22

Breakfast struck at half past eight.

'What the hell am I doing up at this time?' Ken asked sourly. 'I must have gone to bed sober or something.'

'Happens to everybody sooner or later.' I stabbed my poached egg with a fork, but it didn't mind. 'How's the neck?'

'Stiff. Does anything show?'

'No.' He had his old brownish Paisley-pattern silk scarf folded as a high choker; the same scarf I remembered him wearing… well, two years ago, and it didn't look as if it had been washed since. Funny how a man can change his shirt and underclothes as often as he can afford it, and still wrap his neck in a piece of silk that's been used to plug an oil leak.

He grunted: 'What's the weather?'

From habit, I'd already rung the airport. 'Clear today but there's a low south-west of here. We could get a front through tomorrow.'

'Umm.' He mixed more instant coffee. 'What odds that we get Inspector Lazaros in here before lunch?'

'No bet. I suppose we say we spent the evening boozing?' r As long as they don't test our blood-alcohol level. What I've got in mine wouldn't keep a flea's mind off his mortgage.' He looked at his watch. 'I wish they'd hurry up and find him. Once we're told he's dead, there's a few questions we can ask.'

So right then we got Lazaros, well up on schedule but only by missing out on sleep. If he'd looked tired last night, this morning he looked exhumed. His face was fat and thin in the wrong places, his eyes were puffy red slits and his suit drooped like stale lettuce.

'You look like it was a night to remember or perhaps forget," I said cheerfully. 'Coffee?'

'No, thank you. I have had more coffee last night than…' his voice died off, he dragged out a cigarette and lit it with hands that shuddered from sheer tiredness.

'You had a night out with Papa?' Ken suggested.

Lazaroslooked at him. 'No. He was murdered."

Ken said: 'Christ!… ohno' and I said something but not quite as ring-of-truth.

Ken asked: 'You found him at his house?'

'No. He was in his car, on the short road from Kyrenia to here. A United Nations patrol found him after midnight, and I was called out just when I had got home to bed.'

'How was he killed?' I asked. Wehad to remember to get told these things.

Lazarosswung his thin bleary glance at me. 'He was shot. Twice, with two different guns. Probably to make the impression it was done by bandits – or the Turks. But one shot was already after he was dead.'

'Two guns,' I said, just to make it quite sure.

'Yes, so two men. One in the car with Papadimitriou – he would not have gone up there until he was compelled – and one driving the other car to take the murderer back."

Ken said softly: 'How very logical.' And it was. So now we'd got them chasing two men instead of one.

I said: 'We were over that way last night. In Kapotas's car.'

Lazaros's eyes got almost open. 'What time? Why?'

'Oh, half past ten, maybe.' Deliberately late. 'We were sort of drinking around and thought Kyrenia-'

'Shit! ' His eyes were definitely open by now, but no prettier for it. 'You went to warn Papadimitriou I was coming. You knew you could take the short-'

'There's the telephone,' Ken said. 'If we really wanted to warn him.'

Lazarosblinked and got a better idea. 'Or maybe you were the two men.'

After a while I said: 'It works, you know. We could just get over the hill and grab Papa, in the time.'

Ken's bony face wrinkled in disgust. 'And then stand there blasting away with two guns, waking up every sheep and United Nations patrol in the hills? Give me a jack handle and I'd beat his head in as quiet as a lullaby.'

'Oh, I like that,' I said. 'But I insist on doing something more creative with the body. Drive his car back down and dump it outeast of Kyrenia, way off our route.'

'But that's quite beautiful," Ken said. 'It's a pleasure to do murder with you.'

Lazarossaid: 'Now just shut up and-'

'But why,' I asked, 'do you insist on a jack handle?'

'I'm not insisting at all,' Ken said reassuringly. 'Spanner, tyre lever – one has to keep an open mind, don't you agree? I'd say half the world's troubles-'

'Be quiet! 'Lazaros shouted.

'-come from not keeping an open mind.'

Lazarosreached under his jacket and took out an automatic and pointed it between us. 'You are arrested.'

Ken said: 'Browning 9-rml. Double-action, so he might get it to go off.'

Lazarosstretched and slapped the gun down on Ken's hand. Or tried. Ken's hands shifted like a card sharp's, Lazaros jerked back, the gun twizzled loose on the table.

Ken's expression was plain disgust. 'Tough Paphos Gate copper. Just preserving that station's reputation, I suppose. Better keep the gun.' He pushed it across and Lazaros caught it before it hit the floor.

Then straightened up slowly. In the silence we heard the phone ring in the lobby.

In a carefully controlled voice: 'You are still under arrest.'

I asked: 'Are we allowed the traditional phone call? '

'To who?'

'I was thinking the superintendent at Kyrenia who's in charge of the case.'

Ken said, almost to himself: 'Of course. It's Kyrenia's murder. And murder's a Super's job. I wonder how he likes his witnesses? – just lightly antagonised or given the full Paphos Gate treatment?'

The chambermaid – Papa's 'niece' – came in and told Ken the phone was for him. He stood up. 'Do I get an armed escort?'

'Take it,'Lazaros said impatiently, holding the gun out of sight. Ken and the girl went out; Lazaros sat down again.

'Have you told her yet?' I asked.

He shook his head. 'It is not my case.' He sighed and put the Browning back under his jacket. 'Did you see his car – the Volkswagen – on the road?'

'Not to notice.' Who remembers a car he saw five minutes ago, let alone ten hours? 'But on the way over, we didn't pass, anybody coming from Kyrenia.'

It was a small crumb of evidence, but he licked it up gratefully.

I went on: 'Why was Papa killed? Robbery?'

"They think not.'

'Had anybody busted into his house?'

He looked at me sharply. 'I do not think so. I went in with the Kyrenia police later and…' he shrugged. 'His mother is away, we think.' He leant his elbows on the table and rubbed his palms into his eyes, 'forget about being arrested. I will tell Kyrenia what you said and where you are. And then I will sleep.'

Ken came back looking thoughtful – no, disbelieving.

'Bad news?' I asked.

'No-o. Good, I think.' He shook his head slowly. "The Israeli Embassy – they've cancelled my deportation.'

Half an hour later we were sitting in a small, cool, sparsely-furnishedcafé down Ledra Street sipping gritty-sweet Turkish coffee and me sounding like an elderly uncle.

'You're just the bloody bird dog,' I told him. 'Now the Professor's dead, they think you could be the only one to sniff out the sword. So they let you back in, you find it, then clang! The dog never gets the bird; he ends up back in the kennel eating tinned rabbit.'

'They don't know there's a sword.'

They know there's a something. They know the Prof's reputation as a grave-robber – and maybe they overheard a hint in jail. They could know about our runaround the last few days. Enough other people seem to.'

He nodded calmly. 'I think you're right.'

'That's good.' I finished my coffee except for the sludge at the bottom. 'So now let's forget about the sword, concentrate on keeping our noses clean here and get back to England, home and booty.'

'But that's no reason not to go on to Jerusalem,' Ken added.