The Woman from Bratislava

by Leif Davidsen

  Kroszel’s German was slow, but easy to understand. He presented a factual report, outlining all the facts of the case, and these Toftlund carefully jotted down in his notebook. He could almost have been sitting at the station in Middelfart, listening to a Danish colleague bringing him up to date on an ongoing case. Police detectives worked in pretty much the same way everywhere in Europe, so it seemed. At any rate they all spoke the same dry, dispassionate language. There was nothing they didn’t know about the follies of mankind. Few facets of human nature were beyond their ken. Their remit was clear, in one case after another: find enough evidence to make it stand up in court, then it was on to the next one. Because there was always another case waiting to be dealt with.

  The Danish citizen Niels Lassen had been found in the morning, after his daughter had begun to wonder why he had not come down for breakfast and did not answer the phone when she called his room. He had been killed by repeated blows to the back of the head with a blunt instrument. The first blow had killed him instantly. With a face void of expression Krozsel handed Toftlund the pictures taken by the forensic photographer. The back of Lassen’s head was a tangled mass of blood and hair. The body lay curled up beside the window in a foetal position. The eyes were wide open. He was wearing only underpants. Next to him lay the white bathrobe provided by the hotel as part of their service. Other photographs showed the room. It was a perfectly ordinary, decent hotel room containing a bed, a television, a table and two chairs. It had been ransacked: clothes, newspapers, books were scattered everywhere. The chair had been tipped over. The duvet and sheet had been pulled off the bed, the mattress slit. Two empty suitcases had also been ripped open.

  Toftlund handed back the pictures.

  ‘How did the killer or killers get in?’ he asked.

  ‘Well the door doesn’t appear to have been forced,’ Krozsel said. ‘Although that doesn’t mean much, I’m afraid. Hotel guests are not as careful as they ought to be. Most of them will open the door if someone knocks. Also, it’s very easy to get hold of the – what do you call it – the master key. Cleaners, room service – you know. Will I go on?’

  Toftlund nodded and Krozsel continued. Per could tell that he was desperate for a cigarette, but the colonel did not smell of smoke so he was obviously not going to allow that. Which suited Toftlund fine.

  The Hungarian CID had interviewed the hotel staff and residents, paying particular attention to those from Denmark. Niels Lassen’s movements were easily reconstructed. He had attended the opera with the Danish delegation. They had got back to the hotel around eleven and had a drink in the bar. Lassen had gone to bed around midnight, as had most of the Danish party, only a few had hung on in the bar for another hour, among them Lassen’s daughter. She had passed the door of her father’s room on her way to her own, but had not heard anything. The investigation had been complicated slightly right from the start by the fact that Lassen’s room was registered in the name of Theodor Nikolaj Pedersen, Danish citizen, and Niels’s daughter had, naturally enough, been in a bit of a state. The leader of the delegation, Klaus Brandt, had cleared up the misunderstanding. The hotel had been reprimanded for not keeping its register properly updated. The pathologist estimated time of death to be around four a.m. The hour when the hotel was at its quietest. There were no signs of the victim having put up a fight. No traces of skin under the fingernails. It was their belief that Lassen had opened the door, taken two steps back or been pushed and then hit hard on the back of the head. The only fingerprints found in the room were those of the deceased and another set which had been identified as belonging to one of the cleaners. The deceased’s daughter had observed that traveller’s cheques, his Visa card, some cash, a CD player, mobile phone and a laptop computer – make: Compaq Presario – were all missing. The police had come to the conclusion that it was a case of a robbery which had gone wrong, but they had no suspects. Inquiries among the criminal fraternity had not turned up anything new.

  Krozsel raised his eyes and closed the file. A wasted life lay within those covers, Toftlund thought to himself. What he said was:

  ‘What about the hotel’s security cameras?’

  ‘We’ve looked at the tapes covering the lobby, the main entrance, the casino and the car park. There are a lot of comings and goings, as you might imagine, but no known faces. Or any suspicious looking individuals, for that matter. Sorry.’

  ‘Not even this woman?’ Toftlund asked, placing the photograph of Maria on the table in front of Krozsel, who glanced first at it then at the colonel, who nodded imperceptibly.

  ‘If it’s alright with you, Colonel Karancsi would like to come back to this woman a little later, but I am authorised to say that she does not appear on the videotapes, nor do we have any witnesses placing her anywhere near the hotel or in Budapest at all, come to that. We will of course let you know if we catch the person or persons who did this. But the odds are not great, I’m afraid. That is the downside of freedom. The great gulf between rich and poor. The soaring rise in crime. We have a lot of gypsies in Budapest. We lie on the outskirts of the Balkans. We attract a lot of shady characters.’

  Krozsel sat back. As if that was the end of the matter. Or at least, that’s how it seemed to Toftlund. While it might not officially be shelved, the case would now be added to the steadily growing pile of paperwork which the overworked and underpaid police officers of this new era had to wade through every day.

  ‘Is there any way of getting into the hotel without being caught on film?’ Toftlund asked.

  ‘It’s possible, yes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Unfortunately the camera covering the service entrance was out of order. The security manager felt it was safe to wait until the next day to get it fixed.’

  ‘Had it been out of order long?’

  ‘It had been tampered with.’

  ‘When did you discover this?’

  ‘Not until yesterday, I’m afraid.’

  ‘So it looks like there’s been some planning behind it, after all.’

  ‘That was our conclusion too. Unfortunately, Chief Inspector. Our gangs are both professional and ruthless. We have a lot of hotel robberies. But for the sake of our tourist trade we tend not to publicise the fact.’

  Toftlund thought for a moment, then he said:

  ‘Last question: were any other rooms burgled that night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Doesn’t it make you wonder – to go to so much trouble, all for just one room? I mean, come on – a handful of traveller’s cheques and a computer!’

  ‘That’s not such a bad haul, Inspector. Not in our part of the world, where the standard pension is less than a hundred Deutschmarks a week. But we do not believe the killing of this Danish man was premeditated. Whoever did it panicked and fled. Maybe Mr Lassen refused to hand over his valuables? Maybe he screamed.’

  ‘And no one heard anything?’

  ‘The room on one side was empty. The German gentleman on the other side had a young lady in his room. He did not hear anything. He had other things to think about, you might say. Or as he put it, not without a hint of pride: “My own companion was screaming like a stuck pig”.’

  Toftlund could not help smiling. And Krozsel smiled back. One cop to another. Sorry pal, you know how it is, that smile seemed to say to Toftlund. And with that the Hungarian detective gathered up his papers, rose, shook Per’s hand and left. Clearly the next part of the proceedings was closed to a common DI. Now it was the colonel’s turn.

  Karancsi leaned forward, rested his elbows on the table and clasped his hands under his chin. A ludicrous pose, clearly meant to convey an air of importance, Toftlund thought. He had the suspicion, albeit unfounded, that the colonel was a political appointee and not a professional intelligence officer. Like Gelbert in Poland, but with one crucial difference: sincerity. On the one hand the opportunist who stuck his finger in the air to check which way the wind was blowing, on the other the idealist who believed that he could mak
e a difference.

  Slowly and solemnly Colonel Karancsi said:

  ‘It is a complex situation, Chief Inspector. Extremely complex. I have been given the honourable task of endeavouring to protect our country’s security interests. In that capacity I am, of course, prepared to cooperate at all levels with an allied service, but very recently I was also assigned another role, one which is not necessarily so transnational in nature, if you get my drift?’

  ‘No, I don’t, not at all.’

  ‘No. Well, as I say, it’s complex. Have a look at this picture.’

  He handed Toftlund a colour photograph which he had produced, almost conjuror-like, from the slim folder. A picture of a woman. It was obviously Maria Bujic, but she looked totally different. Her hair was blonde, falling in curls over her collar and she was wearing a pair of ordinary spectacles. She was pictured standing next to a car, regarding the photographer through narrowed eyes, as if she sensed that she was being watched. She was dressed in blue jeans and what looked like an expensive leather jacket.

  ‘That’s her, the woman we know as Maria,’ Toftlund said.

  ‘Yes and no.’

  ‘Now you really have lost me.’

  Karancsi cleared his throat and again pressed his fingertips together affectedly before going on in his halting German:

  ‘We know her as Svetlana Kreisler, Russian citizen, but of German origin. Dating back to Catherine the Great, you know? A Volga German. And as such automatically a German citizen. She also travels on a German passport. She has been coming here for the past four or five years, as far as we know. We believe her to have links not with any national intelligence agency, but with the Russian and Hungarian mafia. This is where I come in, in my other capacity.’

  Again he paused for effect. Toflund waited. Sometimes, during an interrogation or similar situation, it was better to keep one’s mouth shut. To let the silence drag on for so long that one’s interlocutor felt compelled to speak. Toftlund glanced out of the window. The river flowed broad and slow outside. Barges passed endlessly up and down, along with the occasional sightseeing boat. Karancsi cleared his throat again:

  ‘I have been made head of a new department here. One which corresponds, more or less, to the Americans’ Department of Internal Affairs. It has been set up on the instructions of the government and parliament to investigate possible instances of corruption within the national police force. I will therefore have to ask you to regard what I am about to tell you as absolutely confidential. As a private briefing of a representative of a friendly nation. Agreed?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Good. Svetlana appears to have been the go-between in what we refer to as the oil fraud. Possibly even the brains behind it. A con so simple it was almost banal. We have high import taxes on diesel oil in this country and low taxes on heating oil. That’s pretty common in the free world, I believe. These people bought diesel oil abroad, coloured it red so it could be sent through customs as heating oil and then sold it here in Hungary as diesel. Saving millions of dollars in tax and making millions of dollars in profit. It was every con man’s dream. Five years later we still have no clear idea of how much money the Treasury was cheated out of.’

  ‘But what does all this have to do with your Internal Affairs department?’

  ‘Well, let me put it another way: all that money led to a – how do you say – an upgrading of organised crime in this country. It enabled our really rather primitive gangs to organise themselves and expand. Into the classic areas with which you are familiar: prostitution, drugs, stolen cars and money laundering. But they also infiltrated the legitimate business world. We guess – although we’ve no way of knowing for sure – that this fraud has cost the Hungarian state something like four hundred million dollars. That’s four hundred million straight into the pockets of what one could call the mafia.’

  ‘And such a fraud was only possible if the police and customs people were looking the other way?’ Toftlund said.

  ‘Exactly. It is up to me to investigate the extent of the bribery. Even if it means going all the way to the top. It is not only a question of whether an officer or an ordinary policeman has accepted bribes. It is also a matter of checking to see whether it can actually be true, as is claimed, that out of the ten honest, hard-working police detectives in this country who have tried, over the years, to get to the bottom of this case, six committed suicide.’ He cleared his throat, coughed discreetly. ‘We suspect that pathology reports were falsified. Our government employees are not the best paid, you know. It doesn’t take much, I’m afraid. It’s all part of life in our post-communist world. And even if Hungary does have one of the highest suicide rates in the world, there do seem to be rather too many coincidences, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Yes, but I still don’t see any connection between this and a Danish citizen by the name of Niels Lassen. Do you?’

  ‘Not a direct connection, no. But an indirect one. Because, sad to say, Chief Inspector, all of that money which was suddenly put into circulation gave a boost, so to speak, to crime of every shape and form.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I’m glad. Then I hope you will also understand that we cannot offer you any direct assistance. But if you should succeed in apprehending the woman whom you call Maria Bujic we would be extremely grateful to you and to Denmark if you could let us know. I would like a word or two with her.’

  Everybody would like a word or two with that woman, so it seems, Toftlund thought to himself later. He was at the airport, waiting for his plane to Bratislava. He had trout for lunch and drank water with it. The water tasted good. He read through his notes, but could discern no real connection. He still could not shake off the feeling, though, that she was central to the whole thing. At any rate he could well understand the Hungarian colonel. Toftlund was also keen to have a word with the mysterious woman of many faces. He slipped his notebook back into his bag and ordered coffee. Then, for the first time since leaving home he switched on his mobile.

  Toftlund did not trust mobile phones. He did not mind using them to make quick calls during operations in Denmark. At such times he preferred to use a mobile phone rather than a walkie-talkie, which any reporter or amateur detective could tune in to. But when it came to confidential conversations he did not trust mobiles. Intelligence organisations all over the world scanned the airwaves, monitoring calls made on these things. There were computers programmed to react to certain code words. Echelon, some people called this system. Toftlund could not really have cared less what they called it. He simply took it for granted that such a system existed. If he had had the resources, he would have made use of it himself.

  His mobile beeped furiously. There were several messages for him. He called the answering service number. There were two messages from Lise. The first was warm and tender: Hope you’re okay. The other was considerably cooler: Could he possibly find a minute to phone home? He sat for a moment, holding the phone. This was an unwonted situation for him. Never before in his career had he had cause to call home from work. At Customs and Immigration there had been no reason to: you could have set your clock by his shifts. And before that, when he was with PET, he had been single. Toftlund was not, by nature, a great one for analysing things. He had the ability to focus completely on a job, but not for looking inside himself. From his time as a Royal Navy frogman he had learned that if you were to survive the tough demands made on you and the impossible tasks with which you were faced, first during training and then on manoeuvres, you simply had to concentrate on the job in hand and block out everything else. If you allowed thoughts on unrelated or personal matters to hinder the completion of your mission then sooner or later you would come to grief. Instinct, reinforced by his military training told him that for the sake of his sanity it was best to compartmentalise things in his mind. And deal with one thing at a time. So he was surprised, sitting there at the airport, to feel a twinge of guilt. More than a twinge, in fact. Maybe he should have called. But what
would have been the point? He was getting on with his work. If Lise didn’t hear from him it was because he was busy with the case and because things were going as they should. No news was good news.

  He sipped his coffee and considered his little phone. A blessing and a curse. Then he glanced at his watch and keyed in their home number. He waited until he heard the answering machine click in, then he hung up. He sat for a moment. Then he called Lise’s direct number at the newspaper office. This early in the afternoon she would normally be getting on with her work on the arts page of Politiken, and even though she was now on maternity leave it would not have surprised him to find that she had popped into the office. He could hear her telling him that he did actually have her mobile number. There it was again. A blessing and a curse. You were never completely out of touch these days. But the mobile phone had one drawback: it could be traced, wherever it happened to be. The closest radio mast would always betray its location and he did not like that idea at all.

  He was a little taken aback, nonetheless, to discover that she was at the office.

  ‘Lise Carlsen,’ she said. The sound of her voice made him feel warm all over, and to his amazement he suddenly realised that he missed her terribly. It came as something of a shock to him that such feelings could strike him when he was at work. It was as though a breach had been made in the dykes between his different compartments.

  ‘Hi, Lise, sweetheart. It’s me. I miss you. How are you doing?’

  ‘Per. Where are you?’

  ‘In Budapest.’

  ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ she said tartly.

  ‘Well, I haven’t seen anything but airports and offices, so I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘It’s nice of you to call,’ she said in the same crisp, correct tone. As if he were a contact who had been good enough to call her back.

  ‘I thought you were on leave. What are you doing at work?’

  ‘Ganløse got a bit lonely. I wanted to see if my chair still fitted me. And Pernille asked me out for a bite to eat. She felt sorry for me, vegetating out there in the sticks while my husband was gallivanting all over Central Europe and seemed to have forgotten all about his wife.’