Szacki bought a bottle of water to rinse out his mouth after the coffee, which tasted like a wet floor-cloth. Either they"d made chicory coffee, or else they hadn"t cleaned the espresso machine for several years. Or maybe both.
"And what is Leszek"s official opinion?"
"You have no idea what a nutcase he is - I once went to his house, I can"t remember what for. He"s got two rooms in a block in Ursynow, but the child sleeps with them, because the other room is for listening. A tiny table and nothing else - the walls and ceiling are entirely covered with egg cartons, the big square ones."
"Oleg, be merciful, I"ve got a heap of work to do, and I might have even more. The opinion."
Kuzniecow ordered another coffee.
"Just hold on, you won"t regret it."
"I will," said Szacki resignedly.
"What do you think he listens to in there?"
"Not music, since you ask."
"His wife."
"What a good boy. Is that all?"
"No. He listens to his wife having o.r.g.a.s.ms."
Kuzniecow stopped talking and looked at him triumphantly. Szacki knew he should stab him with a well-aimed malicious remark to close the subject, but he couldn"t restrain his curiosity.
"Very good, you win. You mean to say they f.u.c.k on those egg cartons?"
"Almost. He tells her to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e in that room and he records her moans. There can"t be any interference."
Szacki was sorry he hadn"t closed the subject.
"One last question: why on earth would he do that?"
"For money. He has a theory that women emit a very special noise while climaxing, which is partly beyond the auditory threshold. He wants to synthesize that sound, patent it and sell it to people for advertising. Get it? An ad goes out live on TV, eight out of ten prefer X etc., and you suddenly go wild with excitement, because that recording is built into the advert. Then you go to the shop, see that beer and at once you get a hard-on. And then what? Are you still going to buy the usual Warka beer? You may laugh, but there"s something in it."
"I even know what. The tragedy of a child who has to sleep with his parents."
Kuzniecow nodded, no doubt wondering if he too could make a deal out of climaxing adverts, and took a notebook out of his waistcoat pocket.
"Leszek is ninety per cent sure the voice saying "Daddy" is Kwiatkowska"s. Warsaw accent, characteristic intonation, a bit similar to French - maybe the girl used to live in France - and a slightly voiceless "r". Only ninety per cent because the comparative material was everyday stuff. He definitely ruled out Mrs Telak, and Jarczyk too, though here he found more common features. He claims that both of them - Kwiatkowska and Jarczyk - must be at least second-generation residents of Warsaw, and from the City Centre. Their voices also have a similar timbre, quite high."
Szacki raised his eyebrows.
"You"re joking. You can"t persuade me you can tell by the accent if someone"s from the City Centre or the Praga district."
"I was surprised too. Certainly not when you"ve only been living there for a few years, but if your grandparents already lived here, then you can. Not bad, eh?"
Szacki agreed automatically, wondering if, after living in the Praga district since birth, his daughter had already caught the proletarian p.r.o.nunciation of the right bank of the Vistula.
They talked for a while longer about the inquiry, but Kuzniecow didn"t have much to say. Only today would he finally be meeting with Telak"s financial adviser. He"d also sent a man to find Telak"s friends from technical college and the polytechnic and question them about his old love affairs. Finally they quarrelled when Szacki asked the policeman to find an investigation file from 1987 as soon as possible.
"No way," bristled Kuzniecow, eating a teacake and blancmange. "There"s absolutely no b.l.o.o.d.y way."
"Oleg, please."
"Write a letter to the chief. You always were a pain in the a.r.s.e, but in this inquiry you"ve surpa.s.sed yourself. Just you write down on a piece of paper everything you"ve demanded of me so far and you"ll see for yourself. There"s no way. Or submit an application to the City Police Headquarters archive. In three weeks it"ll all be ready. I"m not going to deal with that."
Szacki adjusted his shirt cuffs. He realized Kuzniecow was right. But instinct was telling him he should check it out as soon as possible.
"It"s the last time, I promise," he said.
Kuzniecow shrugged.
"You"re lucky I"ve got a pal who just happens to work in the archive," he muttered in the end.
Why doesn"t that surprise me? thought Szacki.
II.
Janina Chorko was looking - luckily - as ugly as usual. This time she had skilfully emphasized her total lack of charm with the help of some black trousers ironed with a crease and a grey knitted top adorned with a monstrously large brooch made of leather. He could relax and look her in the eyes while they talked.
"Sometimes, Prosecutor," she drawled impa.s.sively, looking at him like a b.u.mp in the wallpaper, "I get the impression that you in turn are under the impression that you enjoy some sort of special regard in my eyes. That is a mistaken impression."
Szacki was happy. If she"d decided to be flirtatious again and given him a knowing look, he would have had to change jobs. What a relief.
"Wednesday," he said.
"Why is that?" she asked.
"For several reasons..." he began, but paused, because a bleep sounded, indicating the arrival of a text message. He"d forgotten to silence his phone.
"Please check what it says. Maybe someone has confessed," she grinned spitefully.
He read it. "I know this is stupid, but since yesterday I"ve got very fond of my new shoes. Guess why. Coffee? Mo."
"Private," he said, pretending not to notice the look on her face. "Firstly, I must have two more days to dig around in the Telak case, secondly, I must get ready for the Gliski trial, and thirdly, I"ve got a ton of paperwork."
"Everyone has, don"t make me laugh."
"Fourthly, I don"t think that case needs so many people working on it," he said, trying his best to make it sound as tactful as possible.
Chorko glanced out of the window, pouted her upper lip and made a puffing sound.
"I"ll pretend I didn"t hear that," she declared, without looking at him, "otherwise I"d have to acknowledge that you"re questioning the way I run the office. Or else that you have doubts about your colleagues" competence. Surely that"s not what you were thinking?"
He didn"t reply.
She smiled.
"You have until Wednesday. And not an hour longer."
Barbara Jarczyk appeared in his room punctually at eleven. He blinked - once again something started itching in his head. Deja vu. Barbara Jarczyk looked exactly the same as a week ago. Right down to the earrings. He thought perhaps she dressed differently each day, but kept to a weekly cycle.
He asked a few routine questions. Had anything happened? Had she remembered any facts that she hadn"t told him earlier? Had she been in touch with Kaim, Kwiatkowska or the therapist Rudzki? She replied to all the questions with a curt "no". She merely mentioned that on Thursday someone from the police had been to see her on a trivial matter. She didn"t understand the purpose of this visit.
"The police take all leads into consideration, it was probably just a routine check-up," he lied, realizing she didn"t have to know about the voiceprint a.n.a.lysis. "Unfortunately you must come to terms with the fact that until the inquiry is closed such visits might occur even quite frequently."
She nodded. Unenthusiastically, but understandingly.
"Do you use sleeping pills?" he asked.
She frowned, probably wondering why he wanted to know.
"Sometimes," she replied after a pause. "Quite rarely nowadays, but I used to be virtually addicted. I had to take a pill every night."
"Addicted?"
"Not in the drug addiction sense. I had problems, I couldn"t sleep, so the doctors gave me those pills. Finally, taking them became as natural as brushing my teeth at bedtime. I got scared when I realized that. That was one of the reasons why I ended up going to therapy."
"But do you still take a pill sometimes?"
"Not more than once every few days, once a week. Sometimes less often."
"Which drug are you using now?"
"Tranquiloxyl. It"s a French drug."
"Is it strong?"
"Quite strong. On prescription. Nevertheless I"ve taken sleeping pills for a bit too long, so nowadays not just anything works on me."
"When did you last take Tranquiloxyl?"
She flushed.
"Yesterday," she replied. "I haven"t been sleeping too well lately."
"Do you know why I"m asking?"
"To tell the truth, no."
He hesitated with the next question. Could it be that Telak had stolen her pills? In that case she ought to have noticed they were missing.
"An empty bottle of Tranquiloxyl was found in Mr Telak"s room at the monastery on azienkowska Street. The pathologist confirmed that shortly before he was murdered Mr Telak took a large number of them, but then vomited. The fingerprints on the bottle are Mr Telak"s and yours. Can you explain that?"
For a change Mrs Jarczyk went pale. She gave him a terrified look. And didn"t answer.
"Well?" he urged.
"I, I, oh my G.o.d, I"ve only just remembered now..." she stammered. "Surely you don"t think I, oh my G.o.d..."
She burst into tears.
"I"m so very sorry," she said, searching her handbag for a handkerchief. Szacki would have liked to give her his, but to make matters worse he didn"t have any. Finally she found one, wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
"I"m so very sorry," she repeated quietly, without once looking at him. "But how can I remember everything, what with the therapy and the murder, and that corpse and all the rest of it. The police and the prosecution. As a result I feel accused the whole time and I can"t sleep. And I"m even afraid to call my own therapist, because who knows, maybe he"s somehow mixed up in it all. And I simply forgot."
"Please tell me what you forgot," he said gently.
"On Friday evening, after supper, I ran into Mr Telak in the corridor. By accident - he was coming back from the bathroom, and I was just going to answer a call of nature. I think he said the place was a bit weird, and he felt shivers down his spine. I don"t remember well, I was thinking about the therapy a lot and what it would be like, so I was a bit distracted. He said he was feeling very upset and did I have anything for sleeping. I said I could give him a pill."
Szacki raised his hand to interrupt her.
"And instead of giving him a pill or two, you gave him your whole supply of drugs that you were addicted to? I don"t understand. Why?"
"I had two."
"Pills?"
"Bottles of them. I tossed one in my suitcase as I was leaving the house, and I had the other one in my make-up bag. I haven"t taken it out of there since I went on a recent business trip to Hanover for the toy fair. I thought it would be silly to just hand out a pill when I had a whole bottle. We arranged that Mr Telak would give it back to me before we left."
"Were there lots of pills in it?"
"Half a bottle, maybe a bit less. Probably about twenty."
Szacki felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Another text message. He"d replied to Monika earlier that he"d love to have a quick coffee at four, on condition she let him admire her new clothes. Interesting to see what she"d written back.
"And on Sat.u.r.day weren"t you afraid Mr Telak might make use of your pills to take his own life?"
She chewed her lip.
"I hadn"t thought of that."
Szacki reached for the open case file and read: "And I thought perhaps someone did him a service, because there really can"t be any worlds where Henryk could have been worse off than here."
"Those are your words," he said.
"But I don"t remember them being in the statement," she countered, looking him in the eye.
"You"re right, I was reading from my notes. Which doesn"t change the fact that they"re your words. Which prompts the question whether the entire scenario that you described didn"t happen on Sat.u.r.day. And whether by chance you didn"t give Mr Telak more pills than necessary in order - to put it delicately - to give him a choice."