The address Kolarov had given her was in the oldest part of Porta Caelia, a warren of narrow streets and crumbling facades that had survived three regimes and two civil wars by being too poor to bother with. Radic parked her car at the end of the lane and walked the rest of the way, her boots splashing through puddles that reflected the grey afternoon sky.
Number 17 was a tenement building with a cracked bell and a staircase that groaned under her weight. The janitor's apartment was on the fourth floor, the door painted a faded green that had once been cheerful. She knocked twice, then a third time, and was about to try the handle when she heard a shuffle from inside—the slow, careful drag of feet across worn floorboards.
"Who is it?" The voice was old, cracked, filtered through a chain that had not been engaged.
"Magistrate Elena Radic. I need to speak with Petar Radoslav about the night of the count."
Silence. Then the sound of three locks being turned, slow and deliberate. The door opened a crack, and a single eye peered out at her—watery, pale blue, set in a face that looked like crumpled parchment.
The eye studied her for a long moment. Then the door swung open.
Petar Radoslav was smaller than she had expected, a wiry man in his late seventies with a fringe of white hair and hands that trembled slightly as he motioned her inside. He wore a cardigan with a missing button and slippers that had seen better decades. His apartment was cluttered but clean—stacks of newspapers, a radio tuned to static, a photograph on the mantel of a woman who had been dead for many years.
"You are the magistrate," he said, his voice a dry rustle. "I heard you were asking questions. I was wondering when you would come."
Radic stepped inside, closing the door behind her. The apartment smelled of boiled cabbage and loneliness. "You did not report to work today, Mr. Radoslav. Your supervisor was concerned."
Petar laughed—a thin, reedy sound. "Concerned. That is a good word. The Bureau is never concerned. The Bureau is only concerned about its own skin." He shuffled to a worn armchair and lowered himself into it with a grunt. "I am not at work because I am afraid. That is the simple truth. I have been a cleaner for forty-two years, and I have never been afraid to scrub a floor until now."
Radic took a seat on a wooden stool opposite him, her notebook open on her knee. "Tell me what you saw on the night of the count. The night Mr. Horvat died."
Petar's hands stopped trembling. They stilled in his lap, and his eyes grew distant, as though he were looking at something far away—or something he wished he had not seen.
"I saw many things," he said slowly. "But I do not know which things matter. That is the problem with old age, Magistrate. The memory becomes a room with too many doors. You open one, and you find a wedding. You open another, and you find a war. And sometimes—" He paused, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Sometimes you find a body."
Radic waited. She did not push. She had learned long ago that the best way to get truth from an old man was to let him find his own way to it.
"I was mopping the east corridor," Petar continued. "The one that leads to the vault door. It was late—maybe 23:30, maybe later. I do not wear a watch. The clock on the wall was broken, as it has been for six years."
"What did you see?"
"I saw two men." He held up two gnarled fingers. "They were not in uniform. One was tall, thin, with a nervous way of moving—like a bird that has landed in a room it cannot escape. The other was shorter, heavier, with a walk that I recognized. A soldier's walk. The kind you never lose, even when you put away the boots."
Radic felt a jolt of electricity run through her spine. A soldier's walk. That described Slavko Tomic perfectly—his military bearing, his compact frame, the precise way he moved.
"The shorter man," she said carefully, "did you recognize his face?"
Petar shook his head. "The lighting is poor in the corridor. The overhead bulbs are the cheap kind, the ones that buzz. But I recognized his gait. I have seen it before, in the hallways of the Bureau. He walks like a man who has carried things—heavy things—and learned to balance them."
"Did you hear anything? Voices? A struggle?"
Petar's eyes narrowed. "I heard something, yes. But I did not understand it at the time. It was a sound—like a drawer being closed too quickly. Or a door being latched. And then—" He stopped, his face wrinkling with effort. "And then I heard a name. Someone said 'Horvat.' Not loudly. Not angrily. Just—stating it. As though they were confirming something."
Radic wrote it down. "Which man said the name?"
"The shorter one. The one with the soldier's walk. He said it as he entered the vault. The taller one followed behind him, carrying a leather bag—the kind that officials carry, with the Bureau emblem on the side."
Radic looked up sharply. "A leather bag with the Bureau emblem. Are you certain?"
Petar nodded slowly. "I have cleaned enough offices to know that bag. It belongs to the registrar—Mr. Vukovic. He carries it every day. It has a brass clasp and a worn handle. I have polished that handle more times than I can count."
The pieces were falling into place now, but they were falling in a pattern that Radic did not like. Tomic and Vukovic—together, entering the vault after midnight, carrying a bag that belonged to the registrar. If Petar's memory was accurate, then Tomic had lied about being at home, and Vukovic had lied about everything.
But the janitor was old. His memory was fragmented. His description of the two men was specific, but it was also the kind of specificity that could be a confabulation—a story his mind had built from fragments of other nights, other corridors, other faces.
Radic leaned forward, her voice gentle but insistent. "Mr. Radoslav, you said you were afraid. What are you afraid of?"
Petar's hands began trembling again. He looked down at them, as though they belonged to someone else. "Because they saw me," he whispered. "The taller one—the one with the bag—he turned and looked at me. Right at me. His face was in shadow, but I could see his eyes. They were cold, Magistrate. Not angry. Not afraid. Just cold. He looked at me as though I were a piece of furniture. And then he went into the vault and closed the door."
Radic felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. "Did he say anything to you?"
"No. He did not need to. His eyes said everything." Petar looked up at her, his pale blue eyes filled with a terror that was decades old. "I have seen those eyes before, Magistrate. In the war. In the faces of men who do terrible things and feel nothing. When I saw them again—when I recognized them—I knew that I was in danger. So I did not report to work. I stayed here. I locked the doors. And I waited."
"For what?"
"For someone to come." Petar's voice cracked. "I did not know who. I did not know if it would be the police, or the Bureau, or the men from the vault. But I knew that if I stayed quiet, I would be found. And if I was found—" He did not finish the sentence. He did not need to.
Radic reached out and placed her hand over his. It was a small gesture, but it seemed to steady him. "You did the right thing, Mr. Radoslav. You called no one. You stayed hidden. But now I need you to tell me everything—every detail, no matter how small. The shorter man with the soldier's walk—did he have any distinguishing features? A scar, a limp, a particular way of holding his head?"
Petar closed his eyes, concentrating. "He wore a brown suit. The same brown suit I have seen him wear before. And he had a habit—he rubbed his right thumb against his forefinger when he was thinking. I saw him do it in the corridor, just before he entered the vault."
Radic's pen stopped moving. Slavko Tomic had not rubbed his thumb against his forefinger during their interview. He had sat still, his hands clasped on his thighs, unmoving.
But that was not the detail that caught her attention. It was the description of the brown suit. Tomic had been wearing a brown suit during the interview—the same one, she now realized, that he had been wearing in the photograph on his personnel file. A suit he wore every day, according to his secretary.
Which meant that if Petar had seen a man in a brown suit with a soldier's gait rubbing his thumb against his forefinger, he was describing Tomic with an accuracy that made the memory almost certainly real.
But then why had Tomic claimed to be at home? Why had he shown her a phone log that proved he had called his wife at 23:47—a call that, if he had been in the vault at 00:08, would have been made an hour before the alleged entry?
Unless the access log was wrong. Unless someone had used Tomic's card at 00:08, and Tomic had been at home for the rest of the night.
Radic looked at Petar, her mind racing. "What time did you see the two men enter the vault?"
Petar frowned, his brow furrowed. "It was after the clock had struck midnight. I remember because I heard the tower bell—it rings twelve times, and I counted them. Then I heard the argument. And then I saw the taller man, the one with the bag, leave about fifteen minutes later. He walked past me without looking. But the shorter man—the one in the brown suit—he did not come out. Not before I finished my shift at 02:00."
Radic's pulse quickened. If Tomic had entered the vault after midnight and had not emerged by 02:00, then he had been in the counting hall when Horvat was killed. He had been present—or at least, he had been in the building.
But the phone log. The call to his wife at 23:47. The distance from his home to the Bureau was at least twenty minutes by car. If he had left after the call, he could not have reached the vault until 00:08—which matched the access log.
Which meant that Tomic had lied about being home all night. He had called his wife at 23:47, left immediately, arrived at the Bureau at 00:08, entered the vault with Vukovic—or with someone carrying Vukovic's bag—and then stayed until at least 02:00.
Radic felt the cold certainty settle over her. She had been wrong to believe Tomic. She had been swayed by his composure, his careful answers, his plausible deniability. But the janitor's memory had shattered that composure into pieces.
"Mr. Radoslav," she said, her voice urgent, "the taller man who carried the bag—was it definitely Mr. Vukovic? Could it have been someone else wearing his clothes, carrying his bag?"
Petar shook his head slowly. "I cannot be certain, Magistrate. The eyes were cold, but the face was in shadow. I only recognized the bag because I have cleaned it so many times. But the man himself—" He paused, his face working with effort. "He was thinner than Mr. Vukovic. The shoulders were narrower. And he walked differently—quicker, more nervous. Like a man who was not used to being in that corridor at that hour."
Radic felt the pieces shifting again. Thinner than Vukovic. Narrower shoulders. Nervous gait. That described Filip Zoric far more accurately than it described the registrar. Zoric was young, lean, and always seemed to be vibrating with unspent energy.
But Zoric had an alibi for 00:08—he had been in the break room, according to the guard. Unless the guard was lying, or mistaken, or had been paid to lie.
"One final question, Mr. Radoslav," Radic said, her voice barely above a whisper. "If you saw the two men again—if you saw their faces in a lineup—could you identify them?"
Petar met her eyes, and for the first time since she had entered the apartment, he smiled—a thin, sad smile that did not reach his eyes.
"I am an old man, Magistrate. My eyes are not what they used to be. But I would recognize the soldier's walk anywhere. And I would recognize the cold eyes of the man with the bag. I have been seeing them in my dreams for three nights now. I do not think I will ever forget them."
Radic nodded, closed her notebook, and stood. She needed to leave. She needed to process this information, to compare it with the other accounts, to find the single thread of truth that ran through all the lies.
But as she reached the door, Petar called out to her.
"Magistrate—there is one more thing. I did not think it mattered, but now—" He hesitated, his voice faltering. "When the taller man left the vault, he dropped something. A small piece of paper. I picked it up later, after he was gone. I meant to throw it away, but—"
He shuffled to a side table, opened a drawer, and pulled out a crumpled receipt. He handed it to her with trembling hands.
Radic unfolded it carefully. It was a cash withdrawal slip from a bank in the central district, dated the day before the murder. The amount was large—twenty thousand veridians. The account holder's name was printed at the bottom:
Slavko Tomic.
Radic stared at the slip, her mind blank. A large withdrawal, the day before the murder. A payment, perhaps. A bribe to someone—or a payment to a killer.
But why would Tomic leave such incriminating evidence behind? Why would he carry a receipt to the scene of the crime?
Unless he had not dropped it. Unless someone else had—someone who wanted to frame him.
Radic folded the receipt and placed it in her coat pocket. She thanked Petar, promised to send a patrol to keep watch over his apartment, and walked out into the grey afternoon.
The rain had stopped, but the sky was heavy, pregnant with more. She stood on the street corner, the receipt burning in her pocket, and tried to make sense of what she had learned.
Tomic had been in the vault. Zoric may have been there too. Vukovic's bag was involved, but the man carrying it was not Vukovic. Krasic had received a sealed envelope ordering tampering. Danica had heard a suspicious phone call. And the janitor had seen enough to condemn them all—or to save the real killer.
Radic walked back to her car, her mind churning. She had thirty-two hours left. She had a receipt for twenty thousand veridians, a janitor with a memory like a broken mirror, and five witnesses who were all lying about something.
But one of them, she knew, was not just lying.
One of them was a killer.
And somewhere in the tangled web of alibis, accusations, and shredded documents, there was a single moment of truth—a moment when the memory card was swapped, when the logbook was forged, when the vault door closed on a man who would never walk out again.
She did not know who had killed Drazen Horvat. Not yet.
But she knew who had the most to lose.
And that knowledge, she realized, was more dangerous than any weapon. Because whoever had the most to lose had already proven that they were willing to kill to keep it.
The sky split open, and the rain began again, washing the streets of Porta Caelia clean.
But nothing, Radic thought as she started the engine, could wash this clean.
No comments yet. Be the first to comment!