Читать книгу The fat man - Wolfgang Armin Strauch - Страница 11

5. Chapter

The apartment was located on a busy street lined with old trees. A thunderstorm came up and it began to rain. Alina sat down at the window to read her mother's letter again and again. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled. But she did not notice it. Absent she stared out into the world and felt infinitely lonely. It was the feeling of being helplessly left behind, in a strange world. With both hands she pressed the chain to herself, as if she could feel her mother's heartbeat.

It seemed to her as if there was a little bit of life left in the red stone that looked like a drop of blood. She had carried it on her chest - where the heart has its place. It took a long time before she had recovered her composure. She was angry with her grandfather.

Why had he withheld the letter from her? She was twenty-one now and it seemed to her that he had stolen years of her life. Alina did not understand it. Now she could no longer ask him. He was dead.

Jadwiga had told her that he had documents from her. But why didn't she push harder for him to hand them over?

Sofia came to her room. Without a word she took Alina in her arms.

"It's okay. We'll have tea now! Maybe we can find a glass of liqueur."

Alina went into the bathroom and washed her face to remove the traces of her tears.

When she came out, Adam looked at her compassionately.

"All right?"

There was no tea in the kitchen, and she didn't want her grandfather's liquor.

"We could go to the café. Maybe they have some kielbasa. I am hungry. I haven't eaten since 6:00 in the morning."

Adam pointed to the house across the street. They left the apartment. She would clean up later. She took her mother's envelope and the lawyer's letter with her.

The air was wonderfully clear after the storm. Adam had probably known for sure that there was Krakowiak Beer here, because he went to the bar confidently.

"Would you like some?"

Alina wanted to refuse. Sofia said: "Child, you must eat something! “

She gave Adam a sign. Alina's excitement subsided. She took her mother's letter from her bag and gave it to Sofia. She pulled the necklace out of the neckline and showed it proudly. The two women looked at each other. Then they hugged each other. A little smile flitted across Alina's face.

Adam came to the table and admired the jewelry.

"A pretty piece."

"It's from my mother."

After a few minutes the waitress served the sausages and coffee. She hesitated a little and looked at Alina.

"May I ask you something?"

Alina just nodded.

"They're from number 32, after all. They used to come here with Jadwiga sometimes and drink red soda. I'm sorry about what happened to her. You don't wish something like that on anyone. Has the killer been found? There was nothing in the papers."

Instead of Alina Adam answered:

"No, we don't have him yet. But he will not escape us. Do you have any clues that might help us? We're also looking for the burglar who knocked down my colleague."

"No, I have already been questioned. Unfortunately, I couldn't help."

After a pause she then said: "But what I was surprised about was that your colleague did not see the burglar.

"Which colleague?" asked Krawczyk in astonishment.

"That day, he was watching the house the whole time."

"Why would it be a colleague of mine?"

"Well, come with me! “

The woman led him to a table for two.

"Now sit down here! “

Adam did.

"What do you find?"

"The window points exactly in the direction of house number 32."

"And what else do you notice?"

"I don't notice anything."

"Doesn't it smell of a toilet?"

"Right."

"Normally, this table always remains empty. Only when it is full does someone sit here. Because you can only see number 32 from here, I assumed that the man should watch the house."

Krawczyk tested it. It was right.

"Why didn't you tell my colleagues that? They've been canvassing the neighborhood."

The woman placed herself confidently before him.

"I have not been asked about it. They just wanted to know if I saw anyone who had escaped from 32. And I couldn't see anything, of course."

"How long was the man here?"

"I can't say that. He was certainly no longer there when the ambulance arrived, because that's when I went out the door."

Adam once blushed with excitement.

"Can you tell me what the man looked like? It's important right now."

"Sure. He was tall and extremely fat. He was wearing a suit. Otherwise, I would have suspected he was a butcher or something."

"I have a request. Would you come to the office so we can make a drawing?"

"Sure. One likes to help. Was that the killer?"

"Wait a minute, I'll call my colleague. He will come over and take the sketch here. Do you have a phone?"

The waitress pointed to the counter.

The two women sat on their chairs as if petrified. Krawczyk let them drive home. Janek was already waiting.

"What's wrong?"

His mother said: "We were with Adam in the apartment and then in the café across the street. Maybe the waitress saw the killer."

Andrzej got up and wanted to leave. Alina held him down.

"Let Adam do his job. You know what the doctor said."

"But I just wanted…

She pulled him towards her. "Your place is here now."

"Did you actually find anything in the safe-deposit box?"

"Yes. Even if the content doesn't answer all my questions."

She grabbed the chain and played with the stone. Then she gave Andrzej the letter from her mother and showed the letter from the lawyer.

He pondered for a moment, then asked: "Do the names or the addresses look familiar to you?

"I have no connection to Germany and with Graudenz I can only remember that I was born there. My mother had worked in her grandfather's bookstore. Jadwiga told me that. But I can't remember the city. I was too small."

"Can you do anything with the letter from the lawyer?"

"I have no idea. Jadwiga didn't even know it was from a lawyer. I will go and see him. It can't be anything bad."

"And do you want to go to Germany, too?"

"I don't know. First, I will visit Mrs. Michalska in Graudenz."

Adam Krawczyk, with the help of the phantom drawing, had people around 32 interviewed. In addition, traders were visited who had a stand at Grodzka Street on the holiday. They came across an artist who could remember a big fat man because he had thrown unusual tips into his hat. It was a 10 Zloty commemorative coin that was still very bright.

His description of the man was inaccurate, however, because he had only paid attention to him after he had already turned around and left. But he said that he was tall and fat. The investigators secured the coin. Partial prints of the index finger matched the print on Jadwiga's bag.

The investigators scoured the hotels in the city center. But nobody remembered the man. So, it was assumed that he came from outside and was only in the city on the days of the crime. Krawczyk wanted to publish a public manhunt in the newspaper, but this was rejected by the boss on the grounds that the population should not be unsettled. The "fat man," as the investigators called him, remained disappeared.

Although he was still on sick leave, Andrzej went to the office. He asked his boss to look over Jadwiga's papers again. With the remark: “You won't give it a rest anyway!”, he was exceptionally allowed to take the documents home.

Even though Jadwiga's lists of names had yielded nothing, Mazur tended to believe that the solution lay in the past, since the victim's activities in the present were manageable. She went to the library daily, met with Alina from time to time, and otherwise only made the usual trips to the supermarket. How should she have met her killer in this inconspicuous environment and where should this hatred have come from? Unless it was a psychopath.

When Mazur was allowed to resume his service, he commissioned research in the relevant archives on the arrest of Jadwiga and her liberation in January 1945.

After two weeks he received a thick file. It consisted of translated protocols of the Gestapo. They confirmed the previously known facts. Jadwiga was arrested in connection with contacts with the underground army. Some anti-German leaflets were found. Hanka Wrobel was also mentioned, but the Gestapo men disparagingly referred to her as "Beifang" (by-catch), because she happened to be present at the arrest. The Gestapo officers involved had been arrested and shot after the liberation of the city by the Red Army.

One document attested to Jadwiga's stay in Auschwitz. It had reported about it to the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland. She had also submitted inquiries about the whereabouts of a Jewish prisoner by the name of Zygmunt Rosinski.

Mazur enquired at the university whether a Zygmunt Rosinski was enrolled before 1939. He found himself on the lists of the Faculty of History. In the Gestapo's wanted lists, he appeared as a "runaway Jew. The information was consistent with the story of Alina. He was also found in the handwritten lists of names from Jadwiga's apartment. His name had been marked with a cross, the date of his death was 31.11.1944 and Oranienburg near Berlin. Andrzej told Alina about the find. She remembered that in 1965 Jadwiga was at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp memorial site with a delegation of the International Auschwitz Committee.

The information was interesting for Alina, but in the murder case it did not help. Effectively there were only the fingerprints and the phantom picture of the "fat man". In view of the large expenditure the result was rather sobering. His boss stopped the search in the archives. Instead, inquiries about the missing chain and fingerprints were expanded. This more or less meant waiting for a chance find.