"You're wrong," I said quietly. "There are others who had motives too. Even you."
He stared at me open-mouthed and the image of the doughboy was complete. He couldn't decide whether I'd said it seriously or in jest. In the end, he evidently plumped for the latter, because he let out a howl of merriment.
"Me? You are pulling my leg, of course."
I didn't reply, but turned to the newscaster, who was trying to recover his poise. "Would you leave us, please?"
The newscaster was taken aback and didn't know what to do. He responded, however, to Petratos's nod and got up.
"I don't like your tone at all, Inspector," he said to me icily.
"Nor I yours, especially when you're presenting the news." It left him speechless. He would happily have slammed the door behind him, but it was made of aluminum and he was probably afraid of bringing the whole cubicle down behind him.
"So, Inspector? What motive did I have for killing Yanna Karayoryi?"
"You had an affair with her. She used you to scramble up the ladder, and when she'd got where she wanted, she dumped you."
He made an effort to maintain his ironic smile but failed, because he hadn't liked what he'd heard.
"Who told you that?"
"We asked and we found out. That's our job."
"Just because we had an affair and split up-I stress that she didn't dump me, we split up-that doesn't mean that I had a reason to kill her."
"I heard it differently, Mr. Petratos. You didn't split up, she dumped you as soon as she had direct access to Mr. Delopoulos and could do as she liked without having to go through you. She offended not only your male but also your professional pride. You would have given anything to teach her a lesson, but she had Mr. Delopoulos behind her. You could neither control her nor fire her. And from what I know of Karayoryi, she would have made sure she re minded you of that every working day, which of course made you furious." If I'd had the photographs with me, I'd have stuck them in his undefaced face, but I'd left them in my office.
He was fuming inside but was trying hard to appear calm. "That's all speculation on your part, there's no evidence whatsoever for it."
"It's not speculation. It's the conclusion from statements made by witnesses. Karayoryi's murder has all the elements of a crime of passion. That fits Kolakoglou's case, but it also fits yours, given that you'd written her threatening letters."
His surprise seemed genuine, at least as genuine as a journalist could get. "Me?" he said after some time. "I wrote Yanna threatening letters?"
"We found them in the drawer of her desk. In the last one you openly threaten her."
"And is my signature on those letters?"
Now it was me who was in a tight spot. "You signed them N. Your name is Nestor, if I'm not mistaken."
"And because you found some threatening letters signed by someone with the initial N, you automatically concluded that I wrote them? What can I say? The police force should be proud of you."
I ignored the insult and said, very calmly: "It's easy for us to prove who's right. The letters are written by hand. Give me a sample of your handwriting and I'll compare it with that on the letters."
"No!" he answered in a rage. "If you want a sample of my handwriting, you can take me down to the station for interrogation and ask for it officially, in the presence of my lawyer! And if you're wrong, I'll drag your name through the gutters!"
And the whole of the police force with it. From the minister down. I'd be lucky to get away with a transfer to the VIP guard.
"First, you have to prove that I had the opportunity to kill her. Yanna came to the studio at around eleven-thirty. I'd left by ten. At least four people saw me leaving."
"They saw you entering the elevator. That doesn't necessarily mean that you left."
"So where did I hide? In a cupboard or maybe inside a wardrobe?"
"In the parking lot," I said. "You took the elevator down to the parking garage, hid there, and came back up just before the latenight news."
So far I'd been doing quite well, but then he lost his temper, jumped to his feet, and started shouting: "You won't get away with this. You can't go around making unfounded accusations."
"What accusations?" I said in all innocence. "Weren't you the one to suggest we exchange information? I'm giving you what I have. You can hardly complain."
By the time he realized that he'd walked into the trap, I was outside his office.
As I crossed the newsroom, some young reporters who were still at their desks turned and looked at me inquisitively. I walked out without paying any attention to them. I'd pressed the button for the elevator when, coming down the corridor, I saw Kostarakou.
"Hello," she said rather formally and walked on past me. I let the elevator go and went after her.
"Are you sure that Karayoryi didn't say anything else to you on the phone?"
"I told you all I know this morning," she said coldly. "There's nothing more. Because of you, I got into hot water with Petratos."
"Did you say anything to Petratos about the photograph I showed you?"
"Of course not. If I'd told him about the photograph as well, he'd have canned me on the spot, given the vile mood he was in."
"If Karayoryi spoke to you on the phone about the story she was preparing, it would be better for you to tell me now, before it's too late."
She didn't even trouble to reply. She shot me a poisonous look and walked off.
When I stepped out of the elevator, I ran into the backstreet marine. He puffed up his body, his arms and legs apart.
"Here again? Any developments?"
"Why do you always stand like that with your legs apart? Are you chapped?" I asked, and went off to find some souvlaki.
CHAPTER 17
"The profile fits at any rate."
It was the first time he'd used the English word profile. I made a note to look it up later in the OED. It was nine-thirty in the morning and I was giving my report to Ghikas concerning Kolakoglou. He guessed that I hadn't understood "profile" and was waiting to see how I'd react. But I was wise to what he meant-that Kolakoglou would do quite nicely for the murderer-and I began listing everything that didn't ring true. It didn't ring true that Kolakoglou had gone to the studio and risked being recognized. It didn't ring true that he'd have gone without a murder weapon if he'd gone to kill her. And I reminded him that Kolakoglou was not the only suspect.
"I know," he said. "We have the unknown N and his letters."
"Did you know that Petratos's name is Nestor…?"
He studied me in silence. He was trying to connect the man in the photograph with the Nestor of the letters, and the two seemed to him to fit, just as they seemed to me to fit. "Stay away from Petratos," he said. "You won't go near him unless you have enough incriminating evidence to convince me. I don't want to find myself at daggers drawn with the minister."
His look stopped me in my tracks and I didn't dare to tell him about the conversation I'd had with Petratos the previous evening. If he found out that I'd asked him for a sample of his handwriting, he'd have my ass.
"Find Kolakoglou quickly and get him behind bars."
This was a classic way for a superior to say to his subordinate: "All right, I've listened to your bullshit, now do what you have to." He wanted the tidy solution, just like Delopoulos, Petratos, the newscaster, and everybody else. No complications and no ministerial in terventions because of the involvement of upstanding citizens, etc. The reprobate was the easy solution. Always.
"The only incriminating evidence we have on Kolakoglou is that he threatened Karayoryi after the trial. What if he can prove that he was elsewhere at the time of the murder?"
"The alibi of a pederast with a criminal record doesn't hold water," he said. "When all's said and done, he should have spent six years in prison and he got away with three. It won't hurt him to spend another couple of weeks in jail. He's used to it."