“The hotel would take care of it.”
“But you couldn’t wait.”
“No, I had to be in Vienna.”
“What is your business, Mr Warren? You’re a journalist?”
“No. I’m at the London School of Economics.”
“A student?”
“A research assistant.”
“With business in Vienna.”
“I’m traveling with someone. She had to be there.”
He fingered Molly’s passport. “Miss Chisholm,” he said, pronouncing it correctly. “Your friend?”
“Yes.”
“She was not invited for coffee?”
“She had other things to do.”
“It’s a pity you did not join her, Mr Warren.”
He turned to Novotny and reported in Czech, a brief summary.
“You had better think of a better explanation for the car, Mr Warren,” he said, almost confiding. “He’s interested in the car. By the way, the next Vienna train doesn’t leave until late afternoon. I thought you should be aware of that.” Nick stared at him. “Now, quickly please, what did you see in the flat? Had anyone been there?”
“I think so. Furniture was pushed around, as if there had been some kind of fight. Chair moved out of the way. I suppose he might have done it himself, but why?”
“Anything else?”
“Scrape marks on the railing. But there was nothing on him to make a scrape with, so I assume it was someone else.”
Zimmerman nodded approvingly. “If it was made then. How long did you say he’d been dead?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell. He wasn’t stiff, just cold.”
“All right. Thank you.” He stood up, talking again to Novotny. “Think about the car.”
“Can I go now?”
“Go? Mr Warren, I’m afraid you are in difficulties. Unless of course Pan Kotlar seemed-agitated to you last night. It might have been. Otherwise, the police will be interested in you.”
“I don’t understand. Aren’t you the police?”
He smiled. “Actually, I was chief of police. Until last year. A year can make a great difference here, you see. Today, Chief Novotny. He’s more comfortable with the regime, or perhaps they with him-it depends how you look at it. Now I help him.” Another tram driver. “A research assistant,” he said, his voice ironic. “But I’m glad of the work. It’s hard, you know, to break the habit.”
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 Novotny 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 Novotny 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 Novotny 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 Novotny as he read. A small explosion of Czech back, then more talk, not quite an argument, Novotny 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 Havlicek- 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 Havlicek didn’t expect to see you there either. She said you stayed for some time. Holding him.” He
