say it: Yahr-oh-SHAY-veetch.'
'I know, you told me when-' Logan tried not to close his eyes as she threw them around the roundabout and onto a tree-lined dual carriageway, but she was still shaking his hand while she did it. 'Detective Sergeant Logan McRae.' Forcing his voice down the two octaves it had suddenly jumped.
'Look at this idiot…' She leant on the car's horn and raced up the back end of a mouldy Volvo estate. 'Move it grandfather!' BRRRREEEEEEEP! 'I tell you, rush-hour brings them all out.'
And then she accelerated past, nipping between an articulated lorry and a telecoms van. 'You were lucky I turned up,' she said, swerving back into their original lane, 'Radoslaw would have taken you for everything you had.'
'I wasn't going to-'
'He turns up at the airport, pretends to be this helpful old taxi driver, and if you go with him you end up on the wrong side of the river.'
'Not a very good taxi driver then?'
'Not unless you like being robbed at gunpoint, no. We think he gets two or three tourists a month, but we can't prove anything.'
Lightning flickered across the clay-coloured sky, silhouetting the trees and ugly concrete buildings on either side of the road. Then came the deep, bass rumble of thunder.
Senior Constable Jaroszewicz hunched closer to the steering wheel. 'Bloody rain. What happened to summer?'
She launched into a stream of weather-related invective, but Logan was too scared to listen to it, holding on for dear life as she leapt from one lane to the other.
A horn blared at them, Jaroszewicz ignored it. 'I checked the records again. We have twenty-three victims since 1974; most of them happened after we kicked the Communists out. I brought everything I found with me, you can read it on the train.'
'Train? I thought we were going to-' He closed his eyes as the rear end of a truck suddenly appeared in front of them. 'Oh God.'
The tyres squealed on the wet road. Jaroszewicz leant on the horn: BRRRRREEEEEEEEP! 'Asshole! Are you trying to kill everyone?'
And then she was roaring past on the inside, sticking one finger up at the old lady behind the wheel. 'There are no living victims left in Warsaw, so we are going to Krakow.'
'Can we slow down please?'
'No.'
Logan tried not to think about what his body was going to look like when the Polish fire brigade finally cut it out of the wreckage. 'What happened to the other victims?'
'Dead. Some had accidents, some got ill, some died of old age, and some killed themselves.' Shrug. 'It must be a hard thing to live with.'
The bland communistic apartment blocks opened up, revealing central Warsaw. It was a vista of skyscrapers: huge chunks of glass and steel reaching up into the downpour. A big Marriott hotel sat in the background, the top seven floors covered in white lights that flashed messages out across the gloomy, rain-drenched city. The other skyscrapers were slightly less vulgar, but everything paled into insignificance next to the huge Palace of Culture: an evil wedding cake in rain-blackened sandstone, dominating the skyline.
Jaroszewicz must have seen him staring, because she said, 'A gift from Uncle Stalin. Are you hungry?'
'Kind of. Are we-'
'We will eat on the train.'
The Palace of Culture sat in the middle of a vast square, surrounded by buildings that looked as if they'd been thrown up by some city planner who'd had one too many vodkas. And the closer they got to Uncle Stalin's gift, the slower the traffic got, until they were crawling along. Rain drumming on the roof, windscreen wipers going full pelt, watching the people stomping past on the pavement.
Everyone looked suicidal.
Aberdeen could be miserable in the rain, but it was nothing compared to Warsaw.
Jaroszewicz jerked the steering wheel and squealed the car across a set of lights and down a little alleyway, threading round behind an ancient-looking hotel. Parking next to the bins.
'Now,' she said, reaching through into the back of the car and pulling out a large shoulder bag, 'train station.'
They got Logan's luggage out of the boot and tramped back to the main square in the pouring rain, across four lanes of traffic, and down into the station.
It didn't look too bad from the outside, but inside it was Bedlam. A collection of low-ceilinged concrete corridors, lined with booths selling everything from science fiction novels, to doughnuts, to hardcore pornography. The smell of kebab meat and hot falafel, the smoky tang of grilling sausages and frying onions. Voices. Shouting. People bumping into one another. Yellow and red lights blazing out of every shop front.
Up till now, it hadn't been too bad — pretty much like any modern European city — but suddenly Poland was a very foreign country.
Jaroszewicz marched up to a booth with a handwritten sign saying 'NIE INFORMACJA' Sellotaped to the glass. No information. He couldn't understand a word of the ensuing argument as Jaroszewicz and the man behind the counter shouted at each other, but eventually she stomped away from the booth with a pair of tickets and seat reservations.
'Bloody place.' She wandered through the throngs of people and joined a small crowd staring at a poster covered in a bewildering array of stations and times. Two minutes later she said, 'Peron five.' And then headed off for a dirty grey escalator down to a dirty grey platform.
Logan hurried after her. 'What do you know about the victims?'
She shrugged, settling back against an information board. 'Before 1989 it looks political. We do not have much detail, but all the victims were accused of undermining the Communist regime: union leaders, clergy, activists, people like that. After 1989 there is a gap, then it starts up again: mostly small-time crooks.'
The platform started filling up, a mixture of businessmen and students.
Jaroszewicz dumped her bag at her feet. 'What about yours?'
Logan went through the Oedipus victims one by one, finishing up with the fact that none of them would talk to the police. 'They're all still terrified, even though we've got the guy in custody.'
She shrugged. 'I am not surprised.'
An announcement crackled out of the platform speakers — and everyone started shuffling towards the edge of the platform. Then a battered green diesel engine rumbled out of the dark tunnel, dragging behind it ten lilac- and-white carriages, the bright orange 'ICC PKP INTERCITY' logo painted on the side.
A whistle blast and the doors opened. Jaroszewicz pulled out their tickets and squinted at them. Then dragged Logan down the platform and onto carriage number nine.
Inside, it was like something out of a transport museum: a corridor stretched down one side of the carriage, lined with sliding glass doors that opened onto little individual eight-seat compartments.
She checked the tickets again, then hauled a door open and stepped inside. It was already crowded. Six students sprawled on the seats, laughing and sharing a loaf of bread — ripping off handfuls and popping them in their mouths.
Jaroszewicz swore, hauled her bag up onto the overhead rack and told a man with long brown hair to get out of her seat. Then told his girlfriend to get out of Logan's. They just shrugged, then moved.
Logan apologized his way between everyone's knees to the window seat, and manhandled his suitcase up onto the rack.
Another announcement. Then a clunk. And slowly the train pulled away from the platform, through another dark tunnel, and out into the rain-soaked evening.
Senior Constable Jaroszewicz made small talk for a while, mostly about movies she'd seen, and then lapsed into silence, staring out of the window as the graffiti-covered sidings drifted past.
A girl sitting across from Logan, slumped down in her seat, exposing pale thighs as her skirt rode up. Tattoos poked out of the top of her V-neck jumper.
Samantha. How was he supposed to know she had scars high up on the inside of her thighs? What was he, a
