Entanglement by Zygmunt Miloszewski Read Free Book Online Page B

about penises - they’re over twelve years old! Sometimes I’m so embarrassed. You won’t believe me, but I’ve just had a text message from one of my pupils saying that she’s fallen in love with a priest and might do something to herself. I’ll show you - maybe it’s a matter for the prosecutor?”
    She started searching for her phone in her handbag, and
Szacki began to regret having set her off on a neutral topic. Was that how a murderess behaved? Wouldn’t she be eager to get out of there as soon as possible, rather than showing him text messages? Was it really possible to act quite so well?
    She handed him the phone: “IMustTellSomeoneILoveFather MarekICan’tBearToLiveHelp”.
    “There’s no signature,” he noted.
    Plainly becoming increasingly relaxed, she brushed that aside, saying: “Well, yes, but I found out who it’s from - her obliging friends gave her away. But I don’t know. So it’s not something for the prosecutor then?”
    “So what do you think - did one of your group kill Mr Telak?”
    She stiffened.
    “Of course not. Surely you don’t imagine one of us is the murderer?”
    “Can you vouch for people you’ve only just met?”
    She folded her arms across her chest. Szacki behaved like a basilisk, never letting his gaze drop from her eyes. She had a tic; her right eyelid kept steadily twitching.
    “Well, no, but they’re normal people - I heard about their lives. It must have been some cut-throat, some horrible criminal.”
    Rascal, rogue, thug, thought Szacki spitefully.
    “Perhaps. But maybe it was one of you. We have to consider that scenario too. I realize it’s hard for you, but please try to remember if anything happened, anything at all, some tiny thing, that made the idea pass through your head, even if it was a totally unjustified thought, ‘maybe it was him’ or ‘maybe it was her’. Hmm?”
    “I find it very awkward to cast aspersions, but, er… at the therapy it emerged that Henryk’s wife hates him terribly, and Barbara enacted her anger so vividly, I don’t know, it’s silly to say it…”

     
    WITNESS INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT. Barbara Jarczyk, born 8th August 1946, resident of Bartniak Street, Grodzisk Mazowiecki, has higher education, employed as chief accountant at the Sosnex Wooden Toy Factory.
     
    She really did look like an accountant, or a retired teacher. Plump, in a suit that must have been bought at a shop for plump ladies. With a plump face and fluffy hair. Wearing glasses. Szacki had never imagined people of her age went to therapy. He had always thought it was more the thirty- to forty-year-olds, worn out by the rat race, who went in search of a cure for their fears and depression. Though on the other hand, it was better to drain the marsh of your soul late than never. He frowned, unable to shake off his surprise at having come up with this idiotic metaphor.
    She spoke in a flat monotone, her voice showing no emotion. Szacki automatically noted down almost word for word the same thing he had heard from Kwiatkowska, wondering if there were any languages in the world that entirely lacked intonation. Mrs Jarczyk could definitely have learned them in a week.
    “Just before ten I came out of my room and set off towards the therapy classroom. On the way I passed Mr Rudzki, who was going in the opposite direction.”
    Szacki came to.
    “Are you trying to say Mr Rudzki saw the corpse before you did?”
    “I don’t know that. I doubt it. The room where we ate our meals was next to the therapy classroom, in another part of the building from our bedrooms. He could have stayed there longer at breakfast, I have no idea. I did give him a look of surprise, because he was going the opposite way, but he said he was just coming, and I felt embarrassed, because then I realized he was simply going to the toilet. I don’t think he’d have been quite so calm if he’d found Henryk’s body.”

    He noted this down without passing comment. What do these therapists do