A Grain of Truth Read Online Free Page B

“Our offices appear to be in different dimensions of time and space, Prosecutor Szacki.”
    He was feeling nostalgic as he passed the synagogue building and, holding on to some branches, made his way down the escarpment. He immediately recognized the “principled pussy” by her shock of ginger hair. She was standing with her head drooping, as if she had come to say a prayer for the dead rather than conduct an inquiry. An obese cop had his hand on her shoulder, joining her in her pain. Just as Szacki had supposed – a city where there were more churches than bars was bound to leave a painful mark on its citizens. BarbaraSobieraj turned towards Szacki, and was too surprised by the sight of him to hide the scowl of dislike that crept over her face.
    He nodded to everyone in greeting, went up to the corpse and unceremoniously lifted the plastic sheet that was covering it. A woman. Between forty and fifty. Hideously slashed throat, no sign of other injuries. It didn’t look like an assault, more like a bizarre crime of passion. Well, finally a decent corpse. He was just about to cover the body again, but something was bothering him. He examined it again from head to foot, and visually scanned the crime scene. Something wasn’t right, something definitely wasn’t right, but he had no idea what, and it was a very unsettling feeling. He tossed aside the plastic sheet, and some of the policemen turned their gaze in shame. Amateurs.
    Now he knew what was wrong. The whiteness. The unreal, unnatural whiteness of the victim’s body. But there was something else too.
    “Excuse me,” said Sobieraj behind him, “that’s my friend.”
    “That was your friend,” snapped Szacki in reply. “Where are the technicians?”
    Silence. He turned around and looked at the fat policeman, who was bald with a bushy moustache. What was his nickname? The Marshal? How original.
    “Where are the technicians?” he repeated.
    “Marysia’s just coming.”
    Everyone here was on first-name terms. Nothing but old friends, blast them, a small-town clique.
    “Send for a team from Kielce, too. Tell them to bring all their toys. Before they get here, cover the body, cordon off the area within a radius of fifty metres and don’t let anybody in. Keep the gawpers as far away as possible. Is the detective here already?”
    The Marshal raised his hand, staring at Szacki as if he were from outer space and looking enquiringly at Sobieraj, who was standing dumbstruck.
    “Great. I know there’s mist, it’s dark and there’s bugger all to see, but everyone in these buildings” – he pointed at the houses on Żydowska Street – “and those ones” – he turned round and pointed at the villas on the other side of the ravine – “must be interviewed. Maybe there’ssomeone who suffers from insomnia, maybe someone’s got prostate trouble, maybe there’s a crazy hausfrau who makes soup before going to work. Someone might have seen something. Got it?”
    The Marshal nodded. Meanwhile Sobieraj had regained her composure and was standing so close that he could smell her breath. She was tall for a woman – their eyes were almost on the same level. Country girls are always handsome creatures, thought Szacki, waiting calmly to see what would happen.
    “Excuse me, but are you conducting this case now?”
    “Yes.”
    “And might I know why?”
    “Let me see. Because for once it has nothing to do with a drunken cyclist or the theft of a mobile phone at a primary school?”
    Sobieraj’s dark eyes went black.
    “I’m going straight to Misia,” she hissed.
    Szacki reached into the deepest, unexplored depths of his will-power to stop himself from snorting with laughter. Good God in Heaven – they really did call their boss Misia.
    “The quicker, the better. It was she who dragged me out of the sack, where I was passing the time in a madly interesting way, and told me to deal with this.”
    For a moment Sobieraj looked as if she was about to explode, but