‘Don’t know, sir.’ Harrison shrugged. ‘Holiday? She entered the UK from New York on a tourist visa five weeks ago. She was in regular Skype contact with her students, but that stopped abruptly about a month ago. That’s all we have at the minute.’
‘Do you want to see any more?’ Lisa Janner asked Boyd. ‘As I say, there were other wounds …’
‘It’s all in your report, I assume?’ asked Boyd
‘Of course.’
‘Then no. Thank you.’
He turned and walked grimly from the room. Professor Adachi had not been in London on holiday. Of that much he was certain. Brandings and severed feet and bodies in bin bags tossed into the Thames? These were not random, thoughtless acts of violence directed towards a tourist. This was not a rape or mugging gone wrong. It was the calculated work of a professional killer who had reason to wish Miss Adachi dead. Someone who either feared her, or hated her, or both.
‘What did you know, Noriko?’ he muttered aloud to himself under his breath. ‘What did you know?’
Constantin Pilavos loaded a second reel of film into his Nikkon FE 35 mm and waited patiently in his parked van until Persephone Hamlin emerged from the building.
Her divorce lawyer, Anna Cosmidis, was one of the biggest legal hitters in Greece. Hence her offices, which occupied the entire top floor of a landmark building on Poseidonos Avenue, one of the most exclusive streets in Athens. Mrs Hamlin had been inside for almost two hours – God knew how much that would have cost her! – but Constantin’s orders were to take pictures of her arriving and leaving, and then to follow her to wherever she went next.
At long last she reappeared, looking businesslike in a cream skirt and fitted jacket and with her eyes hidden behind oversized sunglasses. Rolling down his window and adjusting the zoom lens, Constantin began taking more shots. Mr McKinley, his boss, had insisted on the old-fashioned camera and hand-developed prints. Makis Alexiadis, his boss, was a stickler for avoiding electronic communication wherever possible and paranoid about emails or phone calls being intercepted. It was a lesson he’d learned from his mentor, Spyros Petridis, and never forgotten.
The whole thing was overkill in Constantin Pilavos’s opinion. But as he was paid by the hour, he wasn’t complaining. So far, the Hamlin woman had done nothing more interesting than visiting her lawyer, strolling in the park, and twice attending a local gym. Constantin had captured all of it, although he failed to see of what interest his pictures would be, to Makis Alexiadis or to anyone. If Big Mak suspected Persephone of having an affair, he was wrong. As far as Constantin could tell, the woman didn’t even have any friends.
He continued snapping until she was out of sight, then started his engine.
Nikkos Anastas sat his ample backside down on an empty bench in the grounds of the Parthenon and opened his newspaper.
It was another sweltering day, hot enough that there were few people milling around at this midday hour. By the time Ella arrived and sat down on the adjoining bench directly behind him, two damp circles of sweat had already begun to spread under Nikkos’s arms and the skin on his hairy legs was starting to burn below the line of his shorts.
‘You took your time,’ he said in Greek, without looking around or acknowledging her presence in any way.
‘Divorce is a complicated business. Anna had a lot of questions.’
‘You were able to answer them? No slip-ups.’
‘No.’ Ella spoke to the ground. ‘It was fine.’
‘He’s still following you?’
‘Mmm hmmm,’ she confirmed. ‘But I can’t pick up anything from him. If he has a phone he doesn’t use it.’
‘So nothing from Mak?’
‘Not that I can detect. Sorry,’ said Ella.
Nikkos grunted. It was frustrating. Knowing Ella was being watched by Alexiadis, she had to go through the motions as Persephone Hamlin while in Athens, which made it harder than usual for the two of them to meet and plan the next stage of her mission. Nikkos had hoped that at least the goon tailing her might have provided Ella with a continued window onto Makis’s movements and plans, particularly in so far as they concerned Athena. The radio silence was an added blow.
‘When can we talk properly?’ Ella asked, her own frustration beginning to show. ‘Gabriel said you would give me instructions this week.’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Nikkos impatiently. ‘It has not been easy. Is that him? The Fiat van, next to the tobacco store?’
Ella glanced down the hill. ‘It is,’ she murmured, taking out a book from her purse and pretending to read.
‘OK,’ said Nikkos. ‘Tomorrow night there’s a big party being held at the house of Stavros Helios. It’s a political fundraiser. Persephone Hamlin’s on the guest list.’
‘Who’s Stavros Helios?’
‘A very rich man. One of the first Greeks to invest in Bitcoin,’ said Nikkos. ‘He’s also one of us.’
‘Does he know about me? About the Sikinos mission?’