Where the Devil Can't Go (45 page)
Read Where the Devil Can't Go Online
Authors: Anya Lipska
“I’m still close to some
Solidarnosc
people who were good friends of Marek,” said the priest, tugging at his earlobe. “Some of them have
Partia Renasans
connections. It’s only right that they should be told of Zamorski’s part in his murder.” His lips trembled at the memory of his fellow priest’s brutal death. “For all the good it will do.”
As the two men drank in sombre silence, Janusz felt a sudden impulse to cheer the old guy up. “I’m having a visitor over in a couple of weeks,” he said, his voice gruff.
“Marta?” asked the priest, his eyebrows shooting up.
“No, Father. Bobek. He’s coming to stay with me – for a fortnight.” Janusz felt his mouth twisting into a foolish grin.
The priest’s face brightened, but then he frowned. “Should you be taking him out of school for so long?”
He gave the old man a caustic look. “I’ll set him some maths problems, alright?”
After Father Piotr left, Janusz settled down to get comprehensively drunk, but ten minutes later, a loud voice shattered his reverie.
“
Czesc
, sisterfucker!” bellowed Oskar, hurling himself into the seat the priest had vacated.
“Put a sock in it, Oskar,” Janusz murmured, “You’re not on site now.”
“Sorry, everybody.” Oskar made an expansive gesture that encompassed the room. Seeing people’s attention fixed on the TV, he craned round Janusz’s shoulder to squint at the screen. “What’s going on?” he asked Janusz, then his eyebrows shot up. “Don’t tell me I’m missing Eurovision?!”
“You’re not serious, Oskar?” said Janusz, watching his mate upend a tiny silver-plated bowl of nuts into his mouth. “You must know there’s an election on.”
“Oh,
politicians
.” said Oskar dismissively, spraying nut fragments over the table. “You won’t catch me voting, it only encourages them.” He leaned towards his mate. “It takes two to lie – one to lie and one to listen.”
“Who said that?” asked Janusz.
“Homer Simpson,” said Oskar, with the air of someone quoting an unimpeachable source.
“Anyway,” he said, dusting salt from his hands. “Are you going to get me a fucking drink or shall I just die of thirst here on the carpet?”
As Janusz paid for the round, he wondered briefly whether he should tell Oskar about the murdered gangster they’d unwittingly delivered to Poland in place of Olek, but decided against it. With Radomil – and no doubt the gun that had dispatched his victim – in police custody, he reckoned Nowak’s insurance policy had expired, and telling Oskar anything he didn’t strictly need to know was a risky strategy.
Nine quid poorer, Janusz returned to the table bearing the drinks.
“So,
kolego
,” said Oskar slyly. “Guess who turned up at the Stratford café today?”
“Who?”
“Oh, only Kasia,” said Oskar swirling his drink round.
“Yeah?” said Janusz, pretending to look at the TV, aware of a fluttering sensation in his stomach. “How’s she doing?”
Oskar leaned toward him. “She’s left that club!” he said in a piercing whisper, “where she does the
striptiz!
” A few heads turned at nearby tables.
“Yeah, I know – her boss told me,” said Janusz. “He overheard her talking to Basia – they’re opening a nail bar in Warsaw.”
Oskar shook his head slowly, his face a chubby roundel of pent-up glee.
“And you’re meant to be the big detective?” he shook his head pityingly. “Since when did Ray start speaking Polish,
idiota
?”
Janusz realised Oskar was right, for once: Ray did only know about three words of Polish. The whole thing had been a sly wind-up, no doubt to pay Janusz back for spinning that yarn about hidden cameras in the peepshow booths.
“She’s opening a nail bar, alright, but not in Warsaw,” said Oskar, “in
Stratford.
” He chuckled delightedly.
“She told
you
all of this?” asked Janusz.
“Why not?” protested Oskar, then shrugged. “OK, so maybe she came in looking for you. She asked when you were coming back from Poland.”
Janusz suppressed an urge to phone Kasia there and then, but he knew that Oskar would never let him live it down.
“Anyway,” he went on, “I didn’t come all this way just to sort out your sex life. I’ve got a brilliant idea for an import business.” He leaned toward Janusz. “
Antique woodstoves
,” he whispered.
Oskar rapped out a celebratory tattoo on his mate’s plaster cast. “You and me,
kolego
, we’re going to be zloty millionaires!”
EPILOGUE
GLOS WARSZAWY
May 1, 2009
PRESIDENT DIED ‘BY DROWNING’ - A NATION MOURNS
The Government has declared three days of national mourning after the shocking death of President Edward Zamorski, who was elected in a landslide vote four weeks ago. President Zamorski’s body was found among reeds on the eastern bank of Biala River yesterday morning, and police sources confirm that he died by drowning. A note found on his body suggests that he took his own life, for personal reasons. By a poignant coincidence, the President’s body was recovered from almost exactly the same spot as that of Father Marek Kuba, the pro-democracy cleric abducted and murdered by members of Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa in 1986.
World leaders have joined to offer tributes to a national hero, a man who was a beacon of courage and integrity.
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