18

THE GUN EMPLACEMENT

When Forrester woke the next morning it was still dark, but the first hints of light were already appearing in the sky and he knew he had to return to the grove before they left for Limani Sangri, because there were questions there that had not been answered. He got out of bed quietly, dressed, scribbled a note for Sophie promising to be back within the hour, and let himself out of the kastello.

As always, those first breaths of morning air energised him and made him feel as if he was alive at the beginning of the world, and it seemed only minutes before he was up among the pines and walking swiftly uphill towards the grove. The stones of the shrine and its fallen pillars glowed white in the semi-darkness, and with her covering gone, the statue of Maia seemed to be looking directly at him from her plinth. He stood for a long moment, taking in the geography of the scene, from the pediment to the stone amphora from which the spring still trickled, unperturbed.

As it had done, of course, long before man and his troubles came to the island.

Then he went over to the shrine, knelt down at the base of the pillar, which he calculated must have fallen first, and sniffed. Yes, there it was: that pungent almond smell he remembered so well. Nobel 808, the standard plastic explosive of the SOE. He remembered the feel of it in his hands, so like the plasticine he had played with as a child, but green, always green. And after four years of warfare in these islands, there was no mystery about how someone had come to get their hands on it: the stuff was everywhere, left by commandos, partisans, bandits and regular troops. On the other hand, not everyone had been trained to use it. He shone his torch on the marble, picking out the black soot left by the explosion and working out exactly where the explosive had been placed. Then, kneeling close to the ground, he moved slowly away from the shrine, looking for something among the pine needles. Within three feet he had found it: the remains of the tiny cylinder that had been ejected when the plastic went off, away from the direction of the explosion. He had used dozens of the things during the last few years – the timers that allowed the operator to get away before the charge went off. He examined it closely: this one, he knew, would have given the killer just ten minutes to get away after he had planted his bomb.

But of course it wasn’t a bomb, really. It was a demolition device. An odd way to try and kill someone, Forrester thought. If the idea was to murder either Ari Alexandros or Giorgios Stephanides, surely it would have been simpler to have planted a proper bomb in the grove rather than trying to bring a shrine down on top of them? And if the would-be killer had intended to kill Stephanides alone, or indeed Alexandros alone, how could he be sure that either one of them would be in the path of the falling pediment?

He looked into the blank white eyes of the goddess. “What did you see, Maia? What did you think about the bastard who was setting out to destroy your shrine?” The goddess stared back at him, her lips still curved in the ambiguous smile she had worn for two and a half thousand years. She was impervious to such insults, serenely detached from all the desperate intrigues of mortal men and women.

Pine needles don’t echo. They don’t ring to the noise of footsteps but rather deaden sound. Nevertheless Forrester heard it: the soft sound of a shoe as someone moved into the trees behind him, and without conscious thought he threw himself to the right as the shot rang out, and rolled swiftly into the shadow of the trees even as he landed.

The Luger was out of his pocket and in his hand before he had come to a halt and he fired back blindly in the direction from which the shot had come. He knew there was almost no hope of hitting anyone, but that didn’t matter: as much as anything he wanted to make sure that his attacker’s second shot went wide.

But there was no second shot; even as Forrester dived from the position in which he had fired to the shelter of the nearest tree he knew that his assailant had fled. The ground sloped steeply down from where the shot had come and whoever had fired it had clearly gone straight down the hill. By the time Forrester found himself racing down that same slope there was no sign of anyone ahead of him.

Suddenly he was out of the trees, with the path leading to the Monastery of St. Thomas on his left and the trail to Kastello Drakonaris on his right. Which way had his assailant gone? He stood still for a moment, drew in a deep breath and began to move swiftly along the right-hand path.

* * *

The first person he met when he went through the front door was Yanni Patrakis. “I was coming to wake you, boss,” he said. “It’s time to set off.” Forrester was highly tempted to go through the kastello to find out if there was anyone awake and smelling of cordite, but decided it was simply not practical, so he went to wake Sophie. Half an hour later all three of them were in the tiny cabin of the caïque as it emerged from the bay and turned east along the coast.

By the time the sun rose they were motoring through a milky sea of mist with Yanni at the wheel, still turning over the previous day’s events in his mind.

“What about the English?” he said, as Sophie handed him a mug of coffee. “The English from the boat. Any of them might want to kill the General?”

“Well, we should consider it,” said Forrester. He had left a note for Alexandros reminding him to track down the shepherd boy who had delivered the message about the fake rendezvous in the grove, and find out who had given him his instructions, but he had a strong suspicion whoever had done so would have made sure this line of enquiry was a dead end. And of course if Alexandros had engineered the whole thing, the message would have been fictional too. But they had at least forty minutes motoring around the island before they neared the Sangri inlet and going through the available information would be time well spent. “Let’s go through the list. As far as I know Durrell has never met either Ari or Giorgios before. He’s a poet, really. This newspaper job is just something the army has given him. I met him a couple of times in Alexandria – all we talked about was writing. My instinct is that he has nothing to do with this. Charles Runcorn is an academic, a historian, one of the great gossips. I’d have counted him out but for something that Sophie came across in Athens.” Yanni glanced at Sophie, who smiled.

“Ah, yes. He came to see Helena Spetsos while she was doing a somewhat risqué painting of Ariadne,” she said. “He said he was there on behalf of the British Council, but frankly I didn’t believe him. I wondered then if Helena had some kind of hold over him. I still wonder.”

“Such a hold that she might tell him to murder somebody and he might do it?” asked Yanni.

“Well, put like that it sounds far-fetched, but if she was the killer he might have been an accomplice, and it’s a possibility we should bear in mind,” said Forrester. “He does seem to have helped her persuade Durrell to add Hydros to his itinerary. And had that not happened, of course, neither would the attack.”

“What about your friend David Venables?” asked Sophie. “After all, he was the one who began the expedition that ended with them coming here.”

“Venables is a tough egg,” said Forrester. “I’ve known him for a long time and I know he’s cynical and ambitious. But as you heard tonight he’s a man of the left. The last thing he’d want to do is kill Ari and prevent him taking command of ELAS.”

“What if Venables was trying to kill Giorgios?” said Sophie. “For some reason we don’t know yet.”

“Perhaps because the colonel was trying to persuade the General not to go over to the communists?” said Yanni.

Forrester considered. “Possible. But if Stephanides was trying to do that, I’m certain Venables wouldn’t have tried to do away with him in a way that would have endangered Alexandros: that would be totally counterproductive. So for the time being I’m putting Venables fairly low on the list of suspects. But let’s not forget his friend Keith Beamish. We know he was in the glade earlier in the day.”

“But he called us over and talked to us,” said Sophie. “If he’d been there to set some kind of booby trap he’d hardly have let us see him, would he?”

“Unless that was to throw us off the scent,” said Forrester. “A sketchbook is a pretty good cover.”

“I find it hard to believe though,” said Sophie. “He’s a nice man and a good artist.”

Forrester laughed. “And good artists can’t be criminals?” he said. “What about Caravaggio?”

“What did he do, boss?” said Yanni.

“Well, if you’d been in Rome in 1606 you might have come across him strolling through the city with a bunch of armed retainers looking for trouble,” said Forrester. “He killed at least one man there and probably others in Naples and Milan. Even the Pope issued a death warrant for him.”

“You’re not seriously telling me Keith Beamish was some kind of Caravaggio, are you? I mean – he does watercolours,” said Sophie.

“I’d forgotten that, my love,” said Forrester. “The use of watercolours alone, of course, should prove his innocence.” He ducked away as she swiped at him, but as he peered into the mist ahead he saw nothing but a jumble of faces each competing for his attention: Durrell, Venables, Beamish, Runcorn, Helena Spetsos, Ariadne, Penelope. Even a jealous Alexandros himself if Stephanides had been the intended victim. He closed his eyes and let the images fade away, and by the time the sun had fully risen the sea was as still as if it had been painted and they were approaching the headland at the mouth of the bay of Limani Sangri.

With a conscious effort he put the murder attempt out of his mind and concentrated on the German.

“It’s a good thing we’re coming by sea, but we have to face up to the fact that as soon as we round the headland and enter the inlet, Kretzmer may well recognise the boat.”

“I can’t see much way round that,” said Sophie, but just before the headland, on the outer coast of the island, Forrester spotted a tiny cove not more than fifty yards wide.

“Can you take us in there, Yanni,” he said, “and put me ashore?”

“Put us ashore,” said Sophie.

“Sure, boss,” said Yanni, “but what’s the idea?”

“I want to take your binoculars up to the top and have a look at the village before you go around the headland,” said Forrester. “Before there’s any chance of him knowing we’re coming.”

* * *

Half an hour later Forrester and Sophie were squirming upwards through the thyme-scented brush that covered the promontory, and the caïque, hundreds of feet below them in the cove, looked like a child’s toy. Once they had reached the top they wormed themselves into a position where they could look down the length of the inlet towards the village. Forrester took out the binoculars and, making sure the lenses didn’t catch the glare of the sun, concentrated his gaze on the tiny settlement at the head of the inlet. He began to note people moving about, fishermen tending to their boats on the shore and smoke rising from chimneys.

“Totally different from yesterday,” he whispered to Sophie. “It looks back to normal.”

“Does that mean he’s already gone?” asked Sophie. Forrester let the binoculars move steadily over the hills to the left of the village, and then the right.

And then back again. For a long moment he remained still, staring at one particular spot.

“What?” asked Sophie. “Have you seen something?”

“It had to be there,” said Forrester softly. “Of course, it had to be there.”

“I don’t understand,” said Sophie, but Forrester motioned her to silence and shifted the binoculars slightly. After a long moment he handed them to her.

Sophie adjusted the eyepiece and concentrated as the tiny, distant little world swam into focus. An old woman was loading two panniers of fruit onto a donkey. An old man sat smoking on a rock. A small child walked up a hill path leading away from the village.

A small child.

“Do you see the basket that the little girl is carrying?” asked Forrester.

“Yes. Perhaps she’s taking some shepherd his lunch.”

Forrester said nothing.

“What?”

“Move the binoculars ahead of her and then to the right.”

Sophie did as he asked.

“Can you see the shadow at the top of the cliff?”

Sophie concentrated. “And?”

“The Germans had to have a gun emplacement to defend a landing place like this,” said Forrester. “I think that’s where she’s going.”

Sophie looked through the binoculars again. “You think she’s taking food to Kretzmer?”

“The emplacement would be the ideal place to hole up if he’s shifted out of the village but stayed in the area,” said Forrester. “The perfect defensible vantage point.”

“But surely as soon as he wasn’t an immediate threat the villagers would have sent word over to Drakonaris?”

“Unless Kretzmer’s still got a hostage with him. Which would also explain why the child is taking him food.”

Sophie considered this. “And as soon as we sail into the bay he’ll know we’re coming and threaten to kill the hostage unless we back off.”

“Yes,” said Forrester, “I think that’s exactly what he’ll do.”

* * *

Before he had left the caïque, Forrester had already sketched out a plan of attack if the view from the headland confirmed his theory. He had discussed the options with Yanni and arranged to signal by mirror. This he now did, and as soon as Yanni had acknowledged his signal, Forrester and Sophie began to make their way around the bay from the headland towards the village – making sure, as they walked, that they were always hidden from the sightlines of the gun emplacement by the folds of the landscape.

Once they disturbed a flock of sheep guarded by a sleeping shepherd boy, and hid themselves as the animals ran from them, bleating. They watched nervously, expecting the boy to wake up at any moment and seek the source of the disturbance, but in the event he slept on and the sheep gradually calmed down and resumed grazing.

When they reached the outskirts of the village they climbed higher into the hills, circling around the houses to avoid being seen. They came to the path leading down to the waterfront, made sure no one was coming up or down it, crossed it swiftly and disappeared once more into the brush. As Forrester looked out over the bay he saw, as scheduled, Yanni’s caïque coming around the headland and puttering into the bay, leaving a long white wake behind it in the deep blue of the water. Around them they heard the murmur of bees methodically looting the nectar from the flowers.

“What if he tries to leave?” asked Sophie. “Once he sees the caïque?”

“That’s exactly what I’m hoping,” said Forrester.

But as the caïque came closer and closer to Limani Sangri, there was no sign of anyone attempting to leave the gun emplacement. For perhaps five minutes, as they toiled up the same hill up which the child had hauled the basket, they were in a blind spot where the emplacement was out of their field of vision, but then suddenly they were pushing through a half-collapsed perimeter fence and into a concrete trench. Forrester took out the Luger and gestured to Sophie to stay behind him.

There was a rusted metal door hanging crookedly where the trench led into the gun complex itself, but fortunately the child who had been bringing the food must have left it half open and they were able to squeeze around it without setting off the telltale squeak of its hinges. Then they were in the semi-darkness of a dank concrete tunnel, with doorways leading off to abandoned ammunition bunkers and guard rooms. Swiftly Forrester ducked into the first, gun in hand in case Kretzmer was waiting for them, but it was empty, and though he performed the same exercise at every door, the result was the same every time.

Then they were in the final stretch, with the gun turret itself dead ahead of them, the light coming in through the slit through which the barrels of the German artillery pieces had once protruded. Once again, thought Forrester, he was about to face the Minotaur in his lair. But this time, he knew the Minotaur already had a victim with him.

“Kretzmer,” called Forrester, his voice echoing from the concrete. “It’s Forrester. Come out with your hands up.”

There was no reply. Then he heard a child cry out.

“If you hurt her, Kretzmer, you’re a dead man,” he said, and the child cried out again. His bluff had been called: he had no option now.

He stepped into the turret and flung himself to the left, simultaneously ranging the Luger across the dark space to find Kretzmer.

There was no Kretzmer – just two frightened children roped to a stanchion. The basket the child had brought was on the floor, empty, as if the German, having eaten as much as he could, had stuffed the rest in his pockets before making his escape.

“Damn,” said Forrester. “He must have slipped out while we were on the blind spot.” Then Sophie was in the turret with him, untying the knots that held the children, and then Forrester was racing outside to look for any sign of his quarry. And sure enough, silhouetted against the sky at the top of the hill was the figure of a man, and Forrester began to race up the slope, his heart pounding, the sweat running into his eyes so that at first he thought that was the reason there were suddenly two Kretzmers on the skyline.

And then three.

And four.

But as he reached the crest he realised it wasn’t Kretzmer at all; it was Lawrence Durrell, and with him were Charles Runcorn, David Venables, Helena Spetsos, Ariadne Patrou, Prince Constantine Atreides and Keith Beamish.

“Hello, old chap,” said Durrell. “So you want to have a look at Runcorn’s castle too? I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”