‘Wait a moment, we’ll find out,’ he said. He took out his mobile phone and dialed a number with the speed of a concert pianist.
‘Stathis, Sotiropoulos here. Tell me, does the name Coralia Yannelis mean anything to you?’ It appeared that the answer was negative because he went on with a second question: ‘Some real-estate agency by the name of Balkan Prospect …? Exactly, Favieros … Fine … Listen, I’m sending a police officer over, Costas Haritos, who wants the lowdown, okay?’
He hung up and turned to me. ‘That was Stathis Horafas. He’s an estate agent who sold me my apartment and since then we’ve been friends. Go and see him and he’ll tell you all he knows. His office is 25 Karneadou Street in Kolonaki.’
I told Sotiropoulos I’d be in touch and left him in order to go and see the estate agent. I soon got to Karneadou Street, but it took me a good half hour driving around the block between Herodotou and Ploutarchou Streets to find somewhere to park. In the end, I left the Mirafiori right at the top of Herodotou Street, close to Dexameni Square.
Horafas’s real-estate office was located in an old, stately apartment block from the fifties, the kind built immediately after the Civil War, in a period when economic growth was identified with building work. Horafas was a smartly-dressed fellow of around forty-five. He ushered me into his office, told his secretary that we didn’t want to be disturbed, and closed the door behind us.
I came straight to the point. ‘Mr Sotiropoulos has explained to you, I think …’
‘Yes,’ he said, interrupting me. He leaned across his desk and brought his face close to mine, at the same time keeping an eye on the door.
‘What I’m about to tell you must stay between these four walls, Inspector,’ he said in a whisper. ‘If you make use of it, you mustn’t say where you got the information.’
‘Don’t worry. Besides …’
Again he didn’t let me finish my sentence. ‘Listen, I’m a well-known estate agent with a very select clientele. I don’t want to make an enemy of a colossus like Balkan Prospect, owned by the late Jason Favieros.’
‘But is Balkan Prospect such a big company.’ I still couldn’t see what profit a tycoon like Favieros could have got out of a medium-sized business like real-estate dealings. ‘Its manager told me of a network of real-estate agencies.’
Horafas smiled. He was more relaxed. ‘Correct. It is a network, but you won’t find it under the name Balkan Prospect.’
‘Why? Is there some other company?’
He reflected whether he should go on and voted in favour. ‘Favieros’s company is not a very old one. If you remember, it was founded in 1995. Five years ago, it made a dynamic appearance and began buying up real-estate agencies, without, however, changing their business names. Today, there is a whole series of real-estate agencies that still bear the names of their previous owners, while being run by managers belonging to Balkan Prospect.’
Because I’m a complete dunce when it comes to real estate, I wanted to make sure I had understood: ‘You mean that the corner estate agents might be called Yorgiou’s or Sotiriou’s, but in fact belong to Balkan Prospect?’
He burst out laughing. ‘Not on this corner anyhow. Balkan Prospect has no interest in Kolonaki.’
‘What areas is it interested in?’
‘In Sepolia, the area to the left of Acharnon after Aghios Nikolaos, in Liossia and Ano Liossia. And lately, in Oropos and Eleusis.’
I stared at him like a moron, but Horafas wasn’t at all surprised. ‘Do you find it strange? So do I,’ he said with a smile.
‘I don’t understand why Favieros would buy real-estate agencies in depressed areas like that. With the money he had, he could have easily set up a network in Psychiko or Kifissia or Ekali.’
‘What can I say? Perhaps one answer is that there’s plenty of work in those areas and no one has to sell his agency.’
‘He could have opened his own.’
‘But it seems he didn’t want to. He preferred to remain inconspicuous.’
‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘That’s something I don’t know.’
Maybe he did know and wasn’t telling me because he thought that he’d already said too much. ‘Could you give me the names of some of the real-estate agencies that belong to Balkan Prospect?’ He grew anxious again and looked at me hesitantly. ‘You have my word that I won’t use your name.’ He looked pensive and continued to hesitate. ‘Mr Sotiropoulos will no doubt assure you that I won’t compromise you in any way.’
Quite naturally, the client’s word was more reliable than the copper’s and he was persuaded. He took a thick catalogue out of one of his drawers and began flicking through it. He stopped at a couple of pages and noted down names and addresses on a piece of paper. He closed the catalogue and handed me the paper.
‘I’m a hundred per cent certain that these two belong to Favieros’s company. The one is in Sepolia, the other in Liossia.’
I thanked him and got up to leave. I didn’t have anything else to ask him and, if I had, he wouldn’t have answered. He had revealed as much as he was going to.
‘Inspector,’ he said as I was about to open the door to leave. ‘If you want my advice, don’t say anything to the estate agents about being interested in buying or renting a flat.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they won’t believe you. Our people neither buy nor rent in those districts. The only way you’ll get them interested is if you tell them you have property to sell.’
I thanked him for his advice and left. I walked up Herodotou Street with mixed feelings. On the one hand I was pleased because my nose for things hadn’t let me down. When you set up an offshore company to buy up real-estate agencies in depressed areas, without changing their original names, then there’s certainly some kind of operation behind it. Favieros wasn’t the kind to throw his money away on foundering estate agencies in districts where Greek was a foreign language. On the other hand, my theory that Favieros had himself written his biography had been shaken. If there really was a scam, as I suspected, why would Favieros open our eyes to it and tarnish his name? Unless, of course, he considered it unlikely that anyone would go to the trouble of looking into his offshore company.
The place where I had parked the car was directly exposed to the sun. The seat was like that hot pan on which my mother made me sit to get over the gripes. As soon as I took hold of the wheel, my hands were scorched and I let go of it. The Mirafiori lurched into the Toyota parked in front of me. Blasted summer!
The Yorgos Iliakos Real Estate Agency, noted down for me by Horafas, was in Pantazopoulou Square, behind the Peloponnese Bus Station. I drove down Ioulianou Street with Koula in the passenger seat. I had taken her with me because perhaps we would have to carry out investigations in the area after speaking with the estate agent. The heatwave was doing its best to melt the asphalt, the pollution to send us all to hospital and the exhaust fumes to chafe my throat from the coughing.
As we turned into Diliyanni Street, Koula, who up until then had been silent, turned and asked me quite suddenly:
‘How shall we present ourselves to this estate agent, Inspector Haritos?’
‘As police officers. How do you want us to present ourselves? As fiances?’
‘No, as father and daughter.’
She took me unawares and I braked suddenly. The driver behind started honking his horn furiously, then stepped on the gas and, while overtaking me, stuck up two fingers from behind the closed window, as his car was an immaculate air-conditioned Toyota.
‘What made you come out with that – we almost got ourselves killed?’ I asked her.
‘Can we stop for a moment and I’ll explain to you.’
I pulled over and parked between a coach from Novi Sad and another from Pristina.
