Kordian remembered little from the journey back to Złota Street, waking up only as Joanna was parking her car in the car park.
‘I’m peckish,’ she announced as they were getting out of the car.
‘You’ll have to eat alone; I’ve lost my appetite.’
‘Give it a rest, Zordon. Did that little show of strength scare you?’
‘No.’
‘Then stop whining and come with me. I know a good place.’
The music at the Hard Rock Cafe was hardly soothing. The two lawyers went downstairs, Joanna leading the way to one of the many vacant tables. The sound of a screeching vocalist blared from the speakers, competing with mawkish guitar riffs; no wonder the restaurant was virtually empty.
‘What would you like?’ she asked.
Kordian could hardly hear her.
‘A menu,’ he replied under his breath.
He didn’t want to risk ordering anything in the dark. What did they serve in a place like this? They probably slaughtered goats then performed bloodletting rituals on an altar. Maybe cats were also involved. It would be safer to order a coffee.
‘Have some Hard Rock Nachos to get you started.’
‘No thanks,’ replied Kordian, flipping through the menu pages.
‘Ah, you want to get stuck in straightaway. Then have what I’m having, the Hickory-Smoked Barbecue Combo.’
He glanced at the description, which seemed to suggest the combo included not only dead goat and cat, but also the odd bit of Christian clergyman. He shook his head. There was so much meat, he’d have to play squash for hours to burn it all off. And he’d be leaving the restaurant with a tornado in his belly and a decidedly empty wallet. No, this was definitely not a good day for eating that stuff.
‘I’ll take the grilled salmon.’
Chyłka looked up. She shook her head, then checked the menu to see if such an item actually existed.
‘Salmon? Are you kidding? And are you having a nice healthy salad with that?’
‘No thanks, just the grilled salmon will do.’
‘What kind of a man are you?’ she asked. ‘A good slab of meat will give you the strength to wrestle with clients and prosecutors. What I saw today was such feeble pussyfooting that for a moment . . .’
‘You were watching?’
‘Hmm?’ she mumbled, as if she hadn’t heard.
‘Were you watching?’ he repeated, louder this time. You’d need a megaphone if you wanted to have an actual conversation in this place.
‘What do you think? I couldn’t leave you alone with that criminal. In fact, I’m surprised your underpants were still clean when you left. Or were they?’
‘At least he talked to me.’
‘Birds of a feather.’
Kordian smiled to himself, then they placed their orders and went to the other room to light up. The wall of smoke was almost impenetrable, as it always was in smoking rooms, regardless of the time of day or popularity of the restaurant. Oryński hoped they would be able to smoke in silence, or at least to talk about something other than Langer. But the silence lasted only a matter of moments.
‘So what do you think?’ asked Joanna.
‘It’s too loud here.’
‘You’re a funny bloke, Zordon,’ she said with a smile. ‘I meant about the client.’
‘I don’t know what to make of him,’ he replied, ignoring the jibe.
‘Not good enough.’ She inhaled, looking at him expectantly.
‘I get the impression he didn’t do it,’ he replied.
‘That’s pretty obvious.’
‘What?’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘I thought I was the only one giving in to wishful thinking.’
‘Don’t get too excited, that’s only two concurring opinions,’ she said, extinguishing her cigarette. She headed for the staircase, so Kordian quickly stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray and followed her. ‘Two defence lawyers with the same opinion is still a far cry from convincing the judge. But Langer doesn’t look like the kind of son-of-a-bitch who would have killed two people like that.’
‘And yet . . .’
‘Yes, I know. He sat with those corpses for ten days. It doesn’t really fit.’
They went upstairs, and soon their food arrived; an American meat feast for Joanna, and grilled salmon with garlic sauce and green vegetables for Kordian. He looked at it warily, not quite trusting it to be edible.
‘Maybe someone locked him in there after the murders?’ he asked, chewing on a piece of fish.
‘Perhaps, but we definitely won’t be basing our defence on that.’
Oryński put down his knife and fork, noticing that Chyłka had turned serious. They were clearly getting to the heart of the matter if she’d switched to full professional mode.
‘Have you got any other ideas?’ he asked.
He was hoping that any moment now she’d astound him with her insight. He was hoping to take more away from his time at Żelazny & McVay than just a line on his CV. He wasn’t expecting to be offered permanent employment – he knew his limitations. The firm had several trainees, and only one – if any – would be invited to stay on. Oryński had never considered himself a high-flyer, and if his university grades were anything to go by, he wasn’t alone in this opinion.
‘No, I haven’t,’ Joanna replied, spearing a piece of chicken richly covered with barbecue sauce.
‘Nothing at all?’
‘What do you want me to say?’ she replied, her mouth half-full. ‘You’ve seen the documents; you know perfectly well what the problem is. We have absolutely nothing to work with.’
‘So how are we going to defend him? Are we really going for insanity?’ Kordian felt it was probably a stupid question, but he had to ask it, and now he braced himself for the expression on Chyłka’s face.
‘Only if we want to make fools of ourselves,’ she replied. ‘But you saw that Langer reckons he’s of sound mind. And he’ll prove that in court at the first opportunity he has.’
Kordian thought for a moment. ‘In that case, we could argue that someone else had done the killing and somehow planted Langer at the scene of the crime. He could have been drugged, completely unaware of what was going on and . . .’
‘Toxicology showed no sign of any intoxicating substances,’ chanted Joanna in an official monotone.
‘OK, then perhaps he was held somewhere else while the corpses rotted in his flat. Then, under cover of darkness, they put him in there, unconscious and totally oblivious. And that’s why he opened the door to the police in the morning.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Well, I think so,’ replied Kordian, pleased with his idea. ‘You’d have to ask the neighbours if any of them saw Langer enter or leave the apartment during that time. After all, he couldn’t have just sat there for ten days without doing any shopping, could he? Remember, he’s a bloke, he wouldn’t have had anything more than a couple of beers in the fridge, or a packet of instant noodles in the cupboard. And he wouldn’t have had stuff delivered – for obvious reasons.’
‘My, you’re on a roll, Zordon,’ replied Chyłka, and returned to her meat orgy. Oryński’s salmon lay on his plate, getting cold.
‘We should also check out the garbage disposal firm,’ he added. ‘Maybe we could see if they took any rubbish away from his place.’
‘Brilliant idea,’ she retorted with her mouth full. ‘If you’re Sisyphus, that is, and need a futile task.’
‘At least I’m trying to find a solution.’
‘Well, think something up that’ll counter the DNA evidence, wise guy. You’ve forgotten that they’ve found . . .’
‘Evidence schmevidence,’ he said. ‘Professor Filar wrote that not even DNA evidence is always enough to convince a judge. Nothing is certain in . . .’
‘Ah, there I must interrupt you, my rising star. As your boss, I was educated in these matters a long time ago, so spare me your words of wisdom. Of course, no evidence in the world is one hundred per cent irrefutable, but in the face of the biological evidence they’ve found, your speculations will hold up about as well as a chocolate fireguard.’
‘But . . .’
‘Mind you, Filar is the master. Listen to him, read his publications, learn from him, and if you get a case involving sexual offences, be sure to study every word he’s ever written.’
‘But . . .’
‘But back to Langer. Yes, go on,’ She gestured for him to continue while she got stuck into a piece of beef.
‘The bodies were in his flat, which would have been full of his hair. No wonder some of it found its way onto the victims.’
‘Well, well,’ replied Joanna. ‘Now I’m at a loss for words. I’m so impressed, I’m going to leave the rest of my meal,’ she said, deliberately cramming an extra-large piece of meat into her mouth.
Kordian smiled wanly. It would have been OK, he thought, to talk his theories through with another trainee, but not someone as experienced as Chyłka. She had probably thought of all this the minute she’d been handed the case.
For a moment, Joanna ate in silence, then gazed around the room as if looking for someone. Eventually, she ordered a small beer. Oryński declined a drink, preferring to stay sober whilst on duty – at least on his first day.
‘The biological traces are a serious problem,’ she said after a while. ‘On top of that, his fingerprints are everywhere.’
‘It’d be strange if they weren’t,’ Oryński replied, having another go at his grilled fish. ‘After all, he would have been using knives and a hammer for other reasons, not just to murder people.’
Chyłka nodded, but he noticed that her thoughts had drifted away. These were idle speculations – in the eyes of the judges and lay judges, Langer’s guilt would be incontrovertible.
Maybe we should just accept that we had absolutely nothing, Kordian thought. This was a hopeless case.