Chapter  12

They decided to drop in on him in Oraiokastro, a village a few miles outside Salonika. This time the reporter took a colleague along. While the Investigator was opening plank by plank the doorway to the mystery, only to be confronted by an even denser darkness, since all these rotten mobsters were only the façade of the haunted castle and when you opened one door it led to another door and that one in turn to another, till suddenly you found yourself out in the open again, but on the opposite side from where you’d entered—the journalist had scented a new hare, who might prove exceedingly valuable to the investigation. This was a certain Stratos Panayiotidis, member of the ERE in Ano Toumba. He had been described by the neighbors as “the man who knows a lot and, if he wants, can get them all grilled.” Andoniou had contacted him first and learned that on the evening of the crime he had met Vango late at night on a street in Toumba. “Where have you been to get in such a shape?” Stratos had asked him. “There’s been some trouble in town,” Vango had said. “And since when have you been wearing glasses?” Vango had removed them at once. “It’s to keep people from recognizing me. How can I go home at such an hour?” This was what Stratos had told Andoniou a couple of days before. Today, when Andoniou went back to find out more, he was told that Stratos had left for Oraiokastro to help his uncle build a house. Andoniou and the other journalist took the Fiat and went off to surprise Stratos in the village. They had no idea what might come of it. But the fact that Stratos had met Vango, “by chance,” on the night of the crime looked suspicious. They didn’t find Stratos. They were told by his aunt that he had returned to Toumba yesterday to see his mother, who had had a heart attack. The aunt added that Stratos had told her when he was leaving that he intended to go by the office of the Security Police to see what was going on.

At that point the uncle interrupted. “What’s this fairy tale you’re telling these fellows? What Security Police?”

The two reporters exchanged significant glances.

“You just shut up,” retorted the aunt. “Go talk to your friend, the police sergeant of Oraiokastro.”

“You go back to your kitchen,” the uncle ordered. Then, addressing the reporters, he said: “My nephew Stratos doesn’t know anything about all this. He comes here once in a while to give me a hand with the house I’m building.”

“Does he know Yango Gazgouridis?” Andoniou asked him.

“Who doesn’t know Yango? They grew up together. They’re the same age.”

“Did he tell you what he and Vango said to each other when they met that night?”

“No. He didn’t even tell me he’d met Vango.”

Nothing was coming of all this. The reporters prepared to leave. Stratos, they decided, was a sphinx without secrets. Just then they saw him emerging from a thicket, holding his feeble mother by the arm. Even before he noticed the reporters, Stratos was troubled by the sight of the car in front of the house.

“You again?” he said to the reporters.

“Yes, it’s us,” Andoniou said. “You lied to us. You told us you didn’t know Yango. Your uncle just told us you grew up together.”

“I didn’t tell you that I didn’t know him. I told you I hardly know him. The fact that we grew up together doesn’t mean we’re friends.” He helped his mother into a chair, in the shade of a tree.

“Why don’t you come inside?” suggested the aunt from the door. “That sun’s too hot.”

They went into the house and sat down in the big, peasant-style room decorated with handwoven hangings.

“Well, where were you a little while ago?”

“I don’t have to account for myself to anyone.”

“Did you go to the Security Police by any chance?”

Stratos blanched. He looked around him nervously. Had they been talking while he was away? His aunt brought out her walnut preserves.

“No, I didn’t,” he said. “What business could I have there?”

“Why didn’t you tell your uncle that you met Vango the night of the incidents?”

“I did tell you, Uncle. Don’t you remember?”

“Absolutely not, Stratos. You didn’t tell me any such thing.”

“Then I’m mistaken. I must have said it in the café. I don’t remember. Anyway, I had no reason to hide it.”

“What else did Vango say to you?”

“That the police were looking for him.”

“That’s something new. According to what you told me day before yesterday, all he said was he was coming back from town and all hell had broken loose. You didn’t say anything about the police.”

“I guess I forgot.”

“And if the police were looking for him, why did he go to the Ano Toumba police station all alone at the crack of dawn?”

“Maybe he had a friend there.”

“You seem to be getting things a bit confused, Stratos,” said Andoniou.

“Stratos, were you at that wedding too, perhaps?” The question came from his aunt, who was sitting there, her long braids wreathed around her head.

The reporters looked at each other. By “wedding” she must surely have meant “murder.”

Then Stratos’s mother, who hadn’t said a word, spoke up: “The evening of the incidents, Stratos was at the ballet.”

“What ballet? The Bolshoi?” asked the other reporter.

“No. He was at the Turkish ballet at the Pathé movie house.”

“Yes,” said Stratos, thanking his mother with a glance for getting him out of a tough spot. “I stayed for both performances. I’m very partial to belly dances.”

“How did it happen that they allowed you to stay for both performances? Did you buy another ticket?”

This took Stratos off his guard.

“A ballet,” Andoniou explained to him, “is not the same as a movie. When the performance is over, the audience has to leave, like at the theater.”

“Well, I’m telling you, I stayed to see both performances and nobody kicked me out. Ask the usherettes at the Pathé, they know me. I went back home at twelve, and that’s when I met Vango.”

“O.K. But don’t you think you ought to make a statement about all this to the Investigator?” asked Andoniou.

“I don’t think it would be of interest to anyone.”

“You’re wrong! It’s a very important piece of information. We’re going back to town. There’s room in the car. Do you want to come with us?”

“I don’t have anything to hide,” Stratos said. “I’ll come.”

The next day the papers carried a photograph of Stratos Panayiotidis being escorted to the Investigator not by the police but by newspaper reporters.