I found a space for the Mirafiori in the parking lot at the corner of Solonos Street and Mavromichali Street. Number 128 was an old building, something between a large apartment block and a small office block, quite common for buildings from the fifties. Karyofyllis’s office was on the fifth floor. I stepped out of the lift into a dim corridor with mosaic floors, the kind that still look filthy no matter how often you clean them.
However, Karyofyllis’s office dispelled the previous impression. I crossed a carpeted hallway and entered a spacious and well-lit office with two secretaries sitting in front of computers. Between the two secretaries was a door with plastic casing and gold studs, rather like a square tray of baklava. Judging from its appearance, this must have been the door leading to Karyofyllis’s office.
One of the secretaries looked up and stared at me, while the other continued punching the computer keys. I adopted my official tone of voice and said curtly:
‘Inspector Haritos. I’m here to see Mr Karyofyllis. It’s an urgent matter.’
My tone of voice made the other secretary look up from her computer. ‘Please have a seat for a moment,’ the first one said as she went through the baklava door. She came back out in less than a minute and told me to go in.
Karyofyllis’s office was the same as that of his secretaries, but one notch higher in quality. The carpet was thicker, the desk bigger and the back of his chair higher. The secretaries had a fan; here there was air conditioning. Karyofyllis was about my age, wearing a suit, with black hair and a thin moustache that made him resemble a certain popular singer of bouzouki songs from the sixties. As soon as he saw me, he got to his feet and held out his hand.
‘Good day, Inspector. How might I help you?’
Like an uncouth copper, I sat down uninvited in the chair in front of his desk and stared at him pensively.
‘The question is how you might help me and how I might help you,’ I said.
My introduction took him unawares and he looked worried. ‘I don’t understand.’
I nodded to him to sit down, as though the roles had been reversed and he were in my office.
‘Listen here, Mr Karyofyllis. What I am about to tell you is still unofficial.’ I stressed the word ‘still’. He had crossed his arms on the desk and was waiting for the rest. ‘A Russo-Pontian who bought a flat in Larymnis Street, in the area of Konstantinoupoleos Avenue has lodged a complaint with us. The sale was conducted by a certain estate agent by the name of Yorgos Iliakos.’
I didn’t ask him whether he knew the particular estate agency, and he didn’t say anything to the effect, but his eyes told me that he did.
‘The Russo-Pontian says that he paid forty-five thousand euros. He signed whatever papers were given to him, but he knew no Greek. The other day, however, he was visited by a colleague of his to whom he showed the contract. And it appeared that the price on the contract was not forty-five thousand euros but twenty-five.’
‘Let me just say…’
I didn’t allow him to go on. ‘I haven’t finished yet. It’s fortunate that the fellow happened to be Russo-Pontian. They know nothing of lawsuits or lawyers or legal proceedings… Whether they’re hit by a car or have their windows smashed or are deceived about the price of their home, they always come running to the police. This will help us keep the complaint out of the official channels for the time being. So I’m here to talk to you unofficially, Mr Karyofyllis. Is it possible that the contract might state a different price to the one received by the seller?’
I saw his expression change. He looked worried and his gaze wandered round the room with suspicion, almost with a conspiratorial gleam.
‘Yes, and it’s quite common,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t reveal to you how it’s done.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s a felony.’
‘Felony?’
He hesitated and then slowly emitted the words through his teeth: ‘Tax evasion.’
‘I’m not a tax inspector, Mr Karyofyllis. I’m a police inspector. Your relations with the tax office don’t concern me.’
‘It’s a common practice to declare a lower price in order to reduce the tax.’
‘And is that what happened in this case?’
‘I would suppose so.’
‘And what if the seller did only receive twenty-five thousand euros?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If the difference didn’t go into the seller’s pocket…’
‘So who’s pocket did it go into? The estate agent’s?’
I left the question dangling in the air and changed tack.
‘Mr Karyofyllis, I want to be honest with you. I don’t have any interest at all in you personally. If I need to, I’ll call you into the station and I’ll do it without the slightest hesitation. The same is true if I need to arrest you. But the office of Yorgos Iliakos is another matter altogether. It belongs, so we were informed, to Jason Favieros.’
‘Who? The businessman who committed suicide?’ he asked innocently. ‘What connection does he have with the estate agency?’
I shot him a look as though my heart were filled with pity for him. ‘Come now. The Yorgos Iliakos Real Estate Agency and a very large number of other real-estate agencies belong to Balkan Prospect, which is a company owned by Jason Favieros. The tragedy that his family has suffered and the confusion that exists at present concerning the future of his businesses obliges us to be very cautious. You stand to benefit from that.’
‘Me, how?’
‘Because you were the one to draw up the contracts.’ I said it so definitively, as though I had verified it from ten different sources, and he didn’t dare deny it. ‘There are three possibilities, Mr Karyofyllis. First, that the Russo-Pontian is lying. If that’s the case, we’ll tweak his ear and send him home. Second, an employee in one of the estate agencies is working a scam to cheat the buyers, the sellers and their own bosses. Or third, there exists an organised network of officials and public notaries who are getting rich illegally in this way.’
‘The first possibility is the only reasonable one, Inspector.’ I had thrown him a lifebelt and he was clutching hold of it.
‘So what you’re saying is that the Russo-Pontian paid forty-five thousand euros and the same sum was received by the seller minus the estate agent’s fee, but that the contract stated twenty-five thousand for tax reasons. And now the Russo-Pontian is being clever and trying through blackmail to get twenty thousand back.’
‘Precisely, Inspector. Those people are uneducated and unreliable, just like every other sly animal. They bring the sum in cash, empty it onto your desk, and all they’re interested in is getting the key to the house,’ Karyofyllis went on. ‘Once they’ve moved in and are settled in the place, their sly minds start working and they try to find ways of getting back some of the money they paid.’
I restrained myself only with difficulty and agreed with him. Given that they allowed estate agents to rob them of so much money right under their noses, what else were they but animals?
‘You may very well be right. But what will happen if the Russo-Pontian is only the beginning and from tomorrow the complaints start coming thick and fast? Then the network will come out into the open, Balkan Prospect will be ruined, even if it’s not to blame, and so will you along with it.’