‘Certain information has come to my ears, nevertheless, and I’d like to verify it – let’s say out of personal curiosity.’
‘What information?’
‘Concerning the business relations between the families of Favieros and Stefanakos. I was informed that, apart from Jason Favieros’s construction company and Lilian Stathatos’s advertising company, there are two other consultancy companies for European investments that the wives of Favieros and Stefanakos are partners in. One of these operates in Greece and the other in Skopje, covering the Balkans. Favieros also had an offshore company Balkan Prospect, which operates a network of real-estate agencies throughout Greece and the Balkans, together with various construction companies. Finally, there is another offshore company owned by Favieros and Stathatos that deals in hotel and tourist enterprises.’
‘Thank God you’re a police officer and not a tax official. You’d have us all at your mercy,’ he said, without losing his smile. ‘So where are you leading?’
I began to explain to him the whole network of business relations linking Favieros and his wife with Stefanakos and his wife. I outlined my theory about the two bona fide companies, the construction and advertising ones, and how behind these operated the more shady ones, Balkan Prospect belonging to Favieros, and the consultancy companies and hotel enterprises.
He didn’t interrupt me even once, but nor did he show any great interest. ‘What is it that you want of me exactly?’ he asked impatiently when I had finished.
‘I’d like you to tell me if, in your opinion, there is anything unusual behind all this and how it might operate.’ I tried to formulate my question as innocently as possible so as not to bring him down to earth with a bang.
‘I see nothing unusual about it,’ he said, astounding me.
‘Not even in the way that Balkan Prospect runs its real-estate agencies?’
‘Why would I find it unusual? Every business operates by buying cheaply and selling dearly. If it doesn’t succeed in this in the first year, it will close.’
‘Yes, but the difference is not declared to the tax office. It goes straight into the pocket of the real-estate agency as undeclared earnings.’
He laughed. ‘Do you own the flat you live in, Inspector?’
‘No.’
‘Well, if you buy a flat for your daughter in view of her upcoming marriage, I suggest you don’t declare the whole amount to the tax office. No one does it. Consequently, the tax office doesn’t lose anything. It gets the tax it would anyway.’
‘Except that various Romanians, Bulgarians and Albanians end up paying more.’
‘Why do you just see the negative side? Personally, I’m only too happy when I see foreigners who came to Greece wretched and miserable succeeding in the space of a few years to become householders and property owners. It proves something about the dynamism of our little country.’
I saw that I wouldn’t get anything out of that conversation because I was coming up against the dream of every Greek to acquire his own flat. So I decided to change tack.
‘And the consultancy firms?’
‘Is it bad that there should be companies that advise Greeks how to take advantage of the funds made available by the European Union? On the one hand, we’re always complaining that we don’t absorb the funds given by the EU and on the other we accuse those who actually do something with them.’
‘I’m not accusing them. I simply wonder whether Loukas Stefanakos was using the political means he had at his disposal to secure the requisite participation of the Greek public sector in order that the company owned by his wife and Favieros’s wife could absorb the European funds.’
‘The important thing is that the funds are absorbed, not by which company they are absorbed.’
‘I imagine this was why that Balkan minister on the programme with you praised him so highly.’
Despite all my efforts, it seems I was unable to conceal my irony, because he registered it immediately and tightened up a little.
‘I don’t understand your irony. You have no idea of the difficulties these countries face in order to secure funding, credit and loans. Stefanakos helped them through the mediation of his wife’s consultancy firm.’
‘And a large slice of the funds went into the pockets of Mrs Stathatos and Mrs Favieros as a fee for their mediation.’
‘Isn’t it only natural that Greece should get something in return for the help it offers to a third country? Otherwise, what would be the incentive for such mediation? What does it matter if Stefanakos channelled the fee through the firm run by his wife and Mrs Favieros? After all, both Greece and the Balkan country benefited from it. The poor wretches in the Balkans recognised that and were grateful to him.’
I had no words to counter his. After all, I was a copper who dealt in dead bodies; I was neither a politician nor a financier. Andreadis, however, took my silence as acquiescence.
‘Everything you’ve described to me so far, Inspector, is in keeping with the rules of a self-regulating, free market. Our great success is that we managed to convince even fanatic leftists like the families of Favieros and Stefanakos to accept these rules and apply them. And now that we’ve convinced them after so many decades, you want us to accuse them of illegalities. For heaven’s sake!’
All his rhetoric had made him forget the time and he suddenly looked at his watch. ‘And now I’m afraid I have to go as I’m already late.’
He accompanied me to the door. He halted there and slapped me on the back. ‘We’ve won, Inspector. As a member of the Security Force, that traditionally has always been closer to our party, you yourself should be happy. Give my best regards to Fanis.’
He gave me another friendly slap on the back and handed me over to his daughter, who accompanied me to the front door.
‘Capture: 1. med. & mod. seize, conquer, destroy. Eurip.
I was looking to see which meaning best suited the taking over of my post by Yanoutsos. It was very close to two of the first meanings: those of ‘seize’ and ‘destroy’. He had seized my post while I was in hospital and, given the way he was handling the cases in the Homicide Department, he was undoubtedly destroying it. The other meaning was redundant because ‘he hadn’t captured my heart’. On the contrary, the second meaning ‘take as plunder, as spoils’ suited him to a tee. Yanoutsos had done what the adviser had asked, bypassed Ghikas, rounded up the three blockheads and had taken my post as his plunder and spoils. As for me, that was perfectly expressed by the third meaning: I was completely undone.
It was one of the rare occasions when I had taken Dimitrakos with me into the sitting room. The bedroom resembled a street market with Russo-Pontian wares. The wardrobe had been emptied out and all the clothes were scattered over the bed, the armchair and the dressing table, where Adriani was sitting and putting on her make-up. Decorating the centre of the double bed were two open suitcases, which operated on the lines of communicating vessels: the one emptied and the other filled. All this was part of Adriani’s preparations in view of our departure the following afternoon on the high-speed. Actually, she had time the following morning to pack the cases, but it took her so long to overcome her indecisiveness that she felt safer when she had a whole night in front of her.
‘Flight n.: med., mod. & colloq. hasty or secret departure, fleeing.
