‘Come in!’ called the lawyer whom the Dean of the District Bar Council had appointed as mentor to the unfortunate Kordian Oryński.
She knew exactly who was knocking on her door, as everyone else was well aware that she was unavailable before noon. Always, absolutely, unconditionally, unavailable, with no exceptions. Joanna spent those morning hours poring over points of law, legal papers and books. It was a very effective modus operandi, because not only did she get the worst of the work done at the start of the day, it also put her in an agreeably aggressive frame of mind for the rest of it.
‘Good morning,’ said Kordian, crossing the threshold.
‘We’ve already dealt with the niceties.’
Kordian did not recall their earlier encounter having anything to do with niceties. Nevertheless, he plastered on a smile, and held his hands behind his back.
‘What are you standing there for, like some sort of dork?’
‘I’m waiting for instructions.’
‘Sit down,’ said Chyłka, and the young man sank heavily into the chair in front of her desk.
Not very comfortable, he thought. This was obviously a place intended for work only, not for meeting clients. No law firm, especially not Żelazny & McVay, would expect the geese laying their golden eggs to roost on such hard perches.
‘OK,’ she began. ‘So tell me, what exactly are you doing here?’
Assuming Chyłka was asking why he had chosen Żelazny & McVay rather than any other law firm, he took a deep breath and straightened himself up; but before he could launch into his set-piece reply, she set him straight.
‘No, I mean why are you bothering me during working hours?’
‘B-b-but . . .’
‘W-w-why are you stuttering?’
‘But . . . when can I bother you?’
‘After twelve,’ she retorted, picking up a packet of Marlboros and skilfully flicking out a cigarette – she’d clearly had years of practice. ‘I work until noon. After that, I only pretend to work. Meetings with clients, negotiations with the other party, trials. Sheer pleasure, if you’re into blood-and-gore horror stories. But if you’re not, I guess, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to get into criminal law, right?’
‘Ma—’
‘That hipster in HR should have told you, but now you know, so remember it well. Your mentor, Joanna Chyłka, is not to be disturbed until noon, because that is when she works. Like a dog. Is that clear?’
‘Cl—’
‘Great. In that case, let me give you some more advice. If you go downstairs, you’ll find the Hard Rock Cafe. That’s the place to relax.’
‘That’s not really my scene.’
She glowered at him.
‘I prefer different music,’ he added.
‘Such as?’
‘Will Smith.’
‘Who? That actor?’
He nodded weakly.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Definitely not.’
‘What do you mean, “no”?’
‘No, Will Smith is not the type of music you should be listening to,’ she said. ‘Firstly, the guy is a Hollywood star, not a musician. Secondly, it’s not real music, it’s a poor imitation, rap or hip-hop or whatever it’s called, I never know the difference. Thirdly, if you really have to, listen to Eminem or even Donatan or something. Or better still, don’t. Forget about them. Listen to Iron Maiden.’
For a moment they were both silent. Kordian gazed around the office. ‘In my presence, you won’t listen to, you won’t hum, you won’t even mention any pseudo-artistic rapper. Iron Maiden, period. And for tomorrow, find out which historical figure they sing about for eight minutes straight. I’ll test you.’
He nodded, completely confused.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ she asked, flicking ash into the ashtray. ‘Surprised I’ll be testing you on Iron Maiden? But I will. I mean it. In fact, as your mentor, I consider it my duty.’
Kordian pulled out his packet of cigarettes, but Chyłka immediately raised her hand.
‘Don’t make a stink in here.’
‘But Ms Chyłka, you’re smoking.’
‘Yes, but I’m smoking Marlboros, and you’ve got some old shit.’
He looked at the pack of Marlboros on the desk, and Joanna passed him the lighter.
‘Thanks Ms Chyłka,’ he said, lighting the Marlboro.
‘And stop being so formal,’ she said. ‘I don’t ever want to hear you call me Ms, Miss or Madam – it makes me feel as if I’m running a brothel. Is that what I look like to you, er . . . er . . . oh, what was your name?’
‘Kordian.’
‘Really? Tough luck,’ she replied, breathing out smoke. ‘You can call me Chyłka, like everyone else. And never, ever call me, or refer to me as Jo, Jojo, Joanne, or any other variation. My name is Joanna.
‘May I call you Joanna?’
‘No, that’s for family only. To you, I’m Chyłka.’
Oryński swallowed hard. It crossed his mind that this might all be tactics to discourage him, to prepare him for the worst and then show him that it actually wasn’t so bad.
‘OK, that’s all from me,’ she said, pointing to the door. ‘And never knock on my door before noon again.’
Kordian got up, took a final deep drag, and put out his cigarette.
He walked to the door, but then turned round, still clutching the handle. He realised he still didn’t know what he was supposed to do.
‘So what should I do next?’
‘I told you. Get out of my office. Go to the newbie-burrow, make yourself useful,’ replied Joanna. ‘The newbie-burrow is where all the interns and novices go, and you’ll get your orders there, soldier. Now move. Move!’
‘Yes, sir,’ grunted Oryński, opening the door. And then, as a parting shot, ‘But I thought we were supposed to meet a client?’
‘We? As in you and I? This is your first day, and you want to meet a client?’
‘That’s what they said in HR . . .’
‘OK, it’s all right. No problem, you can come with me.’
She looked pointedly at the door, and Kordian quickly followed the non-verbal instruction. He stood in the corridor, totally bewildered, thinking that this wasn’t going to end well. He knew that in terms of mental health, lawyers suffered more than most. They were exposed to all kinds of depravity, and many had long forgotten the meaning of the word empathy. But to encounter this madwoman right at the very start? It didn’t bode well for his future career.
Only yesterday he had imagined himself walking proudly down the bright corporate corridor, stylishly decorated in ecru. Now it seemed he was shuffling down a tunnel painted end to end in shit beige.
When he eventually reached the newbie-burrow, he found it to be faceless and dehumanisingly corporate – just cubicles, zero privacy, virtually no living space.
A battery farm.
He had thought places like this only existed on TV and in movies, but clearly they also appeared in real life. None of the young people took any notice of his arrival, which didn’t surprise him much. They were all busy giving their employers the mandated 110 per cent – although there was no good reason why they should. The interns were probably slaving away for nothing, the trainees for a pittance. Their only reward was a word of praise, or some certificate or other. At the end of the day, the firm would only employ those who came top in their exams, or excelled in some other Human Resources-devised assessment.
Ultimately, Oryński decided, thinking about it was as pointless as the work those young people were rushing about to do. He looked around for a vacant cubicle.
There was only one. As he approached it, he noticed the sticky note bearing his name, misspelt as ‘Oryjski’. He knew exactly who had written it.
The young lawyer took off the label – a poor substitute for all those gold plaques in the corridor. My time will come, he thought. Even Chyłka probably started off like this.
As he sat down at the desk, he saw another note by the keyboard, detailing his login and temporary password. He speedily accessed the Żelazny & McVay internal database, and, opening the ‘current cases’ tab, read the heading ‘Jo Chyłka’. Clearly, Joanna had issues with the IT guy.
In any normal company, a few people would already be gathered around his cubicle – they’d be chatting about the firm, making long introductions, telling jokes and stories and giving valuable advice. Here, however, nobody stopped work, not even for a moment.
On the other hand, it gave him a chance to get acquainted with the case he’d be working on. And as soon as he read the first line, his heart started to race.
The accused was called Piotr Langer, or rather Piotr Langer Junior, because his father had the same first name. Anyone involved in the law, consulting or real estate development, would have heard of Langer Senior. His name came up often, mostly linked with lucrative investments. He knew his business inside out too, which was why his company retained teams of the sharpest lawyers, advisers and brokers.
His son, meanwhile, had been relatively unknown until just three months ago, when one of his neighbours had had to call the police. Apparently, the stench coming from Langer Junior’s flat had been so unbearable that when they arrived, two or three of the policemen involuntarily tossed their breakfasts back up for all to see.
They hadn’t needed an injunction – Piotr Langer Junior had opened the door personally, dressed in a light blue dressing gown, and politely let the police officers in. But within seconds he was lying on the floor, a policeman’s boot in his back.
‘Zordon!’ The cry went up across the newbie-burrow.
Oryński took no notice. He was lost in thought, reflecting that he’d soon be looking straight into Langer’s eyes. Unlike Chyłka, here was a real psychopath, someone who had spent ten days alone with two corpses. He didn’t cut them up into pieces, he didn’t put bits of them in the freezer; he just sat there with them, as if he’d forgotten he had killed them.
Kordian couldn’t help but imagine what it had been like: two corpses in the living room, decomposition in full swing. Once the sphincters had given out, the smell would have been appalling. The bodies would have begun to discolour as livor mortis set in; and then there would have been the insects. The living room window had been left ajar, and all manner of bugs would have come swarming through, looking for a feast and somewhere to lay their eggs.
‘Zordon!’
It would have been a gruesome sight, and the stench would have been overpowering. And yet Langer sat there for ten days, then opened the door to the police as if nothing had happened.
‘Zordon!’
Only now did Oryński recognise the voice. He turned and saw Chyłka striding towards him.
‘I’ve been calling you,’ she said.
‘My name is Kordian.’
‘Zordon, Kordon, whatever,’ she snapped. ‘Get your things, we’re going to see the client. Unless the very thought is making you feel faint? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. Would you like me to hold your hand?’
No one else in the newbie-burrow seemed to be taking any notice, but Oryński was sure that later on, over a beer, they’d be picking over the whole exchange. On top of that, he had acquired a new nickname, Zordon. He swore inwardly, and they both went to the lift.
Inside the cabin, Kordian shifted nervously from foot to foot.
‘Is there a problem? Don’t tell me you get claustrophobia.’
‘I’m thinking about the client.’
‘Well don’t. It’ll spoil the surprise.’
He wondered whether he should ask the question that had been preying on his mind. He’d had no practical experience with crimes involving dead bodies; the prosecutor had talked about them in forensic science lectures, but had not gone into detail.
‘On a dead body,’ he said, ‘how long is it before the insects appear? That is, if the corpse is in an apartment?’
‘They come in waves, within three hours if the window is open. And in that flat, it was open,’ replied Joanna almost absent-mindedly. ‘First to arrive are the blowflies with their shiny bodies. Calliphora vicina the entomologists call them if I remember rightly. Fucking pests. They lay their eggs in all the moistest spots: the eyeballs, around the mouth, and down where the sun don’t shine. At least that’s what happens with male corpses.’ She paused. ‘They hatch within two or three hours, and let’s put it this way: they don’t leave their new home until somebody makes them.’
Kordian really did start to feel faint.
Chyłka continued to pontificate all the way to the car. She told him that blowflies can live off a corpse for up to six months, and that this was an accurate way to determine the time of death. Kordian listened reluctantly. When at last they got into the car in the car park under Złote Tarasy, he breathed a sigh of relief, especially as the seat in Chyłka’s BMW SUV was super comfortable. He started feeling worse again when Iron Maiden roared out of the speakers.