Petros Markaris - Deadline in Athens

"Thanassis, it's me you're talking to, Haritos. Do you really think I believe that you did all this just to see your daughter?"

"You," he said to me sharply and with envy, "you've had your daughter with you to pamper for so many years. And even so, you're in a black mood every other day because you miss her. And when she phones you, you act like a little boy."

Put a sock in it, Haritos. There's nothing you can say to him. He was shaking his head back and forth to underline his despair. "I'm telling you. She had a demon inside her. And she knew how to keep your hopes alive. From the day I agreed to play along with Dourou, she started sleeping with me again. Not regularly, just now and again. Without actually saying so, she let me believe that what hadn't happened twenty years ago might happen now. That we might all live together. Her, me, and our daughter."

"When did you get wise to her?" I said.

"After the Albanian couple died, when she came to you and dropped the hint about the kids. You knew nothing, but I understood right away where she was going with it. She wanted to make you come out and announce to the media that you were looking for kids, and then she would go on the air and reveal everything, to show the public that whereas the police were only just beginning to be suspicious and were wandering about in the dark, she had everything already sewn up. She wanted to ridicule everyone, the police and the reporters, and to become a star. To show that she was miles ahead of her male colleagues. The only thing she didn't have, and which I couldn't find out for her, was how Pylarinos was involved in all this."

Because she didn't have Zissis. I had him.

"And that's why you killed her?"

The question was going to come eventually and he was expecting it. He looked at me for a moment. The thought passed through my mind that he might deny it, but he said slowly: "In part, it was your fault that I killed her."

"My fault?"

"You sent me off with her that night. I didn't want to go, but you insisted. When I told her that I knew what she was up to and reminded her of our agreement, she just laughed at me. She told me that she would honor our agreement but with one minor alteration. She'd hand over all the information, but only when the police called her, to show the public that without her we'd never have got anywhere. I threatened to tell you everything. She laughed again and told me not to even think about it, as I was involved up to the eyes and if I ruined her scoop, she'd turn me into a news item to make up for it. Before we left, she told me that she wanted to make a phone call. Then I took her as far as her car. In my madness, I hoped that she'd change her mind even at that last minute. But she rolled down the window and told me that she'd go on the air that same night with a small part of it, just enough to whet the appetite of the public, and that the next day she'd drop the bombshell on the nine o'clock news. And off she went so I didn't have time to say anything in answer to that."

Large drops of perspiration glistened on his forehead. He pulled out a tissue to wipe them away. And then, to break the intensity, he changed the subject to something completely unrelated.

"I'm sorry. I haven't offered you anything. Can I make you a coffee?" he said.

"No. I don't want anything. Go on."

He realized that he couldn't escape and submitted to his fate. "I didn't leave right away. I waited awhile so as to recover from the shock and to be able to think more calmly. It was then that I saw that the whole thing had been a lie. She never had any intention of allowing me to meet my daughter or of letting me share in her success. I got into my car and followed after her. Her car was parked outside the studios. I don't know whether I'd already decided to kill her, but perhaps I must have decided already, because I waited for the security guard to leave before sneaking inside. I knew my way around. She'd told me herself. I found her putting on her makeup in front of a mirror. She was angry when she saw me there. I told her that she hadn't kept her side of the bargain and either she tell me there and then where my daughter was or she would have to give me back all the information I'd handed her." He stopped and smiled. "Cometh the hour, cometh the words. I must have been completely out of my mind to talk about bargains… She told me that she had given our daughter to some couple without children and that she certainly wouldn't take me to her or tell me where she was…"

He paused, then began to laugh. An insane laughter, paranoid. "I didn't have a gun with me. Which is why she wasn't afraid. How could she imagine that I'd run her through with the stand from the spotlight?" The laughter stopped. "I snatched her papers from her bag, together with her Filofax, just in case. I got into the elevator and went down to the basement. I hid among the cars and nipped out behind the first car that left."

She'd been afraid, but not of him. She was afraid of Sovatzis and Dourou and all their people. That's why she'd phoned Kostarakou.

He got up and went over to a cupboard on which his TV was sitting. As he opened it, it dawned on me that I wasn't carrying any weapon myself, and that if he were to take out a gun, I'd be in a fix. But he took out a brown envelope and a Filofax, and he handed them to me.

"Here, take these," he said.

I left them on the table in front of me, without opening them.

"You cannot know what a shock it was when you introduced me to her niece," I heard him say. "From the first glance I knew that she was my daughter, but it was far too late by then. What could I have said to her? That I was her father and that I had killed her mother?"

"And why did you murder Kostarakou?"

"It was you again who pushed me to do it. You told me that Yanna had telephoned Kostarakou to tell her to go on with the investigation. I was afraid that she might have given copies of the evidence to Kostarakou. And what if it contained my name somewhere? I couldn't risk it. I told her who I was and that I had something for her from Yanna. She opened the door to me immediately. I did in fact have the envelope with me. As she was going through it, I put the wire around her throat and strangled her."

He paused once more and again burst into that appalling laughter. "Then I came straight to you to report on Kolakoglou," he said. "You were my alibi. You were looking everywhere for the murderer and the murderer was sitting in your living room."

He stared at me and I reflected that this would be the last time. From the next day we would no longer be staring at each other, and so I wouldn't have the opportunity to reverse the rules of the game: to look him in the eye and tell him that I was a moron, and for him to answer: "I know you're a moron."

Then he became serious, "Now everything will come out, right?" he said, and heaved a sigh under the weight of his thoughts. "I'll be ruined and my daughter will find herself with a father who's a murderer."

"There's no other solution," I said.

"Are you going to arrest me?"

"That depends on you. I came alone to talk to you. If you prefer, I can have you arrested tomorrow."

"Tonight, tomorrow, what difference does it make? In any case, I'm done for. Let's go tonight and get it over with. Just wait a moment, if you don't mind, so I can get a few things to take with me."

"All right, I'm in no rush."

I opened Karayoryi's envelope. In it was another role of film, a pack of papers from a printer, and four photographs. One photograph was of Dourou. The other three were taken at night on Koumanoudi Street. Each one showed a different person taking a child out of the van. I recognized Seki. The other two must have been the Albanian couple, but it wasn't easy to make them out in the dark. I looked at them and felt like tearing up the prints. If we'd had this evidence from the beginning, we would have wrapped up the case within two days. And both Karayoryi and Kostarakou would still be alive. It's stupid, I know, but it's not at all pleasant to be told that you were the cause of two people dying, albeit unwittingly. Whatever, there was no way Dourou would get off now.