Codename Xenophon E-Book

Leo Kanaris

• Herausgeber: Dedalus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

A thoughtful crime mystery which introduces the Greek private investigator George Zafiris

Das E-Book wird angeboten von und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:

Leseprobe

Dedalus Original Fiction in Paperback

Codename Xenophon

Leo Kanaris is a teacher in southern Greece.

Codename Xenophon is his first novel. He is currently writing a sequel Blood & Gold

This is a work of fiction. Occasional references to historical events, characters and places are used for fictional purposes.

Contents

Title

Quote

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Epilogue

Copyright

1

Athens, June 2010

Like much of the city around it, 43 Aristotle Street had seen better days. The marble steps, the smoked-glass doors, the rows of dark wooden mailboxes, all had a dowdy, dreary, superannuated feel. Two cement plant tubs stood side by side in the lobby. One held a struggling jasmine, kept alive by an old lady on the ground floor. The other, empty and dry, had survived by default, an ugly ornament that no one could be bothered to throw away.

Returning home from a trip out of town, George Zafiris felt the tiredness of the building as part of his own. The door creaked shut behind him. Although the day was bright, it was dark in here. He pressed the light switch and one low-energy bulb, its white tubes poking like the legs of a trapped insect out of a spotlight on the wall, began to glow feebly. A musty smell enveloped him: of damp, disinfectant and old soup. He was not a gloomy man, but the thought flashed through his mind, as it sometimes had before, that this was a lobby to shoot yourself in.

He unlocked his mailbox and gathered its contents, glancing at the envelopes as he climbed the stairs. One handwritten, the rest bills and rubbishy advertising.

At the top of the stairs he turned the key in the lock. Three, four times, the bolts clanking and echoing in the marble stairwell. He walked in, leaving the door ajar, and dropped the leaflets in the bin. The place felt dusty and close, even after two days away. He moved from room to room, hauling up roller blinds, flinging wide the windows. The light pounced in, dazzling and hot.

The letter was a proper one, with a stamp and a handwritten address. Good quality paper. He opened a drawer, moved aside a tin of ammunition, a Beretta 950B Jetfire pistol, a summons to appear in court for shouting at a policeman, some notes on mental relaxation, a long-range microphone, and a framed photograph of his wife on a beach in 1992, the glass cracked in one corner. Under them all lay a Bechtold & Schmidt ‘Predator’ flick-knife, a lethal memento of a long-concluded investigation. He kept it there, honed and oiled, just in case. He opened the knife and slid its blade under the flap of the envelope.

A voice from the doorway made him look up.

‘Mr George?’

Dimitri from the café downstairs stood holding an aluminium tray with a tripod-shaped hanger.

‘Shall I bring it in there?’

‘Thank you.’

George took a euro coin from his pocket.

‘How was the trip?’ asked Dimitri.

George took a sip of coffee. ‘I don’t enjoy funerals,’ he said. ‘They make me feel old before my time.’

Dimitri pronounced the traditional formula: ‘May you live to remember your friend.’

George nodded. His mind was flooded with images, his heart with loss.

‘I just want my old friend back, for one more lunch together. One more ouzo by the sea.’

Dimitri seemed to feel his sorrow. ‘I know the feeling,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t seem much to ask. A moment, that’s all. But you’ll never get it. That’s for sure.’

George knew Dimitri was thinking of his wife. She was still alive, just, but on borrowed time.

‘How’s Tasia?’ asked George.

‘The same,’ said Dimitri.

‘No news, good or bad?’

‘Just waiting.’

‘Give her a kiss from me. Tell her to get well.’

‘I will,’ said Dimitri and left him, closing the door gently.

George picked up the envelope again. The address was in black: a neat, educated script. Postmark Aegina. He unfolded a single sheet of notepaper.

Dear Mr Zafiris,

I was given your name by a business associate, who described you as reliable and moderate in your fees. I may have occasion to hire you. A member of my family has been murdered. The police have made no progress with the case. I need someone to investigate this thoroughly and with absolute discretion. Telephone me as soon as you receive this.

Constantine Petrakis

The name made him stop and think. He didn’t know the man personally, but this was a historic family. A dynasty even. Lawyers, politicians, intellectuals. Before that, warlords, heroes of 1821. When the call to arms came, they had summoned their supporters from villages and sheepfolds across the mountains of the Peloponnese, and chased the hated Ottomans from the land. There was a Petrakis Street in every town in Greece.

He checked his watch. It was four thirty. No point calling for at least two hours. Petrakis would be asleep. That would get everything off to a bad start. He pushed the letter aside. Feeling drowsy despite the coffee, he lay down on his day-bed and closed his eyes.

*

He slept badly, fighting off a crowd of memories. An island port, the ferry approaching through sharp morning light. The ramp descending, a hearse rolling out. His old friend Mario inside, 47 years old. On the jetty, next to the whitewashed café, the dead man’s wife Eleni and their two sons. Waiting, still as statues. Their faces blank, even when George greeted them, as if they had lost the power to move.

Then the procession, slow and reluctant, up the hill to the church.

At six he woke up, feeling drugged and heavy. He staggered into the shower and let the cold spray startle him awake.

With a towel round his waist he poured a beer from the fridge, settled on the sofa, and dialled the number in Aegina.

Constantine Petrakis had a tense, dry voice, with the grating quality of a door on rusty hinges.

‘I only know the bare facts, Mr Zafiris. My brother was shot here on the island. You must speak to the lady who found him. Only she won’t use the telephone, you must see her face to face. And her house is tricky to find. I’ll have to show you, there’s no other way. John was staying with her. He often visited. Why anyone would wish to shoot him is beyond me. He was an eminent man, with a worldwide reputation. And the police are pathetic. Bureaucrats, every one of them. They specialise in doing nothing. Tell me, when can you come?’

George glanced at his diary, which was empty for the whole week.

‘Tomorrow morning? Eleven o’clock?’

‘Perfect. I’ll see you at the Hotel Brown. Do you know it?’

‘I’ll find it.’

2

George lived apart from his wife for most of the year. It was not an arrangement he liked, but he accepted it as a compromise. It had its roots in dark times. If he dwelt on those he would really get depressed, but he chose not to. From early spring to late autumn Zoe stayed in Andros, at her father’s village house, painting, writing poetry, looking after the garden and a collection of aunts and eccentric cousins. Meanwhile George toiled away in Athens, visiting the island for rare weekends and – with luck – a fortnight every August. In winter she would join him in the city, and they would have a more conventional married life. Their son Nick was studying engineering in Newcastle; a safe profession, they hoped, for unsafe times.

George’s working days, like everyone’s in Athens, were complicated. Cases were opened, pursued, baulked, interrupted. New ones appeared. Clients went silent, or vanished. Some had to be investigated in their turn. Either they’d run out of money or got tangled up in complications of their own. The national crisis didn’t help. Businesses were going bust, salaries and pensions shrinking with horrible speed. People were getting ill, going mad, wanting to disappear from their own lives.

‘Ade na vris ákri.’ The phrase was on everyone’s lips. ‘You don’t know where to begin.’

George was lucky. He had no outstanding loans, and no one owed him money. Not serious money, at least. But work was falling off. Only the rich could afford to pay, and even they were being careful these days. He took any offer that came his way.

The voice of Petrakis had filled him with mistrust. Not what he said, just the way he said it. After some expensive mistakes, he had developed an instinct for difficult characters. This was one to be wary of.

George stood on the deck of the Aghios Nektarios in Piraeus, enjoying the breeze and the widening gap of water between him and the city. Slowly but steadily the tangle of urban sensations left him. The horizon blossomed with mountains, outlined sharp as metal cut-outs against a silvery-blue sky. Gulls rode the ship’s slipstream, their wings unmoving, only their heads tilting side to side in the search for food.

They passed through a strange ocean landscape of laid-up tankers and cargo ships. Images of a stalled economy, going nowhere. Waiting. Once in a while a powerboat surged by, slicing open the blue surface of the sea with a brilliant white trail of foam. At the helm a middle-aged man – big belly, shades, gold neck-chain and bracelet – accompanied inevitably by a girl in a bikini, half his age, probably eastern European. In the back seat, a bored Alsatian dog. The market had crashed two years ago, but luxury – of this strange, 1960s, cigarette advertisement kind – still flourished. Like the cafés of downtown Athens, packed with people paying monstrous prices for their iced cappuccinos while they complained about the crisis.

After an hour they reached Aegina. The anchors rattled down and the ferry backed onto the jetty in a cloud of diesel exhaust. A voice on the public address system, urgent and harsh, told passengers to get off at once: ‘the ship will depart immediately.’

The Hotel Brown stood a few hundred metres away, at the far end of the waterfront. George strolled past fishing boats, fruit-stalls, cafés, a kiosk hung with glossy magazines and plastic toys. With ten minutes still to spare, he sat in a dusty church garden where a bust of Kapodistria – first prime minister of Greece, gunned down in his fifties by a political opponent – stared out from a ring of palm trees at the sea.

Petrakis was lean, precise, seventy years old. A nervous light flickered in his pale green eyes. His shoes, trousers and shirt were expensively elegant, his watch a piece of Swiss real estate. He shook hands quickly, without warmth.

‘We’ll sit in the garden.’

Petrakis led him to a table under a loquat tree and irritably brushed three fallen leaves from his chair before sitting down. He examined his visitor for a moment before speaking.

‘Let me give you some information about my brother. After that I shall take you to meet Madame Corneille. It was in her apartment that the tragedy occurred.’

‘I’ve kept the whole day free,’ said George.

‘We won’t need that long. The facts are straightforward. My brother was a classical scholar. He taught at Stanford, Princeton, and latterly King’s College, London. He was a man of outspoken – even controversial – views. He did early work on Plato, but he was best known for his writings on the less palatable aspects of ancient Greek life. What he called ‘the darkness behind the light’. Slavery, prostitution, crime and punishment, paedophilia, homosexuality, and, I very much regret to say, even child sacrifice, although the evidence for that is circumstantial. You can imagine how such work was received here, especially in patriotic circles.’

George nodded.

‘John was about to give a lecture on this entirely unsuitable subject to the Aegina Historical Society. This was arranged by Madame Corneille, in association with local friends, for nine o’clock on the evening of March 25th.’

Petrakis paused, waiting for a reaction.

‘Go on,’ said George.

‘I expect you to note the significance of the date.’

‘It may be significant or not.’

‘It can only be significant!’

‘We mustn’t jump to conclusions.’

Petrakis seemed irritated. ‘As you please, Mr Zafiris. I ask you merely to be aware that my brother was shot on the day when we celebrate our national independence.’

‘I note that fact,’ said George. He met the man’s agitated stare calmly. ‘Go on.’

‘At about seven, John went for a shower. He never came out. Half an hour later, Madame Corneille knocked, got no answer, entered the bathroom, and found him. He had been shot in the head. She summoned the police at once; and there, I am sorry to say, the matter has languished.’

George thought about it while the waiter served coffee.

‘Tell me some more about your brother.’

‘There’s nothing more to tell.’

‘There has to be.’

‘Nothing else of relevance.’

‘I need to know about his private life.’

‘There’s nothing to hide.’

‘Maybe not, but I need to know.’

Again the irritated look. ‘What exactly do you need to know?’

‘His relationship with Madame Corneille for a start.’

‘Above suspicion!’

‘Other people on the island?’

‘A few friends. Trusted people.’

‘I’ll need their names.’

‘Not relevant.’

‘It may be highly relevant.’

‘I can assure you it’s not.’

‘I’ll make up my own mind about that.’

‘I am trying to save you time. Which of course means money for me. I presume you charge by the hour, by the way, like a lawyer?’

‘I do, but nothing like a lawyer’s rates.’

Petrakis looked sceptical. ‘What is your rate, if I may ask?’

‘Basic is 50 an hour, plus expenses.’

‘How long do such jobs normally take?’

‘Impossible to say.’

‘Why?’

‘Some go quickly, others drag on for months.’

‘I want this one to go quickly.’

‘So do I.’

Petrakis grimaced. He sipped his coffee as if it might be poisoned.

‘What else do you need to know, Mr Zafiris?’

‘I’ve told you. His personal life. That’s where the answers usually lie.’

‘In his case, I doubt it.’

‘Very well.’ George drained his cup. ‘I’ll send my bill for this morning’s visit.’

‘We have to see Madame Corneille!’

George stood up. ‘You go and see her. I’m wasting my time.’

Petrakis said calmly, ‘You are very impatient.’

‘I have other cases to attend to.’

‘You said you had the whole day free.’

‘For work. Not for sitting around.’

‘Calm down, Mr Zafiris!’

‘I’m perfectly calm. Either you give me more information or I leave.’

‘Very well.’ Petrakis raised his hands from the table. ‘My brother was a homosexual. Is that what you want to know?’

George said coldly, ‘It may be. It may not be. I need to know more.’

‘I don’t see why!’

‘Did he get mixed up with people who provide certain services, or indulge certain tastes, perhaps unpalatable ones to use your word?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Strangling, asphyxia, bondage? Things go wrong sometimes. Accidents, crazy partners. Criminals…’

‘I can assure you he was not that type.’

‘Do you know that for certain?’

‘He never mentioned anything of the kind!’

‘Did you talk about it with him?’

‘Absolutely not!’

‘All right,’ said George. ‘Let’s go back to basics. How do you know he was gay?’

‘He had a “partner” as they say.’ Petrakis spoke with disdain.

‘What sort of a partner?’

A long, pained look. ‘Not the sort of man you would expect around a professor of ancient history.’

‘Well?’

‘A builder. And decorator. Of a sort.’

‘Where was this partner when John was killed?’

‘On a flight to London.’

‘I’ll need to talk to him.’

Petrakis’s irritation spilled over again. ‘If any of this gets out to the press, I will personally –’

‘It won’t.’

Petrakis was silent for a few moments. ‘All right. I’ll give you Bill’s number when I’m back in Athens.’

‘Thank you. Now tell me about John’s relationship with Madame Corneille. And please stick to what you know.’

‘She was purely a friend and admirer.’

‘That sounds a little bland.’

‘She’s an eccentric. A spiritualist. A psychic healer.’

‘Did he consult her professionally?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘What did he say about her?’

‘Very little. She was just a friend.’

‘Did he have enemies?’

‘Hundreds! His books caused great anger.’

‘How was that expressed?’

‘Letters, articles in the press, attacks on television and radio. Luckily, none of these people knew anything of his private life. If they had, he would never have been left in peace.’

‘Is there anyone here in Aegina who was particularly upset by his writings?’

‘I could suggest a name or two.’

‘OK. That needs looking into. Now, the police. Who have you been dealing with? Locals, or someone from Athens?’

‘Locals as far as I know. The investigation seems to be in the hands of a certain Captain Bagatzounis. A ridiculous man!’

‘What has he done?’

‘Nothing! That is my problem! This man has done nothing at all!’

George had heard this complaint many times before. ‘With respect, Mr Petrakis, even a Greek police inspector can’t do nothing when faced with a murder.’

Petrakis spluttered, ‘Of course he did the minimum! The bureaucratic minimum. Took statements and photographs, strutted around the apartment, glanced out of the window, asked a few utterly obvious questions. He may even have compiled a report. But effectively he has done nothing!’

‘Is GADA involved?’

‘GADA?’

‘The central police authority.’

‘I don’t know. They give out no information. Certainly not to me! Every inquiry is met with blankness and evasion. They are incredible. In a modern democracy, to behave with such contempt for the public!’

George said nothing. There was something hollow in this man’s words.

Petrakis glanced at his watch. ‘We must go to Madame Corneille. She will be waiting. Are you ready?’

3

They walked up a lane of low 19th-century houses, overhung with fig trees. The pavement was narrow, a broken strip of concrete obstructed by rubbish bins, pallets of bricks and badly parked scooters. They had to step into the roadway, squeezing against a wall when a car came by, filling the lane with exhaust.

They turned into a street of shops, lively with mid-morning conversations. A butcher, an ironmonger, a baker. Past the cathedral, with its ochre-painted bell tower and nesting doves. Past a ruined mansion, windows and roof open to the sky. They came to an alley of dazzling white houses and courtyards, draped with laundry drying in the fierce sun. They climbed a flight of steps. Petrakis pressed the bell.

The door was opened by a woman in her forties, slim, lithe, in an open-necked white shirt and blue jeans. Her eyes, a deep grey-blue, were set in a pale and pensive face, with a halo of frizzy golden hair.

‘Constantine! My darling! Welcome.’

‘This is the gentleman I told you about, Rosa. Mr George Zafiris.’

They shook hands. George was struck by the softness of her skin, her otherworldly air.

The entrance hall was shuttered, dark and cool. A smoke-trail of incense hung sweetly in the gloom. She led them into the lounge, lit by a single ray of intense light that cut through a gap in the wooden shutters and lay across the floor like a strip of gold.

‘Your aura is down, Costa,’ she said, turning on Petrakis without preamble. ‘You need to look after yourself.’

‘Are you surprised?’ said Petrakis angrily.

‘Not in the least. But this is the time for repair. For healing.’ She glanced at George.

‘There you see a man with an excellent aura!’

‘Pleased to hear it,’ said George.

‘Look at his shoulders. Strong but relaxed. Yours are hunched, like a gnome. A goblin. You’re much too nervous.’

‘Let’s leave all that,’ said Petrakis. ‘We’re here on business.’

‘Fine. You do your business, I’ll do mine. Sit down, gentlemen.’

They each took a chair. George’s eyes were getting used to the half-light.

‘I need to ask you about the shooting of John Petrakis,’ he said.

She lit a cigarette. ‘I hope this doesn’t bother you.’ She waved the smoke vaguely away. ‘It was a horrible experience for me.’

‘Of course.’

‘John was a close friend. We had a consonance of intellect, of artistic interests, of feeling. He was a genius, A companion soul. We were not lovers, although I sensed very strongly that in another life we might have been. Often we lead many lives, in parallel…’

Petrakis cut in. ‘Just tell Mr Zafiris what happened.’

‘I’m coming to it, in my own time. This is not easy.’

‘Tell it your way,’ said George.

‘On the evening of his lecture he went into the shower, just after seven o’clock. We had been listening to the BBC news. He took his towel, his shampoo, his bath bag. He said I shan’t be long. But at half-past seven I noticed that he still hadn’t come out. I was worried. I knocked, I waited, I knocked again. I could hear the shower still running, which was odd. John was a spartan type, he never wasted water. So I called his name. There was no reply. I called again. Silence… I had a terrible misgiving. I opened the door and there…’ She stopped, her voice catching. Tears began running down her cheeks. She took a deep breath.

‘You heard no shot?’

She shook her head.

‘Can you tell me what you saw?’

‘He was hanging over the side of the bathtub, limp as a piece of cloth, with blood…’ – her hands waved in circles – ‘…sprayed everywhere.’

George waited.

‘That’s it,’ she said hopelessly. ‘I called the doctor who lives round the corner. He listened for a heartbeat. Nothing. He was gone. Then we called the police. They invaded my flat, treated me first as a suspect, then as a nuisance, and then lost interest in the case.’

‘What were you doing for the half hour that the professor was in the shower?’

‘I was getting dressed.’

‘And you heard nothing?’

‘I was listening to music.’

‘Loud music?’

‘Not especially. But my bedroom door was shut, so was the bathroom…’

‘Was there anything in the hours or days leading up to the murder that seemed unusual? Any incidents? Odd remarks?’

‘Nothing. This was lightning from a clear sky.’

‘OK. Is there anybody, either here or in Athens, who had a reason to kill the professor?’

‘No. He was admired and respected by all who knew him.’

‘He upset people with his books.’

‘Of course! Bigots, fanatical patriots.’

‘Is it possible they knew where he was staying?’

‘Most unlikely.’

‘Did anyone else know he was here?’

‘A couple of friends.’

‘Did they meet him?’

‘We had dinner together the night before he died.’

‘Here, or out?’

Petrakis interrupted. ‘I can’t see what –’

‘Hush, dear Costa! It’s a reasonable question. If we were out, our conversation could well have been overheard. Is that not what you were interested to know, Mr Zafiris?’

‘My thinking precisely.’

‘We dined here.’

‘I may have to speak to your friends.’

‘Of course. Their names are Abbas and Camilla. Telephone number 58360.’

George made a note. ‘I now have a question of a more personal nature.’

‘Feel free.’

‘Did the professor have any sexual adventures during his stay?’

She glanced at Petrakis, who said wearily, ‘He knows about Bill.’

‘Bill was with him until the morning of the lecture,’ she said. ‘Then he flew back to London. But I would not call Bill a “sexual adventure”. They were practically married.’

‘Why didn’t he stay for the lecture?’

‘He wouldn’t have understood it,’ said Petrakis.

‘Nonsense! He would have understood it perfectly. Bill had work in London the next day.’

‘Was there any sign of tension between them?’

She thought about this. ‘No. They were relaxed.’

‘What sort of man is Bill?’

‘A good man, intelligent, practical, with a certain aesthetic development, but of course he’s imprisoned by a materialist vision of existence, as you would expect of a builder.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘He sees only the physical. No spiritual dimension whatsoever.’

‘To say the least!’ said Petrakis.

‘Costa! Control your snobbery!’

‘Did you ever see them argue?’ asked George.

‘Only in play. “You’ve stolen my sun cream” – that kind of thing.’

‘Did John ever go out looking for rough trade?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Did he meet anyone else here? Friends, associates, colleagues?’

‘If he did, he never told me about it.’

‘OK,’ said George. ‘As far as you know, nobody had any reason to kill him?’

‘That’s right. I find it impossible to believe that such a mild, harmless man, so open and amusing and cultivated, should have even one enemy.’

‘I believe you’re wrong, Rosa,’ said Petrakis abruptly.

‘OK, I’m wrong. You tell him your theory, Costa.’

‘No,’ said Petrakis sharply. ‘This is not the moment. I want Mr Zafiris to reach his own conclusions. If he has eyes to see, let him see!’

‘Fair enough,’ said George.

‘Any more questions, Mr Zafiris?’

‘I’ll need a list of contacts. The Chief of Police, the President of the Historical Society, everyone. And I need to see the bathroom.’

‘Will you show him, Costa? I don’t think I can bear it.’

‘I’d prefer it if you show me yourself.’

‘Why?’ Petrakis objected.

George tried to be patient. ‘Madame Corneille is the main witness. Her account of the crime is important.’

‘She has already told you what she saw and heard.’

‘I know.’

‘So? What is the point of forcing the poor lady to go through it all again?’

‘People often remember details at the scene of the crime. Subconscious recall, triggered by the senses. These details can be crucial. I don’t ask Madame Corneille to do this lightly.’

‘Facts are facts!’

‘Facts are surprisingly slippery things.’

‘Are you an investigator or an amateur philosopher, Mr Zafiris?’

‘I just want to see the bathroom.’

‘I think you’ve made that clear!’

‘If you don’t want me to do this job properly I’ll go back to Athens and drop the case.’

‘You’ve used that threat before.’

‘Don’t force me to use it again.’

Petrakis seethed. He was a man who had to be in control. George had met hundreds like him, all convinced they were unique; domestic dictators, forged in their mothers’ worship of their sons. He waited for the counterstroke.

‘I am not in the habit of paying for insolence, Mr Zafiris. I can get it any day I want for free.’

‘I’m sure you can.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

George stood up. ‘Shall we stop wasting time?’

Petrakis waved a dismissive hand. ‘Go with him, Rosa. Tell him what he wants to know. And try not to be too emotional.’

Madame Corneille closed her eyes, gathering herself.

They walked into a little vestibule hung with Indian and Persian prints. To the left a kitchen, to the right a pair of bedrooms. With a reluctant gesture she indicated the half-open bathroom door. George gently pushed it back. There was the bath under the window, the shower on the wall. He took off his shoes and stood in the bath. From there he saw what John Petrakis would have seen in the last few seconds of his life. Outside the window, directly opposite, a large neoclassical house in a well-ordered garden; beyond it, a jumbled townscape of alleys, houses, electrical cables and trees. With a rifle he could have shot into the windows of fifteen, maybe twenty homes. A gunman, he thought, might also risk firing from a rooftop or a courtyard. Probably not from the street.

‘Whose is the big house opposite?’ he asked.

‘Colonel Varzalis.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘A retired army officer.’

‘It’s ideally placed.’

‘I know,’ she said.

He watched her face, which was anxious and pained.

‘Would you mind telling me exactly what you saw when you found the professor?’

She pointed to the bath. ‘He was hanging over. Arms and head on the floor.’

‘Can you remember his head?’

She shuddered. ‘Of course. Half of it was missing.’

‘And where were the fragments, the blood?’

‘On the floor.’

‘Anywhere else?’

‘The shower curtain.’

‘Where? Can you show me?’

‘At the top. And running down.’

‘Was it this shower curtain?’

‘No. The police took it away.’

‘Did they take anything else?’

‘The bathmat. John’s clothes and belongings.’

‘Papers, wallet, passport?’

‘Everything.’