She laughed, as though what I'd said seemed genuinely funny to her. "Is that what they told you? That she did as she pleased because she was sleeping with the boss?" Her laughter stopped abruptly. "You're quite wrong. Yanna was smart and methodical. When she came to the channel, she undertook the medical reporting, but she wasn't particularly interested in it because there was nothing sensational, no hard-hitting news. Just the occasional mention at the end of the news bulletin. Inside a month, she'd got herself involved with Petratos, the news editor. It took her another two weeks to get her hands on my job. But I have to be honest with you. She wasn't only ambitious, she was talented too, much more talented than me. She came up with exclusive reports, delved into cases, unmasked people. She latched on to the Kolakoglou case and forced Delopoulos to give her the freedom to explore as she wished. Once that happened, she gave Petratos the boot. Of course, he took it badly. He would have been happy to have been shut of her, but it was too late, he couldn't say anything to her anymore." She fell silent and once again let out a sigh, as if relieved to have got that much off her chest. "No, Yanna didn't need to sleep with Delopoulos in order to have clout. She managed it with her talent. She used Petratos to get her chance, but everything else she did on her own."
I hadn't liked Karayoryi at all and I'd branded her a lesbian. Sotiropoulos, who also disliked her, and who in his Robespierre role defended all the people on society's fringes, preferred to call her a nympho and a slut. And now this half-baked girl had come along to put things in their proper place. I began to feel a certain respect for Kostarakou, but my instinct told me not to get carried away. What if her honesty was simply a front?
"Where were you last night between ten and twelve?"
"Alone at home, like every other night," she said calmly, almost sorrowfully. "First with a salad, then with a whiskey, and always with the TV on." She stopped, looked me in the eye, and added with barely perceptible emphasis: "Till eleven, when Yanna called me."
"Karayoryi phoned you at eleven?"
"Yes. To tell me that she had a report ready for the late-night news that would cause a sensation."
Who else had she told apart from Kostarakou and Sperantzas? If I found that out, I'd be getting closer to 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."