The Dead Hand of History (24 page)

‘I could have done, but she wouldn't have listened.' Szymborska hesitated for a second. ‘What do you know about prisoner-of-war-camp punishment cells?' he continued.

‘Almost nothing at all,' Paniatowski admitted.

‘When I was in the camp, there was a punishment cell which the Nazis kept exclusively for the Poles, who they regarded as less than human,' Szymborska told her. ‘In fact, it was not really a cell at all – it was a metal box, out in the yard. I was sentenced to a week in it, once. It was the longest week of my life. There was no light in there, and no room to move. For the first day or so, I tried to hold on to something of the world I had left behind me. But by the third day, the
box
had become my world – the only world that seemed to have ever mattered.'

‘Go on,' Paniatowski said.

‘The cramps began on the first day, but the fourth day they had become truly agonizing. So I twisted and turned as much as I could, and sometimes, just once in a while, I managed to ease them.'

‘It must have been terrible,' Paniatowski said.

‘You are completely missing the point,' Szymborska told her bluntly. ‘Such terms as “terrible” meant
nothing
inside the box. It was not
terrible
at all – it was just the way that things were, and you lived with it because there was nothing else you could do.'

‘I understand.'

‘I am not sure that you do – yet!' Szymborska continued. ‘It was an offence to talk to the man in the box, and anyone caught doing it was likely to be placed in the box himself. Yet my comrades took the risk, and whenever they could, they whispered a few words of encouragement to me.'

‘But those words meant nothing to you?' Paniatowski asked.

Szymborska smiled sadly. ‘
Now
you are starting to understand. As it happens, I didn't even
hear
those brave words – not because any physical barrier prevented it, but because of what was going on in my head. But even if I
had
heard, they would have made no sense to me.'

‘You say they kept you in there a week?'

‘A week. It doesn't sound
too
long, does it? But when the Nazis finally let me out, the other world into which they released me seemed all wrong. It was too bright. There was too much noise – too much happening. I wanted to go back into my box, where I understood the rules. But slowly, this feeling went away. Slowly, I came to terms with the real world again. And later, when other comrades had taken my place in the box, I would do as they had done, and risk the whispered words – even though I knew it would be pointless.'

How heroic, Paniatowski thought. How admirable!

And then she remembered that she was talking to the man who – whatever he had, or had not, done in the past – was now the chief suspect in a truly horrific murder case.

‘I suppose that your wartime experiences are all very interesting in their own way,' she told him, almost having to force the words out of her mouth, ‘but I don't see what they have to do with the matter we were discussing.'

‘Don't you?' Szymborska asked, as if he knew that he had touched her – as if he knew that she was lying.

She felt a wave of shame sweep over her, but fought it back.

The man across the desk from her had, in all probability, cut off the hands of his wife and her lover, she told herself.

Yield no ground to him!

Give him no breaks!

‘Perhaps you could explain to me why
you
think it's so relevant,' she suggested.

‘Imagine if, instead of being placed in the box once you had grown up, you were born into it,' Szymborska said. ‘Imagine if you had never known anything else. That was the situation that Linda and her sister were in – placed in the box by their father at birth, and never allowed to see the outside.
Of course
I could have asked her to marry me – whispered the words through the wall of the box – but she would not have heard them. And even if she had heard them, they would have made no sense to her. So I bought into the business, and I waited until she could be liberated from the box.'

‘By which you mean you waited until her father died?'

‘Yes, that is what I mean. I led her gently into the sunlight, using my hand to shield her eyes from the brightness. And then I waited again, as she grew accustomed to this new world. And only when she was finally ready – only when she had lost all desire to return to the box – did I ask her to marry me.'

‘What about her sister Jenny?' Paniatowski asked. ‘How did
she
escape from the box?'

‘She hasn't escaped,' Szymborska said. ‘And I don't think she ever will.'

When Paniatowski entered George Baxter's office, the chief constable was at his desk, with a pile of balance sheets stacked up in front of him.

‘I'd have asked you to come and see me sooner, Monika,' he said, ‘but for the last three hours I've been tied up in a finance meeting, so I've only just had a chance to review the video recording of your press conference.'

‘Is that right, sir?' Paniatowski asked, noncommittally.

Baxter stood up and walked around his desk.

‘Shall we sit down?' he said, gesturing at the two comfortable chairs at the other end of the office.

‘If it's all the same to you, sir, I'd rather—'

‘It wasn't a request,' Baxter interrupted her.

Once they were seated, facing each other across the coffee table, Baxter said, ‘You are
aware
the press conference wasn't good, don't you?'

‘Yes,' Paniatowski agreed, dully. ‘I am aware of that.'

‘In fact – and I have to be totally honest with you about it – you completely lost it in there, Monika. You were doing very well at the start – and then you completely lost it.'

‘Do you know how
hard
it's been for me, working my way up through the ranks in a Force where most of the men believe that a woman's place is in the home?' Paniatowski demanded angrily.

‘Yes, I do,' Baxter said.

‘And when I finally make it, what happens? I'm accused of not doing my job properly, not because I'm a woman – though you could tell that half of those reporters were thinking that
as well
– but because I'm a
Pole
.'

‘Nobody imagines it's been easy for you, but even so, you still should have handled it better,' Baxter said firmly. ‘Charlie Woodend would have, you know. Charlie would have soon found a way to make Traynor feel like the slug he is, while at the same time reducing the rest of the hacks to fits of laughter.'

‘I'm
not
Charlie,' Paniatowski said.

‘No, you're not,' Baxter agreed.

‘But that doesn't mean I can't do the job, does it?'

‘No, it doesn't,
necessarily
. But you're still going to have to do something pretty decisive to put yourself back on the right track – pretty decisive and pretty damn quick.'

‘Like what?'

‘That's up to you.'

‘But what do
you
think I should do?'

Baxter hesitated for a second, then said, ‘You might
consider
arresting Stan Szymborska.'

Paniatowski shook her head.

‘I'm not going to be led by the nose by snivelling loathsome hacks like Mike Traynor,' she said. ‘I'm not going to arrest Stan Szymborska when there simply isn't enough evidence to make that arrest stick.'

‘Are you sure that the amount of evidence you have is your
only
consideration?' Baxter asked.

‘What other consideration
could
there be?'

‘Have you stopped to ask yourself if you might not be blinkered by the fact that Szymborska – like your father – is a war hero?'

‘That's not fair,' Paniatowski said bitterly. ‘The only reason you know about my father is because I told you about him myself. In bed! You can't use that information against me now.'

‘I can use any information I choose to use, if I consider it is relevant to something which is undermining the performance of one of my officers,' Baxter said. Then he smiled. ‘There! Now do you see what you've done? You've got me talking like a stuffed shirt.'

‘You can't keep switching around like that,' Paniatowski said, refusing to return the smile. ‘Who are you at the moment? George Baxter, my ex-lover? Or my boss, George Baxter the chief constable?'

‘I'm both. We're
all
several different sides of ourselves at the same time. And the only way we can handle that, with any chance of success, is by doing our best to ensure that the side of us which is most appropriate to our current situation is in control. That's why I think you should ignore your war-hero father – who you can hardly remember, anyway – and arrest Szymborska. If it turns out to be the wrong move, then I'll be willing to take my fair share of the flak – to take
more than
my fair share, in fact.'

‘You make it sound like you're trying to protect me,' Paniatowski said.

‘That's
exactl
y what I'm doing,' Baxter agreed.

‘But
who
are you trying to protect? Monika? Or DCI Paniatowski?'

‘Both of you, as you should have realized by now. Given our history, that's the way it has to work – that's the only way it
can
work.'

Paniatowski was silent for quite a while, then she said, ‘Are you
ordering
me to arrest Stan?'

‘Of course not. This is your case, and – as long as it remains your case – you must run with it as you see fit.'

‘Well, I'm certainly pleased we've got all that cleared up, sir,' Paniatowski said.

‘So will you be arresting him?' Baxter asked.

‘No, sir, I won't,' Paniatowski said firmly.

She was pacing her office again, but this time she was so distracted that she didn't always remember to avoid the furniture. It didn't matter. Though she had already barked her shins twice, she hardly even noticed the pain.

Was Traynor right when he'd said that the only reason she hadn't already arrested Stan was because he was a fellow Pole?

Was Baxter right when he'd told her that the real problem was that she was confusing the suspect with her father, who, if he'd lived, would only have been a few years older than Stan?

But more importantly – and much worse – had she allowed Szymborska to
play
her?

The simple dignity with which he'd talked about his time in the box and his courtship of Linda had almost brought her to tears.

Yet was any of it
real
? Or were the box and the love story no more than parts of the highly elaborate game which had started with the appearance of the two severed hands?

The simple truth was that she had lost confidence in her own judgement, she told herself.

And how was she to get that confidence back?

By talking to Colin Beresford?

No, that wouldn't be fair. She was the leader of the team. He should draw
his
confidence from
her
, rather than it being the other way round.

Almost without seeming to will it, she came to a sudden halt next to her telephone.

For a moment, she had no idea why – and then she understood.

She flipped open her address book, and dialled a number she'd thought she'd never need to call.

She heard the phone ringing at the other end of the line.

‘Pick it up,' her mind screamed. ‘For God's sake, pick it up!'

And then someone did.

‘I'm afraid Annie's not here at the moment,' said a voice she knew so very well it almost brought tears to her eyes, ‘but if you'd like to leave a message, I'll see she gets it.'

She could see him quite clearly, almost as if he were standing in the room with her.

The big head, with the features which looked as if they'd been carved by a sculptor who'd got bored halfway through, and simply given up.

The square hard body, clad in the inevitable hairy sports coat.

The smell of him – meat pies and best bitter and cigarette ash.

The expressions which filled those half-finished features of his – amusement, puzzlement, anger and joy.

They'd been through so much together, the two of them. He'd
helped her
through so much.

‘Help me
now
, Charlie!' she pleaded silently. ‘Tell me what to do!'

‘Is anybody there?' Woodend asked.

Paniatowski opened her mouth and closed it again, opened a second time and was on the point of speaking when something from within her forced her jaw to clamp closed.

‘Hello?' Charlie Woodend said. ‘Hello?'

It was now or never, Paniatowski thought. And quickly – before she had time to change her mind – she put the phone back on its cradle.

TWENTY-ONE

S
ylvia Hope-Gore showed Beresford into her conservatory. It was a pleasant room. One end of it was clearly the social side, with a series of cane chairs and tables. The other end – the horticultural side – was given over almost exclusively to the cultivation of a number of green plants with slightly spiky leaves, which the inspector did not recognize.

‘You sit yourself down, and I'll go and make us a nice cup of tea,' Hope-Gore said. ‘You've no objection to herbal, have you?'

‘None at all. I rather like it,' replied Beresford, who didn't think he'd ever drunk herbal tea in his entire life.

‘Good,' Hope-Gore said. ‘I stopped drinking what you might call “normal” tea ages ago – and so would you, if you knew as much about the conditions on the tea plantations as I do.'