Deadline in Athens (9 page)

"What limo?" I said, remembering what the grocer had told me about the van parked outside.

"I call it a limousine because I don't know a thing about cars. Any how, it was a huge car with a hard top, must have held a good ten people. He got out with the girl. They hurried into the house, and the vehicle drove straight off. Before long, the light from the gas burner was on-they didn't have electricity. It all took less than a minute or so. They didn't have any bags with them or anything. The girl had a bundle with her, that was all." She looked at me, and her smile once again produced the pine needles on her cheeks.

I thought about the dried shit in the lavatory and the five hundred thousand in the cistern, the food in the diaper box, and the van that brought them there in the night. And if that wasn't enough, there was the Albanian murderer, about to be sent for the official hearing. How was anyone to find the thread that linked all this nonsense together?

I left the old woman's house and cursed those young policemen who make such a mess of things by trying to wrap it all up with a few quick questions. If, when we'd carried out our first investigations, someone had been patient enough to sit down with this old woman and listen to her grievances, we'd have known all this before we'd even taken the corpses to the mortuary. You could say about us, it seems, what homosexuals say about their own kind: It's one thing to be gay and another to be a pansy. Similarly, it's one thing to wear the uniform and another thing to be a policeman.

CHAPTER 7

"Out with it, you louse-ridden bum, or I'll make mincemeat of you and send you back to Korytsa so your own kind can have something to eat!" The Albanian was shaking because exactly what he had most feared had happened to him. He'd confessed to find a bit of peace, and now we were turning the screws.

"Where did those good-for-nothings get hold of the five hundred thousand? Out with it!"

"I not know ... not know anything," he said, looking up fearfully at Thanassis, who was standing over him.

Thanassis grabbed him by the anorak and lifted him off his feet. The Albanian's legs dangled in the air. Thanassis swung around and pinned him against the wall. He held him there, a good foot off the floor.

"Be very careful what you say, because you'll blow it, you bastard!" he screamed, his face so close to the Albanian's that you didn't know whether he might kiss him or bite him. "You won't get out of here alive!"

One second he was holding him tight, and the next he let go of him. For an instant the Albanian remained in the air, but as soon as his feet touched the ground, he collapsed in a heap, quivering with fear.

"Get up!" Thanassis barked at him, just as he'd barely touched the floor. The Albanian flattened himself against the wall, of his own free will this time, and began crawling up it like a caterpillar. He managed to pull himself upright, and the climbing stopped. Thanassis immediately took hold of him again and sat him down in the chair.

"Out with it! Now!" he shouted. "Out with it!"

"I not know anything," the Albanian insisted. "I go for Pakize."

He kept a terrified watch on Thanassis, ignoring me. I'd done right to bring Thanassis with me. And I was wrong to have stopped him in the morning when he'd started getting rough with the Albanian. I should have let him get on with it. We might have learned the truth there and then, and I wouldn't have had to send a halfbaked report to Ghikas.

"What dealings did you have with Pakize's husband?" Now I was the one to get rough. "Thefts? Drugs? You quarreled over sharing the loot and you murdered him! But you didn't find the money because he'd hidden it in too safe a place!"

He latched on to what I'd just said and looked at me meaningfully. "Mehmet, husband Pakize, maybe robbery, maybe drugs," he said, "I, no. I work building, work Rendi, vegetable market. I not know Mehmet. Know Pakize only."

"You mean to tell me you were creeping around outside their house all those days and you didn't ever see them coming home in a van?"

Thanassis looked at me in astonishment. I hadn't told him that detail. He was hearing it for the first time.

"A neighbor saw a van or a very big car dropping them off outside their front door. Late one evening, in secret," I explained and turned back to the Albanian. "Who was it who brought them in the van? What's his name? Where is he? Tell us!"

"When I go, Pakize home," he said shaking. "I no see van." Then he had an idea and rapidly said: "Pakize clean houses, take care kids. Maybe boss take her in van."

Thanassis grabbed him by his collar. "You're asking for it," he threatened. "You've given us nothing, and you're going to pay for this."

"No, no!" the Albanian cried out in alarm. "I kill Pakize and husband. But not know anything."

Thanassis let him fall back into the chair. If we went on like that all night, we'd still get nothing out of him, I thought to myself, starting to tire of it. He'd confessed that he'd killed them; that was clearcut. That didn't necessarily mean that he knew about the five hundred thousand and the van. The most probable scenario was that we were dealing with a crime of passion, and that it was only by accident that we'd come up with something else, without the two things being linked. After all, we'd found the five hundred thousand, but we'd found no drugs or stolen goods or guns. They must have had some other hideaway. All that about trips to Yannina and Albania was bullshit. But how was anyone to discover what other dirty business was behind all this? Besides, it didn't concern us. Given that they were both dead, all proceedings would come to a halt.

"He's telling the truth. He knows nothing," I heard Thanassis say as he stood beside me in the lift, as if wanting to confirm my thoughts. So Thanassis, this self-confessed moron, agreed with me, and I took refuge behind that simple statement and felt relieved. The only thing still bothering me was that I had yet to alter my report.

I left Thanassis on the third floor, and I went up to the fifth. I stood and stared at the plaque: NIKOLAOS GHIKAS-CHIEF OF SECURITY. I read it maybe ten times while trying to think of some excuse for getting my report back without arousing suspicion. In the end, I put on a big smile and opened the door.

"Hello, Koula," I said cheerfully. The mannequin in uniform was sitting at her desk. She furtively bundled the mirror and tweezers she was using to pluck her eyebrows into a drawer.

"Hello, Inspector Haritos!" She had forgotten her usually cold look and was being nice because I'd caught her red-handed. "You can't go in, I'm afraid. He's busy," she said in an apologetic tone.

"Again? Ah, poor Koula, I'm amazed at how you manage with so much coming and going in here."

"You can't imagine, I don't have time to draw breath."

I was about to tell her that I could see that, that she didn't even have time to pluck her eyebrows, but instead I said: "I don't know what he'd do without you. And not only him, but us too. Everything goes through your hands."

"Do you know what time I left yesterday? Nine o'clock!"

"Shall I ask him to transfer you to my department? And pick ten of mine to put in here? Because you're worth ten."

"He wouldn't let me," she said and giggled, obviously flattered.

"He'd be mad to let you go. Where would he find anyone as sharp as you?" She was oozing with satisfaction. I leaned over her desk, lowered my voice, and said to her conspiratorially, "Koula, can I ask you a favor?"

"Of course," she said immediately, ecstatic still and willing to do anything for me.

"I have to get back the report I left this morning. I forgot to include something. But I don't want him to know."

"It's still on his desk. I'll go and get it with the things from the outtray. He won't know anything."

"Let's hope that he won't ask for it while I've got it."

"I'll tell him that I've sent it to be photocopied, and I'll call you so you can bring it back to me." She gave me a crafty smile and went into his office.

That's great, the fox and the hen have hit it off and there's no one to touch them. A moment later, she came out holding a pile of papers. She went through them, found the report, and gave it to me.

"You're a treasure," I gushed.

I wasn't in any mood to put up with the elevator, so I took the stairs. "I'm up to the ears and I'm not here if anyone calls," I shouted to Thanassis and closed my office door.

I sat down and began going through the report. As luck would have it, he hadn't read it-there were none of his notes on it. He'd read the summary I'd sent him to get it down pat for the reporters, and he'd left the report for later, like always. Fortune was on my side that day: The final page had only five lines on it. I could easily add the new information to the end. If he asked me why I hadn't mentioned the five hundred thousand in the summary, I'd tell him that was why I'd sent the report along too, so that he could read the details there. I'd have him showing himself up for not having read the report promptly. I'd earn plus points without losing any. The points system was another one of the innovations that Ghikas had brought back with him from the FBI. When you solved a case, you got positive points; when you messed up, you got negative ones. All this is recorded in your file, and when the Official Council convenes to consider promotions, they study your file and count the positive and negative points. In the end, each new government appoints its own people, and you remain in the same position with your points in hand.

I began feverishly to write the last page so as not to waste time, but I hit a snag because something else was bugging me. The old woman had told me that the Albanian girl had been holding a bundle. If she was holding it in her hands, that meant it couldn't have been large. What could have been inside it, clothes? We didn't find any clothes. Jewelry, gold, antiques? This was the most likely. How else would these gypsy immigrants have come up with five hundred thousand? They were either thieves or go-betweens taking a cut. And the hovel in Karadimas Street was their hideaway. They stayed there till they'd handed over the goods and got the money. Afterward, they moved somewhere else. The good thing about this was that it left the Albanian out of it. Certainly if he'd killed them for the loot, he wasn't going to have left the money in the cistern. No, he was a jarring note in the case; he'd killed on account of Pakize. So, the business with the Albanian was settled; we could send him all wrapped up to the prosecutor's office. As for the rest, Ghikas could read the report and decide if he wanted to continue the investigation and who he'd assign it to. I'd collect the points and end up sitting pretty.

Then Karayoryi sprang to mind. Hadn't everything started with her? Wasn't she the one who'd got me all worked up about the child and sent me off to investigate? We hadn't found a child, of course, but the old women had seen something that looked like a bundle. What if it was a baby wrapped in a blanket? How could she have made that distinction in the dark?

I picked up the internal phone and told Thanassis to come into my office. While he was on his way, I added the last bit of information to the report and handed it to him.

"Give this to Koula and then come back, because I need you for something," I said to give myself a little time to make my decision.

Why did I want to get involved? Why didn't I let the case, if there was a case, take its official course? I'd had the department on its feet thousands of times, and in the end, nothing came of it and instead of points all I got was a tongue-lashing. This was why I'd never been sent for further training, not even to the Panteion School for seminars, let alone to the FBI.

Thanassis returned before long. He thought I had a job for him, and he stared at me with that look that said, "I'm a moron." "I know you're a moron," I replied, again with a look, "but I need your help."

"Be honest with me, Thanassis," I said to him, "is that Karayoryi woman hot for you, or am I wrong there?"

He wasn't expecting it, and he was flummoxed. He looked at me in both surprise and alarm. "What makes you think that, sir?" he mumbled. He didn't know what else to say.

"I'm asking because I happened to notice the way she looks at you, the smiles she gives you.... Come on, don't tell me you haven't noticed yourself?"

"It's just your imagination," he said quickly. "Why would she fancy me?"

"It depends.... She might be after you because you're a fine young thing. Or she may be coming on to you because she wants access to the department and wants a scoop ... or maybe both. .

"Am I one to talk?" he said in an offended tone. Not that he'd be the first.

"That's exactly what I want, for you to talk to her. I want you to phone her, supposedly confidentially, and tell her that you have some information for her. And when you're with her, I want you to find out what she knows about the child."

He stared at me dumbly. I waited for it to sink in, because, after all, he was a moron, as we said. "Let me explain, so you know," I said, after giving him a moment to think. "Two days ago, Karayoryi asked me whether the Albanians had a child. And yesterday, on the news, she said that we were looking for a child. It was a lie, but she must have had some reason for saying it. Today an old woman neighbor told me that she'd seen the couple getting out of a van and that the girl was carrying a bundle. The bundle might have been a baby that she couldn't see clearly in the dark. So I want you to find out just what it is that she knows and why she keeps dropping hints."

"Don't make me do this, please, sir," he stammered in obvious distress.

"What am I making you do, dimwit?" I don't call him a moron because we say that silently, like conspirators. "For years, you've got by in here through skiving, and I've always turned a blind eye! And once in a blue moon, when I send you on a job and pay your expenses and find you a chick, you start being difficult!"

"I don't want to get into trouble, sir. If anyone sees me and the people upstairs get to hear of it, I'll be in deep shit."

"Why should you get into any trouble? At worst, I'm the one who'll be in trouble for sending you. Or are you afraid that if it gets out, I'll play the fool and blame it all on you?"