Petros Markaris - Deadline in Athens

"Now, who's glued to the screen?" I heard Adriani's gloating voice from the kitchen. "I have some news," she said, just as I'd put the fork with the moussaka to my mouth.

"What news?"

"Katerina phoned today," she said, smiling.

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I wanted to tell you over supper, to give you an appetite."

Rubbish. She kept it from me on purpose to get back at me for not watching TV with her. She knew what a soft spot I had for our daughter.

"She's coming for Christmas, after all," she said with a satisfied grin.

Katerina was studying law in Thessaloniki. She was breezing through her second year. Her aim when she finished was to become a public prosecutor. Deep down, I only hoped I wouldn't have retired, so I'd be able to send her plenty of defendants. And then I'd sit in the courtroom and feel a father's pride as she read the charge, questioned the witnesses, and addressed the court.

"I must send her some money for the airfare."

"Don't bother-she said that she'd take the coach, with Panos," Adriani said.

Of course, I'd forgotten about that hulk. Or rather, I was trying not to remember him. He wasn't a bad kid underneath; he was studying to be an agriculturist. It bothered me, though, that he was muscular, the athletic type, always in a sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers. The ones we had like that on the force were all dimwits. But it wasn't his fault; he was one of that fifties generation. Not the first post-war generation, but the one of today. I call them the fifties generation because their vocabulary extends to no more than fifty words. And if you exclude "fuck," "creep," and "asshole," you're left with a net taxable income of forty-seven, as the revenue people would say. I remember the period between '71 and '73, the events at the Polytechnic, the student demonstrations, the sit-ins at the universities, the slogan "Food, Freedom, Education," and I recall how they'd send us to keep them under control or even to break them up. Confrontations, chases through the streets, broken limbs, with them swearing at us and with us cursing them. How could we have known then that all the fighting was just so that we would arrive today at those fifty words? We might as well have all gone home, because it simply wasn't worth the effort.

"Do you have the money for the airfare, or did you intend to borrow it?" It sounded like an innocent question, but I could see the cunning in her eyes.

"No, I have it," I replied. "I've put a bit aside from the back pay we got."

"As you're not going to need it for the fare, why don't you give it to me so I can buy those boots I was telling you about?" She tried for a seductive smile, but it only gave her away.

"We'll see." I'd give it to her, but I left it open on purpose to rankle her and get a bit of my own back. The first stage of family life is the joy of living together. The second is children. The third and longest stage is getting your own back at every opportunity. When you get to that stage, you know that you're secure and nothing is going to change. Your kids are off on their own, and you come home each evening knowing that waiting for you is your wife, your meal, and those little opportunities to get your own back.

"Oh, come on, Costas. I haven't got any boots for going out in!"

"We'll see!" I said sharply, putting an end to the conversation.

In bed, she cuddled up to me. She put her arm around my waist and began kissing me on my ear and neck. I lay there motionless. She brought her leg up to my knee and began rhythmically sliding it up and down from my shin to my penis.

"How much do you need for the boots?" I said.

"I saw a really lovely pair, but they're a bit expensive. Thirty-five thousand drachmas. But they'll last me for years."

"All right. I'll buy them for you."

Her leg slid down for the last time, like the elevator from the third floor to the ground floor, and it stopped there. She removed her arm from around my waist. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and immediately withdrew into her own territorial waters.

"'Night," she said, with relief in her voice.

"'Night," I said, also with relief, and I opened my Liddell amp; Scott, which I'd taken down from the shelf before getting into bed.

But it was impossible for me to concentrate. My mind was on Karayoryi and the matter of the child she kept going on about. She couldn't have simply invented it, out of thin air; she was keeping something from me. It suddenly came to me: Ask the Albanian. He might know something. I'd ask him first and then worry about Karayoryi. If nothing else, I could do what I'd thought of that morning. I'd tell Thanassis to get it on with her and see what he could discover.

In my dream, I was in the home of the two Albanians. Except that their corpses were no longer there and the mattress was covered with a blanket. On the folding table was a bassinet. I leaned over and saw a baby. It was no more than three months old and was crying its eyes out. Standing by the gas stove, I saw Karayoryi warming the baby's bottle.

"What are you doing here?" I said.

"Babysitting," she said.

I'd swallowed my first mouthful of croissant and was taking my first gulp of coffee when the door opened and in walked Thanassis. He looked at me and smiled. It was one of the rare occasions on which he didn't tell me that he was a moron. This happened once a year, twice at most.

"This is for you;' he said, handing me a piece of paper.

"Okay. Leave it there."

Over the years I've developed a standard practice: never to take papers handed to me. Usually, they're orders, restrictions, cutbacks, something, at any rate, to get your goat. So I let them lie on my desk and psychologically prepare myself to read them. Thanassis, however, stood there holding it out to me and said, triumphantly: "It's the Albanian's confession."

I froze. I reached out and took the statement. "How did you manage it?" I said, unable to conceal my incredulity.

"Vlassis told me," he said with a smile.

"Vlassis?"

"He's the officer on cell duty. We were having a coffee in the canteen, and he told me that you wanted to convince the Albanian that he'd be better off in prison. So I sat down, typed out a statement, and took it to him. He signed it straight away."

I looked at the third page. A couple of inches from the foot of the sheet was a scribble that looked like a child's drawing of Mount Hymettus. Apparently it was the Albanian's signature. I read swiftly through the statement, skimming the formal parts. Everything was there, exactly as he'd told it to me the previous day during the interrogation: how he'd met the girl in Albania and fallen for her, how he'd skulked around the house for days even though she'd sent him packing. He'd felt insulted and had decided to break into the house and rape her. He'd removed one of the boards from the window and squeezed inside. He'd thought that her husband was away and had been terrified when he'd seen him lying beside her. And when the man rushed at him, he'd taken out his knife and murdered first him and then the girl. Everything was plain and simple, all very neat, no gaps or loose ends.

"Well done, Thanassis," I said with admiration. "Perfect."

He looked at me, and his eyes shone with pleasure. At that moment the phone rang. I picked up the receiver.

"Haritos."

This too was part of the FBI-type reforms imposed on us by Ghikas. We no longer answered, "Hello" or "Yes," but "Haritos," "Sotiriou," "Papatriandafyllopoulos." And regardless of whether you got cut off halfway through "Papatriandafyllopoulos," you still went on with it.

"The child. What do you know about it?" As always, short, sharp, and to the point.

"There is no child, Chief. I've got the Albanian's confession in front of me. There's no mention of a child. That's nonsense thought up by Karayoryi. Her ambition will be the death of her."