District VIII A Thriller Detective Balthazar Kovacs Mysteries Book 1 – Adam Lebor

Balthazar sat back in the front passenger seat of Gaspar’s black 7-series BMW, clipped the seatbelt buckle in place, and firmly grasped the armrest as Fat Vik took the wheel. He knew what was coming. The car had a long, curved dashboard with a console that displayed more lights, buttons and controls than a small aeroplane. Fat Vik fiddled with one until he found the music that he wanted: Gangsta Zoli, Hungarian rap. He opened the windows all the way down, turned up the volume, tugged on Balthazar’s seatbelt and released it, laughing as it slapped against his chest, then pressed the ignition button with childish glee.

The engine fired up. He revved the accelerator and took the wheel in his right hand, his left tapping on the window ledge in time with the music. His own seatbelt remained coiled in its holder. The car screeched backwards down a one-way street, turned onto Rakoczi Way, roared down the bus lane, speeding past the dense night-time traffic as it headed towards Blaha Lujza Square and Elizabeth Bridge.

A blue handicapped driver’s pass was prominently displayed on top of the BMW’s dashboard. Even with that, it was illegal to drive in the bus lane. The road was monitored by cameras, which recorded car number plates. Those caught faced a substantial fine but Balthazar knew that Fat Vik had nothing to worry about, as long a helpful clerk in the municipal bureaucracy received one of Gaspar’s envelopes each month.

The handicapped driver’s pass, however, was new. Balthazar pointed at it. ‘How did you get that?’ Fat Vik smiled, prodded his chest, wheezed unconvincingly. ‘Heart condition, brother. Same as Gaspar.’ He glanced at Balthazar, smiled. ‘It probably runs in the family. Want one? You wouldn’t even need a medical. You only need to pay the processing fee.’

‘How much is that?’ ‘Fifty thousand and ten forints.’ ‘Ten?’ ‘Envelope.’ ‘That’s tax-deductible, though,’ said Balthazar. Both men laughed, the movement sending waves of discomfort through his back and shoulders. Balthazar sat back against the plush leather seat, very glad of the ride, but unable to get settled. Despite the merriment, he felt completely exhausted.

His fruitless talk with Gaspar had used up the very last of his reserves. His brother, like so many Hungarians, indeed every nationality that had grown up under Communism, was too focused on the short term. Decades under an intrusive one-party regime had fostered a strong folk memory of seizing not just the day, but the moment, for potential profit and advantage. Playing the system was everything. As far as Gaspar was concerned, there was excellent money to be made smuggling migrants across the border and no reason to stop, as long the opportunity was there.

Balthazar had at least learned more about how the smuggling operation worked. There were two channels. The VIP channel provided customers with actual Hungarian passports. Gaspar said he was not involved in that.

Keleti Station, 6.05 a.m., Friday, 4 September 2015 He lay on his back, his sleeping bag tangled between his legs, the nylon damp against his skin. A loudspeaker crackled for several seconds, paused, fired a long burst of jumbled vowels and consonants, fell silent again. His mouth was thick and dry, his T-shirt drenched with sweat. Where was he? He turned on his side, looked around and remembered. A thin-faced boy, twelve or thirteen years old, was curled up under a brown acrylic blanket, his dirt-stained hand holding a torn backpack.

A mother and baby lay on a sheet of corrugated cardboard at his feet. The child whimpered softly while the mother snored, oblivious, her chubby features serene in her sleep. Simon Nazir rested his hand on his wife’s back, felt her chest rise and fall, slid his fingers through her black, curly hair, felt the warmth of her skin against his, and closed his eyes. In his head he was still in Aleppo: he could hear the laughter of the shopkeepers in the bazaar, the siren call of the muezzin, smell the ancient dust, coffee and cardamom.

He breathed in through his nose. The warm bovine reek almost made him gag. He opened his eyes, reached for his bottle of water and took a deep draught. The drink was stale and tasted of plastic. The sun was already up and the turquoise sky, streaked with fine white clouds, was about to deliver another day of heat and dirt and waiting. Nazir tried in vain to get more comfortable, to stretch out without banging into another prone body. The human tide spread in every direction, filling the plaza in front of Keleti Station’s main entrance, spilling along the sides.

A busy intersection in a European capital was now a giant open-air refugee camp. The ground was covered with discarded food wrappers, cigarette ends, half-eaten sandwiches, rotten fruit, empty bottles of spring water, pairs of shoes taken off for the night.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 64cea7fea668a97e
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,665,268 bytes (1.588 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 277
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 502.56 minutes
• Total Words: 100,513
• Total Characters: 578,752
• Average Words per Page: 362.86
• Average Characters per Page: 2089.36

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