Petros Markaris - Che Committed Suicide

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.

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… and…

‘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.’