The Josef Slonský Box Set

by Graham Brack

  ‘The fact that you’re an intelligent man, sir, so you’ll see that anything other than falling in with my plans results in your lying dead somewhere. I may be under arrest, but that won’t give you a lot of satisfaction. Dead men don’t crow over their enemies.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I thought somewhere quiet where we can talk. Somewhere in the countryside. Head westwards, please.’

  ‘This is the end of your career, you know.’

  ‘Yes, it could be,’ agreed Slonský. ‘Alternatively, it could be its finest moment, depending on whether I can get you to confess.’

  ‘You know a confession obtained under duress isn’t admissible in court.’

  ‘Duress? What duress? You said yourself you didn’t believe I’d shoot. So either you lied, and you think I really would shoot, or you aren’t under duress. Can’t have it both ways.’

  Slonský glanced in the mirror. Navrátil was two cars back, keeping pace nicely.

  ‘Right turn here, please. We’ll go out on the highway. You can put your foot down if you like. But don’t think of drawing attention to yourself by speeding. My fingers twitch when I’m driven too fast.’

  Sammler’s hands were glistening with sweat.

  ‘I’m a personal friend of the Minister of Justice, you know.’

  ‘No relevance to me, sir. Justice looks after courts; it’s the Minister of the Interior that would impress me, if I hadn’t already locked one up for a murder you committed. Incidentally, I think Dr Banda has a bone to pick with you. Don’t expect a Christmas card this year.’

  ‘It’s a matter of indifference to me. He’s one of yesterday’s men now.’

  ‘It takes one to know one, sir. You might want to start moving over to the right-hand lane, sir. We’ll take Route 7 to Dejvice.’

  ‘I’ll have been missed by now, you realise. I have an appointment for lunch.’

  ‘I shouldn’t imagine you’re too hungry just at the moment. I’ll ring in a little while and ask them to keep it warm if you like. Turn right towards Jenerálka. Navrátil, go back to Prague and await further instructions.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s wise, sir?’ Navrátil asked, before he remembered that it was futile because he did not have a microphone. He pulled off the road and feverishly considered his options. Should he obey his head, or his orders? He could not believe that Slonský seriously proposed to maltreat a suspect to get a confession, but on the other hand his boss had been perfectly happy to fake a beating and you could hardly overlook his treatment of Banda. Perhaps if Navrátil had not been so new and so junior, he might have decided differently, but he saw no alternative to doing what he was told, however much he felt that he ought to intervene. Then again, Slonský was hardly in a position to argue that an officer should always do what he was told. Several of their colleagues had described incidents when Slonský had ignored an order or “creatively interpreted” an instruction.

  Navrátil sat at the side of the road and evaluated the alternatives as quickly as he could as he watched Sammler’s car pull away from him.

  Slonský glanced in the mirror again to confirm that Navrátil had pulled up.

  ‘Ignore the village, sir. Follow the sign to Horoměřice.’

  The road began to snake around between thick woods. Apart from the occasional house, there were trees on each side.

  ‘This would be a good place to pull in, sir. Let’s go for a walk in the trees.’

  Sammler stopped the car, and Slonský immediately grabbed the keys.

  ‘Just in case you were thinking of running back to the car and driving off, sir. Shall we go?’

  ‘This is a nonsense,’ protested Sammler. ‘You plainly intend to shoot me in cold blood. Why should I co-operate?’

  ‘Because if you co-operate I won’t have to shoot you. I’d have thought that was clear. I’d much rather have you behind bars than in an urn on my mantelpiece. I want to have a little chat on neutral territory. We can debate the issues and perhaps come to an agreement. When you get out, twenty years or so from now, I’ll probably be dead, but if I’m not you can come and hold me at gunpoint in return. Can’t say fairer than that, can I? After you.’

  Sammler trudged through the mud. The warmer weather had caused a thaw that turned the snow to water, and the frozen ground to black mud. Slonský indicated a drier patch alongside a rivulet. Sammler noticed that Slonský had stopped for a moment, and turned to see the old detective putting protective disposable overshoes on his feet.

  ‘A little trick I learned off you, sir. You leave fewer footprints this way. That’s what you did in the snow, wasn’t it? Novák was stumped for a while till he did some experiments with rubber overshoes. Size 47 overshoes over size 44 shoes, he thought, reducing the definition at the edges. Was he right, sir?’

  ‘Fantasy, pure fantasy.’

  ‘I don’t really need your confirmation, sir. Novák experimented until he could reproduce what he saw in the snow.’

  ‘Then why waste your breath and try my patience?’

  Slonský ignored the enquiry. He had never had much time for stupid questions.

  ‘Then I puzzled over how you’d left no real tyre tracks in the snow, till I saw on the closed circuit cameras at your flat that you put a broom in the back of your car. A quick sweep would blur them quite nicely, wouldn’t it? But why would you have a broom in your car? I notice you don’t have one today.’

  ‘There’s no snow today, Lieutenant, or haven’t you noticed? It’s all circumstantial, and none of it convinces. How much further?’

  ‘Tell you what, sir. Is the microphone putting you off? I wouldn’t want you to feel inhibited about expressing yourself. I’ll leave it here, shall I?’

  Slonský placed the microphone on a tree stump, much to Navrátil’s annoyance. Now he could not hear any of the dialogue between them. He hoped that Slonský was just trying to frighten Sammler into a confession, but he decided that he had better act quickly, just in case. He did not want Slonský’s career to end like this.

  ‘This is far enough. Let’s talk.’

  ‘Talk? About what?’

  ‘About life, the universe, the price of fish, I don’t know. Oh, and why a pretty young Czech girl is lying in a grave near Kladno fifty years too early. You know more about that than any man alive. Don’t you feel any guilt?’

  ‘No. Why should I?’

  ‘Because you killed her. She was going to scream and you killed her, you said. But then I thought, no, that makes no sense. You couldn’t let her live once you’d invited her to help with the plot, so whether she screamed or not, you were going to strangle her. You killed her and wrapped her in her own sheets to look like a laundry bundle. When you arrived at the back of the metro station you rolled her out like Cleopatra inside the carpet, and threw the sheets in the car, leaving her in the dressing gown and the first pair of shoes you could find for her. She must have put them out for the next morning, rather than having just taken them off, because they wouldn’t have matched the outfit she was wearing in the photo. You knew there weren’t traces of you on her clothes, but you couldn’t be sure about the sheet because you’d knelt on it while you squeezed all the young life out of her.’

  ‘A very colourful picture you paint. But you can’t prove any of that.’

  ‘Would you really sacrifice your life for communism?’

  ‘Of course. A man needs something to believe in. What do you believe in, Lieutenant? The rule of law? Oh, I forgot, you interpret that as allowing you to shoot suspects. What happened to your oath, you hypocrite?’

  ‘My oath, sir? My oath was to uphold justice, not the law. I spent twenty years of my life enforcing laws I didn’t believe in. All those years of knocking on people’s doors at three in the morning. They thought we did it to cause terror. Rubbish. We did it because people were less likely to be out then. We’d kick the door in then stand aside to let the security police do their dirty work. That was called upholding the law. I never believe
d there was any “justice” about it. My generation did that in every walk of our lives. We took bribes, but we were just as guilty if we gave them. There were just so many examples of the law turning a blind eye, not being applied fairly. Think of those show trials — Slánsky, Clementis, Margolius, Horaková. They didn’t deserve to hang. The state has said so. Admittedly a bit late, but they’ve been formally exonerated, and much good did the pardon do them. They ended on the gallows, and the law of the day put them there. I upheld that law, but it wasn’t justice. When the Wall came down and we made a new start, that was the most important thing for me. “No more upholding the law, Josef,” I said to myself. “Your job is giving people justice.” And I’ve tried to live by that. I’ve got a lot to make up for. No more than many and a lot less than some, but it’s never going to be put right. All I can do is my best. And that’s why you’re here now. I want justice for Irina Gruberová, and you can give it to her by confessing.’

  ‘Go to hell,’ snarled Sammler. ‘If the bitch is dead, so what? You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. There are always collateral victims. Your precious capitalist west has littered Iraq with dead civilians who just happened to be next door to the wrong building. Was that justice? You make me sick. Such hypocrisy! We offer a new way, Slonský. No private property means no theft. International solidarity between workers means no war. There is another way, Slonský, and you and your kind are an obstacle to it. Mark my words, one day the red flag will fly again over Prague Castle. I hope you live to see it. It’ll give you something to do while you twist in the wind dangling from a lamp-post.’

  ‘If I thought that would stop you in your tracks, I’d settle for that. Here I am at nearly sixty, and I’ve finally found something worth dying for. I’d have willingly taken Irina’s place to save her from the death you bestowed on her. I’d do anything to see you locked up.’

  Sammler jabbed his finger violently at Slonský.

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what you can’t stand. It’s not really about poor little Irina getting killed. It’s the fact that I’ll never face trial for it. It’s the fact that you don’t have any useful evidence — no forensics, no witnesses, no accusatory letters, not a thing. I could stand here and shout that I killed her, and you’d have to let me walk away. Free! And if you kill me, what does that make you? A common murderer. Is that what Czech law does for you? Is killing unarmed civilians okay with you? Is that what you want to be, Slonský? My murderer?’

  Slonský stared into the spiteful eyes before him.

  ‘I can live with that,’ he said, taking a stride forward and firing left-handed into Sammler’s right temple. Sammler looked uncomprehending for a moment before slumping back against the tree trunk and sliding down it. Moving quickly, Slonský peeled off his thin evidence glove, turned it inside out, placed it on Sammler’s right hand and rubbed it vigorously to transfer any powder residue. Removing the glove again, he wrapped Sammler’s fingers around the butt of the Makarov, pushed the car keys into Sammler’s pocket, kicked some rotting leaves over any traces he may have left, and walked back to the main road, picking up the microphone as he went.

  ‘You can come for me now, Navrátil,’ he said, and began to walk along the road towards Jenerálka. A bus went past, but he ignored it. The only person he wanted to see was his young assistant, but Navrátil was not to be seen.

  Slonský had been walking for about forty minutes when the car came towards him, and Navrátil stepped out. They stood facing each other in silence for a minute or so, then Navrátil held out a piece of paper.

  ‘Receipt for the two coffees and pastries we had in Prague this afternoon,’ he explained.

  Slonský took it unsmilingly, and slipped it into his wallet before getting into the car.

  Epilogue

  In the wake of Sammler’s death, Slonský had made a strange promise to himself. He would not lie about what had happened. If anyone realised that he had shot Sammler, he would admit it. It was not something that he was ashamed of. All he had done was rectify a failing in the law. Of course, he would go to jail for it, but the only person who knew, Navrátil, had kept his mouth tight shut. In fact, Navrátil had rationalised it away by telling himself that if he knew for certain that Slonský had killed Sammler he would have to report it, but by avoiding asking about it he could keep himself in ignorance and thus have nothing that he needed to report. It therefore suited both men not to mention the subject and they never had. From the moment that Navrátil picked Slonský up by the side of the road after the death they had said not a single word about that day.

  Dr Novák’s report had been unequivocal. The gun was in Sammler’s hand, and had only Sammler’s prints on it. There was some powder residue on Sammler’s thumb and index finger. The bullet had undoubtedly come from the gun found at the scene. It was an open and shut case.

  The body had been found after a bus driver reported that a car had been by the side of the road for several days. When Slonský had turned up at Sammler’s office on the following morning for their pre-arranged interview, Sammler’s secretary had been forced to confess that they did not know where he was. Slonský had duly reported as much to Captain Lukas, so Lukas had asked all police to look out for the car and its owner. Once the car was traced, a few policemen walked up into the nearby woods and found the body against a tree. Lukas was convinced that Sammler had realised that the game was up and had taken the easy way out rather than go to jail for a long time. The only slightly untidy part was that Sammler’s secretary had deposed that Slonský had asked for the appointment, claiming to have important new evidence, but the old detective had admitted to Lukas that this had been a bluff. It had obviously frightened Sammler, and Lukas contented himself with the thought that this just proved the man’s guilt, since he plainly believed that there could be important new evidence, whereas if he had been innocent he would have demanded to know what it was before agreeing to the interview.

  The atmosphere in the office had been difficult for a while, but Navrátil was brightening considerably as the day approached when Officer Peiperová would be free to take up her new post in the detective division. Of course, she would not work directly for Slonský, but at least they were in the same building. Navrátil had not yet broached the question of sharing a flat with her, but the girl had to live somewhere and his own small flat was highly unsuitable. His mother would be shocked if Peiperová moved in, largely because she had never heard of her. He really must get around to mentioning it someday. Just not quite yet, he thought.

  BOOK TWO: SLAUGHTER AND FORGETTING

  Chapter 1

  Holoubek was still sprightly for his age. He admired his physique in the shop window as he waited for the tram. Still slim, with barely a hint of a paunch. He looked after himself, and it showed in his appearance. His trousers had a crease, and he only needed his glasses for reading if the light was not too good, which it frequently was not in Prague at this time of year, as winter grudgingly gave way to what was laughingly called spring.

  As with many men of his generation, he wore a hat, but then you would have to be silly not to do so with a wind like this one, whisking up any loose paper and driving it against the parked cars. He did not bother with gloves, though, and checked his hands for any sign of blueness. There were a few scattered liver spots, and the skin was rather papery in places, but he still had a firm grip and at least he did not shake like his old friend Miklín. Well, like Miklín used to shake, because he was long since dead. He had been quite lucky, because he had been worried about the progression of his Parkinson’s disease and fortunately walked out in front of a bus while he was thinking about it. So every cloud has a silver lining, thought Holoubek, though admittedly Miklín probably would not have seen it that way.

  Holoubek remembered Miklín lying there on the ground. Oddly, he had not looked frightened; just very surprised, as if a bus was the last thing he had expected to hit him as he jaywalked across the street. He had lived for a few minut
es after the collision, but was unable to speak. Just as well, because his language was shocking when he was in his prime, so goodness knows what he would have said about being run over by a bus. And not even a Czech bus either; it was a German tour bus, all glass and swirling paint along the side. Miklín could see the dent in the front where his hip had made contact with the grille, and was satisfied to note that the headlight was broken. Funny how you remember those things, thought Holoubek. I can’t remember what I had for tea yesterday, and yet I can remember a road accident thirty years ago and the look on the victim’s face.

  The tram was late. Only a minute or so, but what is the point of a timetable if the drivers do not keep to it? Things were slack nowadays, Holoubek told himself. People blamed the young, but Holoubek did not. It was the young who were going to have to tidy up the mess the world was in, and it was not their fault. He blamed their parents, his children’s generation. Long sideburns, leather jackets, suede boots, ridiculous moustaches like Mexican bandits, and the women all flopping around with no proper underwear on and not a trace of make-up. Certainly there were some women who could do without make-up, but this lot were not among them. There was one across the street now. Must be fifty if she was a day, and she was wearing an orange tie-dye top and jeans. Jeans were all right if you had the figure for them, but her rear end looked like a badly packed rucksack.

  The bell of the tram brought him back to this world. Holoubek climbed aboard and waved his pass in the air like they used to in the old days, when citizens were likely to report you if you travelled without a ticket. Not so public-spirited now, he thought. To his surprise, a young student offered him a seat, which Holoubek politely declined. Do I look that old, he wondered, looking around to see if anyone was inspecting him.

  His son did not like him to travel around on his own, but Holoubek had lived in Prague all his life, and he knew every centimetre of it, except the new bits, of course. When he wanted to check his mind was still working properly, he would set himself the task of plotting a journey across town, recalling all the trams and buses and the best places to change. He had never really taken to the metro for some reason, unlike Cerha. Cerha was a companion he sometimes bumped into at the Red Apple, and they would compete to work out the routes. Holoubek was unsure whether Cerha was telling the truth when he said some of these journeys could be done by metro, or simply claiming to have won on the basis that Holoubek would not be able to disprove his route.