Then he thought of Waggoner’s dinner companion Tryfon Roufos, the extremely bent antiquities dealer cum thief. He had never heard rumours of Roufos using violence, though he certainly used common criminals to steal ancient objects and icons. It didn’t seem likely that a robbery would have happened in the orange grove, unless blackmail had been involved. Had Waggoner fed Roufos information about the German’s role in the war, forcing the old man to bring pocketfuls of coins to the set, and the exchange accidentally turned to murder? If it had, Mavros found it less than likely that the men involved would have wasted time faking Kersten’s suicide.

He heard shrieks from behind the car and looked round. He had phoned Hildegard Kersten before Margaritis arrived, but hadn’t told her that her husband was dead. Some insensitive bastard must have broken the news when she arrived. He watched her run past, her hair loose and her feet kicking up dust.

‘Let me out,’ he said to the cops in front. ‘That’s the widow. I’m working for her.’ Strictly speaking, it was an untruth, but he wanted to help the old woman cope with her husband’s death, even though he knew that would be no easy task.

‘Tough shit,’ the bulky sergeant said. ‘You’re here to sweat like the rest of us.’

A few minutes later, the radio crackled into activity.

‘Bring the dick to the scene,’ said Margaritis. ‘Hands off him.’

Obviously Hildegard Kersten had applied her husband’s considerable standing in the community to bring the inspector round. The cops glared at him as he got out of the car. Fortunately the T-shirt he’d borrowed from his brother-in-law was extra large, so it didn’t stick to him as much as one of his own would have.

The widow was standing a few yards in front of her husband — the crime scene team having already given up on trying to find footprints. At least the doctor had put the handkerchief back on the dead man’s face.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Mavros said, standing behind Hildegard.

‘Ah, there you are, Alex,’ she said, in English. ‘This ridiculous man says you’re a suspect. I told him. .’ Suddenly she started to sob loudly again, though that quickly became silent weeping. Mavros put his arm around her and she huddled against him. ‘I want. . I want you to find out who. . who killed Rudi,’ she said, looking up at him with tear-filmed blue eyes. ‘They say. . they say he probably committed suicide. He would. . he would never do. . that to me.’

Mavros looked over her grey head to Margaritis, who was looking at him with undisguised hostility.

‘You’re saying it’s suicide?’

The inspector looked down. ‘The forensic surgeon will carry out a post-mortem, but our initial feeling is that Mr Kersten hanged himself, yes.’

‘Which means I’m a free man,’ Mavros said, extending his hand. ‘My things, please.’

Margaritis couldn’t argue with that. ‘Over here, please, Mr Mavro,’ he said.

‘Excuse me a moment,’ Mavros said to the widow.

‘This is not over,’ the inspector said. ‘We’ll be checking your movements very carefully, you Athenian scumbag. And, by the way, I understand English. If you get in the way of my investigation or step out of line by a millimetre, you’re dog food.’

‘My things, please.’ Mavros got back his phone, wallet and notebook.

‘By the way,’ Margaritis said, with a sharp smile. ‘You should be careful. I hear the Kornariates want to drink your blood.’

Mavros raised his shoulders. ‘If you people had done your job, Kornaria would be a normal, law-abiding village.’

The inspector’s eyes opened wide, but he managed to keep his mouth shut. Mavros went back to the widow.

‘Come, I’ll take you home,’ he said softly.

‘No, I’m going. . I’m going with Rudi,’ she protested, but eventually allowed herself to be steered out of the trees.

Mikis was standing with Yerasimos beside the Mercedes that had brought Rudolf Kersten to his place of ending. Hildegard headed for the big car, dismissing the driver who had brought her.

‘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.’