by Adam LeBor
‘Go ahead. But things could get very messy in here,’ said Attila. ‘And you are holding the gun. So you would have a lot of explaining to do.’
Balthazar said, ‘How about if I take the pistol? Then Attila can show us whatever he wants to show us, and we can all get on with our day.’
Attila and Anastasia both nodded. Balthazar reached for the Glock. Attila’s arm relaxed and Anastasia let it slide out of her hand.
Attila pressed a button on the mobile telephone screen and held it up so Balthazar and Anastasia could watch. The telephone showed a frozen image of Balthazar among a crowd of people inside a grimy, dilapidated industrial building. Balthazar pressed play. The images began to move, tinny sound leaking from the telephone’s speaker. He was standing by a dark-skinned man in his forties, who wore a tight black vest and black jeans. The sides of his head were shaven and the hair on top was gathered into a backwards triangle, tied together by a topknot. Tattoos of eagles covered his arms and hands and the back of his neck.
An attractive young blonde woman in a red dress, with her hair pinned up, walked up to him holding a silver tray, on which three lines of white powder were laid out next to a silver tube, then walked off-screen. The tattooed man asked Balthazar if he would like to join him. Balthazar said no. The tattooed man picked up the silver tube, bent forward and sniffed up a line of white powder, then another. He offered the remaining line to Balthazar, who declined. The two men talked some more, the sound fading in and out. But the next part of the video was clear enough. Balthazar dipped a finger into the white powder and dabbed it on his tongue.
‘Tut, tut,’ said Attila. ‘A coke-tasting session with Black George, the city’s most notorious gangster. At an illegal cage fight for migrants.’
The film was bad news, Balthazar knew, but was not a surprise. In the age of near-ubiquitous CCTV and mobile telephones it was safe to assume that almost everything, especially anything potentially compromising, was being recorded. ‘Who says it was coke?’ He paused for a moment. ‘It tasted quite sweet. I think it was some kind of sugar. Icing sugar, maybe?’
Attila laughed. ‘Sure. Because we all know that Black George is in the icing sugar business. The type that goes up your nose.’
Balthazar shrugged. ‘You got nothing, Attila. No evidence of anything except me putting a finger in something then tasting it. In any case I was undercover. And I needed to do that to maintain my cover.’
Attila laughed. ‘You were working off the books, Tazi, on a completely unauthorised operation, consorting with criminals at an illegal gathering.’
That much was true. Sandor Takacs had given Balthazar the go-ahead to investigate the death and disappearance of Simon Nazir, but unofficially, and that part of the investigation had no authorisation. It was only on Sunday, when the Budapest police had gone into action across the city to find Mahmoud Hejazi in the mass exodus from Keleti, that Balthazar was back on the books. Until then everything he did was under the radar and unsanctioned. But he was not about to admit that to Attila. ‘Whatever. Tell me something new.’
‘Here’s something new. So new it’s barely a few minutes old,’ said Attila, his fingers gliding over his phone. He called up a second video clip, pressed play and held the handset out so Balthazar and Anastasia could watch. The film showed Abdullah al-Nuri entering Gaspar’s brothel, an ambulance arriving, two paramedics wheeling out a trolley on top of which was a black body bag, then Balthazar greeting Anastasia in the street. Attila slid across the rear seat and opened the door. ‘Have a good day – and remember Tazi, my offer is still open, at least for now.’
SEVEN
Jaszai Mari Square tram stop, 8.00 a.m.
Eniko Szalay held her iPhone to her ear and spoke sotto voce. ‘I did. I already told you. I sent him an SMS apologising on Sunday evening, saying I was really sorry, I couldn’t make it, and they shouldn’t wait for me. Then another one apologising on Monday morning. And two emails after that. He didn’t reply. How rude is that?’
‘Not as rude as not turning up,’ said Zsuzsa Barcsy. Eniko sighed, glancing across the Margaret Bridge while she listened to her friend. Zsuzsa, she knew, was right. Eniko could see a long, dark, yellow number-four tram slowly advancing, curving around from Margaret Boulevard, onto the bridge, slipping past the dense morning commuter traffic heading into town from Buda and the outlying suburbs. Even everyday scenes were shot through with the city’s beauty. The Buda hills rolled away on the other side of the Danube, lush and verdant. The river flowed smooth and clean, the morning sunlight glittering on the grey-green water. A blue sky was dotted with tendrils of white clouds, although in the distance, a thick, grey mass promised a summer rainstorm.
Eniko continued speaking, ‘Yes, I called him last night. He didn’t pick up. That’s six times I tried to talk to him, and I don’t know how many texts and emails.’ She watched the tram advance down the boulevard. The tracks ran down the centre, bisecting a two-lane road on either side. Margaret Bridge had recently been renovated. Lamp posts in art nouveau style, decorated with delicate ironwork, stood every few yards. The tram tracks were flanked by yellow tiles, and a row of half-globes designed to stop cars sneaking into the space to cut past the traffic. ‘What’s done is done. Are you in today?’ When Zsuzsa answered yes, Eniko said, ‘Good. Because there’s something I need to talk to you about. No, not on the phone. Gotta go now, Zsuzsika; the tram is almost here.’
The lights changed and a flurry of pedestrians crossed from the other side of the boulevard and walked onto the tram stop. For a moment she thought one of them looked familiar: a young, athletic-looking man in his late twenties, with short dark hair, a boxer’s fluid walk and alert eyes. He wore a black T-shirt and brown cargo trousers. Had she seen him before? Perhaps hanging around at Blaha Lujza Square, near the 555.hu office? He walked away, and Eniko watched the tram approach the bend in the middle of the bridge. Margaret Bridge was almost V-shaped, with a sharp angle in the middle. A spur led off the bridge down to Margaret Island, the green lung of the city. The tram stopped there and disgorged more joggers, a flurry of brightly coloured lycra, then continued towards Jaszai Mari Square. The square was a major intersection – a few yards away the number-two tram started its journey at a right angle to the main boulevard, running parallel with the Danube, next to the squat, modernist building known as the White House, which housed MPs’ offices.
Kossuth Square and Parliament were a tram stop or a short walk away, down Falk Miksa Street. This part of downtown had recently been renovated. A statue of Peter Falk, a distant relative of Miksa Falk, stood at the end of the street, dressed as his best-known role, the rumpled Detective Columbo, his dog standing by him expectantly. Columbo had his hand to his head in his signature gesture of puzzlement, usually a sign that he was about to deliver irrevocable proof of guilt to a lying suspect. A middle-aged lady, neatly dressed with a bob of brown hair, was setting up the Jehovah’s Witness stall next to the statue, while two Gypsy men in tracksuits leaned on the bonnet of a white Opel parked by the side of the BAV shop, the state antique emporium. The shop would not open for a while, but they were staking out prime position to approach customers with something to sell before they stepped inside. Before the refugee crisis this had been Fat Vik’s regular spot and Eniko often waved hallo to him as she waited for the tram. Today, however, none of the men looked familiar. Eniko turned and looked away. She did not see one of the Gypsies watch her carefully, take a mobile telephone from his pocket and make a call, his eyes still on Eniko.
Eniko glanced at the McDonald’s on the ground floor of the apartment house on the corner of the boulevard at Jaszai Mari Square. It was already busy with the first customers drinking coffee and eating breakfast sandwiches on the chairs and tables outside. The building was carefully restored and looked gorgeous – this was prime riverside property – but still gave her the creeps. She remembered a story her grandmother had once told her – after the Arrow Cross coup in October 1944, the Hungarian Nazi militia had taken over the buil
ding. The House of Vengeance, as it was known, was usefully located near the edge of what was known as the International Ghetto, the maze of streets around Pozsonyi Way where some apartment blocks were under the protection of neutral embassies like Sweden and Switzerland. But as the Russians advanced, the protective papers lost their power. Those Jews like her grandmother’s cousin Endre, who were taken down to its cellars to reveal where they had hidden their valuables, did not usually emerge alive. It was a warm morning and the sun promised more heat on the way, but Eniko shivered for a moment.
She looked away from the building, towards the stream of joggers and cyclists who were heading onto the bridge from the end of Pozsonyi Way towards Margaret Island. Part of her wished she was joining them instead of waiting to step into a crowded tram before another twelve-hour day, even if she was the most-read, if not the most famous, journalist in the country at the moment. Eniko knew she was a good reporter: fast, sharp and diligent in her sources and fact-checking. But her reputation rested on one source. And she knew that if she used the information she had received that morning that source would be blown forever. She glanced around again. Something, or someone, was making her uneasy. Was she being watched? Or maybe it was knowing too much about the apartment house opposite. The man in the black T-shirt had disappeared, but the hairs were prickling on the back of her neck. She looked back at the BAV shop. The two Gypsy men had disappeared. The middle-aged lady at the Jehovah’s Witness stand was engrossed in conversation with a tall man in a dark-blue suit, carrying a briefcase. Maybe she just had an over-active imagination.
Eniko was used to men’s attention. Her face emphasised some distant Slavic ancestry, or perhaps the first Magyars who had ridden in from somewhere in Asia, with sharp cheekbones, and blue-green eyes. Her long brown hair was straight today, like most days, swept back in a ponytail. She wore very little make-up, just a touch of mascara. Her only jewellery was a single silver hoop in the top of her left ear, a small homage to bohemia, which she touched when she was nervous – like now. She was pretty, she knew. Not head-turningly beautiful, but attractive. Her nails were painted in a rainbow of colours and she wore blue, red and white Tisza training shoes, a retro brand that was very popular with her crowd of twenty- and thirty-something hipsters, skinny black jeans, a light-blue T-shirt and a cropped denim jacket. She smiled for a moment as she remembered a line she had read by Henry Kissinger: ‘The presence of paranoia does not prove the absence of plots.’ A teenage boy, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, standing nearby, caught her eye and smiled back.
Eniko told herself to stop worrying. This was her week. Or at least it was supposed to be. Her scoop for 555.hu on Sunday evening had brought down the prime minister, Pal Dezeffy. His fall had in turn been covered by the international press, many of which quoted her story. Most of the major newspapers and TV stations had already set up shop in Budapest, many around Keleti Station, which had become the epicentre of Europe’s refugee crisis. The flow of people continued up from the Serbian border, but only a few dozen were camped out at Keleti now. After the mass walk to the Austrian border on Sunday the frontier had stayed open. Hungary was once again a transit zone, rather than a destination point. But the fall of Pal Dezeffy meant that Hungary was still the lead story on many international bulletins. So far she had been interviewed by CNN, BBC, NBC, ABC, Russia Today and all the main news agencies.
Eniko’s main source, Pal’s successor, had fed her further snippets during the week about the corrupt network that had reached from Pal’s office to rich Gulf investors, which had produced a further stream of stories. But as well as pride Eniko felt a growing sense of unease, for two reasons. For a moment she was back in the bar at the Four Seasons Hotel, last Saturday night, hearing Reka Bardossy’s question: ‘As I understand it, the time to frame a story, to shape how it is covered, is when it is first reported. Is that correct?’ Eniko had agreed, explaining that the initial projection was what stayed in people’s minds, although it could go in different directions later. ‘Once it’s out, it’s impossible to control,’ Eniko had explained.
Except it seemed that this story, of Pal Dezeffy’s perfidy, was not impossible to control. A steady stream of leaks from Reka to Eniko – all of which made perfectly legitimate stories in their own right – had ensured that media coverage, both domestic and international, had focused on the disgraced former prime minister rather than Reka Bardossy, his former minister of justice, whose officials, including her new chief of staff, had overseen the corrupt sale of passports to people-traffickers who had passed them on in turn to Islamic radicals. Eniko had been used. Some might even say that she had been bought, and they might be right. Not with anything as crude as money or other financial benefits. But with information. And now she had information that could help destroy Reka Bardossy. It was not a pleasant feeling to think that she had become a convenient, pliant conduit in a high-stakes political battle, even if her career was soaring.
And she was starting to think that there may be a price to pay. Her telephone rang at odd times of the night and day from blocked numbers. She sometimes felt that she was being followed, although she had seen no evidence of it, and in truth, did not really know how to tell. She would never admit it to anyone, but one reason why she really wanted to talk to Balthazar was that she felt… not exactly scared, but certainly nervous. She was, she knew, swimming in very deep waters. Attila Ungar had already taken her off a suburban train last Saturday and interrogated her in a cold, damp, abandoned building on Csepel Island, in a remote part of Budapest where she had never been before. Attila had threatened Eniko and her mother. He had eventually let her go, and now Eniko had the prime minister as her roof, her protection. But these were febrile, turbulent times. Reka Bardossy could lose her office and position as easily as she had gained it – especially if Eniko used the information she now had. The smarter move would have been to turn up on Sunday night and meet Balthazar, even if it stirred up turbulent emotions again. Balthazar could handle himself. And if he needed back-up there was a whole tribe of cousins to call on for help. It would be good to know that he was around to help, if she needed it.
The tram stopped in front of her, interrupting her train of thought. The four and six, which curved through the heart of the city along the Grand Boulevard, were the modern, German model, with huge windows and long, walk-through carriages. The double glass doors slid open, and half a dozen teenagers stepped out, chattering happily. She moved aside and waited until they passed her, then stepped into the carriage, a stream of commuters following her.
Eniko stood by the door, hemmed in by the crowd. It was only five stops until they reached her destination, Blaha Lujza Square, and the office of 555.hu. The tram advanced along the boulevard, stopping at Nyugati Station. A few passengers stepped off but more got on board. Eniko stepped back against the wall of the carriage, watching Nyugati slide by as the tram pulled away. Budapest’s western terminus was not as grand as Keleti, but it was more beautiful, a graceful construction of glass and blue-painted wrought iron, designed by Eiffel’s studio in the late nineteenth century. Two Gendarmes stood on the steps. One had his head cocked and seemed to be speaking into his shoulder radio. A thin young African man sat on the floor next to them, his hands bound behind his back, a blue rucksack at his feet.
The tram passed Oktogon, the eight-sided plaza where the Grand Boulevard met Andrassy Avenue, Budapest’s most stately street, and the start of Kiraly and Wesselenyi Streets, which opened into District VII, the city’s historic Jewish quarter. The next stop would be hers, Blaha Lujza Square.
Eniko felt a presence behind her. She turned around to see someone standing close to her. Too close for comfort – the man in the black T-shirt and cargo trousers. Her heart began to beat faster. He was staring at her. She tried to step away, but the carriage was too crowded.
He stepped nearer. ‘I think you dropped this,’ he said, his right palm open.
Eniko looked down, saw a small black memory stick with a silver ca
p in the man’s hand. She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
He smiled. ‘Kedves holgyem, biztos vagyok hogy leejtetted. My dear lady, I am sure that you dropped it.’
She looked him in the eye, covering her nervousness. ‘Do I know you?’
‘No. You don’t. But I know you. And your work. I think you will find this useful.’
‘Why?’
He leaned forward with the memory stick between his thumb and forefinger, the end of the stick just a couple of inches from her face. She could see the rough stubble on his chin. ‘Csak.’ Csak, pronounced ‘chuck’, literally meant only, but in slang it meant because, as a parent might say to a child.
The teenage boy she had smiled at was watching, picking up on the man’s menacing vibrations, despite the two white wires leading from his ears. He caught Eniko’s eye, as if to ask if she needed help. But he was standing several yards away, and two elderly ladies were gossiping about their medicines in front of him, oblivious to what was happening. In any case the tram was almost at Blaha Lujza Square and she did not want to make a scene.
Earlier that week Eniko had persuaded the editors of 555.hu to buy her another iPhone, which she used purely for work. She had changed the number on her older phone and given it to a small group of friends and contacts. The work mobile had a red case, the personal one a blue case. Each phone was in a front pocket of her jeans. She felt the right side buzz and vibrate. She took out the handset: a text message had arrived to her personal phone. She looked down at the screen. The display read Unknown number.
The man in the black T-shirt said, ‘Read it.’
Eniko looked at the screen. The message said: ‘Take the memory stick.’
Bajnok bar, Mikszath Kalman Square, 8.30 a.m.
Anastasia looked at her watch. ‘There’s an empty place at Reka’s breakfast table.’