The mixture of conscientiousness and condescension silenced Mavros for a few seconds. The old man’s residence was literally behind the shop. A short corridor led to a large living area with a view across the grounds to the sea.
‘Please be seated. I will arrange coffee.’
‘No, I. .’ Mavros tried to stop him, not being a fan of that beverage in the afternoon, but Kersten headed away without paying attention.
‘There,’ he said, returning almost immediately. ‘Hildegard will be with us shortly.’ He sat down in what was obviously a favourite armchair, his walking stick fitting into a groove on the side. ‘Ms Parks is most distressed about her friend Maria, Mr Mavro. I understand you have undertaken to find her.’
‘I have.’ Mavros looked at his notebook. ‘Actually, there are some specifics you could pass on to your people.’ He paused, wondering if the old man would call a secretary or take notes of his own.
‘Fear not, my memory is still excellent,’ Kersten said, with a smile. His face was leathery and his hair sparse, but the sparkle in his pale blue eyes gave him the look of a younger man.
‘All right. Could you find out from housekeeping when the “Do Not Disturb” sign was first noticed on room 243?’
‘That is easy. I have already ascertained that the sign has been on the door since Ms Kondos arrived nearly two weeks ago. It seems the lady likes to look after herself.’
Or not, Mavros thought. ‘Right. Did any of your people see Ms Kondos on Sunday evening?’
‘As far as I have been able to ascertain — and I have been working on this since Ms Parks first called me yesterday morning — none of them did.’ He looked down briefly. ‘That isn’t to say that one or more of them might not have been paid for their silence. It is my experience that people in the film business, especially Americans, can demonstrate remarkable largesse when the mood takes them.’
Mavros sensed the wisdom in the old man’s words — he had clearly seen much in his years as host to the rich and powerful. ‘Do you have CCTV?’
‘Outside the perimeter, yes, but not inside. I am not enamoured of today’s surveillance society.’ He looked across at Mavros. ‘I came of age in Hitler’s Germany.’
‘Rudi?’
Mavros looked round to see a short woman in an unseasonably thick skirt coming towards them with a tray between her hands. Although she must have been in her seventies, her hair was pale gold and plaited elaborately at the back of her head. He stood up to help, but she tutted him away, putting the coffee pot and cups on the mahogany table.
‘This is Mr Mavros,’ Kersten said, continuing in Greek. ‘My dear wife, Hildegard.’
Mavros shook hands with her and watched as the old couple kissed each other on the lips.
‘How do you take your coffee?’ the woman asked.
‘White, no sugar,’ Mavros replied, wanting to dilute the caffeine hit.
‘Mr Mavros has come to find Maria Kondos, Hildegard,’ Kersten said. ‘I’m giving him all the help I can.’
‘I’m sure you are. It’s a shame the people making the film haven’t shown more interest.’
The hotel owner looked surprised. ‘But they brought Mr Mavros from Athens. He’s the best in the business.’
Hildegard Kersten turned her eyes back on Mavros. ‘Is that so? Well, I wish you luck. They are all crazy, those people. It’s only Ms Parks who really wants her friend back.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Mavros asked. He had seen that Rudolf Kersten gave his guests a more personalized service than that of most hotel-keepers, but he didn’t want him and his wife to retreat behind the shield of confidentiality. He had also picked up a hint of tension as the old woman had come in — when her husband had mentioned Hitler’s Germany.
‘I’ve seen them together,’ Hildegard replied. ‘They have a high level of dependency on each other.’
‘But you haven’t seen Maria since. .?’
‘Sunday afternoon,’ she replied instantly. ‘When the limousine brought them back from the shoot.’
‘We were in the car behind,’ Rudolf Kersten added.
‘My husband is the film’s official consultant regarding the Fallschirmjager— the German paratroops.’
Something had stirred in Mavros’s memory, a newspaper article with photographs from a previous May when the Battle of Crete memorial was attended by veterans from all sides.
‘You were one of them, weren’t you?’
The old man nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I was,’ he said, his voice weaker. ‘It was the worst experience of my life — and later I fought on the Eastern Front.’
‘Hush,’ Hildegard said, going to her husband and taking his hand. ‘I told you the film would bring back too many painful memories.’
Kersten smiled sadly. ‘But that is precisely the point, my dear. The film will lay the memories that have been tormenting me at last. The film will make me free.’
Mavros felt like a child that had strayed into a room where the big people were doings things far beyond his ken.
From The Descent of Icarus:
Allied resistance around the Tavronitis river-bed had been subdued, at least for the time being, by bombing and strafing. Peter Wachter and I made our way across the rock-strewn watercourse, keeping our heads down as the 109s streaked overhead. One of our gliders had crashed into the west bank, the aircraft’s flimsy frame crumpled like a dirty handkerchief. Bodies were strewn around it, limbs at crazy angles and faces already swollen in the heat.
‘What now?’ I asked, after gulping from a water flask I’d picked up from a dead man.
Peter was peering through the trees that lined the dry river. ‘I reckon Maleme airfield’s a couple of kilometres to the north.’ He pointed. ‘See the bridge? It’s beyond that, on the other side.’
I took in the fragile metal structure. ‘You’d have thought the Brits would have blown it.’
‘You would. And you’d have thought they’d be defending it on both sides, but we seem to be in the clear here.’
I caught the unmistakable low rumble of Auntie Jus, coming toward us from the sea. One of the leading aircraft was hit in the port wing and dropped to the ground like a lead weight before anyone could jump. The others ploughed on through the storm of fire and parachutes started to appear.
‘They’re going to come down ahead of us,’ Wachter said, clutching my arm. I saw that he’d been badly scared by what he’d been through. I hadn’t had time to be afraid. ‘Come on.’
I followed him through the trees and we came upon a comrade cutting away his parachute lines. We exchanged unit numbers with him as more men came down, most of them escaping the machine-gun fire from the hill across the Tavronitis.
‘You’d better come with us,’ a gnarled sergeant said, handing Peter drums of MG ammo from a canister. ‘Our officers have made it.’
I recognized the leaders of the company. Lieutenant Kurt Horsmann was a decent enough type, but Captain Horst Blatter, his face marked by duelling scars, was the kind of stiff-necked Prussian who led by instilling terror in his men. He glared at Wachter and me as if we were deserters.
‘You say you’re the only survivors of your unit?’ he demanded. ‘That’s impossible.’
Wachter nodded to the hill. ‘We came down in open ground to the rear of that, sir. There are New Zealanders all over it. And that’s not all.’ He stopped and looked at me, expecting me to continue the story.
‘There are civilians, sir,’ I said. ‘Armed civilians.’
Blatter removed his helmet and put on his peaked cap — he was even more of a crazed Prussian than I’d imagined, showing no fear of the bullets that were cutting through the trees.
‘Civilians?’ he barked. ‘Armed with what?’
‘Rifles that looked at least a hundred years old,’ I replied.
‘And axes,’ Wachter put in animatedly. ‘And knives, frying pans, spades, whatever you like.’
The captain glanced at Lieutenant Horsmann, who had sensibly kept his helmet on. ‘Did these savages account for any of our men, Private?’ he asked, his eyes boring into Wachter’s.