by Graham Brack
‘This is no time for writing love letters, lad. Was that Novák’s car I saw outside?’
‘Yes, sir. He’s upstairs.’
‘Good. Why aren’t you?’
‘He suggested I write up what we’ve found so far while he finished off.’
‘Even better. You can tell me what you’ve found as you write.’
‘How did you know where to come, sir?’
‘Mucha told me. Remember, you told him where to send Novák.’
‘But Most is over a hundred kilometres away.’
‘I know,’ beamed Slonský. ‘I’ll have to tell old Dlouhý he was wrong. That van can do a hundred and forty, no problem. Well, a bit of juddering now and again, but there’s no point in hanging around. You don’t solve crime driving down the highway.’
Navrátil opened his notebook and began to read. ‘It looks as if Viktorie died in her bedroom, sir. She was face down on the bed with a man on top of her and her face was stuck in the pillow. Dr Novák has taken some semen samples and will be able to identify the male involved.’
‘So will everyone else once I lay hands on him because he’ll be missing some of his key bits,’ snarled Slonský. ‘Anything else?’
‘Her clothes seem to be here but perhaps the mother only packed a small bag.’
‘We can check that. Come on.’
Slonský bounded up the stairs but instead of entering the small bedroom he opened the door to the adults’ room. Walking to the wardrobe he opened the door.
‘Full set of clothes, I reckon. Now, on the other hand, look at the chest of drawers, lad. Don’t touch it until Novák’s men have been in here, but what do you notice?’
‘One drawer sticking out. It appears to be empty.’
‘And the others?’
‘I can’t tell without touching them, sir.’
‘Then put some gloves on and just peek in.’
‘More or less full, sir.’
‘Yes. And what are they not full of?’
‘Sir?’
Slonský adopted his slow and loud speaking-to-an-idiot voice. ‘What are you not finding?’
‘There’s no underwear, sir.’
‘Exactly. When a woman is packing as fast as she can, she just tips her underwear drawer into a bag. She can manage with one or two tops and skirts or trousers, but women like plenty of underwear. If she had packed before she went to the school, she’d probably have been more selective about the underwear and taken more of her other clothes. I suspect that she packed after Viktorie was killed, lad. She fled the crime scene. So was that in horror at what she had found, or guilt at what she’d been part of?’
Navrátil and Slonský examined the drawers to see if Viktorie’s stepfather’s clothes were also missing, but that was not so clear-cut. Many were still there, but without knowing how many there had been before the events of that September day it was not possible to draw any firm conclusion, except, possibly, that the stepfather had not left in as much of a hurry as her mother.
‘Does that mean that they didn’t leave together, sir?’
‘Maybe. But perhaps it just means he doesn’t get as agitated as she does by killing children, Navrátil. Have you found a name for him yet?’
‘There’s some letters addressed to Daniel Nágl, sir. Recent dates.’
‘Good work. When we get back see if you can trace a car and mobile phone for him. For that matter look for one for his wife while you’re at it. I doubt she has a car but she may have a phone, and if she has I want to find it. Is there anything else we can do here?’
‘You’re in charge, sir.’
‘Yes, Navrátil, but I’m giving you your big break. Remember, you’re flying solo.’
‘How can I fly solo if you’re here?’
‘Think of it as me being your instructor. I can take the controls if you’re going to go down in flames, but you’ve got to fly sometime. So,’ continued Slonský, ‘I’m pushing you out of the nest.’
The mixed metaphor was not lost on Navrátil, but he was keen to show he could manage, so he stood for a moment tapping his pen on his teeth while he thought.
‘You’re meant to be an eaglet, not a woodpecker,’ Slonský complained. ‘Well?’
‘Let’s see if there’s anything that tells us what Mr Nágl does for a living.’
‘Excellent. Well, you don’t need me for that so I’ll head back to town.’
‘If you’re going first, sir, you could start the car and phone traces.’
Navrátil was convinced that he had overstepped the mark, judging by the look on Slonský’s face, and braced himself for a flow of invective that never came. Instead, Slonský walked past and patted him on the shoulder as he went.
‘Jolly good idea, lad. I’ll get the desk sergeant onto it right away.’
Valentin must have had his hair cut. There was not that much of it, but what there was had been carefully arranged to conceal as much scalp as possible and bore traces of some fragrant oil.
‘Have you been on one of those dating websites again?’ posed Slonský.
‘No,’ replied Valentin. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘If you’re not seeing a woman I’ll sit here, but keep your distance. I don’t want people thinking I’ve been turned by your tarted-up head.’
‘It needed a cut,’ Valentin protested. ‘It was getting straggly.’
‘It’s been straggly since about 1983,’ Slonský pointed out, ‘but I don’t remember you getting it properly cut before.’
‘Then your observational powers are failing. For a start, you haven’t noticed that my glass is empty.’
‘So it is. While you’re ordering a refill you can get one for me.’
Valentin bowed to the inevitable, the pain eased somewhat by the knowledge that in any lifetime reckoning he was well ahead so far as receiving goes, and beckoned a waiter to give their order.
‘What have you been doing today?’ Valentin asked.
‘Driving a van up to the Most district.’
‘Moonlighting? Police salary not enough for you?’
‘No, it was the only vehicle Dlouhý would let me have.’
Valentin snorted. ‘Are you surprised?’ he said.
‘Am I the only person around here who believes in letting bygones be bygones?’ Slonský growled.
Valentin inspected him closely. ‘You really mean that, don’t you?’
‘What?’
‘You think that you’re capable of forgetting a past slight. When did you last speak to Marián Krátký?’
‘Around 1962, I think.’
‘And the reason for your silence?’
‘You know the reason.’
‘Humour me.’
‘He snapped one of my ski bindings.’
‘Yes. When we were still at school. He keeps a bar not two hundred metres from here and it’s the one place in Prague I’m certain never to find you.’
‘The beer’s like virgin’s pee.’
‘Undoubtedly true, but he does a decent sausage, I’m told.’
Slonský looked confused, as if someone had just proved to him that the world was flat. ‘I can’t be bought by a sausage. When he’s ready to apologise, I’ll think again.’
‘He apologised in 1962.’
‘He didn’t mean it.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘I’m a policeman. It’s my job to work out if people are telling the truth.’
‘You weren’t a policeman then.’
‘No, but I was thinking of becoming one, so it’s just as well I was demonstrating I had solid instincts for that kind of thing.’
Their beers arrived, so each man put aside their discussion for a moment to savour the first mouthful under the foamy head.
‘That’s nice. I needed that,’ said Slonský.
‘The first of the day is always the best,’ Valentin opined.
‘It’s my second,’ Slonský told him. ‘I had one with a witness.’
‘Isn’t drinking with witnesses a slightly unusual approach for a policeman? I know you normally treat the Police Manual with contempt but this is a bit over the top even for you.’
‘The woman hadn’t two crowns in her purse and she needed to get out of her depressing flat. I took her somewhere she would relax and be less aggressive. And it worked. She saved me a fruitless trip by telling me the fourth woman on my list was dead.’
‘If she was telling the truth.’
‘Why would she lie?’
‘According to you, everyone does.’
‘They do. But they don’t all lie all the time. Anyway, we’ve got a name for the victim, the mother and the mother’s partner. Now we need to see if we can trace either of the adults back to Ústí.’
‘Permit me to observe, as an interested bystander, that if you can’t your case is shot.’
‘You think I don’t know that? Anyway, Sergeant Salzer is whiling away the night shift trying to track Mrs Broukalová’s addresses, phone numbers and relationships.’
‘Do you have all that on file then?’
‘And more. I just can’t get the hang of the computer stuff, but everybody else seems to be able to find out all sorts.’
‘This place gets more and more like a police state,’ Valentin grumbled.
‘Compared with when I started in the police, it’s a beacon of liberty,’ Slonský corrected him.
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘The only difference is that Sergeant Salzer can do it all from his desk whereas before we had eighty-four clerks running up and down a kilometre of filing cabinets. I couldn’t get the hang of that either.’
Chapter 9
Navrátil was always punctual in the morning and was used to being first to arrive, so it took him aback a little to find Slonský sitting at his desk surrounded by sheets of paper on which he had written with a large red marker pen.
‘Good morning, sir. Has Sergeant Salzer found anything of interest?’
‘Good morning, Navrátil. Yes, and no. He’s discovered that Mrs Broukalová is a practised liar. She has an identity card and we can track it back for about six years, but where she was before that is not at all clear.’
‘So Broukalová isn’t her real name.’
‘We can’t say that. Either it isn’t, but she got papers in that name to conceal what she was about, or it is and she previously used a different one.’
‘And Nágl?’
‘Prague resident going back a long way. He seems to be about thirty-eight and he’s been hereabouts for at least the last twenty of those years. He owns a black Volkswagen Golf, about two years old. I’ve got the traffic police looking out for it but no sightings so far. I also sent a car to tour the neighbourhood where they lived to see if it’s parked anywhere nearby, though why he would do that when he has a perfectly good driveway is hard to imagine.’
‘Nágl seems to be some sort of draughtsman, judging by the books on his shelves.’
‘That doesn’t help us much in terms of finding his employers, but his tax records should.’
‘I’ll take a look, sir.’
Navrátil sat at his desk and worked in silence for a few minutes before deciding there was something he needed to say. ‘I haven’t had a chance to tell you that someone called Krob dropped his paperwork back. I put it in your in-tray.’
‘Which one is my in-tray?’
‘The top one.’
‘Ah. I normally think of that as my tray for putting sandwiches in. Let’s have a look — there it is. Thanks.’
‘Which vacancy is he applying for, sir?’
‘Navrátil, I know where this is going, and you can relax. My plan is that Krob should work under one of the lieutenants. He’s not replacing anyone you know.’
‘I suppose Kristýna and I have been fortunate in working together so far. We can’t expect that to continue.’
‘No, that was possible because I was around to make sure that the two of you didn’t spend all your days parked up in a lay-by somewhere. But part of the point of letting you lead on parts of this case is so that I don’t have to do that and I can spend more time with the new folks like Krob.’
‘So will we be getting two new lieutenants to replace you and Doležal and a new officer to replace Rada, sir?’
‘Budget cuts, lad! They’ll only let us have two of the three for now. That’s another reason why I’ll have to split you and Peiperová up when she comes back, or there’ll be a lieutenant with no little helper.’
Navrátil did not like what he was hearing, but he knew that it was inevitable. At least they would both be in the same team.
‘Is there any news on Colonel Urban’s promotion, sir?’
‘You mean his lack of promotion, Navrátil. I don’t know. And presumably Mucha doesn’t know, or he’d have told me. And if Mucha doesn’t know, nobody knows.’
The tax office provided an address for Nágl’s employers so Navrátil was dispatched to see if he was there while Slonský continued his trawl though the paperwork trying to piece together Mrs Broukalová’s life. The essential next step in this process was to visit the canteen to collect a coffee and some source of carbohydrates.
As usual, Dumpy Anna was behind the counter. Slonský had no romantic interest in her, but he enjoyed a chat with her and she mothered him occasionally.
‘Ah, it’s old Skin-and-Bones! What are you not going to have today?’ she asked.
‘Thank you for noticing that my rigorous exercise programme is bearing fruit,’ replied Slonský.
The rigorous exercise programme in question had been forced on him by an impending police medical, for which he had managed to lose seven kilograms. Realising that at his age a medical was never going to be too far away he had continued to put in a bit of time in the gym when he could, because the alternative of continuing to go without beer, coffee, sausages and pastries was just too grim to contemplate. Not only was it unhealthy in his view to deny himself these pleasures, it had also, by common consent, made him even more grouchy and antisocial than had previously been the case, and it was his firm opinion that his brain did not function as well without beer to keep the cogs oiled. He had told anyone who would listen that his difficulty in solving the case in which poor Doležal had been beaten up was largely due to that period of enforced abstinence. Well, near-abstinence; that is, reducing to less than two litres a day.
Anna handed him a coffee and took the money for the pastry he had selected.
‘Anna,’ said Slonský on an impulse, ‘do I remember that you’ve been married twice?’
‘You do. They both died on me.’
‘So you’ll have had to get new national identity cards in your new name a couple of times?’
‘Yes. I never remembered to do it right away, of course. And you don’t have to change your name when you get married, do you?’
‘No, but if you do, what do you have to do?’
‘It’s a bit stricter now. I think you have to take your marriage certificate and something that proves your address. Back when I did it they knew where you lived anyway.’
‘But did they actually check anything?’
‘You mean like going round to the flat to see if you were there? Not that I know of. They’ve got computers now so I suppose they can check things through that, but in my day it was all paper.’
‘Did you keep your last husband’s name after he died?’
‘No point in changing, was there? It’s not like I was going to be third time lucky.’
Slonský smiled benignly. ‘There’s no harm in hoping, is there?’
‘Why would I want to get married again? At my age it just means double the ironing.’
Slonský skipped happily up the stairs now that an idea was forming. He knew that many of his ideas came to nothing, but the important thing was to have plenty of them. He never felt as bad as when he had run out of plausible ideas.
At the top of the stairs he was surprised to find his old boss, Captain
Lukas, loitering in the corridor.
‘This is a pleasant surprise, sir,’ he remarked.
‘Don’t call me sir, Josef. I’m retired now, remember? I’m just plain old Mr Lukas now.’
‘You’ll always be Captain Lukas to me, sir. Come in and sit down. Coffee?’
‘No, thanks. It’s a kind offer but I don’t hold my liquid so well these days. Besides, I remember what the canteen coffee is like.’
‘Very wise, sir.’
‘Don’t let me keep you from work. I was just … in the district and thought I would pop in. See how my old colleagues are doing.’
One of the things about the police headquarters was that it was not on the way to anywhere sensible. Knowing where Lukas lived, it was hard to see why he would be “in the district” unless dropping in was the main purpose of his outing. Lukas confirmed this obliquely, feeling that some additional explanation might be warranted.
‘My wife and daughters are lovely, of course, and very attentive, but a fellow needs a little bit of male company now and again, Josef.’
Lukas was not a red-blooded alpha male, devoted to beer and hockey, so Slonský interpreted this as a need for a modicum of silence from time to time.
‘I quite understand, sir. We’ll always be pleased to see you here.’
‘That’s very kind. How are things?’
‘On a scale of one for totally grim to ten for archangels singing, I’d say about one point five.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Oh dear indeed. The bean counters won’t let me fill all the vacancies but I’ve got permission for two so long as one is a woman. I’ve filled one but he can’t start for a few more days.’
‘I imagine that Navrátil is a great help, though.’
‘He’s a good lad. He’s taking the lead on a current case and making a reasonable fist of it.’
‘How about Peiperová?’
‘Ah. She is miserable. I don’t think she likes working for Colonel Urban.’
‘I always thought Urban was a first-class officer.’
‘He is. It’s as a human being he’s lacking at present.’
‘He hasn’t got the Director of Police job yet, I hear?’
