Deceptions by Anna Porter (pride and prejudice read .txt) 📕

a couple of days ago, you said you were there for Vaszary, didn’t you say that?”

“Yes,” Attila said cautiously.

“I suspected you were not telling the truth. It turned out you were.”

“I was what?”

“You were telling the truth. Vaszary had hired Magoci. What we want to find out is why.”

“He did?” Attila asked. “Iván Vaszary?”

“Merde! Is there another?”

“Another?”

“Another Vaszary,” Hébert said slowly, carefully pronouncing every syllable. “Is it your hearing? Or you have a problem with my English?”

Attila shook his head. “It’s just that I thought Magoci was working for Mrs. Vaszary.”

“As I remember, you didn’t know he was working for Madame or Monsieur. You said,” he flicked open his notebook, “exactement, ‘Monsieur Vaszary had hoped to hire Monsieur Magoci on a private matter. Not strictly embassy business. He asked me to find out if Mr. Magoci would be interested.’ And at that time, as we now know, Magoci had already been working for your man for six weeks. He met with Mr. Vaszary the day after he arrived in Strasbourg. De plus, he wrote to Magoci two weeks before then and suggested the matter should be discussed here but not in the office. He suggested a time and a place for the meeting.”

“Did they meet?” Attila asked.

“Je ne sais pas. There is nothing else in the file. Mademoiselle Audet has been very helpful in finding this one sheet of paper, but she didn’t know what happened next, only that Magoci was killed. Now,” he leaned forward, his arms on his desk, his face close to Attila’s. He was still smiling but only with his mouth. His eyes were serious, a look Attila knew. In every interrogation there was a moment when the good cop routine switched, and it was usually the time the suspect decided to reveal something he had managed to keep hidden.

“Time for the truth, then,” Attila said. “I lied when I went to Magoci’s office.”

“Evidemment.”

“Truth is, I was there for Mrs. Vaszary. She is the one who had hired this lawyer to handle her divorce from her husband. They are disputing details of the divorce settlement: how much she gets and how much he keeps. I was helping her.”

“Why?”

“Why helping her?”

“Yes. Why?”

“She thought he was going to cheat her out of what she should receive as her share of the assets.”

“Je ne comprends pas de tout.”

“Well,” Attila said, “in a divorce, the man and the woman . . .”

“That I understand. It’s what you were doing in this that I don’t understand.”

“She wanted to know the value of a painting they have acquired a few months ago.”

“A painting?”

“It may be worth quite a bit, or not much at all. She wanted to know which.”

“And Magoci was going to tell her?”

Attila hesitated for a second, but not so long as to make Hébert interested. “I think so,” he said at last.

“Did they meet?”

“Madame and the dead lawyer?”

“They must have. At least once.”

Hébert nodded and studied his fingernails. “Is there anything else you would like to tell me?”

Attila shook his head.

“Any ideas about the woman who chased the killer into the cathedral?”

Attila shook his head again.

“This guy Tóth, why the hell did he hire you if he does not think you are any good?”

“I have no idea,” Attila said, and he meant it.

“That bow and arrow school in Colmar, the one I mentioned to you last time, a woman signed up for classes a few days ago. Tall. Pretty. Cheveux auburn. She paid for three days in advance, then she didn’t show up again. Second person who wants to sign up for a course since the murder. Odd, don’t you think?”

“Very,” Attila said, trying to seem vaguely interested. “Did you get her name?”

“Marianne Lewis. American. You wouldn’t happen to know her?”

“No.”

“When you see Vaszary, please tell him we need to find out why he hired Mr. Magoci. Tell him diplomatic immunity does not mean he can refuse to answer questions. He has only been here a few weeks. Has almost five years to go, and I am pretty sure I can make his life uncomfortable. You know, parking tickets, speeding, loud noise, a string of complaints to the Council of Europe. Awkward, don’t you think?”

“Very,” Attila said. He, too, wanted to know why Vaszary had hired Magoci and why Gizella had misled him and Helena.

“Lovely jacket,” Attila said as Hébert escorted him to the door. “I think I need to buy something more elegant to last me the next few years.”

“You do?” Hébert asked, looking at Attila’s jacket, the sleeves frayed, the front splattered, the vents creased up. “Yes, perhaps you do. Have a dog?”

“Yes. Why?”

“The sleeves look like something has been chewing them.”

“I will bring him next time,” Attila said. “Dachshund. Someone told me about a tailor called Vargas. Ever heard of him?”

Hébert scratched his chin. “No. But there is Bonhomme et Fils, not far from here; you could tell them I sent you.”

He called Helena. “You’re still in Budapest?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Why?”

“The man I want is here. Don’t call me on this phone again. I will call you.” She disconnected.

Okay, so she was back on her burner phones. She had a way of making everything substantially more complicated than it needed to be. He fumed all the way down to the river. Then he called Tóth.

“Mi a lófaszt csinálsz,” What the fuck are you doing, “that you don’t have time to pick up the phone? I’ve been waiting two hours for you, son of a whore, to call. What the fuck?!”

One advantage of working for Tóth, maybe the only advantage, was that he could go on for a long time, amusing himself with yelling at subordinates who didn’t have to say anything. He didn’t even have to listen: Attila had put the phone in his pocket and was enjoying the afternoon sun glinting off the river as he strolled toward Rue d’Austerlitz. He didn’t pull the phone out of his pocket till he was mounting the steps. Tóth was still shouting, though perhaps less coherently than