‘Follow us,’ Mavros said to Mikis. ‘I think I’m going to need you.’
In the limousine, Hildegard sank back in the leather and inhaled. ‘I can smell my Rudi,’ she said, then steeled herself. ‘Whatever the police and their idiot doctors say, I know Rudi was murdered. You will help me, Alex?’
‘It’s rather out of my area of expertise.’ He was still troubled by his anger against the dead man but, even if he had taken part in the massacre, Hildegard was in no way to blame.
‘If money is the problem. .’
‘No, no, you’ve already shown how generous you can be.’ Mavros looked through the tinted glass at the villas alongside the road, then turned back to her. ‘I’ll need to ask some difficult questions.’
The widow looked at him unwaveringly. ‘I have no secrets from you, Alex.’
‘Did your husband keep any secrets from you?’
‘No,’ she said emphatically. ‘What do you want to know?’
Mavros took out his notebook, and then closed it. After its recent confiscation by Margaritis, he didn’t want to put anything potentially incriminating in it.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘assuming it is murder, who do you think could have done it and why?’
‘David Waggoner,’ she said, without hesitation. ‘He has always hated Rudi.’
‘Why?’
Hildegard gave him a sharp look. ‘Because of the war, of course.’
‘Yes, but specifically?’
‘Oh, because of the massacre at Makrymari. You know about it?’
Mavros nodded. ‘Your husband took part in it.’
‘No!’ she cried, causing Yerasimos to look in the mirror. ‘I’m sorry. No, Alex, that isn’t true. He was forced by a vile captain to stand in the firing squad, but he had suffered a serious head wound and he collapsed when the execution started.’
‘He told you that?’
‘Yes, but he also wrote it down as a kind of memoir. It’s in the safe back at the hotel. It’s in German.’
They had already established that he didn’t speak the language.
‘Is there anything about Waggoner in it?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s just the point. Rudi was in the battle at Galatsi and he describes a fair-haired and stocky British officer in a tank. He later saw the same man shooting wounded Germans in the head.’
Jesus, Mavros thought. The Battle of Crete was like a tumour in the island’s entrails, a stain on its history that contaminated the present.
‘How did your husband survive the fighting?’
‘He was saved by that woman, the one known as Black Katina. On the day he landed, he had avoided killing her.’
Now Mavros understood Rudolf Kersten’s actions at the memorial wall and his words to Cara Parks before the recreation of the massacre. He felt ashamed of his anger.
‘Why would Waggoner wait for so many years?’ he asked.
‘Because he’d been blackmailing Rudi since we came to Crete. How do you think he could afford that house up in the mountains? He hasn’t worked since he was drummed out of the British Army. Now we have little except the apartment, which is on a lifelong peppercorn lease. The resort has been sold and all our property in Germany liquidated. Rudi told him there would be no more money last month.’
‘Not quite everything,’ Mavros said. ‘There’s the coin collection.’
‘Yes, there is. Rudi’s precious silver. I never liked his collecting those objects. He should have given them all to museums.’
‘As he did with the Jewish relics.’
Hildegard looked at him. ‘You already know much about us.’
‘Not enough, apparently.’ He told her about Waggoner’s location during the film shoot.
‘Ach, that is nothing. He would have used the grandson of one of his andartesin the war.’
‘Maybe. Have you considered that your own grandson might be involved?’
She stared at him with undisguised horror, as the Mercedes stopped at the gate of the Heavenly Blue. ‘Oskar? No. . it’s impossible. He doesn’t have the nerve to do something so awful.’
‘He has some unpleasant friends.’
‘Those fools with the shaven heads and the big boots? Straw men, all of them. They wouldn’t dare.’
‘Your grandson did steal those thirty coins.’
‘He’s lazy — a leech. His father died when he was three and his mother spoiled him, not that she ever had much. He grew up in the East after reunification — she found some man there, a spendthrift who tried to get money from Rudi. He was always strict with Franziska, so they never got more than the minimum to supplement their benefits. And before you ask, both our daughter and he are dead, in a car crash ten years ago.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Mavros said, getting out of the car. Yerasimos held the door open for Hildegard. ‘Is there someone you can call to sit with you?’
‘We have many friends on Crete, but I prefer to be on my own now.’ The widow gave him a brief smile. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not what the police doctors would call suicidal. Knock on the door or call if you need anything.’ She kissed his cheek.
‘Thank you, Alex. You don’t know how much this means to me.’
Mavros watched her go, the weight of her sorrow pressing down on him. Then he remembered something and ran after her.
‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘Do you know a Tryfon Roufos?’
‘Horrible man!’ Hildegard exclaimed. ‘He’s been badgering Rudi for months about the silver collection. Only a few days ago, they had words on the telephone.’ She walked towards the apartment door, the staff bowing to her, their faces tear-stained.
Mikis appeared at his shoulder. ‘This is terrible. I can’t believe Mr Kersten killed himself.’
‘He didn’t. Let’s go and find the fuckers who made it look like he did.’
‘So, left or right?’ Mikis asked, as they went past the resort gate in the Jeep.
‘Left for Chania,’ Mavros replied. ‘Now that Maria Kondos is out of the clinic, what are your pals up to?’
‘Their jobs. Why? Do you need them again?’
‘Maybe later. I’ve found out some interesting things.’ He told the Cretan about Waggoner’s blackmailing of the Kerstens and Roufos’s attempts to buy his silver collection.
‘I always thought the Englishman was a piece of shit,’ Mikis said, accelerating past a tractor. ‘I’ve seen plenty of those guys at the battle celebrations and they’re friendly enough — even the Germans. But Waggoner always seemed to be on his own, as if even his former comrades didn’t like his smell.’
‘You know anything about the communists on Crete during the war?’ Mavros asked, wondering again about his father’s role.
‘Not much. There weren’t many of them to start with and those that stayed were pretty well boxed in by the resistance leaders and the British.’
‘Waggoner claimed he was betrayed by one of them.’
‘That cache of silver was to be shipped to Egypt. According to my grandfather, who was a shepherd in Selino, with contacts in the resistance, the Germans killed most of the andartes, as well as the monks at Ayios Athanasios, and grabbed the loot.’
‘That’s right. According to Waggoner, an EAM operative known as Kanellos tipped off the occupiers.’
‘No, that’s rubbish,’ the driver said, slowing as they reached the city limits. ‘The informer was one of Waggoner’s own Cretans. He killed the man himself after he came back from Egypt. My grandfather knew the guy — he’d been tortured by the Germans and his family had been threatened. Standard occupiers’ tactics.’
Mavros blinked away the sudden film of tears that had covered his eyes. So his father hadn’t been a rat. He’d never really believed he was, but the confirmation made him feel much better. It also showed that David Waggoner had lied in his memoir. Was he embarrassed about shooting one of his own men — his admission to such an act earlier made that unlikely — or by his lack of judgement in trusting the man?