Hotel Murder: The most gripping, page-turning mystery of the year (Greek Island Mysteries Book 5) Read online

  Greek Island Mystery # 5

  (Stand-alone thriller)

  Hotel

  Murder

  By Luke Christodoulou

  Copyrighted Material

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  The right of Luke Christodoulou to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblances to persons (living or dead) or events is purely coincidental.

  Published by: GreekIslandMysteries

  Edited by: Dominion Editorial

  http://dominioneditorial.com/

  Cover design: Maria Nicolaou (Mj.Vass)

  http://99designs.com/users/1158351

  Copyright © 2018 by Luke Christodoulou

  Dedicated to my mother, Maria.

  Thank you for reading to me...

  Books by Luke Christodoulou:

  The Olympus Killer (Greek Island Mystery #1) - 2014

  The Church Murders (Greek Island Mystery #2) - 2015

  Death Of A Bride (Greek Island Mystery #3) – 2016

  Murder On Display (Greek Island Mystery #4) – 2017

  Hotel Murder (Greek Island Mystery #5) – 2018

  24 Modernized Aesop Fables - 2015

  Praise for the Greek Island Mysteries (Book Series):

  All books in the series are rated 4-plus stars on

  Amazon, Goodreads and Book Reviewing Blogs.

  'The Church Murders would appeal to any reader who enjoys murder mysteries, suspenseful reads, or action adventure novels. I am pleased to recommend this book and hope that author Christodoulou is working on his next book in this promising series.'

  - Chris Fischer for Readers' Favorite

  ‘The Greek James Patterson strikes again.’

  - Greek Media

  ‘... does a masterful job writing a twisted murder story set under the Greek sun.’

  - Ruth Rowley

  ‘Greece is proud to have such a masterful writer. Death of A Bride is his best offering by far.’

  - Athens Review Of Books

  ‘Death Of A Bride is a superb murder/mystery. An Agatha Christie tale set in the 21st century.’

  - National Society of the Greek Authors

  ‘A spellbinding tale... shrouded in mystery and inflamed with revenge.’

  - Elaine Bertolotti (Author)

  ‘Great entertainment that begs to be made into a movie (...) a wealth of great stories here, well-paced and filled with believable characters, beautiful Greek imagery, fascinating insights into Greek culture and some wonderful, humorous touches. Excellent plot twists too - I really didn't see those coming. These stories can rival the bestsellers and - to be honest - the book knocks many of the famous names out of the park - an easy style, intense plot-lines, superbly lifelike characters and all this against the backdrop of gorgeous Greece and its fascinating history and culture.’

  - Meandthemutts Book Reviewer

  ‘The Church Murders is a juxtaposition of the beautiful (and gorgeously described) Greek Isles and the brutal, horrific murders that take place there.’

  - Michael Young History (Author)

  ‘Another one I could not put down.’ – Jan Felton (Goodreads Reviewer)

  ‘... meticulously crafted work. The author delivers another unique, powerful and provocative story.’

  - Alex (Amazon Reviewer)

  ‘Anxiously waiting for the next instalment!’ - Jimmy Andrea (Amazon Reviewer)

  ‘A spell-bounding thriller.’ - Daniel T.A. (Author)

  ‘As seductive as a Sudoku puzzle, the writer has crafted an ingenious plot with nothing less than stunning revelations at the conclusion.’

  - Julius Salisbury (Author)

  ‘If you like murder mysteries with great characters, atmospheric locations and a suspenseful, interesting plot to keep you turning the pages, then this book has been written for you.’ –Ben (Amazon Reviewer)

  ‘An engrossing murder mystery about a series of murders taking place on Greek islands.’

  - Saritha S (Goodreads Reviewer)

  ‘A tale of Terror! A page-turning murder mystery’.

  - Sheri A. Wilkinson (Book Blog Reviewer)

  ‘The author builds the main characters weaving them seamlessly with the plotting of a great story; even when he steps away from the present day mayhem. It's art in words at the highest pinnacle of a writer's work.’

  - Rose Margaret Phillips (Book Blog Reviewer)

  Chapter 1

  City of Athens

  It could have been another dull Tuesday. Yet, the day would go down in history as the day she murdered both her children.

  Despoina Lemoni stood motionless, trapped between the dirty oven and the empty fridge; trapped in a life she no longer wished to live. The house phone hung by her side, slightly swinging by its faded-yellow, twisted cord. She could not bear to hear another word. The menacing voices roaming around her mind’s darkest corners were enough noise.

  ‘What’s wrong, Mummy?’ her three-year-old daughter asked, lifting her head out of her Minnie Mouse coloring book. She sat, cold and hungry, leaning on the worn-in kitchen table, wondering why her mother was sad, day in, day out. A pale ghost of a being that was once her mother. Lina raised her voice and finally caught her mother’s attention.

  ‘Nothing,’ Despoina mumbled in reply, scared of the wild thoughts being born inside her head. She had not yet digested what her husband had just revealed to her.

  Lina looked across the table at her infant sister. At least she always smiled at her. The nine-month-old baby happily banged her pink rattle upon the checkered blue-and-white vinyl tablecloth; both colors unable to hide the stains of ketchup, oil and other condiments that had fallen to its surface over the course of the last few months.

  Five months had passed already since Despoina lost her house.

  ‘Lost my house!’ she grumbled. She hated that sentence. ‘I did not lose my house. The bank took it away.’

  Despoina gazed up and for a few serene moments looked out of her narrow basement window at the feet rushing to work on the cement pavement above; the dark clouds forming adding to their haste. Black shoes, brown shoes, flats, high heels all zoomed by her trembling, watery eyes. She craved for a job to rush to. Her Monday whining at work seemed ridiculous now. ‘‘You never truly appreciate what you’ve got till it’s gone,’’ her Nanna used to say. Now, Despoina realized how right she was.

  Soon, fat drops dived out the grey sky and fell to the deteriorating neighborhood below. Despoina had dragged herself to the front door, and for some reason stepped out into the rain. She used to hate getting caught in the rain. The cold water sank deep into her beige blouse, while her blood seethed beneath her icy skin. All around her were signs depicting prosperity long gone. Closed shops, rundown buildings, dead trees, and piles of trash.

  ‘Fucking crisis,’ she said, the words marinated in anger and sorrow. Her fingertips ran across her face, her nails cutting into her olive complexion. Bloody rivulets quickly blossomed. She stepped back into her home, slamming the squeaking, begging-for-a-paint door behind her.

  In automated ‘mother-mode’ she spent the rest of the evening cooking chicken nuggets and rice for her and Lina, bottle fed Antonia, bathed both girls, dressed them for sleep and put them to bed.

  ‘Mu
mmy?’ Lina called out, watching her breath turn into a shadowy cloud, stopping her mother as she rushed to switch off her light. ‘Can you tell me a fairy tale, Mummy?’ she asked with hope.

  ‘There’s no such thing,’ Despoina replied and left the room, mumbling how there would never be a happy ending.

  Despoina raised her head high and wiped away her tears. She exhaled deeply, sure of what she had decided was needed to be done. She ambled into the kitchen and opened the top wooden cupboard, taking out a bottle of cheap, red wine. Two years ago, she would not have even used it in cooking. But that was then, and this was now. No more wine-marinated octopus and fancy food for Despoina.

  Both she and her husband heard the terrifying words that petrified every parent with a mortgage. ‘‘We are going to have to let you go’’.

  Despoina fell back into her ripped armchair, pushing her dying-for-a-dye blonde hair over the top of its burgundy back. She brought the wine to her lips as she turned on the radio. Love songs and rain. She always loved the combination. With eyes forcibly shut, she daydreamed of moments lived, yet vanished into oblivion. Paradise lost. That’s what the Greeks had, according to her.

  Window-shaking thunder startled her. She had dozed off. An hour had passed since the last drop of fruity wine. Brought-up religiously, Despoina had no doubt about the eternity of the soul. Life on earth was a mere blip on the line of our existence.

  ‘It’s for their own good. I will not have them eating trash and being ridiculed about their father...’ she whispered, lifting herself out of the rocking armchair.

  With slow steps, she approached the kitchen sink and splashed frigid water upon her sallow face. She dawdled back to her children’s door. Each step was harder to make. In her trembling right hand, she held her heavy pillow. Without another bedroom in the hole-of-a-house, she slept on the living room sofa.

  Her hand froze upon the shiny door knob. Despoina closed her eyes and sighed as she quietly opened the door. The lone light came from a Disney princess night lamp. Placed on the floor between the bed and the cot, it cast a dim, pink glow; just about enough light for Despoina to see her sleeping babies. She sat by Lina and gently caressed her hair; her mind splicing heavy knots in her alcohol-filled stomach.

  ‘I love you, my beautiful,’ she managed to utter, her throat clogging up. The pillow came down hard on Lina’s small face. The young girl awoke, unable to breathe. Despoina kept both hands on the pillow and pushed down, while looking away. Soon, the girl’s kicks ceased, and silence returned to the dark room.

  Three hours to bring her into the world and three minutes to take her out of it.

  Antonia was next and in less time, followed the fate of her lifeless sister.

  The first rays sailed from the timid, winter sun and reached the bedroom window, forcing the darkness to shrivel into shadows. The two dead girls lay in their beds. Eternal sleep, offered by the hands of the woman that brought them to life. Down the narrow hallway, another body sat against the chipped, riddled with mold wall.

  Despoina had loaded her husband’s hunting rifle, prayed to the Lord for forgiveness and brought the cold gun barrel to her quivering chin. She closed her eyes, and as her last tear journeyed down her cheek, Despoina found the courage to pull the trigger. A film-noir fan, she always joked about how she wanted to go out with a bang.

  The police found her with her head blown open, yet with a smile permanently frozen on her. The wall behind her was sprayed with crimson blood and parts of her tormented brain. She hated that wall. Poetic revenge, she would have called it.

  The neighbors gathered in shock and watched as the paramedics carried out the tiny lifeless body of Antonia, the body of the happy girl next door – Lina’s golden locks blowing in the wind out from beneath the white sheet-, and the bloody body of the woman who would haunt their everyday conversations. They were also struggling. The economic crisis had brought them all to their knees. Despoina’s acts of death caused daily riots and fueled the anger against the government’s strict austerity program. Her murderous ways were analyzed by ‘experts’ of every kind. Newspapers, news, blogs all featured the story.

  But, like every tragedy in history, it became exactly that. History. People moved on to the next hot topic of the month, and new austerity measures kept being announced.

  Chapter 2

  Valentina stared at her phone’s screen in amazement. Her alarm was set to go off in just nine minutes. Great. Dear brain, thank you! Thank you for keeping me up all night thinking of things that I worry about all day.

  She rubbed her tired eyes as the illuminating light from her cell died out and pitch black governed the room once more. Sleepily, she kicked back the heavy, mint-green quilt, hoping to fight off the drowsy heat invading from the wall radiator. Turning to her side, her hand brushed against Alexandro’s bare back. She still could not get used to having a man in her house, in her life, in her heart. She hugged his naked body from behind and breathed in his ‘man-smell’. She never could find the right title for it. He was her first; she had no other ‘naked, sleeping man smell’ to compare it to. She gently laid her lips upon his neck and reluctantly slid out of the king size bed. She tiptoed to the door, avoiding the parade of her shoes in front of the wooden wardrobe. She needed to take nothing. She had taken her make-up, clothes and shoes into the living room, the night before. Alexandro worked late, interrogating suspects in a case involving manslaughter at a nightclub while she was on duty with the crack of the Greek dawn. Being a parking enforcement officer was as boring as it sounds, yet Valentina did not mind the long shifts in all weather conditions, handing out tickets and arguing with vexed Athenian drivers. She was in the big city, away from her rock-of-an-island, and she had the whole package. An apartment, a job and a man.

  Forty minutes later, a uniform-wearing Valentina walked out the front door; her platinum blonde hair rolled-up into a bun, her lips graced with bright-red lipstick and her stomach filled with two pieces of bread, covered in Nutella, and a sizzling hot, milky coffee.

  She locked the stained chestnut, fiberglass door and sighed. Before her eyes, once again hung a metallic six. Valentina turned the number upright again and pushed down with force. Apartment nine’s only issue - the unscrewed number.

  ‘Let’s remind Alex, once again, to fix it,’ she whispered the mental note, her mind laughing at the image of the mug she had bought him on a weekend escape. ‘When a man says he will fix it, he’ll fix it. No need to remind him every six months,’ was written in bold, black letters across the large, white cup.

  *****

  Not so far away, in the neighborhoods on the other side of the Parthenon, I was also creeping out of my apartment. Nothing worse than the fury of an awoken-before-her-time American, short-fused spouse.

  I stood in front of the dirty, hall mirror. The reflection staring back at me was finally one that caused me to smile. After a long two-year battle with cancer, I had started to gain weight –not too hard taking into account my undying love for street food and red meat; my color had returned to a healthy Greek white, and short, thin, brown hair had appeared back on my scalp, helping to shake off the unattractive image of my egg-shaped head. Most bald men look sexy; I looked like Humpty Dumpty’s not-so-well-known, Greek cousin.

  Ioli Cara’s phone call had abruptly popped my dream bubble - me standing between Messi and Ronaldo, celebrating with our fans, the top three soccer players in the world. Age fifty and still certain dreams remained the same. Though, back then, it was Maradona and Platini by my side.

  ‘Sorry, boss, for waking you. I just got the fax from Interpol. The old guy had hidden property across Greece. All under fake names. Typical businessman avoiding taxes. There is a remote mansion in the meadows of Rhodes listed. Remember how his wife mentioned that he loved Rhodes as a child and that is why he built Anastos Tower by Rhode’s port? I’m thinking if Scrooge is hiding out somewhere, this is the place. If he is not there, he is abroad. With money like his, he would need no passport.’<
br />
  ‘You talk too much. How long have you been up?’

  ‘An hour or so. Babies don’t feed themselves, you know? Icarus has a Cretan appetite and an inner clock more precise than a Swiss watch,’ she replied laughing.

  ‘Okay, okay...’ I had replied, jumping out of bed and rushing to the bathroom. Safe from Tracy’s icy looks, I told Ioli to arrange the police ferry.

  ‘Wait. Are we not sending local police? Is it worth us going out there on a hunch?’

  ‘The fresh sea air will do us good. Besides, even if he is not there, we have no warrant. I’d rather it be just the two of us.’

  ‘So, we enter illegally, Captain Costa, Mr. Moral, Papacosta?’

  ‘Well, if there was a suspicious sound coming from within...’

  Ioli laughed again, and a light cry was heard from her infant son. ‘Oh, no. The monster is moving. I’d better get out of here. Leave him to Mark. See you at headquarters,’ she said hastily and the phone went silent.

  Our case was not exactly homicide-team material, but three point seven billion to your name gets you attention. The chief placed half the task force on the case of the missing billionaire. Thanasis Zampetides, Greece’s shipping tycoon, aged seventy-two had vanished. His children reported him missing in a matter of hours. That was forty-three days ago. Most presumed the worst. The chief wanted no ‘fuck-ups’ as he so elegantly put it. He had the minister’s office breathing down his neck, and he wanted to make sure that if the old guy’s body turned up, his best officers were on the case.

  Weeks of searching by police and private investigators, and unlimited airtime and press space offered zero results.

  Ioli’s gut instinct had always helped us solve cases in the past. Ioli felt certain that Mr. Zampetides, for reasons unknown, was taking time away from his hectic world of running Greece’s largest shipping company. Having read through his biography, and after interviewing his wife, she was sure that the missing billionaire –as a free spirit, a child of the 60s- was somewhere relaxing. The police had eliminated the possibility of kidnapping as the security cameras showed him leaving his Athenian skyscraper alone and no ransom demands had ever been made.