'You're such a sweetie,' she cried, overjoyed that she'd succeeded, and I simply melted. 'And because you're the sweetest daddy in the world, I'll tell you something else. Sismanis, my criminal law tutor, suggested that I do a doctorate with him. He even told me that he'd manage to dig up some funds from somewhere so I could work in the department and get paid.'
'Well done, my princess!' I wanted to shout, but my voice cracked with pride and emotion.
'I kept that for last to put you in a good mood. Anyway, I'm going to hang up now, otherwise I'll spend my whole lunch break on the phone. You have best wishes from Panos.'
We'd never talked about it, but she knew I couldn't stomach that hulk that she dragged around with her. But she always gives me his best wishes. It's her way of telling me that she's still with him.
'Give him mine too,' I said, politely but halfheartedly.
I heard her hang up and I put down the receiver. They'd all gone out of my mind, Karayoryi, Kolakoglou, Petratos, all of them, leaving only Katerina. Who was she after all? The daughter of a police inspector, who'd begun as a cop, who'd taken twenty-five years to get to be head of homicide and who'd never been able to learn the trick to make that big stride forward. It wasn't as if she had any background or had gone to the best schools; she'd attended the local high school and had had a few lessons on the side, and that only in the last year before the university entrance exams. Now look at her. They were telling her to go on to do a doctorate even before she'd taken her first degree. And look at me, I thought to myself. I'm running myself down, humbling myself in order to increase my happiness, to make myself feel even more proud of her.
I made an effort to come back down to earth, because I was ready to let the sleuth reporter, the defaced news editor, and the pederast tax consultant go to hell. I called Sotiris on the internal line. I told him to find out everything he could about Petratos. Who he mixed with at the studio, who he was at odds with, who his friends were, the places he frequented. And above all, what time he'd left the studio on the night of the murder, if anyone had seen him leaving, and where he'd gone after he left. And all that discreetly, without him getting wind of the inquiries.
When Sotiris had gone, I realized that I had to do everything in my life discreetly, and I began cursing my fate. I had to be discreet with Petratos so that Delopoulos wouldn't find out and make my life difficult. I had to be discreet with Adriani so as not to upset Katerina. I had to be discreet with Ghikas so as not to lose points. Fortunately, at that moment, Thanassis came in to say that the patrol car was ready and stopped me sinking any further into the pit.
CHAPTER 18
It wasn't raining now, but the sky and I had that popular song in common. Gray clouds and gray moods. Kolakoglou's mother lived in Kallithea, on Argonafton Street, which ran parallel to Davaki Street. I told the driver to switch the siren on; otherwise we'd have taken an hour to get from Vassileos Konstantinou Avenue to Amalias Avenue and then to Thiseos Street. Fortunately, the traffic wasn't too heavy on Thiseos Street and we switched off the siren because it gets on my nerves. We soon got to Davaki Street. It took us less than five minutes to get from there to Argonafton Street.
Mrs. Kolakoglou lived on the second floor of a four-story building. It was a cheap construction that had already begun decaying. The balconies had iron railings and geraniums. The builder skimped on the railings and the tenants on the geraniums. I told the sergeant who had come with me to ring one of the other bells. Not that Kolakoglou would have been there, but you never know. We didn't want to warn him and let him get away.
There were four flats on the second floor. Mrs. Kolakoglou's was next to the elevator. She opened the door as though she'd been expecting us. She was a shriveled, gray-haired old woman dressed in black. She may have been in mourning for her husband and for the calamity that had befallen her four years previously. She didn't know me, but as soon as she set eyes on the others in uniform, she froze. I pushed her aside and entered the flat.
'Search it!' I said to the others in a tough voice. 'Turn everything upside down!' But what was there to turn upside down? A living room and two bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom, seventy square meters at most. The first bedroom was the mother's; the second was the son's. I went into the second one. The bed had a cover and embroidered pillows. On the bedside table was an alarm clock, a battery-operated radio, and a box of sleeping pills. I opened the fitted cupboards. Three suits, not tailored ones but ready-to-wear, and five shirts that Sotiropoulos would never have worn, because they weren't Armani, but had the air of a factory. They were all hanging in a row and with space between them so that they wouldn't get creased. The meticulousness of the housewife.
'He's not here, I swear it.' I heard her whimpering voice behind me.
I spun around. 'Where is he?' I snapped.
'I don't know.'
'You do know and you're hiding him.'
'No, I swear. I don't know and I'm worried.'
'If you want what's best for him, tell him to come out of hiding because it'll end badly for him. He's looking at a life sentence.'
'Why a life sentence? What has he done?'
I didn't answer because I didn't know the answer. 'When did you see him last?'
'On the day they killed-' She couldn't get Karayoryi's name out. 'On the day they killed her. He went out early that evening. I waited for him at night, but he didn't come back. He called me to say he was all right and told me not to worry.'
'What time did he call?'
'About one in the morning. I'd gone to bed and he woke me.'
He disappeared because he'd murdered Karayoryi or because he was scared when he saw it on the TV and so went into hiding?
'Where might he be hiding? Does he have any friends or relatives?'
'We don't have anyone. They all turned their backs on Petros and me. There's just the two of us now.' Her shriveled body collapsed on the bed and she began weeping. 'He wasn't even a month in his own home. I left the old neighborhood and came here, where no one knows him, to change surroundings and help him to forget. And in less than a month, he's on the run again like a wild animal.'
'Where did you live before?'
'In Keratsini. But people kept pointing ine out, and I couldn't live there anymore.'
The sergeant came in and indicated to me that they had found nothing. I didn't expect them to find anything. It was simply a ruse. If any reporter asked her, she'd say that we'd been around looking for him. I was shutting mouths, as Ghikas would say.
'Tell your son to come out of hiding. Sooner or later we'll find him. He's only making it worse for himself.'
'If he calls me, I'll tell him,' she said, between sobs. Even if she did tell him, he'd follow the first rule of prison, which teaches you to hide and stay there, whether you're guilty or not.
When I got back to the station, I found Sotiropoulos standing in front of my office door, waiting for me.
'What are you doing here at this time? Have you run out of stories?' Usually by one o'clock they'd all gone back to their studios to get their reports ready.
He smiled and followed me into the room. 'It's my turn to make a little coup.'
He sat down and stretched out his legs to his great pleasure. I pretended not to hear what he'd said and thumbed through the papers that I'd read that morning as though I was revising my lesson.
'Be quick about it, because I'm up to my neck.'
'Just between us, honestly now, do you think it was Kolakoglou who killed her?'
'I don't know. We're trying to find him. When we do, we'll question him. I'll let you know.'
He laughed again. 'You're wasting your time. All that's bullshit thought up by Petratos. Only an idiot like Petratos would go on air with a red herring like that.'
'It's no red herring. He threatened Karayoryi in public, or have you forgotten?'
'Pity, I thought you were smarter than that. Kolakoglou is small fry. A pervert, but small fry. He did his thing by using candy and chocolate. Can you imagine him killing anyone, and in such a savage way? Not to mention that he might have also ended up a victim.'
'Victim? How come?'
He had succeeded in getting my attention. Behind his round glasses, he had a wily glint in his eyes, just like
