Che Committed Suicide

by Petros Markaris

  I climbed the external staircase behind him. There are two things that always impress you in Zissis’s house. The one evident, the other not. What was immediately evident were the enormous bookcases on every wall. What was not evident was the archive that he had compiled on every public figure in Greece. Now and again, he agrees to give me information from his archive, though he has never shown it to me. In answer to my question as to why he amasses all that material, he said that he did it most likely as a reaction. The state had kept files on him all through his life and he, in his turn, did the same for every public figure so as to bring about some kind of balance.

  He came in with an old metal tray of the sort used in cafés and put the coffee on the table together with a saucer containing sweet preserves.

  ‘Since when have you started buying sweet preserves?’ I asked him in surprise.

  ‘My neighbour, old ma Andromache, gives them to me. Every time she makes them for herself, she sends me over a jar, the dear old girl.’

  We sipped at our coffee in silence. Zissis, because he always waited for me to start the conversation, and I, because I wanted to enjoy my coffee first. Only the door was open. He had the windows shut and the house was like an oven. I took out my handkerchief and wiped the back of my neck with it.

  ‘The heat’s a killer.’

  ‘I wish it were hotter.’

  I stared at him as if looking at an Eskimo. ‘Are you being serious? People are collapsing on the street.’

  ‘I soaked up so much damp in your cells that I can’t have my fill of it.’

  I should have expected it. Every time he says something seemingly irrational, there follows the standard dig at the police.

  As usual, I pretended not to notice so as not to wind him up any further. ‘I need to pick your brains.’

  ‘About Favieros or about Stefanakos?’

  ‘Let’s take them in turn and start with Favieros.’

  ‘Leading member of the student movement, always in the front line in the demonstrations and occupations, present at the Polytechnic

  School rising, and all the rest: Bouboulinas Street, Military Police, torture.’

  ‘So how did he end up getting involved in all sorts of shady business?’

  ‘Because he became a businessman. He got involved in whatever was necessary for his businesses.’

  ‘And did his businesses oblige him to pretend to be the champion of the foreign workers while at the same time he was selling them over-priced hovels?’

  He would suddenly erupt when you weren’t expecting it. Like then. ‘For years you broke us trying to get us to recant,’ he yelled. ‘Prison cells, exile, torture, to make us sign a statement. Now we sign the statement of our own free will with our businesses, the stock market, profits. Such success you could never have imagined not even in your wildest dreams. You’ve won, what else do you want?’

  ‘Me, nothing. They’re the ones shouting their mouths off about struggling on behalf of the underdog.’

  ‘Wake up, why don’t you! There are no underdogs when it comes to voting,’ he yelled again. ‘The real underdogs are those who come from elsewhere, without a voice and so they don’t count. The only underdogs when it comes to voting are the smokers! If the Party had had any sense, it would have organised a demonstration on behalf of smokers with the slogan: “Power to the damned” and it would have broken all records!’

  When he gets in one of his black moods, it’s impossible to have a conversation with him. He explodes all the time at the slightest provocation. I decided not to persist with Favieros, but to pass on to Stefanakos, to see whether he might be a little calmer when it came to him.

  ‘And Stefanakos?’

  His eyes lit up. ‘Don’t even waste your time looking. You won’t find anything on him either in the past or present,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t one to give up. He kept on fighting to the end.’

  ‘Okay, okay, Lambros,’ I said in a conciliatory tone. ‘They were both impeccable. So can you tell me why they committed suicide?’

  ‘Doesn’t the way they did it set you thinking?’

  ‘Naturally, but I still can’t understand why they decided to do it in public.’

  He gazed at me pensively. He wanted to say something but was hesitating. ‘If I tell you what I think, don’t think I’m crazy,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Out with it, I know you’re not crazy.’

  ‘Because they couldn’t take any more. They were overcome by despair. The one despite all his business success and the other despite all his struggles. That’s why they committed suicide publicly, in order to make people sit up.’ He saw that I was looking at him in incredulity and he shook his head. ‘You don’t believe me because you’re a copper and you can’t understand. Money, fame, power, there comes a moment when you find yourself sinking in all the mud and you want to do something about it.’

  I recalled Stefanakos’s last words: ‘I hope we’re not dying pointlessly’ or something of the sort. Perhaps what Zissis had said was an explanation, though I was afraid that things were more complicated than that. But I didn’t say so. I preferred to leave him under his painless delusion.

  ‘Come round some time when it’s not because you need my help,’ he said as I was about to descend the staircase.

  Anyone else would have felt offended. But, knowing him as well as I did, I understood that it was his way of saying that he liked having a coffee with me.

  23

  I found Koula alone at home. She was sitting in front of the computer and updating her files. Adriani wasn’t there.

  ‘She went out to buy some T-shirts for your daughter,’ Koula explained. ‘So she’ll have something to wear in this hot weather.’

  I had never been able to understand her mania for buying Katerina all sorts of small items and sending them to her by parcel post, when she could buy them for herself in Thessaloniki for the same money and probably even cheaper.

  ‘Before she left, she told me to tell you that a Mr Sotiropoulos phoned and he wants you to call him.’

  Koula looked at me puzzled. She knew Sotiropoulos, just as she also knew my dislike of reporters, and she was surprised that Sotiropoulos in particular should phone me at home. I considered whether it was better to tell her the truth or to make up some excuse and I settled on the former.

  ‘I’m right in telling the Chief that you’re far more flexible than you seem,’ she said with a wry smile.

  ‘But he maintains that I’m a stickler,’ I retorted, as I knew the storyline only too well.

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘At any rate, the business with Sotiropoulos is to remain between you and me.’

  ‘Whatever you say, but you’re wasting a golden opportunity to go up in the Chief’s estimation.’

  I should have seen that much earlier. Now I’d missed the boat. I told of the government’s wish that we discreetly investigate the two suicides, but I didn’t mention Petroulakis’s name nor did I say anything about his desire to pin the suicides on the Philip of Macedon National Greek Front. I ended with my meeting with Karyofyllis, the public notary and I left Zissis out of it completely.

  Once I’d updated Koula, I called Sotiropoulos on his mobile phone.

  ‘We have to talk,’ he said, as soon as he recognised my voice. ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘I have to go to Polydrosso and after that I’m free.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll be done in a couple of hours. Let’s meet at the Flocafé in Kifissia. Wait for me if you get there first and I’ll do the same.’

  The weather had changed. The sky had filled with black clouds and it was stiflingly humid. I turned in Vasilissis Sofias Avenue once again and by the time I had got to Kifissias Avenue it was as though night had fallen.

  Eirene Leventoyanni lived at 3 Korae Street in Polydrosso. On reaching Varnalis Street, I asked a kiosk owner where Korae Street was. He told me to take the second left off Kanari Street.

  ‘How should we approach this Mrs Leventoyanni
who sold her flat in Larymnis Street to the Russo-Pontian?’ asked Koula.

  ‘Like we approached the public notary. The notary and the estate agent pocketed the difference and now the Russo-Pontian has made a complaint and we’re looking into it.’

  ‘Will it work?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t it? Greeks are more afraid of the tax office than they are of the police. Unless Karyofyllis has warned her.’

  ‘There’s no question of that if they swindled her and pocketed her money. If they did warn her, that means she was in on the scam.’

  Number 3 was a four-storey newly-built apartment block, with lamps and plants in the entrance. We looked at the doorbells and saw that Mrs Leventoyanni was on the third floor.

  The door was opened by a round-faced, chubby woman of about forty-five, who was wearing all the colours of the rainbow. She had a cheery smile on her face but, as soon as I told her who we were, the smile faded and was replaced by an expression of alarm.

  ‘Is it Sifis?’ she murmured.

  ‘Who’s Sifis?’ I asked her.

  ‘My son. Has anything happened to him on his bike?’

  ‘No, no, calm yourself,’ Koula interrupted smiling. ‘Nothing’s happened to your son. We’re here on another matter.’

  Leventoyanni let out a sigh of relief and made the sign of the cross. Then she stood aside to let us enter. If her clothes were all the colours of the rainbow, her house was a veritable greenhouse, with plants that began in the hall and ended on the balcony, more like a jungle. I wondered what possible use the balcony might have when you couldn’t sit down for the plants.

  ‘It’s the only way we can get some respite from the sun that bakes the house every day from eleven in the morning to five into the afternoon,’ Leventoyanni explained on seeing my puzzled expression. ‘Coffee?’

  Koula declined, I asked for a glass of water. I was surprised that she still hadn’t asked us what two coppers were doing on her doorstep. She didn’t ask straight out but, after bringing me the water, she sat down and looked at us enquiringly with that permanent smile on her face.

  ‘Mrs Leventoyanni, you sold a flat in Larymnis Street, is that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘You see, my husband has played the football pools for years. Once, he came up with a winning line so we sold the flat in Larymnis Street and together with his winnings we were able to buy this house.’

  ‘How much did you sell it for?’

  She showed the same alarm that she had when we had introduced ourselves and asked in a voice that was trembling despite her efforts to control it: ‘Excuse me, but why are you asking? Is there some problem?’

  Koula saw that Leventoyanni was wavering between innocence and alarm and she went to sit next to her to reassure her.

  ‘Mrs Leventoyanni, it has nothing to do with you, nor with the house you sold or the one you bought. It’s others we’re investigating. You have nothing at all to fear. If you prefer, you don’t have to tell us.’

  I was about to put the brakes on her, because it’s one thing to reassure the citizens we’re questioning, but it’s another to open their eyes to what we’re doing, when I heard Leventoyanni say quite simply: ‘Eight and a half million drachmas. Twenty-five thousand euros to the nearest round figure. Twenty-four thousand nine hundred and something to be exact.’

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t receive forty-five thousand euros?’

  ‘Why on earth would you say that?’ she asked surprised.

  ‘Don’t take it the wrong way, Mrs Leventoyanni, but were you the one who collected the amount?’ asked Koula very nicely. ‘Could your husband, for instance, have collected the amount, kept the twenty-five thousand you needed for the purchase of this house and put the rest in the bank?’

  Leventoyanni looked at her very seriously this time and heaved a sigh: ‘The transaction was conducted by me and it was I who collected the amount. Both the house in Larymnis Street and this one are in my name. I take care of everything on my own because if I’d left it to my husband, he would have lost it all on the pools or the lottery or at the casino in Loutraki.’

  ‘Now, now,’ said Koula smiling. ‘Don’t forget that it was the football pools that enabled you to buy the flat.’

  ‘Do you think, dear girl, that one winning line makes up for everything my husband has lost all these years in gambling and betting?’ Then suddenly she remembered the important question. ‘But tell me, why are you asking me all this?’

  Because the conversation was going well between them, I let Koula go on. She told her the whole story with the Russo-Pontian, Karyofyllis and the Iliakos Real Estate Agency. Leventoyanni listened to her calmly, but suddenly leapt to her feet.

  ‘Those bastards …’ she murmured. ‘Those crooks …’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Koula asked, taking her hand to stop her going into a panic. ‘Sit down and tell us in your own time.’

  ‘I just recalled something that at the time I hadn’t attached any importance to. When we were at the notary’s office and he was filling out the contracts, he turned and asked the estate agent: “What sum shall we put?” The other one looked at him askance and said: “What are you asking me for? Don’t you know?” The conversation ended there and afterwards we signed the contracts. Obviously, the notary was asking whether he should put the actual sum on the contract or the sum I would receive.’

  ‘Was the estate agent around thirty-five with cropped hair?’

  ‘Yes, that’s him.’

  After what Leventoyanni had told us, there was no longer the slightest doubt that the whole business had been set up with the participation of Karyofyllis. We had learned what we wanted and I was getting ready to get up and leave when Koula stopped me with another question.

  ‘May I ask you something else because otherwise I’ll be wondering,’ she said to Leventoyanni. ‘Didn’t the Russo-Pontian understand what was going on?’

  ‘What would the poor fellow understand, dear girl? In one hand he was clutching a folded plastic bag and with the other he was holding his wife’s hand and smiling contentedly. They were like two lovebirds buying a little place for themselves so that they could get married.’

  ‘Did you receive the money in cash?’

  ‘No, the notary had the cheque ready and handed it to me. “They always pay in cash and I don’t want to inconvenience you,” he said. Do you see what he did? He took forty-five thousand in cash from the Russo-Pontian and gave me a cheque for twenty-four thousand nine hundred and something … And he and the estate agent pocketed the rest.’ She leapt to her feet and began shouting: ‘I’ll sue them, I’ll drag them through the courts!’

  She was so angry that she even forgot to say goodbye to us. In the distance, you could hear the sound of sporadic thunder. It must have been raining somewhere. As we were going towards the car, I reflected that Koula had a special talent for loosening the other person’s tongue. If and when she returned to the office, I’d have her give seminars on how to elicit answers to Vlassopoulos and Dermitzakis, who were still limited to shouting, force and intimidation.

  ‘So tell me, Koula,’ I said to her as we left Korae Street and turned into Epidavrou Street. ‘Where did you learn how to get people to open up like that? As far as I know, you only deal with paperwork in the office.’

  ‘From my father,’ she said laughing. ‘My father is unbelievably egoistical and opinionated. But if you’re willing to bear with him, he becomes putty in your hands.’

  ‘Yes, and you did exactly the same thing with my wife. In less than a week you became inseparable.’

  ‘Well, that was easy. After all, we have a common interest in cooking.’

  I still had a question eating away at me and even though it was a little out of place, I had to ask it or I wouldn’t rest. ‘What I don’t understand, Koula, is why, since you’re such a sharp girl, you give an entirely different picture in the office.’

  She turned and stared at me with a wry smile. ‘What picture exactly?’
/>   ‘How shall I put it … that you’re a more simple girl.’

  She burst into laughter. ‘Simple, Inspector Haritos? A simpleton is what you’re trying to say!’

  ‘That’s going too far, but why are you like that? Is it Ghikas?’

  She suddenly became serious. ‘It’s because I want to get married and have children, Inspector.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘A lot. In my circles, whether personal and professional ones, when men see a smart woman, they take to their heels. If I want to play the smart type, I’ll end up on the shelf. Men prefer the certainty of a simple girl so they can put their minds at rest.’ She paused and then continued. ‘You shouldn’t judge by your own daughter. She went to university, is doing a doctorate and has a doctor for a boyfriend. I have nothing of all that.’

  ‘How do you know about my daughter?’ I asked astonished.

  ‘Mrs Haritos told me the other day while we were making the baked aubergines.’

  No doubt she also told her of her regret that Katerina didn’t know how to cook. ‘Don’t make it sound so tragic, there’s Aristopoulos,’ I said to tease her.

  ‘All Aristopoulos wants is to get me into bed,’ she said very calmly. ‘He’s desperate to make it as a company executive; he’s not about to get involved with a woman cop. If I say no to him a couple of times, he won’t call me a third time. And if I go with him a couple of times, he’ll disappear and the only way I’ll see him will be to arrest him.’ She smiled at me again. ‘There’s nothing you can say. I’ve looked at it from every angle.’

  ‘And are you going to spend the rest of your life playing the fool?’

  ‘Of course not!’ she said indignantly. ‘Once I’ve got a ring on my finger things will change!’

  I turned and looked at her. I suddenly saw Adriani before me. At last I understood why the two of them got on so well together.

  24