‘Is the book selling well?’ I asked.
He looked at me and his eyes lit up: ‘If it goes on the way it is, in a month’s time I’ll be able to move into a bigger office and get myself a secretary.’
Pity, I thought to myself. Favieros’s heirs have lost an extra source of income that will be pocketed by the publisher.
When I was back out on the street, I looked at the piece of paper. The address was 12 Nisaias Street, in the area of Attikis Square. I worked out that the quickest way to get there would be to take the electric train from Omonoia Square. As I was walking along Patission Street towards Omonoia Square, I looked straight down Aiolou Street towards the Acropolis, but I could see nothing. The Acropolis had vanished behind a white veil.
The only consolation with the electric train is that it doesn’t smell of exhaust fumes, and a slight breeze blew in through the windows along the underground route before reaching Attiki Station. The kiosk owner at the station told me that Nisaias Street was exactly at the other side of the station and joined Sepolion Street and Konstantinoupoleos Street.
I found Nisaias Street easily, but as I started to walk down it, I was gripped by an intense desire to escape. It was a dark and narrow backstreet, that probably only saw the sun at noon when at its highest point. The street didn’t only smell of exhaust fumes, you were in danger of suffering apoplexy and needed a portable oxygen apparatus with you.
I walked down the side of the street with the even numbers. I passed by three three-storey houses put up overnight and two cheap apartment blocks whose balconies were decorated with washing lines, mops and cupboards instead of plants. Number 12 was an old house with a wooden door and half-broken closed shutters. Its yellow paint had started to peel. I halted for a moment and gazed at it. I was sure that I wouldn’t find Logaras living there, nor even the lowest Tamil dishwasher from Sri Lanka. Nevertheless, with that irrational hope that comes only with desperation, I went up and knocked at the door. I wasn’t expecting anyone to open it but I knocked again. The third time, I knocked harder and the door half-opened of its own accord, dragging a piece of paper with it. It was a recorded delivery notice, evidently the contract sent by Sarantidis. No one had been to collect it from the post office.
I went inside and looked around me. Broken furniture, scattered in the two rooms and in the hallway, torn curtains ripped down, the stench of mould. The house hadn’t been lived in for at least twenty years. I went back outside and closed the door behind me.
Number ten, next door to the abandoned house, was a two-storey construction. The bells had no names on them. Why would there have been? When you sink to this level, no one looks for you any more, I thought to myself. I rang the first bell and the front door opened. On the top step, a thin, middle-aged woman was waiting for me.
‘Do you know if anyone comes to the house next door?’ I asked. She put her arms in the air and stared at me. She hadn’t understood a word.
I tried the second floor and this time I found myself facing a Muslim woman, her head covered by a scarf, in that oven of a place. She didn’t understand either what I was asking her. At the third attempt, I came across a Bulgarian woman, who spoke a couple of words of Greek: ‘Don’t know.’
It was pointless to go on. Favieros had chosen the house for that reason; so that the postman wouldn’t find anyone there to hand over the contract to. He hadn’t given any telephone number, the address was that of an abandoned house, consequently, no one could track him down.
I stopped when I reached the corner of Sepolion Street because my investigations had come to an end and all hope of my returning to Homicide had evaporated. Favieros had gone to the trouble of first writing his autobiography in order to immortalise himself before committing suicide. The reason behind his suicide concerned no one; the important thing was that there was nothing suspicious about it. I would remain with empty hands, as I had foreseen all along, and Yanoutsos would permanently step into my position.
15
The thought came to me on the electric train, while returning from Attiki Station to Omonoia Square. It was one of desperation, the kind that you have when logic lays down its arms and looks to madness for salvation. So in the grip of madness, I decided to take a chance on Favieros’s offshore company because it was my only hope of keeping the investigation open. Of course, I would have to make a slight breach of faith. I would have to keep quiet about my belief that the biography was in fact an autobiography and, on the contrary, blow up the idea that the secret behind the suicide was to be found in the offshore company. If I got lucky and uncovered any shady dealings, or scandals or scams, I would be able to return to my position via another route. Yes, all this fell under the jurisdiction of the Fraud Squad, but this was a mere detail: when the bombshell burst, it would cover up anything else. Then, again, if the company turned out to be kosher, I would close the investigation and I wouldn’t come out any worse for it, given that things couldn’t be any worse.
The small extension given to my hopes filled me with a sense of relief, and I went home, if not exactly overjoyed then certainly not down in the dumps. I found Koula in the kitchen getting cookery lessons from Adriani.
‘What did you find out about Favieros’s offshore company?’ I asked her in my strictest professional voice.
‘I can tell you now what I came up with.’
‘Not now, we have to finish with the food first,’ Adriani chipped in, and turning to me she said: ‘You go to your dictionaries and I’ll call you.’
I was ready to give Koula a mouthful, to tell her that Ghikas had given her leave to help me and not to learn how to make moussaka and dolmades. But on further consideration I had to admit to myself that the smoothing of the relations between Koula and Adriani freed my hands, so I would do well to keep my mouth shut so as not to undermine the newly-established truce. However, I didn’t go to the bedroom to get out my dictionaries, but to the sitting room, where I sat doing nothing, to underline the fact that I was in a hurry and they had better get a move on.
Koula came in after about half an hour. ‘I’m sorry, but as you weren’t here …’ she said apologetically.
‘Never mind. Tell me what you found out.’
‘Quite a lot about the business done by the offshore company.’
‘Did Zamanis give you a difficult time?’
‘But I didn’t go to Zamanis.’
‘Who did you talk to? Lefaki?’
She grinned at me. ‘As my daddy always says, better marry over the midden than over the moor.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that I’m not in the same league as Zamanis and Lefaki. So I spoke to someone I could deal with.’
‘And who was that?’
‘Aristopoulos. The lad who took us to Zamanis’s office. Do you remember?’
‘Vaguely, but what did he know about the company?’
‘Inspector Haritos, Aristopoulos is so intent on climbing the ladder that he does exactly what he used to do at school. There he learned all his lessons by heart in order to get good marks and now he’s learned by heart the whole history of Favieros and his companies in order to get promoted. He bought me a coffee and told me everything.’
‘What did he tell you exactly?’
‘Just a moment, I’ve written it all on the computer so as not to forget anything.’
She went over to the computer, pressed a few keys and began reading. ‘Favieros’s offshore company deals in property.’
‘Another construction company?’
‘No real estate. It’s called …’ She read out the name in English with the same difficulty that I read English. ‘Balkan Prospect. Real Estate Agents. They have offices throughout Greece and in the Balkans.’
‘And what do they sell?’
‘Land, property, apartments …’ She stopped and stared at me. ‘Don’t you find it strange?’
‘What?’
‘Why would Favieros transform his real-estate agency into an offshor
e company? Anyhow, Ilias had no idea.’
‘Who’s Ilias?’
‘Aristopoulos.’
‘So we’re on first name terms now, are we?’ I said, teasing her.
She shrugged resignedly. ‘There are no free lunches.’ I knew that. I might play the untouchable but I’d come unstuck more than once. ‘He asked me out on a date,’ Koula added with a wily grin.
‘And you accepted?’
‘I told him I’d call him.’ She laughed. ‘You know how it works. You say you’ll call him, then you forget once you’ve gone and only remember the next time you want something from him.’
‘Never mind Ilias, I’ll tell you why he turned it into an offshore company,’ I said, ready to return the lesson. ‘Because his lawyers and accountants discovered all the benefits he would have from an offshore company. Fewer taxes, certainly fewer inspections and whatever else. Does the company have offices on the mainland?’
‘Yes.’ She consulted the computer again. ‘They’re at 54 Aigialeias, in Maroussi. The manager is a Mrs Coralia Yannelis.’
‘We’ll see what Mrs Yannelis has to say to us.’
I said it though I was certain that she wouldn’t have anything to say to me. A woman who manages a real-estate agency might tell you at most in what areas of Athens property values were rising or falling. Or maybe what the building coefficient is for Pangrati. But what could she tell you about Favieros’s suicide? If he’d fallen from the penthouse of some apartment block, all well and good. But he had staged his own suicide on TV, what information might you get from a real-estate agency? The signs were not particularly auspicious, but, as I had given myself that flicker of hope, I decided to try my luck.
Adriani caught up with us at the front door. ‘Don’t forget to take your share of the moussaka with you,’ she said to Koula. ‘You deserve it. We made it together!’
Koula turned and gave me an embarrassed look. ‘You can go home with your food parcel,’ I said to her. ‘I don’t need you any more today. We’ll get back down to it tomorrow morning.’
I found the Mirafiori parked in Souliou Square. Once I was out in Vassilissis Sofias Avenue, I realised that I should have waited till sunset to take to the streets. The windows were open and the heat was pouring into the car, while the sun was beating down vertically on the roof and singeing my head. At the Pharos junction, I was held up by the works for the flyover with the traffic bumper to bumper. I curse my fate whenever I stay in Athens in the summer, because I can’t bear the scorching heat and I swear to high heaven whenever I go on holiday because I can’t stand all the noise and bustle.
I turned right into Frangoklisias Street and again right into Aigialeias Street. Number 54 was close to the Riding Club, one of those ultramodern office blocks, all glass and indoor plants, that look like an aquarium with tropical fish.
The offices of Balkan Prospect were on the third floor. The entrance to the company had nothing impressive about it. A simple white door with a small sign that you had to look at close up in order to be able to read ‘Balkan Prospect. Real Estate Agents’ in both Greek and English.
The frugality was evident inside too. The outer office was of medium size with simple furniture: a desk with a computer and a small sofa for visitors. Sitting behind the desk was a secretary, who couldn’t have been much more than twenty-five and who was dressed simply and wore a modicum of make-up. Evidently, the mourning didn’t extend to Favieros’s subsidiary companies.
‘Inspector Haritos. I’m here to see Mrs Yannelis.’
She had taken me for a client and I’d turned out to be a copper. That took her aback. She lifted the receiver to make a call, but changed her mind. She preferred to get up and go into Yannelis’s office through the door on her right. She re-emerged a moment later and told me I could go in.
Yannelis was the fourth fifty-year-old in a row that I had counted in Favieros’s companies. She was wearing a blue and white two-piece, was dark-haired and quite stunning for her age, though the marks of fatigue were plain on her face. She greeted me extremely politely, with a smile and a handshake, then sat back down in her chair and stared at me without speaking.
‘This is an unofficial visit, Mrs Yannelis,’ I said by way of an introduction. ‘We are carrying out a routine investigation into the suicide of Jason Favieros. We’re simply trying to discover what it was that drove him to that – how shall I put it? – spectacular suicide.’
‘I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place, Inspector,’ she said politely and without any hint of irony.
‘Why? Doesn’t Balkan Prospect belong to the Favieros Group?’
‘Yes, but Jason Favieros rarely came here. If he wanted anything, he would summon me to Domitis, where he had his office. So I really don’t know what it was that drove him to suicide or what kind of mental state he was in before he committed suicide. I hadn’t seen him for months.’
‘Do you think it likely that he committed suicide because he had financial problems?’
‘If I’m to judge on the basis of our company, no,’ she replied with confidence. ‘I don’t know how his other businesses in the group were doing financially, but I think it highly unlikely that he committed suicide for financial reasons.’
‘You are an offshore company, aren’t you?’ I said, in order to cut to the crux of the matter.
‘Yes. And much larger than our head offices show us to be.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We don’t appear to be a large company, because we have a very flexible infrastructure. All the actual dealings are carried out by the local agencies that are located in Athens and throughout the Balkans. All we have here is a legal adviser who makes a final check of the contracts, a small accounts department, my secretary and me.’
‘Was it Favieros who came up with this flexible infrastructure?’
‘All the organisation charts for his businesses were drawn up by Mr Favieros himself. He had no faith at all in management consultancy firms. He thought their systems were no better than manuals for beginners. He said that to organise a business properly, you had to love it and know how its heart beat.’
‘Does your company also do construction work?’
‘In a few Balkan countries which are lacking in infrastructure, we have set up construction companies to build apartment blocks. In Greece, we deal solely in the buying and selling of property.’
Yannelis was polite and friendly, but in effect was telling me nothing. I made one last attempt.
‘Of course, none of this explains why he committed suicide.’
She put her hands in the air and them let them fall back onto the desk. ‘No one can explain that to you, Inspector.’
‘And what’s going to happen to all these businesses now that the mastermind behind them no longer exists?’
The smile on her face reappeared. ‘Don’t worry. They’re in good hands. I won’t talk about myself, but Xenophon Zamanis is a very capable individual and knew Jason from their student days together.’
There was nothing else I wanted to ask, so I got to my feet. She said goodbye to me as politely as she had welcomed me.
When I got back to the Mirafiori, I didn’t start the engine up straightaway, but sat behind the wheel gathering my thoughts. At first sight, I had learned nothing new, yet that flexible infrastructure was ideal for concealing any illicit dealings if, that is, any existed. The traces all disappeared inside the labyrinth of real-estate agencies. I had to find the right person to show me where I should start looking.
16
Sotiropoulos was sitting opposite me and staring at me. We were at the Green Park in Mavromataion Street. The TV company he worked for was in Melissia, but he was also a partner in a PR company that had its offices in the Pedio tou Areos and so we had arranged to meet nearby. It was ten thirty in the morning and he was sipping his ouzo and waiting for me to open up. In the past, they always served ouzo with a meze: pieces of bread with a slice of tomato and olive, a bit of salami, half an
anchovy. As the number of ouzos increased so did the size of the meze, till by the time you were on the tenth, you had a whole platter in front of you. Nowadays, whether it’s ouzo you drink or whisky or brandy, it makes no difference. They toss a bowl of peanuts and hazelnuts in front of you so you have something to nibble on.
The idea to talk to Sotiropoulos about Favieros’s offshore company came to me while I was having my morning coffee. Of course, Sotiropoulos was not the kind to do something for nothing. But what could he possibly want from me given my current situation? If, by any chance, I managed to get my position back, I would pay him back in forty-eight interest-free instalments in the same way that we pay for everything today, from fridges to favours.
‘This is the second time you’ve asked me about Favieros,’ Sotiropoulos said. ‘The first time it was by phone, now it’s face to face. Why are you so interested in his suicide?’
‘No particular reason. Out of personal curiosity,’ I replied as vaguely as I could.
‘Cut the bullshit, Haritos!’ he said vexedly. ‘That’s why you and I have never been able to get on together. Every time I start to like you and think what a good copper you are, you try to bullshit me and we’re back to square one.’
‘I don’t always tell you the truth because I know very well that in less than an hour, it’ll be on the news bulletins.’
‘So you sell me a lot of hot air to keep yourself safe.’
He had forgotten his vexation and laughed. ‘Listen to me, if what you tell me is not for airing on TV, I won’t air it. Because if I did, you’d shut up shop and I’m not so stupid as to want to lose my sources. So, what’s bothering you with the Favieros business?’
I continued to look at him hesitantly. He took his identity card from his wallet and placed it on the table.
‘Keep my ID as security,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that what we used to do in the old days? If I gave you something and I wanted to be sure you’d return it to me, I’d keep your ID. So keep mine till you’re sure that I won’t shout whatever you tell me from the rooftops.’
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