Tamarisk bay, p.1
Tamarisk Bay, page 1
Tamarisk Bay
A Nick Fisher Novel
Also By Alex Dunlevy
The Unforgiving Stone
(the first novel in the Nick Fisher series)
Beneath the Stone
(the second novel in the Nick Fisher series)
The Stone Skimmers
(the third novel in the Nick Fisher series)
The Late Shift Specialist
(a collection of short stories)
Tamarisk Bay
A Nick Fisher Novel
Alex Dunlevy
Copyright © 2024 Alex Dunlevy
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
www.alexdunlevy.com
All rights reserved. Except as permitted by copyright law, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author, nor (in the case of the paperback version) be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the purchaser.
All characters and events in this book, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Named Characters
Aléxis – Former volunteer at Tamarisk Bay
Alma Kinnear – Roz’s mother
Anna – Alpha Bank relationship manager
Anna Zerbáki – Sergeant with the police at Chaniá
Apóstolos Spiliákis – Stefi’s grandfather
Chrístos – Former captain with the police at Réthymno
Chrístos Dímas – Deputy Minister (MOHCAS)
Chrístos – Constable with the police at Réthymno
Daniel – [aka Dan/Danny Boy] Senior volunteer at Tamarisk Bay
Daphne – Cleaner at ARCHELON
Declan – Former volunteer at Tamarisk Bay
Iákovos – Doctor Pánagou’s assistant
Dimítris – Constable with the police at Chaniá
Dión – [aka Michális] Former boyfriend of Daphne
Doctor Pánagou – Medical Examiner for Chaniá prefecture
Dómna Michailídou – Greek Minister for Labour
Eric – Swedish Shift Supervisor at ARCHELON
Evangelína – Stefi’s sister
Fiona MacFarlane – Friend of Lauren’s
Giánnis Pagiánnidis – Irína’s second husband and father of Stávros
Giórgios Marákis – Engineer and family friend of Stefi’s
Háris – Sun lounger guy at Soúda, near Plakiás
Irína Michailídou – Mother of Stávros and Giánnis’s widow
Ivan – Irína’s first husband (a Bulgarian)
Jason Buckingham – Nick’s son
Jennifer Buckingham – Nick’s ex-wife
Jonathan Beeson – Senior official at the British Vice-Consulate
Konstantína Gavaláki – Fire Investigations Officer
Kóstas Pagiánnidis – Grandfather of Stávros
Kostí – Owner of the kafenío at Saktoúria
Kristína Panteláki – Stefi’s lawyer
Lauren Fisher – Nick’s daughter
Leftéris – Constable with the police at Chaniá
Leo Christodoulákis – Lieutenant with the police at Chaniá
Manólis Michailídis – Former employee of Alpha Bank
María Papadopoúlou – Mother of Manólis Michailídis
Matej Žagar – Pseudonym used by Ivan
Matej Šuštar – Young Slovenian man
Méli – Stefi’s pet goat kid
Michális Spiliákis – Stefi’s father
Mr. Tzanakákis – Archaeologist and MOHCAS official
Mr. Kóstas – Risk Manager for Alpha Bank, Crete
Mr. Arapaï – Albanian pseudonym used by Ivan
Mr. Mákris – Office Manager at MOHCAS
Mrs. Tsesmé – Forestry Department employee
Mrs. Marína – Stávros’s lawyer
Náni Samaráki – Investigations Sergeant with the police at Réthymno
Neža Žagar – Pseudonym used by Irína
Nick Fisher – Former DCI with the Met, now living in Crete
Níkos Manousákis – Constable with the police at Réthymno
Pandelís – Constable with the police at Chaniá
Rosalind Kinnear – [aka Roz/Rosie] Volunteer at Tamarisk Bay
Simon Woodruff – Official at the British Vice-Consulate
Státhis Giannakákis – Sergeant with the police at Sitía
Stávros Pagiánnidis – Chaniá estate agent
Stefanos Spiliákis – [aka Stefi/Steff] Owner of Tamarisk Bay
Thanásis Konstantópoulos – [aka Thaní] Acting Lieutenant with the police at Chaniá
Theódoros – [aka Teddy] Volunteer at Tamarisk Bay
Vangélis – Constable with the police at Chaniá
Xará – Kostí’s daughter
Note 1 – MOHCAS is the (Greek) Ministry of Hellenic Culture and Sports
Note 2 – Adil, Lékas, Ollie Dunham and Yasir are characters from The Stone Skimmers
Chapter 1
A Call from Home
She knocked, then turned the plastic doorknob and entered the prefabricated cabin. She felt sweaty and out of breath. The shift supervisor was sitting behind a plywood desk covered in charts and photographs. He had been smoking and the room stank of it, despite the ceiling fan.
“You wanted to see me, Eric?” she said.
He stubbed out his cigarette and indicated the chair opposite.
“Have a seat, Roz.”
Something was wrong. She knew it right away. Eric was Swedish and serious-minded; he rarely smiled. But now an extra layer of gravitas was etched into the lines on his face. Was she in trouble? Had she done something dreadful? She watched as he ran a hand through thinning, blond hair and pursed his lips.
“Your mother called. She’s been trying to reach you.”
Roz nodded. Where the hell was her cell phone? Maybe still in the backpack. The battery would need charging now, anyway.
“It’s your dad.”
“Oh, no. Shit.”
“Your mother is at the hospital. She says it doesn’t look good … I’m sorry.”
Roz stared at him for a moment.
“She wants you to go back.”
Eric had not said before it was too late, but the subtext was clear. Roz reached for the tissue she kept in the pocket of her shorts. She had come to hate that hospital and everyone in it. Maybe they had done their best, but she could not be sure anymore. She and her mother had watched while twelve years of their surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, endless pills and potions had steadily destroyed her father. The last time Roz saw him, he was skeletal, his skin yellowy-grey and blotchy. The morphine doses were so strong now that he seemed to be losing his mind at times and the light in his eyes was fading. He looked twenty years older than he was.
“He’s dying, then,” she managed to say, the words catching in her throat. She could hear the blood, roaring in her ears.
Eric came around the desk and pulled up a chair beside her. Then he took her hand in his.
“I think you have to go,” he said, “for her, if nothing else.”
“I still have another week, Eric.”
“You know all you need to know. You’re my best student.”
“I am?”
“Here. You earned this already.”
She took the roll of paper from him. It was her proficiency certificate. She saw the familiar, turtle logo above the text and Eric’s sprawling signature below. It was dated the third of July. A tearful grin appeared briefly among the freckles, and she patted Eric’s hand.
“That’s so kind,” she said.
“I dated it next week to avoid any awkward questions. Our secret – okay?”
“Our secret,” she confirmed. “Thank you, Eric.”
“There’s a flight to Glasgow tonight,” he said. “I already checked, and they can squeeze you on. I can drive you, but we’ll need to leave in an hour. Can you do it?”
“What about paying for it?”
“If you don’t have enough, I can lend you some. Don’t worry.”
“My mum will pay you back.”
“Whatever.”
An hour was plenty. She could shower and throw her clothes into the backpack in ten minutes. But she was desperate to say goodbye to the friends she had made. Not just the other volunteers in her group, but also the special friend she had made of Daphne, the pretty, local girl who cleaned for ARCHELON. She might be hard to find, though. Roz knew her cleaning shift ended around four thirty. An hour ago. Where would she go?
She found the others in their matching, blue tee shirts on Ágioi Apóstoloi beach. One by one they hugged her and wished her well, knowing they were not likely to meet again.
“Does anyone know where Daphne might be?” Roz asked.
“The girl who cleans, you mean?”
“Daphne, yes. Her name is Daphne.”
Irritation had crept into Roz’s voice. She heard it herself. Daphne had always been below the horizon for these privileged girls. Roz was her only friend here, maybe in the world. The way she had confided in Roz over the last several weeks, it certainly felt like that. They shared modest backgrounds and a liking for telling it how it is, being open and warm.
“I’m sorry. You mean the pretty one with the gorge
Yes, he was gorgeous, with that long, wavy hair and those startling, blue-green eyes, and he was a hell of a cook, apparently, but he was also poison, Roz thought. One of those guys who puts you on a pedestal and showers you with gifts, to start with. Only then it all turns to shit.
“Did you see where she went? Which way?” Roz asked.
The first girl looked blank but one of the others piped up:
“They have use of an old house, I think. It was her granny’s. It’s in Lambíni. The only pink house, I remember her saying, and she hates pink; I know that much.”
“Is it far?”
“Three or four kilometres, no more. Inland.”
“I’ve only got thirty-five minutes.”
“Then leave early, get Eric to swing by there on the way.”
“Good thinking, girl. Thanks a lot, everyone, and good luck.”
*
As Eric drove, Roz was lost in thought. Daphne had been distraught, the last time they met, and she looked awful. She had lost weight and there were dark circles under her eyes. He made her wear unflattering clothes to hide her attractions from other men, but she was still pretty, though she looked older than her years now. Roz asked about the bruises on her arms and Daphne came up with a pathetic lie. To Roz, it was a classic example of coercive control, and she told Daphne so. She told her to get away from him as soon as she could. But had she done the right thing, or was Daphne in even greater danger now?
*
There was no reply at the basic, lurid pink bungalow, but his motorbike was there, Roz saw.
“They’ve gone out,” a small voice behind her said, in Greek. Roz turned to see a girl of about six with a boy perhaps two years younger.
“Did you see them?” she asked.
The boy looked bashful and was shaking his head.
“He didn’t but I did,” the girl said. “From indoors. That’s where we live,” she boasted, pointing to a modern, concrete house with a shiny car, the colour of baby poo.
“Which way did they go, did you see?”
The girl pointed.
“There’s a track up the hill.”
“How long ago did you see them?”
The boy screwed up his face. The girl was looking up at the sky as if seeking divine guidance.
“Um,” she said, at last. “Not long.”
“We need to go, Roz,” Eric called from the car.
“Give me five minutes, will you?” Roz yelled and started jogging down the road.
The girl and her brother watched, bemused.
“Why is everyone running today?” she asked him.
“It must be a race,” he said.
*
She was halfway up the hill when she saw them. It was just a glimpse, through the trees, but she recognised that hair of his and the turquoise of the dress she often wore. He was lying on top of her, she could tell that much, so, not a good time. She hesitated and then heard Eric, sounding the horn. She glanced at her watch. Her flight left in less than two hours, and they still had to drive to the airport. She would need to check her bag. She looked again, peering through the trees. Nothing seemed to be moving. She was exposed on the hillside, she realised. If she could see them, they would see her clearly, if they were looking. And that would be embarrassing. She thought she heard a soft moan, carried on the wind. Lucky girl, she thought.
Turning and heading back down, Roz told herself she would make a point of returning when she was back from Scotland. Chaniá could be reached from Tamarisk Bay. There would be opportunities to see her friend then. And Daphne would be okay with that. It was easy with her; they were already soul mates. And it would only be a few weeks. Everything would be fine.
As Eric turned the car, something caught her eye in the wing mirror. To her astonishment, she thought she glimpsed a figure, racing down the hill towards the road. Was Daphne trying to catch her?
“Stop, Eric, stop!” she cried, leaping out of the car, and turning back. But there was nothing there. Had she imagined it? Or had the figure vanished behind that solitary plane tree, or ducked into the prickly pear field? Had it been her, or him – or someone else entirely? Then it occurred to her; if it had been Daphne, she would have seen a flash of turquoise from that dress. It all happened so quickly; she could not be sure what colours she had seen. But turquoise. Surely that would have registered …
She stood there for half a minute, hands on hips. Other than the sheep and the cruising raptors, nothing moved. The only sounds were the sheep bells, the wind rustling the leaves and now a pair of crows, cawing above her head. They’re cackling at my foolishness, she thought. The edge of the forest was at least two hundred metres away now. She would have to climb all the way back and there was no time left.
“Come on, Roz. What the hell are you doing? You’ll miss your flight!”
Eric’s urgent call brought her to her senses. She was being ridiculous. She had imagined something, or it had been a trick of the light in the mirror. As for anyone hiding behind a tree, she was being fanciful and silly. Why on earth would anyone do that? She chuckled to herself and shook her head.
“I’m sorry, Eric,” she said as she slipped back into the passenger seat. “Let’s go.”
As soon as he heard the click of her seatbelt, Eric accelerated away, the tyres raising a small cloud of dust. Roz spotted the kids, waving from an upstairs window. She waved back and gave them a nervous smile.
Chapter 2
The Bank
Stefanos Spiliákis felt sick. Not because he was tired from the journey to Chaniá and back, though he was. Nor was it the lurching and buffeting of the boat; he was accustomed to that. No, he knew what it was, from before. It was dread, forming deep in his gut, and – nearer the surface – hot-faced anger and frustration, mostly with himself.
He tugged a bottle of rakí from the freezer compartment and poured himself a generous slug. Then he banged the small glass twice on the tabletop, shouted “Yeiá mas” and downed it in one. He tore the ring pull from a small can of Alfa beer, grabbed a handful of kritsínia in a square of kitchen roll and slumped into the deckchair outside the cabin.
“What is wrong with these people?” he asked Méli in Greek, handing her one of the sesame-coated breadsticks. “This is a long-term plan, for Heaven’s sake! And it can be a gold mine for all of us. But I must be sure of our team. I can’t be dealing with people who flip-flop like this!”
She looked at him with sorrow.
“And no, I haven’t got all the clearances yet. Of course, I haven’t. These things take time here. A lot of time. But why assume the worst? Why on earth would there be issues – here, of all places?”
Stefi swept his arm theatrically over the hectares of sandy scrubland, dotted with rocky outcrops and low-level vegetation, stretching from the row of ancient tamarisks behind the shingle beach to the dusty green juniper forest. Beyond, mountains rising six hundred metres glowed dusky pink in the evening sun.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere, Méli,” he said. “Nobody gives a damn.”
Méli’s eyes had followed his arm. Now, she came to him, laid her head on his thigh and looked up into his eyes. He selected the best breadstick for her and stroked her head gently as she ate it.
“And I know interest rates are higher now. Much higher. Do they think I have my head up my backside out here? But they’ll come down again. And, if they don’t, it’ll be because inflation stayed high, so I’ll be able to charge more. It’s not the end of the world, is it Méli?”
He hurled the empty beer can at the trash bucket and missed. It rolled out onto the sand and came to rest against a familiar pair of scuffed, brown sandals.
“You’re talking to yourself again,” said Dan, in English. “It’s the first sign, you know.”
“I was talking with Méli,” Stefi corrected.
“Oh, dear. Talking to goats is the second sign. And I believe it’s worse.”
Stefi ruffled Méli’s honey-brown head and stroked her ears.
“Don’t listen to him,” he said. “We take a different view, don’t we?”
By way of confirmation, she exhaled vigorously, causing her lips to vibrate alarmingly.
“Any more of that beer?” said Dan.
