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He’d come to a conclusion. It was unlikely that the tape contained anything incriminating but, even so, he wasn’t going to take the chance. Normally he’d have one of his heavies deal with it. The only problem was that they weren’t around.
For this auction he had decided about a month ago that he would look after things on his own. In retrospect perhaps that wasn’t a good idea. The arrival of the archaeologists was, thought Freddie, bloody inconvenient. And now he had to deal with things himself. That’s what comes of trying to save money, he grumbled to himself as he trudged through the darkness towards the tourist apartments at the back of the port. The first thing was to steal a car.
The idea was to burgle the site cabin; to get the video and maybe make a bit of a mess to give the girls the idea that they might not be welcome. The car was to give the impression that whoever had done it had come from some way away.
There were three pale green Fiat Punto’s in varying states of rusting deterioration, pulled up outside the Dimetrios Apartments. The first one that he tried had the keys under the driver’s floor mat, left there by the last renter. Freddie didn’t know why tourists bothered to rent cars on the island. There weren’t many places to go and the bus went all round the island anyway. Still, at least this gave him the opportunity he needed. He slid behind the wheel and drove off towards the site of the dig.
He parked and looked at his watch. Half past ten. Late enough around here. He looked around. There was no sign of anyone.
Freddie found that he fell into the routine easily. It made a change, Freddie decided, as he pulled the ski mask from his back pack. It was a long time since he’d done this. That was the worst part of being a criminal master mind; the other guys got to do the fun bits. The only down side of this little project was that the burglary wasn’t meant to look too subtle. There wasn’t any need to go about things with any finesse. It wouldn’t do for it to look like it had been done by someone that knew what they were up to.
He made his way across the valley to the cabin that Bethany’s team had brought in. From his visits to the site he knew that they kept their equipment in there overnight. The door was locked with a padlock but Freddie found a shovel leaning beside the cabin and that provided sufficient to break the hasp away from the cabin door. He pulled the door open and slipped inside. It was even darker inside the hut but with the help of the glimmer from a dim torch he soon got his bearings; the desk at one end, a filing cabinet beside it and against the far wall a steel cupboard. Along the back wall of the cabin was a long table with plans laid out along it and piles of crates containing the finds so far beneath it. Copies of the geo-phys and GPR survey results were pinned to the wall. Freddie thought he’d find the video in the cupboard. It was locked.
He was searching for a key and had just found a possibility in the drawer of the desk when he saw through the cabin window the light of a torch flickering backwards and forwards across the clearing. It was coming straight towards him. He knew he had no time to get out of the cabin. All he could do was to hope that whoever it was would see the signs of the break in and run off for help. Hoping for the best, he crouched down between the back of the door and the steel cupboard. He could see the light of the torch getting closer.
Then there was the sound of Judy’s voice. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. She’d obviously seen the shattered padlock hasp and come to the right conclusion. Her response, however, was entirely the wrong one. She pushed open the door and came inside.
Clegg didn’t really need to decide what to do. His body remembered skills he had thought that he had forgotten as he uncurled from his hiding place stretching one gloved hand around to clamp across Judy’s mouth while grabbing her around the waist with the other to pull her back against him.
Judy squealed and tried to bite into the hand that gagged her. She kicked out with her feet but, although she made contact against her attacker's shins with the heel of her trainers, she didn’t manage to break free. She tried to gasp for breath as her attacker pulled her back, her nose filled with the smell of the man’s leather gloves. As she struggled she succeeded in swinging the heavy torch down and behind her to slam it into Freddie’s side. The shock made him loosen his grip for an instant and Judy tried to break free. Freddie, determined that she shouldn’t, reached out, grabbed at her arm, and pulled. Judy swung back, tripping over Freddie’s leg and slamming herself against the steel cupboard. She slid to the floor stunned by the impact.
Freddie was coughing from the blow from the torch, and remembering why he’d given all this up a while ago in favour of a more managerial role, but at least he now had the initiative.
As the stunned Judy groaned quietly, he rolled her over onto her face and dragged the belt from her jeans. It wasn’t ideal for tying someone up with but it would do at least for now. He pulled her wrist together and wound the belt tightly around them. He found a measuring tape and used that to tie her ankles. For good measure he took a turn around her knees as well.
Judy started to stir. In one of the finds crates Freddie found a wad of cloth used to pack around fragile pieces of pot. Conveniently nearby was a reel of adhesive tape that he’d seen Stacey using to help assemble pieces of pottery into something that looked more like a plate or jug. As Judy started to struggle against her bonds Freddie knelt across her and rolled her over on to her back. She went to yell, terrified by her masked assailant. Freddie wedged the cloth between her lips. Judy coughed as Freddie thumbed the cloth in, packing her mouth until her cheeks bulged like a hamster. By the time he’d finished with the cloth Judy was throwing herself from side to side trying to dislodge him. Clegg ignored her efforts and pulled strip after strip of the tape across her face. He found some more cloth to blindfold her and taped that in place too. Satisfied that she wasn’t going far, he took some time to take stock of the situation.
As far as he could tell, she had been alone. She hadn’t called out to anyone. He hadn’t heard anyone else and with her mouth stuffed as full as it was there was no danger she was going to be heard from more than a few feet away. In any case, thought Freddie, it didn’t matter. He would just make sure that she wouldn’t escape. Then he would find the tapes and the video camera and get clear as he had originally planned. He got the steel cabinet open and, sure enough, found the video. He ran the tape, looking at the indicators that showed it was indeed footage taken the previous evening. He tossed the camera into his bag, turned over a couple of the find trays to make it look as though he’d been looking for valuables and then turned his attentions back to Judy.
She was still struggling in a way that left Freddie thinking she’d free herself in time. She could use a paint brush to clean dirt off a pot daintily enough but Freddie guessed she was pretty fit from swinging a shovel too. Freddie knew he needed something to slow her up but there wasn’t anything in the cabin to tie her to. They hadn’t bothered to get a chair for the desk and the desk itself looked too rickety to make it a serious proposition.
Then Freddie spotted the ranging poles. There were half a dozen red and white striped poles used for surveying the site and for showing scale in the photographs of the trenches that Bethany was using to record the dig. As he grabbed the poles, he found a coil of the rope that they’d been using to mark out trenches. This was more like it. Freddie wedged one of the poles between Judy’s arms and her back and tied her arms to it before taking the rope across her chest and around her arms again. Thinking about it he was disappointed that it hadn’t been Danni. Her pert breasts would have looked good with rope around them like that. Freddie got his mind back on his work. He untied Judy’s ankles and tied them spread legged to one of the other poles. Then, rolling her over onto her face he pulled the two poles as lose together as he could tying them so that Judy was bowed back. Once he had finished he knew that, in spite of her spirited grunts and struggles, she’d be exhausted long before she managed to free herself. And tied like that there was no way she’d be able to shuffle herself outside to attract attention.
He grabbed his back pack and left. It was only when he got back into the car that he realised how much his side was hurting. He remembered why he had stopped doing this sort of things. He was getting too old for it. Even so, he had felt more alive in the last few minutes than he had for some time. He really needed to find something between sitting on management committees and having seven kinds of shit kicked out of him on operations. He’d have to think about it.
Chapter 8 : Police Investigations
There was plenty of activity down at the site the following morning but it wasn’t of the archaeological kind. The island’s one police car sat in the valley, its blue lights flashing. One of the island’s two police man stalked around peering into the cabin and talking to the girls. Freddie watched from the terrace of his villa. He knew that Petros would be up to talk to him soon enough.
It was just before midday when the policeman that Freddie had watched in the valley arrived at Freddie’s door. His colleague had come along too. Clegg invited them in. “Kalimera, Petros,” he smiled. “Have you got problems down at the site?”
“Indeed, Freddie, indeed,” Petros responded taking off his hat.
“Would you like something to drink?” said Clegg walking out to the terrace with the policemen.
Petros’s colleague shook his head. “Just a coke,” Petros answered, “I think I may be getting some ‘help’ from the mainland. You know how it is.”
“Of course.” Freddie picked a can from the fridge and passed it to him. “What’s happened?”
“Not nice,” Petros said, “not here on Agoras. OK maybe sometimes we have some drunk tourists, maybe sometimes pickpockets, but not like this. Someone broke into their hut. Attacked one of the girls.”
“Attacked? Is she all right? Which of them was it?”
“Miss Judy Fisher. Yes, she is all right but shocked of course. A burglar. Tied her up. Left her there. She could not get free. The others found her this morning when they came to start digging.”
“Appalling. It’s unusual here? Something like that? I’ve never heard of anything like it.”
“You’re right. Did you hear anything? Last night? About eight o’clock maybe?”
“No, I don’t think so. I was here all evening but, no, I don’t think I did.”
“That’s OK. I didn’t think you would. It was only one man. With a car, I think. But it’s all right. I know who did it.”
“Really.”
“Sure. This is not Greek. Over behind the Dimetrios Apartments - there’s some Albanians staying. The car came from Dimetrios, I’m sure. There’s a scrape of paint on the gate post of the site. There’s not so many cars on this island Freddie with that pale green colour. I’ll find that one of them has a scratch I’m sure. This has Albanians written all over it. My friends on the mainland agree.”
“But they are still coming to see?”
“Oh yes. I think they like the idea of a trip out here for a day. They may want to talk to you. Seeing as how you’re right here.”
“Of course. I’d be happy to.”
“On the other hand maybe they’ll just pick the Albanians up.”
“Did they take much?”
“No, just a video camera. That’s all there was of value in the hut. They must have thought the archaeologists had dug up something more interesting that pottery.”
“And Judy’s all right?” Freddie asked.
“Yes,” he nodded. “A bit sore but that’s all.”
“Well,” said Freddie, “I’ll go down to the site and see if there’s anything I can do to help. It’s a shocking business.”
“Yes, and it’s going to mean too many forms to fill in too!” Petros got to his feet, bid Freddie farewell and grunted at his colleague to follow.
Freddie made his way down to the site at the end of the afternoon. All the girls except Judy were busy, working away in the trenches. Clegg waved to Bethany. “I heard about your problem. Is Judy OK?”
Bethany put down her trowel, pushed back a strand of hair and stood up. “Yes. She had a nasty fright but she’s all right. She’s resting up – she was trussed up on the floor of the hut all night.”
“Dreadful. Did they take much?”
“No, just the video camera. That’s all there was really. There was some footage in it but nothing we can’t re-shoot. They turned over some of the finds trays but none of it was really important stuff, luckily. Stupid people. They must have thought there were artefacts of some value, I guess.”
“Like you say, stupid,” Freddie responded. “Well, I hope Judy feels OK soon. Give her my best wishes. Petros should get it sorted out. They don’t get much crime here but he’s bright, he knows his stuff.”
“Yes,” Bethany said, “I thought that. He seemed to think he had a lead. A paint scrape on the gatepost.”
“So he said,” Clegg replied, thinking that he was pleased Petros had spotted it. He had taken a great deal of care to leave it there. “How’s the digging going?”
“A bit slower without Judy here,” Bethany said ruefully. “But we are starting to get down onto the Mycenaean levels. A few nice pieces of pottery. Look.” She reached across to the finds tray, pulled out a pale shard of pottery with a dark lined design and passed it to him. “This is typical stuff for round about 1200 BC.”
“As old as that? Over three thousand years!” Freddie was impressed. He put it back in the finds tray carefully. “Well, I’ll let you get on. Let me know if I can do anything.”
“Thanks,” said Bethany, “that’s kind.”
Freddie headed back to the villa. He needed to check on his guests.
As always his arrival in the cellar started them up again. They’d had time to get used to the regime by now, he felt, why were they still kicking up every time he appeared? They knew it would do them no good. The latest girl, the one in from Crete, well she had some excuse. Only a couple of days ago she’d been enjoying a holiday in the sun; it was all a bit sudden for her, Freddie acknowledged. But the others! Heck, they’d been here for two weeks or more. They must know the score by now.
The Australian set them off this time. Soon they were all grunting and groaning through their gags. Years of experience told him the difference between the plaintiff grunts of despair and the groans of desperate defiance. In the end though it made no difference. The girls all found their new homes and they learned to keep their mouths shut. Except when their owners had a use for them.
It was feeding time. Freddie liked to keep a regular regime going, It made the girls easier to manage and he was less likely to forget something important. For the Australian, he kept her hands cuffed behind her and kept one hand on his tazer. She was still keen to abuse him when he took the ball out of her mouth. He ignored her fowl mouthed suggestions as to his sexuality and parentage, grabbed her by the back of her neck and pushed her face down in the dish of food. He gave her the chance to take a mouthful or two but when it became clear that she was more interested in swearing than eating he jammed the ball gag back in place and buckled it tight. She was still making a noise; the gag didn’t stifle every sound. It didn’t really matter; the cages were under the ground, hidden beneath the swimming pool on Freddie’s terrace. There would have been no danger of her being heard even without a gag. Freddie just liked the effect. To make the point about just who was in charge, he clipped the ring on her collar to a staple on the wall. She could spend a few hours standing on tip toes, Freddie thought. That way she’d have something to take her mind off her complaints.
Seeing how the Australian girl had been treated seemed to have the desired effect on the others. They all took their food in silence, letting Clegg remove and replace their gags without a sound. All of them, that was, except the girl from Crete.
“Please,” she said as Clegg took off her gag, “please, what is happening to us? What do you want with us?” She spoke quietly, desperately, in hesitant tones.
“Don’t worry,” Clegg responded, “you are quite safe.” And, of course, they were. As far as Clegg was concerned this collection of eight women represented a substantial amount of income for his business in this quarter of the year. He certainly didn’t intend anything to happen to them that would jeopardise that. “Just take your food,” he urged.
She looked at him with a thousand questions in her mind and the certainty that none of them would be answered. She took the food and then, when she had finished, knelt quietly while he fastened her gag back in place, grunting only once as he pulled the strap tight behind her head to hold the ball that filled her mouth in place. Freddie cuffed her wrists behind her back again and made sure that the chain running from her ankle was securely fastened to the ring on the wall of her cage.
As he did so he looked down at her pleading expression. The girl didn’t know it but Freddie could resist anything except such a look of pathos. The sight of a woman staring at him, wide eyed and desperate. appealed to him beyond almost anything. As he knelt beside her taking her cheek tenderly in his hand, she hoped that her captor had been moved to treat her more kindly, but it wasn’t compassion that the woman’s look aroused in him.
Instead, her hopes turned to despair as his hand drifted from her cheek to her naked breast, at first stroking, then squeezing then pinching and while he did so she watched with increasing distress as his other hand began to unfasten his trousers. And her distress fuelled his desire. The woman was crying now, whimpering into her gag as she realised what was to happen. The others too were grunting their dismay at the girl’s treatment; the Australian perched on her toes, growled in anger at his actions as much as at her own treatment.
Clegg ignored them all; using his strength to overcome the girl’s struggles; forcing himself on her naked body; pressing into her with his cock, all the time telling her that she should not worry and that she would be quite safe.
Her dismayed, desperate, look served only to arouse him more. She never realised it but her distress helped to reduce her ordeal as her tortured response to his actions brought him more quickly to orgasm, draining himself into her. He left her with the others, locked inside her cage, sobbing into her gag.
Chapter 9 : Finds In A Mycenaean Context
It was as he was sitting by the pool thinking about his forthcoming delivery that Bethany hailed him from the road. “Exciting news,” she called. “we thought you’d want to know.”
Excitement was just what Freddie could do without right now but he followed Bethany down to the site.
“This could be just the thing we were looking for.” Bethany was sounding as excited as Danni had on his first visit.
The first trench had been extended back beyond the perimeter wall and, sure enough, as the radar survey had predicted they had found a series of small rooms. Bethany pointed to pile of dark red dirt. Stacey sat grinning beside it. “There was a fire here,” she said, and best of all we’ve found some clay tablets. She picked up a plastic box and opened the top. Inside were four small sticks of reddish clay. “Linear B,” she said pointing to the incised characters on the tablets.
Freddie looked puzzled. “Not Greek?” he said.
“No,” said Bethany patiently. “This is from 500 years before the Greeks, the Bronze Age. The Mycenaeans seem to have spoken a form of Greek but their writing was quite different. It was only in the 1950’s that archaeologists could even start to read it and it still isn’t fully deciphered. We can read quite a lot of it though. The trouble is most of it is usually just tallies; so many jars of olives, so many sheep, so many chariots and so on.”
“Not great literature, then?”
“No sadly. Of course there are always the lunatics who think they’ll turn up some precursor of Homer, or an eye-witness account of the Ark Of The Covenant or even the last will and testament of King Priam but I think that shows a mis-understanding of the Mycenaen mind. Poetry was spoken and shared. What point would there be in writing it down? Keeping track of the number of sheep or how much oil you had, well that’s a different matter!”
Freddie had some sympathy with her point of view. He’d always felt it was a good idea to keep track of your assets.
Bethany carried on. “We’ve got a phenomenally rich picture of the economy of Mycenean society as a result but it’s a bit as though archaeologists had dug up the archives of tax returns at the Inland Revenue. They wouldn’t know whether or not Shakespeare’s plays existed.”
“Though they might find some great works of fiction,” Freddie smiled.
“True. These four tablets are much the same as others but in the context we have them they are intriguing.”
“How come?”
“Well, I’m not an expert but these are well preserved – baked in this fire – and easy to read. Each of them starts with a different word that we can’t translate. That’s not unusual - there are lots of words that we can’t translate because they don’t fit with later Greek words. As they are here though they look suspiciously like names. There’s this untranslatable word then the signs for a woman slave – ‘do-e-ra’ and then there’s a number”. So this one says ‘name, women, four” and this one ‘name, women, five” and this one ‘name, women, three’. This last one has the same name again but with six women.”
“Well you said you were looking for a slave market – it looks like you found the accounts books.”
“We can’t be that hasty just on the basis of the tablets but there are other finds that point that way too. Look in this room.” Bethany pointed over the wall at a dark green mass of material clinging to the side of the wall.
“Metal?”
“Bronze.”
“You said it was Bronze Age. Hardly surprising.”
“No but this is interesting. It’s a ring set into the wall. There’s one on each of these small rooms or cells.”
“That sounds like you’re naming things to suit your prejudice. Are you sure you’re not harking back to Great, Great, Uncle Arthur?”
“Well, maybe. But there’s more evidence here.” Bethany led the way across to the other trench. Danni was finishing work on the fallen part of the column which now looked to have been about six feet high. It was only as she moved away from it that Freddie could see that the top of the column had been fashioned in the image of a massive phallus and that there were bronze rings fitted to the column just below where the head of the phallus began to bulge out. “It doesn’t take too much imagination to make this into a slave market. Put a poor Mycenaean slave girl chained against that pillar in the middle of this arena; the slave seller standing on this podium; the buyers ranged on seats above the perimeter wall; other slave girls brought out from the cells beneath the seating and paraded around in front of the buyers.”
“Well it’s plausible to me as a layman. I couldn’t say what an academic would make of it.”
“Nor me,” Bethany giggled. “But the folks at the Discovery Channel will love it.”
Freddie could bet that they would. It was always interesting to note how much approbation was heaped on activities like these but how much time the prurient media invested in analysing and “exposing” such activities. He couldn’t help but feel it was all a bit hypocritical
“So is that it then?”
“Goodness no, this is a major find. We’ll want to survey the other side, over there towards the headland.” Bethany pointed ominously to the cliffs that hid Freddie’s own slave accommodation. “Discovery Channel will want to send a proper team out here rather than relying on our hand-held camera work. Maybe the National Museum in Athens will want to send a team. We have to let them know what we’ve found and see what they want to do. That’s why Norah’s going back on the ferry tonight. You must know what the communications are like from here. It’s better for her to do it from over there. We’ve put together a collection of photographs, some video footage and casts of the tablets. She’ll take those and go and talk to the people at the Ministry of Culture and we’ll see what happens next.”
Freddie came to a conclusion pretty much there and then. He didn’t want anyone talking to the Ministry of Culture before his auction. Actually the last thing he wanted was a whole heap of TV cameras and archaeologists turning up here at any time. He didn’t like having to act hastily but it looked like he wasn’t going to have any choice.
That was why he found himself on the harbour side watching the arrival of the Agoras – Santorini – Piraeus ferry as it docked that evening. As the hawsers came down to be fastened to the quayside boards he headed back inland.
He’d carefully chosen his spot. The path from the apartment where Norah was staying led down through the old part of the village, winding between the whitewashed houses, twisting this way and that, down donkey steps and finally coming out in the town square right opposite where the ferry was moored. There were a few lights but not enough. About half way down the path went between a group of abandoned properties. They weren’t close enough to the port to be good for shops nor high enough on the hill to be converted as tourist lets. They were, however, ideal for the purpose Freddie had in mind.
Norah had been surprised to see him, when he had stepped out of the ramshackle doorway as she edged her way down the track towards the harbour. “Oh, hello, Mr Clegg,” she said, “You startled me.”
“Oh, sorry, Norah,” he said as he stood back to let her pass.
Her fears allayed by Freddie’s friendly response, she edged by; pulling her suitcase behind her. As she did so, Freddie took his opportunity.
Like riding a bicycle it was a skill once learned, never forgotten. One arm around the chest, pulling her back against him, forcing the wind out of her. Next the hand across her face, the chemical soaked pad clamped to her nose and mouth so that as she gasped for breath she took a heavier dose of the anaesthetic. Then hold tightly, as her struggles weaken, keep the pad in place, keep checking up and down the path. She goes limp. Keep the pad in place for another thirty seconds or so. He’d done it so many times but it still excited him. Freddie realised he was enjoying himself again, just as he had with the burglary. These days he seemed to spend all his time running the business. Sometimes it was good to get back to basics. To be out of the road, reliant on his own resources and with just one thing to worry about for the moment; how to get the drugged Norah back to where he intended she should stay until after the auction. And this time at least he hadn’t been bruised for his trouble.
Norah was completely unconscious, Freddie decided. He eased her back into the derelict house that he’d stepped from, laying her gently down on the ground with the pad still across her face.
He checked the path again and retrieved her suitcase; there was still no sign of anyone. He felt for his bag in the darkness. He could do this without light. One of the benefits of practice, he thought. Now he just had to get Miss Norah Roberts closely acquainted with several yards of good quality rope. Two short lengths; one for the wrists, one the ankles. Two longer hanks, one for the knees, one for the waist and arms. He lifted the pad from her face. She was still out. He rummaged in his bag. A narrow strip of tape between her lips pulling the corners of her lips back. In front of it, a wad of foam pushed between her lips. A strip of tape across the whole thing, plastered over her lips, and then another and another, each criss-crossing her mouth and stretching own under her jaw.
She was still showing no signs of consciousness. Freddie had time to deal with her suitcase, taking it out through the back of the house to where one of the Punto’s was parked.
The suitcase was followed by Norah. He pushed her down across the back seat and covered her helpless and drugged form with a blanket. It was completely dark now as Clegg, backed the Punto out through the maze of narrow tracks and up onto the road that wound around the back of the village.
After he got her back to the villa he was able to make her secure as she began to wake up. He returned the car to its parking lot. By the time he got back to the villa Norah was fully recovered and struggling strongly albeit without result.
Clegg was more than a little pleased. From observation of the wriggling Miss Norah Roberts he had decided that, beneath her rather dull dress sense, there was almost certainly a body that would have a distinct appeal to many of his clients. Some of them had been complaining that western girls were all skin and bone with no meat. Norah should prove a welcome alternative and at least he had earned some time before things got any more complicated on the island.
© Freddie Clegg 2008
No posting or reproduction without permission
All characters fictitious.
Download PDF copies of other stories by Freddie Clegg at :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
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