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.
16
Sotiropoulos was sitting opposite me and staring at me. We were at the Green Park in Mavromataion Street. The TV company he worked for was in Melissia, but he was also a partner in a PR company that had its offices in the Pedio tou Areos and so we had arranged to meet nearby. It was ten thirty in the morning and he was sipping his ouzo and waiting for me to open up. In the past, they always served ouzo with a meze: pieces of bread with a slice of tomato and olive, a bit of salami, half an anchovy. As the number of ouzos increased so did the size of the meze, till by the time you were on the tenth, you had a whole platter in front of you. Nowadays, whether it’s ouzo you drink or whisky or brandy, it makes no difference. They toss a bowl of peanuts and hazelnuts in front of you so you have something to nibble on.
The idea to talk to Sotiropoulos about Favieros’s offshore company came to me while I was having my morning coffee. Of course, Sotiropoulos was not the kind to do something for nothing. But what could he possibly want from me given my current situation? If, by any chance, I managed to get my position back, I would pay him back in forty-eight interest-free instalments in the same way that we pay for everything today, from fridges to favours.
‘This is the second time you’ve asked me about Favieros,’ Sotiropoulos said. ‘The first time it was by phone, now it’s face to face. Why are you so interested in his suicide?’
‘No particular reason. Out of personal curiosity,’ I replied as vaguely as I could.