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

“Right,” Attila interrupted. “I am about to go into Vaszary’s office, so perhaps this is a good time to tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“Your fucking phone was turned off again!”

“I was in Vaszary’s office, and he was talking. Very, very impolite to talk on my phone while our Council of Europe representative is talking. Then I was with Lieutenant Hébert, as instructed by Vaszary. Very, very impolite to talk to you while he is asking me questions about Vaszary and the murdered man.”

“Az istenfáját!” Tóth yelled.

“Exactly,” Attila said. “What do we know about Vaszary and Magoci?”

“We? Who we? I, for one, know nothing. That means there is nothing to know. If there were something to know, I would know. For sure.” The way he had put that made it quite clear to Attila that Tóth, in fact, didn’t know, that he was not happy that he hadn’t known, and that he may have been covering someone else’s ass. “I was calling you about the Russian on Rózsadomb.”

“What Russian?” Attila’s throat tightened. Rózsadomb was where the three men lived that Helena had asked him about.

“The one who was shot outside Minister Nagy’s house last night.”

“Shot? How?”

“Through one of his balls. Poor bastard. If he hadn’t called the ambulance, he wouldn’t have made it. Damn near bled to death by the time it arrived. You know anything about this?”

Attila’s immediate sympathetic reaction with that involuntary grimace most men make when they hear of someone shot in the balls vanished with his next question. “How the fuck would I know something about this when I am in Strasbourg? And why would you even ask?”

“Because the poor son of a bitch works for a Russian oligarch art collector called Grigoriev. Your girlfriend had some dealings with him last time she was in Budapest. And you were not in Strasbourg last night; you were here.”

“She is not my girlfriend, and she has no reason to be in Budapest.” Attila did know about Helena’s unpleasant encounters with Grigoriev. One of the least savoury oligarchs to have oozed out of Russia, he used enforcers to beat, kill, and threaten, and money to oil his way to his various entitlements. A year ago, Helena had run into one of his Bulgarian thugs at the Gellért hotel. “Is Grigoriev in Budapest?”

“I’ve no idea. Tell me your friend wasn’t here last night.”

“Of course not, and sadly, she is not my friend. Why would one of his thugs be at the minister’s house? Is Nagy selling his rare collection of miniature Jobbik memorabilia? Or has he stolen the triple crown?”

“You are treading on thin ice,” Tóth said portentously.

“Is the Russian still alive?”

“Barely. I want you to come back tomorrow after you deal with the police in Strasbourg. No way they can question one of our government guys. You make that clear.”

Interesting, Attila thought, that Tóth would want him back in Budapest only to help find out who shot the Russian, if whoever gave Tóth his orders thought the Russian was connected to Vaszary or the dead lawyer, or both.

Thinking about the various possible connections including Helena’s likely involvement, he walked to Les Bureaux Magoci. No police on the second floor of the building this time; only the very welcoming presence of the lovely Mademoiselle Audet, smiling when she saw Attila emerge from the staircase.

“You have decided to return,” she said in impeccable English. Her white blouse was tastefully unbuttoned at the top, her silver earrings barely grazing her shoulders. She was, maybe, twenty-five years old and much too young to give him the once-over, as she did now. “Perhaps you would like to have that appointment with one of our associates, after all?”

Attila gave her the best, most winsome smile he could conjure, given that he had been awake since 5 a.m., flown, waited, been shouted at, and sweated in his heavy jacket. “I had hoped, Mademoiselle,” he said, “that you would have time to talk with me for just a few moments.”

“Now?”

“If it’s not too much trouble, though I would prefer to invite you to lunch in the small restaurant on the river that I passed on my way here.”

“Perfect,” she said. She pressed a couple of buttons on her phone console and reached for her red blazer, carefully arranged on the back of her chair.

Although he had been trained to deal with the unexpected, Mademoiselle Audet’s response was so astonishing that he had not even had time to back away from the reception area when she rounded the corner of the desk and arrived, expectantly, at his elbow. “Oh,” Attila said. He had not expected her to accept his unintended invitation. It had been a spur-of-the-moment idea, designed to make her friendly enough to divulge some confidences.

She marched on her remarkably high heels to the elevators, pressed the down button, and turned to Attila again. “Not a busy day today,” she said. “Many of our clients are staying away since Monsieur Magoci has gone.” Attila noted that Magoci’s murder seemed to her more like a sudden departure than a death. “I looked at that restaurant several times. People seem so relaxed there. Enjoying the sunshine, you know . . .”

Attila agreed, though he hadn’t actually looked at the place and would not have been able to find it again, had Mademoiselle Audet not led the way. She walked fast for a woman teetering on seven-centimetre heels. She pulled open the door to the restaurant and went immediately to a back-corner table where there was no sunshine but a great deal of privacy. “Thought you would like this table,” she told him as she gesticulated at the waitress.

“Wine?” Attila asked feebly.

“Rouge pour moi,” she said. “And you can call me Monique. And you?”

“Attila.” He ordered a local draft beer.

“Alors, Attila,” she said, looking up eagerly. “What did you want to talk about?”

“My boss,” Attila said, “Mr. Vaszary, has been quite anxious that information Mr. Magoci wrote down at their meeting would not be made public.” A shot