Prague Noir

by Pavel Mandys

  Ms. Zdena was a loyal employee, so Skorec admitted that she did no such thing.

  “But it was not so bad that he had to kill himself . . .” Roman put his face into his hands.

  “Did you know anything about Mr. Kolář’s personal financial situation?”

  “Miloš had a car, an apartment, and he was taking care of his daughter. The competition is tough, people do not have money, so we haven’t gotten rich.”

  “He didn’t have any other family?”

  “No, only Adéla.”

  “His share in the business was 50 percent?”

  “Yes, but now it will go to me.”

  “You?”

  “We had an agreement. A partner was not allowed to sell or stop his share without the other partner’s consent. The other partner had a preemption right and in the case of the death of one partner, the other automatically gets the share.”

  Skorec raised his eyebrows.

  “Does it strike you as peculiar?” asked Roman. “You know, Miloš and I, we started from nothing. At the beginning, we invested mainly our time and labor, the initial capital was minimal, because we simply did not have any money. We did not accumulate any profit. Whatever we made went mainly to pay our employees and to buy the modest furniture we have here. Miloš was divorced, he did not have an easy relationship with his daughter; my situation is similar, thus we had an agreement so that should anything happen to one of us, we would not have to deal with any settlement issues. Adéla is aware of this agreement. According to Miloš, she has never been interested in taking on the company anyway. By the way—does Adéla know?”

  “Yes, my colleagues informed her already.”

  “She is not a bad girl, she simply did not have a good relationship with her dad. Miloš was troubled by it. I will have to go see her, she will need money—she’s still a student.” Suddenly, he stopped and stared intently at Skorec. “It will be okay to do that, right? If I go to see her and give her money.”

  Skorec didn’t have any objections. All that was left was to check a few last details.

  * * *

  “Everything pointed toward suicide. The investigation hadn’t raised any doubts. The suicide note written by the hand of the deceased; no contradictions in witness statements; anybody else’s involvement in the crime was ruled out by both the pathologist and forensic technicians. I remember I was sitting in my office, about a week later, reading through the reports and statements. That suicide was textbook; nevertheless, something bothered me. And then I read Kolář’s suicide note again.”

  Dráb could imagine it all. Skorec, twenty-five years younger, sitting in his office furnished with particleboard furniture from the eighties, holding the evidence bag with the suicide note. Next to it, in another bag, was the fountain pen the deceased had used for the note. The lab report confirmed that the note was, in fact, written using the bagged fountain pen. The court graphologist confirmed the authenticity of the signature. Skorec took the note out of the evidence bag. Technicians had already looked at it so he did not have to worry about contaminating the evidence. He put the note as close to his eyes as possible. Nothing. He looked at it against the light. Nothing. Ordinary office paper with ink and a fountain pen. He took out a magnifying glass from a drawer and looked at every line . . . Yes, here. About a third of the way down it was obvious that the words I am responsible for it had been traced at least twice. Perhaps while he was writing it, Kolář’s pen ran out of ink; he had to refill the cartridge and wrote the words over again. Was there anything interesting about this? No, but it was odd.

  “Imagine,” he posed, “you want to commit suicide, you are in a terrible psychological state, and as you write your farewell note, you run out of ink.”

  “I have never committed suicide, but it would probably make me mad,” Dráb said.

  “I thought the same. What would you do? Would you spend time inserting a new cartridge? I wouldn’t. I would grab whatever was handy and continue writing.”

  “How do you know the deceased didn’t do exactly that?” Dráb asked.

  Skorec had removed the Parker pen from the evidence bag, unscrewed it, and examined the cartridge. And another peculiarity struck him. The cartridge was half empty. He couldn’t have used up half the cartridge on a few lines. He took out a dactylographic report from a file which confirmed that only the fingerprints of the deceased had been found on the pen. Nothing about the cartridge.

  The next thing Skorec did was to go back to the technicians with the note and the pen. His hypothesis was correct: the ink in the cartridge corresponded to the ink from the bottom two-thirds of the note. For the comparative analysis, they used a sample from the signature.

  “Can you test the ink used in the upper one-third?” Skorec had asked the forensic technician.

  “Of course.”

  “And one more thing—how much of the ink from the pen did you use?”

  The technicians exchanged surprised looks. “Only a drop,” said one.

  “And then just a few lines on paper to compare the nib,” added the other.

  “Well, that was truly a puzzle,” Skorec remarked to Dráb.

  “If you didn’t mention at the beginning that this was a murder, I would expect that this puzzle with the pen would be easily solved; that there would be a rational explanation. That it was not a mystery, after all.”

  “It was explained rationally,” Skorec answered. “But it also was a mystery. It kept bothering me. He’s writing a farewell note, yet he takes time to change the cartridge. But what cartridge? Half empty. Where did he get it? If he had another pen—why didn’t he use it?

  “Maybe he did?” Dráb suggested.

  Of course that had occurred to Skorec. As the forensic team was analyzing the ink, he set out to visit the company to look over Kolář’s office again. The tidiness of Kolář’s desk bothered him just as much as it did when he first noticed it. The phone. Orders, technical and fire safety reports, notes on projects, documentation. It is not a difficult task to review a pedant’s possessions. Skorec himself had pedantic inclinations, so he understood Kolář. A portion of the desk was taken up by a writing pad. Near the edge, there was a picture of a girl—judging by the likeness, the daughter—and a meticulously organized set of stationary containers that, in the bluish light from the rooftop window, cast bizarre shadows. In the first container, there were highlighters; in the second, colored pencils; in the third, regular pencils; and in the fourth, mechanical pencils. In the desk drawers he found paper clips, a stapler with staples, a small bottle containing ink, a syringe, and then envelopes, paper, and folders. He glanced around. An entire wall was taken up by filing cabinets. On the shelf behind the desk, he found a tape recorder and a set of cassettes, all of them pirated Beatles recordings from Poland.

  Kolář’s partner had peeked into the office and looked around the room as if trying to find an explanation for Skorec’s presence. “I can’t imagine that somebody could ever use this office again . . .” he remarked when his gaze landed on the roof beams.

  The secretary stood behind him. Her eyes welled with tears.

  “Zdena, have you nothing to do?” Roman said sternly.

  “Since you’re here, I’ll ask about a few things,” Skorec interjected. “What did Mr. Kolář need the colored pencils for?”

  “Some of the architects like to differentiate various construction aspects by color,” Roman replied.

  “I don’t see a drawing board anywhere,” Skorec commented.

  “Miloš was a CTO, he had people to draw projects for him.”

  “But to his employees, he was always very nice,” the secretary chimed in.

  The look her boss gave her indicated that era in the company was over.

  “I understand that to write, Mr. Kolář used a fountain pen exclusively,” continued Skorec.

  Roman and the secretary both nodded.

  “Was it this one?” Skorec produced the evidence bag with Kolář’s Parker. Roman conf
irmed this. “Did he have another one?”

  “No, Miloš always carried this one with him.”

  The secretary discreetly dried the corners of her eyes with a tissue and nodded.

  “Miloš loved fountain pens,” added Roman. “Once he had similar pens delivered to all the employees. I myself have one. It was so nice to write with it.”

  “Was?”

  “I broke the tip.”

  “Where did Mr. Kolář keep extra ink cartridges?”

  “He was quite angry about how expensive the cartridges were. He would always say, Five cartridges for a hundred crowns, that’s a rip-off!”

  “He wasn’t charging it to the company?” Skorec asked.

  “Mr. Kolář was always against wasting money. He bought an ordinary ink bottle and he would fill the cartridge using the syringe,” the secretary explained.

  Skorec nodded: the presence of the syringe in the drawer was thus clarified.

  “Miloš had his fancies,” Roman said apologetically. “I, of course, have been buying the cartridges.”

  “And where is your pen?” Skorec asked.

  “I carry it in my briefcase.”

  “Didn’t Mr. Kolář borrow cartridges from you?”

  “No. But I’d be interested to know what all these questions mean.”

  “It’s just details for the report,” Skorec replied dismissively.

  Mr. Roman shrugged. “Anything else? I have to go back to work.”

  Skorec thanked him. Then both he and the secretary left the office together. “One more detail.” He turned to the secretary at the door. “You said that Mr. Kolář gave all the employees fountain pens . . .”

  “Yes.”

  “You have one too?”

  The secretary opened a drawer and gave Skorec a box with a pen. “I do not use it, the ink would smudge all the time.”

  Skorec studied the pen. “But this is not a Parker.”

  “Mr. Kolář would not give a pen for which you have to buy expensive cartridges to anybody. This pen uses ordinary cartridges.”

  “It’s starting to take shape,” noted Dráb.

  “It wasn’t taking any shape yet for me back then,” admitted the old detective. “It only confirmed my suspicion that this matter with the pen was curious. I brought one ink cartridge for our technicians and they confirmed that the first third of the farewell note Kolář wrote using that ink. In that moment, the half-empty cartridge became a conundrum.”

  “And you played Dvořák and pondered it,” said Dráb.

  “But first I visited Kolář’s daughter.”

  * * *

  Many survivors who are left behind deal with the suicide of their family member worse than with a violent death or a tragic accident; they cannot become angry at the perpetrator, be it a human being or mocking fate. Any suicide leaves the survivors with an unanswerable question: Could I have prevented it? When Skorec visited Adéla Kolářová, he found her in a state of emotional chaos and material disarray. He should have been prepared by the state of that apartment building with its precarious banister in the stairwell, and a small courtyard where a broken carpet duster and pathetic juniper tried to resist the oily dirt advancing from the neighboring railway. The apartment was overrun by a shocking mess. Used clothing, dirty dishes, and empty wine bottles were scattered all over the furniture and floor. One did not clean there, one did not take out the trash; one simply mourned. A week of sorrow had taken a toll on Adéla’s face: dark circles under her eyes, an unhealthy shine to her face, and, on her left cheek, the violet trace of an unsuccessful attempt to remove acne. The stained sweatpants and shapeless hoodie did not help the overall impression. Skorec already had an image of the deceased: a person loving order and tidiness. If the disorder ruling the apartment was a standard mode for his daughter, they would likely have brought each other to the brink of madness.

  Skorec introduced himself and told the daughter he would like to talk to her and that he would also like to see her father’s room. They sat down in the living room; the girl swiped down the clothes and kicked dirty socks under the table.

  “I know you told my colleagues that you did not pay attention to the everyday running of the company,” Skorec started the conversation.

  “I was . . . not interested.” Adéla sobbed and started crying. Regrets about her own disinterest.

  “Did your father tell you he had any financial problems?”

  “In the last month, he was angry with Roman. Once I even heard him yell at Roman on the phone, but why . . . I do not know.”

  “Do you know Mr. Roman well?”

  “Yeah, he was here last week, right after Dad . . . died. He gave me some money.”

  “How much?”

  “Twenty thousand.”

  Skorec pulled a copy of Kolář’s farewell note out of his briefcase.

  “I read it,” Adéla said. “I had to identify the handwriting . . .”

  “I would like you to read the letter one more time,” Skorec said quietly. “And point out anything that strikes you as odd.”

  “Odd?” Adéla erupted and her voice caught. “Everything is odd. He killed himself. Why did he do it? Didn’t he know I would be left alone?”

  Skorec himself had asked the same questions. Silently, he handed the note to Adéla. “Please, have another look.”

  Adéla took the note and Skorec watched her teary eyes as they ran over those few lines. Then she shook her head. “He even chose the music for his funeral . . . He loved McCartney so much.”

  Skorec returned the note to the bag.

  “Even though . . .” Adéla knitted her brows. “That’s strange . . . That Percy Thrillington. Dad doesn’t have that LP.”

  “He doesn’t?”

  “No, but Dad really wanted that record.”

  “The name doesn’t ring a bell,” Skorec said.

  Adéla burst into tears again: “He told me so many times, but I wasn’t listening. He was looking for that LP everywhere, he asked friends who traveled internationally to look for it . . . Dad was a fan of the Beatles and McCartney. He had all their albums.”

  Adéla had touched upon a theme where Skorec would forget professionalism. “Can I see it?” he asked, as if it was all standard procedure.

  Adéla took him to her father’s room. There was an impeccable order. The desk looked like a twin of the desk from his office. In addition to a bed and bookcase, there were a gramophone and sound system, and shelves packed with LPs dominated the room.

  “What did he tell you about that Thrillington?” Skorec tried again.

  Adéla shook her head: “He had been trying to get the LP for the last three years. Once we had a fight in Vienna. He would go into every record store and I was angry with him because I wanted to buy T-shirts.” Again, she started crying. “I was such a dummy! If only I had known . . .”

  The way Mr. Kolář organized the records on the shelf reminded Skorec of the perfect alignment of the pencil boxes in his office. Of course he knew the Beatles albums but he didn’t know that much about McCartney’s later music with Wings and his solo career. Yet he quickly understood that all the LPs were organized chronologically, from Please Please Me all the way to Tripping the Live Fantastic in both its short and long versions. “Are these all of the albums?” Skorec asked.

  Adéla opened a cabinet and Skorec saw more LPs, a musical hodgepodge.

  Again, Skorec took out Kolář’s note. “These were your father’s favorite songs?”

  As could be expected, Adéla did not know. “I don’t recognize them by their titles,” she answered, “I would have to play them.”

  “So let’s play them.”

  Kolář’s first choice surprised Skorec. It was short and fast, a happy love song. Adéla’s face revealed astonishment as well. The next song was a better fit for a funeral.

  “There’s still that Thrillington . . .” Skorec interjected.

  Adéla couldn’t take it anymore. “What’s your problem?” she
snapped, then ran out of the room.

  Skorec found her in the kitchen, crying and cowering on the floor by the oven. He decided to risk it: “Adéla, I’m not sure that your father committed suicide. There are some suspicious circumstances.”

  Adéla wiped her nose with the back of her hand and with one shapeless sleeve, she brushed away her tears.

  “That’s why I’m asking about these things. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that your dad wanted to play a song from an album he doesn’t even have?”

  “I don’t know,” Adéla responded with despair, “I was not at all interested . . .”

  “Don’t worry about that. It sometimes happens that we have no idea what it is that the people closest to us desire.” Skorec helped her to get up. “Now try to remember which albums were your father’s favorites.”

  Adéla did not remember the titles, but by the dust jackets she recognized what Kolář listened to most often. From the era of the Beatles, it was Abbey Road, from the solo albums, Ram. Skorec looked at the jacket of the second album, but none of the songs rang a bell.

  “I am truly interested in where this is going,” Dráb commented.

  “In that moment, I was at the brink of depression. The inspection of the albums didn’t illuminate anything—except my suspicion that something was off. I kept asking, Why would somebody want to play a song at his own funeral from an album he doesn’t have? I was convinced that the letter contained something more, but I couldn’t figure it out.”

  The old detective went silent for a while before continuing: “You have to realize that back then, there was no Internet. When you needed to figure out something, you had to show far more ingenuity. Percy Thrillington. I had never heard that name. I decided to ask for help from experts—I went to many music stores, but the clerks had no idea if a musician with that name had existed. I went to a library, rummaged through encyclopedias—and nothing. That evening, when Tereza came home from school, I asked her. She called a few of her classmates, but nobody knew him. It started to look like Thrillington had not existed. But why would Kolář try to buy an album that had never come out?”

  Skorec took a dramatic pause.