Free Deadline in Athens by Petros Márkaris

and began rubbing them on her jeans. "We were about to move on to the news bulletin when we suddenly saw that a spotlight had burnt out, and so Mr. Manisalis sent me to get another one-"
    "Who is Mr. Manisalis?"
    "The director ... I'm his assistant ..."
    "Okay ... go on ..:'
    "I came running in here, and I didn't notice her. I was in a hurry to replace the spotlight. But when I turned around to leave, I suddenly saw-" she covered her face with her hands as if wanting to block out the memory.
    "You saw the metal rod sticking out of her back," I said coaxingly, to help her. She nodded emphatically and began sobbing.
    "Open your eyes," I told her, but she kept them shut. "Open your eyes. There's nothing to be afraid of." She opened them and looked, first at me, then, hesitantly, all around her. The room had been emptied. The corpse was in an ambulance on its way to the mortuary, and the forensics boys had left. There was only Sotiris, who was standing discreetly outside her line of vision.
    "Try to remember, Dimitra. Was this chair here, as it is now, or was it turned toward the mirror?"
    She stared at the chair and thought for a moment.
    "It must have been like that because I didn't touch anything, I'm sure of that. I screamed and ran outside. And Mr. Manisalis, who came back with me afterward, didn't enter the room at all. He looked in from the door and went at once to the phone."

    "When you were coming to get the spotlight, did you see anyone outside in the corridor? Anyone coming out of the room or leaving?"
    "I didn't see anyone, but I heard something."
    "What did you hear?"
    "Footsteps. Someone was running. But I didn't pay any attention, because there's always someone running in here. We're all run off our feet."
    "That's my girl, you reeled it off like an expert. I'll let you know when to come to make an official statement, but there's no urgency. Tomorrow, the day after, when you've got over the shock. Go on home now and have some rest. But find someone to take you, don't go on your own.
    She smiled at me, relieved. As soon as she opened the door to go out, they all poured in, pushing her back inside. I'd put an officer on guard outside, but he got caught up in the bedlam too and ended up inside the room. At their head was Sotiropoulos, leader in the Taking of the Bastille.
    "What happened is tragic," he announced to me sorrowfully. That's to say, only the tone of his voice was sorrowful, because his expression revealed nothing, unshaven as he was, and as for his eyes, these looked, behind his round glasses, like two tiny beads that reacted only to intense light.
    "Yanna Karayoryi was the personification of the honest and conscientious journalist, who went fearlessly and determinedly in search of the truth. She will be sorely missed."
    I listened to this worthless spiel in silence. He raised the tone of his voice-not because I said nothing. He would have done it anyway, he'd rehearsed it. "And while the journalistic world is in turmoil, the police provocatively keep silent and have made no statement. We demand, Inspector, that you tell us what you know about the heinous murder of our colleague Yanna Karayoryi. 11

    "I have no intention whatsoever of telling you anything, Mr. Sotiropoulos." He was at a loss as to how to react to the officiousness of my manner.
    "That's unacceptable, Inspector," he said, in an equally officious tone. "You cannot treat us in this way when we give our lives for the truth."
    "I can't make any statement, or reveal any aspect of the investigation, before questioning every one of you."
    "Question us?" A brouhaha consisting of three ingredients rose up from them: bewilderment, alarm, and protest. Two cups of water, four cups of flour, and half a cup of sugar, as Adriani says when she gives the recipe for her famous cake, which-just between us-is inedible.
    "There is evidence that the victim knew the murderer. And you were all colleagues or friends of Karayoryi. It's perfectly obvious that we