Entanglement (29 page)

Rudzki sat down.

“You’re mad,” he uttered. “Hanna had nothing to do with it. I’d stake my life on it. It’s absurd.”

Szacki shrugged and leaned back in his chair nonchalantly.

“Why do you think that? Do you know something I don’t? Please tell me.”

“No, of course not, you just don’t understand. Murder overloads the system in a dreadful way, it’s always against, never for. A constellation could be a source of suicide, but murder - never.”

“Maybe she had another motive apart from the system.”

The therapist was silent.

“I don’t believe it,” he said after a while.

“Definitely not? She came to see you for therapy; she told you about herself, her life, childhood, loves, hates. Don’t you remember anything that could have been a motive?”

The therapist was silent.

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Szacki and sighed. “Even so you won’t tell me because you’re guided by the patient’s well-being, not society’s . We’ve established that already. Never mind, even if people don’t confide as readily in policemen and prosecutors as they do in analysts, sometimes we too manage to find things out. I hope you are aware that at present any contact with Miss Kwiatkowska could lead to your arrest? The court is not inclined to regard helping someone suspected of murder as part of keeping a medical secret.”

Rudzki began to laugh quietly and shook his head.

“Dear God, you don’t know how wrong you are.”

“I’d love to find out.”

“I’ve already told you everything.”

“Sure. Did you know Kamil Sosnowski?”

“Sorry, what was the name?” Rudzki was doing his best to look as if he hadn’t heard the question, but Szacki had interviewed too many people not to know when someone was trying to buy time. An old, simple trick providing a few seconds more to decide whether to tell the truth and to think up a lie.

“Kamil Sosnowski,” he repeated instantly.

“No, I’m sorry. At first I thought you said Kosowski. I used to have a patient of that name.”

Like hell you did, thought Szacki. You’re trying to put me off the scent, you lying bastard.

“Kosowski? That’s interesting. Did he get treated for depression after spending the entire season on the bench at FC Kaiserslautern?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“No, I’m sorry, I was having a little joke.” He glanced at his watch. He was already late. “I’ve got one more request: I’d like to hear the tapes of Henryk Telak’s individual therapy sessions. Could you get them to me by noon tomorrow?”

“But I have already told you the therapy wasn’t recorded.”

“That was when I didn’t know you tell lies. Give me the tapes, or do I have to call the police so we can go and search your flat together?”

“Please be my guest. You can even rip up the parquet. If you find a single tape recording of Telak’s therapy, I’ll give you my year’s income.”

“Unfortunately I’m not allowed to accept even a ten-groshy coin from you. Under the law on prosecution.”

Even if this information did worry Rudzki, he didn’t let it show.

“In that case please answer one question. And I stress that this is a transcribed interview that can be used in evidence and you are obliged to speak the truth. Otherwise you might later be charged with bearing false witness.”

“You already cautioned me earlier.”

“I know, but I have noticed that you don’t always hear what I’m saying. Did Henryk Telak tell you about the love affairs he had years ago, at college, or perhaps about a lover from the time when he was already married? About someone very important who might have died tragically, though not necessarily so? Or with whom Telak parted in dramatic circumstances?”

The man on the other side of the desk took off his glasses, wiped them with a piece of chamois taken from his jacket pocket and set them carefully on his nose. Szacki thought how lately he’d interviewed nothing but people wearing glasses. Jarczyk and Kwiatkowska had poor eyesight too.

“No, he never mentioned any woman of the kind,” he said, looking Szacki in the eye, and the prosecutor was amazed, because the witness’ expression was full of sorrow. “And I don’t believe any such woman existed. Henryk Telak only loved his Jadzia and no one else. He didn’t even love his daughter as much as her. He loved her so much that probably neither you nor - far more - I will ever experience such love. And perhaps we should thank God for that.”

It was ten past four. Prosecutor Teodor Szacki quickly marched down Żurawia Street along a tree-shaded pavement. In the arcade of the building on the other side, people were sitting at the tables of the bars and cafés that had appeared here in recent years. One of them, the Italian Compagnia del Sole, would have been among his favourites if he could have allowed himself to go there more
than once a year. He so rarely ate out in town that it was hard for him to say he had a favourite place, not counting the kebab shop on Wilcza Street. He knew all the local Turkish fast-food outlets, and in this particular sphere he was an expert. Bar Emil was in his view the best kebab shop in the City Centre. But he doubted if this information could make much of an impression on anyone who regularly spent forty zlotys on lunch.

He slowed down because he didn’t want to arrive at Szpilka out of breath. He had just run across to the other side of the street opposite the Warsaw University ethnography faculty when Kuzniecow called.

“Be quick, I’m late for a meeting.”

“Does your wife know about it?”

He thought that as long as Kuzniecow was working at the city police, he’d never dare commit a crime - Kuzniecow would be sure to catch him.

“I really am in a hurry.”

“Telak’s son and his mummy don’t have to worry about the cost of an operation abroad. Our widow will inherit about a million in cash, and she’ll get half a million from his insurance policy. Are you still standing?”

“No, I’ve rolled into a ball on the pavement. The guy was head of a prospering firm, he’d put money aside for years, someone was making good investments for him. It all makes sense. And as for the insurance, if a beggar like me is insured for a hundred thousand, what’s he going to be worth? Let’s say he paid a premium of 500 zlotys a month. Do you think that left him with nothing to tank up his Merc? Give over. Anything else?”

“There’s no trace of Kamil Sosnowski and his murder in the City Police Headquarters archive, apart from a note of it in the registration book and the case compendium. The files have vanished into thin air.”

“Maybe your pal doesn’t know how to look?”

“My pal’s been working there for seven years - there’s never been a case he couldn’t find in half an hour.”

“What could that mean?”

“Nothing. Somebody must have borrowed it ‘for a moment’ once - for so much of a moment that it hasn’t even been noted down - then they forgot, so the files are lying in some forgotten cupboard in Mostowski Palace. It happens. But if you’re free this evening you can go and see the militiaman who handled the case - you’re neighbours.”

“Where does he live?”

“On Młot Street.”

“Good, send me the details by text, I might drop in on him. And if I don’t, you go tomorrow, or send one of your guys. I really shouldn’t get involved in things like that. Sorry, Oleg, I’ve got to go. I’ll call.”

“Say hello to her from me.”

“Say hello to my arse.”

 

Twenty past four. He was just entering the café, imagining Monika getting ready to leave with a sour look on her face, when the phone rang again. This time it was Kitten. He sighed, answered it and went back outside towards Bracka Street.

“Where are you?”

“Out,” he grunted, “I’ve been for something to eat, now I’m going back to work.”

What a fine remark. One-third true, one-third half-true - he really had been to eat something earlier - and one-third a downright lie. What a bargain for a philosopher.

“Please, I beg you, pick up Helka from playschool. I’ve got to stay, I’ve got a meeting, there’s a very important trial tomorrow, involving very big money. If I leave now I won’t be able to get back again.”

He held the phone at arm’s length, covered it with his hand and cursed out loud. A nice buxom blonde, who was walking past pushing a stroller with twins, gave him a pitying look.

“What about your mum?”

“I called them, they went to Wyszków this morning to visit friends and they’re still there. There’s no way. Please, Teo, say you’re not in the middle of interviewing a serial murderer…”

“OK, OK, what time do I have to pick her up by?”

“The playschool is open until half-past five, but please try…”

“I’ll try,” he interrupted her. “Don’t worry. I’ve got to go. Big kiss.”

“Bye, thanks.”

 

Twenty-five past four. In a panic he ran into Szpilka, forgetting about putting on a show of cool. She wasn’t downstairs. He looked on the mezzanine - not there either. She’s gone. Great. So much for his flirtations with attractive young women. He should find himself a forty-year-old married woman who’s bored with her old man and doesn’t expect much from life any more, and drop in on her when her husband goes off to his air-conditioned office and the children have left for school. One good turn for another, a nice neat situation. But at least Helka wouldn’t be the very last child to be collected from playschool. He knew all too well what that was like. You sit on the floor, play half-heartedly and jump up every time the main door opens. The teacher furiously reads her paper at the desk and looks at her watch now and then. When’s that daddy coming, then? Oh dear, our dad hasn’t exactly distinguished himself today.

He turned round and bumped into Monika.

“You’re in a trance, Teodor,” she laughed. “You keep running to and fro without noticing me. Surely you didn’t think I’d sit inside on a day like this? Too few people would have seen me
there.” As she said this, she twirled on her toes in the same sandals he’d complimented on Saturday.

He thought he should retract everything he’d said about her figure. Her legs weren’t bandy, her shoulders too broad, or her breasts too small. Everything about her looked absolutely perfect, and the credit couldn’t only be due to her thin linen dress. Slit in all the places where it should be slit. He was reminded of the Russian fairy tale where they try to test the heroine’s wisdom by telling her to come to the castle both dressed and undressed at the same time. The clever girl comes wearing nothing but a fishing net. Standing in the sunlight, Monika seemed to be dressed in not much more. Once they had sat down at a table, he could still discern the outline of her body and her white underwear.

“You really did get changed,” he remarked idiotically.

“Do you hold it against me?”

“I’m just sorry I didn’t bring a camera.”

“No worries, I can put it on for you again one day.”

“But without underwear,” he automatically blurted, and almost fled on the instant. This isn’t Weronika, you fool, it’s a girl you’ve only known for a week. Control yourself.

“Hmm, I didn’t know we were that well acquainted,” she said with a laugh, plainly pleased, which shocked him almost as much as his own words had. He started to apologize, but she just laughed even louder and put her finger to his lips to make him stop.

“OK, it’s a deal,” she said, and moved back in her chair.

“What’s a deal?” he asked unconsciously, still feeling her touch on his lips.

“Without underwear.”

You’ve only yourself to blame, he thought.

At a quarter to six he entered the playschool. Helka joyfully threw herself round his neck as if she hadn’t seen him for ten months, not ten hours. She was the last child to be collected. Luckily the teacher, Miss Marta, didn’t say anything, but just gave him a knowing look.

At home he let the little one switch on the telly. He felt too guilty to forbid her anything, and too distracted after the meeting at Szpilka to play with her. He and Monika had mainly talked about work again; she’d asked him about all sorts of details, claiming she needed them for her book. However, she was less interested in the technical details of a prosecutor’s work and more in the emotions that go with it, and by drawing on confidences their meeting had become more intimate than he would have wished. On top of that there was a constant undercurrent of flirting.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” she had said as they were getting up from the table. “You’re a civil servant, you’re thirty-five with a wife and a child, and white hair. Can you explain to me why I keep thinking about you and nothing else?”

He had replied that it surprised him too, almost as much as the fact that whatever spell she was under evidently worked in both directions. And had fled.

At home he had tried to call the retired Civic Militia captain Stefan Mamcarz, but his phone must have been out of order or disconnected, because all he got was a recurring message that the connection couldn’t be made. Weronika came home a few minutes before seven, and he realized that Mamcarz offered the perfect excuse for him to get out of the house. He was afraid she’d read in his eyes everything that had happened that afternoon, every word heard and uttered.