I had come to learn who the experienced reader was. Not the one who reads quickly or even the one who reads carefully, but the one who knows what to read and what to pass over. I was now in the third category thanks to the three biographies by Logaras. I’d read the first, about Favieros, word by word. I’d read the second, about Stefanakos, just by looking at the beginning of the sentence in many instances because I understood what Logaras wanted to say due to my experience from the previous biography and so I concentrated only on the main points. With Vakirtzis’s biography, which I’d started the previous night, I had arrived at the essence of what it meant to be a good reader: I skipped the first part, which was about his childhood and youth, as in the first two biographies, I also skipped the part with all the eulogies about what an important journalist he was, and I went straight to the third part of the book where, as usual, Logaras started with his innuendos.
To my great satisfaction, I wasn’t wrong. With the last of the adulation and flattery came the first innnuendo:
They say that in order to be a good journalist, you have to be ruthless. And Apostolos Vakirtzis was ruthless. He would terrify first one then blackmail the other till he got the information he wanted. Ministers, politicians, mayors, officials were all afraid of him and did whatever he asked of them so as not to have to come up against him. Apostolos Vakirtzis made use of all this to come out with accusations and revelations.
So far there was nothing reprehensible. After all, a great many journalists used similar means even if they weren’t as aggressive as Vakirtzis. Logaras’s main dig came immediately afterwards.
Rumour has it that Vakirtzis exploited these ‘special relations’ he cultivated on behalf of the companies in which he was either a visible or invisible shareholder. Apart from providing him with his journalistic revelations, these ‘special relations’ had secured preferential treatment for the companies. But all this is only rumour. There’s no proof or evidence of it.
My first reaction was that Logaras was exaggerating. But then I reflected that everything he had said up until then had proved to be correct. Did Logaras have evidence of it, and if he had, why didn’t he come out with it? That was another question. Why didn’t he state outright the names of the shady companies that Vakirtzis was involved in, and Favieros and Stefanakos for that matter, instead of allowing all his innuendoes to poison the atmosphere? One possibility was that he had heard things here and there, but didn’t have any concrete evidence. Another possibility was that he had evidence but couldn’t reveal it because by doing so he would also reveal his identity. The third possibility was that he was keeping it secret so that he could go on blackmailing. Who? The families of the three men, of course. Favieros’s wife and children, Mrs Stathatos, and Vakirtzis’s relatives, who must have existed.
The third possibility seemed the most probable but also the most alarming, because as long as the blackmailing continued, so would the suicides. We already had three and it was like the morning traffic report on the radio: jams everywhere and no sign of them clearing.
The good thing about the experience I had acquired as a reader was that I didn’t have to stay up all night to finish Logaras’s biography. In fact, I finished reading it so quickly that I even managed to catch the late-night news bulletin, which was full of reports, interviews and clips concerning Apostolos Vakirtzis. I listened to it all, only to conclude that this mysterious Logaras knew far more.
It was already ten in the morning and I sat down with Koula to make a plan for the day. I told her to rope in her cousin again and go to the records department at the Ministry of Trade and search through Vakirtzis’s companies.
‘I don’t know what you’ll find,’ I said. ‘Logaras spoke about companies in which Vakirtzis was either a visible or invisible shareholder. If we’re lucky, we might come across the companies where he appears as a shareholder.’
‘And what about the victims’ computers?’
‘Afterwards. First let’s find out what companies Vakirtzis was involved in. I can smell at rat, though it might be my nose that’s to blame what with all the pollution I’m breathing in constantly.’
I left her to call her cousin so they could get down to work.
Loukas Stefanakos was a Member of Parliament for a constituency in the suburbs of Athens and had his office at 22 Dardanelion Street, close to the park in Aigaleio. With the traffic, it was like going from Athens to Patras, a good three hours’ drive.
The sky was full of rain clouds and the sun nowhere to be seen. That meant that we were in for a bout of unbearable humidity till we got our fifteen-minute downpour and the sky cleared. In Athens, the weather finds relief in the same way as the people: a sudden outburst that sweeps your legs from under you and then it’s as if nothing had happened.
The traffic flowed normally, albeit slowly, as far as Peiraios Street. There was even less traffic in Peiraios Street and I got my hopes up, but the miracle was short-lived. At the lights at the junction with Iera Odos, I ran into an endless line of traffic dotted with patrol cars and ambulances. After ten minutes, I began cursing Stefanakos to high heaven for having opened his office in Aigaleio. What was wrong with Glyfada or Nea Smyrni? But Stefanakos, being a leftist, wanted to be in a traditional working-class district like Aigaleio, even though today the working-class district is hidden behind boutiques and fashion stores, rather like Stefanakos was hidden behind his wife’s businesses.
After twenty minutes or so, I finally reached the lights and came upon a pile-up involving a coach and three cars. The coach had been left abandoned in the middle of the junction, facing in the direction of Kifissou Avenue, while a car coming from Iera Odos had evidently crashed into it and two other cars had crashed into the back of the first car. The road was almost completely blocked with only one car getting through every five minutes, and that thanks to a policeman who kept emptying his lungs into his whistle.
Once past the point of the accident, Iera Odos opened up before me like the National Road on Easter Sunday and I sped along. It’s a fact that you always make up the time you lose. What you don’t get back is your health and peace of mind.
Dardanelion Street was parallel to Thivon Street. Number 22 was a new block of the type put up overnight. This, too, was part of the game of hide and seek played in the district: pulling down the old workers’ houses and putting up new blocks of flats overnight. Stefanakos’s office was on the second floor; a two-room flat with adjoining rooms – the one for the secretary, the other for the politician. Stella, Stefanakos’s secretary, had already been informed by Mrs Stathatos because she recognised my name. Before sitting down, I glanced around me. There was nothing that particularly attracted my attention, other than the flowers. The entire outer office was filled with flowers. There were vases everywhere: on the desk, on the coffee table, on the floor.
‘The constituents keep bringing them,’ she explained when she saw my surprise. ‘I’ve already thrown half of them away, but more keep coming. His door was always open to them, he did everything he could to deal with their problems and they worshipped him.’ She sat down at her desk and waited. ‘So what can I do for you.’
‘In the cases of Favieros and Vakirtzis, there were noticeable changes in their behaviour prior to their suicides. I wanted to ask you whether you’d noticed any changes in Stefanakos’s behaviour.’
She thought for a moment. ‘I thought that he was ill and that he was trying to hide it,’ she replied eventually.
Her reply surprised me. ‘What do you mean?’
She thought again. She was one of those people who think before they answer. Usually, you get good statements out of them.
‘He looked run-down and was in very low spirits, as though he had some serious illness. Whenever he was here at lunchtime, we would go to a taverna just down the street to eat. It had become a regular habit. But of late he never had any appetite. Either we didn’t go at all or, when we did go, he hardly touched his food.’
‘Didn’t you ask him what was wrong with him?’
‘Yes, when I found the tranquillizers on his desk.’
‘Tranquillizers?’
‘Yes. Loukas was a cheerful person, outgoing and with amazing self-confidence. He didn’t have any need of tranquillizers or antidepressants. When one day I opened his desk drawer, I found a box of tranquillizers. It surprised me and I asked him abut it.’
‘And what did he say?’
