I grinned. Louise had me pegged all right. It was one of the reasons I was so fond of her. ‘Maybe.’
‘But I’ve got news for you, my love: nothing in this world gets solved the way you think it should. To your satisfaction, I mean. Nothing in this job ever finishes up the way it ought to. The sooner you learn that the better.’
37
Charlie drove me down to the Astir Palace hotel in Vouliagmeni. I didn’t mind that the cops followed us this time. I wasn’t about to do anything I preferred them not to know about.
As arranged with Kojo Ironsi the evening before, Prometheus was standing outside the front door of the hotel. He was wearing a blue denim shirt, a pair of jeans that looked like he’d been hit with shrapnel, pink S Dot sneakers, Alexander McQueen sunglasses and more gold chains than the mayor of Hatton Garden. He snatched the red Dr Dre beats out of his diamond-encrusted ears and came down to the window of the car in a haze of cologne and ill-temper. If I had any doubt about what I was potentially dealing with, the word DOPE was helpfully printed in white on the front of the lad’s baseball cap.
I told him to put the bag in the back of the Range Rover and get in.
‘How was training this morning?’
He shrugged. ‘All right.’
We drove down to the Astir Marina. I’d arranged to borrow Vik’s yacht tender for a couple of hours, so that I could drive the two of us out into the Saronic Gulf — a patch of blue sea on the edge of the world before it turned magically into a place where heroes did battle with gods and monsters; where Aristotle might have tried to teach Alexander an important life lesson; where there were no phone signals and we couldn’t possibly be interrupted.
The boat was a thirty-three-foot Regulator with a centre console and a couple of outboards with a top speed of around fifty-two knots. It had been a while since I’d driven a boat so I hugged the coastline for a while, getting a feel for the conditions and the boat, before picking up speed and heading northwest out to sea. On the way we caught sight of The Lady Ruslana which stood off the coast like some ironclad Argo. I could just make out the crew members; against the dark blue hull, their orange shorts and polo shirts made them look like figures painted along the surface of a large Greek vase.
‘Are we going to Mr Sokolnikov’s yacht?’ asked Prometheus.
‘Not today,’ I said.
‘Pity. I heard it’s pretty cool. I’d like to see that sometime.’
‘I dare say you will. But on this occasion we’re going for a short history lesson.’
‘I never was much good at history,’ admitted Prometheus.
‘It’s not the history that’s important so much as the lesson,’ I said.
After about fifteen kilometres the sea began to narrow between two points of land and I throttled back to a crawl before putting the engine into neutral. I didn’t drop anchor. It wasn’t going to be a long lesson. Besides, I needed to manoeuvre.
‘We’re here,’ I said.
‘Where’s here?’
‘This is where the lesson is going to take place.’
Prometheus nodded and with his phone still in his hand he leaned over the side of the boat, staring down into the watery blue depths as if expecting Poseidon himself, or perhaps a sea monster. There was quite a swell and it wouldn’t have surprised either of us if something large had appeared in the water. A tuna perhaps or even a shark.
‘Listen, boss,’ he said, still looking down into the water, as if he didn’t dare to meet my eye. ‘I’m sorry about what happened, what I did to Bekim. That was wrong and I feel very bad about it. I put the evil eye on that man and I’m all messed up inside because of that, see? I only meant to spook him a little, and that’s God’s truth. If I’d known that it might really work I’d never have done it, you’ve got to believe me. I can’t sleep and I can’t eat for thinking about it. If I could turn the clock back, I would, yeah? I’d give anything. Anything at all. Honest.’
‘That’s all bullshit,’ I said. ‘There’s no such thing as the evil eye. You behaved like a twat, that’s all.’
‘Seriously, I don’t think I’m ever going to feel good about myself again, boss.’
‘Well then, you’re no good to me,’ I said, and placing a shoe on his backside I launched the Nigerian over the side.
Prometheus hit the water with a loud splash and then disappeared.
As soon as he was in the water, I sat down at the steering wheel and moved the boat away from him — just a few metres, so that it was just out of reach and the lesson might be learned, properly.
‘What the fuck?’ he said as he emerged, thrashing the water angrily with his arms. ‘What the fuck d’you do that for? I lost my sunglasses. And my fucking phone. And my hat.’
‘I didn’t like the hat,’ I admitted. ‘To be honest you’re better off without it. And you won’t need a phone out here. There’s no signal anyway.’
He started to swim towards the boat; I edged it away from him.
‘Hey! What you doing, man? What’s the big idea? This isn’t funny. That phone was a Vertu Signature with Bang and Olufsen speakers, its own concierge and everything. It cost me nearly seven grand.’
‘For a phone? They saw you coming, son.’
‘Fuck you, man.’ He swam towards the boat a second time and I moved it again.
‘Stay the fuck where you are,’ I said. ‘Or I’ll leave you here. I’m serious.’
‘You crazy nigger,’ he said but now he was just treading water; and he had one of the many crucifixes around his neck in his fingers as if he was going to pray.
‘You think so? Bad news for you if I am. You see I’m the nigger in the boat. And you’re the nigger in the water. To be quite precise, you are in the Straits of Salamis. To the west, behind you, we have the island of Salamis. And to the east, behind me, is the Greek mainland and the port of Piraeus. You could probably swim to either one, if you’re lucky. I don’t know what the currents are like here but you might make it, depending on what kind of a swimmer you are. However, I should tell you that contrary to what most people believe, there are sharks in the Mediterranean Sea, including the big predators like the great white, the bull shark and the tiger shark. Either way you’re in dire straits, motherfucker. And that isn’t a joke but a simple statement of fact.’
‘All right, I get that you’re mad at me. But I said I’m sorry about Bekim. What more can I do to prove that?’
‘You can listen to what I’ve got to say — not that you have any choice about that.’
‘All right, I’m fucking listening.’
‘Shit, I know I am.’ I lifted my ear into the breeze. ‘It could be that I can hear something out here at sea. You see, this is the site of a great sea battle. The Battle of Salamis. Some historians have argued that it’s one of the most significant battles in human history. Hard to believe, isn’t it? This bit of deep blue sea, covered in blood and pitch and oil. Men screaming in agony. But it happened all right, in 480 BC, around the same time as the Battle of Thermopylae, and that’s some local history you do know about. According to your Facebook page, 300 is your favourite movie.’
A big wave hit the Nigerian, and for a second he disappeared. When he came up again there was fear in his eyes.
‘Hey, the next time you put your head under the water tell me what you can hear. Maybe it will be the voices of all those men who met their end in these waters — drowned, stabbed with a spear, shot with an arrow, burned to death with Greek fire. Thousands and thousands of men who never saw their families again, whose bones make up the seabed a hundred metres below your feet.’