by Graham Brack
Slonský was hurriedly making a pencilled note. ‘What about Body B?’
‘Here you have a slightly better chance. I’m going to guess that this man had been a basketball player, because he stood around 193 centimetres. We’ve also still got a bit of attached hair, showing that it was black with no sign of grey, and probably in his early thirties, give or take a couple of years. I’ve sent that hair for DNA testing.’
‘So was Boy A bald, then?’
‘No, but if hair isn’t attached you can’t assume that it came from the nearest body. There is some blonde hair there and I’ve taken a sample. We’ll ask for DNA typing of both the hair and a bone sample and take it from there.’
‘No bracelets or rings?’
‘Unfortunately not, nor dog-tags or anything else with a name written on it. Nor can I tell you definitively that they were buried at the same time, though you have other evidence for that.’
Slonský nodded glumly. If only there was a registry somewhere of tall, dark men who hung around with medium-sized blond ones.
Chapter 10
Slonský had decided that if he did not buy a wedding present for Navrátil and Peiperová soon he might find that his workload stopped him shopping later, so he was engaged in research on the kind of thing that newlyweds might value. Realising that a female viewpoint could be useful he had ruled out asking his estranged wife Věra (too awkward), Peiperová (too involved), or his mother (too dead). Since Jerneková seemed not to have too high a view of marriage, this left him with either asking Major Lukas’ wife and daughters, who would be terribly sensible about the whole thing, or Dumpy Anna in the catering department, who probably had a better idea of the available budget. Thus, it was that he slinked into the canteen having first peeked in to check that neither of the couple-to-be was lurking there.
‘Have you got a minute?’ he asked Anna.
‘So long as you’re not going to suggest a knee-trembler in the store room,’ she answered, wiping her hands on her apron.
‘Why would I do that?’
‘I don’t know, but one day my luck may change. What can I do for you?’
‘I need some female advice.’
‘If your hair thins any more, don’t wear a combover,’ Anna replied, and turned away as if her job was done.
‘That wasn’t it. And my hair isn’t thinning. As it happens, I have the normal amount of hair. I just have an unusually big head.’
‘I see. Well, what was it?’
‘You know Navrátil and Peiperová are getting married soon?’
‘How could I not? Every day I have to look at him goggling at her across the table with a face like a puppy that’s been locked in a shed.’
‘You’ve noticed that too, eh?’
‘Talk about love’s young dream. I mean, I’m very happy for them, and I hope they have a lovely life together, but I don’t know what’s going to happen once he realises that she doesn’t have wings and a halo.’
‘It was toilet paper that did for me,’ Slonský reminisced. ‘What do women do with so much toilet paper?’
‘It’s part of our glorious mystery,’ Anna revealed. ‘A secret never to be shared with men.’
‘Evidently not. So, the thing is, I need to get them a wedding present, and I have no idea what the usual thing is.’
‘If you’ll take my advice,’ Anna confided, ‘the usual thing is rubbish. It’s something they’ll never use, like an egg boiler or a fondue set. What they need is a good boot scraper.’
‘That’s more along the lines I had in mind,’ Slonský admitted, ‘but I’d like something that’s going to last their whole married life.’
‘A cast iron boot scraper will last for decades,’ she persisted.
Slonský walked over to where Jerneková was sitting at her desk attacking a carton of yoghurt with gusto.
‘Are you alone?’ Slonský whispered.
Jerneková looked around her. There was nowhere that a person more than thirty centimetres tall could possibly be concealed. ‘So far as I know,’ she answered.
‘Good,’ Slonský continued. ‘Have you decided what you’re getting Navrátil and Peiperová as a wedding present?’
‘Yes,’ Jerneková said confidently, and returned to licking the back of her spoon.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘That’s what Kristýna said they wanted off me. Nothing.’
‘Yes, she says that, lass, but it doesn’t mean she actually wants nothing.’
Jerneková frowned. ‘It sounds like it to me. If she wanted something she only had to say so, but when I asked she said nothing. And she’s a truthful girl, so I took her at her word.’
‘She hasn’t said she wants nothing to me,’ said Slonský doubtfully.
‘Then she probably wants something off you, sir,’ Jerneková continued, and snapped the top off her banana in a marked manner.
Slonský lobbed his hat on the countertop, his standard method of conveying that a discussion was needed.
Mucha summoned an officer to stand by the large register in which all events and discussions of an official nature must be logged, and suggested with an inclination of his head that Slonský might wish to come to the side of the front desk.
‘I was hoping,’ confided Slonský, ‘that female colleagues in this building would assist me with my enquiries, but so far they have been a complete washout.’
‘I trust,’ murmured Mucha, ‘that in this case “enquiries” is not a euphemism for goings-on in the evidence room?’
‘God, no,’ sighed Slonský. ‘I couldn’t be bothered with that. No, what I was — hang on, who was doing that in the evidence room?’
‘My lips are sealed,’ said Mucha. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t drag Strausz’s name out of me.’
‘Strausz? He was…?’
‘Regularly.’
‘With those teeth?’
‘Apparently it didn’t put women off. And being able to eat an apple between the bars of a cell is quite a party trick when you think about it.’
‘Even so, you’d think women would have more self-respect.’
‘It wasn’t like it was all the women. No more than three at the outside.’
‘Jesus Maria!’ Slonský tried to return to his original line of questioning but found that an image of former Lieutenant Strausz and three compliant policewomen had somehow intruded itself into his head and refused to leave. There was a long silence, at least by Slonský’s standards.
‘You wanted something,’ Mucha prompted.
‘Eh? Oh, yes. Sorry — Strausz put it out of my mind. I’m trying to get an idea for a wedding present for young Navrátil and Peiperová, but nobody I’ve asked has had anything useful to suggest. What are you getting them?’
‘I don’t know. I was going to ask you. What’s your current favourite?’
‘Dumpy Anna suggested a good boot scraper.’
‘Always practical,’ said Mucha. ‘Saves your rugs getting spoiled.’
‘It’s not very romantic, though, is it?’
‘You old softie. There’s more to life than romance, you know.’
‘Don’t I know it. And in my case it’s just as well.’
Mucha pushed himself up off his elbows. ‘Well, I can’t stand gabbing to you all day. In the next twelve minutes I’ve got to give a sandwich to a couple of housebreakers Dvorník has in cells six and seven.’
‘Good for Dvorník. What’s on the menu today?’
‘I like to keep it simple. You have to think of allergies and all that, so I go for lettuce with no mayonnaise.’
‘That’ll teach them. One of those every six hours and they’ll soon be begging to confess. Do you want me to save you the walk and fetch them for you?’
‘No need,’ said Mucha, producing two parcels from under the counter. ‘I get them when the six hours clock starts ticking, then they’re beginning to stale nicely when they’re due.’
&nbs
p; ‘How thoughtful. Anyone I know?’
‘Almost certainly. Don’t you know all the housebreakers in Prague?’
At which point an idea came to Slonský.
Valentin was sitting in his usual alcove with the newspaper spread out in front of him when he realised Slonský was casting a large shadow across the page.
‘Forgive me for broadcasting your shame to the world,’ said the detective, ‘but isn’t that a tomato juice you’re drinking?’
‘With a dash of tabasco in it,’ Valentin indignantly replied. ‘I’m not a wimp.’
‘Even so, why are choosing to imbibe a so-called drink made from squashed vegetables?’
‘I think tomatoes are technically fruits, Josef.’
‘Stop evading the point.’
‘It’s simple. I’m still on that detoxing programme to spare my liver, so I have two days a week when I drink no alcohol. Or is it meant to be five?’
‘I bet those two feel like five.’
‘You may be right, Josef. Anyway, I’ve had to cut back on the sparkling water. It was playing merry hell with my insides. I’ve got more wind than the Prague Philharmonic.’
‘Maybe I’ll sit somewhere else. Like outside.’
‘No need. It’s okay so long as I stick to this stuff.’
‘Good. I’ll get you a top-up,’ Slonský told him. ‘I need to borrow what’s left of your brain.’
‘For a very old friend you can be incredibly rude sometimes, you know?’
‘That’s what old friends are for. Like my dear granny used to say, a bit of plain speaking never hurt anyone. Now, are you sitting comfortably?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ Valentin raised his glass in a toast. ‘Your very good health.’
‘And yours,’ Slonský replied. ‘I hope that stuff makes a difference because I’d hate to find a good mate had been drinking that muck and he still pegged out on schedule.’
They sat in companionable silence for a moment or two before Slonský spoke again.
‘I bet I’m enjoying this beer more than you’re enjoying that.’
‘Goes without saying. But you know the expression — my body is a temple.’
‘In ruins?’
‘If you’re going to pick on me all night —’ Valentin began.
‘Truce!’ Slonský said quickly. ‘I’ve actually come to ask your help.’
‘Really? Ask away, then.’
‘Do you know any local dissidents? I don’t mean today, I mean the fellows from the sixties and seventies.’
Valentin scratched his beard. ‘The big name ones are mainly dead, I think. What do you want them for?’
‘I need to identify three bodies, and I think they’re likely to have been dissidents around 1970.’
‘Three? I thought you’d found one?’
‘Dug up another two.’
‘Why don’t you just flatten the Red House and dig the whole garden up?’
‘I don’t think the powers that be will let me do that.’
‘Shame. I’d be prepared to lend a hand to see the back of that place.’
Slonský’s stomach was rumbling, so he paused to organise a little something to fill the hole. ‘Do you want anything to eat?’ he asked Valentin.
‘No, thanks. I don’t want to spoil my dinner.’
‘Neither do I. That’s why I’m only having a couple of sausages.’
‘Very abstemious of you.’
Slonský ignored the barb and returned to contemplation of the alluring contents of his glass. ‘The thing is, old friend, we’ve got very sketchy details of the two whose bodies we have, and no description at all of who the third one was. I thought that if we could find someone who can put possible names to the first pair based on those descriptions, he may also be able to guess who the third one was likely to have been, based on known associations.’
‘It’s worth a try,’ Valentin conceded. ‘But wouldn’t three people going missing at once have attracted some notice, even in 1970?’
‘You’d think so, but not necessarily. Let’s take a hypothetical example. Suppose that you and I were dissidents then. For reasons of basic security, however much we trusted each other we’d tell each other as little of our plans as we could because you just don’t know who your real friends are in a totalitarian state.’
‘You can bet I’d have told you nothing,’ Valentin agreed.
‘And I’d have reciprocated. So if I disappear, what will you do? First, you may not notice for a while, but if you do you won’t want to bring the attention of the authorities to the fact that I may have done a runner. You’d want to find me yourself rather than invite the security police to investigate us. So it would be a while before you conclude that I really have gone; and even then, you don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. Maybe if I get to the West I’ll send you a postcard, but I might not, especially if I’m paranoid about the StB coming to get me wherever I am, so you have every reason to keep quiet. The only time when you might feel it was worth making a noise about it all would be if you knew I was in custody, when you’d want to attract public support, especially in the West.’
‘I can follow all that,’ Valentin decided. ‘So your idea is that probably people knew these three had vanished, but didn’t want to make a fuss about it in case they’d escaped somewhere?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘It’s possible if their friends believed that’s what they had in mind. Do we know any more?’
‘Jelínek said that he understood that the three were arrested because they’d been trying to lobby the West German government to stop supporting the East Germans. Does that make sense to you?’
Valentin took out his phone. ‘No, but I know who can tell us.’ He spoke briefly to someone and broke off the call to tell Slonský that Dr Bitt would join them as soon as he could get there.
‘Who’s Dr Bitt?’ Slonský asked.
‘He’s a teacher of some sort at the university. Lecturer, Professor, I can’t remember. Anyway, he specialises in the Cold War era.’
When the door opened and Bitt entered, Slonský could barely disguise his surprise. He had expected that Bitt, like most professors he had met, to be wizened and elderly, whereas Bitt looked not much older than Navrátil. He wore a hiking jacket and it was uncertain whether he had started shaving yet. His eyes finally lit upon Valentin, who effected introductions. To Slonský’s delight, Bitt requested a beer and expressed concern that Valentin was reduced to drinking tomato juice.
‘It’s got tabasco in it,’ Valentin grumbled.
‘He’s not a wimp,’ Slonský explained.
‘I’d be more convinced if he drank a bottle of tabasco with a splash of tomato in it,’ Bitt pronounced.
At Valentin’s invitation Slonský repeated the information he had to Bitt.
‘Any thoughts?’ he asked.
‘It all rings true,’ Bitt declared. ‘The key to this is Willy Brandt.’
‘That German politician?’ Slonský confirmed.
‘That’s the fellow,’ Bitt replied. ‘He had been Mayor of Berlin for over a decade when he became Chancellor of West Germany in 1969, and he proposed a very different way of dealing with the East. Instead of out-arming them, he planned to seduce them.’
‘What — all of them?’ Slonský asked incredulously.
‘I was speaking figuratively,’ Bitt told him. ‘Brandt had presided over the reconstruction of West Berlin. In West Germany the economy was whizzing along and the difference in the standard of living between West and East was widening all the time, but of course the East did not know that because most of us could not go there. Brandt’s idea was that the West should support the East with grants and credits to enhance trade. If it worked, the regimes in the Soviet bloc would become less threatened and would defuse the military situation, but that trade would also mean that ordinary citizens in the East would see how different things were under capitalism and would want the same thing themselves. Thus the international tensi
on would be replaced by internal tension.’
‘And what was the reaction to his plan?’ Slonský demanded.
‘Mixed, as you might expect,’ Bitt replied. ‘The East took some time to warm to it, but it went down very badly with dissidents over here. Remember that just the previous year we’d had Warsaw Pact troops marching around Prague, and there were still some stationed on our territory. The dissidents thought that going soft on East Germany would make it much less likely that there would be reform in the Eastern bloc. They may have been right.’
‘But why did the authorities here want to stop dissidents giving West Germany a hard time?’ Slonský persisted.
‘Because in August 1970 Brandt signed the Treaty of Moscow, which recognised the existing borders of countries across the Eastern bloc. In effect he was recognising all those countries. Bear in mind he had to start with the USSR because that was the only Warsaw Pact country that West Germany had diplomatic relations with. So with that Treaty the Russians had achieved a major aim of their foreign policy, with the promise of more to come. The last thing they wanted was for some high-minded patriots to try to stop Brandt.’
Slonský took another mouthful of his beer and thought hard. ‘We’ve got the bodies of two men who we think were arrested by the Security Service, imprisoned at the Red House and subsequently executed there. Do you have any idea how we could identify them?’
To his credit, Bitt took the question seriously. ‘I am assuming that in asking me this you have already decided that forensic techniques are unlikely to supply you with an answer?’ he asked.
‘Only if we’re very lucky,’ Slonský replied. ‘There’s a chance that comparing dental records may do it, but it would be much, much easier if we had a small list of names, then we may be able to confirm an identification with dental records.’
‘Is there reason to think that the two disappeared at the same time?’
‘It’s very likely. An eye-witness describes their graves being prepared simultaneously and they were buried together.’
