me. You see, I was in the same category as Petratos and Delopoulos and all the others. Okay, she may not have been a lesbian, I may not have got it entirely right, but I'd been close.
'For a time, she tried to get me away from myVassos,'Antonakaki went on. 'She said he was worthless too, and she made my life a misery trying to get me to leave him. But my Vassos is nothing like her Petratos. He's a good husband, a good father, and works like a dog at sea to keep us, me and Anna. Don't worry, I'd tell her, one day you'll find a man who's right for you and then you'll see that things aren't as you think.'
At this last memory, she broke down and the weeping started again. This time, however, she remembered her handkerchief and wiped her nose instead of sniffing. I didn't even try to comfort her because my mind was fixed on Karayoryi's affair with Petratos. On Yanna and her defaced Nestor.
'All right, that's enough. You've been crying all morning. You've even got the police coming to you, when you should be running about trying to find out what's gone on. As if crying's going to change anything.'
I turned and saw a girl in the doorway. She must have been about the same age as Katerina, possibly a little younger. I stared at her open-mouthed.
'My daughter, Anna,' I heard Antonakaki say.
It was as if Yanna Karayoryi were there, twenty years younger, roughly the age in the photograph on her identity card. She was a tall, slender girl, with the same austere beauty and the same arrogant look that Yanna had. As if nature had taken all the features of the sister and given them to the niece. The girl wasn't wearing black. She was dressed simply in a T-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. She stood there, cold and haughty, and turned her gaze toward me. I was overwhelmed by a desire to ignore her, just as I'd ignored her aunt. Not out of arrogance or antagonism, but because deep down I was afraid of getting into an argument with her. I preferred the mother, who wanted to talk in order to unburden herself.
'Had your sister spoken to you about some big story that she was about to break last night?'
'No. Yanna never spoke to me about her work.'
'Do you know if she was being threatened? If she was afraid for her life?'
The girl got in first. 'She was afraid,' she said. 'She was constantly afraid. She said that one day she'd come to a bad end. She laughed about it, but deep down she believed it. My aunt was a difficult person. When she got something into her head, she wouldn't rest, even if all hell broke loose around her.'
'Anna, what are you saying?' her mother cried, terrified.
'The truth.' She calmly turned back to me. 'My aunt liked getting people's backs up. It amused her, but it also frightened her. Once, after I told her I wanted to become a reporter, she spent months browbeating me, trying to get me to change my mind. She listed all the disadvantages: how the profession had become degraded, how you now had to crawl or be cunning, and how everyone else was just waiting for you to slip up. And how she made so many compromises that what she ought to have done every morning was to spit at herself in the mirror. In the end, she convinced me, and I went to medical school.'
'Anna, please! I won't allow you to insult Yanna's memory like that!'
The girl gave her mother a cold, angry look. I felt, however, that the look was simply a mask and that the person behind it was ready to burst into tears.
My headache had returned. I could barely hold my head up. A terrible feeling of tiredness came over me, and I stood up. I couldn't think of anything else to ask.
'Thank you. If we require any further information, we will call you.'
The mother nodded good-bye to me, as she'd begun to weep again. The daughter got up with a blank expression to show me out. I was reaching for the front door latch when she stopped me.
'Inspector-'
'Yes.'
'Nothing-,' she said quickly, as if thinking better of it.
'You were going to say something.'
'No. If I had wanted to say something, I would have said it.'
She clammed up and became aggressive in order to cut me short. I realized that I'd better not pursue it. Perhaps she'd been in too much of a hurry and needed time to think.
'Anyway, if you want to reach me, your mother has my number,' I said, giving her a friendly smile. She gave me an indifferent look and closed the door.
From Chryssippou Street, I emerged once again onto Papandreou Avenue and turned down Olof Palme Street. My mind was on the relationship between Karayoryi and Petratos. Antonakaki had told me that they'd broken up right after the Kolakoglou affair. But the letters from N began a year after the Kolakoglou case. If Petratos was the letter writer, then the relationship must have continued in some other form and ended in threats. I made a mental note to get hold of a sample of Petratos's handwriting to compare it with that of the unknown N. The other matter tormenting me was why Karayoryi had chosen to appear on the late-night news.
From Hymettou Street, I turned onto Iphicratous Street and looked for a place to park somewhere between Protesilaou, Aroni, and Aristokleous Streets. Naturally, I didn't find one and I began the same old business, just like every other evening: going around and around the block till I came across someone leaving their space.
Light rain was falling, fine like mist. My head was splitting and I was cursing when, all of a sudden, I spotted Thanassis at the corner of Tzavela and Aristokleous Streets pacing back and forth and glancing first down one street then down the other. I pulled up beside him and rolled down the window.
'What's up? Has anything happened?' I asked him, alarmed. For him to have come all the way out there meant that something truly serious was going on. He opened the door and got into the car. He sat beside me in silence.
'Why didn't you go to my house instead of standing outside and getting wet?'
'I wanted to see you alone.'
He took a deep breath. Somebody else who was taking deep breaths. Everyone I'd come into contact with that day was either crying or sighing. I couldn't stay put on the corner. I drove away and once more began going around and around the block.
'I was with her last night. That's why I wanted to see you alone. I didn't want to tell you in front of others.'
I froze. I stepped on the brake without thinking. The Mirafiori shook and came to a halt, while the driver behind me started sounding his horn, enraged. But I could hear nothing. My eyes were fixed on Thanassis. He avoided them and looked out through the windshield.
'Why did you send me?' he said. 'I didn't want to go. You were the one who forced me to go.'
I knew where he was leading. If the next day it got around that he was with Karayoryi just before she was murdered, he'd say that I'd sent him, that he was carrying out my orders. Of course, I'd made it clear to him from the very first that I'd take full responsibility, but he was reminding me just in case, so that he wouldn't have to worry his head. He might tell me every morning at nine that he was a moron, but as soon as things got rough, he used that to duck all responsibility. I didn't hold it against him. In his position I would have done the same. If Thanassis were found to be mixed up in Karayoryi's murder, there'd be such a scandal that Ghikas would undoubtedly have me suspended. The thought made me shudder. 'Where did you go with her?' I asked, to get some idea of who might have seen them together.
'To a small bar-restaurant in Psyrri, near Agion Anargyron Square.'
So that's why she'd phoned her sister to say that she wouldn't be able to make it. Not because of any revelation, but because she'd arranged to go out with Thanassis.
'Did anyone see you?'
'Just a couple, friends of hers, but she didn't introduce me. Nobody I knew saw us, I'm sure, because it was one of those places for those poseurs who pretend to be lowlife and hang about between Psyrri, Gazi, and Metaxourgeio.'
'Where did you meet?'
'In Agion Anargyron Square. We went in separate cars.' He thought a moment and said: 'The only place we might have been seen together was when I waited for her in front of the church while she went to the kiosk for cigarettes. Then again, I doubt it.'
'What time was that?'
'Just after nine.... We were going to meet at nine, but she was about fifteen minutes late.' He quickly added, 'Don't worry, I didn't get out. I waited for her in the car. In any case, I was careful.'
