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and examined him, then gave a single decisive nod.
    “ Tak. You have his good looks - and his character, I think.”
    She waved him inside: “You will have coffee? And tort. Of course! Who doesn’t like cake?”
    Janusz followed Pani Tosik, her heels ticking on the lino, to the dim, cinammon-smelling interior.
    The old lady settled Janusz at a velvet-covered banquette in the plushly decorated restaurant, its walls hung with oil paintings of Polish rural scenes, and while she made coffee, Janusz retrieved a copy of Gazeta Warszawa from a nearby table. The front-page headline read: “‘ Forget the past and move on’, Zamorski tells voters ”. Beneath it was a photo of a middle-aged man with a thoughtful yet purposeful expression: Edward Zamorski, presidential-hopeful and head of the Renasans Party.
    As Pani Tosik returned, Janusz stood to take the tray of coffee and pastries from her. She nodded to the picture: “What do you think of our next president?” she asked, pouring coffee into a hand-painted Opole porcelain cup and saucer.
    “I saw him speak once, at a rally in Gdansk – it was before martial law, so I must have been about seventeen,” said Janusz, raising the coffee cup to his lips – his fingers felt gigantic, cumbersome, around its fragile handle. “I remember at one point he spoke over our heads, directly to the ZOMO. He said ‘ When you raise a baton to a fellow Pole, the blow lands on your own soul ’.”
    He remembered something else, too. Zamorski had told the crowd that once they won their freedom, reconciliation and forgiveness – even of the hated riot police – would be more important than revenge if the country were to move forward. As a fiery teenager, Janusz had found himself bewildered, angered even, by these words, but after what happened a couple of years later he found himself revisiting them again and again.
    Pani Tosik sighed, waving a hand in a gesture than combined regret and resignation. “You young people got rid of the Komunistuw ,” she said, “And got a country ruled by American multinationals instead. My friend’s daughter is a teacher in Warsaw and what do you think she earns in a year?”
    Janusz shook his head.
    “ 9000 Euros !” hissed Pani Tosik. “This is why young people have to come to London, although it is not a good place for a young girl.”
    This was her cue to embark on the story of the missing waitress, interrupted only by the whines of the tiny Yorkshire terrier sitting beside her on the banquette begging for food.
    “Weronika came to me six months ago, in November. No! Not November, darling, October ,” – as though he’d been the one to get it wrong – “Such a pretty girl. Beautiful, even,” she widened her tiny blue eyes for emphasis. “Like...Grace Kelly, but with modern outfits, you know. Yes, Tinka, you may have a little bit of Napoleonka because your Mama loves you.”
    She broke off a piece of the pink-iced millefeuille pastry and gave it to the dog, who wolfed it down, licking every scrap from her fingers. Then, using her still-moist hand, she picked up another slice and put it on Janusz’s plate, appearing not to notice as the big man flinched.
    “Proper Polish pastry,” she said, “Not those things the English call cakes – ‘Mr Kipper’ etcetera .” Reaching for a pink Sobranie cigarette she leaned forward to Janusz’s lighter flame.
    “Anyway, she was a good Catholic girl, very hard-working, very respectable – not like some of the English girls. With them, always a problem! One is a drunk, always arrives late, another gets a baby.’
    Janusz sipped his coffee and nodded.
    “So, now – only Polish girls. And with this girl, I know her Mama, and I say to her, your Weronika is safe with me. And then one day: pfouff! She is gone.”
    The old lady’s eyes filled with tears. “I feel terrible, Panie Kiszka. I cannot sleep at night, I can barely eat...” a sharp glance down. “You do not like your Napoleonka