The Oracle (40 page)

She didn’t understand, but her eyes filled up with tears. She sensed the great, limitless devotion behind those words. A man’s life given for a friend, without any reward. She could feel the extreme, defenceless solitude of a fragile human being finding himself face to face with the gaping mouth of the icy, dismal mystery of death.

She hurriedly recopied the graph which incorporated the axis of Harvatis – the same she had seen on Michel’s desk – into her notebook, along with the formulae which accompanied it. A sudden suspicion gave her a chill: Siwa! If her father had been telling the truth, Michel was born in Siwa and he was an Aries. No, what did that have to do with anything . . . There was no connection. The late hour, her emotional state and the suffocating atmosphere of that strange place were giving her hallucinations. She had to get out as soon as possible. How to deal with the dog, that was her next problem. Could she face that big black beast crouching in the garden, waiting to rip her throat out?

Her heart suddenly stopped short as she heard the sound of steps, muffled and far away, but definitely footsteps. She switched off the lights in both rooms and flattened herself behind some of the shelves. The steps were drawing nearer and nearer, she could hear them coming from under the floor. Then they stopped and she heard the creaking of the hinge that opened the trapdoor into the print shop. Someone had turned on the light and was walking around in the next room. Steps, papers being shuffled, the handle turning . . . and there he was, his figure standing out darkly in the open doorway.

He raised his hand to the light switch to turn on the bulb swinging from the ceiling, closing the door behind him. Mireille flattened herself even further against the wall, but realized that if he came just four, five more steps forward, he couldn’t help but see her. The light suddenly quivered and went out: the light bulb must have blown. The man walked back to the door and let the light from the other room flood in. He then went over to the left wall and moved a pack of paper from a shelf, revealing a little safe.

He pressed out the combination on a little electronic keypad – Mireille could see the numbers out of the corner of her eye as they appeared on the display: 15 . . . 20 . . . 19 . . . 9 . . . 18. The safe opened and he put his hand inside, extracting a long black case with a couple of zippered closures, like a case for a musical instrument or a weapon. He turned off the light in the printer’s shop, then walked through the second room again in the dark, passing just a few steps away from Mireille, who stood holding her breath. He took an item off one of the shelves, as confidently as if he could see perfectly, and disappeared behind the door. Mireille hadn’t been able to see what he had taken.

She listened to the sound of his footsteps as they faded away, then returned to the safe and tried the combination again: 15, 20, 19, 9, 18. The safe swung open and Mireille lit up the inside with the little torch she kept on her key ring. There was a booklet with a strange charcoal drawing on its cover: the heads of a boar, a bull and a ram. As she started turning the pages, her features contracted and her eyes darkened until she got to the last page. An expression of pure terror transformed her face, and she burst out crying.

‘No!’ she cried out, throwing the little booklet back into the safe as if she had touched a red-hot iron. She slammed it shut and ran crying towards the rear door. Still in the dark, she stumbled down a little stair and found herself in a sort of basement. Her torch beam lead her to an old coal chute which led outside. She climbed through it and out, under the drowsy eyes of a stray dog who was rummaging in a nearby garbage can. She found herself on Odòs Pallenes and began running, her heart pounding madly, towards Omonia Square. She stopped at the first telephone booth she could find, and called Michel’s hotel in Ephira. Norman answered.

‘Mireille? What’s wrong?’

‘Norman, pass me Michel, please. Even if he’s sleeping.’ A brief silence followed. ‘Norman, answer me! I have to talk to Michel.’

‘Michel’s not here, Mireille. He left this afternoon and I’ve been waiting for him since then. He went looking for Ari, but Ari’s not here any more, and he never came back. I’ve told the police and they’re looking for him. It seems that his car was seen heading towards Metsovon.’

‘Metsovon? Oh my God, no . . .’

Cape Sounion, 11 November, 6.30 a.m.

A
RI DROVE PAST
the great temple of Cape Sounion as a milky glow was just beginning to colour the horizon. How many sailors for how many thousands of years had seen its grey bulk disappearing in the distance along with the homeland they longed for as they were swiftly snatched off by the north wind?

He turned north, leaving the white spectres of the Doric columns behind him, and headed towards Marathon, until he found the little road that climbed up towards an isolated house at the edge of an oak forest.

He got out of the car with a bundle in his hands, then rang the doorbell and waited for someone to answer. There was no wind, and the sky was still and grey.

A few minutes later the door opened, and a man with long grey hair wearing a dark cotton robe came to the door.

‘The commander has sent me,’ said Ari.

‘I know,’ said the man. ‘Come in.’ And he led him past the small entryway, down a hall to the large unadorned room where he usually worked.

Ari placed the bundle he was carrying on a table and took off its wrapping: the magnificent embossed Mycenaean vase emerged. ‘The commander said you are to use this gold for your work.’

‘This? Oh my God, how can I . . .’

Ari watched without saying a word, arms crossed over his stomach as if waiting for a reply. The man contemplated the beautiful object at length, turning and touching it as if to impress every detail in his mind for ever.

Ari said: ‘The commander doesn’t want anything to remain . . . you must not dare make a copy.’

The sculptor turned towards the draped easel standing in the corner and uncovered the mask he had fashioned first in clay and then in white cement. ‘But why destroy this miracle?’

‘That’s what the commander wants. The gold must come from this vase. The entire vase. If you are his friend, do as he says.’

The man nodded. ‘All right. I’ll do as he wishes. Come back in two days.’

‘No. I’ll wait until it’s finished. It’s time now.’

Ari went to sit in a corner and took out his pipe.

‘Where will you bring it when it is finished?’

‘To Ephira,’ said Ari. ‘It will all be over soon, very soon. The time has come.’

The sculptor lowered his head and began working.

T
HE COASTAL HIGHWAY
to Patras was nearly empty at that time of morning and Sergeant Vlassos was driving fast, taking a bite of a sausage sandwich and a swig of beer every so often, sticking the bottle in the glove compartment between gulps. Captain Karamanlis sat next to him and paged through his notes.

‘Why don’t we get some help from our colleagues at Preveza, boss?’ asked Vlassos between one mouthful and the next. ‘We’ll set up roadblocks all around the city and then more of them a little farther out. The fish will swim right into our net. And I’ll take care of him afterwards. We’ll get rid of the bastard once and for all. I’ll tear the creep to pieces. He has to pay for what he did to me . . . for everything I’ve suffered. Damned son-of-a-bitch bastard.’

‘And what did we do at Dirou and Portolagos? Roadblocks, encirclements that not even a mosquito could get through, but he got through, didn’t he? He got through just fine. He’s got the devil on his side, that bastard. Yeah, if I believed in the stories that priests tell, I’d say I’d met the devil himself, in person. In the flesh, just like you’re sitting next to me now.’ Vlassos’s mouth, full of sausage, dropped open. ‘Even if I couldn’t tell you whose side he was really on. But we’ll find out soon, very soon. I’ve tried everything, but there’s only one sure way to get our man now: he wants me, but he wants you even more. At Portolagos he would have finished you off if we hadn’t stopped him in time.’

‘Then I’ll be the lure for our fishy. Fine. Let him try. This time the hook will stick.’

‘I’m glad you’re in favour of all this. But be careful. This time we can’t count on anyone else’s help. It’s too dangerous. I don’t want any of the behind-the-scenes stuff coming out. You know what I mean. The more people we involve the messier it gets. We’re going to do it by ourselves this time. The game is up, and it’s two against one, right? Maybe even three against one. If the worst comes to the worst, two against two . . .’

‘Who the hell is this other guy, and why don’t we know whose side he’s on?’

‘He’s the guy who saved your ass at Portolagos.’

‘Then he’s on our side.’

‘No. Not on our side. But maybe not on the other side, either. I have a hunch that he’s playing a game of his own, but I don’t know his cards. Or the rules, for that matter. But it won’t be long. It won’t be much longer now . . .’

Vlassos swallowed. ‘Captain,’ he asked, ‘we’ll come out on top this time, won’t we? You’ve got a plan, right? Something up your sleeve, I bet.’

Karamanlis continued to go through his notes until he came to the colour photo of a beautiful dark-haired girl: Kiki Kaloudis.

‘Yeah,’ he said, raising his head and watching the ribbon of asphalt unwind in front of him. ‘Yeah, I’ve got something up my sleeve all right. But I’m not using it till all my other cards are played out. Hey, stop here a minute, I have to take a piss. This damned prostate . . . maybe Irini’s right, maybe it’s time I made up my mind to retire.’

Vlassos gulped down a little beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘You’ll retire all right, boss. When we’ve got this fixed. Now I’ll stop so you can pee.’

M
IREILLE HADN
’
T SLEPT
at all. She drove back to the hotel, paid the night porter for her room with a credit card and started off immediately, after leaving a message for Mr Zolotas and a generous tip for the waiter at Milos’s Bar.

She was heading down the same highway and had at least three hours’ advantage over Karamanlis, but every once in a while she was forced to stop, overwhelmed by fatigue. She’d pull over and sleep five, ten minutes, then wipe her face with a wet towel and start off again.

She knew that she was caught in a race against time, and that Michel’s very life depended on the outcome. She didn’t have enough information on where she could find him, but she had to get there first. Before fate had its way; a fate that had every advantage over her and could strike at any time.

It was already daylight when she lined up at Rion behind a couple of cars and half a dozen trucks to take the ferry to the northern side of the Gulf of Corinth. She passed Missolungi and Arta without stopping, eating a few crackers and an apple, and arrived at Preveza in the early afternoon. The November sun was low and pale. Norman was waiting for her at the hotel.

‘I’ve looked everywhere,’ he told her, ‘but this is all I found.’ He handed her a slip of paper which said: ‘I’ll call you the day after tomorrow from Canakkale, I hope. Had no time. Michel’

‘The best thing to do is wait here until he calls, so we can find out why he had to leave in such a hurry. We have an old friend who lives here – his name’s Aristotelis Malidis; he helped us back during the Polytechnic uprising. I think Michel might have gone to talk with him. I’ve looked for him too, but he seems to have disappeared.’

‘He helped you? With what?’

‘Michel never told you anything about what happened, did he?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I’m sorry, then, but I don’t think I have the right . . .’

‘Fine. In any case, I’m leaving.’

‘Leaving? But you can’t even stand up. You look awful.’

‘Thanks,’ said the girl, her feminine pride slightly offended.

‘What I mean is that it looks like you haven’t slept in a week. Listen, take a shower and lie down until dinner time. Maybe Michel will call early, and you’ll be able to talk to him.’

‘No. Michel’s life is in danger. I absolutely have to find him.’

Norman’s forehead wrinkled: ‘His life is in danger? Why?’

‘I don’t have time to explain and you probably wouldn’t believe me anyway. If there’s nothing else you can tell me, I’m leaving.’

Norman took her arm. ‘But you don’t even know where to look for him. Canakkale is no village.’

‘I’ll manage somehow. I have to go.’ She was pale and clammy. Norman could see that nothing would stop her.

‘All right. If you’ve really got to go, I’m coming with you. I’ll drive, at least, so you can get some sleep. Rest a little. And maybe I’ll be able to spot Michel; he did leave with my car. Take a shower while I put a few things together. I’ll tell the receptionist to say when he calls that we’re heading out that way, and to let us know where we can find him. Then we’ll call the hotel along the way. How about that?’

Mireille lowered her head and dropped her bag on the floor: ‘Sounds good to me. I’ll be ready in ten minutes. My car is the Hertz Peugeot parked in front.’

K
ARAMANLIS AND
V
LASSOS
arrived at dusk. Karamanlis dropped Vlassos off at the small motel on the road to Ephira that they had booked for the night. He drove to the Preveza police station, where he identified himself and asked for the guest lists of all the hotels and boarding houses in the area in an attempt to locate any foreigner whose description might fit that of Claudio Setti. There wouldn’t be many foreigners around so offseason. He did learn that Norman Shields and Michel Charrier had both been in the area and had left at a few days’ distance from each other.