The Green Lady by Paul Johnston Read Free Book Online

involvement in the planning for the Olympics made that understandable. He’d fallen from a horse in his twenties and never got back on, and a former employee said he thought sailing was for fools. So why had he taken on the Olympic work, even renouncing the large salary that went with it?
    Mavros wasn’t an economist, but he knew how the rich in Greece operated: do nothing unless there’s something in it for you. A scan of the business pages revealed that Poulos A.E. subsidiaries had been involved in building arenas, roads and the athletes’ village, as well as supplying many of the raw materials. His companies had franchises from foreign corporations for a range of Games-related commercial activities and he had even covered the expenses of selected journalists to publicise the Athens Olympics favourably. No matter what the Games ended up costing Greece, Paschos Poulos would be guaranteed a huge profit, but it was all above board – the bid process for contracts had been at least nominally transparent and his companies had prevailed because they were highly efficient. There had been a mini-scandal when three employees who worked in Poulos A.E. headquarters in the northern Athenian suburb of Kifissia had committed suicide in the space of a month, but all had been being treated for mental problems and no blame was attached to the company, despite their families testifying that they had been seriously overworked.
    Mavros got up and opened his door. The sound of Yiorgos snoring in front of the TV drifted up the stairs. Going down as quietly as he could, Mavros made himself a sandwich and tiptoed back up. The Fat Man’s blood pressure was much worse than it should have been. He took the pills he’d been prescribed reluctantly, moaning about Big Pharma and how the companies reduced people to zombies. Mavros tried to get him to moderate what he ate, but that was a largely futile campaign.
    Back to Paschos Poulos. Why had he insisted on a media blackout over his daughter’s disappearance? If Mavros had been involved from the start, he would only have resorted to that after preliminary inquiries with her relatives, friends, teachers and other contacts had drawn a blank, despite the risk that one or more might talk. Maybe there had been a ransom demand, but surely Lia’s father would have paid up. What reason could he have for keeping things in the dark? Had the kidnappers required that of him? Was he afraid of damaging the image of the Olympics in his homeland or of putting the standing of his businesses at risk? It had been over three months since his daughter had disappeared. Surely he would have been told by the police that it was unlikely Lia would be found alive. Perhaps that was why he had pressed on with his work – but what kind of father would be so cold-blooded about losing his only child?
    When in the murky depths – and a case in which he was forbidden to talk to anyone who knew the missing person was about as murky as it got – Mavros had an ace to play, even though it was one that came with a cost. He rang the relevant number and ascertained that its subscriber would be where he usually was in the early evenings. Then he took a ‘death in the afternoon’, waking from the siesta with the usual unfulfilled dreams and nausea. After taking a shower and putting on a fresh shirt, he went downstairs.
    â€˜Look at these wankers,’ the Fat Man said, pointing at a pair of Greek wrestlers who had just been eliminated in the first round. ‘Their trainers couldn’t even get the drug regime right.’
    â€˜So cynical.’
    â€˜So true. Where are you going?’
    â€˜Business meeting.’
    Yiorgos looked at his watch. ‘With that bastard Bitsos, eh?’
    Mavros shrugged. ‘Needs must.’
    â€˜Make sure you take him a heap of porn.’
    â€˜He’s got enough of that. Don’t burst a blood vessel. Seriously.’
    The Fat Man