Lying and Dying
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LYING AND DYING
Josef Slonský Mysteries
Book One
Graham Brack
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
SLAUGHTER AND FORGETTING
A NOTE TO THE READER
Chapter 1
There are some beautiful parts of Prague, thought Bear, but Holešovice is not one of them.
He plodded on through the cold morning air, hands thrust deep into his jacket pockets and shoes crunching on the ice that was scattered in lumps on the pavement. Few tourists came to this part of town, though Bear conceded to himself that the Letná was a nice park, somewhere to take the children on a Sunday and unwind a bit. The looming bulk of the Arena reminded him that there was always the hockey to come here for, the regular winter entertainment that he enjoyed when he could afford it, which was not too often, and when he was off shift, which seemed to happen even less.
He glanced at his watch. 04:24. Whoever heard of a shift starting at a quarter to five? When the latest agreement had been reached with the railway management, the hours to be worked had turned out not to be easily divisible by the number of days to be worked, with the result that one of the team had to come in a quarter of an hour early each morning by rotation. Since they could do nothing useful until the others turned up fifteen minutes later, Bear failed to see any point in this arrangement, but rules are rules, so here he was, tramping in to work on a frosty February morning in Holešovice.
He carried on down Za Elektrárnou and rounded the corner into Partyzánská. Even the bufet was still shut. They had the good sense not to open until six, so he never managed to get any breakfast there. He could see the metro station ahead of him, and just below it the service road he followed to enter the mainline station where he worked. There was someone sleeping on the concreted area where a couple of cars could park. Poor so and so — it had been a cold night, hardly fit for sleeping rough, even if they were well bundled up.
As he drew closer, he wondered if he should wake the sleeper up and urge him to move before the police drove past and ran him in. It might be kinder to let him spend a couple of nights in a nice warm cell. Illogically, Bear decided that he would look at the sleeper’s face. If he looked young and innocent, he would wake him. If, on the other hand, he was a wino, Bear would leave him alone.
Thus it was that Bear passed by around three metres from the sleeper’s feet, only to see that the person was not sleeping. The staring eyes told him that. She also had a protruding tongue and what looked like a livid scratch on her neck. Bear had seen a few dead bodies during his military service, so he did not panic, but looked around for help. There was a man coming over the brow heading towards the tram stop, whom Bear hailed. It so happened that the newcomer had a cellphone, which they used to summon the police, but then he said he had seen nothing that the police could possibly want to know and he dared not be late for work, so he headed for the tram. As for Bear, he had no great love of work, and this offered a perfect reason to delay going there, so he sat patiently waiting for the police to arrive.
The uniformed police were first, but within moments they had summoned the detectives on duty and retreated to the warmth of their car. They allowed Bear to sit in the back, but kept the window wound down so that they could order people to keep well away from the body. After about twenty minutes a battered old police car pulled up behind them, and a battered old policeman climbed out, stretched himself, and turned his collar up against the sharp wind.
Josef Slonský had been a policeman in Prague for nearly forty years, working his way up from the lowest of the low to a position of almost no influence whatsoever. Although he was a lieutenant, he never expected to make captain, and did not care one bit. His remaining ambition in the police force was to make it to retirement age without any young yob bashing his skull in with a lump of wood, and needling his superiors just enough to satisfy his sense of insubordination without leaving him vulnerable to reprisals. In this he had done extremely well, and Captain Lukas regularly read the police handbook to see if there were grounds to let Slonský go early.
The old detective scratched his thigh thoughtfully and surveyed the crime scene.
‘Navrátil?’
‘Sir?’
‘Had breakfast?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Me neither. Damn. Have a word with the troglodytes in the squad car while I go and see what’s what.’
Navrátil was uncertain exactly what sort of word was needed, but after two days with Slonský he was beginning to understand his new boss. Slonský did not really want someone from the academy to care for, but he did want someone to be a gofer for him. In return for small domestic services like making coffee, he was prepared to dispense occasional pearls of wisdom that might benefit Navrátil’s career. Lots of people told Navrátil that Slonský was a good cop. None of them actually wanted to work with him, but they were all agreed that he was a good cop.
Navrátil hovered by the window, hoping to be invited into the warm car, but there was no sign of such a courtesy from his uniformed colleagues. They explained that the guy in the back seat was the one who had called them, and they had then called the detectives’ office. No, they had not called a pathologist, because that was a decision for the detective when he arrived on the scene.
Navrátil walked over to Slonský.
‘Should I call a pathologist?’
‘Bit late for a bloody dentist,’ Slonský replied, and walked off to inspect the head from another angle.
Chapter 2
Dr Novák knew Slonský of old. Each had a healthy public contempt for the other’s profession tempered by the knowledge that the other was a good exponent of it. The detectives let Novák do his work for a few minutes before curiosity got the better of them.
‘Any idea who we’re looking for?’ asked Slonský.
‘You’re after a left-handed dwarf, red hair, slight stoop, smokes French cigarettes.’
Navrátil flipped open his notebook.
‘Don’t bother,’ Slonský told him. ‘Dr Novák always blames things on left-handed dwarves. If we ran them all in this would be a crime-free paradise.’
Novák smiled. Behind his thick glasses his luminous blue eyes glinted with pleasure.
‘It’s hard to get a good time of death because she wasn’t killed here. There’s no blood and the livid patch isn’t the lowest point, so the body has been moved. I’ll do the usual back at the mortuary, but for now I’m satisfied that she was strangled somewhere else and brought here. I know the temperature here, and I know her temperature now, but I don’t know what it was when she was left here or where she was before that. My guess — but don’t hold me to it — is that she was killed around midnight and brought here about two to three o’clock.’
Slonský nodded. ‘There are people coming and going up until midnight, so the murderer would risk being seen. On the other hand, you don’t want to be stopped driving around Prague with a stiff in the passenger seat.’
‘How do you know she wasn’t in the boot?’ asked Navrátil.
Novák grinned. ‘Tell him!’
‘You see, son, women are a lot heavier than you’d think when they’re dead. Try lifting a dead one out of a car boot, even assuming you’ve been able to fold her into it, and you’ll do yourself a mischief. Look at how she’s lying. She was sitting in the passenger seat, probably with a seat-belt holding her upright. In the dark she would just look like she was having a nap to anyone who spotted her. Then when they arrived here the murderer reversed into the space, opened the door, and just gave her a nudge. Then he pulled the feet free of the car, checked no-one was looking, and took off.’
‘How do you know he reversed?’
‘Because you have to do any criminal the courtesy of assuming he isn’t a complete idiot. First, he would want to tip the body out on the side away from the main road in case anyone passed by. Second, the front seat is marked by where she fell on the ground. If he drove in forwards, she would be almost on the grassy bank and nearer the end of the concrete. Unless, of course, she drove herself here after she was strangled, in which event we’re looking at the wrong side of the car. But all in all, I think you’ll find my hypothesis is more likely.’
Novák was directing the photographer’s attention to the key points he wanted recording.
‘He’s a bright lad, is old Slonský. Listen to him, son, and one day you might make it to the dizzy heights of lieutenant.’
Slonský took it in good part. ‘Haven’t you got an anus to swab somewhere?’
‘All in good time. Don’t mind me. I’ll carry on here while you go and talk to that nice man who found the body.’
Slonský could see no reason to put it off any longer and ambled across to the car. The policemen swiftly urged Bear to get out to speak to the lieutenant.
‘Tell me what you saw.’
Bear told him.
‘There wasn’t anyone taking a length of rope off the neck of the woman when you got here?’
‘Course not.’
‘I know. Just hoping. One day, by the law of averages…’
Slonský turned back to look at Novák busily gesticulating to the photographer, the paramedics with their body bag, and a passer-by who was passing by too close.
‘Thanks for calling us, Mr … Bear. Why do they call you Bear?’
Bear opened the top two buttons on his shirt to reveal a mat of black hair.
‘Fair enough,’ said Slonský. ‘If we’ve got your address you can go.’
‘Gave it to these boys,’ Bear replied, and began to walk along the side road, keeping well away from the body on the other side.
Slonský called after him. ‘Bear! One last question.’
Bear turned round and stopped.
‘Where’s the best place around here to get a sausage?’
Navrátil cradled the hot coffee.
‘Not hungry?’ asked Slonský.
‘Had one.’
‘I know. I saw you. But you’re a growing lad.’
‘I’m full.’
Slonský shrugged. Young men today! He took another slug of coffee, a bite of his párek and sighed with satisfaction.
‘Not a bad sausage, this. For fifty crowns, that is.’
‘Sir,’ began Navrátil, ‘shouldn’t we be out … doing something?’
‘We are doing something, Navrátil. We’re preparing ourselves for a long day with a decent breakfast.’
‘But the murderer —’
‘Keep your voice down! He could be here, for all we know.’
Navrátil gulped. ‘He could be getting away.’
‘He could,’ conceded Slonský. ‘But since we don’t know who he is and we can’t arrest all one million, two hundred thousand inhabitants and hold them for questioning, it’s not clear to me why we need to skip breakfast. Carry on like that, lad, and you’ll fade away to nothing long before you make captain.’
This was not something likely to happen to Slonský, who was rather generously proportioned. There were three reasons for this. First, he had a genetic disposition to the fuller figure (he claimed), a propensity evidenced by his aunt whose backside he alleged had been the model for the plinth of the Stalin statue overlooking the river. Second, Slonský had a prodigious appetite and rarely missed a meal. He claimed that this did not affect him because the furious workings of his brain consumed any number of calories and kept him slim and trim. Third, he was without any doubt the laziest policeman in Prague, and probably in Central Europe. Slonský rarely saw the need to rush, and was frequently to be found conserving his energy with his feet on his desk. When Captain Lukas queried this, Slonský told him that complete physical immobility was a prerequisite if the mental processes were not to be interfered with by extraneous nervous signals from moving muscles. Since he solved the case he was working on within a couple of hours — a denouement made more likely by the fact (that he omitted to tell Lukas) that he already had a signed confession — Slonský had been left to do his own thing thereafter. However, this was the first time that he had been trusted with an academy graduate of his own to corrupt.
Slonský finished his párek and grabbed his hat and gloves.
‘Come on, Navrátil. We haven’t got time to waste sitting here in the warm.’
Navrátil opened his eyes wide. He hoped he had not dropped off in the warm interior of the café, where the fire reminded him of his grandmother’s house with its sweet smell of gas.
‘Sorry, sir. Where are we going now?’
‘Back to headquarters. We don’t have any forensics to go on, we don’t have a suspect and we don’t have a motive, so I reckon our best bet is trying to find out who the victim is. She didn’t have a handbag with her so we’d best see what missing persons reports have come in.’
They arrived at the car and Slonský opened the passenger side door.
‘You can drive.’
‘Forgive my asking, sir, but do you drive?’
‘I’ve got a licence. Army gave it to me when I did my national service. They wanted me to drive a tank, Navrátil, so I took it for a spin round Hungary when we were on manoeuvres. Good place to learn to drive, Hungary is; big, flat, open plain and very few buildings.’ He paused for effect. ‘One less now. Those things turn on a fly’s armpit, Navrátil. You should have seen the fraternal greetings I got from the Hungarian sitting on the outside privy.’
‘You ran over a privy?’
‘Of course not. No, I demolished his house while he was in the privy. If I’d run over the privy he’d have been salami and he wouldn’t have been so upset. Still, he got some compensation and a new house somewhere, I shouldn’t wonder. Navrátil, that light was red. I know we’re the police but it looks bad if you jump lights, son.’
‘Sorry, sir. I must have been distracted.’
‘Anyway, in answer to your question, I can drive, but I don’t. What’s the point of a car in Prague? The roads are choked, there’s no parking anywhere and the metro is cheap and quick. Of course, I get a car, but then I can do my charitable bit by letting you drive, Navrátil, because you wouldn’t qualify for a car, so I let you drive mine. Say “Thank you, Lieutenant”.’
‘Thank you, Lieutenant.’
‘Think nothing of it, Navrátil. I certainly do. Hang on, I just want to get a couple of rolls at the bakery. Pull up on the crossing, I won’t be long.’
The note of Novák’s telephone message was succinct. “There is something here you will want to see”, it said.
‘We’ll take him at his word,’ said Slonský. ‘Get the car started, lad, and I’ll be down in a minute.’
Navrátil put his coat back on, grabbed his notebook and looked for a spare pen. When he reached the front door Slonský was already in the passenger seat.
‘Sorry, sir. Thought you had something to do.’
‘I did. And I did it. First rule of police work, Navrátil: never miss a chance to splash your boots. Who knows when it’ll come round again?’
They drove to the pathology department
where Dr Novák was in mid-autopsy, but they were ushered in.
‘Is this one mine?’ asked Slonský.
‘She is. Mid to late twenties, a bit of cosmetic dentistry, probably locally done, no distinguishing marks.’
‘No tattoos? I thought all young women got themselves tattooed now.’
‘Not this one.’
‘Inconsiderate bitch. Anything else?’
Novák paused for dramatic effect.
‘Yes, there’s something very interesting under her knickers.’
‘You’ll excite the boy. Navrátil, pay no attention to this sad old man. Every woman has something interesting under her knickers, so I’m told.’
‘Not like this one, Slonský. This one is without parallel in my experience.’
Novák walked round the table to their side and prepared to re-enact the first part of the post mortem examination.
‘We removed her clothing and laid her here —’
‘Can’t you get arrested for that?’
‘You’re the policeman, you tell me. It didn’t take us long to notice that there was something very unusual in her vagina.’
Novák held out a tray, in which there was a small plastic bag containing a roll of coloured paper.
‘You can handle it. I’ve finished with it now.’
Slonský donned some gloves.
‘Have you counted it?’
‘Counted and recorded,’ Novák replied. ‘Two hundred and forty-nine thousand, two hundred and fifty crowns.’
‘My piggy bank had a slit in its back,’ Slonský said, ‘but I suppose this works just as well. That’s a decent amount of money, but a hell of an awkward place to keep it if you need to pay off a taxi.’
‘It would have been,’ agreed Novák, ‘but I don’t think she put it there. It had urine on the outside.’
‘Now you tell me,’ Slonský complained, his face crumpled with distaste.
‘I’ve washed it. And a bit of pee never hurt anyone. My point is that the likeliest reason for that is that her bladder emptied when she died and the urine got on the bag as someone inserted it.’