The Oracle

  A few minutes later, when he was walking towards home on the other side of the street, he glanced into the car: it was empty. Instinctively he looked towards the shutter and saw a stream of light filtering out from under the bottom. He pressed his ear against the shutter, but could hear very little: receding footsteps, barely perceptible, as if someone was walking down a long hall. He remembered the one thousand-drachma bill he’d been given that morning and walked over to the nearest phone booth. Mireille was in her hotel room.

  ‘Miss? The lights are on at seventeen Dionysìou Street.’ Mireille had been sleeping for a couple of hours and she had trouble understanding what was going on. ‘Miss, did you hear me? It’s me, the waiter from Bar Milos. You gave me one thousand drachmas, remember?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course. Thanks, my friend.’

  ‘There’s more. There’s a black Mercedes parked in front, but no one has got out.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Mireille.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ answered the waiter, forgetting he was talking to a woman.

  ‘Okay, thank you.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ said the waiter and started walking back home, like he did every night.

  Mireille looked at her watch and was about to sink back into a deep sleep, tired after the trip and all the various events of that very long day, but then it hit her that this was possibly a one-off opportunity that she couldn’t afford to miss. She got up, and even put on a little make-up, in spite of the time and the situation. She dressed quickly, went down and started up her car, and headed towards Dionysìou Street on the nearly deserted roads of Athens.

  She passed slowly in front of number 17. The light was on, all right, but the shutter was still locked. How had they got in? And that black Mercedes? It was still parked out in front, and it was empty. The main door to the building was closed as well. Mireille could not seem to piece together the puzzle, no matter how hard she tried. This was supposedly the press which had printed Professor Harvatis’s article, and someone was in there at one-thirty in the morning. She turned around at the end of the road, beyond the bar, and parked so she could see the Mercedes clearly. And the car’s owner, when he decided to come out.

  The street was poorly lit and Mireille was a little afraid. She curled up so her head didn’t show above the seat, while keeping her eyes trained on that thin stream of light filtering from under the shutter, as well as on the black car parked alongside the pavement. She kept the radio on low for a while to keep her company, but all she could tune into were those damned Greek folk songs, so she switched it off. She tried smoking to stay awake, but every so often her head would drop and she’d fall asleep for a few minutes, then shake herself awake to force her tired eyes back to that yellow light, that black mass. It all seemed ridiculous. Just a few hours ago she was in her own nice, comfortable room, and now she was freezing to death and couldn’t keep her eyes open in this damned rented car, guarding a locked shutter.

  Just before six in the morning, sleep overcame her and she nodded off, her head resting on the seat for a few minutes. She was awakened by the soft sound of an engine starting up. She started, realized where she was and looked towards the shutter: the light was off. The Mercedes’s parking lights were just coming on and the car was pulling off, slow and silent, headed towards Stadiou Street. Mireille started up her own car and, without turning on her lights, followed the Mercedes at a distance. It was easier on Stadiou Street: there was already a little traffic, so her car blended in with the others.

  At a red light she managed to pull up alongside the car on the left and stole a glance at the man behind the wheel: about fifty, tanned face with black hair and a beard streaked with some white. He was wearing a light-coloured crew-necked sweater and a blue blazer. His hands on the steering wheel were large and strong and aristocratic. The hands of a nobleman. When the light turned green, Mireille slipped back into position behind him.

  The sky was beginning to lighten, but large dark clouds were skimming rapidly from west to east. The Mercedes turned off towards Faliron, and then Cape Sounion. Mireille checked a map and realized that this was the only road going inland, ending up at the temple of Poseidon; she decided to drop back so she wouldn’t look suspicious. It took nearly an hour to get to Sounion, and the sun was just coming up over the horizon, piercing through the dense clouds forming over the sea. One of the long rays of light suddenly struck the Doric temple at the top of the promontory and it shone as white as a lily, vivid and glorious against the waves of the sea and the clouds in the sky. The wind which always swept the cliff bent the broom bushes, creating waves shorter and more ruffled than the slow, solemn roll of the sea.

  The Mercedes had stopped alongside a fleshy euphorbia bush and the man, who was now wearing a raincoat, stood motionless atop a boulder in front of the temple, which had turned as grey as the threatening sky. Mireille stopped before the last curve, just past the Poseidon hotel, turned off the engine and sat watching him, unseen. The man stood there for at least ten minutes, and his small, dark, erect figure seemed unevenly matched against the colossal white columns which supported the sanctuary architrave. He then turned and went towards the cliff that towered over the sea. A gust of cold wind puffed up his raincoat, and from this distance he looked like a bird about to take flight over the dark expanse of the Aegean. Far off, white foam seethed all around the island of Patroclos, as black and shiny as the back of a whale.

  When the Mercedes took off again, distancing itself from the sea and heading north inland towards Attica, Mireille continued to follow at a distance for another hour. She hadn’t had a moment for breakfast and was tired and hungry. All this strange wandering seemed pointless and futile. She had almost decided to stop following him when she saw the Mercedes leave the main road and head up a trail which rose towards a solitary house at the edge of a forest of oak saplings. She got out of the car and walked up on foot, concealed behind a ridge.

  She saw him knock on the door, which was opened by an old man who then shut it behind him. There didn’t seem to be any dogs around, and Mireille sneaked up to the window that looked out on to the forest: she could hide behind the bushes if need be. The room was a couple of metres wide, illuminated by two windows: an artist’s studio.

  In one corner, a bucket of fresh clay was covered with a sheet of plastic. A tripod on the other side of the room held a relief panel, still damp, representing a fishing scene: lean-armed men throwing a net from a boat, the sun shining above, while tunas and dolphins splashed inside and outside the net. The man who had got out of the Mercedes had taken off his raincoat and was sitting on a stool on the far side of the room; she could see his profile. The old man sat with his back to her and she saw only the back of his head: a tumble of white locks falling over the collar of a cotton smock. Listening hard, Mireille could make out what they were saying.

  ‘I’m happy to see you, Commander. Have you come to finish the work?’ asked the old man.

  ‘I have, maestro. I’m happy to see you as well. How are you feeling?’

  ‘The way you feel when you’ve reached the end.’

  ‘Why say that?’

  ‘I’ve lived too much. How long could I possibly have left?’

  ‘Does that distress you?’

  ‘I’m losing my sight. Night is coming.’

  ‘Has there ever been a night not followed by the dawn?’

  ‘It’s a thought that does not console me. I can’t bear to lose the vision of nature . . . for ever.’

  A gust of wind rustled up the forest and Mireille could no longer hear the men. She could only see the eyes of the stranger, such a deep blue, gleaming like the only thing alive in the grey atmosphere of the room. He spoke, then listened. He remained seated on the stool, his hands joined around his knee. The artist approached him now and then, touching his face with his long bony fingers as if to capture his features and infuse them into the clay. He was creating his likeness.

  Mireille kept turning around, fearful that someone mig
ht turn up, but the area was quite deserted and the wind was now whistling through the forest. She could no longer hear their words, but lingered close to the window until the old sculptor had finished. She saw him take off his smock and go to wash his hands. As he moved away from the window, she could see what he had been working on: a bas relief portraying only the face of the man who was posing. Only his face, with his eyes closed in sleep . . . or in death?

  The face had lost the hard tension and domineering intensity of the man’s gaze, and looked mysteriously tranquil. The grave, solemn majesty of a king at rest.

  The sculptor accompanied him to the door and Mireille, concealed behind the corner of the house, could hear what they were saying.

  ‘My work is finished. The clay will be fired in the kiln before evening.’

  ‘All that’s missing is the gold.’

  ‘Bring it soon. This could be my last work. I want it to be perfect . . . but I also want you to tell me why you have had me make it.’

  ‘You have depicted my face, you have touched my soul with your fingers. What can I tell you that you don’t already know in the bottom of your heart? As far as the gold is concerned, there’s something I must tell you. It won’t be just a bar of metal. You’ll have to destroy . . . no, refashion an object that perhaps you yourself crafted very very long ago. You, or someone like you. Thus I’ll be able to close the circle and put an end to something that no man, no matter how patient, would have been able to bear. Will you do it for me?’

  The old man nodded: ‘For you, Commander.’

  ‘I knew you would not refuse me. Farewell, maestro.’

  The old man stood on the threshold, watching him as he got into the car and drove off down the little dusty road, towards the provincial highway. Mireille took her camera, and before the artist returned to his modest studio, took several pictures of the clay mask through the slightly misted glass of the window. It reminded her of something she’d already seen.

  MIREILLE WOKE UP at two that afternoon and tried to contact Michel at the hotel in Ephira that he’d left the number for, but the receptionist said that although he had a reservation, he hadn’t arrived yet. She went downstairs and got something to eat at the bar, then asked the hotel manager to call the Antiquities and Fine Arts Service to see if a certain Aristotelis Malidis still worked at the National Archaeological Museum.

  They answered that Malidis had retired and that they knew nothing more about him. Perhaps he had returned to Parga, his home town. She should look for him there. Mireille thanked them. Parga . . . Parga was the town nearest Ephira: had Michel gone there to meet Malidis?

  She walked out on to the street, over to the photo lab where she had left her roll of film from that morning at Cape Sounion. She’d asked for large black and white prints: they’d come out rather well, even if they were a little out of focus. She bought some tracing paper and pencils and went back to her hotel room. She placed the paper over the photograph and traced the face, changing it here and there so that it resembled the model more closely. When she lifted the paper, she thought that the likeness was really rather good. She’d captured his deep, intense gaze and his strong features. She put the drawing into her purse, got into the car and headed out towards the cemetery at Kifissìa. The flower shop was open and Mireille entered, showing her sketch to the owner: ‘Is this the man who orders the flowers for the tomb of Periklis Harvatis?’

  The woman stared at the drawing in surprise, looked up at Mireille and back at the drawing. She nodded her head excitedly: ‘Né, né, aftòs ine.’ It was him, precisely him.

  The same evening she showed the drawing to Dr Psarros. ‘This man is tied in some way to Periklis Harvatis,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how, but I’m certain of it. Have you ever seen him?’

  Psarros shook his head: ‘Never. Who is he?’

  ‘I’d like to know. This man embodies more mysteries than the Holy Trinity. I don’t know anything about him. All I have is the licence number of his car. A black Mercedes.’

  Psarros thought for a while in silence: ‘Why don’t you go to the captain of police, Pavlos Karamanlis? I think he’s still in service. Maybe he can help you. Maybe he did carry out some kind of investigation back then . . . who knows.’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ said Mireille. ‘Thank you, Doctor Psarros.’

  Towards midnight, when Karamanlis phoned in to the station to see what was new, the officer on duty told him that there was something new, for a change.

  ‘Captain, do you remember that identikit that you had distributed to Interpol?’

  ‘Of course I remember. I’m the one who had it done.’

  ‘Today a foreign girl came in with a drawing that looked just like him. Well, kind of. She asked if we knew anything about him. She wanted to talk with you.’

  ‘What do you mean, with me?’

  ‘With you, in person. She said “I want to talk to Captain Karamanlis”.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Mireille de Saint-Cyr. Must be an aristocrat.’

  ‘Saint-Cyr? Never heard of her.’

  ‘She said she followed this guy and that she has his plates, but she wouldn’t give me the number.’

  Karamanlis started: ‘Don’t let her get away if you want to save your ass.’

  ‘Should I arrest her?’

  ‘No, you imbecile. Just keep an eye on her. I absolutely have to talk to her. I’ll be there tomorrow.’

  ‘Where are you now, Captain?’

  ‘It’s my own fucking business where I am now. I said I’d be there tomorrow.’

  18

  Drepano, Kozani, 4 November, 8.00 a.m.

  PAVLOS KARAMANLIS HAD not believed that his admonition would be enough to make Norman Shields and Michel Charrier leave Greece. He knew that they had left Athens and were headed west towards Missolungi: the road for Parga. The road that led to the Oracle of the Dead at Ephira, if he was guessing right. Idiots: they were walking into the trap, reeled in by those messages. The angel of death wouldn’t stop to listen to explanations; the two of them might very well be on the list themselves.

  Was it there that Claudio Setti was waiting for them? For the day of reckoning? Well, Karamanlis would be there as well when the roll was called, but he had to get a couple of things out of the way first. He wanted to set up a credible line of defence if Claudio Setti came to settle up, and he wanted to get some information from the man who called himself Admiral Bogdanos; he would know where Claudio Setti was, if he truly was still alive.

  And if Setti was alive and determined to exterminate all those who remained – at least Vlassos and himself – nothing would stop him, if all these years of police work had taught Karamanlis anything about human nature.

  Ephira could wait. He’d asked his colleagues in Parga to keep an eye on Charrier and Shields as soon as they registered at a hotel. Karamanlis set off for Kalabaka and for Kozani. He’d got an idea. The Kaloudis family had recently moved to Drepano, a village near Kozani. They had sold their property in Thrace after Heleni’s death and bought a woodworking factory there.

  The Kaloudises still had a daughter, Heleni’s younger sister. She must be about twenty now, the age Heleni was when she died. Karamanlis wanted to see her.

  And when he spotted her walking home from town with a shopping bag in hand, his face lit up: she was the living likeness of her sister!

  He had a picture of Heleni in his office which his men had taken at the time of the Polytechnic incident. Every now and then he would look at it without a reason. He couldn’t explain to himself why he was drawn to that old photograph; but since he had the girl’s face in his mind’s eye, he was sure that her younger sister resembled her in an extraordinary way.

  He stayed at Kozani that night, and the next day took several pictures of her with a good telephoto lens. Riding her bike into town. Coming out of a shop. Talking with a girlfriend. Laughing at a couple of boys.

  He had them printed, and they came out so well he decided
he would leave. If the worst came to the worst, these photographs might mean his salvation. Or could be the lure for a good trap, a trap he’d had in mind since he’d seen Vlassos run through like Saint Sebastian. A trap he could set up if the circumstances were right. He just had to find out where that son of a bitch was hiding. When he’d called headquarters and had learned that there was a girl on the trail of the mysterious Admiral Bogdanos, his mood soared. Destiny was giving him a good hand to play. Finally.

  The next day he headed south towards Athens, but instead of taking the direct Larissa route, he choose the Grevena-Kalabaka provincial road. When he got to the turn-off for Kalabaka, he realized that he wasn’t far from a place he’d been thinking about a lot over the last few days, a place which intrigued him and made him strangely uncomfortable.

  Did people with mystic powers really exist? People capable of penetrating the dark curtain?

  He stopped for a few minutes at the crossroads and then turned right, instead of left, towards Metsovon.

  MOUNT PERISTERI WAS a striking, solitary mountain, swept by the wind most of the year. It rose, barren and harsh, at the centre of the Pindus ridge, halfway between Metsovon and Kalabaka. These towns were briefly populated for a couple of months a year when Metsovon enjoyed a little local tourism: people from Athens – mostly small-businessmen or government employees – would come up for an escape from the stifling heat in the summer. But as early as September, the area was practically deserted again, home only to a few shepherds who brought their flocks to graze on the meadows at the foot of the great mountain.

  Pavlos Karamanlis left his car in a parking area at the side of the provincial road and headed on foot up a narrow trail which cut into the mountainside. The identikit of the man who for years he had thought was Admiral Bogdanos was in his pocket – the sketch which had not turned up a single lead from the police or Interpol. Unless that foreign girl who had turned up at headquarters knew something. It had been an impulsive decision to take that walk up the mountains of Epirus – because he figured he had nothing to lose. At worst, he’d have to listen to the ravings of a kallikàntharos. But if his friend was right, perhaps that hermit could really see into the other world, and would set him on the right path.