Free The Oracle by Valerio Massimo Manfredi Page A

blow to the cop who had been holding him, devastating his face. The man fell back, moaning, covering his smashed nose and broken jaw with his hands. Claudio pounded against the door like a battering ram and would have crushed himself against the armour-plating had another two policemen not lunged at him and blanketed his face and body with wild, violent blows, immobilizing him on the ground. One of them pinned his knee on Claudio’s chest and held both hands around his neck.
    Karamanlis, white as a rag, ordered them to get him back up and make him watch, but the man behind him intervened: ‘Stop that animal, Karamanlis. Stop him, for God’s sake, can’t you see that she’s dead? Christ, he’s killed her, that damned bastard. Stop him or you’ll have hell to pay for this.’
    Heleni’s body shook under his last thrusts like the disjointed body of a rag doll; her eyes rolled up whitely.
    Karamanlis opened his mouth and called Vlassos, to no effect. It took two men to pull him off Heleni’s corpse.
    The man standing in the shadows could no longer hold back and approached Karamanlis: ‘Idiot, now you’ll have to kill the boy too, after what he’s seen. Great results, you idiot, you piece of shit. And yet you’re a citizen of an allied country, you goddamned imbecile.’
    Claudio was about to lose his senses; his left eye a mere slit in his swollen cheek. It was winking with tiny, dry movements, seemingly automatic, but each time he blinked, his eye captured a face and branded it in his memory: Captain Karamanlis, officers Roussos and Karagheorghis, the man with the English accent illuminated by the fluorescent tube on the ceiling . . . and Vlassos. He never saw him leave the room, but as his mind sank into unconsciousness, his nostrils were filled with the sharp, nauseating odour of rape.
    Karamanlis, who had been tense but impassive, suddenly seemed exhausted. His face was lumpy and wrinkled, his forehead beaded with sweat. ‘Take him away,’ he ordered. ‘As soon as it’s dark, take him out of the city and get rid of him. Don’t leave a trace, or you’ll be in the worst trouble you’ve ever imagined. You can bury her in the same place,’ he added, indicating Heleni’s body, which had been repositioned on the bed.
    An hour later, Karamanlis passed near the door of the cell where Claudio was being held and he stopped, astonished. A strange sound was coming from within, a song, he would say, although he couldn’t understand the words. A gentle, pain-filled melody that rose higher and sweeter, a disturbing, desolate rhapsody. The officer felt a sense of annoying discomfort – the absurd song rang out like an intolerable challenge. He beat his fist against the door, shouting hysterically: ‘That’s enough! Stop that, damn you! Cut it out with this whining!’
    The voice fell away and the long hall was plunged back into silence.
    T HE LARGE BLUE car came to an abrupt stop in front of the police barracks guardhouse. The light blue flag with its three gold stars on the left bumper indicated that a highly ranked officer was aboard. The driver got out and opened the rear door, snapping to attention before his superior. The man was dressed in the elegant uniform of the Greek navy. He smoothed his jacket and adjusted the gloves over his long, sturdy fingers. The sentry looked over distractedly and then, struck by the man’s steely gaze, stiffened into the present-arms position.
    The penetrating intensity of his stare, the dark cast of his skin and the deep wrinkles that creased his brow suggested that his stripes had been earned in long years at sea, amidst wind and fire.
    He entered with a strong stride, briefly touching his hand to his peaked cap, and walked straight to the front desk.
    ‘I’m Admiral Bogdanos,’ said the officer, showing an ID card that he rapidly returned to his inside jacket pocket. ‘I must speak immediately with the chief of police.’
    ‘Just a moment, Admiral. I’ll call him