The police officer slid his passport into a machine reader and stared at the monitor for several seconds. Marton Ronay looked around as he waited. Until today, the furthest east he had been was Berlin. That city was much nearer Poland than he had thought, but was still part of Germany, the civilised, western half of the continent. Now he was in the east, in a land that bordered Ukraine and Romania, almost in the Balkans. He thought for a moment of his great-aunt in New Jersey, the stories she told of the ‘old country’: the wartime siege and hunger, the feral youths roaming the city, nights ripped apart by gunfire, the brother who went out for bread in the winter of 1944 as the Russians advanced and never came home.
But that was more than seventy years ago. Communism had collapsed in 1990. Hungary was a democracy now, a member of NATO and the European Union, but still, this pristine modernity was not quite what he had expected. The arrivals hall had a polished cream marble floor, white walls and a row of glass booths where the police officers sat. One illuminated billboard showed a sequence of photographs of Hungary – he recognised the chain bridge and Lake Balaton. Another showed attractive young people chatting on their iPhone Xs or joyfully moving money around on Internet bank accounts. Even the toilets, which he had just used, were spotless. The immigration queue moved swiftly, at least in comparison to every American airport he had ever passed through. And then there was the man flicking through his passport. The policeman was probably in his late twenties. He wore a light-blue uniform shirt, nicely filled by broad shoulders. Floppy brown hair fell over cool, assessing hazel eyes. Marton looked at the name on his shirt: Szilagyi Ferenc, written in the Hungarian fashion with the family name first. Welcome to Hungary, indeed.
Ferenc almost made up for the delay. He was certainly better-looking than the fat Mexican or whatever guy who had pulled him out of the line at JFK, taken him into a filthy side room, made him turn out his pockets and daypack and asked him what felt like a hundred questions about why he was going to Hungary.
Marton felt the policeman’s glance on him, stifled a yawn. He was exhausted. He had transferred at Frankfurt, expecting a short, hassle-free flight of an hour. The flight had left and arrived on time, but once they’d landed at Budapest all the passengers had been held up for more than half an hour on the tarmac. Some problem with getting a staircase, the captain had said. Marton had watched from his window seat as the luggage was unloaded from the hold and placed onto trolleys before being driven away, although he could not spot his case among them. He rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn. The pressure was building now behind his eyes, the band of tension spreading. It was definitely the start of a headache, hopefully not a full-blown shooting-stars-and-explosions migraine.
The policeman removed his passport from the reader, still holding it. ‘What is the purpose of your visit, Mr Marton?’ he asked, clear eyes holding his. ‘Business or pleasure?’
Marton tried to read his look. Brisk, polite, professional. Was there a flicker of something else underneath? Did they have gaydar in Hungary? Surely. It was a universal mechanism. ‘Both. I have some meetings. But I will also be doing some tourism,’ he replied in fluent Hungarian. He paused, smiled hopefully. ‘Maybe you can recommend a guide?’
The policeman continued staring at Marton’s passport, his handsome face impassive. Marton smiled, gathered his courage. Even if he got it wrong, what was there to lose? He leaned forward. ‘Or perhaps you have some free time. It’s always so much better when a local shows you their favourite places.’
The policeman did not smile back. ‘There is a tourist information booth in the arrivals area. They can help you.’
Marton nodded. A strikeout. But he had only been in the country for less than an hour. There would be plenty of other opportunities, he was sure. Ferenc continued speaking. ‘You speak very good Hungarian. Your family name is Hungarian. You have relatives here?’
Marton paused for a second. Yes, he did, although none that he wanted to admit to and he was certainly not about to tell Ferenc that, no matter how good-looking he was. ‘My parents left in ’56. We spoke Hungarian at home. I still have some distant cousins here,’ he said. ‘You know us Magyars. We are everywhere. Conquering the world.’
That at least brought a glimmer of a human response. Ferenc seemed about to smile but then thought better of it. He moved back from the glass, turned away for a second as he scribbled something on a notepad. He turned back to Marton, stamped his passport and slid it under the glass. ‘Welcome in Hungary, Mr Marton.’
For a moment Marton thought of correcting his grammar, then thought better of it. In any case, the next passenger was already moving forward behind him. He took his passport and walked through to the baggage arrivals hall. A cascade of luggage – overstuffed rucksacks, suitcases wrapped in clear plastic to deter light-fingered baggage handlers, black executive trolleys, cardboard boxes wrapped in duct tape – was tumbling onto the second carousel. The hall was crowded with families, businesspeople tapping on smartphones, lone travellers, a group of Korean tourists being marshalled by their guide who held a small Korean flag. A baby started howling. After a minute or so, Marton saw his bag, an expensive black-and-brown TUMI trolley, slide down the belt onto the carousel. Marton slid past several Koreans, took his luggage, extended the handle, and walked through the green customs channel, behind a bald, lanky businessman in a black suit. There were large two-way mirrors attached to each side of the wall. A poster warned against bringing in undocumented pets, plants or meat products. He kept his pace steady, tried to ignore his racing heartbeat.
A bored-looking customs guard, a tall man in his fifties with sloping shoulders, watched the businessmen walk by. He turned and looked Marton up and down. Marton returned his glance for a couple of seconds, then looked ahead. The exit was to the right, two glass doors that opened automatically. Breathe, he told himself, you are nearly there, and you are not carrying anything illegal. The dangerous stuff is in your head, and there are no customs guards in the world that can get to that. The doors opened. A low brushed-aluminium barrier marshalled the exiting passengers into the arrivals area. He walked into the throng and the tiredness hit him. A young couple fell on each other and kissed hungrily, a mother in her forties embraced a lanky, embarrassed-looking teenager, hugging him and crying. They had told Marton that the driver, a man called Laszlo, would be waiting for him, would recognise him and would take him straight to the flat. A wiry man in his late twenties, wearing a badly fitting denim shirt, with a nose that looked like it had been broken, walked up to Marton. He smiled confidently, showing a row of crooked teeth. ‘Welcome in Hungary. How was your flight?’ he asked in strongly accented Hungarian.
Marton asked, ‘Are you Laszlo?’
‘Laszlo, yes, yes, Laszlo,’ replied the man. ‘You must be much tired. Don’t worry, I will arrange the all. Hotel, everything.’ Marton paused for a moment. What was this talk of a hotel?
‘I don’t need a hotel. I’m going straight to the apartment,’ Marton said.
The taxi driver nodded, reached for Marton’s bag. ‘Apartment, yes, yes. All is arranged. Very nice place in the downtown.’
Marton was about to hand over his luggage when he saw the badge on the man’s chest. The ‘Official Taxi’ badge had obviously been printed at home, with a blurry photograph of the man in the kind of plastic cover used by conference delegates. The name underneath was Kiss Sandor. Marton kept a grip on his bag, shook his head. ‘No. No thank you.’
The taxi driver’s smile faded. He pointed at his badge. ‘What is problem, Mister? I am official taxi.’
He reached for Marton’s bag again. Marton pulled it away, stepped back, adrenalin cutting through his fatigue, and was about to start arguing when another man appeared. He was older, in his forties, with buzz-cut steel-grey hair and blue eyes. He wore a well-cut brown leather jacket and a black woollen poloneck and clean jeans and moved with a confident ease. The first taxi driver looked him up and down, considering his options. The man in the leather jacket leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. The first taxi driver immediately stopped talking and moved away, scanning the hall for easier prey.
The man in the leather jacket put his hand out. ‘Mr Marton. Sorry about that, this place is full of jackals. I’m Laszlo. But you can call me Laci.’
Neither of them noticed the tall businessman watch their exit, and then make a telephone call.
Balthazar, Gaspar and Fat Vik stood behind Eszter at her desk, her fingers gliding over her silver-and-white Apple keyboard as she called up the program that controlled the in-house CCTV system. The office stood at the end of a corridor on the ground floor with a view out on the large garden. Eszter’s workplace was tidy and homely. The walls were painted a light shade of pink and the floor was covered with narrow parquet slats laid in a diagonal pattern. A pale cream sofa took up most of one corner, with a rainbow-patterned throw covering its back. A tall yucca plant stood in the other corner. The window was open, and a breeze blew in. The garden was only used by Eszter and her oromlanyok between clients, but was still well maintained, the edges of the lawn neatly trimmed and lined by rose bushes. Three wood-and-rattan recliners stood in the middle of the lawn around a low coffee table. A framed photograph, its colours fading, showed two boys, perhaps eight or nine years old, both dressed in green-and-white strip of Ferencvaros, one of the city’s best-known football clubs, as they grinned at the camera.
Eszter’s two sons were nineteen now: one, Miki, was in prison, after he was caught picking pockets on the number-two tram. The other, Pal, was still at high school, had never been in trouble apart from a couple of playground fights after being taunted, and was about to graduate. High school graduations among Roma teenagers were still rare enough to occasion a huge family party. For a moment Balthazar wondered if he would be invited. Eszter, he was sure, would be glad to see him. So would his mother, Marta. The problem was his father, Laszlo. Laszlo had cut off all relations with Balthazar after he joined the police. The two had not spoken directly for more than eight years, although various relatives were occasionally used to send messages about family affairs, and Alex, Balthazar’s twelve-year-old son.
Balthazar watched Eszter as she worked, his eyes moving over her desk. A mug held several pens and pencils, and a stack of three trays was filled with neatly filed paperwork. The brothel operated as a legitimate business, a day spa, although Eszter kept two sets of books. The first set was maintained on the computer with standard office software. Eszter recorded around half the house’s earnings on the Excel spreadsheets and paid tax on them. The second set of accounts, that recorded the actual movements of money, were handwritten in a ledger that was kept locked in a safe that was built into the floor. The brothel even took credit cards, although not surprisingly most customers paid in cash.
Eszter sat back and stared at the monitor for a moment, her face creased in puzzlement.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Gaspar.
She tapped the keyboard again, several times. ‘Nothing, I think. The program is just sticking. Wait…’
The left side of the monitor suddenly filled with feeds from half a dozen cameras. Yellow numbers at the bottom of each marked the current date and time. The cameras covered the entranceway, the pavement outside on the street, the foyer, the internal corridor, the rear of the house and garden and inside the VIP salon. Balthazar looked at the screen for several seconds – all the cameras seemed to be working. The VIP salon camera showed a rumpled bed, now empty, another the foyer. He glanced at the camera covering the street outside: a jogger bounded past, heading downhill – a skinny, balding man who looked to be in his fifties, wearing a white Nike T-shirt and grey shorts.
The private ambulance had arrived soon after Balthazar made his call.
They had all watched silently as the ambulance men had worked quickly, as if suddenly aware that the slack skin, lolling limbs, gaping mouth and dead eyes had just a couple of hours before belonged to a living, breathing person. The ambulance men straightened al-Nuri out, zipped him into a body bag, slid him onto a trolley and wheeled him away.
‘Can you rewind the footage an hour or so back? For all the cameras?’ asked Balthazar.
Eszter nodded. ‘Of course.’ Her fingers slid across the keyboard. For a couple of seconds the six screens carried on showing the same images. Then they blurred and turned black.
Eszter leaned forward, frowning. ‘That’s strange.’
‘What is?’ asked Gaspar. He stepped nearer, tapped the monitor. Balthazar’s brother was hopeless with technology and could barely operate his smartphone. He had left school at the age of fourteen and was only haltingly literate. But his instincts for trouble – and potential trouble – were razor-sharp. They kept the Kovacs family businesses in profit and its members safe. ‘Why isn’t it showing anything?’
Balthazar lifted his brother’s hand away. ‘Leave it, ocsim. And let Eszter do her work.’ Gaspar shrugged, stepped back. Eszter tried again but nothing moved. The six monitors stayed black. Balthazar said nothing, but watched with a growing sense that this morning was becoming a larger and larger problem, even though it was not yet 7 a.m.
Eszter moved the cursor back to the camera covering the palace. She rewound the footage by an hour or so, to 5.30 a.m., when Kinga had alerted her that the client had collapsed. The CCTV frame stayed black, the computer silent.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Eszter. ‘We checked the system this afternoon, before we opened. Like we do every day. All the cameras were fine. Working perfectly.’
‘Try the other cameras,’ said Balthazar.
Eszter went through the same routine with all six cameras. The result was the same every time.
Balthazar watched with a growing sense of foreboding. ‘What time did we leave the VIP salon?’
Fat Vik glanced at his watch. ‘Around 6.40 a.m.’
Balthazar said, ‘Try the room at that time.’
Eszter did as he bade. The screen stayed black. She turned around in her chair, her eyes wide with anxiety. ‘I don’t understand. This has never happened before.’
Gaspar ran his fingers back through his hair. ‘We’ve never had a dead Qatari before.’ He looked at Balthazar. ‘Batyam?’
Balthazar was about to answer when the screen flickered. All six feeds suddenly lit up. Each showed the same image: Balthazar, Gaspar, Fat Vik and Eszter standing in front of Eszter’s desk, staring at the monitor.