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wouldn't get at it.
    "What are we looking for?" asked Sotiris, who was watching me.

    "Anything indicating children, do I have to say it again?" I said testily.
    I took the woman's clothes from the hook, let them drop to the floor, and spread them out with my foot. Perhaps there was something tucked inside them that we'd missed. But all I found was a pair of slacks, a blouse, and some tights. I looked again at the man's clothes, still lying beside the mattress. He, too, had nothing but a shirt, a pair of trousers, and his socks. And their shoes. Hers flat slipons, his lace-ups. Didn't they have any underwear? Not even for a change? I know they come here with no more than what they stand up in, but when you came face-to-face with the literalness of that, something just didn't seem right. I wondered whether this might be significant.
    "Lend a hand to lift up the mattress," I said.
    We got hold of it at both ends and doubled it up. Three cockroaches raced out, scampering in alarm over the bare concrete floor. One was a bit slower than the others, and I succeeded in stamping on it. The other two escaped. So this was all we had to show for our search: one dead cockroach, two at large.
    "Let's be off," I said to Sotiris in relief and dropped my side of the mattress. If we hadn't found anything, there was nothing to find.
    "Just a minute. I need to use the toilet."
    "Careful not to touch anywhere with your willy. You'll be asking me for sick leave when you end up with an infection."
    I opened the door and went out. The chubby woman was standing there. "So you're still looking for something, huh?" she asked me in a familiar tone, ready to invite me in for a coffee to learn the rest.
    "What business is it of yours, missus? Go back into your house," I said curtly, in part because I was irritated at the thought of having to drive back through the center of Athens. After the compliments and praise she'd received in my office for being so observant, this took her aback. She gave me a nasty look, turned, and began walking away with as much speed as an overloaded truck can muster.
    Suddenly I had an idea. "One moment!" I called to her.

    She pulled up, undecided, with her back still turned. Then she swung around and came back to me, still looking offended.
    "Would you know whether the Albanians had any kids?"
    "Kids?" she parroted, and the question seemed to make her forget the insult. "No ... whenever they came here, I never saw them with any children."
    "What's that supposed to mean?" I said. "Are you saying that they didn't live here all the time?"
    "They'd be here for a couple of days, leave, and turn up again after a week or so. When I asked the girl, she told me once that she'd been to stay with her in-laws in Yannina, and another time she told me she'd gone back to Albania because her father was ill ..."
    That's why we hadn't found any other clothes, because sometimes they stayed here, sometimes elsewhere, exemplary vagrants. I was considering what might be behind all this when I heard Sotiris calling from inside the dwelling.
    "Sir, can you come for a minute?"
    I went back inside. Sotiris was standing in the middle of the room. As soon as he saw me, he went toward the toilet without saying a word. I found him standing in front of the lavatory. My nostrils suddenly started burning from the stench, and I began to sneeze. The bowl was bare, without any plastic seat. A pile of dried-up shit in the shape of a cone was stuck to it right in the middle. There were shoe prints all around the top of the bowl. Those who'd relieved themselves had climbed onto it and squatted there, Albanian style. The cistern was one of those cylindrical ones that look like a tiny boiler, with a button that you press upward.
    "I went to flush it, but the button won't budge," Sotiris said.
    "And what would you have me do, call a plumber?"
    "Go on, you try," he insisted.
    I was ready to give him hell, but something in his expression made me pause. I pressed the