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thirty of them. The handle was covered in dark wood, and there was something engraved on the brass fittings. Szacki looked for a close-up. The faded inscription said: C.RUNEWALD. On one of the close-ups he noticed the photographer’s hand reflected in the polished, mirror-smooth blade. A lady photographer, married, judging by the wedding ring. The silvery blade was entirely free of stains, scratches or chips. Undoubtedly a masterpiece of the art of metallurgy. An antique masterpiece.
    “Do you think it’s the murder weapon, Mrs Sobieraj?”
    Szacki was already finding all these politenesses tiresome, and in the course of the investigation they were bound to become intolerable.
    “I think it’s all very odd and theatrical. A naked corpse with a slashed throat, an antique razor-machete dropped nearby, no sign of a fight or a struggle,” he said.
    “And no blood on the blade.”
    “Let’s see what the guys at the lab can find. I think there’ll be blood, some trace evidence, DNA. The knife will tell us more than the person who planted it there would like.”
    “Planted?”
    “So neat, clean, and untouched? Someone did that on purpose. Even with squalid crimes of passion every drunken thug remembers to take the murder weapon with him. I don’t believe it was left in those bushes by accident.”
    Sobieraj took a pair of reading glasses out of her handbag and started closely examining the pictures. The thick brown frames suited her. It occurred to Szacki that if the razor-machete was a message, they’d have to find someone who could interpret it. Bloody hell, what sort of specialist could deal with that? An expert on cold steel? Or on militaria? Metallurgy? Or works of art?
    Sobieraj handed him the photo with the close-up of the wood-encased handle and took off her glasses.
    “We’ll have to look for an expert on cold steel, best of all a museum curator. They might have heard of this firm.”
    “C. Runewald?” asked Szacki.
    Sobieraj snorted with laughter.
    “Grünewald. Maybe it’s high time for a pair of specs, Mr Szacki.”
    Szacki opted for peace. No smirk, no nervous reaction, no retort.
    “It’s high time you told me all about the victim and her family.”
    Sobieraj was put out.
    IX
    Prosecutor Teodor Szacki was dissatisfied. Sobieraj’s account of the Budniks had provided a lot of information, but also a lot of feelings. In his mind the victim had ceased to be just the result of an illegal act for which someone must be held responsible and bear the penalty. The victim’s husband had ceased to be prime suspect. Thanks to Sobieraj’s colourful, emotional account they had become too much like real people of flesh and blood; the border between information and interpretation had been crossed. In spite of himself, as he thought about the victim, Szacki could see a smiling teacher, giving ecology lessons on bike rides. Her husband was not just a candidate for a stretch in the nick, but also a social campaigner capable of fightingto the bitter end over every, even the most minor affair, as long as it was for the good of the town. Szacki doubted whether there was any independent councillor anywhere else in Poland who was quite so good at persuading the entire council to vote unanimously – for Sandomierz. Enough, enough, enough – he didn’t want to think about the Budniks until he had talked to the old policeman, who had already made it clear that he wasn’t entirely sold on these secular saints.
    He tried to occupy his thoughts by looking for information about the mysterious razor-machete, and that was the second reason for his dissatisfaction. Teodor Szacki mistrusted people in general, and people with hobbies in particular. He regarded passion and devotion to a passion, especially one for collecting things, as a disorder, and people inclined towards that sort of fixation on a single subject as potentially dangerous. He had seen suicides caused by the loss of a coin collection, and he had also seen two