They were about eleven or twelve years old, tanned and skinny, the very image of urchins, as if they had been truly dredged off the sea floor.
‘Speak English?’ I asked one of them.
He shook his sleek black head.
I went back to the car and fetched my driver to translate and when I came back I asked the boys if it had been them who’d found the dead girl’s body.
Two of the boys looked at each other and then nodded.
Holding up two twenty-euro notes I sat down on the wall of the harbour and asked them to tell me what they’d seen, in as much detail as they could remember. The two boys sat beside me and I handed over the cash, while the others looked on and listened as my driver, Charilaos, squatted behind us and translated what was said and offered around his cigarettes, which helped almost as much as the money.
‘It was yesterday morning when they found her,’ he said. ‘Maybe ten o’clock in the morning. She was on the Koumoundourou side of the harbour, where the police are now, in about four metres of water.’
‘Was it near to any boat in particular and if so which one?’
‘Between two boats,’ said Charilaos. ‘Both for sale, as it happened. And the owners were not aboard. They know this because they went aboard each boat to try and get help.’
‘Tell me what she looked like, this girl.’
‘A very pretty girl with long blonde hair and wearing a dark blue dress. The water isn’t very clear as you can see and but for the blue dress they might have found her earlier. She gave them quite a shock.’
One of the boys looked embarrassed as he spoke again.
‘But she wasn’t wearing any knickers, he says. Her dress was floating under her arms.’
‘Were her hands tied?’
The same boy spoke again and then Charilaos said, ‘No, her hands were floating in the water, above her head. It was only her feet that were tied to a big orange weight. Of the type you see in a gym.’
‘Any gag?’
‘No gag.’
‘Was she wearing shoes?’
‘No. No shoes.’
I took out my notebook and asked the boy to draw a picture of what the weight looked like and he drew what looked to me like a kettlebell. I nodded.
‘Were there any other injuries on her body that they saw?’ I asked. ‘Cuts, bruises, any blood?’
‘No,’ Charilaos translated, ‘but the fishes were feeding on her private parts.’
‘No bumps on her head? No cuts on her hands?’
‘The boys says her hands were very nice. Her nails, too. Like her toenails. I think he means she had a manicure.’
‘What colour?’ I asked.
‘They think purple.’
‘Any jewellery?’
The boys looked a bit shifty.
‘He insists she wasn’t wearing any jewellery,’ said Charilaos, ‘but I don’t believe him. For sure they stole it.’
‘Forget it. Anything else that might distinguish or identify her?’
One of the boys said something and Charilaos asked him to repeat it.
‘Tatouáz,’ was the word he used.
‘She had a tattoo,’ said Charilaos.
‘What kind of a tattoo?’ I asked. ‘And where?’
‘On her shoulder. A sort of geometrical design, in black. It sounds to me like he means a lavýrinthos. You know? Like the story of Theseus and the Minotaur.’
‘A labyrinth?’
‘That’s right. About the size of a teacup.’
‘Did he tell that to the police?’
Charilaos laughed. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I don’t think the police were offering forty euros in cash. Besides, people in Athens, in Piraeus—’
‘I know. They hate the police.’
Our walk back to the car took us past Monsieur Croesus again and this time I was surprised to see someone I knew standing on one of the upper decks; not only that but someone who recognised me, which was perhaps more unusual. It was Cooper Lybrand, the hedgie. He wasn’t wearing the white suit any more but he still looked like a cunt.
‘Hi there,’ he said. ‘What brings you down here?’
‘Curiosity,’ I said. ‘They fished a dead girl out of the water on the other side of the marina. Apparently she spent the night with one of our players. So now we’re forbidden to leave Athens. I just wanted to take a look at the spot for myself.’
‘I heard about that,’ he said. ‘And about Bekim. I’m sorry.’
‘I thought you were staying on Viktor’s boat,’ I said.
‘I was. But I had some business with the guy who owns this one. Gustave Haak. And now here I am. We only docked here an hour ago so I guess that puts us in the clear, huh?’
‘If you say so.’
‘I’d invite you on board but it’s not my boat. Gustave is a very private person.’
‘Who says I am?’
Another head appeared on deck. Older and taller than Cooper Lybrand, he had a full head of longish grey hair, a face like a hawk and almost invisible glasses.
‘Gustave. This is Scott Manson. He manages Vik’s football club.’
‘Of course, I know who Scott Manson is,’ said Gustave Haak. ‘Do you take me for an idiot? Forgive our manners, Mr Manson, and please come aboard. We’re just about to have a glass of wine.’
I looked at my watch. ‘All right. As a matter of fact I could use a drink.’
I told Charilaos I’d see him back at the car and went aboard.
By this time, Cooper Lybrand had told Haak what I was doing in Marina Zea and Haak was full of questions about the dead girl, most of which I was unable to answer.
‘But you’re quite right to come down here and take a look for yourself,’ he said, ushering me into a spectacular drawing room that looked like it had been designed by a man with no children: everything was white. ‘I find that the best, most original ideas come to me when I’m not behind a desk. It’s the same when I’m investigating a company with a view to taking it over. You have to have good intel to know what the right move is going to be. Without that, you have nothing.’ He smiled and waved at one of the many cartoonish blondes wearing very fetching white uniforms — which is to say they were all wearing white swimsuits and white sneakers.
‘Will you have some of this excellent German Riesling, Mr Manson?’
‘Thanks, I will.’
One of the blondes handed me a glass of liquid gold while Haak continued talking.
‘I love the game of football,’ he declared. ‘And the thing I appreciate about football managers is that, unlike most managers in most businesses, you always know what they do. They manage football teams. And they’re either good or they’re bad. Most companies are full of managers who do nothing. No, that’s not quite true. Most of them fuck things up, which is worse than doing nothing. I spend most of my time trying to find out who they are so that I can fire them. As soon as you do, the value of the company always goes up. It’s uncanny. Anyway, that’s my job, Mr Manson. The elimination of managers who are redundant in all but name.’
He was Dutch, I think, because his accent reminded me of Ruud Gullitt. Fortunately for him he had a better haircut.
‘Vik tells me that you’re a good manager, Mr Manson. But do you think it’s wise to get involved in this? Wouldn’t it be better to leave things to the police?’
‘Have you met the police here in Attica, Mr Haak?’
‘No, I can’t say that I have.’
‘The way I see it, Mr Haak, I can do one of two things in a situation like this. I can look to see if I can do anything, anything at all to help sort it out; or I can do nothing. I’m generally the kind of person who likes to do something, even if that something turns out to be not very much. For all I know that might push me into the category of manager you don’t like, the kind who fucks things up. But, you know, I never mind fucking up just as long as I learn something. In that respect at least I’m just like the police. They fuck up all the time and it never seems to deter them.’