I asked a truck driver where the building site of the Domitis Construction Company was. He pointed to some tricolour houses about a hundred yards away. Their corners were ochre, their walls pink and their balconies light blue.
The site’s offices were in a caravan behind the houses. I entered without knocking and saw two men: a young man of around thirty, who was sitting at one of the two desks, and another, around forty-five, standing up. They were talking heatedly and paid no attention to me. They evidently took me for a supplier come to sell them prefabricated concrete or bricks and so left me waiting.
‘Don’t load it on me,’ said the elder one heatedly. ‘I’m not the one who chooses the workers. That’s your job. I work with whoever you give me.’
‘Can’t you steal a couple of days for zone three?’ asked the other in a conciliatory tone.
The elder one shot me a glance that was full of contempt. ‘If I steal a couple of days, it will hold up the laying of the sewer system. They bring you straight from university to the site and you think it’s like you were taught in the classroom.’
Without another word, he turned round and walked out, leaving the door of the caravan open behind him. The younger man turned his attention to me.
‘Yes?’ he said in a somewhat bored fashion.
‘Inspector Haritos.’
He was taken aback, as he’d thought me a supplier and I’d turned out to be a copper. He got to his feet quickly and closed the door. Then he stood in front of his desk and looked at me.
‘About the Kurds?’
Inside I felt thankful that he was taking me where I wanted to go. ‘Had you previously received any threats from the nationalistic organisation that claimed responsibility for the murders? I mean, were you ever asked to get rid of the foreign workers you employ here?’
The reply was categorical: ‘Never. We heard the name of the organisation for the first time on the TV.’
‘Do you know whether your boss had received any threats? Did he seem nervous or frightened to you in recent weeks?’
He reflected. ‘Nervous or frightened, no …’ he replied, but it was clear that there was something else he wanted to add.
‘But?’
He reflected again. ‘Worried … Preoccupied perhaps …’
‘Did he have any reason to be worried?’
He shrugged. ‘What can I say … If he had any personal concerns I’m not aware of them. As for professional ones, what worries might he have? All his contracts were handed to him on a plate.’
‘So you wouldn’t have said that he was on the verge of suicide?’
‘On the contrary. He was as smiling and as friendly as always.’ He paused for a moment, then added: ‘Favieros was on very good terms with the staff. Not only with the engineers on the site, but with the ordinary workers too. Whoever had a problem went directly to him to find a solution. He was concerned about everyone and everyone liked him. Okay, he may have put it on a bit, but he did help where he could … That’s the truth of it …’
‘You didn’t notice any change in his behaviour?’
‘No, other than what I’ve already told you … That he was a little worried … A little preoccupied. Though why, I can’t tell you …’
‘Where did the two Kurds work?’
‘The sewer system. With Karanikas, the foreman who was here when you came in.’ He had a hard time hiding his anger with the elder man.
‘Where can I find him?’
‘He should be somewhere between the second and third row of houses as you leave the caravan.’
What I had been told by the staff in Porto Rafti had been confirmed. Nothing had changed outwardly in Favieros’s behaviour. And yet, for him to resort to suicide, either he must have been receiving threats from the Philip of Macedon National Front or he must have had personal problems.
Between the second and third row of houses I came across a group of workers who were talking to Karanikas.
‘Inspector Haritos,’ I said as I got nearer to him.
‘Do you people come in waves?’ he remarked caustically, while his eyes told me that he would have liked to have thrown me out on my ear.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Two of your colleagues were here the other day and we lost a whole day’s work because of them. Now you’re here and from what I see we’re going to lose another half day. Will there be any more of you coming?’
‘What’s it to you? I don’t have to explain myself to you.’ He realised he had gone too far and backed down. ‘Those two Kurds, what sort of people were they?’
‘How should I know? I learned their names from the TV.’
‘Didn’t they work here?’ I asked surprised.
‘Yes, this is where they worked. But they have such strange-sounding names that you forget them as soon as you hear them. That’s why it’s much easier to call them “Albanian, Bulgarian, Kurd” depending on where they’ve come from.’
‘Do you have a lot of foreigners on the site?’
His ironic tone returned. ‘That’s a good one … Me, I don’t know why we don’t build the Olympic facilities in Albania or Bulgaria or Kurdistan. It’d be much simpler as they’re the ones benefitting from the Olympic Games. It’s provided work for them.’
‘Come on now, you’re exaggerating. You come out with things like that and you give fuel to all kinds of screwballs!’
‘Do you know how many Greeks work on this site? Two engineers and four foremen, six in total. All the others are either from the Balkans or Third World countries.’ Then, suddenly getting riled: ‘We’re a worthless lot, and we’re being made proper fools of! Why don’t our unemployed do something about it … come here and smash the place up? The only ones to do something about it was that Macedonian lot.’
‘Do you mean the Philip of Macedon organisation?’
‘Yeah, them. The Macedons.’
‘So you agree with what the organisation wrote in its announcement about Favieros’s suicide?’
He looked at me cunningly and smiled. ‘Don’t go putting words into my mouth,’ he said, as though reading my thoughts and enjoying it all. ‘I don’t know what it says in the announcement. All I know is that I have to do with Albanians, Bulgarians, Kurds and Arabs. They’re the ones building the Olympic Village and they’re building it like their own homes. What do you expect from builders who all their lives have used straw and mud to build their huts?’
I stared at him for some time, but he didn’t look away because he believed he was in the right so he didn’t feel at all uncomfortable.
‘You didn’t particularly like Favieros,’ I said to him.
He shrugged indifferently. ‘Life is like swimming,’ he said. ‘Some swim in money, others in deep water and others in shit. Favieros was swimming in money. Now, if they made him commit suicide or if he committed suicide out of remorse or because he simply got it into his head, I don’t know and I don’t care if I don’t find out. I mind my own business and I’m happy swimming in deep water, because tomorrow they’ll put some foreman from Tirana in my place and then I’ll be swimming in shit.’
He considered that our conversation was over and rushed off to oversee the sewer system, which might very well turn out to be his future swimming pool.
11
The doorbell rang at nine o’clock. I was having my morning coffee in the sitting room and searching for the entry under ‘washing’ in the hope of finding some interpretation of the phrase ‘brainwashing’. I couldn’t find anything, because in 1955, when the Dimitrakos Dictionary was published, brainwashing was evidently of no concern to anyone, whereas today it’s even found its way into our bedroom, where the previous night Adriani had done a veritable laundry job on my brain because I’d been late coming home and was back to my old ways and because I should be ashamed for letting Ghikas make a fool of me by having me cut short my sick leave and because all the good work that she had done for me in those previous two months, I would undo in two days, and … a
nd …
‘You’re wanted!’
The sound of her voice, sharp and authoritative, came from the front door. As if I were back to my first years in the Force, when I’d hear someone in one of the offices shout ‘Haritos!’ and I’d jump up and rush to find who it was that wanted me.
‘Your new assistant!’
The front door was wide open. Parked outside was a van. Koula appeared at the side door with a computer monitor in her arms. She was followed by a young lad of around twenty-two who was carrying the computer.
‘Leave it, Spyros, and go and bring the table,’ Koula said to him.
I found myself having to deal with two surprises at the same time and I didn’t know to which I should give precedence. First of all, I hadn’t been expecting Koula to turn up with a computer, and, secondly, it was quite a different Koula I saw before me. She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, had tied her hair back into a ponytail and was no longer the model in uniform that greeted me in the entrance to Ghikas’s office. She looked like a student or an assistant in a company.
I recovered from the second surprise to return to the first. ‘What’s this, Koula? The Chief’s given you a computer as well?’
She laughed. ‘Come on now, Inspector, you know him better than that! It belongs to my cousin Spyros, who’s studying computers. He had one spare and he’s given it to me.’
The Spyros in question arrived carrying the little table. ‘Put it down there, I’ll take care of it, Spyros,’ she said to him sweetly. ‘This is Inspector Haritos.’
The young lad shot me a quick look and mumbled a ‘Hello’. Then he went back to the van. It was quite clear that he had no liking for coppers. Koula looked behind her and burst out laughing.
‘He’s the son of my mother’s sister,’ she explained. ‘I had a hard job getting him to like me because I was on the Force.’ Then she pointed to the computer and table. ‘Is there somewhere we can put these?’
‘What do we need the computer for, Koula?’
‘Just think about it! We’re working under cover now. You won’t have any reports or statements or records. How are you going to remember everything you saw and heard from so many people?’
She was right in what she said, but I didn’t know how I was going to persuade Adriani to find us a place for the computer. She’d quite likely put it in the loft without so much as a second thought.
I found her in the kitchen washing the breakfast pots.
‘Where can we put a computer that we need for our work?’ I asked her.
She dried her hands on the towel and stormed into the sitting room. Without uttering a word, she pushed the carved wooden armchair with the embroidered cushions inherited from her mother to the right; then she pushed the shelves with the vase that I had inherited from my mother to the left, leaving just enough room between them for the computer table. Then she turned to go back into the kitchen. But in the doorway to the sitting room, she bumped into Koula, who was waiting for her with a restrained smile.
‘Good morning, Mrs Haritos. I’m Koula,’ she said.
‘Good morning, my dear.’
You can tell how much Adriani likes or dislikes someone from the shape of her lips. If she likes you, she smiles with her lips at their normal size. The more she dislikes you, the more she purses them. In Koula’s case, her lips had virtually disappeared.
Koula went on smiling as though not having noticed her attitude. I, however, was ready to explode. After all, it wasn’t the girl’s fault if I had decided to clock in for work again. While Koula was connecting up the computer, I informed her about the previous day’s visits to Favieros’s house and construction site. When I told her that Favieros had been leaving later in the mornings because he had been working on his computer at home, she stopped what she was doing and looked at me.
‘How can I get a look at his computer?’ she asked me.
‘I don’t think the butler will let us in before the family returns. But what else might Favieros’s computer have on it apart from plans and static studies?’
‘You never know, Inspector. Now, with computers, you can discover the entire biography of the user if you know where and what to look for. From his professional business to his personal interests and from the games he liked playing to who he talked and corresponded with. You can come up with the most amazing things.’
I found all this a bit excessive, but we wouldn’t lose anything by taking a look. What took priority, however, was a visit to the offices of Domitis Construction so that I might make the acquaintance of Favieros’s close circle. I didn’t expect to discover anything sensational. What I mainly wanted was to see what kind of atmosphere prevailed following the voluntary exit of its founder and owner.
Koula had switched on her computer and was playing around with it. I left her to go and ask Adriani for the keys to the Mirafiori. I was resolved to keeping my promise and letting Koula drive so as not to overdo it.
Adriani was making dolmades with lemon sauce and was at the stage of rolling the vine leaves with the filling. She heard me come in but didn’t turn round.
‘Where are the keys for the Mirafiori?’ I asked calmly. And I made it clear: ‘Koula will drive.’
‘You’ve got them.’
‘I don’t have them. After the shooting, they gave them to you together with my clothes and all the rest.’
‘I gave them to you.’
‘You didn’t give them to me nor did I ask you for them, because I’ve had no need of them since then.’
‘I gave them to you and you just don’t remember.’
I started to get hot under the collar because I knew where she was leading. She wanted to send the keys to the Lost Property Department so that I wouldn’t be able to take the Mirafiori. Nevertheless, I succeeded in putting the brakes on my anger and said to her calmly:
‘Okay, I’ll call the Fiat dealers and get them to send me a locksmith to open up the car and put new locks on. The bill will be around 300 euros because it’s an old model and they cost a fortune.’
She tossed the half-wrapped dolma into the pan and went out of the kitchen. In two minutes she was back with the keys to the Mirafiori.
‘There!’ she said, throwing them onto the table, ‘you’d put them in the wardrobe next to your underwear and you’d forgotten!’
I cursed myself for not following her into the bedroom. I’d have caught her red-handed taking the keys out of her hiding place, whereas now she was throwing the blame on me and I had no incriminating evidence to refute her.
Without saying anything, I picked up the keys and walked out of the kitchen. Koula had turned off the computer and was waiting for me.
‘Let’s be off,’ I said to her, explaining that we were going to pay a visit to Favieros’s offices.
She stood for a moment in the doorway to the sitting room, then, instead of coming with me, she made a beeline for the kitchen.
‘Are you making dolmades?’ she asked Adriani with admiration in her voice. ‘Will you show me how to wrap them because whenever I do it they always come undone!’
There was a short pause and then Adriani said: ‘All right, I’ll show you, it’s not so difficult, you know!’ This last phrase sounded more like: ‘Why, are you so incompetent!’ But Koula went on undeterred.
‘You know, since my mother died, I’m the one who has to do all the cooking for my father. He loves dolmades, but whenever I make them, the poor man ends up eating the filling and the vine leaves separately.’
Adriani had lifted her head and was staring at her. Though her expression hadn’t changed, I realised, because I knew her well, that she had been impressed by the fact that Koula took care of her father.
‘Come here and watch me one day and I’ll show you,’ she said with a smile. The smile was still acerbic, but with a bit more lip.
Once outside I handed over the keys to the Mirafiori, which was parked at the corner of Aroni and Protesilaou Streets.
‘You drive,’ I said to her
, ‘Adriani has exercised her veto on me.’
She chuckled. ‘Don’t worry, I passed my driving test with distinction.’
The car doors opened okay, but there the Mirafiori’s willingness came to an end. When Koula tried to start it up, it rumbled slightly and then stopped. At the fourth attempt, it lurched so violently that it almost catapulted us through the windscreen, before starting up with a wheezing sound.
The offices of Domitis Construction were in Timoleontos Street, close to the First Cemetary. I was glad it wasn’t far from my home so we wouldn’t have to overwork the Mirafiori after it had been stationary for two months. Turning into Vassileos Konstantinou Avenue, we hit a wall of traffic. Because of the Olympics, Athens had turned into a ploughed-up field and the drivers who hadn’t got themselves a tractor in time were now seeking safety on roads that had still not been dug up, with the result that the traffic had come to a standstill. A policeman at the junction between Vassileos Konstantinou Avenue and Rizari Street gestured at us abusively, not because we would move any quicker like that, but because his eyes had tired of seeing us. Then just as I was breathing a sigh of relief at the fact that the Mirafiori was managing bravely with all the stopping and starting, it gave up the ghost at the red light in Diakou Street. The engine gave out and, when the lights turned to green, it wouldn’t start up no matter what. Those behind honked their horns like people possessed, Koula was getting more and more exasperated because with each new attempt, she drowned the engine even more, while those cars that managed to slip out and pass us stuck their fingers up at us just to boost our morale.
‘Let me get it started,’ I said
While I was trying various tricks to get the thing moving, a convertible pulled up beside us. Sitting behind the wheel was a youngster with a crocodile on his T-shirt and spiked hair. In the past we used to starch our collars, now it seems we starch our hair.
‘Eh, you old fogey. What are you doing with the chick in that pile of scrap?’ he shouted angrily. ‘Get yourself a convertible like us, birdbrain. Look at the face on the old fogey!’ And stepping on the accelerator, he smothered us in exhaust fumes to get his own back. In my consternation, I had forgotten that the Mirafiori was stuck at the lights. I cast a sideways glance at Koula, who was trying to remain composed, but failed, and broke into loud peals of laughter.
Che Committed Suicide Page 8
