Kossuth Square

by Adam LeBor

  Balthazar said, ‘That depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘If someone helped him along the way. That’s why we asked you to come and have a look.’ The two brothers’ eyes met. ‘Thanks, batyam,’ said Gaspar, his voice serious now. Gaspar turned to Eszter and Kinga and greeted them, this time accompanied by a small bow. Fat Vik, Gaspar’s consigliere, also wished the women good morning and turned to Balthazar. The two men clasped hands and quickly embraced. Fat Vik was dressed in his usual oversized white T-shirt and grey track pants. He was even bigger than Gaspar, with a bald head that shone with a faint sheen of sweat. Both men were breathing heavily. Apart from the occasional brawl, neither had exercised since they left school. The house had no lift and the VIP salon was at the top, on the third floor.

  Kinga yawned and turned to Balthazar. ‘Do I need to stay?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. You can go home. But don’t go anywhere far and keep your phone on.’ The four of them waited until Kinga had left.

  Gaspar looked at Eszter. ‘What’s all the fuss about? We’ve had punters die on the job before. That’s why we pay retainers to the ambulance service and the paramedics.’

  ‘Because I thought he was a foreigner, and I was right,’ said Eszter. ‘If we lose a foreigner here, you need to know.’

  Gaspar shrugged. ‘OK, so he’s a foreigner. That makes it more complicated.’ He turned to Balthazar. ‘How long do you think this will take?’

  ‘That depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On what “this” is. Why, ocsim, my little brother – are you in a hurry?’

  Gaspar glanced at his watch, a gold-plated Rolex. ‘Actually, yes.’

  ‘And why is that?’ asked Balthazar, although he suspected he already knew the answer.

  Gaspar shrugged, ‘Busy day, batyam.’

  Balthazar asked, ‘How many?’

  ‘Enough. Enough to make it worthwhile. Don’t worry, Tazi. Everything’s set up. The border’s open now. It’s a clear run all the way to Vienna. Nem lesz semmi baj. There won’t be any problems.’ Gaspar turned to the dead man. ‘Meanwhile, we need to sort this out.’

  Balthazar turned to Eszter. ‘You have the CCTV footage?’

  She did not reply immediately, shot Gaspar a questioning look. He nodded. Eszter said, ‘Yes. The usual. The front of the house. The entranceway.’

  Balthazar asked, ‘With timings? Correct timings?’

  Eszter nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘The corridors? The rooms?’

  Balthazar watched a faint tinge of pink appear on Eszter’s cheeks. She looked down for a couple of seconds. He looked back at Gaspar, who still said nothing. Balthazar held his younger brother’s gaze. A memory flashed through his mind. They were boys, barely in their teens, mucking around at the playground on Republic Square, not far from where they grew up in the Gypsy ghetto in District VIII. Balthazar turned away for a moment to watch a girl he liked as she walked past with her sister. When he turned back, two neighbourhood toughs had Gaspar face-down in the sandpit. His brother was fighting and struggling, but there were two of them, both bigger and more powerful. Balthazar swung around and kicked one in his ribs, leaned over and punched the other on the side of his head. They slid away from Gaspar, yelping in pain, and ran off. That was more than twenty years ago. His younger brother was now the most powerful pimp in the city, running a string of brothels – some upmarket, like this one, others less so – several lap-dance bars and a network of streetwalkers. But neither he nor Eszter could lie to Balthazar. Partly because the fierce Roma code of family loyalty did not allow it, but also because Balthazar would know immediately.

  Gaspar smiled. ‘If we did film there, why would you need it?’

  Balthazar gestured at the dead man. He thought it was highly likely that the rooms had concealed CCTV. Several local police officers and a couple of councillors enjoyed occasional free use of the palace. Filming them in action would be the best insurance against any future difficulties. ‘I am a detective in the Budapest murder squad. That’s my job. Don’t you want to know if someone is killing your punters? And why they might be?’

  Eszter said, ‘I certainly do, Gaspar.’

  Gaspar turned to Balthazar. ‘How much do you need?’

  ‘The last twelve hours.’ He yawned again, winced as a sharp ache shot across his jaw, and quickly closed his mouth. The pain from the beating at Keleti the previous Friday was easing, but at times like this, when he was tired, it flared up. Technically he had been up an hour, but in reality he had barely slept. The dream was back, had been every night since the events of the previous weekend. As he lay in bed on his back, watching the first smears of dawn lighten the sky, Eszter’s call had almost been a relief.

  ‘OK.’ Gaspar turned to Eszter. ‘Give it to him.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I need a massage.’

  Fat Vik laughed. ‘You are in the right place, brat.’

  Gaspar rolled his head in circles, back and forth. ‘Not that kind. A proper massage.’

  Eszter said, ‘Actually, we do those as well.’

  Gaspar laughed, ‘Thanks. But I’m in a hurry today.’ He looked at Balthazar. ‘That footage. It won’t be going anywhere, will it? Because you are already all over the Internet. I don’t want this place to be.’

  Balthazar said, ‘Of course not, ocsim. Where is the camera?’

  Gaspar looked up at the lamp.

  ‘Which one?’

  Gaspar pointed at one of the steel arms. Balthazar looked up. There was nothing to distinguish it from the others. ‘Clever.’

  ‘Now what?’ asked Gaspar.

  ‘I’m thinking.’ Balthazar walked over to the window, closed his eyes, took great lungfuls of the clean autumn air, breathing through his nose. The breeze was scented with the smell of burning leaves and cut grass, the last days of summer. A buzzing noise sounded in the distance, rising and falling over the hum of distant traffic, but then faded away. He rubbed his eyes and opened them. Buda stretched out before him, rolling green hills dotted with red-roofed villas, once stately mansions now chopped into flats, sleek new apartment buildings with solar panels on the roofs. The city was split in two by the river. Flat, urban Pest on one side and leafy, green Buda on the other. He was born and lived all his life in the same city, but lush Rozsadomb, Rose Hill, was another world to the narrow alleys, dark courtyards and backstreets of Jozsefvaros, where he grew up.

  He looked again at the dead man. Abdullah al-Nuri, a dead Qatari. Now, after some time in the room, the scene had settled in his mind. Balthazar’s instinct was telling him clearly that none of this was a coincidence – and nor was it good news. If someone had wanted al-Nuri dead, they had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure he died in Gaspar’s brothel.

  Balthazar turned around. His brother and Fat Vik were standing looking at him, as though he held the key to making complications and difficulties vanish. Sometimes he did. But he also knew the limits of his networks, his ability to game the system, make inconvenient things disappear or re-appear somewhere more suitable. There was one person, he knew, who would definitely want to know about this, and might be able to help.

  Gaspar asked, ‘Now what?’

  Balthazar said, ‘I make a call.’

  THREE

  Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport, 6.40 a.m.

  The police officer slid his passport into a machine reader and stared at the monitor for several seconds. Marton Ronay looked around as he waited. Until today, the furthest east he had been was Berlin. That city was much nearer Poland than he had thought, but was still part of Germany, the civilised, western half of the continent. Now he was in the east, in a land that bordered Ukraine and Romania, almost in the Balkans. He thought for a moment of his great-aunt in New Jersey, the stories she told of the ‘old country’: the wartime siege and hunger, the feral youths roaming the city, nights ripped apart by gunfire, the brother who went out for bread in the winter of 1944 as the Russians advanced and never
came home.

  But that was more than seventy years ago. Communism had collapsed in 1990. Hungary was a democracy now, a member of NATO and the European Union, but still, this pristine modernity was not quite what he had expected. The arrivals hall had a polished cream marble floor, white walls and a row of glass booths where the police officers sat. One illuminated billboard showed a sequence of photographs of Hungary – he recognised the chain bridge and Lake Balaton. Another showed attractive young people chatting on their iPhone Xs or joyfully moving money around on Internet bank accounts. Even the toilets, which he had just used, were spotless. The immigration queue moved swiftly, at least in comparison to every American airport he had ever passed through. And then there was the man flicking through his passport. The policeman was probably in his late twenties. He wore a light-blue uniform shirt, nicely filled by broad shoulders. Floppy brown hair fell over cool, assessing hazel eyes. Marton looked at the name on his shirt: Szilagyi Ferenc, written in the Hungarian fashion with the family name first. Welcome to Hungary, indeed.

  Ferenc almost made up for the delay. He was certainly better-looking than the fat Mexican or whatever guy who had pulled him out of the line at JFK, taken him into a filthy side room, made him turn out his pockets and daypack and asked him what felt like a hundred questions about why he was going to Hungary.

  Marton felt the policeman’s glance on him, stifled a yawn. He was exhausted. He had transferred at Frankfurt, expecting a short, hassle-free flight of an hour. The flight had left and arrived on time, but once they’d landed at Budapest all the passengers had been held up for more than half an hour on the tarmac. Some problem with getting a staircase, the captain had said. Marton had watched from his window seat as the luggage was unloaded from the hold and placed onto trolleys before being driven away, although he could not spot his case among them. He rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn. The pressure was building now behind his eyes, the band of tension spreading. It was definitely the start of a headache, hopefully not a full-blown shooting-stars-and-explosions migraine.

  The policeman removed his passport from the reader, still holding it. ‘What is the purpose of your visit, Mr Marton?’ he asked, clear eyes holding his. ‘Business or pleasure?’

  Marton tried to read his look. Brisk, polite, professional. Was there a flicker of something else underneath? Did they have gaydar in Hungary? Surely. It was a universal mechanism. ‘Both. I have some meetings. But I will also be doing some tourism,’ he replied in fluent Hungarian. He paused, smiled hopefully. ‘Maybe you can recommend a guide?’

  The policeman continued staring at Marton’s passport, his handsome face impassive. Marton smiled, gathered his courage. Even if he got it wrong, what was there to lose? He leaned forward. ‘Or perhaps you have some free time. It’s always so much better when a local shows you their favourite places.’

  The policeman did not smile back. ‘There is a tourist information booth in the arrivals area. They can help you.’

  Marton nodded. A strikeout. But he had only been in the country for less than an hour. There would be plenty of other opportunities, he was sure. Ferenc continued speaking. ‘You speak very good Hungarian. Your family name is Hungarian. You have relatives here?’

  Marton paused for a second. Yes, he did, although none that he wanted to admit to and he was certainly not about to tell Ferenc that, no matter how good-looking he was. ‘My parents left in ’56. We spoke Hungarian at home. I still have some distant cousins here,’ he said. ‘You know us Magyars. We are everywhere. Conquering the world.’

  That at least brought a glimmer of a human response. Ferenc seemed about to smile but then thought better of it. He moved back from the glass, turned away for a second as he scribbled something on a notepad. He turned back to Marton, stamped his passport and slid it under the glass. ‘Welcome in Hungary, Mr Marton.’

  For a moment Marton thought of correcting his grammar, then thought better of it. In any case, the next passenger was already moving forward behind him. He took his passport and walked through to the baggage arrivals hall. A cascade of luggage – overstuffed rucksacks, suitcases wrapped in clear plastic to deter light-fingered baggage handlers, black executive trolleys, cardboard boxes wrapped in duct tape – was tumbling onto the second carousel. The hall was crowded with families, businesspeople tapping on smartphones, lone travellers, a group of Korean tourists being marshalled by their guide who held a small Korean flag. A baby started howling. After a minute or so, Marton saw his bag, an expensive black-and-brown TUMI trolley, slide down the belt onto the carousel. Marton slid past several Koreans, took his luggage, extended the handle, and walked through the green customs channel, behind a bald, lanky businessman in a black suit. There were large two-way mirrors attached to each side of the wall. A poster warned against bringing in undocumented pets, plants or meat products. He kept his pace steady, tried to ignore his racing heartbeat.

  A bored-looking customs guard, a tall man in his fifties with sloping shoulders, watched the businessmen walk by. He turned and looked Marton up and down. Marton returned his glance for a couple of seconds, then looked ahead. The exit was to the right, two glass doors that opened automatically. Breathe, he told himself, you are nearly there, and you are not carrying anything illegal. The dangerous stuff is in your head, and there are no customs guards in the world that can get to that. The doors opened. A low brushed-aluminium barrier marshalled the exiting passengers into the arrivals area. He walked into the throng and the tiredness hit him. A young couple fell on each other and kissed hungrily, a mother in her forties embraced a lanky, embarrassed-looking teenager, hugging him and crying. They had told Marton that the driver, a man called Laszlo, would be waiting for him, would recognise him and would take him straight to the flat. A wiry man in his late twenties, wearing a badly fitting denim shirt, with a nose that looked like it had been broken, walked up to Marton. He smiled confidently, showing a row of crooked teeth. ‘Welcome in Hungary. How was your flight?’ he asked in strongly accented Hungarian.

  Marton asked, ‘Are you Laszlo?’

  ‘Laszlo, yes, yes, Laszlo,’ replied the man. ‘You must be much tired. Don’t worry, I will arrange the all. Hotel, everything.’ Marton paused for a moment. What was this talk of a hotel?

  ‘I don’t need a hotel. I’m going straight to the apartment,’ Marton said.

  The taxi driver nodded, reached for Marton’s bag. ‘Apartment, yes, yes. All is arranged. Very nice place in the downtown.’

  Marton was about to hand over his luggage when he saw the badge on the man’s chest. The ‘Official Taxi’ badge had obviously been printed at home, with a blurry photograph of the man in the kind of plastic cover used by conference delegates. The name underneath was Kiss Sandor. Marton kept a grip on his bag, shook his head. ‘No. No thank you.’

  The taxi driver’s smile faded. He pointed at his badge. ‘What is problem, Mister? I am official taxi.’

  He reached for Marton’s bag again. Marton pulled it away, stepped back, adrenalin cutting through his fatigue, and was about to start arguing when another man appeared. He was older, in his forties, with buzz-cut steel-grey hair and blue eyes. He wore a well-cut brown leather jacket and a black woollen poloneck and clean jeans and moved with a confident ease. The first taxi driver looked him up and down, considering his options. The man in the leather jacket leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. The first taxi driver immediately stopped talking and moved away, scanning the hall for easier prey.

  The man in the leather jacket put his hand out. ‘Mr Marton. Sorry about that, this place is full of jackals. I’m Laszlo. But you can call me Laci.’

  Neither of them noticed the tall businessman watch their exit, and then make a telephone call.

  Loczy Lajos Street, 7.20 a.m.

  Balthazar, Gaspar and Fat Vik stood behind Eszter at her desk, her fingers gliding over her silver-and-white Apple keyboard as she called up the program that controlled the in-house CCTV system. The office stood at the end of a corri
dor on the ground floor with a view out on the large garden. Eszter’s workplace was tidy and homely. The walls were painted a light shade of pink and the floor was covered with narrow parquet slats laid in a diagonal pattern. A pale cream sofa took up most of one corner, with a rainbow-patterned throw covering its back. A tall yucca plant stood in the other corner. The window was open, and a breeze blew in. The garden was only used by Eszter and her oromlanyok between clients, but was still well maintained, the edges of the lawn neatly trimmed and lined by rose bushes. Three wood-and-rattan recliners stood in the middle of the lawn around a low coffee table. A framed photograph, its colours fading, showed two boys, perhaps eight or nine years old, both dressed in green-and-white strip of Ferencvaros, one of the city’s best-known football clubs, as they grinned at the camera.

  Eszter’s two sons were nineteen now: one, Miki, was in prison, after he was caught picking pockets on the number-two tram. The other, Pal, was still at high school, had never been in trouble apart from a couple of playground fights after being taunted, and was about to graduate. High school graduations among Roma teenagers were still rare enough to occasion a huge family party. For a moment Balthazar wondered if he would be invited. Eszter, he was sure, would be glad to see him. So would his mother, Marta. The problem was his father, Laszlo. Laszlo had cut off all relations with Balthazar after he joined the police. The two had not spoken directly for more than eight years, although various relatives were occasionally used to send messages about family affairs, and Alex, Balthazar’s twelve-year-old son.

  Balthazar watched Eszter as she worked, his eyes moving over her desk. A mug held several pens and pencils, and a stack of three trays was filled with neatly filed paperwork. The brothel operated as a legitimate business, a day spa, although Eszter kept two sets of books. The first set was maintained on the computer with standard office software. Eszter recorded around half the house’s earnings on the Excel spreadsheets and paid tax on them. The second set of accounts, that recorded the actual movements of money, were handwritten in a ledger that was kept locked in a safe that was built into the floor. The brothel even took credit cards, although not surprisingly most customers paid in cash.