Mortal Remains (20 page)

‘So do I, or I wouldn’t talk like this,’ said Ursula. ‘It’s the climate – and Greece. Now, tell me what’s upsetting you.’

He told her all that had happened since he arrived in Athens. It took some time, and she made him stop in the middle while she brought their lunch out into the garden. He skated over his lecherous feelings for Jill but knew he did not deceive her.

‘Do you make a habit of this?’ she asked, when he had done.

‘Of what? Despatching reckless young students back home?’

‘No. Attracting dead bodies. Your average seems to be high.’

‘It’s happened before,’ he admitted. ‘That’s why I don’t treat it lightly.’

‘You did well to get that girl out. She was obviously totally innocent. Useful camouflage, perhaps, for whatever they were doing.’

‘The unfortunate man Murcott must have been innocent too.’

‘You must be right about that. He must have stumbled on an illicit dig on that island.’

‘Well, the police will know by now.’

‘There’s probably a tomb there.’

‘Yes. I suppose they’re dotted about all over the place waiting to be found.’

‘Oh, certainly,’ said Ursula. ‘Are you sure the Yannis of the
Psyche
and the island is the one you were looking for?’

‘He must be. Two Yannises with mothers called Ilena on one island – not possible, surely.’

‘It does sound as if it would be stretching coincidence rather far,’ she agreed. ‘What are you going to do now?’

‘Leave it, for the present. The police are busy enough with it all. I’m still worried about Felix. I may go back to Crete to see if I can find out more, now that I know he was aboard the
Psyche.’

‘Where will you begin?’

‘I don’t know. I could talk to Manolakis – the policeman.’ He had not told her about Lucy Amberley, but now he did.

‘Oh, poor woman,’ said Ursula.

‘It’s awful, isn’t it? What appalling things happen.’

‘Yes. But they had some good moments together, from what you say. Some people miss out altogether,’ said Ursula.

‘You don’t think the loss of something so—so precious, I suppose I mean,’ said Patrick, rather embarrassed at having to use such a word in this context, ‘is too much to be borne?’

‘No, I don’t.’ Ursula was emphatic. ‘It’s not better to settle for no risks, if you have a choice.’

‘There’s always a moment like that, isn’t there, when you decide to draw back, or go on?’ said Patrick.

‘Some people never recognise that moment of decision,’ said Ursula seriously.

What had happened with her and her Greek? She had not chosen retreat; that was clear. Patrick longed to know the story. She was looking at him quizzically and he wondered what she was thinking. In fact, she had decided that he had just recovered from some blow to the heart and was afraid of further wounds.

‘Tell me about Lucy,’ she said.

He did, and that she knew Vera Hastings. This led on to how Vera had been in the Wrens during the war.

‘You’d never think it,’ marvelled Patrick. ‘Those little round hats. And Elsie Loukas was one too, but they never met, it seems.’

‘How did Elsie get to America? As a G.I. bride?’

‘I don’t think so, unless she had a husband between the one that was killed in Crete and George,’ said Patrick. ‘She’s had her troubles. Deserted from the Wrens after some sort of nervous breakdown, and lived in dread of a court-martial. But as she had a baby, she’d have got out on that account, wouldn’t she? It died though. I’m not sure of the sequence of events in her history.’

‘Hm, how funny of her not to know.’

‘Know what?’

‘The Wrens weren’t under military discipline. They could desert with impunity. But very few did. The army and air force took it more seriously.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I was a Wren too,’ said Ursula. ‘But I wore a three- cornered hat.’

Athens was grilling when Patrick got back to the city. He went into the Zappeion Gardens behind the Parliament Building and sat on a seat in the shade to think. At first his mind raced round in circles but after a while his thoughts steadied and began to take definite shape. Little incidents came back to him, each insignificant in itself but adding up to one thing. He got up at last and walked back to the central post office on Eolou to send some cables. Then he went to the Archaeological Museum where he looked at the objects from Mycenae; there was pathos in an ivory comb three thousand years old; who had used it? And who had wept at her death?

After that he went back to the hotel, bathed and changed, and then went across to the Hilton.

He went into the bar and ordered a beer.

He was sitting alone, drinking it and reading his Greek phrase book, trying to remember simple remarks like
Hero poli
in case he was introduced to a Greek, when George Loukas came up and slapped him on the back.

‘Hi, there. Lonesome?’

‘Kind of,’ said Patrick. Modes of speech were infectious.

‘Elsie’s still prettying herself. Women take so long, don’t they? She’s been in the beauty shop all afternoon, getting her hair dyed.’ He chuckled. ‘She thinks I don’t know that isn’t her real colour. She’s blonde really. Grey by now, I guess. No one’s seen the true colour of her hair for years.’

‘How long have you been married?’

‘Fifteen years.’

‘Is that all? I thought it was more.’

‘No. I guess it took time to get over losing Freddie – her first husband. And Greeks don’t usually marry young, you know. We have to see our sisters settled first.’

‘Even in America?’

‘Some do.’

‘What will you drink, George?’ Patrick beckoned the waiter. George demurred, Patrick over-rode him and when George’s drink had come the little man invited him to join them for dinner. After some show of reluctance Patrick accepted.

‘How much longer are you staying in Athens?’ he asked.

‘Oh, just a few days. I’d like to make it weeks, I’m just getting to feel at home, but I guess Elsie’s had enough. Isn’t that right, honey?’ For Elsie had appeared as they talked. Her hair certainly gleamed as black as a raven; now that Patrick thought about it, jet black hair and freckled arms did not go together in nature’s scheme.

They planned to go to London, see the Tower and the Changing of the Guard, Oxford, Cambridge and Scotland. Patrick was entertained at this selectivity.

‘You said you’d be visiting Reading on your trip. The biscuits haven’t changed much in thirty years,’ he said.

‘The biscuits?’ George said, looking blank.

‘Cookies, you call them,’ Patrick said. ‘There’s a factory at Reading – surely you’ve told George that, Elsie? The town’s famous for it – and other things, of course.’

‘I’d forgotten,’ Elsie said.

How could she forget? The factory was a huge place, and central to the town.

They went in to dinner. George demanded steak. He was accustomed to American beef and said he was tired of all that damned mince. Patrick had steak too, and Elsie chose fish. They drank Demestica. Afterwards George and Patrick had a meringue concoction and Elsie had fruit.

‘I’ve got to watch my diet,’ she said.

‘You don’t need to diet,’ said Patrick. She was sturdy, big-breasted, with a broad frame but not fat; she could never be slim. He thought of how she had looked like Brunhilde in the shop in Crete, dressed in her gold-embroidered caftan.

‘It’s not her figure. She’s diabetic,’ said George, and earned a reproving frown from his wife. ‘Well, honey, it’s a common enough complaint. You’re a good advertisement for successful therapy.’ He turned to Patrick. ‘Changes of food tend to upset her. She has to regulate the insulin.’

Patrick remembered the boiled sweets Elsie had produced from her bag on Mikronisos and again on the drive to Delphi; he could not remember seeing her eat one herself. Diabetics had to carry a lump of sugar or something sweet in case of a sudden coma, he seemed to recall. The pieces of the jigsaw began to fit together at last. But why? And how?

‘You’re very courageous about it,’ he said. ‘Have you had it long?’

‘Oh yes – forever, you could say,’ she said. ‘It’s too boring. Let’s talk about something else.’

‘We’re going to Mycenae tomorrow, and Epidaurus,’ said George. He pronounced it
Epidavros,
in the Greek way. ‘Have you been there?’

Patrick had not.

‘We’re meeting up with Vera Hastings. She’s planning to go along too, and it’s lonesome for her on her own,’ George went on. ‘Why don’t you join us?’

‘I might at that,’ said Patrick. He’d done it again: lapsed into transatlantic idiom.

The helpful clerk, Kostas, who had obtained Jill’s plane ticket, was on duty again when Patrick got back to the hotel. He gave Patrick two cables and a note asking him to telephone Ursula, no matter how late it was when he got in.

He went up to his room, took off his jacket, and stood on the balcony in the warm night air for a few minutes before dealing with the messages. The room opposite, where he had seen the exchange take place, was in darkness. Below, there were lights in some windows: rooms occupied by businessmen, tourists, lovers, he supposed. And haters too. How long could hatred last?

He read his cables before telephoning Ursula.

A cable from Colin said:

WILL BENEFITS MISTRESS AND DAUGHTER

WIFE JOYLESS BUT WEALTHY ANYWAY.

A second cable, also from Colin ran:

IMAGE VILLAINS IGNORANT ART EXPERT VIOLENCE.

So Lucy had been taken care of; and murder featured higher on the operations list of the island gang than their thefts. He had forgotten that Gwenda had money of her own; of course, her grandfather had been a sanitary engineer, making lavatory basins, baths, and a fortune. Gwenda, the third generation, had achieved social advancement by dint of her expensive education and judicious marriage.

He lifted the telephone and asked for Ursula’s number. She answered at once.

‘Patrick?’ Her voice was clipped, the tone urgent.

‘Yes. Sorry to be so late.’

‘Never mind. You realise the importance of what we discussed today? The discrepancy? Vera Hastings will have noticed it too, if she thinks about it.’

‘Yes. I’ve been thinking about that. She started to say something at Delphi and then changed her mind. Perhaps she wasn’t sure if she remembered accurately.’

‘There’s something else. Two more things. When did Elsie say her husband was killed?’

‘In 1941. Yes, I’m sure of that.’

‘And when did she go to Africa? You said she served there.’

They had discussed Elsie’s war-time career after Ursula’s disclosure that she had been an officer in the same service.

‘She was married there,’ said Patrick. ‘What are you getting at? She was only married a few weeks.’

Ursula told him.

‘And there’s something else,’ she said. ‘Something I noticed in Challika after you left. Some words in Greek scratched on the stone inside that old pill-box on the headland.’ She repeated what they said. ‘But how was it done? And why?’

‘I’ve got an idea about how,’ said Patrick heavily. ‘I don’t know why.’

‘Are you going to the police?’

‘I haven’t any proof. What can they do? It’s all surmise even with what you’ve told me. But I’ve got a plan.’

‘Yes?’

‘I need some help. Vera is going to Mycenae and Epidaurus tomorrow. So are the Loukases. She could be in danger, if she says anything to Elsie. I’m going too – as a bodyguard, and I want to set something up, but 1 can’t do it alone. Would you come too?’

‘What do you mean to do?’

‘It needs more thought, but roughly, this—’ He began to explain.

‘Yes,’ she said, when he had done. ‘It might work. I’ll help, and so will a friend of mine, Nikos Hadzmichalis. We’ll be with you for breakfast.’

They arrived at half-past seven and all three hatched their plan in the hotel dining-room over coffee, rolls and apricot jam.

Nikos spoke excellent English; he had lived in London for several years but never left Greece now. He did not have to explain why. He was an engineer and his skill was valuable. He had warm brown eyes which belied the austerity of his face with its aquiline nose; his profile could have come from a Greek vase, except that the faces on them were all youthful. There was no time now to find out his history or how he and Ursula had met. It was sufficient that he was a man of authority; Patrick was reassured when Nikos agreed with his judgement that there was not enough, yet, to tell the police.

‘I hope we’ve thought of everything,’ he said, with some diffidence, when they had gone over their plans thoroughly.

‘I think so, Dr Grant,’ said Nikos.

‘And remember, when we meet at Epidaurus, you two don’t know each other,’ said Ursula to the men.

‘If this doesn’t work, we’ll think up another scheme,’ said Nikos. ‘Today we must play for safety. I wish we could prevent this Mrs Hastings from taking the trip.’

So did Patrick, but they did not know how to get hold of her, except possibly through the Loukases, and that must not be done.

‘Well, I’d better go,’ said Patrick. ‘I must get to the coach terminal before the others.’ It was just round the corner; the invaluable Kostas had already made out his ticket.

‘Here’s a torch, for Mycenae,’ said Nikos, handing Patrick a small, neat pocket one. ‘You’ll need it. The tours don’t spend long there, but don’t fret when your guide takes you away. Ursula and I will take you back when this is all over.’

Patrick left them drinking more coffee. They were going in Nikos’s car; it would be quicker, and the people in the coach would not see them until the time for their meeting. He marvelled at them as he walked out of the dining room; they were like a couple who had been happily married for years, giving out a united strength, yet both had an aura of youthful excitement. Had they some permanent future arranged? He did not think so, from Ursula’s remarks about the vagueness of her plans; perhaps such a thing was impossible.

In the road he stopped at a kiosk and bought several small packets of boiled sweets, which he put in his pocket. Then he walked quickly along the street to where a row of coaches was drawn up outside the tour offices. Soon, more coaches bringing tourists from hotels all over Athens would converge here, and the passengers would be sorted into the right buses for their various destinations. There was always someone who misunderstood or got muddled, took the wrong coach, or was rude to the guide; yet somehow the couriers stayed patient throughout.