Within the incision, near the top of the oesophagus, there was a dark mass that formed a solid blockage. Eleni prodded the mass with a rubber-clad finger, finding it resilient and spongy to the touch. It wasn’t weed, and it wasn’t a part of the human body—not unless it was some sort of grossly enlarged tumour.
Intrigued, she cut through the pectoral muscles to halfway down the chest and used an electrical surgical saw to separate the upper sternum from the ribs and detach it. And finally, she cut through the rest of the upper oesophagus, revealing more of the blockage. But still she hadn’t exposed all of it.
Manolis had been watching all of this while doing his best to ignore the smell of death and decay that kept getting stronger all the time. Now, through ouzo-drenched gauze and the reek of aniseed and rottenness, he mumbled, “What in hell … is that?”
Looking back at him over the grotesque, somehow intimidating shield of her mask, Eleni’s grey eyes were wide and uncertain. But then she shrugged and answered, “We won’t know, until we get it out.”
The object, whatever it might turn out to be, completely blocked the dead woman’s gullet. It was grey blue, and corrugated like a concertinaed worm or slug. As for its texture:
“It seems firm enough … uh!” Eleni grunted, digging her fingers in to expand the gullet, “that I don’t think it’s going to break up under pressure. Maybe I can get it out in one piece without more butchery.” And without further ado she dragged the thing free, holding it up for Manolis’s inspection.
He had backed off more yet, which was as well. For as with the dolphin in Phaestos, so now with this poor dead woman.
It was as if the pathologist had shaken a bottle of champagne and loosened the cork. But what had been released was anything but fine wine. Gasses and pus and mucus foamed out of the neck cavity, and disturbed by internal convulsions, a stream of yellow shit and gooey cadaverine spurted from the opposite end. The corpse seemed to writhe and flutter as it settled down into itself.
Manolis choked, “Good God!” and turned away. And: “I’ll be back when I’ve been good and … and …” But he couldn’t finish it. Open his mouth again and he’d be sick right there, not that that would spoil the looks of the room.
But in the toilets, throwing up, at least he had the dubious satisfaction of hearing Eleni doing the same in the ladies’ cubicle next door …
“That rarely happens,” she told him fifteen minutes later, when he came out of the toilet. “One gets used to such things. Maybe it was the sight of your face that did it, its colour and awful grimacing. Perhaps I … came out in sympathy?” She was hosing down the white marble floor, flushing the mess out through the front room of the police post into the street and down a drain.
Outside, there was no sign of the village policemen in the sun-bleached street, just two nuns of some obscure order, wearing cowled cassocks that covered them head to toe. The pair had paused in their strolling to stare, but in another moment their pale hands fluttered into view as they covered their faces with handkerchiefs before turning and hurrying away.
Manolis couldn’t blame them. Still very drawn and pale himself, he said, “This place is going to stink forever!”
“No, no,” Eleni answered. “Powerful antiseptics will clear it in no time. It will smell just like a hospital, that’s all.”
The corpse was amazingly clean, Manolis thought. Eleni had done a very good job. Well, better she than he! “Will you continue with the postmortem?”
“I can see no point,” she answered. “I shall take a sample of the stomach contents, though of course they will have rotted down, degraded. But don’t concern yourself. There’s no need for you to be present, really. In any case I won’t be able to complete an analysis until I’m on the mainland. So, if I may make a suggestion: why don’t you go and have a drink?”
“No,” said Manolis, “but I’ll take you for one later. Meanwhile, what have you done with the … that thing?” He couldn’t help the shudder that had crept into his voice, but hoped she’d think it was a late reaction to what had happened.
Manolis had caught only a glimpse of the thing in Eleni’s hand before the interruption (or eruption) of the dead woman’s body, but there had been something about it. Something that reminded him of a time more than twenty years ago when he’d been out in the islands—Ródhos, that time—on a different case. Different entirely from any other he’d ever handled or been involved with. That was when a group of men—and one very special man, who could not be denied—had told him about just such organisms as he had seen dangling from the pathologist’s hand. Or perhaps not, for he had never seen one himself and couldn’t be sure.
“The sea cucumber?” Eleni Barbouris was denying his morbid suspicions even now. “Well, that didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s under the sheet there.”
“Sea cucumber?” Manolis frowned, but at the same time felt a great wash of relief flooding over him.
“A holothurian,” she answered. “A cousin to the sea slugs. They normally live in holes in the rocks. This one crawled into a different hole and died there. It might even have battened on her—I don’t know that much about them—but if it did, its own gluttony killed it. It got fat and stuck in her gullet.”
The sheet, defrosted now and limp, lay on a small occasional table in a corner of the room. Two paces took Manolis to it, but he paused a moment before turning back the sheet. The thing lay there, lifeless, some fourteen inches long, blunt and spatulate at one end, tapered at the other.
It was like a blind, cobra-headed leech, its body corrugated or segmented, with rows of erectile hooks lying flat along its back and sides. Rooted in nodules at the base of the tapering neck, a frill of sticky, dew-beaded strings like the byssus threads of mussels lay limply on the glass top of the table.
Manolis took a ballpoint out of his pocket and lifted the tail. Protruding from a short tubular organ—an anus, or perhaps an ovipositor—a greyish, flaccid spheroid the size of a marble was half visible. It oozed a few droplets of a silvery, glistening liquid that slimed the glass.
“And that?” Manolis looked at Eleni where she had followed him to the small table.
She answered him with a shrug. “Some kind of sea mouse? I really can’t say. Something the holothurian ate but didn’t have time to digest?”
“A sea mouse?” Manolis said. “First sea cucumbers, now sea mice?”
And again her shrug, but a trifle impatient now. “An annelid, Aphroditidae, iridescent and quite pretty when alive. When I was a child, I was interested in every aspect of biology. But now I’ve put aside my childish interests and I’m a pathologist, not a marine biologist! What is it with you, Manolis—and why are you sweating?”
“I … still don’t feel too good,” he told her, which was true enough.
She’d taken off her elastic surgical gloves and now began to reach out her naked hand towards the organism on the table. “As for this thing, it’s dead and smells, and it should be—”
“It should be burned!” Manolis said, and with a lightning-fast movement arrested her hand. “Don’t touch that thing. Don’t you ever touch anything like it!”
“What?” she stared at him in shocked astonishment.
He put her gently aside and said, “I may be wrong, and if so I apologise in advance, but I really don’t think this is any kind of holothurian. I’ll see to it that it’s incinerated immediately.”
Eleni continued to stare at him, following his every movement as he wrapped the organism in the sheet. “Not a holothurian? So what on earth do you think it is? And if it’s in any way connected with this case-a clue to foul play or some such—why do you intend to burn it? What, you’ll destroy evidence?”
“Our descriptions, from what we’ve seen, will suffice,” he told her. “But one thing is for sure: I won’t be letting anyone cut into this to see what made it tick! Just be happy that it’s stopped ticking, that’s all.”
“You talk as if it’s a bomb!”
she answered. “But—”
“No buts,” said Manolis. “You’ve done a good job here. Now I suggest we go back to Krassos town to our hotel, freshen up a little, and then eat at one of the excellent tavernas. The meal and that drink I promised you will be on me.”
“Well,” she shook her head in utter bewilderment. “I suppose you’re in charge here, and—”
“Yes, I am,” he was pleased to agree. “And now let’s find those policemen. I want this body kept on ice—but deep frozen this time, perhaps in Krassos town. I have friends in London who may want to see it.”
Holding his small white bundle at arm’s length, he ushered her out of that place, and as they went said, “As for your alleged sea slug: you’re right about evidence, of course. So we’ll photograph it first—and then I’ll burn it!”
Manolis was driving a small Fiat hired from one of the island’s many touristoriented outlets. At about 7 P.M., driving in the shade of pine-clad mountains, he passed a stone-walled, gauntly impressive monastery built on a false plateau where high cliffs fell sheer to the sea. Concentrating on his driving upon the winding, contour-clinging road, he took no special note of a larger, heavier private vehicle where it indicated its driver’s intention to pull out of the otherwise empty monastery car park. But as he sped by, Eleni Barbouris did notice it.
“On a tiny island like this,” she commented, “someone desires yet more privacy.”
“Umm?”
“That expensive car back there—the black one, with dark, one-way windows? They can see out, whoever they are, but no one sees in.”
“There are plenty of cars like that in Athens,” the inspector answered. “But you’re correct: rich people do seem to enjoy their privacy more than most. Ah, but then, they can afford to! As for those windows: they’re far superior to dark glasses when it comes to keeping the sun out of your eyes.”
“I suppose so,” she said. “But here on the eastern side of Krassos, in the shade of these mountains and the gloomy evening light, they seem so unnecessary.”
But Manolis, a frown etching his face, was scarcely listening to her. Instead it was something he had said that continued to resonate in his mind. So that suddenly he found himself muttering, “When … when it comes to keeping the sun out, yes.”
“Personally, I don’t see nearly enough of it,” she said.
“What …”? Manolis barked, startling her.
“The sun,” she said. “I said I don’t see nearly enough—” But then, as she glanced sideways at him, she saw that his eyes were fixed not on her but on his rearview mirror.
“Why, whatever is—?” she started to say, craning her neck to look back. Just a few feet behind, the other car was bearing down on them like some great blind snarling beast!
Manolis couldn’t hit the brakes because the black car was immediately behind him. He couldn’t accelerate because the road ahead made a sharp right turn and disappeared from view. On the right, a wall of rock where the road had been cut from the mountainside. And on the left … a sheer drop of a hundred or more feet to jutting rocks and the tideless sea. And no safety barrier between.
When the big car’s horn blared, Manolis was trying to negotiate the bend. Centrifugal force sent his Fiat sliding across double white lines into the oncoming lane. Gritting his teeth, hauling desperately on the steering wheel, he gasped his relief when he saw that the road ahead was empty. But it made no difference. His car was out of control and skidding. Which was when the heavier vehicle, its horn still blaring continuously, slammed into the Fiat from behind.
The collision served to slow the big car down, whiplashed Manolis and his passenger, and sent the smaller vehicle rocketing out into empty space. And all of it happening that fast, as accidents usually do, so that human reactions and even thoughts are almost impossible. Except this wasn’t an accident. And:
Well, I suppose it’s goodbye to all that! Manolis did manage to think, quite calmly and uselessly. And I don’t even know why, or maybe I do. And where’s my safety belt! Oh, shit!
Eleni had just started screaming when the car hit a jutting outcrop, sliced through a clump of stunted, cliff-clinging heather, and struck something far more solid that sent it hurtling outwards again, spinning end over end.
And glimpsed through a crazily whirling pinwheel of stone and sky, the rocky base of the cliffs, washed by a slow-surging ocean, came rushing to meet them …
In London it was 9 P.M. and almost cool. In all the hotels the air-conditioning systems were running at full blast, and people were in the streets and the bars in their shirt-sleeves, enjoying the Indian-summer atmosphere. But for others there was work to be done.
At E-Branch HQ the work hadn’t stopped, Trask’s espers did their various things, but theirs was work with a difference. As for Trask himself: he was just about through for the day, looking forward to a drink and a good night’s sleep. He would sleep at the HQ, which had been his habit for almost three years now. But waiting—still waiting—to see Lardis Lidesci and Jake, he’d found plenty to occupy his time. For where news, theories, or any information in general about the invaders from Starside was concerned, Trask’s office door was always open.
Last of several people to come and see him was Millicent Cleary. Millie was a telepath and competent computer operator; she was also a member of E-Branch’s master think tank, Trask’s current affairs adviser, and one of his favourite people—the kid sister he’d never had. But she wasn’t a kid anymore; none of the gang from the “good old days” was. Like Trask himself, they’d been here too long and E-Branch had aged them.
Such were his thoughts … just a second or so before she looked at him in a certain way that he recognized of old. And:
“If that was your idea of a compliment,” she told him, “I don’t think much of it. The kid sister bit’s okay—I think—but I can do without all those wrinkles you just gave me!”
Trask tut-tutted. “Oh, my! Here’s Millie Cleary spying on the boss’s thoughts.”
She shook her head. “Not spying, just worrying about you. And incidentally, Ben, I neither look nor feel as old as I am, but you really do. And you’re looking older day by day. That’s why I worry about you—big brother!”
And in fact she didn’t look as old as her years, which in any case were a good deal shorter than his. Millie would be in her late forties but looked five years younger. A very attractive blonde, her hair was cut in a fringe low over her forehead, flowed down onto her shoulders, and framed her oval face while partly concealing her small, delicate ears. Her eyes were blue under pencilslim, golden eyebrows, and her nose was small and straight. Millie’s teeth were very white, just a little uneven in a slightly crooked, frequently pensive mouth. Five feet and six inches tall, amply curved and slim-waisted, she had always made Trask feel big and strong, and sometimes clumsy. He liked her a lot—indeed, a great deal—and as far as he was concerned she was one of the few who could get away with murder.
But conscious of her talent, and channelling his thoughts anew—and wondering why he felt the need to—Trask got down to business. “So what’s up?”
“I think I may have something,” she told him. “You remember when you got back from Australia, you asked me to find out what I could about Jethro Manchester’s financial affairs? Knowing that Malinari had coerced Manchester into some kind of, er, partnership, you were hoping that maybe cash transfers and other transactions might help track Malinari down? Well, as it turns out—and while Manchester may have been a big-time philanthropist—he wasn’t entirely the big softy people think he was. And he certainly wasn’t softheaded.” She paused to order her thoughts, and continued:
“So being, as you have often called me, ‘a devious female creature,’ it had crossed my mind that such might be the case. Let’s face it, one doesn’t get to be a billionaire without one has just a few extra cards up one’s sleeve, right? So, just an hour or so ago, I had John Grieve call Manchester’s accountant in Brisbane. That’s Andrew Heyt, of Hagga
rd, Haggard and Heyt, and—”
“You had him call who at what time?” Trask cut in, frowning as he did a quick mental calculation. “At six in the morning—Heyt’s time, that is?”
“Deliberately, yes,” Millie told him. “People are usually off guard at that time in the morning; that’s why police carry out their raids in the early hours.”
“And you were carrying out a raid on Manchester’s accountant?”
“Exactly. Working on a hunch, so to speak. Anyway, without identifying himself, John asked Heyt a few leading questions—like: what would be happening now, to Manchester’s ‘hidden’ deposits in Switzerland and other countries? And before Heyt could blink the sleep out of his eyes, get his mercenary little brain in gear, and slam the phone down—”
“John had done his thing,” Trask nodded.
“Namely,” she continued, “he read in Heyt’s mind the facts of the matter, that apart from Jethro Manchester’s regular accounts and holdings—stocks and shares and the like in various businesses in Australia, UK, and the USA—he also has several numbered accounts in Zurich.”
“John got the numbers?”
Millie looked at Trask in that wide-eyed way of hers, innocent and shrewd at the same time, and said, “John’s good, but not that good! I mean, what do you want, miracles?”
“Yes,” he answered drily. “I’ll accept nothing less. Okay, go on. I’m hooked.”