saw me.
‘Yes?’
‘Inspector Costas Haritos.’
Nothing changed in his expression. He continued to gaze at me with the same questioning look.
‘May I sit down?’
‘Why? Is it necessary?’ he asked ironically.
I made no reply, but simply drew up a chair and sat on it. ‘You were in the Military Police at the time of the Junta, were you not?’
‘And now you’ve found out?’ It seemed that he was becoming annoyed, but I tried not to lose my temper. ‘Listen, all that business is over with. I was tried, I became famous. I went away for ten years and everybody forgot about me. I was released after six and a half years for good behaviour and I put all that behind me.’
‘It has nothing to do with you. It’s something else I’m interested in. Have you heard about the suicides of the businessman, Jason Favieros, the politician, Loukas Stefanakos and the journalist, Apostolos Vakirtzis?’
‘Yes, but I didn’t lose any sleep over it.’
‘All three were political prisoners in the cells of the Military Police when you were there.’
‘Perhaps. I don’t remember. People came, people went, how am I supposed to remember them all?’
‘You’re sure to remember them because they testified as prosecution witnesses at your trial.’
He was taken aback by the fact that I knew and, to hide his shock, he became aggressive. ‘So what? Do you know how many testified to get me put away for ten years of my life? Why do you think I’ve grown a beard? So I won’t be recognised on the street. I can’t stand being stared at.’
‘Is that why? I thought you’d grown it to look like Che Guevara,’ I said ironically.
‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked, surprised.
‘What do I mean? During the Junta, you fought against the commies and all their kind. And because of them you were put away for ten years. And now you’re selling Che Guevara T-shirts?’
I persisted in the hope that I would provoke him into opening up, but he just stared at me as though I were from another planet.
‘Open your eyes. Today’s not for commies, today’s for T-shirts,’ was his reply. ‘We no longer fight, we feather our nests. Do you remember what Pattakos used to say?’
‘The dictator? What’s Pattakos got to do with anything?’
‘Do you remember what he used to say?’ he repeated.
‘He said a lot of things. How should I remember everything?’
‘Let me remind you of one thing he said that turned out to be prophetic: Greece is an enormous construction site.’
‘And why was it prophetic? Because of the Olympic Games?’
‘No. Because, today, it’s an enormous stock exchange. From an enormous construction site to an enormous stock exchange. Prophetic words. Pattakos was right and, together with him, we were too. In this enormous stock exchange, Che is just another face that sells. Tomorrow, it might be the other dictator, Papadopoulos, or the day after, that other commie Mao with his little cap. It’s not important. Everything today is just a stamp. So says Christos Kalafatis, the right-hand man of Major Skouloudis.’
‘Skouloudis? The torturer?’
For the first time, he got angry and his eyes bulged in their sockets. ‘The Military Police interrogator,’ he said angrily, correcting me. ‘But, naturally, all you coppers looked down their noses at us MPs.’
‘Was he the one who interrogated the three who committed suicide?’
‘Yes, and they were all milksops,’ he said with contempt. ‘And I’m not saying that because they testified against me. They were miserable wimps who squealed like little pigs as soon as you laid a hand on them. Only one of them had any backbone and he was a good twenty years older than the rest.’
‘Who?’ I asked, though I already knew the answer.
‘Yannelis. He was the only one with any balls. Whatever you did to him, you always had to take your hat off to him in the end.’
‘He committed suicide, too, only much earlier. At the beginning of the nineties.’
‘It’s a wonder that he survived that long.’
What did he mean? Something told me that concealed in this simple sentence was the secret I’d been looking for, but I tried to keep my composure and not show any excitement in case I scared him and he shut up shop.
‘What makes you say that?’ I asked, as calmly as I could.
‘Because he paid more dearly than all the others. Maybe the stronger end up paying more, it’s one way of looking at it. At any rate, it was a huge blow to him and it’s a miracle he survived till the nineties.’
‘What huge blow?’
‘His daughter married Major Skouloudis.’
He looked at me, pleased with himself that he’d succeeded in shocking me. And he had succeeded in shocking me, but for other reasons. Coralia Yannelis was the wife of Major Skouloudis, her father’s torturer? Was this the secret? Was this the start of the thread that would unravel the whole case?
‘A real rosebud!’ said Kalafatis with old-fashioned admiration. ‘She was no more than eighteen and would come to the Major for news of her father, to plead with him to tell her when he would be released. And Skouloudis could be very charming. When he talked to you, you’d never imagine that this same man could torture anybody. That’s how it was with the girl. In less than a month, she was totally smitten with him.’
‘Did Skouloudis say anything to Yannelis about his relationship with his daughter?’
‘Are you kidding? It would have been like killing him. And as I told you, the major respected Yannelis.’
‘I thought he might have let him go,’ I said provocatively. ‘After all, he was the father of his girlfriend.’
‘He couldn’t. He would have found himself in deep trouble. Yannelis and his group had been accused of bombings. He did stop interrogating him, however. He closed the file on him and sent him before a military tribunal. Yannelis was still in prison when they got married. He found out about it from his son.’
I could now, with hindsight, understand why Coralia Yannelis had been so tense and uneasy when talking about her father and her brother. She’d meant it when she said it was less painful for her to answer questions about Favieros’s companies. Evidently, she had fallen out with her brother over her marriage. But if she had fallen out with her brother, she must also have fallen out with her father. Yet, again, I had uncovered a secret that might lead to murder, but not to the suicides of three people. If someone had murdered Skouloudis, his marriage to Coralia Yannelis would have provided the perfect motive. But what connection could this marriage possibly have with the suicides of Favieros, Stefanakos and Vakirtzis? The only ones who could answer this question were Coralia Yannelis and Minas Logaras, whoever he might be.
‘Are you still in contact with Skouloudis?’
‘No, when I got out of prison, I didn’t want any more bother. I started this little business, married a girl from my village and kept myself to myself.’
I got up to leave, but just then I thought of one last question that I asked more by way of fishing than for any other reason.
‘Do you know anyone by the name of Minas Logaras?’
He thought about it, but came up with nothing. ‘No. Never heard the name before.’
‘That’s all, then,’ I said and walked towards the iron door that was still half-open.
‘Don’t bother coming back,’ I heard him say behind me and I turned round. ‘I’ve had my fill of military police, coppers, cells and prisons. I’ve paid through the nose and I have a right not to want to set eyes on any of you.’
I opened the door and went out without replying. He was the third person to tell me not to come back. First there was Zamanis, then Coralia Yannelis, albeit indirectly, and now it was the former military policeman, Christos Kalafatis. And everyone was happy, just like Zissis said, those who ended up making enough money to burn and those who ended up turning the revolution into T-shirts. And no one wanted to remember. It reminded me of that song I’d heard in the taxi on the day I’d returned from my meeting with Ghikas and Yanoutsos: ‘We’re getting on so well, I’m living in fear of hell.’
