Deadline in Athens Read Online Free PDF

mother used to say. He'd succeeded in getting a confession; now his blood was up and he was playing the tough guy. I freed the Albanian from his grip and sat him down again on the chair.
    "Gently does it, Thanassis. If he knows anything, he'll tell us without any rough stuff. Isn't that so?"
    This last phrase was addressed to the Albanian. He was shaking from head to toe; why, I had no idea. It was just a simple question. He had nothing to be afraid of. Thanassis had just butted in and scared him with his excessive zeal.
    "No," he said. "Pakize have no keeds."
    Pakize was the name of the woman he'd murdered. "Okay, that was all," I said, friendly at last. "I won't need you for anything else."
    He gazed at me in relief, as if a burden had been taken from him.
    I returned to my office and sat down to write the schoolboy report for Ghikas. He didn't want much. A single page in my own handwriting, with my big, round letters. Just the facts, in precis. He could add the garnishing himself. I soon finished it and turned to the analytical report. This took me a bit longer, but I had finished inside an hour. I had them both sent to Ghikas.
    I decided to have the rest of my croissant and drink my coffee, which was now stone cold. A cat was sunning itself on the balcony opposite. It was sprawled out with its head on the tiles that were baking in the sun. It was one of the few creatures to delight in the ovenlike heat. The old woman came onto the balcony with a saucer. She put it down in front of the cat. She waited for it to open its eyes and see the food, but the cat showed complete indifference. The old woman waited patiently, stroking its head, talking to it, sweet talk most probably, but the cat couldn't have cared less. In the end, she gave up, left the saucer, and went back into the room. I reflected on the cat's arrogance, how it had its food brought to its feet, and I re membered the two Albanians lying on the bare mattress, the folding table, the two plastic chairs, the gas stove. Not that I'm especially partial to Albanians, but it got to me. So did the lousy weather, which gave no prospect of rain.

    The door suddenly opened and in waltzed Karayoryi. Without even knocking, as if it were her own office. I should have given her a key. She was different. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She had her cardigan on top of her bag, which was hanging across her shoulder. She closed the door and smiled at me. I looked at her without saying a word. I wanted to give her a mouthful, but we were under orders from the fifth floor to give reporters the kid-glove treatment. It wasn't always this way.
    "Congratulations. I hear that the Albanian confessed. You've closed the case" Her smile was ironic, her expression haughty.
    I was in no mood for playing cat and mouse. "Why did you lie in your television report last night?" I said. "You knew very well that there was no child, nor do we suspect anything of the sort."
    She smiled. "Never mind," she replied indifferently. "All you have to do is deny it."
    "Why did you come out with all that yesterday?"
    "All what?"
    "About the child. What was on your mind? Or were you just fishing?"
    "I told you because I like you," she said, unexpectably amiable. "I know you can't stand me, but I don't care, I like you anyway. I have my weaknesses, you see."
    The way she said it, straight out, she perplexed me. "I neither like you nor dislike you," I said, hoping that a neutral approach would seem more convincing. "You get on my nerves, and I get on yours, it's part of the job. But I don't dislike you any more than the rest of your colleagues."
    "I'm sure you do," she said, still smiling. "With the exception, perhaps, of Sotiropoulos."
    The bitch was razor sharp; nothing escaped her. "And why do you like me?" I said, to get out of a difficult position.

    "Because you're the only one with an ounce of brains around here. Though don't go puffing yourself up too much on that account. Just that one eye's better than