Deadline in Athens

CHAPTER 1

Every morning at nine, we stared at each other. He stood in front of my desk with his gaze fixed on me, not exactly at eye-level, but a fraction higher, somewhere between the forehead and the eyebrows. ‘I’m an asshole,’ he said.

He said it, but not in words; he said it with his eyes. I sat behind my desk and stared him straight in the eye, neither any higher nor any lower. Because I was his boss and could look him in the eye, whereas he couldn’t do the same with me. ‘I know you’re an asshole,’ I’d tell him. Not a word left my mouth either; it was my eyes that spoke. We had this conversation ten months a year, if you excluded the two months that we were both on leave, and five days a week. From Monday to Friday, without our saying as much as a word, just through our eyes. ‘I’m an asshole—I know you’re an asshole."

Every division has its share of losers. You can’t have just the high-flyers; you’ll get stuck with a few dimwits. Thanassis belonged to that category. He entered the Police Officer Cadet School, but gave it up halfway through. With a lot of effort, he managed to get to the rank of sergeant and stopped there. He had no aspirations to anything higher. From his first day in the division, he made it clear to me that he was an asshole. And I showed due appreciation. Because his honesty saved him from difficult assignments, night duties, roadblocks and car chases. I kept him in the office. An easy interrogation, filing, liaison with the coroner’s office and the ministry. But because we had a chronic shortage of men on the Force and we simply couldn’t deal with all the work, he made sure he reminded me every day that he was an asshole, so that I wouldn’t forget and assign him by mistake to a patrol car.

I glanced at my desk and saw that the coffee and croissant were missing. Bringing me my coffee and croissant every morning was his only regular assignment. I looked up at him questioningly.

"So, where’s my breakfast today, Thanassis? Have you forgotten about it?’ When I first entered the Force, we used to eat biscuits. We’d wipe the crumbs from the desk with our hand while, sitting opposite us, was some murderer or robber or common pickpocket by the name of Demos or Lambros or Menios.

Thanassis smiled. ‘The chief phoned to say he wants to see you right away, so I thought I’d bring it to you afterwards."

He wanted me in connection with that Albanian. He’d been seen lurking around the home of the couple we’d found murdered on Tuesday afternoon. The front door of the house had been open all morning but no one had entered. Who’d enter a decrepit hovel with the one window missing and the other boarded over? Even burglars would turn their noses up. Eventually, around noon, a neighbour who’d noticed that the door had been open all morning with apparently no one around went to take a look. It was an hour before she contacted us as she’d fainted. When we arrived on the scene, two women were still trying to bring her round by sprinkling water over her face like they do with fish to make them look fresh.

The bare mattress was spread out on the concrete floor. The woman was sprawled on her back on top of it. She must have been around twenty-five. Her throat had been slashed wide open with a knife, as if someone had given her a second mouth below the regular one in order to facilitate the blood. Her right hand was clutching at the mattress. I didn’t know what colour her nightdress had been, but now it was dark red. The man beside her must have been about five years older than her. He was sprawled face down and was hanging over the edge of the mattress. His eyes appeared to be fixed on a cockroach that was passing before them at that moment as proud as you please. He had five stab wounds in the back; three in a horizontal line from the level of the heart to his right shoulder and the other two beneath the middle stab wound, one after the other, as if the murderer had been trying to inscribe a ‘T’ on his back. The rest of the house resembled the houses of all those who leave one hell to go to the next, with a folding table, two plastic chairs and a gas stove.

Two dead Albanians is of interest to no one but the TV channels, and then again only if the murder is sensational and sickens the stomachs of those watching the nine o’ clock news before they sit down to their supper. In the past we had biscuits and Greeks. Now we have croissants and Albanians.

It took us the best part of an hour to get through the initial stage, which meant photographing the two corpses, looking for fingerprints, putting the few pieces of evidence in plastic bags and sealing the door. The coroner didn’t even bother coming. He preferred to have the corpses delivered to the mortuary. There was no need for any investigation. What was there to investigate? There wasn’t so much as a cupboard in the house. The woman’s few rags were hanging on a hook on the wall. The man’s were lying next to him on the concrete floor.

"Should we look to see if there’s any money?’ Sotiris asked. He was a lieutenant and made sure he always did everything by the book.

"If you find any it’s yours, but you won’t find a penny. Either they didn’t have any or it was taken by the murderer. And that doesn’t mean that he killed them for their money. Even if it was for revenge, he’d have taken the money anyway. There’s no way that his kind would find money and leave it.’ He looked around and found a hole in the mattress. There was no money.

None of the neighbours had seen anything. At least so they said. They may well have been keeping something back for the cameras in order to make a bob or two for themselves. All that was left for us was to get back to the station for the second stage—a report that would go straight into the files. Because looking for whoever killed them would be a waste of effort.

She popped up just as we were sealing off the house. Chubby-faced, with a sparkling blouse which her breasts looked about to tear open and pop out of, with a tight skirt that was shorter at the back because her backside stopped it from hanging down properly, and with mauve slippers. I was sitting in the patrol car when I saw her going up to the two men sealing the door. She muttered something to them and they pointed to me. She turned and came up to me.

"Where can I talk to you?’ she asked me, as if she were expecting me to make her an appointment.

Here. What is it?

Over the past few days I’ve seen a man lurking around the house. He’d knock on the door, but each time the woman would slam it in his face. He was average height, fair-haired, and had a scar on his left cheek. He was wearing a blue anorak, jeans that were patched at the knees and trainers. The last time I saw him was the day before yesterday. It was in the evening and he was knocking on the door.

And why didn’t you tell all this to the officer who questioned you?

I needed time to think. The last thing I want is to be bundled off to police stations and courtrooms.

How long did she sit and stare at the street, at the neighbours and passers-by? Evidently, she made her bed in the morning, put the pan on the stove and then took up her watch at the window.

Okay. If we need you, we’ll contact you.

When I got back to the office, my first reaction was to have the case put on file. With terrorists, robberies and drugs, who has time to worry about Albanians? If they’d killed a Greek, one of ours, one of the fast-food and crepe-eating Greeks of today, that would be different. But they could do what they liked to each other. It was enough that we provided ambulances for them.

Who says we learn from our mistakes? I, for one, never learn. At first I always say I’m not going to do anything and then something starts needling me. Either because the office gets to me and I feel bored, or because, despite the routine, I still have something of the cop’s instinct left inside me, I was overcome by a desire to do something. So I put a call out to all the other stations with the description of the Albanian given me by the woman. To be honest, you don’t need to carry out prolonged investigations. All you have to do is go round all the squares: Omonoia Square, Vathi Square, Kotzias Square, Koumoundouros Square, the Station Square in Kifissia, all the squares . . . The place has become a zoo in reverse. They’ve shut up the people in cages and the animals stroll round the squares staring at us. Even before I began, I knew that any efforts on my part would come to nothing. I had no hope whatsoever of finding him. And yet, inside three days, they’d sent him to me gift-wrapped from Loutsa.

The chubby woman came to see me in the same get-up. Except that this time she was wearing shoes, old-fashioned ones and with high heels that sagged under her weight so that the heels slid first inwards then outwards as if about to embrace each other before changing their minds and going their separate ways. ‘That’s him!’ she screamed as soon as she saw the Albanian. I immediately believed her and thanked God that I didn’t have her as a neighbour to have me under surveillance from morning to night. He was just as she’d described him to me. She’d missed nothing.

This was why the chief wanted to see me. To ask how the case was going. And Thanassis hadn’t brought me my breakfast, because he was certain that once I heard that the chief wanted to see me, I’d drop everything and rush upstairs.

"Your job is to bring me my coffee and croissant. I’ll decide when I see the chief,’ I told him angrily and leaned back into my chair to show him that I had no intention of budging from my desk all morning.

The smile immediately vanished from his face. All his assuredness went out of the window. ‘Yes, sir’ he mumbled.

Well, what are you waiting for?

He turned on his heels and hurtled out of the office. I waited a minute or two and then got up to go to see the chief. I wouldn’t have put it past Thanassis to let it be known that the chief wanted to see me and I was playing the smart aleck. And the chief knew every trick in the book; you had to watch your back with him. Not to mention that he had no end of complexes.

CHAPTER 2

My office was on the third floor, number 321. The office of the chief of security was on the fifth. The average waiting time for the lift is between five and ten minutes, depending on whether it wanted to play with your nerves. If you got irritated and started pressing the button continuously, it could take up to fifteen minutes. You heard it on the second floor, thought it was coming up, and then, suddenly, it changed direction and went back down. Or the opposite. It came down to the fourth floor and instead of continuing, went back up again. Sometimes I’d think to hell with it and I’d begin climbing the stairs two at a time, more to let off steam than because I was in a hurry. At other times, I dug my heels in and reflected that since no one else was in any hurry, why should I rush, I’d have to be insane. They’d even regulated the lift doors so that they opened particularly slowly and drove you crazy.

All the big brains are on the fifth. They’ve put them all there either so that they can all think collectively or to isolate them collectively so they don’t turn our brains too. It all depends on how you look at it. The office of the chief of security is number 504, but there’s no number on the door, because he had it removed. He considered it demeaning to have a number on his door like in hospitals or hotels. He had a plaque put in its place: Nikolaos Ghikas—Chief of Security. ‘In America, there are no numbers on the doors. Just names,’ he kept saying irately for a good three months. He said it again and again till in the end he had the number removed and his name put in its place. And all this was simply because he’d spent six months on a training programme with the FBI.

"Go straight in, he’s expecting you,’ said Koula, the police-woman who acted as his secretary and who played the part of a top-model in uniform.

The office was large and bright with a carpeted floor and curtains at the windows. At first, they intended to give us all curtains, but the money ran out and so they limited them to the fifth floor. Next to the door was an oblong conference table with six chairs. The chief was sitting with his back to the window and his desk must have been all of three metres long. One of those modern ones with metal surrounds at the corners. If you want to get a document lying at one end of the desk, you need a pair of tongs because it’s out of arm’s reach.

He looked up at me. ‘What more on the Albanian?’ he asked me.

Nothing more, sir. We’re still interrogating him.

"Incriminating evidence?’ Short sharp questions, short sharp answers; just the basics to show that he’s, one, up to the ears, two, efficient and, three, direct and to the point. American tricks, as we said.

‘No, but we have an eye-witness who recognized him, as I told you."

That’s not necessarily incriminating evidence. She saw him lurking around the house. She didn’t see him either entering or leaving. Fingerprints?

"Lots. Most belonging to the couple. But not to the suspect. No trace of murder weapon.’ The twerp had got me speaking telegraphically like him.

I see. Tell the reporters that there’ll be no statement for the time-being.

He didn’t have to tell me that. If there was any statement to make, he would have made it himself. And not only that, but he would have got me to write it all down for him so he could learn it by heart. I’m not saying this by way of complaint; it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. The reporters get up my back. It’s just like the biscuits and croissants. Once it was journalists and newspapers, now it’s reporters and cameras.

Using the secretary’s phone, I ordered the Albanian to be brought to me for interrogation. The interrogations take place in an office with bare walls, a table and three chairs. When I entered, the Albanian was sitting handcuffed in one of the chairs.

"Shall I remove the handcuffs?’ asked the officer who’d brought him.

Leave him as he is and we’ll see. Depending on whether he turns out to be cooperative or whether he wants to play the tough customer.

I stared at the Albanian. His hands were resting on the table. Two calloused hands, with thick fingers and long nails, black round the edges; misery’s mark of mourning. His gaze was fixed on them. He was staring at them as if seeing them for the first time, as if surprised. Surprised at what? That he’d killed with them? Or that they were rough and dirty? Or that God created him with hands?

"Are you going to tell me why you killed them?’ I asked him.

He slowly raised his eyes from his hands. ‘Got cigarette?"

"Give him one of yours,’ I said to the officer.

He looked at me in surprise. He thought I was cadging from him; that’s how sharp he was. He smoked Marlboro whereas I’d stayed with the old Greek Karelia. I was giving the Albanian a Marlboro to win him over. The officer put it in his mouth and I lit it for him. He took a couple of drags, beaming with satisfaction. He held the smoke inside him, as if wanting to imprison it, and then let it out as sparingly as possible as if not wishing to waste any of it needlessly. He raised both hands together and squeezed the cigarette between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

"I no kill,’ he said and, at the same moment, his two hands moved like lightning and wedged the cigarette between his lips, while his chest heaved to make room for the smoke. His instinct told him that I might take the cigarette away from him now that he hadn’t told me what I’d wanted and he rushed to inhale as much as he could.

Don’t play with me, you bloody lousy Albanian!’ I screamed furiously. ‘I’ll have you for every unsolved murder of Albanian lowlife on our files for the last three years and you’ll go down for life, damn your country and its leaders!

‘I not here three years. I come –’ he stopped as he didn’t know how to say ‘the year before last’ and he tried to say it in other words. ‘I come ninety-two,’ he added, pleased with himself for having solved his language problem. Now his hands were hidden under the table, presumably so I wouldn’t see the cigarette and so forget about it.

And how do you intend to prove it, dickhead? From your passport?

I lunged at him suddenly, grabbed hold of him and dragged him to his feet. He wasn’t expecting my move; his hands banged hard on the underside of the table and the cigarette dropped to the floor. He cast a quick glance, full of concern, at the fallen cigarette and then turned his anxious gaze back to me. The officer stretched out his leg and trod on the cigarette, while grinning at the Albanian. Smart lad, catches on immediately.

You entered Greece illegally, there’s no record of you anywhere, no visa, no stamp, nothing. I could get rid of you and no one would ever ask what happened to you. I’ve never seen you or heard of you, because you don’t exist. Are you listening? You don’t exist!

"I go for woman,’ he said in fear, as I shook him.

"Fancied her, eh?’ I let him sink back onto the chair.

Yes.

That’s why you were lurking around the house all day. You wanted to go in and shag her and she wouldn’t open the door to you.

"Yes,’ he said again and smiled this time, pleased that he was getting into the psychoanalysis.

‘And because she wouldn’t open the door to you, you went crazy and broke in at night and murdered them!"

"No!’ he now shouted in alarm.

I sat in the chair facing him and stared into his eyes. I kept quiet and let some time pass. He was unable to explain my silence and he grew anxious. Fortunately so, because otherwise he’d have realized that I’d come to a dead end. What else could I do to him? Let him go hungry? He wouldn’t give a monkey’s. In any case, he was used to eating one day in three and only then if he was lucky. Get two strong-armed boys from upstairs to give him a going-over? He’d had so many goings-over in his life that he’d bear it without so much as a murmur and wouldn’t think twice about it.

Listen,’ I said to him in a calm and friendly voice. ‘I’ll write down everything we said on a piece of paper, you’ll sign it and you’ll have nothing more to worry about.

He said nothing. He just looked at me, with his gaze full of indecision and doubt. It wasn’t that he was so afraid of going to prison, he’d simply learned to be suspicious. He didn’t believe that suffering comes to an end somewhere and you find relief. He was afraid that if you accept one thing, you’ll have to face a second and third, because that had always been his fate. The poor wretch needed some gentle persuasion.

After all, it won’t be so bad in prison,’ I said to him in a chatty, friendly way. ‘You’ll have your own bed, three meals a day, all courtesy of the state. You won’t have to do anything and you’ll be taken care of, like it was in your own country back then. And if you’ve any brains, after a couple of months you’ll get yourself into one of the gangs and you’ll make a bit on the side as well. Prison is the only place where there’s no unemployment. If you have any brains about you, you’ll come out with a tidy nest-egg.

He continued to stare at me in silence. Except that now his eyes were glinting, as if he liked the idea. But he continued to say nothing. I knew he wanted to think about it and I got up. ‘You don’t have to give me an answer now,’ I said. ‘Think about it and we’ll talk again tomorrow."

As I was going towards the door, I saw the officer taking out his packet of Marlboro and offering him one. I made a mental note to get the lad transferred and have him work with me.

I found them all milling in front of my office. Some were holding microphones, others cassette-recorders. All of them with a greedy and impatient look; a pack of hungry wolves waiting for a statement, like soldiers waiting for their rations. The cameramen saw me coming and loaded the cameras on their shoulders.

"Step inside, all of you.’ I opened the door to my office, while under my breath I muttered ‘go to hell, you bastards, and leave me in peace.’ They burst through the door behind me and placed their microphones with the logo of their TV channels, their cables and their cassette-recorders on my desk. In less than a minute, my desk had come to resemble the street stall of an immigrant vendor in Athinas Street.

"Do you have anything more to tell us about the Albanian, inspector?’ asked Sotiropoulos, with his Armani checked-shirt, his English raincoat, his Timberland moccasins and his glasses with their round metallic frames, the kind once worn by poor old Himler and now worn by intellectuals. He’d stopped calling me by name some time before and now just addressed me as ‘inspector’. And he always began with ‘do you have anything to tell us’ or ‘what can you tell us,’ in order to make you feel that you were being examined and that you were going to get a mark out of ten. You see, he believed that he represented the conscience of the people. And the conscience of the people treated everyone equally. No names or signs of respect, which only lead to distinctions between citizens. And his eyes were always fixed on you, wary and ready to denounce you at any moment. A modern Robespierre with a camera and microphone.

I ignored him and addressed myself to all of them collectively. If he wanted equality, he’d have it. ‘I have nothing to tell you,’ I said with a smile and in a genial tone. ‘We’re still interrogating him."

They stared at me in disappointment. A titchy, freckled woman wearing red stockings tried to get something more out of me, refusing to go down without a fight.

"Do you have any evidence that he’s the murderer?’ she asked me.

"I told you, we’re still interrogating him,’ I repeated, and to let them know that the interview was over, I picked up the croissant that Thanassis had left me, removed the cellophane and bit into it.

They began packing away their paraphernalia and my office regained its normal appearance, like the patient who, once out of danger, is unhooked from the machines.

Yanna Karayoryi was the last to leave. She hung back deliberately and allowed the others to go out. I disliked her even more than all the others. For no particular reason. She couldn’t have been more than thirty-five and was always dressed elegantly without being showy. Wide trousers, cardigan, with an expensive cross and chain round her neck. I don’t know why, but I’d got it into my head that she was a lesbian. She was a good-looking woman, but her short hair and her style of dressing give her something of a masculine appearance. Of course, perhaps none of this was true and it was my sick mind that was to blame. Now she was standing beside the door. She glanced outside to see if the others had gone, and then closed it. I went on eating my croissant as if not having noticed that she was still in my office.

"Do you know whether the murdered couple had any children?’ she asked suddenly.

I turned and stared at her in surprise. Her arrogant gaze was where it always was and she was smiling at me ironically. That’s what irritates me; those meaningless questions that she suddenly comes out with and that she underlines with an ironic smile to make you think that she knows something more but isn’t telling you just to rankle you. In fact, she knows nothing, she’s only ever fishing.

Do you think there were children and we didn’t notice them?

Maybe they weren’t there when you went.

"What do you want me to say? If they’ve sent them to study in America, we haven’t located them yet at any rate,’ I said with not a little sarcasm.

I’m not talking about grown-up children, I’m talking about babies,’ she answered. ‘Two years’ old at most.

She knew something and it amused her to play with me. I decided to go easy, be friendly, try to win her over. I pointed to the chair in front of my desk.

"Why don’t you sit down and let’s talk,’ I said to her.

"Can’t. I have to get back to the studio. Another time.’ She was suddenly in a rush. The bitch did it on purpose to leave me wondering.

As she was opening the door to leave, she bumped into Thanassis who was coming in at that moment with a document. They exchanged a look and Karayioryi smiled at him. Thanassis averted his gaze but Karayioryi kept hers fixed provocatively on him. She seemed to fancy him. If the truth be told, she had every right to because Thanassis was a good-looking fellow. Tall, dark, well-built. I thought of getting him off with her so he’d be able to solve both of my questions: whether, in fact, she knew anything about the Albanians and was hiding it from me and whether she was a lesbian.

She waved to me, ostensibly saying goodbye, but actually it was as if she were saying ‘sit there and stew, you dummy.’ She shut the door behind her. Thanassis came over and handed me the document.

"The coroner’s report on the two Albanians,’ he said. The smile from Karayoryi had left him embarrassed and his hand was trembling as he handed me the paper. He didn’t know if I’d noticed or how I’d react.

"Fine,’ I said. ‘Leave it and go.’ I was in no mood to read it. In any case, what could it tell me? Whatever the bodies had to reveal was obvious to the naked eye. Apart from the time of the murder, but this was of no importance. It wasn’t as if the Albanian was going to come up with a convincing alibi that we’d have to disprove. And Karayoryi didn’t know anything. She was bluffing like all reporters. She wanted to arouse my curiosity so that I’d be the first to open up and she’d be able to get more out of me. There were no children. If there were and we hadn’t found them, the neighbours would have told us.

CHAPTER 3

Adriani was sitting facing the television. She still hadn’t noticed me even though I’d already been in the living-room for a good five minutes. Her hand was clutching the remote control; her forefinger was constantly on the button, ready to change the channel as soon as the advertisements came on. On the screen, a wavy-haired cop was yelling his head off at a redhead. I come across him every evening and either he was interrogating someone or was feeling remorse. And in both cases, he was always yelling. If all cops were like him, we’d all be dead from a heart attack before we were forty.

"Why is he always yelling, the asshole?’ I asked suddenly. I added ‘asshole’ because I know how furious she became when I showed contempt for the heroes in her favourite serials. I wanted to annoy her so she’d give me some attention, but it didn’t work.

"Shhh!’ she said curtly, while her gaze remained fixed on the wavy-haired actor in uniform. ‘What are you gazing at, you fathead! Say something!’ my father would shout at me and give me a clip round the ear. I’d like to see what he’d do now that watching has taken the place of speaking and everyone gazes and no one talks. Fortunately, the old man’s no longer around, he’d have a fit.

As every evening, I sought refuge in the bedroom and took Dimitrakos’ Dictionary down from the bookcase. Bookcase! That was what we called it to make it