it happened: 'Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang.' Whatever she'd kicked was bouncing across the room. It hadn't been there before — she was certain of that. Her heart started pounding and her stomach churning. She wanted to throw up. It was fear. He was back. Invading her space, again.
She sensed she'd started to laugh — a rolling, building laugh she could not stop. Had she lost control of her mind? She had to do something. She screamed, 'My space. My space?' I must be going mad, she thought. She forced herself to think of her parents. They were real, this wasn't. She had to deal with what was real. She took a deep breath and another, then stepped forward toward where she'd heard the sound. Two tentative steps ahead, she stepped on something. It didn't clang. It gave under pressure from her foot.
She knelt and reached out slowly, as if putting her hand into the murky bottom of an unknown pond. It was cylindrical and flat at one end with circumferential ridges and indentations midway along its body. At its other end she felt… 'a bottle cap,' she said aloud. It was a plastic bottle of water, or at least felt like one. A liter bottle. She clutched it in her hand, stood up, and stepped forward again, this time more boldly.
Her foot struck a new object. This one clanged against the floor and she reached for it without hesitation. She knew what it was. A bedpan. She wanted to throw it at a wall. But she needed it. And she needed the water, if it was water. She wondered what else — what other kindnesses, she snickered to herself — her tormentor had in mind for her.
As if he'd read her mind, she heard a sound. He was here, she thought. She heard it again. It sounded like a mail slot swinging open at the bottom corner of the wall behind her. Then she heard a rough scraping along the floor coming from the same direction. Something was moving toward her. She turned and backed away from the sound. It kept coming. Now she was against a wall. Annika knew she had to fight — she had no choice. She leapt forward screaming, 'Bastard!' throwing the bottle and bedpan at the sound. She lashed out scratching and punching in a wild chase around the room, searching for confrontation, some physical body to attack. All she found was a wall with one of her punches. The pain was instant. It felt like she'd broken her left hand, maybe her wrist too.
She screamed and clutched at the pain. That made it hurt more. She stumbled into another wall, then tripped over the bedpan and instinctively thrust her injured hand out to break her fall. She screamed again and rolled onto the floor and into a ball, clutching again at her hand. 'Why? Why? Why?' she shouted. There was no answer. She started sobbing.
Annika had no idea how long she'd lain there feeling sorry for herself — maybe minutes, maybe seconds — but she knew she had to regain control. She turned onto her right side and slid backward along the floor. She had to find the mattress, to find some way to use it to ease the pain. Suddenly, something touched the back of her thigh. She screamed and jerked away. A minute passed. Nothing moved. Slowly, she brought herself to a sitting position facing the thing she'd touched. It had to be what made the sound. Carefully, Annika cradled her left hand across her lap and reached out with her right. She found it.
It was about the size of a shoebox. It wasn't very heavy and — her heart plunged — it was tied with a ribbon. It was a gift. She stared straight ahead into the darkness. The man was mad.
Now she knew she was going to die. He never quite understood why the scraping sound of a long-handled, wooden pizza-oven paddle delivering a gift box of chocolates created such panic. But it always did, and so he used it as a tool for conditioning his tributes to accept the unfamiliar. That was important, for there were many more unknowns yet to come. Annika sat on the bare floor, the water bottle held tightly between her thighs. She moved her good hand along the bottle, checking for anything unusual. Finding nothing, she fingered the plastic cap. It seemed anchored to the bottle and unbroken. She carefully twisted it and heard a snap as it separated from the bottle. Slowly she removed it and sniffed the contents. No odor. With her good hand she poured a little on one thigh. No pain. She rubbed at the liquid. It felt like water. She sniffed again and tentatively took a sip. No taste, no pain. She drank.
14
Tassos was pacing in front of the arrivals entrance when Andreas pulled up beside him. He opened the cruiser's front door and dropped himself onto the seat. 'I can't believe this.'
Andreas didn't respond, just drove out of the airport and past the police station.
Tassos looked back at the station. 'Where are we going?'
'There's nobody to question in there, so I thought we'd take a ride out to Ano Mera to check out Panos' little mushroom mine and then see if we can find that artist Daly. Besides, we can talk just as well in the car as in my office.' Andreas was in an even fouler mood than Tassos.
'It looks like we fucked up big-time,' Tassos said, letting out a breath.
'And it's probably going to cost another woman her life.' Andreas sounded angry at himself.
'Any ideas?'
'I'd like to pull the covers over my head and say 'Go away, bad dream, go away.''
'Now, there's an idea I can relate to.' Tassos grinned and gave a quick, hard left jab to Andreas' right shoulder. The car swerved into the path of a very panicked-looking couple coming at them on a rental motorbike.
Andreas jerked the wheel clockwise with his left hand to pull the car back to his side of the road and put up his right to block any further punches. 'Hey, take it easy. I don't need more dead tourists.' He was smiling.
'Like I said, any ideas?'
Andreas glanced at Tassos' fists. 'Okay, okay, are we done with the shock treatments?'
Tassos smiled back at him. 'For the time being.'
'So, why did he go after the Vanden Haag woman a month after he killed Vandrew? It breaks the pattern of one a year.'
Tassos sighed. 'I'm afraid it doesn't. One of the victims we think we just identified disappeared a month after we found the Scandinavian linked to the Irishman. Looks like he killed again — to replace the one we found. He must have put the Scandinavian where we'd be sure to find her once he thought our search might get to a church where some of his other victims were buried.'
'And now he's replacing Vandrew.' Andreas' voice was rising.
'Or one of the sixteen others.' Tassos said it without emotion.
'My God, do you think he'll try to replace them all?'
They were silent for a few moments, then Tassos said, 'Why do you think they're all blond, tall non- Greeks?'
Andreas shook his head. 'I don't know, but he's obsessed with the look. Must tie in to someone from his past: a mother, sister, wife, relative, friend — maybe even a movie star or model.' He reached for a cigarette in his shirt pocket. 'One thing's for sure; he knows how the system works here because, except for this one, every victim he's chosen traveled alone, was a foreigner without local friends, and spoke no Greek.' He found a cigarette, and Tassos reached across and lit it for him.
'Yeah, just the sort of invisible, transient tourist no one looks very hard to find on Mykonos.'
Andreas drew in and let out a puff. 'He sure screwed up this time.'
Tassos tried to sound a bit more upbeat. 'Maybe he didn't take her. It makes no sense for him — after twenty years — to change his choice of victims.'
'Unless he didn't know who he was snatching.' Andreas was back in his foul mood.
'You know what that means,' Tassos said flatly.
'If he realizes his mistake she's probably dead on the spot. No church burial, just a toss in the sea.'
Tassos nodded. 'How much time do you think we have?'
'I wish I knew. There's a key here somewhere. Must be.' He turned left onto the road toward Panos' farm. Now that he knew the way, it took only five minutes to get there. This time he drove right up to the mine entrance.
'Here we are,' said Andreas.
'I suggest we bring a shotgun,' said Tassos.
'Good idea. I'll get it out of the trunk.'
Tassos walked to the entrance and shone his flashlight inside. 'Never liked mines.'
