The fifty-year-old receptionist put down the receiver and looked at me with a sad expression on her face.
‘Unfortunately, Mr Zamanis is extremely busy and can’t see you.’
I was grateful to Yannelis for tipping me off and I had come prepared. I got up out of the armchair, beneath Favieros’s watchful eye on the wall, and approached her.
‘It’s a pity he’s not available now,’ I said calmly. ‘Please tell Mr Zamanis that tomorrow we’ll ask him down to Security Headquarters to make an official statement.’ The woman looked at me, trying to work out whether I meant it or whether I was bluffing. ‘Following Apostolos Vakirtzis’s suicide, things have taken a more serious turn,’ I went on. ‘We’re now putting all our efforts into investigating the causes behind each suicide, because we want to prevent any more happening. If Mr Zamanis thinks I’m bluffing, he has only to call the Head of Security, Superintendent Ghikas, and have him confirm what I say.’
I finished my little speech and headed towards the exit, but, as I expected, the woman’s voice stopped me.
‘Please wait a moment, Inspector.’
I remained standing to show her that I wasn’t going to wait for long. She again lifted up the receiver, used her other hand to screen her mouth, and began whispering something. Before very long, she put the receiver down and said to me with a smile: ‘Mr Zamanis has agreed to see you.’
I walked towards the lift, expressing neither gratitude nor satisfaction in order to show her that it was all the same to me.
‘Wait, someone will come to accompany you.’
‘There’s no need. I know the way,’ I replied coldly.
I went up to the third floor, passed by the tiny stage-sets with the actors and actresses, and walked into the office of Zamanis’s private secretary. She greeted me with the same slight nod of the head as before and, without saying a word, opened the door to Zamanis’s office for me.
Zamanis had all the topographical surveys and plans he could find in his office open on his desk and was poring over them to underline just how busy he was.
‘You seem to make it a habit of coming unannounced,’ he said to me without looking up.
‘Murders come unannounced too. Of course, the police take them on as contractors, are assigned to them, but neither the culprits nor their victims make any announcement.’
My reply made him lift his head and look at me. ‘Murders?’ he asked surprised. ‘Up until now, we’ve been talking about suicides.’
‘Following Vakirtzis’s suicide, we’re now talking openly about instigation to commit suicide, which is tantamount to murder. I’m no longer satisfying my personal curiosity. I’m trying to find out who drove your boss and two others to kill themselves and how I might avert any further suicides.’
He stared at me pensively. What I had told him had caught him off guard and had lessened his composure. ‘Even if there’s some logic behind all this, what I don’t understand is why you believe that the cause is to be found somewhere in our companies. There are no deadly secrets hidden here, believe me.’
He said this with a degree of irony, perhaps in an attempt to regain his aplomb. I decided to be honest with him because, in that way, he would be more likely to open up to me.
‘There are two elements common to Favieros, Stefanakos and Vakirtzis. One is their past. All three had met during their student years, had been involved in anti-Junta activities and had spent time in the cells of the Military Police. In other words, they knew each other very well.’
‘And what’s the other common element?’
‘Their businesses. Apart from the businesses belonging to Jason Favieros and Stefanakos’s wife, Lilian Stathatos, there were also businesses owned jointly by Lilian Stathatos and Sotiria Favieros and by Lilian Stathatos and Jason Favieros.’
‘There’s no secret about all those. But where does Vakirtzis fit in to the businesses?’
‘He doesn’t, but his brother, Menelaos Vakirtzis, does.’ I remained silent to see his reaction. He looked at me, waiting for me to continue. ‘Apostolos Vakirtzis was a journalist and didn’t want to expose himself as a businessman for two reasons: first, because he would lose his credibility, and, second, because by remaining inconspicuous he could help his brother much more effectively. Menelaos Vakirtzis had a mechanical and electrical installations company and a security systems company.’ Again I waited to see whether he would say anything, but he remained quiet. ‘What was the nature of your cooperation with the companies owned by Menelaos Vakirtzis?’
He shrugged and answered indifferently: ‘We worked together on the same construction sites at the Olympic Village. We were responsible for the construction, and Menelaos Vakirtzis’s company, Electrosys, took care of the electrical installations.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes, that’s all.’
Without a word, I reached into my pocket and took out a photocopy of Stefanakos’s notes and put it down before him. He read it, then slowly lifted his head and looked at me.
‘What is it?’
‘They’re some notes that we found on Stefanakos’s laptop. It says that Jason Favieros couldn’t refuse Menelaos Vakirtzis because his brother knew too much and Favieros was scared of him. So there are two questions. What couldn’t Favieros refuse Menelaos Vakirtzis and why was he scared of Apostolos Vakirtzis?’
He sighed. ‘Menelaos Vakirtzis had become a pain in the neck,’ he said slowly. ‘To start with, he forced us, through his brother, to enter into a consortium with him. We would take care of the construction works and his company, Electrosys, the electrical work. Jason didn’t want to even hear about it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they’re incompetent and do slapdash work. They’re always behind schedule and we end up rushing around to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. Or the work they do is so shoddy that half the things don’t work and we have to put them right.’
‘Yes, but these notes are much more recent, they can’t be referring to the consortium.’
‘No. They’re referring to the security systems at the Olympic complex.’
His reply took me by surprise. ‘Do you also do security systems?’
He laughed involuntarily. ‘No, but in order to get a letter of guarantee from the bank to tender for such a big contract, you need to have a high credit limit. And Menelaos Vakirtzis owes a great deal. So he was putting pressure on us to intercede in some way so he could secure the letter of guarantee.’
‘Does that “in some way” mean that he wanted you to cover him?’
‘More or less.’
‘And you accepted, because his brother was putting pressure on you.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And why was Apostolos Vakirtzis putting pressure on you and not anyone else in order to help his brother? The banks, for instance?’
‘Because he couldn’t touch them. He could put pressure on various government circles, but they had grown tired of him and even more so of his brother.’
‘That brings me to my second question. What did Jason Favieros have to fear from Apostolos Vakirtzis?’
He didn’t answer immediately and I wasn’t sure whether he was trying to order his words or restrain his accumulated anger.
‘The real owner of the businesses was not Menelaos but his brother. Apostolos Vakirtzis collected information on everyone and everything. When the genuine information he had was not sufficient, he fabricated information himself and used this to exert pressure and to blackmail people till he got what he wanted. I’m sure that he had nothing on Jason. But how would we have been able to stop him if he began to defame us or sully our reputation on his programme or in his newspaper? We’re businessmen, Inspector. And any defamation of our good name is detrimental to us.’
‘At any rate, Jason Favieros, Loukas Stefanakos and Apostolos Vakirtzis knew each other from the time of the Junta.’
