Of the likely candidates, this left Alex Limonides, since as the office accountant it was he who – until the arrival of Maria Galanos – had been responsible for drawing up each shipment’s manifest. But the fact that he would be the obvious suspect seemed to make it less likely that he was involved. And he was the greyest of grey men – so utterly correct in his behaviour that it was impossible to imagine him leading a secret life. There was too the air of ineffable sadness about him since the death of his wife, to whom he’d been devoted. All in all, in Berger’s assessment, it didn’t add up to the remotest likelihood that Limonides was a threat.
There were others on the staff to consider, though none with an easy way to get at the manifests or even to know when shipments were scheduled. Only one of these stood out, the Frenchwoman, Claude Rameau, and Berger had to admit to himself that she figured in his calculations chiefly because he disliked her so much.
She was Parisian, Sorbonne-educated, attractive despite her unfeminine appearance – she stuffed her blonde hair under a beret, and usually wore baggy trousers and men’s shirts, though she had been known to dress smartly when meeting potential donors. Claude held strong views – about the perfidy of George W. Bush, the endemic corruption in most aid agencies, the uselessness of the UN, and even about the operations of UCSO itself – and she was prepared to air them to everyone, from the newest recruit to the most august trustee on the charity’s board.
Rameau had made it a condition of her accepting employment with them that she should report only to UCSO’s overall head, David Blakey. Berger had wanted to resist this as it made her an anomaly in the Athens office, which was her base, but Blakey was so keen to get her on the staff he had accepted her proviso. This made for a very difficult working relationship with Berger and she had become something of a thorn in his side. Je m’en fiche, her rude way of saying she didn’t give a fig, characterised Claude’s dealings both with him and with the logistical people – Limonides, who had the unenviable task of vetting her expenses, and Elena, whose job it was to make sure that air tickets, appropriate currencies and complex itineraries were all in order for her non-stop travelling. If perhaps too much to expect gratitude from Claude Rameau for these labours on her behalf, it would still have been good to have received something other than her manifest disdain.
He sensed that Rameau’s political views were extremely left-wing, or more accurately anarchic, and that conventional views of what constituted a criminal act would not apply in her case. Berger wouldn’t put any form of extreme behaviour past her, except perhaps murder. He tried to ignore his strong personal dislike of the woman but had learned to trust his instincts after so many years when they had proved to be life-savers, so he put Rameau at the top of his suspect list. But he did it rather half-heartedly. What after all would induce her to side with people stealing aid intended to improve the lot of the Third World?
Looking with dissatisfaction at his list, Berger decided he needed a break. Elena was out that afternoon at the dentist, so he went to make himself a coffee in the small cubicle kitchen along the corridor. As he waited for the kettle to boil, he went to the fridge to get the milk out. Through the thin stud wall he could hear the two Greek girls next-door, chatting away and laughing together. Suddenly their voices lowered. Berger closed the fridge door silently, the better to listen. His Greek wasn’t entirely fluent, but he could follow their conversation easily enough.
‘They were leaving the building when my friend saw them,’ Anastasia was saying in lowered tones. ‘It wasn’t his wife he was with.’
Falana giggled briefly, then said soberly, ‘It might be nothing. He does business with many clients, I’m sure. This could have been one of them.’
‘Ah,’ said Anastasia teasingly. ‘It’s admirable that you are so trusting. But there’s a small problem with your idea.’
‘What’s that?’ Falana squeaked.
‘They were leaving a hotel. And not the kind with a restaurant or bar. More the type where you rent a room by the hour.’
They were both giggling now, and Berger suddenly reached out and quietly pulled the kettle’s plug from the wall – he didn’t want its boiling to be audible next-door.
Falana said, ‘But how did your friend know it wasn’t his wife? They might want privacy – who knows? Maybe his parents live with them.’
Anastasia laughed alone now, scathingly. ‘Honestly, Falana, since when were you so naïve? Though I’m sure Mo would be delighted to hear you defend him this way.’
Berger was suddenly furious with himself. He hadn’t even included Mo Miandad, the shipping agent, on his list – yet the man was in the office two, sometimes three, times a week.
‘No,’ said Falana stubbornly, ‘it could well be his wife. It’s perfectly likely.’
Now Anastasia’s laughter was openly scornful. ‘Don’t be so stupid! Mo’s wife is Pakistani, right?’
‘So?’ said Falana wearily.
‘ So…’ said Anastasia mockingly ‘… the woman my friend saw him with was European. She had blonde hair.’
And Berger plugged the kettle back into the wall, happy now for the girls in the adjoining room to know that he was there.
But he was astonished by what he’d just heard. Years of being paid to know what was going on had prepared him for surprises – people were erratic, unpredictable, and sometimes fantastically secretive, which meant that however close you kept your ear to the ground, however canny a student of human nature you became, there was always room for the discovery that rocked you on your heels.
She had blonde hair. Well, that narrowed things down – zeroed them in, actually. Berger would have been prepared to believe a lot of things about the unpleasant Claude Rameau, but clandestine trysts with Mo Miandad in a flea bag hotel would not have been one of them.
Chapter 34
To: Liz Carlyle
From: Peggy Kinsolving
Re: The Aristides
Ref: TH/CTE-cna342
The Aristides is a container ship leased by UCSO from Xenides Shipping. UCSO has an Athens office because Greece remains an important hub of commercial shipping, and it allows easy shipment of aid to either the continent of Africa, or via the Indian Ocean, Asia and the Far East. Though most ships, including the Aristides, fly flags of convenience for tax purposes (Liberia and Panama remain most popular), the Greek-owned maritime fleet is the largest in the word, accounting for 16% of global cargo tonnage.
The Aristides is a relatively small container ship, with a capacity of 2,500 TFO – TFO stands for Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit, which is the length of each container. A big cargo ship is anything over 7,000 TFOs and the largest can top 15,000. The advantage of the Aristides’ s comparative smallness is that it does not have to use only those ports with crane facilities – it has its own small crane on board. This allows the vessel flexibility in its choice of harbours, though it most commonly unloads in Mombasa, Kenya, which remains the major distribution point for its African shipments – and Africa in turn is the largest recipient of UCSO aid.
Despite their size, container ships have small crews – as few as 15 or 20 on board. The Aristides sails with a larger contingent of about 30, because of the team required to maintain and operate the crane. All passengers and crew live in the accommodation block at the stern of the ship, near the engine room.