1
Jan Paweł Bierut had never been especially fond of alcohol and regarded the national tradition of poisoning your system as unnecessary and boring; an all-day hangover seemed to him an exorbitant price to pay for a few moments of drunken euphoria. So he had no great trouble allowing the alarm clock to wake him before eight.
He got up and opened the window wide, taking pleasure in letting in the silence, which is only ever heard in the city on January the first at eight in the morning.
After that he stretched and went into the kitchen to make himself breakfast and some sandwiches to take to work.
Anyone else would have cursed like a sailor at having to go to work on New Year’s Day. But Bierut was in seventh heaven. The fact that the phone hadn’t rung once all night meant that nobody had slugged anyone else during the champagne-fueled fun, and if it had been a normal day at work for him, he’d have had peace and quiet until the time when people started to wake and some of them noticed that their partner had spent the night in the wrong bed.
2
Teodor Szacki slid out from under the sheets carefully to avoid waking Żenia. For a while he gazed at his sleeping girlfriend, who had been taking advantage of Hela’s absence to parade around naked almost nonstop. Now she was asleep like that, too, at an angle across the bed, snoring, with her arms and legs spread wide. He had never seen any woman sleeping like that in a rom-com.
He gave her a quick kiss on the lips, kissed her on the nipple, and went to get dressed.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, the question “What should I put on today?” had meaning for him. For this reason he had spent the days between Christmas and New Year’s with Żenia and Hela in deserted stores, adding to his wardrobe. They’d torn everything gray and black from his hands, claiming that twenty years of gloom and doom was already more than anyone could bear. And that at his new job, he should start with a new style, as his new self: beige, pastel colors, casual, self-confident.
So he put on a pair of thick light-blue jeans, brown ankle boots, a shirt with subtle colored stripes, and a cream sweater with a red edge to the neck. Of course he automatically buttoned the shirt all the way up, which made him look like a pedophile. He undid the top button and loosened the collar.
He took a critical look at himself in the mirror. Now he looked like a pedophile trying to hide the fact that he was a pedophile. He realized it was because of the sweater and swapped it for a dark-blue hoodie.
What a tragedy. An old guy with white hair trying to look younger, just to have his way with the head accountant after a few drinks.
He changed the top for a brown sports jacket made of a material he couldn’t name.
Better. Now he looked like the author of a novel, off to meet the public at a provincial library to talk about creative torment after the age of forty.
He didn’t like any of these styles, though when they were in the changing room he’d gone “ooh” and “aah” at everything, just to please the girls, and so they’d finally let him leave the dreadful place. He realized why he didn’t like any of them. They made him look like an ordinary guy—not too dapper, pushing fifty, prematurely gray, already severely drained by life, with visible wrinkles, dark rings around his eyes, and thin, slightly drooping lips.
He took it all off, went to the closet, and dressed his usual way.
He drove down the empty streets of Olsztyn, heading southwest. With the radio off and the window open, he inhaled the scent of the Warmian winter, breathing it deep into his lungs. He passed the university campus and drove out of the city, then a few hundred yards down he turned left toward the village of Ruś.
The road was awful—steep, narrow, and full of holes; it must have had more victims to its name than the Boston Strangler. He slowed down to twenty and somehow reached the end of the road, then trundled into a hamlet stretching picturesquely along the River Łyna. Part of it was on the riverbank, the rest on a high embankment. He drove up it and wandered for a while—he had only received a text from Falk with the address the night before, but finally he found the right place, and stopped at a gate where there were several cars.
He smiled. He’d been expecting something unusual, the secret headquarters of a clandestine organization. A modern villa hidden deep in the forest behind seven gates. Or perhaps a neo-Gothic castle, with towers and terraces, located on a headland jutting far into a lake. Meanwhile it was an ordinary house, respectable, fairly new, its architecture and brick walls drawing on local tradition. Nothing to be ashamed about.
He sent a text, switched off the engine, and got out of the car, taking care not to brush his black coat or the pants of his favorite dark-gray suit against the dirty door. He knew he couldn’t show any hesitation, so he shut the door, drew himself up straight, and walked steadily toward the entrance.
Fifteen years. Like the hero of a fairy tale, he had chosen fifteen years of servitude to atone for his misdeeds. What he did and said now would determine the next decade and a half. So far he hadn’t given up his perfectly cut uniform, but what next?
Here was his unique chance to drop the formality, to renounce his stiff, cold, distant manner. To start a new life as a warm person, which in fact he was, empathetic, inclined to be humorous and friendly. Building relationships on the basis of partnership and mutual understanding, rather than being dazzlingly superior and inaccessible.
He figured it would make a nice change. He figured the people behind the green door would be expecting it. Thanks to Falk he knew all about them—who they were, why they were doing this, what their strengths and weaknesses were. He was impressed. People from a variety of professions and backgrounds, altogether an effective investigative team that could gather information fast, check up on it fast, and take swift action. Today he was going to meet them for the first time. Without knocking he went inside, and was met by a welcoming aroma of coffee and yeast cake.
He hung up his coat, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and gently wiped the tops of his loafers to make them spotless. He felt slightly tense—after all, in a few moments his old life would be over, and a completely new and unfamiliar stage would start. A stage that would be counted not in days, and not in months, but in years.
Falk came into the hall wearing jeans and a gray hooded top. He looked like a teenager. He came up to Szacki.
“Would you like a drink, Teo?” he asked.
Szacki glanced at him and adjusted his cuffs. His cuff links, tiepin, and eyes were all the same color of stainless steel, as used in operating theaters.
They faced each other in silence. Szacki listened for the familiar sound that would wipe the friendly smirk off Falk’s face. And then he heard it. The gradually rising, steady wail of patrol cars with their sirens on. Not just one patrol car, but an entire cavalcade, carrying out a raid like the cavalry.
Only then did he smile, with a look that said, “Game over,” and turned back the front of his jacket to show Falk his inside pocket, and the oddly colorful toothbrush sticking out of it. He couldn’t resist this little joke at the very end. He deserved something for having spent the whole of December making all the right faces and seeing to every last detail, so Falk would believe he really intended to become the righteous head of his band of righteous citizens. And to bring about this meeting, when all these—for want of a better word—“righteous” people would gather in one room, and could all be nabbed at once, in the name of true righteousness, in the name of the official codes and laws, and not bizarre summary justice. He was relieved it was finally over. And felt a shade of satisfaction that at least he was going to have clean teeth on his first night in custody.
“Mr. Szacki,” he said, and buttoned his jacket. “I’d prefer us to remain on formal terms.”
“All right, if that’s what you want, sir.” Falk looked amused as never before.
Suddenly Szacki sensed something wasn’t right. There were five cars outside, but he couldn’t hear a buzz of voices, cups or forks chinking. A
nd then he realized. He realized he’d lost the game.
For the past two weeks he’d been sure he was playing Falk, that he was moving things to a point where here, in this place, before he went to prison for killing that girl, he’d deliver justice one last time, by locking up the whole gang of maniacs determined to fix the world with their vigilante law.
But he was the one who’d been played. There he stood like a dummy, waiting for the cavalry—it was too late to call them off, though he wished he could, to spare himself humiliation. The saintly Falk, goddamn champion of justice and criminal genius rolled into one, would deny everything. And Szacki had nothing on him. In spite of himself he couldn’t help thinking his protégé was good. Very good indeed.
“Did you really think I’d make such a schoolboy mistake?” said Falk, apparently unperturbed by the sirens wailing ever louder.
“You people always make mistakes.”
Falk smiled. He stuck his hands deeper into the pockets of his cotton top, clearly letting it be understood they weren’t empty, just in case it entered Szacki’s head to resolve matters by force. A superfluous precaution.
“I don’t. It’s the logical choice.”
His look left Szacki in no doubt that now it was his turn to make the logical choice.
3
Jan Paweł Bierut was in the second car in the column of five vehicles. As the officer in charge of the operation he should have been sitting in the first, but in these cases he always insisted on being in the second. The statistics were on his side—if the column of cars was involved in a collision, the first or last cars were the ones that got damaged.
Of course, there was always that higher power somewhere out there, making its plans, but Bierut held the view that it should be given as little room to maneuver as possible.
The entire operation had been meticulously planned by Szacki long ago, and Bierut had been brought in on it before the Christmas break began. He was the only policeman from Olsztyn taking part—Szacki had drafted the rest from Warsaw. They were the trusted colleagues of his old buddy with a Russian name.
At first Bierut hadn’t understood Szacki’s paranoid suspicion, but when he finally learned the details of the case, he agreed with him 100 percent. At least concerning the plan for carrying out the arrest. Because when it came to the idea of detaining them at all—although frankly he was ashamed to admit it even to himself—from a logical point of view, these people were doing entirely necessary work.
He explained to himself that maybe that was at the heart of the difference between the police and the prosecutors.
On January the first he had had breakfast, gone to the agreed rendezvous point, and waited for the signal from Szacki. A signal meaning that it had worked, he’d gained their confidence, they were all in one place, they would be able to arrest them all and put an end to the matter. The signal was a message generated by a special program in Szacki’s phone, giving his GPS coordinates.
Five minutes later all roads leading to Ruś had been cordoned off. Seven minutes later Bierut’s unmarked patrol car had pulled up alongside Szacki’s wine-red Citroën XM, the most characteristic vehicle in Olsztyn’s entire legal service.
Parked so cleverly that none of the other cars outside the property could possibly get out.
Bierut went up to the door and knocked.
No answer.
“Police!” he shouted. “We just want to ask a few questions.”
Silence.
Meanwhile the men from the anti-terrorist squad had surrounded the house.
“Open up!”
Silence.
He gave the signal and stood aside. Invisible under their helmets, balaclavas, and goggles, the special forces unit lined up by the door. But before battering it down they tried the handle—and it opened.
They exchanged coded signals and rushed inside.
Bierut went in after them, waiting a sensible thirty seconds, in case it came to gunfire.
Once he got the all-clear, he went into the living room. There was a New Year’s atmosphere, an aroma of coffee and cake, and pleasant warmth emanating from the fireplace. The whole room invited him to sit down on the soft beige couch, pick up a book, and spend a few hours oblivious to the real world outside.
In the middle of the room, standing straight as a post, was just one man: Prosecutor Teodor Szacki. He glanced at the policeman, took off his watch, and adjusted his tie. He held his wrists out toward Bierut. His cuff links, tiepin, and eyes were all the same color of stainless steel, as used in operating theaters.
As Bierut reached for the handcuffs, it crossed his mind that the prosecutor clashed completely with this warm and cozy interior.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
My sincere thanks to everyone who gave me their time and patiently answered all sorts of questions while I was working on this novel. First and foremost, the prosecutors and magistrates in Olsztyn, whom I won’t mention by name in view of the nature of their work. Special thanks are due to Joanna Piotrowska of the Feminoteka foundation, who in a single conversation and by recommending two excellent sources of information (Jackson Katz, The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help and Joanna Piotrowska and Alina Synakiewicz, Dość milczenia. Przemoc seksualna wobec kobiet i problem gwałtu w Polsce [“Enough Silence: Sexual Violence Toward Women and the Problem of Rape in Poland”]) opened my eyes to the widespread problem of violence toward women, and the problem of sexism in general. My thanks also to Professor Mariusz Majewski for providing me with a small fraction of his medical knowledge, and for his astonishingly vivid criminal imagination.
I apologize for occasionally twisting your words, misrepresenting the information you gave me, and showing it in the crooked mirror of a crime novel. I hope you won’t hold it against me. I can assure the readers that if there’s anything wrong with this book, all complaints should be addressed to the author.
As ever, I owe an inexpressible debt of thanks to Filip Modrzejewski, who is not just the best, but also the most patient of editors. Thank you also to my longstanding regular team of first readers: Marta, Marcin Mastalerz, and Wojtek Miłoszewski. I know all the arguing was very good for the book, but personally I found it very tough. My wife, Marta; my daughter, Maja; and my son, Karol, deserve medals, as usual, for putting up with this raving madman throughout the writing process. Maja gets a second medal to allay her suspicions that she has been portrayed in the character of Szacki’s daughter. It’s just that every sixteen-year-old girl is fiercely uncompromising and has plenty of cast-iron excuses for not answering calls from her father.
I’d also like to take the opportunity to express my special thanks to all the wonderful people and excellent doctors who restored my father to health with great care and professional skill at the hospital on Warszawska Avenue described in this novel. My sincere thanks to Dr. Monika Barczewska and Professor Wojciech Maksymowicz.
Finally, I beg all of Olsztyn’s local patriots to forgive me if their love of their city and its eleven lakes has been wounded. There’s nothing I can do about the fact that Teodor Szacki is such a sarcastic Warsaw grouch. I can assure them that I myself am deeply in love with my wife’s native city, although I must admit that in spite of that, or maybe because of it, its minor defects rankle all the more.
The adventures of Prosecutor Teodor Szacki are at an end. Thank you to everyone who has come this far.
Zygmunt Miłoszewski
Warsaw–Radziejowice, 2013–2014
AUTHOR’S NOTE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
As every European crime writer knows, it’s much easier to commit the perfect crime than to find a publisher in the United States. And so I bow low to my agent, Adam Chromy, who didn’t just resolve to do the impossible, but also achieved it. And above all I’d like to thank my wonderful friend Antonia Lloyd-Jones, who translated this novel. Readers often think translators simply change foreign words into English ones, but there’s far more to it than that. The translator writes the book, jus
t as the author would have written it in that language if he or she were able. The better a writer the translator is, the better the book. Sometimes when I say my novels are better in English than in Polish, the readers think I’m joking. Well, not entirely.
Zygmunt Miłoszewski
London, 2015
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2014 Tisha Minö
Zygmunt Miłoszewski is an award-winning Polish novelist and screenwriter. His first two mysteries featuring prosecutor Teodor Szacki, Entanglement and A Grain of Truth, have received international recognition, making him the #1 bestselling author in Poland and one of the world’s best-known contemporary Polish writers.
Miłoszewski has won the Polityka Passport for Polish literature. He’s also twice won the High Calibre Award for the best Polish crime novel and earned two nominations to the French Prix du Polar Européen for the best European crime novel.
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