by Adam LeBor
Balthazar gave her a wary look. Was this some kind of mind game? He didn’t think so. Her smile, like her voice, was brittle. She was not only exhausted, but frightened. ‘Strawberry is fine, Eni. You can stay here as long as you need.’
She gave him a wan smile. ‘Thanks. I saw the police cars. All three of them.’ She glanced at his neck. ‘You are wearing your chain. It makes you look like...’ her voice trailed off.
‘Like a Gypsy mafioso?’
Eniko flushed red. ‘That’s not what I meant and you know it, Tazi.’ She glanced at his hand. A thin brown crust of blood had dried on the fleshy part of his palm. Eniko said, ‘You’re hurt. Go and wash your hands. Or have a shower. I’ll find something to clean you up.’
Balthazar walked into the bathroom, turned on the warm water and stepped into the shower. Dirt and dried blood fell away and spiralled down the plughole. The warm water stung against his raw skin. He ran the water as hot as he could bear for several minutes, feeling the tension in his back and shoulders begin to drain away, then switched to cool. He dressed quickly in a clean T-shirt and loose trousers and walked back into the lounge.
Eniko was sitting on the sofa, a clean white T-shirt in her hand. It looked small, certainly too small to be one of his. For a second he thought she had found it among his son’s clothes. Eniko looked up at him, as though reading his mind, a bashful expression on her face. ‘It’s mine. I forgot to take it back. I kept it with Alex’s stuff. Emergency clothing if I stayed over without planning. Come,’ she said, glancing at the space on the sofa next to her.
Balthazar sat down, presented his right hand. ‘But you will spoil it. The Betadine won’t come out,’ he said.
‘It doesn’t matter, Tazi. We need to clean you up. It’s only a T-shirt.’ Eniko opened the bottle of Betadine, squirted some of the thin, dark-brown liquid onto the white cloth, dabbed it onto Balthazar’s palm. He winced a little as the iodine stung. Eniko reached for his other hand, her fingers soft and warm on his skin as she dabbed at his skin. He sat back, holding his hand out so the Betadine could dry.
‘Thanks.’ He paused, gave her a quizzical look.
Eniko smiled wryly. ‘What?’
‘It’s nice to see you, Eniko. But what’s happened? Why can’t you go home?’
She swallowed, exhaled hard. ‘Have you got something to drink?’
He looked around the room. Unlike many Hungarians, Balthazar was not a big drinker. A beer or two on the weekends, a glass of wine at family dinners or on a rare date. But there was a bottle of barack, peach-flavoured palinka, somewhere, home-distilled by one of his mother’s neighbours in her village in the far north-east of the country. If ever there was a day for palinka, it had been today. He got up and rummaged in the cupboard across the room. The bottle was stashed at the back, behind a pile of his old university essays. He took it out, found a couple of dusty shot glasses, sat down, and poured them both a measure, a larger one for Eniko.
They clinked glasses with the traditional Hungarian salutation, ‘Egeszsegedre, to your health.’ He drank half, Eniko downed all of hers in one. She shivered as the alcohol hit the back of her throat, closed her eyes for a few seconds, stared at Balthazar and burst into tears.
Kenyermezo Street, 10.20 p.m.
At that moment the most-wanted man in Hungary was pacing back and forth in a dark, cramped studio flat on the top floor of a dilapidated apartment building on Kenyermezo Street. The street, on the very edge of District VIII, ran from Republic Square to Rakoczi Way, five hundred yards south of Keleti Station. A narrow iron bedstead with a sagging mattress took up most of the room. A cheap plastic kettle and two-ring electric stove, thick with grease, served as the kitchen. There was no bathroom or shower, just a cracked sink in the other corner, with a single cold tap. Empty pizza boxes and kebab wrappings were jammed into a rubbish bag under the sink.
The room was hot, the air stale and humid. The heat was even worse at night. He had barely slept and the yellow nylon sheets and thin brown blanket were crumpled up at the end of the mattress. A blue cotton baseball cap rested on top of the thin pillow. The hotel across the street had been tolerable, a palace of luxury, in fact, compared to this place. But the Gendarme commander had said he needed to move here for security reasons. He would manage; he had endured far worse. And soon he would be in London, in a duplex apartment overlooking Hyde Park. He watched a cockroach scuttle across the floor towards the food remains, raised his shoe and slammed it down. There was a cracking sound. He lifted his foot. White gunk oozed from the cracked carapace. He rubbed the sole of his shoe on the floor, feeling a growing sense of disgust. He had been forbidden to use the shared facility along the corridor and had been told to empty his bowels into the plastic bucket under the sink. He could urinate into the sink, but using the bucket was beyond him. After three days holding back a diet of pizza and kebabs, he was now severely constipated and constantly suffering stomach cramps.
He had been told not to stand by the window or open it. He had disobeyed once, but opening the window brought no relief, just the thick stench of exhaust fumes from Thokoly Way and the greasy stink of fatty, roasting meat from the Turkish kebab restaurant on the corner. The window was coated with a layer of ancient grime, but if he stood to the side he could see Keleti Station and Baross Square. The forecourt was still packed with sleeping bodies, a human wave that spilled down the side of the station, almost to the taxi rank and across the patches of grass. Here and there, tiny red embers glowed and moved, the cigarettes like beacons in the night. A small group, a family, he thought, huddled around the sputtering blue flame of a camping stove.
Hejazi reflexively checked his shirt pocket once more, knowing that the search was hopeless, and was suddenly back at the square where he had lost it. It was Nazir’s fault. Why had that fool followed him? Revenge? What did he think he would achieve in the backstreets of Budapest? They were a long way from Aleppo, almost in western Europe. If Nazir had stayed in the station, he would still be alive. Hejazi had spotted him almost immediately. The streets were almost empty at that early hour and Nazir had barely bothered to use any cover, if he even knew how to. The Gendarmes had arrested him almost immediately, marched him into the half-demolished building.
Nazir had gone berserk when he saw Hejazi, clawing at him, trying to punch him. That was when the SIM card must have fallen out. The Gendarme commander, the thuggish one they called Attila, had tasered Nazir. Tasers were not supposed to be fatal, but this one had been. Perhaps it was the stress and trauma of Nazir’s journey. Or seeing again the man who had removed his fingers and was ready to take some more off. Either way, Nazir had gone into cardiac arrest. The Gendarme had even tried to save him, administered CPR. But it was no good. Nazir had died. In any case, it almost counted as a mercy killing. He would have taken Nazir somewhere quiet and safe, found out what how much he knew. He excelled at such work now, even enjoyed it.
A mobile phone rang, the sound clamorous in the cramped space. He picked up the cheap red Alcatel burner and waited. The handset rang five times, then stopped. He waited a few seconds, then the phone rang a second time, again stopping after five rings. He was to call the fifth number on a list of six. All the numbers on the list were the same, apart from the last digit which ended in one to six. He tapped out the digits. The number rang twice.
‘The birthday party is set for tomorrow afternoon,’ said a male. Hejazi recognised Attila’s voice.
‘Good. When does it start?’
‘At three o’clock. Be at the pick-up place. You are definitely invited.’
The phone went dead. The code was Hejazi’s idea. If someone was listening in, they would likely assume that some sort of terrorist attack was planned in Budapest at three o’clock tomorrow. The authorities would waste considerable energy and divert resources trying to discover what was planned and foil it. There was something planned, a kind of ‘spectacular’, but for once no bombs or guns were involved, and there was no way that the Hungarians, or anyo
ne else, could stop it.
Balthazar’s flat, Dob Street, 12.25 p.m.
Balthazar watched Eniko cry softly for several seconds, her head in her hands. In his heart he instantly wanted to hug her. It would be an easy, natural move, the simple response to another human being in distress. His head, colder, more distant, said not to. He knew where a hug was almost certain to lead. He had picked up Eniko’s mixed signals, knew by now that she was conflicted about her decision to break up with him, and was still attracted to him. Her arms would wrap around him, he would respond, their bodies press together. Their emotions were running high, both were ready to take comfort where they could, especially familiar comfort. It was after midnight and she was obviously staying the night. Part of him wanted nothing more. Then he imagined the scene the next morning: her embarrassed explanations, her rapid dressing and hurried exit. He had built a wall around himself after Eniko left, for a reason. This was not the time to think about it dismantling it.
Balthazar looked around for something to give her to wipe her face. There was nothing in sight, apart from the iodine-spattered T-shirt. He handed it to her. She blew her nose on it and dabbed her eyes. ‘Sorry, Tazi. I’m not usually like this.’ She looked at the T-shirt, now thoroughly stained and crumpled, laughed wanly. ‘At least we’re getting good use out of it.’ Balthazar smiled but kept his distance. ‘Do you want to tell me what happened? The last time I saw you, a few hours ago, you were rushing off to meet someone. A secret source. You wouldn’t even tell me who he or she was, unless I agreed that we should work together. The next thing I see is you all over the internet at the Four Seasons with Reka and her bodyguards, facing down the Gendarmes, then leaving with a police escort.’
Eniko laid the T-shirt on the table. There was no point holding back now. She wiped her eyes, gestured at the bottle. ‘Pour me another one. A small one.’
He did as she asked. This time she sipped the drink. The day poured out in a torrent of words – the HEV, Csepel Island, her interrogation in the strange concrete building, Ungar’s threats, the killing of Bela Balogh, her meeting with Reka Bardossy and their escape from the Four Seasons.
‘Congratulations,’ Balthazar said. ‘You have a lot of scoops: the prime minister is running a travel agency for Islamic radicals, has murdered the former interior minister, tried to kill the justice minister while she has confessed to selling passports to people-traffickers.’ He picked up his glass, sipped the palinka. ‘But why is she telling you all this?’
‘She’s playing hardball, trying to bring down Pal Palko-vics. For that she needs to get the information out.’
‘Why you?’
‘I was there. Because I’m on this. Because I’m a good reporter.’
‘Sure. But what else does she want?’
‘To shape the media narrative. To frame the story.’
‘How?’
‘The passport operation was a long-term sting, planned and run by her, to draw out the traffickers so their network could be dismantled.’
Balthazar exhaled sharply. At least Gaspar’s name was somehow staying out of this conversation. But his brother’s and Goran’s operation across the borders was small beer compared to the passport channel. ‘She’s smart, I’ll give her that. Do you believe her?’
That was the million-dollar question on which her future career would probably turn. ‘I don’t know.’ She paused. ‘I believe that I have to report what she tells me.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Think about it.’ She smiled, wryly. ‘But probably not too much. Everyone has an agenda. Mine is to report the news.’
There was silence for several seconds, then Balthazar’s stomach growled. The palinka, he realised, had made him ravenous. He had eaten nothing since a snatched lunch of a Turkish shawarma sandwich. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’ he asked.
Eniko nodded. ‘Actually, yes. I was too nervous to eat while I was waiting for you. Besides, there’s never anything in your fridge or your cupboards. And I guess we aren’t going out for dinner.’
‘No, we are not. We are not going anywhere.’
Eniko shrugged. ‘So?’
Balthazar picked up his phone and called Sandor Takacs’s number.
‘What is it, Tazi? More car crashes? Gendarmes again?’
‘No. Nothing like that. Everything is fine, except I’m hungry. And the cupboard is bare.’
Takacs laughed. ‘OK. There are at least six cops near your front door with nothing to do. I’ll send one of them. What do you want? Pizza? Burger?’
Balthazar looked at Eniko, mouthed pizza or burger. She whispered ‘burger’.
Balthazar returned to his phone call. ‘Two burgers and a pizza.’
Takacs laughed. ‘Two? You must be hungry.’
‘Not just me.’
‘She is still there. That’s good. It’s the best place for her.’ Sandor Takacs had met Eniko a couple of times, at work social events when colleagues were leaving or celebrating birthdays. He approved of her. Eniko had been charming, sociable company and had not tried to leverage her connection to Balthazar to get information from his colleagues. Takacs’s voice turned serious. ‘Work with her, Tazi. We’ll protect her. Share everything.’
Balthazar looked at Eniko, idly leafing through a copy of Newsweek, pretending not to eavesdrop. For a moment he was back at her mother’s sunny flat on Pozsonyi Way, sitting down to Sunday lunch on a bright spring day, before retiring to a book-lined lounge with a piano in the corner. There had been Sacher torte for dessert and a Schubert recital. Her mother had welcomed him immediately. Eniko told him later how outraged she was at the pointed remarks the next day from her neighbours that there was a Gypsy in the house.
‘I will,’ said Balthazar. ‘What about her mother?’
‘There’s a car already outside her house. Call me in the morning. Call II2. if there is any trouble. You are in the system. There is a city-wide instant response alert on you and your flat. Keep Eniko there.’
Balthazar asked, ‘Is it starting? At Keleti?’
‘The rumours are flying. It looks like it.’
‘Thanks, boss.’ Balthazar hung up and put his telephone on the table. He had no doubt that someone, somewhere, was listening to the call. But Ungar should know that Eniko and her mother were now protected. It would at least buy them some time.
Eniko asked, ‘Whose mother?’
Balthazar sat down, making sure that their legs did not brush against each other or touch. ‘Yours. That was Sandor Takacs. There is a police car outside her house. It will stay there, until all this is over.’
‘Thank God. So we are safe.’
‘For now. The food will be here in twenty minutes or so. Let me know if you need anything else.’
Eniko walked across the room to the bookshelf and stared at the silver-framed photograph of the pretty green-eyed young woman she had seen yesterday. ‘Tell me, Tazi. Who is she?’
‘I already said. One of my zillions of cousins. Why are you so interested?’
She turned to look at him, gave him an appraising look. ‘I know a quite a lot about you and your family, Tazi. But I don’t think you ever mentioned her. What’s her name?’
And there is so much more you don’t know, and hopefully never will, he almost said. ‘I had it framed recently. Her name was Virag.’
Eniko picked up the picture. ‘Was?’
‘Yes. She’s dead. She was my cousin. Third cousin, but we were very close.’
‘I’m so sorry, Tazi. That’s so sad. What happened?’
‘She was killed. Murdered.’
‘Did they catch him?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long did he go to prison for?’
‘He didn’t.’
She looked away from the photograph and at Balthazar. ‘Oh. Is that why you became...?’
‘Partly, yes.’
‘Do you miss her?’
‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘A lot lately.’ More since you left, he though
t, but would never say so.
Eniko put the photograph down, sat back down on the sofa, took off her hair band, released her pony tail and closed her eyes. Balthazar watched her face relax, her hair spilling around her shoulders. She leaned back, her head high, her arms at her side. He watched her chest rise and fall as her breathing steadied, dozing off, then looked across the room at the photograph of Virag. She would have been thirty-four now, a few years older than Eniko, her beauty fading, probably with half a dozen children, stretching out her welfare payments, trying to keep them in school, a feckless husband and a pile of unpaid utility bills. Or getting a handout from Gaspar on Envelope Friday, when she would not have to queue because she was family. But she wasn’t thirty-four. Thanks to him, she wasn’t anything. Or partly thanks to him. He could never decide how much her death was his fault. But one thing was certain: all the murderers that he arrested would never bring her back.
He picked up his shot glass, drank the rest of his palinka, and walked out onto the balcony. Klauzal Square was still and silent, the benches empty, the playground deserted. The night was warm and still, the apartment buildings quiet and shadowed. He thought of the stories Eva neni had told him, of the bodies stacked up in the winter of 1944 and 1945, the Arrow Cross militiamen prowling and hunting, the terror and starvation. He thought too of her relatives who had escaped the deportations in Pecs and made it to Budapest, and his cousins from the villages nearby who had not.
A large black saloon was driving along Dob Street towards his apartment building. As it drew nearer, he could see that it had Gendarmerie number plates. He watched it slow to a crawl as it went past the police car on the corner then turn left down Klauzal Square. The black vehicle went around the square again, then parked a few yards from the police car in front of his house.
He sensed movement behind him. Eniko walked across the room and then she was standing next to him. The air turned thick and charged. She looked at him, the light playing on her face, her expression a mix of trepidation and something else. Hope, he realised. The entrance buzzer rang and the moment was gone.
