Death On Duty

by Graham Brack

  ‘I’m not discarding him, Slonský, just facing facts. I have to be prepared for any contingency. If Lukas returns all well and good, and I can’t advertise his job while he is still in post. But we need to make proper arrangements to replace him, either temporarily or permanently. I’ve been looking at some personnel files for the department.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Ah indeed. Yours is a thick one. Quite a few disciplinary notes in it, I see.’

  ‘In my defence, sir, a lot of those were earned under the old regime.’

  ‘And quite a few weren’t. However, there’s nothing in there that prevents your being promoted if you choose to apply. The big thing is that none of the disciplinary hearings involve money or sex.’

  ‘I have no use for either, sir.’

  The Director looked at his briefcase as if it might bear a script for his next utterance.

  ‘I trust you to keep this to yourself. I am not unambitious, Slonský. I am aware that the National Director of the Police Service is retiring next July. That is a little over seven months away. I hope that I don’t come across as conceited if I say that I hope I would be a strong candidate.’

  ‘I’m sure you would, sir. I’d vote for you.’

  ‘Thank you. But if I go, and Lukas still hasn’t returned, there’ll be a risk that there will be nobody around who appreciates your qualities. Put simply, if you aren’t a captain by July, you may never make it.’

  ‘I appreciate your frankness, sir, but I’m completely unambitious. I don’t mind staying a lieutenant until I retire.’

  The Director leaned forward. It was quite intimidating.

  ‘That’s fine, but do you mind having Dvorník or Doležal as your boss? Or a complete stranger brought in from outside?’

  Slonský felt a pang to his heart. That was a low blow. However much he told himself that he had no interest in promotion, he certainly did not want to have to call Doležal ‘sir’. Time for some honesty, he thought.

  ‘I certainly do, sir,’ he said. ‘I would rather swallow rat-poison.’

  The Director stood.

  ‘Then get your application ready or pray that Lukas recovers quickly. He’s a good man, Slonský. When I visited him he told me his concern was that you would not be willing to carry on his good work, so I said I would have a word with you. I’ve done that, and it’s now for you to decide what to do. Personally, looking at this folder and its enclosures, I think you may owe Lukas one. Actually, you probably owe him about eleven.’

  ‘At least.’

  The Director offered his hand, which Slonský took.

  ‘Of course, if you foul up your current case you could be checking passports at the airport six months from now. But I don’t think that’s likely. A positive result would help your prospects, though.’

  ‘I’ll see if I can find a likely suspect and frame him, sir.’

  The Director smiled. ‘You’re the officer least likely to do that, Slonský. Kuchař!’

  The door opened and the young lieutenant stood to attention in the doorway.

  ‘Were you eavesdropping, Kuchař?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Did you accidentally hear anything?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘If you did, forget it at once, or your father will be receiving some of your most interesting parts through the post.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘My car, Kuchař.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Navrátil had paid a visit to Technician First Class Spehar who had been fascinated by the question he had to ask, but had referred him to Hynek for an answer.

  Hynek was a person to whom normal dress codes did not apply. On this particular morning he was wearing a black t-shirt bearing an image of a clenched fist and the slogan ‘Anarchy Rules OK’ in English, together with checked Bermuda shorts. His long wavy hair erupted from his cap like a punctured horsehair sofa, and over it all he wore a navy blue anorak. Although he was indoors he had the hood up.

  He offered a large, pudgy hand. ‘Lemme see,’ he said.

  Navrátil held out the helmet and watched as Hynek deftly extracted the earpiece.

  ‘Primitive stuff,’ he said. ‘Wonder which idiot gave him this crap?’

  Spehar examined it, rolling it over as it nestled in Hynek’s bear-paw hand. ‘It’s a model we’ve used, but not lately. The problem is that you can’t encrypt this one on the fly.’ Seeing that the importance of this was not clear to Navrátil, he expanded this view. ‘The microphone collects a signal and sends it to the earpiece. That’s straightforward. But anybody passing by with a radio scanner might intercept it and hear it too. And if you record the signal it’s not much use in court because the defence will say that the signal could have come from anywhere so you can’t prove that it is linked to the person you say is being recorded. So we use a model where the microphone encodes the sound electronically and the receiver unencodes it. You can’t tell as the listener because it happens instantaneously, but it can’t be done with this little chap.’

  ‘Old crap,’ agreed Hynek.

  ‘The question for me,’ Navrátil explained, ‘is whether we can find the microphone that this is tuned to. It’s presumably concealed somewhere and we need to know where.’

  Hynek laughed. ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes. Can it be done?’

  ‘Child’s play.’

  Hynek went to a steel cupboard and yanked the doors open. It looked like a teenager’s wardrobe inside. One shelf was far from being level and there was a guitar inside, together with an assortment of cardboard boxes, an ice-hockey stick, a basketball and a large number of cables with assorted coloured terminals on them. Hynek rummaged inside, dropped the basketball on the floor and finally found what he was looking for. He had a black plastic box with a rotating switch on the face. He clicked a rocker switch on the side. ‘Needs new batteries.’

  A further excavation produced a small box of batteries from which he extracted two and inserted them in the gadget. This time when he flicked the switch the display panel lit up and a needle twitched across it.

  ‘We’re ready to rock and roll,’ he declared in English.

  Spehar gave Navrátil a look that demonstrated confidence in Hynek’s abilities, if not in his use of language.

  ‘Now,’ Hynek continued, ‘put the earpiece in your ear. When you hear the tone, give me a thumbs up sign.’

  He rotated the dial. Navrátil listened intently. At first he could hear only white noise or silence, but after a few moments the crackling gave way to a low hum and finally to a clear tone. He raised his thumb, and Hynek wrote down a number.

  ‘Same again, just to check. We’ll start from the other end of the spectrum.’

  Again Navrátil lifted a thumb when he heard the tone.

  ‘Bang on,’ said Hynek. ‘We’ve got the wavelength. It’s going to be low power, so you’ll have to go to the murder scene and triangulate from there.’

  ‘Couldn’t you come?’ Navrátil asked innocently. Hynek reacted as if this were the maddest suggestion he had ever heard.

  ‘Me? Out there?’

  Spehar intervened. ‘Hynek is too valuable here. I could come if you wanted.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Navrátil.

  Mollified, Hynek searched the cupboard for another instrument. This one was almost circular and consisted mainly of a dial with a needle at the centre.

  ‘It looks like a compass,’ said Navrátil brightly.

  ‘It doesn’t look like a compass, it is a compass,’ Hynek told him. ‘We use it to determine directions.’

  Despite a brief period of reflection, Navrátil could think of no alternative use, so he nodded, which allowed Hynek to move on to the next item of inventory.

  ‘Directional scanner.’

  He handed this one to Spehar, as if it was far too valuable to give to anyone with Navrátil’s limited technical skills.

  ‘I’ve programmed it to the wavelength,’ he explained.

&n
bsp; Spehar plucked an earpiece from one of the cardboard boxes and tucked it in his pocket.

  ‘We don’t want to be seen using this,’ he said, ‘especially in view of what happened to Hrdlička.’

  A thought occurred to Navrátil. ‘If Hrdlička didn’t get his listening kit from you, where did it come from?’

  Spehar and Hynek looked at each other and shrugged.

  ‘Not from us,’ said Spehar. ‘Can’t think where else he’d get it.’

  Slonský rested his elbows on the desk and dropped his chin onto his cupped hands. ‘Which one?’ he asked.

  Peiperová pointed to the face at the end of the top line.

  ‘That’s Brukić,’ said Slonský. ‘Navrátil knows something about him. He’s an associate of Savović.’

  ‘What does associate mean exactly?’

  ‘Well, someone who associates with someone else, Peiperová. It’s not difficult. And we’d heard he might be in Prague. So this is the man who brought the girls in. Have you got a date?’

  ‘Fifteen weeks and two days ago, sir.’

  ‘That isn’t a date, my girl, that’s a calculation. What actual date?’

  They walked to the calendar on Lukas’ wall and counted back fifteen weeks and two days.

  ‘Get Navrátil to check with his mate in the Bosnian police about that date. They ought to know we’ve got an eye-witness who can place Brukić on that bus with her. Will she give a statement?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. She’s very scared. She says Brukić can be frightening.’

  ‘So can I, Officer Peiperová, and don’t forget it.’

  ‘No, sir,’ Peiperová promised, though she did not believe him. ‘But if she is right, then Brukić and the mysterious Czech man drove a girl to kill herself.’

  ‘Yes,’ mused Slonský. ‘But illegal burial of a corpse isn’t going to put them away for long, if at all. Sex trafficking is a better bet for getting them behind bars. Can you find her again?’

  ‘They don’t let her have a phone, sir. I’ve given her my mobile phone number so she can call me from a callbox.’

  ‘Not on anything that says “Police”, I hope?’

  ‘Back of a card from a florist, sir.’

  ‘Good girl. Innocent enough if someone rifles her handbag.’ Slonský looked at his in-tray. It was depressing. ‘You’re an ambitious girl, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose,’ Peiperová conceded. ‘I want to see how far I can go. But I’ve got a lot to learn yet,’ she added hurriedly.

  ‘Of course you have. But I bet one day you’d like to be a captain, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Go on, give it a try. Sit down, see what it feels like.’

  ‘I couldn’t, sir. That’s Captain Lukas’ place.’

  ‘He’s not here. It’s my seat now. Go on, you may not get the chance again. See if you like it.’

  Peiperová felt torn. It was only a bit of fun, though, so she gave Slonský a conspiratorial grin, ran round the desk and sat down.

  Slonský stood behind her and bent to speak into her ear. His tone was almost seductive. ‘Feels good, doesn’t it? I bet that feels … right, eh? You could make yourself at home there.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good!’ barked Slonský. ‘You’re Acting Acting Captain. I’ve got to get out and do some detecting. Those papers in the tray need dealing with. Check there are receipts pinned to all the forms and leave them on the left side of the desk for me to sign them off. They go upstairs to that woman with the mad-looking hair with the white streak. Anyone who wants leave can’t have it. We’re far too busy. Mark it “Refused” unless you think I should make an exception. Any requisitions that come in need an explanation, so collect the facts and I’ll give you a verbal answer. Any questions, Acting Acting Captain Peiperová?’

  ‘Just one, sir. Is there such a rank as Acting Acting Captain?’

  ‘There is now, lass,’ said Slonský, jamming his hat on his head and making for the door.

  Chapter 6

  Navrátil felt redundant. He perched on the low wall watching Spehar stroll up and down the road, occasionally sneaking a peek at the box in his hand.

  ‘Well?’ he asked after the fifth traverse.

  ‘You’re out of luck,’ Spehar replied. ‘I’ve tried walking on the other side in case it’s very low power, but I’m getting nothing. You’re sure Hrdlička was here?’

  Navrátil stepped a few paces to his left, glanced up at the buildings opposite to check his bearings, and pointed at his feet. ‘This is where he was when he was killed.’

  Spehar took one last look at the gadget he was holding. ‘Then we have to conclude that the microphone isn’t transmitting any longer.’

  ‘Flat battery?’

  ‘More likely it was found and destroyed.’

  Navrátil had not expected this setback, but was determined to squeeze the maximum information from the exercise despite this turn of events. ‘Let’s work backwards. Presumably Hrdlička didn’t know that the microphone had been discovered, because he would have known he’d been rumbled and might be in danger.’

  ‘If he can’t eavesdrop, there’s no reason to stay, is there?’ Spehar agreed.

  ‘So we deduce that it was still transmitting when he was killed. Now, can the person being listened to work out where the hearer is?’

  ‘No. Think of ripples in a pond when you lob a stone in. From any pair of places the pattern of ripples might tell you where the stone must be, but being where the stone is can’t tell you who is watching and where they are.’

  Navrátil stood up and walked to the south a few steps. ‘But you can work out where the hearer can’t be, surely. If someone has one of those boxes you’ve got, he can wander around outside mapping where the signal can be detected. And if it’s as low powered as you think, that wouldn’t take him too far away.’

  Spehar thought for a moment before answering. ‘We can’t be sure because we don’t know what the power was. But I’m guessing that one of these old things wouldn’t stretch across the river, so he’d know the listener must be on this bank. I suppose he could see who was here for a while and deduce that they must be the listener.’

  ‘But they couldn’t be sure. Anyway, Hrdlička had the helmet on, but he didn’t have the earpiece in his ear when he was killed.’

  Spehar put his arm round Navrátil’s shoulder and led him away. ‘I don’t feel comfortable standing where someone was killed. It seems unnecessarily risky to me. Let’s get a coffee at the end of the bridge.’

  They sat down with their coffees, and Spehar glanced around in case they were being overheard. ‘How cunning do you think these killers are?’ he asked.

  ‘We don’t know. But I thought they were just thugs and racketeers. I didn’t expect anything subtle from them.’

  ‘I can think of one thing they could do,’ Spehar continued, stirring his coffee as if it might aid his thoughts. ‘If they found the transmitter, they might discover the wavelength on which it was transmitting. It’s the same exercise as we did earlier, just in reverse — you put an earpiece in and scan till the transmitter can be heard. Then you line up a second transmitter set to the same wavelength, and you send a blast of noise over it. Perhaps an unpleasant squeal, or just a big bang. And you watch to see who jumps when they hear it.’

  ‘That would work,’ Navrátil agreed. ‘And the natural thing to do would do to yank the earpiece out of your ear before it deafened you.’

  ‘And the man who pulls the earpiece out is the one you kill. You’d need a few watchers in various places, but if you guess that the man who is listening is also watching, there are only so many places he can be.’

  ‘And since we know what he was watching, we know where people could be watching him from. It doesn’t help us much, though, does it? I’d hoped we’d find out where he put the microphone, and we’re no further forward.’

  Valentin stared morosely into his beer. Somehow this grumpy persona
seemed appropriate to his new role as the recently dismissed host of a late night radio phone-in programme.

  During an earlier investigation, it had suited Slonský to feed a tame journalist some juicy snippets that would provoke a reaction, and Valentin, as an old friend in need of a scoop, had come to mind. This breathtaking story had elevated Valentin from hack to investigative journalist, as a result of which he had been offered some radio work. Admittedly it was at a time of day that ensured that those phoning in were either cranks or insomniacs, but after a few months even those had given up on him and the listening figures dropped so sharply that the show was cancelled. This had been a considerable blow to Valentin’s ego, which he had attempted to salve in the way he had always dealt with life’s sideswipes, by the application of alcohol. Unfortunately the loss of his radio programme carried with it a reduction in disposable income, which was why he was delighted to see Slonský, who could usually be relied upon to stand a drink or two.

  ‘You look like somebody peed in your pocket,’ said Slonský.

  ‘It feels that way,’ Valentin replied.

  A waiter was hovering, having correctly divined that this could be a lucrative night for him if he cultivated this pair. Slonský dropped his hat on the bench beside him, unbuttoned his coat and let loose a long, slow sigh.

  ‘What will you have, sir?’

  ‘A coronary most likely,’ Slonský answered. ‘But until that happens, let’s have a couple of large glasses of our finest national export.’

  The waiter listed the options, none of which appealed greatly. He even offered them one of those new beers flavoured with fruit juice, which made Valentin flinch. Suspecting that violence was imminent, Slonský gripped Valentin’s arm and told the waiter two of the first one he mentioned would be fine.

  ‘Fine?’ hissed Valentin. ‘How can you drink that stuff?’

  ‘I’m paying.’

  ‘Then it would be churlish of me to refuse your hospitality. But I worry for your palate.’

  ‘You’re becoming a grumpy old sod.’

  ‘Becoming? It’s my proudest boast. I complain a lot because there is a lot to complain about. Anyway, what was all that about a coronary?’