by Graham Brack
‘I thought only buildings had that.’
‘Look at you, lad. Full of untidy angles. Whereas Peiperová doesn’t have a sharp corner on her. Altogether much more soothing to look at. Now, either come in or go and get some coffee from the canteen. Better still, let’s give our new colleague a tour of the neighbourhood, starting with the bar on the corner. Peiperová, have you brought any other clothes? You’re a detective now, and we only wear our uniforms on special occasions — parades, national holidays and disciplinary hearings. At least that’s when I wear mine. Nip back to your room and change into civvies and meet us downstairs at the desk.’
Peiperová stood up and began to raise an arm.
‘If that’s a salute I’ll break your elbow.’
‘Just about to scratch my ear, sir.’
Peiperová looked around her and sipped the drink Navrátil had bought her without having to ask what she wanted. Slonský detected cranberry juice and ice in it, and that was enough for him to decide he wanted to know no more. At least Navrátil was still drinking beer.
‘It’s nice here,’ Peiperová decided. ‘Lively.’
‘On the plus side, it’s near the office,’ Slonský said. ‘But that brings us to the minus side, which is that it’s always full of police.’
‘Is that so bad?’ she asked.
‘I don’t mind working with them,’ Slonský replied, ‘but that doesn’t mean I want to hang around with them. There are some of them I wouldn’t trust as far as I could spit them.’
Peiperová laughed. In her blouson jacket, white sleeveless top and jeans, with her blonde hair released from whatever implement of restraint held it under her hat during the day, she looked completely different. Slonský was enjoying sitting with her, once he had got over the shock of having, for the first time in his life, a colleague who wore makeup.
Navrátil had restrained himself long enough.
‘Can we talk shop a moment, sir? Do you think Captain Lukas will let us investigate the Válková murder properly?’
Slonský rolled a mouthful of beer round his gums before replying.
‘Not a snowball’s chance in hell. And if I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t either. To take up a cold case you need new evidence and a realistic chance of a conviction. Even if Kopecký told us anything new today, how credible a witness would he be?’
‘He’s not exactly demented, sir. Just a bit of short term memory loss. His long term memory is fine.’
‘I believe you, but how would you prove it? The natural tendency is to forget things, Navrátil, and the more time passes the more we forget. Kopecký is unusual in having — apparently — been frozen in time. But it’s hard to prove. Old men forget; it’s what they do. So unless we find something else, we’ll be told to stop wasting time and get back to the present day.’
‘But an innocent man was hanged, sir.’
Slonský frowned.
‘I’m not sure he was innocent, lad. None of us are. We’ve all done something deserving of punishment. But I grant he didn’t do what they strung him up for.’
‘Then we ought to clear his name. More to the point, we ought to find who really did it.’
‘I admire the sentiment, son, I really do. But even if we find them, I doubt we’ll get enough evidence to convict.’
Navrátil hesitated. He knew he had a convincing argument, but he was unsure that he dared to use it.
‘Who cares about conviction?’ he answered. ‘If they know that we know they did it, that’s enough for me. Conviction if we can get one, of course, but that isn’t everything. We’ve worked on a case where we knew we wouldn’t get a conviction, but we didn’t let that stop us doing what we thought was right.’
Slonský looked grave.
‘I didn’t let it stop me,’ he said. ‘You keep yourself out of it.’
Turning to Peiperová he explained Navrátil’s allusion.
‘Navrátil is reminding me that we knew we couldn’t get a conviction in the Sammler case. I kept the pressure on him in the hope that he would confess, but he didn’t. At least, not in a way we could use.’
Navrátil was not giving in that easily.
‘But you will ask Captain Lukas, sir?’
‘Yes, I’ll ask. I promised Holoubek I’d ask. But I also warned him that we might not be allowed to continue. And this is not a case we can pick up in our spare time, Navrátil. If you want to be useful, make me a list of loose ends we could still investigate. Now, can we talk about something else?’
‘Yes, sir. What would you like to talk about?’
‘Well, for a start, I’d like to know what Captain Lukas said to our new recruit here, because he’s said damn all to me about what I’m meant to do with her.’
Peiperová shook her head. ‘I’ve got no idea, sir. He said he hadn’t decided exactly where I should be placed, and the people he wanted to talk to about me weren’t around for a few days, so he thought I could start with you since we’d already met and you’d been the one who put my name forward. By the way, sir, thank you for that.’
‘No thanks necessary, young lady. Unless I need a favour, in which event I’ll remind you of my help loud and clear until it gets across. So, if the people are away that gives us two candidates straight off. Lieutenant Dvorník is on holiday in Bavaria with his chubby little wife and his rosy-cheeked little offspring. And if I remember correctly Lieutenant Doležal is on a course in Brno swotting up on character profiling or some such tosh.’
‘What are they like, sir?’
‘Dvorník’s all right, if you don’t like excitement in your life and you want endless discussions about his mother’s cooking and the best types of dumpling. His wife is allegedly a good cook, which, he says, is why he married her.’
‘Why didn’t he just hire her as a cook?’ asked Navrátil.
‘Yes, we wondered that. Wives are much more expensive. On the other hand, cooks don’t commonly have three children for you, especially after they’ve seen the first globular little horror. I’ve forgotten his name, but Dvorník used to bring him in to show him off, wedged in a pushchair. Doležal couldn’t be more different. Mid-forties, probably sleeps in his suit, unmarried. Stamp collecting is his thing.’ He leaned forward confidentially and dropped his voice. ‘People say he listens to classical music. I’ve never caught him at it but he shuts his office door when he’s working, so who knows. Peiperová, we’re relying on you to discover if those rumours are true.’
‘I’ll do my best, sir. Do they specialize in anything?’
‘Dvorník doesn’t like burglaries. If he had his way he’d only do murders, but as senior lieutenant I get more of them. Doležal specializes in dullness. Even Klinger in the fraud squad says Doležal is boring company, and if Klinger says someone is boring, you’d better believe it. He isn’t exactly a sparkling companion himself.’
‘Do they have vacancies for an assistant, sir?’
Slonský had not considered that and it was a moment or two before he felt able to reply.
‘Dvorník already has Hauzer. Doležal has an ex-academy lad like Navrátil here, but from the class before.’
‘That must be Rada,’ Navrátil chipped in. ‘Tall, thin chap who wears a lot of black.’
‘That’ll be the one,’ agreed Slonský. ‘Looks like a professional mourner.’
Peiperová looked perturbed.
‘So if they’ve got assistants, and you’ve got Officer Navrátil, maybe there isn’t a place for me at all.’
It was at this point that Slonský opened his mouth without thinking. Looking back later, he had no idea why he did it, because it had got him into trouble before and was about to do so again.
‘Don’t you worry,’ he said. ‘Your Uncle Josef will take care of you.’
Peiperová jumped up and hugged him.
‘Thank you!’ she squealed.
Everyone turned to look at her. Those who recognised Slonský were astonished. Nobody had ever thought that an attractive young woman wou
ld be moved enough to make physical contact with him voluntarily. It was one of those moments they would describe to disbelieving colleagues for some time to come. Their memories of the incident would, no doubt, become embellished with time, because memories do that to us. They sneak in little snippets of falsehood that make the overall picture more convincing. For example, more than one observer would swear that Peiperová was visibly drunk. Another would claim that Slonský’s right hand cupped her bottom. This was untrue. Slonský’s hands were extended sideways like a hockey defender claiming he didn’t bodycheck an opponent. Eventually he patted her gently on the back in the belief that she would not release her grip until he did so.
‘I’ve never been embraced by a subordinate before,’ he explained as Peiperová returned to her stool and he straightened his tie in a belated attempt at recapturing his dignity.
‘No,’ agreed Navrátil, ‘I’m not one for hugging the boss.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ said Peiperová. ‘It won’t happen again.’
‘Well, we needn’t go that far,’ Slonský answered. ‘Just give me a bit of warning. I’m a trained killer, you see. It’s lucky I controlled my reflexes before I broke your neck.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We’ll say no more about it. Whatever that disgusting red muck is in your glass, would you like another one?’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Navrátil, wave the waiter over and tell him what it was that you bought before. I can’t bring myself to say it, even if I knew what it was called.’
Navrátil glanced around him.
‘I can’t see one. I’ll go up to the bar and organise it.’
Slonský watched Navrátil push through the crowd, then spoke rapidly to Peiperová in a low voice.
‘Peiperová, I know Navrátil is fond of you. I assume you’re fond of him too.’
She hesitated, unsure how to answer.
‘It’s not my business unless it interferes with your work. But don’t insult my intelligence by pretending there’s nothing going on between you unless there really is nothing going on between you. I hope it works out. You’re a nice pair. But if it doesn’t, please tell me so I’m not left floundering around in the dark like an idiot. Deal?’
‘Deal, sir.’
‘Good. He’s going to be a good cop. Of course, he has the great advantage of having me to show him the ropes. But you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, and he’s got something about him. I think you have too. Don’t prove me wrong.’
‘No, sir. I’ll try not to, sir.’
‘Trying isn’t good enough, Peiperová. Make it your business to succeed. What are you gawping at, girl?’
‘It’s Navrátil, sir. I think he’s trying to attract your attention.’
Slonský turned to look. Navrátil was fighting his way back through the thirsty masses, his arms unencumbered by drinks, but with something in his hand. As he reached them Slonský could see it was a mobile phone.
‘Sergeant Mucha rang, sir. He says would I tell you to turn your bloody phone on and get yourself back to the station pronto. He emphasised the pronto.’
‘Did he say anything else?’
‘Yes, sir. It involved his boot and both our bottoms, only he didn’t express it quite that way.’
‘Right, he obviously means business. And since it is business, you two had better come too.’
Ignoring the traffic lights and the legitimate claims of drivers to unrestricted use of the road, Slonský barged across the lanes of traffic, holding his badge up like a wizard’s wand, and pushed the door open without bothering about the possibility that someone might be behind it. He could see at once that whatever it was, it was important. Mucha looked unusually agitated, but he did not speak until the three detectives were close enough to be the only people who heard him.
‘It’s Holoubek,’ he announced. ‘He’s been killed.’
Chapter 5
‘How? When?’ asked Slonský.
‘Don’t know,’ replied Mucha, ‘but the call came in and I thought you’d want it. So why don’t you get yourself over to Nusle and take charge?’
‘Where in Nusle?’
‘At the tram stop. It sounds like a hit and run as he got off the tram after seeing you. But I only know what the City Police told us, so stop rabbiting and get over there before the duty officer wonders why I haven’t given this one to him. I’ve logged that you were already out in a car so I diverted you there. Now go!’
Slonský came very close to running. An observer could have followed Slonský’s career for a very long time without seeing the like. Certainly he had run during his army service; people shooting at him tended to encourage that activity. He had occasionally run in his younger years. But it was a long time since he had skipped down the steps in threes, and by the time he reached the car the younger officers were in their seats. Navrátil put the lights and siren on and hammered the accelerator to the floor as they headed to Nusle, while Slonský struggled to get enough breath back to allow him to speak coherently.
They screeched to a halt on Táborská in front of a stern officer holding his traffic paddle aloft.
‘We’re in luck,’ Slonský announced. ‘That looks like Štajnhauzr.’ He pointed at a tall, fit-looking City Policeman who wore an entirely unofficial black bodywarmer over his black shirt. The bodywarmer was apparently crammed with useful articles, many of which other officers did not feel the need to carry. Although summer uniforms were in use, Štajnhauzr had not worn his pale blue shirt, presumably because black suited his action lifestyle rather better.
Slonský strode towards him, waving his badge to head off any other city police who might have been thinking of intercepting him.
‘Štajnhauzr!’
The object of the cry turned and waved in a gesture that approached a half-hearted salute.
‘Lieutenant,’ he acknowledged.
‘Officers Peiperová and Navrátil. What happened here?’
‘There are quite a lot of witnesses, sir. I’ve sat them down over there on the steps of the building. Officer Krob is watching over them. Basically, they tell a similar story. The deceased stepped off the tram onto the island that separates the tram lane from the car lane. As he crossed the car lane to get to the pavement, a dark blue van raced up and smashed into him. He was knocked forward several metres and the van kept going, ran over him and sped off.’
‘Anyone get the registration?’
‘A good partial from a cyclist and a few other partials. I’ve phoned it in to traffic and they’re trying to match it.’
‘Good. Time?’
‘Whatever time the tram came. Don’t know for sure. The tram driver didn’t see anything happen but the van swerved across in front of him to take a left at the junction into Pod Sokolovnou. I’ve got someone checking the traffic cameras to see if they can plot its course from there.’
‘Why that way? If you want to get out of the city, you go straight on or you turn left a block further down at Na Květnici.’
‘Could be opportunistic, sir. Maybe there was just a break in the traffic. And Pod Sokolovnou is a one way street. He wouldn’t meet anyone coming towards him.’
Slonský nodded. The city boys did not investigate crime but they knew the traffic system inside out. As soon as he arrived, Štajnhauzr would have put out a message to all the traffic police to watch for a dark blue van with any match to the partial registration.
There was a crackle from Štajnhauzr’s radio. He listened intently.
‘Van seen heading south on Michelská near the District 4 station, sir. We’ve got a couple of patrols out looking for it and they’re going to rig the traffic lights on Videňská to hold him up. He may not go that way, of course, but if he wants a quick route out of town, that’s favourite.’
‘Good work. Why did you phone the criminal police?’
‘Obvious hit and run, sir, but also because I went through his pockets to establish his identity and found a piece of pape
r with your name on it. There was also an envelope. It makes no sense to me, but it might to you.’
He handed over a thin manila envelope. It contained a copy of Vaněček’s autopsy report, apparently made with a camera. There was also a grainy black and white photograph of a small house.
‘Why didn’t he give us these, sir?’ asked Navrátil.
‘I don’t know, lad. You could try asking him but I doubt you’ll get anywhere. Maybe he just forgot. That’s what old people do.’
‘Holoubek didn’t, sir. He didn’t seem to forget much at all.’
‘Then maybe he didn’t know what to make of this and wanted to look into it a bit more.’
Peiperová interrupted excitedly. ‘Sir! Isn’t this an address on the back of the photo?’
‘Not easy to read, but I think you’re right. Zdiby.’
‘Zdiby? Where’s that?’
Štajnhauzr supplied the answer. ‘North of the city heading towards Klecany. Not a big village. Half an hour’s drive round and you’ll find this place, if it still exists. It’s an old photo, after all.’
‘Right!’ Slonský shoved the photograph in Navrátil’s hand. ‘Before it gets dark, get yourself over to Zdiby and see if you can find this house. Save yourself some driving — ask at the district police or council office first. Peiperová, you’re not doing anything tonight that stops you staying on a while?’
She glanced quickly at Navrátil, but he was already running to the car. ‘No, sir.’
‘Good. Get over there and interview all the women. You’ll recognise them by their lumpy fronts. Get names and addresses and the facts. We don’t need formal statements just yet. Start with the ones with small children. I’ll join you to tackle the men as soon as possible.’
A man with thick glasses and a neat beard was crouched over the crumpled body of Holoubek making notes and directing a photographer to take a large number of images. Slonský approached him but was stopped by a peremptory command.
‘Stop! Make a wide arc and approach from the head end. I haven’t checked that bit of road yet.’
