Polychrome (17 page)

Before long, they realised that, despite the incredible complexity
of the case, there was a chance of their finding out much more
that same day. Admittedly, Jan Maria Gawlicki had committed
his crime in a small town in the Lubuskie district and served
his sentence near Rzeszów but, by some miracle, his sister,
Maria Anna Gawlicka-Sęk, lived somewhere between Konin
and Kutno, not more than a two-hour drive away.

Nor was there any difficulty in finding out whether she was
at home. Her full address and telephone number appeared on
the pages of dog shows, canine associations and beneath the
descriptions of numerous breeds.

They began with Lentz phoning about a Caucasian
Sheepdog puppy. There weren’t any such pups but there were
some Labradors; in those, too, he showed interest. Bartol had
initially intended to go with Polek, as he usually did. He wasn’t
looking forward to discussing what he’d seen the previous
evening, but silently banked on the conversation cropping up
of its own accord and on his being able to keep his colleague
in check a little before the wife did.

After an hour it happened that he wouldn’t have to
keep anything in check; Polek declared that – categorically,
absolutely and exceptionally – he wouldn’t be able to go.
Bartol was relieved, but intuition told him the relief was only
temporary.

He went with Lentz.
They hadn’t even left Poznań when Magda phoned. Bartol
slipped off onto the lay-by to talk. He turned the speaker on,
wanting Lentz to hear what Magda had to say. He feared he
wouldn’t be able to repeat it all to him later.
‘Hi, I’m doing well for the time being. I guessed right,
didn’t I?’
‘Hi. I’m full of admiration. Are these sayings pretty common
in some circles?’
‘No, but you can thank Piotr for me, they’re his words:
nothing more –
non plus
.’
‘You can thank him yourself. He’s right next to me.’
‘Many thanks, Piotr. Could even be we’re a couple of hours
ahead on the job.’
‘I didn’t do anything, but am glad to be of help.’
Bartol noticed that saying this Lentz fidgeted nervously, ran
his fingers through what was left of his hair, rubbed his nose
nervously, and even blushed a little.
‘So the whole thing reads:
non plus quam oportet
. It’s from
Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans, chapter 12, verse 3. You
don’t have to take it down, I’ll print it out for you. The longer
translation goes: “Do not think of yourself more highly than
you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment,
in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”
End of quotation. Those are words addressed, in fact, to the first
ministers of Christian society. Their equivalent, in our times,
being priests.’
The men looked at each other. Bartol was the first to speak.
‘Listen, Magda, you don’t write newspaper articles, do you?’
‘Quite the contrary, unfortunately. I only read them unless
you’ve got something interesting, then maybe I’ll switch jobs.’
‘This isn’t much of a laughing matter.’
‘Sorry, of course not.’ Her voice sounded genuinely
apologetic.
‘We’ve just learned,’ Bartol continued, ‘that the last victim
was a priest. We didn’t know that yesterday.’
‘See. It’s all starting to make sense, and I’m certainly on
the right track to make sense of it all. Drop in this evening, or
tomorrow. I’ll prepare all the possible interpretations that come
to me. You might find them useful.’
‘We certainly will, I know that already, and thank you in
advance. I’ll drop by today if I can, if not tomorrow. See you.’
‘See you. Bye, Piotr.’
‘Bye.’
‘It’s a shame I can’t make any sense of it all. Do you
understand anything?’ He turned to Lentz.
‘She’s great, Magda,’ said Lentz, rubbing his nose nervously
again.
Bartol had expected a straight answer, that no, he didn’t
understand anything. This answer he didn’t like. He didn’t
know why the subject of women and Lentz had never existed
before, and everyone had long grown used to that. He couldn’t
remember anyone commenting on the fact that despite his
undisguised bald pate and his forty years of age, Lentz was
still living with his mother, nor did anyone joke about the
fact that he had a little white dog (although it was possible
that Bartol was the only one who knew). A girl had, admittedly,
once told Bartol that had Lentz been taller he would be
handsome and was, in fact, interesting. And she’d even tried
to get Lentz interested in her, but to no avail. Bartol hadn’t
heard of anyone else trying. Why was Lentz suddenly so
worked up?
They didn’t speak for a long time. Lentz reclined his seat a
little and closed his eyes. It looked as if he intended to doze off;
that’s certainly how it was supposed to look.
One way or another, Bartol wasn’t very surprised. He did
the same sometimes when he didn’t feel like talking. Especially
when he was in the car with Polek and wasn’t driving. And
whenever he travelled in this direction. When they were in
the vicinity of Konin, Polek would always, but always, partition
Poland for the fourth time into Greater Poland and the rest.
He did this with such conviction and determination as though
he were going to climb out of the car at any moment, plant
a border post and stand guard. He loved convincing himself
and anyone who was at hand that the wind of better times did
not blow from the east, that the only uprising which had won
in the country – the Greater Poland Uprising – won precisely
because it was in Poland and nobody interfered, and so on. It
was impossible to listen for more than five minutes.
The journey went well. There was little traffic, the sun shone
all the way and it only clouded over and rained once they’d
reached their destination.
A signpost on the main road indicated immediate left and
informed that it was only eight kilometres to Grabno. If it wasn’t
for the muddy road winding through the willows, it wouldn’t
have been far. No doubt, some other season this would have
been a scenic country track, but not now.
The windscreen wipers not only swept the rain aside but
also had to clear the mud which splattered beneath their
wheels as they drove through puddles much deeper than they
appeared. Bartol had slowed down to almost twenty kilometres
an hour when beneath the wheels he sensed tarmac, which
began or maybe ended right in the middle of a field. There was
no reasonable explanation why precisely here, precisely now,
halfway down the track.
He didn’t give it any more thought; they were at their
destination. They decided to ask the people at the bus stop
where Mrs Gawlicka-Sęk lived.
They halted. The face of the man approaching the car
wasn’t friendly. He must have approached out of curiosity or
perhaps because he was closest.
Lentz lowered the window.
‘Good morning, we’re looking for Mrs Gawlicka, perhaps
you could…’ – he didn’t finish.
‘Not again! Give us a break with that dog-woman. Any more
of you around?’
It seemed to Bartol as though the man slobbered as he
shouted.
‘Kowalik, give the men a break. They’ve come a long way,’
said a woman in a brownish-grey autumn coat, an amusing
contrast to her pink umbrella with its stain-remover logo. ‘Long
way? Then they should take her with them,’ grunted the man.
‘Stop it, I tell you. Go to the end of the village, turn right at
the little shrine, then…’
‘Then they’ll hear for themselves’ – the man broke in again,
and turning to the police officers, immediately added: ‘Can’t
you see the bus is coming?’
They did see and pulled away, without even having time to
thank the woman with the pink trophy umbrella.
‘I don’t think everyone likes Anna,’ said Bartol.
‘I can guess why. Might have seen it coming. You’re going
to have to go by yourself, I’ll wait in the car,’ announced Lentz.
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Bartol, annoyed.
‘Listen, I like animals, which is why I even stopped eating
meat. Although Sunday’s not Sunday at home without roast
duck and dumplings…’
‘You said you were on a diet, as far as I remember.’
‘Because it’s better for my image. Enough, there’s no point
in discussing it. Go on your own,’ concluded Lentz.
He said no more. Once again Bartol had the impression
that, by some strange law, the more time he spent with Lentz
the less he knew about him. He wondered for a moment
whether that didn’t apply to everyone whom he’d recently
come across.
He reached what he thought was the end of the village and
turned right at a small shrine full of dirty, plastic flowers. Presently
they did, in fact, hear not so much the barking of dogs as angry
growling which grew louder as they approached the old, square
house surrounded by a hideous wall of ready-made concrete
blocks. Bricks and columns. If he could, he would willingly have
prohibited the production of such ghastly enclosures. He also
counted on people finally getting bored of them, but they didn’t.
This construction appeared relatively new even.
‘Are you sure you aren’t coming?’ he asked one more time,
no conviction in his voice.
‘I’m sure,’ Lentz replied, with conviction.
Bartol approached the gate, wondering whether to use the
doorbell. He wasn’t sure anything could be heard apart from
the dogs growling, barking, snarling, howling and emitting a
whole range of noises he couldn’t even describe.
He did use the bell, although it proved unnecessary; someone
was already opening the gate for him. It caught him by surprise;
he hadn’t seen anyone approach. The woman was a head shorter
than the enclosure. She seemed too small for her enormous,
sleeveless, quilted worker’s jacket and too small for the dog which
stood near her, reached to her waist and must have weighed more
than her – although she, too, was not the slimmest.
Bartol couldn’t move a step. The dogs started barking even
louder, if that was at all possible.
‘Don’t be frightened. Leo, home!’ The huge, ginger creature
cast its hostile eyes at him, turned lazily, wagged its tail the size
of a grown man’s arm, and meekly stepped into one of the pens.
One of a hundred pens, so it seemed to Bartol. They were all
over the yard, everywhere. In each, a few dogs of different hues,
sizes and degree of rage.
‘Have you come for a Labrador or a Leonberger? I can’t
remember,’ the woman asked with reservation.
‘I’d like to talk first.’
‘My dogs have the best papers, they’re champions, but do
come in if you want a look.’ Without waiting for an answer
she made towards the front door. Opening, she added: ‘I don’t
intend to bargain, if that’s what you’ve got in mind.’
Bartol followed her in, accompanied by five or six other
dogs, eager to make the most of the opportunity.
It stank outside, but the stench indoors was beyond
description. An old domestic stench mixed with a new one
emanating from huge pans in which something he couldn’t
even call dog-food was boiling. It reeked of urine.
‘Please sit down. Would you like something to drink?’ The
woman removed her quilted jacket, which didn’t smell all that
sweetly either.
Bartol didn’t know where to sit down. Everything must have
been sticky. Small cages for small dogs and containing small dogs
stood in the room. The food in the corridor began to boil well and
good. The thought of something to drink almost made him gag.
‘No, thank you.’ Finally, he sat down, trying not to touch
anything with his hands.
The woman left.
One of the small dogs, probably the smallest he’d ever seen,
started to furiously throw itself at its cage, barking, or rather
squealing like a toy, and clearly addressing him.
Maybe it had seen someone put puppies in their pocket
during a visit like this; the pups could be mistaken for a fairsized key ring.
Bartol turned his head, hoping that if he stopped looking
at it the thing would finally lose interest in him. But no. Bartol
got up and turned his back.
He stared at a shelf on the wall laden with cups, medals
and photographs of medallists. He studied the photographs
for a long time before noticing one pushed far back, a faded
picture in an old frame. A small, laughing young woman astride
a horse, its bridle held by a well-built, squinting boy. They
could have been siblings.
‘Well, go ahead, what sort of dog were you thinking about?’
she asked as she entered. She tried to smile but it was obvious
she didn’t like talking, at least not to human beings.
‘I haven’t come for a dog,’ began Bartol.
She made no attempt to be pleasant anymore.
‘So what are you doing here?’ she shouted and, after a while,
added: ‘You don’t look like the district guard either.’
‘But that’s warmer. I’m from the police. Was Jan Maria
Gawlicki your brother?’
The woman instinctively fell into the armchair and didn’t
say anything for a long time. It was as though the dogs had
stopped barking, too.
‘Yes. Anna Maria Sęk, maiden name Gawlicka,’ she replied.
‘Has something happened?’
‘Your brother was murdered three days ago. Can you tell me
when you last saw him?’
The woman got up without a word, walked to the door
and opened it wider; two of the larger dogs understood her
unspoken command and slowly left.
‘More than thirty years ago,’ she answered after a long
pause. ‘At first I didn’t want to see him. Then he me,’ she added,
gazing at her skirt as though she had just noticed the huge stain
on it. She started rubbing the stain off with her hand as though
only now, as she looked into the past, did it start worrying her.
It wouldn’t come off; it was too old.
‘I divorced my husband, you know, moved house – ran away
really – but kept my name… So that one day he would walk in
like you and say: I’m here.’ She broke off once more. ‘From what
you say, I take it there’s nothing for me to wait for?’ she added
without looking at him.
Bartol didn’t reply. Besides, she wasn’t expecting an answer.
‘What really happened, over thirty years ago?’
‘Don’t you know?’ she asked in a dispassionate voice.
‘I’d like to hear it from you.’
‘You’d like to hear it from me? It’s me who’d like to hear
from you what really happened.’ She started rubbing one hand
nervously against the other, again without looking at him.
‘Please tell me… how did he die and… live.’
‘Well, he probably knew his murderer, which is why my
talking to you is so important. How did he live? A good life
probably. He’d been doing social work for the past ten years
under a different name. He helped a lot of people and a lot of
people are grateful to him. They speak well of him.’
She remained silent, staring blankly at one of the –
surprisingly – empty cages.
‘So he’d found his calling… He always did say he’d find it in
the end… That I shouldn’t worry.’ She smiled at her memories.
‘He always used to pull me by my plait, to frighten me…’ Her
hand tried to find the plait. But didn’t. ‘He didn’t have a vocation
then. Couldn’t find it,’ she added after a while. ‘It wasn’t what
he’d dreamed of. It was our mother’s dream. She prayed five
times a day for him to become a priest. And her prayers were
finally answered. Sure, God listens to a mother’s prayer.’ Saying
this she laughed - horrifically somehow. ‘Then, after it had
happened, she never left the house, prayed for a quick death
and He listened to her again. She was lucky; she didn’t have long
to wait.’ The woman’s face turned hostile again; it wasn’t a happy
memory. Suddenly she got up as if she’d returned to reality. ‘I’ll
go and turn the kidneys off. They must be done by now.’
She left. The dogs started barking again. The fresh stench
no longer steamed and slowly started to carry and cover the
walls and clothes with one more layer.