“We started to sink and so we had to abandon ship. We grabbed a few things, came ashore in the dinghy, and Merten and I took a taxi and then a ferry to Spetses, while the boss caught the ferry to Piraeus. Said he would make contact with us as soon as he could, and for several days the telegrams kept coming. But when the boss stopped sending them I decided to come up to Athens on my motorcycle and find out what had happened to him. And here I am.”
“So Merten is alone at your house in Spetses?”
“Not entirely alone. There’s a local woman who comes in every other day to cook and clean.”
“Is he armed?”
“Yes. He has Schramma’s own Walther pistol.”
“I shall want the door key.”
“In my coat pocket you’ll find another key with an address label on it.” He pointed at the coat lying on the floor at my feet and I nodded.
“Get it.”
He picked up the coat, found the key, and handed it over.
“Is your house on the telephone?” I asked.
Reppas paused, and waved his fingers in the air. “I have to think of the way to say some of these things in German. Merten only ever speaks Greek to me. Speaking German like this, it’s tiring, you know. The only telephone in Spetses is at the hotel. But it’s not working right now. This is island life in Greece. Lots of things don’t work like they’re supposed to. They’ve only just discovered the wheel on Spetses. Priests cross themselves when they walk past a bar with a jukebox. Or see a woman wearing a bathing costume.”
“I’m kind of religious about that myself. How did you get the telegrams from Witzel?”
“I had to go to Kosta on the ferry and collect them from the post office in the town.”
“How long will Merten stay put down there? Before he figures out that you’re not coming back. Which you’re not. Not for several weeks, if you’ve got any sense.”
“I have a nephew in Thessaloniki. I shall stay with him.” He tried to look thoughtful, but it came off as something grotesque, like a gargoyle trying to solve a crossword puzzle. “But Merten? I don’t know for sure. I do know he’s scared. Every time he heard the door open he thought it was Brunner and grabbed Schramma’s Walther. My guess is that he’ll be staying put for a while. Originally, I was going to travel back the day after tomorrow, even if I didn’t find the boss here.”
“Where were you planning to look for him?”
“I was going to check out some of our old haunts in Piraeus. Bars and brothels mostly. The boss liked a drink and a girl, usually in that order. So maybe you have several days to go down to Spetses yourself, right? And do whatever it is you say you’re going to do. Cops or killing, it makes no difference to me now. But for Merten, my friend would still be alive and we’d still be in the scuba business.”
Reppas finished his second cigarette and stubbed it out. All his previous belligerence was now gone. He dabbed his nose and inspected the towel for another red mark, like a woman checking her lipstick.
“Are you really intending to let me walk out of here?”
“Sure. Why not? You’re a fish I’m throwing back, Spiros. It’s Merten I want to make a lot of trouble for, not you. He’s the real criminal here. You can even take your gun with you.” I picked up the barrel and handed over the empty Webley and a handful of bullets. “You might even need it. For all I know Brunner might still be in Athens. He strikes me as the kind of fellow who isn’t easily scared off. It could be that he thinks he owes you a bullet in lieu of a share of the gold. If I were you I’d keep away from some of your old haunts in Piraeus. He’s already murdered that lawyer whose office you burgled in Glyfada—Dr. Frizis.”
Reppas put the Webley and the ammunition in his coat pocket. “Thanks for the advice,” he said.
“Tell me, why did your boss go along with Merten’s scheme in the first place? He was a marine biologist, an important filmmaker who’d won a prize at the Cannes Festival. He didn’t strike me as a Nazi. Surely he’d left that world behind.”
“Clearly you don’t know much about filmmaking.” Spiros Reppas shrugged. “Making any kind of film is expensive but underwater films, more so. And it doesn’t pay that well. It’s not like they were queuing around the block to see our little movie, right? Who goes to see a film like The Philosopher’s Seal, about Mediterranean monk seals?”
“I must admit I missed it myself.”
“He sold it to a few television companies and that was it. He was in debt. And he needed to raise money to make our next documentary—a film about the lost city of Atlantis. You don’t have to be a Nazi to be greedy for money. There was that. And then there was all of that Jewish gold lying in only fifteen fathoms of water just waiting for someone to come and salvage it. Millions and millions of dollars’ worth of gold melted down and recast as gold bars by a foundry Max Merten had specially built in Katerini, sometime in the spring of 1943. According to Merten, all of the bars on the Epeius carried a specially faked date and stamp from the Weigunner foundry at Essen.”
“How does that help?”
“The significance of this smelt is that it’s dated 1939, which predates both the invasion of Greece and the murder of Europe’s Jews. It looks like prewar Reichsbank gold bullion. All of which makes
