by Adam LeBor
She could – should – show the photographs to Reka and ask her if they were genuine. In any case Eniko would have to give the prime minister a chance to comment if 555.hu was going to use them. Or, she could show them to Roland Horvath, the editor, and let him decide how to proceed. But Roland, Eniko knew, also had an agenda. Roland had been appointed by Sandor Kaplan. Like his friend and business partner, Pal, Kaplan had been a leader of the Communist Youth organisation in the 1980s. After the change of system, during vadkapitalizmus, both men had used their party connections to swiftly buy up valuable formerly state-owned property and companies for almost nothing. By the early 1990s both Pal and Kaplan were dollar multi-millionaires. So Roland, as a Pal ally, would push Eniko to use the photographs as soon as possible. He had already been putting her under pressure to find something on Reka, complaining that Eniko’s stream of scoops were too one-sided. Well, now she had found something on Reka without any effort – there it was, sitting on the screen of her iPhone. And part of Eniko knew that whatever Roland’s agenda, he was right. By any standards, even the ultra-partisan ones of the Hungarian media, these photographs were news. There was a chance, she guessed, that the photographs had been sent, or would be, to other journalists. But for the moment at least Eniko was the biggest name in Hungarian journalism, and they would have the most impact under her byline. She ran her fingers through her hair, rolled her shoulders and stretched. Reka’s photos, she decided, could wait another hour or two. Meanwhile, there was something else she had to deal with.
She was about to fire up the IBM and insert the memory stick when her telephone rang. She took it out of her pocket and looked at the screen, which displayed ‘PMO’, short for prime minister’s office. Eniko had already received several calls from Reka’s staff and a couple of times from Reka herself, asking her to come in for a meeting. Eniko took the call and listened while Akos Feher spoke. Yes, she was free this afternoon at one o’clock, she said. Yes, she could come to Parliament. But why? Akos did not answer, except to say that an entry pass in her name would be waiting for her and that she should be on time.
Eniko shrugged. ‘Sure, OK. I’ll be there.’ To get my lines, while Reka feeds them to me, she almost said. Instead she hung up, put the sandbox on her lap, and inserted the memory stick into one of the USB ports. A small window opened up showcasing the video file and she pressed play. An acid flush filled her stomach. The clip showed Eniko leaving her apartment that morning – she was wearing the same clothes – walking down Pozsonyi Way to the tram stop near Jaszai Mari Square, and standing waiting for the number-four tram. The threat was clear: we know who you are, where you live and what your routines are. None of this was exactly hard to find out, but it still chilled Eniko to know that she had been tailed and covertly filmed.
For a moment she heard Attila Ungar’s voice, as she sat in front of him in the cold, damp, abandoned building somewhere on Csepel Island last Saturday, a female Gendarme at the door. After a long pause, Attila had claimed that the woman at the door was called Tereza.
Te-re-za. One of our Christian saints.
Tereza was Eniko’s mother’s name. She took out her telephone, started to call Balthazar before remembering that he was not taking her calls. Her hand was shaking, her fingers sliding over the screen. She stopped for a moment, breathed deeply several times and forced herself to stay calm. She waited fifteen seconds, blocked her outgoing number and called Balthazar again. His telephone rang and rang unanswered. She was about to hang up when she heard his voice.
‘Hi, Tazi, it’s me,’ she said.
‘Eniko? It says unknown number.’
‘I blocked it. I’m getting some weird calls lately. But nothing from you. Aren’t you talking to me any more?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice light and cheerful. She felt the handset tremble slightly against her ear, hoped he could not sense it in her voice. ‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it on Sunday. How were the burgers? How’s Alex?’
‘Fine. Him too.’ Balthazar’s voice was terse.
‘I tried to call you a few times. How’s your head?’
‘Good, thanks. No more headaches. I’ve been busy. Not as busy as you, though. Congratulations on all your stories.’
‘Where are you? You sound like you’re outside.’
‘I am. So what’s new? Can I help you with something?’
Eniko took a deep breath. What did she expect? At least she finally had him on the line. It was time to apologise, to try and rebuild, at least a friendly relationship. Then she could tell him that she was scared and really wanted to see him. ‘Tazi,’ she said, looking for the right words, ‘I’m a bit… Look, I’m really sorry about Sunday. I wanted to come. I was excited to meet Alex. I’d just really like to…’
‘Really like to what?’ asked Balthazar, his voice softening a fraction.
She was about to answer when she glimpsed something on the floor by the window, a round metal cylinder with a pointed tip, about half an inch wide and four inches long, its case a dull brown colour. She crouched down. Her eyes widened. Was it what she thought it was? She had never seen one in real life. The silence stretched out as she stared downwards.
Eventually Balthazar said, ‘Eni, what’s happening? Are you OK?’
She reached forward with her left hand, her nervousness now morphing into excitement as she picked up the slim, brassy cylinder, rolling it between her fingers. It was what she thought. ‘Nothing. I’m fine. Tazi, I’m really sorry, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you back later.’
Parliament, 11.40 a.m.
Gyuri Balazs, Sandor’s driver, was waiting for Balthazar and his boss a couple of hundred yards away, parked outside a nondescript apartment block halfway down Csongor Street. Fresh graffiti by the entrance proclaimed Migransok haza, Migrants go home. As Balthazar walked towards the vehicle – an Audi, he guessed – he looked at his iPhone screen as though Eniko might be hiding behind it. Shaking his head with irritation, he then put it back in his trouser pocket. Despite everything that had happened, the sound of Eniko’s voice had rekindled a tiny spark of hope. For a moment he thought that she sounded genuinely contrite and that she still wanted to see him. Perhaps she had a good reason for not turning up on Sunday. He should at least take her calls, hear her out. They were adults, after all. They both had a lot going on in their lives, especially at the moment. Then, just as he was thawing, something else had beeped on her radar, something far more important, obviously, and he was dismissed. What more do you want? he asked himself. You fell in love with her, introduced her to your family, were about to ask her to move in and she dumped you. The only reason she calls or wants to see you is to advance her journalistic career. That’s why she blocked her outgoing number, because that was the only way to get you to take her call. And her career is doing just fine. He could still hear Eniko’s voice in his head. He knew the cadences and timbres of her voice. She sounded nervous. There was something almost pleading about her tone: ‘I was excited to meet Alex. Tazi, I’d really like to…’
Balthazar stepped aside to let a weary-looking elderly lady holding a carrier bag filled with carrots and potatoes pass by. Really like to what? It didn’t matter and he had enough other things to think about. And not all of them were doom and gloom – for instance, there was the trip he had planned this Saturday with Alex and Sarah. He had not seen his son since their burger outing the previous Sunday, although they had texted each other during the week, and he had even managed a quick conversation when Alex was for once out of sight and earshot of his mother. Balthazar was no longer in love with Sarah – Eniko had at least chased away that ghost – but the end of his marriage still pained him. Even as their relationship faded away, he had tried to fix things, to make it work, if only for Alex’s sake. But Sarah had been insistent. She had fallen in love with a woman, and they were moving in together. A part of him had hoped that Sarah would be a bridge, help him span the chasm between his two worlds: of the Gypsies and the gadje. That had not worked out, but at leas
t he had a son. Only one, and no daughters. By Gypsy standards, for a man in his mid-thirties that was considered a meagre result – and especially meagre when Sarah still used Alex as a kind of control mechanism, restricting Balthazar’s access even when it was his turn to have the boy over, or take him out for the day. On Saturday, at least, on the trip to Nagyszentfalu, Balthazar would be in control.
Sandor, who had diplomatically walked on ahead while Balthazar spoke to Eniko, was already sitting inside the vehicle when he reached it. Balthazar’s guess was right. The car was a black Audi A6 with tinted windows, the preferred mode of transport for high-ranking government officials and politicians – as well as oligarchs and mafiosi who wanted the appearance of respectability. The paintwork shone like polished obsidian and the chrome door handles glinted in the bright summer sunlight. The car sat low on wide, thick tyres. It was a much fancier vehicle than usual. Sandor’s driver usually drove his boss in a Volkswagen saloon. Gyuri stood waiting by the side of the Audi. He had worked for Sandor for more than twenty years. They both came from the same village in the south of Hungary and Gyuri was married to one of Sandor’s cousins. Gyuri was in his late fifties, balding, with small blue eyes, round shoulders and slightly bowed legs. He was barely five feet six tall, but his unprepossessing appearance was deceptive: he was an instructor on the police service’s advance driving course and could handle any car under the most extreme conditions. He held the door open as Balthazar approached, exposing a beige leather shoulder holster and the dull metallic grip of a Glock pistol.
‘Tisztelettem, Lieutenant Kovacs,’ said Gyuri. Hungarians were generally very polite. There were three levels of formality in everyday speech. Tisztelettem, which meant ‘I honour you’ or ‘I respectfully greet you’ was the most polite. Gyuri held the rank of captain, more senior than Balthazar, but still used the honorific.
Balthazar returned the greeting, looking the Audi up and down as he did so. ‘Nice car. What happened to the VW?’
Gyuri shrugged. ‘Came to the end of its useful life.’ He leaned forward and ran his hand over the bonnet. ‘I like this one better.’
Balthazar looked at Gyuri’s holster, which was now exposed. Hungarian police officers were usually armed with a FEG PA-63 pistol, a clone of the Walter PPK. The FEG was a cheap weapon, mass-produced under Communism, and still in service. Gyuri’s holster held a Glock 17, a heavier-calibre gun that did not jam and had serious stopping power. Balthazar asked, ‘Are we expecting trouble, Gyuri?’
He smiled, revealing a row of small, neat teeth. ‘I hope not,’ he replied, as he opened the door. ‘Shall we…?’
Balthazar slid into the vehicle next to Sandor and Gyuri closed the door behind him. Balthazar could feel the weight of the door as it swung back into place. Gyuri scanned the street in both directions, swiftly moved into the vehicle and started the engine, which barely sounded. The seats were covered with soft, light-brown leather, divided by a large armrest with a deep indentation that contained three small bottles of chilled mineral water. The passenger compartment was separated from the driver’s area with a partition, also covered in leather, that reached up to the height of the window. There were two small screens on either side of the partition, with a touch menu offering television or Internet. The remainder of the space was filled by a tinted glass partition. Balthazar tapped the car window on his side with the joint of his forefinger. The glass felt much thicker and more solid than usual.
‘Should I be worried, boss?’ he asked. ‘It’s armoured. The windows are bulletproof. Gyuri is armed.’
Sandor laughed. ‘No. And we can talk here. It’s probably safer than my office. That’s swept for bugs every morning and evening, but nowadays you can never be sure.’ He turned to Balthazar. ‘You said you wanted to talk. I’m listening.’
Balthazar looked out of the window as the car turned on to Papp Karoly Street, another small side street, then turned again onto Robert Karoly Boulevard, heading towards the river. The driver drove fast and smoothly, navigating a swift path through the traffic, then turned again onto Vaci Way. The road was a wide thoroughfare that led north to Vac, a small town outside Budapest from where it took its name, and south to Nyugati Western Station. The car turned south, zipping down the bus lane.
Balthazar asked, ‘Where are we going?’
‘The very heart of the city. There is someone who very much wants to meet you. She’s really looking forward to it.’
She. An Audi kitted out like this, and a driver with a gun and an earpiece heading downtown. That was a clear enough answer. Perhaps he could talk her out of this reception idea. He had another proposal instead. Balthazar sat back for a moment, his mind drifting through the events of the morning. The dead man was bad enough, but beyond that, the visit to the house had unsettled him, as it always did. Balthazar’s family had taken ownership of the property almost twenty years ago. He could still remember his parents arguing about it, his mother shouting that they did not want that damned house, did not need it, his father’s terse replies. Both his parents had fallen silent when Balthazar had walked into the kitchen to ask what the matter was. His father walked over to the fridge, opened a beer and drained half of it in one go, then walked out the room. His mother had busied herself chopping onions and garlic for the family’s dinner. Marta had wiped her eyes, sniffed loudly and brushed off his questions about why they were shouting. His father had refused point-blank to talk about it. This was the second time the house had been redecorated, but however much paint was slathered over the walls, however expensive the renovation, however fancy the redesign of the garden, the house had never felt comfortable, and not just because of the business it hosted.
Perhaps it was haunted. Enough buildings in Budapest were. There were legions of ghosts drifting through the city: dispossessed aristocrats lingering in their palaces up and down Andrassy Avenue; middle-class Jewish families in the art deco apartment blocks of District XIII; long-vanished Schwab traders lurking on the hill named for them in Buda. There had once been a small prayer room in what was now the Kovacs family apartment building on Jozsef Street. Before the war, the area had been home to a substantial Jewish community. The space was now used for storage, but there were still brown marks on the paintwork where the benches had been fixed to the walls. At night in his childhood, when he could not sleep, Balthazar had more than once heard distant voices chanting in a strange language. He had asked his mother if she had heard anything. She shook her head, told him he had an over-active imagination, but the look on her face told her she had. And there was his own ghost. She did not speak to him, but sometimes he felt her presence.
He closed his eyes for a moment, banishing the memory of the white coffin in the parlour of her family home, wishing himself back more than twenty years to Mikszath Kalman Square, eating ice cream in the sunshine of an early summer’s day, stolen moments in a new world bursting with possibilities, even for Gypsies. Today his ghost was especially persistent. He didn’t mind, welcomed her back, in fact. Almost without realising it, he had taken a decision, one long overdue, at least since he became a policeman. He could feel her approval, or so he liked to think.
The trick would be getting Sandor on board. Opening a cold case was never welcomed, especially one with a personal connection. But his stock was high at the moment. And if Sandor refused, or made things difficult, he would find a way. In Hungary, there was always a way. The kiskapu led everywhere. It was just a question of finding the right kapu, and the entrance fee, if need be. Balthazar watched the shop fronts and stores of Vaci Way slide past, feeling more settled now. The shops here, like much of Budapest, were being replaced with the kind of stores, restaurants and coffee chains to be found in any European city. Old apartment buildings were being knocked down, replaced with uniform steel-and-glass office blocks. There was so much money sloshing around the city now, a good part of it, he knew, ending up in his family’s businesses.
The car pulled up at the traffic lights by Nyugati Station, under
the Ferdinand Bridge, another concrete monument to Communist-era brutalism that blocked the view of Nyugati and reached over the Grand Boulevard. Across the other side of the boulevard, an ugly 1970s concrete shopping centre loomed over a small piazza and an underpass that led to the station. An enormous version of the now-familiar poster showing Pal and his associates linked with a spider’s web and draped in red was hung over one side of the shopping centre.
Sandor and Balthazar both looked at the poster. ‘Kirugjuk a komcsikat. Let’s kick out the commies. Who’s paying for these?’ asked Balthazar.
Sandor said, ‘I don’t know. Someone on the right wing, I guess. A frustrated oligarch, or would-be oligarch.’
‘Are there still Communist-era networks? It’s twenty-five years since the change of system.’
‘Who won the last election and the one before that?’
‘The Social Democrats.’
‘Successors to?’
‘The Communists. But there were proper elections,’ said Balthazar. ‘We are a democracy now. Upright members of the EU and NATO. Wouldn’t they be worried if it turned out there’d been no real change of system after all?’
Sandor patted Balthazar’s knee. ‘Kedves Tazikam. Yes, of course there were proper, free elections. The system’s changed.’ He gave his protégé an affectionate look. ‘But you know the old saying, the more things change, the more they…’
Balthazar said, ‘… stay the same.’
‘Exactly. The elvtarsok, the comrades, have always known how to give themselves a helping hand: in the media, doling out nice state tenders, in other, less visible ways. Once a group of people run a country for decades, they make sure that even if they have to give up power they will still have influence behind the scenes.’ He paused. ‘More to the point, when will you get the forensics results from Anastasia?’
