faces. As I was getting off, the fat woman voiced the collective question:
‘Are you a reporter?’
‘If I were a reporter, would I be coming here by bus?’
My reply reduced her to silence. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, blushing, as though she had insulted me by thinking I was a reporter.
I turned left and after about half a kilometre I saw the house before me. It was just as the fat woman had described, except that she had been reserved about the size of the garden, which must have covered more than an acre and led up to a two-storey villa with balconies of various sizes and a patio in front with tables, chairs and awnings all in white, rather like a private cafeteria belonging to the Favieros family. The entire complex was protected by a wall mounted with closed-circuit TV cameras. The interior was visible only through the tall gate.
A gardener was watering the lawn.
‘Can I ask you something?’
He heard my voice, turned off the water and came over to me.
‘Inspector Haritos. I want to speak with Mrs Favieros or with one of the children.’
‘Not here,’ he replied abruptly.
‘When will they be back?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘They on boat somewhere.’
His accent showed him to be a foreigner, though he obviously wasn’t Albanian.
‘Russian-Pontian?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’ When they’re not one, they’re the other.
‘When will your employers be back?’
‘Don’t know. Ask Mr Ba up in house.’
‘Open the gate for me.’
‘Can’t. Press button, open from house.’
I pressed the button as he told me.
‘Yes?’
‘Police,’ I said sharply
When you’re dealing with foreigners, the best thing is to use the magic word ‘Police’. They either open up for you straightaway or start shooting at you. As the latter was rather unlikely in Favieros’s house, the gate began to slowly open from the middle. I looked around for some sort of golf buggy that would take me up the acre of land to the house, but there wasn’t one to be seen anywhere and so I was obliged to climb the steps that were on the left side of the garden. Halfway up, I stopped to catch my breath because I had stiffened up with the sedentary life imposed on me by Adriani and my legs trembled at the slightest effort.
Smart chap that Favieros, I thought to myself as I climbed the steps. He didn’t go and build a villa in some expensive suburb like Ekali so he wouldn’t be accused of selling out to the system or of turning into a profiteer, but he built it in Porto Rafti so that he would preserve his progressive profile and at the same time get this huge plot of land for peanuts.
Up above, on the patio with the private cafeteria, I was met by a short, swarthy Asian.
‘What is it you want?’ he asked in a shrill voice.
‘Are you Ba?’
‘I am Mr Bawan, the butler,’ he replied in a formal tone. And again: ‘What is it you want?’
How about that? Favieros even had a steward though he went around unkempt, with a beard, crumpled jacket and jeans. Of course, this Thai might have given himself the title of butler just to increase his standing.
‘What is it you want?’ he asked again, giving a sample of his Asian persistence.
‘Are your employers away?’
‘Yes. Mrs Favieros, Miss Favieros and Mr Favieros Junior left on the yacht immediately after the funeral.’
‘And when will they be back?’
‘I have no knowledge.’
He had a foreign accent, but he spoke Greek correctly, as though he were holding a grammar book and searching to find where to put the subject, verb and object. I thought of asking him where I could find Favieros’s wife, but I rejected the idea because it might alarm her and lead her to call the police, and my secret mission would go up in smoke. I decided to limit myself to the staff and take it from there.
‘I want to ask you a few questions.’
‘I am unable to answer. I have no permission.’
I ignored his objection and continued.
‘Did it seem to you that Mr Favieros had changed in any way of late? Was he worried or in low spirits?’
‘I am unable to answer. I have no permission.’
‘I’m not asking you to reveal any secrets. Only whether he seemed different, nervous, let’s say.’
‘I am unable to answer. I have no permission.’
I reached out, grabbed hold of him suddenly by the arm and started dragging him with me.
‘Where are you taking me?’ he asked in alarm. ‘I have a green card, work permit, health insurance. I am not illegitimate.’ He meant illegal. It was his first mistake in Greek. ‘I’m taking you to the station for questioning,’ I said to him calmly. ‘And if you don’t want to answer because you don’t have permission, you’ll stay locked up in the cells till your employers come along and give you permission.’
‘Mr Favieros didn’t change,’ he said with all the willingness in the world, as if nothing had happened previously. ‘He was as he always was.’
I kept hold of his arm so as not to lose physical contact with him. ‘Did anything else change? His routine, for example? Did he start coming home later?’
‘He always returned home between eleven and eleven thirty. Later? But …’ he added, suddenly stopping as though remembering something.
‘What?’
‘He left later in the morning. At around ten.’
‘What time did he usually leave?’
‘Half past eight … Nine …’
What might that mean? Who knows? He may simply have been tired and have needed more sleep. ‘Who else is in the house now?’
‘Two maids. Tania and Nina.’
‘Bring them here. I want to talk to them.’
He went to the patio door and shouted out the two names. In less than a minute two blonde girls appeared: the one extremely tall, the other of average height, both wearing light-blue overalls and white aprons. It was blatantly obvious that they were Ukrainians. If, in Favieros’s house, the staff represented half the United Nations, I thought to myself, who knows what was the case at his building sites.
I asked the Ukrainian girls the same questions I had asked the Thai and I got the same answers. That meant, at least at first sight, that nothing had changed about Favieros that the domestic staff had noticed.
‘What time did Mr Favieros leave home to go to work in recent weeks?’ I asked the maids.
‘I told you! At around ten,’ said the butler, intervening, seemingly annoyed that I might doubt him in front of his subordinates.
‘Work’d here,’ the one of average height replied.
‘And how do you know?’ asked the butler as though scolding her.
‘I sweep upper floor and see,’ answered the Ukranian. ‘He work computer.’
‘Show me,’ I said to her. Not that I was expecting to discover anything, but it was an opportunity for me to take a look around the rest of the house.
The Ukranian girl led me through a living room with expensive marble and with little and modern furniture. We went upstairs by way of an interior staircase and at the top she opened one of the doors facing us. The study was spacious, with a large window that looked on to the garden. Here too there was scant furniture: the desk with his chair and two other chairs in front of it. Two walls were lined with books. Looming on the desk was a huge computer screen that gaped pitch black. The desk’s surface was an exact replica of Ghikas’s desk: completely empty, without as much as a piece of paper on it. I glanced at the books on the shelves and saw that Favieros had
