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  “I’m afraid not. Why? What other crimes are you keeping secret?”

  “None. You just can’t help coming across things when you’ve lived here as long as I have, and know as many people.”

  “Maybe you should have gotten the job at the police station, not me.”

  “Oh no, dear. I’m sure you’re doing a marvellous job.”

  Humpf. I’d been had by an old lady. Worse still, one I was related to. All evidence pointed to Aunt June being much more capable than I had given her credit for. I would have to watch my step. Worryingly, Addi seemed to have worked out how capable Aunt June was as well. He’d mentioned a couple of times how useful it would be to have someone who knew what was going on. It seemed like a bad omen to me.

  It was mid afternoon a couple of days after the dog napping case when Addi appeared at my desk with another incident form.

  “A robbery,” he announced. “I have to go talk to the CrossGlobal committee. You’re to come with me.” I grabbed my things and followed him out.

  It was hard to believe my first journey in his car, when he’d brought me from the airport, had been less than two months ago. It seemed more like a lifetime since I’d been working. As we headed off to the next town, I wondered where Addi kept his taxi meter when he was on official business.

  “It’s in the glove box,” he said, noticing me looking at the dashboard.

  “That’s handy. I thought about giving taxi driving a go myself. I guess you didn’t have any problems getting the character certificate.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t think I would have gotten one.”

  “No?”

  “I had a run in with a sheep when I first got my car. Constable Geralios wasn’t impressed with me. I decided it wasn’t a good idea.”

  “You’re right. Not with your track record.”

  I looked at him, a cold feeling suddenly running through me. I had an idea we weren’t talking about my driving anymore. “My track record? What do you mean?”

  Addi kept his eyes on the road. “I did your background check when you got the job. I know out about your history in England.”

  6 Theft, And Wondering Around Lost

  My history in England? I guess he wasn’t talking about Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn. Did this mean he knew everything?

  “What did you find out exactly? Did you let the, er, police back home know where I was?”

  “Why? Are they looking for you?” he asked calmly, still watching the road.

  “No, no, of course not,” I lied. I really had no idea.

  “I know about… what happened.”

  Right. Had he told everyone at work too? “But I still got the job.”

  “I didn’t find anything that meant you weren’t suitable to do the work.”

  “So, what you’re saying is, I wouldn’t be able to get a taxi driving licence because of things in my past but it’s okay for me to work for the police force?”

  “We take our taxi driving very seriously; it’s a big thing for the tourists.”

  Tourists, yes. They did seem to come first round here.

  “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me,” he said.

  “You haven’t told the rest of the office about it?”

  Just then, Addi pulled in to a parking space outside a plain brick building and turned off the engine. We had obviously arrived. And it looked like he was going to keep me on tenterhooks.

  “Now I have to talk to the people here about a break in,” he told me as he opened his door. “The chief thought you might be needed to translate. You speak French, don’t you?”

  I could kill Aunt June and her application form lies. “I’m a bit rusty,” I told him. That was an understatement on a par with saying cyanide is bad for your breath.

  “We’ll see how it goes.”

  The sign on the door we walked through read ‘CrossGlobal’. I hadn’t heard of them.

  “What’s happened here?” Addi asked the dapper looking, elderly man in a blazer and tie who greeted us.

  “When I arrived this morning I found the back door open. Some trophies have been stolen from the office,” the man replied. He had a slight accent but spoke English good enough for me (or should that be well enough?).

  “And who are you?” Since we’d arrived I noticed Addi had adopted a brusque persona. This seemed to be his policing style.

  “I am Paul-Henri Clement, the committee secretary.” He held out his hand for Addi to shake (not me though).

  Addi introduced us. As we talked, Mr Clement led us through the foyer to a large room. He pointed out an open door in the corner, at the far end, and we followed him through it into a small office.

  “The trophies were on here,” Mr Clement said, indicating a shelf by a desk. “Awards for community work, humanitarian stuff.”

  “Were they valuable?” I asked, causing Addi to shoot me an angry look.

  “Not to anyone else. I can’t believe they’d be worth much, even as scrap metal.”

  “Nothing else missing?” I asked, noticing there was still a computer on the desk. Old, but it had to be more valuable than some cups. Addi looked daggers at me.

  “Claudette thinks there are some decorations missing. Here she is now.”

  Claudette was a small, middle aged lady with obviously dyed auburn hair. “Allo,” she greeted us when Mr Clement introduced her. That one word was said with such a thick French accent, my heart sank.

  “You’ve found some other missing items?” Addi asked quickly, giving me a glance as if daring me to get a question in first.

  “Ah, oui, mais−” Claudette began. She actually said a lot more but that was the only bit I understood. A mild feeling of panic started rising up from my stomach as Addi looked at me to translate, followed by Claudette and Mr Clement.

  “She’s very upset,” I started (even I could tell that from her manner).

  Claudette said something else and I found myself nodding along as if I understood every word when in reality I caught none of it, the feeling of panic rising in me all the time until it reached the back of my neck and clamped there like a vice. Addi was looking at me expectantly.

  “The cups,” I burst out, as Claudette gestured to the empty shelf, “she’s very upset about them.”

  Then she pointed out the door and said something else.

  “There’s some other stuff missing outside?” I guessed, thinking it was lucky the French are naturally so demonstrative.

  She was indicating the door so we followed her out to the opposite wall where some plaques and framed photographs were displayed. There appeared to be a couple of holes in the pattern they made.

  “Some of these are missing,” I told them. Claudette nodded, it looked like my guess was right.

  “Why would anyone want to steal these things?” Addi asked. “Have you had problems with anybody?”

  Luckily, he seemed to be asking this of Mr Clement and wasn’t expecting me to translate it for Claudette.

  “No,” Mr Clement insisted. “We work to bring all the different nations here together, not have conflict with them.”

  “Disgruntled members?”

  Mr Clement looked offended by Addi’s question. “Absolutely not. That sort of thing doesn’t happen here. We are all about harmony.”

  “So, you can’t think of anyone that could do this? Not even as a trick?”

  “No one we would know.”

  That was going to make it easy. I wasn’t sure what the police procedure was, would Addi whip out a fingerprinting kit and start taking some prints? He didn’t. He took a few notes of the layout and a couple of photos on his phone. And we were done. On the telly, the police procedures were a bit more vigorous than that. Of course, I’d need to keep that to myself if I wanted to get on around here.

  “Was that it, then?” I asked as we walked back to the car.

  “What else did you expect to happen?”

  He seemed a bit tetchy so I didn’t say anymore.


  “You should’ve left the questioning to me,” he told me as we got to the car.

  “Sorry, I was just trying to be helpful. Must be a rival committee, eh? Or someone they’ve booted out?”

  “I don’t think we’re going to get any further information out of those two.”

  “You’ll be able to get hold of someone else from the committee, won’t you? Or a club member, someone who knows what’s been going on and is willing to spill the beans?”

  “You’ve been watching too many tv shows. People are hardly ever willing to ‘spill the beans’.”

  “They do on the Greek cop shows. They can hardly keep it in till the sixty minutes are up.” I have a lot of experience of these shows as we can’t afford satellite telly, even if it would work on Aunt June’s hill.

  “It’s a bit harder than that in real life. I’ll need to get hold of someone with local knowledge.”

  That sounded familiar.

  “Does your aunt know CrossGlobal?”

  “Couldn’t we try to solve this ourselves?” I could just hear my aunt if I had to get her involved in every case.

  “We aren’t trying to solve anything. I’m trying to solve this.”

  “Right, just for that I’m not asking Aunt June,” I told him. So there.

  A couple of days later, I’d decided to take my lunch break outside. The warm sunny days were becoming scarcer and I wanted to take advantage of this one. I was sitting on the rocks by the seashore not far from the police building, leaning back against a boulder enjoying the feel of the sun against my skin and the sound of leaves rustling overhead, when I heard scrabbling close by. I opened my eyes to see Addi lowering himself down to sit beside me.

  “Nice day,” he commented.

  “Even better as it’s raining back home.”

  “Cold too, I expect.”

  “Yep.” I’d checked the forecast earlier and had been delighted to see it was going to be a typically crappy day weatherwise in Swindon.

  I had a feeling Addi had something on his mind. He hadn’t spoken to me much since we’d visited CrossGlobal, yet suddenly, here he was chatting about the English weather. As I carried on looking out to sea, I saw him tighten his jacket around him out of the corner of my eye, and suspected he wasn’t enjoying sitting here as much as I was (the locals were used to 100+ degree heat in the summer so this probably felt bitterly cold to him).

  “What do you want?”

  He turned to look at me and for a moment I thought he was going to protest, but he didn’t. “I thought you might have some ideas about these stolen trophies.”

  “Does anyone really care? They’re not actually valuable or anything, are they?”

  “CrossGlobal are making a big fuss about it. They’re a very high profile group. The chief’s really pushing me on this case. I haven’t even found one suspect.”

  “No local people protested against them?”

  “No more than the usual weirdos.”

  “And there are no rival groups?”

  “I can’t find any.”

  Despite the sunshine, I had to tuck my hair behind my ears to stop the wind whipping it into my eyes. “What about people thrown out of the organisation?”

  “They tell me there hasn’t been any.”

  “You think they’re lying?”

  “Yes. I need someone who knows the people involved.”

  I could already hear what was coming next. “You told me I’m not meant to be discussing work with my aunt.”

  “This is different. I’ll never get on the big cases if my clear up rate doesn’t improve.”

  “Don’t you know someone you could ask? Your family lives here; they must have loads of contacts.”

  “Not expatriates. Can’t you ask her?”

  Part of me didn’t want to. My aunt shouldn’t have to be a copper’s nark (that’d be one to translate), plus I felt a bit put out having to run to her for answers.

  “Look,” Addi began, dropping his head down, away from me, “I’m not good at this policing work, I’m not cut out for it. It’s something my mother wanted me to do, she wanted me to be a policeman.” He looked up at me then. “I need help.”

  I looked at his face, sad and pleading. “Alright, I’ll ask her tonight.”

  “Great,” Addi told me, his face brightening considerably. He got up from the rock. “I’m going in, it’s freezing out here”.

  And that was how Aunt June came to be a police informant.

  7 The Tip Off

  I didn’t get the chance to ask Aunt June that night about the robberies at CrossGlobal, she’d gone out early to bingo. It had to wait until the following day, our daytrip to the mountains.

  What I hadn’t realised when she’d proposed the day out was, when Aunt June said ‘we’, she meant her, me and Kostas. What a cosy group we made as Kostas drove us across country.

  “It’s a good chance for you to get to know each other,” Aunt June had explained as Kostas pulled up outside the villa that morning. She’d decided it would be better for Kostas to drive us. A decision I was trying not to take as a slur on my driving skills. It made things difficult because I didn’t want to talk to her about the robberies with Kostas there.

  He’d looked as uncomfortable as me at our second meeting. Kostas, it turns out, is a nice enough bloke, for a retired dentist, and certainly a lot less wrinkly with his clothes on, but that’s the problem. I’ve seen a lot more of him than anyone who isn’t in a medical profession should. It was very difficult to forget that, especially when Aunt June insisted on bringing some sheftalia along with her for an impromptu picnic. Concentrating on Kostas’ discourse on the monastery we would shortly be arriving at, was very difficult with Aunt June popping little sausages in her mouth at regular intervals.

  It was lucky we’d wrapped up warm. Despite a mostly blue sky when we’d left Kythios, the temperature dropped at least twenty degrees as we went further into the mountains. No wonder Aunt June had been in no desperate rush to come here, she shivers when the temperature goes below the mid sixties.

  The scenery was breathtaking though, the parched landscape giving way to ever denser and lusher foliage the higher we climbed. Dotted about were little villages of whitewashed houses with red tiled roofs, old ladies smothered in black appearing to be their only occupants. I longed to stop and investigate, but Kostas seemed to have a different idea about our itinerary.

  Other people on holiday do wine tours. We seemed to be doing a religious retreat tour (a lot less fun but with similar amounts of sour grapes involved). The Cypriot mountains are dotted with monasteries and Kostas was keen that we should visit each one. I guess it’s something people have a sudden desire to do once they hit a certain age, like taking up crocheting or playing bowls.

  The first monastery was an impressive looking building, very hushed and solemn, yet welcoming. I oo’d and ah’d at the artefacts and Byzantine icons on show and felt I was suitably admiring of the architecture. Kostas stuck by Aunt June the whole time, giving her a running commentary on the place and not giving me an opportunity to speak to her on her own. I’m not sure why I felt I needed to get her alone, I suppose I knew there was something a bit wrong about it.

  We were quickly on our way to the second monastery. This had some fine frescos in their small church and, luckily for us, another set of Byzantine icons. Obviously, you can never view too many icons and I oo’d and ah’d suitably again. Kostas and my aunt were actually holding hands by now and giving the impression nothing was coming between them, short of a crowbar.

  The third monastery on Kostas’ list was much bleaker and, frankly, rather sinister in its look and feel. Its large, dark tower loomed ominously from a clearing in the forest and the rest of the building, when it came into view, wasn’t any better. Imagine a brooding, gothic structure and you’re halfway there. It wasn’t just the building that gave a sense of doom, the monk who greeted us reminded me of Vincent Price at his creepy best. His eyes, cold and penet
rating, lingered on me for a little longer than I was comfortable with as he spoke of their mission in a slick, unctuous, almost mocking voice. It was at that moment it struck me that monastery was ‘monstery’ with an extra ‘a’. Monstery was certainly how the place felt to me.

  It gave me the shivers so badly I couldn’t bear to be there any longer.

  “I think I might have a little walk in the woods outside instead,” I announced. “Aunt June, want to stretch your legs with me?”

  “Oh no, dear. Too many tripping hazards for me out there.” She smiled at Kostas and they ambled off to look at more icons.

  I had a little solo hike in the surrounding forest (there being no short piers available), taking my time stumbling over tree roots and cunningly hidden creepers whilst Aunt June and Kostas enjoyed the dark lair. After half an hour, which included some considerable minutes spent examining a statue only to discover it was an overgrown gatepost, I headed back to our agreed meeting place.

  Spending time with them had given me the chance to realise what a nice couple they made. My aunt may be small and slightly shrivelled from her years in the hot climate, but she was lively and dressed with care. I could imagine her being a bit of a catch to a geriatric. Kostas seemed a bit fixed in his ways and a little dull, but I could see he treated her well. I spotted their location from the sun’s reflection on Kostas’ shiny pate and made my way over.

  I had just about resigned myself to the fact I would have to wait until we returned home to speak to Aunt June, and hope she wouldn’t be rushing out again, when Kostas solved the problem by deciding to go back inside and buy some postcards.

  “You’re right,” I encouraged him, “you can never look at the inside of a monastery too many times.”

  I dived in as soon as he was out of sight, all hope of casually dropping it into the conversation long gone.

  “CrossGlobal? Yes, I know them,” Aunt June replied.

  “Big concern, are they? Important?”

  Aunt June scrunched up her nose a little. “To themselves. They reckon they unite all the different expats that live here, you know there’s a lot of Russians and Portuguese around.”