A Dead Man in Athens (12 page)

She had led them up to his room, where they had admired the photograph and Farquhar had begun to make a list of Stevens’ effects. Popadopoulos had poked around the room but without finding anything, it seemed, worthy of his attention. Except –

There was bread on the table, and fruit. Popadopoulos slipped some of both into his pocket.

‘Hey!’ said the landlady. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘For analysis,’ Popadopoulos explained hastily.

‘There’s nothing wrong with
my
bread.’

Farquhar said he would finish his list-making and then would go back to the workshop and pick up Andreas and take him home. Popadopoulos thanked the landlady profusely and announced that he would stroll back to the base. From the way he looked at Seymour, Seymour could see that he was meant to come, too.

‘We are reproducing the walk that Stevens made,’ he explained. ‘If only for purposes of elimination.’

They passed a couple of bars, into which he stuck his nose and where he asked a question or two; but they did not detain him. Then they came to a bigger one where people were sitting having coffee and the patron was propped against the door.

Popadopoulos greeted him warmly and they sat down at a table.

‘Your friend?’ answered the patron, as he brought them the coffee. ‘Yes. Every morning! As regular as clockwork.’

‘But not this morning,’ suggested Popadopoulos.

‘No,’ agreed the patron. ‘He was a bit earlier this morning. I was still sweeping out.’

‘And did he stop for anything? A cup of coffee, perhaps?’

‘No,’ said the patron. ‘I don’t understand these Englishmen. Why don’t they take their breakfast on their way to work as everyone else does?’

He bent down over the table.

‘Perhaps he’s too big,’ he whispered confidentially. ‘You know who he is, of course?’

‘Tell me.’

‘He’s in with the people at the base. The army. Got a workshop there for those flying machines, the Bl´eriots, you know. They say they wouldn’t fly without him.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’ The patron laid his finger alongside his nose. ‘He’s big. You mightn’t think it, to look at him. But he’s big with those Bl´eriots.’

Popadopoulos sighed.

‘You have heard, I expect,’ he said gloomily, after the patron had gone, ‘of the Great Athenian Love Affair? Our passion for flying machines?’

‘I had noticed it, yes,’ said Seymour.

‘Everyone here is crazy about flying machines. Men, women, children, silver-haired matrons, grey-bearded dotards – everyone! It touches something deep inside us. It is the great Greek obsession. Like the Italian obsession with motor cars. Every Greek dreams of flying. Children wake up every morning and look behind their shoulder-blades to see if by chance they have sprouted wings overnight. People at the tables in Constitution Square sit with their eyes turned perpetually heavenwards.

‘Even the politicians have got in on the act. “Vote for me and buy yourself a Bl´eriot.” And, of course, they do vote for them and the Government does buy Bl´eriots.

‘Only Athenians have got the myth wrong. They think they’re Daedalus flying over the ocean but they’re not; they’re Tantalus pushing a great rock up a mountain, because Bl´eriots have to be paid for and that means yet more taxes. Is your Government buying Bl´eriots?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Very sensible of them.’

‘Stevens thought they should.’

‘Ah, well, Stevens.’

He sipped his coffee, then put it down.

‘There is something that perhaps you have not quite realized. As a sane man coming from another planet. Stevens is part of the Great Love Affair. He is the man who kept, or would have kept, the Bl´eriots flying. As a man, they care for him nothing; as a part of their obsession, they care for him a lot. It is as in a love affair: when you love, you love passionately, jealously. So it is not just an engineer who has been taken away. It is a lover.’

He finished his coffee.

‘Just warning you,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

When they got back to the workshop, they found the mechanics quietly working on the flying machines.

‘That’s right,’ said Popadopoulos approvingly. ‘After disaster has struck, the important thing is to get back to work.’

‘Yes, well, but we don’t know who we’re working
for
.

’ ‘I know who I’m working for,’ said one of the mechanics.‘George’s dad.’

‘It’s all right for you private people. But what about us?

’ ‘You’re all right, aren’t you? The Government’s buying three new Bl´eriots and they’ll still need you.’

‘Yes, but who is going to be in charge of us? Now that Mr Stevens is gone, there’s no one who knows anything about Bl´eriots.’

‘They’ll appoint someone. Sure to.’

‘Yes, well, I’m not so sure. Bl´eriots cost money and they might change their mind.’

‘It makes it more likely that they may want to call on the private machines.’

‘Yes, but will they be keen on lending them? George’s dad has gone off Bl´eriots since he heard about the cables.’

‘The best thing to do, lads, is just to keep on with what you were doing,’ said Popadopoulos. ‘Until someone tells you different.’

He went over to George’s machine and peered into the cockpit.

‘Anyone take the flask?’ he asked. ‘There was one. Mr Stevens fixed himself up with some coffee before they left.’

‘It will be in there somewhere.’

‘Well, it’s not.’

‘Are you sure?’

The mechanic went across and stuck his head into the cockpit.

‘Well, I don’t know where it’s got to,’ he said.

‘They didn’t pull it out with the – well, with Mr Stevens, did they?’

‘If they did, it would have been on the ground somewhere.’

‘Unless those stretcher-bearers –’

‘They wouldn’t have taken it, would they?’

‘Well, you never know with some of these people.’

‘Maybe Maria picked it up?’

‘Maria?’ said Popadopoulos.

‘My wife. She brings my lunch. And usually tidies up a bit while she’s here.’

‘And she –?’

‘Over there. Back of the workshop.’

A woman was in the cubby-hole washing the mugs.

She showed one to Popadopoulos.

‘Look at that!’ she said. ‘Filthy! I hope they don’t keep their machines like that.’

‘You’re Maria, are you?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Popadopoulos. Police.’

‘Ah! The police, are you? I didn’t think it would be long before you got here.’

‘And you,’ said Popadopoulos, ‘are just the person I wanted to talk to!’

‘Christ! Look, I don’t know anything about it. I don’t really belong around here –’

‘That is just,’ said Popadopoulos, ‘why you are the person I need. Someone who stands outside it. Who can see things with an objective eye.’

‘Really?’

He took her by the arm.

‘Maria – if I can call you that?’

‘You certainly can. As long as my husband isn’t listening.’

‘Maria, these men don’t know how to look after themselves.’

‘You can say that again!’

‘They’re all right on machines, but when it comes to basic things –’

‘Well, some basic things they’re very keen on.’

‘Yes, I know. But I was thinking of food and drink. Cleaning up after themselves.’

‘Never heard of it!’

‘Mugs –’

‘Disgusting!’

‘It’s just as well that you come in occasionally. Now, look, you’re just the person who could tell me: what do they do when they want to make themselves a cup of coffee?’

‘Well, it’s not that difficult.’

‘Mr Stevens, for instance? I gather he took a flask of coffee with him this morning when he went out with young Andreas.’

‘Ah, well. Mr Stevens is a bit different. He’s a bit picky about what he eats and drinks. A bit odd, too. But then, of course, he’s an Englishman. I mean, our lads usually drink it black. A bit like lubricating oil, perhaps, but then, they probably feel more comfortable that way. But he didn’t like it like that. He had to have milk in it. Always! And not any old milk. No! He said Greek milk was like goat’s piss. Well, I’m just telling you, that’s all. That’s what he said. “It’s the heat,” I said. “It’s the goats,” he said. “Well, you can’t do much about that,” I said. “Can’t you?” he said. “Can’t you get any decent milk around here? Don’t they have any cows?” “Well, of course they have cows,” I said. “But they’re up in the mountains.” “Don’t they ever come down here?” “No,” I said.

‘But then I thought.
They
don’t come down here, but there’s a milkman who does. I’ve heard about him. He brings down milk for the Sultan, Or, at least, not for the Sultan. For the Sultan’s –’

‘Cat,’ said Seymour.

‘Well, yes, you’re right,’ she said, surprised. ‘Who would have believed it? But the Sultan insists on it, apparently, so they have to go along with it, and they have to go to all the trouble of getting this bloke to come down from the mountains every day! It must cost them. I mean, you wouldn’t do that for nothing. Come down all that way.

‘But, anyway, I thought, if he’s bringing some down for the Sultan, maybe he could spare some for Mr Stevens? Funnily enough, he wasn’t keen. You would have thought he’d have been glad to make a bit extra, wouldn’t you? But at first he even refused. “Look,” I said, “it’s for a big nob, an Englishman. He’s famous all over Athens. He keeps those flying machines in the air.” “I don’t hold with those machines,” he said. “If God had meant us to fly, he’d have given us wings.” “We can use them against the Ottomans,” I said. “At least, that’s what my husband says.” “Oh, can we?” he says. “Well, that’s a bit different. Maybe I can spare a drop.”

‘So I fixed it up. He has to pass the base on his way to the Sultan’s, so I got him to leave some each day. He used to put it just outside the door with a stone over the top so that nothing could get at it. And I would wash out the pot every day when I came round, because you can be sure those dirty sods would never think of doing that.’

Popadopoulos laughed.

‘It’s just as well they have you,’ he said. ‘Well, what a fuss over a lot of milk! But he was like that, you say?’

‘Nico says he was just the same over the engines. Everything had to be just so.’

‘And that, you reckon, was what he did this morning? When he was making himself the flask? Used the milk he’d had specially delivered?’

‘Yes, because he was making it for himself. The others didn’t like it like that. When the flask was for them they would want it black. But he liked it almost all milk! So he used to make one for himself specially.’

‘I was looking for the flask just now, but couldn’t find it. You didn’t pick it up, by any chance? To give it a wash?’

‘No, it would have needed one before someone else used it. They’re not exactly fussy but the taste can linger.’

‘Well, there we are, Maria. Everyone likes his coffee the way he likes his coffee. I myself . . .’

Chapter Ten

‘The milk?’ said Seymour, as they walked away.

‘It looks like it. He must have taken the poison this morning, either before or after taking off. We shall see what the laboratory has to say about the food he had for breakfast but I doubt if we shall find anything out of order there. He does not seem to have called in anywhere on his way to the workshop. So it looks as if he must have taken it there. Food? I did not see any. But liquid? That he certainly seems to have taken, certainly with him but possibly before.

‘It was a pity that she washed up those mugs. We might have found traces. And a pity about the flask. We would perhaps have found traces there, too. I shall keep looking for the flask. I will ask the stretcher-bearers about it. But it may have fallen over the side of the cockpit, dropped, perhaps, as he leaned, or fell, back. It is possible he was trying to bring it to Mr Metaxas’s attention, not suggesting he have a drink. He seemed very insistent.

‘There are other things I need to know from the lab: what poison was it, how long would it take to work, what quantity would be necessary. Would the quantity he could have taken in that way be sufficient? He made his coffee with milk, but if it were the milk that was poisoned would that be enough?

‘And then there are other questions, which perhaps I shall have to ask Mr Metaxas. He was there, apparently, all night. And then he went flying. Did he not have breakfast? Or at least some coffee? Which he might – would naturally – have taken with Mr Stevens. A young man? Eat nothing? But perhaps he did take coffee, but not milk. That would be quite likely. I shall have to ask him. But yes, the milk.’

‘I, too, have an interest in milk,’ said Seymour. ‘And, I suspect, the milkman.’

He told Popadopoulos about the cat.

Popadopoulos stopped.

‘The cat, too? I had heard it had been poisoned but not of the milk. But that would not be surprising, would it? Milk, for a cat. And you say that it came from this man in the mountains?’

‘Brought down especially.’

‘And the same man, the same milk, perhaps, for Mr Stevens, too?’

‘It looks like it.’

‘I shall have to talk to that man.’

‘You could talk to him tomorrow. When he next delivers the milk. Because he wouldn’t know about Stevens. Or, at least, he shouldn’t know. If he doesn’t come, then –’

‘Then I shall have some questions to ask him.

’ ‘Do you mind if I am there too?

’ ‘It would be a pleasure!’ said Popadopoulos warmly.‘And, after all, does it not look as if the two things are connected?’

‘It is odd,’ said Popadopoulos a little later, as they were sitting at a table in Constitution Square, taking a pre-lunch ouzo together, ‘that this cat should come back to haunt one. When the case came up, I could see it might come my way and I said, “No, thanks!” I didn’t want to get involved in something so, well, foolish. But I need not have worried. They had decided not to put me on it already.’

He looked at Seymour and smiled.

‘I have, you see, a past. What is worse in Athenian eyes, an Ottoman past. I am not, in fact, an Athenian. I grew up in Salonica and my mother is Turkish. That is not unusual in Salonica, the mixture, I mean. The whole city is like that. And it is, in fact, an Ottoman city. It is part of the Ottoman Empire and ruled by an Ottoman Governor.

‘Well, that did not matter to me. There are plenty of Greeks in the city, and my father was Greek. I prefer the Greek way of doing things so I moved to Athens. But ever afterwards I have been slightly suspect in their eyes. Not a true Greek, they feel. I sometimes think that they believe my mother’s blood is bound to come out at some time. And I have noticed that they do not assign me to cases where the two sides of me, as they believe, might come into conflict.

‘As in the case of the Sultan. If it is true that the cat might be a sighting shot for the Sultan, then they don’t want a possible Ottoman sympathizer getting mixed up in it. Particularly one who grew up in Salonica, because Salonica, you see, is where the Sultan was first sent to when he was exiled from Istanbul. It was part of the Ottoman Empire but a long way away. He would have few sympathizers there and the Ottoman police could keep an eye on him.

‘But might I not be one of their agents? I had plenty of Ottoman contacts there after all. Who knows what secret instructions I may have received! Of course, it is a lot of nonsense. My inclinations have always been towards the Greeks and that is why I came to Athens.

‘But I can understand their doubts, especially at the present time when there is every prospect of us going to war. And when the first target of the Greek army is likely to be Salonica!

‘So I am slightly suspect. And I am suspect for another reason, too. I believe it is foolish to go to war. I have lived in a city where Greeks and Ottomans live side by side and get on well together. Why, now, do they have to fight each other? There is this crazy idea of Venizelos’s that the Greeks all over the world ought to get together and form a Greater Greece! But what about me? Half of me says yes, I want to belong to Greece. But the other half says hey, wait a minute, I don’t want to go to war about this, we can manage perfectly well without that. What’s wrong with it as it is? A glorious fudge, yes, but what’s wrong with a glorious fudge? Especially in the Balkans. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

‘And that is what I say to my bosses. “I am the only man who makes sense.” “Oh, is that so, Popadopoulos?” they say. And they usually give me some shit job. “Well, you make sense of that!” And that is what I thought they had done now. An Englishman killed. That’s bad. The English will be up your ass. Whose ass is it best for them to be up? Why, Popadopoulos’s, of course!

‘But now I find that perhaps there is a connection between this murdered Englishman and the Ottoman cat! They have not got me away from the Ottomans after all.

‘Nor, it seems, after all, from the cat. “No, thanks!” I said. And when they said, “Christ, it’s an Ottoman cat. We must keep Popadopoulos away!”, I played along. “Oh, goodness!” I said. “It’s an Ottoman cat! Am I reliable? Can you trust me?” Because I didn’t want anything to do with something so damned foolish. And I thought I’d got away with it.’

He shook his head pretend-mournfully.

‘But now it looks as if I haven’t. Nor from the Ottomans, either. Oh, dear, I’m afraid it looks as if they’ll have to put up with me.’

He slapped Seymour playfully on the arm and roared with laughter.

‘You bring me luck, my friend. Because it looks as if whatever they do, they can’t get away from me!’

He put down his glass.

‘And now,’ he said, ‘I have to make some enquiries. I have to go back and see if all is as it seems. If, for instance, Mr Stevens really was as much of a family man as his landlady supposes. A man on his own, away from his wife? In Athens? I think it unlikely. Perhaps I shall have another word with Maria. And with the mechanics, too. And visit the young men as well. Surely there must have been passions for things other than Bl´eriots!’

At the hotel Seymour found waiting for him a note from the British Embassy. It asked him to call on the Ambassador that afternoon. When he did so, he found the Ambassador in a meeting.

‘It’s with the Greeks,’ said Farquhar. ‘They’re very burned up about Stevens. They want to know what we are going to do about it.’

‘What do they want you to do?’

‘Raise it with the Ottomans. They’re sure they’re behind it.’

‘And are you going to?’

‘Not yet. The Old Man says you can’t be sure that it is the Ottomans. He wants the case investigated first.’

‘They’re doing that. They’ve got a good man on the job.’

‘Old Pop? He’s a character, isn’t he? I like him but for some reason the Greeks don’t seem too sure of him.’

‘Well, he’s getting on with it.’

‘Look, can you stay close to him? Obviously it’s not up to you to conduct the investigation but the Old Man would like to be kept informed. It’s a British national, after all. I think he’ll be putting that point to them now and I expect they’ll go along with it. And would you draft me a report? What happened, people involved, cause of death, that sort of thing. Implications for Anglo-Greek relations. Although perhaps I’d better handle that. Look, can you do it as a draft, and I’ll tart it up as necessary. I’ll mention that you are fortunately on the scene and are involving yourself in the case. They’ll be pleased about that. Especially Scotland Yard. In a way it gives us more of an excuse to have you out here.’

Seymour settled down with pencil and paper. It didn’t take him long. There wasn’t much to say. But afterwards he thought, as he always did, that an existence had disappeared, forever, and that a gap was left.

When he had finished, he took the draft to Farquhar.

‘Thanks, old man. And thanks for your help this morning. Oh, incidentally, I took young Metaxas back home afterwards. He was very shaken up and I had the carriage there. Handed him over to his mother. She sends you her greetings. The daughter was there, too. Stunning girl, isn’t she?’

After leaving the Embassy, Seymour made his way to the ex-Sultan’s residence, arriving there about teatime. He had found that a good time to talk to people there. They were just getting up from their siestas and beginning to pick up their tasks again. It was a particularly good time to catch the kitchen servants since they were all there and the evening meal still some time away.

He had hardly begun to talk to them, however, when Orhan Eser appeared.

‘I was beginning to wonder where you were,’ he said disapprovingly. Evidently he had now come to include Seymour in those people for whom he felt a responsibility and a need to keep on their toes.

‘I had something to do for the Ambassador.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘He wanted me to look into the murder of a British national.’

‘Oh?’ said Orhan Eser, indifferently.

‘An engineer. He’s been working on the flying machines.’

‘The flying machines?’

‘Yes. I know you’ve been taking an interest in them. I thought you might like to know.’

‘Did you say he had been murdered?’

‘I did. This morning.’

Orhan Eser seemed taken aback.

‘The one who’s opened a workshop on the army base?’

‘Yes.’

‘Really? Murdered?’

‘Yes.’

Orhan Eser shook his head.

‘That is unfortunate,’ he said.

‘Sad for his family.’

‘And for the Greeks, too,’ said Orhan Eser. With a bitter flash of something that may have been humour.

That will be some information that will soon be on its way to Istanbul, thought Seymour.

He saw a bent black form slip out of the kitchen and followed it along the corridor until it came to the dark space underneath the stairs where they kept brooms and brushes and cleaning materials. There it settled down.

‘Hello, Amina!’ said Seymour. ‘That’s your comfy place, is it?’

Amina looked up at him suspiciously.

‘I’ve got a right to a place to sit down, haven’t I? A place of my own? At my age.’

‘How old are you, Amina?’

‘A hundred.’

‘You don’t look it. Fifty, I would say.’

Amina cackled.

‘I passed fifty in the days of the old Sultan. No, the one before!’

‘You’ve seen a lot in your time, Amina.’

‘I have; and not much of it good, either.’

‘What’s it like here in Athens?’

‘Filthy pigs!’ she said vehemently.

‘You preferred it back in Salonica?’

‘I preferred it back in Istanbul, where people knew their place and the Sultan was properly respected.’

‘He’s come down in the world, hasn’t he?’

‘Yes, and some people have come up,’ she said, with a meaningful glance back along the corridor to where he could just see Orhan Eser standing talking to the senior kitchen servant.

‘Was he with you in the palace?’

‘In the palace? Him?’ she said with scorn. ‘They’d never have had him in the palace. He was doing the accounts in the barracks!’

‘There was a step up for him, was there, when the officers took over?’

‘There’s always a need for people like him when there’s a change. Someone who can tie things together while the ones at the top are getting on with more important things. There are new ladders and he thought he’d got his foot on one of them. He didn’t like it a bit when they pulled him out and said they wanted him to go with the Sultan. “I’m too valuable here,” he said. “You’ll miss me.” “You’ll come back,” they said. “We won’t forget you. But meanwhile there’s something important you have to do.” So he went, but ever since then he’s been hoping that they would call him back.’

‘I expect there are quite a few people here who feel like that,’ said Seymour.

‘Oh, yes. Everyone wants to leave the setting sun.’

Along the corridor a door opened and Chloe came out carrying a great pile of plates.

‘Of course, they wouldn’t all want to go back to Istanbul,’ said Seymour. ‘I mean, there are some who come from round here.’

‘We wouldn’t have them if they did. They’re unclean, idle. You can’t train them. They answer back. I’ve had to go younger and younger. There was a day when a girl would have been proud to work in the Sultan’s kitchen but they’re not like that these days. Especially here. The Greeks! They would have been glad, too. It was like that when I started. We had lots of Greek women. But then they all fell away. When the Ottomans left. And now I can’t get anyone. We have to go up into the mountains even to get baggages like that,’ she said, nodding towards the struggling Chloe. ‘The only thing they’re good for is working on their back.’

She gave another loud cackle.

‘And, of course, that’s what they were used for. In the old days the Sultan’s men would go round to all the villages looking for likely women and the men up there were only too willing to let them have them. They would be brought to the palace all weeping and wailing. “Listen, you silly bitches,” I would say, “you’ve got it made! Play your cards right and you can go right to the top.”

‘And they could. “How do you think the senior wife got there? By playing her cards right. And now she runs the place! Not just the harem, you silly bitches. That’s not what it’s all about. But the palace, the Empire! Would you have had a chance of doing that if you hadn’t been brought here? So shut up and get on with it.”