The Silver Stain (8 page)

‘Actress PA in Youth Auto Death’ was the headline in a Los Angeles newspaper, dated August 9th 2000. It seemed that Maria Kondos, aged 32, assistant to ‘rising star’ Cara Parks, hit and killed Michael ‘Zee-Boy’ Timmins, a seventeen-year-old African American boy, while driving Cara Parks’ Mercedes late at night. The case against her fell apart when the defence produced witnesses, who saw Timmins stumbling down Mulholland Drive on what the post-mortem proved to be a crack cocaine high. He also had a police record as a member of a major drugs gang, the Letter-Men.

Mavros sat back and thought about that. It seemed unlikely to have any connection with Maria Kondos’s disappearance after three years, but he wondered how she’d been affected by the ordeal. That was a question he could ask Cara Parks.

There was a knock at the door. Renzo Capaldi was standing there with some printed papers.

‘Here’s what you wanted, Mr Mavros,’ he said, eager to please. ‘Seventy-one cars turned towards Chania in that hour. Twenty-eight of them were taxis.’ He handed over a sheet with licence plate numbers. ‘Do you want me to find out the drivers’ names and where they took their passengers, if they weren’t dropping off?’

Mavros nodded and saw the big man’s shoulders slump.

‘And the other forty-three were either vehicles belonging to the hire company of the film crew or were used by individual guests or visitors.’ He gave Mavros the second sheet, which showed licence numbers and names.

‘Thanks,’ Mavros said, running his eyes down the names. He recognized Tsifakis, the company owned by the driver Mikis’s father, on nineteen of the cars. Of the remaining twenty-four, only one name stuck out – that of David Waggoner. He mentioned it to Capaldi.

‘Oh, the old British colonel. He doesn’t stay here, but he’s in and out every day seeing people on the production. He’s got one of those Range Rovers – as big as a tank.’

‘And the others?’

‘Guests who have long-lease villas in the resort. They’re the only people here this month apart from the film crew.’

‘OK,’ Mavros said. ‘Concentrate on the taxi drivers – I’ll need a contact number, preferably a mobile, for each one.’

Capaldi went off down the corridor, surprisingly light on his feet for such a hulking figure.

Back in the room, Mavros highlighted the hired vehicles used by the production team – Rosie Yellenberg would probably be able to link each of them to particular members of the crew.

His phone rang.

‘Alex, is it nice down there?’

‘Hi, Niki. All right, I suppose. I haven’t had a chance to see anything of the island except from the Learjet.’

There was a sigh. ‘I wish I’d been on a Learjet.’

‘OK, I’ll get them to send it for you tomorrow morning.’

‘Ha-ha. I miss you. Is there something wrong with that?’ Niki’s voice was wistful.

‘Er, no. I miss you too,’ he said, hurriedly. He did miss her, it was just that he hadn’t had a chance to think of her since he’d arrived.

‘Making any progress?’

‘It’s too early to say. I—’ He heard the bleep that indicated he had another call. ‘Shit, I’ve got to go. Sleep tight, my love.’ He pressed the button. ‘Hello?’

‘Mr Mavros, we’d be grateful if you could some to Ms Parks’ suite.’ Rosie Yellenberg’s voice was as hard-edged as before. ‘Immediately.’

Wonderful, Mavros thought. Then again, there were things he needed from his employers.

He suddenly had a vision of the old-fashioned record player his father had insisted on keeping for his Beethoven and Mahler. It had a great trumpet for a speaker and a label showing a dog listening to a picture of the same. His Master’s Voice, he remembered: except, in his case, it was His Mistresses’ Voices.

As he left the room, he realized how unimpressed Niki would have been by that thought.

This time the gorilla opened the door to Ms Parks’ accommodation without comment. Mavros walked into the living area to be confronted by more people than he had expected. Luke Jannet was sprawled in an armchair, a glass of some dark spirit in his hand. Behind him, perched on a dining chair sat Alice Quincy, an open laptop on her knees and a hands-free connection leading from her phone to her right ear. Cara Parks was at the end of the sofa where she had been sitting earlier, while Rosie Yellenberg was at the other. The atmosphere was icy, and not just because the air con was working hard.

‘It’s Philip Marlowe,’ the director said, proving that he wasn’t completely illiterate culturally. ‘Pull up a chair, man.’ It sounded like the drink wasn’t his first.

Mavros nodded to him, and then to the others. He sat down in an excessively comfortable armchair and immediately felt his presence, such as it was, diminished. He should have remained standing.

‘Hello, Alex,’ Cara Parks said hopefully. She looked like she’d been crying.

‘Give us a progress report, Mr Mavros,’ Rosie Yellenberg said, her lips hardly opening as she spoke. ‘This time we’re all staying to hear it.’

Mavros smiled and ran through what he had been doing. The producer said he would have the names of the crew members who had been driving the vehicles he had highlighted the next morning.

‘One of them was me,’ Jannet said, slurring his words. ‘Took some of the extras out for a night on the town.’

‘Young, female extras,’ Cara said, in a low voice.

The director raised his glass to her. ‘At least they’ve been doing what their contracts say – working.’

‘Have you spoken to the resort owner?’ Yellenberg asked.

‘Yes, he’s been helpful.’

‘Should be, considering what we’re paying,’ the producer said acidly. ‘What did he give you?’

It was time to draw a line in the sand, Mavros decided. ‘This isn’t how I work, Ms Yellenberg,’ he said. ‘Most of the information I dig up turns out to be useless. I’d be wasting your time and mine if I went through it all.’

She accepted that with ill grace.

‘You do what you have to do,’ Jannet said, his eyes hardening. ‘We’re giving you another two days.’

Mavros shrugged. ‘That’s up to you. In the meantime, what can you tell me about David Waggoner?’

‘That old—’

Yellenberg raised a hand to cut the director off. ‘Alice, give Mr Mavros a summary of the appropriate file.’

The director’s assistant’s fingers flew over her keyboard. ‘David Waggoner, Colonel, the Hussars, retired. Commanded a tank during the Battle of Crete, awarded the Military Cross. Escaped to Chora Sfakion and evacuated to Alexandria. Trained with SOE and landed by submarine near Treis Ekkliseies, November 4th 1941. Officer in command of Chania and environs until April 17th 1943, when he was sent back to Egypt with a shoulder wound. Returned by parachute—’

‘That isn’t what I want,’ Mavros interrupted – he could find the old soldier’s history easily in an online encyclopedia. ‘I meant, what impression do you have of him? He told me that he knows Ms Kondos by sight.’

Luke Jannet laughed loudly. ‘You think that pompous Brit got the hots for Maria and kidnapped her?’

‘No,’ Mavros answered bluntly, seeing Cara Parks smile out of the corner of his eye. ‘There seems to be some animosity between him and Mr Kersten. Could that have any bearing on the case?’

‘I don’t see how,’ Rosie Yellenberg said, turning to the actress. ‘Do you?’

Cara shook her head. ‘I’ve only spoken to Mr – what is it? Waggoner? – a couple of times. He told me about the Cretan women who got involved in the fighting. I don’t remember Maria ever saying more than “hello” or “goodbye” to him.’

‘If I might add something,’ Alice Quincy said, her cheeks reddening. ‘I did see Mr Waggoner and Maria next to each other in the queue for coffee and doughnuts on set one morning.’

‘Were they talking?’ Mavros asked.

‘I couldn’t say for sure,’ Alice answered. ‘I think they might have been.’

Mavros smiled at her. ‘Thank you.’

‘Anything else?’ Jannet said, getting to his feet unsteadily.

‘Not at this stage,’ Mavros said.

‘Well, I’m off for an early one,’ the director said. ‘Tomorrow we’re doing some aerial shots so don’t hit the dirt if a Messerschmitt comes over at head height.’ He headed for the door. Alice Quincy followed him with her head bowed, making Mavros wonder exactly what her duties included.

‘If you wouldn’t mind, Rosie,’ Cara Parks said, holding her gaze on the producer until she too withdrew. ‘Come and sit a bit closer, Alex.’

He did so. ‘Are they giving you a hard time?’

She nodded. ‘And my agent and my lawyer and . . . oh, forget it. All I want is Maria back. I appreciate what you’re doing. Are there any other angles you could follow up on?’

‘I’d recommend that laminated posters with a recent photo of Maria are put up both in the resort and on the roads and villages in the surrounding area.’

‘Good idea. The technical guys can fix that. We should give a description and say when and where she was last seen, shouldn’t we? In Greek and English?’

Mavros was impressed by the speed of her thinking. ‘Yes. I’d advise offering a reward for information leading directly to her return as well. We’ll get a lot of scam artists, but they shouldn’t be too hard to rumble. There might be one person who saw or heard something important.’

‘How much?’ the actress asked.

‘Five thousand euros?’

‘Make it ten.’

‘OK.’

They spent five minutes constructing the text, Mavros translating it into Greek.

‘The photo?’ he asked.

‘I’ve got some in my laptop. I’ll find the best. Rosie can hand over all the material to the geeks.’

‘The hotel will be able to find people to put the posters up.’

‘Right.’ Cara Parks smiled, this time less tentatively. ‘You know your job, don’t you?’

He raised a hand. ‘You might not like what I’m about to ask you.’

‘Try me.’

‘The night of August 9th 2000, Mulholland Drive.’ Mavros watched her face. Her eyes widened, but she held his gaze.

‘You
have
been busy.’

‘Wonderful thing, the Internet.’

‘If you can sort the truth from the lies. What do you want to know?’

‘Was it usual for Maria to be driving your car?’

Cara was silent for a few moments. ‘Not exactly usual, no. It happened occasionally, still does.’

‘Would you care to tell me why she was driving it that particular night?’

The actress pursed her lips. ‘Sure. If you care to tell me what it has to do with Maria going missing on Crete. You think the dead boy’s gang hired an international assassin?’

‘I don’t know enough about the Letter-Men.’

‘Believe me, they were assholes. Most of them were wiped out in a gun battle with a Mexican outfit last year.’

Mavros poured himself a glass of wine from the bottle in a silver stand.

‘I’m sorry,’ Cara said, ‘I should have offered.’

‘I’m sorry, I should have asked.’

She laughed. ‘I like your style, mister.’ Her expression grew serious again. ‘OK, here’s what happened. Confidentially.’ He nodded. ‘I was going to see this guy up on the Drive – a producer I’d got entangled with. Thing was, there was another man I was seeing, an actor. He used to get real jealous, would drive past my house and check if my car was at the front.’

‘I thought you people lived on estates with high walls.’

She smiled. ‘High railings and thorny plants in my case. You can see through if you try hard enough and I’d told the security guys to leave him alone. So Maria was driving the Merc back. She’d left her car at my place so she could get home. It had worked before. I’d given her a wig so she looked like me from a distance.’

The lives of the rich and famous, Mavros thought – just a scuzzy as anyone else’s.

‘Then that kid came out of nowhere, stumbled straight into the car. Maria wasn’t even going fast, but he flew through the air and hit the road head first.’

Mavros was still watching her closely. ‘I don’t know much about the Californian legal system. Was it an easy case to defend?’

‘The best lawyers can do anything,’ Cara said.

‘So you paid?’

‘Of course,’ she said, looking shocked. ‘It was my fault that Maria was driving back so late.’

He nodded. ‘Imagine the scandal if it had been you at the wheel.’

Cara Parks looked away, her face suddenly pale. ‘Yeah,’ she said softly.

Mavros left a few minutes later. He hadn’t learned much about Maria Kondos, but he knew more about the star. Cara Parks was convincing on the big screen, there was no doubt of that. Close up, on the sofa, things were harder to hide. He was almost certain
she
had been driving her Mercedes when it hit and killed Michael ‘Zee-Boy’ Timmins.

SIX

F
rom
The Descent of Icarus
:

The sky was still full of our aircraft when we reached clear ground about three hundred yards from the Tavronitis bridge. There was sporadic fire from the trees on the other side of the river-bed and heavier weapons loosing off from the hill, but our scouts had done a good job. It seemed there was a gap between a pair of defensive positions. Captain Blatter arranged for covering fire at both, while the rest of us picked our way back across the stony watercourse and, to our amazement, reached the other side unscathed.

By now the sun was high in the sky and we were sweating like packhorses in our jumpsuits, the flies hovering around as if we were already dead. I was still carrying the MG34, with Wachter as my loader. He had seen something in my expression and was keeping behind me – or, more likely, he was using me as a shield against enemy fire. Lieutenant Horsmann moved from unit to unit, outlining the plan of attack on the RAF camp south of the airfield. It was unclear how many men were arrayed against us, so maximum force was to be used.

‘Including killing prisoners?’ I asked.

The lieutenant, a young man with little more than peach fuzz on his chin, avoided my eyes. ‘You heard Captain Blatter’s orders. We are the spearhead of the Wehrmacht. We cut through the enemy without mercy.’

I was going to raise the commandments, but I knew I’d be wasting my breath. My comrades were ready for action, their brows furrowed and their breath coming fast. They’d seen the dead men floating down under their parachutes and the planes taking flak. Now was their chance to blood themselves. Most of them were no older than Horsmann and hadn’t experienced the assaults in Belgium and Norway early in the war.