District VIII

by Adam LeBor

  But lovers fell out. Rising stars plummeted back to earth, Balthazar had explained. The man running the passport operation was utterly ruthless and would soon demand a piece of Gaspar’s operation. Then another, and another, each time larger and larger. And today’s events were a game-changer. A dead Syrian, whose body had since disappeared. The man they called the Gardener on the loose in Budapest. The beating at Keleti this morning. Gaspar needed to understand that he was putting his family in danger. There was no way for him to check the real identity of the people he was taking across the border. And no amount of money could compensate for the consequences if he turned out to be smuggling Muslim terrorists.

  But Balthazar could see that his brother did not grasp what was happening. Gaspar was unconvinced. Who knew what Nazir had been mixed up with? And who was this Gardener? Thousands of people were pouring across the border every day. In any case, while it was a shame that Nazir was dead, there was still business to be done. Fat Vik had sat in on the discussion and thankfully had taken Balthazar’s side. Eventually, Gaspar had agreed to postpone the next group, but Balthazar was not sure how long it could be put off.

  After an hour or so of talking, Balthazar had started fading. He had planned one more stop in the evening, to see Goran Draganovic at his restaurant, but he was utterly exhausted and knew he was not going to make it there tonight. His jaw was throbbing, his upper body aching, and the iron bar in his head had returned and grown. All he wanted to do was take some more painkillers and sleep. But Gaspar was not the only dilemma.

  Eniko, he realised, must have taken the missing SIM card while he was asleep. That knowledge made him feel confused and angry. Had she really taken him home and looked after him to get the SIM card? Rule one of police work when identifying suspects: who had the motive and who had the opportunity? She certainly had both. Part of him actually hoped she had planned it all along. It would make life much easier, clarify their relationship. She saw him as a source, one with access to inside information she needed for her reporting. There was nothing to think about, to hope for.

  But Eniko could not have known about the SIM card when she had brought him home. So her motives, at least, had been altruistic. She just... made the most of her opportunities. For a moment he was back on his bed, lying next to her while she tapped away on her computer keyboard, smiling shyly when she caught him looking at her. But if she hadn’t known about the phone, then how had she found it? That meant she had gone through his clothes while he was asleep, looking for something useful. He exhaled loudly. Was that better or worse? Worse, he decided. What were his options? He could threaten her with arrest for stealing evidence, obstructing the course of justice, even arrest her. But it would be almost impossible to prove that Eniko had taken the SIM card. And that would set the whole police bureaucracy in motion, which was not an option when he was working off the books. He needed her to confess. Most of all, he needed the SIM card back.

  The SIM card was a vital piece of evidence. In fact, it was the only one. There was no body, and no proof that a body had even been there, especially after the Gendarmes’ visit. Attila Ungar would be sure to remove any sign of the dead man. The Gendarmes reported to Pal Palkovics, the prime minister. There was a government connection here, Balthazar knew. But what?

  Fat Vik slowed down Rakoczi Way to turn right onto Akacfa Street, triggering an angry honking from the bus driver behind them. It was a narrow thoroughfare, barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other. ‘This passport operation...’ said Balthazar.

  Fat Vik immediately interrupted him. ‘Don’t go there, brother, please.’

  Balthazar pressed his point. ‘Are you sure that Gaspar is not involved?’

  ‘Totally. We have enough to deal with without a turf war.’

  ‘And the antiques business?’

  ‘I miss it. We pay better than BAV and it’s all cash in hand. I like buying and selling things, paintings, furniture. I don’t like buying and selling people.’ He turned briefly to Balthazar. ‘They are families. Dark-skinned people, like us. Sometimes children, travelling without their parents. It’s awful. They try to be tough, then they cry when they think nobody’s looking. How can someone send their kid on a journey like that, knowing they might be killed, or even worse?’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘It’s beyond me.’

  ‘Me too. But what’s the alternative once they are here? They cannot go back. They cannot stay here. At least in western Europe they have a chance of a new life.’

  ‘True. And we don’t charge kids. Sometimes we even give them money. That’s something, I guess.’

  Balthazar squeezed Fat Vik’s fleshy leg. ‘It is.’ He watched a Hasidic Jewish man and his wife walk towards Klauzal Square. The man wore a white shirt and long black frock coat, the wife a blue summer dress that covered her arms. She pushed a double pushchair in front of her, with two sleeping toddlers.

  Vik glanced at the family as he drove past. ‘Twins. Double trouble. You got any more planned, Tazi?’

  Balthazar laughed. ‘I need another wife first. And I’m in no hurry.’

  Vik kept his eyes on the road as he spoke. ‘Can I ask you something, Tazi?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why do you live here, all on your own? Why don’t you come home?’

  It was a good question, and one that lately Balthazar had been asking himself. He knew all the ready answers: he had a comfortable flat in an up-and-coming area; District VII had everything he needed, late-night shops, good public transport, bohemian nightlife, Eva neni. But the bohemians, the gentrifiers, the tourists who thronged the quarter every night, the liberal activists, the academics from Central European University – perhaps especially those – were not his people. Even the hipsters did a double take, gave him the Look, when he appeared in one of the artisan coffee bars or bought lunch from a street food truck. He was a cop and a Gypsy: a double outsider. His people were across the main boulevard: in the narrow streets behind Rakoczi Square, in the tenement courtyards, the cheap restaurants, grimy borozos, wine bars, the dilapidated grand palaces hidden away on tree-lined squares. In District VIII. But there too, he was partly a stranger now.

  For a second, Balthazar was back in the courtyard at Jozsef Street as his father passed in front of a window. ‘I can’t come back to Jozsef Street, you know that, Vik. I lost that when I joined the police.’

  ‘Your dad would come around eventually. You are his son. You know what that means for us.’

  ‘Maybe. But I’m a cop. I can’t live with Gaspar.’

  Vik laughed. ‘I know. I’m not saying move in. Just relocate somewhere nearer. You could come round more often. How can you bear it, eating on your own, every morning and every night?’

  Sometimes I almost can’t, Balthazar nearly replied. Til think about it.’

  ‘Good. How’s your son?’

  ‘Great. We’re meeting tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘You’re lucky to have each other. A kid needs a father.’

  Balthazar and Gaspar had grown up with Fat Vik. He had lived in the next-door tenement in a tiny one-room flat with his mother. She was a drug addict and a prostitute and had no idea who her son’s father was. One summer’s evening, when Vik was six years old, he had hammered on their front door, shouting that anyu was asleep and he couldn’t wake her. She had overdosed, but an ambulance came in time and she lived.

  Balthazar’s parents had taken in Vik for a while. There was not much to eat, but he was happy, and more settled than he had ever been. Then he had been caught stealing a bar of chocolate from the corner shop and moved to a children’s home. His mother went clean for several years, found a job as a supermarket cashier, even came to visit him sometimes. Then she lapsed back into her old ways. Vik left the home when he was sixteen, found his mother, tried to help her. She was still a drug addict, working as a prostitute. Any money that he gave her went either to her pimp or on heroin. One day, he had gone to visit her in the squalid room where she lived near Rakoczi Squar
e and found her beaten unconscious by her pimp. Vik dragged him out of the bar where he had been drinking. He did not survive the encounter. Vik served five years for manslaughter.

  Roma men married young. Vik was in his early thirties, unmarried. For a woman, that would be a scandalous situation. But a man could still find a bride.

  Balthazar asked, ‘How about you? Any pretty cbaisis caught your eye?’

  Vik shook his head, laughed, his jowls wobbling. ‘Not now. I’m too busy, with your brother. No time for women. Maybe later, once things have calmed down,’ he said, but Balthazar could hear the depth of longing in his voice.

  Balthazar glanced behind him as the car pulled into Klauzal Square, on the opposite end to his flat. There were no other vehicles in sight, but he wanted to make sure. ‘Thanks for the lift. I’ll get out here.’

  ‘Tazi, no worries, I’ll take you to the door.’

  ‘No. I’m fine. I’ll walk. I need to stretch a bit.’

  Fat Vik pulled in to the kerb, in front of the denture-repair shop. ‘I’ll wait until you get in the front door. Then you call me once you are home. OK?’

  Balthazar squeezed Fat Vik’s shoulder. ‘Thanks. Keep working on Gaspar.’

  Balthazar walked down the side of Klauzal Square’s park. The gates were locked and bolted, the playground deserted now. The party was in full swing outside Csaba Kiss’s ABC, half a dozen men and women in their fifties and sixties drinking beer from bottles and smoking. A neat row of small, two-shot bottles of chemically flavoured alcohol masquerading as palinka, fruit brandy, was lined up along the window ledge. Shouts, raucous laughter, a cimbalom and violin echoed across Klauzal Square. On the corner of Dob Street, Balthazar saw a woman sitting on a green municipal bicycle. She seemed to be watching him. Early thirties, athletic build, dark-blond hair, ponytail. He did a double take. It was her. Definitely. Had she been sitting here waiting for him? Who was she? Was this a threat? He stared at her. She held his gaze, smiled, turned the bicycle around and glided away.

  His options were limited. Under normal conditions he could give chase. But that was not going to happen tonight. He could call Vik, he supposed, but the huge BMW would be no match for a bicycle on the narrow streets and alleys. And his sixth sense, his street instinct, told him that she was not hostile. Whoever she was, and whatever she wanted, could wait until tomorrow. He walked to the door of his apartment building and tapped out the entry code.

  Just as he stepped inside, Eva neni came out of her flat, holding something in her hand. She stared at him. ‘Tazi. Go to bed. You need to sleep.’

  He smiled, nodded. There was nothing to argue about. ‘A young lady left this for you,’ said Eva. ‘She made me promise I would deliver to you myself, by hand. So here it is,’ she said, passing it to Balthazar.

  Balthazar took the A5 envelope in his hand, turned it over.

  There were papers inside, he could feel, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary. ‘Did she say who she was?’

  Eva shook her head.

  ‘Did she leave anything? A business card?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What did she look like?’

  Eva glanced upwards for a few seconds, ordering her memories. ‘Quite tall, slim but not skinny, brown eyes, blonde hair in a ponytail – dark blonde but natural – not especially pretty but still attractive. An engaging, persuasive manner. Nice teeth. Spoke very well, no slang. Quite classy, I would say.’

  The woman on the bicycle, Balthazar was sure. He smiled at Eva. ‘How do you remember all that?’

  Eva shot him a look. ‘How do you think I lasted this long?’ She tilted her head to one side. ‘You could do a lot worse. She’ll be back.’

  Balthazar thanked Eva, kissed her on the top of her head, and walked up the stairs. The entrance foyer, with its curved banisters, black-and-white entrance foyer and original period lights, had recently featured in an architectural magazine. One day, he had come home to find a movie crew there shooting a detective film set in the 1930s. He watched for a while, noting that the storyline had several procedural errors. He had tried to find someone to talk to, was eventually passed to an earnest young woman with two mobile phones and a clipboard. She given him the Look, had taken a call as he had tried to explain how he could help, and spoken so long that eventually he walked away. No one had tried to stop him.

  He took the lift up to the fifth floor, put the envelope on his bedside table, took two more paracetamols, brushed his teeth and went to bed. He lay back for a few moments, summoning the strength to open the envelope, but immediately fell into a deep sleep.

  Tito Grill, Rakoczi Square, 9.10 p.m.

  Across the Grand Boulevard, the party was roaring at the Tito Grill. The tuba and trumpets of the Boban Markovic Orchestra blared out, the air was thick with rakija fumes, the smell of grilled meat and the sound of laughter. The walls were a dirty off-white, the floor lined with faded yellow linoleum. The tables were covered in cloths chequered in red and white. A red, white and blue Yugoslav flag with a red star in the middle, dating back to the partisan era, was framed over the bar. Faded posters of London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna and other European capitals decorated the walls. There was no menu, only three options: one, five and ten. One was pleskavica, a hamburger made of minced beef and pork. Five or ten were cevapcici, small grilled kebabs from the same combination. All were served with ajvar, spicy pepper sauce, chips, onions and salad.

  Goran Draganovic surveyed the scene with satisfaction. Tie sipped his rakija, savouring its fresh, clean taste, and the way it warmed first the back of his throat, then his stomach, suffusing his whole body with a pleasant glow, with no afterburn. The fact that his uncle’s home brew was smuggled across the border in hundred-litre barrels, its passage aided by several hundred-euro notes, only enhanced his enjoyment of the drink. Business was good. He was safe here. Budapest wasn’t home, for sure, but now nowhere was. But this was the nearest he could find, and for now, it would more than suffice. The old Yugoslavia had gone forever, vanished in the lunacy of the wars that had convulsed and destroyed his former homeland. He glanced at the flag. The memories pushed themselves back into his mind, as insistent as ever.

  He took a longer slug of rakija, but this time it burned as it went down. The past is the past, he told himself. Like his homeland, the past had gone forever. Until the door opened, and he saw the man who stepped inside.

  Buda Castle walls, 9.15 p.m.

  Reka turned to see a tall, broad-shouldered man approach her with long, swift strides. His face was hidden in the shadows and he did not speak again. There was no point asking who he was or what he wanted. There was nobody else around and no help coming. She felt the acid flush of fear in her stomach, instinctively looked behind her, down the dark slope that led to the riverbank, immediately understanding the man’s plan. All he had to do was tip her over the rampart and she would fall to her death, bouncing down the wall, smashing into the trees, breaking her limbs on the way, before she slammed onto the pavement below and likely rolled into the oncoming traffic. The Snapchat message would vanish. So would she, from Budapest’s political life. Except that was not going to happen.

  Reka no longer fenced. The sport demanded too much time to stay at her level, especially after she turned thirty. She had no intention of sliding down the rankings, so had stepped down at her peak. But she trained every day in the gym, and had substituted fencing for Krav Maga, the Israeli self-defence system. Krav Maga had been invented by a Hungarian Jewish policeman in the 1930s. It combined boxing, martial arts and dirty street fighting. It was fast and effective, and most of all taught its adherents to control their fear and think on their feet.

  She dropped down and grabbed a handful of dirt and stones. By the time she stood back up he was almost upon her. The breeze carried his smell towards her: a rank mix of sweat and sour milk. He stepped out of the shadows and she saw a knife-scar beneath his right eyebrow. For a second she was back on the piste at the London Olympics, in the final, two p
oints behind, fifteen seconds to go, the difference between silver and gold.

  She felt the weight of the stones and sand in her palm, heavy, cool, reassuring. Her heart thumped, the adrenalin coursed through her. She stepped away, turned her hands inwards, towards herself, raised her arms as if surrendering.

  ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ she asked, allowing her fear to infect her voice. If her plan was to work the attacker would need to believe she was scared and enfeebled.

  The attacker kept walking towards her, a grin on his beefy face. Reka waited until he was two yards away. She spun on her left heel to gain momentum, twisted her body at the hip, swung out with a slashing motion, with all the speed, momentum and precision that had won her three points in nine seconds, and the gold medal. The stones and the rocks hit the man full in his upper face. He shouted in pain, stumbled backwards, scrabbling at his eyes. Reka dropped her bag, skipped forward, fired a jumping front kick at his groin. Her plan was simple: she could not win in a straight fight, but if she could disable him for a few minutes, she could sprint back to the reception and raise the alarm.

  Just as she launched herself, her damaged shoe came off. The kick never connected. Instead, she stumbled forward, against the attacker. He instantly grabbed her, clamped one hand over her mouth, spun her around and started pushing her towards the rampart.