Petros Markaris - Che Committed Suicide

‘Yes. Why, do you know anything?’

‘No, heavens no!’ he replied with the instinctive fear of the ordinary citizen who doesn’t want to get involved. ‘But from what I saw with a quick glance, the papers don’t know anything either.’

He again expressed his delight at seeing me so well and tossed the newspapers into a large plastic bag. I went down Aroni Street and arrived at the little square of Aghiou Lazarou. It had a corner café that had been upgraded into a coffee bar. I chose one of the tables in the shade and took the pack of newspapers from the plastic bag. The waiter was an unaccommodating fifty-year-old who came over and took my order with a curt ‘So what’s it to be?’ I ordered a sweet Greek coffee, which was met with a scowl tantamount to a stream of abuse, evidently because the Greek coffee downgraded the coffee bar back to a corner café.

All the newspapers had Favieros’s suicide as their front-page story. Only the headlines differed. ‘Tragic Suicide By Jason Favieros’ and ‘Mystery Suicide On Camera’ were the headlines in the more serious newspapers. From then on, it was all downhill: from ‘Favieros’s Spectacular Suicide’ and ‘Suicide Exclusive On Camera’ to ‘Big Brother Live’. All the papers had a photograph in the middle of the page, showing the same downhill direction. The most serious had a neutral photograph of Favieros shaking the Prime Minister’s hand. Two more showed Favieros with the pistol in his mouth. One of the tabloids preferred a photograph of Favieros after his suicide with the blood-splattered aquarium.

I sipped the coffee, which was like water, and read the reports one by one. They were full of questions and conjectures, which meant that no one knew anything and they were all fishing for the answers. One claimed that Favieros had major financial problems and was on the brink of bankruptcy. Another that he had some incurable illness and had chosen to put an end to his life in this spectacular way. One leftist newspaper successively analysed the acute mental problems that Favieros had been left with following his torture at the hands of the Junta’s Military Police. It actually presented an interview with a psychiatrist who always features in similar cases with erudite psychological portraits of the victim or perpetrator that leave you wondering why he’s not with the FBI. The newspaper with the headline ‘Big Brother Live’ came up with the idea that, because of some incurable illness, Favieros had struck a deal with the TV channel to publicly commit suicide in exchange for a huge sum that he would leave to his family. Finally, another gutter-press rag, full of colour photos, insinuated that Favieros was gay, was being blackmailed, and preferred public suicide to public scandal.

They knew as much as I did, I thought to myself. In other words, nothing. I glanced at my watch. I had been engrossed in the papers for a full two hours and it was long past lunchtime in my private clinic. I left the two and a half euros they charged for the thimbleful of coffee on the table and headed back home. I was halfway down Aroni Street when it suddenly crossed my mind to call Sotiropoulos, a reporter who for years had been a thorn in my side and with whom I had a love-hate relationship, with the emphasis on hate. I bought a phone card from the kiosk and called directory enquiries to get the number of the channel where Sotiropoulos worked.

‘Haritos, what a surprise!’ The title ‘Inspector’ had been dispensed with long ago. ‘So, you’re fully recovered?’

‘More or less. It’s all a matter of time.’

‘When will you be back with us?’

‘I’ve another two months’ sick leave.’

‘You’ll be the end of me!’ he exclaimed disappointedly. ‘That Yanoutsos who replaced you is driving us crazy. Getting information from him is like trying to get blood out of a stone.’

I chuckled with glee. ‘Serves you right. You used to accuse me of keeping you all in the dark.’

‘No, it’s not that he doesn’t want to reveal his cards; it’s that he’s unable to put two words together. He writes his statements in a notepad and reads them out as though there were no full stops or commas.’

I almost dropped the phone. ‘You mean Ghikas lets Yanoutsos make statements to the press?’ I asked flabbergasted. Ghikas, Head of Security, guarded press statements like he did his wallet; he gave them to no one. He had me write them for him and he learned them by heart for the reporters. And now he was handing over his wallet to that blockhead Yanoutsos, who wore his bulletproof vest back to front like a straitjacket?

‘Rumour has it that he does it on purpose,’ said Sotiropoulos, breaking into laughter. ‘He dislikes him so much that he has him garble the statements to compromise him.’

That’s something Ghikas is quite capable of.

‘I want to ask you a question, Sotiropoulos. Purely out of personal interest. What do you know about Favieros’s suicide?’

‘Nothing.’ His answer was direct and categorical. ‘No one knows anything. All as black as pitch. Perhaps his family knows something, but they’ve shut up shop.’

‘And all the talk in the papers?’

‘You mean about financial and psychological problems and the like? Hot air, Haritos. When reporters have nothing to go on, they simply dredge the drains to see what they might come up with, and what we usually come up with are old shoes, plastic bags and various refuse. Anyhow, as things stand, that story doesn’t have much of a life because there’s simply nothing for us to write about.’

I thanked him and he told me he couldn’t wait for me to get back on the job.

Adriani didn’t hear me entering the house because she was talking to our daughter on the phone.

‘Do you realise he’s been out wandering the streets for three hours now?’ she said to her. It was clear she was talking about me and so I had every right to eavesdrop.

‘Three hours, do you hear, Katerina?’ Her voice was full of concern. ‘Without telling me where he was going, he just opened the door and walked out.’ She paused to hear what Katerina said and then went on, even more tensely: ‘What harm will he come to? Are you joking? He might have had a dizzy spell and fainted. He might be in hospital right now! I’ve pleaded with him to get a mobile phone, but he won’t hear of it.’ This time the pause was cut short with indignation. ‘Naturally, it’s me who’s to blame again!’ She felt angry and when Adriani is angry, there’s no point in trying to get a word in yourself. ‘Fanis, Fanis! Fanis isn’t here all day to see how I’ve rescued him from the hands of death! What I should do is get the police onto it because he’s been gone three hours now and I’ve no idea where he is!’

‘I’m here,’ I said, appearing in the doorway to the sitting room.

She was taken aback because she hadn’t heard me come in, and an expression of relief spread over her face.

‘Here’s your dad, you wanted to talk to him and here he is,’ she said to Katerina with all the cheek in the world. ‘Your daughter,’ she said, handing me the receiver.

‘How are you doing, dear?’

‘Me, I’m fine. It’s Mum who’s not all right. You frightened her out of her wits and she was about to send out a search party for you,’ she said laughing.

‘I know. She’ll have to accept it.’

There was a short pause. ‘Can I assume that your chat with Fanis yesterday had some effect?’ she asked cheerfully.

‘That and the suicide.’

‘What suicide?’

‘Favieros’s. Last night on the TV. Something suddenly clicked inside me.’

She burst out laughing.

‘A bit macabre, but a shock like that usually does the trick.’ Then she became serious. ‘She does it out of love, you know. So don’t go now to the other extreme,’ she said to me.