The Netscher Connection Read online

  King frowned and took a moment to answer. “No.”

  “Gyula Koltai?”

  “No.”

  “Lajos Szell?” Ferenc’s grandfather.

  “No.” As soon as he answered, he started shaking his head. “No, wait. I’ve heard that name before. Szell? Hmm. Let me think.” He scratched his chin. “Wasn’t he the one who became the first multi-millionaire in Hungary after the fall of communism? It was a topic of discussion around the dinner table for weeks.”

  I didn’t know enough about the Szell, Szabo and Koltai grandfathers yet. I most definitely didn’t know enough about Szell’s financial success. I hoped Francine could give us complete information on these three men as well as any possible connections.

  “Are you sure you don’t know any of these men?” Manny asked. “Maybe you restored something for them and you don’t remember.”

  “That is a possibility. I can check if you want.”

  “Please,” Andor said.

  King immediately got up and walked to his desk. We listened to the one-sided conversation of him asking his assistant to check all their records for orders from the three men. It interested me that he was speaking English to his assistant. A minute later, he was seated again. “It won’t take long. My niece is a genius when it comes to the computer stuff. She started working in the office during her summer holidays for extra cash. When she was sixteen, she single-handedly computerised our archives. At first I thought it was busy-work, but having that kind of data has proven to be very useful.” He shook his head. “Again, I talk too much. Please forgive me.”

  An uncomfortable silence settled in the room. Manny looked at me and raised his eyebrows in a question I’d come to recognise. “He’s been truthful the whole time.”

  Manny huffed. “You could’ve just nodded.”

  “I have no reason to lie.” King didn’t appear offended at all. “Like I said before, I take pride in the honesty of my business dealings and my cooperation with the authorities.” He hesitated. “This is not the first time I’ve received a visit from you guys, so I know how it works. You ask questions and answer none. But is there anything at all you can tell me? I would really like to know what this is about.”

  Andor inhaled to speak, but Manny was quicker. “Not at the moment.”

  Colin glared at Manny, then turned to King. “We are at the very beginning of this investigation and our visit here is simply to cover our bases. We have nothing indicating that you are involved in any criminal activity, but needed to find out why your name came up.”

  “That is really a mystery to me.” King held out his hands in a helpless gesture. “I keep a close eye on my people and I’m pretty confident that I would know if anyone got into something they shouldn’t.”

  This was frustrating. I needed more information, more data. With only a mention of King’s name and his genuine denial of wrongdoing, this was beginning to feel like a waste of precious time. King was talking about the numerous Roma charity organisations his business supported. That gave me an idea. “Tell me more about your community.” I realised my question was too general and held up my index finger while I thought of a better question. “You mentioned earlier that you are very proud of your people, of their individual accomplishments. Tell me more about that. Who accomplished what?”

  King’s muscles around his eyes and mouth relaxed, his smile proud. “Where do I begin? Well, there’s Damian Varga, who was the very first one in our community to ever graduate from university. That was in 1976. I was in high school then and my dad’s business had grown quite a lot. Damian’s father was helping mine in the workshop and his mother was helping with the upholstery side of the restoration. She had an amazing skill for the finer work needed with the silk covers for the nineteenth-century chairs.

  “My dad had pushed them both to let Damian go to university instead of joining the business after school. He’d seen Damian’s interest in architecture and had told the parents that they would be holding their son back if they didn’t give him the opportunity.” His chest puffed. “In the 1990s he won three awards for his designs. One of those was the Pritzker Architecture Prize.”

  A woman in her late twenties to early thirties walked into the room and stopped next to King. “Hi, everyone. Don’t worry about me. I’m just popping in to say that none of those names are in any of our documents, Uncle Stef.”

  “Thanks, Erika.”

  Her smile lifted her cheeks and crinkled the corners of her eyes. The genuineness of her expression made her look younger. She kissed her uncle’s cheek and left the room. King nodded towards the door. “She’s another success story. When she started high school, her grades started plummeting. My brother and his wife didn’t know what to do. The teacher said that Erika was lazy and never did her homework, didn’t pay attention in class and was belligerent. We didn’t believe that. Erika was hardworking and respectful. But every time we asked her, she closed down and wouldn’t tell us why she wasn’t doing well.

  “It took her father and I putting a spy camera in her rucksack to find out what was going on. Her whole class and the home teacher who insulted my niece were caught on camera abusing that child so badly it made my hair stand on end. It wasn’t physical, but the vitriol they spat at her was worse than punches. The school begged us to settle this without going public.

  “We took Erika out of the school and accepted the resignation of the teacher and the apologies from the children and their parents. Some of the parents were very ashamed of their children bullying Erika because she was Roma. With the exception of a few idiots, most were incredibly grateful that we didn’t take this to the media.”

  If it weren’t for my expertise, I might have missed his micro-expressions of regret and anger. “What did you just remember?”

  “Another success story. But one that came with a price.” His eyebrows drew together, the corners of his mouth turning down. “Lila was such a bright young girl. She had very few problems at school, mostly because she didn’t look very Romani. Her skin is lighter than most of us, which made most people forget where she came from. Only a few times did we have to deal with mild racist situations, but her school years were quite uneventful. Except of course for her amazing grades. Such an intelligent young girl.

  “The problems started at university. She insisted on staying in the city and not commuting every day from home. That’s why we never knew about the horrid abuse she suffered from a few of her classmates. It broke her. She dropped out of university and completely withdrew from us for a few years. During that time she managed to drag herself back up and started an extremely successful tech company.”

  Some of the sadness left his face. “Despite being a woman in a male-dominated field, she’s highly respected. And she comes to visit us more often now. She even drives a nifty SUV crossover. We are so proud of her.”

  He told us the stories of another three people, but I’d heard and observed enough. His was a community that had broken away from the mindset that appeared to hold back so many Roma communities. But I could no longer sit and listen to anecdotes when I knew how much research I had to do. I also wanted to find out what Francine had discovered.

  The ringing of Andor’s phone interrupted my impatient thoughts. I watched his face as he listened to the person on the other side of the call. His corrugator supercilii muscles pulled his brows together and down, then his face lost colour. I thought of pointing out to him that nodding was not effective during a phone conversation, but the despondency on his face stopped me. He closed his eyes tightly. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “What happened?” Manny was already sitting on the edge of his seat, his hands pressed on his knees to push him up.

  “Another murder.”

  “Murder?” King gasped, his eyes wide. “My name was mentioned in a murder investigation? Oh, my goodness.”

  Colin leaned forward to catch King’s attention. “You’re not a suspect or a person of interest.”

&nb
sp; “But murder.” King swallowed a few times. “That’s just awful. That poor person’s family. Please let me help. You have my word that anything you share with me will be kept in the strictest confidence. My door is open. Any time.”

  We all stood and Manny reached out to shake King’s hand. “We’ll let you know if there’s anything you can do.”

  “Please.” King looked at me. “Please. I want to help in any way I can.”

  I nodded, not knowing what else to say. King’s concern over being connected to a murder was genuine and so strong it affected me.

  Andor took King’s hand in both of his, regret clearly visible on his face. “This is my mistake. I should’ve waited to tell my colleagues what the call was about. I didn’t mean to upset you at all. Thank you so much for your time and your generous help.”

  “Anything I can do. Anything we as a community can do.” King shook Andor’s hand, then Colin’s and walked us to the front door.

  The moment we were in Colin’s SUV and the door’s closed, Andor apologised again. And again. I stopped listening. We were on our way to a crime scene and my brain wasn’t prepared for this. I looked out the window and watched the congested streets of Budapest as I pushed Mozart’s Flute Quartet No. 1 in D major into my mind. Mentally playing it wasn’t enough, so I started mentally writing the quartet, hoping that it would be enough to keep a shutdown at bay.

  Chapter TEN

  “That bastard was livestreaming this!” Francine stood in the entrance hall to the three-story house we had just entered. Her fists were resting on her hips, her red lips compressed in a tight line. “It’s just sick that someone wants to watch a person die.”

  “What took you so long? It took us twenty minutes from the villa to get here.” Vinnie pushed Francine out of the way and looked down at Manny. “Did you drive?”

  “I didn’t drive, you degenerate.” Manny’s shoulders slumped and he nodded towards Colin. “He did.”

  “We got a lot of traffic on the road next to the river.” Colin had tried to drive as fast as possible, but there had been an accident on the main road going to the north of Budapest. He’d decided to take another route, but that had proven to be just as congested. Very congested. No matter how hard he’d tried, he hadn’t been able to maintain a constant distance between our car and the cars in front of us. Eventually, I’d closed my eyes and focused solely on mentally writing Mozart’s Flute Quartet.

  “Ah.” Vinnie raised an eyebrow. “Did you learn anything interesting from the king dude?”

  Colin shook his head. “Nothing concrete.”

  “Well, that doesn’t matter now.” Francine grabbed Manny’s hand and pulled him into the house. “Come on. You need to see the crime scene.”

  Manny allowed Francine to only pull him a few steps before he stopped. “Hold on there for a second. First tell me how you know there was livestreaming.”

  “Well, duh.” Francine rolled her eyes. “I checked the data flow from this IP address.”

  Andor cleared his throat. He’d been talking to a uniformed police officer in the driveway. I hadn’t heard him join us. His eyebrows were raised high on his forehead. “Please tell me that you accessed that information legally.”

  “I accessed that information legally,” Francine answered immediately.

  I frowned. “Why are you lying?”

  “Oh, bleep.” Andor’s shoulders dropped.

  “He asked me to tell him that.” Francine’s tone implied innocence. It was fake.

  “I don’t think I want to know how you do things.” Andor looked past Francine and Vinnie into the house. “Is the crime scene at least preserved?”

  “Yup.” Vinnie stepped aside, allowing Andor to enter the room to the right of the entrance hall. “His daughter found him. He didn’t show up for their brunch appointment and she got worried so she came to check on him. By that time he was already cold, so she knew there was nothing she could do to save him. She said she just ran from the room, phoned the emergency services and waited in that room.” He pointed towards the back of the house.

  “She’s still there?” Manny asked.

  “Yup.” He closed his eyes for a second. “She’s devastated. I... I didn’t know what to say to her, so I left a female officer with her.”

  “We’ll talk to her later.” Manny looked at me. “You ready for this, Doc?”

  I wasn’t ready. I’d had forty minutes to prepare in the car. Even though I’d finished mentally writing the Allegro and Adagio of the flute quartet, I truly didn’t want to see a dead body.

  “Jenny?” Colin squeezed my hand. “We can take photos and you can study those.”

  “No.” Photos never gave the same impression as being there in person. I inhaled deeply, then nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Manny nodded once, then walked into the room to the right.

  It was very clear that this house belonged to a person of wealth. From the wrought-iron gates to the manicured lawn and circular driveway leading past the heavy wooden front door, there was no mistaking the affluence this property represented.

  The entrance was large enough to qualify as a room, the dark wooden floors polished to a shine. A large porcelain vase on a modern glass table held a bunch of fresh white roses. I counted. There were thirty roses.

  I sighed at the distractions I surrendered to as a means to postpone entering the crime scene. I pulled my hand from Colin’s and wiped both my hands on my thighs. With a final deep inhale, I walked into the room. And frowned.

  It was surprisingly homely and warm. The outside of the house and the entrance had led me to expect a modern and richly decorated space. Instead I was standing in a welcoming room. Unlike the entrance, this room was carpeted, the thick covering and the large, comfortable furniture muting the sounds of Manny and Andor’s conversation.

  Blue and green patterned curtains were drawn open to reveal the windows overlooking the front garden. The wall opposite the door was painted the same deep green as the curtains and had only a large flat screen television mounted against it as if it was a work of art.

  The other walls were painted a lighter green, preventing the room from being too dark. Both the remaining walls had only one painting each. There was nothing pretentious about the decor. Facing the television was a sofa upholstered in material matching the colours of the curtains and the dark green wall. Two matching chairs flanked the sofa and two small stacks of magazines were on the low dark wooden coffee table between the seats.

  Manny and Andor were standing in front of the television, looking at the sofa. From where I was standing, I couldn’t see what they were looking at. I walked closer.

  Lying on the sofa was a man who appeared to be in his fifties. If his eyes hadn’t been wide open, it would’ve been easy to assume he had fallen asleep while watching television. His left hand was trailing on the carpet, his body shifted as if he was reaching for something.

  “When Vin and I got here, the TV was still on.” Francine pointed at the television. “And it was where the livestreaming came from.”

  I narrowed my eyes and inspected the dark frame around the screen. “I can’t see a camera.”

  “It’s here.” Francine pointed at the top centre of the frame. “It’s so well designed that it blends in completely with the frame.”

  Andor turned around and looked at the small glass-covered circle in the frame. “I didn’t know they made TVs with cameras.”

  “Of course they do.” Francine blew through her lips in a rude sound. “If people aren’t constantly on their smartphones, they’re running everything through their televisions.”

  “I don’t.” Manny stepped closer to the sofa, closer to the body.

  “You also use your smartphone only to make and receive calls and texts.” Francine rolled her eyes and looked at me. “I keep telling him it’s a small computer. He should use it to search for stuff, check his email and use the apps I downloaded. But no, Mister Anti-Technology only uses it to send me SMSes full o
f typos.”

  Manny ignored Francine and looked at Andor. “Tell me more about him.”

  “His name is Antal Udvaros.” Andor looked at his phone, then smiled at Francine. “I use my phone to do research.”

  “See!” Francine pointed at Andor, but looked at Manny. “Learn from the younger people.”

  Andor’s eyes widened and he looked apologetically at Manny. His arms moved closer to his torso when he registered Manny’s irate expression and he swallowed, turning his attention back to his smartphone. “Um, yeah. As I was saying, Mr Udvaros was the owner of a chain of boutique hotels in Hungary. Well, maybe a chain is too big a word. He owned seven boutique hotels around the country.”

  “Is this how the body was found?” Manny asked.

  “The daughter said she didn’t move him.” Vinnie walked to the far corner of the room, winked at me and leaned against the wall. I was grateful that he knew how quickly I felt claustrophobic. He nodded towards the outside of the house. “I asked the paramedics who arrived, but they said they immediately knew he was beyond saving, so they didn’t move him either.”

  “And the officers told me that they also didn’t move anything,” Andor added.

  “Huh.” Manny lowered himself on his haunches and tilted his head to see under the sofa. “I’m willing to bet that either he was trying to reach the phone or it fell from his hand.”

  “There’s a phone down there?” Andor took a pair of black latex gloves from his pocket and put them on. He knelt down next to Manny and carefully reached under the sofa. He straightened and lifted a gold-coloured smartphone.

  “I’ll take that, thank you very much.” Francine held out her hand.

  Andor hesitated for a second, pulling the device closer to his chest. Francine raised one eyebrow and wiggled her fingers. Manny scowled and snapped his fingers. “Give her the bloody phone.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want Francine to look at the phone, I’m just thinking about evidence protocol.” Andor looked at Francine’s hand. “You should wear gloves. We might be able to get some foreign prints from the phone.”