The Minotaur's Head: An Eberhard Mock Investigation (Eberhard Mock Investigation 4)

by Marek Krajewski

  LWÓW, SATURDAY, MARCH 20TH, 1937 NINE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

  As she entered the gateway Rita found herself on an axis where light meets shadow. The axis, which was exceptionally, even unnaturally sharp, bisected her face along the nose. The light came from a skylight cut into the roof above the steep spiral staircase. She stood erect and motionless between the white, glaring light of the morning and the dense, damp darkness. Suddenly her face moved a centimetre forward, her muscles relaxed, her chin dropped and her eyelids started to close. Sleep appeared to have overcome her. From beneath one eyelid a forked tongue of blood began to ooze and spread. Within it flowed bile and what remained of her eyeballs. Her body collapsed onto the floorboards but her head remained hanging in the air, swaying imperceptibly, suspended by Rita’s plaits held in a clenched fist.

  A sound resembling a sob, a cough and vomiting all at once emerged from Popielski’s lips. The commissioner sat up in bed and placed a hand on his chest beneath his silk pyjamas; he felt his heart pounding beneath the skin. He glanced around his bedroom as if he were seeing it for the first time. A moment passed before he finally surfaced from the dark gateway where Rita’s head had been hacked off and returned to his own apartment next to Jesuit Gardens. Despite the heavy, drawn curtains the room was a pale grey. Outside, the sun must have been blazing, bringing joy to all those longing for spring, but within his brain it stirred epileptic nerves. He looked at his watch. It was only nine o’clock.

  “Why have I woken up?” he asked himself.

  His body, for many years accustomed to rigorous sleeping hours, had hardly ever rebelled with bouts of insomnia or abrupt awakenings. Popielski always fell into a deep oblivion at five o’clock in the morning, and at precisely midday raised his head, which ached from sleep and the tobacco-rich stuffiness of his bedroom. Occasionally the headache would be caused by night terrors, or rather morning terrors. These nightmares rolled through Popielski’s dormant mind without inflicting any harm, and the first cigarette of the day effectively dispersed any recollection of them. But several times in his life they had caused him to wake with a jolt, and these instances of awakening had taught him to treat them as a warning. That is what had happened during his exile in Russia, when a gang of old peasants – bearded and crazed on the pure spirits they had drunk – had burst into the inn where he had been resting after a night of cards, and with axes red with blood had begun to cleave wedges in the skulls of the sleeping Tsarist officers. That is what had happened during his days in Vienna, when a mad chess opponent, having wagered his mistress and lost the game to him, had broken into his miserable student lodgings with a shard of glass in his naked hands raised like a battleaxe. And that is what had happened when he was ten and sleeping heavily in his aunt’s house, and a messenger had arrived with the news that Tatar bandits had beaten his father to death with flails near Kijów, and the following day his mother had hanged herself at Kijów station.

  Dreams like these were invariably warnings or heralds of impending misfortune. They usually featured bestial creatures which emerged from the corners of his room and sat on his chest, rolling their long muzzles. This time – and this had never occurred before – he had dreamed of a person he knew: Rita had appeared in his nightmare. Hair stuck together, head severed from body, eyes gouged out.

  He leaped out of bed and began to dress, spurning the clothes he had arranged – as he always did before going to bed – on a clothes horse. He did not so much as glance at the shirt and suit jacket for which he had chosen a suitable tie. In order to save the time he would have needed to fasten the tie and struggle with cufflinks, he threw the jacket of his dress uniform over his pyjamas and buttoned it up to the neck. Shoes in hand, coat over his arm and sunglasses on his nose he raced out of the apartment. The only thing he forgot was his hat.

  With the servant’s whining and Leokadia’s exclamations of surprise still in his ears, he jumped into the Chevrolet parked in front of the building. He drove quickly down Kraszewski Street and turned right into Słowacki. He flashed past the Main Post Office and the Ossolineum then headed into Chorążczyzna. The people drinking water at the old well on Dąbrowski Square gawped at the car, as if it were some fantastical vehicle. On Sokół Street Popielski beeped at a group of youths who were blocking the way, clearly heading towards the gymnastics hall. The young men fled with loud and hostile comments. He turned left into Zimorowicz and glanced up at the Towarowa Stock Exchange building and the statue of Ujejski. Overtaking a coal cart, he shot down Akademicka. He passed the Scotch House and Fredro’s statue and a moment later pulled up at 8 Zielona – Queen Jadwiga’s Secondary School for Girls.

  LWÓW, THAT SAME MARCH 20TH, 1937 HALF PAST NINE IN THE MORNING

  The headmistress of Queen Jadwiga’s, Miss Ludmiła Madler, did not like Commissioner Edward Popielski. She had got to know him over the course of several unpleasant meetings concerning his exasperating daughter. On those occasions he had sat sullen and pensive, as if absent, and the headmistress had sensed the fury rising within him. She had seen many similar reactions during her long career as a teacher, but in Popielski – and this she sensed perfectly well – the anger was not directed at his daughter, nor did it herald a just rebuke of the unruly little madame; no, the fury was directed at her, at a meritorious pedagogue and highly experienced teacher who had dedicated the best years of her life to bringing up girls, and who understood their anxieties and innermost thoughts better even than her own! Popielski would listen to everything she had to say with a gloomy calm, then quickly leave her study. Through the window she would see his impressive figure – in bowler hat and gleaming white shirt – pacing around the small square in front of the Protestant Church of St Ursula, which was encircled by trees and squeezed in between two tenements, like some wild beast. Surrounded by a cloud of smoke, he had excited the young art teacher, Miss Helena Majer, whom the headmistress had once caught staring intently at the police officer.

  “Such a strong man!” Miss Majer had said admiringly at the time, thinking it was her friend, the sports teacher, who had come up behind her. “He must be working on an important criminal case!”

  “No, dear colleague,” the headmistress had replied, greatly disconcerting her employee. “He’s thinking of placing a bomb beneath our school. Best of all when I’m here!”

  Now Popielski stood before the headmistress, unshaven, in dark glasses and with his coat buttoned up to the neck despite the springtime warmth. Miss Madler remembered the ill-repute that surrounded him – all those rumours about his brutality and numerous romances – and she did not find him exciting at all. Looking at his tired face and the glasses which hid his eyes, what she detected in the rumours – if there was any truth in them – was instead an indication of practical ineptitude and loneliness …

  “It’s a good thing you’ve come, Commissioner,” she said severely. “Your daughter has decided to play truant today! Her tutor, Professor Paklikowski, has just told me he’s seen her on Piłsudski Street! She was with …”

  Popielski behaved uncharacteristically. Up until now he had listened to the headmistress’ pedagogical tirades to the end. Up until now he had always said “Goodbye!” on leaving. And he had never slammed the door so hard.

  LWÓW, THAT SAME MARCH 20TH, 1937 A QUARTER TO TEN IN THE MORNING

  If Rita Popielska were asked to say honestly what gave her as much pleasure as skiing, she would reply “truancy in spring”. She never felt better than when she had succeeded in escaping the vigilant eyes of her teachers, the caretaker or other oppressors at Queen Jadwiga’s. She would burst with joy as she sneaked out of school and a quarter of an hour later would disappear into Stryjski Park to hide among the bushes and share secrets with a fellow truant. Until now this had been Jadzia Wajchendler, but Rita had taken a great dislike to her as, on the occasions she recounted the conflicts she had with her father, she noticed that Jadzia always seemed to side with “Mr Commissioner”. For some time now her confidante and accomplice had
been Beata Zacharkiewicz, a tall and unattractive girl with the unflattering nickname of “Beanpole”.

  Some of the more courageous pupils celebrated the first day of spring by playing truant. This year it fell on a Sunday, so Rita decided to mark the day a little earlier and persuaded her new friend to join her celebration. At first Beanpole resisted, but gave in as soon as Rita promised to reveal to her the greatest secret of her life.

  The girls had made careful preparations. Rita had stolen four cigarettes from her father, while Beanpole had filled a small jar with wine from a bottle standing in the cellar. Both had taken more than the usual provisions to school that day. A few days earlier Rita had typed out a document authorizing them to be absent from school that day on the pretext of organizing a school trip. They had both forged the signature of their tutor, Professor Paklikowski, and armed with all this they met up before eight in the morning at Stryjski Bazaar.

  From there they had quickly arrived at the park. In order to avoid any busybodies at the main gate, they had walked up Stryjski and approached the west gate, near the gardener’s house. They had gone down into the park and raced past the statue of Kiliński, then walked up the hill. Before long they had found a hiding place in the bushes. Although the weather was glorious and truly spring-like, there had been nobody amongst the shrubs or along the half-wild avenues, and so, untroubled by anyone, the young ladies had sat down on a log, eaten a ham roll, smoked a cigarette and taken a large gulp of wine. Since early morning Beanpole had tried in vain to persuade Rita to reveal her secret, but Rita was unyielding. She said firmly that she would tell her everything on the way to a certain mysterious place where she was expected at ten o’clock. Beanpole’s eyes boggled with curiosity and she resolved to be patient.

  Rita was not able to disclose her secret on tram No. 3, which they had taken in the direction of Łyczaków, because it had been too crowded. Nor could she disclose it on Piekarska, because she had been prevented from doing so by students from the nearby Department of Medicine, who must have pulled out of lectures en masse that beautiful day and were drifting along the pavements accosting all the young ladies. It was not until they got to Żuliński Street that they were almost alone. The sun hid behind some clouds and only a pale light settled on windows and balconies. The girls walked briskly arm in arm, constantly looking about them in case they were being spied upon, and exchanging whispers and sighs.

  “And, you know, I wrote to him poste restante.”

  “Then what? What happened?”

  “I showed a cool interest in him. In fact I wrote: ‘Surely you think too highly of your eyes. You may seduce other young ladies with them, but not me.’”

  “And what did he say then?”

  “In the next letter, a week ago, he again mentioned the beauty of his eyes. He must be very sure of himself. I mean, what man would send a woman a photograph, with a written dedication, which displays his torso …”

  “What?”

  “Torso, torso, Beata, why are you so surprised? Have you never seen a man’s torso?”

  “Of course I have,” Beanpole sulked. “But carry on. What else did he write?”

  “He wrote suggesting that we meet, in a public place of course, where I would be able to – just imagine! – where I would be able to admire …”

  “What, his eyes? Or his torso?”

  “Not in public, come on!”

  They stopped talking for a moment because their words were drowned out by the cries of a street vendor who was going from door to door, laden with sacks, and yelling at the top of his voice: “Handełe! Handełe!”†

  “So where is this public place!”

  Rita stood still and looked at her friend with a smile. She revelled in her friend’s burning curiosity.

  “That’s just where we’re going, silly.”

  “What? We’re going there now?”

  “Don’t you want to?” Rita grew serious and pointed to the inside pocket of her coat. “I’ve got the address here. I carry all his letters with me so the old man doesn’t find them. The public place is a billiard club … I want you to come with me … Not because I’m scared of going by myself, of course, but so that we can exchange opinions about his so-called beautiful eyes …”

  “Thank you, sweetheart!” Beanpole kissed her on both flushed cheeks. “Thanks so much for trusting me!”

  “Quiet,” hissed Rita. “We need to see what the time is because we’re almost there. But first let’s take a look at the tenement.”

  They passed the doorway to number 10, then to 10a, and a moment later they were on the corner of Łyczakowska. They entered Krebs’ tavern. The windows were shuttered and it was dark within. All they saw was some drunkard and a barman with a face so gloomy and downcast he could have been a main character in a dark urban ballad. The drunkard, who had clearly gone too far in his attempt to cure a hangover, stood swaying over a shot of vodka and tried to take a bite of the herring he held by the tail between two fingers.

  “And what brings these two young ladies here?” boomed the barman in a powerful voice.

  “We’d like to know what the time might be,” said Rita, much braver than Beanpole.

  “It might be midnight but it’s just before ten,” laughed the barman.

  “Thank you,” said Rita, curtsying politely.

  The street outside was empty. They left the tavern and Rita pulled her friend into the nearest gateway.

  “Go on, Beata, give me a bit of wine!”

  “Right away!” answered Beanpole.

  They each took a large mouthful. Squinting, they leaned out of the doorway and looked up and down the street. It was still empty, except for a black automobile which was just parking a few metres away.

  “Which building is it, Rita? Which building?” Beata was pale with excitement. “The one where the car’s parking?”

  “No!” Now Rita was pale too. She grabbed her friend by the elbow. “We’ve got to go back. Right now! This way, through the yard!”

  “What do you mean ‘go back’? Now? Don’t you trust me any more?” With tears in her eyes, Beanpole ran after Rita as she strode quickly towards the back door and into the yard. She caught up with her only after some twenty metres. Startled by the girls, the vendor stopped his cries of “Handełe” and was staring at them.

  “How could you?” sobbed Beata. “Do you know what it feels like to be pushed aside, trampled on? You’d given me so much hope!”

  “My old man was driving that car, understand?” Rita’s eyes were full of fury. “I don’t know how he discovered my secret, but it’s a piece of cake for him!” She broke into derisive laughter. “That ace of the Polish police …”

  “Listen, Rita.” Beanpole suddenly calmed down. “Maybe your father’s come to get that man? He wrote to you himself that police from many countries have been looking for him. Maybe your father’s on his trail?”

  “Oh, my God.” Rita buried her long, slender fingers in her hair. “That could be true! I have to know! Come on, we’re going back to the tavern to watch through the window!”

  “But there’s the drunk and that terrible barman!”

  “Don’t be scared, if anything happens …”

  “You’ll call your father?”

  Rita stared at Beanpole for a long time, as if wanting to burn out her eyes with her glare.

  “Don’t dare even think it!” she said slowly. “I’m never going to ask that rat for help if he keeps following me at every step! He’s made my life hell! Did you know that I’m not going to have a part in Medea because of him? Kasprzak has taken it away from me and given it to Jadzia! When I asked why, he said I ought to ask my dear father! Now do you understand? Do you think I’m ever going to ask him for anything?”

  LWÓW, THAT SAME MARCH 20TH, 1937 FIVE TO TEN IN THE MORNING

  Zaremba heard footsteps on the stairs. He put his eye to the little hole in the net curtain that hung over the toilet door. A man in a hat with a rucksack on his back was slowly com
ing up to the small gallery. He was dressed in a worn overcoat that was too large for him. He passed the toilet, looked carefully at the OUT OF ORDER notice and dragged himself up to the top floor. He was young, yet he moved like an old man. He was slim, yet panted like a fat man. He was human, yet looked like an animal.

  Zaremba, disguised as a plumber, sat down on the closed toilet seat and wiped the sweat from his brow with the tail of his workman’s overalls. He heard a key grating in a lock and a door slamming. He had no doubt it was Potok. He had just entered his apartment.

  The police officer tried to collect his thoughts. The raid on Potok’s apartment was to have taken place the following day. The neighbour had clearly said Potok would be coming back on Sunday, and yet he had returned a day too soon. Zaremba went cold at the thought of what might have happened had the man appeared half an hour earlier when, in breach of regulations, he had popped downstairs for some cigarettes.

  If something were to go wrong with their intricate plan, it could only be due to human error. Every precaution had been taken. The toilet had been set up as an observation point, and Wassermann’s nearby haberdashery on the corner of Żulińska and Łyczakowska Streets – equipped with a telephone – was to act as a centre for communications. In order to ensure immediate contact, a special line had been installed between the shop and headquarters. The trap set for Potok in his tenement was to be infallible. The toilet had been locked under the pretext of plumbing repair work, but in fact this was so that the stench would cause no problem to the detectives on their watch. An officer was to keep an eye on the suspect’s apartment day and night until Sunday, checking identification papers and questioning anyone who visited him. The police were keen to hang something on Potok on the basis of these reports, something which would allow them to apprehend him, even if by some sixth sense he caught on to the swoop and did not return to his apartment. On Sunday it was all to come to a head. At four o’clock in the morning Żulińska would be swarming with police, including all four officers from the Investigative Bureau and twelve plain-clothes men from Station IV on Kurkowa. Six plain-clothes officials were to wait at the train station. But now Potok had returned a day early!