The Woman from Bratislava (19 page)

IT WAS RAINING AGAIN
early the next morning when Per Toftlund went for a run through the park near his hotel in Warsaw, but the sun was shining from an almost clear sky when his plane landed on schedule in Budapest. Again he was picked up at the airport and driven into the city. The Hungarian capital seemed more prosperous than Warsaw, although it might have been the beautiful houses in the city centre which gave him that
impression
. The suburbs they passed through on the way from the airport resembled, however, every other place where
communist
architects and contractors had done their worst: long rows of identical, drab, concrete tower blocks, lined up in ranks like soldiers – a symbol of the party’s absolute power and constant efforts to make people look small, he thought, as the car drove at top speed towards the city centre. Actually, Toftlund had no real feelings about Budapest one way or the other, or Hungary for that matter. He had never been to the country before, and although as a member of the Warsaw Pact it had been on the enemy side during the cold war, Hungary had not come under Denmark’s area of responsibility. Unlike Poland. To Poland had been allotted the task of landing troops along the Zealand coastline. Poland was a near neighbour. From Poland had come the agents who recruited Danish fifth-columnists and buried military equipment and radio receivers in the woods in preparation for the day of the planned invasion. Sitting there in the back of the blue BMW he
remembered
the chill that had run down his spine the first time he saw the invasion plans in their entirety, after the collapse of communism. Detailed plans which dictated that the first and most important task for the special-forces units from Poland and East Germany
set ashore from submarines or dropped by parachute, was to
liquidate
all of Denmark’s highest-ranking officers and members of the government, thereby paralysing the country. If the invasion failed, the plan was to use tactical nuclear weapons for the first time. He might have come to think of this because he had been pondering Gelbert’s words about history and Danish naivety. How the Danes somehow always expected to get off lightly, as they had done in the First and Second World Wars. And always assumed that someone else would foot the bill. Yet again it had turned out alright. But it could have been a disaster.

The meeting took place in a modern office building
overlooking
the Danube and the imposing Parliament building. Two armed guards were stationed at the entrance to the office block where he was dropped off; he was then led past another guard and up to the tenth floor, where he was shown into an empty office. Through the small windows he could see the muddy grey river running past down below. A barge flying the Russian flag slipped slowly past. A woman was hanging out washing in front of the small wheelhouse. Sailing towards the Russian vessel was another barge with the Romanian flag fluttering from the stern. He was offered coffee and mineral water by a middle-aged secretary with a peroxide beehive who smelled heavily of jasmine. She
apologised
in German for the fact that he was being kept waiting, but Herr Direktor was in a meeting which had run on a little. ‘
Der Krieg, wissen Sie, mein Herr
.’ She gave him that day’s edition of the
Herald Tribune
to help pass the time. The big story in the paper was, of course, the NATO bombings. Everything was going according to plan, a NATO spokesman said. Each day new targets were designated and hit. The weather was giving some problems. But there could be no talk of sending in ground troops. They were doing all they could to avoid allied losses. This was a high-tech war, waged from afar. Civilian losses were minimal, NATO said. He read the words:
Minimum collateral damage.
Other articles painted a less rosy picture. They told of hundreds of thousands
of Kosovo Albanian refugees. Fleeing from what? The intensive ethnic cleansing of the Serbs? Or NATO’s bombs? They sought refuge in Macedonia and Albania, both of which were almost
collapsing
under the weight of refugees. In the parliaments of the wealthy European countries they debated whether they should accept a thousand, or maybe two thousand, refugees. The world was all upside-down, he thought to himself as two men entered the room and introduced themselves.

‘Colonel Karoly Karancsi, head of the Intelligence Service. An honour to meet you. May we speak German?’

‘By all means,’ Toftlund said, thanking his stars that he had grown up in Tønder, near the German border. ‘Detective
Inspector
Per Toftlund.’

Karoly Karancsi was a short, stout man with a narrow
moustache
. He looked a little like Chaplin in his later years, but his hair was black, possibly dyed, his cheeks were round and smooth as a baby’s and slightly reddened by his close morning shave, his eyes close set under a low brow. His handshake was firm and dry. His well-fitting suit looked tailor-made. With it he wore a pale-blue shirt and and a dark, self-coloured tie. A bureaucrat with dress sense.

‘Laszlo Krozsel, criminal investigation department,’ the other man said and offered his hand. He was dressed in a crumpled suit, his tie loosened at the neck. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, but was already bald. His face was lined, his eyes grey and beady and his fingers stained with nicotine. He looked like a cop with too many cases on his desk and more landing on it every single day. It was also he who was carrying the case files. In his hand the colonel had just one grey folder. There was something stamped on it in Hungarian – Toftlund guessed it might stand for ‘Strictly Confidential’ or ‘Top Secret’ or something of the sort.

‘Shall we sit down?’ Karancsi said. ‘My apologies for keeping you waiting. But only days after becoming members of NATO Hungary now finds itself at war with one of its neighbours. The
situation is anything but simple. There is a large Hungarian minority in Vojvodina. The war has generated a lot of uncertainty in Hungary. The people may not altogether understand NATO’s decision. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how complicated the security situation could become if we permit bombing raids to be made from Hungarian territory, or the passage of military supplies through our country. You were regrettably kept waiting because I had been asked to brief the cabinet on this matter.’

‘I understand,’ Toftlund said. ‘These are difficult times we’re living in.’

‘You’re very kind, Inspector. Thank you,’ the colonel said. ‘We are allies now, after all. Fighting on the same side. Danish pilots actively, at that. Such a drastic step would be too much for the Hungarian people – the idea that Hungarian pilots might have to drop bombs on their own countrymen, people who, simply due to the vagaries of history, have ended up living in Yugoslavia. But we civil servants have to leave such decisions to the politicans.’

The two men sat down across from Toftlund at the gleaming wooden table. He could not help feeling that they were about to haggle over fish or butter quotas. The colonel nodded to the policeman, who opened one of the files. First, though, Karancsi said:

‘We have studied the material we received from Denmark and from Poland. We would, of course, like to help you, but to be honest I don’t think there is much we can do for you. You may, however, be able to do something for us. We’ll come back to that. First, though, might I suggest that Inspector Krozsel gives you a rundown of that side of the matter pertaining to the murder of the Danish citizen. Herr Krozsel?’

Kroszel’s German was slow, but easy to understand. He
presented
a factual report, outlining all the facts of the case, and these Toftlund carefully jotted down in his notebook. He could almost have been sitting at the station in Middelfart, listening to a Danish colleague bringing him up to date on an ongoing case.
Police detectives worked in pretty much the same way everywhere in Europe, so it seemed. At any rate they all spoke the same dry, dispassionate language. There was nothing they didn’t know about the follies of mankind. Few facets of human nature were beyond their ken. Their remit was clear, in one case after another: find enough evidence to make it stand up in court, then it was on to the next one. Because there was always another case waiting to be dealt with.

The Danish citizen Niels Lassen had been found in the morning, after his daughter had begun to wonder why he had not come down for breakfast and did not answer the phone when she called his room. He had been killed by repeated blows to the back of the head with a blunt instrument. The first blow had killed him instantly. With a face void of expression Krozsel handed Toftlund the pictures taken by the forensic photographer. The back of
Lassen’s
head was a tangled mass of blood and hair. The body lay curled up beside the window in a foetal position. The eyes were wide open. He was wearing only underpants. Next to him lay the white bathrobe provided by the hotel as part of their service. Other photographs showed the room. It was a perfectly ordinary, decent hotel room containing a bed, a television, a table and two chairs. It had been ransacked: clothes, newspapers, books were scattered everywhere. The chair had been tipped over. The duvet and sheet had been pulled off the bed, the mattress slit. Two empty suitcases had also been ripped open.

Toftlund handed back the pictures.

‘How did the killer or killers get in?’ he asked.

‘Well the door doesn’t appear to have been forced,’ Krozsel said. ‘Although that doesn’t mean much, I’m afraid. Hotel guests are not as careful as they ought to be. Most of them will open the door if someone knocks. Also, it’s very easy to get hold of the – what do you call it – the master key. Cleaners, room service – you know. Will I go on?’

Toftlund nodded and Krozsel continued. Per could tell that
he was desperate for a cigarette, but the colonel did not smell of smoke so he was obviously not going to allow that. Which suited Toftlund fine.

The Hungarian CID had interviewed the hotel staff and residents, paying particular attention to those from Denmark. Niels Lassen’s movements were easily reconstructed. He had attended the opera with the Danish delegation. They had got back to the hotel around eleven and had a drink in the bar. Lassen had gone to bed around midnight, as had most of the Danish party, only a few had hung on in the bar for another hour, among them Lassen’s daughter. She had passed the door of her father’s room on her way to her own, but had not heard anything. The investigation had been complicated slightly right from the start by the fact that Lassen’s room was
registered
in the name of Theodor Nikolaj Pedersen, Danish citizen, and Niels’s daughter had, naturally enough, been in a bit of a state. The leader of the delegation, Klaus Brandt, had cleared up the
misunderstanding
. The hotel had been reprimanded for not keeping its register properly updated. The pathologist estimated time of death to be around four a.m. The hour when the hotel was at its quietest. There were no signs of the victim having put up a fight. No traces of skin under the fingernails. It was their belief that Lassen had opened the door, taken two steps back or been pushed and then hit hard on the back of the head. The only fingerprints found in the room were those of the deceased and another set which had been identified as belonging to one of the cleaners. The deceased’s daughter had observed that traveller’s cheques, his Visa card, some cash, a CD player, mobile phone and a laptop computer – make: Compaq Presario – were all missing. The police had come to the conclusion that it was a case of a robbery which had gone wrong, but they had no suspects. Inquiries among the criminal fraternity had not turned up anything new.

Krozsel raised his eyes and closed the file. A wasted life lay within those covers, Toftlund thought to himself. What he said was:

‘What about the hotel’s security cameras?’

‘We’ve looked at the tapes covering the lobby, the main entrance, the casino and the car park. There are a lot of comings and goings, as you might imagine, but no known faces. Or any suspicious looking individuals, for that matter. Sorry.’

‘Not even this woman?’ Toftlund asked, placing the photograph of Maria on the table in front of Krozsel, who glanced first at it then at the colonel, who nodded imperceptibly.

‘If it’s alright with you, Colonel Karancsi would like to come back to this woman a little later, but I am authorised to say that she does not appear on the videotapes, nor do we have any witnesses placing her anywhere near the hotel or in Budapest at all, come to that. We will of course let you know if we catch the person or persons who did this. But the odds are not great, I’m afraid. That is the downside of freedom. The great gulf between rich and poor. The soaring rise in crime. We have a lot of gypsies in Budapest. We lie on the outskirts of the Balkans. We attract a lot of shady characters.’

Krozsel sat back. As if that was the end of the matter. Or at least, that’s how it seemed to Toftlund. While it might not officially be shelved, the case would now be added to the steadily growing pile of paperwork which the overworked and underpaid police officers of this new era had to wade through every day.

‘Is there any way of getting into the hotel without being caught on film?’ Toftlund asked.

‘It’s possible, yes.’

‘How?’

‘Unfortunately the camera covering the service entrance was out of order. The security manager felt it was safe to wait until the next day to get it fixed.’

‘Had it been out of order long?’

‘It had been tampered with.’

‘When did you discover this?’

‘Not until yesterday, I’m afraid.’

‘So it looks like there’s been some planning behind it, after all.’

‘That was our conclusion too. Unfortunately, Chief Inspector. Our gangs are both professional and ruthless. We have a lot of hotel robberies. But for the sake of our tourist trade we tend not to publicise the fact.’

Toftlund thought for a moment, then he said:

‘Last question: were any other rooms burgled that night?’

‘No.’

‘Doesn’t it make you wonder – to go to so much trouble, all for just one room? I mean, come on – a handful of traveller’s cheques and a computer!’