The Oracle (33 page)

They answered that Malidis had retired and that they knew nothing more about him. Perhaps he had returned to Parga, his home town. She should look for him there. Mireille thanked them. Parga . . . Parga was the town nearest Ephira: had Michel gone there to meet Malidis?

She walked out on to the street, over to the photo lab where she had left her roll of film from that morning at Cape Sounion. She’d asked for large black and white prints: they’d come out rather well, even if they were a little out of focus. She bought some tracing paper and pencils and went back to her hotel room. She placed the paper over the photograph and traced the face, changing it here and there so that it resembled the model more closely. When she lifted the paper, she thought that the likeness was really rather good. She’d captured his deep, intense gaze and his strong features. She put the drawing into her purse, got into the car and headed out towards the cemetery at Kifissìa. The flower shop was open and Mireille entered, showing her sketch to the owner: ‘Is this the man who orders the flowers for the tomb of Periklis Harvatis?’

The woman stared at the drawing in surprise, looked up at Mireille and back at the drawing. She nodded her head excitedly: ‘
Né, né, aftòs ine.
’ It was him, precisely him.

The same evening she showed the drawing to Dr Psarros. ‘This man is tied in some way to Periklis Harvatis,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how, but I’m certain of it. Have you ever seen him?’

Psarros shook his head: ‘Never. Who is he?’

‘I’d like to know. This man embodies more mysteries than the Holy Trinity. I don’t know anything about him. All I have is the licence number of his car. A black Mercedes.’

Psarros thought for a while in silence: ‘Why don’t you go to the captain of police, Pavlos Karamanlis? I think he’s still in service. Maybe he can help you. Maybe he did carry out some kind of investigation back then . . . who knows.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ said Mireille. ‘Thank you, Doctor Psarros.’

Towards midnight, when Karamanlis phoned in to the station to see what was new, the officer on duty told him that there was something new, for a change.

‘Captain, do you remember that identikit that you had distributed to Interpol?’

‘Of course I remember. I’m the one who had it done.’

‘Today a foreign girl came in with a drawing that looked just like him. Well, kind of. She asked if we knew anything about him. She wanted to talk with you.’

‘What do you mean, with me?’

‘With you, in person. She said “I want to talk to Captain Karamanlis”.’

‘What was her name?’

‘Mireille de Saint-Cyr. Must be an aristocrat.’

‘Saint-Cyr? Never heard of her.’

‘She said she followed this guy and that she has his plates, but she wouldn’t give me the number.’

Karamanlis started: ‘Don’t let her get away if you want to save your ass.’

‘Should I arrest her?’

‘No, you imbecile. Just keep an eye on her. I absolutely have to talk to her. I’ll be there tomorrow.’

‘Where are you now, Captain?’

‘It’s my own fucking business where I am now. I said I’d be there tomorrow.’

Drepano, Kozani, 4 November, 8.00 a.m.

P
AVLOS
K
ARAMANLIS HAD
not believed that his admonition would be enough to make Norman Shields and Michel Charrier leave Greece. He knew that they had left Athens and were headed west towards Missolungi: the road for Parga. The road that led to the Oracle of the Dead at Ephira, if he was guessing right. Idiots: they were walking into the trap, reeled in by those messages. The angel of death wouldn’t stop to listen to explanations; the two of them might very well be on the list themselves.

Was it there that Claudio Setti was waiting for them? For the day of reckoning? Well, Karamanlis would be there as well when the roll was called, but he had to get a couple of things out of the way first. He wanted to set up a credible line of defence if Claudio Setti came to settle up, and he wanted to get some information from the man who called himself Admiral Bogdanos; he would know where Claudio Setti was, if he truly was still alive.

And if Setti was alive and determined to exterminate all those who remained – at least Vlassos and himself – nothing would stop him, if all these years of police work had taught Karamanlis anything about human nature.

Ephira could wait. He’d asked his colleagues in Parga to keep an eye on Charrier and Shields as soon as they registered at a hotel. Karamanlis set off for Kalabaka and for Kozani. He’d got an idea. The Kaloudis family had recently moved to Drepano, a village near Kozani. They had sold their property in Thrace after Heleni’s death and bought a woodworking factory there.

The Kaloudises still had a daughter, Heleni’s younger sister. She must be about twenty now, the age Heleni was when she died. Karamanlis wanted to see her.

And when he spotted her walking home from town with a shopping bag in hand, his face lit up: she was the living likeness of her sister!

He had a picture of Heleni in his office which his men had taken at the time of the Polytechnic incident. Every now and then he would look at it without a reason. He couldn’t explain to himself why he was drawn to that old photograph; but since he had the girl’s face in his mind’s eye, he was sure that her younger sister resembled her in an extraordinary way.

He stayed at Kozani that night, and the next day took several pictures of her with a good telephoto lens. Riding her bike into town. Coming out of a shop. Talking with a girlfriend. Laughing at a couple of boys.

He had them printed, and they came out so well he decided he would leave. If the worst came to the worst, these photographs might mean his salvation. Or could be the lure for a good trap, a trap he’d had in mind since he’d seen Vlassos run through like Saint Sebastian. A trap he could set up if the circumstances were right. He just had to find out where that son of a bitch was hiding. When he’d called headquarters and had learned that there was a girl on the trail of the mysterious Admiral Bogdanos, his mood soared. Destiny was giving him a good hand to play. Finally.

The next day he headed south towards Athens, but instead of taking the direct Larissa route, he choose the Grevena-Kalabaka provincial road. When he got to the turn-off for Kalabaka, he realized that he wasn’t far from a place he’d been thinking about a lot over the last few days, a place which intrigued him and made him strangely uncomfortable.

Did people with mystic powers really exist? People capable of penetrating the dark curtain?

He stopped for a few minutes at the crossroads and then turned right, instead of left, towards Metsovon.

M
OUNT
P
ERISTERI WAS
a striking, solitary mountain, swept by the wind most of the year. It rose, barren and harsh, at the centre of the Pindus ridge, halfway between Metsovon and Kalabaka. These towns were briefly populated for a couple of months a year when Metsovon enjoyed a little local tourism: people from Athens – mostly small-businessmen or government employees – would come up for an escape from the stifling heat in the summer. But as early as September, the area was practically deserted again, home only to a few shepherds who brought their flocks to graze on the meadows at the foot of the great mountain.

Pavlos Karamanlis left his car in a parking area at the side of the provincial road and headed on foot up a narrow trail which cut into the mountainside. The identikit of the man who for years he had thought was Admiral Bogdanos was in his pocket – the sketch which had not turned up a single lead from the police or Interpol. Unless that foreign girl who had turned up at headquarters knew something. It had been an impulsive decision to take that walk up the mountains of Epirus – because he figured he had nothing to lose. At worst, he’d have to listen to the ravings of a
kallikàntharos.
But if his friend was right, perhaps that hermit could really see into the other world, and would set him on the right path.

His friend had told him that the secret police often used mediums and psychics to solve intricate, unsolvable cases. Not only in Greece, but in many other countries as well. He had claimed that in Italy, when statesman Aldo Moro was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Red Brigades, a psychic had told the police the exact name of the street where they could find him. The only reason they hadn’t been able to save him was that there happened to be a town of the same name which they’d mistakenly raided instead.

Karamanlis knew that the seer lived in an old shack next to a cave which opened on to the southern slope of Mount Peristeri, not far from a spring. He found a shepherd who knew enough to provide him with reasonable directions to the place.

He quickened his pace, because it was already three in the afternoon and the days were getting shorter. It would take him another hour to get up there and just as long to get back down, and he didn’t want to be stuck up there when darkness fell.

He was soon struggling and drenched with sweat, dressed as he was in a brown suit, shirt and tie, with shoes that were absolutely unsuitable for such a hike. He slipped several times, falling to his knees and covering his trousers with dust and burrs. When he was finally close enough to see the shack, the weather started to turn. Clouds cloaked the sun which had begun to set over the Ionian Sea in the direction of Metsovon.

Just a few dozen metres away was a drystone-wall cabin, its roof covered with schist slabs like all the old houses in the area. All around were pens with sheep, goats, pigs, a couple of donkeys, chickens and turkeys, geese. But he could hear the cries of other animals as well: monkeys, or parrots, it sounded like. That discordant chorus of beastly voices created a sinister atmosphere in the place, which seemed devoid of any human presence.

Karamanlis was about to turn back, because the clouds were gathering rapidly and the idea of remaining in that place longer than necessary gave him the creeps, but stopped when the door suddenly swung open. He thought he would see the owner come out, but nothing happened: the door had opened on to a black, empty space inside.

Karamanlis walked slowly towards the house. ‘Anyone home?’ he asked, ‘May I come in?’ He was given no answer.

All at once, he realized that his men had been killed after being lured into a solitary, out-of-the-way place. Just like this. Stupid. What an idiot. Had he come on his own legs to meet his butcher? His friend at the Ministry hadn’t given him much information, after all. Perhaps he knew more about Bogdanos than he’d let on. After all, their ‘friendship’ had always been greased by sums of money Karamanlis had appropriated from funds destined for informers and spies.

He took his gun from its holster and hid it in his pocket, so he’d be ready to fire at the slightest provocation.

He then heard a voice from inside.

‘You won’t need your weapons. There is no danger for you here. The danger is elsewhere . . .’

Karamanlis started and paused at the threshold, looking in. There was a man sitting next to the hearth, although the fire was out. His back was to the door. To his left a bird was perched on a stand: a hawk, or a kite. A large grey-haired dog lay at his feet, absolutely immobile.

‘I’m—’

‘You are
O Tàvros
. Chief of many men, yet you fear remaining alone, do you not?’

‘I see someone has spoken to you about me,’ said Karamanlis, putting the gun back in its holster under his armpit.

The man turned towards him: his hair was dark and curly, his skin swarthy. He had long, nervous hands and strong arms. He was wearing the traditional costume of the area: a pleated fustanella and a puff-sleeved shirt under a black wool vest. Karamanlis was disconcerted.

‘You called me
O Tàvros
. That was my battle name during the civil war. Someone must have told you about me . . .’

‘In a certain sense. What do you want from me?’

The light outside was fading quickly and the dog whined softly.

‘I’m looking for a man who I knew under a false identity for many years. I cannot understand his behaviour for the life of me. Each one of his actions contradicts another, and I cannot explain them, as hard as I try. His appearance is always accompanied by death, either just before or just after I have seen him . . .’ He was amazed at how he was talking to the shepherd, as if he could really provide a response. ‘I know only his face. It’s a face that is difficult to forget because it seems unchangeable. As if time never passes for him.’

‘There are people who wear their years well,’ said the man.

‘Do you know who I am speaking about?’

‘No.’

Karamanlis reproved himself for being so gullible. He’d come to this godforsaken place for nothing.

‘But I feel him looming over you,’ the man continued. ‘Can you describe him?’

‘More than that,’ said Karamanlis. ‘I can show you a very good likeness of him.’ He took the identikit from his pocket and handed it to him.

The man took the sketch but didn’t seem even to look at it. He put it on a stool in front of him and placed his open hand over it. His voice suddenly became deep and hoarse, distorted. ‘What do you want from me?’ he asked.