And Logan didn’t know what to say. So he tried, ‘Are you sure the police gave you all the info they had? I mean, if Gibowski’s been gone six years?’
Sniff. She ran a palm across her eyes. ‘I told you they hated us “freaking yuppies”.’
The taxi driver stuck his head out of the car window and said something too quickly for Logan to catch any of it, but Jaroszewicz rattled back a brittle reply, then climbed into the back, saying, ‘Are you hungry?’
Lunch was in a labyrinthine restaurant called Chłopskie Jadło, five minutes walk from the main square, with some sort of witch carved out of dark wood standing guard outside. The place was nearly deserted, just a woman and a small child stuffing themselves with dumplings. Jaroszewicz picked a table in another room, far away from the roaring fire.
She slumped into her chair and sighed at the menu. ‘So that is it, we are finished. You had a wasted trip. I am sorry.’
‘You seem to be taking this very … personally.’
She shrugged, eyes scanning the menu. ‘You should try the pierogi – potato dumplings. Very good.’
‘Come on, you were nearly in tears back there.’
‘I…’ Pause. ‘This is a big case for me. If I… My sergeant says that if I do not get this one right, my career is over.’ She turned the menu over in her hands. ‘Do you want a drink? I want a drink. Let us get something to drink.’
There was a pause, then Logan stuck out a hand. ‘Let me see those files again.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m not going home without a connection between Ricky Gilchrist and what happened here. And I don’t care how tenuous it is – there has to be something. He didn’t just come up with the exact same MO as your Polish mobsters by accident.’
She dug the file out of her cavernous handbag. Then went back to the menu.
Logan spread the individual case files out on the table. It was a cut down version of the huge stack he’d seen on the train from Warsaw, with all the non-Krakow victims removed. Five victims: all men.
He arranged them in date order, ‘1973, 1981, 1993, 1997, and 2004. Five victims. Gibowski is in America, Wisniewski’s dead, and no one’s seen Bielatowicz since 2003. Which leaves us Gorzkiewicz in eighty-one, and Löwenthal in ninety-seven.’
The waiter turned up, but Logan hadn’t even looked at the menu, so he let Jaroszewicz order for them both, and went back to the two remaining files, trying to remember the details. Löwenthal was allegedly involved in people-trafficking from Russia to the UK, and the odd spot of gun-running. Ex-Soviet weaponry being sold off on the cheap by soldiers who hadn’t been paid for months, then passed on at a huge mark-up to gangs all over Europe.
Gorzkiewicz was a different kettle of borscht entirely. He’d been a lance corporal in the Polish army, under the Communists, invalided out after some sort of accident. A law-abiding citizen whose only transgression was being active in the Solidarity movement in the early eighties.
Logan pulled Löwenthal’s file to the front. ‘Right, this is the guy we have to concentrate on.’
She sniffed. ‘Why him? Why not Gorzkiewicz, surely he would be more—’
‘No he wouldn’t. Gorzkiewicz was blinded in 1981: while the Communists were still in power. Anything we got out of him would be nearly thirty years out of date. And if this is mob enforcers copying what happened back then, it wouldn’t help us anyway. But Löwenthal was done in 2004. What he knows might still be worth something.’
‘But we have no idea where he—’
‘We hit the land registry, census records, telephone books. We talk to informers, known associates.’
She sat back and frowned. ‘Oh … I had not … Yes. Of course.’
The waiter returned with two large glasses of beer and a wooden board covered in bread, a tub of what looked like lard, and a huge knife. Jaroszewicz thanked him, then handed Logan one of the beers, their fingers touching on the cold glass. A droplet of condensation ran down the side and dripped onto the tabletop.
‘Er … thanks.’ Logan took a mouthful, pretending not to notice that Senior Constable Jaroszewicz was blushing. ‘I’ll call my DCI after lunch: get him to speak to whoever’s in charge in Krakow. If they won’t play with the Warsaw police, maybe they’ll cooperate with Aberdeen?’
She helped herself to bread and lard. ‘Just make sure you tell him not to mention me. If they think a freaking yuppie is using Aberdeen to put pressure on them, they will deny everything.’
43
The room was too hot to concentrate, sunlight streaming through three huge, dirty windows into the airless space. Stifling and soporific. A big lunch of beetroot soup and potato dumplings hadn’t exactly helped. Krakow’s municipal records hall was undergoing some sort of refit, the huge stacks of files and documents relocated to a grimy four-storey building, sandwiched in the middle of a row of other grimy four-storey buildings that overlooked two construction sites and a tram stop.
The City Council obviously didn’t believe in air-conditioning: a single electric fan sat in the middle of the room, oscillating back and forth – hummmmmmm click, hummmmmmm click, hummmmmmm click – doing little more than stirring up a cloud of dust in the oppressive summer heat. The only other sound was the low murmur of American tourists, tracing their ancestors through stacks of old town records.
Logan’s head snapped back to the upright position. Blink. Shudder. Yawn.
Jaroszewicz didn’t look up – she was pouring over a stack of newspapers from 2004, looking for coverage of the Löwenthal blinding. If they were lucky it would at least give them an area of the city to start looking. Cross reference it with the listings for Löwenthal in the Krakow phone book and they might actually be on to something.
Logan stretched out in his chair, making the ancient wood creak. ‘Are you sure I can’t do anything?’
‘Why,’ she turned to the next page of yellowing newsprint, ‘have you learned to read Polish since the last time you asked? Or the four times before that?’
Logan sighed. ‘I’m not doing anything here.’
He could see her gritting her teeth. ‘Then go do something else. Please. And let – me – work – in – peace!’
He found a little internet café, just off the main square, paid his twenty zloty, and checked his email. There were the usual memos; directives; calls for witnesses; a couple of missing persons; a leaving do for DI Gray in Archie’s next Friday; something from the Witness Protection people saying Kylie and her sister Tracey were doing remarkably well on the rehab programme; something from Big Gary saying if Logan didn’t get his expenses in by the end of the week there’d be trouble; and a huge email from Staff Sergeant Łukaszewski with attached background reports for all the Aberdeen victims. Logan spent five minutes wading through the data, then forwarded it to Finnie. Let him do some work for a change.
Last up was one from Rennie, complaining about being dumped with DI Steel’s ‘Sperminator’ inquiry and finishing off with an invite to join half of CID to watch the football on Saturday, followed by dodgems, curry, and lots of beer.
No messages from DI Steel or Finnie. And nothing from DCS Bain either… Mind you, nominations for DI Gray’s replacement didn’t have to be in until tomorrow, so Bain probably wouldn’t make the announcement until next week.
Logan hit the ‘NEW EMAIL’ button and wrote a message to Samantha. Deleted it. Started again. Deleted that one too.
Replied to Rennie’s invitation instead.
Two minutes later he had a response:
Were you been? No footy for us, been another blingding! Just got out the breifign ~ another polish bloke!!! ACC going mental: All leave canselled. Oops, got to go, Finny’s on the warpath. Can only see Pirie’s feet now, he’s so far up the DIC’s arse!!!! LOL ;-)
Logan read the email three times. Trying to convince himself that Rennie was just having a joke. There wasn’t really a new Oedipus victim. There couldn’t be another Oedipus victi
m: Ricky Gilchrist was in custody, he’d confessed, the threatening notes were on his sodding computer.
Logan pulled out his mobile and called Finnie. ‘Is it true? Someone else’s been blinded?’
‘No, I made it up for a laugh. Of course it’s true. Where are you?’
‘Krakow.’ He told the DCI about the lack of living victims in Warsaw, and Senior Constable Jaroszewicz’s opinion of the local police. ‘They’re not really cooperating.’
‘And what, exactly, do you expect me to do about it? Do you not think I’ve got enough to worry about, without you adding to it? Is that it? Not enough excitement in my life with the wrong man in bloody custody?’
‘Wrong man?’
‘Ricky Gilchrist, who did you think I meant, Ronald Mc-Sodding-Donald?’
‘Well … it…’ Logan slapped his hand on the table. Eureka. ‘This new victim, it could be the people who attacked Simon McLeod.’
‘God, that’s brilliant, Sergeant! I hadn’t thought of that. Gosh, what a good idea, maybe it was the same person. Only victim number seven is a Polish roughneck with BP. And he was found on a disused building site in Torry. We even got the gloating phone call. It’s definitely Oedipus.’
‘Damn.’
‘That’s an understatement. The press haven’t got hold of it yet, but when they do…’ Finnie went quiet for a moment. ‘What a cock-up.’
‘We’re not letting Gilchrist go, are we?’
‘Do I look like an idiot? Goulding’s already started paperwork to have him sectioned. He’s either going to prison or a secure psychiatric facility for the rest of his unnatural, twisted, little life.’ Logan could hear the background noise change. The babble of voices giving way to an echoey silence. Probably Finnie leaving the incident room for the corridor outside. Now the DCI’s voice sounded almost desperate. ‘I need you to find something out there, OK? I don’t care what, but you find me something I can use to catch this bastard.’
‘We’re trying to chase up alternatives sources of info: see if we can track down our two possible survivors. But like I said, local plod aren’t cooperating. Wouldn’t hurt if you could put in a good word…?’
‘Anything else?’
‘Might be best if you leave Senior Constable Jaroszewicz’s name out of it. Apparently Krakow and Warsaw can’t stand each other.’
‘I’ll call them now. Just make sure you find me something, understand?’
And then the DCI hung up.
According to the computer, Logan still had another five minutes before his money ran out, so he called up a fresh email and forced himself to write something to Samantha. Apologetic, but not crawly. At least this time he managed to send it.
Then he grabbed his jacket and wandered out into the afternoon.
Just after five and the streets were beginning to liven up: locals tramping past on their way home from work; yet more tourists with their cameras; little old ladies standing on the street corners selling smoked cheeses in bizarre, slightly phallic shapes. He was wandering back towards the hotel, pausing to read the menu outside every restaurant he passed, when his phone went off – Jaroszewicz.
‘I found somebody! I cannot believe it!’
Logan listened to her babbling on about how difficult it was and how many newspapers she’d had to read, and how many phone calls she’d had to make.
‘So,’ he said, when she finally paused for breath, ‘who is it?’
‘Löwenthal’s brother. And do you want the good news? He is meeting us tonight. Nine o’clock!’
Quarter to ten and there was still no sign of him. Logan and Jaroszewicz waited in a little basement bar on Florianska – just up from the hotel – a brick catacomb with red table cloths and white napkins. Candles. Red-stained pine booths, the wood going pale at the edges where the varnish had worn off. A big oil painting of a bald man in militaristic clothes with a green cockade hat, moustache and vast mutton-chop sideburns.
The air was thick with cigarette smoke.
Jaroszewicz was slumped over a half-empty pint of Guinness, poking a lonely peanut across the tabletop. ‘He said he would be here.’
Logan finished his beer and pointed at her glass. ‘You want another one while we wait? Half, or something?’
She shrugged and he went back to the bar, watching goldfish swimming around a tiny beer-sponsored aquarium while the barman poured him another pint of Tyskie and a half of draft Guinness.
Voices behind him.
Logan turned to see Jaroszewicz on her feet, talking to a man with the kind of moustache a walrus would be proud of.
Jaroszewicz introduced him. ‘This is Henryk Löwenthal.’
They shook hands, and Logan said, ‘Good evening.’
The man looked puzzled, and Jaroszewicz shrugged. ‘He does not speak English.’
Oh … OK,’ Logan tried again, ‘Dobry wieczór.’
‘Ah!’ Smile, nod. ‘Dobry wieczór.’
They sat at the table, under the watchful gaze of the military man in the painting. Löwenthal cleared his throat, took a deep breath, then rattled out a long speech that Logan couldn’t understand a word of.
Jaroszewicz: ‘He says we have to remember that no one in his family had any idea what his brother was doing. None of them have ever been in trouble with the police before. They are good people and are very ashamed.’
‘Ask him where his brother is now.’
She stared at him. ‘What did you think I was going to do?’
‘OK, OK. Sorry.’
She fired off the question, and got another speech in reply.
‘He says he does not know.’
‘Oh for God’s…’ Sigh. ‘Ask him if he’s got a telephone number, or an email address.’
Stony silence. ‘Now why did I not think of that?’
‘I didn’t mean—’
But she was already talking over the top of him. Löwenthal’s brother said something back and then they both laughed.
‘What? What did he say?’
‘He said that all you British are the same – you never bother to learn anyone else’s language. You think you can still rule the world by shouting slowly at the natives.’
‘What did he say about the number?’
More Polish.
‘He says they cut off all ties with his brother years ago. He was drunk all the time, violent, on drugs, he stole things.’
The evening got worse from there. Jaroszewicz and Löwenthal’s brother talking for longer and longer in Polish, leaving Logan to sit on the outside drinking lager and waiting for a translation. Pressing her to ask more questions.
In the end she turned to him, eyes flat as knife blades and said, ‘Sergeant McRae: I am perfectly capable of questioning a witness without you pointing out the obvious every two minutes. Now sit there, shut up, and concentrate on looking pretty. OK?’ She gave him a nasty smile, then turned her back on him, sharing another joke with Löwenthal in Polish.
So much for international cooperation.
44
Seven thirty, Wednesday morning. Logan lay on his back and stared up at the hotel-room ceiling. What a great idea this trip was. He killed the alarm on his phone and slumped back into his pillows. She was a nightmare. The evening had gradually deteriorated to the point where Logan might as well have been on his own in a strange pub in a foreign country. Only a lot less pleasant, because he was pretty sure Senior Constable High-And-Mighty Jaroszewicz and Löwenthal’s brother were laughing at him. And they weren’t even doing it behind his back – they were doing it to his face.
‘I am a professional,’ he told the bedside lamp, ‘I promise I will not sulk.’
Like hell he wouldn’t.
He dragged himself through the shower and down to breakfast, disappointed to see that Jaroszewicz was already there, tucking into another bowl of muesli. For a brief moment he thought about giving her the cold shoulder and grabbing another table, but he’d made a promise
to his bedside furniture.
The scrambled eggs were going to be every bit as alternative as yesterday’s, but he ordered them anyway.
Jaroszewicz watched him eat in silence for a minute. ‘I was thinking, I was unfair to you yesterday.’
‘Really.’
‘It’s not your fault you do not speak the language.’ She shrugged. ‘But you cannot read the documents, and you cannot question witnesses. So…’ She reached into her cavernous handbag and dug out a pile of tour brochures. ‘Go do something. See Krakow. Löwenthal’s brother gave me some addresses to try, I will call you if I get anything.’
Logan was feeling too petty to argue with her. The bedside light could go screw itself.
The sun was a chip of gold, shining between slivers of white cloud. Logan sat on a park bench and grumbled and swore: Who the hell did she think she was, telling him to go see the sights, as if he was a child who needed to sod off so the grown-ups could talk? Detective Sergeants should be seen and not heard.
He ripped another chunk from the bread he’d bought from a brown-faced old woman on a street corner, and hurled it at a bunch of stupid-looking pigeons. Doing his best to hit one of them and failing miserably. Bloody Jaroszewicz.
A group of nuns tottered past, dressed in the traditional black and white penguin outfits you never saw in Scotland any more. No, in Aberdeen it was all grey twinsets and sensible shoes.
What was the collective noun for nuns? Flange? Flock?
Logan watched as they stopped to harangue a young man for dropping his McDonald’s wrapper on the path. The guy held out for a whole thirty seconds, before grabbing up the wrapper and hurrying away to the nearest bin.
A Terror of nuns.
Logan had another go at braining a pigeon with a chunk of crust.
The park would have been a nice place to sit and watch the world go by, if he’d been in a better mood. A two-mile-long avenue of dusty green that encircled the Old Town, lined with huge trees, their leaves dappling the sunlight, making it almost cool on Logan’s bench as he tried to concuss birds.
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