District VIII

by Adam LeBor

  Eniko’s unease intensified. The Gendarmerie headquarters occupied a whole city block at number 60 Andrassy Way, a wide avenue of grandiose apartment houses and stately villas that ran from Heroes’ Square all the way downtown. That address had been a place of fear for decades. During the war it was an Arrow Cross headquarters, its basement cellars turned into a torture chamber, complete with gallows. Her grandmother’s brother, Erno, had been taken there. His body had never been found. After the Communist takeover in 1948, the building had housed the secret police. Many of the Arrow Cross torturers stayed in place, their skills always in demand. In the early 1990s, once Communism had collapsed, a new conservative government had turned the building into a museum chronicling the horrors of Communism. Eniko had visited on a school trip. She still remembered standing in one of the cells, its bare walls, a pair of pliers and a length of rubber hose on a table, and the cracked, brown-stained gutter in the middle of the floor. It was the most chilling place she had ever seen. Last year Pal Palkovics had closed the museum, supposedly for ‘technical reasons’, that catchall phrase in Hungarian. Soon afterwards, the exhibits had been ripped out. A couple of months later the Gendarmes took over. Once again pedestrians crossed the road to avoid walking past the entrance.

  Eniko sat back down. Whatever this was, she needed to get it over with, as quickly as possible. ‘Can I have my notebook back?’

  Ungar flicked through the pages. ‘When I’m ready. Let’s see what you have been doing. We can start with trespassing on state property, then move on to breaching national security. What was so interesting about John Paul II Square?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You made repeated attempts to enter the square, despite being told to leave the area.’

  ‘So? This is still a free country.’

  ‘The square has been declared a site of national security. There is no unauthorised entry.’

  ‘How was I supposed to know that?’

  ‘Ignorance of the law is no excuse. I’ll ask again. What did you want there?’

  The woman on the train had opened the carriage door for the two men in black who had walked across the fields. The Gendarmes had stepped into the carriage and asked Eniko to go with them. She had considered her options. Several of her colleagues had been ‘invited’ in for a talk about their work, their sources of information. Most had gone, then stonewalled as much as they could. Those who had refused had later been arrested while covering demonstrations or other events. Several had charges pending against them of new offences such as ‘insulting Hungary’s national pride’. She could have run but doubted she would have got very far, especially when she saw two black vans at the edge of the field. Plus, the young woman in the white T-shirt was standing a few yards away. So she went. If nothing else, it would make a piece for the website.

  ‘Why was the square sealed off?’ asked Eniko. ‘What are you trying to hide?’

  ‘I’m not hiding anything, Eniko.’ He sat back, crossed his arms. ‘Are you?’

  Eniko felt the weight of her Nokia burner in her pocket. She had not brought her iPhone, and her Nexus handset, which was probably in the prime minister’s office, was bricked. So Ungar could not know that she had the photograph of Simon Nazir. She thought quickly. She would give him something, something bland but plausible. ‘I was walking back from Keleti. I saw that there were Gendarmes moving around. I followed them. I thought something interesting might be happening. I was right, otherwise they would have let me through. You holding me here, asking these questions, confirms it. What was happening there?’

  Ungar smiled. ‘Nice try. Were you going anywhere special on the HEV, Eniko?’

  Did he know that she was going to meet Bela Balogh? Possibly. Probably. But there was a chance that this was a general attempt to intimidate her. Either way, it was none of his business. ‘It’s a lovely summer’s day. I thought I’d take a ride outside the city. There was only one stop left. So you know where I was going.’

  ‘Was someone meeting you there?’ Ungar softened his tone. ‘Think of me as a source, Eniko. Journalists have all kinds of sources. They tell you things. You tell them something in return. Everyone wants to trade information. Cops, refugees, Gendarmes, what’s the difference?’

  ‘My sources don’t usually stop trains between stations when I am travelling on them.’ She looked around the room. ‘Then block the phone signal and bring me to an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere.’

  Ungar slowly shook his head. ‘Milyen Lipi lany, such a Lipi girl. We’re not in the middle of nowhere. We are in the middle of Csepel Island, which, last time I looked, was still part of Budapest. I grew up near here.’ Ungar tapped the table with her notebook. ‘Now, I will ask you once again, why is my name written here?’

  ‘I’m interested in the Gendarmerie. I’m working on a story.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I hear that there is rivalry between the Gendarmerie and the police, and also that the secret service is not your greatest fan. I was going to ask you for an interview.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘I’m a reporter. We’ve met. You know me. I could use a source inside the Gendarmerie. I hear that you are a rising star.’

  She saw a quick flash of pleasure across Ungar’s face. ‘Who told you that?’

  Eniko smiled brightly. Flattery. It never failed to work with Hungarian men in positions of power. ‘I don’t remember. But I definitely heard it. You are the man to talk to. So, can I ask you a few questions?’

  ‘Not now. Perhaps we can set up an interview at the headquarters.’ His face turned serious again. ‘How’s Tazi? He looked pretty rough this morning. He’s still going to that shit-hole boxer’s café. I would think he could find somewhere classier to meet you.’

  Eniko stopped smiling. ‘Why are you following me?’

  ‘Actually, we weren’t. We were following your former boyfriend. But then you came along, so that made you a person of interest. Tending his wounds, meeting for coffee the next day. You are very devoted for an ex. Are you getting back together?’

  Eniko glanced at the young woman from the HEV train. She was still standing by the door, impassive as a statue. Eniko asked, ‘You know my name. I know yours. Who is she?’

  ‘Her name is...’ Ungar thought for a moment, looked at the ceiling. ‘Tereza.’ He tilted his head slightly, emphasising every syllable. ‘Te-re-za. One of our Christian saints. After all the terrible things that happened here, I can see why some... people might want to take a Christian name.’

  Eniko’s unease turned to fear. Her mother was called Tereza. Like many Jewish families who survived the Holocaust, Eniko’s grandparents had deliberately given their children names that were not recognisable as Jewish. Eniko stood up, made ready to leave. This was enough now. Either he would let her go or arrest her. She gambled that if he wanted to take her downtown, she would already be in a black van. ‘It’s your call. I’m leaving now. I’ll try and set up that interview. My notebook?’

  Ungar slid it across the table, when his telephone beeped. He looked down at the screen, frowned in mock concern. ‘Gosh. That’s a shame. Poor Bela.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Eniko, guessing the answer as soon she asked.

  ‘Bela Balogh is dead. He stepped off the road in front of Csepel Station and a car appeared from nowhere and hit him.’ Ungar shook his head as though in wonder. ‘Apparently it was a migrant. They have already arrested him. One minute Bela bacsi is alive and with us, walking’ – Ungar paused, stared at Eniko – ‘talking, then he’s gone. Shame for his family.’ Ungar stood up, gestured at Tereza who stood aside from the door. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you, Eniko.’

  She stood up and slowly walked towards the door, her heart thumping, wondering if she was going to step through it, or be taken downtown. Tereza stared at her for several seconds, then reluctantly moved aside. Ungar said, ‘Do take care out there. I hope they catch him. These migrant drivers, they’re not used to
city driving. They go way too fast, appear from nowhere and then disappear. It’s been a pleasure seeing you again, Eniko. I hope you will let me give you some advice.’

  She stood in the doorway. ‘Which is?’

  ‘Take the Szilky job.’

  FIFTEEN

  Warehouse, District X, 7.00 p.m.

  Balthazar read through the form once more, printed his name, signed and dated it. It was a one-paragraph declaration that the signatory would not film, record or discuss with any third parties what he or she was about to witness, and that he or she would not leave the area until authorised to do so. He handed the paper to a wiry, shaven-headed security guard wearing a black T-shirt and black combat trousers, holding a two-way radio. The guard added the paper to pile of sheets in a plastic tray next to a standing U-shaped metal detector, the same size and type used in airports. A large poster, professionally printed, was affixed to the wall nearby. It showed pictures of a mobile phone, a hand-held video camera, a microphone, a knife and a pistol. All the images were scored through with a thick red line. A second graphic in the lower half of the poster showed the camera followed by an equals symbol and a burly man standing above a prone figure, his right foot raised above his head. This was the second security check. Another security guard, at the entrance to the building, had already checked Balthazar and Goran’s names against a list of several dozen entries.

  The shaven-headed guard gestured at Balthazar to step through the metal detector. It instantly beeped loudly, a green light on the top flashing. The guard held up the radio and spoke in a rapid burst of a language that Balthazar guessed was Albanian. He understood nothing except the mention of his name and the word ‘ polici’. A second of silence, a burst of crackle sounded and more words in the same language.

  The guard nodded, gestured at Balthazar’s rope chain. Balthazar unlocked it, placed it in a plastic tray, walked around the metal detector and through it again. This time the machine , stayed silent. He turned around, picked up his chain, looped it back around his neck. Another guard gestured for him to step aside. Balthazar waited while he waved a metal detector wand up and down his chest and back, around and inside his legs. The guard nodded, and Balthazar walked towards a rusting double metal door. There he waited for Goran, his eyes scanning the long queue waiting to pass through the metal detector.

  Most of Budapest’s underworld was here: Tomi bacsi, the Hungarian-Romanian from Transylvania who ran the pickpockets and bag-dippers who worked the tourists downtown and in the Castle District; Lajos, the Hungarian Harvard graduate whose upmarket brothels in Districts II and XII were all extensively wired with sound and video recording equipment that, according to one rumour, fed straight to the prime minister’s office; and a few yards behind them, Rita, a Hungarian originally from Slovakia, who bussed in the beggars who prostrated themselves on the Grand Boulevard and shuffled back and forth by the five-star hotels, pretending to be disabled. Other than Rita, who was accompanied by her two sons, the crime bosses were surrounded by lissom young women in tight dresses, giggling excitedly. The only notable figure missing was Balthazar’s brother, Gaspar. And not all the customers were criminals, Balthazar noticed. A gaggle of Buda housewives wrapped in designer dresses, tottering on high heels, talked over each other with excited voices. Their husbands were a few feet ahead, talking among themselves. Balthazar saw the boss of a national supermarket chain, a well-known industrialist, one of the country’s biggest landowners and several high-ranking officials from the Ministries of the Interior and Justice. Balthazar nodded at a short, rotund Roma man with long, black slicked-back hair, dressed in a green and gold tracksuit. Lajos Kolompar was a city politician, a distant cousin who delivered the District VIII and IX Gypsy bloc vote for the Social Democrats. Kolompar, Balthazar knew, was somehow enmeshed in the prime minister’s business network and was also working with Gaspar. Kolompar nodded back, raised an eyebrow, as if surprised to see Balthazar there. Balthazar had spoken with Sandor Takacs before he had gone out, telling him where he was headed, when and how long he planned to stay. Takacs had wanted to send a plain-clothes squad to keep an eye on Balthazar, especially after the attack at Keleti. But Balthazar had talked him out of it. Black George would have spotted the officers immediately and in any case the event was strictly invitation-only.

  It was surprising that Goran was on the list. During the Yugoslav wars many commentators had opined about the supposed ‘ancient ethnic hatreds’ between Serbs, Croats and Muslims that were driving the slaughter. In fact the hatreds were comparatively modern, re-animated unfinished business from the Second World War. Serbs, Croats and Bosnians had gone to war then and again in the 1990s, but they still spoke variations of the same language, ate the same food, laughed at the same jokes, even married each other. It was the animosity between Serbs and Albanians that was visceral, reaching back to 1389 and the battle of Kosovo Polje, the Field of the Blackbirds, between the advancing Ottomans and the Serbs. The Ottomans won, opening the door for the Turkish conquest of the Balkans. The war in Kosovo in the late 1990s, the atrocities and massacres, were merely the latest chapter in a long chronicle of conflict that reached back to the fourteenth century. But Balkan crime knew no borders. Gangsters of all stripes had worked together in all the Yugoslav wars. Militias had sold each other weapons across the frontlines, ran cigarette-smuggling operations from Greece to Austria. Goran and Black George were both Balkan criminals operating in Budapest, with networks that reached far south, so it made sense to keep the lines of communication open. But that did not mean that they, or their people, liked each other.

  Balthazar watched Goran step forward, hand his form to the guard. He glanced down at the paper then glared at Goran with barely concealed hostility. ‘Go,’ he said, pointing at the metal detector.

  Goran stepped through the machine. It stayed silent. He waited to be frisked and checked again, then walked up to Balthazar. The two men stepped through the double doors. The warehouse stood at the centre of a long-abandoned industrial estate in District X, a mile or so from the city’s international airport. The concrete floor was rough and pitted, here and there bisected by sections of rusting tramlines that scavengers had failed to dig out for scrap. The roof had collapsed in places, the glass skylights had all shattered. The warm air was damp and heavy, thick with perfume, cigarette and cigar smoke, the acrid smell of marijuana, and an underlay of mould and decay. There were several dozen people inside, standing in small groups, smoking and passing hip flasks between themselves. Balthazar spotted numerous off-duty policemen, all of whom avoided catching his eye. He ran his index finger over the brick wall. The mortar was decaying, so soft with mould that he could dig it out with his fingernail. A generator hummed in the corner, providing power for the halogen lights strung around the ceiling. Despite the dingy surroundings, the huge space crackled with excitement.

  Teams of security guards, all dressed in black T-shirts and combat trousers, patrolled the ground floor, with two-way radios in hand. More guards walked up and down the air bridges that criss-crossed the roof area. The exit, Balthazar saw, was chained and barred. A large, square metal cage, its sides about twenty feet long, stood in the middle of the space. The walls were ten feet high, made of chain-link fence, and a door was cut into one side. Standing near the front of the cage, flanked by his bodyguards, was the man Balthazar had come to see.

  Gresham Palace Four Seasons Hotel, 7.05 p.m.

  Five miles away, Eniko and her companion were ensconced in a corner table of the café of Budapest’s most glamorous hotel. Both women stopped talking as the waiter arrived. A small black bag, slightly larger than a mobile phone, rested on the polished dark wood surface. Eniko moved it aside to make space as the waiter put down two coffees and two mineral waters. He was in his late twenties, slim but well-proportioned in a tailored white shirt and slim-cut black trousers. Like his colleagues, male and female, he was notably good-looking. Eniko glanced through the picture windows as the waiter arranged the drinks, watching the
traffic sweeping around the large green space of Szechenyi Square, onto the Chain Bridge and across the Danube. The bridge was lit up, the lamps draped along the sides glowing orange over the water.

  ‘Can I bring you anything else?’ asked the waiter, his large brown eyes sweeping over the two women, holding their gaze. Both shook their heads. Eniko smiled. He really was handsome.

  Reka Bardossy saw Eniko watching the waiter as he walked away. ‘His name is Hunor. He’s very pretty. But not very smart.’ She smiled. ‘That doesn’t always matter, of course. I can introduce you if you like. They know me here.’

  Eniko flushed pink. ‘That obvious? Thanks. But I’m focused on work at the moment.’

  ‘And you are right to be. Where did they hold you?’

  ‘An abandoned building, in the middle of a field. Somewhere near the Csepel HEV station.’

  ‘Did they get rough with you?’

  ‘Not physically. But I was threatened.’

  Reka needlessly adjusted the blue-and-gold silk scarf around her neck. ‘I know that place. You were lucky to get out in one piece.’

  Eniko glanced at Reka’s neck and hands. Why was she wearing a big scarf and black leather gloves indoors? ‘Luckier than Bela Balogh, Madame Minister.’

  ‘Yes. We will talk about that. But why don’t we get to know each other a little bit first. You do good work, Eniko. I’m a fan. And please call me Reka.’

  Eniko told herself to ignore the flattery. Reka had invited Eniko to meet, so she wanted something. But Reka was right, there was no need to rush to business. Even in transactional relationships, the human connection was important. The two women chatted for a while, talking about their schools in Budapest and scholarships and foreign universities, their shared love of London, their favourite bars and restaurants. Eniko was surprised at how easily the conversation flowed. Reka was the minister of justice. Which meant that she was in charge of the legal system that tolerated, even facilitated widespread corruption. It was Eniko’s job to expose that, shine a light on the hidden channels where the dirty money flowed back and forth. Despite that, Eniko realised, somewhat to her surprise, Reka was also very good company. She was witty, funny, and an interested, engaging conversationalist, dropping snippets of gossip about high-profile politicians and minor celebrities. In exchange, Eniko gave her an inside account of her date with Tamas Nemeth, which Reka relished. In another universe, Eniko thought, they could easily have become friends.