Philip Kerr - Hand of God

‘They dumped you in the harbour? I didn’t know that. Where, exactly?’

‘I’m not sure exactly. Somewhere in Piraeus, I suppose. The actual assault took place on a piece of waste ground next to a football stadium. Which wasn’t very far away from the harbour, because that’s where I’d been walking when I was attacked. I do remember that the people who fished me out took me into the lobby of a nearby hotel.’

‘Can you remember the name of the hotel?’

‘Yes, it was the Hotel Delfini. They were very nice to me, and called the police. From there they took me to the Metropolitan Hospital, which was right next door to the stadium where I’d been attacked. I could see it from my hospital bed. Only it wasn’t the one where Panathinaikos play; it was the other Athens team that plays there: Olympiacos. Yes, I remember now; that was the other football connection. Besides the fact that the driver of the coach worked for Panathinaikos.’

‘What day of the week did the attack take place, Sara?’

‘It was a Saturday night in September.’

‘And would you happen to remember if there’d been a football game that day?’

‘No, I don’t. But it was the last Saturday in September, so you could probably find out.’

After we finished our Skype conversation I called up Google Maps and saw that the Karaiskakis Stadium where Olympiacos played was exactly 3.5 kilometres from the Hotel Delfini in Marina Zea; and there was a large patch of waste ground immediately to the southwest of the ground, on the Piraeus side. Given where she’d been dumped after the attack, it was beginning to look like a real possibility that Nataliya’s death might be connected with the attack on Sara Gill and others. In view of the racism of the Greeks, had she been attacked because she was Asian? The Greek newspapers were often reporting attacks on Romas and Pakistanis by the far-right Golden Dawn organisation. And I knew from my own experience that a dark skin was enough to bring hatred and contempt down on your head. I was equally intrigued by Sara’s description of the logo on her attacker’s T-shirt: the word labyrinth had of course reminded me of the tattoo on Nataliya’s left shoulder. Was this a connection, too?

Absently I stared at Bekim Develi’s belongings laid out on the bungalow floor, thinking about Sara Gill’s closing remark. At the back of my head, a half-perceived thought began to gain clarity. After a moment or two I realised that perhaps the key that I’d been looking for was staring me in the face. I bent down and picked it off the floor.

It was the key not to a suitcase, or a car, or a hotel room, or a left-luggage locker, but to Bekim’s house on the island of Paros.

The next day I caught the lunchtime flight to Paros aboard a DHC-8-100, a propeller plane with more vibrations than the Beach Boys and none of them good. Paros was just one of a group of islands known as the Cyclades which, from the air, resembled a betting slip torn up and its pieces scattered on a bright blue carpet. Paros wasn’t the smallest island of the group although you could have been forgiven for thinking that it might have been when you saw the tiny airport with its postage stamp of a runway.

I hired a little Suzuki 4x4 at Loukis Rent-a-Car immediately opposite the sleepy little airport terminal, and using the directions from the guy in the office I set out for the southwest tip of the island, where Bekim’s house was to be found. The island itself was like a large links golf course — scrubland with drystone walls and very few trees. But for the omnipresent noise of cicadas you might almost have thought yourself in a remote part of Ireland suffering an unusually severe heat wave. The locals were just as wizened and peasant-like. Nearly every building I saw was made of white stone with all of the doors, window frames and shutters, balcony railings, and gates painted the same shade of blue, as if only one colour could be obtained at the local hardware shop. Either that or everyone on the whole island was an Everton supporter.

Less than fifteen minutes later I was driving up a rutted track to a collection of rectangular white buildings surrounded by empty rough land that bordered a perfect little private beach. Bekim’s house resembled an outpost in some forgotten French colony. I parked my car around the back in the shade and tried to call Prometheus, to see how he was making out with Nataliya’s iPhone, but I couldn’t get a signal.

Inside, the house was much less traditional, with open-plan rooms, polished wooden floors and the sort of Eames furniture that belonged in an episode of Mad Men . On the wall, in pride of place opposite a huge fireplace, was a wonderful painting of a football match by Peter Howson which, instantly, I coveted. In the dining room was another picture by Howson, this one a portrait of Henrik Larsson painted during his seventh season for Celtic in 2003–2004; again I wanted it. Elsewhere I found numerous modern sculptures in white marble and polished black granite by an artist called Richard King that were as beautiful as they were tactile. As far as I could see there was no television and no telephone, and very little post on the doormat, or anywhere else, for that matter.

In the kitchen I made myself some Greek coffee, sat down at the kitchen table and flicked through some old copies of the Athens News , an English-language newspaper. It made depressing reading. On most of the front pages there were colour pictures of the Hellenic police taking on rioters outside the Greek parliament building. On another front page I saw a thuggish-looking man holding a big black flag with a symbol that looked a bit like the UN logo; inside the branches was a sort of small golden labyrinth. Except that this wasn’t really a labyrinth at all, but a sort of simplified swastika. I turned the page and found another photograph, this time of a man wearing a black T-shirt with the same sign. According to the caption the man belonged to the Order of the Golden Dawn, the far-right political party. And suddenly I knew the kind of T-shirt that Sara Gill’s attacker had been wearing. He was a neo-Nazi; a fascist.

I finished my coffee and then conducted a thorough search of the house which yielded precisely nothing else of interest except that Bekim had a peculiar fondness for tinned Heinz soups and spaghetti hoops. There were cupboards full of the stuff. I was on the point of concluding that the whole trip had been a waste of time when the back door opened and a small hobbit of a woman came into the kitchen, carrying a basket of cleaning things. She gave a scream and dropped the basket to the floor when she saw me and, having apologised for giving her a fright, I explained that I was a friend of Mr Develi’s.

‘He no here right now,’ she said and it was quickly obvious that the woman — whose name was Zoi — had no idea that her employer was even dead. I thought it best not to tell her, at least for the present: it was information I wanted, not tears. ‘He is playing football in London.’

‘Yes, I know,’ I said dangling the door key. ‘It was Mr Develi who gave me this key.’

She nodded, still suspicious.

‘I’ve been staying on the mainland, in Athens, and Bekim said I should come and stay here if I got the chance.’

That much was true at any rate.

‘You stay here tonight?’ she asked.

‘Yes. If that’s all right. Just until tomorrow.’

‘You want me to fix a bed for you?’

‘No, I think I can manage.’ I looked around. ‘Have you worked for him long?’

‘I clean this house for Mr Develi since he came to the island. Eight years ago. He like it here very much because Paros is quiet and people leave him alone. Most locals don’t even know that he is such a famous footballer. He very private here. Like other rich people who live on Antiparos.’