Philip Kerr - Hand of God

Just as the strip light stopped blinking the orderly opened a door and drew out a drawer — the wrong drawer, that much was immediately apparent, for the toenails on the foot were neatly varnished with a pale shade of lilac.

‘Perhaps if you took the fag out of your face you might see what the fuck you’re doing,’ I said under my breath.

But even as the orderly tutted again and closed the polished steel drawer, I knew I was now much more interested in the lady with the toenails than in Bekim’s dead body. I’d remembered what one of the boys diving off Zea Marina had said: that the body they’d found in the water had a purple manicure. Of course to a boy, lilac looks the same as purple.

I let the orderly find the correct door and spent a sombre minute staring at Bekim Develi’s body — it was hard to believe he was dead — before indicating with a curt nod that I was finished with him. But I wasn’t finished in the mortuary. I needed to look at the girl’s body too, if I could, for this had to be the girl from Marina Zea. How many dead bodies did they have with such perfectly varnished toenails? It hadn’t occurred to me that they would have put the body of the girl who’d drowned in the same mortuary as Bekim Develi. And yet it made perfect sense, too.

Of course, being Sherlock Holmes is easier in Greece than it might be in other countries. When everyone looks as if they know by heart the words to ‘Brother Can You Spare a Dime?’, it’s relatively straightforward for someone with money — someone like me — to buy exactly what he wants, more or less. But I was already learning not to be so absurdly generous. When the average monthly wage is just a thousand euros a nice new fifty is almost two days’ pay. I held it up in front of him like a cup final ticket and told Charlie to tell him he could have it if he showed us the girl with the lilac toenails again.

The orderly hesitated only long enough to remove the cigarette from his mouth and then stub it out on the side of the stepladder. He pocketed the rest of it to smoke later, I supposed.

‘I speak English,’ he said, and took the note which he stuffed into the same pocket as his half-smoked cigarette. It looked like a metaphor for all of the EU’s financial problems: the euro, in danger of going up in smoke because of Greek fecklessness.

He opened the previous steel door, pulled out the drawer, and swept back a grubby green sheet to reveal the stark-naked body of a girl. At the same moment the strip light started to flicker again and now I understood the purpose of the ladder, because the orderly mounted it and began gently flicking the fluorescent tube with a finger until it settled down again.

‘ Eínai polý ómorfį ,’ breathed Charlie. ‘She’s beautiful.’

‘That she is,’ I said. ‘Quite stunning.’

Immediately I knew that I was looking at the right girl. She was in her mid-twenties, I supposed, with large breasts that looked fake, and a blonde pussy that was waxed to the point of non-existence — just a little bit of fluff to put on a show for a client, or for one to get rough with. More importantly there was a neatly done tattoo of a labyrinth on her left shoulder and, certain that the power of my fifty might not last for very long, I took out my iPhone and started to take pictures.

‘No pictures,’ said the man on the stepladder.

I ignored him.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’m not about to Instagram these. I’m hoping to find out what her name is. Not sell pictures of her muff.’

The orderly stopped tapping the light — which was working again — and came back down the ladder.

‘Please, stop what you’re doing — if these pictures get in the newspapers I could lose my job. That’s a risk I can’t afford. Even a job that doesn’t pay money is still a job.’

I stopped taking pictures and found him another fifty from inside my pocket.

‘Who said it doesn’t pay money?’ I said.

Reluctantly he took the fifty.

‘But look,’ I added, ‘I give you my word you won’t see these pictures in the newspapers. You know who I am, you must have read about this. The police are holding my team here in Athens while they investigate the death of this girl. On Monday night she had sex with Bekim Develi. And until they know her name and exactly what happened to her that night we’re stuck here. Meanwhile the pathologists are on strike so there can’t even be an autopsy. And the cops might as well be on strike for all the use they are.’

‘You have my sympathies, sir; no one likes the cops in this town.’ He nodded. ‘So I will not insist that you erase these pictures you have taken on one condition.’

‘What is it?’

‘You’re training at Apilion, aren’t you? With Panathinaikos.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Have they told you what animals the people who support Olympiacos are? That they are all the bastards of Yankee sailors and whores.’

‘As a matter of fact they have.’

‘Then my condition is this, Mr Manson. That whatever happens next week, when you leave my country you don’t think too badly of my team. My name is Spiros Kapodistrias and all my life I support Olympiacos. But what Hristos Trikoupis said about you before the match was very shameful, sir. And the way he held up four fingers for four goals instead of shaking your hand? This was also very bad. Things are terrible in my country right now, it’s true; but Greece is the home of European civilisation and, in my opinion, this is not how the game should be played. Our team deserves better than this man. We’re not all like him.’

‘It’s a deal,’ I said. ‘And I’m grateful.’

He pointed at the body lying on the open steel drawer. She looked like she was waiting for someone to switch on a sun lamp.

‘Please, Mr Manson,’ he said. ‘Take as many pictures as you want.’

I turned on my iPhone again and clicked away for a whole minute. To my surprise there were no marks around her ankles, and I remarked on this.

‘Then it would seem she did not struggle very much,’ said Spiros. ‘Perhaps she was drugged, or intoxicated. Better for her if she was. Of course this is something that only Dr Pyromaglou will be able to determine.’

‘Who’s Dr Pyromaglou?’

‘She’s the senior pathologist here at Laiko; it’s her who’s been given this case by the Chief Medical Officer. It will be Pyromaglou who carries out the autopsy on this poor woman when—’

‘She stops being on strike.’ I pulled a face. ‘Whenever that might be.’

‘Pyromaglou does not want to be on strike, you understand. But it’s been many weeks since any of us were paid in this hospital.’

‘So why isn’t your union on strike, Spiros?’

‘Because it’s not our turn to be on strike. Anyway, someone has to be here to care for the bodies. There would be a risk to public health if there was nowhere to put them. As it is, all of the other bodies in here are sharing a mortuary drawer with someone else.’

‘That sounds cosy.’

‘On police orders, these two — your player and the girl — are the only ones in here who rate a drawer to themselves.’ Spiros nodded. ‘Are you finished looking at her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Dr Pyromaglou,’ he said, as he covered the body, returned it to the darkness of her steel sepulchre. ‘I could give her your telephone number if you like.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘Only that if she wanted to make a private arrangement with you, then that would be her choice.’

‘You mean to break the strike? To carry out an autopsy?’

Immediately, I took out my wallet and gave him my business card. I also gave him a card for the Grande Bretagne Hotel.

‘She can call me anytime,’ I said. ‘And obviously I could make it worth her while.’