A Darker God (33 page)

A
ll the same, William,” Letty said thoughtfully, “to attack a police inspector
once
before lunch might be written off as a misjudgement, but—twice? It begins to look like a campaign. And couldn’t you at least have hit him somewhere it wouldn’t show? That eye is just red and swollen at the moment, but in an hour or two it’s going to be all the colours of the rainbow. And people are going to ask questions.”

“I shall listen with interest to his answers,” said Gunning crisply. “And if I don’t like them I shall blacken the other one.”

“I do wish I could be allowed to settle my own scores. Given time to consider it, I’d have come up with
something.”

“No you wouldn’t. You’d have thought about it, dallied with a few entertaining fantasies involving the excruciating pain and shame of the guilty party, and then collapsed into giggles at the very notion. With you, Letty, the clouds are never in front of the sun for long. This way it’s all over, sorted out in a second by one clunking fist.”

“But the man knows you’re a priest, William! It was hardly a fair fight.”

“What
is
a fair fight? There’s no such thing, Letty. Ever. The only fights are those you engage in, intending to win. And
you win them by whatever means you may. But I don’t need to explain that to a girl who has the forethought to slip a Webley into her satchel before leaving for a picnic. And uses it to shoot a man in the bum. Are you ever going to tell me where you got the gun?”

“It seems I’m not the only girl in Athens prepared for eventualities …”

Letty gave William information she’d held back from Montacute on their return from Eleusis. The inspector had launched into an improvised enquiry into the expedition, conducting it in Andrew’s library. She and Perkins had stood one on either side of the inspector, and they’d delivered a concise, concordant, and mutually admiring account of the events in the temple ruins. William, loitering effetely by the bookshelves with a copy of Pindar’s
Odes
in hand, had listened without comment, but she’d been aware of the agonised looks he’d thrown her way. So as to avoid adding to his tension, she’d deliberately played down her own involvement in the attack but the sergeant, interpreting her reticence as nothing more than good old British understatement, would have none of it. He’d launched into a highly coloured appreciation of her contribution.

When he was happy that Perkins had revealed all that could be useful to him, Montacute dismissed him with a word of commendation and the instruction to go and repeat his story to Chief Superintendent Theotakis at once, and the three of them were left considering their next move. Montacute was unusually downcast and reflective, Letty thought, and she waited quietly to hear his acknowledgement of a lapse, a dereliction of duty, a mistake. She wondered what words he would find to apologise for involving her and his officer in a life-threatening situation. It would not be easy for him and she prepared herself graciously to cut short his stumbling words.

Finally he broke his silence: “Ha! I was right!” he said with satisfaction. “Demetrios’s family are in this up to their necks!”

With a snort of disgust, William had stalked to the desk, reached out, and hauled Montacute to his feet by his tie with one fist and smashed the other into his face. The two men stared at each other for a moment in silence and then, abruptly released, Montacute had mumbled his excuses and left the room, groping for a handkerchief to cover his eye. They listened as he lumbered down the corridor in the direction of the cloakroom.

“Your new friend Thetis is full of surprises.” Gunning began to speak urgently, taking advantage of the inspector’s absence. “This gun—which I note, in his confusion, he didn’t have the gall to require you to hand over—was given to you by Andrew? Or so Montacute’s supposed to think?”

“He didn’t seem disposed to question that.”

“Perhaps it’s not the first such he’s encountered? I can’t think it’s the only one such out there in the world, lost in the satin depths of ladies’ handbags, buried in drawers under layers of scented linen,” Gunning speculated.

“I find I could become quite censorious of Andrew, you know.”

Gunning smiled.

“He’ll be back in a minute, William. What will you do if he’s decided to carry on fighting? Or arrest you? He could, you know.”

“He has more sense! He’s an annoying nuisance and damned careless of your safety, but I can’t help liking the man. He’ll see that tap as due punishment for something he feels but is incapable of expressing.”

“Can it be so difficult to say: ‘I’m sorry I nearly got you both killed’? He must have realised.”

“Oh, yes. He was clearly shaken by what you and the sergeant had to say—he just couldn’t bring himself to admit his
responsibility. He’s no
chevalier-servant
like me, you know, ready to apologise at every turn, flirt with ladies, leap to his feet to retrieve a ball of knitting wool. I was taught from a very young age to watch for signs that a lady was about to leave a room, and whatever I was occupied with, I would drop it and hurry to the door to hold it open for her. It’s automatic with me. That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about. I rather think Montacute’s lip would curl at the idea of such a chivalrous response.”

“Lacking basic training, are you saying?”

“Not fair to speculate from such a short acquaintance. I comment. I can’t explain.”

“I don’t know what his background may be, but I’d say courtly behaviour has not featured in it,” said Laetitia.

“But you know, Letty, you shouldn’t despise that—after all, he’s showing you exactly what you’ve always claimed you wanted to see in a man. Respect for you as the equal you are. He expects no favours, he gives none, simply because you’re a female. It’s an unusual trait. Perhaps we should value it.”

The inspector strode back into the room holding a wet handkerchief to his face as a compress. With a flourish he removed it to reveal an eye fully closed and beginning to colour.

“Always fancied myself in a black eye-patch,” he said, grinning at them. “And here’s my chance. Captain Blood, I believe you invoked, Gunning, following on your first assault? With some prescience, it seems. Now, I believe I have been none too gently reminded that an apology is called for. Am I right?”

Gunning nodded. Letty stared.

“So. You have it. Please accept my regrets for involving you in a dangerous situation, Miss Laetitia, in equal measure with my thanks and admiration for a job well done.”

“I’m touched and pleased to hear your courteous, if succinct, response, Inspector. The sergeant and I did what we had to do. And now I’d be interested to hear your explanation of
the extraordinary behaviour of these gentlemen of the road …”

“I’ve been making enquiries. Telephone overheating!” he said with satisfaction. “The boot boy has a wide family. All Athenians by birth. Christians by religion—as far as they claim one. Uncles and cousins aplenty. All with solid occupations, doing well for themselves in difficult times, none with criminal records. One or two of the men have army experience, and I believe it’s a couple of these you traded bullets with today, Miss Laetitia.”

“But why should the new boot boy’s uncles be out to kill Laetitia?” Gunning wanted to know. “It’s ludicrous! She can be deeply annoying and we’ve all wanted to chuck her from a height, I know, but these are men who are unacquainted with her. And have nothing to gain from her death. Anything you feel you ought to declare, Letty? You didn’t get involved in reprehensible activities when you were here in the spring?”

She shook her head in bewilderment.

The inspector cut in, impatient at the interruption: “I think we’ve got something! We had an address for Demetrios, you remember, from the daybook? I sent Philippos out to the local café in the Plaka to ask a few discreet questions. He was lucky enough to run into a neighbour with a resentful attitude. Over a second cup of coffee, the man lowered his voice and began to grumble. ‘Uncanny, the way those Volos boys always seemed to land on their feet … Business about to go bust and what happens? Some guardian angel gives them an injection of cash and they’re off again … Well-furnished homes, lamb joints on the table every Sunday … The missus always has the latest hats…’

“Philippos chose at this point to exceed his instructions, smart lad! He decided to follow up the financial slurs by tracking down a
rival
taxi firm. He took a ride in the cab of one of their operatives. You know how drivers like to gossip … Once
around the Acropolis with a captive audience and they’ll reveal the secrets of the universe to a complete stranger. So long as he shares the driver’s political opinions and has an understanding ear. And Philippos knows how to offer that! Out it all came in torrents! ‘That Volos clan! Those buggers get all the best concessions! And that costs money! Where does the funding come from?’ The driver quoted Rumour as his source for the assertion that the money was
foreign
money. ‘About time someone checked. Turkish money. Could that be legal?’

“It was said that the Volos family came originally from Macedonia. They’d had wealthy landowning relations up there before they were all cleared out. Ottoman Turks by descent. ‘Well, half-and-half, probably’ was the driver’s opinion. ‘Registered as Muslim, anyway, and we all know what happened to
them!
Put on a boat and sent back to where they came from, the Turks. To a country glad enough to have them … so what did they think they were up to—coming back again on the sly and buying up the city?’”

The inspector sighed with satisfaction. “That was the gist of it—the rest was pure scandalous speculation—but my colleague Theotakis is on to it. Shaking out the records department.”

He watched Letty’s face becoming increasingly stricken as she listened to his account, making connexions. He added quietly: “And I took the step of ringing Andrew’s bank and summoning up the chest he bequeathed to Miss Laetitia. They’re going to get it out of their strong room. I’ve ordered it for four o’clock. We’ll have a look inside and then send it straight back again. Their delivery service is discreet and armed, I understand. And, depending on what we find, we’ll supplement with backup of our own. I’m thinking—as I see you are, miss—that it may well provide us with answers. With motive for two murders …”

“And one attempted murder,” Gunning reminded him.

“A murder as yet unachieved,” said the inspector. “A murder well past what an architect might call ‘the planning stage.’ Works in progress and awaiting further action, I fear, Gunning.”

“And, in the circumstances, you won’t be requiring …?” Gunning, grim-faced and hesitant, was interrupted by a decisive reply.

“No, indeed. I’m sure we’ll all feel easier if Miss Laetitia retains possession of her pistol.”

Chapter 29

M
aria was clearing away the remains of their sandwich lunch, eaten from trays on their knees in the drawing room—a scene that would have horrified the late mistress—when Chief Superintendent Theotakis was announced. The robust clouds of blue tobacco smoke wreathing his head would have had Maud running from the room with her nose in a lace handkerchief. In deference to her shade, which seemed to be never far away, Letty hurried to find an ashtray into which he might tip the spoil heaps of his capacious pipe. “So this is where it happened?” The superintendent got straight down to business, allowing Montacute to walk him over the scene of Maud’s plunge from the balcony. His commanding presence and swift assimilation of the facts of the crime scene reassured Montacute to the point where he felt able to slip into the recital a reference to his experimental ejection of Letty from the balcony.

The superintendent’s eyes widened in astonishment, then narrowed again in humorous speculation. “Good Lord! And you condoned this activity, miss? Simulated defenestration by Montacute? A considerable test of nerve, I’d have thought!”

“No danger. My bodyguard was on hand to see fair play,” said Letty, indicating Gunning.

Theotakis looked sharply at Montacute’s black eye, sighed, and spread his hands in a brief gesture of incomprehension. He hurried on to his next point and, finally satisfied: “No, no. I’m happy to settle down in here,” he said when invited to retire to the library. “That chair looks comfortable.”

He installed himself in Maud’s chair, unwittingly assuming her ancient authority by doing so, and indicated that they should sit opposite on the sofa. He began his summary.

“Autopsy progress, first of all. We have a completed report on the professor (here’s a copy), though the examination of his wife is still continuing. Nearly there, I understand, and no surprises—broken spine, cracked skull, other internal injuries. We’re just awaiting elucidation and expansion by her own medical man. More than a polite gesture, you understand—it’s always a wise precaution where there’s a possibility of suicide. It would be reassuring to have an informed opinion on her state of mind. And Peebles is obviously the man to supply this.” He hesitated for a moment and affected to refer to a document in his file. “Reason to believe that there is a question of mental instability in the family … a grandmother receiving special care back in an institution in England, I understand from your witness, Percy?”