by Adam LeBor
‘Doing what?’
Reka blushed. ‘Do I have to spell it out? I was nineteen. Pal was supposed to be my boyfriend but he slept with anyone he could. I thought he was about to dump me. You know our phrase, “Don’t let yourself fall between two benches?”’
Balthazar smiled. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘So I didn’t. And no, I had no idea about Pal’s plans for Virag. I thought he brought her to sing, nothing more. I would have stopped him immediately and sent her home in a taxi, if I had.’ She rested her hand on Balthazar’s for a moment. ‘Detective Kovacs, I am truly sorry for your loss. I can only imagine how much Virag meant to you. And how much you still miss her.’
‘Can you?’
‘I hope so. And I hope this will at least preserve her memory.’
She slid the file forward. Balthazar opened it and removed the sheets inside. They outlined plans for the Virag Kovacs College of Music, to be sited in a former school not far from Mikszath Kalman Square. There would be numerous scholarships and grants for under-privileged children.
Reka asked, ‘Do you approve? At least in principle? I do hope so. We can discuss the details later. I want you, and your family, to be consulted at every step.’
For a moment he felt his stomach lurch. A voice in his head, female, he thought, said, yes, Tazi, we approve. Tell her that we do. Was it her, or his imagination? Perhaps it didn’t matter. ‘Thank you, Prime Minister. This is a lovely idea. I will need to speak to my relatives, but I think we should be able to give it our blessing.’
Reka smiled, widely. It was a genuine smile, that lit up her face. ‘Wonderful news, Detective Kovacs. Perhaps we can talk more about it one evening over dinner at Kadar.’
‘I’d like that,’ said Balthazar. Was Reka telling the truth about the party? He had watched her closely as she answered. Her voice did not quaver, she did not look left or right, or touch her mouth. There were no tells that she was lying. But then she was a highly experienced politician. It was, he thought, at least a version of the truth, and nowadays in Budapest that was as much as he could expect.
*
A few minutes later, after Reka had outlined the plans for the music school in more detail, Balthazar was back in the ante-room. Kati Tolma, he saw, was still there, idly playing on her computer.
She looked at him expectantly, raised a single, carefully sculpted eyebrow. ‘You didn’t reply to my invitation yet, Detective.’
‘I’m sorry, I got sidetracked by the prime minister.’
‘That happens around here. So?’
Balthazar smiled. ‘Let’s go.’
EPILOGUE
Margaret Island, a month later
Winter was coming soon, Sandor Takacs could feel it. The bench’s wooden slats were cold; the river was no longer blue-green but a muddy grey. Leaves and twigs floated on the water, bobbing and weaving in the currents. The autumn breeze was not balmy, but brisk, gusting hard with a chilly undertow. It was mid-October and there was no sign of an Indian summer, only the coldness to come.
Sandor shivered as he turned to the man sitting next to him. ‘Will she win the election?’
‘Of course,’ he replied, his voice rasping, ruined by decades of smoking. ‘For now, we are working together. In any case there is no functioning opposition. But she wants to break out, go her own way.’
‘And will you let her?’
The man did not did not answer. Instead he pulled a packet of Sopianae cigarettes from his coat pocket, offered it to Sandor. ‘But only if you smoke one. I’m down to my last twenty packs.’
Sandor laughed, shook his head. ‘You keep them. I’ve given up. I won’t waste yours.’
The two men were perched on a bench at the very tip of Margaret Island, the same bench where, just over a month ago, Sandor had sat with Balthazar and confessed that he was Virag’s father. Sandor had known the man next to him for decades, ever since he had come to Budapest and made his career as a policeman, enforcing the law of a now long-vanished political system. They were both bundled up against the cold, Sandor in a police-issue winter coat, thick and padded, and a winter hat with ear-flaps. The man next to him wore a long, grey woollen overcoat, its collar spattered with flakes of dandruff. He peered out through thick glasses; his straggly grey hair poked out from under a brown peaked cap, his flaking skin raw red in the wind.
‘Apart from Reka, who else is there?’ asked Sandor. ‘Pal is gone.’
The man they called the Librarian gave Sandor a sideways look. ‘Yes, poor comrade Pal. A most mysterious death, as the newspapers reported it. The first time he had recovered enough to go for a walk on the riverbank by his penthouse apartment. A shove from behind, police, bodyguards, nowhere in sight, CCTV not working. A fast current, sucked under Margaret Bridge, still weak from the bullet wound and that’s that. Drowned.’ He lit his cigarette, drew deeply, looked hard at Sandor. ‘Some might call that almost poetic.’
Sandor held his gaze. ‘Some might. Let’s focus on the election. There’s nobody on the right or in the centre. Only her. It would be better to keep her under control.’
‘Pal was a fool. He had everything and he wanted more. He was too greedy. She is much smarter. She knows she has enough.’
‘And the material we have, on her and her husband?’
The Librarian smiled. ‘She doesn’t care. She says we can leak whatever we want. Now they are sick of leaks, she says. People want a government, one to bring Hungary into the twenty-first century. They don’t care about kompromat. The whole country is compromised. There were 800,000 people in the Communist Party when everything collapsed. People did what they needed to survive. To live as best they can. They still do.’
Sandor nodded. ‘She might be right.’
‘She says she will win, with or without us. Eniko, the PR girl, is turning out to be rather good at her job. Public opinion is swinging right behind Reka.’
‘Kompromat,’ said Sandor thoughtfully. ‘We have the video of Reka killing the Gendarme with the heel of her shoe and getting rid of the body. Anything else?’
The Librarian nodded then coughed, a long, wet rattling sound. He turned to Sandor, muttered ‘Excuse me’, and spat out at the side of the bench. The phlegm was streaked with blood. He was dying, Sandor realised.
The Librarian pulled out a small plastic bag from his coat and held it up. A long brass cartridge was inside.
Sandor nodded. ‘Good. I wondered where that got to.’
‘The girl’s fingerprints are all over it. The murder investigation into the death of Mahmoud Hejazi is still ongoing. It’s enough for her. Losing Eniko would be a serious blow to Reka. But in the long term… we still need someone we can control. Reka refuses to take orders. She is wilful. Now Pal is gone, she thinks she is untouchable. The fear is gone. And I don’t have much longer. There are only a few of us left, now.’
Sandor nodded, watched a grey barge slowly move upriver, towards Slovakia. It was almost as long as a football field, piled high with coal. A Hungarian flag fluttered in the wind, mounted high on the bridge. He asked, ‘Do you have someone else in mind?’
The Librarian took another drag of his cigarette, blew the smoke out over the water. It vanished instantly in the wind. The barge’s horn sounded, a long, mournful low note that carried over the river. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We do. Someone very close to Reka. Someone back in her life after a long time away. And, someone, we are pleased to see, getting closer to Eniko.’
‘Who?’
‘You will learn, when the time is right.’
‘And Balthazar, and his boy? They are safe? I have your word?’
The Librarian turned towards Sandor, his rheumy eyes locked on his. ‘Don’t worry, Takacs elvtars, comrade Takacs. I give you my word. Nothing will happen to them.’
Across the river, on the top floor of a drab nineteenth-century apartment house, far out of sight of the two men, a tall, stooped man in his twenties, who had spent too much time playing video games, peered through
the viewer of his video camera. The telephoto lens was powerful enough that he could see every movement of their lips. He watched the two men stand up, shake hands, go their own ways. A few seconds later the footage was sitting in a corner office that overlooked Falk Miksa Street.
Acknowledgements
My thanks, as ever, go to my agents Georgina Capel and Simon Shaps for their steadfast support and their faith in Balthazar Kovacs and his adventures. Thanks also to Rachel Conway and Irene Baldoni for all their help. It has been a pleasure to continue working with the team at Head of Zeus, especially my editors Nicolas Cheetham and Sophie Robinson. Their encouragement and their incisive comments were invaluable. Thanks also to Claire Kennedy, Rights Director, for securing multiple translation deals and to Louis Greenberg for his sharp copy-editing.
I remain grateful to the Society of Authors for its generous grant when I started writing District VIII, the first volume in the Balthazar Kovacs series. I am very pleased to be working with Kindle Entertainment, a London-based production company, as they develop a television series from the Balthazar Kovacs books. Special thanks to Ross Murray for his belief in Balthazar’s television potential, Steve Bailie for his creative ideas and to Melanie Stokes. Thanks also to the many friends and acquaintances who shared their knowledge of Budapest, Roma society, police matters and the city’s underworld. Readers wishing to learn more about Roma culture and society may visit the European Roma Rights Centre website at: errc.org. I am especially grateful to Clive Rumbold, a great lover of Budapest, for his insight and editorial suggestions and for sharing a chilling anecdote about the basement of a Buda villa. Special thanks to Monika Payne for her diligent reading of the first draft of Kossuth Square and her eagle-eyed list of suggestions and corrections, and also to Akos Gergely Balogh for his thoughts on District VIII. An honorary shout-out goes to Hannah Wood, my former editor at HarperCollins US, now at hannahwoodedit.com, who helped so much along the way with Kossuth Square. Last but not least, thanks, as ever, to Justin Leighton, Roger Boyes and Peter Green, fellow veterans of the ’hood.
About the Adam Lebor
ADAM LEBOR is a veteran foreign correspondent who has covered Hungary and eastern Europe since 1990. He is the author of five novels and eight non-fiction books, including Hitler’s Secret Bankers, which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. His books have been published in fourteen languages. He is the editorial trainer and writing coach at the Financial Times and Citywire and writes for the Economist, Financial Times, Monocle and a number of other publications. He divides his time between Budapest and London.
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