Forest Ghost (20 page)

While the police officers and the forest rangers searched the clearing, the two paramedics put down their stretcher and their metal box and gently lifted Robert’s head up. His face looked ghastly, like a Halloween mask made out of pale gray rubber. His mouth was hanging open and his eyes were milky.

‘Deceased,’ said Komisarz Pocztarek. ‘Don’t think there’s very much doubt about that. That’s one hell of a way to die. Your feet cut off and then sodomized by a fucking tree. Mother of God. I’ve seen some sick things in my time, believe me, but this just about beats them all.’

He borrowed a flashlight from one of the uniformed officers and walked slowly around Robert’s upright body, examining it closely, especially where the splintered tree trunk had been forced up between his legs.

‘He was still alive when we first found him,’ said Jack. ‘The only thing he said was “I did it myself”.’

‘Yes, Professor Zawadka told me that. But I find that hard to believe, don’t you? If he did do it himself he must have been very drunk, or delirious. I’ve had a couple of cases where people have deliberately cut their own legs and arms off – their penises, too – but that’s a recognized psychotic condition, body integrity identity disorder, and after they’ve done it they usually call for help.’

He shone the flashlight into Robert’s face. ‘Let’s just say this: they don’t usually go to find a tree stump to sit on.’

He was still staring at Robert when one of the uniformed officers came up to him and said, ‘I think you ought to see this, sir.’

They followed him to the edge of the clearing, and he hunkered down and pointed to the ground. Almost hidden under a fibrous thatch of twigs and dry pine needles lay the brown leather handle of a large camping knife, smothered in bloody fingerprints. Only the handle, though – the blade had broken off completely.

‘Well, that could be the weapon that was used to cut off his feet,’ said Komisarz Pocztarek. ‘The fingerprints will tell us if he really did it himself. I think it’s far more likely that somebody did it for him – that same somebody who chased you away.’

‘Robert did say one more thing,’ Jack told him. ‘He said “
Pan
”. I’m sure that’s what it was, anyhow. He said it quite clearly.’

‘“Sir”? “Mister”? Why would he have said that? That was all? He didn’t give you a name?’

‘Sorry,’ said Jack. ‘He didn’t say anything else after that. Borys and me, we thought about trying to lift him off that tree stump, but we decided that we probably weren’t strong enough, and even if we did it would do him more harm than good. One of my restaurant customers was mugged once, and stabbed in the chest when he wouldn’t hand over his wallet. He made the mistake of taking the knife out, and he bled to death in five minutes flat.’

Komisarz Pocztarek looked around the clearing. High above their heads, the carrion crow let out another scraping cry, impatient to continue its interrupted meal.

‘You can go and join your son now, sir,’ he told Jack. ‘It looked to me like he needed his father. I will have one of these officers drive you back to the city and I will contact you tomorrow, if that’s OK.’

Jack said, ‘Thank you, I appreciate it. I’m just about beat.’

Komisarz Pocztarek beckoned to one of the uniformed officers, and spoke to him quickly and quietly. The officer said to Jack, in English, ‘Come with me, please, sir,’ and began to lead him back through the forest.

Jack had only walked about fifty meters, though, before his stomach violently contracted. He leaned against a tree and vomited bile and half-digested bacon and sausages, and then retched, and retched again.

The
policjant
patiently waited for him, whistling
Hej Sokoly
between his teeth.

W
hen Jack quietly opened the door to his hotel suite, he saw that the desk lamp in the living room was lit and that the TV was still on, although the sound was muted. He crossed the living room toward the bedroom, but as he did so he saw that there was a blue blanket spread out on the couch, and that a mop of blonde hair was sticking out from under it.

He gently drew down the top of the blanket and saw that Krystyna was lying there, fast asleep.

‘Krystyna?’ he whispered. ‘Krystyna?’

She opened her eyes and blinked at the back of the couch, obviously uncertain where she was. Then she turned her head around and stared at him.

‘
Jack
,’ she said, in a thick, sleepy voice.

‘What are you doing here? Why didn’t you go home?’

She pushed the blanket aside and sat up, tugging her fingers through her hair. ‘Oh, God. I’m so glad you woke me up. I was having such a scaring dream.’

Jack went to the bedroom door, slid it back, and looked inside. Sparky was sprawled across the bed like a human starfish, his mouth open, breathing deeply.

‘Was he OK?’ asked Jack. ‘He was in such a weird mood when he came out of the forest.’

‘That’s why I stayed,’ said Krystyna. ‘All the way back he was nervous and jumping and talking to himself. I kept asking him what was wrong but he didn’t seem to understand what I was saying to him. I didn’t want to leave him in case he had a fit or something like that, or did himself some injury, like Robert.’

She paused, and then she said, ‘Robert was dead, I expect, when you reached him?’

‘Yes. I don’t think he stood any chance of survival, anyhow.’

‘What did that detective say?’

‘He was very doubtful that Robert could have done that to himself. I mean, how can you cut your own feet off, for a start?’

‘There was that rock-climber who got stuck and cut his own arm off.’

‘Well, sure. But Robert wasn’t stuck, was he? And cutting his feet off would have made it much harder for him to get away, not easier.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Krystyna. ‘I don’t understand any of this, and I’m much too tired and upset to think about it any more.’

Jack checked his watch and saw that it was five after eleven. ‘We’d better get you home, Professor. Do you live far from here?’

‘Old Sadyba. It’s only fifteen minutes away by taxi.’

‘I’ll call reception and tell them to have one waiting for you.’

Krystyna tugged on her boots and laced them up. ‘We should meet again tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I expect that detective will want to talk to us again, in any case. I’ll come back here around twelve-thirty. That will give me plenty of time to get some sleep.’ She nodded toward the bedroom. ‘I just hope that Sparky is better in the morning. I think he was shocked and frightened more than anything else.’

‘You’re probably right. But thank you for being so thoughtful and staying with him. I really appreciate it.’

He stepped forward and kissed her on the right cheek, then the left, then the right again. For a moment he was holding her, and he felt the urge to kiss her on the lips, too, but he knew that this three-kiss goodbye was nothing more than everyday Polish politeness. In the old days, a Polish gentleman would have lifted her hand and kissed the back of her wrist.

‘I’ll see myself down to the lobby,’ she said, as he took her to the door. ‘You stay here and keep an eye on Sparky.’

‘
Dobranoc
, Professor. Sleep well … and thank you.’

Krystyna walked off toward the elevators, but when she reached the corner she turned her head and looked at him over her shoulder. Jack wasn’t at all sure what to read in her expression, but by the way she hesitated he wondered if she didn’t really want to go.

He was woken up while it was still dark by a whispering, secretive voice. He opened his eyes and lay there for a moment, listening. He couldn’t make out any words, but the whispering sounded very conspiratorial, like somebody planning a malicious practical joke, or a theft, or describing some forbidden activity that they had seen or done.
Whisper-whisper-whisper hee-hee-hee.

He lifted his head up. The bedroom was still dark, except for the bedside clock, but a soft white light was flickering intermittently from underneath the bathroom door. Jack reached over to the far side of the bed and said, ‘Sparks? Are you awake?’ But there was no Sparky there, only the twisted sheets, which were damp with perspiration.

‘Sparks!’ he called out. ‘Everything OK in there?’

But the whispering continued, and the soft white lights continued to flicker, and Sparky didn’t answer.

Jack climbed out of bed and walked over to the bathroom door, but he hesitated before he opened it. He was torn between fatherly concern and the possibility that Sparky might be doing something that he didn’t want Jack to see, like masturbating with the aid of pornographic videos on his iPhone. He thought of the number of times he had heard his father’s footsteps coming along the corridor and he had hastily pushed his copy of
Penthouse
under the bed.

He stood there, undecided, for nearly a minute. But the whispering went on, and the light seemed to flash even more brightly – too brightly for an iPhone. It was more like an old-fashioned black-and-white TV, or a fluorescent light strip that was just about to give up the ghost.

‘Sparks?’ he said, leaning his head against the door. ‘Sparks – what are you doing in there? Are you OK?’

There was still no answer, so he tried knocking. ‘Sparks – what the hell’s going on in there?’

‘Don’t come in!’ Sparky called back. But his voice was very strange, almost like two or even three voices all shouting at once, all in different octaves.

The whispering abruptly stopped, although the lights continued to flicker. Jack waited a little while longer, and then he said, ‘Sparks – can you hear me?’

‘Don’t come in!’ Sparks repeated, in a much higher voice this time, almost a scream.

‘Sparks, I need to know what the hell you’re doing in there. What’s all this whispering? And you got some kind of light flashing – what’s that?’

‘
Don’t come in! Don’t come in! Don’t come in!
’

Jack pulled down the door handle and tried to open the door, but Sparky had bolted it. Jack knocked again, with his fist this time, and much louder.

‘Open this goddamned door, Sparks! I mean it! It’s the middle of the night and I want to know what you’re up to in there! What’s this whispering, for Christ’s sake? What’s with all these lights?’

‘Dad,
please
—’

‘Please, nothing! Either you open this goddamned door right now or else I’m going to kick it in! I mean it!’

‘No, Dad!
No!
’

But Jack stepped back two paces, and then kicked the bathroom door as hard as he could. The screws that were holding the bolt in place were torn out of the doorframe, and it took only one more kick for the door to judder wide open. Jack stepped into the bathroom and there was Sparky with his back to him, standing naked in front of the washbasin. His face was reflected in the mirror, but his eyes were closed.

‘Do you mind telling me just what in the hell you’re doing?’ Jack demanded. ‘It’s three-thirty in the goddamned morning and we’ve both had the worst day that anybody could possibly imagine, but here you are whispering and flashing the lights on and off. What’s wrong, Sparks? Are you sick or something?’

‘Dad, please leave me alone.’ Sparky was so tense that his buttocks were clenched and his shoulder-blades were protruding as sharp as two axes. He still didn’t open his eyes. His voice, too, still sounded as if two or three people were speaking at once, or as if it had been recorded and then re-recorded – fractions of a second out of synch.

‘Come back to bed, Sparks,’ Jack told him.

Sparky stayed where he was. Jack came right up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. Sparky flinched, almost as if Jack had given him a mild electric shock. His skin felt very cold and clammy, even though he must have been very hot in bed to have sweated so much.

Jack said, ‘Sparks – you have to come back to bed, son. If you’re still feeling like this in the morning, we can call for a doctor.’ He paused, and then he said, ‘Where’s your mom’s pendant? I thought you wore it all the time.’

Sparky opened his eyes. For a fraction of a second Jack thought that Sparky had rolled them up inside of his head, because they were blind and white, without any irises. But then he blinked, and they looked normal again. He still didn’t seem to be his normal self, though. He could often be introspective and difficult to talk to, but ever since he had emerged from the forest he had given Jack the impression that he had discovered some secret he was determined to keep to himself. In a word, he not only looked introspective but
sly.

‘My pendant?’ he said. ‘I must have lost it.’

‘You’re kidding me. Where?’

‘Someplace in the forest, I guess.’

‘You sound like you don’t even care.’

‘Of course I care. But if it’s lost, it’s lost. I’m never going to find it again, am I?’

Jack didn’t know what to say to that. It had been his impression that his mother’s pendant had been one of Sparky’s most precious possessions.

‘So what was all that whispering?’ he asked, as they went back into the bedroom. Sparky picked up his blue-and-orange Chicago Bears pajamas from the floor beside the bed and tugged them on. Jack couldn’t help noticing that his penis was erect. Maybe his first guess had been right, and Sparky had been masturbating, but somehow he didn’t think so. Something else had aroused him, although he couldn’t imagine what.

They climbed back into bed and Jack switched off the light.

‘You do know, don’t you, that you can tell me anything, and everything?’ he said. ‘I’m your dad, for God’s sake. You surely don’t think it’s going to go any further.’

Sparky twisted the bedcover around himself and turned over, with his back to Jack. ‘I don’t have anything to tell you.’

‘Not even what that whispering was about?’

‘It wasn’t whispering.’

‘It sure sounded like it.’

‘It was tree talk.’

‘
Tree
talk? What the hell is tree talk?’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Well, you could try me. I’m not that dumb.’

‘I’m too tired, Dad. I’m going to go to sleep.’

‘Come on, Sparks. You can’t just say it was tree talk and then not tell me what it is.’