Black Wattle Creek (Charlie Berlin #2)(51)

Lazlo sipped his wine He held the wineglass by the stem, delicately. ‘Let us just say Lazlo Horvay is a man of some complexity, especially at the dinner table. Now, you are sure one hundred percent you are not hungry, Charlie? Even from our very short acquaintance it seems most unlike you. This is a schnitzel I’m having, crumbed veal.’

‘I said I wasn’t hungry, and I’m still off the grog. And I know what a bloody schnitzel is, thank you – my wife’s parents are German, remember.’ The statement came out with an angry tone that even surprised Berlin.

Lazlo studied Berlin’s face across the table. The two men held each other’s eyes, neither willing to be the first to look away. Lazlo looked down after a long minute, but only to put down his wineglass. ‘What do the Germanic peoples know of schnitzel? A true schnitzel must be fried in lard, as they do it here. The Austrians and their butter, it’s shameful.’

The schnitzel on Lazlo’s plate was a huge slab of meat and he was only halfway through. He took a bite. There was mashed potato and creamed spinach on the side. That was what Rebecca did with the spinach picked from Berlin’s garden.

‘A couple of blokes from Special Branch tracked me down this morning, Lazlo. They warned me off seeing recently made foreign friends. Why would they do that? Any ideas? You being my only recently made foreign friend.’

Lazlo put his knife and fork together on the side of his plate and motioned to a waiter behind the counter near the kitchen. He held up his wineglass. The waiter brought a bottle to the table and refilled Lazlo’s glass. The bottle was unlabelled, the wine a deep red colour. The conversation that followed was a conglomeration of strange-sounding words that seemed more like an argument than a discussion. It also involved the waiter looking in Berlin’s direction a couple of times. He finally turned and walked away.

‘Was that about me? Do they know I’m police?’

Lazlo laughed. ‘Of course, Charlie, this fact is painfully obvious. The police always make émigrés nervous, which is a fact of life. And there might perhaps be a back room to this establishment where a man can find a friendly game of cards and wager a pound or two on its outcome, so that is a cause for some concern. But I told him you could be trusted and my word is good here.’

Berlin looked around the room. There were a lot of suits, off the rack mostly, but who was he to comment.

‘They mainly Hungarians?’

Lazlo nodded. ‘Mainly, yes. Men without wives, or with wives they don’t want to go home to. They come here for the food, for its comfort and memories.’ He held up his wineglass. ‘And they come for the wine of course. Egri Bikaver, Bull’s Blood. The owner gets it from Hungarian crewmen on merchant ships, a few cases at a time. The quality can be, shall we say, variable.’ He raised his glass.

‘Egeszsegedre, Charlie. Cheers.’

The colour of the wine reminded Berlin uncomfortably of Bob’s bloodshot eye.

After drinking Lazlo put the glass down on the table and leaned towards Berlin.

‘Am I a spy, Charlie? Was that the question?’

‘Yes. Are you?’

Lazlo shrugged. ‘I was a journalist in Hungary, after the war, as I told you. Are journalists not always suspect? Considered spies of some kind, seeking out the answers to questions? Sometimes awkward questions?’

‘Why would Special Branch be interested in a journalist?’

‘Why would they not?’

‘So are you?’

‘So am I an agent of the AVH, the organs of Hungarian state security? Is this what you are wondering? Am I a man sent here not so much to cover a sporting team as to watch them? To report perhaps on certain inappropriate behaviour?’

‘How would I know, Lazlo? You tell me.’

Berlin looked down at the glass of wine in front of Lazlo. He was tempted. Just one glass wouldn’t hurt; he knew that. He also knew it would be the glasses that came after, the second and third and the fifth and the tenth, that would do the damage.

‘Perhaps, Charlie, I am a man who believed in one thing, only to see it smashed to pieces by a madman and then lived to see the pieces swept under by a new wave that promised much and delivered little. Perhaps I am a man who went along for a time in the belief we were building something better.’ He picked up the glass and swirled the wine around. ‘And I was on a ship on my way here when the Russian tanks rolled into Budapest. As I said, my Jewish Hungarian heritage causes me almost insurmountable ethical problems, and not just when it comes to food. To one side I am maybe a spy, and to the other maybe a traitor, and to both sides always a Jew.’

‘And what are you to me, Lazlo?’

‘You are quite some interrogator, do you know that? That is another good question.’ He sipped the wine. ‘To you, in time, a friend perhaps. An uncle to your children, who knows? It is not good for children to grow up without uncles, especially boys.’

‘What about right now?’

‘I drive a hearse, Charlie, and I keep my eyes open. Special Branch watch me because they have to watch someone. The Olympics let a lot of people into this country, many of whom stayed, for one reason or another. Hungary is now under total Soviet control, so as a Hungarian I am of course suspect. Perhaps rightly so but who can say? On the fourth day of November last year much changed. The Russians changed many things.’

‘You haven’t answered my question.’