‘What did he say to you when you came out?’ Mavros asked.
‘He. . he told me to give. . to give my all,’ she replied, sobbing. ‘That she — my character — deserved. . deserved the best.’
Mavros thought about that. Guilt, or was there something more behind the words? Had he chosen to kill himself or, more likely, been killed when the massacre was being filmed?
‘Oh, Alex, he was such a sweet old man. How could he have done that?’
He squeezed her arm and went to meet the inspector. There were several cars, marked and unmarked, in his procession, along with an ambulance.
‘What the hell were you doing, Mavro?’ Margaritis demanded, after he’d seen the body laid out in the orange grove.
‘Hoping I could save his life. His face wasn’t distended and he might have still been alive.’
Margaritis watched the technicians as they examined the ground in front of the tree. There weren’t any obvious marks among the dusty dead leaves, even from the dead man’s feet.
‘You realize you’re my prime suspect,’ the inspector said.
Mavros shrugged. ‘Ask around. I was watching the shoot and plenty of people must have seen me. Then I spoke to David Waggoner and the security man outside the trailer. Kersten had left half an hour before, according to him.’
‘Don’t worry, I will be asking around. In the meantime, you’ll be sitting in a police car with this pair of beauties.’
Two uniformed officers stepped forward.
‘Phone,’ Margaritis demanded, extending a hand.
Knowing that cooperation was the only way to go, Mavros gave him his mobile.
‘Search him.’
The older and more corpulent policeman subjected him to a less than subtle body search, handing the inspector his notebook and wallet.
Mavros watched as a doctor knelt down by Rudolf Kersten. He was about to point out his broken neck, but decided anything he said might count against him. The cops took his arms and walked him to a squad car, where he was put in the back seat with the windows closed. In the sultry heat, he tried to make sense of what was going on.
He was almost certain that Kersten had been murdered — that his neck had been broken before he’d been strung up — but he had doubts the police would see it that way, even if they cleared him. So who could be in the frame? David Waggoner, although highly antagonistic to the dead man, had been on the platform throughout the shoot — Mavros had glanced round and seen him several times, including once when he was speaking on his mobile. Two possibilities struck him — either some local, maybe encouraged by Waggoner and enraged, as Mavros himself had been, by the film’s stirring up of old horrors, had taken a long-standing vendetta to its conclusion; or, that the killing had nothing to do with the film or the war, but rather was connected to Kersten’s silver collection. Did Oskar Mesner, the old man’s grandson, have the balls to kill him? That thought didn’t make Mavros feel good, considering he had been the one to humiliate the young German and take the coins back from him. But, despite Mesner’s involvement with the far-right in Germany and Greece, he doubted that murder was in his repertoire — not even getting some other skin-headed bastard to do it.
Then he thought of Waggoner’s dinner companion Tryfon Roufos, the extremely bent antiquities dealer cum thief. He had never heard rumours of Roufos using violence, though he certainly used common criminals to steal ancient objects and icons. It didn’t seem likely that a robbery would have happened in the orange grove, unless blackmail had been involved. Had Waggoner fed Roufos information about the German’s role in the war, forcing the old man to bring pocketfuls of coins to the set, and the exchange accidentally turned to murder? If it had, Mavros found it less than likely that the men involved would have wasted time faking Kersten’s suicide.
He heard shrieks from behind the car and looked round. He had phoned Hildegard Kersten before Margaritis arrived, but hadn’t told her that her husband was dead. Some insensitive bastard must have broken the news when she arrived. He watched her run past, her hair loose and her feet kicking up dust.
‘Let me out,’ he said to the cops in front. ‘That’s the widow. I’m working for her.’ Strictly speaking, it was an untruth, but he wanted to help the old woman cope with her husband’s death, even though he knew that would be no easy task.
‘Tough shit,’ the bulky sergeant said. ‘You’re here to sweat like the rest of us.’
A few minutes later, the radio crackled into activity.
‘Bring the dick to the scene,’ said Margaritis. ‘Hands off him.’
Obviously Hildegard Kersten had applied her husband’s considerable standing in the community to bring the inspector round. The cops glared at him as he got out of the car. Fortunately the T-shirt he’d borrowed from his brother-in-law was extra large, so it didn’t stick to him as much as one of his own would have.
The widow was standing a few yards in front of her husband — the crime scene team having already given up on trying to find footprints. At least the doctor had put the handkerchief back on the dead man’s face.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Mavros said, standing behind Hildegard.
‘Ah, there you are, Alex,’ she said, in English. ‘This ridiculous man says you’re a suspect. I told him. .’ Suddenly she started to sob loudly again, though that quickly became silent weeping. Mavros put his arm around her and she huddled against him. ‘I want. . I want you to find out who. . who killed Rudi,’ she said, looking up at him with tear-filmed blue eyes. ‘They say. . they say he probably committed suicide. He would. . he would never do. . that to me.’
Mavros looked over her grey head to Margaritis, who was looking at him with undisguised hostility.
‘You’re saying it’s suicide?’
The inspector looked down. ‘The forensic surgeon will carry out a post-mortem, but our initial feeling is that Mr Kersten hanged himself, yes.’
‘Which means I’m a free man,’ Mavros said, extending his hand. ‘My things, please.’
Margaritis couldn’t argue with that. ‘Over here, please, Mr Mavro,’ he said.
‘Excuse me a moment,’ Mavros said to the widow.
‘This is not over,’ the inspector said. ‘We’ll be checking your movements very carefully, you Athenian scumbag. And, by the way, I understand English. If you get in the way of my investigation or step out of line by a millimetre, you’re dog food.’
‘My things, please.’ Mavros got back his phone, wallet and notebook.
‘By the way,’ Margaritis said, with a sharp smile. ‘You should be careful. I hear the Kornariates want to drink your blood.’
Mavros raised his shoulders. ‘If you people had done your job, Kornaria would be a normal, law-abiding village.’
The inspector’s eyes opened wide, but he managed to keep his mouth shut. Mavros went back to the widow.
‘Come, I’ll take you home,’ he said softly.
‘No, I’m going. . I’m going with Rudi,’ she protested, but eventually allowed herself to be steered out of the trees.
Mikis was standing with Yerasimos beside the Mercedes that had brought Rudolf Kersten to his place of ending. Hildegard headed for the big car, dismissing the driver who had brought her.
‘Follow us,’ Mavros said to Mikis. ‘I think I’m going to need you.’
In the limousine, Hildegard sank back in the leather and inhaled. ‘I can smell my Rudi,’ she said, then steeled herself. ‘Whatever the police and their idiot doctors say, I know Rudi was murdered. You will help me, Alex?’
‘It’s rather out of my area of expertise.’ He was still troubled by his anger against the dead man but, even if he had taken part in the massacre, Hildegard was in no way to blame.
‘If money is the problem. .’
‘No, no, you’ve already shown how generous you can be.’ Mavros looked through the tinted glass at the villas alongside the road, then turned back to her. ‘I’ll need to ask some difficult questions.’