William Brodrick - The Day of the Lie

‘Excuse me,’ said Anselm, hesitating at the door. ‘The file is incomplete.’

The nurse’s signals suggested he might like to try again but the conversation did not improve until the man prodding the paper tray tuned in. Shaking Anselm’s hand he said, in assured English, ‘Nothing’s missing. They’ve been destroyed:

Sebastian Voight had read law at Warsaw and then pursued postgraduate studies in London and Washington. He’d specialised in criminal procedure, with an eye to war crimes and the problems of transitional justice, thinking originally of a career at the Hague. However he’d been knocked off course — or on course, depending on your perspective — by the offer of a job at the IPN. Amongst the many investigations he’d instituted into what were now called ‘communist crimes’, few had been as important or urgent as that of Otto Brack.

‘Important because his case links crimes of the Stalinist Terror to those of the martial law years; it’s the beginning and end of Communism. Roza’s story symbolises the entire epoch. A trial of Otto Brack would be a trial of post-war authoritarian ideology and its murderous consequences.’ Sebastian’s office, it transpired, faced that allocated to Anselm. The order was in surprising contrast to a rather appealing anarchy in his clothing. He was smart, but something rebelled. The stiff shirt collar refused to stay inside the jacket. His soul was in a pair of trainers. ‘And it’s important regardless of any inherent symbolic qualities, because we’re dealing with a double killing.’

The orange file contained not only Roza’s interrogations from the early fifties but a secret report referring to the interrogation and execution of two men believed to be part of the Shoemaker organisation: Pavel Mojeska and Stefan Binkowski.

‘There was no trial,’ said Sebastian, leaning on the edge of his desk. ‘They were simply killed. At the time Roza was in the same prison. I’m sure she knows what happened. As things stand there is no evidential link between the murders and Otto Brack.’

‘How do you know there is one?’

‘Intuition. I could feel it when I met Roza. She was there. I know she was there.’

Anselm glanced at the wall planner, marked with red dots for pending actions. There were no blue ones for the holidays. Along one wall was a rack of shelves packed with box files. Presiding over the lot, in a central gap, was a photograph of an elderly woman standing behind a wheelchair.

‘You said urgent,’ resumed Anselm, legs crossed, remembering the savage energy generated by papers organised for a trial.

‘Roza is the last and only witness,’ replied Sebastian. ‘The known guards are dead. And if they weren’t I doubt if they’d talk. It all hangs on Roza. But she’s trapped by her own decency Brack threatened to bring a plague on an informer’s house if she ever opened her mouth. She’s worried they’d take a running jump.’

Anselm sipped a glass of fizzy water, picked up from a machine in the corridor outside. ‘Well, she was present all right.’

‘Where?’

‘In the prison when her husband and Stefan Binkowski were shot.’

‘Shot? How do you know?’

‘She flew all the way to London to tell John Fielding, a friend of mine. She asked him to walk through fire to find the informer who betrayed her in nineteen eighty-two. She’ll only meet them if they’re willing to talk honestly If they won’t, she’ll let them go. If they will, she hopes to persuade them that Brack’s worst isn’t that bad after all.’

‘Well, well, well,’ murmured Sebastian, dragging a hand through his black hair. ‘She really did change her mind:

He spun off the desk’s edge to open a front drawer.

‘I’d been chasing Roza for weeks but she wouldn’t talk to me. He took out a folder and opened its flap. ‘Eventually.’ I persuaded her to come here and see the SB files. I tricked her, and she knew it. I’d set up recording equipment, right there in front of the shelves. I’d put up some pictures showing the chaos of her life and times. I’d made it difficult to walk away’

He’d asked her to talk about the period between 1951 and 1982, saying it was for a voice archive, Which was true.’ only what he really wanted was a list of all the people she’d known. The informer had to be among them.

‘I knew what I was looking for. There are only two types of candidate that would explain Roza’s willingness to leave Brack unaccused. First, someone intimately connected to the Shoemaker operation with a high enough profile to make public disclosure almost unthinkable. Second, someone to whom she felt indebted… someone to whom she owed far more than she ever stood to gain by seeing Brack banged up for life.’

‘Either way.” said Anselm.’ commending the classification, ‘someone who might choose the Vistula if exposed.’

Sebastian gave a nod. ‘But Roza saw the ruse: she gave no names. After she’d finished, I thought I’d never see her again.’

But a week or so later she’d come back with a revised statement.’ identifying every person of significance in her life.

‘She, too, was transformed,’ explained Sebastian. ‘She’d worked out a plan of some kind, but she wouldn’t elaborate. All she’d say was that she intended to wake the dead and shatter the illusions of many And now you’ve turned up.’

Anselm rather liked the ring to that declaration. He took off his glasses to shine the lenses, baulking, suddenly, as Roza’s expectations came into focus.

‘She brought that statement to London,’ said Anselm, blinking uncertainly ‘In effect, she called it a tool to help find the informer. Thing is, she never gave it to John.’

‘Why not?’

‘When they met, she saw he was blind.’

‘And?’

‘She left. Devastated. Not knowing that John would come to me, and that I would come here, in his stead, without that statement.’

The two lawyers appraised each other, both of them — Anselm was sure — reviewing the law of agency for unless Anselm could be described as Roza’s representative, the IPN couldn’t disclose a copy of her statement.

‘The words “authorised”, “express” and “implied” spring to mind,’ purred Anselm. ‘I’ve forgotten the rest but I think we can frame an argument to the effect that I’m Roza’s sub-agent, with John as the absent principal.’

‘Agreed,’ replied Sebastian.’ taking a document from the folder.

‘This is the text. To sharpen the focus, I’ve cut out the material where no names are mentioned. I’ll get it translated now I’ve traced the addresses and telephone numbers of all the people mentioned. You’ll find them listed at the back.’

It was an East meets West triumph: a sort of indigenous Pizza Express, only they sold dumplings. Pierogi. Anselm wouldn’t have thought it possible, but these fast serving mono-thematic eateries were all the rage. They’d sprung up all over the city Could a dumpling seriously vie with a pizza? Anselm was privately awed. Out loud, over a shot of Sliwowica Paschalna (‘… just fermented plums. Nothing

added. Not even water…’) he wondered if Sebastian had given any thought to FELIKS.

‘Oh yes. I looked him up in one of the SB agent registers. And sure enough, he’s there in Roza’s statement all the way from the fifties to the eighties. For the first time I got a glimpse of her predicament fleshed out. FELIKS is a friend. FELIKS is part of a family FELIKS is surrounded by people who’ve no idea he’s a swine who got his swill. People Roza doesn’t want to harm.’

Anselm took a sip.

‘The second type of informer.” he whispered, eyes watering.

‘Yes. She owed him her life:

Assuming FELIKS is our man (continued Sebastian, after draining his glass) the circumstances showed up the moral perversion of Brack’s actions. Sure, he’d used her goodness against herself, but he’d also gambled on a lack of honesty among the very people she sought to protect.