Chapter 23

The cool of Budapest airport is a welcome relief from the baking tarmac outside. The square, concrete building is haunted by the elusive whiff of old-fashioned cigar. Around the time my colleagues will be beginning to trail into the office in London, I’m using a payphone in the arrivals hall to call to the British Embassy.

Mutti has been taken to a police station halfway between here and the city centre. I get there just as someone in London will be taking orders for coffee and heading for the Italian place around the corner from the production office. I’m going to have to check in with them sometime today. Let’s hope they buy the fiction that I’m on a recce in Leicester. But instead of starting a day with East Midlands Police, I’m looking at an officer of the Budapest force. He stands behind a long, black reception desk that’s been polished to a high sheen and smells of wax.

Polite but unsmiling, the policeman explains in excellent English how I go about getting Mutti released. There are forms to fill in, and of course the fine. Travellers’ cheques, local currency and all major, international credit cards are acceptable. Can’t I see my mother, first? I ask. Just to satisfy myself that she’s well. The officer’s response is to take out a massive pile of paperwork and plop it in front of me. I’ll take that as a no then.

I’m hungry and thirsty now, as I slept through breakfast on the plane. There’s no sign of a vending machine, and let’s not even think about the possibility of a cafeteria. I settle down to complete the forms. It becomes clear that relinquishing communism doesn’t mean abandoning a fixation with bureaucracy.

It’s disappointing that I never get to see the inside of Mutti’s cell, because they bring her up to me. She doesn’t look miserable, grubby or even the least bit contrite as I wrap my arms around her. She pats me on the back, and continues chatting in Hungarian to the policeman who has brought her upstairs, as though they are acquaintances who have met at a cocktail party. All she says to me is, “Very good, very good.”

Before we can leave, we need to retrieve her enormous suitcase and handbag. And – surprise, surprise – this seems to involve handing over another wad of cash, then signing a further form. The copper calls us a cab, and we head into town. I have a passing thought to ask Mutti to explain why she needs a globetrotter’s trunk full of clothes for a couple of days in Budapest, but get side-lined by practicalities. Where are we going? She gives the driver directions with all of her usual hauteur. As we drive along, she also provide a commentary about the many wonderful things we can see and do in Budapest, as though this was just another happy little mother and daughter jaunt. The thermal baths are an absolute must, it seems. And of course the magnificent Buda Castle. I interrupt her flow.

“Are you even planning to say ‘thank you’? In fact ‘sorry’ would be nice.”

“Well…”

“You haven’t even told me what happened.”

“You know what happened.”

“I got the briefest possible outline from someone in the British Embassy. Something about lighting up on a non-smoking flight.”

“These people are quite unreasonable. It’s a three-hour flight, for God’s sake.”

“Everybody else seems to manage.”

“Ah, but they are not real smokers.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“If you were a smoker, you would know.” I can’t be bothered to argue the toss over the likelihood that there’s not a single genuine smoker among the three hundred people onboard a Malev airlines flight. Mutti would always manage to have the last word. “Anyway,” she says, “if you had come with me in the first place, as I asked you to, this would never have happened.”

“If I had been sitting next to you, you wouldn’t have lit a cigarette?”

“Of course not.”

“How d’you work that one out?”

“You wouldn’t have let me.” So it’s all my fault. Of course.

By now, it looks as though we are coming into downtown Budapest. Mutti has become flushed and excited, as she looks right and left out of the taxi windows and she’s stopped talking. The car bumps over a bit of cobbled road, passing a row of grand, art deco old buildings along an avenue. What’s Mutti making of all this after fifty years? Whatever it is must be given an undoubted extra soupçon of piquancy by her night in the cells. A tear is building in the corner of her eye. It wobbles, precarious on the rim, catching the harsh sunlight as we swing round a roundabout, and is dislodged by the momentum. She wipes her cheek, brushing it away, and shoots me a half smile, with the merest hint of apology around the edge.

She says something to the driver, he replies and opens his window. She does the same, then loads her cigarette holder and lights up. Just as I’m about to completely lose it with her, I realise that the driver is puffing away too. Smoking is in the Hungarian lifeblood, then, just like loud conversation and rich cakes. The combined output from the two of them blows back over me, and even though I’ve grown up with the reek of tobacco, it makes me feel sick all over again.

I look out of the window to distract myself from the wave of nausea, and find we’re soaring over an immense river on a suspension bridge. Passenger cruisers glide both ways on the glinting water of the Danube below. There’s a disappointing lack of blue in the water. But of course, Strauss was Viennese. The Hungarian Danube is almost black.

I’ve got the book in my bag, the one I took from Mutti’s house. I’ve read it and re-read it many times by now, wearing down the pages yet further. And I’d say we can’t be too far from the place where Arrow Cross death squads did their dirty work. Hideous things happened in the very streets our cab is trundling through right now. People hid for months in stinking, overcrowded basements, lice-ridden and scrambling for scraps, cowering from constant bombardments. As we swing down a side street, Mutti’s looking both ways with a thoughtful expression. But if she’s remembering what happened to her back then, she doesn’t say a thing.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“A little guest house,” says Mutti. “Very modest.” And before I can ask whether we even have a booking she adds, “Civilised policeman let me telephone to say I arrive one day late.”

We stop in front of a white-painted building in a terrace of similar houses. It looks not much bigger than the average London family home. Above the door, a sign reads ‘Pension Eszterházy’. A small, cluttered reception area is dominated by an oversized chandelier. There’s no response to the brass bell on the reception desk. Nothing. Then a distant shuffling sound, like mice running down a corridor, and finally a small woman with an enormous bosom bustles in on high heels. Gracious ropes of beads swaddle her minimal neck. Improbably red hair is scraped up into an imposing bun above Edith Piaf eyebrows. Though she looks like a brothel madam from central casting, her manner is formal. “Igen?”

Mutti says something in Hungarian. The only bit I understand is our names. The formality is dispensed with, something has unlocked a cascade of verbiage, beginning with the words, “Madame Mueller, szervusz, szervusz!” uttered in an operatic manner, and continuing without pauses. Mutti looks regal, and very pleased with herself. The two women shake hands, and our hostess bobs up and down in what strikes me as a distinctly pre-communist curtsey.

As Mutti only booked for one, we are sharing a room. It’s small and simply furnished, with little more than the Spartan looking double bed and a cupboard, and two unmatched wooden bedside cabinets. The floor space is minimal, and now it is almost entirely taken up by Mutti’s massive suitcase. The plain furniture is relieved by a scattering of painted ornaments, and a vase containing dried flowers. The effect is pretty grim and my face must give me away, because Mutti shrugs.

“Very cheap, for good location,” she says. I see her quickly pull down the bedcovers, as if checking for bugs, but she doesn’t tell me whether she’s found any. I declare the bedroom a no smoking zone. Mutti doesn’t object, but I suspect she’s just deferring the battle.

Downstairs there’s a little booth draped with nylon lace curtaining, where Madame keeps her antiquated Bakelite telephone. I sit on a wobbly plastic stool and call Malev to change Mutti onto the same flight home as me. Thank God she’s old fashioned enough to travel scheduled. No cut price rubbish for her. We’ll both be on tomorrow night’s plane to London. Then I dial the office, to speak to Sarah’s PA Millie. By now it’s mid-afternoon here, so they’re probably just coming back from lunch.

“Hi,” I say. “Did you get my fax?”

“Yeah. Are you OK?”

“Fine, I’m in Leicester.”

“So you said.”

“Is everything OK at the office?”

“Why shouldn’t it be?”

“Er, no reason. Elizabeth, this line is very echoey, where are you?”

“I’m using a phone in the pub. My mobile’s battery has gone flat.”

“Right.”

“Millie, any chance you could make a couple of calls? I’ll ask Sarah if you can have a researcher credit if you pull in the goods.”

“No probs. And Elizabeth?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful. I’m watching your back, but Sarah’s got an uncanny sixth sense.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. But thanks, and everything.” I give her the numbers, and tell her what needs doing. My next call is to DI Jenkins.

“I just wondered what’s happened with Stamford Hill.”

“I’ve been leaving you messages all over the place. Didn’t you get them?”

“Oh. I’m on a recce for my next job. In Leicester.”

“Really?”

“Is it that surprising?”

“No, except I spoke to some bloke at your office, who seemed to think you were about to leave the programme. Made some sort of cryptic remark he seemed to think was very funny.” Andrew. Fuck. What does he know?

“Sorry about that. The half-arsed researcher who sits next to me. He’s got a strange sense of humour. Makes up for being rubbish at his job.”

“I’ll steer clear of your office politics. But I thought you’d want to know we’ve arrested a Nachmann Cohen of Stamford Hill.”

“Oh my God. Nachmann. Bruchi’s uncle? The mother’s weird brother? What’s he charged with?”

“Nothing yet.”

“On what basis have you arrested him?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

“Do you suspect him of being the murderer?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

“Is there any evidence against him?”

“Do you have any?”

“Not unless you count the fact that he is extremely odd, and unmarried.”

“If being single over thirty was a crime I could come and arrest you too.”

“Is that a police joke? Excuse me for not laughing.”

“OK. But I’m just trying to point out that being single is not a crime.”

“Of course not, but it is strange for Stamford Hill. I’ve met enough people up there to realise that different rules apply for the extremely orthodox. The great thing about arranged marriages seems to be that nobody needs to be left on the shelf, however much they lack either social skills or sex appeal. So when it comes to Nachmann Cohen, you simply have to ask why he’s not married.”

“I can’t see a judge going for it on that basis, I’m afraid.”

“Which leaves you where?”

Jenkins sighs. “OK, strictly off the record then – he was present, had the opportunity. His alibi is that he was at the party, but no one can remember whether he was actually present all of the time. He could have easily slipped out.”

“And if you can’t get any more than that?”

“There is some other evidence I can’t go into, but I don’t think we’ve got enough to charge him by a long chalk. If I can’t get anything else, I’ll have to release him by tomorrow morning.”

“Shit. Do you have a gut feeling that he’s the one?”

“As you say, there’s something odd going on.” I wonder if I should tell DI Jenkins what I’ve found out about the community protecting and hiding people suspected of child abuse. If Nachmann did anything, or his family even suspect it, heaven knows what they’d do to protect him. That hardly counts as evidence, though. I put the phone down.