I called her as soon as I got back to the office.
‘You again, Inspector?’ she asked as soon as she came to the phone. ‘I thought we were done.’
‘So did I, but I was wrong, Mrs Skouloudis.’
The line went quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was calm and grave. ‘So you’ve discovered who I am?’
‘Yes. Just this morning.’
‘May I ask how?’
‘From Christos Kalafatis, who manufactures the Che T-shirts.’
Her cheeriness returned. ‘I’m happy for you. He’s the only one who knows and you found him.’
‘I need to talk to you. What time can you come by my office?’
‘I hope I won’t have to repay all your visits to me. Let’s not see it that way,’ she said laughing. Then she grew serious. ‘I suggest neither your office nor mine. Let’s meet at my home. At six this evening.’
I asked for her address. ‘Number 7, Tobazi Street, in Pefki,’ she said. ‘It’s off Chrysostomou Smyrnis Street, close to the Katsimbali Park.’
I wondered whether I should inform Ghikas and tell him what I’d learned from Kalafatis or whether I should wait till I’d talked to Coralia Yannelis. It was more a question of patience. No matter how many years you’ve spent on the Force, no matter how experienced you are, as soon as you get wind of some success, you immediately rush to your superior to gloat. It’s a kind of impulse that carries you away. I decided to be patient, because the correct thing was to talk first with Yannelis and then go bragging to Ghikas.
How do you fill five hours when you’re on tenterhooks? I kept the reporters longer than usual. They stared at me flabbergasted because it was the first time I had ever engaged in chit-chat with them. Sotiropoulos, who suspected something, decided to stay longer, for the benefit of all. He opened up his favourite discussion concerning the suicides and I answered him with a lot of twaddle simply to pass the time. In the end, I felt some remorse and told him to wait another twenty-four hours as I would have more news the following day. He pressed me for details, but I was unshakeable as a rock, and so we went on for a while tossing the ball back and forth. I went down to the cafeteria three times and got three not-so-Greek coffees, a croissant in cellophane and a packet of rusks to settle my stomach.
I reckoned that it would take me three quarters of an hour to reach Pefki. The most reasonable route was to go up Kifissias Avenue and then, at the Ivi building, to turn left into Aghiou Konstantinou Street and that would bring me to Chrysostomou Smyrnis Street. It was Monday afternoon in summer, the shops and offices were closed and I didn’t meet any traffic. I arrived a quarter of an hour early and drove round the block twice in order to arrive exactly on time. The bell at 7 Tobazi Street bore the name Coralia Yannelis. I wondered whether Skouloudis was dead or whether he had simply been struck off by the living. Her flat was a penthouse on the fifth floor.
She opened the door herself. She had the same smile and was wearing one of the same outfits that I’d seen on her at the offices of Balkan Prospect.
‘Come in,’ she said, leading me to a spacious sitting room that spilled over onto a balcony with the awnings lowered and with a variety of plants, mostly saplings, in large pots. In the wall on the right, there was a closed sliding door. The faint sound of a TV could be heard from the other side.
‘Please have a seat,’ she said, pointing to an armchair that was facing the park. ‘Can I get you something?’
‘No, thank you.’
She sat down on the sofa opposite me. She seemed to be trying to give the impression that she had invited me for coffee and a chat, but she found it difficult to conceal her anxiety completely.
‘So where shall we begin? With Minas Logaras?’
She laughed. ‘There is no Minas Logaras, as I’m sure you’ve realised.’ She suddenly became serious. ‘No, we ought to begin with my father’s arrest.’
I let her start in her own good time. Now that I was sitting opposite her, I felt more relaxed. I was in no hurry and I waited.
‘They arrested my father in the spring of ’72. They woke us up one night at around two a.m., grabbed hold of my father and began hitting him and dragging him towards the door.’ She halted and said without any emotion, as if simply stating a fact: ‘That was the last time I saw my father, Inspector.’ She let out a sigh and remained silent for a moment. ‘Throughout his life, my father was involved in movements and revolutions. So was my mother. But they wanted to keep their children away from all that. They never talked about it to us, they never explained it to us, they never said anything. They did it to protect us, but also out of fear we would let something slip. And so we grew up in the dark, in an atmosphere of indefinable fear. I’m telling you all this so you’ll understand our panic when they came to arrest my father.’ She looked at me and said with a slightly ironic smile: ‘Anyhow, you’re a police officer and I’m sure you know what I mean.’
I knew. Although in my line of work I rarely saw the panic of the innocent. It was usually the panic of the guilty that I saw.
‘I was in the final year of high school then. Kimon was in junior school. Our mother had died two years previously. We didn’t have anyone, we didn’t know anyone. The following morning, I began asking discreetly where those who had been arrested by the soldiers were taken. And so I learned about the Military Police Headquarters. I got together a bag with clothes because my father hadn’t had time to take anything with him and I went to the Headquarters. They told me I should see Major Skouloudis. He received me very cordially. He said he would personally see to it that my father got the clothes, that they were holding him for interrogation and that he didn’t know when he would be released, but that I shouldn’t worry because he was fine in his health, and that if I wanted to know anything or leave anything for my father, I should always go to him.’ She stopped again and looked at me. ‘Perhaps you’ve already guessed what I’m about to tell you. When you’ve lived all your life in fear and in the dark, when you’re on your own and with a younger brother and you don’t know where to turn and suddenly you meet someone who is friendly to you and seems ready to help you, then that person sooner or later wins you over. But it wasn’t only that. I never got any answers from my parents. Skouloudis, however, was always ready with an answer. He answered all my questions. Agreed, a lot of what he told me was make-believe, but frightened, little children are reassured by make-believe, it’s as simple as that.’ She again let out a sigh. ‘Are you sure I can’t get you anything?’ she asked.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Then I’ll fix myself a drink.’
She got up and went out of the sitting room. I’ve done countless interrogations in my life and I knew how confessions are extracted: like getting blood out of a stone, with hesitations, long-windedness and pauses. I waited patiently, with the sound of the TV still coming from the adjoining room. Yannelis returned holding a glass of whisky with ice.
‘That’s why I fell in love and married my husband, Inspector. For the sense of security that he gave me,’ she said, sitting down again. ‘I was still a minor. I don’t know how Yangos managed to get hold of a marriage licence. We got married quietly. I had Kimon with me, Yangos had invited two friends of his. After the marriage, I asked to see my father. Yangos said that it would be bad for me psychologically, but it would also be bad for him because no one looked kindly on his marriage to the daughter of a bomber. So I sat down and wrote my father a long letter. I didn’t receive any reply. I wrote to him again. Again there was no reply.’
She paused and took a sip of her whisky. It seemed she wanted to get her breath before moving on to the more difficult stuff. ‘The reply came after the fall of the Junta.’
She got up and went over to a cabinet that was on the wall facing the sliding door. She took a folded piece of paper from one of the drawers and handed it to me. I wouldn’t have called it a letter. It was more of a note, written on a white sheet of exam paper.
You betrayed me. You married my torturer. From now on, all I want is to hide the shame. Don’t ever come near me. You’re no longer any child of mine. Kimon will stay with me. You’ll never see him again either.
The signature was a capital ‘T’. I returned the note to Yannelis.
‘I made countless attempts to see him, tried numerous times to phone him, but to no avail. Both my father and my brother cut all ties with me.’ She was upset and took a deep breath in order to calm herself. ‘When I read the news of his suicide, I managed to find out where he lived and rushed to his home. My brother opened the door. He told me to go away and not to attend the funeral because he would have me thrown out of the church.’
