‘Have a good time last night?’ she asked, in a way that suggested she knew he’d left the resort.

‘Following some leads.’

‘Jesus, how much do we have to pay you to get some answers?’ she demanded, the tension back in her voice.

Mavros raised his hands to placate her, though she was still glaring at him. ‘I’m being paid to answer one question only,’ he replied stolidly. ‘Where’s Maria Kondos? At the moment, all I can say is, “I don’t know”.’

Cara Parks relaxed slightly. ‘You’d better hurry up. This is your penultimate day, according to Luke.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve got Matthew, Mark and John in reserve.’

Another peal of laughter rang out as he headed for the door.

‘Hey, Scottish-Greek?’

He looked over his shoulder.

‘Get yourself across to the set this afternoon. They’re flying the old planes, remember?’

He didn’t commit himself, but wondered whether that was why Rudolf Kersten had looked so apprehensive, even after he’d got his coins and money back.

Mikis was on another job, but would be at the hotel in an hour. In the meantime, Mavros went back to his room and called Niki on her work line.

‘Morning, pretty woman.’

‘Ah, the prodigal lover,’ she said, with only mild irony. ‘How’s living it up with the cream of Hollywood? Did you have dinner with the stars?’

He decided against telling her he’d just had a private audience with Cara Parks. Or that he’d started a bar fight in Chania old town last night.

‘Pretty dull, really. Still haven’t found the woman.’

‘Keep it that way. I’m flying over if you’re not back by Friday night.’

That would be an enormous distraction. Besides, he’d be off the job by then if Luke Jannet had his way — which was pretty strange, considering the director had flown all the way to Athens to hire him. Maybe he liked turning the screw for the sake of it.

‘Alex?’

‘Oh, sorry. Yeah, well, I’ll see how things go.’

‘Is she as stunning as the photos suggest? And don’t say “who?”.’

‘The delectable Cara? There you are — I’ve answered the question already.’

‘With another one. Don’t even think of touching those Twin Peaks.’

‘Sorry, I’m being waved at by an irate producer,’ he lied. ‘Talk to you later.’ He loved Niki dearly, but her constant fear that he would be unfaithful got him down. There were times when he’d been tempted, but so far he hadn’t let her down. That didn’t mean he liked being reminded of his duty.

He rang the Fat Man.

‘Christ and the Holy Mother,’ the communist said — the comrades were surprisingly unconcerned about swearing by things they didn’t believe in. ‘I haven’t got much yet.’

‘Quick question. Have you ever heard of a village called Kornaria down here?’

‘Isn’t that the place where the locals grow cannabis, and fought the cops off?

Hold on, I’m accessing a search engine. Yes, that’s right. It was last autumn. The forces of public order — it says here — attempted to reach the cultivation sheds, but they came under severe attack from the Kornariates, who loosed off anything from Second World War machine-pistols to hunting rifles at them, wounding four and driving the rest — nearly a hundred of them — back down the mountain road. There’s been an enquiry going on ever since, but it won’t get anywhere. The local MPs and other officials know all about the drug production and are doing everything they can to obstruct external interference in Cretan affairs. Fucking hypocrites!’

‘Yeah.’ Mavros was turning pages in his notebook. ‘Do a search on Dhrakakis, Vasilios,’ he said, finding the name registered to the number he had called from Maria Kondos’s phone.

‘Bingo,’ Yiorgos said, after a few seconds. ‘He’s the mayor of Kornaria. Doesn’t say much else, only that his family is the biggest in the village.’

‘That’ll do for now. Thanks, Fat Man.’ He rang off before he heard more than a couple of words of complaint.

A few minutes later, Mikis pulled up at the front of the hotel. ‘Apparently I’m your private chauffeur until further notice,’ he said, grinning widely. ‘More neo-Nazi baiting?’

‘Possibly.’ Mavros climbed into the Jeep and stuffed two hundred Euros into the driver’s shirt pocket. ‘Special request from Mr Kersten,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t want to offend such an important local figure.’

Mikis didn’t look happy, but left the notes where they were. ‘Where are we going, then?’

Mavros was looking at the map he had bought. ‘Get us to Karies and then I’ll direct you.’

‘Karies? There’s not much up there.’ He turned to Mavros. ‘Except the track to Kornaria. You wouldn’t by any chance be wanting to go to that crazy end-of-the-road place, would you?’

‘Erm, maybe.’

Mikis stopped the Jeep. ‘You need to be straight with me, Alex. I know this island. There are places you can’t go asking questions.’

‘You’re right.’ He recounted the story of his call to Dhrakakis and his idea that Maria Kondos might be in the village.

‘Sounds pretty thin to me,’ the Cretan said.

‘I’m sure he knew her,’ Mavros countered. ‘In my business you learn to tell when people are lying.’

‘That may be,’ Mikis said, ‘but Kornaria is bandit country — always has been. Not that I’ve ever been near the dump. It’s up in the middle of nowhere for a reason, you know. The Venetians never got it, the Turks steered clear, even the Germans left the locals to themselves. The headbangers from Sphakia like to think they’re Crete’s bad boys, but they’ve got nothing on the Kornariates.’

‘Wonderful,’ Mavros muttered. ‘Couldn’t I just pretend to be a dumb foreigner on a personal tour?’

‘Need to take these off,’ Mikis said, slapping the outside of his door.

Mavros remembered the stickers for Freedom or Death. ‘Yeah, maybe you should.’ He didn’t mention that David Waggoner, one of the film’s consultants, had a place near the village. He presumed he’d be on location today, watching the planes and remembering the days of death and defeat.

Mikis jumped out and peeled the decals off. ‘Plenty of these back in the depot,’ he said, getting back behind the wheel. ‘OK, let’s play it your way. You speak only English and I’ll see if we can pick up any hint of the missing woman.’

They drove out of the resort and headed east, before turning south on a road that bisected lush groves of fruit and olive trees. The sun was already high in the sky, but they were shaded from its heat and the first half-hour of the trip was a pleasure. Then the road started to climb and the foliage thinned, until soon all that confronted them were the sheer bare flanks of the White Mountains, their summits capped in glinting silvery white. Although they weren’t far from Chania as the crow flies, it was a different world.

‘Don’t be fooled,’ Mikis said, as he slipped into third gear. ‘There are plenty of watercourses that you can’t see from here and villages were built around them, even in ancient times. There’s one of those Mycenaean beehive tombs not far from here. A lot of the villages are deserted now, the people down on the coast fleecing the tourists.’ He laughed. ‘Like my family. Our village is further to the west. There are twelve people in it now, all of them over seventy-five.’

Mavros nodded. It was a common tale in the mountainous parts of Greece. Signs pointed to villages that weren’t on his map. The road was asphalt, the result of European Union grants, but it was badly potholed.

At Karies, Mikis turned to him. ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?’

‘Yes. Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll claim that my British grandfather was here during the war with the SOE.’ That way, he might also find out more about Waggoner. ‘Let’s say he was known as Panos, that’s common enough. If we get anywhere with that, we’ll ask if there are any Kondos’s in the village.’

Mikis shrugged. ‘It’s not a very Cretan name.’ He was concentrating on the much rougher track they were now grinding up. The bushes on either side were thick and thorny, but the trees were leafless and bent.