‘You have a key?’
‘The master left me his key.’
‘He must have trusted you.’
The Copt bowed his head in acknowledgement.
‘And then?’
‘And then I did not see him again, nor suspected anything till the servant came knocking on my door.’
Owen looked at Madame Tsakatellis.
‘When Tsakatellis did not come home,’ she said, ‘at first we thought nothing of it. He often works late. When he had not come home by one I began to wonder. When he had still not come home at two I went to his wife and found her crying.’
‘She knew something,’ asked Owen, ‘or she guessed?’
The woman made a gesture of dismissal.
‘The woman has silly thoughts. She thought Tsakatellis might be with another woman. What if he was? A wife has to get used to these things. In any case, Tsakatellis was not like that. I sent a servant in case he had stumbled and fallen or been attacked and was lying in the road. The servant came back and said he had found nothing. I sent him out again to wake Thutmose.’
‘I knew nothing,’ said Thutmose. ‘I came at once.’
‘We went out again,’ said the woman, ‘and walked by every way he might have taken. When the dawn came we began to suspect.’
‘The letter was delivered to the shop,’ said Thutmose. ‘When I saw it, I guessed.’
‘Who delivered it?’
‘A boy. Who ran off.’
‘You have the letter?’ Owen asked Madame Tsakatellis.
She went back into her recess and came back with a piece of paper.
Greetings. We have taken your man. If you want to see him again you must pay the sum of 20,000 piastres which we know you will do as you are a loving woman. If you do not pay, you will not see your man again. Wait for instructions. Tell no one.
The Wekil Group
‘Who was the letter addressed to?’
‘It was meant for her.’
‘But Thutmose brought it to you?’
‘I took it from her. She was useless. I sent a man to tell the police. A man came from the Parquet.’
‘He found nothing?’
‘He did nothing. After a while he went away and we did not see him again. Nor anyone else. Nor you, until now.’
‘And did the instructions come?’
‘No.’ The woman lifted her head and looked Owen levelly in the eyes. ‘They must have known I had sent for the police.’
‘It may not be so.’
‘It is so. I killed him. That is what she thinks.’
‘They take fright,’ said Owen, ‘for many reasons. That may not have been the reason.’
‘It would have happened anyway,’ said the woman, ‘for I would not have paid.’
There was little more to be learned, as the man from the Parquet must have found. He would have made inquiries to check if anyone had seen Tsakatellis on his way home, but the streets would have been deserted and even if someone had seen him it was unlikely that they would come forward. Cairenes did not believe in volunteering themselves for contact with the authorities. He would ask Mahmoud to check the Parquet records but he thought it unlikely that whoever had conducted the initial investigation had found anything of interest.
One last question.
‘Did Tsakatellis have enemies?’
The woman made a crushing gesture with her hand.
‘The world,’ she said.
Sometimes people used kidnapping as a way of settling old scores.
‘But no one particular? Who had sworn revenge?’
‘Tsakatellis had no enemies of that sort.’
‘A husband, perhaps?’
‘No,’ said the woman definitely.
The only question, then, was what had brought Tsakatellis to the notice of his potential kidnappers. Some display of wealth, perhaps? Unlikely. The Greeks kept themselves to themselves. They worked hard, made money and did not flaunt it.
‘What else did Tsakatellis do?’ he asked. ‘Apart from work?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Church?’
‘Ah, well, but—’
‘Did he serve on committees?’
‘No.’
‘Do things for the community?’
‘What community?’
‘Are not the Greeks a community?’
‘We have friends,’ the woman said, ‘but not many. Tsakatellis’s father had been ill for a long time before he died. The business had to be nursed back. Tsakatellis worked long hours. Had done so since he was a boy. He had no time for other things.’
‘I was wondering how they came to hear of him.’
‘I have asked myself that. Why Tsakatellis? Why not Stavros or Petrides?’
‘And what answer did you come to?’
‘I came to no answer. Except this. There is no reason. You lead your life. Then one day God reaches down and plucks you out. And throws you into the fire!’
‘It is not God who does these things. It is man.’
‘That is a comfort. With man there is always the possibility of revenge.’
Nikos was waiting for him when he got back to the office.
‘It’s come,’ he said.
‘What’s come?’
‘The second note.’
‘Telling them the arrangements for paying?’
‘Yes.’
Owen hung up his sun helmet and poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher which stood in the window where the air would cool it.
‘What does it say?’
‘They’re to put the money in a case. Berthelot’s to take it to Anton’s at about midnight and check it in to the cloakroom. He’s then to go on into the salon and stay there for about two hours. While they’re counting, presumably. When he comes out they’ll give him a receipt. On the receipt will be an address. That’s where he’ll find Moulin.’
‘Anton’s. Is he in it?’
‘Probably not. They’re just using his place, but the cloakroom people have got to be in it.’
‘They’ll only be in part of it, though, the money-passing bit. Still, that’s responsible.’
‘Incidentally,’ said Nikos, ‘they don’t tell Berthelot how to get to Anton’s.’
‘They know he already knows?’
Nikos nodded.
‘Interesting. I thought that young man didn’t get around.’
‘He gets around and they know it.’
‘That, too, is interesting.’
‘Yes.