The Greek Key

'You said you were thirsty. Next time I ask questions please give me answers, then we'll get on fine together.'

She drank the water in two long gulps, handed him the glass. 'I've never met a man like you before. Harry wasn't…' She stopped speaking.

'Harry wasn't like you',' Marler completed for her. 'Tell me – before you go – why did you take up with him?

She was asking dangerous questions. 'Such as?'

'About the Greek Key.' 'What's that?'

'Just pray to God you never find out. See you around, Marler.'

'It sounds as though you gave her a rough time. Just like you're giving me one,' Newman grumbled. 'I was fast asleep when you hammered on my door.'

Thought you'd want to know the latest developments,' Marler replied, unrepentant. 'That you'd rely on your assistant to keep you informed.'

Heavy-eyed, his hair tousled, Newman tied the cord of his dressing gown more tightly, drank some of the coffee Marler had ordered from room service. He pursed his lips as he replayed in his mind Marler's account of his adventure with Christina.

'You have been enjoying yourself,' he said eventually.

'All in the line of duty…'

'Don't say that to Tweed. Significant that remark she let slip – 'if I am going to be cross-questioned I can get that at police headquarters like you…' Like you. She knew we had been taken there by Sarris. No motorcyclist with an orange crash helmet followed us that I saw.'

'I thought I caught sight of that black Mercedes when I was taken in the police car,' Marler remarked.

'Did you now?' Newman drank more coffee. Then that would prove she is working under Petros' orders, that he told her about our visit. Which means she was lying – about acting under Petros' instructions.'

'Oh, she's a lovely little liar. Makes it a way of life.'

'Except on two points, you said. She didn't hear a rifle shot at Zea – which is possible with those ships' sirens blaring. And she wasn't the one who led Masterson down to Cape Sounion. This business is full of twists. And what the blazes is the Greek Key?'

'Maybe it turns the lock to the whole mystery.'

'If we could ever find that key. I'm going back to bed.'

'And our next move is?'

'Keep Nick and his helpers looking for where Masterson stayed. We might start making enquiries about the Greek Key. Someone must know what it is. In short, keep stirring the pot until something rises to the surface. And maybe take a look at Cape Sounion. While we're there we could try to locate old Petros' headquarters in the mountains.'

Think I've already stirred one pot. It's called Christina Gavalas. I left her not liking us a lot. Which was the object of the exercise.'

'Exercise is the word for what you did.'

'Did you tell Newman everything about Giorgos, Chief?' asked his assistant, Kalos.

'What do you mean, everything?' Sarris demanded.

He stifled a yawn as he gazed down at the traffic jamming up Alexandras. Nine in the morning. It would get worse. He flexed aching hands. He wasn't up to these all-night sessions.

'The knife rammed into his back under the shoulder blade.'

'No, I didn't. We keep that quiet. I kept Newman away from the pathologist. That knife bothers me. Doesn't make sense.'

'The fact that he was drowned in the wine barrel first, then the knife was stuck in later? The lack of blood proves that.'

'Precisely. And it is an old British commando knife. The war museum has a specimen. I compared them. The knife in Giorgos is an exact replica. Macabre. Some kind of symbolic gesture?'

'Or something to put us off the real identity of the killer?'

'Could be. I just hope Newman doesn't go poking round in Devil's Valley. Petros Gavalas controls that area like some medieval baron.'

'And what about the number of accidents that have taken place in that area? Hikers and mountaineers who never come back?'

'I've never been able to pin anything on the old villain – but I'm certain his men tossed them over precipices. No one penetrates his territory and survives. He's the old school. Comes from Macedonia. They play rough up there. Yes, I do hope Newman gives that one a miss

…'

2 p.m. 90°F. 32°C. Newman was freshly shaved, showered, his brain was alert, he had eaten a large lunch in the hotel dining room with Marler and they had returned to his room with Nick who had arrived promptly.

'We're going into action,' Newman rapped out. 'We'll stir the pot, as Marler put it earlier. Not to make it simmer – I want it boiling over.'

'The weather is boiling over already,' Nick remarked as he mopped his forehead.

'We'll drive down towards Cape Sounion,' Newman went on. 'My bet is we'll be followed. That will confirm we are getting somewhere. We'll enquire at the main hotels in the coastal resorts to see if we can find where Masterson holed up. We'll ask openly about the Greek Key…'

'What is that?'asked Nick.'Sounds like a night club…'

'That is what we want to find out. And Christina will be in a rage after what happened. She may make a wrong move. Let's get to the car.' He picked up a large plastic bottle of mineral water and they left the room.

Nick ran ahead while Newman and Marler walked down the empty corridor. Newman never used elevators if they could be avoided, if a staircase were available: elevators could become traps.

'You know, Marler, I think we're missing something. Maybe something under our noses.'

'Why the doubts?'

'This mystery is full of twists, unexplained contradictions. Why was Christina aboard that yacht, Venus III, if she is supposed to hate its owner, her grandfather, Petros? Who is paying for that expensive apartment she has in Kolonaki? We must visit her there.' He corrected himself. 'I must visit her. She may tell me more than she told you.'

'I whetted your appetite,' Marler said cynically.

'What did Masterson find out that decided someone he had to be murdered? What was the link between him and Christina? Don't forget – they first met in London. Why did Masterson visit the Ministry of Defence to ask about that commando raid on Siros over forty years ago?'

'My head begins to spin…'

'I wish we had one man here who is a master when it comes to a manhunt, to untangling a complex web.'

'You mean…'

'Tweed. I miss Tweed…'.

9

A sea of grey unbroken cloud pressed down like a smothering blanket: not a hint of blue anywhere. A fine drizzle like a sea mist covered the desolate landscape, settled on the windscreen of the Mercedes 280E Tweed had borrowed from Newman. He drove slowly along the narrow country road elevated above the grim marshland on either side. Not a soul in sight. At two in the afternoon they had the dreary world to themselves.

'Are we going the right way?' Paula asked as she studied the ordnance survey map. 'I'm lost.' She glanced out of the window, settled in the front passenger seat beside Tweed.

'We're right in the middle of the Somerset Levels, the area Masterson noted down on a scrap of paper in the cigar box he sent from Athens,' Tweed remarked. 'This is where the sea used to flood in centuries ago. Now they cut peat. I want to get the atmosphere of this place.'

He stopped the car, but kept the engine running as he stared around at the bleakness. Paula, dressed in a windcheater and a blouse and pleated skirt, shivered.

'I find this place creepy. Look, there's some kind of a building over there under those willows.'

'One of the farms – the peat-cutting farms.'

Below the road there stretched a ditch full of stagnant water. Paula lowered her window and wrinkled her nose as an odour of decay drifted inside the car. She opened the door, stepped out to take a closer look.

The ditch was coated with an acidic green slime across its surface. Patches of black water showed here and there. In the distance stood the ramshackle building Tweed had called a farm. Its roof slanted at a crooked angle. Smoke curled up from a squat chimney. Another smell assailed her nostrils and again she crinkled them in disgust.