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    Szacki briefly summarized the events from Łazienkowska Street, outlined his plans for the next few days and his suspicions about Rudzki, the psychotherapist. Suspicions which, however, could not provide grounds for any sort of action against him.
    “When’s the autopsy?” asked Chorko.
    “Wednesday morning.”
    “In that case please give me an inquiry plan and your hypotheses by three on Wednesday. At the latest. And don’t forget that you have to write the indictment in the Nidziecka case by the end of the week. I trusted you and initialled the
commutation from remand to supervision, but it doesn’t make me any the calmer. I’d like that case to be in court as soon as possible.”
    Szacki nodded. Unable to decide on the legal classification, he had put it off from last week.
    “As we’re having a chat, there are two other things. Firstly, please don’t exploit female colleagues who fancy you - go to your own trials. Secondly, I’d like you to help Jurek and Tadeusz with narcotics.”
    Szacki failed to hide a scowl.
    “Yes, Prosecutor? Got a problem? Surely you don’t want me to think you’re incapable of teamwork? Especially in cases that demand lots of laborious, boring and unsatisfying tasks?”
    Too true, thought Szacki.
    “Please give me a week so I can concentrate on this murder. We’ll be carrying on with narcotics for months; I’ll have time to get involved in it,” he said.
    “A week. I’ll tell Tadeusz that from Monday you’re working together.”
    This time Szacki remained stony-faced, though it cost him a lot. The grim hope occurred to him that some more corpses would turn up during the week, which would save him from some boring work with boring colleagues.
    The audience came to an end. He had his hand on the doorknob when he heard Chorko say:
    “Please don’t think I’m paying you a compliment, but you look great in that suit. Like a real star of the bar association.”
    Szacki turned and smiled. He adjusted his shirt cuffs, fastened with fashionable wooden cufflinks.
    “That wasn’t a compliment, Prosecutor, as you very well know.”

III
    The abrupt end to the trip to Zakopane meant the atmosphere in the luxury Audi A8, in which they were rapidly returning to Warsaw, was as cold as the stream of air pouring from the vents. His wife had packed up in silence, and then spent the whole night in silence, lying as far from him as possible on the spacious bed in the apartment; that morning she had got into the car in silence and travelled home in silence. Nothing helped - neither her favourite Glenn Miller, nor lunch at a fabulous Greek restaurant which by some strange twist of fate was situated in Kroczyce, less than twenty miles from the Katowice highway. He had made a detour specially, knowing how much she loved Greek food. Naturally, she had eaten it, but she hadn’t said a word.
    When he stopped near their villa at Leśna Polana near Magdalenka to drop her off, and watched her silently walking to the garden gate, something inside him snapped. He switched off Glenn Miller’s bloody racket and opened the window.
    “Just think what a squalid dump you’d be coming home to if it weren’t for what I do,” he screamed.
    Half an hour later he was in the garage underneath the Intraco building, where his company’s modest office was located. The company could have afforded rooms in the Metropolitan or one of the skyscrapers near the ONZ roundabout, but he liked this spot. It had its own style, and he could endlessly admire the panorama from the windows on the thirty-second floor. He got out of the lift, nodded to a secretary as lovely as the sunrise over a ridge in the Tatras and without knocking went into the Chairman’s office. His office. Igor was already waiting for him. At the sight of the boss he got up.
    “Sit down. Do you know how many times a woman goes through menopause? I must be witnessing it for the third time by now. And I was warned off taking a young wife.