The Prodigal Spy (40 page)

“Is someone else coming?” Nick asked.

“Yes.” He heard a kettle whistle. “Sit, sit. I’ll make the coffee.” Fluttering, not wanting to talk.

“How did you know my father?”

“Through Anna. We were at school. Of course, that’s a long time ago. But she came back, so I met him. He used to come here to talk about books, many times.” She stopped. “I’m so sorry for you.” Then, obviously relieved, she heard the knock. “Ah, he’s here.”

Nick stood waiting as she opened the door. Zimmerman, still in his mourning suit. They exchanged greetings in Czech, a social kiss.

“Mr Warren, you don’t mind? Anna was so kind to arrange. It’s easier to talk here.”

“I’ve told you everything I know.”

He held up his hand. “You misunderstand. It’s not the interrogation. I want to talk to you in a different way. No questions. Well, perhaps one.”

“Sit, sit,” Anna said, busying herself with the coffee, settling them in.

Nick sat down slowly, feeling ambushed. There was an awkward silence while Anna poured, neither of them saying anything. Zimmerman took one of the Marlboros.

“What question?” Nick said.

Zimmerman nodded to Anna, who went over to a stack of books and brought back an envelope.

“Your father asked Anna to hold this for him. He was going to collect it yesterday morning.”

“I’m always up early,” Anna said, as if that explained it.

“I took the liberty of opening it. Under the circumstances. Miss Masaryk, of course, had no idea what it was.”

“Then why did she tell you about it?” Nick said, looking at her.

“She was concerned when she heard the news of his death. She thought it might be important. You understand, we are very old friends.”

“It’s Karl who started the investigation into Uncle Jan’s death,” she explained. “It’s he who was helping František’s brother with the manuscript. You can trust him.”

Nick opened the envelope and drew out a Russian passport: his father’s picture, Cyrillic type.

“Your father was not Jewish.” Zimmerman pointed to the Cyrillic letters. “Not called Pechorvsky, either. But that is his picture, yes? Can you think why he would need such a thing? A Russian Jew’s passport?”

“No.” But Nick’s heart was racing. All of it was true. His father’s papers for the train–not at the flat, but ready. Everything just as he had said.

“That page is an exit visa,” Zimmerman said.

“But it’s not his.”

“No. Pechorvsky’s. Who died of kidney failure.” He picked up the passport, running his finger along the edge of the picture, the raised seal. “Not the best, but it would pass. The visa’s good for two more weeks.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I think you do.”

“Well, I don’t. Was that your question?”

“No.” He slipped the passport back into the envelope. “Mr Warren, a man with someone else’s exit visa can only mean one thing. He was planning to leave. Perhaps by train,” he said, looking away, casual. “But not, I think, to Israel, like poor Comrade Pechorvsky. My question is, why?”

“Why? Everybody wants to leave.”

“Not everybody. A man with the Order of Lenin, who betrayed his country–would such a man be welcome in the West? What made him think they would want him back?”

“I don’t know,” Nick said, hammering each word in.

“No? But it’s a question, don’t you agree?”

“He’s dead. The question is who killed him. Why don’t you ask that?”

“Because I know who killed him, Mr Warren.”

Nick stared at him, almost afraid to go on. “Who?” he said quietly.

“That is, I know who must have killed him. It’s not difficult. What interests me is why.”

“Who?” Nick said again.

“So direct, Mr Warren. Sometimes an answer is indirect. Please listen. More coffee, Anna?”

Nick sat silently.

“Of course, every case is different,” Zimmerman said. “It’s the similarities that intrigue.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Please. I said I had only one question. But I also have a story. That is why I wanted to see you. Will you listen to it? It will interest you, I promise. You are familiar with our history, I saw that at the station. ”The housemaid’s solution.“ How much do you know about the Masaryk case?”

“Hardly anything. Look—”

“Then listen carefully. I know a great deal about it, almost everything. It’s as Anna says. Last year, under Dubček, there was an investigation, so we would know, once and for all. It’s a national obsession, that case, our great mystery. Does it matter, after so many years? A little–you’ll forgive me–like your President Kennedy. To know exactly what happened. So with Jan Masaryk.”

“Everybody knows the Russians did it.”

“But to
know
, Mr Warren, to
prove
it. It’s not easy. So many people have died–the night watchman, the doctor who signed the death certificate. Some natural, some not so natural. Just last year, a bodyguard who talked to me was shot on the highway. By thieves?”

“Karl himself was in danger,” Anna said, touching Nick’s arm, a conspirator. “He was threatened. They don’t want the truth to come out, even now.”

“But we learn things. So, the case. Nineteen forty-eight. The Communists are in. Masaryk is still in the cabinet, but not one of them. To the whole world he represents the old republic, his father’s country. And every day in the cabinet, a new compromise. The death–how do you say it?–the death of a thousand bites. The Russians are taking over. So perhaps he feels despair. A way to end it all, the housemaid’s solution. But there is also the possibility that he was planning to leave.”

He looked at Nick. “An embarrassment for the Communists. Maybe even a government in exile, like during the war. His mistress had already gone–an American. So for them the jump was a convenient death. A public funeral. The end of the republic. But was he murdered? From the beginning there were inconsistencies. A more complicated case, let me say, than your own. The position of the body in the courtyard. A very wide jump. Violence in his room–even in the bathroom. Bottles broken, bedpillows on the floor. Even in the tub. Why, for sleeping? The window there had a high sill–not convenient. Scrapes. And his pajamas were soiled.”

He looked again at Nick. “So many inconsistencies. A car was heard pulling away in the night. Was someone there? We’ll never know. You see, Mr Warren, the mistake I made was thinking that a criminal investigation would tell us everything. But this was a political crime. We can reconstruct the evidence–what must have happened. But what I want to know is, was he planning to leave?”

Nick looked at him, quiet.

“You can’t ignore the passport,” Anna said.

“What must have happened?” Nick said.

Zimmerman rolled his cigarette against the ashtray, methodically tapping the ash. “Masaryk had had a full day. A meeting with Beneš, the President, his father’s old friend. Very depressing, I’ve no doubt. Beneš may have told Masaryk he was going to resign. But that would work either way, as the last straw or an incentive to go. Either way. He had a meeting the next day with a Polish delegation, a speech to write. So he goes to bed early to work on the speech. He frequently did that, worked in bed. A bottle of beer and a sandwich. These details we know. The servants retired. Very heavy sleepers, unfortunately. Of course, the Czernin Palace is a large building and their quarters were not close. No one heard the lift being used. The guard at the front door reported no visitors. There is a side door for deliveries, unguarded. This much we know as fact.”

“Go on,” Nick said. Had they used the elevator at Holečkova? He thought of the milky light through the glass brick on the landing, enough to see by, even at dawn.

“Masaryk was a big man. There must have been two, perhaps more, a team. The side door, the stairs. Quiet. Perhaps they were surprised to find him still up, working so late. There must have been fighting. The room is knocked about, papers all over. In the bathroom, more smashes. They must have been angry at his resistance. But he’s fighting for his life and he’s strong. He must have knocked against the medicine chest, causing the bottles to fall on the floor. Then he is pushed, or falls, into the bathtub. And there someone must have held him down with a pillow over his face. He must have kicked, trying to get out, while they held him down. Until he stopped kicking.” Zimmerman looked up from the ashtray, his voice dropping, almost husky now. “Of course, he was a vigorous man. Had he been older, it would have been easier. Not such a struggle.”

Nick turned away, sick.

“Then they must have pulled him out–he would have been heavy–and dragged him over to the window, perhaps stepping on the bottles, kicking them out of the way. A high sill, the men grunting, propping him up. From the angle of the fall, they must have pushed him out back first. That was the first inconsistency. No one jumps backward. In its own way it’s a brave thing, suicide. His fingers scrape the sill as they push him out. It’s possible that the scraping happened earlier–that they tried to force him out the window and he resisted, holding on while he kicked them away. Then the same fight. No matter. He went out. That is the criminal evidence. That is what must have happened.”

For a moment, no one spoke. “How do you know it was a pillow?” Nick said quietly.

“There were no signs of strangulation. Were there marks on your father’s neck?” Zimmerman said, no longer pretending to be in the past.

“No.”

“But he soiled himself. That’s very rare in someone who jumps.”

“If he was frightened—” Nick began.

“So rare as to be almost nonexistent. It is, however, a common occurrence in cases of suffocation. It happens most frequently when people are hanged–that’s why we have connected losing control of the bowels to fear. But jumpers don’t do that. They are not afraid. But it would happen if he were smothered. During the struggle.”

Clearly, as if in slow motion, Nick saw his father on the bed, gasping, his feet moving, then giving in. His papers ready. Nick touched the envelope. Nothing else, no list.

“Who?” Nick said finally.

“Who. Mr Warren, do you blame the gun for going off? These men are tools. They are nobody. I’m not going to know who entered the Czernin Palace. I’m not going to know who went to your father’s flat on Holečkova. I accept that.”

“Then why are you telling me this?”

“So you will accept it too. So you are not tempted. To play the detective.”

“My father wasn’t Masaryk. He wasn’t going to set up a government in exile.”

“Then why was he killed? You see, I accept the limitations. How far we can take a criminal investigation–we’ve had to learn that. But it’s still important to know, to protect ourselves. One day, you know, the Russians will leave –yes, I believe that. We can be policemen again, solve real cases. But meanwhile we have to know what they’re doing. To hide, to play the fool if it’s better. To survive them. This is what we do.”

“Soldier Schweik.”

“If you like. A man is killed. If I know why, then I know how far I can go. Contain the situation.”

“By pretending it didn’t happen.”

“If that’s necessary.”

“Why do you want to protect them?”

“Mr Warren, I want to protect you.”

“Me?”

“Has it occurred to you how dangerous this might be for you? I came here to talk to you as a friend. I think you did not, at the station, understand how things are.”

“And how are they?”

“They must protect the lie. They’ll do anything to do that. Look at Masaryk–a crime twenty years old, yet still the lie. It’s a curious thing, to care so much what people think when you have all the power anyway. Maybe they need to believe it themselves. So they stage a simple case of suicide. Who would doubt it? But you are there, something unexpected. Now there are questions, accusations, the Americans calling. If they feel the lie is threatened, they will have to protect it. So now a crime. But the most obvious person to have done it, Mr Warren, is you.”

“You know I didn’t. The evidence—”

“Can be made to fit. It’s not a criminal case, Mr Warren. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. A political crime. All that matters is what they want people to believe. You were there, you had the motive.” He paused. “And you cannot explain yourself.”

“But you know—”

“If you are charged, there’s nothing I can do. You must see that. Of course, it’s a complication to arrest you. It becomes an incident. So many people involved. But they will do it, if they have to protect themselves. And you will be convicted. All proper and legal.” He lowered his voice. “You will be your father’s murderer.” Nick raised his head.

“Yes. They can do it. The question is, is it worth it to them? That’s what I don’t know yet. And I can’t know that until I know why he was planning to leave. Why he was stopped. I can’t help you if I don’t know that. If you don’t tell me.”

Nick, shaken, said nothing.

“Will they accuse you? Is it that important to them?”

“I don’t know.”

Zimmerman sighed and reached for another cigarette, taking his time. “Of course, there is another possibility. The easiest way to avoid everything–no incident, no trial. What do you know, Mr Warren? They were willing to kill him. Why stop? They killed people in the Masaryk case–oh yes, even years later. If they thought you knew the reason. It would be easy, to make a new lie. A family tragedy. You found the body. Who can say how people react to such a terrible thing? Sometimes they blame themselves. It would be easy. If they thought you knew.”

Nick stared at the precise, glowing ash of Zimmerman’s cigarette. “Maybe they sent you to find out.”

Zimmerman looked at him for a second, then nodded slowly. “Yes, maybe. In that case, I seem to have failed. You decide.” He stood up, scraping the chair. “But I see I have accomplished one thing–to make you suspicious. Even of me. Good. You need to be careful.”

“Like you.”

“Yes, like everyone here. But we’re still alive.”

Nick didn’t move. All of it true. But did they know about him? Had his father told them? Before the pillows made him quiet?

“Do you really think they’d—”

“I have no way of knowing, Mr Warren. Perhaps it’s my imagination. Only you would know that. If what you know is dangerous. But I would be careful. In fact, I would leave Prague.”