Balthazar climbed into the car, sat down and looked at Anastasia Ferenczy. ‘At least you say “Good morning”.’
She frowned. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Your jogger.’
A glimmer of a smile flickered on her lips. ‘What jogger?’ she asked, turning towards him, her eyes wide and faux-innocent.
‘How many have you got? Skinny, balding, probably in his fifties. White Nike T-shirt, grey shorts that matched what was left of his hair. He didn’t look like he was enjoying himself. And he could change his route. He keeps running up and down Loczy Lajos Street.’
‘Oh. Him. He’s a grumpy old fart. Sorry. I’ll pass the word on.’
‘Good. Why was he watching me?’
‘Well, he wasn’t watching you, exactly. More the place where you were and the people coming in and out of it. We were already keeping an eye on al-Nuri. Did you bring them?’
Balthazar handed her al-Nuri’s passport and the packet of blue pills. ‘Thanks for sorting that out. The ambulance came quickly. When will we get the forensics?’
‘We’re on it. Our guys will go back in an hour or so, take swabs and samples from the room. So tonight, with a bit of luck. Thank you for the tip-off. Meanwhile, Tazi, we have so much to talk about. Maybe over breakfast? There’s a new cafe on Falk Miksa Street I really want to try. Café Habsburg. It’s Austrian–Hungarian fusion.’
‘Breakfast yes; Falk Miksa Street, no.’
Falk Miksa Street was a stately, tree-lined thoroughfare of art nouveau apartment buildings, tourist-priced antique shops and several fancy bistros, popular with politicians and their retinues, in the heart of District V. It ran from the side of Kossuth Square to the Grand Boulevard just before the start of Margaret Bridge. The street was also home to one of the headquarters of the ABS. That, and its proximity to Parliament, meant that it was widely believed that the cafes there were bugged.
Still, the mention of food made Balthazar realise that he was very hungry. He had eaten nothing since Eszter’s dawn telephone call, just drunk a glass of water and a coffee.
Anastasia continued talking, the car still stationary. ‘You and I are quite safe. Café Habsburg has only been open three days. We won’t get to it at least until the end of the week.’
‘No. No Falk Miksa.’
‘Why not? Are you scared to be seen with me?’ Anastasia asked, her voice gently teasing.
‘Not at all. I’m very happy to have breakfast with you. Just not fifty yards from your office.’
‘OK. Let’s get going. I’ll try and persuade you on the way.’
‘And you,’ Balthazar asked. ‘What’s news with your family castle?’
Anastasia laughed. ‘It’s not a castle.’
The Ferenczys were one of Hungary’s best-known aristocratic dynasties, Transylvanian nobility whose history mirrored that of Hungary. Every schoolchild knew their name. Balthazar too had been somewhat star-struck when he first met Anastasia a week ago. The Ferenczys had taken leading roles in the 1848 revolution against Austria, for which several had been executed. After the 1920 Treaty of Trianon that had seen two-thirds of historic Hungary handed to its neighbours, the family, and their palace outside Timisoara, had found themselves in Romania. The Ferenczys had moved to Budapest. Several had been sent to concentration camps after they were caught hiding Jews in 1944 after the Nazis invaded. More Ferenczys had taken part in the 1956 uprising against the Soviets for which they had again been executed or exiled. During the reign of Nicolae Ceausescu, Romania’s half-crazed Communist leader, the family’s palace had been turned into a holiday home for the party elite.
Balthazar had recently read a story on 555.hu that the Ferenczys were trying to reclaim their historic home. ‘Palace, then.’
‘Country mansion. Maybe. If we can raise a big enough bribe.’
Anastasia started the engine and began to drive. She had barely gone ten yards down Filler Street when a blue Volkswagen Golf began to pull out in front. She braked, waiting for the car to drive off. Balthazar shot her a sideways look. She looked good in profile, he thought, not for the first time. You wouldn’t describe her as pretty, exactly, but she was definitely striking, slim but with the requisite curves; large, clear eyes the colour of emeralds; straight nose; a wide, full mouth and slightly pointed chin, the result of centuries of well-planned breeding, perhaps with the odd German noble and Jewish trader thrown in to spice the mix. He smiled for a moment, almost laughed as he remembered the verdict of Eva neni, auntie Eva, his neighbour and surrogate Jewish mother, after Anastasia had left an envelope with Eva the previous weekend to pass on to Balthazar. ‘Nice teeth, spoke very well. No slang. Quite classy, I would say. You could do a lot worse.’ Maybe she was right.
Anastasia looked sideways at Balthazar. ‘What’s so funny?’
‘I was remembering how Eva neni described you.’
‘And how was that?’
‘Don’t worry. She liked you.’
‘And I liked her.’
The VW Golf driver finally manoeuvred his vehicle out into the road and drove off, orange hazard lights flashing a quick ‘thank you’.
Anastasia carried on driving. ‘So how is the hero of Rakoczi Way?’
Balthazar looked around the vehicle before he answered. It was very different to every police car he had been in. Apart from the copy of Magyar Vilag, now on the back seat, it was empty. There were no crumpled coffee cups, fast food wrappers or empty plastic water bottles. Instead of the odour of stale tobacco or fast food there was a faint scent of soap and shampoo. Anastasia Ferenczy, Balthazar was sure, smelled better than he did. ‘Don’t,’ he said.
‘But you are a hero. You took down Mahmoud Hejazi. I hear our new prime minister is going to give you a medal. And a reception at Parliament.’
The Budapest police headquarters on Teve Street was full of rumours that Balthazar was to be publicly honoured by the new prime minister. Sandor Takacs, Balthazar’s boss, had made several jokes about getting his suit dry-cleaned. The prospect of a public ceremony filled Balthazar with horror. It was bad enough that Eniko Szalay, his former girlfriend and the star reporter at 555.hu, was all over the news. Eniko seemed to have an incredible source at the highest level of government, who was feeding her all sorts of details about the passport rackets and terrorist connections. Balthazar just hoped that Eniko kept his name, and what she knew about him and his family, especially Gaspar, out of her reports. She had already elliptically referred to Gaspar in one of her stories last week, before all the weekend’s excitement, mentioning a ‘well-known figure in Budapest’s underworld’.
Balthazar said, ‘I really hope not.’
‘Really? Why? You are a good role model.’
‘You mean a good diszcigany,’ he said, his voice wry.
A medal, a reception and no doubt lots of media attention – especially about his Roma origins – were the last thing he wanted. Firstly, because he had no desire to be a diszcigany, a decorative or token Gypsy, paraded before the cameras to show the Hungarian establishment’s supposed but actually token commitment to equal rights. But more than that, his survival sense, honed over centuries, passed down through his ancestors, urged that the less attention he received, the better for him and his family. Especially at the moment.
Anastasia said, ‘Do you remember that Roma boy, Jozsi, the one you met at Republic Square last week, when you were looking for the body of Simon Nazir, the dead Syrian?’
‘Of course.’ Jozsi had been a younger version of himself, Balthazar thought. Dressed in hand-me-downs, light-brown eyes, tawny skin, street-smart, wary.
‘I told you I think that Jozsi told me that he had never been to a hamburger restaurant. The security guards always turned him away. I thought that was so sad.’
‘He has now. I took him on Sunday to that new burger place on Oktober 6 Street. He loved it. We had a great time. There were three of us. We went with my son, Alex.’ There should have been four, he almost said. He glanced again at Anastasia. Maybe he should have invited her instead.
Anastasia smiled with genuine pleasure. ‘That’s great, Tazi. I’m really pleased.’ She shot him a sideways look. ‘And how proud do you think Alex and Jozsi would be if they saw you getting a medal from the prime minister? What message would that send about hope and opportunities and breaking down stereotypes?’
Balthazar raised his hands in surrender. ‘OK. I’ll think about it. How’s that?’
‘Better.’
Maybe Anastasia had a point. Even if he did not want to be a role model, it seemed he was one. Perhaps that did bring some responsibilities. A diszcigany in Parliament, decorated by the prime minister, was still better than no Gypsies there at all. Meanwhile, he had enough to think about, and the day had barely started. The first time he had encountered Anastasia – it was not exactly a meeting – she had been sitting on a park bench near the municipal bicycle rack on Klauzal Square, near his flat in the heart of the old Jewish quarter in District VII. He had sensed she was watching him, a suspicion confirmed when soon afterwards a mobile telephone arrived in an envelope, one which she had used to make contact. Over the last weekend Balthazar and Anastasia had worked intensely together, especially on the fateful Sunday when Hejazi had been shot.
Anastasia asked, ‘You remember what I was doing at Keleti, Tazi?’
‘Sure. You were the world’s most stationary taxi driver.’
She laughed. ‘Something like that.’
Anastasia, Balthazar had learned, had been working undercover at Keleti during the migrant crisis, posing as a taxi driver, although one who had never had any fares and whose vehicle remained permanently parked. Her real job was to watch the migrants and keep a lookout for the dozen or so most wanted Islamic radicals whom her boss and his colleagues in London, Washington DC and other capitals, believed were using the chaos in Europe’s borders to transit through the Balkans then westwards through the chaos at Keleti. Number one on the most wanted list was Mahmoud Hejazi
She continued talking, ‘That story is not over. Not by a long way. The borders have collapsed, tens of thousands of people, many of them from Middle Eastern war zones with fake or no papers, including friends of Hejazi, are still using our country as a staging post and we have no idea who they are. Keleti is filling up again. I’m glad you called me this morning, Tazi, and not someone else.’ She turned and smiled at him. ‘I think we make a good team. I like your approach. Very unorthodox. But effective. Let me know if you ever want to move on from the police.’
Balthazar said nothing as he quickly ran through the events of the previous weekend, any of which could end his career and several of which could still lead to a prison sentence: taking home evidence – the SIM card he found on the ground near Simon Nazir’s body – and failing to safeguard it; attending an illegal cage fight with a high-ranking member of the Serbian mafia; publicly tasting cocaine with the city’s most notorious gangster; injuring two Gendarmes in a car crash; destruction of state property; illegal use of a flash bomb; assault; dangerous driving… the list went on and on. And that was without Gaspar’s business activities, which were quite enough to end Balthazar’s police career forever.
‘We do what we have to, Tazi,’ said Anastasia, as if reading his mind. ‘You don’t do anything for personal gain.’
Balthazar glanced up at the driver’s mirror. There was a single car behind them: a black Mercedes. ‘I think we’re being followed.’
‘I would be surprised if we weren’t,’ she replied, completely unperturbed. ‘How about that breakfast? We have a lot to talk about.’
‘Like what?’
Her voice turned serious. ‘Abdullah al-Nuri, for starters. After that, we can talk more about last weekend. Hejazi was just the start. We need to unravel the network that brought Hejazi here, find his contacts, follow the money trail.’
She was right, of course. Hejazi’s death marked the start of his investigation, not the end. And the more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed that Abdullah al-Nuri’s death was somehow linked.
Anastasia continued talking. ‘We both know that this is about much more than a man being shot dead on Rakoczi Way.’
‘Or another found dead in Gaspar’s villa,’ said Balthazar. He glanced into the mirror again. The black Mercedes was still following, thirty yards behind them now. He looked at the number plate: MEH-025. A government car. MEH stood for Miniszter Elnoki Hivatal, the prime minister’s office. Only one law enforcement agency had access to the prime ministerial vehicles.