opened them and looked, first at me, then, hesitantly, all around her. The room had been emptied. The corpse was in an ambulance on its way to the mortuary, and the forensics boys had left. There was only Sotiris, who was standing discreetly outside her line of vision.
'Try to remember, Dimitra. Was this chair here, as it is now, or was it turned toward the mirror?'
She stared at the chair and thought for a moment.
'It must have been like that because I didn't touch anything, I'm sure of that. I screamed and ran outside. And Mr. Manisalis, who came back with me afterward, didn't enter the room at all. He looked in from the door and went at once to the phone.'
'When you were coming to get the spotlight, did you see anyone outside in the corridor? Anyone coming out of the room or leaving?'
'I didn't see anyone, but I heard something.'
'What did you hear?'
'Footsteps. Someone was running. But I didn't pay any attention, because there's always someone running in here. We're all run off our feet.'
'That's my girl, you reeled it off like an expert. I'll let you know when to come to make an official statement, but there's no urgency. Tomorrow, the day after, when you've got over the shock. Go on home now and have some rest. But find someone to take you, don't go on your own.
She smiled at me, relieved. As soon as she opened the door to go out, they all poured in, pushing her back inside. I'd put an officer on guard outside, but he got caught up in the bedlam too and ended up inside the room. At their head was Sotiropoulos, leader in the Taking of the Bastille.
'What happened is tragic,' he announced to me sorrowfully. That's to say, only the tone of his voice was sorrowful, because his expression revealed nothing, unshaven as he was, and as for his eyes, these looked, behind his round glasses, like two tiny beads that reacted only to intense light.
'Yanna Karayoryi was the personification of the honest and conscientious journalist, who went fearlessly and determinedly in search of the truth. She will be sorely missed.'
I listened to this worthless spiel in silence. He raised the tone of his voice-not because I said nothing. He would have done it anyway, he'd rehearsed it. 'And while the journalistic world is in turmoil, the police provocatively keep silent and have made no statement. We demand, Inspector, that you tell us what you know about the heinous murder of our colleague Yanna Karayoryi. 11
'I have no intention whatsoever of telling you anything, Mr. Sotiropoulos.' He was at a loss as to how to react to the officiousness of my manner.
'That's unacceptable, Inspector,' he said, in an equally officious tone. 'You cannot treat us in this way when we give our lives for the truth.'
'I can't make any statement, or reveal any aspect of the investigation, before questioning every one of you.'
'Question us?' A brouhaha consisting of three ingredients rose up from them: bewilderment, alarm, and protest. Two cups of water, four cups of flour, and half a cup of sugar, as Adriani says when she gives the recipe for her famous cake, which-just between us-is inedible.
'There is evidence that the victim knew the murderer. And you were all colleagues or friends of Karayoryi. It's perfectly obvious that we would want to question you.'
'Are we regarded as suspects?'
'I can reveal no part of the investigation to you before questioning you. That's all. Tomorrow morning, I want every one of you in my office, and that's not because I intend to make a statement. Sotiris, take all their names before you show them out.'
'Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. That's a fundamental rule of law, or perhaps they didn't teach you that in the academy.'
'That's what the lawyers say. In the eyes of the police, everyone is guilty until proven innocent.' I pushed through the crowd and went out into the corridor.
Behind me swirls of protest and indignation rose and fell, but I was content. Of course, the next day Ghikas would give me a chewing out for ruining his good relations with the media, but I'd been through far worse.
CHAPTER 10
Sperantzas was sitting where he sits when he reads the news, behind the oval table. He was alone because on the late-night news, he appears without any entourage. He wasn't the one with the handkerchief in the breast pocket of his jacket to wipe away the tears; he was the other one, the one who shouted the news as if he were selling watermelons in the market. He looked at me as I came in and couldn't decide whether he should lead with displeasure at being kept waiting or distress at the murder of his colleague. In the end, he settled for a deep sigh that covered both. I went and sat next to him in the seat of the girl who presents the sports news.
'How did they all find out?' I asked, referring to the reporters in the corridor, who were making so much noise that they could be heard even from where we were.
'They must have heard about it on the news.'
I couldn't believe my ears. 'You mean you reported Karayoryi's murder on the news, before you'd even informed us?'
'The whole of Greece was shocked,' he replied passionately. 'That kind of breaking news report has never happened before. The phone lines just about caught fire. I'd just begun to present the news about the new economic measures when they took me off the air and went into a commercial break. Before I'd had time to ask what was happening, Manisalis, the director, came charging in and told me that Yanna had been murdered. I shouted to them to keep on with the commercials and I sent a camera to the makeup room. When I went on the air again, I was grief-stricken. `Ladies and gentlemen,' I said, `at this moment in our own studios a tragedy has taken place. Our crime reporter, Yanna Karayoryi-the sleuth, as she was known to her colleagues-is lying dead in the next room, murdered. We don't know who the perpetrator of this heinous crime is. Sadly, the truth has many enemies. Nevertheless, Hellas Channel, the channel renowned for its exclusive reports, the leading channel for up-to- theminute news, has an obligation to inform you, its viewers, before anyone else. Ladies and gentlemen, you are hearing about the tragic end of Yanna Karayoryi at almost the same time that the fatal incident occurred, even before the police have been informed: And right on cue I showed the scene in the makeup room, with Yanna exactly as you found her. I mean, we're talking documentary art here. We have the video. You can see it if you want.'
Why didn't I chew him out? Why didn't I smack him in the face? Why didn't I set up two chairs and tie him between them, remove his socks and shoes, and subject him to an hour of bastinado? The police officer who abandons the rough stuff is like a smoker who's quit cigarettes. Even though, logically, you know you were right to give it up, inside you're dying to let fly, just like an ex-smoker who deep down longs for a drag.
'Do you know what I should do to you?' I said to him. 'I should frog-march you down to the station, lock you up in a cell with murderers, thugs, and pushers, and let them pin you down and shoot craps on your ass!' Words, shouting, empty threats. I'd given up cigarettes, and I was deceiving myself with chewing gum.
'How dare you talk to me like that? Who gave you the right? We will protest in the strongest possible terms to your superiors, and publicly too. You're living in the past, it seems.' His voice was trembling as if he were shivering.
'First of all, it's against the law to publicize a murder before informing the police. We're the ones who decide when to make it known to the public and what evidence to reveal. Secondly, when you make known at what time the body was found, you may be helping the murderer to escape and so, albeit unwittingly, become his accomplice. If you protest, all that will happen is that I will be severely criticized for not arresting you.,,
'I'm a journalist and I did my duty. If Yanna were alive, she'd salute me.'
She'd not only have saluted him, she'd have rubbed her hands in glee because he'd put one over on us. That much I knew to be true, so I said nothing.
'Why was Karayoryi due to appear on the late-night news? So far as I know, there was nothing new on the crime report.'
'She was about to make a startling revelation.'
'What kind of revelation?'
'I don't know. She didn't tell me.'
I became irate again. 'You'd better not be hiding anything from me, Sperantzas, just so you can reveal
