by Graham Brack
‘I just hope you know what you’re doing, Slonský.’
‘Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t, sir, but it’s time to rock the boat and see who falls out.’
‘That isn’t a reassuring metaphor, Slonský. Let me remind you that I am the captain of this ship, and if anyone goes overboard it isn’t you who is going to be called to account. Well, not you alone, anyway.’
‘Banda isn’t in the danger I thought he was, because if I read this right, the perpetrator has already got what he wanted from him. He doesn’t want Banda to escape the criticism he’ll get for having an affair and he achieved all he needed when Banda was sacked. He didn’t follow up on his original photo because he had got what he wanted, to wit, Banda’s backside on the steps of the government buildings.’
‘And suppose Banda sues us?’
‘For protecting him? I’ll sweet talk him, sir. I’ll get him to agree to a statement that he was never a serious suspect but we needed to keep him in protective custody for his own safety. He’ll be more than happy to get public confirmation from us that he was never really in the frame for Irina’s murder.’
‘But he was, Slonský. You put him there. You were convinced he had done it. And I understand that there was some monkey business involving a threat to his person that I wasn’t told about.’
Slonský waved the argument away.
‘A simple misunderstanding on the way to the showers, sir. Let me have a few words with him, and all will be well. I’ll turn on the charm.’
Lukas threw his pen angrily onto his blotter.
‘Damn it, Slonský, you don’t have any charm! You’re a public relations disaster area for this police force in general and my department in particular. I’ve protected you for a long time, but if this goes wrong on us I’ll be very happy to sign your retirement papers.’
Slonský was taken aback. Lukas had never said that to him before. That hurt. It was a definite low blow. Slonský was not afraid of much but retirement frightened the hell out of him.
He rose slowly from his seat and picked up his folder.
‘It won’t go wrong on us, sir. I’ll take full responsibility.’
‘That goes without saying,’ Lukas replied.
Banda was as surprised as Lukas had been.
‘I can go? Just like that?’
‘If you want. I don’t think you’re in any physical danger. The perpetrator wanted you humiliated, not dead.’
‘Well, he certainly got that.’
‘I’ll be happy to issue a press release that your innocence was quickly established and that you remained here solely to give you protection.’
‘And my wife?’
‘She was never a suspect.’
‘I mean, what will you say to her?’
‘The same.’
‘She’s not a fool, Lieutenant. She knows you suspected me for some time. In fact, so far as I know she still thinks you do. Unless, of course, you’ve told her otherwise.’
‘No,’ admitted Slonský. ‘But she never believed you’d done it anyway, so she doesn’t need my word for it.’
Banda pursed his lips and thought deeply for a few moments.
‘Very well. Give me a few minutes to get my papers together, bring me my own clothes, take me home and issue your statement and I’m happy to forget the whole thing.’
Slonský relaxed, until Banda continued.
‘Provided, of course, that you tell the Prime Minister I’m innocent and I need a job.’
Lukas was apoplectic.
‘Why should I go to tell the Prime Minister you’ve let Banda go?’
‘Well, you arrested him, sir, not me.’
‘On your recommendation!’
‘But you insisted on reviewing the evidence yourself, sir. You said the evidence was sound. At the time, that is.’
‘And I suppose you want me to make the Director go with me like last time?’
‘I don’t think he will, sir. But we could ask.’
‘You let him go, you can tell the Prime Minister.’
‘That would undermine your authority, sir.’
‘Undermine … how?’
‘Because if you arrest him and then I let him go, it looks like I’m criticising your decision, sir.’
Lukas stood so he could look Slonský squarely in the eye.
‘If I go, then when I come back, I will take out your personnel file and drop a little note to those concerned to point out that you’re ready to retire.’
Slonský could not avoid a small, but visible, shudder.
‘Do you mean that, sir?’
‘I certainly do.’
‘Then I suppose I’d better go to see the Prime Minister, sir.’
Slonský managed to get a five-minute appointment within the hour, and was only two minutes late for it. He remained standing as he explained that Banda had been framed, and he hoped that the real culprit would soon be charged.
‘So Banda didn’t do it?’
‘No, sir.’
‘He’ll want his job back, damn it.’
‘But he did fail to co-operate with a police inquiry into a serious crime, sir. You were right to sack him for that.’
The Prime Minister doodled for a moment or two.
‘You sound like Komárek,’ he finally said. ‘That’s the sort of twaddle he talks when the opinion polls come out. You’re absolutely sure Banda was framed?’
Slonský handed the Prime Minister the photograph of Soucha and Mario.
‘The same person who sent us the photograph of Dr Banda with Miss Gruberová sent us this picture too, sir.’
‘Good Lord! That’s Thingummy, isn’t it?’
‘Daniel Soucha, sir.’
‘God in Heaven! And I thought kissing babies for votes was bad.’
‘I don’t think he’s electioneering, sir. The other gentleman doesn’t have a vote here.’
‘Soucha resigning?’
‘I don’t know, sir. He was very keen that this photograph should not get out.’
‘I bet he was.’
The Prime Minister thought for a moment or two.
‘Is Banda going to sue you for wrongful arrest?’
‘He said he wouldn’t if I told you he was innocent, sir.’
‘What will he do now, I wonder?’
‘I don’t know, sir. It isn’t going to be easy for him to carry on as if nothing had happened.’
‘Leave him to me. There’s a nice little job in Brussels I could offer him. The Deputy Director of the National Bank thinks he’s going to get it, but I like him even less than I like Banda.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Was there something else, Lieutenant?’
‘May I ask a favour, sir?’
‘Why should I do you a favour, Slonský?’
‘Because you’re a decent man, sir.’
‘And in return?’
‘I’ll give you a weather forecast.’
‘What is it you want?’
‘I have a journalist friend who needs a scoop. If you were willing to give him the news of Banda’s forthcoming appointment before anyone else gets it, he would be very grateful indeed.’
‘A journalist?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Name?’
‘Here’s his card, sir. Telephone number on the back. Will it be this week, sir?’
‘Yes, no point in dithering.’
‘Thank you, sir. I’m very grateful.’
The Prime Minister cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.
‘The weather forecast?’
‘Very stormy, sir.’
‘And why is that?’
Slonský told him what was to come. They parted cordially.
Navrátil was waiting for Slonský in the office.
‘Sir, how would I go about getting a transfer to Kladno?’
‘You come and ask me, and I tell you not to be so stupid and to get your brain back in gear.’
Navrátil held out an envelope.
‘
I just thought I’m not sure life in Prague —’
‘Cobblers! You didn’t think, your groin twitches every time Kladno is mentioned. Don’t think I don’t know what’s behind this sudden interest in the Central Bohemian Police, Navrátil. It’s tall and blonde and it has a backside like two coconuts in a sack.’
‘Sir!’
Slonský took the envelope and threw it in the waste bin.
‘Navrátil, you’re a detective. Stick with me and you could become a really good one. But in this case your brain has gone soft, lad. Kladno doesn’t have a detective department worth the name. It has a good dog-handling school, I grant you. If your idea of fun is running around in a padded jacket waiting for a German shepherd to sink its teeth into your arm, Kladno is the place for you. But if a crime is committed in Kladno, where is the regional police headquarters?’
‘Zbraslav, sir.’
‘And what is Zbraslav’s address, Navrátil?’
‘Prague 5, sir.’
‘Prague 5, sir, yes, sir. It’s just across town. So if you want to be a detective in Kladno, what the hell is the point of moving? This is the Kladno detective department.’
‘Maybe I’m not cut out to be a detective, sir. Maybe I should try something else, you know, get a bit of wider experience.’
Slonský sighed and flopped heavily into his seat.
‘I’d hoped I wasn’t going to have to do this, Navrátil, but you leave me no choice. Sit down, lad.’
Navrátil obeyed, and Slonský picked up the telephone. He dialled a number that he had written in the back of his notebook and waited for it to be answered. When it was, he wasted no time on the customary civilities.
‘I’ll give you one thing,’ he told the person on the other end, ‘you can keep a secret. I’ve got Navrátil here. If I don’t let him in on our little scheme he’s going to blow the plan by moving to Kladno. Explain it to him.’
He handed the phone to Navrátil, who listened with increasingly wide eyes and an open mouth. At the end of the call Navrátil acknowledged that he had understood all that had been said. He had taken it all in, he claimed, and as he hung up he sat back in the chair and goggled.
‘Well, don’t sit there gawping, lad. Get us some coffee and get back to work. I take it you no longer want a transfer, now that Officer Peiperová has accepted a job here?’
The sausage tasted unusually good today, thought Slonský, and Navrátil’s appetite appeared to have returned.
‘But how did you work it, sir?’ the younger man asked, his cheeks bulging with bread roll.
‘Captain Němec is retiring. That left a vacancy, but in the current financial climate they couldn’t afford another captain. They planned to do a bit of reorganising, bump someone up and do without a lieutenant. I argued that we needed another woman officer more than we needed a lieutenant, and I’m pleased to say the good captain agreed and persuaded Lukas. With two captains supporting the proposal and a bit of money saved to boot, it went through very quickly. And when I told Lukas of the good work Peiperová had done on her own initiative in interviewing those girls, he agreed that this was just the sort of young woman we needed. Brings the average age down, helps with the gender balance, all that sort of equality stuff. If she’d been a black lesbian it might have helped but you can’t have everything.’
‘Thank you, sir. We won’t let you down.’
‘Navrátil, during working hours there will be no “we”. There will be you, and there will be her, but there will be no “we”. Any of that sort of stuff and you’ll both be out on your ears.’
‘Understood, sir.’
‘And try to cure yourself of the puppy look when she comes near you.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Ever heard of bromide, Navrátil?’
‘No, sir.’
‘They put it in soldiers’ coffee, Navrátil, so they wouldn’t have carnal thoughts. If you can’t control them, get some.’
‘Sir.’
‘Navrátil, I’ll say this just once. I’m not getting any younger, and Lukas is threatening to put me out to grass. If I don’t bring this one in, it could be very soon, but I hope we’ll get over this and I’ll go on until they can’t keep me any longer. When that happens, there’ll be a vacancy for a lieutenant. Set your eyes on that, lad, and get yourself ready to make a real play for it when the time comes.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’
‘And if Klinger comes sniffing around offering you all the kingdoms of the world, tell him to get lost. You’d be wasted in the Fraud Squad.’
Navrátil nodded his agreement.
‘Sir, did you say you’d let Banda go?’
‘Yes, lad. He wasn’t the killer.’
‘When did you decide that, sir?’
‘When I got Novák’s post-mortem report.’
‘That was ages ago, sir! It’s at least three weeks.’
‘I know, Navrátil.’
‘So how did that clear Dr Banda?’
‘Because Novák told us that the strangler was right-handed. Whereas we know that Banda is very much a left-hander.’
‘So that’s why you didn’t want to be around when Internal Affairs came to read the files? You knew they’d ask why we were holding Banda if there was clear evidence to exonerate him. So why didn’t they?’
‘Firstly, because Novák kindly gave me a replacement report which I put into the file. And secondly…’ Slonský produced a folded sheet from his inside breast pocket.
‘What’s that, sir?’
‘Insurance, lad.’
‘You didn’t even show me this version. All that time you were putting the frighteners on Banda, you knew that he hadn’t done it. Why, sir?’
‘Oh, come on, Navrátil! How often do you get to arrest your own boss? I couldn’t let a chance like that pass me by. Don’t look so po-faced. I’ve never been as popular at the station as when we gave Banda a hard time. And don’t forget it worked. He confessed to the affair, and before that he’d been a hard little nugget. And on top of that, it’s true that Banda hadn’t strangled her with his own hands, but he could have hired someone else.’
‘So why have we let him go, sir, if he could have hired a killer?’
‘That’s your fault, Navrátil.’
‘My fault, sir?’
‘Yes. Or at least you and Klinger. But mainly you. You’re too sharp for your own good, my boy. You gave me the security footage from the bank. Now, Dr Sammler is a technophile. He likes having all the best kit, and his bank has some of the finest security money can buy, including some high-definition video cameras. You and I watched that footage, and you concentrated on the time and date. But I watched his hands, Navrátil.’
‘His hands, sir?’
‘Navrátil, you’ll have to curb this irritating habit of repeating what I’ve just said as a question. Yes, his hands. The picture doesn’t let us see the notes, but we can see that the teller is counting them out. What’s the biggest note in circulation, lad?’
‘Five thousand crowns, sir.’
‘That’s right. So to make up two hundred and forty-nine thousand, two hundred and fifty crowns, what’s the minimum number of notes you could use?’
‘Well, I … five times ten is fifty … then you’d need … er.’
‘I’ll save you the trouble, son. You need forty-nine notes to make two hundred and forty-five thousand, then a pair of two thousand crown notes, a two hundred note, and a fifty. However you look at it, you can’t do it in less than fifty-three notes. That’s why it was such a fat bundle in the little plastic bag Novák showed us. But if you watch the cashier counting it out, there are nothing like fifty-three moves. I’ve counted them several times, and the best guess I have is that she gives him nineteen notes. That would be consistent with eight lots of five thousand, nine one thousand crown notes, a two hundred and a fifty. That’s forty nine thousand, two hundred and fifty, exactly what Banda says he drew out. Why would he pick that particular number if he was lying? S
o far as I can tell, he really was giving her the money for the car, and no doubt she was grateful and that’s why they finished up in bed. It makes no sense at all for him to kill her half an hour later. And if I teach you anything at all while you’re with me, Navrátil, I’ll settle for this. Criminals don’t usually do things that make no sense. It may make no sense to you or me, granted, but they have their reasons for what they do, just like you and me. The big problem is that most of us have a crowd of people who have a reason to kill us. Looking for a person with a motive doesn’t help in that sense. But if a suspect doesn’t have a motive, they probably didn’t do it.’ Slonský chomped contentedly on his last mouthful. ‘Unless they’re a psychopath, of course,’ he added. ‘Then my theory is stuffed.’
Much to Slonský’s surprise, there was a note waiting for him when they returned.
‘I only wrote it down,’ said Mucha. ‘I’m not responsible if it makes no sense.’
‘Oh, it makes perfect sense,’ said Slonský. ‘Who’d have thought Adamec would have had it in him? Mind you, it’s taken him weeks to get round to it.’
Navrátil stretched his neck trying to read the note, but Slonský stuffed it in his pocket and charged up the stairs.
‘Navrátil, go and see your friend Klinger and ask him if he knows who Gold Lion Property Investments are. If he doesn’t, ask him to find out. If I’m not in the office, ring me when you get the answer. I’m going to make an appointment.’
Navrátil did as he was asked. Klinger called up an online database and clicked a few times.
‘Why does Slonský want to know?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know, sir. He had a message from the Strahov police station and immediately sent me to see you.’
‘Strahov? Isn’t that where the young woman lived?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then I know why he wants to know. And so should you, Navrátil.’
Klinger wrote some names on a sheet of paper and passed them to Navrátil.
‘Those are the directors of Gold Lion Property Investments. But I believe that only one of them will interest Slonský. And the other is just a stooge to keep the thing legal, I think.’
Slonský was invited to enter and led through to Sammler’s inner office, a curious little cubicle behind his main office. There were no windows and the walls were painted black. Sammler sat in his shirtsleeves at a functional desk and invited Slonský to take the other chair. The personal assistant closed the door as he left.
