“Perhaps it’s not a good idea tonight,” Alex said, and Banks noticed he was putting the chess set away. It had always been a mere backdrop to conversation, anyway, as neither was a skilled player.
“I’m sorry,” said Banks. “I just don’t seem to be in the mood. I’d only lose.”
“You usually do. But it’s all right, my friend. Clearly there is something troubling you.” Alex stood to leave, but Banks reached out and touched his arm. Oddly enough, he wanted to tell someone. “No, stay,” he said, pouring them both a generous glass of ouzo. Alex looked at him for a moment with those serious brown eyes and sat down again.
“When I was fourteen,” said Banks, looking out at the lights in the harbor and listening to the stays on the fishing boats rattle, “a close school friend of mine disappeared. He was never seen again. Nobody ever found out what happened to him. Not a trace.” He smiled and turned to look at Alex. “It’s funny because this music seemed to be playing constantly back then: ‘Zorba’s Dance.’ It was a big hit in England at the time. Marcello Minerbi. Funny, the little things you remember, isn’t it?”
Alex nodded. “Memory is indeed a mysterious process.”
“And often not to be trusted.”
“True, it seems that as things lie there, they are… strangely metamorphosed.”
“A lovely Greek word, metamorphosed.”
“It is. One thinks of Ovid, of course.”
“But it happens to the past, doesn’t it? To our memories.”
“Yes.”
“Anyway,” Banks went on, “there was a general assumption at the time that my friend, Graham was his name, had been abducted by a pedophile – another Greek word, but not so lovely – and done away with.”
“It seems a reasonable assumption, given life in the cities. But might he not have simply run away from home?”
“That was another theory, but he had no reason to, as far as anyone knew. He was happy enough, and he never talked about running off. Anyway,” Banks went on, “all attempts to find him failed and he never turned up again. The thing is, about two months earlier, I was playing down by the river when a man came and grabbed me and tried to push me in.”
“What happened?”
“I was wiry and slippery enough to wriggle my way free and run off.”
“But you never told the authorities?”
“I never even told my parents.”
“Why not?”
“You know what kids are like, Alex. I wasn’t meant to be playing down there, for a start. It was quite a long way from home. I was also playing truant. I was supposed to be at school. And I suppose I blamed myself. I just didn’t want to get into trouble.”
Alex poured more ouzo. “So when your friend disappeared, you assumed it was the same man?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve been carrying the guilt all these years?”
“I suppose so. I never really thought about it that way, but every once in a while, when I think about it, I feel… it’s like an old wound that never quite heals. I don’t know. I think it was partly why I…”
“Why you what?”
“Never mind.”
“Why you became a policeman?”
Banks looked at him in astonishment. “How did you know?”
Alex was smiling. “I’ve met a few in my time. You get to recognize the signs.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, watchfulness, curiosity, a certain way of walking and sitting. Little things.”
Banks laughed. “By the sound of it, you’d make a pretty good policeman yourself, Alex.”
“Oh, no. I think not.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think I could ever be quite certain that I was on the right side.”
“And are you now?”
“I try to be.”
“So do I,” said Banks.
“I’m sure you are a good policeman. You must remember, though, in Greece… well, we’ve had our share of regimes. But please go on.”
Banks tapped the folded newspaper. “They’ve found him,” he said. “Buried by the roadside about eight miles away from where he disappeared.”
Alex whistled between his teeth.
“They don’t know the cause of death yet,” Banks went on, “but he couldn’t have got there by himself.”
“So perhaps the assumptions were right?”
“Yes.”
“And that makes you feel bad all over again, does it?”
“Terrible. What if I was responsible, Alex? What if it was the same man? If I’d spoken up…”
“Even if you had reported what happened, it doesn’t mean he would have been caught. These men can be very clever, as I’m sure you have learned over the years.” Alex shook his head. “But I’m not foolish enough to believe that one can talk a man out of his guilt when he’s set on feeling it. Do you believe in fate?”
“I don’t know.”
“We Greeks are great believers in fate, in destiny.”
“What does it matter, anyway?”
“Because it exonerates you. Don’t you see? It’s like the Catholic Church absolving you of sin. If it’s fate, then you were meant to survive and not tell anyone, and your friend was destined to be abducted and killed and his body discovered many years later.”
“Then I don’t believe in fate.”
“Well, it was worth a try,” said Alex. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. There’s nothing I can do, really, is there? The local police will investigate, and they’ll either find out what happened, or they won’t. My bet is that after all these years they won’t.”
Alex said nothing for a moment, just toyed with his ouzo glass, then he took a long sip and sighed.
“What?” said Banks.
“I have a feeling I’m going to miss you, my friend.”
“Why? I’m not going anywhere.”
“You know the Germans occupied this island during the war?”
“Of course,” said Banks, surprised by Alex’s abrupt change of subject. “I’ve explored the old fortifications. You know I have. We talked about it. It wasn’t exactly The Guns of Navarone, but I was impressed.”
Alex waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “You and I can only imagine what life was like under the Nazi occupation,” he said, “but my father lived through it. He once told me a story about when he was a boy, not much older than you and your friend were. The German officer in command of the island was called von Braun, and everyone thought he must have been an incompetent bastard to be sent somewhere like this. As you say, my friend, not exactly The Guns of Navarone, not exactly the most strategic position in the Mediterranean. Nevertheless, someone had to keep an eye on the populace, and von Braun was the man. It wasn’t a very exacting task, and I’m sure the soldiers posted here became very sloppy.
“One day, my father and three of his friends stole a German jeep. The roads are bad, as you can see even now, and they couldn’t drive, of course, and knew nothing beyond the rudiments, so they crashed into a boulder after they’d barely gone half a mile. Luckily, they were uninjured and ran away before the soldiers were alerted to what had happened, though apparently one soldier saw them and told von Braun there were four kids.” Alex paused and lit one of his Turkish cigarettes. Banks had once questioned him on the political correctness of a Greek smoking Turkish tobacco, but all he’d said was that it tasted better.
“Anyway,” Alex went on, expelling a plume of smoke, “whatever the reason, von Braun took it upon himself to seek retribution, make an example, in the same way the Nazis did in many occupied villages. He probably wanted to prove that he wasn’t just some soft, incompetent idiot sent to the middle of nowhere to keep him out of harm’s way. He rounded up four teenage boys – the same number the soldier had counted – and had them shot just over there.” Alex pointed to where the main street met the quayside. “Two of them had actually been involved; the other two were innocent. None of them was my father.”