Entanglement (11 page)

Henryk Telak hadn’t even got three numbers right. Szacki had dug out yesterday’s paper at the prosecution front office and checked the numbers. Two right three times, and of the “lucky numbers” only 22 was correct. He also got a copy of
Rzeczpospolita
and read Miss Grzelka’s article about the murder, confirming his opinion that this paper was capable of turning any case into a sensation on a par with a new type of margarine appearing in the shops. Boring, boring and more boring. Despite which he still felt bad at the thought of how he’d treated the journalist yesterday. He could still remember her smile as she said: “You’re a very rude prosecutor.” Maybe she wasn’t his type, but that smile… Perhaps he should call her? All in all, why not? You only live once, and in twenty years’ time no young journalist would want to go out for a coffee with him. He’d been faithful as a hound for the past ten years, yet somehow he didn’t feel particularly proud of the fact. Quite the contrary - he couldn’t help feeling as if life were passing him by as he gave up the best side of it.

He took Grzelka’s business card out of the desk drawer, turned it in his fingers for a while, took the decision, put his hand on the receiver, and just then the phone rang.

“Good afternoon, Ireneusz Nawrocki calling.”

“Good afternoon, Superintendent,” replied Szacki, putting the business card aside with some sense of relief.

Nawrocki was a policeman from City Police Headquarters, perhaps the most original of all the cops in the city. Szacki thought highly of him but didn’t like him. They had worked together twice, and each time trying to get information out of Nawrocki on what he was doing, what he’d done and what he was planning to do had been like an inquiry in itself. Nawrocki went his own ways, but none of them ran past the prosecutor’s office, and hardly anyone was as bothered by that as Szacki,
who wanted tight control over every stage of the proceedings. But both their inquiries had ended in success, so Szacki had to admit that thanks to the information gathered by the policeman he’d written an unusually powerful indictment.

“Do you remember the corpse they dug up at the playschool?”

Szacki said he did. It was a well-publicized case. They’d been renovating the play area at a nursery school on Krucza Street to replace the ancient swings with an adventure playground, a sports pitch and so on. They’d dug up the play area and found a body. An old one, so everyone had thought it might date from the war, from the Uprising. But it soon appeared that it was a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl from the school next door to the nursery who’d gone missing in 1993. They’d located all her classmates and teachers, it had been a huge job. Of course it was all a waste of time, because hardly anyone could remember what they’d been doing on one particular night ten years ago. They had some files from the inquiry into the girl’s disappearance, but that sort of case is conducted in a completely different way - certain questions are never asked. Finally the inquiry was suspended because they hadn’t been able to establish the addresses of several of the girl’s friends. The police had tried looking for them, but not very persistently. He knew that Nawrocki was still plodding along at this case, but he had given up begging him for information. He knew that if the policeman did find anything, he’d still have to ask for the inquiry to be reinstated.

“So this man rang the police anonymously,” Nawrocki told him in a monotonous tone, which reminded Szacki of an academic lecturer, “and told a very interesting story.”

“Well?” Szacki didn’t believe in anonymous stories.

“He said that Boniczka - that was the girl’s name, Sylwia Boniczka - was raped by three boys from another class in her year, one of whom was repeating the year. You remember what
happened - she left a friend’s house on Poznańska Street late at night and never got home. She must have walked past the school on the way. And there are always various guys hanging around outside school, at any time of day or night, you know what I mean. Maybe not nowadays, but at one time that was the case.”

Szacki started to wonder. Indeed, they hadn’t questioned any pupils apart from her classmates, they’d just relied on the old inquiry files, which hadn’t brought any results. The pathologist had been unable to establish whether the girl had been raped, so they’d spent the whole time conducting it as a murder case, not a rape. As far as he could remember, Boniczka hadn’t been in contact with the kids from other classes. They would have checked at the time.

“Did the guy who called anonymously give any names?” asked Szacki, not even trying to hide the mockery in his voice.

“No. But he did give some extra facts. Very interesting ones and, in my humble opinion, demanding a follow-up,” Nawrocki went on in his monotone. “He said it wasn’t the rapists who killed her. That after the incident she went to her father, and he was the one who killed her and buried her in the playground. That he couldn’t bear the shame. That he didn’t want people to find out.”

Teodor Szacki felt the skin on the back of his neck and shoulders go numb.

“Prosecutor, do you remember who Boniczka’s father was?” asked Nawrocki.

“Yes, he was the school caretaker,” replied Szacki.

“Exactly. So maybe you’ll get the files out of the cupboard?”

“Of course. Please just send me a message confirming this conversation. Try to find all the pupils repeating a year from the other classes and put the necessary pressure on them, then I’ll interrogate the father.”

“I can interrogate him myself, Prosecutor,” suggested Nawrocki.

Szacki hesitated. He had a lot to do, including a huge pile of paperwork, but he didn’t want to give way to Nawrocki.

“We’ll see,” he said, trying to put off the decision. “First let’s test the theory about the rape. And there’s one more thing, Superintendent.” He paused, but there wasn’t the slightest cough from the other end. “I don’t think you’ve told me everything.”

Silence.

“I mean, nowadays you can quite quickly and easily trace anyone who calls the police. Are you sure you don’t know who it was?”

“Do you promise it won’t have any bearing on your decision?”

“Yes, I promise.”

“Well, we did trace the man, and he turned out to be from Łódź. I even went there to talk to him.” Nawrocki fell silent, and Szacki was just about to say “And…”, but he stopped himself.

“And he turned out to be a very nice old gentleman. A clairvoyant. He’d once read about the case in the paper, then he’d had a dream about what had happened. He’d hesitated for a while, but in the end he’d called. I know what you might think, but you must admit it holds water.”

Szacki agreed reluctantly. He trusted his own instincts, but not retired clairvoyants who called the police anonymously. Except that this time the old boy’s visions did match one of his theories. He’d always thought it was no accident the girl had been buried in the grounds of the playschool right next to the high school where her father worked. But he’d never had even the shadow of a clue to draw on. Besides, he’d been afraid his theory might prove correct.

Nawrocki hung up, and Szacki wrote down: “Boniczka - files, father, wait for I.N.” He should get on with writing the indictment
in the Nidziecka case now, but he didn’t feel inspired. He should draft the decisions to discontinue two other inquiries, but he didn’t feel like it. He should number the documents in an armed robbery case, but he felt even less like doing that - there were four volumes of them. Hopeless paperwork. He should call Monika Grzelka, but he didn’t have the courage.

He picked up the stapler, the basic tool for any prosecutor’s job, and put it on the desk in front of him. He gathered the papers to one side to make a bit of space. Good, he thought, let’s suppose that’s me. And this is Weronika - he got an apple from his briefcase, took a bite out of it and arranged it opposite the stapler. And this is Helka - he put his mobile phone next to the stapler. And my parents - two plastic mugs landed to one side, also clearly facing towards the stapler.

What’s the conclusion? Szacki asked himself. That they’re all gawping at me and they all want something from me. That I’ve got no space in front of me. That I’m the prisoner of my own family, the hook for this entire bloody arrangement. Or rather system, as Rudzki called it.

Something was bothering him about the objects scattered on the desk. He felt as if he hadn’t arranged everyone. He added his brother, in the form of a box of paper clips, but his brother was on the side and didn’t really have any significance. Death, thought Szacki, look for death. Find someone who could have left a sense of mourning behind them. His grandparents? Not especially - they had all died at an advanced age and they’d had time to say goodbye to everyone. Some other relative perhaps? Szacki’s mother had a sister in Wrocław, but his aunt was in good health. His father had a younger brother who lived in Żoliborz. Hold on a moment. Szacki remembered that his father had had another younger brother too, who had died at barely two years old. How old was his father then? Four, maybe five. He took a cigarette packet from his pocket, thought for a while and placed
it next to his father, almost exactly opposite himself. Curiously, his deceased uncle was staring straight at him. It made Szacki feel uneasy. He’d always thought he was named after his grandfathers - Teodor after his father’s father and Wiktor after his mother’s. Now he realized that his father’s dead brother was also called Wiktor. How strange. So had his father named him after his father and his dead brother? Maybe that was why their relationship had been and was still so complicated. And why was that bloody dead uncle gawping at him? And did it have any consequences for him? Or for his daughter? Helka was also facing towards the uncle. Szacki’s mouth suddenly felt terribly dry and he took a swig of water.

“Hello, if you like we can have a whip round to buy you some building blocks,” said Prosecutor Jerzy Bińczyk sticking his head round the door. For two years, which was as long as they’d known each other, Bińczyk had been a puzzle to Szacki. How can you be an idler and a careerist all at once? he wondered whenever he saw Bińczyk, with his receding hairline, his crumpled jacket and his tie made of a mysterious Chinese material. Was it possible to produce PVC so thin it could be tied in a knot?

“It must be tough in your village in winter, eh?” said Szacki sympathetically.

“What’s that?” Bińczyk frowned.

“No need to knock, is there? But keeping the door propped open with a sheaf of straw must get bloody windy.”

Bińczyk went purple. Furious, he thrust a hand into the room and knocked as hard as he could on Szacki’s door.

“Better? I was brought up on Hoża Street, so leave it out.”

“Really? So there’s a Hoża Street on the Nowy Dwór housing estate as well as in the City Centre?” Szacki felt like taking it out on someone.

Bińczyk rolled his eyes.

“I heard you’ll be working with us on the goods from Central Station.”

“Maybe from Monday.”

“Great, then perhaps you’d take a look at the files this week, find an expert witness to estimate the market value of the drugs and write a ruling on getting an expert opinion.”

“We’ve had Monday this week already. I was talking about next Monday.”

“Be human, Teo. We’re buried in work, we’re way behind, the remand deadline will pass soon, and the supervisory board’s putting on the pressure.”

So you’re hurting, thought Szacki. You’re afraid you won’t shine at the Regional Prosecutor’s office, that they won’t remember you for ever as that clever guy who was really great at preparatory proceedings, but as the one who couldn’t get an inquiry completed within the deadline. Oh dear, maybe you’ll have to stay until five a couple of times. You’ll survive, boy. Same goes for your pal. Bloody skivers, and then they complain the loudest when the Prosecution Service gets bad press.

“I won’t be able to, sorry. Maybe not even next week,” he said.

“Don’t joke about it!” said Bińczyk, making a face like a spoiled kid. “The old witch must have told you.”

“She did mention such an eventuality.”

“Have I ever told you working with you is a nightmare?”

“Don’t worry. They’re going to transfer me. You’ll have peace.”

“Really? Where to?” Bińczyk became distinctly animated.

“To the supervisory board on Krakowskie Przedmieście. They say they want someone to keep an eye on the inquiries at City Centre. We’ve been getting worse and worse results.”

Bińczyk just stuck out his middle finger and left. Szacki replied with the same gesture, but only once the door had closed. He stared at the objects arranged on his desk, removed himself - in other words the stapler - from the constellation and put it on the window sill.

“Time for some changes,” he said aloud, stuck a staple in Grzelka’s business card and rang the number. She recognized his voice at once, and they agreed to meet at five in Cava on the corner of Nowy Świat and Foksal Streets. As he reached for the armed robbery files, Szacki could still hear her low voice saying what a nice surprise it was. Even when he saw a card attached to the first page with the message: “Expenses sheet - don’t forget!” he didn’t stop smiling.

In theory, things were looking up. Arranging to meet a girl for coffee - guys do that sort of thing, don’t they? Meanwhile Szacki felt like someone whose tooth suddenly starts hurting badly while he’s travelling in the wastes of Kazakhstan and who knows the only hope for him is a trip to the local dentist. He was shivering slightly, though it wasn’t all that cold, there was a buzzing noise in his left ear, and his hands were cold and damp. He felt like a clown in his suit and coat, while everyone around him was wearing at most anoraks thrown over T-shirts.

Something must have happened in the city because there was an endless chain of trams standing in Jerozolimskie Avenue, and the cars heading for the Praga district were stuck in a gigantic traffic jam. He thought Miss Grzelka would be sure to be late, because it was the exact route that she’d have to take to get to Nowy Świat Street from the newspaper office which was blocked. That was better even - it’s always more comfortable to be the person waiting. He passed the old Polish Press Agency building, waited for the lights to change and crossed the avenue. He took leaflets from several students. He didn’t need them, but Weronika had taught him to take them, because that way you help people whose jobs aren’t easy or well paid. At the Empik bookshop there was a poster announcing the arrival
of the new
Splinter Cell
, the third one now. It was one of his favourite games, and he’d be happy to reassume the role of Sam Fisher, the embittered tough guy.