Polychrome

by Joanna Jodelka

  This particular reality hadn’t managed to find an attractive wrapping, he thought as he climbed stairs eaten away by salt and age. He still had time to run his eyes over the farmyard where a small, spotted mongrel – probably not there by chance

  – stole between the shrubs, its tail between its legs. It seemed to Bartol as though the dog lay low waiting for all those people to leave so that it could return to its post and bark like crazy scaring away postmen, neighbours and other colleagues – as its vocation dictated.

  He was just going to go in when he heard a car arrive. Polek and Maćkowiak.

  ‘Hi, here already?’ shouted Polek from afar.

  ‘As you can see. And what happened to you – lost your way?’ Bartol replied with a question.

  ‘Guessed right. Bad signposts. I was just the driver. It’s Polek kept getting the directions wrong like a little miss,’ added Maćkowiak, his belly shaking with laughter.

  ‘Let it go. I only got it wrong once. Big deal. And don’t say "little miss" because my daughter never gets it wrong and I hope she’s reconciled with her gender – although I’m not so sure. Nail extensions yesterday, paintballing today,’ Polek complained as he mounted the stairs.

  ‘Any of us here already?’ asked Maćkowiak.

  ‘Since you’ve only just arrived it can only be Lentz inside,’ answered Bartol.

  ‘What’s happened?’ asked Polek.

  ‘I know as much as you. Haven’t been in yet.’

  ‘And what, you’re just standing on the stairs admiring the view?’

  ‘Don’t play the wise guy and let’s have a look for Lentz,’ decided Bartol.

  Lentz appeared of his own accord and informed them from the threshold: ‘We’ve got to wait a bit. The prosecutor’s upstairs and there’s not much room. It’s hard not to trample over each other. They’ve marked out a very narrow access path for the time being. Want to safeguard as much as possible.’

  As he said this he rummaged in all the pockets of his jacket in search of cigarettes. Bartol smiled to himself as he watched him struggle. Lentz hadn’t smoked much in the past but recently, having diagnosed problems with his circulation, he’d started to chain smoke.

  ‘The body’s sitting at a desk. We’ve got another loner, strangled successfully for no apparent reason – at least I can’t find one, or my cigarettes for that matter,’ Lentz added to himself.

  ‘What do you mean, sitting at a desk?’ asked Polek in disbelief.

  ‘Literally!’ he retorted, now clearly annoyed.

  ‘Who found it?’ asked Bartol coming to terms with the fact that there probably wasn’t going to be a better description.

  ‘The old woman next door.' Lentz calmed down and, with a gesture, scrounged a cigarette off a passing technician. ‘She couldn’t stand the dog howling. Maybe she meant that doggie over there.’ He pointed to the mongrel lurking in the bushes; everybody turned. The dog also turned as though it knew they were talking about it, and hid deeper in the undergrowth. ‘I don’t know if we’ll manage to talk to her today. The emergency operator couldn’t get any sense out of her. Every other word was a plea for God’s help and now she’s moved on to Our Lady. They’ve given her a sedative so maybe she’ll finally leave Our Lady in peace, too. Besides, somebody’s sent for her son, maybe he knows something.’

  ‘I’ll go there later,’ decided Bartol.

  ‘Is there anything more on the deceased?’ asked Polek.

  ‘Not much. His name’s Mirosław Trzaska. He moved in a couple of years ago, bought all this for a pittance. There weren’t many buyers. There was nobody left on the farm. Someone had been quick to get rid of it. Mirosław Trzaska – from what they’ve managed to ascertain – worked in Poznań in a night shelter and a couple of other places, too. He was some sort of community worker with a very good reputation. All those who talked to him last and whom we called, spoke of him this way. We’ve got quite a bit of questioning to do. The address book on his mobile is endless.’

  ‘Unlike Mikulski’s,’ said Maćkowiak.

  ‘We’ve no reason to connect the two murders yet.’ Hearing Maćkowiak’s last comment, prosecutor Pilski, who’d just appeared in the doorway, joined in the conversation. In his long coat and bizarrely tied colourful scarf with its Oriental pattern, and hair smooth with gel, he didn’t fit in again.

  ‘Nobody intends to connect them,’ said Polek, throwing him, or rather his scarf, a look of disgust.

  ‘Of course, one could draw vague connections…’ Pilski backed out awkwardly.

  ‘Well then, we’re drawing them and that’s it,’ Polek snapped back.

  He’d been in conflict with Pilski for a long time without any obvious reason. This was how he described it: 'I hate pink ties because I feel as though I’m talking to someone who’s just got away from a garden party and since I don’t have a garden, only a balcony, we’re worlds apart.’

  The rest of them, on the whole, kept Pilski at a friendly distance.

  ‘I’m going inside. It’s freezing,’ said Bartol after a while.

  ‘I’ll take a look around, too.’ Maćkowiak joined in. Polek turned without a word and walked ahead.

  ‘I’ll do the rounds of the neighbours. There aren’t that many. Then I’ll phone around. When are we meeting back in the office?’ asked Lentz, tossing a cigarette butt practically under Pilski’s feet.

  ‘Seven, I think,’ replied Bartol.

  Although they were now talking between themselves, both glanced at Pilski out of the corner of their eye.

  The latter stood there for a while, then crushed the still glowing cigarette butt with his shoe and left. It was hard to know what was going on in his mind.

  When Pilski was no longer there, Lentz passed on some more information he’d acquired and went to question the neighbours.

  They formed a tight team.

  If one of them allocated themselves a task which was essential anyway, nobody opposed. Besides, they knew that Lentz and Maćkowiak were better at talking to people and gathering all sorts of generally available information, while Polek was in his element searching for shady sources whose shadiness nobody even intended to look into and which he sometimes didn’t want to disclose. Bartol proved best at bringing it all together – although recently he couldn’t boast about spectacular success. They’d come to a halt with Mikulski’s case despite the fact that never before had they called for so many expert opinions.

  They’d not committed any apparent procedural mistakes; nobody blamed them. Nobody but himself.

  He was afraid the same was going to happen here.

  Like the time before, he slowly made his way into the depths of the house and looked around. The area across which they were allowed to move wasn’t large, as was the case with the whole house. The corridors were too narrow, the rooms too narrow, everything was somehow too small, cramped. Even if he hadn’t known there was a dead body sitting at a desk, all this would have been strange enough.

  Like a stage set again.

  There had been too many things in Mikulski’s house – a lovingly stored and dusted collection of his entire life. Here there was absolutely nothing. As though someone had stepped onto a train with a good luck charm then suddenly decided to end his journey.

  From initial information it appeared that Trzaska had bought the old farm along with the dilapidated house. There must have been a huge amount of objects, both necessary and unnecessary. The walls must have borne the weight of many successive layers of wallpaper. Renovation would have been understandable but what Bartol saw couldn’t qualify as renovation. It looked rather as though someone had begun by lighting an enormous fire and the memory of the previous owners had gone up in smoke. Then, where it had clung hard to the walls, he had clumsily torn the wallpaper down along with the plaster, and painted everything white, not caring about uneven surfaces. Then brought in astoundingly little furniture.

  Bartol stared at the extent to which one’s needs could be cut. He loved objects and their
beauty. Never would he have thought that somebody could, of their own volition, find them totally unnecessary, that somebody could reduce their role and number solely down to their essential function. He’d heard about contemplative religious orders but here and now this seemed absurd.

  In no way, however, could he deny what he saw: one bed, one stool by the bed. In the kitchen: one table, one chair, one wall-shelf – small but still too spacious for one shallow plate, one bowl, one pot, one glass, one set of cutlery. He couldn’t see any fridge or television set. Walking through successive rooms, almost as empty and equally whitewashed, he reached a small room furnished with a small table and no chair. He couldn’t believe what he saw. On the table stood a computer. Real in this practically unreal reality. An ordinary, modern object which existed in these old-fashioned surroundings. Nor were there any of what one could have considered necessary accessories, no CDs, printers, pads, mouse. It stood there alone and appeared terrifying, as though someone had locked the whole ordinary, familiar world into some extraordinary, familiar form.

  He didn’t know what to make of it all. He was even pleased to see Gawroński, the chief technician. A rare occurrence since they weren’t exactly fond of each other.

  ‘What do you make of it all?’ he asked simply as if he simply expected a reply and not a taunt – although that was how it usually ended when someone accosted ‘Gawron’, ‘the Rook’, at work.

  ‘I’ve no idea. I’ve probably got too much junk at home. The boys are pleased. They’ll be done quicker.’ He lost himself in thought; the contemplative atmosphere seemed to affect everyone. ‘Maybe a life like this is better, who knows?’ Gawroński asked after a while. ‘Have you seen him yet?’

  ‘No. Is it okay to enter now?’

  ‘Yes, you’ll see him from the hallway, through the open door. It’s a small room. It’s already well secured and photographed. There’s no need for you to rummage around. A chair, a small cross and him.’

  ‘What sort of cross?’ asked Bartol.

  ‘Ordinary. Free-standing, for praying probably? Oh, and there’s a Bible – I think. He’s got his hand on something like that. Spick and span apart from that.’

  He waited a moment longer for more comments but none came. Both looked at the walls blankly.

  ‘I think I’ll go upstairs now,’ Bartol spoke first.

  ‘Go on. And how’s it going with Mikulski, anything becoming clear, my friend?’

  Maciej merely muttered that he was working on it, and started to climb the stairs. He knew perfectly well the question was spiteful, which didn’t surprise him in the least. He hadn’t expected Gawroński to be all that serene.

  He passed a few people; most of them perfunctorily acknowledged his presence and returned to their monotonous brushing, shining of lamps, dusting with powders, most of which were unknown to him.

  He approached the door to the room where the murder had taken place and couldn’t say anything other than that the man was sitting at his desk. Almost naturally, as though dozing and about to wake up at any moment. Gawroński was right; his entire hand rested on a Bible. Bartol saw the typical gold lettering on the thick cardboard of a cover which enclosed hundreds of thin, evenly cut pages. The Bible was closed but he noticed coloured ribbons, bookmarks perhaps, inserted between specific pages. This wasn’t the time to open them; there was still work for the technicians to do.

  He stared at the scene for a long time, one thought racing through his mind: were two chairs excessive? He had seven, and hundreds of objects which seemed to have a more interesting life than his own. He adored them without ever really using them. In fact he was asking himself the same thing Gawroński had asked a moment ago: did he have too much junk at home, or was it a good thing he had it, otherwise he’d go mad?

  What did he actually see? A man who was neither praying nor reading, simply sitting at his desk as though painted in 3D. Again he had the same impression as in Mikulski’s case: that a curtain would shortly be drawn, that this wasn’t the real world. He walked up closer. A blue mark around the man’s neck, a slightly contorted but on the whole unremarkable expression on his face. Glasses perched on his nose. There wouldn’t have been anything odd in this – he could have been about sixty and, theoretically, could have been reading – were it not that someone must have put the spectacles on his nose after his death. Bartol was wondering why when his attention was riveted by the long metal plate on the frame. He was used to larger and smaller logos but this one was certainly a little too long, the frame wasn’t all that modern. He strained his eyes and slowly began to read: Speculator adstad de sui.

  He went downstairs calmly but his voice was no longer calm when he spoke to Gawroński.

  ‘I want to know everything about the glasses on the man’s nose. Literally everything. Where they’re from, what they’re made of and where the metal plate with the writing or whatever you call it could have been manufactured, and anything else you can deduce from them.’ He spoke quickly and decisively, thus offending Gawroński who was himself in the process of giving instructions and didn’t like being interrupted.

  ‘And what, the rest isn’t important?’ he asked, annoyed.

  ‘Everything’s important and I know you’re seeing to it. And keep an eye out for any other maxims. There were two in Mikulski’s house, there ought to be at least as many here. You didn’t let sleeping dogs lie. Your intuition was spot on when you asked about Mikulski today. Well done. I’m off to do some work. We’ll see each other tomorrow.’

  Bartol quickly reached the front steps leaving Gawroński

  – who didn’t know how to react to the surprise registered on the faces of the few technicians who’d have to add the gift of prophecy to their boss’s many talents – slightly stunned.

  He went outside and, for a moment, stopped halfway down the steps. He breathed in air which, with the tiniest bit of goodwill, could have been called fresh.

  He couldn’t say that he was entirely surprised, that it hadn’t already occurred to either him or anyone else, but vague connections, as Pilski described them, were one thing and the certainty that they were dealing with the same man, the same murderer, with something they’d never dealt with before, was quite another.

  He’d already come across a double murder in the past, a double suicide at that, but the murders had been committed at the same time and without a stage setting.

  Polek, standing on the stairs, tore him from his semi-stupor.

  ‘I’ve heard the news. Are you sure it’s the same guy who did Mikulski in?’ he asked without beating about the bush.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ replied Bartol.

  ‘Well then go and tell that prosecutor. He’s by the ambulance.’

  ‘Let him be, Olaf. I’m going to question the old woman, then go to the station. You check whether we haven’t ever powwowed with this Trzaska or got any mutual acquaintances. And when you talk to people, ask them where he got the glasses from. Maybe somebody’ll know something.’

  ‘I’m to ask about his specs?’ Polek asked as if his reputation would suffer.

  ‘Yes, the ones on his nose to be precise. They’re also adorned with a Latin maxim. Do your best. And get Maćkowiak to go to that night shelter. See you.’

  It wasn’t far but he drove to the neighbouring house. He didn’t intend going back to that place, not that day anyway; it was too crowded and his thoughts were too scattered.

  He got into his car and almost automatically called his mother. It was the quickest way to find out what the words could mean.

  ‘Hi, mum. I’ve got a favour to ask.’

  ‘What, more Latin?’ she was quick to enquire.

  ‘How do you know?’ He couldn’t hide his surprise. ‘You rarely miss me so much as to call so soon after we’ve

  just seen each other. Besides, this reminds me of something, I’m still on the ball. Watch and learn, I’m not going to be around forever. Appreciate it as it comes.’

  ‘I do. Mum, do you know wh
at " Speculator adstad de sui’" might mean?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, but wait, I’m on the internet. Spell it.’

  Bartol spelled the words and waited as instructed.

  ‘I can’t find anything here, unfortunately. Phone the expert you called before.’

  ‘The problem there is that he wrote very nicely but said there wasn’t any connection between the two dicta.’

  ‘Some expert. He could at least have said that he couldn’t find any but to immediately go and say that there wasn’t one – since there must be some sort of link.’

  ‘You’ve put that very nicely, thank you.’

  ‘Listen,’ she began after a while. ‘You remember me telling you about the girl Magda who spoke so beautifully about medieval symbolism? I told you to get in touch with her then. Besides, I wanted to get you to meet her before you’d any responsibilities… Never mind, water under the bridge,’ she added more quietly, as if to herself.

  And that was why he hadn’t phoned her at the time. He remembered how, before he’d told her about the pregnancy, she’d suddenly been interested in some Christian iconography so as to tell him about the fine young woman she’d met. What beat it all was her asking him to go and return a dictionary she’d borrowed from the girl. He hadn’t gone; he’d been sure she’d taken the dictionary especially so that he could get to know the young woman, like kids in a nursery. He’d had it up to his ears with this match-making. He hadn’t wanted any new acquaintances, neither then nor later; although things turned out otherwise. His intuition must have been good. And he wasn’t in the mood to meet anyone now either, but felt there was no way out. He would have had to get another translation from the man who’d tried to be agreeable but whose whole body communicated just how much he couldn’t abide ignoramuses like him.

  ‘Do you still have her phone number?’