Winter was coming soon, Sandor Takacs could feel it. The bench’s wooden slats were cold; the river was no longer blue-green but a muddy grey. Leaves and twigs floated on the water, bobbing and weaving in the currents. The autumn breeze was not balmy, but brisk, gusting hard with a chilly undertow. It was mid-October and there was no sign of an Indian summer, only the coldness to come.
Sandor shivered as he turned to the man sitting next to him. ‘Will she win the election?’
‘Of course,’ he replied, his voice rasping, ruined by decades of smoking. ‘For now, we are working together. In any case there is no functioning opposition. But she wants to break out, go her own way.’
‘And will you let her?’
The man did not did not answer. Instead he pulled a packet of Sopianae cigarettes from his coat pocket, offered it to Sandor. ‘But only if you smoke one. I’m down to my last twenty packs.’
Sandor laughed, shook his head. ‘You keep them. I’ve given up. I won’t waste yours.’
The two men were perched on a bench at the very tip of Margaret Island, the same bench where, just over a month ago, Sandor had sat with Balthazar and confessed that he was Virag’s father. Sandor had known the man next to him for decades, ever since he had come to Budapest and made his career as a policeman, enforcing the law of a now long-vanished political system. They were both bundled up against the cold, Sandor in a police-issue winter coat, thick and padded, and a winter hat with ear-flaps. The man next to him wore a long, grey woollen overcoat, its collar spattered with flakes of dandruff. He peered out through thick glasses; his straggly grey hair poked out from under a brown peaked cap, his flaking skin raw red in the wind.
‘Apart from Reka, who else is there?’ asked Sandor. ‘Pal is gone.’
The man they called the Librarian gave Sandor a sideways look. ‘Yes, poor comrade Pal. A most mysterious death, as the newspapers reported it. The first time he had recovered enough to go for a walk on the riverbank by his penthouse apartment. A shove from behind, police, bodyguards, nowhere in sight, CCTV not working. A fast current, sucked under Margaret Bridge, still weak from the bullet wound and that’s that. Drowned.’ He lit his cigarette, drew deeply, looked hard at Sandor. ‘Some might call that almost poetic.’
Sandor held his gaze. ‘Some might. Let’s focus on the election. There’s nobody on the right or in the centre. Only her. It would be better to keep her under control.’
‘Pal was a fool. He had everything and he wanted more. He was too greedy. She is much smarter. She knows she has enough.’
‘And the material we have, on her and her husband?’
The Librarian smiled. ‘She doesn’t care. She says we can leak whatever we want. Now they are sick of leaks, she says. People want a government, one to bring Hungary into the twenty-first century. They don’t care about kompromat. The whole country is compromised. There were 800,000 people in the Communist Party when everything collapsed. People did what they needed to survive. To live as best they can. They still do.’
Sandor nodded. ‘She might be right.’
‘She says she will win, with or without us. Eniko, the PR girl, is turning out to be rather good at her job. Public opinion is swinging right behind Reka.’
‘Kompromat,’ said Sandor thoughtfully. ‘We have the video of Reka killing the Gendarme with the heel of her shoe and getting rid of the body. Anything else?’
The Librarian nodded then coughed, a long, wet rattling sound. He turned to Sandor, muttered ‘Excuse me’, and spat out at the side of the bench. The phlegm was streaked with blood. He was dying, Sandor realised.
The Librarian pulled out a small plastic bag from his coat and held it up. A long brass cartridge was inside.
Sandor nodded. ‘Good. I wondered where that got to.’
‘The girl’s fingerprints are all over it. The murder investigation into the death of Mahmoud Hejazi is still ongoing. It’s enough for her. Losing Eniko would be a serious blow to Reka. But in the long term… we still need someone we can control. Reka refuses to take orders. She is wilful. Now Pal is gone, she thinks she is untouchable. The fear is gone. And I don’t have much longer. There are only a few of us left, now.’
Sandor nodded, watched a grey barge slowly move upriver, towards Slovakia. It was almost as long as a football field, piled high with coal. A Hungarian flag fluttered in the wind, mounted high on the bridge. He asked, ‘Do you have someone else in mind?’
The Librarian took another drag of his cigarette, blew the smoke out over the water. It vanished instantly in the wind. The barge’s horn sounded, a long, mournful low note that carried over the river. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We do. Someone very close to Reka. Someone back in her life after a long time away. And, someone, we are pleased to see, getting closer to Eniko.’
‘Who?’
‘You will learn, when the time is right.’
‘And Balthazar, and his boy? They are safe? I have your word?’
The Librarian turned towards Sandor, his rheumy eyes locked on his. ‘Don’t worry, Takacs elvtars, comrade Takacs. I give you my word. Nothing will happen to them.’
Across the river, on the top floor of a drab nineteenth-century apartment house, far out of sight of the two men, a tall, stooped man in his twenties, who had spent too much time playing video games, peered through the viewer of his video camera. The telephoto lens was powerful enough that he could see every movement of their lips. He watched the two men stand up, shake hands, go their own ways. A few seconds later the footage was sitting in a corner office that overlooked Falk Miksa Street.