Che Committed Suicide

by Petros Markaris

  ‘Good day, Inspector. How might I help you?’

  Like an uncouth copper, I sat down uninvited in the chair in front of his desk and stared at him pensively.

  ‘The question is how you might help me and how I might help you,’ I said.

  My introduction took him unawares and he looked worried. ‘I don’t understand.’

  I nodded to him to sit down, as though the roles had been reversed and he were in my office.

  ‘Listen here, Mr Karyofyllis. What I am about to tell you is still unofficial.’ I stressed the word ‘still’. He had crossed his arms on the desk and was waiting for the rest. ‘A Russo-Pontian who bought a flat in Larymnis Street, in the area of Konstantinoupoleos Avenue has lodged a complaint with us. The sale was conducted by a certain estate agent by the name of Yorgos Iliakos.’

  I didn’t ask him whether he knew the particular estate agency, and he didn’t say anything to the effect, but his eyes told me that he did.

  ‘The Russo-Pontian says that he paid forty-five thousand euros. He signed whatever papers were given to him, but he knew no Greek. The other day, however, he was visited by a colleague of his to whom he showed the contract. And it appeared that the price on the contract was not forty-five thousand euros but twenty-five.’

  ‘Let me just say …’

  I didn’t allow him to go on. ‘I haven’t finished yet. It’s fortunate that the fellow happened to be Russo-Pontian. They know nothing of lawsuits or lawyers or legal proceedings … Whether they’re hit by a car or have their windows smashed or are deceived about the price of their home, they always come running to the police. This will help us keep the complaint out of the official channels for the time being. So I’m here to talk to you unofficially, Mr Karyofyllis. Is it possible that the contract might state a different price to the one received by the seller?’

  I saw his expression change. He looked worried and his gaze wandered round the room with suspicion, almost with a conspiratorial gleam.

  ‘Yes, and it’s quite common,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t reveal to you how it’s done.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s a felony.’

  ‘Felony?’

  He hesitated and then slowly emitted the words through his teeth: ‘Tax evasion.’

  ‘I’m not a tax inspector, Mr Karyofyllis. I’m a police inspector. Your relations with the tax office don’t concern me.’

  ‘It’s a common practice to declare a lower price in order to reduce the tax.’

  ‘And is that what happened in this case?’

  ‘I would suppose so.’

  ‘And what if the seller did only receive twenty-five thousand euros?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If the difference didn’t go into the seller’s pocket …’

  ‘So who’s pocket did it go into? The estate agent’s?’

  I left the question dangling in the air and changed tack.

  ‘Mr Karyofyllis, I want to be honest with you. I don’t have any interest at all in you personally. If I need to, I’ll call you into the station and I’ll do it without the slightest hesitation. The same is true if I need to arrest you. But the office of Yorgos Iliakos is another matter altogether. It belongs, so we were informed, to Jason Favieros.’

  ‘Who? The businessman who committed suicide?’ he asked innocently. ‘What connection does he have with the estate agency?’

  I shot him a look as though my heart were filled with pity for him. ‘Come now. The Yorgos Iliakos Real Estate Agency and a very large number of other real-estate agencies belong to Balkan Prospect, which is a company owned by Jason Favieros. The tragedy that his family has suffered and the confusion that exists at present concerning the future of his businesses obliges us to be very cautious. You stand to benefit from that.’

  ‘Me, how?’

  ‘Because you were the one to draw up the contracts.’ I said it so definitively, as though I had verified it from ten different sources, and he didn’t dare deny it. ‘There are three possibilities, Mr Karyofyllis. First, that the Russo-Pontian is lying. If that’s the case, we’ll tweak his ear and send him home. Second, an employee in one of the estate agencies is working a scam to cheat the buyers, the sellers and their own bosses. Or third, there exists an organised network of officials and public notaries who are getting rich illegally in this way.’

  ‘The first possibility is the only reasonable one, Inspector.’ I had thrown him a lifebelt and he was clutching hold of it.

  ‘So what you’re saying is that the Russo-Pontian paid forty-five thousand euros and the same sum was received by the seller minus the estate agent’s fee, but that the contract stated twenty-five thousand for tax reasons. And now the Russo-Pontian is being clever and trying through blackmail to get twenty thousand back.’

  ‘Precisely, Inspector. Those people are uneducated and unreliable, just like every other sly animal. They bring the sum in cash, empty it onto your desk, and all they’re interested in is getting the key to the house,’ Karyofyllis went on. ‘Once they’ve moved in and are settled in the place, their sly minds start working and they try to find ways of getting back some of the money they paid.’

  I restrained myself only with difficulty and agreed with him. Given that they allowed estate agents to rob them of so much money right under their noses, what else were they but animals?

  ‘You may very well be right. But what will happen if the Russo-Pontian is only the beginning and from tomorrow the complaints start coming thick and fast? Then the network will come out into the open, Balkan Prospect will be ruined, even if it’s not to blame, and so will you along with it.’

  ‘Me, why?’

  ‘Because all the sales and purchases contracts for Balkan Prospect are drawn up by you. We know that from our investigations.’

  I had him with his back to the wall and all he could do was jump to his feet and start shouting. ‘This is nothing but a damnable plot! Accusations are being made against the executives of a business firm, accusations are being made against a public notary company that has a history going back to 1930, that was founded by my father, just because some lousy Russo-Pontian crook is resorting to blackmail to get back money!’

  ‘No one is being accused of anything yet,’ I replied calmly. ‘As I told you, this is an unofficial investigation and our aim is to close the case quietly. There’s a very simple way for doing that. Give me the particulars of the seller and provided that he confirms that he did, in fact, receive the forty-five thousand euros, the case will be closed immediately.’

  He became more and more distraught and hostile. ‘That, unfortunately, is something I am unable to do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because by doing so I would be revealing an illegal transaction and I would be compromising both the seller and the real-estate agency.’

  ‘I told you, I’m not a tax inspector.’

  ‘Agreed. And that may be enough for me, but it won’t be enough for the other two parties.’

  ‘I can get the particulars from the land registry.’

  He hesitated a moment and then said with resolve: ‘That’s another matter that doesn’t concern me. I’m not interested in where you get the particulars, provided it’s not from me.’ His refusal confirmed my suspicions, but I kept this to myself. ‘In the past, the police would give those good-for-nothings a pasting and threaten them that if they persisted it would be the worse for them,’ he said almost complainingly as he gave me his hand.

  He knew that only too well, coming as he did from a historic company. I let it go by, so he could make of it what he wanted.

  I stopped at the first cardphone I came across and phoned home. I told Adriani to put Koula on the line.

  ‘I want you to go straightaway to the land registry office and find the Russo-Pontian’s file,’ I told her. ‘I want the particulars of the seller. It’s urgent and I don’t want any delay because of cookery lessons.’

  She was silent for a momen
t and than answered gravely: ‘I’m on my way.’

  I found her very likeable, but if I left her in Adriani’s hands, I ran the risk of her getting the better of me.

  22

  How quickly can a file disappear from the land registry? It depends on what clout the person who wants it to disappear has. And Balkan Prospect had, so it seemed, plenty of clout. When Koula arrived at the land registry, the file didn’t exist. It had been mislaid somewhere and they couldn’t find it so she should leave a phone number for them to contact her or pass by again in a few days’ time.

  In the end, her cookery lessons cost her dearly, because she was forced to spend a whole afternoon in Larymnis Street in order to find the seller’s particulars. Just as she had started to get frustrated, she came across an old woman who had paid the bills for the flat before it was sold and she found out that the former owner was an Eirene Leventoyanni, who lived in Polydrosso.

  Myself, I spent a whole evening listening to eulogies. Not to the Virgin, but to Stefanakos. And not in church, but on the TV. But apart from the eulogies, it had further interest. The programme was on Sotiropoulos’s channel, not the one on which the suicides had taken place. And it was presented by Sotiropoulos himself. His guests began with a round of adulation. The Minister and other politicians spoke of Stefanakos’s ethos and character, said what an experienced parliamentarian he had been and how Parliament would be the poorer without him. The two left-wing politicians took a stroll down memory lane, recalling the common struggles during the Junta, the student rising in the Polytechnic School and the torture that Stefanakos had been subjected to in the cells of the Military Police. But perhaps the star attraction was a Balkan minister, who appeared on satellite link-up, and whose mouth dripped honey about Stefanakos: he was the one politician who worked behind the scenes, and on a daily basis, for friendship and cooperation between the Balkan countries; he was a true friend who had helped in the economic revival of his country after the fall of socialism, acting as a bridge between his country, the Greek government and Brussels. He was a politician whose loss the entire Balkans would grieve.

  Sotiropoulos allowed them to speak virtually without interruption and then, once they had vented their feelings, he dropped his first innuendo. How close had Stefanakos been with Favieros? I took my hat off to him and thought what a fool I was. It was the very first question I should have asked. The leftists were categorical: certainly they knew each other from their student years as they moved in the same circles. The other politicians minced their words. Yes the two men had known each other from the time of the Junta, but they were not sure whether they still saw each other. Besides, they were both involved in numerous activities and it was doubtful whether they kept in contact.

  Just as they were trying to come to some conclusion as to whether they were still in contact, Sotiropoulos dropped his second innuendo: was it just coincidence that the two of them had committed suicide in the same way? And if it wasn’t, then what might be behind this double suicide?

  It was at such moments that I realised just how effective Sotiropoulos’s aggressiveness could be, even though it got on my nerves. The others were completely nonplussed and began to stammer, trying to find some convincing answer, but Sotiropoulos didn’t let up. He asked them if they thought that there really was some scandal behind the suicides, as the newspapers were claiming. He had managed to break their unanimity and get them bickering among themselves. The Minister together with the leftists rejected the claim with abhorrence. The former because he would put the government in a difficult position if he were to answer ‘yes’, and the latter because they would be compromising their two former comrades if they were to accept some such thing. The only ones not to exclude the possibility were the members of the opposition. The Minister put forward the same theory as Petroulakis: that this was the work of the extreme right wing, just as they themselves had admitted. At that point, I started to suspect that this bullshit was slowly becoming the government line. I was expecting everyone to break into laughter, but, as usual, I was mistaken. The leftists fervently supported the same view. Only the opposition politicians were bold enough to say that the theory was a bit far-fetched, but they were attacked by the Minister, who accused them of vote-mongering from the extreme right and the eulogies very nearly turned to curses.

  As I was listening to all this, I remembered Zissis. Zissis was an old leftist whom I’d met when he was a long-standing prisoner and I was a rookie copper, who had been sent for on-the-job training to the torture cells in Bouboulinas Street. Afterwards, I lost track of him and forgot about him until I bumped into him one day in the corridors of Security Headquarters. He had gone to get a certificate that would entitle him to the pension given to members of the resistance. They were messing him about and I helped him to get the piece of paper he needed. Since then we had kept in touch on and off and on a strictly personal basis. I hadn’t even told Adriani about it, perhaps because I was ashamed to admit that I had dealings with a commie. I was fairly sure that Zissis hadn’t admitted it to anyone either, perhaps because he was even more ashamed to say that he had dealings with a copper. So, our mutual shame led to mutual respect, even though it wasn’t something we ever admitted to each other.

  It was nine in the morning. I had had my coffee and was getting ready to pay him a visit. I wanted to see him early, because he would have just finished watering his plants and would be in a good mood. But I was delayed by the annoying sound of the phone ringing. I picked up the receiver and it was Katerina.

  ‘So then, Pop,’ she said, ‘when are you going to finish this investigation so that your assistant can go home and we can all get some peace?’

  ‘Do you mean Koula?’ I asked surprised.

  ‘Yes, her. Are you aware that she’s making my life a misery?’

  ‘Koula? What are you on about, Katerina?’

  ‘Mum phones me every day and praises her to high heaven. How good she is around the house and how wonderful her baked aubergines are and how unbelievably quickly she learned to roll the vine leaves for dolmades; my confidence is shattered.’ I suddenly got what it was all about and burst out laughing. ‘Yes, you can laugh,’ Katerina went on. ‘Because so far I’ve only told you the first act, which is a comedy. But there’s a second act, where the drama begins.’

  ‘What drama?’

  ‘That’s where she starts handing out advice. That I should take stock, that I’m not only incompetent, but I don’t even want to learn the basics and how all her efforts were a waste of time, while with Koula she can see the progress straightaway … The other day, she even told me that I’d gone and found a man like Fanis, who liked his food, and I didn’t even know how to fry chips. I told her that Fanis is someone who likes his food when she cooks it for him. Otherwise he gets by on cheese and spinach pies, just like I do, so we’re a good match.’

  I understood at last what the drama was. When Adriani decides to go on the attack and start pounding away, you simply collapse, like the Serbians in Kosovo.

  ‘I’ll tell Koula to put a stop to all the lovey-dovey with your mother.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, no! I was joking!’ she shouted in alarm. ‘Let them get on with it. She’s found a substitute for me to busy herself with and she’s over the moon.’ Then she changed the conversation and asked me about Stefanakos’s suicide.

  ‘Don’t even ask,’ I said. ‘The bigwigs have started to get worried and I’m afraid it’s going to lead to big trouble. Ghikas is of the same opinion.’

  ‘Are you telling me you agree with Ghikas?’ she asked surprised.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For you to agree with Ghikas means that things must really be serious,’ she said and she hung up chuckling.

  I stuck to the seat in the Mirafiori because of the humidity. As I turned into Vasilissis Sofias Avenue, I decided to go the top way in the hope of finding a little cool air. Driving up Mouson Street towards the Attiko Alsos, the situation was more bearable. But from the mid
dle of Protopapadaki Street I started to feel the seat beneath me burning and by the time I had reached Galatsiou Avenue, it was just as though I had got into the bathtub with my clothes on.

  Zissis lived in Ekavis Street in Nea Philadelphia. It was a narrow little street settled in by Greek refugees from Asia Minor in 1922 and it had remained just as it was then. Three streets below Dekeleias Avenue with all its banks, computer stores and mobile phone companies, you step into Ekavis Street and suddenly expect Eleutherios Venizelos to be there making one of his political speeches. The small houses were on one side of the street with front yards full of geraniums, begonias, carnations and jasmine, all planted in tubs and tin cans, and with an external staircase that led up to the house. It must have been Zissis’s family home, because when his circle of activities had closed and he started receiving his resistance pension, he had retired to this house. In Nea Philadelphia, he was a legendary figure, even to the police officers who would go to arrest him. As the years went by, however, he shut himself up more and more in his house. Most of those who knew him had died, and the younger generation knew nothing of this strange old man whom they saw buying a half a pound of feta, a few ounces of olives, two carrots and a packet of beans or lentils, the only food he ate, apart from at Easter, when he cooked roast goat with oven potatoes. His only other needs were coffee and cigarettes.

  I found him watering his garden, wearing a vest, shorts and sandals. He had seen me coming towards him but pretended not to notice me. That was his usual tactic in order to show me that my visit was something of an imposition. He washed down the yard, turned off the water, coiled up the hosepipe and then, finally, turned his eyes to me.

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Greek, strong and sweet, thanks,’ I replied enthusiastically.

  He must have been one of the last people in Athens to still make Greek coffee in the embers, with the coffee pot planted deep in the hot ash.