“What about your databases?” Szacki asked.
“What do you mean? You know that nobody ever turns up in our databases.”
True, Szacki did know that nothing ever came up in the official databases. The police had the National Police Information System. The prosecution service had its own system, Libra, because somehow no genius had ever had the bright idea that the law enforcement bodies should have a single information resource. Or rather, some genius had decided that the more systems and contracts were out there, the lower the probability that he’d end his term with empty pockets. On top of that, all these systems were bizarrely dismembered, incompatible, and disconnected. Which meant it was enough for a serial killer to move to a different province after each successive murder, and nobody would ever make the connection.
“So I wondered,” said Bierut, “if maybe we should ease up on Najman’s past. Lots of effort and resources, but it looks as if there’s nothing there. He’s an ordinary guy. He had a fairly interesting job, traveled a lot, his business was doing well. He found himself a wife, built a house out of town. He sat there, watched TV, and had a barbecue in the summer. Same as millions of others. Digging around in it is a dead end.”
Szacki regretted that he didn’t smoke. Maybe if he did, he’d have matches on him to prop up his drooping eyelids.
“I’m still going to write to the bank and the tax office,” he said. “We can’t drop the possibility that it could be Mafia score-settling. Maybe something will come out of his tax returns or his bank accounts.” He broke off abruptly. One of the thoughts that were trying to push their way through his sleepy mind had gotten lost along the way. Just now he’d thought of yet another database. Which one was it? He couldn’t remember, so instead he told Bierut about his theory that Najman had a lover. That would explain the lies he’d fed to his wife and partner.
“And you think she might have had something to do with it?”
“Not necessarily. But I do think it’s an important lead.”
Bierut cast him a weary, disheartened look.
“So what does that mean? Do we have to interview everyone over again, this time to ask them about the lover? If they didn’t tell us the first time, they’re not gonna do it the second time.”
That would be the best thing to do, but Szacki realized it would be cruel to insist on it. Bierut would dig his heels in, and his bosses would start to make hell for Szacki’s. He didn’t need that.
“Parulska, the business partner, must have his trips written down. I don’t mean his vacations, I mean the kind where the tourist agents are herded around the five-star hotels. Please get details of the last three and then lists of participants from the organizers. We’ll check if any of the names are repeats. Exotic locations, hotels, alcohol—I’d be surprised if he’d found a lover anywhere else.”
For a while they sat in silence. Szacki was trying to recover the thought that had previously escaped him. He’d almost got it when Bierut asked, “Do you think this really is a serial killer? A real psycho? A madman who wants to play with us?”
“I hope so,” muttered the furious Szacki.
“You hope so?”
“It’s easier to catch that sort of asshole than a guy who strangles his wife in the bedroom and buries her in the neighbor’s yard. When someone plays games like this, he’s bound to make a mistake and leave too many clues. Besides, making stuff up is circumstantial evidence in itself. Just look how much we’ve got already. The bones of five people, a unique modus operandi that limits the number of possible crime sites, and we’ve identified the killing method. If he really is crazy, then I can’t wait for him to start sending enigmatic letters written in the blood of brides.”
That was it! Brides. It was something to do with brides. He wanted to check if . . .
Now he was smiling, pleased that at last he’d cornered his wayward thought, when someone knocked urgently at the door, and immediately opened it. It was Edmund Falk.
“We’ve got him,” he said.
6
Szacki never referred to the prosecution service and the police as “we.” “We” meant the prosecution service, “they” meant the police. A clear division of two institutions tasked with keeping law and order jointly, but not shoulder to shoulder. The prosecutors were the chiefs, in charge of the case from when the corpse was found, through the trial, and all the way to the convict’s release after serving his sentence. The police carried out the duties assigned to them in the initial stage of the proceedings, which was meant to lead to catching the criminal. And that was the limit of their involvement.
But he understood why Falk had used the first person plural. Why, for all his practiced stiffness, the young prosecutor was not immune to the adrenaline kick that came with catching a criminal. Why he wanted to be a part of this triumph. If the judiciary were compared to the arts, the policemen played the role of rock stars, and the prosecutors were like the writers. The cops went out onstage, and if the performance went well, the excited audience carried them on their shoulders. They got an immediate response, a sense of fulfillment, a high like after taking drugs. Meanwhile, the prosecutor toiled away at establishing the proof for months or even years, and by the time he finally got his big reward in the form of a conviction, the case was already receding from everyone’s memory. Of course it was satisfying, but it was hardly rock ’n’ roll.
He had often envied the police that rush of adrenaline. And he’d very often been accused of behaving more like a CID officer than a prosecutor during his investigations—there were those who thought he pushed way too far into the front lines. But unlike Falk, he never used the first person plural.
Looking through a two-way mirror at the man sitting in the interview room, it occurred to him that this particular triumph was definitely not up to the standards of Hollywood. The guy had simply come back to his house on Równa Street, which had been under surveillance since Thursday. Apparently he’d gotten into the patrol car without resistance, showing neither surprise, nor fear, nor the typical anger of a wife-beater.
Since being detained he hadn’t said a word. And it looked as if this state of affairs wasn’t going to change.
“Am I to understand that you’re exercising your right to refuse to give an explanation?” asked Falk yet again. To Szacki’s satisfaction, despite the bizarre turn of events, the junior prosecutor’s voice betrayed no emotion.
The man just went on staring into space.
“Allow me to explain your situation once more. You have been charged with the attempted murder of your wife. A charge that could change at any moment into a charge of murder, as your wife is in a critical condition. You are now being detained in custody, and a petition has been made to the court for your temporary arrest. Do you understand?”
No reaction.
Falk said the man’s first and last name.
“Please nod to confirm your identity.”
No reaction.
Falk sat up straight and adjusted his cuffs. He looked at the suspect and waited. A standard tactic—you didn’t have to graduate from the FBI to know that few people can bear a prolonged silence. They all start to talk in the end.
But it looked as if the man sitting opposite Falk was totally impervious to all interrogation techniques, including the FBI’s. He just sat there without moving. Like every wife-beater, he looked totally normal. No demonic Jack Nicholson smile, no glare of a hood from the suburbs, no look of a contract killer, no scar across the face, no broken tooth, not even bushy eyebrows. Just an ordinary guy, the kind that leaves the office at five with his tie in his briefcase, gets into his Skoda, and buys himself a hot dog at the gas station on the way home. If being average wanted to advertise itself, it would hire this guy to appear on its billboards.
“Enough of this game,” said one of the policemen standing next to Szacki. “It’s time to put the squeeze on this asshole.”
Szacki rolled his eyes. He was allergic to flatfoot testosterone—any more and he�
�d start sneezing.
“The prosecutor supervising the proceedings is interviewing the suspect now,” said Szacki, as the policeman grabbed the doorknob. “Go ahead and disturb him if you want major trouble.”
The temperature in the room dropped several degrees. Szacki almost reeled, so strongly could he feel the wave of hatred being blasted at him by the policeman. But even so, the cop let go of the doorknob.
“I usually try to avoid this sort of reasoning,” said Falk, as if it were his millionth interrogation, “but imagine you’re driving a car, and you’re gradually accelerating, watching the speedometer needle move in a clockwise direction as you gather speed. Do you see? Now imagine the numbers on the clock represent years rather than miles. From eight to infinity. With every moment of silence you’re pressing on the gas. Eight years, twelve, fifteen, twenty-five. You’re just coming up to a life sentence. You don’t have to confess, you don’t have to cooperate, it’s all understandable, and legal. But playing dumb will harm you more than you might think.”
No reaction. He didn’t even sigh.
“I’ll give you a while to think it over. I’ll be right back.”
Szacki went into the hallway. He realized that Falk wanted a tête-à-tête.
“Well, so, what now?” Szacki asked, knowing that battlefields are the best place to learn.
“Frankly I have grave doubts about whether or not bringing charges is the right approach. He’s behaving as if he’s catatonic and hasn’t dropped the act for a second. Maybe he’s faking, or maybe he really has tuned out. If so, he hasn’t understood the charges or the information about the rights he’s entitled to. Which means we can’t lock him up.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“Let’s send him for psychiatric tests and have him kept under observation. They’ll isolate him at the facility, we’ll have eight weeks to gather evidence, and then we can proceed on the basis of an expert opinion.”
Szacki nodded. It was the best possible decision—he’d thought of it as soon as the man had failed to answer the question about his first and last name. He’d seen a legion of these con artists before.
They established that Falk would go fill out the forms for the court, and Szacki would go to the interview room. Perhaps a new element would prompt the detainee to open up. Doubtful, but worth a try.
He went inside. The man was just staring into the mirror behind which the policemen were standing. He didn’t react to the prosecutor’s entrance, he didn’t even twitch as Szacki walked up to the table, sat down, pulled up his chair, and placed his folded hands on the table.
At least five minutes of perfect silence went by, until finally the man turned his head toward Szacki. In a regular, mechanical way—there was nothing decisive about it. Szacki shuddered when the man’s gaze finally met his. He realized that the man wasn’t keeping silent as a strategy. He was keeping silent because he was frightened to death.
Szacki had never seen such fear in anybody’s eyes before.
7
Olsztyn might not have been as quick off the mark as Warsaw, where the shopping malls started blasting Christmas carols before the All Saints’ Day candles were out, but on Monday, the first day of December, the festive atmosphere was tangible. At the Staromiejska café the Christmas decorations were up, and outside in the marketplace half an artificial Christmas tree had already been erected. In the Olsztyn Gazette they’d eagerly noted that the most important tree in all of Warmia had been felled and would soon be adorning the square outside the Town Hall. As Szacki gazed out of the window he felt a tremendous, childish desire for it to snow—not out of nostalgia for his years of innocence, for a sled, snowballs, and a life without any cares, but because of his happy memories from last year. Olsztyn had still been new to him, Żenia was new, and he was filled with the euphoria of a new life. A mistaken euphoria—at the age of forty-three, illusions and illnesses can be new, but life can’t be all that different anymore. At the time he hadn’t felt that, of course. Euphoria leaves no room for common sense, and Olsztyn had given him a magical setting for his elation. Beautiful snow had fallen, and there had been a Christmas fair in the Old Town; it smelled of winter and mulled wine. Żenia had held his hand in his coat pocket, and they’d played with each other’s fingers like teenagers, giggling as they strolled with the crowd among the ice sculptures and the brightly lit-up Old Town houses in the marketplace. Żenia had told him about her adventures in high school here in Olsztyn, and it had made him feel young, new, and happy.
He longed for it to snow again this year. Just for a little while.
“Oh, come on, Dad, if you wanted to just come here and think on your own, you really should have said so.”
He looked at his daughter sitting across the table at the restaurant. It was on the tip of his tongue to say that he couldn’t have guessed her phone’s battery would run down, so she wouldn’t be able to text nonstop and would suddenly insist on actually talking to her father for a change.
“I’m sorry. I was just thinking I wish it would snow.”
“That would be dangerous around here. Yesterday I read that hereabouts the wolves come creeping up to human habitations and prey on the livestock. If it snowed, they’d come into town, and I’d be in terrible danger wading through snowdrifts to school, trying to dodge packs of wild beasts.”
“Drop it, Żenia’s not here.”
She made a face that very clearly expressed that this was a unique situation, where for once she didn’t have to share her father’s time with his annoying girlfriend. He read the message correctly and reached for the menu, to do what he always did in these situations: change the subject, pretend everything was all right, and act as if he had no idea what she was thinking.
But then he remembered what Żenia had been telling him over and over again—that for him it meant nothing, but he was doing Hela a disservice by running away from every tricky topic, treating her either as an independent woman who didn’t require respect or as a little girl, depending on which happened to suit him better and would allow him to avoid confrontation.
He put down the menu.
“Say it.”
“Say what?”
“Instead of giving me those looks, say it in words. You must have heard of that form of communication.”
“I don’t get it. What am I supposed to say in words?”
“That although you’re tremendously relieved that Żenia isn’t here, you’re not gonna let me forget that this is one of those exceptionally rare moments when I’m actually forcing myself to pay attention to you and you alone.”
She chewed her lip.
“Jeez, you don’t have to be so heavy.”
“I’m not being heavy. I just want to make it easier for you to talk about something that interests you.”
“I’m not interested in talking about that.”
“But I am.”
“Then talk to someone else about it. Talk to Żenia, or best of all a shrink.”
Fuck the little brat, he thought—so much for taking her seriously.
“Have you ever been afraid of me?”
“What’s that?”
“Have you ever been afraid I’d hit you? Push you, slap you, do you physical harm.”
“Right now I’m afraid you’ve gone nuts.”
“It’s a serious question.”
She looked at him. And for the first time in ages he felt that she was looking at him normally—not negatively, not with studied, fake normality, but truly normally, just like that, the way one friend looks at another during a conversation.
“Have you decided what you want?” The waitress was standing by their table with her notepad at the ready.
“Dumplings in broth for two?” asked Szacki, looking at his daughter.
Hela nodded. The waitress took the menus and disappeared.
“It’s a serious question,” he repeated. “I’ve got this case, I mean I’m supervising it, never mind the details. Imagine a normal family fro
m out of town, on the road toward Gdańsk. You know what it’s like—one of those developments out in the sticks, small square lots, new houses, a car in the driveway, a grill out back, and a trampoline for the kid, inside there’s a plasma TV on the wall. A husband, a wife, and a three-year-old. She stays at home with the kid while he toils away in Olsztyn to pay off the mortgage. For their vacation they spend two weeks at the beach. It’s all totally normal, one day’s just like the next. Except that she’s afraid. In theory nothing’s wrong, but she’s afraid anyway, more and more so with each passing day. He’s probably the traditional type, a bit domineering, proud of the house he built, the tree he planted, and the son he fathered. But she’s afraid. Finally she can’t take it anymore, so she tells him. Cut. Some hours later I find them. He’s not there. She’s lying in a pool of blood and milk with a hole in her head. The kid’s playing on the floor next to her, connecting the same two pieces of his puzzle over and over.”
Hela was staring at him, speechless.
“Do you realize, that’s the first time you’ve ever told me anything about your work?”
“Seriously?”
She nodded. Strange, it hadn’t occurred to him. He’d always thought they talked about everything.
“And I wondered if I’m capable of something like that too. I wonder if every man displays his physical advantage, his readiness to be violent, a sort of unexpressed threat, as if to say everything’s just dandy, but don’t you forget who weighs sixty-five pounds more than you do, and who was made to have the more physically powerful muscles by nature. That’s why I ask.”
For a while she said nothing.
“But you won’t do anything to me if I give the wrong answer, will you?”
“Very funny.”
“I’ve never been afraid you’d hit me. Not even when you threw Bunny out the window.”
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