And during those ten minutes, the murderer entered the studios as easily as he pleased.
I let him go back to his post and took the elevator down to the parking lot. It was filled pretty tight at that time of day. Only one man was getting ready to leave. I stood there and waited for him. He opened the door with a magnetic card. I timed it. It took ten seconds to go up, remained open for another ten, and took another ten to close. Thirty seconds. It was not unlikely that the murderer had gone out by the main gate. He hadn't known whether the guard would be missing from his post and would have been afraid to risk it. He'd hidden in the parking lot, waited for the first car to leave and had walked out behind it, before the door had closed.
The elevator stopped on the ground floor and Petratos got in. He was surprised to see me. He shot me a hostile glance and adopted his tight-lipped expression.
'I was just coming to see you,' I said.
'I thought we'd finished.'
'I was coming to ask for your help. You owe me.'
'Why do I owe you anything?'
'Because if you hadn't made Kolakoglou into a red rag for your own channel's bull, he wouldn't have gone into hiding and we'd have caught the murderer much sooner.'
'So it was him, eh? I knew it!' he said triumphantly.
'You know damn all,' I told him brusquely.
My reply made the atmosphere even more hostile and we didn't exchange another word all the way to his office. As we passed the newsroom, the reporters all looked at us curiously.
'Be brief,' he said coldly, as he sat down. 'This is the time we prepare the nine o'clock news and we're busy as hell.'
'When did Karayoryi begin her career in journalism?' I asked him.
'In 'seventy-five, if I remember correctly.'
'How did she begin?'
'Same as all of us. From newspapers, magazines. Afterward, when commercial radio began, she got into radio. And finally into TV.'
'Could she have worked anywhere before 'seventy-five?'
He thought about it. 'Now that you mention it, she once told me something about having once worked for National TV or the Armed Forces Channel. But I don't remember when that was.'
'Fine. That's all I wanted,' I said and got to my feet.
Late that evening, Adriani and Katerina called me. Adriani was over the moon about Panos. What a good kid he was, how he'd taken care of her, how he'd prepared the Christmas meal on his own, and how well he cooked. Her praises left me in tatters.
'Was it worth your while staying in Athens?' Katerina asked me, when she came to the phone. 'Have you solved the mystery?'
'I've solved it, but I don't like it:' I told her.
« ?„ v~ ~1Y•
'Never mind. You'll find out soon enough.'
My headache didn't seem as if it would go. I wanted to go to bed but it wasn't an option. I had to go out and deal with some heavy stuff.
CHAPTER 45
We were in his living room, which didn't look at all like Antonakaki's living room or mine. An old sofa, a leftover from the fifties, a Formica table with four plastic chairs, the kind sold by gypsies for a thousand drachmas. The table was covered with a hand-embroidered cloth. The table and chairs he'd bought himself. The sofa and tablecloth had been left by his parents.
He spoke slowly, with difficulty. Every so often, he passed his tongue over his lips.
'I met her when she was working at the Armed Forces Channel. That's when it all started.' He stopped and tried to gather his thoughts. 'You won't believe me, but I can't recall what year it was. I've forgotten.'
'It was 'seventy-three. I had it confirmed by one of the technicians from the National Network, who remembered it.'
'You're right. It was 'seventy-three. She was working on a police program and she'd been sent to do a report on the academy. She came in during one of our classes to ask us questions. When the lesson was over, she was waiting for me outside. She told me that she wanted to ask me a few more questions. I was afraid of getting into any trouble and I said no. But she reassured me. `Don't worry. If there's anything objectionable, they'll cut it anyway,' she said. That's how we met.' He let out a sigh.
'And so you saw each other again.'
'We went out a couple of times. Then she introduced me to her friends, but without telling them that I was at the police academy. She introduced me as a law student. Yanna and her student friend. That's how they referred to us.'
We sat at the table and stared at each other, just as we stared at each other every morning. Except that now, he was looking me straight in the eye, and not a fraction higher as he usually did.
'Tell me about the child. When did that happen?'
'It must have happened in August, when we went on vacation together. She told me in October.'
The memory upset him and his voice grew hoarse. 'I told her she must keep it. I'm from a village and when one of us gets a girl pregnant, we marry her. That's how I was brought up. But it wasn't just that. I was in love with her. I know how it is when you're only twenty-one. You fall in love at the drop of a hat. But we'd spent three weeks on our own in the islands and when we came back I couldn't bear to be apart from her for even one second. So I told her to keep it and that I'd marry her. She burst out laughing. `Are you completely mad?' was what she said. `I want a career as a journalist and you expect me to burden myself with a brat and a policeman in uniform for a husband? No way. I'm going to get rid of it. 'I begged her. I kept telling her how much I loved her and how much I wanted the child. My passion scared her and she decided that we should split up. I went off my head. From begging her, I began threatening her. And after that she disappeared. She resigned from the Armed Forces Channel, moved, changed her phone number, and I couldn't find her anywhere. I became so depressed that I left the academy.'
It was then that she'd decided to keep the child and give it to her sister. But Thanassis didn't know that.
'Then, suddenly, years later, I saw her one day at the station, right there in front of me. I was stunned. She was friendly and suggested that we go for a coffee. And while we were having a coffee, out of the blue she said: `Your daughter is doing fine. She's nineteen now.' Can you imagine the shock? I'd begged her to keep it and she'd left me so that she could get rid of it. Because of her, I'd left the academy, and suddenly, all these years later, she told me she'd kept the child and that she was now nineteen years old. I told her I wanted to see the girl, but Yanna wouldn't hear of it.'
He stopped, to catch his breath. He moistened his lips. Now he was talking without looking at me, as he'd covered his face with his hands. 'I had an overwhelming urge to see my daughter. Don't ask me why. I don't know. Maybe it was because I had wanted the child so much. Or perhaps I simply dug in my heels because she'd deceived me. Probably both. When I saw that insisting wasn't getting me anywhere, I started to follow her. So, of course, I discovered that my daughter didn't live with her. And not only that, but no one around her seemed to be aware that she even had a daughter. The more I searched, the more my insistence turned into an obsession. I wanted to see my child.'
How could she have shown her to him? She had turned her over to Antonakaki.
'One day, she came and said to me that I could meet the child if I did her a favor. She wanted me to give her all the reports that came into the department with connections to the buying and selling of children.'
'And you gave them to her.'
'I gave them to her because I didn't think I was doing anything criminal. All reporters get their information from somewhere. But when I asked her about the child, she kept stringing me along.'
'And so you began writing letters to her and threatening her?'
'Yes.'
'And why did you sign yourself N?'
