‘No and I doubt whether he even exists. At least with the name Minas Logaras.’
I explained to them the whole story concerning the search for Logaras and how I had come to a dead end. ‘Anyhow, the address he had given was close to the Yorgos Iliakos Real Estate Agency,’ I added, before concluding.
‘What are you trying to say, that the estate agent wrote it?’ Yannelis asked with a hint of irony.
‘No. But Favieros himself may have written it and submitted it under a pseudonym. Just consider for a moment. He’s made up his mind to commit suicide, but before doing so he writes his autobiography and sends it for publication.’
I seemed to have managed to surprise them, because they stared at each other trying to take it in.
‘Impossible,’ said Zamanis conclusively. ‘Jason was continually on the go with the Olympic projects. He was rushing around all day from the construction sites to the ministries and to the Olympic Games offices. He had no time to spare for writing autobiographies.’
‘His private secretary told me just the opposite,’ I said, countering him.
Now it was Yannelis’s turn to be puzzled: ‘What exactly did she tell you?’
‘When I spoke with her, she told me that Favieros would shut himself up for hours in his office. And when she once asked him, jokingly, if he was writing a novel, he replied that he had already written it and he was simply working on the corrections.’
They glanced at each other. Zamanis was hesitant for a moment, then he pressed the button on his intercom and said to his secretary: ‘Tell Theoni I want to see her, will you?’
Lefaki came in with her gaze fixed on Zamanis, ignoring me completely. The rumour that I was working to tarnish Favieros’s name was still limited to the third floor and hadn’t yet acquired epidemic proportions, I thought to myself, given that the woman in reception greeted me politely and with a smile.
‘Theoni, when the Inspector came to see you, you told him that you had once asked Jason if he was writing a novel and he had replied that he had already finished it and was doing the corrections. Do you recall?’
‘Of course! It was a Friday. The phone had been ringing all afternoon with people looking for him, but Jason had shut himself in his office and had forbidden me to put his calls through or to bother him.’
‘And when exactly did you ask him if he was writing a novel?’ Zamanis seemed to be enjoying giving me evidence of his interrogation skills.
‘At around eight in the evening when he came out of his office to leave. “What are you doing all the time shut up in your office? Writing a novel?” I said, teasing him. And he answered quite seriously: “I’ve already finished it and now I’m working on the corrections.”’
‘Do you remember how long this was before his suicide?’ I asked her.
She directed her reply to Zamanis as though he had asked her. ‘It must have been around three months.’
I made a mental note to check with Sarantidis, the publisher, when it was that he received the manuscript, but the dates coincided more or less.
‘Can I please ask you to stop your investigations into Balkan Prospect?’ Zamanis said very formally as soon as Lefaki had left. ‘Firstly, because its dealings are completely legitimate and, secondly, because you’re not working for the Fraud Squad.’ He paused briefly and added meaningfully: ‘Unless, that is, you want to go to your superiors for approval.’
Although I’ve been years on the Force, I still can’t understand why it is that every loudmouth who thinks he has some clout considers it proper to end the conversation by bringing up the threat of my superiors.
‘Let me tell you what will happen if you were to talk to my superiors,’ I said. ‘They will have to talk to me, but they won’t be the only ones to hear what I have to say. From then on, it’ll only be a matter of time before it reaches the ears of the reporters, who even know when we in Security go to pee.’
Before he had had time to swallow what I’d said to him, I had said goodbye and was outside the neoclassical building. The centre of Pangrati was chock-a-block with traffic and it took me the best part of half an hour crawling bumper to bumper and making liberal use of the horn to get away. Fortunately, the temperature had fallen and I didn’t end up drenched in sweat.
At home I was met by an unexpected sight. Sitting before the computer was Koula’s cousin, who had come with her on the day she and I had begun working together. Koula was sitting beside him. They heard me come in and turned round. The young lad limited himself to a plain ‘hello’. Koula, however, jumped up and, full of enthusiasm, said:
‘I don’t know where to begin! We found a way into the records of the Ministry of Trade and got the information we wanted about Stathatos’s company! Do you know who’s a partner with a forty per cent share in the company?’
‘Favieros!’
‘No. His wife, Sotiria Markakis-Favieros.’ I remained silent for a moment to let it sink in, while Koula went on with the same enthusiasm: ‘I went to the Ministry just as you told me, but I had to deal with some dolt who didn’t listen to a word I was saying. When I told him I was a police officer, he gave me an arrogant look and told me to send my superior and preferably with a warrant from the public prosecutor. That was when I thought of Spyros, my cousin.’
Sotiropoulos hadn’t realised that his guests were talking about Favieros’s wife and not Favieros himself.
‘And there’s something else, but I’m afraid that you won’t like it,’ Koula continued, handing me a magazine from the coffee table. ‘Spyros brought it and I came across this while I was thumbing through it.’
It was a full-page advert:
LOUKAS STEFANAKOS
THE MAN – THE ACTIVIST – THE POLITICIAN
By the biographer of Jason Favieros
MINAS LOGARAS
There was a photo of the cover and underneath, the name of the publishers: Europublishers. It was the simplest solution. Logaras had sent the second biography to a different publishing company.
This new development automatically put an end to my theory about Favieros’s autobiography that just an hour previously I had served up to Yannelis and Zamanis as my specialité. I imagined their smiles when they saw the advert, but this was the least of my worries.
The second biography had appeared in a much shorter time than the first. The first had taken ten days, the second barely a week. That meant that someone had gathered information about the two suicides, then sat down to write the biographies and sent them to the publishers before Favieros and Stefanakos had committed suicide. So there was a mastermind behind all this; someone who had planned the suicides and who had the power to make them happen. Except that I didn’t know who, how or why. Just as I didn’t know whether there would be another victim. In other words, I knew nothing.
26
‘Biography n.: 1. account to a greater or lesser degree detailed of the life and works of a person: Mus. Rot. Bibl. 335, 114 such forms of biography 2. art of the biographer.’
‘Biographer n.: writer of a biography or biographies: Beethoven’s biographer 2. pl. biographers: the writers, acc. to the ancient Greeks, of short biographies of orators, philosophers, poets, historians, scribes et al.’
Logaras certainly couldn’t be classed among the biographers in the plural. Firstly because Favieros and Stefanakos didn’t belong to the category of orators, philosophers, poets et al., as stipulated by Dimitrakos. And secondly, because his biographies were by no means short. In fact, the second was much longer than the first, being 350 pages in length. Apart from that, the publication itself was more handsome that the previous one. It had a matt paper cover, with dark blue lettering on a grey background, and in the centre was a recent photograph of Loukas Stefanakos making a speech. It had obviously been lifted from some newspaper or magazine.
This time I went about things differently. I made sure I got hold of the biography in good time so that I would be able to read it comfortably in the afternoon and not have to spend anothe
r night in the armchair burning the midnight oil. The visit to the publishers could wait. I was sure that Logaras – whoever he was – had gone down the same road with the second publisher as with the first, one that would no doubt lead me once again to the uninhabited house in Nisaias Street.
We had to start looking urgently for a third biography. I could have kicked myself for not doing it straightaway after Favieros’s suicide. I’d been blinded by my certainty that Logaras was Favieros and that the biography was an autobiography. Now that I’d come unstuck, I would have to get my finger out to prevent the worst. I told Koula to get me a list of Greek publishers. After about half an hour, she managed to get hold of one from the Book Publishers Association. She phoned them all, one by one, but didn’t come up with a third biography. That was good news, in part, because it meant that there wasn’t any third suicide candidate, at least for the time being. Of course, one might be sent to any publisher at any time, so we had asked all of them to inform us immediately if they received anything written by a Minas Logaras. Not that I expected this would lead us anywhere. Whoever was hiding behind the pseudonym Minas Logaras didn’t have his eyes shut. He would no doubt have foreseen that we would take measures after the second biography and would be in no hurry to send a third.
It was already turned five o’clock when I sat down in my armchair and opened the book, but I was immediately interrupted by Adriani.
‘Do you intend to read Stefanakos’s biography?’
‘Yes, and as you can see I’m starting early so you won’t be griping at me again about my staying up all night.’
‘Why don’t you read it in the park?’ she asked with a sugary smile. The sugar then melted into nostalgia. ‘We haven’t been for such a long time and it’s an opportunity today as it’s not so hot.’
Her idea wasn’t at all a bad one. On the one hand, I’d be doing what she wanted and, on the other, if I sat for eight hours in the armchair, I’d stiffen up. The walk there and back and the change of air would do me good.
I don’t know if anything else had changed in the park, but the cat was no longer in its regular spot. Nevertheless, I kept to our informal arrangement and sat on my usual bench. The park was deserted as always; the sun was piercing through the leafage; everything was just as we had left it, apart from the temperature, which was higher and with an increase in the humidity.
Adriani looked around her and let out a sigh of contentment. ‘I’ve missed it, you know. It was nice when we used to come here every evening.’
I tried to recall whether it really was nice. I was so down in the dumps during that period, so irresolute and lackadaisical, that I couldn’t recall anything nice about it. But perhaps it was. Without doubt, they were tranquil days, but tranquillity for me means boredom as I don’t know how to fill it.
I kept my silence, which could have meant agreement, and I got stuck into Loukas Stefanakos’s biography. After the first few pages, I had the feeling that Minas Logaras had written the same book twice, simply changing the names. The two biographies bore such a close resemblance to each other. Favieros and Stefanakos had sprung from the same social class and had followed the same course. Favieros had attended Primary school, High school and Polytechnic School, Stefanakos Primary school, High school and Law school.
I was halfway through Stefanakos’s student activism when the cat appeared. It stopped between the two benches and stared at me in astonishment. Then it opened its mouth slowly. I was expecting it to express its anger at me for having abandoned it, but all that came out of its mouth was a magnificent yawn, as though my presence alone were enough to cause it unbearable tedium.
‘Look, it’s as though it recognises us. That’s instinct for you!’ marvelled Adriani, who had looked up from her embroidering.
The cat closed its mouth and, with its tail erect, leapt up and sat in its usual spot, while I went back to Stefanakos’s biography.
Logaras was equally generous in his adulation of Stefanakos as he was with Favieros. But now as I read it all for a second time, I had the impression that all the eulogies were somewhat forced – as though the praise was being heaped more out of obligation than conviction. I was sure I’d feel the same way if I were now to reread Favieros’s biography.
By the time I’d finished with Stefanakos’s student years, which took up half the book, just as Favieros’s had done, it was already growing dark. Adriani got to her feet half-heartedly, and I, too, would have preferred to continue my reading there in the park rather than in the stifling atmosphere of the house.
Anyhow, it was around ten when I got back down to reading the biography, after having listened to a boring news bulletin and having eaten a plate of Adriani’s beans. Adriani insisted that we avoided red meat in the summer, which meant that we almost always ate vegetables cooked in olive oil or, at most, oven-baked fish.
The similarities between Stefanakos and Favieros continued: years of resistance, struggles against the Junta and his arrest by the Military Police, not long after that of Favieros. As I was reading, it occurred to me that perhaps Favieros and Stefanakos had met in the cells of the Military Police, but I rejected the idea because the Military Police always kept their prisoners in isolated cells so they couldn’t have come into contact with each other.
Once I got onto Stefanakos’s parliamentary career and his rise as a politician, I was impatient to see just when Logaras would start tarnishing his image, and I didn’t have long to wait.
The first innuendo came immediately after the account of his marriage to Lilian Stathatos. Logaras described how hard Stathatos worked during the first years of their marriage in order to consolidate her husband’s political profile, while she herself took a back seat; perhaps because she didn’t want anyone to connect Stefanakos with her father, Argyris Stathatos. At the same time, however, she had become involved behind the scenes in numerous business activities.
These activities were initially focused on her advertising company Starad, and its rapid growth alongside the growth of TV. Things began to get a little strange where I wouldn’t have expected: namely, with the investment consultancy firm Union Consultants that Stathatos founded in partnership with Sotiria Markakis-Favieros. Logaras claimed, perhaps with some irony, that Stefanakos had helped his wife to set up the second firm in the same discreet manner that she had employed to create her husband’s profile. For a consultancy firm dealing with European investment programs, this opened up numerous questions.
This, however, was not the main innuendo. Half a page further down, Logaras revealed that Stathatos and Markakis-Favieros had opened offices in Skopje to deal with the Balkan countries seeking accession to the European Union. A large number of the programs intended for these countries were channelled through Greece together with the funds earmarked for the reconstruction of Bosnia and Kosovo.
I finished the biography at around twelve thirty. Adriani had already gone to bed. I got a pencil and some paper and set to work at the kitchen table. I tried to make an outline of the business interests linking Favieros and Stefanakos together with their wives:
FAVIEROS Domitis Construction Company
Balkan Prospect: network of real-estate agencies
Balkan Prospect: network of Balkan real-estate agencies
Balkan construction companies
STATHATOS Advertising Company
STATHATOS and
FAVIEROS’S wife Union Consultants Investment Consultancy Firm
Offices of this firm in Skopje covering the entire
Balkans and particularly Bosnia, Kosovo
STEFANAKOS Major politician and with good name throughout
Balkans
I gazed at my notes and began making connections. Both Favieros and Stathatos owned companies that were completely above board: Favieros owned Domitis and Stathatos Starad. Behind these honest and reputable companies were others engaged in activities of a more shadowy nature. Both Balkan Prospect and Union Consultants were, on the face of it, entirely legal, but the
way in which they earned money was questionable to say the least.
Even more shadowy were things in the Balkans. There, through his estate agencies, Favieros bought land and property for a mere snippet and developed them in various ways. As for the partnership between Stathatos and Favieros’s wife, it wasn’t at all inconceivable that they were getting a fat slice of the money from the programs intended for the various Balkan countries on the grounds that they were acting as mediators. In the old days, you paid a few drachmas to someone outside the Town Hall to fill out your application form for a birth certificate. Now the Greeks in the European Union were getting millions from Balkan countries for filling out applications for European funding.
And then there was Stefanakos. Activist in the resistance, outstanding politician, feared in Parliament and pro-Balkan. If he had intervened from backstage in order to help Union Consultants secure funds from European programs in Greece and the Balkans, who would have dared to expose him? These things rarely come out into the open because very few are aware of them and those who are keep their mouths shut.
I put the pencil down and tried to put my thoughts in some order. Could this have been the reason behind Stefanakos’s suicide? Someone unknown, hiding behind the pseudonym of Logaras, knew the truth and was blackmailing him. And so Stefanakos committed suicide in order to save himself and his wife from the scandal. It seemed that the theory of a scandal wasn’t to be thrown out after all.
Nevertheless, there remained the question: why did Favieros and Stefanakos commit suicide publicly? Anyone committing suicide to avoid a scandal doesn’t have to do it before the eyes of millions of TV viewers. I still didn’t have an answer to that one.
I got up and called Sotiropoulos on his mobile phone. ‘That politician who told you about the relationship between Favieros and Stathatos …’
Che Committed Suicide Page 19
