The Fire Man (12 page)

The Aegean Airways flight had landed at Thessalonica – or Thessaloniki, as the Greeks insisted on calling it – at 9.55am on a bright but humid morning. Less than an hour later, McRae had parked his hired Renault Clio outside the Makedonia Palace, which was an anodyne, but comfortable conference hotel close to the bay. The hotel was impersonal and featureless, but its view of the magnificent bay was unrivalled.

The hotel reception, a lofty marble-clad space, was thronging, mainly with noisy and excitable Greek families. It made quite a change from the German and British tourists who tended to dominate Cretan resorts. After queuing impatiently to check in, he left his small bag with the concierge as his room was not yet available. The pool terrace was still relatively quiet; clearly it was not quite hot enough to consider venturing out in swimwear, but it was ideal for a smoker.

Sipping a cup of barely drinkable stewed coffee on the pine-scented terrace, he studied a free street map of central Thessalonica, before eventually locating and marking Vlastou with a biro. He didn't know Thessalonica at all. It was far larger than he had expected and was clearly a proper city, the economy of which did not rely on tourism. So far as he could see, while hotels lined the magnificent bay, industry was never far away. Gazing across the bay from the vantage point of the pool deck, he could make out columns of towering containerships making their way into and out of the docks, while others lay at anchor waiting their turn. Behind him, the ancient hills rose, dotted with clustered villages amid the olive trees.

On his way to the hotel, he had driven past several interesting Byzantine fortifications and striking, highly decorated Orthodox churches. He had been pleasantly surprised; the city was far more interesting and vibrant than he had ever anticipated. He would like to explore the place another time, but today's trip was strictly for business.

Tiring of the coffee and lighting a cigarette, McRae gazed across the bay once more, trying, but largely failing, to identify landmarks with the hotel map. A few minutes later, he battled his way through the thronging reception once again, collected his car and began to negotiate his route cautiously through the southern suburbs of the city.

It didn't take long to get lost and he quickly regretted his decision to waive the Avis offer of an optional Sat Nav on the grounds of economy. Nevertheless, despite the erratic route, he was soon parking the car in the shade of a large tree close to the Agia Sofia park.

It was seriously warm now. McRae dispensed with his linen jacket, stuffed his camera and wallet into his jeans, which he was delighted to note felt considerably roomier these days, and slipped a biro and a folded piece of A4 paper into his shirt breast pocket. He began to stroll towards Vlastou, keeping carefully out of the sun.

The street he wanted ran parallel with another major thoroughfare named Politechniou, which itself was located close to the entry to the ferry terminal. The district was totally dominated by retailers, wholesalers and small-time manufacturers in the garment and textile industries. Tired, dusty window displays featured sometimes limbless models wearing appalling nylon fashions in outrageous colours. Once dressed, the windows were clearly never revisited. Not for the first time, he wondered to himself how so many businesses survived when they all sold or made what appeared to be identical goods.

Reaching Vlastou, he found he was in luck. Situated diagonally opposite the entrance to Number 15, which was set back a few metres from the street, was a scruffy café with a couple of tired-looking umbrellas sheltering two unoccupied tables.

Choosing the marginally cleaner of the two tables, McRae took a seat and waited for the owner to attend to him. He didn't have long to wait. A diminutive weasel of a man in a surprisingly spotless apron appeared and took his order for a black coffee and a
tsoureki
. Within moments he was back and McRae was amazed to find that the coffee was superb, strong as paint-stripper but as fresh as a daisy. He sipped the drink slowly while tentatively nibbling the warm and fragrant
tsoureki
– which turned out be spinach and feta flavoured. It was every bit as good as the coffee.

I am definitely coming back to this place,
he thought as he considered his next move.

Over the preceding five minutes, a number of people had either entered or left the multi-tenured building. Some carried cartons, while others had garments on hangers dangled over their arms. It wasn't hectic but there was sufficient activity, he decided, for no one to pay any particular attention to a casually dressed man who appeared to be searching for an address. The only problem was that Kaloudis and Co was situated on the ground floor, so their large windows obliquely overlooked the communal entrance.

Concluding eventually that there was no cause for concern, McRae finished his coffee while still watching the human traffic that was to-ing and fro-ing from the doors of Number 15.

Leaving five euros on the table (
a bargain,
he thought) McRae donned his sunglasses and strode casually across the street. He walked quickly past the glazed frontage of Kaloudis and towards the main doorway. He paused at the entrance and scanned the noticeboard. Now, for the first time, he could see the entire board and he read the complete sign for
Yannis Kanelos and Company Ltd. – Manufacturers of Fine Labels.
It said, conveniently in English.

Confidently, he pushed open the doors and made his way to the battered and scuffed staircase. Yannis Kanelos was on the second floor. He climbed the stairs until he came to the second floor, before continuing up to the third and final floor. Here he stopped and made a play of looking around, before reversing his route slowly and hesitantly past the entrance to the Kanelos premises.

The business was essentially open-plan. Beyond a small reception counter and a head-height glazed screen, McRae could see into the general production area. At a quick glance, the workshop seemed to contain only three or four large sophisticated looking machines and a handful of employees. The workshop was dusty and untidy, the floor covered in lint-dust, labels and material off-cuts. It was deafeningly noisy; the clattering of the machines competed with a local pop radio station, which was being broadcasted from wall-mounted speakers.

The women, for it was mainly women, were focused on attending to the needs of their machines. He took in the scene for a moment, before a shapely blonde girl looked up from her task of filling boxes and stared directly through the door, in his direction. McRae, making an over-elaborate pretence of being lost, ostentatiously checked the door name against his piece of paper, before descending the staircase rapidly, anxious not to be offered assistance by the blonde.

The street was busy when he emerged and he walked slowly back in the direction of Agia Sofia. Weaving his way between the other pedestrians, he was barely conscious of his surroundings as his mind ran excitedly over the new insight gained from the morning's exercise.

It was all too obvious, too easy, yet totally compelling. Hellenic would never, in their worst nightmares, have expected that any investigation would occur in Greece and, even if it did, that any link would be apparent between Kaloudis and Yannis Kanelos.

Serendipity is a truly incredible thing, but where do I go from here?
he mused, as he drove slowly back to the hotel. He now believed he understood at least the basics of the fraud. He would never be able to do anything about it, but at least he knew. For now, that was enough.

‘Miss Jacobs.'

Angie snapped out of her daydream to turn away from the window. Her supervisor was looking pointedly in her direction and gesturing with a curt shake of the head towards a teenage girl in a hijab, who was currently leafing through a rail of white blouses. She hurried to attend to the customer.

Angie had been working at
Next
for almost two months. She didn't mind the job because she was keen on fashion, though it did tend to get in the way of her current preoccupations, which were Kevin and thinking about Kevin.

They had started dating about three weeks ago. She hadn't expected to see him since the fire at Hellenic, but out of the blue she had bumped into him in the shop when he had been shopping for jeans.

At first he hadn't recognised her in her all-black outfit, with her hair down and minus the pink spectacles, but eventually the penny had dropped. ‘Hey, you're the girl from Hellenic,' he had said. ‘How are you doing? Hope the coffee here is better than Walsall!' This was a not-so-witty reference to their first meeting, when she had left the sanctuary of the canteen to take out a coffee to Kevin as he toiled over his stock-checking in the gutted factory.

From these unpromising beginnings, a relationship had quickly begun. The exchange of phone numbers had led to a date, at which they had discovered a mutual attraction.

Kevin was distinctly impressed with Angie. The rash of spots that had unfortunately been her primary feature at first meeting had long since disappeared. Dolled up for work in a black mini skirt, with long slim legs and a good figure, Angie Jacobs was a bit of a catch. Quite what Angie saw in Kevin was somewhat less clear, but his intelligence and sense of humour seemed to strike a chord.

Angie, it turned out, had been made redundant by Hellenic within two weeks of the fire, which was in common with most of the other junior staff. Her career as a trainee fashion designer had been a remarkably short one, as she had only joined the company three weeks prior to the incident. She told Kevin she hadn't been too disappointed anyway as the job had certainly not lived up to her expectations. Although she had worked with the so-called design department, she had been doing little other than junior office work.

‘I was just a skivvy really; all we seemed to do was check invoices and delivery notes, that sort of thing... and make coffee, of course.'

Kevin had done his best not to dig too deeply into the inner workings of Hellenic. This was partly because, frankly, it was no longer relevant to him, but also because, at her junior level, it had never occurred to him that Angie might have known anything remotely useful.

It was convenient that they finished work at approximately the same time and that the Fairclough offices and Next were only a few hundred yards apart. It was, however, less convenient that Angie lived in Walsall, whilst Kevin's flat was in Edgbaston. Hence, they had recently fallen into a routine of meeting after work in the city centre to have a drink or watch a film, before Angie caught the train home. Kevin, of course, had frequently offered the generous use of his own accommodation, but Angie had, so far, delayed the inevitable.

* * *

On this evening, the couple had agreed to meet in All Bar One before going on to Pizza Express on Corporation Street, which Angie preferred to the bigger Bullring branch for its relative intimacy. It was a Tuesday, one of the less busy evenings in the centre of town, and Kevin was able to secure a nice corner table away from the main window. He purchased a bottle of house Sauvignon Blanc, (personally he preferred Chardonnay, but …) and settled down to await the girl's arrival.

Opening his copy of the free evening newspaper, which he had picked up on his way from Castle Street, he turned to the business pages, simply en route to the sports section. Scanning the headlines without the faintest interest, he found his gaze attracted to a small piece at the base of the page.

Well, well, well,
he thought.
It looks as though they may not be re-instating the business after all. Bet poor old Drew would love to know that, academic though it might now be, for him at least.

‘Thought you only read the back page.' He looked up to see Angie smiling down at him. He got to his feet and gave her a clumsy embrace before she sat down on the bench beside him.

‘I do, normally,' he conceded, ‘but look at this.'

He pushed the paper over to her and she quickly read the piece, before remarking, ‘Hardly a surprise, is it?'

‘Why do you say that? The basis we were working on assumed that the factory would be rebuilt.'

She sniffed dismissively. ‘I don't think that was ever very likely. Everyone at Hellenic seemed to think the place was being run down as soon as Alex and Mike arrived.'

Kevin assumed a quizzical look. ‘Who do you mean? I know Kanelos, but who the hell is Mike?'

‘Mike O'Connell, of course.'

‘Never heard of him; what's he got to do with anything?'

She shrugged. ‘I don't know exactly but he was Alex's partner. He never showed up much, but when he was there he was always shut up in the boardroom with Alex. Come to think of it, Alex wasn't there much either!' Actually'… she paused, thinking. ‘You have seen O'Connell, you know; I think he was there one day when you were stock-checking. Short, tubby guy with a weird haircut?'

Kevin was quiet for a moment as he absorbed what she had said. He couldn't remember the guy. He poured her a glass of wine, took a deep swig from his own glass and then spoke. ‘Look, you only joined a few weeks before the fire, didn't you? Why would they take on new employees if they were running down the business? It doesn't make sense.'

‘Yeah, but all I know is that there were about five of us who joined at the same time and none of us had much to do. The only people who really did anything much were the warehouse guys and the forklift blokes. They were always moving stock around and that kind of stuff, but really it wasn't a busy place, I can tell you that. Anyway, I'm just glad I'm not there anymore.' There was a tone of finality in her voice and although Kevin was intrigued and wanted to ask more, he decided it would be politic to change the subject.

‘At least we met because of it!' he smirked. ‘So Hellenic will always have a place in my heart.'

* * *

Walking away from the station after seeing Angie onto her train, Kevin couldn't stop thinking about the fire. Drew had been dubious about it from the start and everything he had just learnt from Angie made him suspect McRae might have been right. Too late for McRae, of course, but he decided he would give him a ring the following day anyway. He was certain to be interested and it would be no bad idea to stay on the right side of Drew; he might have been disgraced, but you could never keep a good man down. Anyway, he liked the bloke and certainly preferred him to Terry, the new boss, who was still behaving a bit too much like the proverbial new broom for Kevin's liking.

Yes
, he concluded, it
would be good to catch up with Drew again.

* * *

The call to McRae, when he made it, turned out to be short and sharp. ‘Hi Drew, how's it going?'

‘Good thanks, Kev, to what do I owe this pleasure?'

‘Well,' he paused dramatically, ‘I just met someone who told me something interesting about your old friends at Hellenic.'

With a coolness and detachment he certainly didn't feel, McRae responded, ‘Always interested in those guys – fancy a quick drink?'

‘What? You're in Crete!'

‘Not anymore. Got back yesterday, so I can meet you at the Anchor or somewhere to catch up if you fancy?'

They fixed a meeting for six o'clock at the Anchor.

* * *

McRae had decided it would be better not to announce his return to all and sundry just yet, in particular to Karen. No, he needed to see her on her own, so he asked Kevin to keep his return to himself for the rest of the day. He had a full schedule of meetings in mind, beginning with Karen, but a quick word with Kevin to get the background scuttlebutt could be a very useful preparation. He suspected Karen might be a little miffed that he should choose to see Kevin of all people first, but if Kevin had some new information on the Hellenic case, he was desperate to hear it. Anyway, he figured he owed Karen the privilege of a decent dinner again. She had been a constant source of information and, most of all, moral support during his Cretan exile.

As soon as he ended the call with Kevin, McRae called Karen, hearing the ill-disguised delight in her voice, and fixed a date for the following evening. As he concluded the call, he found, slightly to his surprise, that despite himself, he was really looking forward to seeing her.