Boniczka fell silent. Szacki and Nawrocki held their breath. The whirr of the tape recorder suddenly became perfectly audible.

"It's funny how very unlike their parents children can be," said Boniczka, and Szacki involuntarily shuddered. It occurred to him that someone else had said the same thing to him recently. But who? He couldn't remember.

"Everyone always used to say how like me Sylwia was. The same eyebrows, the same eyes, the same hair. The spitting image of her dad. But she wasn't my daughter. There wasn't a drop of my blood in her veins."

"How's that?" asked Nawrocki.

"Iza, my wife, was raped a month after our wedding. One evening she was on her way back from the station to my parents' house, where we were living then. Sylwia was the rapist's child. When Iza got home, all she kept talking about was the lilac. It was the end of May, and there really was a smell of lilac everywhere, most of all near the station. Enough to make you feel sick when you walked past. And she kept going on about that lilac. Then she stopped. We never talked about it again. Not about the rape or the lilac. We pretended Sylwia was our daughter. It's a very small town, so it never even crossed our minds to go to the police about it. Except that Iza was never again the woman I'd married. She was empty. She went to work, took care of the child, cooked, cleaned, baked on Sundays. She stopped going to church, and I had a hard time persuading her that we should have Sylwia christened. She didn't come to her first communion because the entire church was decorated with lilac. She saw that from a distance and went back home. Sylwia cried. But we didn't talk about it then either."

Boniczka fell silent again. For a long time. There was nothing to suggest he'd return to the subject that most interested them.

"And that night at the school you thought..." Nawrocki gently led him on.

"I thought I didn't want my daughter to be like my wife. Empty. I thought that sometimes death might be a solution. That if I were her, I wouldn't want to stay here either." Boniczka gazed at the palms of his hands. "But I couldn't kill her. I fastened the cord and went outside. I decided I'd go back in ten minutes, and if by then she hadn't made up her mind, I'd join her in pretending nothing had happened. As if I didn't know why she refused to wear shoes with heels, although she wasn't very tall."

The ca.s.sette ran to its end and the tape recorder stopped with a loud click. Nawrocki turned the ca.s.sette to the other side and pressed the red "record" b.u.t.ton.

"When I came back, she wasn't alive. Before that she'd taken the shoes and put them neatly by the wall, next to mine. One was standing straight; the one without a heel had fallen on its side. I kept it as a memento."

"What about Sylwia?"

"I knew they were finishing repairs to the water main at the playschool and that next day they'd be covering it over. I threw her in and shovelled on some sand. No one worked it out. I often used to come and light a candle there."

Szacki couldn't get his head round it.

"Why didn't you bury her at the cemetery?" he asked his first question that evening.

"Because of my wife," replied Boniczka. "If they'd found her hanging at my workplace, there'd have been an inquiry, police interviews, lots of talk, reports of the rape in the papers. They'd have been sure to lock me up. My wife would never have survived that."

"But her child could have lived. Wouldn't that have been better?"

"Death is a neat solution. Often far better than life. Or at least that's what I think." Boniczka shrugged.

"Are you going to lock me up?" he asked after a pause.

Nawrocki glanced at Szacki. The two men left the room to confer in the corridor. They agreed they'd have to write out the clairvoyant's story as Boniczka's detailed account and give it to him to sign. On this basis they could instigate the rape case and lock up the guilty parties. And keep everything as secret as possible so the papers wouldn't write about the case.

"What shall we do with Boniczka?" the policeman asked the prosecutor.

"I'll put him on probation and charge him with desecrating a corpse."

There must have been an awful lot of dust in the corridor, because Nawrocki started sneezing like mad. Once he'd calmed down and wiped his nose, he looked at Szacki with watery eyes.

"Please let him go, Prosecutor," he said. "He's not guilty of anything. He's a victim, just like his wife and daughter. You'll only make matters worse."

Teodor Szacki straightened the knot in his tie. He was ashamed of what he was planning to say, but he had no alternative - that was his job.

"As you know well, Superintendent, every case is full of human tragedy, injustice, countless nuances, shades of meaning and doubts. And that's exactly why the state pays a salary to b.a.s.t.a.r.ds like me. I know you're right, but my only concern is that a paragraph of the penal code has been infringed. I'm sorry."

IV.

Luckily, when he got home, Helka was already asleep. He kissed her on the forehead and moved her away from the edge of the bed. It wasn't high, but he was always afraid she'd fall. She mumbled in her sleep and hugged her toy anteater tighter. The creature's long nose was bent out of shape by this sudden affection. Szacki knelt by the bed and looked at his daughter. She was breathing through her open mouth, her brow was sweating slightly, and her small body was emitting a warmth that had a pleasant fragrance of fresh bread.

A person stops being a child when he starts to stink, thought Szacki. When he starts to have bad breath, his sheets smell sour and his socks sweet. When he has to change his shirt every day and his pyjamas every other. Weronika was in the habit of sleeping in the same T-shirt for a week. He couldn't bear that, but he was embarra.s.sed to tell her. Just as he tried not to notice the tops that had gone yellow under the arms. What could he tell her? That she ought to buy new ones? Then she'd reply that he should give her the money. Anyway, he himself was wearing yellowed underpants beneath his neatly creased pinstriped trousers. Could she possibly like that? Could Monika like that? Or any lover at all? How pointless. He knew this sort of reasoning was a trap, but he kept thinking more and more often that a stupid two hundred thousand would solve all his problems. He'd pay off his debts, take a year off, have a rest, see a bit of the world with the girls. And he'd be able to afford to stand Monika a coffee without feeling guilty for spending money meant for the most urgent domestic expenses.

He was glad Helka was asleep. She might have been able to see in his eyes the shadow of the story he'd had to listen to earlier. Did everything he experienced at work stay inside him? Did all those murders and rapes hover around him like a swarm of bees, stinging everyone he came near? He was afraid he was the carrier of all that hatred, that he spread germs of aggression, infecting his wife and daughter with the worst things in the world. It wasn't visible now, but one day the disease would show itself.

He found this thought so painful that he instantly left his daughter's bedside. He was taking a shower when Weronika came into the bathroom. She was only wearing knickers, but his eyelids were drooping despite the cold water pouring onto him. He hadn't the strength even to think about s.e.x.

"What are you showering like that for? Have you been seeing someone?" she asked, as she brushed her teeth. She did it very energetically, making her b.r.e.a.s.t.s bounce comically. That didn't excite him either.

"I had a meeting in town with a lady s.e.xologist. I didn't think a person could be so stretchy. From now on the phrase 'let's change position' will always remind me of gymnastics. Do you fancy vaulting the horse?"

"You idiot. Finish your shower and come to me."

They made love under the duvet, lazily, quietly and with satisfaction; calm with the calm of lovers who after fourteen years know perfectly where and how to touch each other. It was as fabulous as ever. With stress on the "as ever", thought Szacki, as they were lying side by side.

The digital clock showed 23:45:34. The figures showing the seconds kept changing steadily. They were driving him nuts, but he couldn't take his eyes off them. Why the f.u.c.k had he bought a clock that showed the seconds? Did he work at the air traffic control centre? On top of which the thing shone like neon - there was even a reddish glow on the wall. He'd have to buy something new. Wonder how much for.

Weronika cuddled up to him.

"What are you thinking about?" she said, blowing a smell of toothpaste and slightly tart saliva into his face.

"You."

"And really?"

"How great it'd be to win the lottery."

"So give luck a chance," she muttered, almost asleep.

"OK. Tomorrow's Sat.u.r.day, I'll buy a few tickets with random numbers."

She opened one eye.

"Decided on the tenth of June 2005 at twenty-three fifty-one and thirteen seconds," she said. "Maybe you should write those very figures on the coupon, eh? Take some trouble over it."

Teodor Szacki twitched abruptly and sat up in bed. He no longer felt sleepy. His grey cells had started working at an accelerated rate. He'd just heard something very important, but what was it? He repeated the entire conversation to himself. What was the point? For G.o.d's sake what was the point?

"Have you gone mad or had a fit?" said Weronika, sitting up too.

"Go to sleep," he replied automatically. "I just remembered something, I have to look at my notes."

"Typical man," she said resignedly, and pulled the duvet over her head when he switched on the bedside lamp.

Soon he had found what he was looking for, written in his diary under 7th June. Telak's sequence of lucky numbers: 7, 8, 9, 17, 19, 22. Why exactly those numbers, and why was it that a few minutes ago not only had a bell rung in his head - sirens had started to wail? He quickly added them up: eighty-two. Eight plus two is ten. One plus zero is one. It made no sense - that wasn't the point.

Concentrate, he thought, rubbing his temples. Concentrate, focus, get thinking. When did something spark in your head? When Weronika said the date: 10th June 2005.

He sat up straight and suddenly felt himself go cold. And his throat was dry. He went into the kitchen, got a can of beer from the fridge and drank half of it in one go. Now he knew. It was Mrs Telak quoting her daughter's suicide note. "We'll meet again in Nangijala. Warsaw, 17th September 2003, 22:00" - twenty-two hundred hours. 17, 9, 22 - three of the numbers concurred with Telak's selection. Was it possible? Could someone be so round the twist as to choose the date of his daughter's death as his lucky numbers for the lottery? And even if he did, what about the rest: 7, 8 and 19? Maybe that was the year of her birth: 1987. Probably too early. Besides, it was illogical: just the year of birth, and just the day, month and hour of death. It would be logical to have the entire date encoded. Szacki stared at the figures, trying to put them in some sort of sequence. Finally he wrote down two dates and times: 17. 09. 1978, 22:00.

17. 09. 1987, 22:00.

And one question: on the exact anniversary - the twenty-fifth or sixteenth - of what had Kasia Telak decided to take her own life?

7.

Sat.u.r.day, 11th June 2005.

The annual Opole Festival of Polish song is as weak as usual. Cabaret Night is exceptionally embarra.s.sing. Pock is celebrating the draw between the Krakow team, Wisa, and Warsaw's Legia in the final round of the First League. The Warsaw team will end the season in third place, the Pock team in fourth. Krakow is celebrating the seventy-fifth birthday of playwright Sawomir Mroek with a large exhibition of his drawings and "a series of ridiculous events in the Planty Park". Meanwhile in Warsaw a series of ten unfortunate events takes place: 1. the "Enough Depravity" initiative to take tougher action against those convicted of paedophilia; 2. students illegally opposing the ban on the Equality Parade; 3. illegal civic disobedience opposing the ban; 4. the Law & Justice Party's Youth Forum opposing the promotion of civil partnerships; 5. the Society for Civic Liberties opposing any kind of work on a draft law on civil partnerships; 6. the Warsaw branch of the Catholic Society of Educators promoting education based on Christian values as a guarantee of a socially and morally healthy society; 7. the Warsaw branch of the Catholic Society of Educators saying Christians who respect the laws of G.o.d, i.e. the laws of nature, are first-cla.s.s citizens; 8. the Society for Civic Liberties opposing movements in favour of legalizing gay adoption; 9. a privately organized group in support of action aimed at fighting discrimination against women within society; 10. "Oka", the Information Centre for Women's Circles' family picnic: "Warsaw - a city without hatred". Everyone does their protesting under a reasonably cloudless sky; there is hardly any rain, though it is cold again - the maximum temperature in the capital is barely sixteen degrees.

I.

How I hate this place, thought Teodor Szacki, putting what must have been the fiftieth bag of shopping into the luckily capacious boot of his Citroen on the top level of the car park at the Carrefour on Gbocka Street. That shrine of sour faces and quite unjustified grievances; that plastic temple of offended sales a.s.sistants and dissatisfied waitresses, where every speaker emitted a different b.l.o.o.d.y awful pop song.

No trip he ever made to the supermarket went according to plan. First he had waited twenty minutes to get in, because some morons had had a minor crash at a junction, and of course they were standing by those Lanos of theirs waiting for the police, instead of just writing a statement and driving off, or at least moving onto the hard shoulder. Every driver in Poland knows that even if they've just smashed your indicator light you've got to summon the police, otherwise either the culprit will cheat you or the insurer will. So he was stuck.

Once he had found a parking place in a seedy corner of the jam-packed car park, a tramp immediately sprang out of nowhere offering to keep an eye on his car. Szacki blew a fuse.

"What do you mean, keep an eye on it? If three iron-pumping thugs come along to steal my car, what are you going to do about it? Lie under the wheels? Jump on them?"

He dug out a zloty for the tramp, because he was afraid he'd let the air out of his tires, scratch the door, steal the wipers or whatever else they do. Just in case, as a parting shot as he and Helka left, he said he was a prosecutor, at which the tramp bowed low and ran off. So much for keeping an eye on the car.

He didn't have two zlotys for a trolley, so he tried changing a ten-zloty note at a newspaper kiosk - sorry, nowadays they're called "press emporia" - but the young lady didn't have any change. So he bought a fruit juice for Helka for one zloty fifty. She gave him the change. He didn't say a word.

He put in the coins and got his trolley, pulling it out of the line with some difficulty. Next to him stood a sweaty fat guy, watching him with hatred. Szacki realized the man wanted to take the same trolley. And now, although there were ten other lines of trolleys with no one anywhere near them, he saw that an attack had been made on HIS trolley, HIS master plan had been destroyed.

"You should have been quicker," quipped Szacki spitefully and went into the supermarket. He had a shopping list. He always read it a few times first, to work out the optimal route and not waste time running back and forth between sections. He crossed off each item in turn and took care not to buy anything unnecessary. He had only got as far as the bakery when he heard: "Would the owner of Citroen registration number WH25058 please return to his car immediately."

He left the trolley, took Helka by the hand and ran to the car park, sure his beloved Citroen had gone up in flames because the tank had exploded thanks to the eternally faulty autogas system.

It was parked in a disabled spot.

A small skinny guy in a black jacket that was too big for him marked Securitas was leaning on the bonnet. Pity it didn't say "Gestapo". Home-grown fascists. Szacki thought private individuals should be forbidden to wear any sort of uniforms.

"Permit me to make no comment," drawled the little Hitler.

"Yes, you b.l.o.o.d.y well have my permission," agreed Szacki, ignoring his daughter's presence.

He moved the car and went back into the shop, where his trolley had already gone. He suspected it was the revenge of the fat man from under whose nose he'd swiped it.

He tossed item after item into a new one, trying to avoid the importunate sales ladies with their bits of food cooked on an electric grill, thinking that the common denominator for the citizens of Warsaw was not their place of residence, employment or least of all birth - it was their better or worse concealed aggression. Not hatred, as even the most absurd form of hate was always in some way rational, thanks to the existence of the object of hatred. The All-Polish Youth nationalists hate gays, but if you're lucky enough to be a heteros.e.xual, you can feel relatively safe in their company. The gays hate the Mayor of Warsaw, Lech Kaczyski, but as long as you're not Lech Kaczyski the problem is purely academic. Whereas the aggression was aimed at everyone and anything.

Most of the cases Prosecutor Szacki dealt with were actually the result of senseless aggression; anger that had materialized at a certain moment in the form of a.s.sault, rape, murder or battery. Where did it come from? From disappointment because life was so tough, boring and unfulfilling? From fear that any moment it might get even tougher? From envy because others had it better? He had often wondered, but he'd never been able to give himself a convincing answer to the question of where all that Polish rage came from.

The shopping took them two hours, until he was dropping with exhaustion. He felt that if it weren't for the trolley he'd keel over. He was ashamed of looking like all the other zombies struggling to push along their cheeses, soaps, meats, loo sprays and books by Dan Brown. He so desperately wanted to be different from them, feel like someone exceptional, disappear, forget, change, fall in love.

For starters he decided to buy ice cream in flavours he never ate: mango and Snickers (how can a scoop of ice cream cost two and a half zlotys - that's almost a dollar!). They were both disgusting, and he was sorry he hadn't had his favourites, lemon and strawberry.

He swapped with Helka, who luckily had chosen strawberry, and thought how great it is to have kids.

II.

He was looking at Teodor Szacki, who was standing to one side, carefully observing the mourners. A handsome man, but he had looked better at his age. Because he had money. Money gives you some leeway and self-confidence. A strength that will never arise from good looks or a fine character.

Like the prosecutor, he hadn't come to the chapel - or rather "pre-funeral home" - at the cemetery in Wolka to say goodbye to Henryk Telak. He wanted to inspect the mourners, and above all Szacki. He took a few steps alongside a hideous concrete wall to get a better view of him. Was he an adversary who should be feared, or just another official, too weak to land himself a job as a solicitor or barrister?

He didn't look weak. He was taut as a string, surprisingly well dressed for a man on a public-sector wage. His cla.s.sic black suit must have been made to measure. Or its owner had a perfect eye for the ready-made range. Frankly he doubted that, as the prosecutor's clothing was sure to carry labels saying Wolczanka and Intermoda, not Boss or Zegna. And the man had not been born who fitted the cut of the Polish firms - you only had to look at the second-rate politicians on TV. In addition, Szacki was quite tall, at least six foot, he guessed, and very lean. It was hard for men like that to find even jeans in the right size, let alone select a suit from a range meant mainly for small fat blokes. Personally he had his suits made to measure in Berlin; he had a tailor there whom he had known since the 1980s.

To go with the suit a white shirt with very subtle grey pinstripes and a plain graphite-grey tie. He thought cattily that his wife couldn't have chosen it for him - he didn't suspect the female lawyer from the City Council of having too much taste, especially as he'd seen how she dressed in photos. A pleasant woman, but someone should advise her against tapering skirts with a figure like that.

"He was a good husband, a loving father and an honest citizen," declaimed the young priest unemotionally. The words almost made him snort with laughter and he had to cough to hide his faux pas. A few heads turned his way, including Szacki's.

He looked him in the eye and held his gaze.

The prosecutor had a young face, though you couldn't have called his charms boyish. Subtly manly, rather. The softness of his features was shattered by his slightly furrowed brow and unpleasantly cold grey eyes. It wasn't the face of a man who often smiles. In July he'd reach the age of thirty-six, but many people would have given him less, if not for his thick, completely white hair. It contrasted with his black eyebrows, giving him a stern, slightly unsettling look. He was perfectly monochrome. Just black, grey and white, with no other colour to spoil the composition. Finally, without blinking, the prosecutor slowly averted his gaze, and it crossed his mind that this particular official didn't like to compromise.

The funeral-parlour employees, who despite their suits and gloves looked like dangerous ex-cons, vigorously lifted the coffin and carried it out of the pre-funeral home. Few people liked this place. It was impersonal, ice-cold and ugly with the ugliness typical of modern architecture. He did like it, because there was no stench of religion in there. Just communal death, no empty promises. That suited him. Once he used to think that like others he'd convert in his old age. He'd been wrong. He was prepared to believe in anything - he found everyday life full of surprises. But in G.o.d - never.

The mourners, not more than forty people, turned to face the pa.s.sage down the middle of the room as they waited for the family to leave. Jadwiga Telak and her son came after the coffin, solemn, but not looking crushed by despair. Then came some relatives whom he didn't recognize. Not immediate family - Henryk Telak was an only child. Then a few friends, among them the Polgrafex employees and Igor, who glanced at him and nodded discreetly.

The procession ended with the people he found most interesting - the witnesses to Telak's death, and not just witnesses, because he was sure one of them was the murderer. Cezary Rudzki the therapist was walking alongside Barbara Jarczyk, and behind them came Hanna Kwiatkowska and Euzebiusz Kaim. From the other side of the pa.s.sage Teodor Szacki was closely observing all four of them. As they pa.s.sed him, the prosecutor joined the procession. He stood next to him, and shoulder to shoulder they left the pre-funeral home. He smiled. Who'd have thought we'd all meet beside Henryk Telak's coffin? Fate can be comical. Interesting to see if Prosecutor Teodor Szacki would find out what he already knew about the mourners. He didn't think so. He hoped not.