by Graham Brack
Then there was Navrátil. Slonský had never wanted a partner, and fortunately he was such a cussed and difficult character to work with that most potential partners didn’t want him either, but then came the day when Captain Lukas had been assigned Navrátil for further training and the only person who didn’t already have a regular assistant was Slonský. When he declined, Lukas brought up the matter of his closeness to retirement age and hinted heavily that Slonský’s continued service after the age of fifty-nine might be contingent on his training Navrátil.
And so this slightly-built, fresh-faced youngster had turned up, eager to learn, willing to work hard, and scrupulously honest. He went to Mass every weekend even though Slonský had offered to write him a note for the priest saying he had a cold or he’d left his kit at home. Slonský had joined the police wanting to stamp out crime and make the lives of ordinary people better, and it hurt to think that he was going to retire without having made much of a dent in the crime statistics. But he could see that same fire in Navrátil. If there was any justice, Navrátil was going to be at the top of the tree one day.
Unless Peiperová beat him to it. She had joined the police straight from school, whereas Navrátil had taken a law degree and then joined under a graduate entry scheme. She had been in uniform, walked the beat, thrown drunks into cells or taken them home. She was competent, organised, meticulous and had interpersonal skills of which Slonský could only dream. Not to mention such magical powers as remembering people’s names, birthdays and spouses’ names. She could interrogate people, especially women, and make it seem like a chat over a coffee.
Mind, she was ferociously ambitious. Navrátil was too polite. He’d stand back and open the door for her, and next thing he knew she’d be Director of the Police Presidium or whatever they called the top job these days. And these two were an item. God knows what any child they produced would be like — if Navrátil ever overcame his scruples and decided that sex after marriage was permitted.
Of course, they didn’t have Slonský’s occasional flashes of beer-fuelled brilliance, the moments when he broke through the barriers and experienced enlightenment. He never knew how those eureka times came about. He just mulled over a problem and suddenly it seemed to crack open. He was aware that many of the solutions were a little strange, but they worked more often than not, and he needed one now as he tried to think how to screw Dostál over.
And then it came to him. An answer of such luminous brilliance that even he was stunned momentarily. It might not work, but if it did it was possibly the most cunning idea he had had for nearly a fortnight.
Slonský did not share the entirety of his idea with Major Rajka, because he feared that if he did Rajka would stop him carrying it through. However, once he sprang his trap he thought Rajka would go along with it.
‘Visit Zedniček? Why?’ asked Rajka.
‘Because the whole mess is of his making. If he’d done his job properly we wouldn’t be having to do this now. If he protected Dostál then he’ll make touch to tell Dostál it’s all been reopened, and Dostál, knowing he’s guilty as hell, will try to throw a spanner in our works. I bet he’ll suddenly come back for a few days’ leave instead of hitting the French vineyards as usual. He’ll try to find out what you’ve discovered. Of course, there’s always the possibility that Zedniček let Dostál off the hook because he’s crap at his job, but you’ll be able to work that out from his answers.’
Rajka sat back and chewed his lip while he thought. ‘It’s worth a try,’ he said. ‘Have you got his address?’
Slonský produced a piece of paper from his inside jacket pocket. Rajka unfolded it, fully expecting it to be a laundry bill or a receipt for some pastries, but it was an immaculately written address.
‘Hang on — that’s not your handwriting,’ he said.
‘I got Peiperová to find it for me.’
Rajka was driving through the northern area of Prague with his usual disregard for the traffic laws when Slonský gave him advance notice that they would need to pull over after about five hundred metres. When they did, Slonský alighted and went into a seedy looking second hand store. He was gone just a couple of minutes and emerged with something in a brown paper bag. Rajka could not see what it was, but out of the corner of his eye he could see Slonský pulling bits of paper off it and dropping them back in the bag.
Zedniček lived in a very smart area with a hedge around his house and a double garage.
‘Two cars?’ said Slonský. ‘There’s posh. And look at that garage. I’ve known families living in smaller spaces than that.’
The retired officer was not pleased to discover who was at his door, but being an ex-colonel now he could hardly refuse to co-operate. He invited them to sit, did not offer any refreshment, and looked about as sour as a man could look in the absence of a mouthful of lemon.
Rajka explained that in the light of new evidence the enquiry into what had happened at the bank siege had been reopened.
‘New evidence? What new evidence?’ Zedniček asked.
‘I’m not at liberty to say just yet,’ Rajka said smoothly. ‘But it has caused us to revisit the file relating to your original enquiry. I’m afraid it’s surprisingly thin.’
Zedniček did not attempt to deny this, but moved straight in with an explanation.
‘You can’t clutter up the place with useless materials. Once an enquiry is completed and your superiors are satisfied that there’s nothing more to do, papers are shredded or returned. You keep the investigating officer’s report, of course. I think you’ll find that all that needed to be said is in there.’
‘Well, since we don’t know what else was said, it’s hard to be certain on that point. I’m interested to know on what basis you decided that Mrs Moserová’s account was incorrect and that the bank robbers were all armed, for example.’
‘If they hadn’t been armed, the assault team wouldn’t have shot them, would they?’ Zedniček had the effrontery to point out as if dealing with a particularly stupid child.
‘And what about the forensic evidence? Were the bullets that shot the robbers ever tied to a particular gun or guns?’
‘You can’t expect me to remember that after this length of time. But I suppose if they had it would be in my report.’
‘It would, but it isn’t. And I can’t trace a request to the ballistics team to examine the guns or bullets.’
‘You will remember,’ said Zedniček icily, ‘that it was not the function of OII to conduct the initial investigation of the deaths. That fell to the homicide division. I only became involved some time later, when the allegation of impropriety on the part of the assault team was made.’
‘Indeed,’ said Rajka. ‘But you would have reviewed the homicide team’s work and if you were unsatisfied you could have made appropriate orders to rectify any shortcomings.’
‘It was one old woman’s fantasy. There was absolutely no evidence to back it up. Nobody else made that allegation.’
‘Actually, others have,’ said Rajka.
‘And there’s no concrete evidence to help us,’ protested Zedniček.
It was at this point that Slonský opened his brown bag and placed a rectangular black object on the table top, carefully keeping his hand on it so it could not be snatched away.
‘A videotape?’ stammered Zedniček. ‘Where did that come from?’
Rajka was just as surprised as Zedniček but hid it well.
‘I’m not at liberty to say,’ he answered.
Zedniček’s mouth appeared to have dried up on him. He licked his lips a few times as he tried to assess where this revelation left him. Would he admit that he had conducted an inadequate enquiry designed to clear the police and brazen out whatever the tape showed, or would he decide to come clean? Rajka decided to give him a little nudge.
‘You’ll know that conspiracy to pervert the course of justice is a very serious offence,’ he said.
‘Am I accused of that?’ Zedniček replied.
‘No, not yet,’ said Rajka.
Zedniček shifted awkwardly in his seat. A couple of times he looked as if he was about to say something, then he thought better of it and kept his mouth shut. Slonský was experienced enough to follow the advice he regularly gave Navrátil, namely, to keep quiet and let the suspect fill the silence. The fact that it was advice that he very rarely followed himself did not make it any less sage.
Finally Zedniček leaned forward and pointed at the tape.
‘It is, I’m sure, entirely possible that if that tape had been available to me at the time I might have reached different conclusions. Who can say?’
‘You didn’t have it?’ asked Slonský.
‘I understood it had gone missing,’ Zedniček replied.
You have to admire his brass neck, thought Slonský, resisting the considerable temptation to lean over and give Zedniček a slap for lying to a policeman.
Rajka was in a more forgiving mood.
‘No doubt there was evidence pointing in each direction,’ he began.
Zedniček seemed to relax a little. He could seem a tiny glimmer of light indicating a way out of the tunnel he had put himself in.
‘Certainly,’ he agreed. ‘But to discipline an officer you have to have evidence showing a strong probability of guilt, if not beyond reasonable doubt.’
‘So what evidence was there against the commander of the squad?’
That’s clever, thought Slonský, not using the name as if you weren’t fully aware it was this villain’s son-in-law.
‘There was the letter, of course. But nothing much else. On questioning, the other witnesses agreed that things happened so quickly that they couldn’t swear to what happened in what order.’
‘That’s all in the questioning, though, isn’t it?’ Slonský chipped in. ‘Ask a question one way and they say “yes”; ask it another way and they say “perhaps not”.’
Zedniček bristled at the suggestion. ‘We did not start with any pre-determined conclusion.’
‘So the fact that the officer was soon to become your son-in-law did not influence your enquiry at all?’ Slonský growled.
‘That wasn’t the case at the time,’ Zedniček fired back.
Rajka glared at Slonský to make clear that he was asking the questions.
‘So,’ Rajka said smoothly, ‘there was no reason, in your view, for you to recuse yourself from the investigation?’
‘Certainly not. I don’t mind saying that when my daughter declared her intention of marrying Dostál I was quick to point out that this put me in a very invidious position. Of course, I couldn’t prevent the match, nor would I, but I did ask them to wait a while.’
‘How long is “a while”?’ Slonský interrupted.
‘At least three months,’ said Zedniček.
Slonský did some quick sums. Since the wedding took place around eight months after the siege, it must have been set up pretty soon thereafter if there was time to delay it three months. It seemed unlikely to him that there had not been some relationship between them at the time. On the other hand, Dostál may have been scheming enough to quickly cuddle up to the colonel’s daughter when trouble came calling.
Rajka was waiting for Zedniček to say something, and Zedniček was equally certain that he had said enough and anything further would be too much information. Finally Rajka ostentatiously made a note and resumed his questioning.
‘Is it fair to say, then, that you accept that your conclusions could only be regarded as provisional and that it was always possible that new evidence could invalidate them?’
Slonský was impressed. Rajka wasn’t actually saying that there was any new evidence, and his question was phrased so that only an obstinate fool would say no; and since Zedniček was not a fool, he obliged with the answer Rajka wanted to record.
‘Of course.’
‘I realise,’ Rajka smoothly continued, ‘that your family connection with Colonel Dostál cannot be ignored, but you will understand that I have to ask you not to discuss this matter with him. He will be informed officially that the enquiry has been reopened.’
‘Naturally,’ Zedniček agreed. ‘It goes without saying. We must guard against collusion.’
Was the word “we” intended to indicate that Zedniček could see which side his bread was buttered and had decided to switch sides? If so, Dostál was now floating in the sea and his father-in-law had chosen to put the lifebelts back in storage. Slonský had never had a daughter, and therefore no son-in-law either, but he had an idea this wasn’t how family relationships were meant to work.
Rajka wrote the answer down, put his pen and notebook away, and stood up, so Slonský did the same.
‘Thank you for your co-operation. If we need to speak to you again I’ll contact you to arrange a convenient time.’
This notion of agreeing a time for an interrogation was completely alien to Slonský, who had long been accustomed to asking questions whenever he wanted and taking the maximum time that the law allowed to do it.
He followed Rajka out to the car, carefully tucking the videotape in his coat pocket first.
‘Just out of interest,’ Rajka murmured as they walked, ‘what’s on the tape?’
‘A performance of Swan Lake,’ Slonský admitted. ‘Not my sort of thing, really, but it was all they had.’
‘You were taking a chance. Suppose he’d had a video player?’
‘If he had I wouldn’t have mentioned the tape.’
‘Good choice.’
Peiperová was celebrating her first day of freedom by reading all the papers Navrátil could find about the disappearance and death of Viktorie Dlasková. She viewed the video footage from the car park, rewound it and watched it twice more. Navrátil knew better than to speak while this was happening.
‘It’s awful,’ she declared at last. ‘Nágl raped and murdered the child, and at some point he gave her mother a good beating into the bargain. Those look like new injuries. You can almost see the pain she’s in.’
‘I agree. And you can’t blame her for getting away by any method she can. I don’t think anyone wants to charge her with driving without a licence or insurance in the circumstances.’
‘Do you think Nágl knows where she was going?’
‘All we can discover suggests that he didn’t meet her until after she’d left the Most area, so perhaps he only knows what she’s told him, but who knows what that could be? The saving grace is that she should know what he knows. If she told him where her friends and family are he’ll know that’s where she’s likely to go. She’s got a head start and I suppose she abandoned the car because the train would be quicker.’
‘The main thing for her was to deprive him of the use of it.’
‘That’s right. And she’s not a practised driver. She might know the road if she caught the bus into the city centre now and again, but once you head out to the north she wouldn’t know what she might find.’
Peiperová looked up at Navrátil and shook her head.
‘No, there’s something wrong here.’
‘Something wrong? How do you mean?’
‘When Captain Slonský and I went to the kindergarten, he concluded that the abductor must have had a car waiting at the back. It’s the only way that she could escape quickly. But if she can’t drive, and she doesn’t have a car, how is that possible? We’ve been assuming that Broukalová kidnapped Viktorie, took her away and brought her up. But the argument you’re putting forward is that she could drive seven years ago, but she can’t drive today. How does that work?’
Navrátil pinched the bridge of his nose. How had he missed that? ‘So she isn’t the abductor?’
‘We can’t say that. But we have to revisit the sequence of events because even if we found her we wouldn’t get a conviction with that argument.’
‘Nágl can drive. Could he have snatched Viktorie?’
‘There’s no evidence that she knew him. Wouldn’t she have yelled out?’
/> ‘Well, perhaps Broukalová took her, but Nágl was waiting in the car.’
‘Then we’ve got to show that Nágl was in that part of the country then, but nothing we’ve found so far suggests he had a home there.’
‘He could have been visiting.’
‘But can we show he even knew Broukalová then?’
Navrátil sighed. ‘We’ll just have to question him on that when we find him.’
Slonský listened with increasing dismay as Navrátil and Peiperová expounded their thoughts on the hypothesis he had so lovingly cobbled together, and realised, not for the first time, that Peiperová was right. As things stood the theory just didn’t work.
‘What do we do now, sir?’ Navrátil asked.
‘It’s your case, lad,’ Slonský answered.
‘But if I get stuck I’m supposed to come to you for guidance, which is what I’m doing now.’
This pair are altogether too bright for their own good, thought Slonský. ‘We’ll do what we usually do when things get tough. I need a sugar rush. Let’s get some coffee and pastries.’
As they descended to the canteen they met Sergeant Mucha coming up the stairs.
‘How kind of you to save me a long walk,’ he chuckled. ‘The trace you asked for has borne some fruit.’
Slonský held out his hand, but Mucha reached past him and handed the pages to Navrátil.
‘It’s Nágl’s credit card. It was used in Kolín on the day after Mrs Broukalová caught the train.’
‘Kolín?’ said Slonský. ‘Isn’t that on the line to Brno?’
‘It’s the fourth stop on the way,’ Mucha agreed. ‘Kutná Hora is the next one, where the wife’s sister lives, when she’s not infesting us.’
‘And Kolín has a direct line to Ústí,’ Slonský added.
Navrátil ran down to the main desk and began flicking through a large book kept under the counter. ‘The amount charged to the card is the cost of a ticket from Kolín to Ústí,’ he said. ‘Nágl’s hot on her trail, isn’t he?’
