Pylarinos looked up slowly from the lists. "Do you have the evidence to back up your accusations, Superintendent?" he said. Ghikas glanced at me. Here, he couldn't sum it up in five lines as he did when making statements to the press. He left the explanation to me.
"Let me take things one by one. First of all, we have the Albanian who murdered the couple. Then he is himself murdered in prison. The girl who worked in the nursery recognized him from the photograph taken at the hospital. Among his possessions we found the address of Eleni Dourou, the sister of Demos Sovatzis. We know, too, that all the checks carried out on your refrigerator trucks returning to Greece from Albania were carried out by the same customs officer, by the name of Hourdakis. When we wanted to question him, he disappeared. We have Eleni Dourou's nursery, where we found only Albanian children. We have the English couple that visited the nursery and were evidently interested in one particular child. And finally, we have this."
I took the photograph of Sovatzis with the Czech out of the file and handed it to him. He examined it.
"One of them is Sovatzis, of course. Do you know the other man?"
He hesitated slightly. Then he answered categorically: "No, I've never met the man."
Bastard, I thought to myself. I'd like to see your ugly face after I show you the photograph of the four of you at the nightclub. "He's a Czech by the name of Gustav Krenek, who claims to be a businessman, though we have grounds to believe that he works with Sovatzis. Look at the date."
He noticed it for the first time. "November 17, 1990," he muttered.
You took them to a nightclub, and three days later they were plotting behind your back.
"Does that jog your memory?"
"No," he said again, but without the initial self-confidence.
Ghikas shot a glance at me and then turned to Pylarinos. "We have no doubt whatsoever, Mr. Pylarinos, that Demos Sovatzis uses his position in your business to carry out illegal activities."
"You understand, of course, that I know nothing about this."
"We know that you have no involvement. That's why we thought it proper to inform you before we speak to Sovatzis. We do not wish to put anything in motion without your knowing about it."
I'd known him for three years, yet every time I saw him perform, I couldn't help admiring him. With all that sucking up to Pylarinos, it was certain the minister would hear of how effectively and how discreetly he had handled the matter. That's how the points added up, Haritos!
"Is it possible that he's the murderer of the two reporters?" Pylarinos asked Ghikas.
"We're still not sure, but there is no doubt that he is somehow involved."
Pylarinos looked at the photograph again. He clutched it between his fingers and jumped up, furious. "The bastard!" he said. "I pay him a substantial salary, he gets a cut of the profits, and all that's still not enough for him! Ungrateful swine!"
"We need your help, Mr. Pylarinos," Ghikas said. "It's to your own advantage that we clear this matter up quickly and discreetly."
He stressed the word discreetly and Pylarinos liked that. "Tell me what you want me to do."
Ghikas turned again to me, as I was the one who'd gotten my hands dirty. "We want the names and addresses of the drivers of the refrigerator trucks that are on the list. Also, a list of the refrigerator trucks that made trips to Albania during the last six months, together with the drivers' names. We want the names of the passengers on the charters and package tours referred to in the second list."
"You'll have all that information before the day is out, Superintendent."
"I would also ask you not to say anything to Sovatzis about all this," Ghikas added. "Give us time to collect the rest of the evidence first. We can't exclude the possibility of him being party to the murders."
"That will be difficult, but you have my word on it.
He handed me the photograph. I put it back into the file and closed it. Pylarinos turned to Ghikas. He spoke to him, but he was addressing both of us.
"Gentlemen, I'm most grateful to you that you had the kindness to inform me of this melancholy business."
At least he was more polite than Petratos and Delopoulos, I thought to myself, as I watched him to the door.
Ghikas leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh of relief. "That's over with," he said.
He had every reason to be pleased. But I would have liked to bring Pylarinos in, too, even if I fell flat on my face.
CHAPTER 39
I was sitting in front of the TV with a plastic bag on my lap. The bag contained a souviaki with all the trimmings, a bifteki with all the trimmings, a kebab with all the trimmings, and a portion of chips that had been hot when they went into the bag and had now become mush. I separated them mouthful by mouthful and ate them. I didn't use a plate, because I enjoyed eating the souvlaki like a gypsy. If Adriani had seen me then, she would have punished me with a weeklong suspension of contact between us.
The news featured a full report on Hourdakis. Where he was from, when he entered the army, where he served, everything. They had discovered his house, but his wife and mother-in-law had locked themselves inside and wouldn't come out. So they had to limit themselves to showing the tower from the Mani that had been transplanted in Milessi and to expressing the surprise that I felt when I'd first seen it: Where had a customs officer found the money for a house like that? The son, whom they tracked down in the street, was uncommunicative. Yes, he'd been called by the police to tell them where his father was. All he knew was that he was away. The reporters told him that a warrant had been issued for his arrest. "My father will answer any questions the police may have as soon as he gets back," he said with a conviction that he hadn't shown when I'd questioned him. Dourou had been relegated to the end, as there was nothing new in her case. They only stated that she was still being held. As for Kolakoglou, he had slipped out of the news altogether. No one was interested in him anymore, not even Sotiropoulos, the man who wanted to bring to light the miscarriage of justice and restore his name.
I finished the souvlaki along with the news. I was deciding be tween watching TV or taking refuge in my dictionaries, when the phone rang. It was Thanassis.
"We've found them," he said triumphantly. "Evangelos Milionis is here and is waiting for you. Christos Papadopoulos is arriving tonight in Patras, on board the ferry from Ancona."
"All right, I'm on my way. Send a message to the police in Patras to detain Papadopoulos without fail and to send him to us."
Pylarinos had turned out to be reliable. By five in the afternoon, he had provided us with the information I'd asked for. Milionis and Papadopoulos were the drivers of the refrigerator trucks that Karayoryi had noted. As for the lists of passengers, things were a little more complicated. Those who were from EU countries got in simply by showing their identity cards. I'd sent the lists of passengers from America and Canada to the airport, but the chances of their being able to locate which of them had come using a family passport or had declared children as traveling with them were slim. Following the appearance of the couple at Dourou's nursery, I was now sure of the way the operation worked, but without the English couple it was going to be extremely difficult to prove it. My only hope was that Dourou or Hourdakis or one of the drivers would crack.
Waiting at the station was a spare man with a mustache and a threeday-old beard-Evangelos Milionis. His criminal record was clean. No convictions, no arrests, no accidents. He was thirty, unmarried, and lived with his parents. He sat with his arms folded over his chest, a tough truck driver, a man who wasn't going to be easily intimidated.
"Are you a driver for Transpilar?"
"Yes."
"And you drive a refrigerator truck?"
"Refrigerator truck, lorry, whatever they give me."