Copyright & Information

Mortal Remains

First published in 1974

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The right of Margaret Yorke to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

This edition published in 2012 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

Typeset by House of Stratus.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

EAN	ISBN	Edition
0755130138	9780755130139	Print
0755134729	9780755134724	Kindle
0755134834	9780755134830	Epub

This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

www.houseofstratus.com

About the Author

Born in Surrey, England, to John and Alison Larminie in 1924, Margaret Yorke (Margaret Beda Nicholson) grew up in Dublin before moving back to England in 1937, where the family settled in Hampshire, although she now lives in a small village in Buckinghamshire.

During World War II she saw service in the Women’s Royal Naval Service as a driver. In 1945, she married, but it was only to last some ten years, although there were two children; a son and daughter. Her childhood interest in literature was re-enforced by five years living close to Stratford-upon-Avon and she also worked variously as a bookseller and as a librarian in two Oxford Colleges, being the first woman ever to work in that of Christ Church.

She is widely travelled and has a particular interest in both Greece and Russia.

Margaret Yorke’s first novel was published in 1957, but it was not until 1970 that she turned her hand to crime writing. There followed a series of five novels featuring Dr. Patrick Grant, an Oxford don and amateur sleuth, who shares her own love of Shakespeare. More crime and mystery was to follow, and she has written some forty three books in all, but the Grant novels were limited to five as, in her own words, ‘authors using a series detective are trapped by their series. It stops some of them from expanding as writers’.

She is proud of the fact that many of her novels are essentially about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations which may threatening, or simply horrific. It is this facet of her writing that ensures a loyal following amongst readers who inevitably identify with some of the characters and recognise conflicts that may occur in everyday life. Indeed, she states that characters are far more important to her than intricate plots and that when writing ‘I don’t manipulate the characters, they manipulate me’.

Critics have noted that she has a ‘marvellous use of language’ and she has frequently been cited as an equal to P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. She is a past chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association and in 1999 was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger, having already been honoured with the Martin Beck Award from the Swedish Academy of Detection.

Introduction

Patrick rolled over and swam parallel to the shore for a while, then lifted his head from the water. Towards the rocks he saw a blob; another swimmer had arrived. Patrick swam slowly in that direction, wondering if it was a solitary-minded person or someone who would exchange a greeting when they met.

The other swimmer was a slow mover. The head remained well down in the water, and there was no sign of action from the limbs. He was like a snorkel swimmer, lying motionless on the surface gazing into the depths.

Patrick swam closer, until even without his glasses, he could see there was no snorkel tube. The swimmer lay unmoving, face downwards in the water, arms floating outstretched, and there was something very wrong about him, for the figure – it was a man – was fully dressed. Patrick knew before he turned him over that he was dead.

PART ONE

Dr Patrick grant was in a bad mood when he entered the departure lounge at Heathrow airport, but after five minutes, in its muted atmosphere of spurious comfort, his humour improved. Though his plans had gone awry, travel always stimulated him and he was bound for a land he found captivating. Ahead were blue skies, brilliant sunshine, and the ruins of ancient civilisations; if he got bored he could always wrestle with the intricacies of the Greek language.

He should have been in his own car now, aboard the ferry for Patras, but ten days ago his white Rover 2000, four years old and without a scratch, had been stolen from the street in Oxford where Patrick had parked it while he visited Alec Mudie, a fellow don of St. Mark’s College, who was in hospital after a heart attack. Two days later, the police had found the car abandoned in a wood; it had run off the road into a tree and was damaged beyond repair. There was no sign of the driver.

Patrick was upset by the loss of his car; apart from the inconvenience, he was fond of it; to him it had personality. It meant, also, a change in his immediate plans to drive across Europe and wander about Greece, an intention already affected by Alec’s illness, for they were to have gone together.

He was still undecided about how to rearrange things when Alec had a second heart attack, and died. Then Patrick made up his mind and booked a flight, for at their last meeting, Alec had asked him to search for a young man who had disappeared.

Alec nodded, pale against his pillows, tubes running to him from various machines alongside.

Patrick did. Taking on this responsibility brought with it obligations as great as those of any blood relation. Alec, just down from Oxford, had been in Crete during the war.

‘I’ve had no news of him for well over a year,’ Alec said. ‘He got into trouble some time ago and went to prison. Ilena, his mother, didn’t say why, but it’s not hard to guess with things as they are in Greece today. She hasn’t answered any of my recent letters.’

‘He was working in a laboratory near Thessalonika – he’s got a science degree. But that was four years ago. I don’t know what he’s been doing lately. His mother lives in a village called Ai Saranda, about thirty miles from Heraklion.’

‘Well, I can go to Ai Saranda and find out,’ said Patrick. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were worried about them when we were planning our trip?’

‘I didn’t want to put you off the idea of taking me, I suppose,’ replied Alec. ‘We meant to go to Crete anyway. I’d have sprung it on you when we got there. I wrote to tell Ilena we were coming.’

‘You know I like unravelling puzzles,’ Patrick said, mildly. ‘And if I can’t speak the language of the country I’m in, it’s handy to have a companion who does. Compensates for other problems.’

‘We could ring you up,’ Patrick said, inspired. ‘You’ll be well enough to talk to her by then. I expect there’s a telephone in Ai Saranda.’

‘Oh, bound to be, though it’s pretty small. You find little villages all over Greece called Ai Saranda,’ Alec said. ‘It means the Forty Saints.’ His voice trailed away and he looked exhausted. Then he roused himself. ‘I’ve written Ilena’s address down.’ Feebly he pointed to his bedside locker; Patrick opened it and found an envelope there addressed to him. Later, he realised the significance of this, as though Alec had feared he might never hand it over himself, for it contained a brief outline, written in a shaky version of his usual neat script, of what he had just related.

‘You shouldn’t have to put yourself out too much, Patrick. It should only take a day,’ he said.

‘I like to know of someone in a strange country,’ Patrick said, pocketing the paper. ‘It gives one a point of reference.’

Now Alec was dead, and what Patrick had thought of merely as a diversion had become important, for the only thing you can do for the dead is to carry out their wishes.

In the departure lounge of Number Two Terminal Building, the tide of travellers eddied; nervous people anxiously watched the departure signs, and the less tense sat about drinking or reading newspapers. Patrick looked at them all with interest; there were many nationalities represented. Most of the men in city suits, with brief cases, must be on prosaic business trips, but there were a good many tourists too.

Some distance away on the runway outside, there was a Boeing of Olympic Airways with the coloured concentric circles on its tail. Patrick felt a thrill at the sight of it, and was among the first passengers trooping towards the departure gate when the flight was called. The flock was halted on the way down the ramp to be searched for hidden weapons. In front of Patrick, a woman shaped like a cottage loaf, flat-footed and with unruly grey hair, unpacked her huge handbag laboriously, while a solemn girl inspected every object it contained.

Patrick carried a small holdall which held his shaving kit, four books, three maps, two exercise books and a Greek phrase book. He had a paperback book in one of his jacket pockets, a very small notebook in another, and an array of pens and ballpoints clipped to the inside one. All this surprised his searcher, who looked suspiciously at every item, but eventually, he was allowed to proceed.

The cottage loaf lady had trouble replacing her possessions in her bulging handbag. She stopped suddenly in the middle of the corridor in front of Patrick, bringing him to a halt too, while she struggled with the clasp.

‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘I had it all so neatly stowed away. Still, they’re quite right to be so thorough. You can’t be too careful, can you?’

Patrick murmured some agreement. He did not want to become her friend for the flight, so he walked on and got into the bus. It was still light; they were due in Athens some time after eleven o’clock, and he would have a short wait there before going on to Heraklion.

‘You don’t know what to wear, do you?’ said a voice behind him. ‘It could be chilly when we land.’ The speaker was the cottage loaf lady, now seated near him in the bus.

‘Oh, it won’t be. The heat rises up from the runway at Athens,’ said another female voice. This one was deeper, and held a note of suppressed excitement.

‘I haven’t,’ said the cottage loaf. Before they reached the plane she told her new friend that she was on her way to stay with her daughter whose husband worked for a company mining bauxite just outside Athens.

The second woman said no more. When the passengers left the bus to get into the plane, Patrick saw that she was tall, with smooth white hair drawn into a chignon at the nape of her neck. She had large brown eyes and there were delicately worked beaten gold drop ear-rings in her pierced ears. She was in her early fifties, Patrick judged; he noticed as she waited calmly for her turn to leave the bus, her hands clasping a holdall, that she wore no rings.

He followed the two women up the steps and into the plane and found that he was already in Greece. Bouzouki music played softly, a limpid-eyed girl, olive-skinned and smiling, wearing the yellow Olympic Airways uniform, stood by the doorway, and a dark young man with crisp, curling hair was in the cabin directing passengers to their seats. Patrick’s was next to the window. In the business of settling into it, he lost sight of the two ladies from the bus.

His bad temper had quite gone by the time the stewardesses had handed round moist, verbena-scented towels so that the travellers might wipe away the traces of fatigue before the journey started.

‘Kalispera, kiries kai kirioi,’ came the swift Greek voice over the loudspeakers.

III

The white-haired woman had spoken the truth. As he left the plane and walked down the steps on to the runway the warmth of the night enfolded Patrick, and it seemed that already he could smell the scent of thyme and pines from the surrounding hills. How fanciful, he told himself: in fact the air here must be full of kerosene fumes. He began to wish, as he followed the signs for transit passengers in the Olympic Airways building, that he had arranged to spend a night or two in Athens before going on to Crete. In spite of the clangour of the modern city, it drew him like a magnet. But he was tired. His sister, Jane, had instructed him to spend his holiday soaking up the sun; he was to swim and walk, and keep out of trouble. He was suffering, she told him, from too much work, too many nights spent reading or philosophising, and not enough fun.

‘You’ll turn into a stodgy old bore soon, if you forget how to enjoy yourself,’ she had warned.

Patrick had sought few pleasures outside academic argument for some time. When he was last in Athens, a series of events had begun that had brought him emotional scars, and afterwards he had retreated within the safe walls of St. Mark’s like a tortoise into its shell.

‘All right, so I’m dull,’ he had said to himself, while promising aloud to remember his sister’s words.

Most of the Boeing’s passengers left it at Athens. Those going on to Heraklion collected their new boarding passes and went into the departure lounge; among them was the woman with the white hair. They were searched once more, decorously behind a curtain this time.

Patrick sat near the vast windows and looked into the night. The huge plane they had travelled in was parked just outside. He wondered whether its crew grew bored, shuttling back and forth across Europe as if it were no more than a train journey from Oxford to Paddington. He felt sure that if he were a pilot, the romance of flying over the cities of Europe would never diminish.

The white-haired woman was making a telephone call. He could see her, near the duty-free shop, where there was a bubble-type booth for public use. She spoke animatedly for some time; then, having replaced the receiver, went to the bar and bought a drink.

It seemed a good idea. Patrick followed her example, ordered an ouzo, took Phineas Finn from his jacket pocket and settled down to read until it was time to go.

There were about thirty passengers in the plane for the last leg of the journey, and most of them had joined the flight at Athens. The air hostess handed round glasses of fruit squash and there was a relaxed feeling in the cabin. When they touched down, theirs was the only plane Patrick could see on the runway at Heraklion. He gazed up at the wide, dark sky, so full of stars: surely they shone more brightly here than over England?

As soon as Patrick had passed through the barrier, where the travellers’ names were checked against a file of what must be personae non gratae, he was intercepted by a tall young man with auburn hair who represented the travel firm through whom he had booked, and led to a waiting taxi. He had arranged to stay at a hotel just outside Challika, a small coastal town about an hour’s drive from Heraklion. His plan was to hire a car in the morning, and from this base seek out Ilena Pavlou, visit Knossos and Phaestos, and then decide future movements. He did not favour a prolonged stay in a modern tourist hotel and thought with envy of various colleagues who were spending the vacation in Greece. One married couple was driving round the mainland, stopping where the fancy took them, as he and Alec had intended; two families were sharing a villa in Corfu. Felix Lomax was aboard the cruise liner Persephone lecturing to the passengers. After Alec’s death and the theft of the car he had suggested that Patrick should join the ship instead of travelling alone.

Patrick suddenly felt lonely as he got into his taxi. Perhaps someone else would join him. Ahead, getting into another taxi, he saw the white-haired woman from the plane, and wondered where she was going. The few other tourists were being despatched by different couriers employed by rival agents. Patrick’s young man returned, spoke to the driver, said ‘Have a nice time’ to Patrick, and the taxi started.

How unexpected to meet a red-haired Greek, thought Patrick as they sped along the road. He looked about him, hoping to see something of Heraklion, but the airport was outside the town and their route did not pass through it. The road, straight at first, soon began to wind about among the mountains. The driver kept switching his headlights up and then dipping them to signal their approach as they twisted and turned. A crucifix and some charms hung on the windscreen of the taxi, and a photograph of the driver’s wife or girlfriend. At one point, as they went over a ravine, the driver crossed himself. A notorious black spot, Patrick wryly supposed.

He felt frustrated at being unable to communicate with the driver. Each had discovered in the friendliest manner that neither spoke the other’s tongue, and that seemed to be the end of it. Patrick thought of all sorts of remarks he could make in French, German, or Italian, but he could say nothing except simple words of greeting in Greek, and it was too dark to consult his phrase book. The journey seemed interminable, spent in silence. Ahead, the lights of another car showed at intervals as they travelled along the twisting roads. What Patrick could see of the countryside was rocky and barren.

At last the road began to drop down and he saw below them the lights of a small town.

Not a soul was about, and the sea was like black glass as they drove along the coastal road. A few fishing boats lay at their moorings in the harbour, and there was one large yacht with riding lights at anchor further out. When they drew up outside the hotel, another taxi was already parked there.

Patrick’s driver shepherded him inside and handed him over to a youth of about fifteen who seemed to be in charge of the hotel. At the desk, surrendering her passport, was the white-haired woman. She, too, had driven alone through the night.

Patrick thanked the driver with a confident ‘efkaristo’ and tipped him generously, which pleased the man since his fare had been paid in advance by the travel agent. The hall of the hotel was dimly lit, and a small maid was swabbing the tiled floor with a mop; the scene was bleak, and Patrick’s heart sank, but the wide smile on the face of the youth was warm enough.

‘Please to follow,’ he said, leading the way to the lift. ‘I bring the baggages,’ and he picked up their two suitcases.

‘Thank you,’ she said, and went ahead. Then she said something to the boy in Greek, at which he beamed and broke into a flood of speech. The woman laughed and answered. Patrick caught the phrase ‘sigha, sigha’ which he knew meant, more or less, ‘slow down please,’ and indicated that the boy spoke too fast for her to follow. He looked at her with new interest.

Her room was on the second floor. The boy led her away to it, asking Patrick to wait as his was on the one above. After some time he returned and they continued upwards. Patrick by now was tired enough to have slept on the marble floor of the landing without complaint; the boy, who had, after all, to remain awake throughout the night, insisted on showing him all the glories of his apartment, with its bathroom and range of cupboards. There was a balcony, and beyond the garden could be seen the lights of the town shining on the sea. The scent of flowers rose from below, and the sound of cicadas filled the air.

‘You like?’ said the boy, with a sweeping gesture which embraced the whole vista around them, as if he owned it all.

Now that he could at last indulge it, Patrick’s desire for sleep fled. A swim would be wonderful; it would relax his stiff muscles after the journey. He thought about it, as he stood on the balcony after the boy had gone. The swimming- pool was just below; he could see the shimmer of the water. However, he might astound the lad if he went out at this hour; it was, after all, almost three o’clock. Better wait till daylight.

He had a bath, hoping the gurgling pipes would disturb no one, then stood on the balcony again listening to the cicadas and inhaling the scents of the night: flowers, pine trees, and the sea. Light showed from another balcony below, where someone else must be awake; he wondered if it was the white-haired woman.

The bed was made up with only a sheet, and Patrick found even that superfluous, as he lay in the darkness with the sound of the cicadas still loud in the air. He decided that he was too tired to sleep.

At a quarter-to-six he was wide awake. He got out of bed and went on to the balcony. Now, in the clear light, he could see mountains in the distance. The pool, surrounded by geraniums, looked inviting, but the sea would be better.

Ten minutes later, in towelling jacket and canvas shoes, Patrick padded down the marble staircase and into the hall. The lad was still on duty at the desk. He hid a yawn as Patrick appeared, and said ‘Good morning.’

An open door led into the garden, and beyond stone steps went down to a terrace where there were flower beds planted with asters, dahlias and love-lies bleeding. A further flight of steps continued to the beach. Bare hills stretched on either side, dotted with olive trees. Rocks bordered the water’s edge to one side of the beach, and here, Patrick stopped. There was no one else to be seen. He took off his shoes, put his glasses in the pocket of his jacket, which he removed and laid neatly on the ground; then he went to the edge of the rocks and peered into the water. Without his glasses it looked blurred, but it was aquamarine blue, translucent, and deep. He dived in.

It was not cold, just chilled enough after the night to be refreshing. He swam out towards the nearby headland of rock with his easy, not very stylish crawl, then lay on his back looking at the sky as he cruised slowly along. Already Oxford seemed a world away; he would have to make an effort even to remember about Yannis in this peaceful place. He rolled over and swam parallel to the shore for a while, then lifted his head from the water. Towards the rocks, he saw a blob; another swimmer had arrived. Patrick swam slowly in that direction, wondering if it was a solitary-minded person or someone who would exchange a greeting when they met.

Patrick swam closer, until even without his glasses he was sure that there was no snorkel tube. The swimmer lay unmoving, face downwards in the water, arms floating outstretched, and there was something very wrong about him, for the figure – it was a man – was fully dressed. Patrick knew before he turned him over that he was dead.

Swimming on his back, Patrick towed the body to the shore. There might be some life left. But when he had dragged it out on to the sand, there was no doubt of its condition.

He stumbled back to where he had left his glasses, shoes and bathrobe; then, his focus restored, went quickly into the hotel. The boy had gone off duty, and a pale young man with a neat moustache was now behind the desk. Patrick hoped his English was as good as the boy’s.

‘Good morning, sir?’ An inquiring inflection of the voice, and a smile, slightly anxious.

Patrick wondered for a lunatic instant if his phrase book covered this contingency. Instead, he sought aid from philology.

The already pale clerk turned even paler. He hastened out from behind his counter. Had the Englishman gone mad? In silence, they walked quickly to where the body lay.

‘Christos!’ The young man crossed himself and stared in dismay at the still figure which rested near the water’s edge, the head turned to one side. Dark hair was plastered to the skull and covered the face.

The young man dashed away and Patrick looked down at the body once more. Now, seen through his glasses, it was no longer a blurred mass. It wore dark trousers and a cream linen jacket. He stooped and moved the strands of hair away from the face. There was something familiar about those blotched and puffy features: with rising horror Patrick stared down at what he now recognised as the remains of Felix Lomax, senior member of his own college and at present supposed to be aboard the S.S. Persephone lecturing about ancient historical sites.

In minutes, the clerk, whose brain had clicked into efficient motion, was back with a blanket and two sturdy men. They wrapped up the body and bore it away – without difficulty, for Felix was not a big man – finally bundling it into the hotel through one of the service doors. Once it was out of public view the clerk looked relieved.

Patrick understood only too clearly. The sudden sight of that corpse in such surroundings was shocking indeed.

‘The police come,’ the clerk added. ‘And the manager.’ This was said with foreboding; the young man seemed more in awe of the manager than of the law.

‘My name is Grant. Room 340,’ he said. ‘I will get dressed now.’ He indicated his towelling robe. ‘Then I will go to the dining room. You will find me there if you want me.’ Despite his attire, his habitual air of authority clung to Patrick and the clerk responded to it.

Patrick rode alone in the lift and stepped from it in a state of unbelief: Felix Lomax, dead in Crete. It was Felix, there could be no mistake; he had recognised the cameo signet ring which Felix always wore.

What a terrible thing. His mind ranged over their last meeting at Alec Mudie’s funeral only a week ago. Felix had renewed his suggestion that Patrick should join the cruise; he was flying to Venice himself the following day.

What on earth was Felix doing in Crete when he should have been aboard the Persephone?

No doubt the ship called at Heraklion, so that the passengers could visit the museum and the palace at Knossos. Felix must have seen both many times; if he were not the duty lecturer he might have decided to spend the day elsewhere on the island.

The big dining-room was almost empty when Patrick came downstairs later. It was still early, and most people probably chose to have breakfast on their balconies. He’d do so in future, though he didn’t propose to spend many nights in Challika. Several waiters were talking together, their sibilant voices low but their gestures dramatic; by this time all the staff would know that a dead man had been found in the sea.

He ordered coffee and hoped the management ran to rolls, and not the limp toast, wrapped in a paper napkin, which was the normal Greek hotel breakfast.

Jane, who had been to Greece too, had advised taking his own supply of crispbread.

‘Nonsense. Crusty old thing I may be, but I’m not so set in my ways yet that I can’t take things as I find them,’ Patrick had said.

But when the waiter returned and spread before him two individual foil-wrapped measures of instant coffee, pots of hot water and milk, pale toast and a slice of madeira cake, Patrick began to wonder if her advice was not sound after all.

‘Parakalo,’ said the waiter, with a proud smile, as if he were serving the crispest rolls in Europe. And Patrick could never wound his philotimo.

While he ate his languid toast, Patrick thought about Felix Lomax. He was a quiet man, sometimes moody, and at times, unreasonably impatient with his pupils. He had married a large, brisk girl who had turned into a commanding woman. They had produced one meek daughter, a plain gosling who had never turned into a swan; she had married a young man of, according to Gwenda Lomax, a morose disposition, and they lived in Surbiton. Gwenda spent her energy in many voluntary activities for the good of the community; and when she became a grandmother, she adopted her new role with gusto. Felix spent more and more time in college, and for some time now had gone on two Mediterranean lecture cruises each year. It was alleged that he and Gwenda seldom met except at functions both felt obliged to attend. Patrick hoped, basely, that Gwenda would not come tearing out to Crete when she heard about Felix for he would feel obliged to look after her.

Poor old Felix. What a tragic way to end. How could such a thing have happened? Well, no doubt the police would soon discover.

In spite of the rude shock he had had, Patrick was hungry after his swim. He ate up all his toast, and was just finishing his slice of cake when the pale clerk appeared, looking for him. Patrick followed him through the hall and into an office where a uniformed police officer and the hotel manager were conferring.

The manager spoke excellent English, and Inspector Manolakis spoke English too, though less fluently. Both listened attentively to Patrick’s account of how he had found the body.

‘Dr Lomax wasn’t staying here, was he?’ asked Patrick. He couldn’t have been. He could only have left the cruise for the day.

‘Ah, Oxfordi, I have been to this fine city,’ said the manager, who was a thickset man with grey hair and many gold fillings in his teeth.

‘There were papers in his pocket,’ said the policeman. ‘Very much wet, but good. His passport, too. You, Mr Grant, are from Oxford also?’

Patrick’s passport, surrendered the night before, lay on the desk. It disclosed his profession and place of birth, but not his address.

‘Yes,’ said Patrick. ‘Dr Lomax and I are—were—members of the same college.’ He asked again. ‘Was he staying here?’

‘No, Mr Grant. Not in this hotel. We do not yet know which one was his, but that will be moments only,’ said the police officer. ‘We have no news of any missing person.’

Wouldn’t the captain of the Persephone have reported Felix’s absence? He must have been missed by this time. The state of the body indicated that he had been dead for several days. Patrick decided not to mention the cruise; Felix might, for some reason, extraordinary though it seemed, have changed his plans and left the ship. Gwenda, when she heard what had happened, would soon say where he should really have been. Meanwhile, he would not complicate things; what mattered was how Felix had met his death. Was it an accident, or suicide?

Patrick was given permission to spend the morning as he liked, but was asked to return to the hotel for lunch. The police might need to ask more questions. This would give time for the doctor to examine the body and for enquiries to be made at the other hotels. Clearly, all would be concluded with speed and discretion.

Copyright & Information

About the Author

Introduction

PART ONE

I

II

III

IV

V

VI