by Graham Brack
‘It would be interesting to know who Válek called to get Vaněček brought in, sir.’
‘So it would, but you’d have to find Válek first.’
‘I’ve got his address, sir. Holoubek found him.’
Lukas glanced at his watch.
‘You’ve just got time to go and see him this afternoon.’
Navrátil was a little surprised to be told to leave Vaněček’s personnel folder and fetch the car, but Slonský disliked driving around Prague if he could persuade someone else to do it.
‘Shouldn’t we ring first, sir?’
‘No, Navrátil. We want to surprise him so he doesn’t have time to make up a story.’
‘It’ll certainly be a surprise, sir. It’s been thirty years since his daughter died.’
‘I think we need to approach this interview with the maximum of tact, lad. Leave all the talking to me.’
Navrátil managed to stifle his response, but the keen observer would have seen his mouth drop open.
‘Eyes on the road, lad. Bear right here and then left at the next junction.’
They found the apartment block and Slonský led the way up to the third floor. They knocked on a door that had once been cream but now looked slightly yellow. After a few moments and a lot of noisy shuffling the door was opened by a large old man walking with a crutch attached to his right elbow.
‘Mr Válek?’
‘Yes.’
‘Lieutenant Slonský and Officer Navrátil.’
‘Come in. The neighbours will have a field day if they see policemen here.’
‘Are they inquisitive, then, sir?’
‘Nosey bitches. Especially her across the corridor. Old cow.’
Válek sank into an armchair and indicated a similar chair and the sofa. Slonský took the chair.
‘I’m sorry to bring this up after all this time, sir…’
‘Jana. You’ve come to talk about Jana. Have you found the other man?’
‘It’s more complicated than that, sir. You’ll recall that a man called Bartoš was hanged for killing her.’
‘Yes, I remember. How could I ever forget? He took my precious girl from me.’
‘That’s the problem, sir. He didn’t.’
Válek reddened and glowered at them.
‘Don’t talk nonsense. He was convicted and hanged. He did it.’
‘I’m afraid he can’t have done, sir. He was in prison for something else at the time.’
Now Válek blanched.
‘In prison? But surely you knew that?’
‘We did, sir. I’m trying to find out why we ignored the fact. But, more to the point, we’ve reopened your daughter’s case and I’ve been assigned to finding her real killer.’
‘Killers, Lieutenant. There were two of them.’
‘That’s my first question, sir. Why did they stop looking when they charged Bartoš? You knew there were two, and they must have known there were two as well. Didn’t you press them to keep looking?’
‘I certainly did. That fat pompous officer — what was his name? — the one my wife persuaded them to appoint.’
‘Vaněček.’
‘Vaněček! That’s him. Bloody useless. We’d have been better off keeping that stringy one who was on it at first. At least he was a proper detective. Vaněček couldn’t find his own backside with a map.’
‘May I ask, sir, how your wife had Vaněček appointed?’
Válek rubbed his hands together as if he were washing them.
‘Her sister was married to an army general. My wife rang her sister to tell her what had happened, and my sister-in-law said her husband would make sure the best man was put on the job. He’d served with Vaněček in the army, so he rang him for suggestions, and Vaněček said he would take it on himself. At the time we thought that was the best possible arrangement. It soon became clear that he was a clueless imbecile.’
‘Are your sister-in-law and her husband still alive, sir?’
‘No, neither of them. General Mikula died ten years ago, and my sister-in-law followed last year.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir. You were going to explain why the search was stopped.’
‘It was Vaněček. He told us he’d got a confession from this man Bartoš, but Bartoš had given a statement that didn’t mention an accomplice. It was therefore clear that Kopecký must have been mistaken. He advised us not to mention the second man because if the court thought the confession was wrong about that the judges might throw it out altogether and then Bartoš would go free.’
‘Did you believe that, sir?’
‘I’m not a lawyer, Lieutenant. I can’t argue with people who know how the courts work. But I have to admit that I didn’t think Kopecký would be wrong. He was an interfering busybody but he had eyes like a hawk.’
‘In what way was he interfering, sir?’
‘He wanted the street kept exclusive. He started a residents’ association and we had all kinds of rules about when the garbage had to go out and where it could be put. All that sort of thing. But he was an honest man and his wife was lovely with Jana. Are they still around?’
‘Yes, sir. We met them a few days ago.’
‘I should give them a call,’ muttered Válek. ‘They were good neighbours.’ He raised his voice. ‘Not like that interfering woman across the hall.’ He mopped his face with a large white handkerchief. ‘Sorry. I’m all alone in the world now, you see. No-one to fight my battles for me. Wife’s dead, poor Jana’s dead, I’ve got nobody. The Kopeckýs were good friends. I just didn’t appreciate that at the time. I’d like to talk to them again.’
‘If you want to give me your details, I’ll ask them if they want to make touch, sir.’
Válek nodded his thanks.
‘If it’s not too painful, sir, it would help us if you would talk us through the night your daughter was killed. I know it’s a long time ago, but…’
‘I’ll never forget it, don’t you worry. You can’t forget a minute of a day like that. Memories don’t work that way. My wedding day went past in a blur, but the 16th of July, 1976 is in my head forever.’
Válek closed his eyes for a moment while he decided where to start.
‘I was manager of a kitchen electricals factory. We were close to sealing a deal to provide irons and toasters to Hungary. They were paying for them with hi-fi equipment, of all things. Goodness knows how I was meant to sell those, but that’s what the ministry had agreed. The Hungarians were in town and the ministry threw a dinner for them. All of us who were negotiating deals were told to go. I didn’t like going out on a Friday, but I didn’t have a choice.’
‘And you left Jana alone?’
‘She sometimes went to a youth club on Friday nights, but I told her I didn’t want her walking back home from the tram stop on her own. To be frank, I wasn’t convinced that she would come home at the normal time if she knew we were out. She wasn’t a bad girl, you understand, but you know what teenagers can be like. So I confined her to the house. She complained and asked if she could have some friends round. My wife agreed, thinking she meant the girls she used to hang around with.’
‘But in fact she invited boys.’
‘She must have done. She let them in and they had some beer together. The boys must have brought that. It wasn’t mine. I didn’t know Jana ever drank. She was only just seventeen.’
Válek’s eyes were glistening as tears filmed them over. He paused to wipe them away with a thumb.
‘We didn’t know that she was friendly with any boys. Of course, we asked her best friends, but they swore they didn’t know of any boyfriends either. There were one or two who lived nearby, but they didn’t fit the description Kopecký gave. They all had longish hair. It was the fashion then.’
‘So you have no idea who they were?’
‘No, none at all.’
‘Surely you didn’t believe that Jana would have let Bartoš in and shared a beer with him?’
Válek nibble
d his thumb in agitation.
‘I couldn’t see how they could possibly have known one another. They just wouldn’t move in the same circles. And he was a dozen years older than her at least. But Vaněček was very persuasive. He told us we obviously knew very little about our daughter’s private life so how could we say that she didn’t know Bartoš?’
Slonský checked that Navrátil was making notes of the conversation.
‘So you went out, sir, and you came in — when?’
‘About half past one, I think. We were brought back by car because I’d been drinking so many toasts to those damn Hungarians. When we turned in to the road we saw the police cars and noticed that our front door was open. I ran in — a couple of police tried to stop me, but I pushed them off and told them I lived there — and I heard talking in the bathroom. When I ran in there I found Jana. It was horrible. That skinny policeman pushed me outside and sat me down in the lounge with my wife. He told me what had happened. That’s it, I think. I remember the policeman went outside and yelled at the pair by the front door. Something about sending them to the tiniest police station in the Tatra mountains. After a while they let us go in to see her. They had put her on a trolley and covered her with a sheet so only her face was showing.’
‘Did you go to the court hearing, sir?’
Válek nodded.
‘I wanted to see the murderous monster who took my baby. He looked such an insignificant little squirt. But he was only there for a few minutes. When they read out the charge he went berserk. I didn’t catch what he shouted — he had quite a strong Slovak accent — but it was something about the police having tricked him into confessing. The judges ordered him taken away and they carried on without him.’
‘Didn’t his lawyer object to that?’
‘His lawyer barely said a word. Mind you, he only looked like a kid himself. I don’t know where they got him.’
‘He doesn’t seem to have known that Bartoš was in prison when the crime was committed. And when he was told, he doesn’t seem to have made a fuss about it.’
‘That figures. I don’t think he would have known how. He was a novice.’
‘You don’t recall his name, by any chance?’
Válek hoisted himself out of the armchair without a word, and limped out of the room. When he returned, he had a large black loose-leaf folder.
‘My scrapbook of the trial.’
Slonský and Navrátil goggled at each other.
‘You’ve got a scrapbook? May we read it?’
‘Be my guests, but I’d rather you didn’t take it off me. I’ll go and put the kettle on.’
Slonský flipped the cover over. There was a newspaper article and a photograph of Bartoš being bundled into court. The witnesses were right; he was very slightly built, almost like a jockey. There was a large man in uniform a couple of steps behind him.
‘Isn’t that Vaněček?’ asked Navrátil.
‘I think so.’
Slonský scanned the preamble rapidly. Suddenly he prodded the paper with his forefinger.
‘There, Navrátil! Look who was lawyer for the defence.’
Navrátil gawped at the page.
‘Here we go again,’ he said.
Chapter 8
Lukas spat his coffee across the room.
‘You need to interview whom?’
‘The Minister of the Interior, sir.’
‘Slonský, are you going to make a habit of this? Need I remind you that you arrested a Minister of the Interior and charged him, quite incorrectly, with murder?’
‘That was the last one, sir. I’m not planning to charge this one.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it. By the way, why are you still here?’
‘Why are any of us here, sir? It’s puzzled better minds than mine.’
‘It’s not a philosophical enquiry, Slonský. I thought you were going to Slovakia.’
Slonský had the grace to look embarrassed.
‘It’s Peiperová, sir. She needs some time to get herself ready.’
‘Well, I’m very surprised. I thought she would be an organised young woman.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So why isn’t she ready to go?’
‘She’s sleeping, sir. I may have overlooked telling her to knock off last night.’
‘You left her searching Holoubek’s flat all night?’
‘It never occurred to me that she wouldn’t stop when she’d done a full day, sir.’
‘She’s under your command, damn it! Of course she won’t stop until you say.’
‘She could have called me to remind me, sir.’
‘She shouldn’t need to.’
‘And it wasn’t all night, sir. She caught the night bus back to the barracks.’
‘The night bus doesn’t go to the barracks, man. She must have walked quite a distance, alone, at night. I’m surprised the guards let her in.’
‘They didn’t at first, sir. She doesn’t have a Prague identity card yet and they wouldn’t let her in with the one issued in Kladno. Fortunately Navrátil was able to vouch for her.’
‘And I suppose he was just passing?’
‘I believe she rang him, sir.’
‘I’m very close to speechless, Slonský. I trust there will be no repetition of this shocking episode.’
‘I’ll certainly try my best, sir.’
‘No, Slonský, you will not try. You will succeed.’
Slonský adopted his most innocent expression, as if to convey his extreme willingness to please.
‘Don’t do that, Slonský. You look like an illustration from The Good Soldier Švejk.’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’
‘So explain to me why you want to interview the minister.’
‘Dr Pilik was the defence lawyer when Bartoš was on trial, sir. He doesn’t seem to have made much effort to keep him from the noose, and I’m curious to know why.’
‘We need more than curiosity, Slonský. Are you alleging corruption?’
‘Do you think I should, sir?’
‘You don’t have any evidence, Slonský,’ yelled Lukas in exasperation. ‘I grant it looks bad, but his client had confessed.’
‘His client had allegedly confessed, sir, but since said client could not read or write, you’d have thought a lawyer might have questioned the confession. Not to mention asking about the missing accomplice, or what Bartoš was shouting about when he was manhandled out of the court, since he is said to have claimed that he had been induced to sign a false confession following promises made by a police officer.’
‘Vaněček?’
‘No, and that’s another thing I want to ask him about. The statement was taken in Olomouc by another officer. Vaněček processed it, but who gave it to him, because he didn’t go to Olomouc, and the statement arrived here before Bartoš did? The statement in the file is alleged to have been made in Prague, but I suspect it’s the Olomouc one retyped.’
Lukas threw his pen petulantly onto his blotter.
‘I suppose there are sufficient irregularities there to warrant an interview. We will go together. I’ll clear it with the Director of Police and make an appointment. You’d best stay in Prague until we know when that will be. In the meantime, give the girl the day off. It’s Friday and she’ll probably want to go home to see her family for the weekend.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Slonský made for the door.
‘One last thing, Slonský. The last time you persuaded me to see a minister with you, you came close to wrecking both our careers. If you do anything untoward this time, I will leave you to sink on your own. In fact I’ll hide the lifebelts. Is that clear?’
‘It certainly is, sir. No lifebelts.’
Slonský telephoned Peiperová, apologising for waking her and telling her she could have the day off since she had worked seventeen hours on the day before. He told her he would collect her from the barracks at 07.00 on Monday morning, when she should be ready to go to Slovakia.
If plans changed he would call her. Peiperová thanked him and rang Navrátil, which explained why it was that Navrátil was both well-informed and grumpy when Slonský told him about the plans for the day.
‘What shall I do, if you have to stay here, sir?’
‘You can get yourself across to the National Archives and look out anything in the StB records that looks useful. I only have to stay in Prague. And I suppose I’d better put my mobile phone on. It’s been a tense morning, Navrátil. I could do with a beer.’
‘It’s only half past eight, sir.’
‘Is it? It seems later than that. I suppose we’d better settle for a coffee. Come along, lad. I’ll pay.’
Slonský left the room, leaving Navrátil checking his hearing by placing a finger in each earhole. No, he couldn’t hear any voices. It must have been real.
Lukas rang to tell Slonský that Pilik would see them briefly at eleven o’clock, by which time Slonský would no doubt have polished his shoes, ironed his shirt and generally smartened himself up.
‘Have I got time to book into a clinic for a facelift, sir?’
‘Don’t be facetious, Slonský. We must make a good impression on the new minister.’
‘If he’s done anything corrupt I could ensure he’s impressed by how quickly I get his carcass into a cell.’
‘He’s not a suspect, Slonský. He is an involved party, that is all. Don’t annoy him.’
‘Don’t worry, sir. I won’t. Unless he’s done something, of course. Then I’ll annoy him a lot.’
As Slonský and Lukas were shown in Slonský found himself wondering if the office would have changed at all since Dr Banda occupied it just three or four months before. He soon discovered that the changes were minimal. The computer and telephone had been moved to the other side of the chair because Pilik was right-handed, so the visitors’ chairs had been inched sideways a little to keep both in sight. The same snooty secretary showed them in, offered them the same execrable coffee and once again bypassed Slonský to serve Lukas first.
