"All right. I'll buy them for you."
Her leg slid down for the last time, like the elevator from the third floor to the ground floor, and it stopped there. She removed her arm from around my waist. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and immediately withdrew into her own territorial waters.
"'Night," she said, with relief in her voice.
"'Night," I said, also with relief, and I opened my Liddell & Scott, which I'd taken down from the shelf before getting into bed.
But it was impossible for me to concentrate. My mind was on Karayoryi and the matter of the child she kept going on about. She couldn't have simply invented it, out of thin air; she was keeping something from me. It suddenly came to me: Ask the Albanian. He might know something. I'd ask him first and then worry about Karayoryi. If nothing else, I could do what I'd thought of that morning. I'd tell Thanassis to get it on with her and see what he could discover.
In my dream, I was in the home of the two Albanians. Except that their corpses were no longer there and the mattress was covered with a blanket. On the folding table was a bassinet. I leaned over and saw a baby. It was no more than three months old and was crying its eyes out. Standing by the gas stove, I saw Karayoryi warming the baby's bottle.
"What are you doing here?" I said.
"Babysitting," she said.
CHAPTER 4
I'd swallowed my first mouthful of croissant and was taking my first gulp of coffee when the door opened and in walked Thanassis. He looked at me and smiled. It was one of the rare occasions on which he didn't tell me that he was a moron. This happened once a year, twice at most.
"This is for you;' he said, handing me a piece of paper.
"Okay. Leave it there."
Over the years I've developed a standard practice: never to take papers handed to me. Usually, they're orders, restrictions, cutbacks, something, at any rate, to get your goat. So I let them lie on my desk and psychologically prepare myself to read them. Thanassis, however, stood there holding it out to me and said, triumphantly: "It's the Albanian's confession."
I froze. I reached out and took the statement. "How did you manage it?" I said, unable to conceal my incredulity.
"Vlassis told me," he said with a smile.
"Vlassis?"
"He's the officer on cell duty. We were having a coffee in the canteen, and he told me that you wanted to convince the Albanian that he'd be better off in prison. So I sat down, typed out a statement, and took it to him. He signed it straight away."
I looked at the third page. A couple of inches from the foot of the sheet was a scribble that looked like a child's drawing of Mount Hymettus. Apparently it was the Albanian's signature. I read swiftly through the statement, skimming the formal parts. Everything was there, exactly as he'd told it to me the previous day during the interrogation: how he'd met the girl in Albania and fallen for her, how he'd skulked around the house for days even though she'd sent him packing. He'd felt insulted and had decided to break into the house and rape her. He'd removed one of the boards from the window and squeezed inside. He'd thought that her husband was away and had been terrified when he'd seen him lying beside her. And when the man rushed at him, he'd taken out his knife and murdered first him and then the girl. Everything was plain and simple, all very neat, no gaps or loose ends.
"Well done, Thanassis," I said with admiration. "Perfect."
He looked at me, and his eyes shone with pleasure. At that moment the phone rang. I picked up the receiver.
"Haritos."
This too was part of the FBI-type reforms imposed on us by Ghikas. We no longer answered, "Hello" or "Yes," but "Haritos," "Sotiriou," "Papatriandafyllopoulos." And regardless of whether you got cut off halfway through "Papatriandafyllopoulos," you still went on with it.
"The child. What do you know about it?" As always, short, sharp, and to the point.
"There is no child, Chief. I've got the Albanian's confession in front of me. There's no mention of a child. That's nonsense thought up by Karayoryi. Her ambition will be the death of her."
I said this expressly to provoke him, because I knew that he had a high regard for her.
"Has he confessed?" he said, as if unwilling to believe it.
"Yes. Confessed. Crime of passion. No child involved."
"Right. Send me your report. And a summary too, so I can make a statement." He put down the phone without even a word of thanks. Now I was going to have to write him a report that a schoolboy could understand so that he could learn it by heart.
Normally, the case would have closed there. The Albanian had made his confession and would be sent for trial, the stuff about the child had proved to be a fabrication, the chief of security would stand before the reporters and come out with his spiel-we'd wrapped it up. But I had a broomstick up my backside. I couldn't let things rest, and I always ended up paying for it.
"Listen, Thanassis, did he say anything about a child?"
"Child?" he said and became all confused. Thanassis's kind are like that. When you're least expecting it, they come up with a bright idea and arrive at something that, by their standards, is nothing short of a miracle. But as soon as you burden them with something else, something unexpected, they overload, blow a fuse, and the lights go out on them.
I looked at my watch. It was only nine-thirty. I had two hours before the reporters showed up.
It was more than enough time for me to write the report for Ghikas.
"Have them bring the Albanian for questioning."
He looked at me, and all the satisfaction drained out of him. "But he's confessed," he muttered.
"I know, but that Karayoryi woman put a damper on it last night on the news, by saying that there was a child involved. Ghikas heard it, and now he's on to me about it. I know there's nothing in it, but I want to be 100 percent sure that everything's in order. Have him brought to me, and you come along too." I would take him with me to show my appreciation, and he liked it. He left the office smiling from ear to ear.
The Albanian was sitting in the same place, but he wasn't handcuffed as on the previous day. When we walked in, he looked at us apprehensively. I offered him a cigarette.
"I say you everything," he said to me as he drew on the cigarette. "He come and I say all." He pointed to Thanassis.
"I know. Don't be alarmed. Everything's okay. I just want to ask you one question out of curiosity. Do you know whether the couple you murdered had any kids?"
"Keeds?"
He looked at me as though it were the most unlikely thing in the world for an Albanian couple to have kids. He didn't answer, but his gaze turned slowly toward Thanassis. Thanassis suddenly reached for him, took him by the anorak, and dragged him to his feet, screaming: "Out with it, you bastard! Did the Albanians have a child? Out with it, or you're dead meat!"
It's the quiet ones you have to watch when they're riled, as my old mother used to say. He'd succeeded in getting a confession; now his blood was up and he was playing the tough guy. I freed the Albanian from his grip and sat him down again on the chair.
"Gently does it, Thanassis. If he knows anything, he'll tell us without any rough stuff. Isn't that so?"
This last phrase was addressed to the Albanian. He was shaking from head to toe; why, I had no idea. It was just a simple question. He had nothing to be afraid of. Thanassis had just butted in and scared him with his excessive zeal.
"No," he said. "Pakize have no keeds."
Pakize was the name of the woman he'd murdered. "Okay, that was all," I said, friendly at last. "I won't need you for anything else."
He gazed at me in relief, as if a burden had been taken from him.
I returned to my office and sat down to write the schoolboy report for Ghikas. He didn't want much. A single page in my own handwriting, with my big, round letters. Just the facts, in precis. He could add the garnishing himself. I soon finished it and turned to the analytical report. This took me a bit longer, but I had finished inside an hour. I had them both sent to Ghikas.