One Way Ticket (5 page)

“No?”

“I had a run in with a sheep when I first
got my car. Constable Geralios wasn’t impressed with me. I decided it wasn’t a
good idea.”

“You’re right. Not with your track
record.”

I looked at him, a cold feeling suddenly
running through me. I had an idea we weren’t talking about my driving anymore.
“My track record? What do you mean?”

Addi kept his eyes on the road. “I did
your background check when you got the job. I know out about your history in England.”

6 Theft, And Wondering Around
Lost

My history in England? I guess he wasn’t talking about Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn. Did this mean he knew
everything?

“What did you find out exactly? Did you
let the, er, police back home know where I was?”

“Why? Are they looking for you?” he asked
calmly, still watching the road.

“No, no, of course not,” I lied. I really
had no idea.

“I know about… what happened.”

Right. Had he told everyone at work too?
“But I still got the job.”

“I didn’t find anything that meant you
weren’t suitable to do the work.”

“So, what you’re saying is, I wouldn’t be
able to get a taxi driving licence because of things in my past but it’s okay
for me to work for the police force?”

“We take our taxi driving very seriously;
it’s a big thing for the tourists.”

Tourists, yes. They did seem to come first
round here.

“Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me,”
he said.

“You haven’t told the rest of the office
about it?”

Just then, Addi pulled in to a parking
space outside a plain brick building and turned off the engine. We had
obviously arrived. And it looked like he was going to keep me on tenterhooks.

“Now I have to talk to the people here
about a break in,” he told me as he opened his door. “The chief thought you
might be needed to translate. You speak French, don’t you?”

I could kill Aunt June and her application
form lies. “I’m a bit rusty,” I told him. That was an understatement on a par
with saying cyanide is bad for your breath.

“We’ll see how it goes.”

The sign on the door we walked through
read ‘CrossGlobal’. I hadn’t heard of them.

“What’s happened here?” Addi asked the
dapper looking, elderly man in a blazer and tie who greeted us.

 “When I arrived this morning I found the
back door open. Some trophies have been stolen from the office,” the man
replied. He had a slight accent but spoke English good enough for me (or should
that be well enough?).

“And who are you?” Since we’d arrived I
noticed Addi had adopted a brusque persona. This seemed to be his policing
style.

“I am Paul-Henri Clement, the committee
secretary.” He held out his hand for Addi to shake (not me though).

Addi introduced us. As we talked, Mr
Clement led us through the foyer to a large room. He pointed out an open door in
the corner, at the far end, and we followed him through it into a small office.

“The trophies were on here,” Mr Clement
said, indicating a shelf by a desk. “Awards for community work, humanitarian
stuff.”

“Were they valuable?” I asked, causing
Addi to shoot me an angry look.

“Not to anyone else. I can’t believe
they’d be worth much, even as scrap metal.”

“Nothing else missing?” I asked, noticing
there was still a computer on the desk. Old, but it had to be more valuable
than some cups. Addi looked daggers at me.

“Claudette thinks there are some
decorations missing. Here she is now.”

Claudette was a small, middle aged lady
with obviously dyed auburn hair. “Allo,” she greeted us when Mr Clement
introduced her. That one word was said with such a thick French accent, my
heart sank.

“You’ve found some other missing items?”
Addi asked quickly, giving me a glance as if daring me to get a question in
first.

“Ah, oui, mais−” Claudette began.
She actually said a lot more but that was the only bit I understood. A mild
feeling of panic started rising up from my stomach as Addi looked at me to
translate, followed by Claudette and Mr Clement.

“She’s very upset,” I started (even I
could tell that from her manner).

Claudette said something else and I found
myself nodding along as if I understood every word when in reality I caught
none of it, the feeling of panic rising in me all the time until it reached the
back of my neck and clamped there like a vice. Addi was looking at me
expectantly.

“The cups,” I burst out, as Claudette
gestured to the empty shelf, “she’s very upset about them.”

Then she pointed out the door and said
something else.

“There’s some other stuff missing outside?”
I guessed, thinking it was lucky the French are naturally so demonstrative.

She was indicating the door so we followed
her out to the opposite wall where some plaques and framed photographs were
displayed. There appeared to be a couple of holes in the pattern they made.

“Some of these are missing,” I told them.
Claudette nodded, it looked like my guess was right.

“Why would anyone want to steal these
things?” Addi asked. “Have you had problems with anybody?”

Luckily, he seemed to be asking this of Mr
Clement and wasn’t expecting me to translate it for Claudette.

“No,” Mr Clement insisted. “We work to
bring all the different nations here together, not have conflict with them.”

“Disgruntled members?”

Mr Clement looked offended by Addi’s
question. “Absolutely not. That sort of thing doesn’t happen here. We are all
about harmony.”

“So, you can’t think of anyone that could
do this? Not even as a trick?”

“No one we would know.”

That was going to make it easy. I wasn’t
sure what the police procedure was, would Addi whip out a fingerprinting kit
and start taking some prints? He didn’t. He took a few notes of the layout and
a couple of photos on his phone. And we were done. On the telly, the police
procedures were a bit more vigorous than that. Of course, I’d need to keep that
to myself if I wanted to get on around here.

“Was that it, then?” I asked as we walked
back to the car.

“What else did you expect to happen?”

He seemed a bit tetchy so I didn’t say
anymore.

“You should’ve left the questioning to
me,” he told me as we got to the car.

“Sorry, I was just trying to be helpful.
Must be a rival committee, eh? Or someone they’ve booted out?”

“I don’t think we’re going to get any
further information out of those two.”

“You’ll be able to get hold of someone
else from the committee, won’t you? Or a club member, someone who knows what’s
been going on and is willing to spill the beans?”

“You’ve been watching too many tv shows.
People are hardly ever willing to ‘spill the beans’.”

“They do on the Greek cop shows. They can
hardly keep it in till the sixty minutes are up.” I have a lot of experience of
these shows as we can’t afford satellite telly, even if it would work on Aunt
June’s hill.

“It’s a bit harder than that in real life.
I’ll need to get hold of someone with local knowledge.”

That sounded familiar.

“Does your aunt know CrossGlobal?”

“Couldn’t we try to solve this ourselves?”
I could just hear my aunt if I had to get her involved in every case.

“
We
aren’t trying to solve
anything.
I’m
trying to solve this.”

“Right, just for that I’m not asking Aunt
June,” I told him. So there.

A couple of days later, I’d
decided to take my lunch break outside. The warm sunny days were becoming
scarcer and I wanted to take advantage of this one. I was sitting on the rocks
by the seashore not far from the police building, leaning back against a
boulder enjoying the feel of the sun against my skin and the sound of leaves
rustling overhead, when I heard scrabbling close by. I opened my eyes to see
Addi lowering himself down to sit beside me.

“Nice day,” he commented.

“Even better as it’s raining back home.”

“Cold too, I expect.”

“Yep.” I’d checked the forecast earlier
and had been delighted to see it was going to be a typically crappy day
weatherwise in Swindon.

I had a feeling Addi had something on his
mind. He hadn’t spoken to me much since we’d visited CrossGlobal, yet suddenly,
here he was chatting about the English weather. As I carried on looking out to
sea, I saw him tighten his jacket around him out of the corner of my eye, and
suspected he wasn’t enjoying sitting here as much as I was (the locals were
used to 100+ degree heat in the summer so this probably felt bitterly cold to
him).

“What do you want?”

He turned to look at me and for a moment I
thought he was going to protest, but he didn’t. “I thought you might have some
ideas about these stolen trophies.”

“Does anyone really care? They’re not
actually valuable or anything, are they?”

“CrossGlobal are making a big fuss about
it. They’re a very high profile group. The chief’s really pushing me on this
case. I haven’t even found one suspect.”

“No local people protested against them?”

“No more than the usual weirdos.”

“And there are no rival groups?”

“I can’t find any.”

Despite the sunshine, I had to tuck my
hair behind my ears to stop the wind whipping it into my eyes. “What about
people thrown out of the organisation?”

“They tell me there hasn’t been any.”

“You think they’re lying?”

“Yes. I need someone who knows the people
involved.”

I could already hear what was coming next.
“You told me I’m not meant to be discussing work with my aunt.”

“This is different. I’ll never get on the
big cases if my clear up rate doesn’t improve.”

“Don’t you know someone you could ask?
Your family lives here; they must have loads of contacts.”

“Not expatriates. Can’t you ask her?”

Part of me didn’t want to. My aunt
shouldn’t have to be a copper’s nark (that’d be one to translate), plus I felt
a bit put out having to run to her for answers.

“Look,” Addi began, dropping his head
down, away from me, “I’m not good at this policing work, I’m not cut out for
it. It’s something my mother wanted me to do, she wanted me to be a policeman.”
He looked up at me then. “I need help.”

I looked at his face, sad and pleading. “Alright,
I’ll ask her tonight.”

“Great,” Addi told me, his face
brightening considerably. He got up from the rock. “I’m going in, it’s freezing
out here”.

And that was how Aunt June came to be a
police informant.

7 The Tip Off

I didn’t get the chance to ask Aunt
June that night about the robberies at CrossGlobal, she’d gone out early to
bingo. It had to wait until the following day, our daytrip to the mountains.

What I hadn’t realised when she’d proposed
the day out was, when Aunt June said ‘we’, she meant her, me and Kostas. What a
cosy group we made as Kostas drove us across country.

“It’s a good chance for you to get to know
each other,” Aunt June had explained as Kostas pulled up outside the villa that
morning. She’d decided it would be better for Kostas to drive us. A decision I
was trying not to take as a slur on my driving skills. It made things difficult
because I didn’t want to talk to her about the robberies with Kostas there.

He’d looked as uncomfortable as me at our
second meeting. Kostas, it turns out, is a nice enough bloke, for a retired
dentist, and certainly a lot less wrinkly with his clothes on, but that’s the
problem. I’ve seen a lot more of him than anyone who isn’t in a medical
profession should. It was very difficult to forget that, especially when Aunt
June insisted on bringing some sheftalia along with her for an impromptu
picnic. Concentrating on Kostas’ discourse on the monastery we would shortly be
arriving at, was very difficult with Aunt June popping little sausages in her
mouth at regular intervals.

It was lucky we’d wrapped up warm. Despite
a mostly blue sky when we’d left Kythios, the temperature dropped at least
twenty degrees as we went further into the mountains. No wonder Aunt June had
been in no desperate rush to come here, she shivers when the temperature goes
below the mid sixties.

The scenery was breathtaking though, the
parched landscape giving way to ever denser and lusher foliage the higher we
climbed. Dotted about were little villages of whitewashed houses with red tiled
roofs, old ladies smothered in black appearing to be their only occupants. I
longed to stop and investigate, but Kostas seemed to have a different idea
about our itinerary.

Other people on holiday do wine tours. We
seemed to be doing a religious retreat tour (a lot less fun but with similar
amounts of sour grapes involved). The Cypriot mountains are dotted with
monasteries and Kostas was keen that we should visit each one. I guess it’s
something people have a sudden desire to do once they hit a certain age, like taking
up crocheting or playing bowls.

The first monastery was an impressive
looking building, very hushed and solemn, yet welcoming. I oo’d and ah’d at the
artefacts and Byzantine icons on show and felt I was suitably admiring of the
architecture. Kostas stuck by Aunt June the whole time, giving her a running
commentary on the place and not giving me an opportunity to speak to her on her
own. I’m not sure why I felt I needed to get her alone, I suppose I knew there
was something a bit wrong about it.

We were quickly on our way to the second
monastery. This had some fine frescos in their small church and, luckily for
us, another set of Byzantine icons. Obviously, you can never view too many
icons and I oo’d and ah’d suitably again. Kostas and my aunt were actually
holding hands by now and giving the impression nothing was coming between them,
short of a crowbar.

The third monastery on Kostas’ list was
much bleaker and, frankly, rather sinister in its look and feel. Its large,
dark tower loomed ominously from a clearing in the forest and the rest of the
building, when it came into view, wasn’t any better. Imagine a brooding, gothic
structure and you’re halfway there. It wasn’t just the building that gave a
sense of doom, the monk who greeted us reminded me of Vincent Price at his creepy
best. His eyes, cold and penetrating, lingered on me for a little longer than I
was comfortable with as he spoke of their mission in a slick, unctuous, almost
mocking voice. It was at that moment it struck me that monastery was ‘monstery’
with an extra ‘a’. Monstery was certainly how the place felt to me.

It gave me the shivers so badly I couldn’t
bear to be there any longer.

“I think I might have a little walk in the
woods outside instead,” I announced. “Aunt June, want to stretch your legs with
me?”

“Oh no, dear. Too many tripping hazards
for me out there.” She smiled at Kostas and they ambled off to look at more
icons.

I had a little solo hike in the
surrounding forest (there being no short piers available), taking my time
stumbling over tree roots and cunningly hidden creepers whilst Aunt June and Kostas
enjoyed the dark lair. After half an hour, which included some considerable
minutes spent examining a statue only to discover it was an overgrown gatepost,
I headed back to our agreed meeting place.

Spending time with them had given me the
chance to realise what a nice couple they made. My aunt may be small and
slightly shrivelled from her years in the hot climate, but she was lively and
dressed with care. I could imagine her being a bit of a catch to a geriatric. Kostas
seemed a bit fixed in his ways and a little dull, but I could see he treated
her well. I spotted their location from the sun’s reflection on Kostas’ shiny
pate and made my way over.

I had just about resigned myself to the
fact I would have to wait until we returned home to speak to Aunt June, and
hope she wouldn’t be rushing out again, when Kostas solved the problem by
deciding to go back inside and buy some postcards.

“You’re right,” I encouraged him, “you can
never look at the inside of a monastery too many times.”

I dived in as soon as he was out of sight,
all hope of casually dropping it into the conversation long gone.

“CrossGlobal? Yes, I know them,” Aunt June
replied.

“Big concern, are they? Important?”

Aunt June scrunched up her nose a little.
“To themselves. They reckon they unite all the different expats that live here,
you know there’s a lot of Russians and Portuguese around.”

“A couple of French too,” I chimed in.

“It’s not just all British,” she continued
as if she hadn’t heard me.

“I bet you know some people who work
there, on the committee maybe?”

“Yes. Why?”

I looked down the path to check Kostas
wasn’t on his way back yet.

“Is this about the awards that went
missing? Someone broke in a stole a few, didn’t they?” my aunt asked before I
could continue.

“Did they?”

My aunt looked at me, one eyebrow raised.

“Alright. It’s about the robbery. Have you
heard anything about it on the grapevine?”

She thought for a moment. “I wouldn’t be
in so much of a rush to believe that someone broke in if I were you.”

I leaned in. “Oh? Who was it?”

“Oh, I don’t know that. I’m just saying, I
heard a rumour it wasn’t someone from outside.” She turned and checked her
reflection in the window behind us, patting her bun into place.

“But who would want those old trophies?
What was it about?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you ask around a bit?”

“Really, Jennifer…” she began only to
stop. Kostas was back, waving postcards at us.

“I got one for you,” he said, handing me a
postcard. “Of the icons, because you admired them so much.”

“Thanks, but really, you shouldn’t have,”
I said, sincerely.

Kostas started unfolding his map when we
got back to the car. “Well, this has been a nice day,” I said, fearing he was
looking up another monastery, “but I’m bushed. Do you mind if we go home now?
Another monk might just push me over the edge.” (Or vice versa).

“Yes, that’s probably a good idea,” my
aunt agreed. “It has been fun though, we must do it again sometime.”

Addi was hounding my desk when I
got to work the next day. “So, what did she say?”

“Good morning to you too. Has something
happened? You’re not normally here at this time.”

“What did she say?”

I had to think what he was talking about
for a moment. “Oh, the robbery. She said she didn’t think it was someone
outside the CrossGlobal organisation.”

“It’s someone at CrossGlobal?”

I noticed my in-tray looked depressingly
full again. “That’s what she thought.”

“She thinks or she knows?”

“I’m not sure my aunt understands the
difference between those two concepts.”

“But she doesn’t know who?”

“Nope,” I told him as I looked through the
pile of work that had appeared overnight.

“Hmm. I suppose it’s a start. I guess I’ll
go out there again and see if I can make anyone break out in a sweat. No, it’s
okay, you don’t need to come,” he told me as I reached for my bag.

Cheers. “I’ll just stay here and type up
these reports, shall I?” I grumbled to his disappearing back.

He left just as Vara was breezing into the
office. Her smiling face normally cheers me up but today it was a little
annoying. I was getting a bit bored with the monotony of some of the work. No
matter how many sets of notes I typed up, more just kept appearing in my in-tray.

 “You’re getting a tan, you know,” Vara
commented. “It suits you.”

I perked up slightly. A tan?

“Shame the weather’s turned now, though,”
she continued, deflating me again. “What’s the matter, you look a bit down?”

Do I really? Had she sensed I was less
than enamoured at the idea of spending the day typing, or spending the day
doing anything really? “Just a bit fed up today, that’s all,” I told her in my
best English stiff upper lip style, ever the masters of understatement.

“I’ve got some news that will cheer you
up.”

Someone’s throwing a party? We’ve just won
the lottery? Dallas is coming back on the telly? (Oh, wait…)

“The old lady that died, it wasn’t her
sister after all. The investigation’s not over. The killer’s still out there.”

Excuse me if I fail to see how this cheers
me up? “Right?” I queried.

“You never know, Addi may get the case
after all. Perhaps you could persuade him to take you along?”

I can remember when the highlight of my
day was being wined and dined by a successful businessman, having attention
lavished upon me, and enjoying wild nights with him at the Hilton. Not finding
out I may get to examine how an old lady was strangled.

Hello new life. (In all fairness, the old
one hadn’t worked out that well either.)

“Isn’t there a special investigation team
for homicides?” I asked.

Vara’s face clouded over a little. “No, I
don’t think so. We don’t get that many in Kythios.”

Remind me never to get bumped off round
here. “Well, working on that case would certainly be something to look forward
to,” I humoured her.

“I wish it were me.”

The phone interrupted her disturbing
thoughts. And mine.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Jennifer? It’s me.”

Aunt June. “Anything wrong?” I asked.

“No, all I will say is ‘Beth Johnson’,”
she whispered in a mysterious way.

“What?”

“Beth Johnson,” she whispered slightly
louder.

“Who or what is ‘Beth Johnson’?”

“Say no more,” she whispered and hung up.

I looked at the phone for a moment before
replacing it in its cradle. Had they started putting something in the water?
What other explanation could there be for the sudden madness in people today?

In the afternoon, I had to track Addi down
to decipher some handwriting.

“It isn’t English,” I told him, showing
him the particularly illegible bit. “Did you train to be a doctor or
something?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, English
isn’t my first language,” he told me a little huffily.

“It’s not your second language either. I
can’t tell if it’s writing or just a doodle.”

He snatched the page from my grasp. “It’s,
er, it says, er …” He peered more closely at the page. “Clearly it reads…” I
watched him turn the paper around, have no luck, and turn it back again. “I
can’t be expected to read it out of context. Where’s the rest of it?”

I gave him the sheet that had come before.

He spent a few minutes comparing the two.

“Shall I come back?” I asked. Leaning
against the wall was getting boring.

“No, it says something like ‘money banana
bathtub’.”

“You want me to type that?”

“Yes. No.” Addi looked at me. “I don’t
know.”

“I would suggest no, because it doesn’t
make sense.” I took in the faint worry lines that had appeared around his
mouth, the tie askew about his neck, his hair a right old mess, and decided
action was needed. “Come on, let’s go get a drink.”

We walked down to the kiosk that
laughingly passed for a canteen around here and I made two cups of coffee.

“What’s going on? Investigation still not
going well?”

He flopped down into one of the plastic
seats provided. “How could you tell?”

“Just a wild guess. What’s happened?”

“Nothing, that’s the problem. I still
don’t have a suspect for the CrossGlobal robbery and the chief’s getting really
mad. I’ve got another theft in Jasmine Gardens and a disturbance in town to
investigate. If I don’t start getting some answers soon, I’ll be investigating
missing dogs for the rest of my life.”

“There are worse things to spend your time
on.”

“Missing dogs are not going to get me a
promotion. My mother keeps asking me when I will be working on the important
cases.”

I joined him on the crappy plastic seats.
“Hey, that dog case turned out well. And the owners were grateful I’m sure, it
was important to them.”

“That’s not how my mother sees it.”

I had a sudden vision of Addi’s mother - a
cross between a dragon and Attila the Hun, dressed all in black. Not quite the
same as my mother, who’s more of a cross between an afghan hound and a terrier,
but just as scary and judgemental no doubt.

“You live at home with your mother?”