You saw one man coming up the track.'
'Too far away to see him at all clearly,' Dimitrios broke in before Constantine could reply. It was a relief to be able to tell the truth.
'And you did a lousy job of not finding Christina,' Petros sneered. He was enjoying himself, taking them down a peg, showing who was boss.
'We did our best,' Dimitrios protested. 'So many hotels…'
'Oho! Your best. Your worst, you mean. You walk into the Hilton and try to bribe the chief receptionist! He knows it is not worth risking his fat salary to give out information. I would have gone after the menials – people like yourselves. A chambermaid, a cleaner. Someone who needs the money, someone who goes into every bedroom. Well, at least Anton is now looking. He will find her.'
'We could go back, try again,' Constantine suggested eagerly.
'Now you grovel.' Petros spat beyond the veranda. They took all the insults he heaped on them, he was thinking. It was a tribute to the power of his personality. His huge body emanated physical magnetism. He waved towards the scrub-studded mountains.
'Get out there in the sun. Tend the sheep. Make sure the other shepherds are not sleeping behind rocks. If you catch one, kick hell out of him.' He paused. 'That was curious that you should see Florakis climbing a mountain at that hour. Keep an eye on him, too. Report to me when you find out what he is up to.' Petros could not resist one last dig. 'And forget about Christina – let Anton find her. Anton has brains.'
When Dimitrios and Constantine had left the farm, climbing up the track even a goat might find trouble negotiating, kicking up limestone dust which filled their nostrils, sweating in the afternoon sun, Petros remained on the veranda. His leonine head sunk on his barrel-like chest, he remained awake, thinking.
Always the hated English. Newman and Marler- loose were the two English Giorgos had reported as registering at the Grande Bretagne. Giorgos who had ended rammed inside a cask of wine upside down in the Plaka.
Without any formal education. Petros possessed a native cunning, the devious mind of a peasant which sometimes could out-think the well-educated. Newman and Marler who had seduced Christina into joining them. They had been sent by whichever of the three men had killed Andreas on Sires all those years ago.
Which one? Colonel Barrymore, Captain Robson or Company Sergeant Major Kearns? Could all three be involved in the bestial murders? Because later – when the war was over – Petros had visited Cairo to learn what he could of the murder of his other son, Stephen, masquerading as Ionides. An Egyptian who worked as a cleaner at the Antikhana Building had told him. The same three men had been based in the building. In some way one of them had penetrated Ionides' real identity, had discovered he was the brother of Andreas.
Which one? Petros asked himself the question he had pondered a thousand times. Now Anton – clever Anton -had located them at some place called Exmoor. Why were they all living so close together?
It didn't matter! Petros heaved himself out of the chair, went into the farmhouse, returned with the box he kept hidden. He opened it. Inside, wrapped in newspaper, was the commando knife, the knife he had used all his strength to heave out of Andreas' back. The knife he would one day use to kill the murderer of his two sons.
Dapper and assured, despite his experience, Anton thanked the chief receptionist and walked out of the Hilton. The doctor they had summoned had been a nuisance. Anton had assured him he'd fainted, caught his jaw against the side of the pillar. He had also handled the chief receptionist cleverly. Just before he left he made the remark casually.
'It was the heat. I must have fainted just before my friends left the hotel…' He described Christina, Newman and Marler. 'Did they say which hotel they were moving to? Maybe not – as they left in a rush.'
'No, they didn't. As you say, they were in a hurry,' the chief receptionist had replied.
Which confirmed Anton's suspicions. He shrugged as he walked into the blazing heat, hardly noticing the change in temperature. He had found her once, he would find her again. But first there was more urgent business to attend to. He checked his watch – he was late for his appointment.
Let the bastard wait. He would be so relieved when he saw Anton arrive. He ignored the taxis. Their drivers had good memories. He made his way over the complicated crossing and walked briskly down Avenue Sofias towards Syntagma Square where the Grande Bretagne was located.
Anton smiled to himself as he thought how livid Petros would be if he knew where he was going, who he was going to meet and why. The old ruffian was living in the past, Had no idea of what was really going on in the world. Wouldn't he be surprised one day when he found Anton was a Cabinet Minister? The Ministry of the Interior for preference. There you had real power.
Half an hour later he was walking through the maze of alleys and streets which made up the honeycomb of the Plaka. Was the plan already beginning to work? Sooner or later the man he was going to see would have to tell him what was happening. The clod who was still important to Anton. For the present. The man called Doganis. The Athens chief of the Greek Key.
'You're late,' Doganis greeted him. 'Why?'
Anton sat in a rush-covered chair in the room above a taverna, took his time about lighting a cigarette. He disliked this hulking brute but was astute enough to conceal his distaste. Doganis, a man in his sixties, was heavily built with broad shoulders and a large head of greying hair. His hooded eyes regarded Anton with a coId expression.
Anton studied his chief, careful to betray nothing of the contempt he felt. The huge soft hands holding a circular ebony ruler, the sagging jowls, the barrel-like stomach. Out of condition, cut of touch with the modern world. One of the Old Guard. A gross monument of the Civil War days.
Doganis was also studying the dapper Anton. Ambitious, ruthless. A young upstart who had to be kept in his place. Dressed like a gigolo. Doganis had been ordered to tell him the next move in the operation; personally he thought it premature.
