by Graham Brack
He produced a penknife and prodded her arm. He didn’t pierce it, but it dented the skin. He repeated this several times, but on the fifth or sixth occasion he drew blood. He gave me the knife and told me to see how hard I could push before I penetrated the skin. Next he tried throwing the knife to see if it stuck in. Finally he started slicing into her skin. He said he wanted to see how many cuts she could tolerate before she passed out.
Suddenly I became aware that her arm was bleeding badly. I told Sedláček we needed to give her first aid and together we carried her to the bathroom, where we tried to stop the blood with towels and a curtain. I tried to make a tourniquet but Sedláček just kept giggling and when I finally got the bleeding from her right arm to stop, he laughed “That was fun. let’s make another one” and cut into her left biceps and armpit. There was a lot of blood and I wanted to send for help but Sedláček said we could fix it.
I don’t know when I realised that she was dying. I felt completely sober and I was shaking Sedláček to make him stop playing his silly games. He punched me quite hard and I knew then that I could not stop this by myself.
I rang the hotel where my father was at the banquet and asked to speak to him. When he came to the phone he told me to calm down and he would come over at once to sort things out. I don’t know how long he took. It seemed to be hours. By the time he came Jana was dead and Sedláček was less aggressive. We ran out to the car and father drove off. He took us to his house and made us shower and change our clothes, then he returned us to the barracks and ordered someone to issue us with some new kit. Although he was in police uniform, he was a major and the quartermaster felt he should obey his orders.
Father told us to say nothing to anyone, and not even to discuss it ourselves in case anyone overheard. After a few days he said that he did not think we were likely to be arrested because the investigation had run out of steam and in any event an incompetent officer had been placed in charge, but he said the best way of ensuring our safety would be if someone else had been convicted of the murder. I did not realise that he was going to make that happen.
I knew that our house had been burgled earlier in the summer and I remember father being very angry because something had been taken and he could not recover it. I heard him say to mother that even if it was found, he could not claim it was his. I heard later that he found the culprit and decided to make an example of him. I knew nothing of this until a Slovak man was hanged for the murder of Jana Válková.
After that I tried to forget the whole episode. Sedláček said we would have to watch out for each other and that this would make us even better friends now that we had a shared secret.
A couple of years later I had completed my service and joined the police. Father told Sedláček that he wasn’t suitable, and suggested that he should stay in the army. He used his influence to have him accepted in a commando unit. I had occasional letters from him telling me how much he enjoyed it. He especially liked mountain training and camping outdoors. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but within a couple of months there were two serious developments.
First, we heard that the police officer who had investigated the murder had discovered proof that the wrong person had been hanged. Father was worried because this officer, whose name I have forgotten, was blaming him for having provided evidence against this Slovak which had now been shown to be false. Fortunately the officer had left the police and he confronted my father personally. My father was able to use his influence to have the officer neutralised before questions were asked.
After that, Sedláček got into trouble with the army. He wounded an officer in a quarrel and I do not know if he was discharged or just ran away. He made his way to Albania where he found a welcome amongst the mountain people who prize a good fighter. He stayed there for over ten years and made a number of firm friendships. I did not hear from him during this time.
When Communism collapsed, he heard that Albanian gangsters were coming to Prague to set up various illegal operations and offered his services as an interpreter and guide. He returned covertly to the Czech Republic and obtained new papers. I did not know that he had created a new identity as my half-brother. He claimed that we had the same father but that his mother had been my father’s mistress. This explained how he was almost the same age and why nobody had previously known of him. By this time, my father was dead and unable to disprove the story.
Over a period of time he took over a large part of the illegal Albanian activity, masquerading under the codename Griba. The Albanians had given him this name because he was skilled at finding and defusing mines, so they called him “The Rake”, like the garden tool.
From time to time our paths crossed, and Sedláček would remind me that he had not forgotten our past, and if I wanted to keep our secret I must ensure that he knew if the police were planning to move against him. When his staff threatened to leak information to the police I would let him know, and he would take whatever action was needed to keep them quiet. In this way he remained immune from prosecution. I admit now that I gave him this information.
However, I did not protect him as has been alleged. I wanted nothing more than to have him arrested. I did not fear this because once he was in prison he would no longer torment me. If he had tried to tell anyone what had happened to Jana Válková, I would have argued that it was fantasy with no evidence and it would have been my word as a police officer against that of a known criminal and fugitive. In my view, I had nothing to fear from his arrest.
This changed when Holoubek began to interest the police in reopening the case. We knew that Holoubek had some information, but despite burgling his flat we could not find it and did not know exactly what it was. As a result of Holoubek’s meddling, we were no longer secure.
I discovered that he had been to see Lt Slonský. I also determined that Lt Slonský had requested some relevant files from the archives. I had been able to remove a few incriminating pages in the past without being noticed but I worried that Lt Slonský might still find something that I had overlooked. I therefore suggested to Sedláček that we should take steps to get the case dropped.
I did not realise that Holoubek would be killed, particularly in so brutal and public a manner. When I heard what had happened I felt quite sick. It was also counter- productive, because it encouraged the said Lt Slonský to investigate more thoroughly, and he is a more formidable adversary.
Sedláček suggested that we had to find some way of deterring Slonský personally. Since we knew nothing dishonourable about him and we did not think that we had any credible threat against him personally, we did not at first know how to do this. Then I remembered that he had brought a young woman to a bar, and that this young woman had addressed him as “Uncle Josef”. Since Slonský has no other family and very few friends, we thought a threat to this woman might deter him. We did not realise that in fact she was a member of the police force newly arrived from some other city.
I wish to state that I made it very clear to Sedláček and his men that this woman was not to be harmed and that she should be held only until Slonský dropped the case.
I am prepared to co-operate to the full with any enquiry.
Slonský put the papers down and looked at Tripka, who was waiting apprehensively for Slonský’s comments.
‘I should put your name down for a creative writing course when you get to prison. You have a definite talent. Of course, I doubt you can string it out for thirty years, but it’ll give you an interest. That said, I’m afraid I can only grade this as a B minus. You haven’t really put the effort in, you see. For a start, there’s no mention of the fact that you stabbed Jana Válková too. If you didn’t rape her it can only have been because you weren’t up to it. Remember we have forensic evidence that two different people did the stabbing, and it was more than just testing to see how hard you could push before the skin popped open. You participated to the full, didn’t you? You’re not giving yourself credit for the part you played. Tha
t’s why there was a cross on her nipple, wasn’t it? Sedláček made one cut and you made the other.
‘Then there’s the choice of language. The officer was neutralised, was he? It sounds like you took him to a vet. He wasn’t “neutralised”; he was kicked to death in cold blood. And it’s very good of you to feel sick about the killing of a senior citizen and former colleague. Do you know what a body looks like when a van runs over it at high speed? But the bit that really offends me is that nowhere in this self-justifying trash is there the word “sorry”. Nowhere is there any acceptance of any responsibility for what happened. Jana was killed because you took some drugs and were too spaced out to realise what had happened, then you were too weak to intervene. How many times do you say that you didn’t realise, you didn’t know, you didn’t approve? Actually the thing you didn’t do was give a toss. That nasty Sedláček put you up to all this, did he? Your father could sort all the rest out for you — a scandalous misuse of his office and rank, by the way — but he couldn’t sort out Sedláček? Tell me, where is your father’s headstone? I may want to relieve myself later.’
Tripka had taken refuge in tears again.
‘You’ve got some paper left. I’ll sharpen your pencil, and you can start from scratch. And if you don’t tell me the truth I’ll put you in Sedláček’s cell and show him this account in your handwriting that lays all the blame on him. You know him better than I do — how do you think he’ll take it? Laugh it off, will he? I can picture that winning smile of his as he gouges your eyes out. Now, start writing and this time tell the whole story.’
‘You’re sure you want to do this?’ asked Lukas doubtfully.
Slonský merely nodded.
‘It’ll surprise a lot of people,’ Lukas went on. ‘It’s been a shock to me.’
‘Things change,’ Slonský shrugged. ‘Ideas you used to be certain about become less definite and then you find yourself thinking exactly the opposite.’
‘That’s obvious. Well, if you’re absolutely sure this is what you want I’ll put the wheels in motion. But once I’ve done it, you realise there’s no going back. You can’t have thought about this for long.’
‘I’m going with my gut feeling,’ Slonský explained. ‘It’s rarely let me down over the years.’
Lukas looked into Slonský’s eyes for any sign of doubt, then, seeing none, he reached for his pen, uncapped it, and signed the sheet of paper.
‘I’ll keep it in my desk until the morning in case you change your mind,’ he said.
‘I won’t,’ replied Slonský, ‘but thanks for the thought.’
From his adolescence, Navrátil had pictured what happened when you got engaged. He had replayed the scene many times in his head. He would take his intended for a quiet dinner, the best he could afford. Afterwards they would walk in the woods or along the river, just the two of them, ignoring anyone else who came near their space, and at some point he would invite her to sit on a tree stump or a bench, kneel in front of her and announce his undying love, simultaneously producing a ring from his pocket. He had even practised removing a ring box from his jacket and talking at the same time, just to prove this particular act of multitasking would not be beyond him. If she said yes, he would give her a passionate yet chaste kiss. If she said no, he would give serious thought to romantically heaving himself in the river, because that was how you showed your disappointment.
Peiperová wanted to go to the cinema, to lose herself in another world for an hour or two. The movie was not the sort he would have chosen, since it seemed to consist mainly of young women in their pyjamas talking a lot and he wanted to shout at the screen that the best way of finding out if the journalist loved the blonde one was simply to ask him instead of talking about it to her friends for eighty minutes. It was too late for dinner when they came out, but Peiperová said she would like a párek so Navrátil bought a pair at a stall.
‘Slonský would be proud of you,’ he said. ‘His world revolves around sausages.’
‘And pastries.’
‘And beer. Especially beer.’
‘Do you think he’ll see his wife again?’
‘There’s a lot of anger there for him to overcome. I can’t see it. He’s getting on and he won’t change now. He’s a nice man, a good man, but I fear he’s going to finish up living in one room on his own. When they eventually kick him out, that is, because he’ll never retire voluntarily.’
Peiperová nodded. ‘We’re like a family, aren’t we? It’s one of those discussions my parents used to have — “what are we going to do about granddad?”’
‘I feel a responsibility towards him, and I’ve only known him four months or so.’
‘So do I, and I’ve only been here a fortnight. The most exciting fortnight of my life! What more can possibly happen?’
‘Marry me,’ Navrátil blurted out.
Peiperová froze, the sausage halfway to her mouth.
‘What did you say?’ she asked.
‘Marry me. I hadn’t planned to ask like that, and I haven’t got a ring, and I’ve probably messed it all up now. You haven’t even met my mum yet and I should have told her about you but it’s just that when I saw you hogtied like that…’
‘I hope you’re not one of those boys who gets turned on by tying up women.’
‘Certainly not! I only meant that I realised I wanted to take care of you forever.’
‘We’ve only known each other a short while. Are you sure?’
‘I’m sorry, it was a dumb question, forget I asked. I—’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes what?’
‘Yes, it was a dumb question. But yes, I think I’ll marry you. Not yet, but I will.’
‘When?’ asked Navrátil, his voice breaking with excitement.
‘Can I finish my sausage first?’
‘Not really,’ said Navrátil. ‘It dropped out of your bun when I asked you.’
Slonský had a few glasses in front of him, while Valentin looked more like the disreputable and dishevelled specimen he used to be before dreams of television stardom induced him to comb his hair more than once a week and wear matching socks.
‘It worked out all right, old friend,’ said Valentin.
‘We’ve got Tripka. And I think there’s enough to nail Sedláček too. A confession would be good, but I doubt he’ll be that obliging. I just need to get Tripka to own up to what he did so the judge doesn’t think he put the blame on his mate to save his own skin.’
‘But he did.’
‘That’s why I need him to rewrite his confession. At the moment you’d think the pair of them were Adolf Hitler and Mother Teresa. I’m hungry. Do you think they’ll have any sausages left?’
Slonský was in luck. The waiter soon returned with a plate of sausages, sauerkraut and onions. While these last two were technically vegetables, Slonský was prepared to eat them as necessary accoutrements to a good sausage, provided he had enough beer to wash them down.
‘When did you know it was Tripka?’
‘I was sure it was a policeman when Holoubek was killed so soon after seeing me. I settled on Tripka after Peiperová was kidnapped.’
‘But the other one had been around Prague for ages. Didn’t anyone recognise him as Sedláček?’
‘It had been over ten years when he came back, and it was a few more years before he started making serious money. He’d gone grey and lost a bit of muscle.’
‘So what put you on to him?’
‘That newspaper story you found. I’d been trying to find one killer for all the victims, but then it struck me that it didn’t have to be the same one. The fact that Hruška saw soldiers confirmed the way I was thinking. I’d realised that when Válková was killed young Tripka would have been doing his national service. And I’d also realised that the dislike between old Tripka and Vaněček was such that Tripka could well have engineered Vaněček’s killing. I just couldn’t see who would have helped Vaněček by framing Bartoš. Of course, if you want
to get off a charge, finding someone else to carry the can is a good move, but I couldn’t see why it had to be Bartoš until his mother mentioned the money. After that it was clear in my head. Young Tripka had to be involved in the killing of Jana Válková, and the old man had covered it up and found a scapegoat. I started by believing that the spat with Vaněček three years later must have been about something else, and that eventually Tripka had eliminated him, but why take the risk of killing someone who had lost anyway? Then it dawned on me that it must be fear that the case was going to be blown open. That would cause a killing, because it was the only way the Tripkas would ever be safe. The Mandy thing was a confirmatory detail — plenty of us listened secretly to Western radio, but only an StB agent would sing American tunes publicly. I still need one or two more things ironing out, but we’re almost there now.’
‘A job well done, Josef. You must be very pleased.’
‘Actually, old friend, I’m feeling flat, dejected, tired, old, you name it. Get your thesaurus out, because I’ve run out of adjectives. Young Tripka had done all this and he was still one of the police force’s top men. Why hadn’t we spotted him? How many others are there in high places with dirty pasts? When Communism fell I thought we’d clear all these villains out and I’d see a proper, honest police force doing what I joined the police to do — to sort out crime and keep people safe. Here I am, coming up to retirement and we haven’t finished the job. Thank God for the likes of Navrátil and Peiperová who may just be good enough to complete the spring cleaning.’