The Angel Makers (33 page)

‘Well, the rich women don’t want the children,’ the cook had said, ‘so the poor women in the countryside take their money to look after them, and the mothers can go back to the city, happy that their children are being looked after. But the angel makers, they know that these rich women aren’t going to come back and look for their children, so do you think they’re going to use that money feeding and clothing a child that’s not theirs, that they couldn’t care less about? So they kill the children, and keep the money.’ She’d turned back to the bread then, a glimmer of triumph on her face at Béla’s stricken expression.

‘But how?’ Béla had asked. He had to know, couldn’t bear not to.

The cook had shrugged. ‘Whatever’s easiest. Depends how old they are, too. If they’re small, they’ll smother them.’ Seeing that Béla didn’t understand, she flipped one of the kitchen cloths over his face, holding it there with a gentle pressure. He’d stood as still as death, too frightened to move, and after only a moment she removed it. ‘That’s smothering,’ she said coolly, turning back to the bread. ‘Or they’ll leave them out in the cold. Or for the older ones, they’ll just stop feeding them. And that,’ she finishes with a flourish, ‘is what happens to children when their parents don’t want them any more.’

The implication had been clear, and Béla’s dreams had been haunted by the angel makers for years afterwards and, if he’s honest with himself, they haunt him still. In his dreams he wakes, but even before he’s opened his eyes he knows that he isn’t in his warm, comfortable bed in town, that his parents have decided that they don’t want him any more, and he’s been sent off to the angel makers. The dreams are always painfully vivid. He can feel the coarse, woollen blankets on his skin; the air that he breathes in is cold and icy, and in his head is an image of a grim, gaunt hamlet, shuddering its way out of the plain. And then he hears the footsteps, and he knows that She’s coming, coming with a cloth in her hand, coming to finish him off, and he wakes, properly this time, shaking and sweating, unable to believe that the dream hadn’t been true, and that he is safe.

He realises now, with a touch of irony and very little surprise, that the village he sees spread out in front of him is similar to the village from his dreams, and although he knows that much of the similarity is due to his subconscious bending the memory of the dreams so that they fit the reality he’s now seeing, it doesn’t make him feel any happier about where he is. He wishes, not for the first time, that he was safely back in Város and far away from here.

‘This is nonsense,’ Béla says to himself, forgetting for a moment that Géza is beside him, until, out of the corner of his eye, he sees the boy jerk slightly. For the first time, he’s glad that the boy is with him. Béla persists in mentally calling Géza
The Boy
, despite there being scarcely five years between their ages. He’d been reluctant to bring him at first, certain that this was a wild goose chase, and it would be better for Géza to stay behind in Város, where there were lots of things that he could be getting on with.

Certainly, when they’d first heard the stories about the village, they’d all smiled and dismissed them as the rantings of a mad old woman. Yes, perhaps her daughter-in-law had tried to finish her off. It was plausible, but not really worth making a fuss about. Domestic murders haven’t exactly been uncommon since the war. It’s not that they’re not serious, but, in Béla’s experience, once the intended victim has been removed from the situation, the murderer or murderess is unlikely to try and turn their hand to anyone else. Besides, Mrs Imanci had hardly been a reliable informant: when she’d been brought into the office by her cousin, she’d rambled on for nearly an hour, a bizarre mixture of accusations of murder, aimed at her daughter-in-law, and witchcraft, aimed at the rest of the village she’d come from, and when she left they’d laughed.

But something had alerted the attention of Béla’s superior, that much-vaunted instinct that Béla had been taught was vital for a successful inspector, and which Béla was desperately trying to develop, and the next day Béla had come in to find Emil poring over a sheaf of documents at his desk.

‘Look at this,’ Emil said, and Béla had looked. It was a list of the deaths in Falucska over the past ten years. It did seem very high, but then …

‘What about the influenza? Plenty of villages have lost large numbers of people because of that,’ he’d suggested.

‘Could be,’ Emil said thoughtfully, but Béla could tell that he wasn’t convinced. He wasn’t sure whether he was entirely convinced, either, but he certainly wasn’t worried. People in the villages got ill a lot; it was, and always had been, a fact of life.

He said as much to Emil, and Emil had nodded again in that faintly irritating manner of his, as if agreeing purely for the sake of politeness. ‘True. But it’s a small village. And also, do you notice anything else?’

Béla squinted at the paper. ‘Look at the names,’ Emil hinted.

‘Men,’ Béla said suddenly. ‘They’re almost all men.’ He looked at Emil in surprise, and Emil nodded, smiling this time.

‘Quite. It’s not what you would expect. Usually, if it’s an illness or an epidemic it’s women who dominate the lists of the dead. Men tend to be stronger, more resilient. And yet—’ he waved his hand at the paper again. ‘Of course, it might be nothing. But it might not.’

‘So …?’

‘I want you to go out there, have a look around, ask some questions. Particularly of this Imanci woman. And—’ he ruffled through the papers again, ‘find Sari Arany. She’s one of the village midwives, and has been responsible for filing the death certificates. Talk to her, ask her what she thinks about all of this.’

Béla had been quite happy about that, envisioning a few relaxing days in the countryside. In the middle of the town in the middle of the day, he was well able to ignore the gloomy, sinister villages of his dreams. He’d been discomfited, though, when ordered to take Géza with him.

‘But surely he’d be better off staying here?’

Emil shook his head. ‘I can’t send you out there alone. It might be nothing, but it might be something, and if it is, it’s best if there’s two of you.’

It wasn’t that he had anything against Géza, Bela mused, and in a way it was flattering that, young as he was, Emil trusted him enough to put him in a position of responsibility over the younger man. But still, all those questions of Géza’s that always need answering! Béla has enough of his own work to concentrate on, and prefers not to have to worry about someone else’s on top of it. He’s been trying to fight back his resentment all the way to the village, but now, as they walk towards the village from the spot where the farmer was able to drop them off, he finds he’s glad of the young man’s company.

‘Where will we stay when we get there?’ Géza asks, breaking the silence. ‘Will there be an inn?’

Bela laughs. ‘I doubt it very much, not in a place this size. It’s not on the way to anywhere; why would anyone want or need to stay there? An inn-keeper wouldn’t make any money.’

‘So where will we get lodgings?’ Géza asks. He’s feeling more than a little anxious, sensing both that Béla is uneasy about something, and that Béla doesn’t want him there.

Béla has the idea that they should ask the priest, and that’s the first surprise that they face when they get into the village. They’re on the outskirts when they first encounter a person, and it’s a middle-aged woman, her eyes wide with what seems to be fear.
I suppose they’re not used to strangers here
, Béla thinks, and puts on his friendliest smile.

‘Good evening,’ he says, because by then the darkness is closing in. ‘We need lodgings in the village for a few days. I don’t suppose you could take us to the village priest, who might be able to provide us with beds?’

For a moment, the woman looks so shocked to be addressed by strangers that Béla thinks that she’ll flee, or at the very least stay silent, but she pulls herself together after an instant. Her accent is countrified and some of the words that she uses sound archaic to Béla’s ears, but he puts that down to the isolation of the village.

‘There is no priest,’ she says, and Béla raises his eyebrows.

‘No priest?’ he queries.

‘We had one,’ the woman goes on. ‘Father István. But he left here years ago. He had no family here. No one knows where he went. We kept expecting a new priest to replace him, but none ever came.’ She appears to mistake Béla’s look of consternation as a criticism of her faith. ‘Some of us sometimes go to the next village for church,’ she says defensively. ‘But it’s seven miles away, so it’s hard to manage every week …’

‘No matter,’ he says, cutting her short. ‘Do you know of anyone else who might be able to provide us with lodgings?’

The woman bites her lip for a moment, then appears to come to a decision. ‘I’ll take you to Sari,’ she says.

‘Would that be Sari Arany?’ Géza asks, suddenly excited, remembering the name from the conversation they’d had with Emil before leaving Város. He subsides when Béla shoots him a quelling look.

‘Do you know her?’ the woman asks.

‘We know of her,’ Béla replies, in a tone that invites no further questions. She nods, and leads them down towards the village, to a wooden house in the centre, by the river. She knocks on the door, which is opened by a young, darkhaired woman, who looks coolly at Béla with her startling blue eyes. And Béla feels his heart stop.

Sari knows who they must be as soon as she opens the door and sees Kornelia Gyulai, looking scared out of her wits, standing in front of two smartly dressed men. She heaves an internal sigh. Things had been quiet for a couple of weeks, and she’d allowed herself to hope that it would all blow over, that they were safe. It’s all up to her now; up to all of them, really, but she’s learnt from bitter experience that if she wants something done properly, she has to do it herself. They seem very young, which is a comfort – if anyone was taking this seriously, surely they would have sent someone a little more senior?

‘These men—’ Kornelia blurts. ‘They need somewhere to stay, and I thought maybe you …’

Sari nods in what she hopes is a gracious manner. ‘Of course. Good evening, gentlemen. My name is Sari Arany. Please come in.’

They tramp up the stairs, scraping their boots as they do so, and Kornelia dithers, unsure whether she is included in the invitation.

‘Sari – should I—?’

Sari shakes her head. ‘It’s all right. Leave them with me,’ she says, and Kornelia, looking absurdly relieved, vanishes into the gathering darkness. Sari turns back to the men, who are standing politely by the table. The men from the village – the few of them that remain – would be seated by now, feet up on the table; it’s been so long since Sari’s encountered a man with manners.

‘Miss Arany,’ the taller one says. ‘My name is Béla Illyés, and this is my assistant, Géza Forgacs.’ Géza inclines his head in what is intended to be an elegant, manly gesture, and Sari feels her lips twitch slightly. ‘We’re from the Police Department in Város, and we’re here to investigate an accusation that has been made against someone in this village.’

Sari frowns, feigning confusion. ‘Someone here? But – I’m sorry, excuse me. It’s none of my business.’

‘On the contrary, Miss Arany, we were hoping that we would be able to talk to you about this matter. Not right now, of course. We will be staying in the village for a few days, and we were hoping that you could help us find some suitable accommodation.’

‘Of course, of course! You must be tired, coming all the way from Város. It’s a good thing that Kornelia brought you here. My father’s house is on the edge of the village, and it’s empty. It’s not very large, but it’s clean and secure. You can stay there for as long as you need to. Would you like to go straight there now, or can I offer you some food?’

Béla shakes his head, much to Géza’s disappointment. ‘Thank you, but no. We had a large lunch, and we wouldn’t dream of putting you to any trouble.’

‘Fine, fine. If you can just wait for a moment—’ Sari goes into the kitchen, where Rózsi is preparing the evening meal, with Judit looking on. Judit grimaces as soon as she catches Sari’s eye, and Sari grimaces back, saying out loud, ‘I’m just going to take these gentlemen over to my father’s house. I’ll be back before long.’ She can’t help reaching out and touching Rózsi’s hair; despite her composure, her insides are squirming with fear. Rózsi looks up at her and gives her a glowing smile, and as always, it lifts Sari’s heart, bolsters her spirits. She sometimes wonders whether she needs her daughter more than her daughter needs her.

When she gets back, twenty minutes later, Francziska is sitting at the kitchen table, visibly trembling, while Judit plies her with
szilva
, patience clearly dwindling.

‘I suppose you heard about our visitors,’ Sari says dryly.

Francziska nods. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘Deny everything, that’s what. No matter what they say, deny it. I think we might still be all right, you know. They’re both young – if they really thought there was something going on here, they would have sent more senior people. We might be all right.’

Francziska’s mouth is working, her eyes are panicstricken, and Sari can see it coming. ‘Couldn’t we just … just finish them?’

Judit puts her head into her hands, and Sari takes a deep breath. ‘For God’s sake, Francziska. That really is the most ridiculously stupid idea that you could have come out with.’

‘But—’

‘Think about it. We might be all right as it stands, but what are they going to do, over in Város, if the boys they’ve sent out here don’t come back? They’re
all
going to be out here, swarming over the village. We simply couldn’t do anything more suspicious. Do you understand me?’

‘I – I suppose so.’

Sari sighs. ‘This is the problem,’ she says, to no one in particular, as Judit already understands, and Francziska never will. ‘This is how we’ve got into this situation. Everyone’s started thinking that finishing people off is the best way to deal with problems, and it’s not. It might sort things out in the short term, but in the long run, it just gets everyone into a far bigger mess than there was to start with.’