by Leo Kanaris
A minute spent staring at the page made him think of a third set of players: the police. They needed a new shape. He drew a square next to John Petrakis. That was Captain Bagatzounis. Next to himself he added Lieutenant Kassavitis. Above him, in the centre of the diagram, he drew a square with the name ‘SOTIRIOU’ in capitals.
The central placing of this last figure was accidental, yet oddly significant. Where else could he be located? All violent crimes were reported to Sotiriou’s department, the investigations were started and managed there. Perhaps everything stalled there too? He had a vision of the ghastly office with its labyrinth of paper stacked in yellowing columns, a place of suffocation, entropy, and accumulating dust. Stuff was always moving into there. How did it ever move out?
Sotiriou liked to protest his probity. This alone made George uncomfortable. Most people who do that, he reflected, are sharks. Decency needs no advertising. Was it possible that Sotiriou was deliberately obstructing him? As corrupt as the worst of his colleagues, with the added vices of sanctimony, hypocrisy, and, most dangerous of all, self-delusion?
He walked over to the window. The sky was clear and blue between the buildings. The canary trilled from Dimitri’s balcony while the traffic grumbled and hooted below. He tried to let his mind run free, out of this huge lattice of concrete, glass and steel, into the open spaces of the sky. He consciously blanked out all thought – just concentrated on that distant immensity of blue. A series of images came to him, detached from all words and entanglements of causation. They appeared, stayed a few moments, then vanished like slides on a screen. The hand-grip on the biker’s pistol. The framed, silhouetted head. Colonel Varzalis firing his Hämmerli at that distant balloon. The empty hotel by the sea.
Were the images connected? Did they appear to him for a reason? Was this what Abbas meant by meditation?
The telephone started to ring. He picked it up and heard the voice of Pezas.
‘Have you heard about the fire at Paranoia FM?’
‘No, when?’
‘Last night. I just heard the news on the radio.’
‘Is anyone hurt?’
‘No. They all escaped. But the station’s ruined.’
‘I’ll check it out.’
George searched for Paranoia FM on the internet. He found the station’s website, with a brief announcement of the news and a promise to be back on air within 48 hours. The address, he noticed, was Leoforos Alexandras – a fifteen minute walk. He decided to take a look.
26
A tall, bearded man with a bald head was standing in front of a small neoclassical house with tongues of soot above empty windows and doors. He was talking very fast and angrily to a dapper executive in a pressed white shirt who was calmly making notes on a clipboard. The roof was a skeleton of charred timbers. A smell of burning – rubbery, acrid, repulsively chemical – hung in the street.
George waited until the conversation was over. The dapper man picked his way carefully into the building, stepping under a band of security tape as he went. The bearded man began punching text into his phone.
George approached him. ‘Mr Ghiotis?’
‘Who are you?’
‘My name is George Zafiris. I’m a private detective.’
‘No thanks.’
‘I’m not looking for work.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I’ve been investigating the death of Angelos Boiatzis, the MP. I gather you’ve been working on the same case.’
‘So?’
‘I wondered if we might talk.’
‘No.’
‘You don’t know what I have to offer.’
‘I don’t have time now.’
‘Because of the fire?’
‘Yes, because of the fire!’
‘I heard the news. I’m sorry.’
Ghiotis ignored him.
‘When can I come back?’ asked George.
‘When the nightmare’s over.’
Ghiotis returned to his phone.
‘This is only going to get worse,’ said George. ‘Now’s the time to act, before someone gets killed.’
Ghiotis gave him a cynical look.
‘Killed?’
‘It could easily have happened last night. Was there no one in the building?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘Think it was an accident?’
‘No way! This was arson.’
‘Right. And who’s responsible?’
‘You think I know that?’
Ghiotis began text-messaging again.
George watched him for a few moments.
‘Did you look into his love life?’ asked George.
‘What?’ Ghiotis looked up abstractedly.
‘Boiatzis had a mistress. His wife had a lover too.’
‘Big deal.’
‘Had any visits from Russian hit men recently?’
‘No.’
‘You will soon.’
‘I’m ready for them.’
‘Really? You have a bodyguard? Carry a gun? You look pretty vulnerable to me.’
Ghiotis stared at him blankly.
George took a card from his pocket. ‘Call me if you want to talk,’ he said.
Ghiotis glanced at the card, slid it into his pocket, then followed the other man into the burnt-out building.
27
The visitors’ room at the prison was drab and hot, with hard wooden chairs and tables. Sunlight slanted in through high windows. Traffic was audible from outside. A warder sat watching suspiciously as Abbas took a ragged old folder of documents out of his briefcase and opened it on the table in front of him.
‘This was all I could find,’ he said.
‘That’s the one,’ said the colonel. ‘In there you should find a list of volunteers.’
‘I’ve seen that,’ said George. ‘What I really want is a list of the weapons they possessed.’
‘I have that too.’
‘Really?’ George glanced at Abbas. ‘Can I see it?’
‘Of course. It’s in here somewhere.’
The colonel began leafing through the papers. Some he discarded at once. Others caught his attention. He began reading carefully, following the text with his finger. Abbas and George watched him with growing unease.
‘Why don’t I look through them for you?’ said Abbas. ‘It might be quicker.’
‘It will definitely be quicker!’ said the colonel.
He shoved the file across the table. ‘All this paperwork! And what’s it for? The flames!’
‘I’m glad you haven’t burnt them yet,’ said George.
‘It won’t be long now,’ said the colonel.
Abbas handed him a flimsy sheet of copy paper.
‘Is this it?’
The colonel took it from him and read it.
‘That,’ he said, ‘is a list of the volunteers and the weapons they owned.’
‘You seem to have recruited the best of the ancient Greeks,’ said Abbas. ‘You have Alcibiades, Leonidas, Themistocles, Xenophon…’
‘Not a bad squad! They’re all codenames of course.’
‘What was the purpose of that?’ asked George.
The colonel looked mystified. ‘Who knows?’
‘Do you have a key? To decode them?’ asked Abbas.
‘I have no idea.’
‘I’ll keep looking.’
‘You won’t find it there,’ said the colonel. ‘Never keep the key near the code.’
‘Let me look just the same,’ said Abbas.
He went on through the papers, quickly, expertly. He set one sheet aside, and was soon at the end of the file. He turned the file over, checked it was empty, ran a hand around the inside.
‘No key in there,’ he said. ‘You’ve left us with a puzzle.’
The colonel looked pleased.
‘Why the secrecy?’ said Abbas.
‘Secrecy is strength!’ The colonel smiled.
‘You military guys can’t ever
call a spade a spade. Either it’s got some damn stupid code number like “P22” or you dress it in absurd technical jargon like “manually deployed excavation facilitator”.’
‘There’s a good reason for that,’ said the colonel.
‘Really? I’d like to know what it is. Because anyone looking through your files would be able to find out at once who your volunteers are…’
‘No!’
‘Oh yes! Their names and addresses are listed.’
‘They shouldn’t be.’
Jalal showed him the piece of paper he had set aside. ‘Here they are.’
‘That list must be destroyed!’
‘No! That list is precious. But the strange thing is that one list is coded, the other not.’
‘The coded one is the right one,’ said the colonel.
‘But we can’t crack the code!’
‘You can compare the two lists.’
‘There’s no cross-reference. Look, here’s the gun we want, the Heckler & Koch G3. That belonged to “Xenophon”. But who in hell is “Xenophon”?’
‘Let me see,’ said the colonel.
Abbas handed him the two sheets. He studied them for a while, focussed at first, then increasingly puzzled. His eyes became vague.
‘I don’t understand a word of it,’ he said.
‘Can you remember anyone on that list?’
‘I think I’m Socrates.’
‘You’ve no idea who Xenophon might be?’
The colonel seemed distressed. His mouth was shut tight, his eyes shifty.
‘It’s OK,’ said Abbas. ‘We’ll leave it.’
George had an idea. ‘We can ask the three that we know already. They can tell us their codenames.’
‘If they know them,’ said Abbas.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Looking at this list, I must be Aeschylus, because Aeschylus has a Colt pistol and a Remington rifle. Those are my weapons. But I didn’t know my codename. I didn’t even know I had a codename!’
‘Ah…’
‘We’ll do some cross-referencing,’ said Abbas. ‘Narrow it down.’ He glanced at the warder, who was showing signs of interest in their conversation. ‘I think we should leave the colonel now.’
At a café nearby Abbas and George examined the two lists.
The first was new to George. It gave codenames and some weapon details, but no names or addresses.
Aeschylus
* Remington
+ Colt
Ajax
* Sako
Alcibiades
+ Heckler & Koch P30
Hector
x Beretta 687
Daedalus
* Winchester 70
Leonidas
* Mauser 98K
Pericles
* Fabarm
Nestor
* Mauser 98K
+ CZ 75B
Odysseus
* Mauser 98K
Xenophon
* Heckler & Koch G3
Phidias
* Weihrauch
Philoctetes
* Daystate
Miltiades
* Miroku
Themistocles
x Sarasqueta
Socrates
* Lee Enfield, Hämmerli
+ Browning Hi-Power, Glock 19
x Purdey, Fabbri, AYA
The second list gave names and addresses, with a generic weapon code:
*
Pangalos, Harilaos
Dimokratias 23, Marathonas
*
Maginas, Andonis
Venizelou 10, Souvala
*
Tsaousoglou, Aris
Lazarides
*
Paraskevás, Ioannis
Irioti 5, Aegina
*
Kotsis, Leonardos
Vyzantiou 1, Aegina
*+
Kalamaras, Andreas
Aristotelous 6, Aegina
x
Philippidis, Iason
Aghias Irinis 7, Aegina
*+
Tsoublekas, Manolis
Aghiou Nikolaou 33, Aegina
*+
Abbas, Jalal
Mitropoleos 6, Aegina
*
Tasakos, Manos
Psaron 4, Aegina
*
Laskaradis, Stephanos
Apheas 123, Aegina
x
Hitiris, Spyridon
Perdika
*+x
Varzalis, Solon
Telamonos 18, Aegina
x
Doukakis, Theodoros
Aghia Marina
+
Gounaris, Mihalis
Trikoupi 15, Souvala
‘We have three of the fifteen right away,’ said George. ‘Aeschylus is you, Socrates is the colonel, Leonidas is the policeman…’
‘And Daedalus is the pilot.’
‘How do we know that?’
‘He has a Winchester.’
‘Daedalus was also the first airman,’ said George. ‘I wonder if the codes are connected to people’s jobs?’
‘Possibly. I’m an author, though not quite up there with Aeschylus.’
‘Ancient Leonidas wasn’t a policeman.’
‘No, but he was a Spartan, and Kotsis is a Spartan too.’
‘OK, so how about the colonel as Socrates?’ said George. ‘What’s the link?’
‘I don’t see one,’ said Abbas. ‘The names are random.’
‘So who else do you know here?’
Abbas read through the list again.
‘We could eliminate six more. Some of these people live out of town. Others have pistols or shotguns, not rifles.’
‘That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. They could have bought new weapons, or come into town specially.’
‘Drive into town, park the car, take out a rifle and hang about in the back streets waiting for Professor Petrakis to take a shower? Hoping no one sees you?’
‘OK, it sounds bloody stupid. So we eliminate the out-of-towners.’
Abbas went down the list. ‘Pangalos, Maginas, Tsaousoglou, Hitiris, Gounaris, Doukakis.’
‘That leaves four names: Kalamaras, Tsoublekas, Tasakos, Laskaridis. What do we know about them?’
‘Kalamaras has an electrical shop. Tsoublekas is a lawyer. Tasakos we’ve met. He doesn’t have his gun any more and he was in Athens that day. Laskaridis is an architect.’
‘Do any of these four belong to extreme patriotic organisations?’
‘How do I know? Not Laskaridis anyway. He’s a liberal.’
‘A liberal and a gun-owner?’
‘It happens.’
‘Really?’
‘Look at me. Shooting gets into your blood. You do it for fun once or twice, and before you know it you’re a member of the Rifle Club.’
‘In my view,’ said George, ‘there’s something inherently authoritarian in using a gun.’
‘On other living creatures, yes. On a target, no. The authority isn’t you, it’s the goddess Accuracy.’
‘Is Laskaridis a suspect?’
‘I would eliminate him on grounds of character, but perhaps that’s unscientific.’
‘What about the other three?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
‘So we need to see Kalamaras and Tsoublekas. Find out if they had anything against the professor.’
‘Correct. If I might make a suggestion?’
‘What’s that?’
‘You should go at this indirectly. I’ve watched you asking questions. You’re far too direct! They know at once what you’re after. That gives them time to prepare a lie.’
‘How would you approach them?’
‘Why not say you want to buy a gun?’
‘You think they’d fall for that?’
‘They might.’
‘But I’ve already been going round talking to people about the murder. I can’t just change my story.’
/> ‘No one will notice.’
‘I don’t like deceiving people.’
‘If I had the murder weapon in my house and you came round asking questions about the professor, I would have no hesitation in deceiving you. I certainly wouldn’t tell you anything useful.’
‘Not consciously. But your unconscious signals might. Guilty people try to close down the inquiry. They’ll often do something odd. The innocent have nothing to hide.’
Abbas thought about this.
‘You know what?’ he said. ‘I have another idea. Why don’t I talk to these guys myself? After all, I know them. I could say I’m writing a history of the volunteer force. Trying to find out the codenames.’
‘I like that better.’
‘I could even see the out-of-towners, on the off-chance they might know who owns the G3.’
‘Brilliant.’
‘The code may turn out to be our friend.’
*
On the ferry back to Athens, George thought again about the shooting of the professor. The angle of entry in the forensic report had been 25 degrees left of the mid-line, 15 below. The colonel’s garden fitted the profile perfectly. The internet man’s house was on the right of the mid-line, as was the policeman’s. Only the pilot, Daedalus, was as well placed as the colonel for the shooting. Yet neither of these could seriously be accused of the murder. Whoever did it might equally have shot from the back streets, or even from the colonel’s garden…
Yet there was something else to consider. These angles of entry, vertical and lateral, must depend on the orientation of the professor’s head at the moment of impact. If he was facing the window, a bullet fired from the colonel’s house would have hit the left side of his head. If he was facing away from the window, to the left, the same bullet would have hit the right side of his head. In other words the bullet could have come from left or right. A similar uncertainty obtained as to the vertical angle. If his head was upright, a shot fired from an upstairs window would strike it horizontally. But suppose the head was tilted back – say he was rinsing his hair – then the same shot would enter from below, or appear to. Thus the angles of entry might be misleading. The shot could have come from either side, above or below; an upstairs window, a roof, a balcony, even the street.
