by Graham Brack
‘But Bartoš died. It wasn’t a case of eighteen months in jail then picking up where he left off. He went to the gallows.’
‘He wasn’t the first and he wasn’t the last. Sit down and I’ll tell you a bit of family history.’
Navrátil was concerned that he might be about to hear some shocking revelation, but took a seat where Holoubek had been sitting, across the desk from Slonský.
‘How many Slonskýs do you know?’
‘One. You.’
‘Not a common name then. You heard me tell Holoubek that my dad had it. Not strictly true.’
‘No?’
‘No. Did you ever hear of Rudolf Slánský?’
‘Yes, in history. Some kind of party bigwig just after the war.’
‘Not just a bigwig. Slánský was general secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. He was effectively number two in the country, second only to Gottwald. Then in 1951 Gottwald had him arrested and tried for treason, and he was hanged a year later. My dad was also called Slánský, and he decided that it wasn’t a good name to have. Fortunately, his army discharge papers had been badly typed and the name was barely legible. Dad persuaded a clerk that the name was Slonský and managed to get a whole new set of papers in the Slonský name. That’s why I’m a Slonský. But I was born a Slánský and that was my name until I was four or five.’
‘Was it that bad?’
‘It was worse than that bad. If people thought you were family of the accused, they’d shun you. You wouldn’t get served in shops. A similar thing happened after the Russians came in 1968. If you’d been a progressive, some people idolised you, and others wouldn’t pee on you if you were on fire. And the bit that got to me was that this wasn’t foreigners doing this; this was Czechs doing this to Czechs. Or sometimes to Slovaks. Look at Holoubek. He’s not a bad man at all, but you heard some of the things he had to do. And listen to the way he talks about Slovaks and Slovakia. He sent those guards there as if it was the end of the world. He said their lack of brains wouldn’t be noticed there. I’ve met relatively educated Czechs who talk about Slovaks as if they were animals. I’ve never understood it. Okay, so they talk funny, but they’re human beings. Most of them.’
Navrátil waited for Slonský to sit down again before speaking.
‘Do you think you can help him? Won’t all the files be gone by now?’
Slonský frowned in thought.
‘Probably not. One thing we lead the world in is bureaucracy, and I can’t imagine any clerk in the communist era deciding to throw any paperwork out unless he was specifically told to do so. In which event either the file was burned by 1977 or it’ll be around now somewhere. I’ve no idea where, but the starting point is our own connoisseur of bureaucracy.’
‘How long ago?’ asked Mucha incredulously.
‘Around thirty years. Nineteen seventy-six. Do you think those files will still be around?’ asked Slonský.
‘How should I know? And all this is to satisfy an old man’s whim?’
‘No, if the old man is right, it’s to give a family justice. I’m up for that.’
Mucha shrugged his shoulders. ‘Put that way, so am I. No point in being here if we aren’t. Tell me some more, then. Where was it?’
‘Ruzyně.’
‘That would be here, then. Even through the reorganisations it’s always been under the Prague office. Victim’s name?’
‘Jana Válková. Aged sixteen or so, I guess.’
‘I remember that case. She was repeatedly stabbed, wasn’t she? Who was the investigating officer?’
‘Someone called Vaněček.’
Mucha chuckled. ‘Vaněček? He was my boss for a while.’
Slonský became energised. ‘What was he like?’
‘Pretty useless. No, I take that back. He was completely useless. So far as I remember, he came to us from the army. He had been a staff officer responsible for planning. After the Russians came they didn’t want anyone left in the Czechoslovak Army who might be able to plan a revolt, so he was moved out. If they’d had any sense they’d have left him in post, because any rebellion Vaněček organised would be doomed to failure.’
‘He can’t have been that bad. He got promoted several times.’
‘Yes, he got promoted, but not for anything to do with military ability or policing skills. He was a grade A brown nose, always sniffing round the Presidium to see who could give him a leg up. But there was one thing he did well,’ Mucha added grudgingly. ‘He could certainly organise a parade.’
‘A parade?’
‘That was his main job. For years Vaněček organised the police element in the May Day parades. And if you wanted a bit of a show, Vaněček could lay it on for you. It didn’t matter what it was, a band, a few police cars, if the price was right Vaněček could make it happen. He persuaded me to turn out as part of a guard of honour for a police officer’s wedding once. We were introduced as “his men”. None of us had ever clapped eyes on him before. Still, I bought my daughter her first bike on the proceeds of that.’
‘Fascinating though this is, can we get back to the subject of the Válková file? How would we find out if it still exists?’
Mucha stroked his chin.
‘We could look in the index. But to be honest, if there was anything controversial in the file, it wouldn’t be in the general index. There is a private index but I don’t have access to it. However, taking the whole thing into account, I think the best method of getting the file is just to ask for it.’
‘Ask for it?’
‘Yes. You know, just saying “Can I have it?”’
‘Would that work?’
‘Oh, yes! Gives it the appearance of normality. If you do it that way. the clerk who retrieves it probably won’t even look at it, whereas if you make a big fuss about it they get very protective of their paperwork. If it doesn’t exist any longer, they’ll say so. Trust me, that’s the way to do it.’
‘I do trust you. Sort of. As much as I trust anyone.’
‘That’s your problem, old friend. You want to do everything yourself because you don’t trust anyone else.’
Slonský waved a languid hand in the direction of a waiter, and was rewarded with a large glass of beer and a hunk of bread and cheese. He had taken a bite of it before he realised that he had actually ordered some sausage, but shrugged and carried on chewing. All around him there were the sounds of people enjoying themselves. It made you sick, he thought. All this frivolity and fun when so much is going wrong in the world.
The bar door opened and a small man with thinning hair and glasses came in. Although it was not a cold evening he was wearing a crimson scarf tied tightly at his neck, and a grey woollen overcoat. He removed both and laid them along a seat as he spotted Slonský’s back.
‘You look glum,’ Valentin announced. ‘Bad day?’
‘Normal day,’ replied Slonský. ‘Bad is normal lately.’
‘Come on,’ said Valentin, ‘I’ll buy you a drink.’
‘That’s not normal,’ Slonský noted. ‘Are you sickening for something?’
‘Fit as a fiddle, old pal. I never thought I would see having less drinking time as an improvement, but there you are. It just goes to show that you never can tell.’
Valentin was a journalist, or at least that was what he had managed to trick his editor into believing. Although quite well connected, his liking for a bottle or six had held him back. He and Slonský were long-time drinking companions, though they could go weeks without meeting up. At the moment, encounters were limited because Valentin was in demand.
At a time when Valentin’s editor had been uttering dark threats about the removal of his retainer and a return to payment per story, Slonský had slipped Valentin two front page specials. The first had exposed a leading politician’s liaison with a rent boy, while the second was an exclusive story that a recently dismissed government minister had been appointed to a plum job in Brussels. The fact that the minister had been sacked after
Slonský wrongly arrested him for murder did not feature in Valentin’s story. The result of these scoops was startling. Valentin was suddenly much in demand as a journalist and, although his retainer had been restored, he was having to work much harder because other magazines and media wanted him to work for them. This had severely restricted his drinking time, caused him to have a professional haircut rather than do it himself with a mirror and a pair of scissors, and had reacquainted him with the necktie as an everyday item of apparel. Admittedly “everyday” was a suitable description of the single tie he owned, but it was necessary if he wanted to appear on television. Valentin’s television career had so far been limited to a short interview at 23:00 one Thursday evening and a recorded piece shown at breakfast time, but he lived in hope. Radio was rather kinder to him, and he had become a regular pundit on an afternoon phone-in where his characteristic blend of acerbic wit and complete failure to do any homework had won him something of a following amongst those who do not get out much.
‘So what’s the problem?’ Valentin asked.
‘Off the record?’
‘Need you ask?’
‘Yes. Just to be sure.’
‘Then, for the avoidance of doubt, this is off the record.’
‘I had a visit today from an old boy of around ninety who used to be a policeman.’
‘You see, the good don’t all die young.’
‘No, I suppose not. His conscience is pricking him and he wants me to reopen a case from thirty years ago.’
‘Don’t touch it with a bargepole, that’s my advice. If you fail everyone will say what a waste of time it was, and if you succeed the headlines will read “Police solve case after thirty-one years”. It’s not worth it.’
‘Someone was hanged for something they didn’t do, Valentin. That makes it worth it.’
Valentin inspected the bottom of his glass through the golden liquid for a few moments.
‘Yes, I suppose it does. Who, when, why?’
‘A fellow called Bartoš back in 1976. Accused of rape and murder of a girl called Jana Válková in Ruzyně. But he can’t have done it because at the time the murder was committed, he was already in jail in Olomouc.’
‘And his lawyer forgot to mention this in court?’
‘Not a dickybird.’
‘Who was his lawyer?’
‘Good question. I’ll have to find out.’
‘It’s not a unique event, Josef. A lot of people were banged up for things they didn’t do, or there wouldn’t be crimes today.’
‘I know. But there’s a difference between being banged up and strung up. I just can’t see why someone would do that to a stranger.’
‘Ah, the inexplicable crying out to be explained. I can sympathise with that.’
‘But can we do it? How do we explain something that happened so long ago when a lot of those who were involved will be dead and gone?’
Valentin raised his glass to his lips and spoke cheerily.
‘You don’t know that. If you don’t investigate, no-one will ever put this right. And if you can’t succeed now, it isn’t going to be any easier for anyone coming after you. You know you can count on my assistance.’
‘Excellent,’ said Slonský. ‘You can have a read through the back issues from 1976 and see if there’s anything in the papers I can use. Meantime, I’m going to have one more for the road. You’ve brightened me up, Valentin. I can see light at the end of the tunnel.’
‘Careful,’ Valentin replied. ‘That light could be an approaching train.’
Chapter 3
Life with Slonský was full of non-sequiturs, thought Navrátil. Having been informed by his boss that they were going to do a little delving into Holoubek’s case, just to see if there was enough in it to warrant asking Lukas if they could formally reopen the matter, Navrátil had quite properly asked where they were going to start.
‘There’s only one place to start with a case like this,’ replied Slonský, before clamming up and saying no more on the subject. In the car his conversation was limited to deciding where they might grab a quick lunch and criticising Navrátil’s use of the rear view mirror, though without his usual sharpness. It was as if the criticism were expected of him but his heart was not really in it.
‘Pull in over there and we’ll walk the rest of the way,’ Slonský instructed.
The old detective flung open the car door and strode into the little cemetery, occasionally glancing at a small map he had drawn.
‘She should be along this row somewhere,’ he announced to nobody in particular, Navrátil having lagged a few metres behind as a result of having to lock the car up.
Navrátil felt unable to run given where they were, but was relieved when Slonský suddenly stopped and turned to face a black headstone on which some writing infilled with gold could be seen. It declared the occupant of the grave to be Jana Válková, born 23rd February 1959, died 16th July 1976, beloved daughter of Jan Válek and his wife Helena. For some minutes Slonský stood in silence as if paying his respects. He even removed his hat. Navrátil failed to see how this was advancing the inquiry but he knew better than to interrupt, so he waited patiently until Slonský squatted and picked a couple of weeds from the foot of the grave.
‘What are we doing here, sir?’
‘It helps. I don’t know how, but being with the victim helps me. It makes me realise how important it is that we pin the blame on the person who put her there. Seventeen, Navrátil. A year older than I thought, but still it’s no age. What would she be now — late forties? She should have a husband and maybe a couple of children, looking forward to being a granny. Instead of which she’s been lying in this cold earth longer than you’ve been alive. I was twenty-eight when she was killed, lad. That’s how long she’s been waiting for someone to find her real murderer.’
‘Bartoš is a victim too. Are we going to his grave?’
‘He probably doesn’t have one. More often than not they cremated criminals and scattered the ashes on the roads. If his family were lucky they may have been given an urn, but I wouldn’t guarantee the right remains are in it.’
‘Are her parents still alive, sir?’
‘That’s a good question, Navrátil. You can find me a good answer. If she’s an only child born in 1959 the chances are her parents would be around seventy now, so they may still be about. The Social Security Administration in Křížová could tell you if they’re drawing pensions. There can’t be too many Váleks around and you’ve got their first names.’
‘Will that be enough, sir?’
‘What more do you want? Use your brain, son, if you have one. You know their surname, their first names, whom they were married to, the date of birth of their daughter — whom they will have registered — where they lived in 1976 and the fact that they were probably born between 1930 and 1935. If you can’t find them with that little lot give up policing and try journalism.’
Slonský stomped off towards the car, and this time Navrátil deliberately gave him a ten metre start. As he climbed in the car he braced himself for a disagreeable journey if Slonský was in one of his moods, but the temper seemed to have dissipated in moments.
‘Next stop the villa, Navrátil. Try using the mirror once or twice if you can, just for form’s sake. And if you see a decent bakery, pull over. I’m peckish.’
There was not much of the villa still standing. It was surrounded with security fencing on which a large notice proclaimed that it was to be replaced by a prestige development of four shoeboxes created by a local developer. However, since the sign also proclaimed that they would be ready in autumn 2004, it looked likely that the developer had run out of cash.
Slonský fished in his pocket for a penknife.
‘Anyone watching, Navrátil?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Good.’
Slonský busied himself in some secretive manoeuvre at the fence, until a loud click announced that a padlock had come undone and they were able to part t
he fence panels sufficiently to slip inside.
‘Come on, Navrátil, don’t dawdle.’
‘I’m watching for the guard dogs, sir.’
‘Navrátil, the sign is at least three years old. There probably never were guard dogs. I’d like to think if I employed dogs and someone rattled the padlock chain like I just did they would at least come over to see what was happening, if only out of curiosity. But I didn’t hear a bark, so I think we can assume the dogs are long since gone.’
The front door was still present, though hanging slightly open. Slonský shoved it with his shoulder and they were able to stand in the entrance hall.
‘That’ll be the room where she was stabbed. She’d trailed blood from there to the bathroom. The pathologist thought the boys might have carried her there, because the blood droplets and spurts didn’t make sense if she had been upright.’
Slonský turned down a side corridor and pushed a door open. He pointed to a pipe sticking out of the floor.
‘Bath was there. So she was stabbed repeatedly to the left of the front door and then brought across the lobby and down here to be patched up. Why? They were never going to let her live once she’d seen them.’
Slonský flicked his diary open.
‘Sunset in mid-July would be around nine o’clock. The man who found the body said the lights were blazing. We need to find out when he came over. Navrátil, are you making notes of this?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It can’t have been that late because the man who found her hadn’t gone to bed. And I don’t suppose the murderers knew when Válek would return. But Holoubek said he was on night shift.’
Slonský ambled around the building for a few minutes, then stood in the doorway scanning the houses opposite.
