The Silver Stain by Paul Johnston Read Free Book Online Page A

Maria’s ever done this kind of thing before?’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘By the way, what role are you playing in the film?’
    The actress took a moment to refocus. ‘Oh, I’m Eleni Panakaki. The village girl-next-door who becomes a heroine and nearly gets herself shot. It’s a good part, plus I get it on with a Maori officer – except he’s white, not one of the tattooed hunks you see walking around here.’
    ‘Hugh Rook,’ Mavros said, remembering the actor from a magazine article. He was a former pretty boy trying to extend his range.
    ‘Yeah,’ Cara said, without enthusiasm. ‘Spends most of his time talking to his parents. They’re in the hotel too. Apparently his grandfather fought in the battle.’
    Interesting, Mavros thought, but hardly significant. He headed for the door.
    ‘ Ade yeia ,’ the actress hazarded.
    He raised a hand without turning round as he repeated the second word of the farewell phrase. The dialogue coach had been doing a good job.

FOUR
    M avros went down to the second floor and found the missing woman’s room. There was a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door and he made a note to ask housekeeping if it had been there since Monday morning. Then he pulled on the latex gloves he kept in his back pocket. The place had a similar lay out to his own but it was in a considerable state of chaos, with files all over the floor and clothes draped across the furniture. It took him a few minutes to satisfy himself that this was the way Maria Kondos lived, not least when he found the bathroom messier than a teenage boy’s. If someone had turned the place over, it had been done very subtly – which didn’t mean that someone hadn’t been through it and covered his or her steps. But he doubted it. The open tubes of make-up and the heaps of unwashed clothes suggested a life with time only to think about the important things, and there was no obvious sign of a struggle.
    The question was, where to start? There was a desk in the living area, on which Maria Kondos seemed to have maintained a modicum of order. On the left side was a pile of papers, some bound together. They turned out to be the script for Freedom or Death , with additional dialogue on separate sheets. Cara Parks’ lines were highlighted. In the centre was a mobile phone, the battery discharged, an American passport in the missing woman’s name, a wallet containing credit cards and a California driving licence in her name, as well as over five hundred euros, and a small leather clutch bag with mascara, lipstick and the like. There were also two condoms.
    After plugging the phone into its charger, Mavros sat back in the velvet-covered chair. The condoms suggested that Maria Kondos had a least some interest in the male sex, while the lack of a key card for the room gave the impression that she’d left willingly, expecting to return. On the other hand, she had taken no ID or means of payment. Had she expected not to need any? That could have meant she wasn’t going outside the resort area, or that she had left with someone who would pay on her behalf. But would a woman go anywhere without the other items in the clutch bag?
    He turned to the right side of the desk. There were several small framed photos, showing a very Greek-looking elderly couple and some small children. Then it struck Mavros what he hadn’t seen – any form of computer. He checked the desk drawer and the rest of the suite. Under the bed, he found a charger for a laptop, but no sign anywhere of the machine itself. There were no diskettes or external memory devices to be seen either. Which left him with the suspicion that Maria Kondos had gone somewhere in the hotel with her laptop – perhaps leaving her phone behind by mistake. Searching a hotel the size of this one would be a hell of a job, especially with all its outbuildings.
    The buzz of the doorbell interrupted his thoughts. He moved as quietly as he could across the marble floor and looked through the spyhole. A