The Exiled (11 page)

THE TISZA SLITHERED PAST
the Békavár restaurant, brownish-black, like a gigantic snake. The river was often referred to as
szőke Tisza,
the fair Tisza. The name was misleading, because even on the brightest summer days the water was thick and dark. A water scooter roared across the water, and then another. This was new. Years ago the only things to glide along the river were the fishermen’s wooden boats and perhaps the odd barge; never water scooters. Change. Progress. Some people in the country appeared to have more money than they knew what to do with. The rumble of the motors disturbed Anna. It made the presence of the river feel distracting, intrusive.

As always, the fish soup at Békavár was delicious. The broth, dyed red with paprika, and the bony chunks of fish may not have looked very appealing, but they tasted heavenly. They tasted of home. Apart from Anna there were only a few customers in the restaurant. Most people could no longer afford to eat out. Normal people lived in the shadow of the escalating financial crisis – though this was the same in every corner of the world, even in Finland. For Anna the prices at the restaurants in Kanizsa seemed ridiculous. With her Finnish police officer’s salary she felt like a millionaire here. Even her friends thought she was a millionaire. She’d tried in vain to explain that Finland was an expensive place to live, that a large percentage of her wages was spent on living expenses alone. Not to mention the cost of food. One night, after much cajoling from her friends, she’d made the mistake of telling them how much she earned, and from that moment on they had seen her as some kind of Croesus. They’d thought her rich long before this, though; for some people living in the West meant you were automatically affluent. The whole thing amused Anna. Nowhere in the world had she seen as many expensive cars and luxury houses as in Serbia. None of her friends were in debt and they all had assets – houses inherited from relatives in
and around Vajdaság, apartments in Budapest; more than she would ever have. Affluence, like everything else, is a relative concept, she pondered.

She’d chosen Békavár not only because of the soup but because it was so quiet. She ordered a coffee, looked up the contact details for the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Újvidék and dialled the number. A young and officious-sounding woman answered the phone. Anna introduced herself as ‘Valkay Bea’ and asked the young woman to put her through to Milan Pešić.

‘Who?’ asked the woman.

Anna repeated the name on the autopsy report.

‘Are you sure you’ve got the right number?’ the woman asked.

Ten minutes later Anna ended the call, utterly puzzled. She turned to put her phone into her bag and noticed there was a man standing behind her. He was wearing a black shirt and trousers, a jacket that had seen better days and a white sun hat, tilted to reveal a strip of grey hair.

‘Has something happened?’ he asked, concerned.

‘No. I was just sorting something out, nothing important,’ said Anna, convinced that he had heard the whole conversation.

‘Good. You looked a bit startled, that’s all. But … is that really Fekete Anna? Good afternoon. Goodness, how you’ve grown.’

‘
Csókolom
,’ Anna replied like a little girl as she tried to remember who the man was.

‘Do you remember me at all? I’m the priest at the local Reformed Church. I baptised you.’

‘Well, that’s such a long time ago I’m afraid my memories are a bit sketchy,’ Anna said, and the man burst into laughter.

‘Molnár László. Just call me Laci. I live over in Totovo Selo, but I often visit Kanizsa to see my parishioners. And I have a small office in town. How are you? Your mother told me you were here on holiday and that Ákos is at home too.’

‘I’m very well, thank you. It’s nice to be here.’

‘There’s a service here in Kanizsa next Sunday, do come along. You
and your mother could visit us afterwards. Do you have a car while you’re here?’

‘Yes, I rented one at the airport.’

‘Excellent. What kind of car is it?’

What business is it of yours? Anna thought. ‘It’s a Fiat Punto, an automatic,’ she replied eventually. And then thought, why did I have to mention the gears?

‘And what colour is it?’

‘White. Why do you ask?’

‘I was just wondering whether it was that white Punto parked over there, that’s all. For some reason I’ve always been fascinated by what kind of car people drive. I knew your father very well, by the way. We were childhood friends. God bless him.’

How many of her father’s old friends had she met in the space of just a few days? At least three. These strangers knew more about her father than she did. They’d spent their childhood and adolescence with him. They shared so much more history with her father than she had. It seemed so profoundly wrong that Anna suddenly felt the urge to say something spiteful to the man. A priest. How odd that he seemed to know her father so well when religion had meant so little to her family. Her father had been a Catholic but not particularly religious. Her mother was a Protestant, and Anna was baptised in the Reformed Church. Religion hadn’t been a major part of their lives. They went to church occasionally, the children were taught to say prayers before bedtime, Áron and Ákos had both been confirmed. Normal stuff. Unlike in many Eastern European countries, the churches in Yugoslavia had continued to operate throughout communism, though people tended to look down on overt displays of faith. So she guessed it was fortunate that her family hadn’t been ardently religious. What was more, there had been plenty of party informants in the area, spies twitching curtains – not on the same scale as in Hungary or the Soviet Union, but still…

Anna had only learnt about all of this – and many other things besides – much later in life. But if there was so much about her
family and homeland that she’d only heard about in passing, how many other things were there, about which she’d never been told anything?

‘Well, I think I’m going to order something to eat. I’m frightfully hungry. Hope to see you on Sunday. And do give my regards to your mother.’

Molnár László sat down at the next table, where he began examining the menu. He didn’t speak to Anna again.

Anna paid her bill, left the restaurant, lit a cigarette and thought about her phone call to Újvidék. At first the woman at the switchboard had sounded very brusque, but as the call went on she proved to be very helpful. She explained that she’d only started working there six months earlier, and, as Anna held the line, she went through lists of employees from the last few years. She’d even called the equivalent institute in Belgrade, but nowhere was there a pathologist by the name of Milan Pešić. After this the woman had popped up to the laboratory and asked two different doctors, who’d both confirmed that they had never encountered a colleague by that name. One of these doctors had worked at the institute for the last twenty-five years. The woman had been very apologetic about not being able to help Anna and she didn’t seem to believe it when Anna said she’d helped more than she knew.

The autopsy report on the bag thief was a forgery; of that there was now no doubt. Anna wondered whether to contact the chief of police or Kovács Gábor but decided to leave the matter for the moment. She had a suspicion that it was best at this point if no official organisations knew that she had realised the report was false. First she would have to get an idea of what forces were at play here – what or who was behind this. She thought of Judit and her premonitions. There were no ‘forces’ at play, she thought. People do things like this – normal, ruthless criminals and murderers – and when it came to catching criminals she was an expert. But no matter how much she tried to convince herself of that fact, everything felt strangely surreal. It was as though the terrace outside the restaurant
had turned its invisible eye on her and whispered: there are many things that you can neither see nor understand.

As she opened her car door, Anna noticed László the priest watching her through the restaurant window.

TIBOR AND NÓRA LIVED
right in the centre of Kanizsa in an ugly apartment block with dozens of pigeons nesting among the roof timbers. The building was surrounded by a circle of grey bird droppings, which the determined women in the block, armed with buckets and mops, tried in vain to wash away. Like graffiti on the side of a train, it always returned. The pigeons just didn’t want to leave the building, even though all the balconies and landings were kitted out with barbed wire and mesh fencing. They must like high places, thought Anna. This was the tallest building in Kanizsa, and Tibor and Nóra’s apartment was on the top floor. Anna hoped the view made up for the inconvenience of not having a lift.

Nóra put on some coffee and Tibor cracked open a bottle of beer as Anna sat down at the kitchen table. Gizella was playing on the living-room floor while cartoons blared out of the television. The air conditioning blew cool air into the apartment.

‘How are you both?’ asked Anna as she carefully sipped her piping-hot coffee. It was black and devilishly strong, and it would keep her up all night.

‘Oh, fine – day-to-day life with a toddler,’ said Nóra ‘I made
szárma
for dinner. There’s plenty left. Are you hungry?’

‘No, I’m fine thanks. Listen, I’d like to see the photographs you took at the wine fair on Friday night.’

‘Do you think the thief will be in them?’

‘I don’t know. But it would be helpful if he was. I need a really clear photo of him.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m going to find out who he was, and I want to find the girl in the red skirt too.’

‘Of course. Gizella, don’t go in there.’ Nóra darted into the living room to pick up her daughter before she clambered into the cupboard in the bottom of the bookcase. ‘Tibor, can you make sure
those cupboard doors are secured? I’m sick of telling her not to climb in there.’

‘Why shouldn’t she play in there? Just let her be,’ Tibor muttered.

‘Because the whole bookcase might topple over, that’s why. Bolt it to the wall properly, then I won’t need to worry about it.’

‘Okay, okay,’ said Tibor. He stood up and went off in search of something to fasten the doors.

Gizella started to cry. Nóra pressed a chocolate cookie into her hand and she quietened down at once. When Tibor had fastened the cupboard doors with a piece of string, Nóra put her daughter back on the floor amid the chaos of toys and fetched her phone.

‘Wait a minute … here we are. Looks like I snapped quite a few photos that evening.’

‘Good,’ said Anna. ‘Then there’s a greater chance we’ll find something.’

Anna and Nóra began examining the photographs. Anna noted down all the people she recognised. She could talk to them if necessary. There was a long list of friends and acquaintances. In one picture – of Anna and Nóra raising their glasses, their cheeks pressed against one another – there was a figure standing in the background. Nagy Béla, the fisherman.

‘Look,’ said Anna. ‘Old Béla was there too, but he didn’t mention it to me. This was taken just before the theft.’

‘And the thief ran up from behind you. He must have been pretty close by when this was taken. Could Béla have seen him?’

‘If he did, why didn’t he say anything?’

‘He must have moved away by the time it happened.’

‘Still, he could at least have mentioned he was at the wine fair.’

‘You’ll have to ask him.’

‘I certainly will,’ said Anna.

In the next photograph, Tibor and Ernő were pulling faces at the camera and showing off a bottle of
furmint
.

‘Who’s that?’ Nóra asked suddenly, pointing to a dark figure
standing behind the men. Anna spread her fingers across the screen to zoom in.

‘It’s a man. Wait a minute, look who’s hiding behind him.’

The man had his back to the camera, but from behind him peered the head of a little girl with black hair. And a red skirt. The photograph was pixelated and unfocussed, but Anna was convinced that this was the girl she was looking for.

In the next photograph the man had turned around and was now looking directly at the camera. Far behind Tibor, Ernő and the bottle of wine stood the man who had stolen her handbag, there in the dusk, surrounded by people, the intense, concentrated look of a predator in his black eyes. The same dark jacket. The same height and build. The same facial features as those of the body by the Tisza. This was the man. A shiver ran along Anna’s arms. The girl was no longer to be seen.

‘
Úr Isten
,’ whispered Nóra. ‘Is that him?’

‘Would you lend me your phone overnight? I have to upload these photos to my computer so I can enlarge them and print them off.’

‘Of course, as long as you return it tomorrow.’

‘Absolutely. Thank you.’

Tibor had remained in the living room with his beer. After finishing the bottle he stood up and came into the kitchen.

‘I think I’m going to pop down to the Taverna,’ he said. ‘Want to join me, Anna?’

‘No, thanks, I’ve got stuff to do tonight,’ she replied and showed him the phone.

Gizella yanked at the cupboard door and howled with disappointment when it didn’t open.

‘She’s tired,’ said Nóra. ‘I’ll have to put her to bed. Do you have to go, Tibor? Tonight as well?’

‘No. But I’m going anyway.’

‘As usual,’ said Nóra to Tibor as he went into the hall and pulled on his shoes. Anna followed him.

‘Good night, Anna,’ said Nóra. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’

‘I won’t. Let’s get together tomorrow.’

‘Great. Let’s meet here at lunchtime.
Szárma
gets better with age.’

‘Just like us,’ said Anna and hugged Nóra, whose eyes were tired and sad.

ANNA AWOKE TO THE SOUND
of her phone ringing and cursed out loud that she’d forgotten to put it on silent before going to sleep. The room was pitch dark, only the flashing blue light of the phone’s screen gleamed from the pocket of the hoodie she’d thrown across the chair. Anna reluctantly threw back her blankets and looked at the phone. She’d hoped it might be Péter, but this was an unknown number. Anna answered.

An unfamiliar male voice asked if this was Fekete Anna. When Anna replied that it was, the voice asked whether she was looking for information about the Romani man found dead on the riverbank. Anna could hear that the man was trying to mask his voice, muttering in a high-pitched tone. Again Anna said yes. The voice told her that he had important information but that, naturally, it would cost her. Anna listened to the sum of money, which wasn’t particularly big, and agreed to meet the man in the town’s large park the following day.

The phone went dead. Anna noticed her hands were shaking. She turned on the light, took her notebook out of the drawer, wrote the words ANONYMOUS PHONE CALL on a fresh sheet and attached it to the wall with the other pages. Had Judit found out something? Why hadn’t she made the call herself, then? The prospect of a meeting with the anonymous caller didn’t appeal to her. It was unsettling. Would she be putting herself in danger if she went? Was it a trap? Anna pulled up the blinds and looked out into the deserted yard. A cat ran across the street and slipped through a gap in the fence into the yard outside the house opposite. The downstairs lights were on in the house, there was a flash of movement at the window. Anna breathed slowly in and out, trying to calm herself down. A murderer wouldn’t agree to a meeting in broad daylight, she tried to reason with herself. There will be lots of people out and about in the park, I won’t be in any danger. The information probably isn’t
even that important. Judit has doubtless told someone about me, someone who senses the chance to make a few thousand dinars. That must be it. There’s nothing to worry about.