The Messenger of Athens: A Novel Read Free Page B

family?”
    “No.”
    “What did you ask the family?”
    “I thought it better to let them get on with their lives in peace.”
    “Your consideration does you credit, Chief of Police, but it makes you look a poor policeman. And perhaps you would be good enough to tell us all”—he turned and gestured at the two men apparently absorbed in paperwork—“if we don’t all know already, how much you charged for your consideration?”
    Color flooded into the Chief of Police’s cheeks, but the fat man, clearly expecting no answer to his question, stood and stubbed out his cigarette.
    “As a man worthy to wear your badge, perhaps you should be asking yourself the question you seem to have neglected, Chief of Police. Perhaps you should be asking yourself, did she jump, or was she pushed?”
    The Chief of Police forced a laugh of derision. “Such drama, Mr. Diaktoros! Murder, and bribery! These are the sleepy Greek islands! I’m afraid you have been too long on the mean streets of Athens.”
    The fat man picked up his holdall and addressed the undersized constable.
    “I wonder,” he said, “if you could recommend a hotel with a decent room?”
    But the Chief of Police interrupted his reply.
    “As I suggested, the Port Police launch…”
    The fat man went to place a hand on the constable’s shoulder.
    “Walk with me,” he said. “Show me the way.”
    As the door closed behind the fat man and the constable, the Chief of Police pulled his ashtray towards him, and, taking a cigarette from a crumpled pack, bent it to straighten the curve it had acquired. He picked up the matchbox the fat man had left on his desk and slid it open.
    Sleek, with long feelers flailing, a huge cockroach darted forward out of the matchbox and scuttled at speed across the back of the policeman’s hand, onto the file which lay on his desk.
    “Jesus Christ!”
    In revulsion, he swiped the vile creature to the floor, where it ran for cover amongst the candy-striped computer printouts.
    As the bewildered sergeant looked on, the enraged policeman pursued it, stamping here, there, here, until the cockroach at last evaded him and disappeared amongst the stacks of official files.
    T he undersized constable took the fat man to the Seagull Hotel, an open-all-year rooming house owned by the policeman’s second cousin. They walked side by side around the harbor, the constable full of questions he dared not ask, his anxious eyes scanning doorways and balconies, alleys and stairways, to see who observed them. The fat man strode with confidence, nimbly sidestepping the rain-filled potholes, and genially greeting everyone they met.
    At the hotel door, the fat man thanked the constable and dismissed him, then watched as the man in uniform made his way slowly back to the police station, stopping here and there to speak: to the stallholder selling fruit and vegetables, to the proprietor of the electrical shop, to the patrons at the tables of the outdoor café. As he spoke, he pointed towards the hotel, and heads turned in the fat man’s direction, so the fat man knew he had chosen well: the constable would be an excellent emissary in spreading word of his arrival.
    The lobby of the hotel was dark, and unheated, andthe dour woman behind the reception desk was buttoned into heavy, home-knitted woolens. The desk was covered in yellowing newspaper, on which stood four squat candlesticks and an uncapped tin of Brasso. The woman looked him up and down over stern, half-moon glasses and smiled a lupine, hand-rubbing smile. Beyond her canines there were no teeth in her upper jaw; when she spoke, the fat man caught the fetid whiff of halitosis.
    “Good day, sir, good day,” she said, laying down a cleaning rag. “Are you looking for a room? I have one nice room free on the first floor, very clean, lovely view. No finer view in Greece.”
    She lifted the edge of the newspaper and pulled towards her a leather-bound register. With Brasso-blackened fingers she flicked