The thought came to me on the electric train, while returning from Attiki Station to Omonoia Square. It was one of desperation, the kind that you have when logic lays down its arms and looks to madness for salvation. So in the grip of madness, I decided to take a chance on Favieros’s offshore company because it was my only hope of keeping the investigation open. Of course, I would have to make a slight breach of faith. I would have to keep quiet about my belief that the biography was in fact an autobiography and, on the contrary, blow up the idea that the secret behind the suicide was to be found in the offshore company. If I got lucky and uncovered any shady dealings, or scandals or scams, I would be able to return to my position via another route. Yes, all this fell under the jurisdiction of the Fraud Squad, but this was a mere detail: when the bombshell burst, it would cover up anything else. Then, again, if the company turned out to be kosher, I would close the investigation and I wouldn’t come out any worse for it, given that things couldn’t be any worse.
The small extension given to my hopes filled me with a sense of relief, and I went home, if not exactly overjoyed then certainly not down in the dumps. I found Koula in the kitchen getting cookery lessons from Adriani.
‘What did you find out about Favieros’s offshore company?’ I asked her in my strictest professional voice.
‘I can tell you now what I came up with.’
‘Not now, we have to finish with the food first,’ Adriani chipped in, and turning to me she said: ‘You go to your dictionaries and I’ll call you.’
I was ready to give Koula a mouthful, to tell her that Ghikas had given her leave to help me and not to learn how to make moussaka and dolmades. But on further consideration I had to admit to myself that the smoothing of the relations between Koula and Adriani freed my hands, so I would do well to keep my mouth shut so as not to undermine the newly-established truce. However, I didn’t go to the bedroom to get out my dictionaries, but to the sitting room, where I sat doing nothing, to underline the fact that I was in a hurry and they had better get a move on.
Koula came in after about half an hour. ‘I’m sorry, but as you weren’t here…’ she said apologetically.
‘Never mind. Tell me what you found out.’
‘Quite a lot about the business done by the offshore company.’
‘Did Zamanis give you a difficult time?’
‘But I didn’t go to Zamanis.’
‘Who did you talk to? Lefaki?’
She grinned at me. ‘As my daddy always says, better marry over the midden than over the moor.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that I’m not in the same league as Zamanis and Lefaki. So I spoke to someone I could deal with.’
‘And who was that?’
‘Aristopoulos. The lad who took us to Zamanis’s office. Do you remember?’
‘Vaguely, but what did he know about the company?’
‘Inspector Haritos, Aristopoulos is so intent on climbing the ladder that he does exactly what he used to do at school. There he learned all his lessons by heart in order to get good marks and now he’s learned by heart the whole history of Favieros and his companies in order to get promoted. He bought me a coffee and told me everything.’
‘What did he tell you exactly?’
‘Just a moment, I’ve written it all on the computer so as not to forget anything.’
She went over to the computer, pressed a few keys and began reading. ‘Favieros’s offshore company deals in property.’
‘Another construction company?’
‘No real estate. It’s called…’ She read out the name in English with the same difficulty that I read English. ‘Balkan Prospect. Real Estate Agents. They have offices throughout Greece and in the Balkans.’
‘And what do they sell?’
‘Land, property, apartments…’ She stopped and stared at me. ‘Don’t you find it strange?’
‘What?’
‘Why would Favieros transform his real-estate agency into an offshore company? Anyhow, Ilias had no idea.’
‘Who’s Ilias?’
‘Aristopoulos.’
‘So we’re on first name terms now, are we?’ I said, teasing her.
She shrugged resignedly. ‘There are no free lunches.’ I knew that. I might play the untouchable but I’d come unstuck more than once. ‘He asked me out on a date,’ Koula added with a wily grin.
‘And you accepted?’
‘I told him I’d call him.’ She laughed. ‘You know how it works. You say you’ll call him, then you forget once you’ve gone and only remember the next time you want something from him.’
‘Never mind Ilias, I’ll tell you why he turned it into an offshore company,’ I said, ready to return the lesson. ‘Because his lawyers and accountants discovered all the benefits he would have from an offshore company. Fewer taxes, certainly fewer inspections and whatever else. Does the company have offices on the mainland?’
‘Yes.’ She consulted the computer again. ‘They’re at 54 Aigialeias, in Maroussi. The manager is a Mrs Coralia Yannelis.’
‘We’ll see what Mrs Yannelis has to say to us.’
I said it though I was certain that she wouldn’t have anything to say to me. A woman who manages a real-estate agency might tell you at most in what areas of Athens property values were rising or falling. Or maybe what the building coefficient is for Pangrati. But what could she tell you about Favieros’s suicide? If he’d fallen from the penthouse of some apartment block, all well and good. But he had staged his own suicide on TV, what information might you get from a real-estate agency? The signs were not particularly auspicious, but, as I had given myself that flicker of hope, I decided to try my luck.
Adriani caught up with us at the front door. ‘Don’t forget to take your share of the moussaka with you,’ she said to Koula. ‘You deserve it. We made it together!’
Koula turned and gave me an embarrassed look. ‘You can go home with your food parcel,’ I said to her. ‘I don’t need you any more today. We’ll get back down to it tomorrow morning.’
I found the Mirafiori parked in Souliou Square. Once I was out in Vassilissis Sofias Avenue, I realised that I should have waited till sunset to take to the streets. The windows were open and the heat was pouring into the car, while the sun was beating down vertically on the roof and singeing my head. At the Pharos junction, I was held up by the works for the flyover with the traffic bumper to bumper. I curse my fate whenever I stay in Athens in the summer, because I can’t bear the scorching heat and I swear to high heaven whenever I go on holiday because I can’t stand all the noise and bustle.
I turned right into Frangoklisias Street and again right into Aigialeias Street. Number 54 was close to the Riding Club, one of those ultramodern office blocks, all glass and indoor plants, that look like an aquarium with tropical fish.
The offices of Balkan Prospect were on the third floor. The entrance to the company had nothing impressive about it. A simple white door with a small sign that you had to look at close up in order to be able to read ‘Balkan Prospect. Real Estate Agents’ in both Greek and English.
The frugality was evident inside too. The outer office was of medium size with simple furniture: a desk with a computer and a small sofa for visitors. Sitting behind the desk was a secretary, who couldn’t have been much more than twenty-five and who was dressed simply and wore a modicum of make-up. Evidently, the mourning didn’t extend to Favieros’s subsidiary companies.
‘Inspector Haritos. I’m here to see Mrs Yannelis.’
She had taken me for a client and I’d turned out to be a copper. That took her aback. She lifted the receiver to make a call, but changed her mind. She preferred to get up and go into Yannelis’s office through the door on her right. She re-emerged a moment later and told me I could go in.
Yannelis was the fourth fifty-year-old in a row that I had counted in Favieros’s companies. She was wearing a blue and white two-piece, was dark-haired and quite stunning for her age, though the marks of fatigue were plain on her face. She greeted me extremely politely, with a smile and a handshake, then sat back down in her chair and stared at me without speaking.
‘This is an unofficial visit, Mrs Yannelis,’ I said by way of an introduction. ‘We are carrying out a routine investigation into the suicide of Jason Favieros. We’re simply trying to discover what it was that drove him to that – how shall I put it? – spectacular suicide.’
‘I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place, Inspector,’ she said politely and without any hint of irony.
‘Why? Doesn’t Balkan Prospect belong to the Favieros Group?’
‘Yes, but Jason Favieros rarely came here. If he wanted anything, he would summon me to Domitis, where he had his office. So I really don’t know what it was that drove him to suicide or what kind of mental state he was in before he committed suicide. I hadn’t seen him for months.’
‘Do you think it likely that he committed suicide because he had financial problems?’
‘If I’m to judge on the basis of our company, no,’ she replied with confidence. ‘I don’t know how his other businesses in the group were doing financially, but I think it highly unlikely that he committed suicide for financial reasons.’
‘You are an offshore company, aren’t you?’ I said, in order to cut to the crux of the matter.
‘Yes. And much larger than our head offices show us to be.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We don’t appear to be a large company, because we have a very flexible infrastructure. All the actual dealings are carried out by the local agencies that are located in Athens and throughout the Balkans. All we have here is a legal adviser who makes a final check of the contracts, a small accounts department, my secretary and me.’
‘Was it Favieros who came up with this flexible infrastructure?’
‘All the organisation charts for his businesses were drawn up by Mr Favieros himself. He had no faith at all in management consultancy firms. He thought their systems were no better than manuals for beginners. He said that to organise a business properly, you had to love it and know how its heart beat.’
‘Does your company also do construction work?’
‘In a few Balkan countries which are lacking in infrastructure, we have set up construction companies to build apartment blocks. In Greece, we deal solely in the buying and selling of property.’
Yannelis was polite and friendly, but in effect was telling me nothing. I made one last attempt.
‘Of course, none of this explains why he committed suicide.’
She put her hands in the air and them let them fall back onto the desk. ‘No one can explain that to you, Inspector.’
‘And what’s going to happen to all these businesses now that the mastermind behind them no longer exists?’
The smile on her face reappeared. ‘Don’t worry. They’re in good hands. I won’t talk about myself, but Xenophon Zamanis is a very capable individual and knew Jason from their student days together.’
There was nothing else I wanted to ask, so I got to my feet. She said goodbye to me as politely as she had welcomed me.
When I got back to the Mirafiori, I didn’t start the engine up straightaway, but sat behind the wheel gathering my thoughts. At first sight, I had learned nothing new, yet that flexible infrastructure was ideal for concealing any illicit dealings if, that is, any existed. The traces all disappeared inside the labyrinth of real-estate agencies. I had to find the right person to show me where I should start looking.