Che Committed Suicide (25 page)

We had to start looking urgently for a third biography. I could have kicked myself for not doing it straightaway after Favieros’s suicide. I’d been blinded by my certainty that Logaras was Favieros and that the biography was an autobiography. Now that I’d come unstuck, I would have to get my finger out to prevent the worst. I told Koula to get me a list of Greek publishers. After about half an hour, she managed to get hold of one from the Book
Publishers
Association. She phoned them all, one by one, but didn’t come up with a third biography. That was good news, in part, because it meant that there wasn’t any third suicide candidate, at least for the time being. Of course, one might be sent to any publisher at any time, so we had asked all of them to inform us immediately if they received anything written by a Minas Logaras. Not that I expected this would lead us anywhere. Whoever was hiding behind the
pseudonym
Minas Logaras didn’t have his eyes shut. He would no doubt have foreseen that we would take measures after the second
biography
and would be in no hurry to send a third.

It was already turned five o’clock when I sat down in my armchair and opened the book, but I was immediately interrupted by Adriani.

‘Do you intend to read Stefanakos’s biography?’

‘Yes, and as you can see I’m starting early so you won’t be griping at me again about my staying up all night.’

‘Why don’t you read it in the park?’ she asked with a sugary smile. The sugar then melted into nostalgia. ‘We haven’t been for such a long time and it’s an opportunity today as it’s not so hot.’

Her idea wasn’t at all a bad one. On the one hand, I’d be doing what she wanted and, on the other, if I sat for eight hours in the armchair, I’d stiffen up. The walk there and back and the change of air would do me good.

I don’t know if anything else had changed in the park, but the cat was no longer in its regular spot. Nevertheless, I kept to our informal arrangement and sat on my usual bench. The park was deserted as always; the sun was piercing through the leafage; everything was just as we had left it, apart from the temperature, which was higher and with an increase in the humidity.

Adriani looked around her and let out a sigh of contentment. ‘I’ve missed it, you know. It was nice when we used to come here every evening.’

I tried to recall whether it really was nice. I was so down in the dumps during that period, so irresolute and lackadaisical, that I couldn’t recall anything nice about it. But perhaps it was. Without doubt, they were tranquil days, but tranquillity for me means boredom as I don’t know how to fill it.

I kept my silence, which could have meant agreement, and I got stuck into Loukas Stefanakos’s biography. After the first few pages, I had the feeling that Minas Logaras had written the same book twice, simply changing the names. The two biographies bore such a close resemblance to each other. Favieros and Stefanakos had sprung from the same social class and had followed the same course. Favieros had attended Primary school, High school and Polytechnic School, Stefanakos Primary school, High school and Law school.

I was halfway through Stefanakos’s student activism when the cat appeared. It stopped between the two benches and stared at me in astonishment. Then it opened its mouth slowly. I was expecting it to express its anger at me for having abandoned it, but all that came out of its mouth was a magnificent yawn, as though my presence alone were enough to cause it unbearable tedium.

‘Look, it’s as though it recognises us. That’s instinct for you!’
marvelled
Adriani, who had looked up from her embroidering.

The cat closed its mouth and, with its tail erect, leapt up and sat in its usual spot, while I went back to Stefanakos’s biography.

Logaras was equally generous in his adulation of Stefanakos as he was with Favieros. But now as I read it all for a second time, I had the impression that all the eulogies were somewhat forced – as though the praise was being heaped more out of obligation than conviction. I was sure I’d feel the same way if I were now to reread Favieros’s biography.

By the time I’d finished with Stefanakos’s student years, which took up half the book, just as Favieros’s had done, it was already growing dark. Adriani got to her feet half-heartedly, and I, too, would have preferred to continue my reading there in the park rather than in the stifling atmosphere of the house.

Anyhow, it was around ten when I got back down to reading the biography, after having listened to a boring news bulletin and having eaten a plate of Adriani’s beans. Adriani insisted that we avoided red meat in the summer, which meant that we almost always ate
vegetables
cooked in olive oil or, at most, oven-baked fish.

The similarities between Stefanakos and Favieros continued: years of resistance, struggles against the Junta and his arrest by the Military Police, not long after that of Favieros. As I was reading, it occurred to me that perhaps Favieros and Stefanakos had met in the cells of the Military Police, but I rejected the idea because the Military Police always kept their prisoners in isolated cells so they couldn’t have come into contact with each other.

Once I got onto Stefanakos’s parliamentary career and his rise as a politician, I was impatient to see just when Logaras would start tarnishing his image, and I didn’t have long to wait.

The first innuendo came immediately after the account of his marriage to Lilian Stathatos. Logaras described how hard Stathatos worked during the first years of their marriage in order to
consolidate
her husband’s political profile, while she herself took a back seat; perhaps because she didn’t want anyone to connect Stefanakos with her father, Argyris Stathatos. At the same time, however, she had become involved behind the scenes in numerous business activities.

These activities were initially focused on her advertising company Starad, and its rapid growth alongside the growth of TV. Things began to get a little strange where I wouldn’t have expected: namely, with the investment consultancy firm Union Consultants that
Stathatos
founded in partnership with Sotiria Markakis-Favieros. Logaras claimed, perhaps with some irony, that Stefanakos had helped his wife to set up the second firm in the same discreet manner that she had employed to create her husband’s profile. For a consultancy firm dealing with European investment programs, this opened up numerous questions.

This, however, was not the main innuendo. Half a page further down, Logaras revealed that Stathatos and Markakis-Favieros had opened offices in Skopje to deal with the Balkan countries seeking accession to the European Union. A large number of the programs intended for these countries were channelled through Greece together with the funds earmarked for the reconstruction of Bosnia and Kosovo.

I finished the biography at around twelve thirty. Adriani had already gone to bed. I got a pencil and some paper and set to work at the kitchen table. I tried to make an outline of the business interests linking Favieros and Stefanakos together with their wives:

I gazed at my notes and began making connections. Both
Favieros
and Stathatos owned companies that were completely above board: Favieros owned Domitis and Stathatos Starad. Behind these honest and reputable companies were others engaged in activities of a more shadowy nature. Both Balkan Prospect and Union
Consultants
were, on the face of it, entirely legal, but the way in which they earned money was questionable to say the least.

Even more shadowy were things in the Balkans. There, through his estate agencies, Favieros bought land and property for a mere snippet and developed them in various ways. As for the partnership between Stathatos and Favieros’s wife, it wasn’t at all inconceivable that they were getting a fat slice of the money from the programs intended for the various Balkan countries on the grounds that they were acting as mediators. In the old days, you paid a few drachmas to someone outside the Town Hall to fill out your application form for a birth certificate. Now the Greeks in the European Union were getting millions from Balkan countries for filling out applications for European funding.

And then there was Stefanakos. Activist in the resistance,
outstanding
politician, feared in Parliament and pro-Balkan. If he had intervened from backstage in order to help Union Consultants secure funds from European programs in Greece and the Balkans, who would have dared to expose him? These things rarely come out into the open because very few are aware of them and those who are keep their mouths shut.

I put the pencil down and tried to put my thoughts in some order. Could this have been the reason behind Stefanakos’s suicide? Someone unknown, hiding behind the pseudonym of Logaras, knew the truth and was blackmailing him. And so Stefanakos committed suicide in order to save himself and his wife from the scandal. It seemed that the theory of a scandal wasn’t to be thrown out after all.

Nevertheless, there remained the question: why did Favieros and Stefanakos commit suicide publicly? Anyone committing suicide to avoid a scandal doesn’t have to do it before the eyes of millions of TV viewers. I still didn’t have an answer to that one.

I got up and called Sotiropoulos on his mobile phone. ‘That
politician
who told you about the relationship between Favieros and Stathatos …’

‘You mean Andreadis … Is there one after all?’

‘So it seems. Not with Favieros directly, but with his wife.’ He whistled in exclamation. ‘Can you arrange a meeting for me with Andreadis, so I can ask him a few things?’

There was a momentary pause. ‘Now things are starting to get difficult,’ he said and he wasn’t joking. He paused again and then added: ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

The heat returned with a vengeance. I had already felt the change in temperature during the night because at one point I woke up drenched in sweat and with the sheets burning hot. It was now ten in the morning and I was on my way to the offices of Europublishers in Omirou Street, between Skoufa Street and Solonos Street. I drove up Skoufa Street behind an old truck full of plastic balcony chairs. As if it wasn’t enough that it suffocated me with its exhaust fumes all the way, every time it set off at a green light it emitted a double dose.

‘Do something about your exhaust!’ I called to the driver as I overtook, trying to save myself. ‘You’ll suffocate us with your fumes.’

He looked down on me, literally and metaphorically. ‘Don’t tell me that old crock of yours is fitted with a catalytic converter,’ he shouted.

The offices of Europublishers were located at number 22, on the fourth floor. I walked in to find a showcase fixed on the wall, full of the company’s publications. Arranged in line was a guide to
astrology
, a two-volume medical guide, a cookery book, two volumes and a video cassette on major events in the twentieth century and a volume on health care. Between the medical guide and the cookery book was Stefanakos’s biography.

Sitting beneath the showcase behind one of those metal desks that you find everywhere and in front of it two chairs that you can also find everywhere was an auburn-haired woman of about thirty-five. She was made up to the nines and was wearing a strapless top
revealing
two youthful bronzed shoulders. She must have been a model in her youth and had been put there to create a favourable first
impression
, and probably at little cost given she was well past her prime.

What was a biography about a leftist activist and politician doing in that environment? Sarantidis with his beard and the chaos in his office would have been a thousand times more suitable. Unless he had already moved to the new flat he had been dreaming of and had become like all the rest.

‘Yes, what can I do for you?’ said the woman in a deep voice.

‘Inspector Haritos. I’d like to speak with whoever’s in charge.’

She didn’t deign to reply but instead picked up the receiver and dialed an internal extension. ‘There’s a Mr …’ Before she could say my name, she had forgotten it and turned back to me. ‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Haritos … Inspector Haritos …’

‘There’s a Mr Haritos here, a police inspector, and he wants to talk to Mr Yoldasis.’ He must have shouted at her from the other end of the line, because she said in a placatory tone: ‘All right … all right … I’ll send him in right away.’

She replaced the receiver casting a spiteful glance at it. Then she turned to me: ‘Third door on the right,’ she said, pointing to the far end of the corridor.

The office behind the third door on the right was exactly the same as the one in reception. The secretary leapt to her feet on seeing me.

‘Please go through, Inspector. Mr Yoldasis will see you straightaway.’

She opened the door for me to go in. The man sitting behind the desk was fiftyish, tall and thin, with a pointed nose that almost reached down to his lips. He was wearing an outfit of various shades of blue: a light blue jacket and dark blue trousers.

‘Come in, Inspector,’ he said very cordially. ‘Please. Have a seat.’