I left half the food on my plate and went to take up position in front of the TV. I knew that apart from losing my appetite, I was also going to lose my sleep. I again watched the three youths dashing down the corridor outside my old office, again listened to Yanoutsos’s statement and again became riled. However, then they showed interviews with the parents and neighbours of the three youths, something that was of interest to me. The parents of all three stated categorically that their sons were innocent. They swore at the government and cursed the police for plunging them into grief and stigmatising their offspring. The truest thing was said by a young lad from the same neighbourhood. ‘Okay, I’m not saying he was a saint, but a murderer? You’ve got to be joking.’
Just after eleven, I chanced upon a discussion concerning the danger of the extreme right in Greece, once again chaired by Sotiropoulos. The participants were a minister, a prominent member of the opposition, a reporter and a lawyer. The game was being played in the usual way, with little variation: the minister claimed that the danger from the right was always lurking in Greece and the state had to be ever vigilant; the opposition politician rejected all this and accused the government of political exploitation, the minister responded by accusing the opposition of deliberately underestimating the danger in order to benefit from the votes of the extreme rightists. In between, like a wild card, there was, on the one hand, the lawyer, who was trying to explain whether and to what extent there were grounds for a case against the three youths, and, on the other, the reporter, who was trying to engage in a political analysis of the situation. Both were wasting their time as no one was paying any attention to them. Sotiropoulos was playing his usual game of hot and cold: first he would come out with some innuendo to get the participants to flare up and then he would try to maintain a balance.
That was it, I thought to myself. They’ve managed to do what they set out to do. The next day, all the newspapers, the radio stations and the channels would be talking about the danger of the extreme right and the three youths would come to a bad end.
It was one of the few nights that before going to sleep I longed to hear the waves breaking on the shore of an island. As soon as I closed my eyes, however, I saw Yanoutsos before me, sitting in my chair, and I opened them again.
It usually means one of two things when you can’t get to sleep: either you’re full of fear and worry or of vexation and anger. In both cases, you need some kind of sedative. My sedative was my decision to square accounts with Ghikas. Instead of this bringing with it agitation and anxiety, it brought me relief and I managed to sleep a couple of hours.
So, at ten in the morning, I left the Mirafiori in the garage at Security Headquarters and took the lift up to the fifth floor. Koula’s replacement was there again with a magazine in front of him.
‘Inspector Haritos,’ I said, certain that he would have forgotten me as I wasn’t either a Toyota or a Hyundai.
He cast a glance at me and went back to reading his magazine. As I walked past, I saw his eyes bulging as he had his ugly mug stuck in a two-page advertisement for mobile phones.
I knocked on Ghikas’s door and went straight in without waiting for an invitation. I found him standing with his back to the desk gazing out of the window into Alexandras Avenue. This was a sign that something was eating him, otherwise he never budges from his chair. As soon as he turned round, I stood on the brake and stayed where I was. I saw a man who was tired, his eyes red from lack of sleep, looking at me as if some great misfortune had befallen him.
‘I know what you’re going to say to me,’ he said, ‘but I had no idea.’ He sat down and fixed his eyes on the matching set with the scissors and paperknife on his desk. ‘I had no idea, Costas. Everything happened behind my back.’
In all the years we had worked together, I had seen him enraged, indifferent, fawning, cunning, secretive … This was the first time I had seen him an emotional wreck and all my anger dissolved. I put everything I had prepared to say to him in the pending tray and sat down in my usual chair without waiting for an invitation. He slowly lifted his eyes and looked at me.
‘All these years I’ve been on the Force, I knew the political leadership at the Ministry had faith in me. If anyone had told me anything to the contrary, I wouldn’t have believed him. And they didn’t only have faith in me because of my ability, but because I always played by the rules, I carried out my orders without question or any disagreement or pretending not to have heard them. Yesterday, for the first time, I felt I was being passed over. I realised that it’s not enough just to follow orders, I have to carry them out to the letter. Not in my own way, which because of my experience is the correct way, but exactly as they are dictated to me, even if what they ask of me is irrational and compromises me.’
His voice sounded tired and weary, yet sincere. Perhaps because he wasn’t one of those people who easily open themselves to you.
‘I have another six years to go before I’m up for retirement,’ he went on. ‘And in those six years, I’m going to have to live with the doubt as to whether they’re telling me the truth or not every time. I’ll be constantly niggled by the thought that behind my back they’re issuing other orders that I won’t know about and that I’ll eventually have to deal with. I ask you, is that a way to live?’
It wasn’t easy for me to find any comforting words. Not just with Ghikas at that moment, but with Adriani and Katerina too. There are times when I pray that my sympathy shows on my face because the words stick in my throat and won’t come out. That’s how it was then. All I could say was something quite innocuous.
‘Didn’t you ask Yanoutsos for an explanation?’
‘Yes. Do you know what he replied? Orders from up above. Talk to the Secretary General.’
‘And did you?’
‘Yes, and he told me that it wasn’t his job to keep me informed and that those beneath me should have informed me earlier.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Don’t you understand?’ he cried. ‘You! They think it was you who didn’t tell me that there were orders from above to go and nab those troublemakers!’
‘Let them put themselves on the line. They won’t find a court anywhere to convict them.’
He stared at me and shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Ah, Costas. You’re right in what you say, but you don’t see clearly. They’ll put them away and they’ll start saying: “Let justice take its course.” And by the time it has taken its course and acquitted them, two years will have passed. In the meantime, the case will have been forgotten and no one will give a damn.’
He was right. At the rate that the media today come out with scandals, world-shattering revelations and exclusive reports, three times a day, like cough syrup, in two years’ time no one would remember anything about Favieros and Stefanakos.
‘You realise that I can no longer make any promises to you concerning your position,’ he said. ‘Whatever I say or do, it’ll be difficult to get Yanoutsos out of it.’
‘I realise that.’
He heaved a sigh. ‘Finish your sick leave and then come back and I’ll see where I can put you so that at least you’ll be content.’
I wouldn’t be content, but at least I appreciated his efforts. ‘And what shall I tell Koula?’
He shrugged. ‘As she’s on leave, let her finish it and then come back.’
Outside the office on my way to the lift I bumped into Yanoutsos.
‘Something reached my ears about you investigating the two suicides on the q.t.,’ he said ironically. ‘There’s no need for you to go on looking. The case is closed and you can take yourself off fishing.’
As I was opening the lift door, I heard his laughter behind me. I reflected on just how much we would miss Ghikas if he retired and Yanoutsos were to take his place.
Throughout the journey back home, my own problems gave way to Ghikas’s. The way I’d seen him, vulnerable and betrayed, I felt an unprecedented sense of solidarity with him. It was the second time I had felt that, and on each occasion for the same reason. The first time was when I had left Petroulakis’s house in Dafnomili Street. Once again, I was tormented by the question of whether I’d been wrong about him all those years. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Yes, because I always regarded him with suspicion and doubted his good intentions. No, because
