Crying Blue Murder (MIRA) Read Online Free PDF Page B

deal-breaker as far as Mavros was concerned, but he would have to watch his back. The most interesting cases usually gave him a frisson of illicit excitement, unlike the work he used to do in the ministry.
    Heading through Mitropoleos Square, Mavros caught sight of an advertising hoarding that had been erected in front of the ugly grey cathedral where the nation’s politicians gathered like sheep on important feast days. The city centre had been plastered with this poster for weeks. Above and below an ancient lekythos, a flask that contained oil for offerings to the dead, were the words
    Panos Theocharis Museum of Funerary Art —
Special Exhibition—
‘Life and Death in Classical Athens’
     
        Mavros stopped to examine the image of the lekythos. He’d always found the white jars, the graceful tapered base and thin body leading up to a curved handle and black-rimmed spout, compelling. This one was decorated with a painting of a male figure in a rough cloak, his face bearded, standing on the deck of a boat. Small letters picked out his name in the space above his triangular cap. He was Charon, the boatman who ferried the souls of the dead across the infernal river. Although recently it had happened to him less often than in the past, Mavros couldn’t prevent the shadowy features of his lost brother, Andonis, flashing up before him. Andonis was his one failure, the missing person he’d never managed to find. He took a deep breath and blinked to dispel the face, still familiar though he hadn’t seen it in the flesh for nearly thirty years, then turned off towards Ermou. He wanted to pick the brains of Bitsos, the crime reporter on the country’s most respected independent daily newspaper, who was usually to be found eating penirli —hot cheese bread in the Asia Minor style—around midday in his favourite backstreet café.

    Before Mavros got there, his mobile phone rang.
    ‘Alex, esi ?’
    ‘Yes, it’s me, Anna. What’s up?’ Since she’d married a Cretan, Mavros’s sister always started off speaking Greek to him, but he would respond in English. Even when their father was alive, the children had spoken English in the house at their mother’s insistence.
    ‘Not what’s up.’ Anna’s voice was tense. ‘Who’s up. Or rather, down.’ In the background there was a less animated but equally insistent voice. ‘Mother’s slipped and fallen again.’
    Mavros found that he was leaning against a shopfront full of women’s undergarments. He shook his head and swore silently. ‘How bad is she?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Anna said, a hint of panic in her tone. ‘She says her knee’s only bruised, but I think she might have twisted a ligament or done something to a cartilage. The doctor’s on his way.’ There was a pause. ‘She wants to talk to you.’
    ‘Alex?’ Dorothy Cochrane-Mavrou sounded more in control than her daughter. ‘Don’t worry, I’m fine. I didn’t want Anna to bother you. It’s the marble floors, you know. I’ve never really got used to them.’ She’d never lost the burr of her Scots accent either. ‘Alex?’
    ‘Yes, Mother.’ Mavros knew what was coming.
    ‘Are you very busy?’ Dorothy’s voice was less assured now. ‘Only it would be lovely to see you. It’s been a while…’
    Mavros was shaking his head again, trying to ignore the pair of high-cut black knickers at eye level behind the glass. It was precisely three days since he’d seen his mother. Then again, if he was going to take the Ozal case and hightail off to the Cyclades maybe he should build up some reserves of maternal goodwill. For all her Scottish blood Dorothy was as clinging as any Greek mama. He glanced at his watch—a stainless-steel Gucci number that Anna had given him on his thirty-eighth birthday and which the Fat Man had designated an insult to the working classes. The reporter Bitsos would be back in his office soon. He’d have to catch him later.

    ‘All right, Mother,’ he said,