A Grain of Truth (9 page)

Szacki felt worn out. The short transcript was the result of a three-hour conversation. Budnik went off into digressions, or long silences, sometimes wept, and occasionally felt obliged to affirm how very much he loved his wife, and to tell an anecdote from their life together. At times he was so genuine that Szacki’s heart was bleeding. But only at times – besides that, the prosecutor’s nose for lies could smell something nasty. Budnik was definitely telling the truth about one thing – his feelings for his wife were movingly real. But apart from that, he was lying through his teeth.

My wife and I spent most of the last few days together. Over the winter we had worked a lot, so we had decided to spend Easter on our own at home, just the two of us. In any case, we had nowhere to go and no one to invite. My sister had gone to visit our brother who lives in Germany, and Ela’s parents had gone to Zakopane. They were all supposed to be coming now, on Sunday, for our fifteenth wedding anniversary, we wanted to have a party, a sort of second wedding. We hadn’t met up with anybody since Saturday; that is, we saw people we know at the blessing of the Easter food. We didn’t go to the cathedral for it, but to Saint Paul’s, to have a bit of a walk. No one after that. On Sunday we slept in too late for the Resurrection Mass, had a modest, but festive Easter breakfast, read a bit, chatted a bit and watched a bit of telly. That evening we went for a walk; after the walk we looked in at the cathedral, but not for mass, and said a few prayers together at the Holy Sepulchre. I can’t remember if anyone else was there, there must have been someone. We actually spent the whole of Monday in bed – Ela had a sore throat, it was terribly cold this Easter. On Tuesday she was still feeling unwell, there was nothing we needed to do, so we both stayed at home. Just in case she wouldn’t be feeling up to it, we cancelled a visit to our friends, Olga and Tadeusz Bojarski. I can’t remember, but I think my wife must have called them on Monday evening or Tuesday morning. I went to the office for a while on Tuesday, and a few people saw me there. I came home in the afternoon, I brought us some food from the Trzydziestka restaurant. Ela was feeling better, she looked quite well, and we were even sorry we’d called off our get-together. In the evening we watched a Robert Redford film on Channel One, about a prison, I can’t remember the title. And then we went to bed. Very early, I had a headache. I didn’t get up in the night. I haven’t got any prostate problems. When I woke up, Ela wasn’t there. Before I’d had time to start worrying, Basia Sobieraj called.

“I’m glad you’re questioning me. It could be hard for Basia to do it.”

“I’m questioning you because I am in charge of the inquiry. Emotional considerations have nothing to do with it.”

Grzegorz Budnik nodded in silence. He looked awful. After hearing all the stories about the legendary councillor, Szacki was expecting a portly gent with a moustache or a salt-and-pepper beard, a receding hairline and a waistcoat buttoned over his belly – in short, a classic MP or mayor from the television. Meanwhile, Grzegorz Budnik was like a retired marathon runner: small, thin and wiry like a predatory animal, as if there wasn’t a single cell of fat in his entire body. Probably capable in normal circumstances of beating many a heavy from the provincial gym at arm-wrestling, today he looked like someone who had just lost a long fight against a deadly illness. His short ginger beard could not conceal his sunken cheeks, and his sweaty, unwashed hair was sticking to his skull. He had dark rings around his eyes, which were red from crying and clouded, probably from tranquillizers. Slumping and closed in on himself, he reminded Szacki more of the Warsaw vagrants he used to question almost every day, rather than a staunch councillor, chairman of the City Council, who put fear into the other officials and his political opponents. The picture of destitution and despair was completed by a large plaster, crookedly glued to
his forehead. Grzegorz Budnik looked more like a homeless drifter than a civic official.

“What happened to your forehead?”

“I tripped and hit it on a pan.”

“A pan?”

“I lost my balance, waved my arms about and hit the handle of the frying pan, the frying pan leapt up and bashed me on the head. It’s nothing serious.”

“We’ll have to do a forensic examination.”

“It’s nothing serious.”

“Not because we’re worried about you. We have to check in case it’s the result of a fight or a wounding.”

“Don’t you believe me?”

Szacki just stared. He didn’t believe anyone.

“You know, of course, that you can refuse to make a statement or answer specific questions?”

“Yes.”

“But you prefer to tell lies. Why is that?”

Budnik sat up proudly, as if that might add truth to his testimony.

“When was the last time you saw your wife?” Szacki didn’t let him get a word in.

“I told you…”

“I know what you said. Now please tell me when you really saw your wife for the last time and why you lied about it. If you don’t, I’ll put you on remand for forty-eight hours, charge you with murdering your wife and apply to the court for your arrest. You’ve got thirty seconds.”

Budnik slumped again even more, and contrasting horribly with his pale complexion, his red eyes filled with tears, reminding Szacki of Gollum in
Lord of the Rings
.

“Twenty.”

Gollum, hissing “My precious!”, incapable of existence without his treasure, addicted to a thing that could never be his. Was that what the relationship between Grzegorz and Elżbieta Budnik had been like? A provincial Gollum, the ugly-mug do-gooder and the city girl, beautiful, clever and good, a Premier Division star making a guest
appearance in the youth league. Why had she stayed here? Why had she married him?

“Ten.”

“But I told you…”

Without twitching a muscle, Szacki tapped out a number on the phone while at the same time extracting a charge sheet from his desk.

“Szacki here, put me through to Inspector Wilczur please.”

Budnik put his hand on the phone hooks.

“On Monday.”

“Why did you lie?”

Budnik made a gesture as if he wanted to shrug but lacked the strength. Szacki pulled the transcript towards himself and clicked his ballpoint.

“Well then?”

I am changing my statement. I saw my wife Elżbieta for the last time on Easter Monday at about two p.m. We parted on bad terms, we had started to argue about our plans: she insisted time was running out, that we were only getting older and that if we were ever going to make our dreams about the centre come true we had to start doing something at last. I preferred to wait for next year’s local council elections, and to run for mayor, because if I won, everything would be easier. Then, as typically happens when you argue, we started reproaching each other. She accused me of putting everything off until later, and for politicizing in just the same way at home as at the office. I told her she was being unrealistic, thinking you only have to want something very much and it will all become fact. We were shouting and hurting each other’s feelings.

“O God, when I think the last words I ever said to her were that she should take her sorry arse back to Krakow…” Budnik began to sob quietly. Szacki waited for him to calm down. He felt like having a smoke.

Finally she took her jacket and left without a word. I didn’t chase her, I didn’t go looking for her, I was furious. I didn’t want to apologize, I didn’t want to say sorry, I wanted to be on my own. She had plenty of friends – I suspected she’d gone to see Barbara Sobieraj. I didn’t get in touch with her on Monday or on Tuesday. I read, watched television and drank some beer. By Tuesday evening I was starting to miss her, the Redford film was good, but I was sorry to be watching it alone. My pride wouldn’t let me call that evening; I thought in the morning I’d go over to Barbara Sobieraj’s place or call her. I covered up these facts because I was afraid our quarrel, and the fact that I hadn’t gone looking for her, would look bad and would incriminate me in the eyes of the law.

“Didn’t it occur to you that these facts might have significance for the inquiry? Isn’t finding the murderer important to you?”

Once again Budnik all but shrugged.

“No, it’s not. Nothing’s important to me now.”

Szacki handed him the transcript to read through, while at the same time wondering whether to lock him up or not. He usually listened to his instinct on such matters. But his compass was confused. Budnik was a politician, a provincial one, but a politician, in other words a professional liar and hoodwinker. And Szacki was certain that for some reasons, which he would be sure to discover, he hadn’t told him the whole truth. Nevertheless his grief seemed genuine. Totally resigned grief at an irrecoverable loss, not the quaking, fear-filled grief of a murderer. Szacki had had rather too many opportunities to observe both these emotions and had learnt to tell them apart.

He took a file full of photos out of the drawer and filled in the heading on an exhibit form.

“Have you ever seen this tool?”

At the sight of the photo of the razor-machete Budnik went pale, and Szacki was amazed it was actually possible for skin as chalk-white as his to do that.

“Is that…”

“Please answer the question.”

“No, I’ve never seen a tool like that before.”

“Do you know what it’s for?”

“I have no idea.”

III

At about four p.m. a touch of warmth finally appeared in the sunshine, a shy hint of spring. Prosecutor Teodor Szacki turned his face to the sun and drank Cola from the can.

After interrogating Budnik he had met up with Wilczur and told him to find anyone who might have seen them over Easter. At church, on a walk, in a restaurant. Every bit of the interview had to be checked, every acquaintance questioned. Kuzniecow would have got palpitations halfway down the list of demands, but Inspector Wilczur just nodded his gaunt head; in his black suit he looked like Death taking an order for the harvest. Szacki felt ill at ease in the old policeman’s presence.

Now he was waiting outside the police station for Sobieraj, to go on a romantic walk with her to the city hospital. In fact he was surprised they had an anatomical pathology department here – he had been sure they would have to go to one of the bigger cities, Kielce or Tarnobrzeg.

He lazily opened one eye when he heard a car hooting. Sobieraj was waving to him from some characterless piece of junk. He sighed and dragged himself to his feet. An Opel Astra.

“I thought we were going to walk there.”

Why is it always the case that the smaller the hole, the more usual it is for everyone to go everywhere by car?

“Three quarters of an hour each way? I don’t much fancy it. Not even with you, Prosecutor.”

In three quarters of an hour I could walk to Opatów and do a tour of every village on the way, Szacki had it on the tip of his tongue to say, but he got into the car. It smelt of air freshener and stuff for cleaning plastic, and must have been several years old, but it looked as if it had only left the showroom yesterday. The ashtray was empty, the speakers were putting out smooth jazz, and there were no crumbs or little bits of paper anywhere. In other words she was childless. But she was married, she had a ring, she must have been about thirty-five. Didn’t they want them? Couldn’t they have them?

“Why couldn’t the Budniks have children?”

She cast him a suspicious glance as she joined the traffic on Mickiewicz Street. They were driving towards the exit for Warsaw.

“He couldn’t, right?” Szacki pressed on.

“Right. Why do you ask?”

“Intuition. I don’t know exactly why, but it’s highly relevant. The way Budnik mentioned it, as if in passing, as if lightly. That’s how men talk who’ve heard so many times that it doesn’t matter that they almost believe it.”

She looked at him closely. They passed the courthouse.

“My husband can’t have children either. I tell him it doesn’t matter too, that other things are important.”

“And are they?”

“Less so.”

Szacki said nothing as they drove around the roundabout and past a hideous modern church, a pile of red bricks arranged in the shape of the gates of hell, ugly, oppressive, and totally unsuited to its surroundings and to this city in general.

“I have an eleven-year-old daughter. She lives in Warsaw with her mum. I feel as if she’s getting more and more alien, fading from sight by the day.”

“Even so, I envy you.”

Szacki was quiet; he had been expecting anything but this sort of conversation. They came to what was rather grandly called the bypass and turned towards the Vistula.

“We’ve had a bad start,” said Sobieraj, without taking her eyes off the road for a moment. Szacki wasn’t looking at her either. “I was thinking about it yesterday, that we’re both trapped by our own stereotypical thinking. To you I’m a stupid little provincial, and to me you’re an arrogant jerk from Warsaw. And of course we can go on playing that game, except that I really do want to find Ela’s murderer.”

She drove off the bypass into a small side street and parked outside the surprisingly large hospital building. It was L-shaped with six floors, built in the 1980s. Better than he’d thought.

“You can laugh and call it small-town overdramatizing, but she was different. Better, brighter, purer, it’s hard for me to describe. I
knew her, I knew everyone who knew her, I know this town better than I’d like to. And as for you, well, this is no time for bullshit, I know how many times you were offered a transfer to the regional court, to the appeal court, and what a career they predicted for you. I know your cases, I know the testimonials and the legends about Teodor Szacki with the snow-white hair, that brave defender of Justice.”

Finally they looked at each other. Szacki held out his hand, and Sobieraj gently shook it.

“Call me Teodor.”

“Basia.”

“You’ve parked in a disabled parking space, Basia.”

Sobieraj took a card out of the glove compartment with a blue logo on it symbolizing disability, and put it on the dashboard.