The Oracle (26 page)

‘There’s something else,’ he said. ‘But this will cost you twice as much. Forty dollars.’

‘All right,’ said Norman, putting his hand back on his wallet. The policeman walked into another room and came back with a newspaper-wrapped bundle that he placed on the table. Norman opened it: it contained an arrow. ‘He found it stuck in a trunk at a height of about two metres,’ translated Hackiris, ‘at a short distance from where your father’s body was found. He dug out the head with his hunting knife and took it home. Obviously the weapon of a foreigner.’

‘He failed his first shot,’ Norman muttered to himself. ‘His hand can tremble, then . . .’ Turning to his guide, he said, ‘Ask him to tell you where he found the body, and take me there.’

The policeman led them out of the house and took them to the outskirts of the village. With ample hand gestures indicating the bottom of the valley, he explained how they could get to the scene of the crime.

Norman followed his guide through a damp, wooded ravine where gigantic beech trees with multiple trunks sprouted from large masses of sandstone covered with dripping moss. He raised his eyes to the sun filtering through the foliage, and then lowered his gaze to a huge tree trunk. A spring of crystalline water gushed alongside.

‘I think it happened there,’ said the guide, pointing at a kind of niche between two enormous roots.

Norman sat on a stone and passed his hand over the rough bark of the tree to which his father had been nailed by the lethal dart. Eyes welling with tears, he listened for a while to the rustling of the leaves and the gurgling of the spring, the low voices of the forest in the deep peace of midday. ‘It was a good place to die,’ he said. ‘Goodbye, Father.’

A
THENS AWOKE VIOLENT
emotions in Michel: the Acropolis, the Polytechnic, the French School of Archaeology, the National Museum. It was as if the clock of his life had been turned back, taking him back to the moment in which, unable to stand on his feet, tortured in body and soul, he was led out of police headquarters and put on a plane.

He settled into the hotel in the Plaka where he had told Norman he could be reached, then walked out on to the street without a precise destination in mind. He passed near the Olimpieion, and then Syntagmatos Square, where the tourists were waiting to take pictures of the evzoni at the changing of the guard. He ended up at a bar on the corner of Stadiou Street where he had spent many an evening with friends. He sat down at a table and ordered a Fix beer.

‘They don’t make it any more, sir,’ said the waiter.

‘An Alfa then.’

‘Not that one either. You must have been away from Greece for a long time, sir. Now we have export beer.’

‘Yeah, I’ve been away for a long time. I don’t want any beer then. Bring me a coffee. Turkish.’

The waiter brought the coffee and Michel sat watching a group of young people joking and laughing at a nearby table. Time had flattened out so entirely in his mind that he felt like joining them, as if he were as young as they were, as if nothing had ever happened. He suddenly caught a glimpse of himself reflected in the glass of the window: a little grey at the temples, with wrinkles at the sides of his eyes. He was sitting all alone and surrounded by ghosts, only darkness and emptiness around him. Michel took off with a knot in his throat, pushing through the crowds swarming from the offices and shops on their way home. He burst into a run without knowing where he was going, walking fast and then running again until, as if in a dream, he suddenly found himself at the start of Dionysìou Street, long and oddly deserted.

He stopped and began to walk slowly down the right-hand pavement, observing the odd street numbers across the way. It was getting dark, and the grey sky of Athens was turning a hazy light red. A boy on a bicycle rode by. A child ran out on to a balcony after a ball and drew up short, watching him in silence. An aeroplane passed in the distance, scoring the sky with a white wake of smoke.

17 Dionysìou Street.

The faded sign of an old printer’s shop, paint peeling. A dusty shutter pulled all the way down, closed with a rusty padlock just as dusty. It looked like the shutter hadn’t been opened in years. Michel stood silently in front of the abandoned, unlikely shop, losing track of time. Then he noticed a bar further on down the road, where a lighted ‘Milos’s Bar’ sign was just being switched on. He went in and sat near the door, so he could have a view of the street nearly the whole way down. He ordered an ouzo with water and ice. When the waiter brought it, he asked, pointing to the shutter at number 17, ‘Is that printer still in business, as far as you know?’

The waiter leaned over and then shook his head: ‘It’s always been closed up like that. Since I’ve been here, anyway.’

‘And how long have you worked here?’

‘Seven years.’

‘And you go by there every morning?’

‘Every blessed morning.’

‘And you’ve never seen anyone go in or out?’

‘Never. Can I ask why you want to know?’

‘I collect a magazine that was once printed there and I’m looking for some back issues.’

‘I see.’

‘Do you know if that building has a doorman?’

‘No, I wouldn’t say so, sir. You only find doormen in those big modern buildings on Patissìon Street or Stadiou Street or in Omonia Square. These houses are all very old – they’ve been here since before the war against the Turks.’

‘Thanks,’ Michel said, leaving him a good tip. He left and walked away. He wanted to get back to the hotel, in case Norman called.

The waiter cleared off the table, pocketing the tip, then walked out to put sheets of plastic on the outdoor tables. He glanced over to the other side of the street. It had become dark, and he could see a thin stream of light coming from under the shutter at number 17.

‘Sir!’ he shouted towards Michel, who had reached the end of the street. ‘Sir, wait!’ But Michel didn’t hear him over the sound of the traffic on the main street he was approaching, and he turned the corner. The waiter went back to work, but as he waited on his customers that evening, he continued to check the other side of the street. When he got off work at 2 a.m. there was still a little light seeping out from under the shutter.

N
ORMAN CALLED AT
nine that evening.

‘Where are you?’ asked Michel.

‘In a garage not far from the border. I’ll be staying at Sidirokastro tonight and then tomorrow I’ll drive down.’

‘That was quick. What did you find out?’

‘The information I’d been given was correct: Scotland Yard had kept a detail of my father’s death hidden. There was a message found on the corpse.’

‘What did it say?’

‘
“You in your day have witnessed hundreds slaughtered, killed in single combat or killed in pitched battle, true, but if you’d laid eyes on this it would have wrenched your heart.”
What is it, Michel? What does it mean?’

‘Wait, I know, I’ve heard it before, I’m sure. Give me ten minutes and I’ll tell you. I’m sure I’ve heard it before.’

Norman hung up and Michel opened his suitcase and took out his copy of the
Odyssey
, which he had brought with him. He had marked several passages which had struck him. Here –
Odyssey
XI, Agamemnon speaking to Odysseus in the Kingdom of the Dead.

When Norman called back, he was ready with the book in his hands. ‘It’s from the Nekya, Norman, Book eleven of the
Odyssey
. Odysseus has raised Agamemnon’s shade from the dead, and the Great Atreid tells of how he, his comrades and Cassandra were murdered upon their return from the Trojan war, in his own house . . . those words express his horror at the massacre of his comrades and of a helpless girl . . .’ Silence on the other end of the line as the international phone call counter ticked away. ‘Norman, are you there?’

Norman’s voice sounded tired and detached. Every word was costing him great effort. ‘Yes, I am. This links my father’s death to Roussos and Karagheorghis.’

‘That seems possible.’

‘There’s no other explanation.’

‘I don’t know, Norman. It’s not simple. Come to Athens and we’ll talk about it. I’ll try to find out what the other messages mean. An idea has come to me.’

‘All right,’ said Norman. ‘I’ll come.’

‘Norman?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t lose heart. We’ve got to see this thing through to the end.’

‘Don’t worry about me. Think about your idea. I’ll be bringing you something.’

‘What is it?’

‘An arrow. Identical to the one that killed my father.’

Michel went and sat at the little table in his room, took out a cigarette, and began to look at the
Odyssey
. He compared Norman’s message with the original wording and scanned the poem page by page to search for the words found on the bodies of Roussos and Karagheorghis. They sounded as if they might be from passages in the
Odyssey
, but his efforts proved fruitless.

He lay down on the bed and tried to relax, but his thoughts would not let him rest. He and Norman certainly hadn’t had much success. Their hunt for the vase of Tiresias had run up a dead end, and they hadn’t heard a thing from the man they’d met at Kotronas. And now James Shields’s death seemed somehow connected to the murders of Roussos and Karagheorghis, but how? And why? And who the hell had printed Periklis Harvatis’s little book, if the print shop at 17 Dionysìou Street had been closed for so long?

The next day he would ask for an appointment with the director of the National Museum and attempt to get in touch with Aristotelis Malidis. It was the only possible way out of a blind alley.

The phone rang again; it was the front desk with an international call.

‘Michel? It’s Mireille. I’ve finally found you!’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to call and tell you I’d got to the hotel here in Athens.’

‘Doesn’t matter. I managed to find you anyway, didn’t I? How’s it going?’

‘This research is hairier than I’d imagined. We’re running into all sorts of obstacles.’

‘But I want to see you!’

‘So do I, very much.’

‘I’m off work next week. I want to come to Athens to be with you.’

‘Mireille, this isn’t just academic research. I’m helping my friend Norman to investigate his father’s death. There may even be some danger involved.’

‘That’s why I want to be with you.’

‘Believe me, it’s what I want most right now. I dream about you every night, but I’m afraid you being here could create problems . . . especially for Norman. I’m sure he wants some things to remain just between the two of us. You can understand, can’t you?’

‘Yeah. You don’t want me in the way, right?’

‘Mireille, just give me a few days. If there’s a break, I’ll call you immediately.’

‘All right. But remember, the longer the abstinence you’re forcing on me, the greater the penance you’ll have to pay.’

Michel smiled: ‘Ready and willing for any penance you have in mind, my lady.’

‘I miss you.’

‘Me too.’

‘Michel, are you hiding something from me?’

‘Mireille, there is something, but I can’t tell you now. I don’t know how to tell you. Please keep loving me, even . . . afterwards. You’re the most important thing in my life.’

N
ORMAN STOPPED THE
car at the Greek border at Sidirokastro and paid the guide the amount they had agreed upon. Hackiris thanked him, showed the police his border pass and went on his way. Norman pulled out his own passport. The official looked at the photograph and then at him, but did not hand back the passport. ‘Mr Shields, would you follow me, please?’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Just ordinary procedure. Please follow me, it will take just a few minutes. Routine inspection. Leave your keys in the car, I’ll have one of my men park it.’

Norman obeyed and followed the man into the police station. He was taken into a small office lit by a single lamp on the table. In the darkness, he could barely make out the shape of a person sitting on the other side of the table.

‘Good evening, Mr Shields. Sit down, please.’

‘Listen, it’s midnight, I’m dead tired and I’d like to go to bed. If this is just a routine border check, could we please

‘I’m surprised, Mr Shields, that you don’t remember me. Can’t you spare a few minutes for an old acquaintance?’

Norman sat down and scrutinized the man sitting at the table. His face wasn’t new to him, and his voice sounded kind of familiar, and he suddenly realized with dismay just who it was.

‘Pavlos Karamanlis!’

‘Exactly, Mr Shields.’

‘What is this farce about a customs inspection – what do you want from me?’

‘Fine. I see you’ve got straight to the meat of the matter, and I’ll be glad to tell you just what I want. I want to know what you’ve come to do in Greece, you and your friend Michel Charrier. I want to know what you were doing in Dirou when my man Karagheorghis was killed at the Katafigi caves. I want to know who you met on the evening of August the twenty-fourth on the western coast of the Laconian peninsula, and who you turned your car over to.’