by Graham Brack
‘You’ll be good for at least two hours then.’
‘I can hang on longer than that when I smell blood. Or is it fear I can smell?’
‘In this place it’s probably cabbage.’
‘If I tell Dumpy Anna you’ve disparaged her cooking you’ll be for it.’
‘I’m not frightened of her. Remember I’ve learned how to handle my wife’s sister, and she can turn you into a toad with one look of her eye.’
‘Is she staying with you again?’
‘No,’ scoffed Mucha. ‘I wouldn’t be going home at this time if she was there. I’d put in a few more hours unpaid.’
Broukalová preceded Peiperová up the steps to the main door and was shown to the interview room, which was a grand description temporarily assigned to Cell Three once Salzer had put a table and chairs into it.
‘You two do the questioning,’ Slonský instructed. ‘Pretend I’m not here.’
Since he then took up a position leaning against the inside of the door it was a difficult order to follow.
‘You’d better lead,’ Peiperová said to Navrátil. ‘You’ve been on this case throughout, whereas I haven’t.’
Navrátil nodded and took his seat with Peiperová to his left. He turned on the tape recorder and recited the date, time and those present. ‘Our interest is in the abduction and death of Viktorie Dlasková, otherwise known as Viktorie Broukalová. You know who we mean?’
‘Yes,’ Magdalena whispered.
‘Let’s start at the beginning with her kidnapping. You were working at the time in a kindergarten where Viktorie was one of the children.’
‘I’d left a few weeks before. My then husband and I had been trying for a baby for a long time. I’d had tests and treatment and finally I managed to fall pregnant. I lost the baby at six months.’
’I’m very sorry,’ said Navrátil, earning himself a look from Peiperová who clearly felt that this was a poor justification for stealing someone else’s child.
‘I got depressed,’ Magdalena continued. ‘I must have been difficult to live with.’
‘And your marriage suffered.’
‘My husband was a good man but he didn’t understand. When you want a baby so badly nothing else matters. I said we could adopt but Jan wasn’t keen. If he couldn’t have a baby of his own blood he didn’t want one just for the sake of having a baby. I did.’
She spread her hands expressively as if that explained all that had followed.
‘When did you come up with the idea of kidnapping a child?’
Magdalena’s tears began again. ‘I don’t remember exactly when Jan walked out. He went to stay with his sister — the one you met tonight. I should have been heartbroken but it seemed like the last obstacle to having a baby had been removed. I decided to start again somewhere else. I’d come to Prague — nobody knew me here and if I turned up with a baby they wouldn’t know it wasn’t mine. So I hired a van to take the few things I owned with me. My dad had let me drive a fork-lift truck at his work a few times when I was a teenager but I couldn’t drive really and I didn’t have a car. I told the van driver we’d have to drop by the kindergarten on the way to pick my child up, and directed him to the back car park. I didn’t know which child it was going to be. I didn’t really care, so long as I got one.’
‘Didn’t it occur to you that you were going to cause great pain to some other woman?’ Peiperová asked.
‘Of course not,’ said Broukalová, ‘or I wouldn’t have done it.’
She gave Peiperová a look as if to convey that it was possibly the stupidest question she had ever been asked. Peiperová, for her part, felt any last shreds of sympathy for the woman opposite dissipate into the air like fairy wings. And Navrátil, who was a sensitive soul at any time, but particularly attuned to Peiperová’s moods and thoughts, decided to move swiftly along because he was detecting her “Give me strength” vibes and feared she might reach across the table, shake the suspect and tell her to pull herself together. Of course, he reasoned, Peiperová is never less than entirely professional, but she has very little tolerance for what she regarded as “wet girliness”.
Broukalová decided more explanation was needed. ‘You’re a woman. You should understand. Having babies is what we’re made for.’
Peiperová was about to respond when Slonský cut in.
‘I think at this stage we shouldn’t get bogged down in motives and explanations. Let’s stick to what you actually did. We can come back to why later.’
Broukalová nodded.
Navrátil picked up the questioning. ‘So you admit that you took Viktorie Dlasková?’
There was a prolonged pause before the whispered response. ‘Yes.’
‘A little louder for the tape, please.’
‘Yes. Yes, I took her. And I loved and cared for her.’
‘So did her moth—’ began Peiperová.
‘How did you persuade her to come with you?’ asked Navrátil.
‘She and I always got on well. I had a dark blue jacket with a kitten on the pocket and when I held it open she wanted to try it on. Then I just wrapped her up in it and carried her outside. In no time she was in the van and we were on the highway to Prague.’
‘And where did you plan to go when you got here?’
‘I’d seen an advertisement for a women’s refuge. We headed there and they helped me get set up. I found a job and they got Viktorie a place in a nursery. If I needed a babysitter one of the other women would always help just like I’d help them if they needed it.’
She glanced at Peiperová to suggest that some people might not understand the nature of that kind of sisterhood.
‘And how did you meet Daniel Nágl?’ Navrátil persisted, feeling it better not to invite Peiperová to reply.
‘After a few months the refuge finds you a place outside. Mine was near where we’ve been living. We were out in a park one day and he was jogging. When he came back round the second time he said hello and we got talking. Most men are put off when you’ve got a child but he wasn’t.’
‘But it seems his interest in Viktorie wasn’t entirely innocent,’ Peiperová interjected.
Magdalena looked at her hands for quite a while before answering. ‘No.’
Peiperová continued the questioning. ‘We know what he did to her, Ms Broukalová. We have forensic evidence. We know how she suffered at his hands.’
Broukalová began to sob. ‘I didn’t know for a long time. I’d never have had anything to do with him if I’d even suspected…’
‘But you stayed with him even after you discovered it.’
‘He’d discovered she wasn’t mine.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know. I may have said something when we’d been drinking. Or maybe Viktorie told him — she sometimes called me her other mummy, and I said she just didn’t speak proper Czech yet. Anyway, he said if I shopped him he’d go straight to the police to tell him I’d stolen Viktorie.’
‘So you allowed your partner to abuse a child for whom you had assumed responsibility rather than face up to what you had done?’
Slonský admired the direct line of questioning. He didn’t believe in a softly, softly approach to interrogation.
‘If that’s how you want to put it…’
‘It doesn’t matter how I want to put it,’ Peiperová commented, ‘it’s how the prosecutor sees it.’
‘How long had this been going on?’ Navrátil asked.
‘I met him about six months after I got to Prague. We moved in together early in the New Year. I don’t recall exactly when I discovered it. About three years ago Viktorie was complaining of being sore and when I checked her out I couldn’t understand what had happened. I wanted to take her to the doctor but Daniel convinced me she must have sat down awkwardly and she’d soon get better if we bought some cream.
‘Then a few months later it happened again, but this time Viktorie said Daddy had hurt her when they were playing. He denied it, of course,
but I could see something in his eyes. I couldn’t get him to admit anything but I told him firmly that if I ever knew he’d been interfering with Viktorie I’d be going straight to the police.
‘Then I suppose nothing else came up for the rest of the year but one day in the following winter Daniel was looking after her while I was at work and when I was bathing her she said Daddy had hurt her again. That’s when I shouted at him and he told me he knew she wasn’t mine.’
‘But you didn’t leave?’ Peiperová persisted.
‘I thought he’d been a good partner in other ways. Whatever he had, he gave us. He looked after us both. I didn’t make enough money to keep Viktorie and me. I just told him that if I was going to stay, this mustn’t happen again. But I can’t say I really trusted him again, and when I came across some photos he’d taken of her I decided I had to get away.’
‘These were explicit photographs?’ Navrátil prompted.
‘They were vile, horrible photographs. He said they were just pictures of her having fun but I knew otherwise. So I told the teachers at her school one Friday that Daniel and I were separating and that she wouldn’t be back on the Monday.’
‘Where were you going to take her?’ Navrátil enquired.
‘I didn’t know. Anywhere I could get to. Then I thought of Petra. I don’t want her brought into this — she didn’t know about any of it till I turned up. We’d always been friendly, even after Jan walked out. She tried to reconcile us because she said she liked us both. So I thought if I went back home I might find someone who would help us. But I couldn’t leave on Friday because I didn’t have my pay and papers.’
‘Your boss said she’d have given them to you early if you’d asked,’ Navrátil said.
‘But that would have been different, so he’d have been suspicious. It had to be a normal weekend. Usually he went out for a run on Saturday afternoon. He’d only be gone forty to fifty minutes, but I thought I could pack a bag and run to the bus and be gone with her before he got back.’
‘So why didn’t you go?’ asked Peiperová.
‘I had to leave him with her while I went to get my pay. I don’t know exactly what she said, but he told me she’d been upset about leaving all her friends. “What do you mean, leaving your friends?” he asked, and she let the cat out of the bag. I suppose he was mad with me and he took it out on her.
‘When I got back they were upstairs. She was face down on her bed, and he was flushed and sweating. He said she’d been upset because we were leaving and he’d been trying to keep her quiet, but I could see she’d been gasping for air and her underclothes were missing. When I saw the state of the sheets I knew what he’d been doing.
‘I attacked him and he hit me back several times. In the end he got hold of my arm and twisted it so hard I thought he’d broken it. He told me to be quiet, and he’d explain how we were going to get out of this mess. We’d wait till it was dark and then we’d go down to the river and drop Viktorie in. Then we’d wait a couple of hours and then call the police saying she’d run away from home and we were worried about her. They’d find her, assume she’d drowned, and we could go back to our lives.’
‘What did you say to that?’ Peiperová responded.
‘I told him I didn’t want to spend a night under the same roof as him ever again. He said he felt the same way, but I had a choice. I stayed where he could keep an eye on me or I’d finish up the same way as Viktorie. Either way I wasn’t leaving, he said.’
‘But you decided you were.’
‘I didn’t see how he could keep me. If I could get enough of a start I could get away. It’s a big country and he’d never find me.’
‘So you stole his car on Sunday?’ Navrátil picked up the narrative again.
Broukalová nodded. ‘I thought if I could remember what Dad had taught me when I drove the fork-lift trucks I could get to a train or bus station and get away. More to the point, if I had the car he couldn’t have it so it would give me a bigger start.’
‘And you drove it to the main train station and caught the first train you could?’
‘Yes. I didn’t have enough money to get out of the country so I thought the first thing was to get out of the city. Then I’d pick up my original plan of going back home to meet up with Petra the next day.’
‘Daniel didn’t know about Petra?’
‘He knew a bit because I’d told him about my ex-husband, but I’d never told him her address. It was in my address book, but that was always in my handbag. I didn’t think he’d ever have found us there. My fear had been that he’d find Viktorie through her school, but once she’d died and I wasn’t travelling with her I didn’t have to worry about that. I thought I could get away and start again, and not be hurt any more.’
Navrátil looked enquiringly at Peiperová who shook her head.
‘That’s enough questioning for tonight. We’ll have to keep you here but we’ll send some food for you. We’ll make our report to the prosecutor and we may have to question you again.’
Since there was no female officer at the front desk by this time Peiperová was given the job of removing anything Broukalová could use for self-harm. This included her bra, though Navrátil had never been entirely clear how you could kill yourself with one of those. He busied himself in organising a tray of food and some bedding, and completing the arrest log. By the time the two of them had finished they walked up to Slonský’s office to see what he had been doing.
‘It’s too dark to go now,’ he told them, ‘but first thing tomorrow we’ll take her down to the river and she can show us where she and Nágl put Viktorie in. I’ve organised a scenes of crime officer to come with us to gather any forensic material that may still exist. I doubt there’ll still be any but you never know.’
‘You’ll want us in, sir?’ Navrátil asked.
‘Not all day, lad. I know you’ve got a weekend planned. Make the most of it. As you climb the tree the police will eat more and more of your private life. Anyway, aren’t you two supposed to be at your mother’s?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, take the car. You’ll get there quicker that way. Then in the morning you can drive straight over to Komořany. Having come here first to collect me and Broukalová, of course. Eight o’clock suit you? The technician is meeting us at eight thirty when I call to tell him exactly where.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’
‘Not at all. Well done, the pair of you. It’s a nasty, sordid case with some unpleasant people. You did well to keep your natural contempt in check.’
‘I didn’t do that very well, sir,’ Peiperová admitted. ‘I’m sorry, it was unprofessional of me.’
‘The thing is, lass, that you thought Broukalová and Nágl were unusually unpleasant people. Whereas, if you’ll take a tip from me, the key thing in a police officer is to believe that everyone is just as contemptible until proved otherwise. It makes dealing with their sort much easier. Now, hop off before I decide we’re all going for a beer or eight.’
Mrs Navrátilová was still up when they finally arrived. This was not a surprise because although Navrátil liked to describe her as a retired lady of regular habits, she was very fond of television quiz shows and late night horror movies, particularly those of an exceptionally lurid type. On this particular Friday evening she quickly turned off a film about lesbian vampires when she heard the key in the lock, preferring to be found watching a documentary about Slovakian nuns who made and sold their own honey.
Navrátil explained that they needed to be at work on the following morning and apologised in advance if they disturbed her when leaving.
‘You won’t disturb me,’ his mother replied. ‘I’ll be up at six. Always was, always will be. I’ll have some breakfast ready for you both. Speaking of food, I kept some fish pie for the pair of you. It’s in the warm oven.’
As they gratefully ate, Navrátil wondered if he needed to explain that his mother still followed the prohibition of meat on Fridays
, being a good Catholic woman, and that he actually did the same when he could but had never seen fit to mention the fact in front of Captain Slonský, who regarded abstinence from meat as un-Czech.
‘I thought Kristýna could have my room,’ Navrátil explained, ‘and I’ll sleep on the sofa.’
‘If you like,’ said his mother, ‘but I don’t mind moving into the single bed and giving the two of you my room if you prefer.’
Peiperová had never seen Navrátil spit food across a table before. She covered the lower half of her face with her hand so he could not see her laughing.
Navrátil finally managed to hiss ‘We’re not married’ at his mother.
‘I know, but there’s no harm in a cuddle. When I was a girl if you had to share a bed with a boy they put a line of pillows down the middle of the bed to keep you apart.’
‘And suppose I’m overcome by passion?’ Navrátil protested.
‘You’re bright young folks,’ said his mother. ‘I hope one of you would have the wit to throw the pillows away.’
Chapter 18
If Broukalová had slept at all, there was no sign of it in her haggard face. She left her breakfast untouched, which came as no surprise to Sergeant Mucha.
‘To be frank, I’d be worried about her if she ate and enjoyed it,’ he explained to Slonský. ‘Some of those rolls are coming up for a long service award.’
‘She’s probably fretting about being in the back of the car with Peiperová again. They don’t get on.’
‘One’s a young, intelligent policewoman and the other’s a child abductor who has admitted disposing of a body illegally. I don’t suppose they’ve found too much in common.’
‘Broukalová thinks every woman thinks like she thinks.’
‘Does she? She’d get on well with my wife’s sister. They could exchange spells.’
‘Peiperová doesn’t have a lot of patience with women who plead their sex to explain why they do things.’
‘You’ve noticed that too?’
‘She doesn’t hold with all this fluttering your eyelashes stuff in the hope that your boss will give you a helping hand up that has been the mainstay of women’s progress in the Czech police force since time immemorial. She believes in getting promotion by being better than everyone else.’
