by Graham Brack
A SECOND DEATH
Josef Slonský Investigations
Book Five
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
A NOTE TO THE READER
ALSO BY GRAHAM BRACK
Chapter 1
The dark water bubbled white as it skipped across the rocks. While the centre of the river flowed serenely on, all the energy appeared to be concentrated near the banks, but here and there the water became still where obstructions narrowed the channel.
The late September sun skittered across the surface as the river turned to head towards the sunrise, illuminating the overhanging tree branches and the scattered debris, a shattered plank of wood, an empty plastic milk carton and a girl’s body, the head wedged against a protruding tree root and the blonde hair streaming behind like weed on a rock as it clung to her sodden back.
The two young hikers who had spotted her sat shivering against a tree, their wet boots and socks drying on the path. The paramedics had wrapped them in foil blankets, but how much of their tremor was due to the cold was hard to assess. One had taken a photograph before they waded in to retrieve her and a technician was busy transferring it to a spare memory card. The pathologist, Dr Novák, was examining the body on the bank and supervising the paramedics who were to take her to the mortuary. At length he stood up, nodded to them to take her away and walked over to the car where Captain Josef Slonský was leaning with both arms on the roof, talking into his mobile phone.
‘Can we cut the bit where I ask you lots of questions and you pull a face and tell me it’s far too early to say?’ he asked Novák.
‘If you like, but that’s one of the best bits for me. Keeping you on tenterhooks is what makes this job worthwhile.’
Slonský broke off to end the call before resuming his attempt to wheedle useful information out of the pathologist.
‘Time of death?’
‘Too early to say.’
‘But, if pushed…?’
‘Let’s tell you what I can say. I think she’s probably been in the water about thirty-six hours but it could be twelve hours either way. It’s very difficult to estimate until you get significant wrinkling.’
‘Cause of death?’
‘No visible wounds, but the fact that she is well dressed but wearing no underwear is suggestive.’
Slonský grimaced. He hated child murders at any time, but ones in which the victim had been molested first were especially difficult for him. Like most police, he could never understand why people did these things.
‘Was she raped?’
‘Too soon… I think so, but I can’t be sure. There was certainly vaginal penetration with something. I suspect the water has washed a lot of blood away but I’ll be looking to see if the penetration may have been the cause of death.’
‘Any idea of her age?’
‘Based purely on dentition, somewhere between ten and twelve, probably nearer the lower end.’
‘Let me know what you can as soon as you can,’ Slonský said, and patted Novák encouragingly on the back before striding off to see what Officer Jan Navrátil was doing.
‘Nothing in the pockets, sir,’ Navrátil anticipated the first question.
‘Labels in the clothes?’
‘Not in the jacket. We couldn’t see inside the dress and Dr Novák didn’t want to disturb it here.’
‘It’s a shame schools don’t have uniforms any longer.’
‘I’ve asked for details of any lost girls aged eight to thirteen just to make sure we don’t miss her.’
Slonský nodded and stood gazing out over the Vltava river.
‘We know where she ended up, lad, but who knows where she was heaved in?’
‘It’s a busy river that flows through some populated areas, sir. Surely the fact that she wasn’t discovered before now suggests she was thrown in somewhere quite near?’
Slonský consulted his map. ‘We need to talk to somebody who knows this water well. One of the boat owners, for example. I’d have thought that once the body was caught in the mainstream it would be dragged away from the banks. It’s a wide river. That makes me think you’re right. Or it reached the Vltava from a tributary.’
‘Dr Novák said he’ll get one of the technicians to mock up a photograph of her as she would have appeared in life.’
Slonský nodded to show that he had heard, but did not say anything.
‘I’ve got statements from the hikers, sir. Can we let them go now?’ Navrátil continued.
‘Contact details checked?’
‘Their identity cards check out, sir.’
‘Then let them go, though I suspect this has spoiled their day out a bit.’
Slonský was not the big, boisterous figure he had long been. Part of the reason for that was that Officer Kristýna Peiperová was not there. After a little over a year of working for Slonský she had been seconded to the Director of Criminal Police to act as his Personal Assistant for a year. This was a great opportunity for her and Slonský had encouraged her to take it, but in practice it had proved mind-crushingly boring. The Director spent a lot of time in meetings so the chatter and frequent coffee breaks that had characterised her time with Slonský had disappeared and her inclination was to visit her old office at every opportunity where things were always livelier.
Against this, she had to recognise that frequent visits provoked enquiries about her motives, because she and Navrátil were engaged, a circumstance which accounted for Navrátil’s general lack of spark since she had been separated from him during working hours. He still worked diligently and well, but things had been different since Slonský’s promotion, an elevation that Slonský had resisted for so long but which Captain Lukas had engineered by the simple expedient of retiring and threatening to recommend either of the other lieutenants, Dvorník or Doležal, if Slonský did not accept his job. Knowing that Slonský would sooner pull out his own teeth with pliers than work under either of those, he had correctly calculated that this would spur an application from Slonský, whatever his feelings about becoming a captain and taking on responsibility for the team.
No sooner had Slonský done so than they had lost Doležal. The murder of a policeman in Pardubice left the criminal team there short of numbers so Doležal had been loaned to them. The subsequent arrest and suspension of two senior officers from the team for impeding the investigation had left the department in disarray, so Doležal had been appointed as the new captain there. Sadly the injuries that he had received at the hands of those colleagues had meant that four months later Doležal was only just taking up his new role, and had been given his former assistant Rada to help staff his team. This left Slonský with a very depleted squad of his own. The old team of a captain, three lieutenants and four other officers had suddenly become Slonský, Navrátil, Dvorník and Hauzer, and finding some replacements was testing Slonský to the utmost, depressing his spirits and making him less exuberant than was normally the case.
Over the succeeding weeks Slonský had read a number of files relating to officers who thought that they would like to work in crime but none of the folders he had ploughed through encouraged him to believe that the answer lay within their covers.
Chapter 2
Navrátil disliked going t
o the mortuary, whilst completely understanding that it was a necessary part of his job. It was not that he was particularly squeamish, but he felt that the activities there were too impersonal. He therefore attempted to redress the balance a little by silently reciting prayers for the dead as he watched Novák and his team at work.
On this occasion he felt hindered by his inability to insert a name where the prayer called for one. He appreciated the gentle way in which Novák dealt with the young girl, particularly the fact that he kept covering her with a sheet to preserve her modesty so far as he could while he worked, but it was still horrible.
‘Do you want to come over and see what I’m doing?’ asked Novák.
‘Only if it’s necessary, doctor. I’m content to let you work in peace.’
Novák nodded slowly. ‘It’s painful, isn’t it? If it’s any consolation, I hate it too. It has to be done, but I regret that it’s necessary. And the best that I can do for her is to collect as much evidence as I can so that you can bring her killer or killers to justice.’
‘I understand that.’
‘Unfortunately, to do that I have had to open her up, but I’ll do my utmost to ensure that when she’s dressed for burial you won’t be able to tell.’
Navrátil could feel a burning tear in his eye. He did not want to cry, but the sorrow was so profound that he could not resist.
‘Why don’t you get a coffee and I’ll come and find you when I’ve finished?’ Novák said kindly.
‘Thank you, but my place is here.’
‘Yes, it is, but that doesn’t mean you have to watch every move I make.’
‘Am I disturbing you?’
‘No, not at all. She disturbs me; you don’t. Or, more precisely, whoever did this to her disturbs me.’ Novák passed a metal dish to an assistant, drew the sheet back up to her neck and peeled off his gloves. ‘I think she was about ten years old. I don’t think she had reached puberty yet. She had been maltreated sexually, and not for the first time. There were old scars and tears.’
‘Was she raped?’
‘There are some abraded skin cells there which I don’t think are hers, but we’ll have to get some tests done. I’ve taken DNA swabs from her and if this DNA is different it will be an indication that she was raped.’
‘Cause of death?’
‘Asphyxiation. She has a few fibres under her nails which may come from a woollen jumper. Whether she was deliberately killed or simply suffocated under the weight of a heavy man, I’m not sure. She certainly tried to get him off, so she wasn’t unconscious. I’ve taken samples to see if she was drugged.’
‘I almost hope she was,’ said Navrátil, ‘for her sake.’
Slonský was taking a walk along the riverside in the centre of Prague. To the observer, he looked as if was simply strolling, but actually he was looking for a man, and this was where he believed he might find him, if he could be patient enough.
He bought himself a sausage and sat chewing listlessly as he watched the public going about their business. By the law of averages some of those who passed him must have been criminals, but he was not looking for a criminal today. Rather the opposite; he was looking for a policeman.
He could, of course, have made an appointment through the normal channels. The problem with that approach was that if he was refused he could do nothing about it, because this particular policeman did not work for the national police, but for the municipal police, over whom he had no power.
A little over half an hour had passed when a pair of policemen ambled into view. The shorter one, tubby enough to make his jacket look short as a result of its detour over his belly on the way towards the ground, was of no interest. That was Officer Vacha. Slonský’s interest was in Officer Krob.
Around sixteen months earlier Krob had caught Slonský’s eye when he used his initiative to stop witnesses to a hit and run accident from sloping off by giving them free coffee and biscuits. Their paths had crossed a few times since and Slonský had become convinced that Krob was wasting his life writing parking tickets and subduing British stag parties who had contributed disproportionately to the profits of the Czech brewing industry (as had Slonský himself over the years). If he had anything to do with it Krob was going to be the newest member of his crime team. All he had to do was to persuade him to apply. Ideally, the application would be backdated ten days so that it could be included in the batch he had been reading, where it would shine, once he had applied some judicious lustre to it himself. He would then tell Human Resources that he had selected Officer Krob and they need never know that Krob had not applied before the closing date.
‘Good afternoon, Lieutenant Slonský,’ said Krob, echoed a few moments later by Vacha.
‘Good afternoon, Officers — though it’s Captain Slonský now.’
‘Oh — congratulations,’ said Krob.
‘Yes, congratulations,’ added Vacha.
‘Thank you.’
Slonský was pondering how to detach Vacha from Krob so he could have that little private chat he was planning, and decided that only the direct approach would do.
‘Vacha, would you do me a favour?’
‘Certainly, Captain.’
‘Good. Push off and let me have a word with Krob in private, would you? I’ll return him in sound working order within ten minutes.’
Vacha removed his cap and scratched his head as if to stimulate the thinking part of his brain. ‘Right. Yes. Of course.’
Observing Krob’s quizzical look Slonský continued. ‘Do you like your job, Krob?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You don’t feel you’d like to be stretched more? Face a tougher challenge?’
‘This part of town is challenging enough, sir.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of the city police, Krob. I have a vacancy in the criminal police and I thought it would suit you very nicely.’
‘Working for you, sir?’
‘Yes. Have you got a problem with that?’
‘No!’ replied Krob, just a little too quickly to be entirely convincing. ‘No, not at all. It’s just a bit sudden. Won’t I have to fill in some forms and stuff first?’
‘There are always forms, Krob. There is no part of the police service that is free of forms, or I would be working in it. But I think I can guarantee that if you apply you have a very good chance of getting the job.’
‘Well, if you think I’m up to it, sir, I’ll come by and get the forms.’
‘No need, lad. It just so happens I have a set in my coat pocket here.’ Slonský unfolded some pages and attempted to smooth out the worst of the many creases in them. ‘I also have a pen here. If you’d like to fill in the personal details at the top, I’ll tell you what to write in those big boxes further down the page to maximise your chances of success.’
Nobody could begrudge Navrátil and Peiperová meeting at their permitted breaks, though both knew that they were not in full control of their respective timetables. At 15:32 Navrátil glanced up to see Peiperová gliding into the seat opposite.
‘Is he in today?’ he asked.
Peiperová shook her head. ‘Yours?’
‘No. He’s gone to liaise with the city police, whatever that means.’
‘It sounds like it means he doesn’t want people to know what he’s really doing.’
‘No news on your boss’s promotion?’
Peiperová shook her head again. At the time when she accepted the secondment it was widely believed, not least by her new boss Colonel Urban himself, that he was likely to get the job of Director of Police for the Czech Republic when the current national director, Major General Musil, retired in September. However, here they were in September and the incumbent was still there, to the evident frustration of Urban.
Even Sergeant Mucha on the front desk, normally the nerve centre of all internal evidence gathering about the police force, had no idea what was going on. He had tried asking around his network of contacts and the most he could discover was that Musil
had been asked to stay on by the Minister of the Interior himself. This in itself was unusual because, as Slonský pointed out, the natural run of things was for ministers to spend much of their time trying to get rid of high ranking police officers, especially the efficient ones, in favour of nonentities who looked good in photographs.
‘Any sign of new people?’ Peiperová enquired, not without a little residual concern that a place would not be kept vacant in anticipation of her return on 31st May which, in her eyes, could not come soon enough.
‘No, and we’re really stretched. We’ve got a murder to investigate on top of the usual stuff and only the Captain and me to do it.’
Peiperová squeezed his hand. ‘The Captain and you are enough,’ she said encouragingly.
Krob’s application form had been slipped into the bundle, four from the top. Slonský and Mucha had each attached an unsigned handwritten sticky note endorsing his candidature and Slonský had laboriously typed a covering letter giving the opinion of himself and the senior colleagues whom he had consulted that the post should be offered to Ivo Krob, currently of the Prague Metropolitan Police. He dropped the bundle in at the Human Resources reception desk and then set upon part two of his plan by cornering the building superintendent and inviting him to inspect the offices his team used.
‘What’s wrong with them?’ the superintendent asked.
‘I sit there, and the rest sit here. And there’s a wall between,’ Slonský replied.
‘That’s because senior officers get an office to themselves so they can work in private.’
‘I don’t want to work in private. I want to be able to supervise my team. I want them to have unfettered access to me. I want the wall down.’
The superintendent goggled. ‘The wall?’
‘Yes. That thing there covered in drab paint. It is separating me from my colleagues. This is my President Reagan moment. Tear down this wall!’
‘The difference is,’ said the superintendent, ‘that in Berlin you couldn’t just walk round the wall by going out into the corridor.’