by Adam LeBor
Balthazar said, ‘Sure. Just please tell me where you live. Don’t worry. You are not in trouble. You can take all the bricks you want.’ A suspicion of the authorities, generations old and seared into his people’s collective memory, meant Jozsi would not say much more here. Balthazar would get his address and question him further later, with his parents present.
The growl of vehicle engines sounded across the square. As Balthazar stood up and turned to face the noise he felt Jozsi’s nimble fingers on his right hand. He smiled, did not resist, as the brick began to slide out of his hand. A black van pulled up in front of the pavement and parked. ‘Gendarmerie’ was written on its side.
The vehicle was polished to an obsidian sheen, with thick wire mesh over the windshield and rear windows. The back door opened and six men emerged. Each wore black combat trousers, a black long-sleeved T-shirt and anti-stab vest, and a black ski helmet. Handcuffs, batons, pepper spray and heavy Maglite torches poked from pockets on their utility belts.
Balthazar turned. Jozsi had already vanished. He watched the squad walk towards him, their commander holding a long, metallic baton in his hand, black wraparound sunglasses covering his eyes.
Balthazar could walk away whenever he wanted, of course, by showing his police identity card. But he was in no rush. Quite the contrary. Even with his sunglasses, he instantly recognised the man with the baton.
The Gendarmerie had only been in operation for a month. The re-formed national police force was charged with ‘special tasks for the protection of national order’ and guarding the ‘dignity of the government and Hungarian nation’. Protests by lawyers, human rights groups and opposition parties that this was a blank cheque to arrest anyone politically inconvenient had been brushed aside. So too had the pointed reminders from senior police officers that Hungary already had a national police force to deal with homeland security and terrorism. Jewish groups protested that the name awakened terrible memories – the original Gendarmerie had rounded up Jews for deportation during the Holocaust and had been disbanded in 1945. European Union diplomats and the European Commission had stated their ‘concern’ about the new force. The next day an article appeared in Magyar Milage a heavily-subsidised pro-government newspaper. The article reported that the ruling Social Democrat party was considering unilaterally rounding up all the migrants at Keleti Station, bussing them to the Austrian border and dumping them there. Ambassadors from EU countries issued a second statement that same afternoon, expressing their ‘full confidence in Hungary’s legal system and commitment to protecting human rights’.
Unlike the local police forces, who came under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior, the Gendarmerie reported directly to the prime minister’s office. The usual oversight bodies, the parliamentary committees and the civil rights ombudsman, had no mandate to scrutinise its operations. In effect, the ruling party and the prime minister now had their own, completely unaccountable, paramilitary force. So why was the Gendarmerie interested in a dead man on a building site? Their very presence indicated that something had happened here. But what? There was only one way to find out. Balthazar stood and waited.
The six Gendarmes walked forward and positioned themselves around him: two squads of two on either side, and another standing behind him. All had their right hands hovering over their pepper spray and handcuffs. Balthazar did not move. The commander slid his baton back into the holder on his belt and took off his sunglasses. ‘Hallo, Tazi,’ he said.
‘Tiszteletem, Attila,’ replied Balthazar, his voice dry. Hungarian had three levels of formality. Tiszteletem, I honour you, was the most formal. Or the least, when used ironically.
Attila Ungar stepped forward, seemed about to shake hands, looked at his men, then thought better of it. Instead he asked, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I could ask the same question. Why is the commander of the Gendarmerie out on the streets? Shouldn’t you be in your nice office by Parliament?’
‘I like it on the streets. That’s where the action is. Where’s the kid? Who was he?’
Balthazar shrugged. ‘What kid?’
‘The one you were talking to.’
‘Who knows?’ He turned around, pretending to look for Jozsi.
‘Stop fucking about, Tazi,’ said Ungar.
Ungar had been Balthazar’s partner for three years, but they had worked together for a decade, rising up from beat officers in District VIII to the city murder squad. They had put away wife-beaters, muggers, violent armed robbers, barroom brawlers and at least one mafia hit man. Then one day, about two months ago, Ungar had invited Balthazar for a drink after work and announced he was resigning. Ungar had avoided all of Balthazar’s questions, and claimed he just wanted a change of scene, to take a couple of months off. Balthazar had suspected that Ungar wanted to avoid a disciplinary investigation after several suspects had claimed he had beaten them up in the holding cells. Ungar denied everything but few believed him, especially as the suspects had substantial bruising and the CCTV system had suffered mysterious breakdowns each time he’d been in the holding area. Shaven-headed, thickly muscled, barely five feet six, Ungar was a weightlifter in his spare time. He seemed to have expanded horizontally even further since Balthazar last saw him. Black talons crept up the side of his neck.
‘I’m not. Nice tattoo,’ said Balthazar.
Ungar stepped closer. ‘Isn’t it? Tazi, we go back a long way. That’s why you aren’t lying on the floor, handcuffed. Or having a nice chat with my colleagues in the back of the van.’
‘For standing in a building lot?’
Ungar smiled, a meagre movement of his lips that did not reach his eyes. ‘Trespassing on state property.’
Ungar glanced at his watch. It was a Rolex Oyster, Balthazar noticed, quite a jump from the Casio plastic digital model Ungar had worn when they worked together. ‘Tazi, you need to leave. Now.’
‘Why?’
‘I told you. Trespassing on state property.’
Ungar gestured at his men. They stepped closer. Balthazar did not move. Distant shouting echoed from the neighbouring apartment building. A window opened and the sound of the ten o’clock news on state radio drifted out. He could not hear all the headlines but several phrases carried: migrant flood, border overwhelmed, terrorist threat.
‘What’s in the bag?’ asked Ungar, pointing at Balthazar’s shoulder. His breath reeked of tobacco and coffee.
‘None of your business.’
‘Hand it over.’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Because you were seen tampering with a crime scene.’
‘What a busy morning I’m having. Trespassing. Tampering. And it’s only ten o’clock. But I don’t see any evidence of any crime.’ He looked around at the Gendarmes. ‘Apart from threatening behaviour.’
‘If there’s no crime, or dead body, then what is the Budapest murder squad doing here?’
‘It’s my day off.’ Balthazar looked at the wall, pointed at the graffiti. ‘I’m checking out the artwork. The red tongue is a nice touch, don’t you think?’
Ungar’s blue eyes turned cold. Balthazar was dissing him in front of his men. ‘Always a smart-arse. Especially for a...’
Balthazar laughed. ‘Yes, I was. Still am. Especially for one of those. Smart enough to know you don’t have jurisdiction here.’
‘I think we do. Don’t you read government decrees? We have jurisdiction everywhere.’ He pointed at Balthazar’s shoulder bag. ‘Even there.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Balthazar, shaking his head.
Ungar gestured at the Gendarmes standing around him. They stepped even closer, penning Balthazar in so he could feel their body heat. The Gendarme to Balthazar’s right was tall and broad-shouldered with a knife scar under his right eye. He sniffed loudly before he spoke. ‘Don’t you notice it?’ he asked of no one in particular. He sniffed again, triggering laughter among the other Gendarmes. ‘That stink. Every time I step into District VIII.’ He
looked at Balthazar, his face sour. ‘It’s especially bad today.’ He took out his pepper spray from his belt, held it in front of Balthazar’s face. ‘How about some deodorant?’
Balthazar said, ‘Good idea.’ The Gendarme with the scar exuded a powerful body odour, a mix of rank sweat and sour milk. ‘Or maybe your uniform needs a wash? It’s very hot.’
The Gendarme said nothing and put the spray back into his belt. His fingers curled into two large fists. There were calluses on his knuckles. His eyes lost focus and seemed to be covered with a thin film. Balthazar knew that look. He had seen it on Ungar’s face many times when he’d had to drag him away from a suspect.
Balthazar could handle himself. He had grown up around here, not far away, on Jozsef Street, then and now the heart of the red-light district, his early years spent in a three-room flat without a bathroom that was home to ten people across three generations. He’d learned to fight his way home from school, as hard and dirty as he needed, and had eventually earned the respect of the neighbourhood toughs. When two skinheads had taunted Gaspar, his younger brother, he’d slammed their heads together and knocked them both out. After that, the pimps and prostitutes had taken him under their protection. Nowadays, he regularly worked out in the police gym and practised kick-boxing two or three times a week. But Balthazar also knew when he was outnumbered. Some battles were unwinnable. Especially against a new paramilitary police force with legal carte blanche.
Ungar shot him a look, one that said, ‘Do you really want to do this?’
Balthazar stepped back, slid his shoulder bag off and handed it to Ungar. The tweezers and the piece of laminated plastic in his trouser pocket suddenly felt larger and more conspicuous, pushing against his skin. What could he do if they searched him? Turned his pockets inside out? Not much. There were six of them and one of him. The Gendarmerie had already gained a reputation, well deserved, for lawlessness and unprovoked violence. Still, it was one thing to knock around left-wing protestors and human-rights activists -quite another to beat up a police officer.
Ungar peered inside Balthazar’s bag, tipped it upside down. Nothing came out. The Gendarme’s face creased in annoyance. He held his hand out. ‘Phone.’
Balthazar reached into his trouser pocket, took out a small, blue Ericsson handset, at least a decade out of date.
Ungar looked at the handset. ‘Very funny. Your proper phone.’
‘That is a proper phone. Let me show you.’ Balthazar pressed the speakerphone button, and called 112, the emergency number. ‘This is Balthazar Kovacs of the Budapest murder squad. Code one. Yes, code one. Location: 26 Pope John Paul Square. Yes, the old party headquarters. Urgent. Yes, there are weapons involved. Yes, now.’
Balthazar held the handset in his palm. The operator’s voice sounded from the loudspeaker, asking for immediate assistance, and for all cars in the area around Keleti Station to head immediately to Luther Street. A few seconds later, a siren wailed, getting steadily louder, another echoing in the distance.
Ungar stepped back, gestured at his men to return to their vehicle. He stared at Balthazar. He had been humiliated in front of his subordinates. This incident, it was clear, would not be forgotten. ‘You remember your history lessons, Tazi. What happened to those AVH boys here in ’56?’
‘I remember that you copied my homework.’
‘Like I said, a smart one.’ His voice turned hard. ‘Those AVH boys were just kids, simple boys from the countryside, raw recruits, drafted into the secret police. They didn’t know what they were doing. They surrendered, came out with their hands up. They should have been taken prisoner.’
Ungar stepped closer. ‘They were mowed down in broad daylight. One by one. Then set on fire. They didn’t deserve to be killed like that. It was murder. But they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that’s always a bad mistake.’
He paused, his eyes glinting. I’il be seeing you, Tazi.’
TWO
Budapest police headquarters, Teve Street, 11.00 a.m.
Sandor Takacs looked down at a freshly printed police report sitting on top of several manila folders. ‘Code one?’ he demanded. ‘Officer in danger?’
‘I was in danger,’ said Balthazar. ‘I was surrounded by six armed hostiles.’
‘And whose fault is that?’ Takacs said, exasperated. ‘What were you doing there, anyway?’
‘Investigating a murder.’
‘No, you were not. You investigate murders here, under my command. You go where I send you. I did not send you to Republic Square, or whatever it’s called nowadays.’ Takacs put the report aside and pushed the folders across the desk. ‘Do these look familiar, Detective?’
Balthazar picked the top file off the heap. ‘Ildiko Nagy’ was written on a white stick-on label. A photograph of a chubby teenage girl with frizzy brown hair was pinned to the cardboard. He checked the next in the pile. Marton Kelemen, a bald man in his late fifties, stared gloomily out.
Balthazar said, ‘Yes. Why aren’t they on my desk?’
‘Because you never seem to be. I’m thinking of transferring you back to the beat. In District XXII.’
District XXII lay on the far edge of the city, a slice of quiet, immensely dull suburbia. Takacs continued, ‘You can track down stolen bicycles. Arrest shoplifters. There might even be a burglary once a month.’
Takacs’s annoyance was real, but would dissipate, Balthazar knew. Even so, form demanded that he show adequate obeisance. He bowed his head slightly. ‘Please don’t do that, boss.’ He rested his hand on the folders. ‘I am on these. Promise.’
Takacs looked doubtful. ‘Really? Remind me, please, how many cases you are working on?’
Balthazar mentally counted for several seconds. ‘Six.’
‘And how many have we temporarily put on hold, due to lack of leads, witnesses and material resources?’
‘About as many.’
‘So that’s twelve actual dead people that need you to find their killer.’
Balthazar reached into his pocket, took out his iPhone, called up the photograph he had been sent and passed the handset to Takacs. ‘Thirteen.’
Takacs glanced at the screen. ‘Twelve.’
‘There was a dead man on Republic Square this morning. It’s our job to find his killer.’
‘Not this one.’
‘But—’
‘But nothing, Tazi.’
‘Nothing? Really?’
Takacs exhaled loudly, cutting him off. ‘But... Attila Ungar.’
‘Oh. The Gendarmes are on it.’ Balthazar paused for a moment. ‘So there is a case?’
Takacs put Balthazar’s iPhone down and reached for the packet of cigarettes by his papers. They were Sobranie, the cheapest, roughest brand. He took a cigarette and held the end to his nose, closed his eyes, inhaled deeply and exhaled. Takacs had once been a forty-a-day man. ‘Not here, in this building. And certainly not for you.’
Balthazar watched the shreds of tobacco fall on Takacs’s papers. ‘And we just let them do that?’
‘So I am informed.’
‘Why?’
‘Csak,’ said Takacs, brushing the brown flakes away. Csak, pronounced ‘chuck’, literally meant ‘only’, but used like this, it meant ‘because I say so and that’s the end of the matter’, as a parent might inform a troublesome child. He stubbed the unlit cigarette in an large glass ashtray, adding it to an ash-free pile of crushed filters, paper tubes and chunks of tobacco.
The commander of Budapest police’s murder squad was short and tubby. Two small brown eyes looked out from a round, pudgy face, under thinning grey hair, carefully combed over a bald spot at the back of Takacs’s head. His face was shiny with sweat and his white shirt was already damp under the armpits. It was a sign of Takacs’s displeasure that he was sitting behind his desk in his office on the tenth floor, while his subordinate was perched on a chair in front. They usually talked in the corner, where two armchairs nestled against a small coffee table.
; As the commander of the Budapest murder squad, Takacs merited a corner office with large windows. The decor and furniture was standard government issue: light-blue walls, fake parquet floor and an Ikea adjustable office chair. But the view was spectacular: on one side, Arpad Bridge, a six-lane concrete ribbon with a tram track in the middle, spanned the Danube at the tip of Margaret Island; on the other, the green hills of Buda, studded with white villas, stretched away into the distance. Today the picture windows were not a bonus. The Budapest police headquarters were housed in a modern steel-and-glass tower block. The sunlight poured through and the room was steadily warming, had been all morning. The building’s air-conditioning, overloaded by the kanikula, the summer heat wave, had finally given up. An upright fan in the corner turned from side to side, bringing little relief.
The thick heat of summer was not unusual for early September. What was unusual, Balthazar noticed, was Takacs’s desk. The perennially teetering piles of reports, memos, files and torn-out newspaper articles had been replaced by an in tray and an out tray, both of which were near empty. Next to them stood a small, orderly pile of papers. What was going on here?
Takacs glanced at that day’s edition of Magyar Vilag, which he made sure to always display. Terrorist Threat from Keleti Migrants’ proclaimed the front-page lead, above a picture of a column of weary-looking male refugees trudging under a border-post sign proclaiming ‘Magyar Koztarsasag, Republic of Hungary’. The second story announced ‘Prime Minister Welcomes Gulf Investors’.
He frowned, pushed the newspaper away. He thought for a moment. ‘And actually, what do we have here? A photograph that may be of a dead man, and may not, a text message on your phone and some nasty graffiti. Who sent the message to your phone? Maybe it’s your friends at Hazifiu.hu, stirring things up again. Forget about the Gendarmes. Focus on your existing workload. On actual real dead people.’
Balthazar often appeared on television news and chat shows, wheeled out by the police’s press office as proof of the force’s commitment to social inclusion. That made him a favourite target of Hazifiu.hu, the most extreme of Hungary’s far-right websites. Hazifiu translated as ‘patriotboy’. Last month the news portal had published his photograph, email address and mobile telephone number, prompting a deluge of hate messages and threats. Balthazar’s home address, the website promised, would be next. The following day at dawn, the police had raided the website’s office and the editor’s home. Balthazar had not been featured since. Most of the threats were harmless, from the angry, embittered and unemployable who had been left behind by the change of system. But perhaps not all of them. Balthazar had enlisted the help of a friend in the State Security Service, a former hacker turned security expert. He had traced several of the emails’ IP addresses back to servers in Parliament.