by Graham Brack
‘I didn’t know you’d met him.’
‘He was a deputy section head in the security service when I was first nominated for promotion. In those days you had to be interviewed to verify your political reliability before promotion was confirmed. I regret that I was found insufficiently zealous and my promotion was withheld.’
‘By Rezek?’
‘I don’t know how far he was involved, but by his directorate.’
‘Maybe I ought to add you to my list of suspects, sir.’
‘Do you have many?’
‘Yours would be the only name on it at present. But we’ve discovered that two other bodies were buried at the same time. We’ve provisionally identified them as men called Bartek and Toms, dissidents who disappeared in 1970. Each had been shot in the back of the head.’
‘Presumably there is no report on these events in the files, or the team who have been trawling through the StB records would have charged someone with the murders.’
‘But if Rezek pulled the trigger he won’t have dirtied his hands digging the graves. Somebody must know about that. Whether they’re alive or not is another matter.’
Lukas stood and straightened his uniform. ‘Captain Bendík may know of some way we can find out who was stationed there then. I’m not promising anything, but there is a lot of old StB material that hasn’t yet been catalogued. He has some contacts there.’
‘That would be very helpful, sir.’
Lukas left the room, and once again Slonský asked himself whether someone who retired and then came back to work was morally obliged to return his retirement present.
Krob had been given the morning off to go with his wife for an antenatal appointment, so it was quite a surprise for Slonský when he turned up for work at half past eleven. Slonský could think of no other policeman who would have reported for duty when he had been given time off. Except perhaps Navrátil. And maybe Peiperová. And, of course, Mucha, if his sister-in-law invited herself for a visit. Come to think of it, Slonský had done it himself in the past, largely out of boredom.
Krob knocked on Slonský’s open door and entered upon command.
‘Have you got a moment, sir?’
‘Of course. Everything okay at the clinic?’
‘Yes, thank you. But that’s not what I wanted to ask about. I’ve made a mistake.’
Slonský tapped the side of his head sharply to check his ears were working correctly. He had rarely, if ever, heard a policeman confess that. ‘What kind of mistake? Is this something I’m going to have to report up the line?’
‘No, nothing like that, sir. I made an assumption and it occurs to me that it was wrong.’
‘You intrigue me. Speak on, fair youth.’
‘You remember that I followed General Rezek to the registry of births, sir?’
‘Yes. He looked at the catalogue but didn’t ask for any particular birth certificate.’
‘He didn’t need to, sir.’
‘No?’
‘No, sir. It came to me while I was sitting in the waiting room this morning. Any child of the three men must have been alive when they were killed. And Rezek would have known of them. Assuming he knew which of the three had been dug up, he’d know whose children were likely to be responsible. And he already knew their names. I think he was just refreshing his mind. He knows the surname, and perhaps the child’s age, so the index would give him the first name. He doesn’t need anything else.’
Slonský slapped his hand loudly on the top of his desk. ‘Damn! I missed that. Of course he doesn’t. But somehow he has to find the address of the man he’s after.’
‘There are plenty of ways to do that, especially if it’s not a common name. Perhaps the phone book, or he still has contacts in the police.’
‘Anyone who knew Rezek when he was still working has to be fifty or over. But it’s just about possible. Perhaps OII can flush out anyone who has been sharing that information?’
‘I don’t think anyone has, sir.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because Rezek hasn’t done anything. I can’t imagine that if he knew where to find the killer of his daughter he’d do nothing about it.’
‘Good point. But we can’t afford to wait for that to happen. We have to get there first or someone else is going to end up dead. Admittedly they’ll be a murderer, but if we’re going to let murderers and victims sort these things out themselves we may as well restrict ourselves to issuing parking tickets.’
Peiperová too had been reviewing the information that she had collected, but rather than take it straight to Slonský she was sitting opposite Jerneková in the canteen.
‘I’ve been thinking about our chat with Barbora,’ she said.
‘Me too,’ Jerneková replied.
‘What were you thinking about?’
‘I was thinking that Barbora isn’t telling us everything. Obviously the killer couldn’t murder Adalheid by letter, so they must have met up. Since Barbora had been told everything else, why wouldn’t she be told about a meeting?’
‘I wondered about that too,’ admitted Peiperová, ‘but what if she wasn’t told because she couldn’t be?’
‘How do you mean, couldn’t be?’
‘If she was away, for example. Or there was too short a time between the appointment being made and it being kept.’
‘But Adalheid would have the choice of appointment.’
‘Suppose the killer says he has the information but he’s about to go away for a prolonged time,’ Peiperová suggested. ‘They have to meet that evening.’
‘Then he’s a liar, because we know he put her in the freezer so he didn’t go away.’
‘Yes, but if you go killing innocent women thirty years after someone dear to you was killed, telling a fib isn’t going to hold you back.’
‘Fair point,’ Jerneková conceded.
‘If you were going to meet a strange man you hadn’t met before, what would you do to keep safe?’ Peiperová asked.
‘I’d keep a kitchen knife in my handbag.’
‘Beyond that, let’s say.’
Jerneková considered. ‘I’d meet in a very public place.’
‘They’re going to talk about something they won’t want overheard, so perhaps that isn’t as easy as she’d like.’
‘They can whisper. I’d still pick a public place.’
‘I went back to the post-mortem results on Adalheid. She hadn’t eaten for a few hours before she died, so it wasn’t a dinner date.’
‘Liquid dinner. I’ve had a few of those,’ Jerneková sighed.
‘You think they met in a bar?’
‘Obvious place. Lots of noise to hide what they’re talking about.’
‘But if I were meeting someone I didn’t know I’d take a friend to watch over me,’ Peiperová insisted.
‘Maybe she didn’t have a friend. Or maybe it was a condition that she didn’t.’
‘How is he to know?’
‘They meet somewhere where he can be sure he isn’t seen. Somewhere very open where he can see if anyone is watching.’
‘Such as?’
‘A park. The zoo. That kind of place.’
Peiperová nodded. ‘I can see that. But you’d think a sensible woman would at least tell a friend or arrange to telephone her afterwards.’
‘Did Adalheid have a car?’ Jerneková asked.
‘Yes. It’s parked outside her apartment.’
‘But there’s no sign that she was killed there or that she invited whoever it was to come back.’
‘He must have known where it was. Remember he sent her a letter.’
‘But did he send it there, or did he send it to her work? Why would she put it in her desk unless she had just received it?’
‘What are you getting at?’ Peiperová asked.
‘He doesn’t know where she lives but he knows where she works, so he sent the letter there. She suggested a meeting place. Perhaps she went there by public transport,
or maybe it’s within walking distance of her apartment.’
Peiperová pushed her chair back and drained her cup. ‘Come on — work to do. You ring Barbora and see if she was out of town or uncontactable for any reason around the time Adalheid was killed. I’m going to look at the map to see her nearest metro stop. If we’re very lucky there may be video footage and we may be able to get some idea where she was going.’
‘She may have taken a tram.’
‘She might, but we’ll cross that bridge after we’ve looked into the metro option.’
Slonský was hung up on another aspect of the enquiry. Using the principle that his brain worked best when challenged by an intelligent interlocutor, and that the optimum conditions for cogitation were furnished in places where beer was readily available, he had nipped out for a small lunchtime lubrication. Valentin was eating what he persisted in calling breakfast, despite the hour, when Slonský caught up with him.
‘Something bad happens to you, and you wait nearly forty years to take revenge. Why would you do that?’ he asked.
‘You’re a Slovak?’ suggested Valentin. ‘They’re not the quickest thinkers in the world.’
‘Are you going to make a sensible suggestion or shall I give up now?’
‘Well,’ Valentin pondered, wiping his beard with his napkin, ‘presumably when it happened the murderer was very young.’
‘Yes, but he’s had forty years to grow up, give or take. If he’d done it when he was in his twenties I could understand it.’
‘Ah, but if you’re talking about the case I think you’re talking about, for the first twenty years or so Rezek was still high up in the StB and untouchable.’
‘But his daughter never was,’ Slonský pointed out. ‘It sounds as if a sufficiently resourceful killer could have got to her at almost any time in her adult life. Of course, he’d have to flee the country afterwards, because Rezek’s fury would be awful to behold.’
‘But that’s true now. Rezek isn’t going to shrug his shoulders and forget this.’
‘No, you’re right, if I judge him correctly he’s busy planning how he gets his revenge and he’s decided for himself who the perpetrator must be. He’s one step ahead of us because he has a name. We know whoever it is wrote to Adalheid Rezeková saying he had information on her husband’s death, but he didn’t sign the letter.’
Valentin took a gulp from his beer and noticed Slonský inspecting it closely. ‘Today’s one of my beer days,’ he explained.
‘Then this is a good day to ask your help. The little grey cells will be going flat out given the right fuel.’
‘Maybe the killer has only just found out Rezek was behind his father’s death?’ Valentin suggested.
‘It didn’t take us long to tumble to that, and we had less information to start with.’
‘Then maybe the thing that has held the killer back is that he only just found out where the bodies were buried?’
‘You know,’ said Slonský, ‘for a journalist you can be surprisingly intelligent on occasions. There would be no point in doing anything to Rezek if that meant that the secret site of the burial was lost with him, because the collection of the remains was so important to him. It’s not just about revenge — it’s about reclamation and revenge.’
‘He has to close two chapters here — not just one.’
‘The bit that troubles me is that in this case the criminals are one step ahead of the police. Rezek knows who killed his daughter but he isn’t telling us because he wants to deal with it himself. And whoever that is, killing Adalheid was only the first half of the job; the second part has to involve getting Rezek too, because until he does he isn’t safe.’
‘Not to mention that the real revenge will come when he has Rezek on his knees and pulls the trigger.’
Slonský looked closely at Valentin. ‘You’ve got altogether too vivid an imagination for my liking. Are you sure you’ve got nothing to do with this?’
‘As you may remember, my father only passed on fifteen years ago.’
‘He was a good sort, your dad was.’
‘He wouldn’t have shot anyone. Not with his marksmanship.’
Chapter 12
Jerneková looked appallingly smug. ‘Got it in one. Barbora was at a conference on the Wednesday. Eva Čechová thought it might be a romantic meeting, because she isn’t a proper friend; she’s a work colleague, whereas Barbora is both.’
‘If we discount the dinner arrangement and assume it’s just a meeting, perhaps that’s why she blocked out the Thursday morning?’ Peiperová suggested. ‘It wasn’t a hangover after a Wednesday dinner; it was a business meeting on the Thursday.’
‘But she hadn’t eaten for some time when she died. Is it likely that she’d missed breakfast?’
‘Some women do.’
Jerneková shook her head. ‘I don’t know how they can. If I don’t get something in the morning I’m likely to be snappy as hell.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘You’ve got to admit I’m better than I was.’
‘Ye-es,’ Peiperová agreed in a half-hearted sort of way.
‘This job has been great for me. Somewhere warm and dry to sleep and a bit of money in my pocket — that’s all I ever wanted. I’ll always be grateful to the Captain for making it happen.’
‘I owe him a lot too. He brought me to Prague from Kladno. If it wasn’t for him I’d never have met Jan, and we certainly couldn’t have developed a relationship.’
‘Maybe Jan should have him as his best man?’
Peiperová bit her lip. ‘I don’t know who he’s having. Whenever I raise the topic he changes the subject. I just hope he’s got someone.’
‘Talking of changing the subject, did you get anywhere with the metro station?’
‘The nearest station to her home was at Hloubětín. The shortest walking route to it takes her past a gun shop and a pharmacy, and they both have security cameras showing the street outside. Let’s go and see if we can view the footage for Wednesday and Thursday.’
Slonský had given Navrátil a couple of hours off to go to a meeting about the apartment he and Peiperová had set their hearts on, so Krob and Slonský were going through some recent crime reports when the telephone rang.
‘Have you got a minute?’ Mucha asked.
‘Should I make some time for you?’ Slonský replied.
‘I think you should. I can’t come up — it’s busy down here.’
‘That’s the trouble with criminals today — no consideration for the hard-worked desk sergeant.’
‘It’s serious, Josef.’
The fact that Mucha had used his first name was not lost on Slonský. It was a very rare occurrence, and the tone of voice betrayed some concern. Curiosity itself would have spurred Slonský to get himself downstairs as quickly as possible.
Mucha had a printout in front of him. ‘I thought you should see this. We’ve had a report of a disturbance at a block of flats near Hůrka. A car was despatched. It sounds as if someone had their front door kicked in by an armed man. But read the description of the man.’
Slonský could read at speed when he wanted to, and it took him seconds to read the sheet. ‘It’s Rezek.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘Good work, old friend. Do me a favour and tell Krob to get his rear end down here while I organise a car to take us out there.’
‘Will do.’
Slonský turned to run off but was interrupted by a shout from Mucha, ‘Josef! For once in your life, check your gun is loaded before you go.’
Krob was driving while Slonský read the main points of the report aloud.
‘Call came in at 13:58 from a neighbour. Nobody seems to have heard Rezek arrive, but he knocked on the door. Our caller heard some shouting — something along the lines of “I know you’re in there”.’
‘Why would he expect a man to be at home at that time of day?’ Krob asked.
‘Good point but I don’t know
,’ Slonský replied. ‘Anyway, after the shouting there was some more banging on the door, then he must have kicked the door in. The neighbour thought it was best not to look out at that precise moment, but she says she heard the visitor leaving about five minutes later, looked out of her window and saw a stocky elderly man with a stiff brush of grey hair striding to a car. She couldn’t read the number at that distance but she says the car was dark blue.’
Krob parked the car and the two detectives ran into the block of flats. There was a uniformed officer standing guard outside a flat on the third floor which was missing its front door, or, more accurately, about two-thirds of its front door. They showed their badges and stepped carefully through the wreckage.
‘No scenes of crime technician here yet?’ demanded Slonský.
‘Not yet, sir,’ replied the uniformed officer.
‘Be a good lad and use that radio of yours to pass on a message from me to the lab. Tell them I want someone here at the double. This break-in is connected to a murder enquiry so it gets bumped up the queue. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Krob had peeked into each of the rooms. ‘Our bird has flown, sir.’
‘So it seems. Either that, or he’s taking minimalist living to a new level. But if this is the flat of our murderer we’ve got two problems, Krob. It’s hard to see how he could lower Adalheid’s body from his window, and the little freezer in the kitchen wouldn’t hold her handbag, let alone her corpse.’
‘Rezek isn’t a reckless or stupid man, sir. He must have some evidence telling him that this is the man he’s looking for.’
Slonský looked around him. The furniture remained but all the personal items were gone. ‘There’s a thin layer of dust that suggests that nobody has been here for some time,’ he said.
‘Maybe he just doesn’t like housework,’ Krob replied.
‘Any mail?’
‘I’ll see if I can check the pigeonholes by the front door, sir.’
There was a bundle of keys on the kitchen counter, and Krob slipped them in his pocket as he left in the hope that one of them opened the mailbox. Slonský continued to look around the flat and paused for a moment in the main room. Under a small glass table he found a ripped triangle of white paper. It was less than two centimetres long and perhaps a centimetre at its widest point, but Slonský carefully lifted it off the rug with the blade of a knife and dropped it into an evidence envelope from his coat pocket.
