Petros Markaris - Deadline in Athens

"Hourdakis is the customs officer at the border, who stuck his head in the clouds while you crossed unchecked."

"I don't know customs officers by their names. Do you know how many customs officers I've seen in my time as a driver?"

"This one knows you at any rate. He was in on it. He was on the take in return for letting you through. He's the one who gave us your name.

He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He looked at me, trying to guess whether I was telling him the truth or not. There was no way he could know that Hourdakis had slipped the net and that we were still looking for him.

"Listen to me, Papadopoulos," I said softly, in an almost friendly way. "I know that you're the last spoke in the wheel and that it was others who got the lion's share. They're the ones I'm after, not you. If you cooperate, I give you my word that you'll get off lightly. I'll talk to the public prosecutor and most likely you'll be able to buy off your sentence. But if you play tough with me, I'll send you down for five years minimum. Think of the effect that would have on your son, on his spell in the army. And on your daughter, who might lose her family. And you'll be stuck in prison, getting slapped around from morning to night."

I fell silent. He said nothing either. We just stared at each other. And then suddenly I saw this great lump of a man break into sobs. His stomach heaved and kept catching on the edge of the table, like a truck's tire scraping up against the curb. His tears found it difficult to roll down his fat cheeks, but then acquired momentum and ended up on the table. He let them fall unchecked. The spectacle was so sad that I wanted to turn my face away so as not to see.

"I did it all for my daughter," he said through his sobbing. "I'd promised her a flat for her dowry and I couldn't make ends meet with the payments. All the money I took went to my daughter's flat"

"Slow down, let's take it from the beginning. Who got you into the racket? Sovatzis?"

His sobbing was instantly arrested and he looked at me in astonishment. "Which Sovatzis? Ours? What did Sovatzis have to do with all this?"

It was my turn to be surprised. I stared at him without speaking and bit my tongue so as not to betray myself.

"Who then? Mrs. Dourou?"

"No. A foreigner."

"What kind of foreigner?"

"Around the middle of June in 1991, I'd gone with a cargo to Tirane. A foreigner approached me. He was with a northern Epirot Greek. The foreigner spoke Italian to the northern Epirot, and he relayed it to me in Greek. They knew that I was going home empty, and they asked me if I wanted to transport a load for them on the quiet and make half a million for myself every month. I told them I didn't get involved in things like that, but the foreigner persisted. He told me that everything had been taken care of at the border and that I wasn't running any risk."

"And you believed him?"

"Not just like that. He offered to come with me on the first trip so that I could see for myself that everything had been arranged. And that's what happened. He came with me and we crossed the border at night without any check. From then on, on every trip, I took a cargo plus the 500,000 for myself."

"And the cargo was Albanians and Albanian kids."

"Only kids. Apart from an Albanian couple who took care of the kids. It was the same each time."

I'd begun to catch on, but I didn't want to interrupt him now that he'd gathered momentum. "And where did you deliver them to in Athens?"

"I didn't deliver them in Athens."

"So where to?"

"Ten kilometers outside Kastoria, I left the motorway and turned onto a side road. There, a closed van was waiting for me. The kids and the couple transferred to the van and I returned empty to Athens."

So that's why neither he nor Milionis had known Dourou. Krenek arranged everything from Albania. Sovatzis appeared nowhere. Krenek was in charge of the supply department, Sovatzis was in charge of the sales department, and Dourou of the warehouse. The only connecting link was the brother and sister: Sovatzis and Dourou. All the others vanished somewhere in between. I called Thanassis and told him to bring me the photographs of the couple murdered by Ramiz Seki and the photographs of Seki himself taken by forensics.

"Where were you on November 27?"

The date didn't appear to ring any bells for him. He answered quite spontaneously. "Here, in Athens."

"What were you doing on that night between eleven and one? Do you remember?"

"Till twelve I was at my daughter's house. We were celebrating my grandson's birthday. Then I went home with the missus." Bringing his grandson to mind made him well up with tears again.

"Who else was there?"

"My daughter's in-laws and my son-in-law's sister with her husband. Why are you asking?"

"Because that was the night a journalist connected with this business was murdered."

"I'm no murderer!" he shouted in terror. "Okay, my daughter was going to lose her flat and I got involved, but I'm no murderer!"

"Calm down. No one's accusing you of murder."

Thanassis brought the photographs. First, I showed him the photograph of the couple. He glanced at it and turned his head so as not to see.

"Do you know them?"

"That's them," he mumbled. "The ones who accompanied the kids."

I moved the photograph away from him before he puked on the table. "And what about this man? Do you know him?"

"Yes. He's the driver of the van that waited for me outside Kastoria."

So that was it. The three of them had been stealing kids and selling them to feather their own nests. Seki had murdered the couple because they hadn't given him his cut. That's why we found the 500,000 hidden in the cistern in the hovel. Then others had put another Albanian to murder Seki because he was the only path that led to Dourou.

"So, where does all this lead us?" Ghikas asked me. On his desk was the statement that Papadopoulos had just signed.

It was noon and my eyes were aching. "There are both good and bad points."

"Tell me the good ones."

"We know that the operation was organized by Krenek in Albania. We've got the two drivers. We know that Seki took charge of the kids just outside Kastoria and handed them over to Dourou. So far, it all fits, but then we come to the gaps. I can't find any link with Sovatzis. Krenek may have organized all this with Dourou without Sovatzis being in on it. Our only hope is Hourdakis. Unless, of course, we can prove that it was Sovatzis who murdered Karayoryi and Kostarakou."

"Do you rule out the possibility of Dourou having killed them?"

"At best, we can get her for being an accessory before the act. But too much points to the likelihood that the murderer was a man."

He looked at me pensively. I had ruined his good mood. "Let's not despair," he said, more to give himself encouragement. "We might get some light shed on it from elsewhere."

"From where?"

"From Dourou. With the case we can make against her, she's not going to get off. When her lawyer explains this to her, she may at last get scared and talk."

The telephone interrupted our conversation. Ghikas picked up the receiver. "Superintendent Ghikas." He always prefixed his name with his rank, whereas, being modest myself, I always said "Haritos" on its own and the other person might or might not take me for a police officer. "All right, I'll be right there." He hung up and smiled at me. "Things are looking up already. Hourdakis is downstairs waiting for you."

I ran down the stairs three at a time. The usual coven was outside my office, Sotiropoulos at their head.

"Have you got Hourdakis?" they all wanted to know.

"Later," I told them and tried to break gently through the ring. The questions rained down-had he talked, what had he said, did he really have any involvement in the case-but I paid no attention. I got into my office and shut the door.