Petros Markaris - Che Committed Suicide

Favieros’s photo was still hanging in the same place, but without the black ribbon. Also absent were the wreaths on the floor.

It wasn’t Aristopoulos, Koula’s informant, who came to take me, but a blonde girl of around twenty. We went up to the third floor, crossed the bridge of sighs and arrived at Zamanis’s office.

In contrast to the fifty-year-old woman in reception, the fifty-year-old number two, Zamanis’s private secretary, was noticeably cool. She greeted me with a faint nod of her head and opened the door to her boss’s office to allow me in.

Unsmiling, Zamanis held out his hand to me without getting to his feet. On the contrary, Yannelis smiled at me. Yet, despite the smile, the whole atmosphere, from the secretary outside and all the way to Zamanis, was overcast indicating stormy weather. Zamanis told me to take a seat and my weather forecast was confirmed.

‘When you came to see me, Inspector, you told me that you were carrying out a discreet and unofficial investigation into the reasons behind Jason Favieros’s suicide.’

He was looking down and reading from a sheet of paper. Evidently, he had had his secretary write down what we had said in order to be able to remember it. The paper, his upright bearing and his suit made me think of an interrogator about to pin me to the wall on the basis of my previous statement.

‘Precisely,’ I answered calmly.

‘You told me the same thing,’ Yannelis added.

‘That’s right. I told you both the truth.’

‘And do you believe that the reasons behind Jason’s suicide are to be found in the Balkan Prospect estate agencies?’

I shrugged. ‘When you’re searching in the dark, Mrs Yannelis, you leave no stone unturned. Naturally, sometimes you discover things you weren’t expecting, but it’s precisely for that reason that you look under every stone.’ I had a little dig myself, but neither of them seemed particularly impressed.

‘You won’t find anything,’ Zamanis said, continuing in the same tone of voice. ‘All you have succeeded in doing is to upset various people without reason and create a stir which is highly damaging.’

‘The stir may be damaging, but the various people have every reason to be worried. What has come to the surface, entirely by chance, is a series of suspicious property deals.’

‘Only a sick mind could find those deals suspicious. Neither Jason’s background as a leftist, nor his standing as a businessman would allow him to involve himself in suspicious dealings.’

He was making a frontal attack, using his heavy artillery to demolish my arguments. Jason Favieros was a committed leftist and consequently he couldn’t possibly be involved in scams at the expense of poor immigrants. Jason Favieros was a businessman of high repute and consequently he wouldn’t risk getting involved in suspicious property deals.

‘I didn’t say that Favieros was personally involved in suspicious property deals. Perhaps certain executives in his estate agencies had been making money on the side. At least in the case of Leventoyanni, there had undoubtedly been some collusion between the manager of the estate agency and the public notary. Who knows what I may find if I dig a little deeper.’

‘You won’t find anything involving Balkan Prospect,’ Yannelis said, interrupting. ‘I explained that to you when you came to see me. Our network is an extremely loose one. The local agencies make their own decisions concerning the transactions. Balkan Prospect bears no responsibility.’

‘But you told me that you examine the contracts.’

‘Only as to the legal side of the transaction, not the money exchanged. And apart from that, I don’t see how any of this can possibly be connected with Jason’s suicide.’

It wasn’t, and because it wasn’t, I was fishing in the hope of finding a lead somewhere else so that Yanoutsos wouldn’t get his hands on my job.

‘Don’t waste your time trying to understand, Coralia,’ Zamanis said ironically to Yannelis. ‘The Inspector is not interested in discovering the reasons behind Jason’s suicide. All he wants is to tarnish his name. That’s always been the favourite sport of the police.’

In other words, to tarnish the reputation of leftists. That’s what Zissis used to say and I respected his opinion. But Favieros was not Zissis.

Yannelis took over: ‘I’m curious, Inspector. Why did you decide to investigate the offshore company and its real-estate agencies?’ she asked.

‘As a result of reading a biography on Favieros published after his death.’

At the word ‘biography’, Zamanis leapt to his feet. ‘That idiot has done nothing but harm,’ he cried.

‘Come on now, you’re exaggerating,’ Yannelis said smiling.

‘Do you know him?’ I asked them.

Zamanis erupted once more. ‘No, I don’t know him and I don’t want to know him! It simply makes me mad that he’s exploiting Jason’s suicide in order to make money.’

‘You’re mistaken. The biography was written and submitted to the publisher long before the suicide. We’ve looked into it.’

They both turned and stared at me in astonishment. ‘Then you’ll know who the author is,’ commented Yannelis.

‘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.”’