She looked at me. ‘Some rather strange things,’ she said.
‘For instance?’
‘I found three people who had bought houses in the area. Two Albanians, one in Vizyis Street, just up from Pantazopoulou Square, and the other in Aiyeiras Street, a cul-de-sac between Konstantinoupoleos Street and Aghias Sofias Street. And a Russo-Pontian, who had bought a place in Larymnis, which is the second parallel to Monis Arkadiou Street.’
‘Prices?’
‘The Albanian in Vizyis Street bought it for thirty thousand euros, but it’s a one-bedroom flat, around sixty square metres. The second Albanian didn’t want to tell me the exact price; he kept mincing his words, but from what I could understand, he must have paid about the same as the first. Besides, they usually ask one another and then buy. The Russo-Pontian is a bit more interesting because the place he bought is near Moni Arkadiou Street and it’s a two-bedroom flat around eighty square metres.’
‘How much?’
She looked at me and articulated slowly, so I’d have time to digest it. ‘Forty-five thousand euros.’
So that’s why Favieros bought real-estate agencies in depressed areas. He paid a pittance to the locals, who sold up at any price in order to get out, and asked forty per cent more from the refugees. The difference went into the coffers of Balkan Prospect, most likely as undeclared earnings.
‘And they all paid in cash,’ Koula added. ‘No cheques, no bills, no nothing.’
How else would they pay? They knew nothing of banks or accounts. They hid whatever money they earned under their mattresses.
‘It’s downright theft, Inspector.’
‘Except that we can’t prove it. We have to know how much each one sold the flats for, how much the others paid and then look at the contracts to compare the sums. Perhaps you could get him like that for tax evasion or open the buyers’ eyes so the estate agencies would end up in court for fraud. Did you find out the name of the public notary?’
‘I tried, but I didn’t get anywhere. The people don’t speak Greek. They put some documents in front of them and get them to sign. They have no idea who the notary is or what’s in the documents, nothing.’
A proper pig in a poke. They were so happy to buy a place of their own that they asked nothing out of fear that the seller might change his mind and not go through with the deal. That’s what they were used to in their own countries: if you open your mouth, you lose everything, and they didn’t know that in Greece whatever little you gain, it’s by shouting and demanding your rights.
‘There’s something else,’ Koula said.
‘What?’
‘One of the Albanians works at Favieros’s construction site at the Olympic Village.’
I hadn’t imagined the extent of the scam and I was flabbergasted. So this was the system that Favieros, the champion of the immigrants, had set up. On the one hand, he gave them work, and on the other he took back a sizeable part of the wages he paid them through the houses he sold them. If you consider that he had real-estate agencies throughout the country, he must have been making a lot of money. In Greece, he was selling them property at inflated prices, while in their countries, the real-estate agencies were doing exactly the opposite: they were buying up their houses for a pittance. And all this without Favieros appearing anywhere.
‘Well done, Koula,’ I said to her genuinely impressed, because I couldn’t believe that an inexperienced police officer could come up with all that information in the space of a few hours.
‘Did I do well?’ she asked and her face lit up.
‘Exceptionally. If I’d come with you, we might not have done so well.’
I didn’t tell her that I would have liked to have her working with me on the Force, partly because I had no idea whether I would be returning to the department and partly because I had no idea whether Ghikas would let her.
What I had to find out was whether the other foreign workers at Favieros’s construction sites also bought flats from his estate agencies. The problem was that I couldn’t go to Balkan Prospect, not because they would conceal that information from me, but because they wouldn’t know since all the deals were done by the local estate agencies. I would have to go to the offices of Domitis Construction to get a list of the foreign employees and then do the rounds of all the estate agencies and make enquiries. It would take me at least two weeks, even if the estate agents agreed to talk, because without incriminating evidence they couldn’t be made to talk. I decided, therefore, to take the shorter route that meant crossing enemy territory, in keeping with the saying that my enemy’s enemy is my friend.
The other thing I had to find out was the name of the public notary, because he was the only one who knew the names of both the buyers and the sellers as well as the actual price, since it was he who took the cash from the buyer, paid the seller and kept the difference. A real-estate scam is not possible without a trustworthy notary.
‘Koula, do you have the names of the Albanians and the Russo-Pontian who bought the flats from Favieros’s agency?’
‘Yes, I still have them.’
‘Good. I want you to go to the land registry office and find the name of the public notary who prepared the contracts. I’m going to pay a visit to Favieros’s construction site at the Olympic Village.’
‘All right.’
I left her at home and set off. The Mirafiori was like an oven inside even though I’d parked it in the shade. When I reached the junction at Vasileos Konstantinou Avenue, I wondered whether it would be better to turn left towards Syntagma Square or right towards Vasilissis Sofias Avenue and take Soutsou Street out into Alexandras Avenue. By the time the lights changed to green, I had decided upon the latter route and I was proven right. Apart from the permanent congestion in Soutsou Street, the road was more or less clear.
I got to the end of Patission Street drenched in sweat but without too many problems with the traffic. There, however, I made the major mistake of taking the national road in order to reach Menidi via Metamorphosi. The traffic jammed up because of the works for the new Attica bypass. A policeman directed us down a dirt track that had remained from the time when they still grazed goats in Metamorphosi. It took us the best part of half an hour and three tons of dust to cover a distance of two hundred yards, and with a fair amount of anxiety because the engine was overheating and I was afraid the car would eventually come to a stop in the middle of the goat path. Fortunately, the road soon widened again and the car cruised comfortably as far as the turn for Thrakomakedones.
In less than a quarter of an hour I was at the Olympic Village. I made my way straight to the drainage works that were being constructed by Domitis and looked for the foreman, Karanikas. He was yelling at some workers who were down in a ditch. He saw me but paid no attention and went on with his work. I waited patiently for him to finish because I needed him.
‘Why are you chasing after stuff gone stale when there’s plenty of fresh around?’ were his first words when at last he came over to me.
‘Which is the stale stuff and which the fresh?’
‘The stale is Favieros, the fresh is Stefanakos.’
His cynicism got on my nerves and I felt like taking him down a piece. ‘Do you find it amusing that two people should commit suicide in front of so many people?’ I asked him, trying to keep a calm voice.
He shrugged indifferently. ‘What do you want me to do? Feel sorry for them because they were playing the TV game?’