It was the sort of road where the pick of the surgeons and lawyers and import-export dealers made their homes. Erlich paid off his taxi. He reckoned the boy had doubled the price for his ice cream because he was up at the smart end of town, not plying his usual pitch at the bottom of the Acropolis. Beside the boy an argument was developing between an overweight policeman and the auburn-haired girl who had parked her florist's truck across the end of the road. Erlich could see why she wanted to deliver her flowers. He reckoned the armful of red roses would have cost the policeman his week's wages. The girl held her head high. Her shoulders were back.

Erlich didn't understand much Greek but he got her drift.

Eventually the policeman was prepared to lose face. He stepped aside and the auburn-haired girl strode forward into the empty road carrying the roses loosely in her arm. Erlich shouldered his way through the crowd and went after her.

The policeman shuffled into his path.

Erlich said quietly, " F. B. I., excuse me, please."

He kept on walking. He doubted that the policeman had understood a word he had said. Perhaps the policeman had looked into Erlich's face and calculated that if he had not stood aside then he might just have ended up on his back. He stepped back and saluted. Erlich smiled and walked past the policeman, a dozen strides, into the centre of the road.

He had known Harry Lawrence since the fall of '88. There were not many in the Agency that he would call a true friend. He had thought of Harry all the way out of Rome to Leonardo da Vinci, all the time that he had stood in the check-in line, all the time he had sat on the Alitalia, all the time he had stood at Customs and Immigration at Athens International, all the time in the taxi out to the Kifisia suburb. If the policeman had stopped him getting close to where Harry had been shot to death then Erlich might just have punched him. He stood still, absorbing every detail of the street. Best done at the very start of an investigation.