It was indeed an impressive move. Reka was now untouchable – if she won the next election. Otherwise, she had just made an awful lot of powerful enemies. Balthazar looked at his watch. It was coming up to 2.30 p.m. He needed to be back at Liberty Square at 3.30 p.m. to meet Attila Ungar at the office of his security company. He did not think there was much more to learn here, but with much of Hungary’s business and political elite gathered in one place, it was always worth looking around. He spoke quietly to Sandor. ‘I’m going for a walk. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’
Sandor nodded at him. ‘Good idea.’
Balthazar walked away from the pantheon, into the main ground of the cemetery. The rain had stopped now and the air smelled damp and fresh. It was a peaceful place, well looked after, with trim paths and verdant greenery. Balthazar stopped for a moment to look at the grave of Norbert Szilard, 1859–1934. Father, brother, son, much missed said the inscription on a plain black marble headstone, now dull and weathered with age. A statue of a hooded mourner stood by the slab, covered in ivy. One eye peeked out at him from behind the dense greenery.
A long line of vehicles was parked in the pathways – the usual array of expensive Audi and Mercedes saloons, with several Range Rovers, the newly favoured vehicle of the city’s uj gazdagok, new rich. He walked down the pathway, idly checking out each car. One of the Mercedes, he saw, was dark blue, with tinted windows. It was a few years older than the cars parked next to it, grubbier and needed a clean.
He crouched down in front of the car and checked the left-side headlight. It wasn’t cracked but looked dull and worn. He ran his finger down the plastic casing. It was smeared with dirt and grease and scored with tiny indentations and scratch marks from stones and gravel thrown up by other vehicles.
Balthazar checked the side headlight on the right-hand side. It too wasn’t cracked. In fact the plastic covering was shiny and pristine – it was, he realised, brand new. He took a photograph of the number plate, then turned back and returned to Sandor Takacs.
TWENTY-TWO
Liberty Square, 3.30 p.m.
Attila Ungar held Balthazar’s phone in front of him as he watched the footage Vivi had captured from one of the street cameras overlooking Klauzal Square. It showed Balthazar walking through the park, almost up to the man sitting on the bench, until he raised the walkie-talkie to his ear. At that point Balthazar turned and started sprinting back towards Dob Street.
Vivi had zoomed in on the man and added a few seconds of still footage of his face into the main clip. He was clearly visible and would be recognisable to anyone who knew him. The footage ended and Attila handed the phone back to Balthazar.
‘Do you know him?’ asked Balthazar.
‘We’ll get to that.’
That was a yes. ‘Who is he?’
‘I told you. We’ll get to that. Be patient. But are you sure you want to pursue this one, Tazi?’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
Attila wrinkled his nose, waved his hand back and forth in front of his face. ‘Smells bad. Uzis, shootouts. Israelis. Historians poking around places best left undisturbed.’
‘You know about that? The historian?’ asked Balthazar.
Attila shrugged. ‘I hear things. Thing is, Tazi. You’ve put me in a bit of a spot here. A couple of weeks ago we signed a substantial contract with Nationwide. I’m now their chief security officer. That means overseeing everything from the doorman at the headquarters to threat analysis.’
Balthazar thought for a moment. Attila was CSO for Nationwide. This was news. Maybe it had been a mistake to come here. The most elementary threat analysis would have Elad high on the matrix, and now Balthazar too, poking around with his questions. The footage of the man on the bench was clear enough – someone else among Balthazar’s contacts would know who he was.
‘And what kind of threats is Karoly Bardossy worried about?’ asked Balthazar.
Attila smiled as if to say, Let’s stop fucking around here. ‘Look, Tazi, essentially we are on the same side. I want to know where Elad Harrari is and what he has found out, and so do you.’
Balthazar and Attila had once been partners, starting out as beat cops in the District VIII station, working the streets together. Attila had grown up in poverty in a panel-lakas, a small flat in a tower block in a remote part of the city, far from Liberty Square. His father had killed himself when he was young and his mother’s subsequent boyfriends had been spongers, alcoholics, or both.
Attila leaned forward as he continued, ‘So really, if you think about it, we would both be so much better off, Tazi, if you came to work for me.’
Attila had come a long way since their days in the back alleys of District VIII. Barely five foot six, he wore a crisp white shirt, one that looked tailored and showed off his impressively muscled physique, the result of years of weightlifting. He gestured around his modern office, with its pale walls dotted with framed prints of Hungarian classic paintings and stylish modern furniture. ‘Look at this place. Beats our old station in District VIII or the police headquarters.’
As if on cue a knock on the door sounded. Attila shouted to come in. An attractive, miniskirted young woman in her twenties with a bob of brown hair walked in, carrying a tray laden with coffee cups, milk and Italian biscuits. She smiled at Attila and Balthazar, placed the tray on Attila’s desk and walked out. ‘Much nicer scenery, too,’ said Attila as he watched her leave. ‘Csilla is an intern. Very eager to please. You’ll love it here.’
Attila had been an excellent cop, sharp-eyed, street-smart and able to see through any concocted alibi or story, no matter how plausible. But eventually the complaints from suspects that they had been knocked about, even beaten up, in the holding cells became too numerous to ignore. Attila had resigned and joined the Gendarmerie.
Last autumn, while working for Pal Dezeffy in his attempt to bring down Reka Bardossy, Attila had arrested Balthazar and detained him in the basement of an abandoned villa in Buda, once used by the communist-era secret police as a torture chamber. But when Attila found his father’s initials scratched on the wall, together with the dates of his incarceration, he had changed sides and helped Balthazar escape. After Reka Bardossy had dissolved the Gendarmerie, Attila had founded his own security company. Its headquarters was in a neighbouring building to the 555.hu newsroom, also overlooking Liberty Square.
Balthazar looked around Attila’s office. It was true, it was much more comfortable than his rickety desk and worn-out decor and fittings at the Budapest police headquarters. Attila had once offered Balthazar a position in the Gendarmerie. He had immediately declined.
‘Again?’ Balthhazar asked. ‘So many job offers.’
Attila had grown some hair and looked almost respectable, less a thug and more the kind of businessman that would be useful in tough negotiations with questionable partners. But his shirt could not quite disguise the tattoo of talons on the side of his neck.
‘This is not the Gendarmerie. No rough stuff. That’s all over,’ Attila said, emphatically shaking his head. ‘I am a respectable businessman now. Apart from Nationwide we have some nice fancy clients – American CEOs living the expat high life, Chinese businessmen, German bankers. I have to focus on Nationwide now, but the others need looking after. I’ll at least triple your salary, Tazi. You can have a modern office, a hot secretary, expenses, a car – whatever you want.’
He looked down at his desk for several moments, exhaled, then looked back up at Balthazar. ‘Look, Tazi. I owe you one. I was going down the wrong path.’
Balthazar thought before he answered. On one level, Attila’s offer was tempting. A tripling of his salary – even a fifty per cent increase – would be welcome. Much of it already went on maintenance payments to Sarah and lately she had been asking for more to cover Alex’s fees at the American school, even though she was paid far more than him in her job at Central European University.
There was a chance, he guessed, that at least part of Attila’s company was clean and legitimate, probably the part dealing with the expatriates. But if he ever left the police force, it would be to work for his people in some way, not for an overpaid job in a private security company. His conversation with Erno Hartmann still echoed in his mind, about a museum commemorating the Poraymus and the Gypsy contribution to Hungarian culture.
Balthazar said, ‘Thanks, Attila, really. I appreciate the offer. But no thanks, at least for now.’ He leaned forward. ‘So, the guy in Klauzal Square? Because I remember the face,’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘But not the name.’
Attila had the grace to look almost embarrassed at the reference to their encounter last September on Republic Square, when Balthazar had been surrounded and threatened by Attila and his fellow gendarmes. ‘OK, Tazi, this one I will give you. Geza. His name is Geza. I offered him a job when we set up the company, but he said no, said he had some freelance offers.’
‘Geza what?’
‘Geza Kovacs.’ He smiled. ‘Maybe he’s a relative of yours.’
Kovacs was Hungarian for Smith. And Geza Kovacs, whoever he was, was clearly not a Gypsy. ‘Very funny. He’s not.’
Attila looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘OK. Let’s be serious. So what’s this Kovacs doing sitting around in Klauzal Square with a walkie-talkie in his hand, being stalked by the country’s best-known cop a few seconds before a gunman on a motorcycle shoots up a car and nearly kills our favourite state security officer?’
Attila had not lost his ability to sum up the situation in two or three sharply focused sentences. Balthazar smiled. ‘I was hoping you could help me with that, Attila.’
‘Like I said, Geza’s gone freelance.’
‘For who?’
‘Nem tom, dunno,’ said Attila, sliding into street slang. ‘Really. Otherwise I would tell you.’
‘Where does he live?’
‘That I do know.’ Attila took out a pen, wrote down an address on a slip of paper and handed it to Balthazar. ‘Tazi,’ he said, his voice serious, ‘be careful.’
TWENTY-THREE
Liberty Square, 4 p.m.
He would be careful, but before going anywhere, Balthazar decided, he would head home and grab something to eat. He stepped out of Attila’s office building onto a small piazza that led onto Liberty Square. From there to Dob Street was just a ten-minute taxi ride, but he would walk at least some of the way, he decided.
The walk would help clear his head, and give him to think through where he was with this case. On the way he would call Anastasia and send her the address Attila had given him, so she could send someone over there to meet him. Or maybe she could come herself. He smiled at that prospect, realised that would be his preferred option.
