Petros Markaris - Deadline in Athens

"Children?" he said, a good deal surprised.

"Anything at all. Rattles? Bibs? Baby clothes? Toys?"

He looked at me as if he were up against a lunatic. And he had every right. "No, we found nothing of the sort." He thought for a moment and then said, "Apart from a box that had diapers in it."

"Diapers?" I cried and leapt to my feet.

"Yes, they were using it as a makeshift cupboard. In it, there was sugar, coffee, and half a packet of dried beans."

The cat had woken up now and was eating, just like the glamorous stars who have their breakfast at eleven. The old woman was standing over it with pride. She was probably pleased that it had an appetite so she wouldn't have to give it iron tablets and vitamins. The leaves drooping from the potted plants looked down on the tiles like demure virgins. The old woman had watered them only the previous day, and they were withering already. Imagine being in a car in that heat, breathing the exhaust fumes, with the plastic seats so scorching you and your backside gradually become soaked.

"Have them bring a patrol car, and we'll be on our way. Just the two of us."

"Where are we going?"

"To the Albanians' place. To search it again."

He was about to say something, but he thought better of it and left. Five minutes later, they informed me that the patrol car was waiting.

It took us almost an hour to get to Rendi, even though Sotiris had turned on the siren. Throughout the journey, sitting next to Sotiris, I toyed with the window. I'd open it and be suffocated by the smog. I'd close it and be suffocated by the heat. In the end, I gave up and left it half open. Perhaps it was the congestion that was to blame for my irritability. A sudden feeling of impatience took hold of me. I wanted to get to the Albanians' place, search it, and be done. I was pissed off at Karayoryi for getting me all fired up so damned easily and with myself for having gone along with her game, and with the Albanians for not having a brat beside them on the mattress whom we could send to social services and who would let us wash our hands of the matter. Sotiris was driving without saying a word, very much down in the dumps. The low spirits were no doubt on my account, for putting him to all this trouble without good cause, when he should have been sitting at his desk, flipping through some document and telling the others about the chassis on the Hyundai Excel he'd recently bought by selling a piece of land he had in his village. At least that's what he said.

When we got into the house, I became even more uptight. One bare room, with the few rags on view; you could take it all in at a glance. What had I come to look for? Secret drawers, hollow walls serving as cubbyholes? The diaper box was on the folding table, as Sotiris had recalled. I opened it and found what he'd described: a hundred-gram packet of coffee, a packet of sugar, and half a bag of dried beans. They'd picked up the box from the street, to put their food in, so the rats wouldn't get at it.

"What are we looking for?" asked Sotiris, who was watching me.

"Anything indicating children, do I have to say it again?" I said testily.

I took the woman's clothes from the hook, let them drop to the floor, and spread them out with my foot. Perhaps there was something tucked inside them that we'd missed. But all I found was a pair of slacks, a blouse, and some tights. I looked again at the man's clothes, still lying beside the mattress. He, too, had nothing but a shirt, a pair of trousers, and his socks. And their shoes. Hers flat slipons, his lace-ups. Didn't they have any underwear? Not even for a change? I know they come here with no more than what they stand up in, but when you came face-to-face with the literalness of that, something just didn't seem right. I wondered whether this might be significant.

"Lend a hand to lift up the mattress," I said.

We got hold of it at both ends and doubled it up. Three cockroaches raced out, scampering in alarm over the bare concrete floor. One was a bit slower than the others, and I succeeded in stamping on it. The other two escaped. So this was all we had to show for our search: one dead cockroach, two at large.

"Let's be off," I said to Sotiris in relief and dropped my side of the mattress. If we hadn't found anything, there was nothing to find.

"Just a minute. I need to use the toilet."

"Careful not to touch anywhere with your willy. You'll be asking me for sick leave when you end up with an infection."

I opened the door and went out. The chubby woman was standing there. "So you're still looking for something, huh?" she asked me in a familiar tone, ready to invite me in for a coffee to learn the rest.

"What business is it of yours, missus? Go back into your house," I said curtly, in part because I was irritated at the thought of having to drive back through the center of Athens. After the compliments and praise she'd received in my office for being so observant, this took her aback. She gave me a nasty look, turned, and began walking away with as much speed as an overloaded truck can muster.

Suddenly I had an idea. "One moment!" I called to her.

She pulled up, undecided, with her back still turned. Then she swung around and came back to me, still looking offended.

"Would you know whether the Albanians had any kids?"

"Kids?" she parroted, and the question seemed to make her forget the insult. "No… whenever they came here, I never saw them with any children."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I said. "Are you saying that they didn't live here all the time?"

"They'd be here for a couple of days, leave, and turn up again after a week or so. When I asked the girl, she told me once that she'd been to stay with her in-laws in Yannina, and another time she told me she'd gone back to Albania because her father was ill…"

That's why we hadn't found any other clothes, because sometimes they stayed here, sometimes elsewhere, exemplary vagrants. I was considering what might be behind all this when I heard Sotiris calling from inside the dwelling.

"Sir, can you come for a minute?"

I went back inside. Sotiris was standing in the middle of the room. As soon as he saw me, he went toward the toilet without saying a word. I found him standing in front of the lavatory. My nostrils suddenly started burning from the stench, and I began to sneeze. The bowl was bare, without any plastic seat. A pile of dried-up shit in the shape of a cone was stuck to it right in the middle. There were shoe prints all around the top of the bowl. Those who'd relieved themselves had climbed onto it and squatted there, Albanian style. The cistern was one of those cylindrical ones that look like a tiny boiler, with a button that you press upward.

"I went to flush it, but the button won't budge," Sotiris said.

"And what would you have me do, call a plumber?"

"Go on, you try," he insisted.

I was ready to give him hell, but something in his expression made me pause. I pressed the button, and it wouldn't budge. Something was stopping it. I tried again, using more force this time, but nothing happened.

"The mechanism has jammed."

Without answering, Sotiris removed the top of the cistern and put his hand inside. First he pulled out a big stone, then dipped his hand inside again. This time, his hand came out with a cellophane packet, in which were wrapped five-thousand-drachma notes. I stood there, staring at the notes with my mouth wide open.

"I told you we'd find money, but you didn't believe me." He was trying to put one over on me, and he made no effort to conceal his smugness.

"You didn't find anything because you didn't look properly. When I said you wouldn't find any money, I meant in the mattress, not in the whole house. If you'd been a bit more methodical, we'd have found it the first time."