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 Himmler when he flushed out Jews hidden in attics.
"Have you been around to Kolakoglou's old office recently?"
"No. Neither recently nor in the past. I've never been there."
"You'll find yourself in an enormous office for what it is, accounting and tax matters. They're lousy with money. And do you know who owns it?"
"Who?"
"The parents of the two girls. They banded together and kept the business going." He fell silent and stared at me. I waited for him to go on. "Who's to say they didn't get him denounced as a pederast to get their hands on his business? Kolakoglou was fond of the two little girls, he never tried to hide it. It wasn't difficult for the parents to claim that there was some grubbier motive behind the sweets and cakes. And it's easy to tell two little girls what to say. I'm not saying that that's what happened, but it's worth looking into. The girls must be in high school now. If I can talk to them, they might have a very different story to tell today."
He came out with it all in one go. He took a deep breath and stared at me, pleased as punch with himself. Before we came up with Karayoryi's murderer, we'd end up with a dozen indictments, a couple of suicides, and who knows what else.
"If I turn out to be right, that'll be the coup de grace for Petratos. He's already on the way out."
"Petratos?"
"Didn't you know? Delopoulos has him lined up for dismissal. But what with Karayoryi's murder and everything, he's safe for the time being. That's why he stirred up all the business with Kolakoglou. He's desperate for a big story so as to keep his job. But he's made a pig's ear of that too." He adopted his wily look again. "Word has it that Delopoulos had Karayoryi earmarked for his job."
"Why didn't you tell me all this yesterday?" I said curtly.
"What was there to tell? There was no Kolakoglou on the scene yesterday. He came into the equation last night." He thought he'd left me speechless. "I didn't say anything to you yesterday, because I didn't know anything. Now that I do know, I've come to tell you. It shows my good intentions." He got to his feet, but he didn't leave. He stood there, looking at me. "You owe me one," he said.
Of course, I was under no delusion that everything he'd told me was purely out of kindness. "Okay, but all I can give you is a postdated check. When I learn something, I'll let you know."
"Come on, Inspector. What did you get out of Kolakoglou's mother?" he asked in a tone that showed there was nothing he didn't know.
"Nothing. He disappeared on the day of the murder and hasn't been home since. All he did was call to say he was all right. At least, that's what his mother says."
He didn't believe me, but that didn't bother him, especially as he'd come with another purpose. He'd wanted to make Petratos seem unreliable and he'd succeeded. Why did Petratos keep cropping up? Without knowing it, Sotiropoulos had provided me with another piece of information. Karayoryi had wanted his job, and so he'd had another reason to hate her. What man wouldn't hate the bitch who first used him, then dumped him, and finally stole his job?