Deadline in Athens Read Online Free PDF Page B

none. But you're way off the mark this time."
    She made for the door and was gone before I could continue the discussion.
    Once again I had to wonder: Was she playing with me or was she keeping something from me? If she came out with something afterward, I'd be the one they'd all come down on. Prosecutor, judge, police chief, all of them. There'd be no end to it. And it wasn't as if I had a lot of time on my side-I didn't. Ghikas would be making his statement before long. The file would be sent to the prosecutor the next day, and it wouldn't take him more than a couple of days to arrange for the court hearing. From then on, the case would be completely out of my hands, and if anything were to explode, at that point there'd be no picking up the pieces.
    I picked up the telephone and told Sotiris, the lieutenant, to come into my office.
    "Listen, Sotiris, when we were searching the Albanians' place, did you notice anything that might indicate the presence of children?"
    "Children?" he said, a good deal surprised.
    "Anything at all. Rattles? Bibs? Baby clothes? Toys?"
    He looked at me as if he were up against a lunatic. And he had every right. "No, we found nothing of the sort." He thought for a moment and then said, "Apart from a box that had diapers in it."
    "Diapers?" I cried and leapt to my feet.
    "Yes, they were using it as a makeshift cupboard. In it, there was sugar, coffee, and half a packet of dried beans."
    The cat had woken up now and was eating, just like the glamorous stars who have their breakfast at eleven. The old woman was standing over it with pride. She was probably pleased that it had an appetite so she wouldn't have to give it iron tablets and vitamins. The leaves drooping from the potted plants looked down on the tiles like demure virgins. The old woman had watered them only the previous day, and they were withering already. Imagine being in a car in that heat, breathing the exhaust fumes, with the plastic seats so scorching you and your backside gradually become soaked.

    "Have them bring a patrol car, and we'll be on our way. Just the two of us."
    "Where are we going?"
    "To the Albanians' place. To search it again."
    He was about to say something, but he thought better of it and left. Five minutes later, they informed me that the patrol car was waiting.

     

CHAPTER 5
It took us almost an hour to get to Rendi, even though Sotiris had turned on the siren. Throughout the journey, sitting next to Sotiris, I toyed with the window. I'd open it and be suffocated by the smog. I'd close it and be suffocated by the heat. In the end, I gave up and left it half open. Perhaps it was the congestion that was to blame for my irritability. A sudden feeling of impatience took hold of me. I wanted to get to the Albanians' place, search it, and be done. I was pissed off at Karayoryi for getting me all fired up so damned easily and with myself for having gone along with her game, and with the Albanians for not having a brat beside them on the mattress whom we could send to social services and who would let us wash our hands of the matter. Sotiris was driving without saying a word, very much down in the dumps. The low spirits were no doubt on my account, for putting him to all this trouble without good cause, when he should have been sitting at his desk, flipping through some document and telling the others about the chassis on the Hyundai Excel he'd recently bought by selling a piece of land he had in his village. At least that's what he said.
    When we got into the house, I became even more uptight. One bare room, with the few rags on view; you could take it all in at a glance. What had I come to look for? Secret drawers, hollow walls serving as cubbyholes? The diaper box was on the folding table, as Sotiris had recalled. I opened it and found what he'd described: a hundred-gram packet of coffee, a packet of sugar, and half a bag of dried beans. They'd picked up the box from the street, to put their food in, so the rats