by Graham Brack
Rajka unlocked the car for the journey back to Prague. ‘I can follow that hypothesis. But if you’re right, why is Klaberský in on it whereas Sedlák wasn’t? I mean, Holice was in Sedlák’s area but not in Klaberský’s.’
Damn, thought Slonský. No wonder he’s already a major and I’m just about to make it to captain.
Chapter 13
Navrátil felt naked. It went against the grain to wear a jacket without a tie, but he thought it would make him look more revolutionary to have an open collar. You can’t go around trying to wreck the system in a collar and tie.
Nerad was walking towards him, sunglasses perched on the top of his head and a broad smile on his face.
‘Got your thesis? Good. They won’t want you to read it but there may be some questions on your work.’
‘Will there be many there?’ asked Navrátil. That seemed a safe question.
‘You never know. Usually we get fifteen to twenty, but on a good day we can double that. I didn’t have long to tell people you were joining us, but I’ll be disappointed if there aren’t twenty there.’
He had no reason for disappointment. Navrátil counted twenty-four people in the room and another couple slinked in after the meeting had started. They were predominantly of Nerad’s age, but there were a number of older men. He had seen a few when he had been collecting his questionnaires, and he recognised the only woman in the group as the person who had given him directions on his arrival in town.
Nerad called the meeting to order and explained that the discussion they had planned for their regular monthly meeting was being postponed because by great good fortune a scholar from Prague was in their midst with some stimulating ideas that he, Nerad, believed would find some resonance with them all. He introduced Michal Ondráček to them and invited Navrátil to explain what he had been doing in Holice.
Navrátil realised that a postgraduate student was likely to be fairly confident at presenting his findings and did his best to look as if speaking to meetings and conferences was something he had done plenty of times before.
He walked round in front of the table to make it clear that he knew his stuff so well he did not need notes. ‘I am a postgraduate student at Charles University studying for a doctorate,’ he began. ‘My thesis looks at the degree to which Czech identity is lost when our country joins international organisations such as the European Union, and how we might preserve it. I will emphasise right at the start that this is not a question of whether we should be members of such bodies; I have my opinion, and you will have yours, but that is a different argument. My interest is in what happens when we decide to join, as we have done in the case of the EU.’
To his surprise, the audience was very attentive. He could see several heads nodding, and not because their owners were falling asleep.
‘I may as well say that the first draft of my thesis expressed concern that our unique Czech heritage was being diluted. In my opinion, the rush to be accepted by the western world and to separate ourselves from Soviet domination has had a price, maybe a price not worth paying. You may disagree.’
There were several cries of “No!”
‘Unfortunately for me my supervisor, Professor Jakub Hofmann, disagreed profoundly with my assessment. He acknowledges that this is a matter of opinion and that it is possible therefore that his view and mine will not coincide, but he argued that I had not done sufficient fieldwork asking ordinary Czechs what they thought. If we want to know what is in the hearts of Czechs we must go to the heart of the country, and Holice is right in the middle, roughly equidistant between Karlovy Vary in the west and Ostrava in the east.’
‘We don’t want the Euro!’ someone called out, to general approbation.
‘Now that makes my point,’ claimed Navrátil. He was not sure whether it did or did not, but it was a debating trick he had often seen used by politicians. ‘There is a headlong rush towards joining the Eurozone at the earliest possible moment, but have ordinary Czech people been asked for their views?’
There was a loud chorus of “No!”
‘Our best young people, our future, are leaking away from this country. Friends, you can’t get a good young plumber in Prague now! They’re all living in London or Berlin.’
Navrátil had no evidence for this assertion, but he had heard it said in the police canteen and thought it would play well with this audience. He was right. He glanced at Nerad whose smile illustrated his delight at the way things were going.
‘It is clear from the questionnaires that I have collected here in Holice that the majority of citizens share my misgivings. I consider this strong evidence that my original thesis is defensible and I intend to tell Professor Hofmann so. Certainly, there are other weaknesses that I will have to address; but I believe that I can demonstrate that there is a substantial section of the Czech public who want to remain defiantly Czech.’
‘A majority!’ shouted someone.
‘Well, we mustn’t overstate our case just yet,’ counselled Navrátil. ‘We can show a substantial minority, and I have no doubt that if our arguments are given a fair airing, the numbers who think like we do will increase.’
Whatever else he was planning to say was lost as his audience erupted in applause, some rising to their feet. Nerad shook his hand and smacked him enthusiastically on his back.
‘Well done!’ Nerad cried, and allowed the applause to continue unabated until its natural conclusion before raising both hands, unnecessarily, to beg silence before he summed up.
‘What we always believed is confirmed. We are the authentic voice of the Czech people,’ he claimed. ‘Our Home is the standard bearer for our legitimate national aspirations. Who knows,’ he added with that smug smile Navrátil was getting to know so well, ‘maybe one day our soon-to-be Dr Ondráček will return to Holice to represent us in the Chamber of Deputies!’
Navrátil the police officer had become Ondráček the demagogue.
Navrátil had decided that the best way to get information out of Nerad was to pretend that he really did not want it, so when they met up on Sunday afternoon — Navrátil having declined to meet on Sunday morning because he wanted to go to Mass — Nerad was suitably oblique.
‘I can understand that people would be drawn to our arguments,’ Navrátil explained. ‘After all, they’re self-evidently right. But how are we going to convince over half the voters in this country to support us?’
‘We don’t need half,’ explained Nerad. ‘When did this country have anything other than a coalition government anyway? All we need is a big enough voice not to be ignored.’
There was some truth in this. The 2006 Elections had been so finely balanced that even very small parties were courted to try to get to the magic 50% plus one. If Nerad’s group held a reasonable number of seats — and in the list system used in the Czech Republic that was never impossible — they would become serious players very quickly if they had as little as ten to fifteen per cent of the vote.
‘Can we get to that?’ Navrátil asked, trying to sound enthusiastic about the prospect of an ultra-nationalist party doing well.
‘I think if we have people of your calibre, of course we can,’ Nerad replied. ‘You know as well as I do that if the average Czech sees Dr in front of someone’s name they seem to think they must know everything about everything. Believe me, if we could get ten or twelve academics to stand for parliament I could see them getting elected. But we can’t depend entirely on political debate. We need action too.’
‘You mean demonstrations?’
‘Of a sort,’ said Nerad, smiling that crooked half-smile of his again.
Slonský had been for a walk.
‘You did what?’ asked Valentin. ‘Where to?’
‘Nowhere. I just looked out and thought it was a lovely morning, so I went for a walk. Not far, just through the park, listening to the birds coughing their little lungs up in the Prague air.’
‘It’s cleaner than it used to be. Remember when the ste
am trains used to puff back and forth?’
‘It’s a very nice city,’ Slonský insisted. ‘It’s my home. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.’
‘Neither would I,’ said Valentin, ‘but I don’t feel the need to walk round it to prove the point. I can admire the idea of Prague without actually putting myself to the trouble of experiencing it.’
‘Do you know,’ said Slonský, taking a long pull from his beer before continuing, ‘I was looking at all these couples of my age strolling around and thought that could be me and Věra.’
Valentin spluttered, sending a spray of beer across the floor. ‘Don’t tell me you’re becoming domesticated.’
‘No, of course not. We’re apart and we’re staying apart. I’m just saying that once in a while it would be fun to spend a Sunday afternoon with her.’
‘Fun? You’re fifty-nine. You’re not supposed to be having fun. Fun is for young people.’
‘She wounded me, there’s no denying it. She left me and I can’t forget that. But she’s been doing the odd little job around the flat and cooking me the occasional meal and it’s been quite pleasant.’
‘Give me a couple of thousand crowns and I can go and get you a woman who’ll do all sorts of things for you that are more than “quite pleasant” and she won’t expect you to take her for a walk on Sundays.’
‘Don’t be vulgar. This is jealousy speaking. Maybe you would like a woman to look after you too.’
‘I had one. I called her Mother. She died, and I didn’t replace her.’
‘Věra is not a replacement mother.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do. Nor would it mean that I would neglect my old and loyal friends. You could come with us.’
‘I am not playing gooseberry to you two! I’d feel like a spare part or some kind of weird chaperone.’
‘Don’t worry, I haven’t got the inclination for that kind of thing at my age.’
‘Thank heavens for small mercies.’
‘I just think it would be nice to have a bit of company when I retire.’
‘You have. You’ve got me. And you said yourself you weren’t planning to retire for as long as you could persuade the police force to keep you on.’
‘I’m not. But you have to think ahead. It would look pretty transparent if I suddenly started spending time with her three years from now, wouldn’t it?’
‘So what you really mean is that it would be nice to go for a walk with her three years from now?’
‘Of course. What did you think I meant?’
Navrátil was curious. He had decided that he should write up the results of his questionnaires because that was what a real student would do, so he spent Monday morning in his room and only ventured out to the café to get some lunch. Nerad was already sitting there.
‘I thought you’d turn up here sooner or later,’ he said.
‘Sorry, if I’d known you wanted me I’d have come out sooner. I was just writing up my work.’
‘Of course. And it’s given me the chance to catch up with Aunt Liliana.’
‘Aunt Liliana?’
‘The café owner. She’s not my real aunt. She’s my mother’s cousin’s daughter or something of the sort.’
‘She’s been very helpful to me,’ said Navrátil.
‘She’s a good sort. Very sympathetic to our cause too.’
‘Perhaps you can explain something to me,’ Navrátil said, lowering his voice. ‘When I was first here, she warned me to be careful of a man who she said was a policeman. Why would she do that?’
‘A local man?’
‘No, I think this one had been sent to replace the one who was killed.’
‘Oh, old Sedlák. Aunt Liliana draws a distinction between our local police and the ones from the regional HQ in Pardubice. She’s grown up with the local police. We know them and they know us. Nothing much happens here and they don’t need to get too heavy with us. The Pardubice mob aren’t as accommodating, that’s all.’
‘But the locals must be busy after that explosion?’
‘That won’t be local men,’ said Nerad. ‘If it were they would already have arrested them. It was probably some group of gipsies who shouldn’t have been there, I wouldn’t be surprised. But in any event the Pardubice police will be dealing with it. She was probably warning you that they’ll try to pin it on anybody who doesn’t fit in, or doesn’t have an alibi.’
‘Well, I’m grateful for the tip-off,’ said Navrátil. ‘It isn’t always easy proving your innocence.’
‘If they try to pin anything of that sort on you,’ said Nerad, ‘you get in touch with me. My family isn’t without influence. I’ll get my uncle to pull a few strings.’
‘Thanks,’ stammered Navrátil. ‘That’s good to know.’
‘We’ve got to cover each other’s backs in this world,’ said Nerad. ‘Fancy a walk? I want to talk to you about something and we can’t do it here.’
Nerad looked around the park to ensure that nobody was within hearing range.
‘You’ll know, of course,’ said Nerad, ‘that the American President is coming here next month.’
‘Yes, I think I read that somewhere,’ said Navrátil.
‘There’ll be a lot of press coverage. The ideal time for us to make a statement, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I suppose so. So are you planning to disrupt his visit?’
‘We certainly are. In a way that the world cannot ignore. This government will be shown up as the bunch of incompetents they are.’
‘What are you — we — going to do?’
‘It’s still in the planning stage,’ said Nerad. ‘I just wanted to check that you agreed in principle because you’ll be playing a major part in our action. Assuming you agree, of course.’
‘It’s a little hard to say whether I agree when I don’t know what you’re planning.’
‘Don’t worry, we’re not going to ask you to kill the President! Your role is smaller but vital. You know your way around Prague, and we don’t. We need someone to plot out our routes to avoid the areas where the police will be concentrating.’
The awkwardness — not to mention the irony — of Navrátil’s position was not lost on him. The terrorists wanted him, an undercover police officer, to help them evade the police. It occurred to him that if they were going to be caught red-handed with all the evidence that Poznar would want, he was going to have to get them past the security cordon.
‘Of course,’ he said.
‘Why are you wearing uniform?’ Slonský asked.
‘Because you’d arrest me if I wasn’t,’ Mucha replied.
‘I meant why not civvies?’
‘I’m working. Remember I told my wife I was helping you out on an enquiry today, which meant that unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to carry the shopping for her and her sister. And that happens to be true, since we’re on police business.’
‘But you’re on loan to the detective branch today, so you don’t have to wear uniform.’
‘No,’ conceded Mucha, ‘but you remember the time we raided that warehouse together?’
‘The one where I ended up with a stray bullet in my backside?’
‘That’s the one. Well, if any clothes are going to get ruined they’re going to be police issue, not my own.’
‘Nobody is going to shoot at us. I just want to look at the crime site with a fresh pair of eyes and maybe question one or two people in Holice.’
Slonský dropped the car into third gear. Since they had been in fifth before, this caused Mucha to jerk forward.
‘What was that all about?’
‘Almost missed the turn there. That’s because you’re distracting me with chatter. Did the coffee spill over?’
‘No, you’re fine.’
Slonský patted the car’s built-in cup holders with affection. ‘Best idea ever. It takes a Czech to come up with something like that.’
They parked opposite the entrance to Miss Valachová’s field, S
lonský pulling up with two wheels on the grass bank so that Mucha stepped straight into a muddy puddle.
‘So this is where it all happened?’
‘Yes. Come through the gate and I’ll show you.’
Slonský indicated the crater left by the grenade, the indentations left by the self-propelled gun still visible in the earth, and the approximate point where blood-stained shards of metal had been found that were not linked to the four victims. To his surprise Mucha immediately left the field without a word.
Thinking that his old friend had been overcome by it all, Slonský hurried after him, only to find Mucha pacing along the far verge, occasionally bouncing on the balls of his feet to look over the hedge into the field,
‘Are you all right?’ asked Slonský.
‘It’s all nonsense, isn’t it?’ replied Mucha.
‘Is it? What is?’
‘This idea about the gun in the field.’
‘What’s nonsensical about it? You can see it was there.’
‘I’m not disputing that. It’s how long it was there.’
‘It must have been there overnight because of the rain not having reached the ground between the tracks.’
‘Yes, but basically a self-propelled gun is the bottom half of a tank, right? In this case, a T34. But it’s not just a two-dimensional smudge on the grass. It has height too. And there’s no way that anyone walking along the grass opposite couldn’t have seen it. Let’s assume that they’ve covered it with a tarpaulin or something similar. It’s still a big hump sticking up where no hump should be. If it didn’t attract Sedlák’s attention on the way out, why should it do so on the way back?’
Slonský took his hat off so he could scratch his head. It helped him think, he thought. ‘Maybe he was chatting?’
‘Maybe. Of course, with no pavement he should be walking facing the traffic, so he’d actually have a better view going out than coming back.’
‘Okay, I’ve got the point. So what are we supposed to make of this?’ Slonský asked.
