The Tomb of Zeus Page 33

  “Now, let's be Ollie and Aristidis. Odd pairing! I'll go and sigh and fume up at the window and you swagger in and sit down, there, on Dionysos.”

  Letty sighed and Gunning swaggered. He lit a cigarette and then caught sight of Letty, who turned and advanced on him, mouthing a challenge.

  Gunning laughed and moved over to join her. “Well, yes. I can see why Aristidis would have been a little spooked. You do look as though you're lurking with some intent or other. And she would have held back from blasting him with her usual halloo. That would have puzzled him. He wouldn't be accustomed to the sight of Olivia about the place in the rear quarters in the daytime, anyway. She's definitely what you'd call front door calling company. What's more, knowing her and the state she was in, I expect she hissed something quite offensive to Aristidis. It's not like him to be brusque with women. Anyhow—Mariani will interview him now in greater depth and sort it all out, man to man, Cretan to Cretan.”

  “Do you think we should warn Aristidis he's about to have the spotlight shone up his nose?”

  “Oh, I don't think so. They'll probably have a good laugh at Olivia's expense. But Mariani will want to know—I imagine—who else Aristidis noticed coming or going or standing still around the same time. If we think about it—he could have been right here when poor Phoebe was dying up in her room. Did he leave after shooing Olivia away or did he return? Either way, he may have seen something significant and not even be aware of it. Time—it has an elasticity and an unregimented character for Cretans. He might not have realised there was something going on.”

  Letty shivered and clutched her cashmere wrap more closely around her shoulders. She was responding not only to the sudden chill whisper of a breeze that set the leaves trembling but to the deeper atmosphere of the place. She caught the leering eye of the stone Dionysos, wide-mouthed, wild-haired, and malignant. Sympathetic to the drunken character of its subject, the slablike statue leaned slightly to one side. Gunning went to perch on it and Letty pulled him away, scarcely knowing why she did so.

  “Had enough of this ghost of a garden?”

  “Garden? I'd hardly call it a garden! All this coy statuary! It's more like my aunt Joan's pets' cemetery. Or a mausoleum. There's something so posed…so mad about it all. I can almost hear someone laughing to see us standing about. Is there some sort of message we ought to be picking up?”

  She pointed to the marble Artemis, unseen apart from her left toe and her gilded arrowhead. “The Virgin Huntress would appear to be about to shoot dead the Goddess of Love. She, silly creature, is mesmerised by her own image and is completely unaware of the ambush from behind the laurel. The whole tableau is a murder frozen in stone.”

  “And who's having the last laugh?” Gunning joined in her speculation. “Ghastly old Dionysos!” He gave the bristling stone head a friendly pat. “Mad as a hatter? Under the influence of something stronger than the grape? Whatever his problem, you can see, he plainly hates both ‘wimmin,’ as old Theo might say.”

  “Well, I'm not comfortable here.” Letty shivered again. “Even Ollie was uneasy, but then, she had retribution on her mind at the time. I feel…things?…people?…crowding round, tugging at me for my attention. ‘It's a blood-soaked soil,’ George told me. And, standing here, you can imagine the ‘dead, ten deep, clutching at our ankles.’ Only one thing to loosen their ancient grip—action! I'm going to climb that tree!” On impulse, she kicked off her shoes and handed her wrap to Gunning. She walked to the foot of the writhing wisteria and began to haul herself upwards.

  “Letty! Come down at once! You'll ruin your folderols! You'll be found hanging by your pearls in the morning! They'll drag me off in irons!” He paced about, anxiously, arms extended to break her fall, talking nervous nonsense, expecting her to crash to the ground at any moment, but she jumped back down five minutes later, hardly out of breath. “You were right, William. As trees go— that's the nursery slopes. It's been constantly trimmed back at the top. It's grown outwards and upwards into a cup shape so it frames the window prettily, but it also makes a stable place to sit while you're planning your next move. Ideal spot for a Peeping Tom.”

  “No such thing on the island.”

  “Or an assassin.”

  “Ah. Not short of those. But who from the outside would want to kill Phoebe?”

  “We've been thinking about this from the wrong angle. We ought to have asked first—Who knew she was there? Remember she came back unexpectedly early. We weren't due back until teatime or later.”

  “Apart from the Stoddarts, Eleni knew. She let them in. The only member of the household who was at home was Theo himself.”

  “Sleeping on the other side of the unlocked door,” said Letty.

  “Ah, we've come full circle! You've always fancied Theo for this.”

  “He had reason to kill her—profit, anger, and revenge (if he'd discovered what she was up to) and he has the brute strength and coldness of heart to carry it through. But…”

  “Something's bothering you, Letty?”

  “I was just wondering. If Aristidis came back and heard something—a quarrel, Phoebe screaming, Theo bellowing—he'd have confided in you, wouldn't he, William?”

  Gunning was silent for a moment. “I honestly think he would. But more than that—you know the man well by now. If he thought a woman was in danger—from a snake or her husband—he'd intervene. In fact, he'd relish the chance to knock Theo to the ground with justification. He was, like the rest of us, fond of Phoebe. He wouldn't have stood by and let her die.” He had caught Letty's anxiety and added, “Look, we'll be seeing him again on Tuesday morning when we've got over all this funeral business. I doubt Mariani will have got to him by then, as he's turning up on parade at the funeral tomorrow. We'll ask Aristidis to come and see us at his mother's house before we start work, shall we? Clear the air? Now, come on back inside and help me to get through this ghastly evening, will you? But, first, let's give the jealous shades a reminder of what they're missing in the way of fleshly comfort up here in the world above.”

  He pulled her into a close embrace from which she emerged some minutes later warm, breathless, and dishevelled. Even Dionysos, she thought, was looking slightly aghast.

  “Coffee!” announced Maria comfortably. “If we're all going to sit around the table having a serious discussion about Kyrie Russell, we'll need some more to fortify ourselves! I'll put the pot on again.”

  Aristidis flung an indulgent glance at his mother as she slipped away to busy herself at the kitchen range. “Do you mind if she stays?” he whispered. “There are things only she knows about this affair and you will find what she has to say interesting.”

  Puzzled, they both nodded.

  “Now,” he went on, “you're warning me that I am to be questioned by Mariani and his men? Well, that's fine by me,” he said cheerfully. “The innocent need fear nothing, I'm sure. I have the greatest regard for the inspector's ability to get at the truth. He's well respected on the island. I shall endeavour to assist him.”

  “If I were him, I'd start by wanting to know exactly why you were in the courtyard at the time in question, Aristidis,” said Gunning. “Do you have any objection to telling us?”

  “None at all! Though as my mother is intimately concerned with my motives and my movements on that day, I will leave an explanation until she arrives with our coffee. But while we're waiting, I will tell you, because I see you are both suffering the torments of curiosity, what I was doing in the courtyard. I was there under the window for one purpose only on that day. I had come to kill Theodore Russell.”

  Gunning's voice was commendably matter-of-fact: “Ah. Here comes a pot of the best Greek coffee! Maria, that smells delicious! We were just hearing your son admitting to a desire to eliminate his employer. I have to say—we've all been tempted.”

  Maria poured with a steady hand and handed out the tiny cups. “For once he is not joking, Kyrie William. But you must forgive him; it was not his choice. He was sen
t by someone else to wreak vengeance on this monster for a crime committed by him many years ago. I sent my son to kill him.”

  She moved to the sideboard and selected the sepia photograph of her dead husband. “I will place him here with us while we talk.”

  The silver-framed photograph joined them, a fifth person at the table, smiling and handsome. Fez at a jaunty angle, bristling Cretan features fearless and challenging, the man's strong presence leapt the gap of thirty years.

  “This is all about Ioannis. I told you, miss, that he died in the revolt of 1898. True. An unjust and violent death,” Maria began her story.

  “We were trapped in the city in Candia, that hot August. And worse, trapped in the Greek quarter. We'd gone to a family funeral, in our country ignorance, with our country ways, not realising just how quickly and violently a killing spree can be unleashed in a densely packed city. It took all of us by surprise, not least the Turkish cousins who found themselves trapped with us. The last place anyone would want to be. We Christians were outnumbered by ten to one. The violence started, the burnings, the killings, the rapes and pillage. Ioannis decided the only thing for it was for me and Aristidis to try to escape dressed as Muslims. Word came that Muslim women and their children were being allowed to run away into the country through the gates, unchallenged. Our cousins, anxious not to be caught harbouring Greeks, put their hands on some female robes and veils and, though he would have preferred to stay and fight alongside his father, we managed to persuade Aristidis, who was only ten at the time, to put on a little girl's garments and try for it.”

  Aristidis took up the tale. “The big gates were in sight and were standing open. I peered round the corner, huddled at my mother's side, clutching a fold of her robe, as I'd been told…” he remembered.

  * * *

  “…I know my mother saw him one more time but she has never spoken to me of it,” he finished with a tender and beseeching look for Maria. “And I wonder if she is ready to tell me now?”

  “Ioannis went off to speak up for his cousin. He was a lawyer, fluent in Greek, Turkish, and Italian. But none of these got him very far with the people he had to deal with: the British. They had come in and taken control of the city. Killing, except for their authorised executions, had ceased. But they had a crime to avenge. Seventeen of their soldiers had been massacred by a Turkish mob and they intended to round up the ringleaders and ceremonially execute them. The same number were to hang from the tree the Turks used. Sending a message.

  “Suleiman was arrested. I don't even know if he was guilty. Ioannis arrived to plead for him and was shown into the presence of the British officer deputed to deal with the problem. Ioannis was wearing a fez. Many Christians did. Many Christians were actually converts to Mohammedanism—to evade the extortionate taxes—but they still prayed in church every Sunday. It was a confused time. And one cannot wonder too much that the British themselves were confused. But the young officer, taking Ioannis for a Muslim and an argumentative one at that, though he did not understand a word he said, ordered his immediate arrest. He had reached sixteen suspects in number and needed one more for the execution to take place. My husband became the seventeenth prisoner.

  “I went at once to plead for my husband. I was met with indifference and annoyance by the officer. I was not allowed to see Ioannis. He ordered his men to throw me out.

  “But yes, I did see my husband one more time. Dangling from the plane tree.” Maria's tale ground to a half. She turned to her son, her eyes pleading and apologetic.

  “My mother fled the town and would never return until a month ago.” Aristidis snatched the tale from his mother, sensing that her courage was losing the struggle with grief. “I persuaded her to go in to my cousin's wedding. The town was much changed. I thought she would have no bad memories after all this time. But she had the worst possible reminder. Outside the church, she saw and recognised the officer who had ordered my father's death. It was Theodore Russell, walking by with his wife. A respected member of society and—my employer. I had no idea. All these years I had worked for the man who killed my father.”

  “It is a son's duty to avenge his father.” Maria's head went up, full of pride. “It is expected. It is necessary, if he is to keep his honour and that of his family. If he continues to fail to do it, I shall complete the circle myself. I shall make this snake eat its tail.”

  Letty believed her.

  “I waited for a moment when I knew there would be no one in the house but Russell himself and Eleni doing her household chores in the pantry,” Aristidis said. “I had the entrée to the house—no one ever challenged me. I came and went as I pleased. I talked to the servants…I knew where everyone was likely to be at any moment in the day and whether they kept their doors locked or unlocked. But I had no intention of being caught out. I walked, behaving as I normally would, into the courtyard.” He smiled. “Slinking and concealment do not come naturally to me and would have drawn attention. I intended to climb the tree and get into his room and stab him with my father's dagger.”

  Letty stared, fascinated, at the silver hilt gleaming in his cummerbund across the breakfast table, between the coffeepot and the bread basket. She'd last seen its blade slicing through the neck of a snake, she remembered. The same dagger was proudly worn by Ioannis in his photograph. It had done its lethal work on those hot August nights thirty years ago and remained charged with one more task.

  “George's car was in the coach house but I thought nothing of that—I knew he'd gone with William on foot to the cave on the coast. But there was an interruption. The doctor's wife was hanging about and I had first to send her away. I couldn't imagine why she was loitering there but I suspected she was up to no good. I returned and climbed into the tree. When I got to the top, just below the level of the sill, I froze. There were voices speaking in the room. I decided to stay still. If I'd been found I would not have liked to explain myself to Russell. He is a man eaten up by jealousy and suspicion. He might well have turned on his own wife.

  “But it was no more than the good doctor Stoddart. He prescribed a sleeping pill for her…Eleni came in and brought some water, and I assumed Mrs. Russell was dutifully taking the pill. After a while the doctor left. I decided to wait until the sleeping tablet had worked and then creep in and let myself into Russell's bedroom adjoining. I knew he took a siesta there every Sunday afternoon. I knew the door was kept unlocked. But then, as I was about to make my move, I heard Mrs. Russell sigh. She got off the bed and began to pace about. I heard her walk to the door. She moved around, sighing and muttering the while, for a few more minutes. She was praying, I'm sure. And then she went over to her desk. The next thing I heard was the sound of a chair falling over. I didn't guess what she was doing and when I risked an eye over the sill, I didn't at first see her. Then I caught sight of her twitching limbs hanging at the far end of the room, right by her husband's door. No one else had entered the room. No one had left the room.”

  “Oh, my God!” Letty whispered. “She did do it herself! She committed suicide.” She put her head in her hands in distress. “Oh, Phoebe, forgive me! Did I wilfully misunderstand? I don't know. William…” Letty struggled with her memory. Only the strictest accuracy would do now. “Her very last words to me were: ‘Time to go.’ It was after she'd said, ‘I'll be sure to test you when you get back.’ I've been deceiving myself, as well as everyone else. She was just making social noises, telling me to be a good pupil, saying what she would normally say. Her real message, I chose to ignore. ‘You've had your fun…Time to go now.’ I think she knew all along that Stoddart wouldn't help her. There was no other way out. I didn't mention it because it didn't fit with my theory. I wanted Theodore to be guilty.”

  Aristidis breathed deeply, waiting for her outburst to end, impatient at the interruption. “Wait! You must judge yourself, Miss Laetitia, when I have finished. And you must prepare for a painful outcome. She was dangling from the beam but she wasn't dead. She made a sound—a sickening g
urgling noise. Worse—her arms suddenly went up to the rope and she tried to pull herself upwards to release her neck. In agony? Regretting her action? Men have been known to thrash around in a noose for many minutes before death.”

  He acknowledged the insensitivity of his remark by covering his mother's trembling hand with his own. “But I was glad to see it—there was time for me to save her! I had one leg over the sill to leap into the room and cut her loose when the door burst open. And there he was. Theodore Russell. Not at all sleepy and confused. He'd been listening, I thought, as I had. He hurled himself towards her and I shrank back down with relief. He had eyes only for his wife in her agony—he hadn't seen me. No need now to reveal myself. Her husband would rescue her from her folly.”

  Aristidis paused, finding it difficult to choose the words to continue. “He put his hands up around her thighs and heaved. But not upwards. He swung his whole weight down on that slender woman and I heard her neck break. Then he padded over to the desk and I heard the rustling of papers. A minute later he went back into his own room. He closed the door.”

  The stunned silence was broken by Maria clucking with irritation. “A wasted opportunity, don't you agree, William?”

  Um…not entirely sure I'm following you, Maria,” said Gunning, stunned and apologetic for his confusion.

  “He should have proceeded! He could have killed Russell in such a way as to make it appear the man had hung his wife and then done away with himself. What could be more obvious? It's what I would have done.”

  “I sometimes think I'm being a great disappointment to my mother,” said Aristidis with a smile full of affection for the stiff old lady.

  Letty had got up in a whirl of mixed emotions and gone over to the window to hide her disgust, pity, fear, and hatred. She was remembering her own instinctive dash forward to lift, to save, to fight with Death for Phoebe's precious essence, and she tried to imagine what depth of hatred it could have taken to pull down instead, to listen for the snap of her neck. Hatred or self-interest? A deadly combination?