by Robert Daws
Jasinski nodded to his lawyer and then looked anxiously towards his interrogators. Taking a deep breath and relaxing his broad shoulders, he began:
‘In November of 1942, my grandfather, Czesław Jasinski, disappeared while serving as intelligence officer with Polish Free Army here in Gibraltar. He managed to escape from Nazi-occupied Poland two years before and joined his countrymen in their fight. The price he had to pay for this was that his beloved wife – my grandmother – and their four children were forced to remain in my mother country. They lived in house in isolated woodland between Puszczykowo and the Warta river, to south of Luboń. My family once had money, but all had gone by the time Germans brought war to Polska and the world. My grandfather sent messages to them, but it was difficult, you understand? Germans controlled that part of Poznań with iron grip. The family lived in fear of SS. All lived in fear of them.’
The Pole paused, took another a deep breath and continued:
‘My father died three months ago now. All his life he struggle to come to terms with my grandfather’s fate here on the Rock and reasons why his family suffered so.’
Jasinski stopped once more. Sullivan and Broderick could see he was distressed. The Pole cleared his throat and said: ‘I will tell you this as my father told it to me. You understand?’
Sullivan nodded for him to go on.
‘My father was just boy of eight years in 1942. “Child of woods”, he call himself, for woods surrounded the family house for many, many miles. One morning he left his mother and three sisters – Alicja, Jolanta and Nadzieja – and went to play with two friends by river. His mother had been making bread with the girls when he left and she had made him promise, she did this always, to play safely and be back by dark. It was a promise my father kept every time. When he walked into woods to meet his friends, he turned to see his mother and sisters waving to him from front steps of their home. My father waved back and went on his way.
‘Later that day, light fading, he and his friends returned. His friends were older and could stay out later. They knew that, if they went home with my father, they would be given food and milk. Coming near to house, one of his friends placed a hand on my father’s shoulder to stop him. He had seen what my father had not. You understand? Beside house was big truck and big car. They had not seen such a car before, but they knew that it was bad thing. As they came nearer from woods, door of house opened and my father saw his mother and sisters. Soldiers with guns forced them into truck. Two officers left house also and got into car. My father began to cry out, but his friend covered his mouth and dragged him to ground. He saved my father’s life. My father looked on as his mother and sisters were driven away. He never saw them again.
‘My father and his friends went to house. It was empty. They found only one thing the Germans had left: a photograph on kitchen table. My father’s eyes he would not believe. It showed his father – my grandfather, you understand? – in the arms of a woman, a stranger. My father was young, but he knew this was terrible thing. He wanted to burn the photograph, but something stopped him. That same picture is in my rucksack. The one that yesterday I lost. It is reason I am here and reason I have done what I have done.’
‘We have the photograph,’ Broderick confirmed. ‘Please continue.’
‘My father was taken in by his uncle and family. Much later they learn that my grandmother and the girls were taken to Fort VII. The first concentration camp of the Nazis in Poland. Twenty thousand Poles die there. Torture and death, by gas or starvation or disease.
‘Only after war, my father received news of his beloved mother and sisters. Officially death from typhus. All of them. Unofficially, no imagination can show the horror of their true suffering. Their deaths haunted my father for seventy years.’
Once more, Jasinski stopped to gather himself. Sullivan glanced at her boss. To her mind, Jasinski was telling the truth. The expression on Broderick’s face gave no indication if he felt the same.
Jasinski continued:
‘And my grandfather? His disappearance was recorded “Missing in action”. No confirmation of where he died or what he had been doing. Sometime in the Fifties, a secretary who worked in Polish defence department tells my father, not on record, that a black mark was on my grandfather’s file. When my father demanded to see, he was told the file did not exist and warned to question no further – it was “not in the interests of him or his family to do so”. You understand? From this, my father’s theory comes. My grandfather’s disappearance and the deaths of my grandmother and his sisters are connected. “Two tragedies linked by one cause”, he would describe it. It is something he believed to be true and something I now know to be so.’
‘A belief that led you to take lives in return?’ Broderick questioned.
‘My client has already answered that question for you, Chief Inspector,’ O’Harrigan interjected.
‘Not to my satisfaction he hasn’t,’ Broderick responded.
Jasinski shifted restlessly in his chair. ‘I will continue. Yes?’
‘Yes,’ Broderick answered. ‘Continue.’
‘My father try hard to find answers. He worked as postman for thirty years and retire on little. No time and no power to follow the matter. There is a saying I have heard which says: “One door closes and the rest, they slam in your face.” So it was with him.’
Sullivan nodded. She knew the feeling well.
‘But there was a time when my father discover something of what really happened,’ Jasinski said, his eyes widening as he continued his story with growing intensity. ‘From now on I will call him by his name, Gustaw. Yes?’
Both detectives nodded their assent.
‘In 1964, Gustaw had saved enough money to travel here to Gibraltar. An old friend managed to secure a visa for him do so. Not easy in communist times, you understand? My father had good English – taught as boy from his father – and so he wished to journey and investigate for himself. To find the truth he could not get in Polska. Every time he try to go down official routes, in his homeland and here in Gibraltar, all he gets is silence. His one hope was that someone on the Rock would know the young woman in the old photograph he still possessed. After he arrived in Gibraltar, Gustaw visited every building of importance, to show the image to one and all. Government, police, army, church. He drew blank at all of them. Then, on day before he is to return home, luck strikes. A librarian of the old Garrison Library recognises the photograph. She informs him that, several years before, a police inspector named Lorenz had brought the same picture to the library and made similar enquiry. But the woman could not help the inspector then and she could not help Gustaw now.’
Sullivan and Broderick glanced at each other. This story was far from what they had expected.
Jasinski continued: ‘At the police station in the centre of Gibraltar Town – in “Irish Town” it is called, yes?’
Broderick nodded.
‘At that police station, Gustaw is told that Inspector Lorenz had retired and now lives in an apartment right across the street. Within an hour, my father is sitting with Lorenz and showing him the photograph he had brought from Polska and his past …’
Irish Town, 1964
‘… I’m hoping, Inspector Lorenz, you may help me understand this photograph a little better,’ Gustaw Jasinski said, taking an old black and white photograph from his bag. Both men sat in the small, fastidiously tidy apartment that the policeman had been renting for over ten years. The shutters were closed against the bright morning sun, but several laser-like rays forced entry through broken slats to partially illuminate the dim, shadowy interior. The clatter from the cobble-stoned street below and the hubbub from the cafe on the opposite corner seemed to violate the room. Gustaw had been welcomed warmly by the small, balding elderly detective, who swiftly offered his guest his best armchair and supplied him with a cup of hot, delicious coffee.
Recognition and relief filled the old man’s face as Gustaw handed the photograph to him. Its edges
may have frayed and its image may be fading, but Lorenz knew exactly what it showed.
‘Yes,’ Lorenz said, moving to a large box on a side table by the kitchen door. For a few moments, Gustaw looked on as the old man rifled through its contents. At last, the policeman removed an old photo album from the box and sat in the chair opposite his guest. Opening the album, he removed an identical copy of Gustaw’s photograph.
‘Snap!’ he exclaimed, handing both pictures to the surprised Pole.
‘How is this possible?’ Gustaw asked. ‘Do you know who that woman is?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t. But I know what became of her,’ Lorenz replied, barely able to hide his excitement.
‘And the man? Do you know what happened to him?’ Gustaw asked, his heart beating like a drum through his chest.
‘I do,’ Lorenz replied. ‘As soon as you introduced yourself, I knew why you were here. Jasinski – it’s a name that’s hard to forget.’
‘You knew my father?’ Gustaw asked.
‘No. But I was told of him.’
Lorenz placed the album on a side table and sat forward in his chair. ‘The girl in that picture was discovered one night with her throat cut. She had been left in a deserted house up in the Old Town. I’m talking of November 1942, you understand? The civilian population had been mostly evacuated. The whole of Gibraltar was full to breaking point with Allied troops preparing to invade north Africa. The Rock was full of spies, saboteurs and double dealing. It was a dangerous time. That girl,’ Lorenz continued, pointing to the photographs in Gustaw’s hands, ‘that girl was most likely a prostitute working in Gib and La Línea.’
‘Oh, dear God,’ Gustaw sighed, his worst fears realised.
‘When I arrived at the scene, I found that she had not been robbed of her money. I reasoned therefore that her murder was most likely committed by a customer.’
‘My father?’ Gustaw exclaimed in panic.
‘Certainly not.’ Lorenz stated firmly. ‘Apart from her purse and money, we also recovered at the scene a small photograph of the girl holding a baby. On the back was written “Mama and Rosia”.’
‘And my father?’
Lorenz raised his hand to silence Gustaw.
‘The next day I set about investigating the murder. Within an hour of doing so, I received visitors at police headquarters. Two officers from British intelligence, both stationed on the Rock. The men informed me that they would be taking over the case as it was connected to enemy operations in Gibraltar. My commanding officer made it clear that I would be expected to forget all about it. I had to let the case go.’
‘So how did you get hold of that photograph?’ Gustaw asked.
‘Six months later, a Spanish dockworker was arrested after a brutal fight in a dockside bar. In his bag was discovered a camera and a set of photographs showing scenes similar to that of your father and the murdered girl. All depicted Allied officers in compromising situations with prostitutes. Each photograph had several copies attached. Included in the stash was one of the photographs you now hold before you.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Gustaw replied, frustration growing within him.
‘All will become clear, my friend,’ the old man said. ‘Please be patient. I questioned the Spaniard and he refused to say anything. I brought up the girl’s murder and still he would not talk. Then once again I received a visit from the British intelligence officers. As before, they announced that they would carry out the investigation. They then left with the Spaniard and the photographs. All the photographs save one, that is.’
Lorenz nodded towards the less-worn photograph in Gustaw’s hands.
‘The one of your father I kept. I don’t know why. I suppose I was angry at once again being relieved of my duties. Months later the Spaniard killed himself while awaiting trial on charges of spying for the Germans. Word was that the photographs had been used to blackmail serving Allied officers. Forcing them to carry out acts of treachery and sabotage.’
‘You are saying that my father became a traitor?’ Gustaw interrupted, his confusion turning to anger.
Doggedly the old man continued his account: ‘I didn’t know. There was nothing I could do. The war continued and my work went on, but always I wondered about that girl. So brutally and callously slaughtered. Who was she? Where were her family? What of the baby Rosia growing up without her mama? These thoughts stayed with me long after the war had ended. Finally, three years ago I retired, and at last I was free to find out who she was. For weeks I visited everywhere, both here and over in La Línea. All fruitless. No one remembered the girl, or if they did, they were not prepared to share that information with a retired Gibraltarian police officer. Eventually I gave up.’
‘And that was that?’ Gustaw replied, disappointed by the old man’s account.
‘No, no. As chance would have it, I found myself in Seville two years ago. I was staying with an old colleague who lived there. He had known for years about my interest in the blackmail case and how frustrated I had felt to be sidelined by the intelligence services. One evening, out of the blue, he told me that he knew an elderly British MI6 officer who had retired to a house on the outskirts of the city. Next day he took me to see him. The man in question was in his eighties and in failing health, but he agreed to tell me what little he knew.’
Lorenz paused to sip from a glass of water on the table beside him. The room was hot and the noise from the street below was increasing as midday approached. Gathering himself once more, Lorenz continued.
‘His name was Lorimer, and he’d been a station officer in Lisbon for most of the war. He told me that he had been informed of certain facts regarding the case. I’m sad to tell you he confirmed that the man in the picture was a Polish major called Jasinski. Czesław Jasinski.’
Gibraltar Docks, 1942
Major Czesław Jasinski stood alone at the far end of the quay. Fifty metres behind him, the business of preparing for battle continued. Army lorries and supply trucks ferrying men and equipment to where they needed to be. Ahead of the major lay the dark, still water of the harbour and, beyond that, the constant stream of naval ships and troop carriers crossing the Bay of Gibraltar.
But here, he was alone. Taking a deep breath, he pulled his right arm back and then, swinging it forward with as much force as he could muster, he sent his briefcase hurtling out across the water. Less than an hour had passed since it had failed to detonate its deadly explosive contents. For nearly half of that time, the major had sat waiting for death to engulf both him and his fellow officers in the room. Death had not come. The military briefing, deep in the tunnels of the Rock, had concluded, and the target of his thwarted assassination had walked smartly from the conference room. Calling out his customary farewell of ‘Good luck!’, General Dwight Eisenhower had moved swiftly to the Operation Torch command room to continue his preparations for the Allied invasion of north Africa. The great soldier would live and most probably succeed in all he did, the major thought. After all, one man’s failure was another man’s triumph. Or at least so he hoped. For him, though, it was too late. How had it come to this? Even now he could not understand why he had been chosen. Why God had deemed it necessary to punish Jasinski and his poor helpless family so harshly.
Reaching into his wallet, he took out the tiny capsule that would end the nightmare. He had been given it a year before, on a secret operation to Cairo. It was common currency in the theatres of war he had become expert in. Cyanide. Safe passage to oblivion.
Placing the poison in his mouth, the major looked up once more at the Rock. How transient human life was compared to that never-changing edifice. Turning back at last, he closed his eyes. The faces of his beloved wife and children filled his thoughts once more. Biting down hard on the capsule, he felt a sharp burning at the back of his throat. In the few moments he had left, Jasinski tried to quell the sudden rage of injustice that rose within him. But it was too late. His head now began to swim and an overpowering pain filled his chest. Swa
ying momentarily, he finally willed his body to fall forward into the waters of the harbour. Something at last had gone to plan. Czesław Jasinski would disappear from the world forever.
Irish Town, 1964
Lorenz paused for a moment, the pain in his visitor’s eyes all too visible. Slowly, he continued.
The major’s body had been pulled from the harbour days before Operation Torch, he told Gustaw. All he knew was that the officer had killed himself. A briefcase containing explosives had been found floating against the harbour wall and criminal activity was immediately suspected. Sabotage missions had been a constant threat on the Rock. Agents and double-agents working for the Abwehr, the Nazi military intelligence service, were an ever-present threat. At least two other officers – another Pole and a Canadian – had been caught up in blackmail plots and turned. The unofficial word was that they had been set up by a German spy operating on the Rock. It was believed that the spy was a woman and that her Abwehr codename was ‘Diamant’. That was the unofficial word. The official word was soon given by British intelligence. The case was now classified and under investigation. The RGP, not for the first or last time, was left out in the cold.
Lorenz saw that Gustaw had tears running down his cheeks. The news that his father had not died a hero but instead had been the victim of a sordid plot was too much for him.
‘The girl’s identity may never be known,’ Lorenz said softly. ‘But I’m sorry you’ve had to wait so long to hear such awful news.’
Gustaw wiped his face with the back of his hand and straightened his back.
‘Please … I need water …’
Police HQ, Gibraltar, today
‘Please … I need water.’ Lech Jasinski looked directly at Sullivan. ‘It is difficult for me to pour.’ The Pole raised his hands to remind her of his cuffed wrists. Sullivan reached for the jug, poured water into a paper cup and placed it in Jasinski’s hands.