finding her murderer.
'She told me something else, too.'
'What was that?'
'She told me to watch the bulletin, because if anything happened to her, I was to continue the investigation. To be honest, I didn't take what she said at face value. On the contrary, I thought it was spite, that she was saying it to provoke me, and I hung up on her. Perhaps because of the loneliness, perhaps because of my fury at what Yanna had said, I felt suffocated in the house. I got into the car and drove around aimlessly. It was about one o'clock when I got back home.'
'Didn't she tell you what the report was going to be about?'
'No. All she told me was to watch the news.'
'All right.' I called Thanassis and sent her with him to fill out a statement. 'Wait, don't go' I said as she reached the door. I took out the photograph of Karayoryi and the man she'd scrawled over. 'This man here, do you know him?'
She looked at the photograph and laughed out loud.
'Why are you laughing? Do you know him?'
'Of course I know him!'
'Who is it?'
'It's Petratos, the news editor at Hellas Channel. My boss.'
CHAPTER 14
Mina Antonakaki lived on Chryssippou Street in Zografou. I found myself stopping every ten meters on Olof Palme Street, with time enough for a coffee before moving forward again. Throughout the journey I kept seeing Karayoryi's sister before me, sitting on a sofa, with red eyes and a handkerchief in her hand, and I grew steadily more despondent. The headache that had eased a little with the two aspirins started to get worse again. The traffic was as bad on Papandreou Avenue. By the time I turned off on Gaiou Street, my luck changed. I found an empty parking space.
The woman who opened the door was around forty-five and was wearing black. 'Inspector Haritos? Come in. I'm Mina Antonakaki.'
It wasn't often I'd come across sisters so different. If she hadn't told me who she was, I'd have taken her for a friend who'd come to lend a hand. Yanna was tall, thin, and imposing. Mina was a short, plump, nondescript little woman. Yanna was a brunette. Her sister had dark hair but was going gray at the roots. Yanna always looked at you haughtily. This woman had the look of a calf on its way to slaughter, which made you think less of her, and instead of feeling pity, you wanted to shout at her.
She led me into a small living room, had me sit on the sofa, and then sat opposite me. I hadn't been wrong. Her eyes were deep red and she was clutching her handkerchief, but was probably too lazy to use it, finding it less trouble to keep sniffing. Her living room was like mine, like my sister-in-law's, and like all the other living rooms I've seen in twenty-two years on the force: a sofa, two armchairs, a coffee table, two chairs, and a stand for the television.
It seems she sensed my surprise because she said with a bitter smile: 'Yanna and I are not at all alike, are we?' She corrected herself in a subdued voice: 'Weren't alike, I mean.' She paused as if trying to find strength and then continued. 'Yanna took after my mother. I'm more like my father. Though we were very close. We saw each other almost every day. You see, I live pretty much alone with my daughter. My husband is a sailor and is always at sea.'
I could see her lips trembling, and I knew I'd have to be quick before she fell apart or I'd end up picking up the pieces. 'We need some information about your sister, Mrs. Antonakaki. We have to complete the picture so that we'll know where to start looking for her murderer.'
There are some questions that you ask because you want to find out something, or to trap someone or to clarify a matter. And there are others of no particular importance that you ask just to keep someone's mind busy and help them to find their feet. Mina Antonakaki fell into the last category. She attached great importance to what I was about to ask her and braced herself.
'Ask me,' she said. Her voice was steady now.
'When was the last time you saw your sister?'
'The day before yesterday, in the evening. She was going to stop by last night, but she phoned to say something had come up and she couldn't make it.'
'What time did she plan to stop by?'
'She usually came around nine and stayed for a couple of hours.'
'And what time did she phone you?'
'It must have been around six.'
So it was at about six o'clock that she decided to drop her bombshell on the late-night news. But if she'd already made the decision at six, why didn't she appear on the nine o'clock news, which is watched by many more people, instead of waiting for the late-night news?
'Mrs. Antonakaki, what do you know about your sister's relationship with a Mr. Petratos?'
'Petratos?' She seemed alarmed and repeated the name mechanically. 'What should I know about it?'
'Your sister had an affair with Petratos and left him. It's no secret. Everyone knows about it. Did Yanna ever talk to you about him?'
She hesitated and said reluctantly, 'All I know is that it wasn't an affair as you or I would understand it.'
'What exactly was it?' I said.
'That's something only she could tell you.' She said quickly. Then she applied the brakes and began searching for the right words. 'She didn't have a very high opinion of him. She thought him ridiculous and made fun of him. He's an asshole, she'd say, if you'll pardon the expression. But those were her exact words. He didn't know if he was coming or going. And when I asked her how a big-time news editor for a TV channel could be an asshole, she simply laughed. He goes on because he's a panderer and a yes-man, she'd tell me. He runs after Delopoulos like a little puppy and agrees with everything he says.' She stopped to take a breath; her words were now coming out with more difficulty. 'And when she made love to him, she felt sick and was repelled by him. A forty-year-old lump, and he still doesn't know how to make love, she'd say. I have to take him by the hand and lead him along, like a kiddy in the park.'
'If she didn't want him, why did she stay with him?' I asked, though I knew the answer.
'Because she was using him. There you have it, straight, just as she told me herself. She got involved with him and got into Hellas Channel on a good salary. She gritted her teeth and slept with him so he'd give her the position she wanted and so she'd have direct access to Delopoulos. And as soon as she had that, she dumped him. I remember it as if it were today. It was just after her success with Kolakoglou that Delopoulos said to her, `From today, Yanna, you have my permission to run whatever story you want on the news bulletin: She jumped with joy, and she told me that the very next day she was going to give Petratos his marching orders.'
My mind went to the scrawled-over face on the photograph. She'd take him out of her drawer, look at him, and feel pleased with herself, and she'd made him exactly as she'd seen him.
'What is Mr. Petratos's first name? Do you know?'
'Nestor, I think. Nestor Petratos.'
So, not Nikos, or Notis, or Nikitas, but Nestor. The unknown N on the letters. Lady Luck was smiling on me, but too readily. I restrained myself so as not to fall into her trap.
'I've kept nothing from you,' Antonakaki went on, 'because Yanna kept nothing hidden either. She told me everything, bit by bit.' She let out a sigh. 'But it wasn't only Petratos. My sister was repelled by men in general, Inspector.'
'Why was that?'
'What can I say? She said that we women have to put up with the worst things in the world because of men, and they always do what they want to us even though they're worthless cowards. And that you should only keep them as long as they're of use to you, then you should get rid of them. `Do you know why I'm sad?' she'd say to me. `Because being a lesbian isn't my style: My hair would stand on end.'
Yanna Karayoryi appeared before me with her arrogant smile, her haughty air, ready to show her scorn for
