Mavros looked up as a shadow fell over them.

‘Not weeping for your lost comrades, are you, Kersten?’ David Waggoner said callously. ‘The ones who were shot to pieces in the olive groves and slaughtered in the open ground?’

Mavros stood up and put his hand on Waggoner’s arm. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said bluntly. ‘Leave him alone.’

‘No, Alex,’ Rudolf said, getting to his feet slowly. ‘Mr Waggoner is right. The Fallschirmjagermet their match on this island, there’s no doubt of that.’

‘And you’ve made a fortune with your fake remorse, your blood money to the victims and your rich man’s resort.’ The Englishman stared up at the taller German. ‘Just remember this. I know what you did. I know you were at Makrymari.’ The ex-SOE man executed a parade-ground turn and marched away, the sun glinting off the regimental badge on his blazer.

Rudolf Kersten sat down again. His wife spoke to him in German. Mavros wanted to ask what Waggoner had meant, but he could see it wasn’t the right time. He moved away and saw Luke Jannet and Alice Quincy coming towards him in a golf cart.

‘What’d’ya think of that?’ the director said triumphantly, as the vehicle drew up. ‘We got enough material for the whole drop in one afternoon. We can edit it so the single planes look like dozens.’

‘It was certainly spectacular,’ Mavros agreed.

‘And you found pouting Cara’s dyke too. Quite a day it’s turned out to be.’

‘She’s been badly treated,’ Mavros said, his eyes on Jannet’s. ‘And she isn’t speaking.’

The director stared back at him. ‘Some rapist pick her up?’

Mavros was angry with himself for not thinking of that. It would certainly explain Maria’s condition — but Jannet hadn’t seen her. It was quite a thing to suggest, unless he’d heard something from the clinic.

‘Has Rosie Yellenberg been on the phone?’ he asked.

‘Rosie? Nah, she knows better than to bother me when I’m shooting.’

Mavros glanced at Alice Quincy. She looked uncomfortable, but that was her default mode.

‘We’ll be having a drink tonight,’ Jannet said. ‘Alice will tell you where and when. Guess you’ll be leaving tomorrow.’

‘Maybe,’ Mavros said, turning away. He wasn’t sure about Luke Jannet — either he was nothing but a coarse Hollywood operator, or he was more concerned about Maria Kondos than he was letting on — his eyes had been hard to read when he was talking about her. Either way, he could probe again later.

Riding the papakiback to the gate, Mavros saw Mikis leaning on the Jeep outside.

‘Good timing,’ he said, as he was let through on foot.

‘That’s what you think. My old man thinks you should get off the island immediately.’

Mavros’s heart missed a beat. ‘Why?’

‘We had a call from Kornaria — that wanker Dhrakakis. He made all kinds of threats to us and to you, including one about your kidneys.’

‘Great.’

‘There’s only one thing you can do if you want to stay,’ Mikis said, a smile hovering on his lips.

‘Take up pistol shooting?’

‘Wouldn’t hurt. No, you need to take heed of what the mayor of Kornaria said.’

Mavros stared at him uncomprehendingly.

The Cretan laughed. ‘Seriously consider getting your hair cut.’

‘Screw you, Miki. I’d rather take my chances with the dope-growers.’

‘Oh, that’s on the cards,’ the driver replied, his expression darkening. ‘That is definitely on the cards.’

ELEVEN

Back in his room in the hotel, Mavros booted up his laptop and checked his emails. The Fat Man had forwarded a large number of files in English — the old communist had never learned many words of the former imperial power’s language on principle. He had learned other things, which he asked Mavros to call him about.

‘How goes it, Yiorgo?’

‘Ah, the arse-licker of Hollywood. Still alive?’

Mavros told him about the dust-up with the men from Kornaria and the vendetta that had been proclaimed.

‘Marx, Engels and Lenin,’ the Fat Man said, with a groan, ‘you’ve been on the Great Island less than two days and already there’s a price on your head?’

‘Just doing my job. What about yours?’

‘Oh, I’m getting paid for this, am I? That’ll make a change.’

Mavros rolled his eyes. ‘As a matter of fact, the money is the only good part of this case. Make out an invoice. And talk.’

‘“Make out an invoice,” he says,’ Yiorgos said caustically. ‘Where do you think you are? Germany?’

The Fat Man wasn’t far from the truth, Mavros thought. The Heavenly Blue was an oasis of German order and calm, despite the staff in local costumes. Outside the perimeter fence, things were rather more fraught.

‘All right, let’s have it, Fat Man,’ he said, opening his notebook.

‘Who do you want first? There’s more on the Greek sites about Rudolf Kersten than the others. And — get this — he’s really popular for a German.’

As his friend spoke, Mavros was scrolling down the pages he’d been forwarded about the former paratrooper.

‘He made a fortune in the building trade in the Ruhr valley after the war,’ Yiorgos said, ‘starting off as a bricklayer and ending up as chief executive of the company.’ He grunted. ‘What we’d call a class traitor.’

Mavros ignored that, his eye having been caught by Kersten’s later war record. ‘He served on the Eastern Front,’ he noted, ‘wounded three times, twice seriously, and was both decorated and promoted several times.’

‘So he was an enemy of the Soviet motherland too,’ the Fat Man said sourly.

‘He passed through the denazification programme in 1947 and, having made his fortune, moved to Crete in 1964 to build the Heavenly Blue. He used only Greek architects, designers and labour, as well as donating large sums of money to villages that had suffered during the Axis occupation.’ He remembered what David Waggoner had said about blood money. That seemed a pretty uncharitable view.

‘He was in with the bastard Colonels, of course,’ Yiorgos said. ‘They were very happy to sell him permits to develop the hotel.’

‘Not sure if you can blame him for that,’ Mavros countered. ‘How many Greeks did the same thing?’

‘Greeks of the thieving, collaborating class.’

Yeah, yeah, Mavros thought. There was some truth in what the Fat Man said, but life wasn’t that simple. The dictatorship had lasted seven years and people had to feed their families somehow. He had a brief glimpse of his brother Andonis — long lost and a likely victim of the brutal regime — but, unlike in the past, the smiling face faded quickly.

‘Your problem, Yiorgo,’ he said, scrolling down more attachments, ‘is that Rudolf Kersten seems to be a genuinely good man, even though he’s a capitalist.’

‘And former Nazi. You should see what David Waggoner has to say about him.’

‘I’ve already heard him on the subject.’ Mavros found a file bearing the Briton’s name. There was a newspaper report of the sixtieth memorial of the Battle of Crete in 1941, when there had been tension between Allied and German veterans. A group of former SOE men, including Waggoner, had rounded on paratroop survivors and berated them for singing Nazi songs in the cemetery near Maleme. From what he could gather, Rudolf Kersten had stood apart with Hildegard and remained silent.

‘You see that story in the Free News?’ the Fat Man asked.

Waggoner had been interviewed following the death of one of his SOE comrades in Crete. He said that several Nazi war criminals, including one who had taken part in a massacre on the island, were still at large and had never been brought to justice — and one was even the head of a large enterprise near Chania.

‘Did you find anything else on that?’ Mavros asked.

‘Not even in Rizospastis,’ Yiorgos replied, naming the Communist Party organ. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if Kersten is friends with the capitalist press barons. Maybe he put his lawyers on our people.’