by Graham Brack
‘I understand that, sir, but I’m not sure I can tell if someone’s lying as easily as that.’
‘Navrátil, would it surprise you to learn that I was Bohemian downhill skiing champion in 1973?’
Navrátil’s jaw dropped open. ‘Yes, it would, sir.’
‘So it should, Navrátil, because it’s a complete lie. See, you’re getting the hang of it already. Let’s go and see the chap with the earrings and I’ll give you a master class.’
As they left the shop, Navrátil hung expectantly on Slonský’s verdict.
‘Well, sir, was he telling the truth?’
Slonský bustled impatiently away.
‘You never told me he had a squint, Navrátil.’
‘But he hasn’t…’ Navrátil began, before realising he was talking to thin air, for Slonský was already sitting in the passenger seat.
Chapter 3
Slonský was, it seemed, a poor sleeper, which accounted for his early arrival — and dishevelled appearance — at the station on the following day. He was standing at a table which he had covered with pieces of paper stuck together with sticky tape to form a single large sheet on which some sweeping black lines had been drawn with marker pen.
‘Holešovice, Navrátil. A bit of artistic licence, but it’ll do for our purposes. Station here, metro here, bus station here, body here. Now, the first tram past arrives at this stop at 04:50. The metro starts a few minutes later. If our killer knows the area he probably knows the tram times.’
‘How do we know he knows the area?’
‘We don’t, but it’s unlikely he’d drive around town with a stiff in the front seat looking for a good site. Even if he didn’t know this exact spot, he knew that Holešovice was the sort of place he’d find somewhere to dump her.’
‘It’s very public, though.’
Slonský paused, tapping the marker pen against his teeth.
‘Yes, it is. So we deduce …?’
‘He knows nobody will be around when he drops the body off. Or he doesn’t care.’
‘Or he wants the body found quite quickly. He could have driven on for a few minutes and hidden her in a quiet area of the park. Maybe he wanted her found, because he’d have realised that she would be seen within a couple of hours of being left there.’
‘Why would he want her to be found? Don’t criminals normally hide their crimes?’
A grave shadow passed over Slonský’s face.
‘Psychopaths don’t.’
‘You think it could be a serial killer?’
‘No.’
‘Why not, sir?’
‘Grammar, Navrátil. To be a serial killer you have to have killed at least twice, and so far as we know, he hasn’t, so he can’t be a serial killer.’
Slonský picked up his coat and headed for the door.
‘Where are we going, sir?’
‘A matter of the utmost importance, Navrátil. Breakfast.’
The portrait was on the front page of most of the papers, but the Prague public were hardly running apace to the nearest police station to identify her. This seemed not to worry Slonský, who merely observed that if she was an “evening worker”, her friends or customers were probably still fast asleep, as he wished he was himself. To Navrátil’s immense frustration, they busied themselves all morning with other tasks, one of which was to console an elderly lady in Karlín who was convinced that someone had stolen her porch light although there was no sign that one had been over her door for several years. Navrátil tried to explain that since the paint on the building covered the area under the site of the alleged lamp, it was likely that the lady was mistaken, but she abused him, his mother and the Prague police in general. Navrátil returned to the car rather crestfallen.
‘It’s no good, she won’t believe me.’
Slonský folded his newspaper meticulously and pondered for a few moments before easing himself out of the car.
‘That’s better,’ smirked the old dear. ‘You look like a proper policeman.’
‘See?’ Slonský commented to Navrátil. ‘Not stupid at all. Now then, grandma, explain to me why you put the light up.’
Navrátil opened his mouth to protest, but Slonský silenced him with a fierce look.
‘When they took the old one away after the war. I tried to tell him —’ she jerked her head towards Navrátil — ‘but these youngsters know nothing. He probably doesn’t remember the war, not like you and me.’
‘So the old light went and you sorted your own one out? Very resourceful of you.’
The old lady preened herself.
‘You have to take care of things yourself. Can’t expect the district council to do everything.’
Slonský pointed to the upper window.
‘Navrátil, in that bedroom you’ll find an electric cable that’s been chopped off. It used to have a bulb on the end and someone’s run off with it. Hooligans, I expect. Have you got your landlord’s phone number? I’ll ring him and get him to put a proper light up.’
The woman found a scrap of card and Slonský copied it into his notebook. Navrátil appeared with a length of frayed flex in his hands.
‘How did you know?’
‘Because, Navrátil, you looked for a light and couldn’t see one, whereas I looked for a power lead and saw the chopped end dangling over the windowsill up there, a metre higher.’
‘But she said the light was missing, not a power lead.’
‘Exactly, Navrátil. It was missing. No point in looking for it, then, was there?’
Slonský smiled angelically and lowered his bulky frame into the car.
‘My brain’s slowing down. It could do with a pastry or two. Come on, lad, put your foot down.’
‘Is detective work always like this?’ Navrátil asked.
‘No,’ Slonský replied, ‘sometimes it’s even more boring.’
They were sitting in an unmarked car watching a building. Since it was in a rundown area of the city, they had left their normal car behind and had been allocated a ramshackle old Škoda with around two hundred thousand kilometres on the clock, a top speed that would have disgraced many a cyclist, and a patch of corroded doorsill that whistled as they drove along.
‘Try to look less official, lad,’ Slonský counselled. ‘Take your tie off if you want.’
‘Are you going to take yours off?’
‘No point. Everybody knows me. Disguise is a waste of time when you’ve got a face like this.’
‘But if they know you’re a policeman, won’t they know I’m one too?’
‘Ah, spot the logical flaw in that argument, Navrátil! I said they know me. I didn’t say they knew what I am. I’ve cultivated anonymity for many a year. Everybody knows me but they don’t know my business. They’ve met me in a bar or having a sausage somewhere, but so far as anyone knows I’m just someone who works in some office or other. You don’t get to be as nondescript as I am by accident, Navrátil. You have to work at it. I wasn’t born grey, you know. I’m a self-unmade man.’
Slonský smiled, happy with the epithet he had just bestowed upon himself, and stored it away to use spontaneously later.
‘I know I’m going to regret asking this, sir —’
‘Then don’t. Not worth putting yourself through any more humiliation than life is planning to send your way anyway.’
‘… but why are we watching a pole-dancing club at four in the afternoon? It’s shut.’
‘Exactly. So if anyone goes in, we’re more likely to get a good view of him, since it’s daylight and the place is deserted. At one in the morning with a crowd of punters hanging around it’d be a lot more difficult.’
‘But why should anyone turn up?’
‘Because if our information is correct — which I increasingly doubt — a delivery of stolen pilsner is likely to be made, and I don’t expect they’ll leave it outside the door. They’ll want cash, and a bit of help unloading the truck I shouldn’t wonder.’
Navrátil drummed th
e steering wheel.
‘They could come any day.’
‘They could,’ conceded Slonský, ‘but today is favourite. If it was stolen last night, the chances are they’ll want rid of it pronto. Ever tried to hide a letter from your mother, Navrátil?’
‘A school report, once.’
‘Then you’ll know how difficult it is. So just think how hard it is to hide a truckload of beer in Prague, where every other male inhabitant can sniff out a bottle of beer at fifty metres through two locked doors. No, they’ll get it moved on as fast as they can.’
There was a rumble as a lorry pulled into the street.
‘Ah!’ Slonský beamed. ‘A beer delivery.’
‘Yes, but this one’s legit. A company lorry.’
Slonský stared at him.
‘You poor devil. We’re going to have to work hard on that innocent veneer of trust, Navrátil. If you were going to deliver beer without drawing attention to yourself, what sort of vehicle would be best for the job?’
‘A beer lorry, I suppose.’
‘Oh, look, that’s what we have here! An odd coincidence, wouldn’t you say?’
Slonský read the licence plate over his radio. A few moments later the disembodied voice told them what they needed to know.
‘Should be a red Škoda Fabia, Lieutenant.’
Slonský climbed out of the car, and waited for Navrátil to join him.
‘Come on, son, let’s go and arrest the driver of that red Škoda Fabia full of lager.’
To Slonský’s surprise, the afternoon and evening brought no identification of the body.
‘She’s a striking girl, well groomed. Somebody must be missing her, Navrátil.’
‘Perhaps she lived alone.’
‘Maybe, but we know she wasn’t on her own last night. Somebody had her, and somebody killed her.’
‘But the murderer isn’t going to contact us, sir.’
Slonský sighed deeply.
‘I suppose not. But you’d think they’d do it once in a while just out of cockiness. Make yourself useful, lad — fetch your notebook and start making a list of people who might be missing her. For a start, she had a decent amount of money and some expensive tastes, but Novák doesn’t think she’s a prostitute.’
‘A mistress, then?’
‘Could be. Or a young wife of a middle-aged man who has made his pile. If she had a regular job her employer ought to have missed her by now.’
‘If only we had her handbag, sir.’
‘Never mind that. If only her mother had sewn her name in her knickers like my mum did.’
‘I don’t suppose it’s worth checking —’
‘No. Novák isn’t so dim that he’d miss a surname in someone’s pants. We have to assume it wasn’t there.’
‘Maybe she’s just one of those people that don’t have anyone to miss her.’
Slonský’s face clouded over. When he spoke, his voice was quieter than usual, colder and firmer.
‘I’ve known some real villains in my time, Navrátil. Human filth of the worst kind. And they all had someone to miss them. I remember a party secretary who had a local rival fed into a furnace a few centimetres at a time; his mother was heartbroken when he was shot. Until someone proves otherwise to me, I’ll go on believing that every human being matters to someone.’
He picked up his hat and moved decisively for the door.
‘There’s only one thing to do, Navrátil. Let’s get a beer.’
Two hours later, they were surrounded by wet beer mats and Navrátil was beginning to think that he would go home — the moment he remembered where home was. Being slightly built, he could hardly match Slonský, who appeared to be a practised drinker.
‘Another one over here,’ Slonský called to the waiter.
‘I don’t think I can manage another one,’ Navrátil protested.
‘Nonsense.’
‘Why are we drinking anyway? We don’t have anything to celebrate.’
‘That’s not the only reason for a drink, Navrátil. If you only drank to celebrate the Czech Republic wouldn’t have much of a brewing industry.’
‘To forget, then?’
‘On the contrary, Navrátil, I drink for a religious reason. I’m a beer Buddhist.’
‘I didn’t think Buddhists drank beer.’
‘Don’t they? Poor devils. No, I drink to achieve enlightenment, which is a religious state much desired by Buddhists.’
‘Enlightenment?’
‘Exactly. There is a point, Navrátil, at which the brain ceases to maintain its tenuous hold on reality and allows itself to be carried along in the flood of ideas. It casts itself free of all earthly shackles and enters a meta-existence of cause and effect beyond reasoning.’
Navrátil frowned and composed the next sentence as carefully as his brain would allow after eight beers.
‘You what?’
‘In the normal run of things, Navrátil, the brain proceeds like a train, along predetermined tracks. It can’t free itself of these ideas and preconceptions because a lifetime of training and constraint stops it doing so. But consider for a moment the average two-year-old. If you tell him you have an elephant in a matchbox, he doesn’t doubt you. He wants to know how you got it in there. His mind is free, Navrátil, to roam as widely as it wishes, like a soaring swallow. Nothing is impossible to such a mind, and that’s precisely the state I aim to achieve.’
‘And you think beer will help?’
‘It always has in the past. You order another while I go and add to the Vltava.’
Chapter 4
The following morning was bright, warm and sunny. Outside the surviving birdlife of Prague was singing fortissimo, or so it seemed to Navrátil. A prolonged shower did little to help the sensation of devils prodding the backs of his eyeballs with their tridents, and nothing in his pantry did anything to make him believe that there was the remotest chance that it would stay down if he could once swallow it.
He was therefore more than a little surprised to arrive at work to find Slonský with his feet on his desk while he attacked a párek and a takeaway coffee.
‘How can you eat that? Or anything else, for that matter?’
‘I have a constitution moulded by the Communist years. If you’d been picky about your food then you’d have starved.’
‘Don’t you feel even a bit queasy?’
‘Should I?’ Slonský asked innocently, as if the idea that a heavy drinking bout might affect your appetite the next day had never occurred to him.
‘Never mind. I’d better find some water.’
Navrátil was halfway down the corridor when he heard Slonský call after him.
‘If you can’t find water, try some Hungarian beer. It’s the next best thing.’
When Navrátil returned, Slonský was looking thoughtful.
‘It was something you said last night that inspired me,’ he explained.
‘I said? What did I say?’
‘You said it was a shame she didn’t have her name sewn into her knickers.’
‘You said that, sir!’
‘Did I? Then I’m brighter than I thought. Anyway, how did the murderer know that she didn’t have her name sewn into her knickers?’
‘Maybe he didn’t care.’
‘He took the handbag.’
‘Well, since he made love to her, he probably got to see her underwear.’
‘Do you look, Navrátil?’
‘Eh?’
‘When you’re with a woman, do you check her pants out?’
‘Well, I … I haven’t … but if I did …’
‘Exactly. It’s an unnatural act. But whether he did or didn’t, he might have handled her clothes. That’s what I asked Novák.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing. Now, she may have taken off her own clothes and put them back on herself. And perhaps he wore gloves to dispose of the body. But I can’t picture anyone going to bed with a girl and wearing gloves while he did it.’
‘Which rules out a crime of passion?’
‘Well, he was farsighted enough to have gloves there. It was a cold night so he may have just had them with him, but this begins to look premeditated. Which is good, Navrátil. Where there’s a plan, we can discover it. It’s the sudden, irrational killing that is hardest to detect.’
‘So we have a man who takes a woman out, buys her dinner, takes her back to his flat or hers, makes love to her, kills her then dumps her body where it will be found quickly.’
‘Where did you get the bit about dinner?’
‘The stomach contents. Novák’s report doesn’t sound like the kind of meal someone would cook for themselves. Asparagus, for example.’
‘We could waste a lot of time tracking down shops that have asparagus in February, but let’s run with your idea for a minute. If that’s the case, they must have eaten in a restaurant somewhere that has asparagus on the menu.’
Navrátil’s face sank.
‘I can see you’re one step ahead of me, lad. But it’ll take a lifetime to visit all Prague’s restaurants. We’ll do it if we have to, but for the moment let’s try the wholesale greengrocers. See how easy it is to get asparagus and if anyone can tell us who has been buying it. Might narrow things down a bit.’
When Navrátil returned, Slonský had his feet on his desk, a coffee in his hand, and a broad smile on his face.
‘Almost all the big hotels, sir. Not too many restaurants have bought asparagus lately, but it still gives us a lot to do.’
‘Not necessarily, my boy,’ Slonský replied. ‘The great Czech public has come to our aid.’
He slid a brown paper envelope across the desk. Navrátil opened it cautiously to find a single photograph within.
‘No note?’
‘No note. Recognise the girl?’
‘It’s her! It’s the victim.’
‘And who is she having dinner with?’
Navrátil scrutinised the picture closely before his jaw dropped.
‘Isn’t that —’
‘It is. Now isn’t that a turn-up for the book?’
