The Green Lady by Paul Johnston Page B

nine-thirty in the morning and he was feeling bilious from the flight between the mountains – Parnassos’s bulk to the north had been particularly distracting – as well as apprehensive about what he was about to see. Scene of crime technicians had marked out lines of footprints that he avoided. As he approached, his tame inspector at his heels, a bulky figure in full dress uniform approached and saluted. Although the local chief was technically in command, there was no pretence about who was really calling the shots.
    â€˜Is the area completely sealed off?’ Kriaras demanded, looking around. There were officers along both stepped sides of the stadium, and he saw men further up the mountainside.
    â€˜Yes. Fortunately another of the
phylakes
came up early in the morning because the victim owed him money from a card game.’
    â€˜Have you made clear to your personnel and to the site staff that this is a matter of national security and that anyone speaking to the press will lose both their job and pension?’
    The chief nodded. ‘Everything you told me on the phone has been carried out. But I don’t understand—’
    â€˜Correct,’ the brigadier said. ‘You don’t understand and that situation is not going to change.’
    The uniformed officer accepted the rebuke without comment. He was two years from retirement and he wasn’t going to mess with a big gun from Athens. Though what the murder of a
phylax
, gruesome though it was, had to do with Greece’s national interests was beyond him.
    â€˜Where’s the victim?’
    â€˜The medical examiner has had him removed, as you requested. They’ll be in the hospital in Amfissa by now. My men have taken numerous photographs.’
    â€˜Let me see.’
    Kriaras followed the chief into the shade and watched the stream of images on the technicians’ cameras. The victim, Vangelis Gilas, was in his late fifties, a former merchant seaman from Itea who had sustained an arm injury in his twenties and been taken on as a
phylax
, no doubt because he’d promised to vote for someone. His service record was clean and he was popular with his workmates, though some of them found him rather dour. This much the brigadier knew from conversations when he was in the air. There was nothing to explain why he had been found sitting naked behind the start lines, his clothes in a pile beside him, stabbed in the heart. His head was five metres away at the top of the path that led to the main site, eyes wide open and reflecting the sun.
    â€˜Very well. Hand over the memory cards to the inspector here.’ The brigadier frowned at the commissioner. ‘All of them!’ He turned to his subordinate. ‘Talk to the scene of crime people and call me when you’ve finished. I’m going to check the victim’s house.’
    The chief caught up with him as he walked down the stadium. ‘The ME just called. Do you want to talk to him?’
    Kriaras took the phone and ordered the man to report.
    â€˜These are initial findings, you understand?’
    â€˜Of course. A team from Athens is on its way to pick up the body. This is a code red case, so keep everything about it to yourself.’
    â€˜I’ve already been told that by the Public Order Ministry,’ the ME said, with a hint of resentment.
    â€˜All right. What have you found?’
    â€˜First, there’s a puncture mark in the victim’s upper back. Without doing a toxicology analysis I can only speculate, but I think the man was drugged with a needle, I estimate gauge twelve. The effect was probably not prolonged, as I understand there are two sets of footprints leading from his house to the stadium. The head was removed with a single blade, extremely sharp – the same weapon that was plunged into the dead man’s heart. I’d say the killer is experienced. He waited till his victim bled out – there’s a large patch