Che Committed Suicide (3 page)

‘Not only with the governing party but with all the parties. Do you know any businessman who doesn’t have contacts with the parties, Mrs Komi?’

‘But we’re not talking just about contacts here. We’re talking about close personal relations. Only the other day, you were seen eating with a government minister at a well-known and very
fashionable
restaurant.’

‘What are you implying? That the Minister and I were plotting in public and in a restaurant of all places?’ said Favieros laughing. Then he suddenly grew serious. ‘Don’t forget that I am acquainted with many of the ministers in the government since the time of the military Junta, when we were students together.’

‘Nevertheless, there are more than a few who claim that the rapid growth of your businesses is due to the fact that you have the favour of the government,’ said Komi. ‘Perhaps because you were once comrades-in-arms,’ she added caustically.

‘My business success is due to proper planning, the right
investments
and sheer hard work, Mrs Komi,’ said Favieros gravely. ‘And that will be proven beyond a shadow of doubt, and very soon too.’ He stressed the last phrase, as if it were about to happen.

Komi opened a folder lying in her lap, took out a sheet of paper and handed it to Favieros.

‘Do you recognise this letter?’ she asked him. ‘It is a letter of protest from five construction consortiums to the Minister of Town Planning and Public Works. They are protesting because the contract for the construction of three junctions was not awarded and will be re-
advertised
simply to allow your company, which wasn’t ready, to take part.’

Favieros glanced at the letter and slowly lifted his head

‘Yes, I had heard something, but it hadn’t been brought to my attention.’

‘As you can see, here we’re dealing with very specific accusations. Is there any basis to them?’

‘Let me answer you,’ said Favieros calmly.

Slowly, his hand went to the inside pocket of his jacket. Komi clutched hold of the armchair, fixed her gaze on Favieros and waited. Through her body language, she was trying to transmit the
electrified
atmosphere to the viewers, but the staging stank from here to Mesoghia, where the channel was located.

Favieros withdrew his hand from his pocket, but he wasn’t holding a paper or even a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his brow. In his hand was a small Beretta pistol, which he turned towards Komi.

‘Heavens above, he’s going to shoot her!’ shouted Adriani, jumping to her feet.

Komi stared at the pistol as if mesmerised. I don’t know if it was her terror that had paralysed her or the fascination that the murder weapon has for the victim, something I’ve noticed on numerous occasions. At any rate, when she came out of her momentary torpor, she started to get to her feet terrified, except that her legs didn’t obey her and she collapsed back into the armchair. She opened her mouth to say something, but her tongue had entered into an alliance with her legs and refused to obey.

‘Mr Favieros,’ said a voice off set, trying to pacify him, yet
trembling
with fear. ‘Mr Favieros, put the gun away … Please … We’re on the air, Mr Favieros.’

Favieros paid no attention. He went on holding the pistol and staring at Komi.

‘Switch to the adverts, switch to the adverts,’ the same voice cried.

‘No adverts!’ The voice heard now was categorical, allowing no room for objection. ‘Stay with it. I’m the boss here!’

‘Mr Valsamakis!’ shouted the first voice. ‘We’ll end up in prison!’

‘How often do you think you’ll get an opportunity like this, you dimwit. Do you want to spend all your life on news bulletins and game shows or do you want CNN to fall at your feet and beg you? Well, do you or don’t you!’

‘Patroklos, give me a close-up of Favieros! I want a close-up of Favieros!’ shouted the director.

‘Aspasia, say something to him! You’re on the air, talk to him!’ Again the voice of the boss was heard.

Komi made no effort to hide her panic.

‘Mr Favieros,’ she mumbled. ‘Don’t … please …’

As Patroklos was zooming in, Favieros made three
lightning-quick
moves: he turned the gun on himself, pushed the barrel into his mouth and squeezed the trigger. The shot was heard together with Komi’s scream. A red fountain gushed from Favieros’s head, while his brains splattered onto the scenery, which depicted a huge aquarium with variously coloured tropical fish. Favieros’s body slumped forward as if he had suddenly fallen asleep in the armchair.

Komi had leapt to her feet and was retreating almost
mechanically
towards the exit on set, but the voice of the boss stopped her in her tracks.

‘Stay where you are, Aspasia!’ he shouted to her. ‘Just think that at this very moment we’re writing history! The first live suicide on TV!’ Komi hesitated for a moment, then turned to the camera, so as to allow a close-up of her face and also to avoid seeing Favieros.

Beside me, Adriani had put her hands over her eyes and, swaying to and fro as if keening, whispered:

‘No, dear God, no … No, dear God, no …’

‘Aspasia, talk to the camera!’ Again the voice of the boss was heard. And on cue the voice of the director: ‘Miltos, zoom in on Aspasia!’

‘Dear viewers.’ This time is was Aspasia’s voice that was heard, but instead of her, what appeared was a blurred image with blood and splatters.

‘Miltos, wipe your lens! I don’t have an image!’ shouted the director.

‘What can I wipe it with?’

‘Your sleeve for all I care. I want an image.’

‘Which imbecile left the intercom on? Switch to insert.’

The voices and sound cut out and on the bottom right of the screen appeared the words ‘unedited footage’.

‘Turn it off!’ Adriani screamed angrily. ‘Their only problem is that it’s unedited. Have they no conscience!’

‘I’ll turn it off,’ I said, ‘but you can bet you’ll see the suicide on all the news bulletins for the next week at least, like a trailer for a new film.’

‘And as for him, what on earth was he thinking of to commit suicide in front of the camera?’

‘Who knows what goes on in people’s minds.’

I had recourse to this vague reply because if we started to discuss it, we would only end up talking nonsense.

‘Everything these days is done for show, even committing suicide.’

There are times when Adriani hits the nail on the head without being aware of it. What reason had a successful businessman like Jason Favieros to stage a public suicide? Unless he was after
something
else and changed his mind along the way and preferred suicide. But what else? Killing Komi? She needed killing, but Favieros
certainly
didn’t watch so much TV as to have his killer instincts aroused by that blonde Barbie, all covered in glitter like a Christmas tree.

The other alternative was that he had wanted to threaten his rivals. So what was he doing with the pistol? Would he threaten his rivals with a pistol pointing at the camera? I had been a long time out of training when it came to crime investigations and I was coming up with nonsense.

I spent another sleepless night. The insomnia was my worst torment. I dreaded the moment when I turned off the light. Fanis told me that this often happens during convalescence and recommended that I take half a sleeping pill before going to bed. I refused to take as much as a quarter, because if you get used to sleeping pills, you can never do without them. I spent half my nights with my eyes wide open, tossing and turning in bed.

The previous night’s insomnia, however, had none of the usual symptoms: neither exasperation nor counting backwards from a thousand nor the midnight itinerary of kitchen–sitting room–
verandah
. On the contrary, each time I felt sleep coming on, I threw some water over my face to stay awake. I couldn’t for the life of me work out what it was that had driven Jason Favieros to commit public suicide. I could have accepted his suicide in the office or at home. His business wasn’t going well, he had psychological problems, his wife was cheating on him, he was involved in some major scandal and he preferred suicide to the shame of it. It was the public part of it that I couldn’t understand. Why in public? Why would Jason Favieros want to make a spectacle of his death? The likes of
Favieros
hate fuss and move in places far from the public eye, in offices lined with thick carpets to stifle the sound. And suddenly, one of their kind causes the TV ratings to rocket through his death? The possibility that he may have simply flipped could be excluded. He had gone to the studio prepared, with the pistol next to his wallet. Consequently, the public suicide served some purpose; he wanted to reveal something.

Beside me, Adriani was sleeping with that constant, muted, snoring of hers, like a cistern filling all night long. I usually bite the pillow in exasperation, but that night I had hardly heard her. It was the first night of insomnia for months that I didn’t want to end and that I revelled in.

For the past month, getting out of bed in the mornings had been a veritable odyssey. I thought of the day before me, the strict
programme
, without any novelty or deviation, and my feet refused to touch the mat next to the bed. That day, however, I was snug in bed by choice, because I was enjoying it. I had spread my dictionaries around me and was skipping from one to the other. I found the best documented entry in Dimitrakos’s Lexicon.

‘Suicide: 1. By one’s own hand, perpetrator: Aesch.
Suppl
., 592
This father; by your own hand, Lord, you planted our stock
; // gen.
executioner
, perpetrator: Soph.
Antig.,
306
If you don’t find the same man whose hands dug this tomb, do not appear before my eyes
; 2. partic. one who kills himself intentionally, self-inflicted killing: Soph.
Antig
., 1175
Haemon is gone. He drew his blood himself
// mod. Only act or instance of killing oneself, murderer; 3. Soph.
Oed. Rex
., 231
If he knows the murder, another, from foreign parts, let him not keep silent
;’

‘Are you all right?’ She poked her head round the door and fixed her eyes on me in concern.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Why don’t you get up?’

‘I thought I’d have a bit of a lie-in.’

‘You don’t feel out of sorts, do you?’

‘No. Nor strain from too much work.’

She stared at me, surprised at my somewhat ironic tone, which of late had faded together with the post-operational symptoms. The truth was that I, too, wondered what was the cause of my
unexpected
recovery. Was it the brainwashing by Ouzounidis the previous evening? Was it Favieros’s suicide? Most likely the latter. Something wasn’t right about that suicide, something had been bothering me from the moment that I saw his brains sticking to the huge aquarium on the set, and it was this that had dragged up the policeman,
half-drowned
and gasping for breath, from the watery depths back to the surface. I told myself it was just bullshit every time my thoughts led nowhere. I was creating crossword puzzles to pass the time. But I knew deep down that there was more to it. Favieros’s suicide had something of a show about it that simply didn’t add up, and it was this that was bothering me.

I hate idling in bed. In the past I had feelings of guilt about it because I thought I was taking up valuable time from the Force. In the state I was in, it made me feel even more down. I got up and started to get dressed with my mind still on Favieros. When I had finished dressing, I realised that for the first time in months I had put on a suit and tie. I looked at myself in the mirror on the
wardrobe
door. In appearance, at least, I again saw a police inspector and the sight did me the world of good. The one jarring note was my unshaven face. Shaving is a kind of certification. It certifies that you are healthy and working. On the contrary, an unshaven face means that you’re ill, retired or unemployed. For the previous two months I had belonged to the second category and had only been shaving every third day. I took off my jacket and went into the bathroom. Shaving that day was my first brave attempt to move back into the first category. When I had finished, I put my jacket back on and left the dictionaries lying over the bed. It was one of the little privileges allowed me by Adriani following my being shot. Not having to tidy things up, not even my dictionaries, which she loathed and which infuriated her whenever I left them lying around. But now she didn’t say even a word, because in her opinion, I mustn’t tire myself during my convalescence. Nevertheless, I usually tidied them up myself because Adriani would arrange them higgledy-piggledy as if
exacting
revenge on them in this way.

She was sitting at the kitchen table and scraping courgettes. She lifted her head mechanically, certain that she would see me in my pyjamas. She remained with her knife in the air and her eyes bulging, staring at the well-groomed version of me, as though seeing a ghost from the past.

‘Where are you off to?’

‘To get the newspapers.’

‘And you’ve put your suit on to get the newspapers?’

‘Actually, I was going to wear my official parade uniform, but I didn’t want to overdo it.’

Adriani was nonplussed and tossed the courgette into the rubbish instead of into the bowl of water. I slammed the door behind me so that the noise would wake her up after I had gone.

On coming out of the lift, I bumped into Mrs Prelatis.

‘Now you’re a sight for sore eyes, Mr Haritos,’ she said
enthusiastically
. ‘At last, you’re back to being the Inspector that we all know.’

I could have kissed her. With all the foreseeable and
unforeseeable
consequences. I remembered, however, that Adriani and Mrs Prelatis had a mutual dislike of each other. So she might have been saying that as a dig at Adriani, who hadn’t let me out alone for such a long time.