‘Is it true he had close ties with ministers?’
‘Close ties? He ate with a different minister every day from Monday to Saturday, and on Sundays he ate with the entire Cabinet.’
‘He said that they were friends of his from the time of the Junta.’
‘What’s the difference between pre-Junta and post-Junta Greece?’
‘From being a kingdom, we became a democracy!’
‘Wrong. Pre-Junta, when you were asked how you knew some government official, you said “from the army, we did our national service together”. Post-Junta, you said “from the Security cells in Bouboulinas Street, we were in the resistance together”. An acquaintance in the army got you, at best, a post in the civil service. An acquaintance in Bouboulinas Street made you into a millionaire in five years.’
‘If it’s as you say, it makes it even more difficult to explain why he founded an offshore company for real-estate dealings.’
‘Real-estate dealings?’ he repeated as if not having heard properly.
‘Yes. A network of real-estate agencies covering Greece and the Balkans.’
‘Are you sure it’s not just claptrap on the part of his biographer?’ he asked me.
‘The offshore company is called Balkan Prospect and its offices are in Maroussi. Its manager is a Mrs Coralia Yannelis.’
‘That’s news to me. I’ve never heard anything about it.’
‘So I found out something after all,’ I said ironically.
He stared at me with the look of someone flicking through his mental address book to find a suitable reply. ‘Wait a moment, we’ll find out,’ he said. He took out his mobile phone and dialed a number with the speed of a concert pianist.
‘Stathis, Sotiropoulos here. Tell me, does the name Coralia Yannelis mean anything to you?’ It appeared that the answer was negative because he went on with a second question: ‘Some real-estate agency by the name of Balkan Prospect …? Exactly, Favieros … Fine … Listen, I’m sending a police officer over, Costas Haritos, who wants the lowdown, okay?’
He hung up and turned to me. ‘That was Stathis Horafas. He’s an estate agent who sold me my apartment and since then we’ve been friends. Go and see him and he’ll tell you all he knows. His office is 25 Karneadou Street in Kolonaki.’
I told Sotiropoulos I’d be in touch and left him in order to go and see the estate agent. I soon got to Karneadou Street, but it took me a good half hour driving around the block between Herodotou and Ploutarchou Streets to find somewhere to park. In the end, I left the Mirafiori right at the top of Herodotou Street, close to Dexameni Square.
Horafas’s real-estate office was located in an old, stately apartment block from the fifties, the kind built immediately after the Civil War, in a period when economic growth was identified with building work. Horafas was a smartly-dressed fellow of around forty-five. He ushered me into his office, told his secretary that we didn’t want to be disturbed, and closed the door behind us.
I came straight to the point. ‘Mr Sotiropoulos has explained to you, I think …’
‘Yes,’ he said, interrupting me. He leaned across his desk and brought his face close to mine, at the same time keeping an eye on the door.
‘What I’m about to tell you must stay between these four walls, Inspector,’ he said in a whisper. ‘If you make use of it, you mustn’t say where you got the information.’
‘Don’t worry. Besides …’
Again he didn’t let me finish my sentence. ‘Listen, I’m a well-known estate agent with a very select clientele. I don’t want to make an enemy of a colossus like Balkan Prospect, owned by the late Jason Favieros.’
‘But is Balkan Prospect such a big company.’ I still couldn’t see what profit a tycoon like Favieros could have got out of a medium-sized business like real-estate dealings. ‘Its manager told me of a network of real-estate agencies.’
Horafas smiled. He was more relaxed. ‘Correct. It is a network, but you won’t find it under the name Balkan Prospect.’
‘Why? Is there some other company?’
He reflected whether he should go on and voted in favour. ‘Favieros’s company is not a very old one. If you remember, it was founded in 1995. Five years ago, it made a dynamic appearance and began buying up real-estate agencies, without, however, changing their business names. Today, there is a whole series of real-estate agencies that still bear the names of their previous owners, while being run by managers belonging to Balkan Prospect.’
Because I’m a complete dunce when it comes to real estate, I wanted to make sure I had understood: ‘You mean that the corner estate agents might be called Yorgiou’s or Sotiriou’s, but in fact belong to Balkan Prospect?’
He burst out laughing. ‘Not on this corner anyhow. Balkan Prospect has no interest in Kolonaki.’
‘What areas is it interested in?’
‘In Sepolia, the area to the left of Acharnon after Aghios Nikolaos, in Liossia and Ano Liossia. And lately, in Oropos and Eleusis.’
I stared at him like a moron, but Horafas wasn’t at all surprised. ‘Do you find it strange? So do I,’ he said with a smile.
‘I don’t understand why Favieros would buy real-estate agencies in depressed areas like that. With the money he had, he could have easily set up a network in Psychiko or Kifissia or Ekali.’
‘What can I say? Perhaps one answer is that there’s plenty of work in those areas and no one has to sell his agency.’
‘He could have opened his own.’
‘But it seems he didn’t want to. He preferred to remain inconspicuous.’
‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘That’s something I don’t know.’
Maybe he did know and wasn’t telling me because he thought that he’d already said too much. ‘Could you give me the names of some of the real-estate agencies that belong to Balkan Prospect?’ He grew anxious again and looked at me hesitantly. ‘You have my word that I won’t use your name.’ He looked pensive and continued to hesitate. ‘Mr Sotiropoulos will no doubt assure you that I won’t compromise you in any way.’
Quite naturally, the client’s word was more reliable than the copper’s and he was persuaded. He took a thick catalogue out of one of his drawers and began flicking through it. He stopped at a couple of pages and noted down names and addresses on a piece of paper. He closed the catalogue and handed me the paper.
‘I’m a hundred per cent certain that these two belong to Favieros’s company. The one is in Sepolia, the other in Liossia.’
I thanked him and got up to leave. I didn’t have anything else to ask him and, if I had, he wouldn’t have answered. He had revealed as much as he was going to.
‘Inspector,’ he said as I was about to open the door to leave. ‘If you want my advice, don’t say anything to the estate agents about being interested in buying or renting a flat.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they won’t believe you. Our people neither buy nor rent in those districts. The only way you’ll get them interested is if you tell them you have property to sell.’
I thanked him for his advice and left. I walked up Herodotou Street with mixed feelings. On the one hand I was pleased because my nose for things hadn’t let me down. When you set up an offshore company to buy up real-estate agencies in depressed areas, without changing their original names, then there’s certainly some kind of operation behind it. Favieros wasn’t the kind to throw his money away on foundering estate agencies in districts where Greek was a foreign language. On the other hand, my theory that Favieros had himself written his biography had been shaken. If there really was a scam, as I suspected, why would Favieros open our eyes to it and tarnish his name? Unless, of course, he considered it unlikely that anyone would go to the trouble of looking into his offshore company.
The place where I had parked the car was directly exposed to the sun. The seat was like that hot pan on which my mother made me sit to get over the gripes. As soon as I took hold of the wheel, my hands were
scorched and I let go of it. The Mirafiori lurched into the Toyota parked in front of me. Blasted summer!
17
The Yorgos Iliakos Real Estate Agency, noted down for me by Horafas, was in Pantazopoulou Square, behind the Peloponnese Bus Station. I drove down Ioulianou Street with Koula in the passenger seat. I had taken her with me because perhaps we would have to carry out investigations in the area after speaking with the estate agent. The heatwave was doing its best to melt the asphalt, the pollution to send us all to hospital and the exhaust fumes to chafe my throat from the coughing.
As we turned into Diliyanni Street, Koula, who up until then had been silent, turned and asked me quite suddenly:
‘How shall we present ourselves to this estate agent, Inspector Haritos?’
‘As police officers. How do you want us to present ourselves? As fiancés?’
‘No, as father and daughter.’
She took me unawares and I braked suddenly. The driver behind started honking his horn furiously, then stepped on the gas and, while overtaking me, stuck up two fingers from behind the closed window, as his car was an immaculate air-conditioned Toyota.
‘What made you come out with that – we almost got ourselves killed?’ I asked her.
‘Can we stop for a moment and I’ll explain to you.’
I pulled over and parked between a coach from Novi Sad and another from Pristina.
‘Let’s hear it then …’
‘We’re going to this estate agent because you think that there’s something fishy going on, right?’
‘Right.’
‘So why would the estate agent open up to two coppers paying him a visit, and unofficially at that?’ She fell silent and waited for a response from me. She saw that I didn’t have one and went on. ‘But consider if we were father and daughter. You have a two-bedroom flat in the area and want to sell it, to chip in a bit and get me another in a better area. The guy sees the father, sees the daughter, smells a winner and opens up immediately.’
Her idea was simple, correct and most probably effective. ‘So we’re all right on ideas,’ I said laughing, ‘but where are we going to get the flat from?’
‘My aunt, my father’s sister, has a flat a little further down, near the Moni Arkadiou. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what’s become of it, but maybe the estate agent will know it?’
She had all the answers and all I could do was to agree. We turned from Syrrakou Street into Pantazopoulou Street and drove around the square. We found the estate agency just before we had gone all the way round, on the first floor of a small apartment block.
The office was in a small flat consisting of two adjoining rooms and a sliding door between them. Facing the entrance was a young girl, nondescript in appearance, who was chewing gum and arranging some papers in a file. At the desk beside her a thirty-five-year-old with T-shirt, linen trousers and shaved head was immersed in what was on his computer screen. In the past, they used to shave our heads when we went into the army. Now we shave our own heads after being discharged. The atmosphere was stifling in spite of the fans on the ceilings in both rooms.
‘What can I do for you?’ said the girl, stopping short her filing but not her chewing.
‘We’re here to see Mr Iliakos.’
‘Mr Iliakos is no longer with us,’ said the man with a smile. He got up from his desk and held out his hand. ‘My name’s Megaritis. How might I help you?’
‘It’s about a flat …’ I began.
‘Coffee?’ he interrupted me abruptly as if he had forgotten something very important. ‘We have Nescafe … Greek coffee. An iced coffee is just the job in this hot weather.’
I politely declined, but Koula accepted the offer. ‘I wouldn’t mind an iced coffee with a little sugar and milk,’ she said.
I shot a look at her. She sat down with her legs close together and an innocent smile on her face, rather like a modest maiden minding her manners in front of her father. The secretary got up with a bored expression and disappeared behind a door, which evidently led to a small kitchen.
‘It’s about a flat,’ I began again. ‘I want to sell it and buy something a little better for … Koula, and in another area.’
As soon as he heard the word ‘sell’, Megaritis resignedly nodded his head and let out a sigh as though it was a question of the fall of Byzantium rather than the demise of Sepolia.
‘Where is this flat exactly?’
‘Near to Moni Arkadiou,’ said Koula intervening, afraid I might have forgotten what she’d told me. ‘It’s a two-bedroom flat, around eighty-five square metres.’
Megaritis adopted the expression of someone about to say something unpleasant and who doesn’t know where to begin.
‘It’s a tragedy what’s happening in that particular area. Ordinary people, family-men, who’ve managed to build a little place or buy a flat after a lifetime of saving are watching their fortunes evaporate, are selling up and leaving, because the place has been taken over by foreign hordes.’
Just imagine, I thought to myself, on his construction sites, Favieros was the champion of foreigners and immigrants, while the employees in his estate agencies longed for the old neighbourhood with its narrow streets and cursed the immigrants for spoiling the idyll for us.
‘Yes, but if they’re selling their places, it means they find buyers for them,’ Koula observed.
‘At the price they’re selling them for, anyone can buy them.’
‘And what price are we talking about?’ asked Koula.
Megaritis heaved a sigh. ‘I’m ashamed to say … really I am.’
‘Don’t be,’ I said. ‘It’s a shame for us not for you.’
‘Near Moni Arkadiou, you said? And is it a house or a flat?’
‘A flat?’
‘How big?’
‘Two bedrooms. Eighty-five square metres.’
‘Let’s see.’ He thought for a moment. Then he turned to me. ‘You’ll be lucky if you get twenty-six thousand euros for it,’ he said. ‘More likely, around twenty-three …’
‘What are you talking about?’ Koula jumped up almost spilling her iced coffee. ‘That’s what you pay just for altering the form factor!’
She was furious, as though she really were selling a flat. I nodded my head approvingly and tried to conceal my surprise at her reaction. Megaritis smiled sadly.
‘The good old days are over, miss. Now no one cares about altering the form factor in those neighbourhoods. That’s why people are trying to save something of their fortunes any way they can. He took a card from his desk and handed it to me with his fixed expression of sorrow. ‘What can I say … Think it over and we’ll still be here if you decide to go ahead … Give me a call so we can arrange for me to take a look at the flat and to get the keys …’
He saved the final shot for last, just as we were about to leave.
‘You shouldn’t lose any time if you want my opinion. Prices are falling day by day. Today it’s worth twenty-three to twenty-six thousand, tomorrow it might only fetch twenty.’
Koula didn’t even deign to turn round and look at him. I was slightly more conciliatory. ‘All right, we’ll think about it and if we decide we’ll contact you.’
‘Did you hear him, the crook!’ Koula screamed as soon as we were outside in the street. ‘Twenty-six thousand euros! You can’t buy a bedsit for that price!’
I was standing on the footpath staring at her. Now that we were outside, I openly expressed my surprise.
‘And what do you know about house prices and form factors?’
Suddenly, she looked at me with a feigned expression of sadness. ‘You’re not concerned at all about my personal life, are you? Have you forgotten that I was engaged to a building contractor?’
Of course, I’d completely forgotten about the contractor who had been building without a licence in Dionysos. As soon as he had become engaged to Koula, he had started using Ghikas’s name every time that he had problems with the police. Ghikas got wind
of it, threatened to transfer Koula and she had sent the contractor packing.
‘So where do you propose we go from here given that you’re the expert,’ I asked her.
‘Why don’t you let me ask around a bit on my own and I’ll tell you what I find out tomorrow?’ she said sheepishly.
‘Why, what can you find out alone that we can’t find out together?’
‘At this time of day, the only people at home are women. And women open up more easily to other women.’
I wasn’t at all convinced that she would manage it better on her own, but I saw in her eyes how much she wanted to try, so I gave in. After all, if she didn’t manage it on her own, I would come back the next day without her finding out and complete the investigation.’
‘All right.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, glowing from head to toe.
She accompanied me as far as the Mirafiori to get her things. As she was about to go, she leaned over and planted a kiss on my cheek.
‘All right, all right, we’re done! We’re no longer father and daughter,’ I said to tease her.
‘You’re the only male colleague on the Force who doesn’t think all I’m good for is filing and making coffee,’ she replied in all earnest.
I watched her quickly walking away and started up the Mirafiori.
18
Che Committed Suicide kj-3 Page 12
