‘That’s just superstition,’ said Rej.
‘You know for a fact that it isn’t a devil?’
Rej looked perplexed. ‘Of course I know for a fact that it isn’t a devil. There are no such things as devils.’
‘Let me tell you something,’ said Clayton. ‘Seventeen years ago there was a fire in a third-storey slum apartment on Grand Avenue in Chicago. Nine women were incinerated, six children, and one man. The fire department investigators said that the fire was arson, although there was no trace of any known accelerant. Just one room was burnt: floors, walls, ceiling, furniture... everything turned to cinders. But outside of that room you wouldn’t have known that there had been a fire in that building at all. Not even the smell of fire.
‘I investigated that fire and I spent three days interrogating the landlord. I had three witnesses who said they heard him threatening to evict those people who lived in that apartment. I had one witness who heard him say he was going to kill them all. But he had a watertight alibi – he was playing pool with some friends the night it happened – and there was no forensic evidence whatsoever, even though we searched his apartment on our hands and knees.
‘There was only one thing: a book called Chaldean Magic. The only book in the apartment of a man who obviously read nothing but the sports pages. I didn’t think anything about it at the time. But for some reason the title stuck in my mind. I tried to locate a copy but nobody had ever heard of it. So I talked to Professor Lanormant at the University of Chicago – he’s an expert on ancient Middle Eastern religions. He said that Chaldeans had the greatest demonology in all history. He also told me they had rituals for summoning up demons to help them.
‘One of these demons had breath that could burn a whole roomful of people to death. Reduce them to carbon. Apparently it could only stay in the real world for a limited time, and when it went back to wherever it had come from, it left its own burned remains behind. Five days after that fire on Grand Avenue, an incinerated body was found on a vacant lot. There wasn’t much of it left, but the medical examiner said that he had never seen a bone structure like it before. It wasn’t human. It wasn’t animal. You could only call it a creature.’
‘Well, that’s a very good horror story,’ said Rej. ‘But it doesn’t exactly prove that devils exist, does it?’
‘Maybe not. But it does prove that you don’t solve crimes by being narrow minded.’
Sarah beckoned the waitress to bring them coffee. Then she said, ‘There’s something else, something I almost forgot. When Muller first took me down to see the sewer pipe, I thought I heard a child crying.’
‘That’s what Kaminski heard,’ said Rej. ‘That’s why he first went down there.’
‘Maybe that’s worth looking into,’ Clayton suggested. ‘How do we know he heard a child crying?’
‘He mentioned it to a doorman from the Palace of Culture and Science, who was passing the construction site that evening on his way home. And of course there was the young boy who helped him to open the door of the hoarding and take a flashlight from the builders’ hut. He heard the crying, too.’
‘But you found no child down there?’
Rej shook his head. ‘There were no children reported missing that night, either. The only thing we did find was a knitted doll, but that could have found its way into the pipe purely by chance. We showed pictures of it on television and in the newspapers, but nobody identified it.’
‘Do you still have it?’
‘Of course. It’s together with all the rest of the evidence. Not that there is much evidence.’
‘Could you get hold of it?’
‘I could have done, but I’m off the case now.’
‘I’d really like you to get hold of it, if you can.’
Rej looked cautious. ‘I don’t understand. What can you do with a doll?’
Clayton sat back in his seat and pressed his hands together as if he were praying. ‘The thing is, komisarz, that ever since that fire on Grand Avenue I started to take a much wider view of crime and criminal behaviour – particularly when it came to crimes that seemed completely inexplicable. If I encountered a crime that had no discernible motive, no circumstantial evidence, and no logical explanation, I put it into a special dossier. I still carried on trying to solve the crime in the traditional way, but at the same time I experimented by trying to solve it in other ways... such as using Tarot cards, or runes, or mediums.’
‘Did it ever work?’ asked Sarah. She felt embarrassed. She knew that her father had called Clayton ‘the best damn detective that Chicago ever produced’, but she had never believed in spiritualism. As far as she was concerned, the dead stayed dead. She hoped that flying Clayton across to Warsaw wasn’t going to prove to be an expensive and embarrassing mistake. In any kind of business, women were watched far more critically than men. She was having a difficult enough time convincing Ben and her bosses in New York that she would soon be able to get excavation work restarted. The very last thing she needed was to be criticized for having poor judgement of character.
Clayton said, ‘Sure it worked. Not always, but then not all of the crimes were susceptible to being solved that way. But on two separate occasions we were able to identify bodies by giving their clothing or possessions to experienced mediums who could visualize the people they used to belong to.’
‘This isn’t possible, is it?’ asked Rej, turning from Clayton to Sarah and back again.
‘Of course not,’ Clayton told him. ‘Not in the world as we usually perceive it. But just because you can’t perceive something, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Like high-frequency sound, or infra-red light. We accept their existence, we use them every day. Yet they have no “reality”, do they, in the sense that we can detect them by touch or by smell or by sound or by sight.’
Sarah said, ‘You’re still going to carry on a conventional investigation, though, aren’t you?’
‘Oh for sure,’ Clayton reassured her. ‘I’m not a complete wacko, if that’s what you’re worried about. But it’s always worth trying the far-out stuff as well as the good old tried- and-tested legwork. I’ve seen too many investigations drag on for week after week because first they interview all of the witnesses and then they interrogate all of the suspects and then they try to link the suspects to the evidence, and so on and so on, they’re so damned linear, do you know what I mean, when they could be trying anything and everything from DNA testing to crystal balls.’
Rej thought about that, and then he nodded. ‘You’re right. I like that thinking. All today and all tomorrow, Jerzy Matejko is organizing a search of the sewers. It won’t be very systematic, because the sewers aren’t very systematic. But it’s worth doing and it may turn something up.’
He lit a cigarette and blew out a long thin stream of smoke. ‘Jerzy’s been itching to step into my job for the past two years, but he’s still a good friend. If they find anything, he’ll tell me.’
‘That’s just what we need,’ said Clayton. ‘Meanwhile, who was this kid who helped Kaminski get into the demolition site? I’d like to talk to him.’
‘His name’s in my notebook,’ Rej told him. ‘But all he heard was a sound like a child crying, or maybe a woman.’
‘And you heard it too?’ Clayton asked Sarah.
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘It was like... sobbing, more than crying out. You know, somebody who was inconsolably sad.’
‘Any words? Any distinguishable words?’
‘I don’t know... I don’t think so.’ She tried to remember what the crying was like. There had been words, of a kind, but they had been blurry and faraway, like somebody shouting from a boat offshore. ‘No... I think there may have been something, but I don’t know what it was.’
‘Well, if you did hear something, it’s possible that we may be able to reclaim it by hypnosis.’
‘Hypnosis!’ Rej exclaimed, in open admiration. ‘He thinks of everything!’
‘Don’t get too excited,’ sai
d Clayton. ‘We don’t even know if we’ve found ourselves a fat lady yet, let alone heard her singing.’
Rej frowned; so Sarah translated. ‘He says it’s not over till it’s over.’
‘Okay, fine, I understand. Listen – let me make a call to Matejko, to see how this sewer search is going.’
He went off to find a phone while Sarah poured Clayton some more coffee.
‘Nice guy,’ Clayton remarked.
Sarah smiled. ‘Yes, he is, in a stuffy kind of way. I sometimes think that dad would have been the same if he’d stayed in Poland. He seems to find it hard, all this change. He’s very moral. He believes in finding out the truth, as if there ever was such a thing. He thinks that Big Macs are no substitute for pozytywne myslenie – you know, positive thinking.’
Rej came back. He looked tense and even more bedraggled than before. ‘I’ve just talked to Matejko,’ he said. ‘They were searching the sewers around Powstancow Warszawy Square. They found a body with no head. All the evidence suggests that it’s Antoni Dlubak.’
‘Well, my friend,’ said Clayton, in English. ‘It looks like the game is afoot.’
*
They found Marek Maslowski sitting on the steps of the Palace of Culture & Science, talking to six or seven of his friends. He was wearing his black leather jacket and a new pair of Levis, and his silky black moustache hadn’t grown any longer. At first he didn’t recognize Rej in his damp-corrugated coat, and his plastered-back hair, but then he did.
‘Hey, the gliniarze,’ he said; and several of his friends stepped away. ‘To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?’
Rej immediately sat down on the step next to him. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘No bullshit. This is Clayton Marsh, he’s a detective from America. We’re trying to find out what it was that killed Jan Kaminski.’
Marek blinked at him. ‘Did I hear that right? Did you say what?’
‘What do you think?’ Clayton asked him. ‘You heard what Kaminski heard. Crying, or sobbing, or whatever. What do you think it was?’
‘Well, how do I know? I didn’t see it; and I couldn’t hear it too clearly because I was up on ground level. I don’t know. It could have been a woman, but it sounded more like a kid.’
‘Think back,’ Clayton urged him. ‘Try to remember exactly what it sounded like.’
Marek glanced at his friends. ‘I don’t know why I’m helping you people. All you ever do is give us grief.’
‘You helped Jan Kaminski.’
‘Jan Kaminski wasn’t a pig.’
‘All the same, you could help us to find out how he died.’
Marek hesitated for a moment, then he pressed his fingertips against his forehead and tried to concentrate. ‘I don’t know. There was lots of traffic.’
‘Did you hear any words?’
‘I don’t think so. It was just like crying.’
‘Think harder. Did it sound as if it could have been words, even if you couldn’t make out what they were?’
After a long pause, Marek said, ‘Sure... yes, it could have been words.’
Several of Marek’s friends were growing impatient. A pretty girl in black leggings with a ring through her right nostril said, ‘Come on, Kurt, these are the enemy, for Christ’s sake.’
Clayton laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘Listen, miss. I’ve come all the way from Chicago, Illinois, to talk to this gentleman.’
‘So, why do I care?’ the girl challenged him, in English; although she was plainly impressed.
Clayton answered her in English. ‘I’m not asking you to care. I’m just asking you to put a sock in it for a couple of minutes.’
The girl frowned at Marek, and said, ‘Sock in it? What does he mean?’
‘He means shut up,’ Marek told her.
The girl gave Clayton the finger; and then she gave Marek the finger, too. ‘What are you now?’ she said. ‘Kurt the cop-lover?’
‘Oh, go take a walk, Olga,’ Marek told her; and she flounced off to join the rest of her friends.
‘Kurt?’ asked Clayton. ‘Why did she call you Kurt?’
‘I look like Kurt Cobain a little. You know, from Nirvana.’
‘You mean you look like Kurt Cobain before he blew his face off.’
‘I’ve nearly been there, man,’ said Marek, intensely. ‘So have some of my friends. You think it’s easy, growing up in a shit-heap like this? You wake up every day and all you see is advertisements for BMWs and Ducati motorbikes and Christian Dior aftershave and you know that if you live to be a hundred-and-eight and you work your ass through to your buttock-bones every day of the week, and you steal whatever you can carry away, you will never ever be able to afford any of them. BMW? I couldn’t even buy a fucking BMW steering wheel, let alone the rest of it.’
‘That’s a worldwide problem, son,’ Clayton smiled. ‘Just be grateful you’re not in Ethiopia.’
‘I might just as well be. Poland? It’s just Ethiopia with extra sauerkraut.’
Rej put in, ‘You don’t have to help us if you don’t want to. Officially, I’m off the case; and officially, this gentleman shouldn’t be investigating it, either. But we’ve got thirteen innocent people dead now. They found another one this morning with his head cut off.’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Marek. His friends were whistling to him now, and calling ‘Come on, Kurt, we’re going to Olga’s!’
Clayton leaned forward. ‘Marek, can you remember anything that girl or woman might have said?’
Marek shook his head.
‘Will you help us?’ asked Clayton. ‘I’m making a personal, heartfelt appeal here.’
‘I don’t see what I can do.’
‘Well... I’m planning on holding a seance, of a kind. Do you know what that is? When people hold hands and try to conjure up the dead. I’m planning on doing that, for the little girl you heard. To see if we can’t maybe raise up her spirit, see what I mean, to help us discover what’s been happening here.’
Marek turned to Rej to make sure that this wasn’t a leg-pull. But Rej shrugged and said, ‘It’s a tough case. We’re trying everything.’
‘A seance?’ Marek asked him. ‘You mean, knock once if so-and-so killed you; knock twice if it was what’s-his-face?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Clayton. ‘But pretty close. And you could give us some real valuable input. You heard that child or that woman crying... you could have heard more than you realize. What do you say? Do you want to take part?’
A dark-haired, white-faced girl came back up the steps and wound her bangled arm around his neck and glared at Clayton defiantly. The young East challenging the middle-aged West. But Marek said, ‘Sure... okay, I’ll do it. If you really think it’s going to help track down this Executioner character.’
‘I have to find a medium first,’ said Clayton. ‘But as soon as I do... well, tell me where I can get in touch with you, and we’ll be ready to roll.’
Rej stood up to leave. Marek looked up at him and said, ‘What happened, komisarz? You couldn’t solve this case on your own?’
Rej looked across at Clayton, and then back to Marek. ‘Office politics,’ he said.
‘Oh, really? So what happens if your boss finds out that you’re still working on it?’
‘I’ll probably get the sack.’
‘Hey – so why are you doing it? I thought all you gliny wanted was a comfortable life and a pension.’
Rej jabbed a finger at him. ‘You listen to me. My father fought the Nazis; and then he fought the Russians; and then he spent the rest of his life helping to put this city back together again. He couldn’t stand time-servers and he couldn’t stand bureaucrats, and neither can I.’
Marek laughed. ‘Will you listen to this man? The next thing he’s going to tell me is that he digs Nirvana.’
‘Better than digging graves,’ said Rej.
*
Ben said, ‘At last! New York’s furious.’
Sarah folded her umbrella and dropped it into the umbrella stand.
‘Of course they’re furious. But there’s nothing else that we can do.’
‘Can’t we find anybody to get this contract moving?’
‘Ben – even if we could, the police wouldn’t let us. Not for two more days, at least. The whole site’s been cordoned off.’
‘I thought you were pals with the chief of police, what’s-his-name, Grabhandle.’
‘Grabowski. Yes, I am. But he’s not going to interfere with proper police procedure; and neither can we. The only answer to this problem is to find the Executioner and have him arrested; and you know what we’re doing about that.’
‘Jesus, yes. Bringing in some desiccated old flatfoot who happens to drink with your old man, and paying him $2,000 a week to bumble around a city he doesn’t know looking for somebody he can’t identify.’
‘Clayton Marsh is a brilliant detective. What’s more, he’s teamed up with Komisarz Rej, so he won’t have any trouble finding his way around.’
‘Rej? That clown?’
‘Rej isn’t as stupid as you think.’
‘If you knew how stupid I think he is, you wouldn’t even think that was a compliment.’
Sarah slammed her briefcase down on her desk. ‘You listen to me, Ben. We have a problem here but it won’t get solved by abuse. Nobody is going to work on that site until they’re sure that they won’t be attacked – and whatever you think about superstition, those men believe that if they upset that thing, they won’t only lose their own lives, but their families will be killed, too, right down to the very last one of them. They believe it, Ben, and neither you nor I can change their minds.’
Ben shook his head and propped one buttock-cheek on the edge of her desk. ‘I don’t know, Sarah. What happened to that legendary ball-breaker I used to know?’
‘You can’t always get what you want by fear and intimidation, Ben. This is one of those times.’
He picked a memo off her desk, read it, and then began to fold it into a paper airplane. ‘That’s all well and good, sweetheart, but New York’s furious. This thing is clocking up $395,000 a day, plus interest. If you don’t start pouring concrete by the end of next week, then believe me, they’re going to start looking for scapegoats.’
The Chosen Child Page 15
