he said to me, “but I’m never going to see you in power.”’
Did he mean that he wouldn’t see him in power because his party would never win the elections or because he would commit suicide? Most probably the latter.
‘I didn’t expect to see you again under such unpleasant circumstances,’ Andreadis said to me.
‘It was these unpleasant circumstances that I was trying to prevent when I visited you.’
He looked at me astounded. ‘Do you think Vakirtzis’s suicide is in some way connected with the suicides of Favieros and Stefanakos?’
‘Of that I’m certain. What I don’t know is when the circle will close or whether there will be any more suicides.’
He looked at me worried, almost panic-stricken, but I had neither the means nor the time to reassure him.
At the other side of the pool I saw a TV crew and a redhead getting interviews from the guests with the cameraman behind her, rather like a pageboy holding the bride’s dress. So there’s TV coverage, I thought to myself. The crew belonged to the same channel that had broadcast live the two previous suicides. I found it strange that only its crew should be there. I took hold of her arm and pulled her to one side. She was surprised to see me before her.
‘Inspector, you’re better. Are you back on duty?’ she asked me.
I left her question unanswered for obvious reasons. ‘How did you come to be here? Is it usual for you to cover parties thrown by your colleagues?’
‘No, but we received a phone call to send a crew to Vakirtzis’s party because there would be surprises. At first, the director thought it was probably just the grapevine, but then he changed his mind and told me to get a crew together and come just in case.’
‘I want a cassette with the interviews you’ve taken.’
‘Of course, I’ll drop it in at your office tomorrow.’
‘No, not at my office. I don’t want it going astray. Send it to the Superintendent’s office and I’ll pick it up from there.’
I left her to go and see Rena. I was hoping that Fanis had managed to bring her round so that I could question her. So, in the first two suicides, Logaras had arranged a TV spectacle. In the third, as he wanted to provide a spectacle in the countryside, he had ensured there would be TV coverage. But how did he know when Vakirtzis would commit suicide? How was he so sure about the day and time? I was thinking all this over as I climbed the steps to the terrace and I came to the conclusion that it was only in the present case that he had taken a risk. In the first two cases, he had taken care in advance to send the biographies to two different publishers and had relied on their astuteness to publish them immediately after the suicides, as had indeed happened. With the third case, however, he had taken a risk. Not with the TV channel. If Vakirtzis hadn’t committed suicide, they would simply have taken it to be a farce. But what would have happened if the biography had come into my hands and Vakirtzis hadn’t already committed suicide? Wouldn’t I have tried to prevent it? For him to have sent me the biography meant that he knew I was investigating the suicides, consequently I wouldn’t have sat with folded arms waiting for the inevitable to happen. So why, then, had he sent me the biography approximately an hour before the suicide with the certainty that I would fail to prevent it? How could he have been so sure? Unless he had agreed with Vakirtzis himself on the day and time. How did he have such a tight hold over them? What did he have on them? The question would remain pending until I could find out how and with what he was blackmailing them.
I asked one of the girls wandering around like a sleepwalker on the ground floor of the house where Rena’s room was. She pointed to a staircase leading from the vast ground-floor sitting room to the first floor. As I was going up, I bumped into Petroulakis, the Prime Minister’s adviser. We came face-to-face halfway up the stairs. The way he looked at me suggested he was expecting me to pay him my respects. However, I thought that following Vakirtzis’s suicide, he would most likely fall into disfavour and I decided not even to return the slight nod of the head he directed towards me. I turned my head away in time and continued climbing the stairs.
On the first floor, I found myself facing three closed doors. The first one opened onto a cold, impersonal room with a double bed, an armchair with a low back and a shelf with books. It was evidently the guest room. The next door revealed a gymnasium complete with bars, bicycle and running machine. I tried my luck at the third door and found Fanis holding a girl’s wrist and taking her pulse. The girl heard the door opening and turned towards me. She was dark-haired with dark mauve lipstick and dark mauve nails. She was wearing a red top with shoulder straps, which left her shoulders and navel bare, and beige slacks. From what I knew, Vakirtzis was fifty-five, so there must have been a good twenty-five years between them as she couldn’t have been over thirty.
Fanis came up to me and whispered in my ear. ‘She’s come round a bit, but don’t overdo it.’ And he left the two of us alone.
I sat down on the edge of the bed. The girl followed me with her gaze as though hypnotised. ‘I’m Inspector Haritos,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to tire you, but I need to ask you a few questions.’
She made no reply, but continued to follow me with that same gaze. I assumed she understood what I was saying and went on:
‘Had you noticed anything unusual in Vakirtzis’s behaviour lately?’
‘Such as?’
‘I don’t know … was he irritable … did he suddenly lose his temper … was he prone to shouting?’
‘Yes, but it wasn’t unusual … he was always abrupt and prone to shouting … then he would quickly forget everything and be all lovey-dovey.’
‘Was anything worrying him … some trouble perhaps?’
A faint smile came to her lips. ‘Apostolos never had any worries. Other people had worries because of him.’
I wasn’t certain whether she meant the people he savaged on his shows or herself. Probably she meant both.
‘So he didn’t give you the impression that he was about to commit suicide.’
‘Apostolos?’ The faint smile turned into a bitter laugh. ‘What can I say?’
I concluded that things weren’t too good between them, but that was of little interest to me. ‘So you hadn’t noticed anything unusual in his behaviour lately?’
‘None whatsoever.’ She paused momentarily as though reflecting. ‘Unless …’
‘What?’
‘During recent weeks, he would spend hours on end shut up in his study in front of his computer.’
Just like Favieros. The same scenario was repeating itself and I was a real twerp for not investigating the case of Stefanakos to find out whether perhaps he had done the same. That was one of the difficult aspects of carrying out unofficial investigations while on sick leave: you don’t dare turn up to see whomever you want, whenever you want.
‘Didn’t he spend much time in his study normally?’
‘He didn’t spend even one hour. Apostolos had everything. A study that covered the entire top floor with computers, printers, scanners, internet connection, everything. But he didn’t use any of it. He only had it because his friends and colleagues had it. He couldn’t bear for others to have something that he didn’t. He was envious. Until lately, when he really did shut himself up there in front of his computer.’
‘Didn’t you ask him what he was doing?’
‘Whenever I asked him, he always replied that he was working, regardless of whether at that moment he was watering the garden or watching a match on TV and swearing at the referee.’
I realised that I wasn’t going to learn anything more so I left her to recover. I went out of the room and made my way up to the third floor. There were no doors at all there. It was an open space with a desk, a TV with a huge screen and various other machines. Scattered all around were loudspeakers of different sizes and a couch with a coffee table facing the TV.
On top of his desk was all of the equipment that the girl had listed for me just previously. What surprised me was that there was not a single book to be seen anywhere in the study, just a few magazines piled on the coffee table in front of the couch. Even I had four bookshelves on the wall, albeit in the bedroom. Vakirtzis didn’t have one.
There were three drawers on the left-hand side of the desk. I opened them one by one. The first was full of empty notepads and a variety of ballpoint pens. The second was of more interest because it was crammed with
