The Prodigal Spy (37 page)

They brought Molly in sometime after noon.

“Nick. Thank God,” she said, her face drawn and nervous. “What’s going on? I’ve been frantic.” She moved toward him, then looked at the police and stopped. Novotny watched them blankly, shut out by language, but Zimmerman followed her with interest.

“I don’t know. There’s some kind of mistake. The man we met last night, at the concert–I found him this morning, dead. They didn’t tell you?”

“Dead?” she said, stunned, not taking in the rest of it. Her face softened. “Oh, Nick.”

“Mr Warren was with you this morning?” Zimmerman said.

Molly nodded.

“What time did he leave?”

Molly looked to Nick for help. “I don’t know. I was asleep.”

“The maid said very early,” Zimmerman said. “You don’t know exactly when?”

“I didn’t want to wake her,” Nick interrupted. Then, to Molly, “I went to get the tickets. For the train this afternoon. You know. I didn’t want to wait till the last minute.”

“Evidently,” Zimmerman said dryly, still watching Molly, who simply stared, following a game. “And yet you waited there,” he said to Nick. So they’d already checked.

“I had a coffee. It was too early to go to his place.”

“So much coffee,” Zimmerman said. “You have business in Vienna?” he said to Molly. But she seemed not to have heard him.

“Dead?” she said to Nick. “He was dead? How?”

“That is what we’re trying to determine, Miss Chisholm. A fall from the balcony. An accident, perhaps,” Zimmerman said blandly. “But Mr Warren’s presence there naturally raises some questions for us. You understand. You have business in Vienna?” he said again.

Molly looked at him, unsure, then gave a nod, faint enough to be retrieved. He took up her passport, thumbing through it.

“You’ve been to Prague before. May I ask what brings you back?”

“I wanted to show Nick.”

“Not on business then, this time? You did not apply for a journalist’s visa, I see.”

“No. It was a personal trip.”

“To see Prague,” Zimmerman said. “Again.” He put down the passports. “So you cannot tell me when Mr Warren left this morning.”

“Sometime after six. He was still in bed then. I saw the clock.” Had she?

“He left around six?”

“Later. I don’t know when exactly. I fell back to sleep. Why?”

“It’s useful to know these things. Chief Novotny will want it for his report.” Novotny looked up at his name. “Or perhaps not. Perhaps he has his own idea. Don’t be alarmed, Miss Chisholm. If you were under suspicion, we would have questioned you separately, before you could talk to Mr Warren here. That’s the usual procedure. Of course, Chief Novotný may not know that. He is new.” Zimmerman sighed. “But it’s useful, these details. For instance, you have not yet packed for your trip?” The disheveled room, noticed.

“Molly leaves everything to the last minute,” Nick said.

Zimmerman looked at him. “Now she will have more time.”

“But she has to leave today,” Nick said evenly, facing her.

“I think Chief Novotný would prefer her to stay,” Zimmerman said easily, “until we finish. Don’t worry, the tickets will still be good. Unless, of course, your car is fixed in time.”

Molly raised her eyebrows, finally thrown, but before Nick could say anything there was a knock and another policeman handed Novotný a folder. He pulled out a report sheet and grunted as he read, only handing it to Zimmerman when he had finished. Zimmerman went through it quickly, nodding and speaking to Novotný as he read. A small explosion of Czech back, then more talk, not quite an argument, Novotný bristling, clearly irritated by an inconvenience. Nick watched them, then looked over at Molly and saw that she was frightened. When he placed his hand on hers, it was cool to the touch.

“There was no blood in the flat,” Zimmerman said, not a question. “Tell me again about the blood.” He nodded to Nick’s pants.

“When I was checking. To see if he was alive.”

“Is that why you went back to the flat? To wash it off?”

Nick looked at him. “I didn’t go back. I’d never been there. I found him and then I went in to call you.”

“But not right away. First you went through his desk.” He glanced down again at the report. “Pani Havlíček–that’s the neighbor–said she saw you holding his head.” Molly took her hand away as if the blood were there, drawing her in. But her eyes were soft, upset now, the death real, not a story. “Is that usually the way you check a pulse?”

Someone watching, even then. “I don’t know. I didn’t know what I was doing. You know, I didn’t expect—”

“What, Mr Warren?”

“To see a body there.”

“Pani Havlíček didn’t expect to see you there either. She said you stayed for some time. Holding him.” He glanced over at Novotný, who, bored, was now stretching his tight collar and looking out the window. “Of course, it might have seemed long to her. It’s often the case. She also said she heard noises in the apartment. Just before dawn. Another light sleeper.” He glanced at Molly. “A little commotion. Of course, it may have seemed louder to her than it was. It’s possible, at that hour.” He was walking around the table, talking to himself. “A noise when you don’t expect it. Pan Kotlar himself, perhaps. There was alcohol in his blood. If he was unsteady— It’s difficult to be precise about these things.”

Nick looked up at him. “What time is dawn?”

Zimmerman paused, a sliding look toward Novorny. “Before six,” he said to Nick. “There were pills,” he continued, walking again. “For illness. No marks on the balcony. Of course, these may have been missed, if no one was looking for them.”

“They were there.”

“So you said. What caused them, do you think?”

“I don’t know. A belt buckle, buttons–something metal.”

“And what could that mean?” Zimmerman said, almost playing.

“That someone scraped against it when he pushed him over,” Nick said flatly.

For a minute no one said anything. Zimmerman looked down at the folder as if he were thinking it over, not just playing for effect. It was when Nick saw him glance at the window that he realized Zimmerman was just waiting to see if Novotný had understood.

“I see,” he said finally. “That is your idea?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, God,” Molly said quietly.

“I don’t know if Chief Novotný would agree with you. As I said, he has his own idea. And you know, sometimes the obvious solution is the right one. I’ve seen this many times.”

“He didn’t kill himself.”

“You’re sure? If I may say so, Mr Warren, the obvious solution would be more convenient for you.” Directly to Nick, almost an instruction. “An older man, sick, it’s a common thing. Even the method. It’s a disease with us Czechs, you know. I’m not sure why. All through our history. Defenestration. So many have chosen it.”

A courtyard in the Czernin Palace. What had Masaryk said?

“The housemaid’s way out,” Nick said.

Zimmerman’s eyes widened in appreciation. “I see you know our history.”

“He wouldn’t have taken it either.”

“You know that, after so little acquaintance?”

Nick lowered his head, quiet.

“No, Mr Warren, it would all be very simple. A sick man, a little drink. Our chief would sign the papers. Everybody goes home. Except, of course, for you. A foreigner. At the death scene. Now it’s not so simple.” He took one of the chairs and sat down, facing Nick. “What are you doing here, Mr Warren? Why did you come to Prague?”

Nick looked away. “To see it.”

“A tourist. Who drives in and takes the train out. Who meets a stranger, and the next morning he’s dead. Mr Warren, this is a charade. I’m not like our good chief. I like to know the truth. It’s a habit. So.”

Why not? Hadn’t he been telling Nick all along that he knew it was someone else? The wrong time. The blood. Then why press at all? Simple curiosity? Or a final trick question before he’d have to let him go? There was no one to trust here. Nick said nothing.

Zimmerman looked down, opened the folder, and shuffled through papers. Newsclippings, yellow. Of course they’d gone through the apartment. Now he was fingering the hockey picture.

“A remarkable resemblance,” Zimmerman said quietly, still shuffling, indifferent for Novotný‘s benefit. He didn’t want him to know. “A relative?”

Nick said nothing.

“It’s unusual, Mr Warren, to hold the head of a dead man you didn’t know.” He paused. Tell me, please.“

“Why? You already know.”

“I would rather you told me. It’s better. For the report.” He continued looking down, as if they were talking about something else.

“He was my father,” Nick said.

“And yet you have different names.” Zimmerman looked up. “A detail.”

“My mother remarried. I took my stepfather’s name.”

“I see. Thank you. And now will you tell me why you didn’t say this before? What are you doing here, Mr Warren?”

“I came to see him. I didn’t want anyone to know.”

“Why?”

“It would hurt them, if they knew. My family.”

“No, why did you come?”

“I wanted to see him.”

“After so many years?”

“Before it was too late.”

“You knew he was dying?”

“No. Old.”

Zimmerman closed the folder. “You got here just in time. I’m sorry. This must be difficult for you. May I offer you a piece of advice? Do not create more difficulties.”

“He didn’t kill himself.”

“How can we know that, Mr Warren? From a few scrape marks?”

“Somebody killed him.”

“Why?”

Nick looked down. “I don’t know.”

“Then let us confine ourselves to what we do know. For the moment. I understand that Pan Kotlar was much affected by the death of his friend Miloš Brokov. There was a discussion about suicide. You were there, I believe.”

“That’s not—” Nick stopped. “How do you know that?”

A flicker of embarrassment. “Pan Kotlar’s wife returned this morning from visiting relatives.” He looked up. “She was, by the way–visiting relatives.” Had his father suggested it, knowing? Or had he just wanted to make it easier to get on the train? Had he said goodbye? “Chief Novotný was busy, so I took the opportunity to interview her. Separately. Our usual procedure.”

“She told you about me.”

Zimmerman nodded and touched the folder. “I confess I am not so clever, even with the resemblance.” He paused. “Was there any reason for her not to mention this?”

“No.” She hadn’t known any of it.

“So you remember this discussion? She said Pan Kotlar was depressed. Is that so?” Building another case, away from the truth.

“No, he was drunk.”

Zimmerman started, surprised by the bluntness.

“An emotional time,” he said calmly. “A friend’s death. And of course seeing you. Your presence—”

“Is that what she said?”

“She said he was not himself.” The denunciations, already begun. The way his father said it would be, the standard procedure. “Was that your impression also?”

“I don’t know what he’s usually like.”

“But he was upset by his friend’s news?”

“Yes.” A pinprick of disloyalty; so easy. “Anybody would be.”

“Your visit, it was a pleasant one?”

“Yes.”

“No quarrels? Sometimes, I know, these things don’t always go smoothly. So many years. And of course the events of his life.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Yes, but often there are feelings–you think it’s over and then they come up.”

“He was happy to see me.”

“And you, were you happy to see him?”

Had he been? “Yes, very.”

“Yet you were leaving today. A short visit.”

“This time.”

“A kind of trial run?” Zimmerman said, pleased with himself for knowing the idiom.

“Yes.”

“Your father knew you were planning to return?”

“Yes.”

“But would you say he was distraught? At your leaving? With his health—”

“No, I would not say that. You would. What are you trying to prove?”

“I’m trying to understand, Mr Warren. How it was.”

“No. You just want me to say he killed himself. I don’t want any part of this. You don’t need me–you already know. Can we go now?”

Zimmerman looked at him carefully. “I’m afraid you don’t understand the situation. Miss Chisholm may go if she likes,” he said, turning toward her. “Though I must ask you to cancel your business in Vienna. It would not be advisable for you to leave Prague just now. You, Mr Warren, are another matter. It is not, of course, my decision–I’m only assisting Chief Novotný. But I suspect he would wish you to stay here.”

“Am I under arrest? What for?”

“No, you are being detained for questioning.”

“Whatever that means.”

“It means you are being detained for questioning. You see, Mr Warren, you are a spanner.”

“What?”

“A spanner in the works. It’s not correct?”

“A monkey wrench,” Nick said.

“Ah, it’s a Britishism, spanner?” Zimmerman nodded. “A wrench. It gets stuck in the machinery. A cause of industrial accidents. This is what has happened to Chief Novotný. Everything runs smoothly and then you fall in. Now he must decide what to do with you to fix it. How does he explain you? Just the fact of you raises questions. What if his idea is wrong?”

“It is.”

“Then he must find another. I have been trying to suggest to you–I hope you understand–that you should not make this difficult for him. He might–this can happen–he might find the wrong idea. He might find it in you.”

Nick stared at him. “You don’t think I did it.”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. I’m only an assistant now. You want him to believe this was a crime? Then it becomes a problem for him. Given the victim, perhaps a political problem. That would be serious. Me, I don’t interest myself in politics. But I am interested in you. I’m a policeman. A man is dead and I want to know why, I can’t help it.” He paused. “I would like you to help me. But Chief Novotný has other concerns. Not why. What to do. You must understand that difference. For him, the wrong solution, any solution, might become the right one. Unless, of course, I can explain you.”

“He can’t prove anything.”

“Proof can be a small thing, Mr Warren, if you want to believe it. A telephone call that isn’t made. A presence in someone’s flat, stained with blood.” He touched the folder again. “Perhaps a resentment that explodes–just like that, a kind of accident.” He looked up. “A car that isn’t broken. Many things. Which are important? Which do you believe? It’s difficult to know, until they fit. Help me, Mr Warren.”