‘Good night, sir,’ the Lifebuoy Sentry murmured, and watched as Richter walked forward to the starboard- side door, leading through to the Wardroom on Five Deck. As soon as the door had closed behind him, the Sentry reached into his trouser pocket, extracted a packet of cigarettes and lit one. He was gasping for it – he’d thought that WAFU two and a half would never bloody well leave the Quarter Deck.
Chapter 9
Wednesday
They spotted the helicopter long before they heard it. A dark grey speck against the blue sky over the two and a half thousand metre peak of Lefka Ori, it grew rapidly in size as it descended the southern slope of the great mountain. Within seconds, it seemed, it was right above them, rotors clattering, jet engines roaring. The pilot swung the Merlin around in a tight left-hand turn, to point the aircraft’s nose into wind, then settled the big helicopter on the ground.
Dust rose all around it, then began to settle again as the pilot dropped the collective and throttled back the engines. The door on the right-hand side of the aircraft slid open and the aircrewman kicked down a set of folding steps. A slim middle-aged man descended them uncertainly. He was carrying two small bags, and looked around before walking over to the group of watching men. Behind him, two aircrewmen began manoeuvring the first of two large cases out of the rear compartment of the aircraft.
Three minutes later the dust rose again, as the Merlin lifted into the air and wheeled around to the north- east on a direct track over Lefka Ori back to the
The accommodation wasn’t ideal by any means, but it was better than nothing.
Three large tents had been erected within the cordon late the previous afternoon. One held a bottled-gas- powered cooking range and sufficient provisions for about a week, though everyone hoped they’d be out of there long before that. The second had a dozen camp beds and the third a couple of chemical toilets, four sinks and two showers. Hot water was supplied by an on-demand gas heater fed by three one-thousand-litre plastic water tanks.
Well away from these three tents was a single, much smaller, one. It held only the two large chest freezers that had been requested in the CDC response to the Cretan Ministry of Health. These were powered by a Honda petrol generator sitting outside the tent in a sandbagged enclosure, the noise of which provided a constant throbbing background hum.
Inspector Lavat, after consulting the doctor, had insisted that everyone who had been in recent contact with Spiros Aristides or his house should take a shower as soon as the system was working. All their clothes were then placed in the same cordoned-off pile in the street, which already held Dr Gravas’s and his assistants’ white coveralls, as well as Lavat’s discarded uniform. Only when the last person had emerged from the shower tent, wearing fresh clothing brought in from outside the village, did Gravas begin to relax.
They heard the helicopter arrive, like everyone else in Kandira, so Lavat and Gravas were waiting as the sandy-haired civilian walked up and stopped by the cordon. Behind him, four police officers struggled under the weight of the cases.
‘I’m Tyler Hardin, from the Centers for Disease Control. Does anybody here speak English?’
‘Welcome, Mr Hardin.’ Lavat extended a hand and gestured for the police officer to let the American through. ‘I’m Inspector Lavat of the Crete police force and this is Dr Gravas. We both speak English. Are you by yourself?’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Hardin said, shaking hands with both. ‘Yes, I’m just the advance guard. The rest of my team will be arriving soon with more equipment. Dr Gravas, you’re the person who alerted us, I think?’
‘That’s correct. I’ve been hoping ever since that I didn’t over-react, but I’ve never seen anyone die like this man Aristides. And,’ Gravas added, ‘there has been a second death, superficially identical.’
‘Another one?’ Hardin asked. ‘What do you mean “superficially identical”?’
‘I mean it looks as if this second man, called Nico Aristides – he was a nephew of the first victim and had been drinking with him in the local bar the previous evening – was killed by the same pathogen. But all we did was to enter his apartment and view his body from a distance. I made no examination of the corpse, and we have also had the apartment sealed ever since, just like the other property.’
Hardin nodded in satisfaction, and the three began walking towards the tents erected at the periphery of the village.
‘OK, I see you’ve got a cordon in place but what restrictions have you imposed?’
‘Everyone who was already here in the village when I examined the first body has been kept inside the cordon, including the police officers and my assistants. Except for yourself, nobody has been allowed into or out of the village since.
‘All those who had any recent physical contact with either of the properties where the bodies were found have been identified and we’ve tried to decontaminate them with showers and changes of clothing. And, as I said, the properties themselves have been sealed.’
‘Good. That’s very good,’ Hardin said. ‘With the limited facilities you’ve got available here I can’t think how you could have done better.’
Gravas smiled and led the way into the first tent. ‘We can offer you some coffee? Or perhaps you’d like something to eat?’
‘Coffee, please,’ Hardin replied, ‘but no food, thank you. I seem to have eaten my way non-stop across the Atlantic.’
Lavat asked the woman serving behind the counter – one of several villagers offering to help the investigation – for three cups of coffee, then the men sat down together at a table.
‘Right,’ Hardin said. ‘We received your initial report at the CDC, but I’d appreciate it if you could just run the sequence of events by me again, in case there’s anything I missed or you overlooked. Your English, by the way, is excellent.’
‘Thank you,’ Gravas said. ‘I had the benefit of two years at Oxford. Now, what happened here was simple enough. Yesterday morning a village woman heard a moan of pain coming from Spiros Aristides’s house. She gathered up a friend, and a few minutes later they entered the house and made their way upstairs. Looking into the bedroom, they saw Aristides lying fully clothed on his bed but completely covered in blood. Assuming he had been hacked to death, they ran out of the house and called the police.’
Lavat took up the story.
‘I was then summoned from Chania and arrived here about an hour and a half after the alarm was raised. I set up a cordon around the house, then went inside myself. I looked into the bedroom and saw exactly what the women had reported. I touched nothing in the room, just closed the door and waited for the forensic specialists to arrive.’
‘A question,’ Hardin interrupted. ‘You said that one of the women heard a moan of pain, but when they entered the house the man was already dead. What was the interval in between?’
Gravas looked at Lavat.
‘No more than ten minutes,’ he said. ‘She headed from Aristides’s house to the square, found the other woman almost immediately, and they went straight back.’
‘What, exactly, did she hear? Was it just moaning, or did she hear any words?’
Lavat consulted his notebook. ‘She said it was a moan, but she’s here, close by, so I can go and ask her again, if you think it’s important.’
Hardin nodded. ‘It could be vital, Inspector,’ he said.
As Lavat walked out of the tent, Gravas looked questioningly at the American. ‘Why is what the dying Greek said important?’
‘What he actually said is of no importance at all. All I really want to know is whether he was still capable of speech. That could be a vital indicator.’
