followed nor the
address of the villa meant anything to us, so we did nothing from this end. All our watchers use the latest surveillance equipment, including binoculars fitted with integrated digital cameras.
Because she was using one of these devices, as dusk fell she was able to take two photographs through an uncurtained window of the villa.’
Perini opened a manila envelope and slid a number of large black-and-white photographs onto the table in front of him. He separated them into piles, then passed two pictures each to Richter and
Simpson.
‘These are enlarged copies of the two photographs she was able to get.’
Richter looked down at them and saw, for the first time, a picture of the face that still haunted his dreams.
Chapter 3
Monday
Kandíra, south-west Crete
Brilliant white stars studded the sky over Crete, but Spiros Aristides saw none of them as he trudged from his simple home down the narrow unlit streets towards the centre
of the village. He was both preoccupied and irritated, and badly needed a drink – or, better, several drinks.
He had hoped – in fact, he’d felt certain – that the steel case contained valuables, but unless something remarkable popped out when he finally opened those flasks, as far as
he could see he’d just been wasting his time. He would have done better to have just left that damned case where he’d found it.
The murmur of conversation stopped briefly as Aristides pushed open the pale green door of the kafeníon , the café-bar, and stepped inside. Kandíra was well off the
tourist track and had been spared the dubious ‘improvements’ visited on most coastal towns in the Mediterranean. There were no illuminated signs above the door or flickering in the
small and dirty windows, no signs of any sort, in fact, to announce that the place was a bar. No juke-box, no gaming machines, no bar meals or shaded terrace where a passing tourist could pass a
pleasant half-hour sipping red wine and writing postcards.
It was just a small, scruffy room with half a dozen tables and twenty or so assorted chairs, most in need of some repair. Down one side ran a battered oak bar behind which Jakob – that
wasn’t his real name, but the previous incumbent had been called Jakob and old habits died hard in Crete – stood wearing a once-white apron and dispensing drinks with the kind of ill
grace that frequently made his clientele wonder why he hadn’t opted for a different profession, like tax collector or maybe New York yellow cab driver.
As far as Aristides could tell, the bar hadn’t changed in any significant way since he had first arrived in Kandíra a little over eight years earlier, and nor had its occupants.
Every evening the old men of the village trickled in, in their ones and twos, took their usual seats at the discoloured tables and, without a word being exchanged, were served their usual tipples
by Jakob. Then they talked or just sat in silence. Sometimes a pack of cards would be produced and the usual bar noises would be punctuated by the slap of pasteboard on a table and the cries of
exultation or recrimination as some game progressed.
After Aristides pushed the door closed behind him, the murmur of conversation began again. Two or three of the customers smiled or lifted a hand to acknowledge the Greek, gestures to which
Aristides responded with a nod, but most of the old men ignored him. He was, after all, a relative newcomer who wasn’t even Cretan, and he was still considered by many of them to be a
suspicious foreigner.
Aristides walked across to the bar and looked at Jakob, who looked straight back at him. The Greek had been drinking in the bar three or four nights every week for the past eight years, but
Jakob still pointedly regarded him as a stranger.
‘Whisky,’ Aristides snapped. Greek he might be, but he didn’t have a Greek’s palate for retsina or ouzo.
Jakob slapped a small glass on the bar and poured a measure of golden liquid
address of the villa meant anything to us, so we did nothing from this end. All our watchers use the latest surveillance equipment, including binoculars fitted with integrated digital cameras.
Because she was using one of these devices, as dusk fell she was able to take two photographs through an uncurtained window of the villa.’
Perini opened a manila envelope and slid a number of large black-and-white photographs onto the table in front of him. He separated them into piles, then passed two pictures each to Richter and
Simpson.
‘These are enlarged copies of the two photographs she was able to get.’
Richter looked down at them and saw, for the first time, a picture of the face that still haunted his dreams.
Chapter 3
Monday
Kandíra, south-west Crete
Brilliant white stars studded the sky over Crete, but Spiros Aristides saw none of them as he trudged from his simple home down the narrow unlit streets towards the centre
of the village. He was both preoccupied and irritated, and badly needed a drink – or, better, several drinks.
He had hoped – in fact, he’d felt certain – that the steel case contained valuables, but unless something remarkable popped out when he finally opened those flasks, as far as
he could see he’d just been wasting his time. He would have done better to have just left that damned case where he’d found it.
The murmur of conversation stopped briefly as Aristides pushed open the pale green door of the kafeníon , the café-bar, and stepped inside. Kandíra was well off the
tourist track and had been spared the dubious ‘improvements’ visited on most coastal towns in the Mediterranean. There were no illuminated signs above the door or flickering in the
small and dirty windows, no signs of any sort, in fact, to announce that the place was a bar. No juke-box, no gaming machines, no bar meals or shaded terrace where a passing tourist could pass a
pleasant half-hour sipping red wine and writing postcards.
It was just a small, scruffy room with half a dozen tables and twenty or so assorted chairs, most in need of some repair. Down one side ran a battered oak bar behind which Jakob – that
wasn’t his real name, but the previous incumbent had been called Jakob and old habits died hard in Crete – stood wearing a once-white apron and dispensing drinks with the kind of ill
grace that frequently made his clientele wonder why he hadn’t opted for a different profession, like tax collector or maybe New York yellow cab driver.
As far as Aristides could tell, the bar hadn’t changed in any significant way since he had first arrived in Kandíra a little over eight years earlier, and nor had its occupants.
Every evening the old men of the village trickled in, in their ones and twos, took their usual seats at the discoloured tables and, without a word being exchanged, were served their usual tipples
by Jakob. Then they talked or just sat in silence. Sometimes a pack of cards would be produced and the usual bar noises would be punctuated by the slap of pasteboard on a table and the cries of
exultation or recrimination as some game progressed.
After Aristides pushed the door closed behind him, the murmur of conversation began again. Two or three of the customers smiled or lifted a hand to acknowledge the Greek, gestures to which
Aristides responded with a nod, but most of the old men ignored him. He was, after all, a relative newcomer who wasn’t even Cretan, and he was still considered by many of them to be a
suspicious foreigner.
Aristides walked across to the bar and looked at Jakob, who looked straight back at him. The Greek had been drinking in the bar three or four nights every week for the past eight years, but
Jakob still pointedly regarded him as a stranger.
‘Whisky,’ Aristides snapped. Greek he might be, but he didn’t have a Greek’s palate for retsina or ouzo.
Jakob slapped a small glass on the bar and poured a measure of golden liquid
Similar Books
