Cooper had handled a wheelchair before. He helped Grace Lukasy. to position herself next to the passenger door of his car and held the chair steady while she manoeuvred herself in. He could see that her legs were almost useless. She had to lift them in after her. When she was settled, he folded the wheelchair into the back of the Tovota.
“I suppose you’re wondering/ she said. ‘It was a car accident. Andrew was driving/
‘Before he went to London?’
‘Yes. We’d been very close until then. But after the accident, he couldn’t live with the guilt. He couldn’t bear to look at me in the wheelchair, day after day. So it was me who drove him awav, you sec/
Cooper couldn’t think what to say to that. Guilt, like other emotions, was hardly ever logical.
‘But you can’t separate yourself from your family for ever,’ said Grace. ‘He came back, in the end/
‘Why did he come back?’
‘Andrew was starting to feel isolated in London. Isolated from his family, isolated from the community he grew up in. After a year or two, he started to regret cutting himself off/
‘Did he tell you this?’
‘Yes, when he arrived. Do you know, he remembered all the stories that Zygmunt used to tell about the RAF, about the Lancaster crash. And of course, about his cousin Klemens, who died/
Cooper got into the driving seat and fastened his scat belt.
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‘We think Andrew had started to collect Second World War aircraft memorabilia/ he said.
‘Yes, hut I het he was looking for things with a Polish connection. The links are very strong, you know. The way our children are raised, they can’t hreak the links so easily.’
‘That’s how he came across the cigarette case, then. He bought it from the wehsite that Frank Baine and Lawrence Daley ran. He was a customer of theirs.’
‘That’s how it started,’ said Grace. ‘But it hecamc his means of reconciliation.’
Cooper put the car into gear and drove towards Woodland Crescent. ‘I don’t really understand.’
‘I managed to get it out of Peter and Zygmunt in the end,’ said Grace. ‘I think they’re both ashamed. Peter certainly is. Zygmunt — well, I don’t know about Zygmunt.’
‘But reconciliation … ?’
‘The way Andrew was feeling, I think that when he heard Zygmunt didn’t have long to live, he knew it was time to be reconciled. He made his own enquiries into where these souvenirs or memorabilia came from, and who was involved. That’s how he made contact with Lawrence Daley, here in Edendale. Daley trusted him, and Andrew worked out that there was tar more to the business than the memorabilia. He contacted the RAK Police and told them the storv.
‘He was getting on to dangerous ground,’ said Cooper. ‘Didn’t he realize that?’
“I suppose so. But he’s single-minded, you know. Stubborn, like his father and his grandfather. He had his mind set on op/ufc^. It was the time tor reconciliation. He had to come here and show his grandfather that lie was doing something about the people Zvgmunt called vultures. Andrew thought his grandfather would be proud of him.’
They turned the corner into Woodland Crescent. Cooper had slowed down, because he wanted to hear what Grace Lukasy. had
to say before she reached the bungalow.
&
‘But it wasn’t enough for Zygmunt, she said. “I think he mocked Andrew for simply passing the inlormation to the police, which was what he intended. I think Zygmunt said
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he should have found out names. He asked Andrew where his courage was.’
Cooper pulled up to the kerb and put the handbrake on. He sat for a moment, saying nothing. As he had hoped, Grace kept on talking. It was as il Communion had prompted her to thoughts of confession. But surely it was somebody else’s sins she was talking about, somebody else’s need for forgiveness.
‘It was seeing the cigarette case that made Zygmunt so angry,’ she said. ‘They argued terribly. I couldn’t make it all out, but I’m sure that’s what it was. Then Andrew walked out.’
‘Did you know where he’d gone?’
Grace shook her head. ‘All I know is that he went off to prove himself to his grandfather, to show that he was worthy of forgiveness. He decided not to wait to speak to the policeman.
And that’s all I know.’
She turned her head wearily to look at Cooper. ‘Andrew got himself into trouble, didn’t he?’
‘Let’s go inside.’
But still Grace didn’t move. ‘There was another thing that Zygmunt always talked about too much,’ she said. ‘Sacrifice.’
At Grace’s direction, Cooper opened the side gate and pushed her wheelchair down the passage past the garage to the back of the bungalow. He could see Zygmunt Lukasz in the conservatory. The lighting was strange inside because of the covering of snow-on the glass roof, which gave a blue cast to the sunlight. But it seemed to Cooper that the old man was praying.
Zygmunt was seated in front of a tall candle that burned strongly in the enclosed space. His white hair shone with an unlikely purity in the snow-filtered light, as if it had recently been washed with bleach. The rest of his familv were visible
V
behind him in the house. There was Peter, and Richard and Krystyna, and even the youngest child, Alice. Cooper began to feel embarrassed, and he wanted to slip back round the corner before they saw him. But Grace Lukasz banged on the glass without hesitation, and her husband came to the door, staring at Cooper.
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‘I wasn’t expecting you to be ready to come home so soon/ he said to Grace.
