“So you reckon you could tamper with the evidence again – just as you did after Joyce’s death?”
He shrugged.
His next words were more chilling than anything he had said up until that point. “Mind you, it would probably be simpler if the bodies were found not tied up…”
“You mean dead before the fire got to them?”
“Why not?” Once again he tapped his nightstick against his palm. He looked across at the two women, assessing his next move.
Mrs Pargeter was not a religious woman. She was not convinced that God existed, and so her philosophy had always been to enjoy this life to the full, in case the concept of a future life was merely misleading propaganda circulated to control the worst excesses of public behaviour. But she prayed at that moment.
And, as Sergeant Karaskakis advanced towards her with his nightstick upraised, her prayer was answered.
The door burst open.
“No, Stephano! Don’t do it!”
Framed in the doorway against the first paleness of dawn stood Spiro.
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Package ∧
Thirty-Nine
Sergeant Karaskakis lowered his weapon, subdued by the presence of a personality stronger than his own. He was silent, awaiting orders.
Mrs Pargeter couldn’t understand in detail what orders Spiro gave him, but they seemed to be of the ‘Go outside, I’ll deal with you later’ variety. The Sergeant, with the bad grace of a cat who’s just had its mouse emancipated, slunk out of the hut into the grey dawn.
“Goodness,” said Mrs Pargeter, “am I glad to see you, Spiro! That was quite a close shave. Do you know, he was proposing to set fire to the headland around us?”
Spiro shook his head, his dark eyes more melancholy than ever. “Stephano is a dangerous and careless fool.”
“Yes.” Mrs Pargeter was suddenly garrulous with relief. “I do know all about what happened,” she said.
Spiro looked puzzled.
“In 1959,” she explained. “I know about the attempt to kill you, the way the outboard motor was sabotaged. And I know how it went wrong, and how Christo got hoist with his own petard, and how he got burnt and escaped to England and pretended to have come from Uruguay…”
Spiro still looked uncomprehending.
“Of course, you wouldn’t have heard about any of that. Don’t worry about it. The main thing is that I know why Joyce was killed and I know who killed her. And I’ve found out all about the curse your father put on Christo.”
“Curse?”
“Yes. I found it written on the back of the photograph – you know, in phenolphthalein.” The look of incomprehension in his face was now such that she explained, “Maybe it’s got a different name in Greek, but it’s that stuff that’s used as an indicator in chemistry, you know, to show the degree of alkaline or acidic content of…”
Her words drained away as she realised how little they meant to him. He did not understand even the most rudimentary details about chemistry.
And with that knowledge, she felt a whole sequence of other facts slot into place. Spiro had been the studious one who enjoyed chemistry, Christo the tearaway who wanted to own the taverna. But Chris Dover, presumed to be Christo, was the one who always wrote his secret correspondence in phenolphthalein.
Suddenly she saw a different perspective on the thirty-year-old ‘accident’ with the outboard motor. It was not an ‘own goal’ which had blown up in the perpetrator’s face. It had injured – though not killed – the person for whom it had been intended.
And old Spiro’s words, ‘though you try to hide behind a new name’, did not, as she had assumed, refer to Christo Karaskakis’ adoption of the pseudonym ‘Chris Dover’. They referred to Christo Karaskakis’ usurpation of the name of his older brother, Spiro.
Chris Dover had not run away and changed his identity to escape the consequences of any crime he had committed. It had been to escape another attack from his homicidal brother, Christo.
And, once Spiro had fled to England, Christo had calmly taken over the identity of his identical twin, together with the taverna that he had always set his heart on owning.
The new Spiro had been confident that no one would reveal his secret. The real Spiro was too frightened of him to risk his anger again. Their father had died almost immediately after the incident, his death no doubt hastened by the knowledge of his young son’s true nature. Their nine-year-old sister, Theodosia, had been traumatised into silence by witnessing the crime.
And, as for Stephano and Georgio, they were so totally the new Spiro’s creatures that they represented no threat. So long as he gave them both unlimited and never to be recovered credit at the taverna, they’d keep their mouths shut.
Christo, now called Spiro, had achieved his ambition and was free to concentrate on making money out of his ill-gotten inheritance.
The facts were undeniable, but Mrs Pargeter tried to pretend they weren’t. “Well, I think you can untie us now, can’t you, Spiro?” she said easily.
The implacable darkness of his eyes confirmed how forlorn her hope had been. For the first time since she had arrived on Corfu, Mrs Pargeter thought perhaps she understood the meaning of the expression ‘the Evil Eye’.
“Why did you kill Joyce?” she asked.
“She was in my way,” he replied shortly.
“But how?”
“My brother was a rich man.”
“You mean you hope to inherit his money…?”
Spiro did not reply, but Mrs Pargeter knew she had stumbled on the truth. All Spiro’s crimes had the same motivation. His first attempt to kill his brother had been to inherit the taverna. Now he was trying once again to take what was not his.
“Was it Georgio who told you he was still alive?”
Spiro nodded. “He was in London. He saw this man Chris Dover by chance in the street, he saw the likeness. He phoned me up to tell me.”
“And you told him to find out how much Chris Dover was worth?”
This earned another nod.
“But, if you were after his money, why didn’t you make another attempt to kill your brother?”
“I think about it, but it is difficult from here. Then I hear he has died, anyway. Even better, next I hear his wife is coming out here. And then his daughter follows.”
Conchita whimpered as she took in the implication of what he was saying.
Spiro let out an unpleasant laugh and opened his hands in a gesture of satisfaction. “St Spiridon helps all Spiros.”
“But you’re not a real Spiro.”
“I am now. I might as well be.”
“Listen,” said Mrs Pargeter firmly. “You’ve got something horribly wrong in all this, and that is the idea that you’ll ever be able to prove you’re related to your brother. Chris Dover covered his tracks so thoroughly that you don’t stand a chance.”
“I’ll do it,” Spiro insisted doggedly.
“You won’t. So, for heaven’s sake, stop this ridiculous business now. Joyce has already been killed for money that you’re never going to see – and nothing can be done about that – but stop now before you harm Conchita.”
“I am going to inherit my brother’s money.”
Mrs Pargeter looked into those dark eyes and saw no glimmer of hope at all. All that glowed in them was greed, an all-consuming peasant greed which was not susceptible to logic or argument. It was an obsession, a kind of madness, and a madness that could kill.
“Don’t do it,” she appealed. “Remember we are human beings. Just for a moment, think of Conchita and me as human beings.”
Spiro said nothing, but, pausing only to pick up the two petrol cans, walked out of the hut.