At the crest of the hill, just before the road began twisting down the other side of the mountain, the driver made a sharp right turn. A bus stood a hundred-fifty yards ahead, waiting its turn to discharge a load of tourists and pilgrims to the monastery. There was nothing to do but wait. A man in a black baseball cap marked GO STEELERS in gold lettering stood slowly spinning a rack of postcards outside a souvenir kiosk. From the hat and the camera around his neck, Andreas assumed he was a tourist. On any other island, he’d also assume the man was in the midst of one of those epiphanies overwhelming to so many first-time visitors as they gazed at a host of ‘Hi from Greece’ postcards adorned with nudes and body parts arranged in mind-boggling positions. But here, so close to the monastery, he doubted such commerce was allowed. Then again, this was Greece, and business was business.

Once the bus moved, the car passed through a barrier prohibiting all but authorized vehicles up into a tiny town square overlooking Skala and the sea. They parked beside Patmos’ neoclassical town hall of white plaster, beige stone, and pale blue wood trim. Andreas looked across the square. He felt as if he’d stepped back in time, to the eleventh century to be exact. But, today, this was the scene of a twenty-first century murder. Time to get to work.

‘Yianni, find who’s in charge.’

Kouros walked toward three cops on the other side of the square steering the curious and a TV crew away from a lightweight, black plastic tarp surrounded by blaze orange cones of the sort commonly seen guarding potholes.