Petros Markaris - Che Committed Suicide

The woman put down the receiver. ‘Our General Manager, Mr Zamanis, will see you. Please follow Mr Aristopoulos,’ she said, motioning to a young man wearing a short-sleeved shirt and tie, who had come and was waiting for us.

We went up to the third floor, over the bridge of sighs and entered the modern block. Here, the decoration was minimalist, not at all recalling the period of the first Bavarian Kings of Greece. Chipboard cubicles, like a line of theatre sets. Sitting inside were men and women either typing away at the keys on their computers or talking on their mobile phones.

Aristopoulos led us to a door at the end, the only door on the whole floor. In olden times, the rich lived in neoclassical houses and the servants in hovels. Now only a door divides them. The actors up front and the impresario behind the door. That was all there was to it.

The second fifty-year-old woman that we encountered had her hair tied back, was wearing white linen slacks and blouse, but like the first woman had no make-up on. I suddenly realised that this was their way of showing they were in mourning for Favieros, and I quite liked it.

‘Do go in. Mr Zamanis is waiting for you,’ she said, immediately adding: ‘Can we get you anything?’

I politely declined and Koula was quick to comply.

Zamanis must have been around the same age as Favieros, but that’s where the similarities ended. Favieros was of average height and was ostentatiously unkempt; Zamanis was tall and wearing a smart suit. Favieros had thick hair and was always unshaven; Zamanis was clean-shaven and starting to go bald. He got to his feet to receive us and held out his hand. Then he also shook Koula’s hand, but mechanically, without looking at her, because his eyes were fixed on me.

‘I have to admit that your visit surprises me somewhat.’ He stressed the words one by one as if to underline them. ‘Why this sudden interest on the part of the police in the tragedy that’s befallen us?’

‘It’s hardly sudden,’ I replied. ‘We simply waited for the first few difficult days to pass before bothering you. Besides it’s not something urgent. It’s purely a formality.’

‘Let’s get on with the formality, then.’ He waited for us to sit down and then shooting his words out at us in a sharp, categorical tone: ‘So what do you want to know? Whether I expected Jason to commit suicide? The answer is “no”. Whether he had any reason to commit suicide? No, everything was going just fine for him. Whether he was forced into suicide by those fascist idiots? Again no, they simply used it as an opportunity to do their own thing. Whether I expected Jason to make a spectacle of his suicide? Again, the answer is “no” for a fourth time. And now that I’ve answered all your questions, please allow me to get back to my work. Time is pressing and all the work has fallen on my shoulders.’

Koula wasn’t sure whether she should get to her feet or remain seated and looked at me uncomfortably. She saw that I didn’t budge and went along with me.

‘Thank you for saving us the trouble of asking you the questions,’ I said politely and without the slightest irony. ‘But you haven’t answered the question as to why Jason Favieros committed suicide.’

He puts his hands in the air in a gesture of ignorance. ‘Because I can’t,’ he said in a sincere tone. ‘From the moment I became an eyewitness to that terrible spectacle on TV, I’ve been racking my brains trying to find an answer but I can’t.’

‘Is it at all possible that he was being blackmailed by that nationalist organisation?’

He burst into laughter. ‘Come now, Inspector. If that was the case, I would have been the first to know and he certainly wouldn’t have kept it a secret from the police. And, when all’s said and done, if they were going to blackmail us on account of our foreign workers, they would have blackmailed all the Greek construction companies.’

‘Did he have any enemies?’

‘Of course. All the other public works contractors. We’re living in a world where everyone is against everyone else. We all began with dreams of other things but we’ve all ended up here. I don’t see anyone unhappy about it, however.’

‘Just before Favieros committed suicide, the reporter had asked about his connections with the government.’

Again he burst into laughter. ‘So? Would he commit suicide just because he got preferential treatment? It’s the hard-done-by who commit suicide, Inspector.’

I felt like giving up. All his answers were the ones I had thought of and they were sound ones. ‘Did he have any psychological problems?’

I asked with the logic that says when you’ve exhausted everything else, try your luck with psychology. It was the first time that Zamanis’s glibness faltered.

‘I’ve been asking myself the same question since that day,’ he said pensively. ‘The very way that he committed suicide shows an individual who is mentally disturbed.’ He paused again and fixed his eyes on the pencil holder on his desk as though trying to focus his thoughts. ‘Jason had been through a great deal, Inspector. I don’t know whether you are aware of his background…’

‘No.’

‘You should, really,’ he said, looking me in the eye somewhat provocatively.

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because he was one of the leading members of the resistance during the time of the Junta. He was subjected to terrible torture by the Military Police. Once they were afraid that he would die on them and they let him go because they didn’t want any trouble from abroad. All that left him with psychological traumas… Sudden changes of mood… affective disorders.’

‘Did he have any of these symptoms prior to his suicide?’

He reflected again. ‘If I were to interpret the signs with hindsight, yes. At the time, I didn’t pay much attention to them.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He was – how shall I put it? – somewhat distant, as though his mind was elsewhere. He had turned everything over to me and shut himself up alone in his office. Once or twice when I went in, I found him playing games on his computer…’

‘How long was this before his suicide?’

‘A week or so… ten days at most…’

‘Can we take a look at his computer,’ Koula asked rather timidly.

I had told her that morning that Favieros had been doing the same at home. I was impressed that she had linked the two, but Zamanis gave her an ironic look.

‘Why? Do you think his playing on the computer is the reason behind his suicide?’

I could have stepped in to take him down a peg or two, but I decided to let Koula deal with it herself, to see how she would react. She blushed bright red, but didn’t swallow her tongue.

‘You never know what you might find on a computer. The most improbable things sometimes.’

Zamanis shrugged. He didn’t appear to be convinced by her argument, but he didn’t have any objection.

‘Jason’s office is on the same floor, but in the old building. It was in there that he had founded the company and he didn’t want to leave it. I’ll inform my secretary Mrs Lefaki.’

‘Between you and me, just what do you expect to find on the computer, Koula?’ I said to her once we were outside in the corridor. ‘You heard it from Zamanis. The fellow was playing patience.’

She stood in the middle of the corridor and stared at me with a look full of pity. ‘Do you know what I do when I have a classified document open on my computer? I open a game of patience as well. Whenever anyone comes into the office unannounced, I maximise the patience and cover the document. Everyone thinks I’m killing time playing patience, but that’s how I hide the classified documents from prying eyes.’