I found her just like every evening, in front of the TV, the remote control in her hand. I thought of going straight into the bedroom and getting comfortable with my dictionary, but I recalled the promise I'd made to Katerina and I went into the living room.
"Good evening."
She didn't reply, or even turn around to look at me. She simply straightened her head slightly, at the same time sticking out her lower jaw-as Markidis might put it-while her hand squeezed the remote control, a sign that she'd heard me but was determined to ignore me. I understood. It wasn't enough that I'd made the first step with my good evening greeting. She wanted me to sit down beside her and begin the mollycoddling, while she pulled away and told me that she wasn't going to put up with my vile manners anymore and while I told her that she was in the right, that it was the pressures and stress of work that were to blame, and after wasting the best part of three-quarters of an hour like that, she'd finally come around, warning me that it was the last time she was going to give in, while in real life it would always be the time before the last time, because the last time would never come. She didn't get a chance though, because by talking to her I'd fulfilled my obligation to Katerina, and I had no intention of going any further. To my great delight, I was able to stick to my original plan. If Katerina phoned me, I'd say that I'd made an effort, but that it was Adriani who was still sulking and I'd let her get on to her mother.
Produce… profess… I was lying on the bed, looking up Ghikas's "profile" in the Oxford English-Greek Learner's Dictionary. I'd kept my shoes on deliberately to annoy Adriani, so she'd start shouting and be forced to talk to me or go on sulking, in which case I'd lie on the bed every evening with my shoes on for as long as we weren't talking. There it was: Profile = 1. a side view, outline, or representation of a human object, esp. of a human face or head. 2. a short biographical sketch of a subject. So that's what he'd meant. We used to call it a description, now it had become a profile. The description of Kolakoglou fits the description of Karayoryi's murderer. Plain language, so we knew what we were talking about. But did it fit? Apart from the threat, which had nothing to do with his description, nothing else fitted. Sotiropoulos had been right. We were trying to turn Kolakoglou, who'd seduced two little girls with candy and chocolate, into a cold-blooded murderer. Apart from the likelihood of his coming up with an alibi and making us look foolish, there was one other consideration. According to the coroner's report, the murderer had to have been tall and strongly built. That's what Markidis had told me on the night of the murder, and he'd repeated it in his report. Kolakoglou was five foot nothing in height and all shriveled up like his mother. Where would he have found the strength to strike a blow like that at Karayoryi? Then again, if in the end it turned out that Kolakoglou had indeed been the killer, it wouldn't have been the first time that the coroner had made a mistake.
The profile-I decided to use the word so as to get used to it, given that sooner or later I'd be getting it thrown at me all the time-fitted Petratos much better. First of all, he had the necessary build. He was around six foot and stocky. He gave the impression of being a milksop, but he would definitely have had the strength to stick the lamp stand into Karayoryi's breast. Which would also explain why a knife or pistol or some other murder weapon wasn't used. Petratos hadn't gone with the intention of killing her. He'd made up his mind on the spot; the rod was in hand and he'd run her through with it. He'd had a motive: Karayoryi was digging his grave. But then so did Kolakoglou: She'd dug his three years earlier. Karayoryi had known them both; she wouldn't have been surprised to see either of them there. She would have been more cautious in Kolakoglou's case, since he had threatened her, but she was so self-assured and so arrogant she may not have given much thought to it.
A knock at the door woke me from my thoughts. I was surprised, as Adriani hadn't accustomed me to such niceties. When the door opened, it was Thanassis I saw, looking at me with an embarrassed smile.
"Excuse me, but your wife told me that you weren't sleeping."
I jumped up from the bed. "What's going on?"
"Nothing," he said reassuringly. "I was just passing, and I thought I'd update you on Kolakoglou."
He did that occasionally. He showed overwhelming zeal in order to get himself into my good graces, but only when he was sure that it wouldn't result in his having to run about or sacrifice his comforts.
I led him into the living room. Adriani had realized that we would be coming in there and had switched off the TV. She was excessively sweet and polite to Thanassis. She asked him how he was, how his family was, gave him coffee and cookies. She didn't even give me a glance, let alone a coffee.
"We had our work cut out with Kolakoglou," Thanassis said, after having had his fill of Adriani's attentions. "By six o'clock, we'd had thirty calls. Twenty-five local ones, two from Thessaloniki, one from Larissa, one from Kastoria, and one from Rhodes."
"What did you expect? They've put him up for auction. Are there any developments?"
He fell silent, but evidently he had a card up his sleeve that he thought was an ace and he was getting ready to produce it. "He was recognized by a clerk while buying a ticket at the bus station, in Kifisos."
"When?"
"Yesterday. From what he remembers, he bought a ticket for Thessaloniki." That was it. Not an ace-at a pinch, a seven of spades. But he wasn't aware of it and he went on undeterred. "So the calls from Thessaloniki must have been genuine."
"And the one from Rhodes?" I said peaceably. "From Thessaloniki he took the plane to Rhodes for a holiday?"
It was only then that it dawned on him that something wasn't right with his logic and he reassumed the profile of the moron.
"Did you find the ticket inspector from the bus?"
"None of the inspectors remembers seeing him, but that doesn't mean much. The inspectors don't look at the passengers, they only look at the tickets. If he hid his face behind a newspaper, the inspector wouldn't have seen him at all."
"Did it occur to you that he might never have boarded the bus, that he might have bought the ticket to throw us off? Or that he might have got off at some other stop?"
"Do you think he's that smart?"
"Every lowlife that's ever been to prison learns half a dozen things in order to be able to survive. That's as smart as he needs to be. Does he have relatives or friends in Thessaloniki?"
My question put him in a difficult position. "I don't know. We haven't looked into that yet."
"You should have looked into that first. Because if he doesn't have people there he can trust, where's he going to hide? Wherever he goes, we'll find him. You want my opinion? He's still here, in Athens. He can lie low here better than anywhere else. And if those shitty reporters find him before we do, Ghikas will have something to say about it."
I remembered that it was time for the news and I pressed the remote control. Nervous and anxious, Thanassis watched me. I really did hope that Sotiropoulos and his crew hadn't flushed him out. He could say whatever he liked, but I was sure that he was looking for him, too, if for no other reason than to put one over on Petratos. He was the only one who might find him. Kostarakou didn't inspire much confidence.
That was why I tuned first to Horizon, Sotiropoulos's channel. He was in an office, holding a microphone and talking to a woman with dark hair and well past her best. I didn't know who she was because I'd not been involved in the Kolakoglou case. From his questions, I gathered that she was the mother of one of the girls, one of the ones who had got their hands on the consultancy business. Sotiropoulos was trying to get her to explain how she and the father of the other girl had come to be co-owners of Kolakoglou's business. The woman was furious, refused to answer, told him to leave, but he stood there undeterred. In the end, the woman threatened to call the police. The poor woman didn't realize that this was precisely what Sotiropoulos was after: to show her angry, scared, and hostile.
The scene changed and Sotiropoulos next appeared in the corridor of an apartment block in front of a closed door. He was pointing to the door and talking to the camera.
"This is the house of the second family whose child was molested by Kolakoglou. Sadly, they refused to talk to us. It is, of course, understandable, ladies and gentlemen, that these people want to erase the past, to forget the tragic events that they and their children went through. On the other hand, there are some burning questions that remain to be answered. How, for example, did the victims find the emotional strength to buy the business owned by the culprit, the man who had molested their children? And how, if they want to forget the past, do they manage to live and work in a place that reminds them of that past every day? Questions that demand answers."
Sotiropoulos was a crafty devil. He said nothing about his suspicions that Kolakoglou might have been innocent and that the parents of the two girls might have set him up in order to get their hands on his business. He simply engaged in a bit of mudslinging at the parents. But not too much. He'd started the poison dripping and was letting it do its work. When, the next day or the day after, he came out and said, as he was sure to, that Kolakoglou may have been the victim of a conspiracy, one section of the public would be ready to accept it, at least as a possibility.
As soon as I switched over to Hellas Channel, I knew I'd been right. Martha Kostarakou was badgering Mrs. Kolakoglou, who was standing in the doorway to her flat. She was asking the same questions I had and was getting the same answers. I thought of suggesting to her that we exchange jobs, given that we do the same work. Let her have my position and I'd go to Hellas Channel and make six hundred thousand a month.
"Do you know that your son is wanted by the police?"
"I do know. They came here this morning and turned everything upside down." I congratulated myself. Things had turned out as I'd foreseen. "What has he done?" Mrs. Kolakoglou wailed. "Haven't we been through enough? Leave us in peace, can't you." Her anger at us caught up Kostarakou too.
"The police believe that your son murdered Yanna Karayoryi. What do you have to say about that?"
I leapt to my feet as if I'd just sat on a pin. When had we ever said that Kolakoglou had murdered Karayoryi? They were the ones who wanted to make him into a murderer and they were using us as a front. I suddenly saw a very different Kostarakou. She was trying to imitate Karayoryi but lacked her intelligence and innate audacity. All she succeeded in doing was to appear even more cruel and callous than her predecessor. The old woman began to cry. A mute kind of crying, like a ritual lament.
"My son never killed anyone. My Petros is no murderer. Isn't it enough that he rotted in prison for so many years, an innocent man? Are you trying to pin something else on him now?"
Kostarakou looked amazed. The birdbrain thought that she was on to something. "Are you implying, Mrs. Kolakoglou, that your son was wrongfully sent to prison?"
"Ask those who sent him there and who got their hands on his business. As for that woman who got him put away, I won't say I'm glad she was killed, but there's such a thing as divine retribution," she said, crossing herself, as the tears rolled down her cheeks.
Would Delopoulos and Petratos realize, I wondered, that they were playing Sotiropoulos's game? It was as if he'd foreseen the report by Kostarakou and had taken pains to emphasize the parents' unwillingness to talk so that they would appear guilty. I was wrong to think of him as a Robespierre. He was an out-and-out Rasputin.
"Is that how they think they'll find Kolakoglou?" quipped Thanassis, who was sitting beside me on the sofa.
"Don't you get it?" I said. "They don't want to find Kolakoglou. It suits them for him to remain at large so they can throw more fat on the fire."
He gazed at me as if I'd come out with a pearl of wisdom.
"Why are you still here?" I suddenly said. "Back to the office and on with the search. Check out the cafes, the bars, all the joints frequented by the lowlife. He may well be lying low during the day and only going out at night." He leapt up immediately, said good-bye, and rushed out. Sotiropoulos might have been right, but Ghikas was right too. Let's get him behind bars first, and then we'd see what was what.
The kitchen table had been laid for one. A saucepan was simmering on the stove. I took the lid off and found the spinach and rice from the previous day. I wasn't going to get away with it, it seemed. I put some on my plate and sat down to eat alone. As I was eating, I reflected that it was Petratos who had started the hunt for Kolakoglou. If he was the one who had killed Karayoryi, then he'd done it deliberately to turn our attention away from him so that he'd have nothing to worry about. This thought led me to leave my meal unfinished. What the hell, spinach and rice always made me want to gag.