Field of Death

by Graham Brack

  This was definitely not what Slonský wanted to hear, unless Doležal meant the word “mad” literally, in which case he could be removed because the police did not allow mad people to stay in post — at least, not among the lower ranks. At colonel level and above, of course, you could be completely out of your tree and nobody would comment.

  ‘What’s your captain’s name?’ asked Slonský.

  ‘Vondra.’

  Slonský wrote it down. ‘I’ll have a word with the Director of Criminal Police. He owes me a favour seeing as he’s taking Peiperová off me. Let’s see if he can put a boot up Vondra’s fundament.’

  ‘I don’t want any unpleasantness,’ Doležal commented.

  ‘I am Mr Diplomacy,’ Slonský answered. ‘However, this was not the main reason for ringing. Your lad Rada — he’s finished his mentorship time with you, hasn’t he?’

  ‘He came in February 2005, so he’s been with me twenty-seven months.’

  ‘He wants to work with me to fill in for Peiperová, but if he’s ready to move onwards and upwards I wouldn’t want to hold him back. And strictly you should get a new trainee when you come back. How do you think he has done?’

  Doležal needed to collect his thoughts. ‘Frankly, based on his performance, I’ve no idea how he came out top of his class.’

  ‘Ah, I can answer that. He cheated.’

  ‘He cheated? How?’ Doležal asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m waiting for details.’

  ‘Then he should be disciplined. We don’t want any untrustworthy police officers.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Slonský said. ‘We’ve already got as many as we can handle. There are no vacancies.’

  Dr Novák found Slonský and came straight to the point.

  ‘Your man Kohoutek seems to have been vindicated.’

  ‘Really?’ said Slonský.

  ‘We completed a finger search of the field.’

  ‘How many fingers did you find?’

  ‘Very droll. It’s a search using fingers, not for fingers. We’ve mapped every metal fragment we found and it looks as if we have probably tracked 96% of the residual mass of the grenade.’

  ‘What’s that, then? The last Mass of the day when all the real priests have gone home?’

  Novák expressed some exasperation with a deep sigh. Actually, he enjoyed comments like that which gave him the opportunity for some impromptu teaching.

  ‘When a grenade explodes it obeys the laws of physics. Mass — or what an unscientific character like you calls, inaccurately, weight — cannot be created. Some of it remains unchanged, some is converted into energy, and some will be transformed into matter that will have dissipated by the time we come to collect it. Converted into gas, for example. If we know the composition of the grenade we can calculate how much could be retrievable after an explosion, and that’s the residual mass. Of course, there are unknowns, like the exact proportions of explosive material to casing in the particular grenade in question, so it’s only an estimate.’

  ‘If you can tell me what the unknowns are, how can they be unknowns?’ Slonský demanded. Had Novák been able to see Slonský’s face he would have seen the detective adopting his most guileless and innocent expression as if he genuinely wanted to know the answer to his question.

  ‘They are unknown in their physical aspects, not their existence, Slonský, in the same way that if a rat enters your kitchen you’ll know that a rat has been there but not whether it was large or small, black or brown. In fact, you’ll know nothing about the rat at all.’

  ‘I’ll know one thing,’ said Slonský.

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Yes. The rat will be disappointed because he’ll have found damn all to eat there.’

  ‘Let us put aside this persiflage, Slonský, while I tell you what you’ve been pestering me to find out for you. The debris extended for nearly sixty metres but the majority of it lay within a fifteen to twenty metre circle. This may have been influenced by the bodies absorbing a high proportion close to the locus of the explosion.’

  ‘Locus of…?’

  ‘The place where it went bang. A number of the metal fragments are bloodstained. We don’t yet have full details of the analyses, but I can tell you one useful thing. There are at least five different people involved.’

  ‘Four victims and one other?’ Slonský asked.

  ‘Yes. His identity is another of those unknowns we were talking about.’

  ‘His?’

  ‘It’s a man. There are some tissue cells on a number of fragments we found in a cluster about twenty metres from the blast. Assuming that none of the known victims crawled away and came back again, I’m hypothesising that those cells belong to whoever threw the grenade. Anyway, I’ve sent them for DNA analysis despite the fact that I’ve had a memorandum from high places questioning why I’m likely to overspend my budget substantially.’

  ‘I should blame criminals,’ Slonský responded. ‘That’s what I do. They’re exceeding their workplan.’

  Novák snorted. ‘That may have worked before 1989, Slonský, but it won’t now.’

  ‘I don’t know. It seems to convince Captain Lukas.’

  ‘Ha! Soon it’ll be you who has to deal with subordinates trying it on.’

  ‘Can you be both subordinate and insubordinate?’ mused Slonský.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Novák, ‘but if anyone is in a position to answer that it’s you.’

  Chapter 10

  The Director of Criminal Police was a perfect gentleman toward Peiperová. One or two of the other girls had hinted that everyone in the top corridor liked being surrounded by young women for unprofessional reasons, but so far he had not attempted to lay a finger on her. At her mother’s insistence she always carried a sturdy hat-pin, though she doubted whether she possessed the mettle to stick it where her mother had suggested. Navrátil would have been exempt from such retribution, but he had not laid a hand on her either. Navrátil was very old school about what he called “that sort of thing”. About three weeks after her year as Personal Assistant was due to end she and Navrátil were to become one, and Navrátil was determined that they would remain two right up until 21st June. Slonský had not helped matters when he had announced that while he respected Navrátil’s views on sex before marriage, he was not at all sure that the young man was okay with sex after marriage either, and it would be as well for her to check where he stood on that. Despite the feeling that her strings were being pulled she had done so, and Navrátil had launched into a touching and emotional description of the anticipated joys of the marriage bed that left her feeling that she was under some pressure not to make it the greatest disappointment of his life. One of her girlfriends told her that her own boyfriend was a considerate tiger in bed; Peiperová feared that Navrátil would turn out to be an amenable kitten.

  Peiperová was getting used to being left on her own. Trying to divide her time between orientation in her new role and tidying up her old one, she was struggling with both, but doggedly ploughing on. From time to time her thoughts turned to the explosion at Holice and she would find herself feeling deeply uneasy that there was something she should have noticed but had somehow overlooked; and she would think very hard about the evidence that she had collected before falling into a depressed and worried mood as she pondered how Navrátil was coping with the separation.

  The separation was currently a matter of less concern to Navrátil than the state of his bladder. Coffee and beer were working it hard each day and he was beginning to wonder whether it was medically possible to wear your waterworks out. But, on the plus side, he was getting some very encouraging responses and it seemed likely that the contact that he had expected to take weeks might arrive in the very near future.

  He had taken to having a late afternoon nap as a means of making it through to the end of the evening in the bar and decided that he could do with a run to shake off the lethargy of sitting all day nibbling on unhealthy food. Having carefully lock
ed his room he pulled his sweatshirt over his head, stepped out into the street and began to run.

  The run was not too hard so he completed it by sprinting the last four hundred metres, other pedestrians permitting, and as he let himself into his room he could see the trap he had left had been sprung. He had dragged the rug over to the door and carefully closed it with one corner of the rug lapped up the door. The idea was that if anyone went into the room they would push the rug back, realise that this would give the game away, and therefore flatten it out in what they would presume was its original position.

  And that was exactly what he was looking at now. The ballpoint pen he had left pointing to the third line of his notes was now two lines further down the page. Reaching under the bed he checked his bag and could see that someone had opened it and rummaged inside, but they did not appear to have detected the false bottom.

  Somebody seemed to be interested in him. He was glad that he had ensured that there was no evidence that he was a policeman and that his mobile phone was clipped to his waistband. It contained no real pointers to his work, unless you knew that “JS” was Slonský and “Kristýna” was Peiperová, but there were one or two texts in his correspondence with her that he would not have wanted anyone else to read due to their extremely affectionate character. Needless to say, Peiperová had written them.

  Slonský opened the large navy blue folder and turned to page 135.

  The instructor had been keen to impress upon the class the importance of promoting equality and diversity. Glancing around she had fastened her gaze on Slonský, who was clearly the oldest officer candidate in the room.

  “Give me an example of diversity in the police,’ she commanded.

  Slonský responded at once. ‘We employ officers ranging from the highly competent to the downright bloody useless,’ he said.

  Four hours of hell had followed, during which he had, among other things, had to play the role of a young woman officer negotiating reduced hours so she could look after her child, following which he took the opportunity of the “Personal Reflection Period” afterwards to express the view that her superior was a human latrine who should have immediately agreed to her reasonable request without all that pleading. Asked to complete a questionnaire about sources of information to which witnesses and complainants could be directed in a range of circumstances, he had bracketed them all together and written “Sergeant Mucha will know” at the bottom, defending himself under questioning with the additional information that Sergeant Mucha knows everything.

  In preparation for the next session Slonský had been directed to read the regulations relating to holiday and sick leave, which was why he had the dark blue folder open at page 135. Without the support of pastries he slogged through to the end of page 139, at which point he decided it must be time to see if Valentin was in the bar as usual.

  ‘Crime fighting going okay?’ asked his friend.

  ‘We don’t actually do that any longer,’ Slonský explained. ‘The police exists in order to sympathise with the victims of crime, assure them that they have a shoulder to lean on and then make sure our subordinates get home in time for some quality hours with their loved ones during which they can forget work and the body they’ve just seen with its feet sawn off.’

  ‘Stop me if I’m wrong, but you’ve been training again, haven’t you?’

  ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘Did you learn anything today?’ Valentin asked.

  ‘I learned that my instructor uses enough lacquer to ensure that her hair will stay up longer than the Berlin Wall, that I am a “culturally insensitive dinosaur” and that officers can’t bring their babies to work but are entitled to breast feed them in privacy if they do.’

  ‘I find it hard to imagine that anyone told you that you were “culturally insensitive”.’

  ‘I know. I was shocked. It’s just not true.’

  ‘I wasn’t questioning its truth, just that anyone dared to say it to you.’

  ‘Well, they did. And I’m not insensitive at all. The dragon can’t point to a single question I got wrong. She’s just making presuppositions based on my age, sex and experience. I’m being stereotyped and I don’t like it.’

  ‘Never mind. Today is one of my alcohol days so I’ll allow you to buy me a beer. Have one yourself too.’

  ‘That’s very good of you. I’ll do that.’ Slonský attracted a waiter’s eye and placed their order.

  ‘I haven’t see Navrátil for a day or two,’ Valentin observed.

  ‘Working undercover. Don’t ask.’

  ‘In Holice?’

  ‘I said don’t ask.’

  ‘That’ll be to do with the explosion, then. Is he getting anywhere?’

  Slonský breathed deeply to compose himself. ‘I can’t tell you. It’s in the nature of undercover work that they don’t keep ringing the police.’ Slonský stared deep into his glass. ‘You already know somebody is wandering free with a big motorised gun. Apparently it can heave a shell the size of my forearm over fifteen kilometres, and they’ve probably got thirty of them loaded up and the rest of the crate hidden somewhere. That wouldn’t be quite such a worry if I knew they weren’t in a built-up area, but the technical people are worried that the detonators don’t have an indefinite life and may degrade. You’d like to think that would mean that they wouldn’t go bang, but I’m told it’s possible that they’ll go bang without being triggered. And on top of that we don’t know which particular bunch of nutters have got them.’

  ‘But surely the army have plenty of them too?’ Valentin asked.

  ‘You think that’s a comfort? The idea that we can stop a bunch of delusional nationalist airheads by sending a bigger bunch of psychotic dandies after them doesn’t exactly make me feel that all’s right with the world.’

  ‘You’re distinctly jaundiced today,’ observed Valentin.

  ‘I’ve got one junior out of touch miles away and the other one is just down the corridor but might as well be miles away as she tries to get to grips with Kuchař’s filing system — a task that’s probably beyond most human beings — and I’m about to take over the responsibilities of a respected friend and colleague.’

  ‘I thought you were taking over from Lukas?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I’ve never heard you speak like that about him before. Usually you say he’s a —’

  Slonský cut Valentin off. ‘That was before he was leaving. I now realise that I may have been hasty.’

  ‘At least it’s gone quiet in the newspapers.’

  ‘Until they hear about the mongrel offspring of a T-34 tank and a big popgun that we’ve got parked up God knows where.’

  ‘You’ll get it sorted out soon.’

  ‘That’s just it. If this was crime fiction it would all be wrapped up in a few days. They can solve all sorts in less than an hour on television, even allowing for three commercial breaks. People think that’s an accurate representation of police work. They don’t realise that the real thing is as slow as treacle much of the time. You send stuff to the labs and you wait. You call for witnesses and you wait. You stake a place out and you wait. And wait, and wait. It’s just as well I’m notoriously patient.’

  Valentin spluttered and coughed. ‘Warn me if you’re going to say things like that,’ he said. ‘My beer went right down my nose when I laughed.’

  Slonský ignored the comment. ‘Documentaries are no better. They hang around with police for a while then they take out all the boring bits. Police raid a flat, and within fifteen seconds they’ve found a stash of cocaine inside a mattress. They don’t show the hours we spend crawling around in roofspaces.’

  ‘The hours Navrátil spends crawling around in roofspaces, you mean.’

  ‘Efficient use of resources. He’s smaller than me, and a bit more nimble.’

  Valentin tipped back his glass to drain the last of his beer into his mouth, then smacked his glass down with a finality that suggested he had drunk his fill. ‘There m
ust be something positive you can build on?’

  ‘I pin my hopes on Doležal.’

  ‘Jesus Maria! I never expected to hear you say that.’

  ‘I know. I begin to doubt my own sanity. But there are some odd things happening in Holice and he’s got some leads to follow up. And Klinger has some concerns about where the money is coming from to build an enormous shopping mall there. He may get results first if only because moving money without leaving some kind of trail is difficult. Give him his due, Klinger is tenacious, and once he gets a sniff of money-related naughtiness he’s hard to shake off.’

  ‘You don’t think that has anything to do with his obsessive nature?’

  ‘You mean the doorknob thing?’

  ‘Well, germs generally.’

  ‘Granted it’s a bit unusual. But I’d rather have colleagues who are weird as hell and as efficient as Klinger than some of the delicate flowers we have around at the moment.’

  Valentin did not need to ask the identities of those characterised in this way, because it was a conversation that they had conducted many times before. ‘Care for another?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. How many calories is in one of these things?’

  Valentin’s jaw dropped involuntarily. ‘This is beer we’re talking about. An essential part of the Czech diet. Count the calories in other things by all means, but never in beer.’ He waved their glasses to attract the waiter. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘it’s a well-known fact that Czech beer contains none.’

  Slonský climbed the stairs to his flat. As a result of Valentin’s satanic influence he seemed to have drunk rather more beer than he had intended and was feeling internally waterlogged. He also had a growing conviction that people were adding extra stairs to the top flight while he was out nowadays.

  He fished out his key and found the keyhole with his fingertips. He must get that landing light bulb replaced some day, he thought, as he had been considering for nearly three years now.

  He pushed the door open, flicked on the light, and stood amazed. He had been burgled.