A Grain of Truth Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the medieval wall, which had once tightly girded the city and now served mainly as a shady place for knocking back cheap, traditional Polish apple wine. Szacki headed after the technician, who was squatting by the wall, raking aside some still leafless twigs and last year’s grass. Goggle-Eyes reached out a gloved hand and cautiously picked something up. Just then the sun broke through the clouds and shone keenly on the object, dazzling Szacki for a moment. Only after blinking several times to dispel the black spots dancing before his eyes could he see that the technician was holding a bizarre knife. He carefully put it into a sealed evidence bag and held it out in their direction. But the tool must have been devilishly sharp, because thanks to the mere weight of it, the blade pierced the bag and it fell to the ground.That is, it would have fallen, if the squatting technician hadn’t caught it at the last moment by the handle. He caught it and gazed at them.
    “You could have lost your fingers,” said Goggle-Eyes calmly.
    “You could have contaminated the murder weapon with your blood, you cretin,” said Wilczur calmly.
    Szacki looked at the old policeman.
    “How do you know it’s the murder weapon?”
    “I assume it is. As we’ve found a precisely slashed throat under one bush and a razor as sharp as a samurai sword under another, there might be a connection between them.”
    “Razor” was a good word to describe the knife, which Goggle-Eyes was putting into another bag, this time more cautiously. It had a rectangular blade as shiny as a mirror, but with no sharp tip and no curvature. The dark wooden handle was very fine compared with the metal part, completely inappropriate. Whereas the blade itself was huge – about thirty centimetres long and ten wide. A razor, a razor for shaving a giant with a face the size of a delivery van. Both the metal part and the handle – at least at first glance – were undecorated. It wasn’t a collector’s toy, but a tool. Maybe it was the murder weapon, but above all it was a tool with some application other than shaving the legs of the Fifty-Foot Woman.
    “Finger prints, trace evidence, blood, secretions, DNA material, chemical analysis,” listed Szacki. “As fast as possible. And I want detailed photographs of this charming object today.”
    He handed Goggle-Eyes his business card. The man put it in his pocket as he gazed suspiciously at the large razor.
    Wilczur tore the filter off another cigarette.
    “I don’t like it,” he remarked. “Much too fanciful.”
    VII
    Prosecutor Teodor Szacki had no luck with his bosses. The last one had been a technocratic bitch, as cold and attractive as a corpse dug out from under snow. Many a time, as he had sat in her office absorbingsmoke and putting up with a person totally devoid of femininity trying to make a feminine impression on him, he had wondered if he could possibly do worse. Not long after, malevolent fate had answered that question.
    “No really, please try it.” Maria Miszczyk, who to Szacki’s horror was called Misia, her nickname, in a most unbusinesslike way by everyone at work including herself, pushed a cake platter under his nose. The cake consisted of layers of something like chocolate brownie, plain sponge and possibly meringue.
    His boss smiled at him radiantly.
    “I put an ever-so thin layer of plum jam under the meringue. I’ve still got some left over from the autumn. Go on, please have some.”
    Szacki didn’t want it, but Miszczyk’s friendly smile was like the stare of a cobra. Stripped of his mind’s control, his hand reached out for the cake, and in obedience to the woman’s will it took a piece and stuffed it into Szacki’s mouth. He smiled wryly, showering his suit in crumbs.
    “All right then, Basia, tell us what this is about,” said Miszczyk, putting down the platter.
    Barbara Sobieraj – known informally as Basia – sat stiffly on a leather sofa, separated from Szacki, who was