I decided to have the rest of my croissant and drink my coffee, which was now stone cold. A cat was sunning itself on the balcony opposite. It was sprawled out with its head on the tiles that were baking in the sun. It was one of the few creatures to delight in the ovenlike heat. The old woman came onto the balcony with a saucer. She put it down in front of the cat. She waited for it to open its eyes and see the food, but the cat showed complete indifference. The old woman waited patiently, stroking its head, talking to it, sweet talk most probably, but the cat couldn't have cared less. In the end, she gave up, left the saucer, and went back into the room. I reflected on the cat's arrogance, how it had its food brought to its feet, and I re membered the two Albanians lying on the bare mattress, the folding table, the two plastic chairs, the gas stove. Not that I'm especially partial to Albanians, but it got to me. So did the lousy weather, which gave no prospect of rain.
The door suddenly opened and in waltzed Karayoryi. Without even knocking, as if it were her own office. I should have given her a key. She was different. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She had her cardigan on top of her bag, which was hanging across her shoulder. She closed the door and smiled at me. I looked at her without saying a word. I wanted to give her a mouthful, but we were under orders from the fifth floor to give reporters the kid-glove treatment. It wasn't always this way.
"Congratulations. I hear that the Albanian confessed. You've closed the case" Her smile was ironic, her expression haughty.
I was in no mood for playing cat and mouse. "Why did you lie in your television report last night?" I said. "You knew very well that there was no child, nor do we suspect anything of the sort."
She smiled. "Never mind," she replied indifferently. "All you have to do is deny it."
"Why did you come out with all that yesterday?"
"All what?"
"About the child. What was on your mind? Or were you just fishing?"
"I told you because I like you," she said, unexpectably amiable. "I know you can't stand me, but I don't care, I like you anyway. I have my weaknesses, you see."
The way she said it, straight out, she perplexed me. "I neither like you nor dislike you," I said, hoping that a neutral approach would seem more convincing. "You get on my nerves, and I get on yours, it's part of the job. But I don't dislike you any more than the rest of your colleagues."
"I'm sure you do," she said, still smiling. "With the exception, perhaps, of Sotiropoulos."
The bitch was razor sharp; nothing escaped her. "And why do you like me?" I said, to get out of a difficult position.
"Because you're the only one with an ounce of brains around here. Though don't go puffing yourself up too much on that account. Just that one eye's better than none. But you're way off the mark this time."
She made for the door and was gone before I could continue the discussion.
Once again I had to wonder: Was she playing with me or was she keeping something from me? If she came out with something afterward, I'd be the one they'd all come down on. Prosecutor, judge, police chief, all of them. There'd be no end to it. And it wasn't as if I had a lot of time on my side-I didn't. Ghikas would be making his statement before long. The file would be sent to the prosecutor the next day, and it wouldn't take him more than a couple of days to arrange for the court hearing. From then on, the case would be completely out of my hands, and if anything were to explode, at that point there'd be no picking up the pieces.
I picked up the telephone and told Sotiris, the lieutenant, to come into my office.
"Listen, Sotiris, when we were searching the Albanians' place, did you notice anything that might indicate the presence of children?"
"Children?" he said, a good deal surprised.
"Anything at all. Rattles? Bibs? Baby clothes? Toys?"
He looked at me as if he were up against a lunatic. And he had every right. "No, we found nothing of the sort." He thought for a moment and then said, "Apart from a box that had diapers in it."
"Diapers?" I cried and leapt to my feet.
"Yes, they were using it as a makeshift cupboard. In it, there was sugar, coffee, and half a packet of dried beans."
The cat had woken up now and was eating, just like the glamorous stars who have their breakfast at eleven. The old woman was standing over it with pride. She was probably pleased that it had an appetite so she wouldn't have to give it iron tablets and vitamins. The leaves drooping from the potted plants looked down on the tiles like demure virgins. The old woman had watered them only the previous day, and they were withering already. Imagine being in a car in that heat, breathing the exhaust fumes, with the plastic seats so scorching you and your backside gradually become soaked.
"Have them bring a patrol car, and we'll be on our way. Just the two of us."
"Where are we going?"
"To the Albanians' place. To search it again."
He was about to say something, but he thought better of it and left. Five minutes later, they informed me that the patrol car was waiting.
CHAPTER 5
It took us almost an hour to get to Rendi, even though Sotiris had turned on the siren. Throughout the journey, sitting next to Sotiris, I toyed with the window. I'd open it and be suffocated by the smog. I'd close it and be suffocated by the heat. In the end, I gave up and left it half open. Perhaps it was the congestion that was to blame for my irritability. A sudden feeling of impatience took hold of me. I wanted to get to the Albanians' place, search it, and be done. I was pissed off at Karayoryi for getting me all fired up so damned easily and with myself for having gone along with her game, and with the Albanians for not having a brat beside them on the mattress whom we could send to social services and who would let us wash our hands of the matter. Sotiris was driving without saying a word, very much down in the dumps. The low spirits were no doubt on my account, for putting him to all this trouble without good cause, when he should have been sitting at his desk, flipping through some document and telling the others about the chassis on the Hyundai Excel he'd recently bought by selling a piece of land he had in his village. At least that's what he said.
When we got into the house, I became even more uptight. One bare room, with the few rags on view; you could take it all in at a glance. What had I come to look for? Secret drawers, hollow walls serving as cubbyholes? The diaper box was on the folding table, as Sotiris had recalled. I opened it and found what he'd described: a hundred-gram packet of coffee, a packet of sugar, and half a bag of dried beans. They'd picked up the box from the street, to put their food in, so the rats wouldn't get at it.
"What are we looking for?" asked Sotiris, who was watching me.
"Anything indicating children, do I have to say it again?" I said testily.
I took the woman's clothes from the hook, let them drop to the floor, and spread them out with my foot. Perhaps there was something tucked inside them that we'd missed. But all I found was a pair of slacks, a blouse, and some tights. I looked again at the man's clothes, still lying beside the mattress. He, too, had nothing but a shirt, a pair of trousers, and his socks. And their shoes. Hers flat slipons, his lace-ups. Didn't they have any underwear? Not even for a change? I know they come here with no more than what they stand up in, but when you came face-to-face with the literalness of that, something just didn't seem right. I wondered whether this might be significant.
"Lend a hand to lift up the mattress," I said.
We got hold of it at both ends and doubled it up. Three cockroaches raced out, scampering in alarm over the bare concrete floor. One was a bit slower than the others, and I succeeded in stamping on it. The other two escaped. So this was all we had to show for our search: one dead cockroach, two at large.