Saying that, she went into the kitchen, where Adriani was preparing oven-baked perch. She waited patiently while she was regulating the temperature. ‘My work with the Inspector is finished and I came to say goodbye,’ she said. ‘And to tell you how happy I am to have met you.’
‘I’m happy to have met you, too, dear,’ said Adriani warmly, kissing her on both cheeks. ‘What will you do now? Go back to the office?’
‘No, I’m going to go swimming,’ said Koula, unable to hide her bitterness.
‘And we were thinking of going to see my sister on the island.’
‘You should. The Inspector needs it after all he’s been through.’
‘Keep telling him that,’ said Adriani, happy to have found an ally.
‘If I need your help now and again when I’m cooking, may I call you?’
‘Of course, whenever you want!’ Adriani replied enthusiastically. ‘And you can come round so I can show you.’
They kissed each other again and Koula rushed out, as if afraid she may change her mind and stay.
‘Wonderful girl,’ said Adriani as she watched her go. ‘And we never invited her to come and eat even once. Shame on us.’
‘Let’s have her round on Sunday.’
‘Good idea.’ But then she thought better of it. ‘No, perhaps not on Sunday.’
‘Why?’
‘Sunday is when Fanis comes.’
‘So?’
She didn’t reply, but the expression on her face made clear what she was thinking.
‘Are you in your right mind? Fanis is with women doctors and nurses all day. You don’t think Koula is going to turn his head, do you?’
She thought it over again and came out with her philosophical aphorism: ‘She’s a pretty girl and you never know.’
When I thought of it, as things had turned out for me, I was ready to believe it.
31
The high-speed are every Tuesday and Thursday,’ said Adriani. It was nine in the morning and she was dressed, decked out and ready to go for the tickets.
‘High-speed?’
‘The fast boats that do the trip in six hours, stopping only at Paros and Naxos. The regular boats leave every day, apart from Saturdays.’
‘Buy tickets for the fast one.’
She left at high speed lest I changed my mind and told her to leave it for later. I was about to revert to my old ways in order to pass my time till Thursday. I would go by the kiosk and pick up all the papers, then plant myself in the little square of St Lazarus, at the cafeteria with the sourpuss waiter, who brought you watery Greek coffee after you’d asked for strong and sweet.
I was wondering how I would pass my time on the island and whether I should buy myself a fishing rod and folding chair before going or buy it there when the phone rang.
‘Inspector Costas Haritos?’ The voice was that of a young woman.
‘Speaking.’
‘Inspector, a few days ago you had asked for an appointment with the politician, Kyriakos Andreadis.’
I couldn’t believe my ears. If I’d been told that the three yobs had been released and that Yanoutsos had been looked up in their place, I wouldn’t have been more surprised. I only just managed to whisper a ‘yes’.
‘Mr Andreadis will expect you at two o’clock today in his office. Please don’t be late because at three he has a parliamentary session.
‘I won’t be late. Where is his office?’
‘34 Heyden Street, on the third floor.’
I hung up and tried to take in what I had just heard. What had happened to change Andreadis’s mind? Most probably the arrest of the three yobs and the attempt by the government to pin the whole business on the extreme right. If that were the case, Andreadis must have information to dispel that scenario and he probably wanted to release it anonymously so as not to compromise either himself or his party. I phoned Sotiropoulos to find out if he knew anything more about it, but his mobile phone was switched off. The people at the channel told me that he still hadn’t arrived.
I had another three hours to kill so I decided to stick to my previous plan. This time, the kiosk owner was surprised to see me buying all the newspapers given that the arrests had been made two days before and nothing sensational had happened the previous day. He racked his brains thinking he must have missed something, but I left him wondering.
My turn to be left wondering came at the would-be cafeteria. Instead of the sourpuss waiter, an eighteen-year-old girl with miniskirt and platforms came over to me.
‘Where’s my usual friendly waiter?’ I asked surprised.
‘You mean Christos? He’s left. Every year around this time he goes to Anafi. He has some rooms there that he rents out.’
The strange thing was that I wasn’t glad to be served by a young girl; on the contrary, I felt peeved because Christos had spoiled my plans. At least the Greek coffee was still watery and that was something of a consolation.
Though forty-eight hours had already passed, the arrest of the three nationalists was still front-page news in most of the papers. This was the first thing in common. The second was the consensus of opinion. All the newspapers expressed objections to the arrests. The scale of the objections gradually rose from the mild reservations of the pro-government papers to the plain sarcasm of the opposition papers. Anyhow, the consensus of opinion, even with the political bent, testified to the fact that the ploy thought up by the masterminds was not working. It crossed my mind for a moment that perhaps this was why Andreadis wanted to see me. No doubt he had seen the morning papers, had decided that the time was ripe and had called me in order to speak to me. I couldn’t rule out the possibility that he wanted to open up a second front in order to put the government in an even more difficult position.
But what was I to do with Ghikas if things were as I imagined them to be? Should I tell him what I had found out from Andreadis? By rights, I ought to keep him informed. After all, he too had been left with his tail between his legs and I felt a moral obligation towards him. Then again, if some information should emerge from my meeting with Andreadis that I felt I should keep to myself, I would decide when the time came.
I took a last sip at the watery coffee and got to my feet. The Mirafiori was parked in Protesilaou Street. It was noon and the heat was at its most oppressive. By the time I had walked down Aroni Street, I was drenched in sweat and I stopped off at home in order to change my shirt. Fortunately, Adriani still wasn’t back so I didn’t have to do any explaining.
There was one long line of traffic all the way from Vassileos Konstantinou Avenue to Omonia Square. I turned into 3 September Street and, taking Ioulianou Street, I came out into Acharnon Street in order to find the beginning of Heyden Street. Number 34 was between Aristotelous Street and 3 September Street. I double-parked outside the apartment block, certain that the traffic wardens never passed by there.
The office of Kyriakos Andreadis was a spacious three-roomed flat of the kind they built in the sixties, in other words a good twenty square metres bigger than they built them today. I was received by a woman of around thirty, tall, slender, dressed impeccably and looking as though she had just come from the hairdresser’s. She had manners to match.
‘Please be kind enough to wait a moment, Inspector,’ she said on hearing who I was. ‘He’s on the phone. Can I get you something because he may be some time. Those phone calls are often like personal visits.’
I asked for a glass of cold water to go with the air conditioning that was working overtime and I waited, passing the time by looking at the photos on the walls, all of which showed a man of about sixty, always smiling and overjoyed, either giving a speech or standing beside a spitted goat with wine glass in hand. The other thing that made an impression on me was the amazing resemblance between Andreadis and his secretary. It didn’t take much for me to realise that he had hired his daughter. My suspicion was confirmed when she showed me into his office.