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In the Green Room behind the stage at the Albert…

16

Harry Baker was talking to a uniformed inspector in the…

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PROLOGUE

The Cretan turned in through the gate in the high, brick wall surrounding the house near Regent’s Park, stepped into the shrubbery, merging with the shadows. He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. Ten minutes to seven, which meant he had a little time in hand.

He was wearing a dark anorak from one pocket of which he produced a Mauser with a bulbous silencer on the end of the barrel. He checked the action and slipped it back into his pocket.

The house was imposing enough, which was only to be expected for it was owned by Maxwell Jacob Cohen – Max Cohen to his friends. Amongst other things, chairman of the largest clothing manufacturers in the world, one of the most influential Jews in British society. A man loved and respected by everyone who knew him.

Unfortunately, he was also an ardent Zionist, a considerable disadvantage in the eyes of certain people. Not that it bothered the Cretan. Politics were a nonsense. Games for children. He never queried the target, only the details and in this case he’d checked them thoroughly. There was Cohen, his wife and the maid – no one else. The rest of the servants lived out.

He took a black balaclava helmet from his pocket, which he pulled over his head, leaving only his eyes, nose and mouth exposed, then he pulled up the hood of the anorak, stepped out of the shrubbery and moved towards the house.

Maria, the Cohens’ Spanish maid, was in the living-room when the doorbell rang. When she opened it, she received the shock of her life. The phantom before her held a pistol in his right hand. When the lips moved in the obscene slash in the woollen helmet, he spoke somewhat hoarsely in English with a heavy foreign accent.

‘Take me to Mr Cohen.’ Maria opened her mouth to protest. The pistol was extended menacingly as the Cretan stepped inside and closed the door behind him. ‘Quickly now, if you want to live.’

The girl turned to go up the stairs and the Cretan followed. As they moved along the landing, the bedroom door opened and Mrs Cohen appeared. She had lived with the fear of this kind of thing for some years now, saw Maria, the hooded man, the gun, and in a reflex action, jumped back instantly into the bedroom. She slammed and locked the door then ran to the telephone and dialled nine-nine-nine.

The Cretan pushed Maria on. The maid stumbled, losing a shoe, then paused at the door of her master’s study. She hesitated, then knocked.

Max Cohen answered with some surprise, for it was a strict house rule that he must never be disturbed in his study before eight in the evening. He was aware of Maria standing there, one shoe off, terror on her face and then she was pulled to one side and the Cretan appeared, the silenced gun in his hand. It coughed once.

Max Cohen had been a boxer in his youth and for a moment, it was like being back in the ring. A good solid punch in the face that knocked him clean off his feet. And then he was on his back in the study.

His lips tried to form the words of that most common of Hebrew prayers recited by any Jew, the last prayer he utters in death. Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. But the words refused to come and the light was fading very fast now and then there was only darkness.

As the Cretan ran out of the front door the first police car to answer the call turned in at the end of the street and he could hear others approaching fast. He darted across the garden into the shadows and clambered over a wall into another garden. Finally he opened a gate to let himself out into a narrow lane a few moments later. He pulled down his hood, removed the balaclava helmet and hurried away.

Already, his description, obtained from the maid by the crew of the first police car on the scene, was being transmitted over the radio. Not that it mattered. A couple of hundred yards and he would be lost in the greenness of Regent’s Park. Straight across to the underground station on the other side, change at Oxford Circus.

He started to cross the road, there was a squeal of brakes. A voice called, ‘Hey, you!’

It was a police car, one quick glance told him that, and then he dodged into the nearest side street and started to run. His luck, as always, was good for as he ran along the line of parked cars, he saw a man up ahead getting into one. The door slammed, the engine started.

The Cretan wrenched the door open, dragged the driver out head first and jumped behind the wheel. He gunned the motor, swinging the wheel, crumpling the nearside wing on the car parked in front, and drove away quickly as the police car roared up the street after him.

He cut across Vale Road into Paddington. He didn’t have long if he was to lose them, he knew that, because in seconds every police car in that part of London would be converging on the area, sealing it up tight.

There was a road works sign, an arrow pointing to the right which didn’t give him much choice. A one-way street between warehouses, narrow and dark, leading down to Paddington Goods Station.

The police car was close now – too close. He increased speed and saw that he was entering a long narrow tunnel under the railway line, then he noticed a figure up ahead.

It was a girl on a bicycle. A young girl, in a brown duffel coat, a striped scarf around her neck. He was conscious of her white frightened face as she glanced over her shoulder. The machine wobbled.

He swung the wheel, scraping the nearside wing against the tunnel wall so that sparks flew. It was no good. There just wasn’t the room. There was a dull thud, no more than that and then she bounced to one side off the bonnet of the car.

The police car braked to a halt sharply. The Cretan kept on going, straight out of the end of the tunnel into Bishops Bridge Road.

Five minutes later he dumped the car in a side street in Bayswater, crossed the Bayswater Road and walked briskly through the trees across Kensington Gardens, emerging at Queen’s Gate.

There was quite a crowd when he crossed to the Albert Hall and a queue up the steps to the box office, for there was an important concert that night. The Vienna Philharmonic doing the St Anthony Chorale by Brahms with John Mikali playing Rachmaninov’s Concerto No. 2 in C minor.

21 July 1972. The Cretan lit a cigarette and examined the picture of Mikali on the poster, the famous one with the dark, curly hair, the pale face, the eyes like clear black glass.

He walked round to the rear of the building. One of the doors had an illuminated sign over it which said Artists. He entered. A doorkeeper, in his booth, glanced up from his sports paper and smiled.

‘Evening, sir, cold tonight.’

‘I’ve known worse,’ the Cretan said.

He descended to the corridor leading to the back of the stage. There was a door marked Green Room. He opened it and switched on the light. It was surprisingly spacious as dressing rooms went and reasonably furnished. The only thing which had visibly seen better days was the practice piano against the wall, an old upright Chappell which looked in imminent danger of collapse.

He took the Mauser from his pocket, opened a dressing case, removed the base panel and stuffed the Mauser inside out of sight. Then he took off his anorak, tossed it into the corner and sat down in front of the dressing mirror.

There was a knock on the door and the stage manager looked in. ‘You’ve got forty-five minutes, Mr Mikali. Can I get them to bring you some coffee?’

‘No, thank you,’ John Mikali said. ‘Coffee and I don’t agree. Some chemical thing, my doctor tells me. But if you could manage a pot of tea, I’d be most grateful.’

‘Certainly, sir.’ The stage manager, on his way out again, paused. ‘By the way, if you’re interested, there’s just been a newsflash on the radio. Someone’s shot Maxwell Cohen at his house near Regent’s Park. Hooded man. Got clean away.’

‘Good God,’ Mikali said.

‘The police think it’s political, Mr Cohen being such a well-known Zionist. He only escaped death by a miracle last year, from that letter bomb someone sent him.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a funny kind of world we live in, Mr Mikali. What kind of man would do a thing like that?’

He went out and Mikali turned and looked in the mirror. He smiled slightly and his reflection smiled back.

‘Well?’ he said.

1

Some forty sea miles south from Athens and less than five from the coast of the Peloponnese, lies the island of Hydra, once one of the most formidable maritime powers in the Mediterranean.

From the middle of the eighteenth century many ships’ captains amassed huge fortunes trading as far as America, and Venetian architects were brought in to build large mansions which may still be seen to this day in that most beautiful of all ports.