Blind Eye

by Stuart MacBride

  The next lump of bread bounced off a pigeon’s head and Logan awarded himself twenty points. This was such a waste of time. He was a police officer, surely there was something he could—

  His mobile phone rang. Probably Jaroszewicz checking to see if he was away sightseeing like a good little boy. But it wasn’t her, it was Finnie: ‘Where were you? I’ve been trying for an hour.’

  ‘Twiddling my bloody thumbs. Jaroszewicz won’t let me—’

  ‘I’ve spoken to the Krakow police and they don’t have anything on Gorz-kie-wicz?’ Sounding it out. ‘Too long ago – as far as they know he’s pushing up Polish daisies somewhere. But they know all about Löwenthal.’

  Logan jammed his phone between his shoulder and his ear, pinning it there while he dug out his notebook and pen. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘They fished him out of the river eight months ago. Turns out he crossed someone over a shipment of rocket-propelled grenades heading for France. Beat him to death with his own white stick.’

  ‘Oh.’ So Logan had put up with all that humiliation last night for nothing. ‘Then we’re out of victims. Everyone’s either dead or gone.’

  ‘Well that’s just perfect. We spent a fortune sending you out there and what do we have to show for it? Nothing. Finish up and get yourself on the next flight home. We’ll try and pretend this whole disaster never happened.’

  ‘There isn’t anything to finish, I—’

  But Finnie had already hung up.

  Logan snapped his phone shut, scowled at it for a bit, then stuck it back in his pocket. Wonderful. This was going to look so good when they were deciding who got the new DI’s job. I know: let’s give it to Logan who’s just wasted a couple of thousand pounds with a pointless trip to Poland.

  Gibowski was in America. Wisniewski was dead. Bielatowicz – missing for years. Löwenthal – dead. And Gorzkiewicz was anyone’s guess.

  Sodding hell.

  Logan tore the last of the bread up and hurled it at the birds, feeling petty and vicious. And then guilty. He stood, apologized to the pigeons, and mooched back towards the Old Town. At least he wouldn’t have to put up with Senior Constable Jaroszewicz for much longer. A quick goodbye, pack his bags and off on the next train back to Warsaw. She could stay here and sod about if she liked: he was going home.

  Back in the main square, wood smoke drifted out in scented wafts from food stall braziers. He stopped to buy a little paper plate of grilled, smoked cheese served with a dollop of cherry jam.

  Logan finished the lot before crumpling up his plate and dropping it in a bin – not wanting a row from any passing nuns – then froze. There was a pamphlet lying amongst the litter, advertising some sort of concert. It was all gibberish to him, but one thing did stand out loud and clear – the band had written their name in the same red, blobby, run-together block capitals Solidarity used. They even had a little flag-like scrawl over the ‘N’ in their name, just like the union.

  Gorzkiewicz – his file said he’d been active in Solidarity while Poland was under Communist rule.

  Logan looked out across the town square, then down at the poster again. A smile spread across his face. Maybe he could salvage something from this disaster after all.

  45

  It took longer than he’d thought, but eventually Logan managed to track down the local Solidarity headquarters, just off the main square in Krakow. And best of all, the woman behind the reception desk spoke English.

  She gave Logan a seat and a cup of coffee, then told him the person he needed to talk to would be down in about fifteen minutes. And he was.

  Gerek Płotkowski certainly looked the part – squarely built, greying hair, massive soup-strainer moustache, handshake like a steelworker. In thickly accented English he invited Logan to follow him to a nearby café for a drink. ‘Is all herbata and coffee in office. When it is hot like this a man needs something cold. No?’

  Yes.

  They got a table on the edge of the square, not far from someone who’d painted himself gold and was standing motionless on an upturned bucket, pretending to be a statue. Płotkowski ordered two beers from a waiter, then sat and scowled at the statue-impersonator. ‘We fight Communist oppression for years, for what? So idiota like that can exist.’ He took a big mouthful of beer, leaving a high-tidemark of foam on his moustache. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘They told me you were in Solidarity from the very start. I’m trying to find a man who was a member back in the early eighties.’

  ‘Ah…’ the big man got a misty look in his grey eyes. ‘They were good times. Hard, but we stood shoulder to shoulder. Like this…’ He held his two fists up, side by side. ‘We mean something.’

  ‘The man I’m looking for is called Gorzkiewicz. Rafal Gorzkiewicz. Did you know him?’

  The misty look disappeared, replaced by something much harder. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m a police officer.’ Logan pulled out his warrant card and slid it across the table. ‘Gorzkiewicz was attacked in 1981 – somebody blinded him.’

  ‘I do not know this man you are talking about.’ He wrapped his pint in one huge fist and threw half of it down his throat. ‘I must to get back to work.’

  Logan grabbed the man’s sleeve … took one look at the scowl it got him, and let go again. ‘Please, it’s important. Where I come from, people are being attacked just like he was: someone cuts their eyes out and burns the sockets. Shopkeepers, businessmen, fathers.’

  Płotkowski turned his face back to the living statue. ‘They should not be allowed on the square. It cheapen everything we fight for.’

  Logan let the silence stretch.

  ‘We…’ Płotkowski coughed, took another drink, ‘Not everyone agreed with getting rid of Communists through political protest. Some thought armed struggle was only way. A revolution. Solidarność, written in blood on cobbled streets of Kraków.’ The big man shook his head. ‘Gorzkiewicz – he was explosives expert in army. The Communists sent him to Afghanistan in seventy-eight… He come back two years later with a hole in his thigh size of fist. Bitter. “Political is too slow,” he say. “Blood is only thing these Russian bastards understand.”’

  Płotkowski finished his beer and called for another – getting one for Logan as well, even though he was nowhere near finished his first pint – and two shots of vodka too.

  The big man didn’t say anything more until the drinks arrived, handing Logan a shot glass of clear spirit, so cold it steamed in the warm afternoon. ‘Na zdrowie!’

  He knocked his vodka back in one and Logan followed suit.

  ‘Gorzkiewicz want Solidarność leadership to call for armed resistance, but they would not. Too much violence and Russia will use excuse to march in, like they do in Afghanistan. Soviet soldiers with Soviet tanks and guns… We want our freedom the right way.’ He was silent for a minute, looking not at Logan, but at a time nearly thirty years ago. ‘He want to blow up anything that support Communist regime. And he have enough friends to make him dangerous.’ The big man seemed to shrink a bit. ‘On twenty-sixth of November 1980 there was explosion at the SB headquarters.’

  Logan must have looked confused, because Płotkowski said, ‘SB is stand for Służba Bezpieczeństwa. They were Security Service of Ministry of Internal Affairs: Communist secret police who try to make dead anyone that stand up to regime.’ He leant over and spat at his feet. ‘When SB headquarters explode authorities say it gas leak, they do not want people to know it is really bomb. So they start rounding up members of Solidarność… Beatings. Disappearings.’ His huge shoulders rose and fell. ‘Police Station in Kazimierz blow up two weeks later and Communists declare stan wojenny: martial law. Close the borders, curfew, censor our mail, tap our phones, arrest our teachers, shut down newspapers. Then the riots start.’

  He stared into the depths of his glass. ‘People shot in the streets… It was too soon, we did not want this. But Gorzkiewicz say, “This is progress! Now we will have fre
edom.” He want to blow up more police stations… We have no choice.’

  The old man finished his second beer in silence.

  Logan pulled out his notebook and pen, and put them on the table. ‘Do you know where Gorzkiewicz is now?’

  Płotkowski scribbled an address down, then got up and left without another word.

  Logan pushed his way back into the records office. Jaroszewicz was sitting at the same desk as before, the electric fan still making its soporific hummmmmmm click, hummmmmmm click, hummmmmmm click…

  He pulled out a chair on the other side of the desk and settled into it. ‘Find anything?’

  She scowled up at him. ‘Nothing. I went to all the places Löwenthal’s brother mentioned and no one knows where he is.’

  ‘That’s because Löwenthal’s dead. They dragged his beaten body out of the river eight months ago.’

  Jaroszewicz slammed the document she was reading down on the desk, and swore. ‘Then it is true,’ she said, ‘this was all a stupid waste of time!’

  Logan took his notebook from his pocket, opened it at the relevant page, and placed it on the table in front of her.

  She picked it up, frowning as she read. ‘What is this?’

  ‘That’s where Rafal Gorzkiewicz lives.’

  And Jaroszewicz started swearing again.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ Jaroszewicz shuffled forward two paces in the queue.

  Logan looked up at the towering bulk of St Mary’s Basilica. The huge red-brick cathedral sat at a jaunty angle on the edge of the old town square, surrounded by tourists, bathed in the smell of charcoal-grilled meat. ‘You want to pray before we go see Gorzkiewicz?’

  She shuffled forwards again. ‘You think you are so perfect.’

  ‘It’s not exactly standard police procedure where I come from.’

  ‘Well, you are not where you come from. You are where I come from, and this is how we do things.’

  ‘Thought you said you were from Warsaw.’

  ‘I moved there when I was a little girl. I was born just outside Krakow.’ They were nearly at the entrance now, a pair of stout wooden doors in an ornate hexagonal porch. ‘Are you a Catholic?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Then you cannot use this door. It is for worshippers only. You will have to wait outside.’

  Logan took another look at the sun-drenched square. ‘You going to be long? Only it’s baking out here.’

  ‘Then go and have a beer, or a coffee, or something.’ And then she stepped into the darkened porch, leaving Logan on his own outside. Except for the queue of the faithful and another one of those bloody living statues.

  Logan wandered down the side of the cathedral, following a small clot of American tourists to a sign that said visitors were permitted to use the side entrance. If they bought a ticket. Why not?

  Inside it couldn’t have been more different from St Peter’s back in Aberdeen. Instead of austere white walls, this place was done up in cheery shades of blue and gold, plastered with statues, friezes and paintings of saints. Hundreds of them.

  The nave was cut in half by a waist-high set of wooden barriers, keeping the faithful at the back safe from the heathens at the front. Logan scanned the faces of the men and women deep in prayer on the dark wooden pews, but there was no sign of Jaroszewicz. Probably still in the queue, or lighting a candle or something.

  He found an empty seat and sank into it, looking up at the incredible display of shiny stuff around him. The walls were covered in biblical scenes, all painted directly onto the stonework. The pulpit was festooned with spines and dripped with gold. A huge crucifix hung between the nave and the presbytery, where there was even more gold and gaily coloured paint. Like a gaudy fairground ride, only with pictures of martyrs and Madonnas instead of ripped-off Disney characters.

  He’d never seen anything like it.

  Logan peered back over his shoulder… There she was, just kneeling down on one side of confessional stand number fourteen – it said so on a little beige sign taped to the wooden screen. In a way the setting was appropriate, because God was probably the only person who knew what had got into her. Logan certainly didn’t. Ever since he’d shown her Gorzkiewicz’s address she’d been twitchy.

  Which probably wasn’t a good sign. But it was too late to worry about that now.

  Jaroszewicz was mumbling, head down, hands clasped in prayer … and then Logan realized she was actually fiddling with her mobile phone: texting while she confessed. That was modern Catholicism for you.

  Five minutes later his bum was starting to go numb, so he stood, sneaked his own mobile out of his pocket – if it was good enough for true believers, it was good enough for him – and took a couple of photos while the man in charge of stopping people doing just that was looking the other way. Then Logan wandered back outside into the sunshine. It wasn’t long before Jaroszewicz joined him.

  ‘Right,’ she said, sticking her hands deep into her pockets, ‘we have to pick up two things, then we can go.’

  Stop number one was the off-licence opposite the hotel, for a litre bottle of good vodka; stop number two was the hotel itself. She told him to wait for her in the lobby, and disappeared into the lift. When she came back her face was set like a painted martyr.

  The taxi beetled down the dual carriageway, heading East with the sun at its back. Half past six and the traffic was starting to get a little better, even if the road was getting worse – the taxi rolled about on the rutted tarmac like a ship at sea. The driver turned to grin at Logan. Early twenties, long dreadlocks, thin face, and a pierced nose. ‘You can always tell when driver is drunk in Poland: he drive in straight line, not swerve to avoid pothole. Ha!’ The car bounced through a pothole.

  Sitting in the back seat next to him, Jaroszewicz had gone a worrying shade of grey.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  She glanced at him and then back out of the window again. ‘It is probably nothing. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.’

  ‘When people tell me not to worry, that’s when I start worrying.’

  ‘It is just not the best part of Krakow…’

  The taxi driver laughed again. ‘Is not part of Kraków at all. Is Nowa Huta!’ He grinned at Logan again. ‘Where you from? America? Like on Friends? Like Joey and Chandler?’

  ‘No, Scotland, like Sean Connery…’

  ‘Ah! James Bond. Very good. Shaken not stirred.’ And as if to emphasize the point the car lurched through a series of tarmac ruts. ‘Nowa Huta is mean: “New Steelworks.” Uncle Joe give them as gift to people of Kraków. Make them suffer for being broken bourgeois.’ He leant on his horn and hurled abuse as a little black Trabant puttered by on the inside lane. ‘You want go to milk bar? I know nice place.’

  Jaroszewicz waved a hand at him. ‘Just take us to the address.’

  He shrugged, and the car lurched again.

  She went back to staring out of the window, clutching her massive handbag to her chest.

  Logan was beginning to get a very bad feeling about this.

  46

  The taxi pulled a juddering U-turn on the wide, tree-lined street and roared away in a cloud of oily smoke, leaving Logan and Jaroszewicz standing outside a block of flats. Five storeys of grimy grey, with white-painted window frames. The word ‘HUTNIK’ was daubed in red paint next to an archway that led all the way through the building and into some sort of square on the other side.

  ‘This it?’

  Jaroszewicz checked the bit of paper he’d given her, then walked through the archway. On the other side it opened up into a little park of paving slabs and trees, a rickety children’s play area that looked about ready to collapse in the corner. The green space was surrounded on all sides by walls of identically bland apartments.

  One half of the square looked much cleaner than the other and when Logan asked why, Jaroszewicz just shrugged, mumbled something about it depending on which way the wind f
rom the Steelworks was blowing, then marched across to a plain blue door.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the empty windows surrounding them. ‘Stalin built it like this so people would spy on their neighbours. Every house overlooks at least a dozen more.’ She dug into her handbag, brought out something wrapped in a paisley-pattern handkerchief, and handed it over. ‘Here.’

  Heavy. And worryingly familiar.

  Logan peeled back one edge of the cloth and slapped it back again.

  ‘Why do I need a gun?’

  ‘Just keep it…’ She pointed at his pocket. ‘In case.’

  ‘What’s going on, Jaroszewicz?’

  ‘Please, call me Wiktorja.’

  ‘Either you tell me what’s going on, or I’m turning round and walking out of here.’

  She pulled another bundle from her bag, slipping it into her coat pocket. ‘This man, Gorzkiewicz, he is dangerous.’

  ‘He’s blind.’

  ‘He knows dangerous people. And dangerous people are looking for him.’ She blushed. ‘I … ahem … I do not want you to get hurt.’

  She scanned the list of names on the intercom, running her finger lightly across the handwritten labels. ‘He is not here: no Gorzkiewicz.’

  ‘Well, if dangerous people are looking for him, he’s not going to put his real name on the buzzer, is he?’

  Her finger froze over one. ‘Zegarmistrz … Ah.’ And then she pressed the button.

  Silence. Then a crackle. Then silence again.

  Logan put a hand on the door and pushed. It swung open.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark. There was a short corridor with a block of letter boxes on one pistachio-green wall, three doors leading off to separate apartments, and a set of concrete stairs with wrought iron balustrades and a scarred wooden handrail.

  Jaroszewicz – Wiktorja – pointed up, then started to climb.

  Each landing had a small square window set into the thick wall at knee height, but they didn’t do much more than emphasize how gloomy it was in here. The apartment doors were all different, some elaborately so, trying to impose a little individuality on this communist workers’ paradise of grey bland buildings.