The Taint of Midas Page 3

  ‘What makes you think anyone’s died?’

  ‘An ambulance going nowhere and you guys? It’s like two and two. Anything to see?’ He took a step towards the sea, but Gazis gripped his upper arm.

  ‘You ever heard of next of kin, Dinos? They get to know before you do. It’s just how it works. Like I said, press office, tomorrow morning.’

  Gazis turned and walked away; the young man made a mock salute to his back. Then, as if seeing him for the first time, he turned to Petridis.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he said. He held out his hand. ‘Don’t think we’ve met. Dinos Karayannis, FM107 news. You’ll be Sergeant . . .?’

  ‘Constable,’ said Petridis, shaking his hand. ‘George Petridis.’

  ‘New recruit? You’ll be seeing a lot of me. We have a lot in common. Wherever there’s bad news, we’re always there – that’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose it is.’

  ‘And if I’m not there, I always appreciate a call. I look after my sources, you know what I’m saying? Anything you give me, no names are ever mentioned. That’s the key to good journalism, see – respect your sources. Never name your sources. Here.’ From his pocket he took a business card and pressed it into Petridis’s hand, closing Petridis’s fingers firmly over it. ‘You got anything for me, any time, day or night, you call me, I’ll see you right. Any time.’

  He jumped back into his car, and with a casual wave was gone, heading back towards town.

  Petridis opened his hand. The neon-pink business card bore Dinos’s details in sixties script – an office address, fax and phone, a mobile number. Beneath the card was something else, a piece of paper folded small.

  Petridis knew what he was looking at. He spread the banknote, and held it out between the thumb and forefingers of both hands. Gazis stood by the Pony, bending to speak to the fat man. Petridis shrugged, and slipped the money into his trouser pocket.

  ‘We’ll need you to come into the Central Police Station tomorrow,’ Gazis was saying as Petridis reached him. ‘We’ll be wanting a statement.’

  ‘You’re welcome to a statement,’ said the fat man. ‘In the meantime, I trust you’ll be taking all possible steps to find the person responsible for my friend’s death. Perhaps tomorrow you’ll be good enough to update me on your progress. Kali spera sas.’

  The policemen watched the fat man drive away.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Petridis.

  Gazis bent to brush dust from the hems of his trousers.

  ‘Prime suspect, circumstantially,’ he said. ‘He’s at the scene, he finds the body. There’s no one else here. Seems cut and dried.’

  ‘We could have arrested him.’

  ‘Indeed we could,’ said Gazis thoughtfully, ‘but when you’ve got as many years as I have under your belt, you’ll find you know in your gut when they’ll run and when they’ll stick around. We’ll be seeing him tomorrow. And he could be our man, quite easily; but you and I are going to take our time, so when we make an arrest – and I fully intend we will make an arrest – we’ll be absolutely sure we’ve got it right.’

  Three

  Mid-August, high season, and nights at the Delfini restaurant were far too quiet. Beneath the sign of the smiling blue dolphin, the foreigners, sun-scorched and underdressed, might pause to read through the menu; but not tempted by over-bright amateur photographs of meatballs and kebabs, most moved on down the flagstoned street to the shops selling T-shirts and sandals, where they admired reproductions of ancient ceramics and fingered handwoven rugs, spinning the postcard stands – Four cards a euro, stamps on sale inside – and sniffing like dogs at the dusty bags of herbs. Few were buying. Times were lean, and Aris Paliakis’s sales strategy – a sharp decrease in prices, clawing back what was lost in drinks and cover charges – was delivering poor results.

  There was a time – when Despina was still cook, when the tablecloths were plastic and the wine in the jugs came from local barrels, when the old men drank ouzo in the kitchen, raising their glasses to everyone who walked in the door – that Germans and Italians would wait half an hour for a table. The street was quiet then. There was no club with pounding music, no cheering, jeering, chanting English football fans in the sports bar. The Taverna Delfini stood between Janis’s kafenion and the little grocery store where Fortini sold rice from hessian sacks and incense and charcoal for cemetery shrines. On Saturday nights, Short Tolis the electrician played accordion for the diners, singing travellers’ songs in his cigarette-damaged baritone. Short Tolis was dead now; Fortini’s shop became the sports bar. In the neighbourhood, a transformation; in time, less than a decade.

  Aris Paliakis saw no faults in his business. He laid the blame for reduced takings on the foreigners’ palates, on their choice of pizza over moussaka, of hot dogs and hamburgers over vine leaves and stuffed peppers. He laid blame, too, on his countrymen; like crows settling on fresh carrion, they’d left the villages and the mountains to join him in his killing on the coast. In this square mile, the battle for the cash from foreign wallets was fought with many weapons: silver rings and gold necklaces, pistachio nuts and cruet sets, oil-painted views and plastic donkeys, books of traditional recipes and icons made in China.

  Competition was fierce.

  The English family – mother, father and children, grandfather and grandmother – were good-natured and compliant, believing the words of welcome and the genuine-seeming smiles.

  Sotiris the waiter took leather-backed menus from the stack and led the family through the empty restaurant to a terrace table clearly visible from the street. (Paliakis had taught Sotiris the trade’s tricks. Every night needs its Judas goats, he said, so stake them out. Foreigners are like sheep. Where one goes, the others always follow.) Fawning, Sotiris made a show of pulling out the ladies’ chairs, leaning in close as he lit the candle-lamps, holding their eyes a moment too long as he handed out the menus. He fetched a basket of bread (just half a loaf, sliced thinly) and a dish of the cow’s milk butter the English always required, then left the floor to Paliakis.

  Paliakis did not dress for the seasons, but for business; he rarely made concessions to the heat. His navy-blue suit and black dress shoes (hidden in the heel were lifts, which gave him the extra inch he’d always craved) were the same he would wear in winter; but tonight the heat was bad, and his white shirt was unbuttoned at the neck.

  He stood behind the children’s chairs and smiled, hands on their shoulders like an affectionate uncle, his bald, damp head shining, his cologne not quite masking the smell of his sweat. So short he barely had to bend, he spoke into the children’s ears of the delights he planned to serve them.

  ‘Best spaghetti Bolognese in all Greece,’ he said. His English was heavily accented; catching garlic on Paliakis’s breath, the boy grimaced at his father. ‘My wife make specially for you.’

  To the kitchen staff, the speech was familiar, the once amusing lies now tedious with repetition. Mrs Paliakis had never worked in this kitchen. This season’s chef was Grigor – a hirsute Albanian with little skill whom Paliakis hired only for his cheapness.

  Paliakis turned his charm on the adults. His smile grew wider, his gold canine glinted in the candlelight.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I hope you will allow me to present you this evening with the very best Greece has to offer.’

  Sotiris raised his eyebrows at the chef. Both knew what would come next. In the fridge, three kilos of expensive fish was going stale. Every time the fridge was opened, the stink was nauseating.

  ‘I have some sea bream my cousin caught today,’ said Paliakis. ‘Freshest on this coast. Grilled on the barbecue . . .’ He kissed his thumb and forefinger in the Italian gesture of perfection. Grigor looked doubtfully at Sotiris: the fish was good for nothing but the cats. But the English dupes were smiling in anticipation of a feast. ‘Some Greek salad, perhaps, with feta cheese from my own goats’ – Paliakis owned no goats – ‘and to drink, may I suggest a local wine, o
ne of the best wines in all Greece.’

  ‘Lovely,’ said the father.

  Sotiris took the litre bottle of sour, factory-made white wine from the fridge, unscrewed the cap and filled a terracotta jug. The olives sunk in the mouldy brine of a gallon can were small and hard with little flesh, fit only for pressing. With the ladle, he fished for an even dozen and tipped them on to a dish.

  Paliakis was closing his speech.

  ‘And something a little special,’ he was saying. ‘A gift from me, to my most special customers. I bring you a plate of olives from my own orchard, special for you.’

  In the kitchen, his smile was gone.

  ‘Two spaghetti, four bream,’ he shouted. ‘Half a litre of white and a salad. Two Coca-Colas. And make it fast.’

  Grigor was not a particular man, but even he balked at the fish.

  ‘Is too old,’ he said in his hesitant Greek. ‘Make them sick.’

  ‘Crap,’ said Paliakis. ‘Put plenty of oregano on it and give it an extra five minutes on the grill. The English know nothing about fish.’ Bothered by runnels of sweat, he ran a cotton handkerchief over his forehead and his upper lip. ‘Get that wine out there,’ he said to Sotiris. ‘By the time they’ve drunk that, they won’t know what they’re eating anyway.’

  Sotiris carried out the olives and the wine, filling the glasses with a smile and a flourish, pouring a little extra for the ladies.

  Back in the kitchen, Paliakis was on the phone.

  ‘Those bricks should have been delivered five days ago,’ he shouted. ‘You’re holding up my builders! Time’s money, for Christ’s sake.’ His face was red; on his neck, dark veins were taut beneath the skin. He shook his forefinger in admonishment, as if the merchant on the other end of the line stood before him. ‘Tomorrow,’ he yelled, ‘tomorrow, or you’ll hear from Pandelis.’

  As he said his son’s name, Pandelis himself came into the kitchen from the street.

  Behind his hand, Sotiris whispered to Grigor.

  ‘Here’s the devil’s servant,’ he said.

  Pandelis Paliakis wished Grigor and Sotiris kali spera. Sonya, the Russian girl, was scrubbing pans; when she raised her eyes to his, he looked away, though a blush rose from his neck up to his cheeks. Sonya smiled to herself. Pandelis approached his father, who ended his call, and scowled at his son.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked.

  Pandelis’s brow, like his father’s, was beaded with sweat. He took a paper napkin from a holder and dabbed it on his face.

  ‘We need to talk,’ he said.

  Sensing something of interest, Sotiris replaced the English family’s salad on the counter, and taking up the bread-knife and a loaf of yesterday’s bread, began to slice.

  ‘So talk,’ said Paliakis. ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Why not here?’

  Pandelis looked doubtfully around the kitchen. Grigor was chopping onions, Sonya was rinsing glasses. For a moment, he watched Sotiris, but Sotiris seemed absorbed in cutting bread.

  Pandelis kept his voice low.

  ‘The old man’s dead,’ he said.

  ‘What old man?’ Paliakis’s phone rang. He glanced at the number display and switched it off.

  ‘Kaloyeros. The melon man.’ Grigor stopped chopping onions, Sonya turned off the running tap. Sotiris laid down the bread-knife and turned, arms folded, to listen to Pandelis. ‘It was on the radio news.’

  ‘Poor old thing,’ said Sonya. She made the Orthodox triple cross over her breast. Paliakis glared at her; Sonya bent back over the sink.

  ‘He was old,’ said Sotiris. ‘Eighty-five if he was a day.’

  Now Paliakis glared at Sotiris, but Sotiris just stood waiting for the details. Paliakis grabbed Pandelis by his elbow, and, like a naughty child, marched him outside.

  In the street, Paliakis and Pandelis talked below an open window half obscured by the fridge that held cold drinks. Leaving the bread table, Sotiris moved across to the fridge, and began to shift around the water and the beers, from the third shelf to the second, from the second to the third. Above the chatter of foreign voices and the beat of music from the bars, he could hear the two men clearly.

  ‘How can he be dead?’ asked Paliakis. ‘You told me you saw him this afternoon.’

  ‘Hit-and-run. The police are involved.’

  Paliakis swore. For a moment, both were silent.

  Then Paliakis said, ‘This isn’t anything to do with Kylis, is it? Because I said no short cuts, didn’t I?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Pandelis. ‘Even Kylis wouldn’t be that stupid. The old guy had signed, for God’s sake. I told him what you told me to say, all that crap about compulsory purchases and phone masts. He believed me, of course. I could see his heart breaking. I won’t keep lying to people like that, Papa. It isn’t right. It isn’t necessary. And as it turns out, it was all for nothing, anyway.’

  ‘Is there a will?’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’

  Now Paliakis spoke angrily.

  ‘You don’t know if there’s a will, and you’re standing here talking to me? Go, for Christ’s sake, go!’

  Sotiris left the window. When Paliakis came back through the door, Grigor was chopping onions, Sonya was drying cutlery on the chef’s discarded apron. Sotiris was slicing more unwanted bread.

  Paliakis kicked at a cat under a chair, and reached to his breast pocket for his cigarettes. There were none there. In silence, he went through the kitchen door into the street. From the doorway, Sotiris watched until Paliakis reached the periptero by the ceramics shop, then folded his arms and leaned back on the bread table to be comfortable.

  ‘That’s bad news,’ he said. ‘I remember the melon man from being a boy. Hot nights like this, my grandpa used to take me to that stall he had on the promenade. He bought me watermelon, then left me on a bench to eat it whilst he and his cronies chewed the fat. And I’d get in a mess, red juice and seeds all over my Sunday best. Pappou never noticed. Never noticed and never cared. My mother used to give him hell, when we got home.’

  ‘A hit-and-run,’ said Sonya, drying her hands. ‘An old man like that. Who would have thought it?’

  ‘The English wait their salad, Sotiris,’ said Grigor. ‘If he was old man, what difference how die?’

  ‘But who would do that terrible thing?’ asked Sonya. Putting the clean knives in the drawer, she began to dry the glasses.

  ‘That’s not the mystery, though, is it?’ asked Sotiris. Across the street, Paliakis was walking back towards the restaurant, peeling the Cellophane from a pack of Marlboros. ‘The big mystery is, what have the devil and his children to do with the melon man? And why on earth should they be interested in the old man’s will?’

  Four

  The way the fat man remembered was not there: that road was gone. Where he used to take the country lane leading inland from the coast, where a dilapidated sign had carried the name of a single village, everything was changed.

  Now, there were traffic lights, and a lane to filter right. The barren dunes and flatlands had disappeared, so in daylight the sea view would be no more; instead, there was a supermarket, and a vast car park marked out in grids.

  He recognised nothing, and yet he knew that this must be the way: the village – Palea Chora – was named with others on the new sign spanning the road. The traffic light gave him a green arrow, and he made the turn, expecting the winding lane he knew and a slow, meandering drive through wooded hills up to the village. Instead, he found a four-lane highway built in a man-made chasm, a fast, straight road which ignored the natural contours of the land, and cut through everything geology and ecology put in its way.

  In the near dark, he followed the tail-lights of the car ahead of him at a careful distance. Vehicles flashed by him in the outside lane. Disoriented, he drove slowly, until a sign showed Palea Chora to his right where the fat man expected it to his left. Half-blind in the bad light, with the strange road lit only b
y his headlamps, he pressed on, until at last he felt the landscape was familiar: in silhouette, he recognised a stand of trees, then a rock formation, and finally the little church of St Philipas, its dome and white walls ancient and unchanging, marking the southern limit of the village boundary.

  And the village itself seemed the same. Lights shone in the windows, and, on the front steps and the balconies, women talked and fanned themselves against the heat. Children ran shouting down the dark alleys, the old men were drinking in the kafenion on the square, and, as the fat man passed, every one of them – men, women and children – noticed him pass.

  Beyond the square, he took the road following a summer-dry riverbed, where rushes flourished on water hidden below ground. Around the second bend, the gate in a high stone wall stood open; with the ease of familiarity, the fat man drove between the gateposts, and pulled up beneath the trees of his villa’s garden.

  The scent of the jasmine was sweet, the garden still but for the rustling of a cat hunting amongst the roses. Though night was obscuring the last vivid reds of sunset, the house was lit in welcome. The windows were open to the evening air (though mesh-screened – as he insisted – against flying insects), and on the verandah, candles burned with the lemon scent of citronella, and the flame of an oil lamp was turned high over a table laid for one.

  In the verandah’s shadows, a woman rose from a wicker chair and stretched out her arms to him.

  ‘Welcome,’ she said, ‘welcome.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  For a moment longer than appropriate, they embraced; she held her face up to him, and he kissed her on both cheeks, close to the mouth. Then, stepping back, his hands still on her shoulders, he looked at her. The hair that he recalled as long and black was short, and almost grey; her once-slender figure was, undeniably, stout. The last time he had seen her, she wore a pretty blouse and skirt; now, the unforgiving black of mourning made her plain.