Part 27 (1/2)

Szacki went up to the policeman and took him by the arm, at which he blew a gentle kiss in his direction. Szacki made himself a mental promise to murder the cop afterwards, and led him to point X, right in the middle between Kwiatkowska, and Jarczyk and Rudzki, very close to Jadwiga Telak. He positioned him so that he and Jadwiga were looking at each other. The woman gulped and motioned as if wanting to withdraw.

”Please stay in place,” barked Szacki.

”Please let me see her at once,” cried Jarczyk, trying to lean so that she could look at Kwiatkowska. ”Please let me see her at once, do you hear me?” Her voice was quivering, and she was on the edge of tears.

”You're playing a dangerous game, Prosecutor,” hissed Rudzki, at the same time putting his arm around Jarczyk. The woman huddled up to him. ”You don't know what forces you're toying with. I'm glad this entire 'experiment' is being recorded, I hope you know what I have in mind as I say those words. And please hurry up.”

”Yes, you really should hurry up,” muttered Kuzniecow, gulping. ”I don't believe in fairy tales, but if I don't move from this spot instantly, I'll faint. I feel truly awful, as if the life were leaking out of me.”

Szacki nodded. Victory was close. Kuzniecow took a deep breath; opposite him Jadwiga Telak had tears pouring from her eyes. She was following Szacki's instructions and standing on the spot, but she was leaning her body in an unnatural way, trying to get as far as possible from Kuzniecow. However, she had not averted her gaze. Jarczyk was trying hard to control her sobbing in the arms of Rudzki, who was staring fearfully at the prosecutor. Now he could no longer have any doubts what Szacki was intending. Kwiatkowska had not stopped staring at Kuzniecow's broad back for a moment, and was smiling gently. Kaim stood quietly with his arms crossed on his chest.

”Well, yes, but are we now playing Mr Telak's family, with the inspector as Henryk Telak?” asked Kaim. ”To tell the truth, I don't fully understand who is who.”

Szacki took off his jacket and hung it over a chair. f.u.c.k elegance, he was sweating like a pig. He took in a deep breath. This was the key moment. If they kept calm once he had said who they were playing, if they had foreseen it and knew how to behave, that was the end, and he'd have nothing left to do but bid them a polite farewell and write a decision to suspend the case. If he surprised them and they broke - one of them would leave the unwelcoming religious cla.s.sroom in handcuffs.

”Superintendent Kuzniecow is indeed the key figure in this constellation,” he said. ”But he's not Henryk Telak. In a way, quite the opposite - he's the man who died because of Henryk Telak.”

Jadwiga Telak groaned, but Szacki ignored that and went on talking.

”You,” he said, pointing at Kaim, ”are this man's best friend, his confidant, confessor and mainstay. You,” he addressed Jarczyk and Rudzki, ”are his parents. You,” he quickly turned to face Kwiatkowska, ”are his sister, who in dramatic circ.u.mstances discovered her brother's death. And you,” he looked sadly at Mrs Telak, ”are this man's greatest, truest, sincerest love, and his name was...” He pointed at her, wanting her to carry on.

”Kamil,” whispered Jadwiga Telak, and tumbled to her knees, gazing adoringly into Kuzniecow's face, who also had tears running down his cheeks. ”Kamil, Kamil, Kamil, my darling, how I miss you, how much I do. It was all meant to be different...”

”Show me my daughter,” yelled Jarczyk. ”I can't see my daughter, he can't keep my daughter hidden from my sight - he's not alive, he's been dead for so many years. I beg you, please show me my daughter, I want to see her.”

Szacki moved Kuzniecow back a few paces so that he wasn't standing between Jarczyk and Kwiatkowska. Without a word, Kwiatkowska, smiling sadly throughout, followed the policeman with her gaze; Mrs Telak held an arm out towards him, as if wanting to detain him; Jarczyk calmed down, and gazed at her daughter. Only Rudzki stared with hatred at the prosecutor, standing to one side.

”I demand that you stop this immediately,” he said coldly.

”I don't think in the present situation you can demand anything of me,” replied Szacki calmly.

”You don't realize what this means for these women. Your experiment could leave a permanent mark on their psyches.”

”My experiment?” Szacki felt his blood pressure rise abruptly, and found it hard to control himself. ”My experiment? It has just turned out that for the past two weeks of the inquiry you people have been lying to the police and the prosecution. It's not my job to worry about the psyche, especially yours, but to bring people who break the law to justice. Besides, we haven't yet discovered the answer to the most important question: which of you committed the murder of Henryk Telak in this room on the night of the 4th to the 5th of June this year? And I a.s.sure you I will not stop 'my experiment' until I'm sure one of the people present is going to be led away by the police.”

”We didn't want to kill him,” said Hanna Kwiatkowska, speaking for the first time since entering the room.

Prosecutor Teodor Szacki slowly let the air out of his lungs.

”So what did you want to do?”

”We wanted him to realize what he'd done and commit suicide.”

”Shut up, girl, you haven't a clue what you're saying!” screamed Rudzki.

”Oh, stop it, Dad. You have to know when you've lost. Can't you see they know everything? I've had enough of these endless plans, all these lies. For years and years I lived as if I were in a coma, until I finally came to terms with Kamil's death - you have no idea how much it cost me. And when at last I was starting to live normally, you appeared with your 'truth', your 'justice' and your 'compensation'. I never liked your b.l.o.o.d.y plan for revenge from the start, but you were all so convinced, so sure, so convincing.” She waved her hand in a gesture of weariness. Szacki had never heard so much bitterness in anyone's voice. ”And you, and Euzebiusz, and even Mum. Oh my G.o.d, when I think what we've done... Please, Dad. At least do the decent thing now. If we go any deeper into these lies, there really will be 'permanent marks' on our psyches. And believe me, they won't be caused by the prosecutor's doings.”

She sat down resignedly on the floor and buried her face in her hands. Rudzki stared at her sorrowfully and silently; he looked crushed. Yet he said nothing. They were all silent. The stillness and silence were perfect; for a moment Szacki had the strange impression that he wasn't taking part in a real event, but was looking at a three-dimensional photograph. He watched Rudzki, who in his turn stared back at him with his mouth clenched shut and waited. The therapist had to start talking, though G.o.d knows how much he didn't want to. He had to, because he had no alternative. As they stood without dropping their gaze, both men were fully aware of that.

Finally Rudzki gave a deep sigh and started to talk.

”Hanna is right, we didn't want to kill him. That is, we wanted him to die, but we didn't want to kill him. It's hard to explain. Anyway, perhaps I should speak for myself - it was I who wanted him to die, and I forced the others to take part in it.”

Without a word Szacki raised an eyebrow. They had all seen too many American films. Murder is not like firing wads of paper in the cla.s.sroom. You can't just get up and take the blame on yourself, so your pals will be pleased and the teacher lady won't suss it out.

”How exactly was it meant to look?” he asked.

”What? I don't understand. How was the suicide meant to look?”

Szacki shook his head.

”How was it meant to look from the beginning, ever since you hit upon the idea of driving Henryk Telak to suicide. I realize such things are not prepared in a weekend.”

”The hardest bit was the beginning, in other words getting close to Telak. I ordered leaflets at his company for a lecture on life after the death of a child, to catch his interest. Then I made a scene at Polgrafex saying they hadn't done things the way I wanted, which wasn't true, of course. I demanded to see the director. I succeeded in steering the conversation so that he started talking about himself. I suggested meeting at my office. He was defensive, but I persuaded him. He came. He kept coming for half a year. Do you know how much it cost me, week in, week out, to get through a whole hour with that b.a.s.t.a.r.d who murdered my son? To conduct his b.l.o.o.d.y 'therapy'? I sat in my chair and the whole time I kept wondering whether to just hit him with something heavy and get it over and done with. I kept imagining it non-stop. Constantly.”

”I understand we can put the word 'therapy' in quotation marks,” put in Szacki. ”The aim of your sessions was not any kind of cure, was it?”

”Henryk was in a terrible state after those meetings,” said Jadwiga Telak quietly, staring intently at Kuzniecow throughout. ”I thought it was worse after every session. I told him to stop going, but he told me it had to be like that, that was how it worked, and that before an improvement the crisis always worsens.”

”Did you know who Cezary Rudzki was?”

”No. Not at that point.”

”And when did you find out?”

”Not long before the constellation. Cezary came to see me and introduced himself... He brought back all the ghosts from the past. Really. He told me what Henryk had done and what they wanted to do. He said they'd leave him alone if that was what I wanted.”

She fell silent and chewed her lip.

”Was that what you wanted?”

She shook her head.

”You're right, the aim of the therapy was not therapy at all,” said Rudzki, quickly picking up his thread, evidently in order to draw Szacki's attention away from Mrs Telak too. ”At first I wanted to find out if it was definitely him who had caused me to lose my son. I had fairly complete information, but I wanted to confirm it. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d admitted it at the very first session. Of course he skirted around it somehow, maybe he was afraid I'd go to the police, but his confession was unambiguous. Then... Never mind the details, but my aim was to arouse the greatest possible sense of guilt in Telak for the death of his daughter, and to persuade him that if he departed too, it might save his son. Which was in fact true.”

”And did you talk to him again about Kamil, about your son?”

”No. We probably could have, if I'd pressed him, but I was afraid I wouldn't be able to. I concentrated on his parents, on his present family; several times I threw something in to increase his sense of guilt. I was quietly counting on succeeding in manipulating him like that so he'd commit suicide without a constellation, but the b.a.s.t.a.r.d clung to life tightly. He kept asking when he'd be better. As G.o.d is my witness, those were hard moments for me.

”Finally I prepared the constellation. I spent a long time writing the scenario, various versions, depending on how Telak might behave. I a.n.a.lysed the session that had led to the suicide of h.e.l.linger's patient in Leipzig dozens of times, and sought out the strongest emotions, the words that would prompt them. I had to do the whole thing as a dry run - practising that on people would have been impossible and cruel. Barbara and I came to the conclusion that it'd be easiest for that coward to swallow some pills, and that he wasn't likely to go for hanging or cutting his wrists. That's why after breaking off the therapy at the worst moment for him we offered him some pills, b.l.o.o.d.y strong ones.”

”We were walking down the corridor,” Jarczyk suddenly cut in, ignoring her husband's reproachful look, ”I was barely alive, he was grey in the face, hunched, devastated, with his head drooping. For a moment I felt sorry for him, I wanted to give up and tell him not to lose heart. But then I remembered Kamil, my first-born child. I gathered my strength and said I was sorry about his children, and that in his place I'd prefer to die than live with it. He admitted he was thinking about that too - that in fact he was only wondering how to do it. I replied that I would take pills, and that in my case it would be easy, because I took strong sleeping pills anyway. I'd only have to take a few more. I told him it was a beautiful death. To fall asleep peacefully and simply never wake up. He took the bottle from me.”