Solo (Aka the Cretan Lover) (v5) (17 page)

After he had put the phone down, she got her address book and quickly found Bruno Fischer's number. When he answered, he sounded as if he was still in bed.

'Bruno - Katherine Riley.'

'And what can I do for you so early in the morning?'

'When's John due back from Helsinki?'

'He isn't. He decided he needed a break. Flew straight to Athens and carried on to Hydra. He'll be there now if you want him. You've got the number, haven't you? The one good thing about that barbaric place is that he is on the phone.'

She rang off then turned to another page. One thing about Hydra. It was possible to get through directly by automatic trunk dialling. She punched out the lengthy series of numbers. It took her three separate attempts before she got through.

'John, is that you?'

'Katherine! Where are you?' He sounded pleased.

'Cambridge. I think I can get away for a few days. Can I come over?'

'You certainly can. When do I expect you?'

She glanced at her watch. 'I've a few things to clear up here, but I might just catch the afternoon flight. If not, this evening at the latest. That would mean I couldn't get across to the island till tomorrow morning.'

'I'll have Costantine waiting at the dock for you.' After he had gone, she sat there for a long time without moving. Nonsense! Absolute bloody nonsense and at that moment, she actually found herself hating Asa Morgan with all her heart.

Morgan waited at the counter of the
Telegraph
information department in Fleet Street. The pleasant young lady, to whom he'd stated his requirements five minutes earlier, returned with a bulky file.

'Mikali - John,' she said, 'and there's a lot of him.'

Which there was. Morgan took it to one of the tables, sat down and started to work his way through. There were gaps of course. The clippings were mainly English and American, but there were also some French. A review of a concert to fit the Vassilikos assassination, another that matched the Russian in Toronto.

Finally, there was an article in
Paris-Match
which Morgan read slowly. His French was only fair, but he managed to get the gist of it. It was an account of Mikali's time in the Legion and there was a particularly graphic description of the affair at Kasfa.

Then he turned to the next page and saw the pictures. One of Mikali in paratrooper's beret and camouflage uniform, holding a machine-carbine with negligent ease. The other, a close-up of him wearing the regulation white
kepi
of the fully trained legionnaire.

Morgan looked at that hard young face, the cropped hair, the blank eyes, the mouth. He closed the file. It was enough. He had found the Cretan.

It was just after one when Baker was admitted to Ferguson's flat by Kim. The Brigadier was enjoying a sandwich lunch by the fire. He was also reading
The Times.

'You look agitated, Superintendent!'

'Asa's left for Athens on the eleven-o'clock plane. Special Branch at Heathrow had no authority to stop him, but the news did finally percolate through to us.'

'By which time he'd gone, naturally. British Airways, I presume?'

'Olympic.'

'How very unpatriotic of him.'

'I checked with them. It seems he booked the flight by phone and arrived with ten minutes to spare to pick up his ticket. He only had hand luggage with him.'

'Greece,' Ferguson said, 'and Cretan. Somehow they really do seem to fit together, don't they? I don't like it;'

'Do you want me to notify Greek Special Branch in Athens to pick him up?'

'Certainly not.'

'All right, sir, do we have a DI5 man at our Embassy there?'

'Actually we do. A Captain Rourke, assistant in the military attache's office.'

'Maybe he could follow Morgan when he gets in?'

'It's certainly a thought, Superintendent, except for the unfortunate fact that as you yourself pointed out, Asa Morgan can't be followed unless he wants to be. Still, if you'd like to give Rourke a ring, please do so. The red phone generally achieves the quickest results.'

He returned to
The Times.
Baker went to the desk, picked up the red telephone and asked to be put through on the scrambler, to the British Embassy in Athens.

Captain Charles Rourke was leaning against a pillar reading a newspaper when Morgan emerged from Immigration and Customs. The captain was wearing a crumpled linen suit of a type favoured by many Greeks during the heat of the summer months which was supposed to help him merge effectively into the background of the crowded concourse.

Professional soldiers in civilian clothes usually manage to recognize each other for what they are. On this occasion, Morgan's task was made easy for he had an encyclopedic memory for faces and remembered Rourke's from the front row of a study group on methods and technology of urban guerrilla warfare, that he'd lectured to in 1969 at Sandhurst.

Ferguson being careful.
Not that it mattered. He went to the exchange counter and passed two hundred pounds sterling, for which he received the appropriate rate in drachmas, then walked out of the entrance and hailed a cab.

He'd last visited Athens a few years previously for a NATO conference. He remembered the hotel he'd stayed in at that time. From what he recalled, it would suit his purpose admirably.

'You know the Green Park Hotel in Kristou Street?'

'Sure,' the driver said and pulled away.

Behind them, Charley Rourke was already into the back of a black Mercedes and tapping the driver on the shoulder. 'That cab up ahead. The green Peugeot estate. Where he goes, we go.'

He remembered Morgan now and that course at the Academy. It was really rather amusing turning the tables like this. He leaned back with a smile and lit a cigarette.

Morgan checked his watch. It had been necessary to advance it two hours which meant it was now a quarter to five, Athens time.

'Is there still time to catch the hydrofoil to Hydra tonight?' he asked.

'Sure,' the driver said. 'Summer schedule. They run later, these light nights. The last to Hydra leaves the Piraeus at six-thirty.'

'How long does it take?'

'Gets in eight o'clock. It makes a nice run. Plenty to see. Doesn't get dark this time of year till around nine-thirty.' He glanced briefly over his shoulder. 'You want I should take you to the Piraeus?'

Morgan, aware of the Mercedes behind, shook his head. 'No, I'll leave it till tomorrow. The hotel will do fine.'

'Heh, for an Englishman you speak good Greek.'

It didn't seem politic to mention that it had been gained during three hard years chasing EOKA terrorists in Cyprus.

Morgan said, 'I worked in Nicosia for a few years, for a British-owned wine company.'

The driver nodded wisely. 'Things are better there now. I think Makarios knows what he's doing.'

'Let's hope so.'

He'd little time to waste, he knew that as he paid off the driver at the Green Park Hotel and the black Mercedes drifted past and pulled in at the kerb a few yards away. As Morgan turned and went up the steps to the revolving door, Rourke got out of the car and went after him.

Once inside, Morgan didn't go to the desk. Instead, he crossed to the mezzanine. Rourke paused for a moment, pretending to examine the daily currency exchange rate on the foyer bulletin board, only going after him when Morgan had moved round the corner of the first landing.

Once on the mezzanine floor, Morgan, who knew exactly where he was going, darted past the souvenir shop and took the narrow back stair which led directly to the twenty-four-hour restaurant on the lower level. He threaded his way between the tables and was leaving by the side entrance of the hotel while Rourke, still on the mezzanine floor, hesitated, not knowing where to go next.

He approached the young lady in the souvenir shop. 'My friend just came up ahead of me. He had a brown leather bag and wore a raincoat. I seem to have missed him.'

'Oh, yes, sir. He went down the restaurant stairs.'

Rourke, seized by a sudden dreadful suspicion, went down them two at a time. By then, of course, Asa Morgan was long gone, already half-way across the park in the square opposite.

He emerged, as he'd expected, by a public taxi rank and got into the one at the head of the queue. 'The Piraeus,' he told the driver. 'I've got to catch the
Flying Dolphin
for Hydra at six-thirty.'

'That's cutting it too fine, mister,' the driver said. 'I don't think we can make it.'

'Five hundred drachmas says we can,' Asa Morgan told him. He reached for the handstrap as the driver grinned, gunned his motor and shot out into the stream of traffic.

11

At Heathrow, it was just three-thirty as Katherine Riley hurried up to the British Airways check-in desk followed by a porter with her luggage.

The young clerk examined her ticket. 'Sorry, madam, they're boarding now. Too late to pass you through. Would you like me to see if I can put you on our seven o'clock flight?'

'Yes,' she said. 'Please do. I must get to Athens tonight.'

He checked and came back. 'Yes, we can do that for you. You get in rather late, I'm afraid. Half an hour past midnight, Greek time.'

'That doesn't matter,' she said. 'I'm going on to the islands. It means I'll get an early start in the morning.'

'Fine, madam. Now if I could have your baggage, I'll check it through for you.'

It was Ferguson who phoned Baker this time, with the bad news from Athens.

'I've just had Rourke on the line. Asa gave him the slip, and rather easily, from the sound of it.'

'Jesus Christ,' Baker said, for once totally unable to contain himself. 'Where in the hell do you find these idiots?'

'A special dispensation from the Almighty, Superintendent. Who are we poor mortals to question his ways?'

'So - what do we do now, sir?'

'Like Mr Micawber, sit tight and hope for something to turn up,' Ferguson said and put down the phone.

Morgan made it to the hydrofoil quay at the Piraeus with ten minutes to spare. It wasn't particularly crowded and he paid for his ticket on board and found a seat by the window.

It was a calm evening and the
Flying Dolphin
was able to operate at maximum speed, straining high out of the water on her stilt-like legs. And the scenery was spectacular enough. Salamis with the blue waters of the Saronic Gulf, the great bulk of the islands of Aegina and Paros, glowing with brilliant colours in the evening light.

None of it meant anything to Morgan, even when he went out to the well deck and leaned on the rail, staring blindly into space, thinking of only one thing. John Mikali. And when they met, what then? He had no weapon. Impossible to risk being caught trying to bring one in by the security checks at the airport. There was always his hands, of course. It wouldn't be the first time. When he looked down at them, they trembled slightly.

Finally, there was Hydra, bare and austere in the evening light like some great stone basilisk, curiously disappointing until the
Flying Dolphin
moved into harbour and the enchantment of Hydra town itself was revealed.

The houses rose in tiers, back into the hills, reached by a network of twisting cobbled alleys. The evening was just getting going, cheerful crowds moving into the tavernas.

Morgan took a seat at one of the open air tables close to the Monastery of the Dormiton on the waterfront. The waiter who came spoke fair English so Morgan kept his Greek to himself and ordered a beer.

'You American?' the waiter asked.

'No, Welsh.'

'I've never been to Wales. London, yes. I worked in a restaurant on the King's Road, Chelsea, for one year.'

'And that was enough?'

'Too cold,' the waiter smiled. 'Nice here in the season. Nice and warm.' He kissed his fingers. 'Plenty of girls. Lots of tourists. You here for a holiday, eh?'

'No,' Morgan said. 'I'm a journalist. Hoping to interview John Mikali, the concert pianist. He has a villa here, I understand?'

'Sure, down the coast beyond Molos.'

'How do I get there?' Morgan asked. 'Is there a local bus?'

The waiter smiled. 'No cars or trucks on Hydra. It's against the law. The only way you get anywhere is on a mule or your own two feet. A mule is better. In the interior of the island, it's rough, mountainous country and the people there still live like the old days.'

'And Mikali?'

'His villa is about seven kilometres down the coast from here on a promontory in the pine trees opposite to Dokos. Very beautiful. He uses a motor launch to ferry his supplies and so on.'

'Can I hire a boat to take me there?'

The waiter shook his head. 'Not if he hasn't invited you.'

Morgan tried to look dismayed. 'Then what do I do? I'd hate to have come all this way for nothing.' He took a one-hundred-drachma note from his wallet and laid it carefully down on the table. 'If you could help in any way, I'd be very grateful.'

The waiter picked up the note calmly and slipped it casually into his top pocket. 'I tell you what. I do you a favour. I get him on the telephone. If he wants to see you, then that's up to him. Okay?'

'That's fine.'

'What's your name?'

'Lewis.'

'Okay. You stay here. I'll be back in a couple of minutes.'

The waiter went inside the taverna to the desk and checked in a small directory, then he lifted the receiver from the wall phone and dialled a number. Mikali answered himself.

'Heh, Mr Mikali, this is Andrew, the waiter at Niko's,' he said in Greek.

'And what can I do for you?'

'There's a man here come in on the hydrofoil from Athens asking how to get to your place. A journalist. He says he was hoping for an interview.'

'What is he, an American?'

'No, Welsh, he says. His name is Lewis.'

'Welsh?' Mikali sounded faintly amused. 'That certainly makes a change. Okay, Andrew, I'm in a good mood, but only for an hour, mind you, that's all he's got. I'll send Constantine in for him. You point him to the boat when it comes in.'

'Okay, Mr Mikali.'

The waiter returned to Morgan. 'You're in luck. He says he'll see you, but only for an hour. He's sending his boatman for you, old Constantine. I'll tell you when they get here.'

'That's marvellous,' Morgan said. 'How long?'

'Long enough for you to have something to eat.' The waiter grinned. 'The fish I can especially recommend. Fresh in tonight.'

Morgan ate well, mainly to fill the time and found himself enjoying it. He was just finishing when the waiter tapped him on the shoulder and pointed and Morgan saw a white motor launch coming round the point.

'Come on,' the waiter said. 'I'll take you down and introduce you.'

The launch bumped against the harbour wall and a young boy of eleven or twelve jumped to the wharf with a line. He wore a patched jersey and jeans. The waiter tousled his hair and the boy gave him a flashing smile.

'This is Nicky, Constantine's grandson and here is Constantine himself.'

Constantine Melos was a small, powerful-looking man with a face tanned to a deep mahogany shade by a lifetime at sea. He wore a seaman's cap, check shirt, patched trousers and sea boots.

'Don't be misled by appearances,' the waiter whispered. 'The old bastard owns two good houses in town.' He raised his voice. 'This is Mr Lewis.'

Constantine didn't manage a smile. He said in broken English, 'We go now, mister.'

He turned and went back into the wheelhouse. 'Probably thinks the Devil will get him if he's out after dark,' the waiter said. 'They're all the same, these old ones. Half the women think they're witches. I'll see you again, Mr Lewis.'

Morgan stepped on board, the boy moved after him, coiling the line and the motor launch moved out of harbour past the once heavily fortified battery with its Venetian guns pointing out to sea as if they still expected the Turks to come.

It was a fine evening although the coast of the Peloponnese about four miles away was already fading into a kind of purple twilight and on the Hydriot shore, lights gleamed in the windows. The boat surged forward as Constantine boosted power and Morgan went into the wheelhouse and offered him a cigarette. 'How long?'

'Fifteen - twenty minutes.'

Morgan looked out across the evening sea, black as ink as the sun slipped out of sight beyond the bulk of Dokos on the far horizon.

'Nice,' he said.

The old man didn't bother to reply and, after a while, Morgan gave up and went below to the saloon where he found the boy seated at the table reading a sports paper. Morgan looked over his shoulder. The front page featured the famous Liverpool soccer team.

'You like football?' Morgan asked.

The boy smiled delightedly and pointed at the picture. 'Liverpool - you like?' His English seemed very limited.

'Well, I'd rather spend the afternoon at Cardiff Arms Park myself, but yes, you have to admit that there must be something in the water in Liverpool.'

The boy grinned again, then went to a cupboard, opened it and produced an expensive Polaroid camera. He pointed it at Morgan, there was a flash and then the print was ejected at the front.

Morgan said, 'There's an expensive toy. Who gave you that?'

'Mr Mikali,' Nicky said. 'He nice man.'

Morgan picked up the print and stared down as it automatically developed itself, his face peering darkly out at him, the colours deepening. 'Yes,' he said slowly. 'I suppose he is.'

The photo was ready now. Nicky took it from him and held it up. 'Good?'

'Yes.' Morgan patted him on the head. 'Very good.'

The phone rang. When Mikali answered it, it was Katherine Riley again.

'I'm still in the international departure lounge at Heathrow,' she said. 'There's been a delay.'

'My poor darling.'

'That sounds rather extravagant for you,' she said.

'I feel in an extravagant mood.'

'Anyway, I'll still be on the first hydrofoil in the morning.'

'I'll have Constantine waiting for you. Don't talk to any strange men.'

He hung up as he heard the sound of the engine approaching. He picked up a pair of binoculars, opened the french windows and moved out across the wide terrace. There was still enough light for him to see the launch turn into the bay and move towards the small jetty where Constantine's old wife, Anna, was waiting.

There was a light on the end of the jetty. As the boy tossed the line to his grandmother, Morgan followed him over the rail: Mikali focused the binoculars on him briefly. It was enough.

He returned to the living-room where a pine-log fire burned brightly on the hearth. He poured himself a large Courvoisier and ice, then opened a drawer in the desk, took out a Walther and quickly fitted a silencer to the muzzle.

He pushed the weapon into his belt and went round the room, glass in one hand, opening all the french windows, pushing back and securing the shutters so that the night wind filled the house with the scent of flowers from the garden.

Then he turned off all the lights except a reading lamp on a coffee table by the piano, went and sat down at the Bluthner and started to play.

Fifty or sixty feet up the steep path from the jetty they came to a small, rather primitive cottage. A dog started to bark at Morgan from the porch. The old woman hushed it and she and the boy went in. Constantine continued up the path without a word and Morgan followed him.

The garden was terraced, he was aware of that, fringed with olive trees and there were pots of camellia, gardenia, hibiscus and the warm night air was perfumed with the scent of jasmine.

He could hear the piano now, a strange, haunting piece. For a brief moment, he stopped dead in his tracks. Constantine paused, half-turning, his face showing no emotion, and Morgan started forward again.

They went up the steps to the villa. It was a large, sprawling, one-storeyed building, constructed of local stone with green-painted shutters and a pantile roof. Bougainvillaea grew in profusion everywhere.

There was a double door of iron-bound oak. Constantine opened it without ceremony and led the way in. The inner hall seemed to join two sections of the house together and was in darkness. A faint light showed through a door which stood open at the far end from where the music sounded clearly. Constantine led the way down to it, motioned Morgan inside, put down his holdall and left without a word, closing the front door behind him.

'Come in, Mr Lewis,' Mikali called.

Morgan stepped into the room. It was very long, simply furnished, white-painted walls, a floor of polished brick, the fire burning cheerfully in the hearth and Mikali at the Bluthner concert grand.

'Take your coat off, please.'

Morgan tossed his trenchcoat on to the nearest chair and moved forward slowly, like a man in a dream, throat dry, breathing constricted. The music seemed to touch the very core of his being.

'You know this piece, Mr Lewis?'

'Yes,' Morgan said thickly. It's called Le Pastour by Gabriel Grovlez.'

Mikali managed to look surprised. 'A man of taste and discernment.'

'Not really,' Morgan said. 'As it happens, it was one of the pieces my daughter had to learn for her grade five piano certificate at the Royal College of Music.'

'Yes, I was sorry about that,' Mikali said. 'I did try to miss her, Colonel.'

Morgan was past any kind of surprise now. He said, 'Yes, I can imagine that. When you murdered Stephanakis in Paris, you let the chauffeur live, the chambermaid at the Hilton in Berlin and the chauffeur again in Rio when you killed General Falcao. Who do you think you are - God?'