Entanglement. Part 2

"I'm ninety-nine per cent certain," he began in a serious, solemn tone, "the butler did it."

Szacki laid his knife and fork against the edge of his plate and sighed heavily. Communicating with policemen was sometimes like being a teacher with a cla.s.s full of children suffering from ADHD: it took a lot of patience and self-control.

"Are you going to get to the point?" he asked coldly.

Kuzniecow shook his head in disbelief.

"You're such a petty bureaucrat, Teodor. Read for yourself exactly what they said. No one knows anyone, no one knows anything, no one saw anything. They're all very sorry, they're shocked. They met a week ago; only Rudzki, the psychotherapist, had known him for longer, a year or so. They all noticed that the deceased was introverted and depressed. They spoke so convincingly that I found myself wondering if he hadn't committed suicide."

"You must be joking. By sticking a skewer in his eye?" Szacki wiped his mouth on his napkin. The omelette hadn't been bad at all.

"Right, it's hardly likely. But if people are capable of shooting themselves in the head or biting off and swallowing their own tongues, you see what I mean. Anyway, ask the pathologist. And on the subject of tongues, have you heard the one about the lady speech therapist who had such a well-trained tongue that she choked on it while doing her exercises? Not bad, eh?"

"So what are your impressions?" asked Szacki, without commenting on the joke.

Kuzniecow smacked his lips and fell into thought. Szacki waited patiently. He knew that few people were as sharp or had as astute a sense of observation as this larger-than-life, far-too-jovial cop with the Russian name.

"You'll see for yourself," he said at last. "They all made a very good impression. None of them was unnaturally self-controlled, or unnaturally excited and shocked. And often that's how you can tell a murderer. Either he pretends to be cold as ice or mad with despair. Any departure from the norm is suspicious, but they're all on the level. More or less."

"Or else one of them knows how to behave himself," suggested Szacki.

"Yes, the therapist, I thought of that too. Besides, he knew the victim the longest - he might have had a motive. I was even ready to lock him up for forty-eight hours if he'd betrayed himself in any way, but nothing of the kind. He's a bit superior and arrogant, like all shrinks - b.l.o.o.d.y nutters, the lot of them. But I didn't feel he was lying."

In other words we've got a load of s.h.i.t, thought Szacki, putting out a hand to stop the waitress from taking his roll and b.u.t.ter away with the empty plate. He'd paid enough - he was going to eat every last crumb of it.

"Maybe it really was a blunder while a burglar was on the job," he said.

"Maybe," agreed Kuzniecow. "They're all educated, intelligent people. Do you believe one of them would decide to commit murder in such a theatrical place? They don't have to read crime fiction to know we'll keep sniffing around them to the bitter end. No one in their right mind would ever kill in such an idiotic way. It's senseless."

Kuzniecow was right. It had promised to be interesting, but it looked as if they were seeking a petty thief who had accidentally become a murderer. Which meant they'd have to follow the usual routine, thought Szacki, making a mental checklist.

"Tell the press we're looking for people who were hanging about there that night and might have seen something. Interrogate all the watchmen, security guards, priests, anyone who was working there at the weekend. Find out who's king of the castle and who rented the place to Rudzki so I can talk to him. I was planning to go there in the week anyway to take a good look at it all."

Kuzniecow nodded - the prosecutor's instructions were obvious to him. "Just write it down for me when you get a moment so I've got confirmation in writing."

"Fine. And I've got one more request, without confirmation."

"Yes?"

"Keep an eye on Rudzki for the next few days. I've got absolutely nothing to charge him with, but for now he's the main suspect. I'm afraid he'll do a runner and that'll be the end of it."

"What do you mean? Don't you believe the bold Polish police force will track him down?"

"Don't make me laugh. In this country you only have to leave your registered address to disappear for ever."

Kuzniecow laughed out loud.

"You're not just a petty bureaucrat, you're a cynic too," he said, getting himself ready to go. "Give my best to your lovely s.e.xy wife."

Szacki raised an eyebrow. He wasn't sure if Kuzniecow was talking about the same woman who trailed around the house complaining of new pains every day.

II.

On the way to his room Szacki got a doc.u.ments file from the office. Catalogue number ID 803/05. Unbelievable. In other words soon they'd have a thousand registered inquiries and break last year's record by miles. It looked as if a small area of central Warsaw was the blackest spot on the crime map of Poland. Admittedly, most of the inquiries conducted here were to do with economic, financial and accounting scams that were handled by a separate unit - the result of the fact that perhaps eighty per cent of all the businesses in Poland had their head offices between Unia Lubelska Square and Bankowy Square - but there was no lack of ordinary criminals either. Almost twenty prosecutors in the "First ID", or the First Investigative Department, worked on thefts, muggings, rapes and a.s.saults - and also on plenty of cases that the guys from organized crime at the regional prosecutor's office were supposed to deal with. In practice the stars from organized crime - or "OC" as it was known - chose the more interesting incidents for themselves, and left the "everyday shootings" to the district office. As a result, the OC Prosecutor from the regional office had a few cases on his books, while the District Prosecutor had a few dozen. Or in fact a few hundred, if you included ongoing inquiries, ones that had been shelved, ones that depended on finding a particular witness and ones that were waiting to be heard in court but had been postponed for the umpteenth time. Szacki, who even so was in a fairly comfortable position for a district prosecutor because he really only dealt with murders, had tried last week to count up all his cases. It came to 111, 112 with Telak's murder - 111 if the sentence were pa.s.sed today in the Pieszczoch case, and 113 if the judge decided to send the case back to the prosecutor's office. He shouldn't - it had all been prepared perfectly, and in Szacki's view Chajnert was the best judge in the Warsaw district.

Unfortunately, relations between the Prosecution Service and the courts had been getting worse from year to year. Even though the prosecutor's work was closer to a judge's job than a policeman's, and the Prosecution Service was the "armed forces" of the judiciary, the distance was increasing between officials with purple tr.i.m.m.i.n.g on their gowns - the judges - and officials with red tr.i.m.m.i.n.g - the prosecutors. A month ago Szacki's boss, Janina Chorko, had gone to the regional court on Leszno Street to ask for a date to be set as soon as possible for a well-publicized case concerning multiple rapes at a sports centre on Nowowiejska Street. She had been given a dressing down and told that the courts are independent and no prosecutor was going to tell them how they should do their job. It was laughable - not so bad when insults were the only result of such hostility, but worse when it was the verdicts that suffered. Sometimes Szacki got the impression that only a case where the accused confessed all on the first day of the inquiry and then repeated his confession three times in the courtroom was one you could count on winning. All the rest were a lottery.

He tossed his umbrella into a corner of the room, which for the next two weeks he didn't have to share with the usual colleague, because she had gone to a sanatorium with her sickly child, for the third time this year. In fact he had been given two of her cases, but at least he didn't have to look at the mess she made around herself. He sat at his desk, which he always tried to keep in impeccable order, and took out a sheet of paper listing the phone numbers of the people from azienkowska Street. He had his hand on the receiver when Maryla, his boss's secretary, put her head round the door.

"Your presence is requested in the parlour," she said.

"Be there in fifteen."

"She said, and I quote: 'When he says he'll be there in fifteen, tell him I mean right now!'"

"I'll be there in a moment."

"She said, and I quote-"

"I'll be there in a moment," he said firmly, pointing meaningfully at the receiver he was holding. Maryla rolled her eyes and left.

He quickly made appointments for the afternoon with Barbara Jarczyk and Hanna Kwiatkowska - there were just minor problems with Euzebiusz Kaim.

"I've got a meeting today outside town."

"Please postpone it."

"It's a very important meeting."

"I see. Should I write you a sick note or have you arrested at once?"

There was a long silence.

"Actually it's not that important."

"Excellent. In that case, see you at three o'clock."

The therapist wasn't answering. Szacki left him a message and felt a nasty cramp in his stomach. He hoped the guy had just unplugged the phone for a while. He preferred not to think about other eventualities. He called the mortuary on Oczko Street too, found out the autopsy was due to take place on Wednesday morning at ten and left the room.

"Our offices appear to be in different dimensions of time and s.p.a.ce," the boss greeted him, "because my 'right now' is equivalent to exactly ten minutes later in your world, Prosecutor."

"I didn't know I'd been allocated an office," replied Szacki, sitting down.

The District Prosecutor for Warsaw City Centre, Janina Chorko, gave an acid smile. She was several years older than Szacki; her grey suit blended with her grey hair and her nicotine-grey face. Always a bit sulky, with a wrinkled brow, she gave the lie to the theory that there aren't any ugly women. Janina Chorko was ugly, was perfectly aware of the fact and did not try to cover up her defects with clothes or make-up. Quite the opposite - she consciously made herself sour, malicious and painfully businesslike, which was in perfect harmony with her appearance, turning her into the archetypal boss from h.e.l.l. The new prosecutors were afraid of her, and the trainees hid in the toilet whenever she came down the corridor.

As a prosecutor she was brilliant. Szacki thought highly of her, because she was not just a mediocre official promoted for loyalty and following correct procedure, but someone from the very front line. She had served her time at the district office in the Warsaw district of Wola, then in the organized crime department at the Regional Prosecutor's office on the street called Krakowskie Przedmiecie, and finally ended up here, at Krucza Street in the City Centre, where with an iron hand she ran the most complicated district in Poland. Within her office she was capable of reducing the biggest star to a heap of misery, but when dealing with outsiders she never went against her people, often taking big risks on their behalf. Szacki had heard that they'd been afraid of her at the regional office too, especially in the Preparatory Proceedings Department, where they had rarely dared to reject a decision initialled by her. However, Szacki had had more than one experience during Chorko's reign of not getting permission to call an expert witness for financial reasons (any expense above 2,500 zlotys had to be approved by the Regional Prosecutor), and in every other prosecutor's office that was daily bread.

They had worked together for seven years and had great respect for each other, though they weren't friends. They had never got onto first-name terms, which suited them both. They shared the view that cold official relationships are conducive to good professional work, especially when the plaque at the entrance features the national emblem - the crowned eagle - rather than a colourful company logo.

Szacki briefly summarized the events from azienkowska Street, outlined his plans for the next few days and his suspicions about Rudzki, the psychotherapist. Suspicions which, however, could not provide grounds for any sort of action against him.

"When's the autopsy?" asked Chorko.

"Wednesday morning."

"In that case please give me an inquiry plan and your hypotheses by three on Wednesday. At the latest. And don't forget that you have to write the indictment in the Nidziecka case by the end of the week. I trusted you and initialled the commutation from remand to supervision, but it doesn't make me any the calmer. I'd like that case to be in court as soon as possible."

Szacki nodded. Unable to decide on the legal cla.s.sification, he had put it off from last week.

"As we're having a chat, there are two other things. Firstly, please don't exploit female colleagues who fancy you - go to your own trials. Secondly, I'd like you to help Jurek and Tadeusz with narcotics."

Szacki failed to hide a scowl.

"Yes, Prosecutor? Got a problem? Surely you don't want me to think you're incapable of teamwork? Especially in cases that demand lots of laborious, boring and unsatisfying tasks?"

Too true, thought Szacki.

"Please give me a week so I can concentrate on this murder. We'll be carrying on with narcotics for months; I'll have time to get involved in it," he said.

"A week. I'll tell Tadeusz that from Monday you're working together."

This time Szacki remained stony-faced, though it cost him a lot. The grim hope occurred to him that some more corpses would turn up during the week, which would save him from some boring work with boring colleagues.

The audience came to an end. He had his hand on the doork.n.o.b when he heard Chorko say: "Please don't think I'm paying you a compliment, but you look great in that suit. Like a real star of the bar a.s.sociation."

Szacki turned and smiled. He adjusted his shirt cuffs, fastened with fashionable wooden cufflinks.

"That wasn't a compliment, Prosecutor, as you very well know."

III.

The abrupt end to the trip to Zakopane meant the atmosphere in the luxury Audi A8, in which they were rapidly returning to Warsaw, was as cold as the stream of air pouring from the vents. His wife had packed up in silence, and then spent the whole night in silence, lying as far from him as possible on the s.p.a.cious bed in the apartment; that morning she had got into the car in silence and travelled home in silence. Nothing helped - neither her favourite Glenn Miller, nor lunch at a fabulous Greek restaurant which by some strange twist of fate was situated in Kroczyce, less than twenty miles from the Katowice highway. He had made a detour specially, knowing how much she loved Greek food. Naturally, she had eaten it, but she hadn't said a word.

When he stopped near their villa at Lena Polana near Magdalenka to drop her off, and watched her silently walking to the garden gate, something inside him snapped. He switched off Glenn Miller's b.l.o.o.d.y racket and opened the window.

"Just think what a squalid dump you'd be coming home to if it weren't for what I do," he screamed.

Half an hour later he was in the garage underneath the Intraco building, where his company's modest office was located. The company could have afforded rooms in the Metropolitan or one of the skysc.r.a.pers near the ONZ roundabout, but he liked this spot. It had its own style, and he could endlessly admire the panorama from the windows on the thirty-second floor. He got out of the lift, nodded to a secretary as lovely as the sunrise over a ridge in the Tatras and without knocking went into the Chairman's office. His office. Igor was already waiting for him. At the sight of the boss he got up.

"Sit down. Do you know how many times a woman goes through menopause? I must be witnessing it for the third time by now. And I was warned off taking a young wife. To h.e.l.l with that."

Instead of answering, Igor poured a drink - Cutty Sark with two lumps of ice and a dash of soda. He handed it to the Chairman, who had meanwhile fetched a laptop out of the safe. They sat down on either side of the desk.

"Now tell me what happened."

"Henryk was murdered on Sat.u.r.day night in the church buildings on azienkowska Street."

"What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l was he doing there?"

"He was taking part in group therapy. It may be that one of the other partic.i.p.ants killed him, or maybe someone else who knew he'd be in the place and that suspicion would fall on someone there. Or maybe a burglar, so the police claim."

"A b.a.s.t.a.r.d, not a burglar. They always say that to get the press off their backs. Who's in charge of the investigation?"

"Kuzniecow on Wilcza Street, and Szacki on Krucza."

"Excellent," said the Chairman, laughing out loud. "To think they had to go and rub him out right in the City Centre. Couldn't they do it in Ochota? Or the Praga district? It wouldn't be any problem there."

Igor shrugged. The Chairman put down his empty gla.s.s on the desk, logged onto the system, put a special key in the USB port that enabled access to a coded folder and found the right file. Any attempt at opening the folder without the key would have ended in irreversible deletion of the data. He quickly ran through the contents, which were more or less familiar to him. He paused for thought.

"What shall we do?" asked Igor. "The first procedure is already in motion."

"We'll stick with it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I don't think the person who killed Henryk wanted to go any further - if that's what it's about. I think we can feel safe."

"What about Szacki and Kuzniecow?"

"Let's wait and see how things develop."

Igor nodded. Without being asked he picked up the elegant, heavy-bottomed gla.s.s, in which the ice lumps were still rattling, and reached for the bottle.

IV.