The Exiled by Kati Hiekkapelto Read Free Book Online

everything else.
    Less than five minutes later the men stepped out of the room. That was thorough, thought Anna derisively.
    Anna, Tibor and Ernő took the stairs down to the foyer, where a handful of people were sitting around, queuing with papers and documents, just like they would at any police station in the world. The young police officer was still sitting in his booth, but had been joined by a colleague – an attractive female officer in uniform, her dark hair tied in a tight plait and an officious but friendly expression on her face.
    On the spur of the moment Anna walked up to the hatch and began playing the ignorant tourist, asking what to do now that she had lost her passport. The man – Vajda Péter, Anna read on the small metallic badge on his jacket – smiled contentedly as he looked upthe contact details for the Finnish Embassy in Belgrade and handed Anna the information on a post-it note. He then filled out a form officially registering the loss of the passport and encouraged Anna to take this with her to Belgrade. Anna thanked him, a little too enthusiastically, perhaps, gave him the most charming smile she could muster and almost imperceptibly winked at him as she turned away from the hatch. The officer stood staring at Anna. If Anna had eyes in the back of her head, she would have seen the female officer poke the man teasingly in the ribs.
    Once they were outside, Ernő and Tibor lit cigarettes. Anna had to fight the desire to ask for one.
    ‘What was that all about?’ asked Tibor as he drew the Marlboro smoke into his lungs.
    ‘What was what?’
    ‘That ridiculous flirting.’
    ‘Hah. Jealous, are you?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Don’t you worry, dear,’ said Anna. ‘I’m a bit of a restless soul, but you’re still the only one for me.’
    ‘Good. For a moment there I was worried,’ said Tibor.
    ‘Let’s see what those guys come up with,’ said Anna nodding back at the police station. ‘There’s something funny about all this.’
    ‘You’ve been trained to think like that.’
    ‘You bet I was, and that’s precisely why I know something’s not quite right.’
    ‘The guy drowned by accident.’
    ‘Probably,’ Anna admitted. ‘But the matter still deserves to be investigated thoroughly. That’s what would happen in Finland. What did they ask you?’
    ‘Nothing much. What time the theft happened, who else might have seen it, that kind of stuff.’
    ‘Did you tell them we paid a visit to the house in the Romani quarter?’
    Ernő hesitated for a moment.
    ‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘I mean, I told them we ran after the thief and looked around Kőrös for him. The guy with the medals asked if we’d seen anything in the gypsy quarter. I told him we were there but we didn’t see anything in particular.’
    Anna thought about this. There was something very strange going on.
    ‘Hey, let’s grab a cup of coffee,’ said Tibor.
    ‘I need a beer,’ said Ernő and seemed to perk up. ‘But I have to be home for lunch at two. Véra will throw a fit if the food gets cold.’
    ‘You two go. I’m meeting Réka. We’ll talk soon!’ said Anna and walked off briskly towards her mother’s house. Réka, her oldest and closest friend, might be waiting there already.
    Anna smiled. For the first time in a long while something approaching happiness flickered in her chest.

 
     
    THE SUN WAS LIKE AN ENORMOUS, glowing eye looking down omnisciently on the járás . Somewhere in the distance came the mooing of cows. During the daytime the cows roamed freely across the járás , nibbling at the sparse nourishment they could find – thin, yellowed hay and chewy flowers – as the shepherd and dogs followed behind them, keeping them in check and guarding the herd. In the evenings the cows wandered home across the fields in long, lowing lines, to their barns and shelters to be milked and fed; they knew their own farms, slipping in through the gates and into their own stalls just as they had