The Green Lady (3 page)

‘This ticket hasn't been cancelled,' the official, a young man with slicked back hair said in an outraged voice. ‘You'll have to pay a fine.'

There were murmurs of dissent from the other passengers.

‘Name?' the inspector demanded, pen hovering over his penalty notice pad.

Mavros went up to him. ‘There's no need for that,' he said. ‘Can't you see the old gentleman's confused?'

‘That's what they all say. Besides, this is none of your business.'

Mavros caught his gaze and held it. ‘Leave . . . him . . . alone,' he said, moving closer.

‘You can't threaten a public—'

The young man's eyes sprang wide open as Mavros grabbed his groin.

‘I'm not threatening anyone, sonny. Just let him off and see how popular you'll be.' He squeezed harder.

‘Very well,' the official said, his voice high and his face red. ‘But this is your last warning, sir.'

There was a spontaneous burst of applause from the other passengers. Mavros let the young official go and looked at the old man. He didn't seem to understand what was going on.

‘Can I help?' Mavros said. ‘Where do you want to get off?'

Cloudy eyes took him in. ‘I . . . I don't know.'

Mavros turned back to the ticket inspector, who was preparing a rapid exit at the next stop. ‘He needs help. You don't only issue fines, do you?'

The young man stared at him and then nodded meekly. ‘I'll hand him over to the route controller in Syndagma.'

‘Thank you.'

Mavros watched as the official helped the old man off and led him to the grey kiosk. Mission accomplished.

‘Bravo, my son,' said a middle-aged woman in black. ‘May the Lord look favourably on you.'

Not very likely, Mavros thought, smiling thanks at her. Although he wasn't a member of the Communist Party, he definitely wasn't religious; but he did believe in doing the right thing, no matter what it took. Maybe that would have rubbed off on the ticket inspector.

He got off the bus at its terminus on the south side of the Acropolis. This perspective was less familiar to him than the opposite side. He used to live over there, with a superb view of the Erechtheion and the Parthenon's perpetual scaffolding, until the rent became too onerous. He still missed his old flat. There had been good times in it, many of them with Niki.

Mavros walked up the path through the pine trees on the slopes of Philopappos. He had strolled there before and knew its history. One of the disputed sites of the prison where Socrates had been held before his state-sponsored poisoning by hemlock was nearby and the hill was also known as the Mouseion because of a temple to the Muses on its flanks. There had been ancient fortifications, part of the great strategist Themistocles's walls, as well as less edifying later military uses. The Venetian general Morosini had bombarded the Turkish-held Acropolis from the hill in 1687, resulting in the explosion that wrecked the Parthenon. Philopappos had also been the apple in the eye of numerous conspirators as an artillery location, the last being the Colonels during their coup in 1967. In the past when he had such thoughts, Mavros's brother Andonis would have flashed before him. Now there was nothing. After years of pleading by his mother and sister, Mavros had finally let Andonis fall into the abyss.

Mavros felt the sweat build up all over his body and cursed the Fat Man's pastries. He needed to get on his exercise bike, but the heat hardly encouraged that. He came out of the trees and looked up at the Tomb of Philopappos himself, a marble tower over ten metres high with friezes and statues commemorating the eponymous grandee from the second century AD. There was a small group of young people in identical T-shirts around the base, and he made out the tones of an American classicist in full lecture mode. As for the mystery woman, not a sign. He skirted the tomb, slipping on the smooth stones, and took in the view. Although there was a heat haze, over the glinting blue sea he could see the triangular peak of the mountain on the island of Aegina and, beyond, the distant mountains of the Peloponnese stepping southwards.

‘Mr Mavros.'

He turned and took in a statuesque woman in her mid-forties. She was wearing a loose-fitting grey dress that displayed well-turned ankles, but it was the face beneath the straw hat that seized his attention. It was finely constructed, with almond-shaped pale blue eyes, a narrow nose and unpainted lips, the cheekbones high enough to suggest Slavic or Russian roots. She could have been beautiful, but her expression was infinitely sad and there were dark rings beneath her eyes. Brown hair with blonde highlights hung untended on her shoulders.

‘Alex,' he said, extending a hand. She clasped it briefly and then pulled away like a frightened animal. ‘You have the advantage of me.'

‘What?'

‘You haven't told me your name.'

The woman stepped away to the path that led southwards, forcing him to follow.

‘How did you know who I was?' Mavros asked, catching up.

‘I did an Internet search. You really should consider setting up a website.' She glanced at him. ‘Though the number of times you feature in the newspapers probably makes that unnecessary.'

She was definitely English, Mavros thought, the flattened vowels and dropped consonants suggesting her origins were humble. As she walked, he realised that her full breasts were unrestrained by a bra, a serious no-no in the Greek capital. There was a rock at the side of the path and she sat in the shade under it.

Joining her, he said, ‘Great view. Wish I could be
in
the water rather than looking at it.'

‘You don't recognise me,' the woman said, ignoring his attempt at small talk.

‘Should I?'

‘Well, I have been on the television rather often recently.'

Mavros studied her profile. There was something familiar about her. He suspected she usually wore make-up and had her hair under control.

‘Never mind. Before I tell you what I want from you, I need your assurance that you will tell no one about this meeting or anything said during it.' Her voice was almost a monotone and speaking seemed to require an enormous effort.

‘I always observe client confidentiality,' he replied, ‘though I reserve the right to share information with trusted associates when necessary.' He didn't have any official associates, but he'd once been burned when a plastic surgeon found out he'd used his sister Anna, a gossip columnist, to dig the dirt.

‘Very well,' the woman said, ‘but you'll be hearing from my very expensive lawyers if you cross me.'

Mavros smiled tightly. ‘This isn't exactly a promising start. You can't force me to take the job.'

‘No, I don't suppose I can.' The woman looked towards the sea, her hands with only a simple gold wedding ring on one of the long fingers clasped around her calves. ‘My name is Angie – Angela – Poulou and I have lost my . . .'

It was strange hearing herself confessing to a stranger, even though Alex Mavros had the long hair of a priest. She had been required by her fiancé to join the Orthodox Church before they were married. She took the instruction seriously, almost as seriously as learning the Modern Greek language. In six months she'd been baptised into the first and was close to fluent in the second. The wedding had been in the small chapel on the Poulos estate on the island of Evia. A few of her friends from the modelling world had made the all-expenses-paid trip, but she had already lost touch with most of them. Modelling had never been something she took seriously and her full figure had meant that she was restricted to lingerie ads and department store catalogues. She had always assumed something better would come along and it had, in the form of Paschos. The sole heir of Greece's second largest industrialist, he had been handsome as hell, his stocky frame muscular and his black hair glistening. Mum back in East Ham couldn't believe her daughter's luck. She made it to the wedding, drinking far too much champagne and screaming with mirth as she tried to join in the dancing. Three months later she was dead of a cerebral aneurysm and Angie, an only child herself, had no close relatives left in England; her father was a drunk, who'd alienated family and friends and was found dead in the street when she was ten.

So Greece, and especially the huge house in the northern Athenian suburb of Ekali, had become home. Paschos had taken over from his father when he was twenty-nine and now, thirty years later, had made Poulos A.E. the biggest private company in the country, with interests in construction, minerals, shipping and consumer goods. He had lost most of his hair, was three stone heavier than he should have been and spent almost all his waking hours on the phone or in meetings. The last five years had been even busier, as he was vice-president of the company managing the Athens Olympic Games.

Angie couldn't help smiling when she saw the look of recognition on Alex Mavros's face. He had seen her on the television the previous night during the opening ceremony. She was relieved that her boredom – no, worse, her disgust – hadn't been obvious. But he didn't yet know the reasons for that feeling. She told him, but the narrative was disjointed and incomplete. He took the occasional note in a small book.

The fact that she was sixteen years younger than Paschos hadn't worried her at the beginning. She was overwhelmed by her translation to the ranks of the hyper-rich. Her husband didn't talk about money, apart from asking once a year if the monthly allowance he gave her was enough. She refrained from pointing out that it would feed, clothe and house the population of a small country. She had read in the press that Paschos had a personal fortune of over a billion dollars, but she suspected there was even more than that in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. For the first couple of years, she had thrown herself into a life of extreme luxury, buying the most expensive jewelry, haute couture and shoes. She had three horses, as well as the latest BMW saloon and 4x4. Apart from the estate on Evia, Paschos had villas on Mykonos, Crete and Corfu, as well as properties in Monte Carlo, Gstaad, Manhattan (with a view over Central Park) and Barbados. She herself had spent time and his money renovating an old house on Pelion, with access to skiing in winter and deserted beaches for much of the year. She spent time in all those places, rarely with her husband but with a group of other rich men's wives. None of them seemed to care that she had grown up in a council house – they were dedicated to having the best possible time they could. Many had children, but rarely saw them, hiring the best nurses and nannies. After two years of increasingly empty jetsetting, Angie was relieved when she fell pregnant. Now she had something real to dedicate herself to.

And Lia – Evangelia, after Paschos's grandmother – had given her joy since her birth fourteen years earlier. Unlike her friends, Angie refused to have a Caesarean. She cared nothing about how she would look in a bikini any more. From the moment she held the little bundle with the helmet of black hair in her arms, she knew that life could give her nothing more precious. And her relationship with Lia had remained special as her daughter went through kindergarten and private primary school, and then started the international college two years ago. Lia was one of those rare people who lit up a room. She wasn't conventionally pretty, having inherited her father's rather bulbous nose, but she had presence. That was partly because of her size and shape. When she turned thirteen, she grew tall, almost as tall as Angie, and filled out in the places males of all ages noticed immediately. Lia had taken the metamorphosis in her stride, her moods unaffected and a smile never far from her pink lips. She and Angie used to talk for at least an hour every day. Paschos had never shown anything but distant pride in Lia and never tried to get close to her. Mother and daughter called him ‘the visitor', so rarely did they see him. That didn't worry Angie. She knew Paschos had lost interest in her physically before Lia was born and she'd made no effort to attract him back to her bed. He lived his life, she hers.

Except now she had no life. It had been taken away from her and she was an empty shell, a husk the wind could blow away at any time. And the truth was that Lia had changed in the weeks before she disappeared – she'd been less open and was often listless.

Now Angie steeled herself to accompany her husband to events where her presence was essential and she hadn't let him down, but she couldn't go on any longer. She had to do this, she couldn't live without Lia. She needed Alex Mavros . . .

The missing persons specialist looked up from his notebook. ‘Let me get this straight, Mrs Poulou.'

‘Angie,' she said, in a low voice. Her hands were over her eyes, tears leaking between the fingers.

‘Your daughter Lia went missing on Saturday May 1st on the slopes of Mount Elikonas in Viotia. Your husband has handled all questions from the police and enforced a news blackout. There has been no ransom demand or any trace of Lia. And now, three and a half months later, you want me to find her.'

‘Yes, but remember what I said. My husband must not hear about your activities. He has forbidden me to hire anyone or talk to the press. I can't even tell my friends. The story is that we've moved Lia to a school in Switzerland.'

‘What about the woman who was in charge of the girls that day?' Mavros looked at his notes. ‘Maria Bekakou.'

‘You can't talk to her,' Angie said firmly.

‘But she believed what Lia told her when she called that afternoon?'

‘That Paschos had unexpectedly come to pick her up? Yes.'

‘Doesn't that strike you as strange? I mean, surely a mother responsible for other mothers' daughters would at least have asked to speak to your husband.'

‘Maria isn't a mother. She did ask, but Lia told her Paschos was on an urgent call to his broker in New York.'

‘And she reported no hint of fear or coercion in Lia's voice?'