Field of Death

by Graham Brack

  ‘And does Rada mention this often?’

  ‘No, sir. But if you look over his desk in Lieutenant’s Doležal’s office you’ll see Rada’s certificate hanging on the wall.’

  Slonský could not remember when he had last visited Doležal’s office. If he wanted to speak to his colleague he normally badgered him in a corridor or on the stairs where he was easier to intimidate.

  ‘And has Navrátil ever intimated the exact nature of this skulduggery?’

  ‘Not to me, sir.’

  Navrátil had a very highly developed sense of right and wrong, which is quite handy in a policeman, thought Slonský, though it would have made him stick out like a sore thumb in the Vice Squad. Cheating in an examination was exactly the kind of thing that would have riled him, especially if it had gone undetected and unpunished. But how could Navrátil have any proof of this when he cannot have been in the room while the assessment was taking place? There was, of course, only one way to find out.

  ‘Thank you for your help. Needless to say, not a word of this to Navrátil.’

  Peiperová bit her lip. ‘Sir, is he in trouble?’

  ‘Trouble? Navrátil? Of course not. The lad leads a blameless life. He’s the nearest thing to a living saint I’ve ever met. He is kind to old ladies, never forgets a birthday and even lets you beat him at tennis.’

  Peiperová smiled. ‘I think I would beat him however hard he tried, sir. And I remind him about birthdays.’

  ‘Well, at least he’s kind to old ladies without prompting.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Slonský decided to come clean. ‘Rada is at a loose end now that Lieutenant Doležal has decamped to Pardubice, and he has noticed that there will be a vacancy in my team when you desert us to work for the Director of Criminal Police.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You may well say “Oh!” in that tone of voice, miss. I’m going to have to endure twelve months of Navrátil looking out of the window and whimpering as he pines for you with those big sad puppy eyes of his. If he starts moulting don’t blame me.’

  ‘So Rada is after my job?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘And when my secondment is over?’

  ‘You’ll come back, if you know what’s good for you, whatever little trinkets are offered by those in high places.’

  ‘But Rada will expect to keep the job, sir.’

  ‘Yes, he will. And we don’t want to let him, do we? So it would be good for both of us if he never got the job in the first place; and since the key to that is whatever little snippet Navrátil is keeping to himself, it is in both our interests if you can winkle that out of him and tell me. I could always lock him in cell five and play my Frank Sinatra CDs until he cracks, but I suspect you will have ways of getting it from him that are more effective and less brutal. Do we have an agreement?’

  ‘Yes, sir, we do. Leave it to me.’

  Chapter 7

  The report from Dr Novák about the grenade was relatively unenlightening, in the sense that it confirmed what was already suspected. The grenade was standard Warsaw Pact issue dating from around 1966 with no distinguishing features.

  Slonský slid it across the table to Dr Kohoutek who read it with interest.

  ‘Amateurs,’ he said at last.

  ‘How do you mean, amateurs?’

  ‘If your expert is right and this was an RGO series fragmentation grenade, perhaps an RGO-78, it would have two possible detonation methods. It can be set to explode on impact, or it can explode on a three to four second fuse. Unless you’re a very good thrower, getting it to land in the centre of a two metre circle made by the mens’ legs would be quite a feat. You’d have to be quite close to make sure of doing the job. Let’s say you’d need to be within five metres. Then you’ve got four seconds to get out of the range of the explosion. This thing is lethal at twenty to thirty metres, so you’ve got to move. But fragments are often recovered up to a hundred metres away. It was completely impractical for the way it was used. Running in mud, in ordinary clothes, you’d be lucky to cover six metres a second. When the grenade went off, the thrower would only have made eighteen to twenty-four metres. However you look at it, he’d still be within fragmentation range.’ Kohoutek took a slurp from his beer. ‘I’d say there’s a very good chance that whoever threw this was injured in the blast.’

  Novák listened with interest as Slonský filled him in.

  ‘Well, it’s plausible. I’d defer to Dr Kohoutek given his reputation, but there’s a difficulty with that supposition. If the man was injured, I’d have expected to find a definite pool of blood on the ground, and I didn’t.’

  ‘Couldn’t it have been just part of the general carnage?’

  ‘If it killed him, perhaps it wouldn’t have been easy to read the signs, but it didn’t. A significant injury means blood, and we bleed where we are. I suppose it’s just possible that he was hit in the back and managed to keep his feet until he got outside the field. I didn’t see anything that looked like someone going full length in the mud.’

  ‘What about the noise?’

  ‘Inner or middle ear disruption occurs in a quarter to a third of people near an explosion who aren’t wearing ear protection.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘If his ears weren’t pointing at the blast, it’s more likely than not he’s okay, but otherwise he may have some ringing in his ears.’

  ‘Enough to need medical attention?’

  ‘The fragments would be a bigger problem, Slonský. If he’s close enough to injure his hearing, he’s close enough to be turned into a steel porcupine. But there is one other possibility that has just occurred to me.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘I wonder if it’s possible that the grenade was wedged between them and the pin was pulled out with a wire or string? That would allow the killer to put some distance between them and him.’

  ‘Did we find the pin?’

  ‘No, but then we didn’t find about a third of the metal that must have been in the grenade. Maybe we need to go back with a metal detector and look again.’

  ‘Well, if you do, be careful. It was a metal detector that started this whole thing off.’

  Slonský was struggling. The Human Resources team were putting him through an intensive orientation session which involved a string of lectures and workshops. Slonský belonged to a generation that thought a “workshop” had to involve a lathe, and he was not at all clear what the difference was between a lecture and a workshop, since both appeared to involve earnest women shouting at him.

  Although Slonský was refreshingly free of prejudices, treating everyone with the same degree of contempt whatever their race, creed or sexuality, he was finding it hard to express himself in acceptable language. He had spent nearly five minutes during the first written exercise trying to remember what the B in LGBT stood for and his attempt to sort a string of names for Roma into acceptable and unacceptable contained so many crossings out and arrows that it was well-nigh illegible.

  The instructor announced that after a short coffee break they were going to go into a roleplay masterclass, leaving Slonský hoping that there would be a nice juicy murder somewhere in the next hour that would demand his immediate attention. If not, he was prepared to commit one, and he knew exactly who the likeliest victim was, just as soon as she got back from her short coffee break.

  How was he going to resolve this disagreement between Kohoutek and Novák? Was he looking for someone with a back full of metal shards or not? Maybe it was worth checking out the hospitals and doctors near Holice in case anyone had shown up looking for first aid.

  ‘Very well done indeed, Lieutenant Slonský!’ he heard.

  Glancing up, he suddenly realised that he had not been paying attention to the young policewoman sitting opposite him, but that did not seem to matter to the harridan with the mad hair who was conducting the training.

  ‘You didn’t interrupt and you allowed this poor woman to tell her story in her
own time, whilst simultaneously showing your empathy by your facial expression. Plainly you were thinking hard about what she was telling you. Did everybody see that?’

  There was a little ripple of applause.

  ‘It’s just experience,’ Slonský declared modestly. ‘You learn not to force things in some circumstances.’

  It’s lucky there is nobody here who knows me, he thought.

  Once released from the training room Slonský hurried back to his desk. As he passed Captain Lukas’ door he heard a summons.

  ‘Do you have a moment?’ Lukas asked.

  ‘Of course, sir,’ Slonský replied, hoping he would not forget the various things he had planned to set in train.

  ‘I understand you’ve completed part one of your equality and diversity training.’

  Slonský brandished his certificate.

  ‘Excellent. And I’m pleased to say your medical report produced a higher classification than I was expecting. But then I can see you’re losing weight.’

  ‘You can?’

  Slonský had not dared to step on a weighing machine in case the consequent disappointment were crushing, so it was good to hear that the change was visible.

  ‘Keep up the good work. I just wanted to have a chat about the transition and your future plans for the department.’

  Send Doležal to the back of beyond, blackmail Rada into resigning and get Dvorník neutered about summed it up, but Slonský thought it might be impolitic to say so just yet. ‘Of course, sir. What did you want to discuss?’

  ‘As I see it, we have some key dates. On 1st June Peiperová begins her twelve-month secondment to the Director of Criminal Police. Between ourselves, the Director is likely to be promoted to head up the whole force in September, so I imagine there will be a question about whether she will go with him.’

  ‘Peiperová says he plans to take her, sir. He has already shared his expectations with her.’

  ‘I see. Then I retire on 30th June. But to ease the handover it would be better if you took control while I was still here, so now that there is no further impediment to your promotion I propose that we should formally handover as soon as your captaincy documents are received, which should be in the next few days. Then I’ll use my outstanding leave up.’

  ‘I’d like to finish the Holice case first if I can, sir.’

  ‘Of course. And the two may not be incompatible. But even if you haven’t wrapped up the Holice enquiry I think it would be good to see you in full control by the start of June at the latest. Then you’ll discover what kind of rubbish I’ve had to put up with over the years!’

  Slonský was only too aware that he had been directly responsible for a good chunk of that rubbish with his obstinate refusal to hand in expenses claims that added up correctly. Before the advent of Navrátil anything that he typed had been a collage of fonts, inconsistent bullet lists and doubtful grammar.

  ‘I’m already discovering some of that, sir. Doležal has been lobbying me to be made senior lieutenant and Rada wants to slip into Peiperová’s place.’

  ‘There’s a certain tidiness in that, but I detect from your tone of voice that you have reservations.’

  ‘Navrátil and Rada go together like vampires and garlic, sir. It seems that Navrátil believes that Rada may have cheated in his final examinations.’

  Lukas frowned deeply. ‘That is a very serious allegation. Does Navrátil have proof?’

  ‘I’m still trying to ascertain that, sir.’

  ‘Either way, if he believes it to be true — and he is a very honest and upright young man — it won’t make for harmonious working.’ Lukas tapped his pen on his notepad a few times while he thought. ‘I assume you would like to keep Navrátil and persuade Rada that his future lies elsewhere?’

  ‘Ideally. But I can’t sack him on the basis of an as yet unsubstantiated allegation.’

  ‘Heaven forbid. Certainly not. Quite improper.’

  ‘And I haven’t thought of anything else to do.’

  Lukas leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘Then you mustn’t do anything to Rada. You must let him make the first move.’

  Slonský felt a compulsion to lean forward too. ‘How?’

  ‘By creating circumstances in which Rada will not want to stay. How do you think Rada would feel if Navrátil were promoted to lieutenant?’

  Slonský felt as if a lightning bolt had passed through his brain. Of course! ‘But Navrátil has only been here fifteen months. Normally he’d have to do at least two years, if not three.’

  ‘Navrátil is one of our first degree entry officers. It is a new programme, Josef. Some elements of that were, perhaps, not entirely thought through.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow…’

  ‘The rules that require a two or three year wait were designed for officers who may well have left school without a diploma of any kind. It would be ridiculous to apply them to someone like Navrátil who has completed a law degree. The graduate entry programme was devised because we were one of the few countries which did not apply an educational test to would-be policemen, so some needed a lot of training on the job. Navrátil doesn’t, and that should be reflected in the time it takes him to get promotion.’

  ‘You’ve convinced me, sir, but can you convince the powers that be?’

  ‘I think the Director of Criminal Police will see the benefits of such a change when he is reminded that the happiness of his new Personal Assistant may depend upon it.’

  Slonský’s heart jumped, then sank. ‘She’ll be happy for Navrátil, but jealous for herself.’

  ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if the Director nominated her for promotion at the end of her year. It’s happened before — just not for the likes of Kuchař. And even if he doesn’t, you can when she returns. It gives her an added reason to want to come back.’

  I have misjudged you, thought Slonský. All these years I never realised you were as devious and scheming as the rest of us. ‘But that would give me four lieutenants, sir — Dvorník, Doležal, Navrátil and Peiperová — and I only have room for three.’

  ‘True, but you’ll have a year to find something for Doležal. Maybe he’ll enjoy Pardubice and want to stay. Failing which…’ Lukas opened the drawer of his desk and handed Slonský a leaflet. ‘Food for thought?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ replied Slonský. ‘Yes, indeed.’

  Chapter 8

  Poznar’s message was short and admirably to the point.

  Same place. 14:15.

  Slonský slipped out of the office without telling anyone where he was going, though he did mention to Sergeant Mucha that there was no point in phoning him for the next couple of hours because he would not pick up.

  He opened the café door to find Poznar sitting with a coffee and a bowl of soup.

  ‘That looks good,’ Slonský remarked.

  ‘I haven’t had time for lunch. But actually it’s as good as it looks. Let me get you one.’ Poznar beckoned the waiter and gave the order. It was not until the waiter had returned to the counter that he continued. ‘I’ve been talking to our experts on militant nationalist groups.’

  ‘We have some then?’

  ‘Militant nationalist groups? Plenty.’

  ‘I meant experts on them.’

  ‘A few. But the ones who know a lot do nothing and the ones who do a lot know nothing.’

  ‘I thought that was true of all branches of government?’

  Poznar smiled. ‘Let’s keep to the point, shall we? First, they say that there is a group in Pardubice claiming to be connected to the National Resistance movement.’

  That was no surprise to Slonský. Everywhere you went there were young thugs who found neo-nazism attractive, usually because they liked uniforms and baiting Jews and Roma.

  ‘This group,’ Poznar continued, ‘is almost entirely ineffectual. We’ve infiltrated them and it’s no more than a talking shop. But we’re told that they made contact late last year with people from a kindred Slovak group wh
o paid them a visit. The Slovaks were getting respectable results in local elections and our boys wanted to know how they had done it. Now, so far as we can discover, nothing much came of the meeting. The Slovaks didn’t believe that Czechs had anything to teach them in return and the Czechs found the Slovaks arrogant and intolerant.’

  ‘Neo-nazi Slovaks intolerant? I find that hard to believe,’ Slonský interjected.

  ‘But — and pay attention to this — the Slovaks apparently reported to their own supporters that they had been approached outside the meeting by a small clutch of Czechs who said that they were tired of democratic means and wanted to make a mark so that Czechs would realise there were true patriots among them.’

  ‘We’re all patriots, aren’t we? I, for one, only drink Czech beer.’

  ‘Don’t we all? But this party intrigued the Slovaks because they weren’t all the usual young lads. There were educated men and fellows in their forties, they thought.’

  ‘And how do we know this?’

  ‘Friends in Slovakia with big ears.’

  Slonský nodded. The waiter had arrived with the soup and coffee so Slonský switched the conversation to Poznar’s summer holiday plans for a moment until they were left alone again. ‘Anyway — you were saying.’

  ‘Now, we don’t know who these Czechs were. Our infiltrator says that nobody he spoke to had heard about any such contact nor could they think who they might be. And we won’t find out because our man got a bit careless and pushed too hard, with the result that he had to get out of town fast and was holed up in Germany for a while enjoying a bit of rest and recuperation. By an eerie coincidence your man Sedlák was looking for him on a charge of malicious wounding.’

  Slonský’s eyebrows attempted some gymnastics across his brow. ‘Really? Who did he go for?’

  ‘A nice fellow called Martin Svoboda. Svoboda wouldn’t have said anything, only he turned up in hospital with a badly broken arm and a nasty gash in his forearm. He was also stunned, probably as a result of a thump to the head with something heavy, so he couldn’t say much, but he was taken there by a man named Barták who claimed that Svoboda had been set upon by our man when the two of them were minding their own business while out for a stroll. The difficulty with this account was that a woman claimed that she had seen them trying the back doors of houses along a street behind hers and that our man appeared to have been hiding in an outhouse behind one of them. Barták had gone down a side passage when our chap broke cover and ran for the road, closely pursued by Svoboda. But, I’m delighted to say, as Svoboda turned the corner he seems to have inadvertently struck his head several times on a piece of steel shelving strut. He must have raised his arm to protect himself, hence the broken forearm and the gash that made him pull his arm out of the way. Barták made a statement at the hospital to Lieutenant Sedlák. Sedlák discovered that Svoboda was a person of interest to us and copied the report to our office, and someone decided that we needed to pull our man out.’