8

The twenty-first floor of the Skylight was full of the usual hustle and bustle. There were lawyers running in and out of offices, calling out through open doors, hurtling down corridors, urging the photocopiers to work faster and yelling at their personal assistants.

Even the Hard Rock Cafe had been calmer, thought Oryński.

He walked at Chyłka’s side, looking vainly to see if there was someone in charge of all this commotion. More lawyers were bellowing about approaching deadlines, and two couriers collided head on in the middle of the corridor. If not for their lightning reflexes, the letters they were carrying would have landed in a heap on the floor.

Kordian listened to all the instructions being yelled out.

‘Do this! Do that! Only ten hours until the deadline! Run down to the post office! Have you got me Supreme Court verdict eighty-three of the fifth of June? Get me that prosecutor’s number! Get me info on this, info on that . . .’

He’d had enough.

‘Żelazny wants to see you,’ someone said to Chyłka in the midst of the whirlwind. Joanna pressed ahead through the rowdy crowd without slowing.

‘Hey, Jakobin, have you got me the info about that judge?’ she asked, stopping a short, fat man in glasses.

‘Yes, it’s on your desk.’

‘Chyłka! That slander woman phoned, she left a message on your voicemail,’ a girl shouted, leaning out of the office they were passing.

‘Thanks,’ Joanna shouted back, again without slowing her pace.

Eventually they managed to break free from the bedlam. They were almost at the end of the corridor, next to the office of another trainee – but one who was officially called an associate. Seeing the plaque on the door made Oryński feel as if someone had spat in his face. This trainee had their own office, a good position, respect and a decent salary – while Kordian was stuck in the newbie-burrow. Even a mediocre plate of salmon in a bar restaurant blew a considerable hole in his budget.

Joanna knocked on the door opposite. It was only a formality, because she walked straight in without waiting for an invitation. A disoriented Kordian followed her in. He didn’t even have time to read the plaque on the door to know who they were visiting. He knew it wasn’t Żelazny though, because his office was further back.

‘Kormak, I need to know about our client’s neighbours,’ she said.

‘Huh?’ asked a skinny man with small, round glasses.

He reminded Kordian of Elton John, but several decades younger and several dozen kilos lighter. This one was probably not gay either, judging by the way his eyes gravitated to Joanna’s cleavage.

‘Sorry, forgot the introductions,’ Chyłka said. ‘Zordon, this is Szczypior – well, everybody calls him Kormak – and Kormak, this is Zordon. Get to know each other, exchange Pokémon cards or whatever it is you do.’

‘Why do they call you Kormak?’

Chyłka answered for him, frowning and pointing to the Cormac McCarthy novel lying open on the desk.

‘Szczypior always has one of McCarthy’s books on the go. Hence, Kormak. But never mind that now. Let’s get to the matter at hand: I need details about my client’s neighbours. Piotr Langer. Junior, of course.’

‘I know who he is, Chyłka,’ replied the skinny Elton. ‘The Old Boys pay me to know what’s in the works.’

Old Boys was the standard nickname for the owners of Żelazny & McVay – ‘Old Rusty’ for Żelazny in honour of his name, the Polish for iron – and simply the ‘Old Man’ for McVay. The pair worked abroad for the most part, and weren’t always that interested in what was going on in Poland. They rarely made an appearance in the Warsaw office, and when they did, it was usually for something serious. So the imminent meeting with Żelazny did not fill Joanna with optimism.

He was bound to suggest they should back off a bit with Langer’s son, Chyłka thought. Piotr Langer Senior was paying the bills, and would want the case closed as fast as possible, with no room for appeal – provided, of course, Piotr Junior didn’t cause any problems.

‘By the way, Old Rusty is looking for you.’

‘I know,’ said Joanna, ‘and for now, I don’t care. Just get me whatever you can on those neighbours.’

‘Why can’t you just go for a walk around the estate?’

‘Because I haven’t got a Central Bureau of Investigation badge in my pocket which I can flash around so people will tell me everything I want to know,’ retorted Joanna in one breath.

She walked up to the desk and looked at the book. How many of these has he written? Szczypior always seemed to be reading a different one, though perhaps he re-read them. That wouldn’t surprise her. Joanna had once tried one on Kormak’s recommendation, but soon lost interest. For her, Stephen King was decidedly a better read, especially in the evenings when all was dark save the muted glow of the night light . . .

‘I’m not some door-to-door salesman, and I’m not going to ask my dear Zordon, because no one would want to talk to him anyway,’ she said. ‘The thing is, this is an exclusive neighbourhood, and they’re probably all quite snooty. If I catch them leaving work or having a drink somewhere, maybe they’ll chat to me. But at home? Forget it. They’ve paid good money for their homes to be their castles.’

‘OK, I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. ‘But if it’s a genuinely exclusive neighbourhood, it could be a problem.’

‘So tell me which restaurants or bars they go to, or send me their Facebook photos. I’ll do the rest myself.’

Oryński was sorry he hadn’t looked more closely at the golden plaque on the door as they entered the office. He would have loved to know what job this McCarthy enthusiast did. He certainly wasn’t a lawyer, because he’d have better things to do than collect information about a client’s neighbours. Nor did he look like an IT specialist, because he wore a suit, and that indicated working in the field. Perhaps the firm’s own private detective? Or a social media specialist? These days, you didn’t need to lurk in dark alleyways, or even break into someone’s hard drive in order to spy on them. Everyone uploaded so much information to the internet, you only had to know where to look. Place of residence? No problem, check Instagram, see where the photos were taken. If the GPS was switched off when they were taking pictures, you could check their jogging routes on Endomondo. Their current location? Nothing simpler, follow them on Twitter. What they looked like? No shortage of material there: Facebook alone would have hundreds of photos. Their whole professional career and phone numbers would be on LinkedIn; and look at Google Street View and you were virtually at their front door.

Everyone seemed to know all this, and yet even the biggest shysters gave themselves away online. Gone were the days when what went on tour stayed on tour; these days it was all over social media in seconds.

‘I need this by yesterday,’ added Joanna, tearing Kordian away from his reflections.

‘No change there, then,’ muttered Kormak.

As they left Kormak’s office, Oryński glanced at the plaque on the door.

‘Senior Information Specialist?’ he asked with disbelief.

‘Something wrong?’

‘No, it’s simply . . .’

‘Come on,’ she interrupted, and they started pushing through the crowd to get back to where they had come from.

‘Weren’t you supposed to see the boss?’

‘Later.’

The office was still a frenzy of people shouting at one another, making it all the more remarkable that Oryński discerned through the cacophony that someone was calling to him.

‘Zordon! There’s a case for you on your desk.’

The courier disappeared in the throng, so Kordian didn’t even get the chance to ask what it was about. Instead, he looked questioningly at his boss.

‘Go and check it out. I need to think,’ she said.

‘But I’ve already got . . .’

‘You haven’t got anything,’ she said, heading in the opposite direction. ‘When you’re with me, you’re learning, but there are some things you have to do by yourself. Don’t panic, it probably won’t be anything important. Everybody gets some old nonsense to start with.’

Kordian watched how skilfully Joanna manoeuvred through the maelstrom of people, who all seemed to have something crucial to ask her. Analysing the situation, he reached two conclusions: first and foremost, Chyłka had an exceptionally shapely backside, which in that tight skirt was as flatteringly outlined as humanly possible. Secondly, but not so importantly, her ability to negotiate the premises of Żelazny & McVay was nothing short of an art form, requiring not only knowledge but also talent.

Fortunately, it wasn’t far to the newbie-burrow, and Kordian got there without any major problems. No one was interested in his arrival, and inside, the commotion was no less than in the corridor.

Not so much a battery farm, he thought, as a lunatic asylum.

If anyone was of sound mind when they arrived, they’d surely leave in a mental state even worse than Piotr Langer. It was hard to imagine how anyone could work in these circumstances. The lawyers had soundproof offices, but here, even simple mental arithmetic would be a challenge.

Heading towards his cubicle, Kordian noticed that most people had headphones on. Good idea. Tomorrow, he’d download a good playlist, and Big Will would help protect him from the surrounding Armageddon.

‘Zordon!’

He hadn’t even had a chance to sit down, and when he turned around, he saw Chyłka. Who else would it have been? She was gesturing for him to come over.

‘How long have you managed without me? A minute?’

‘Old Rusty is insisting that I come now. You should come with me, you’ll see how big politics is played out.’

‘I can’t, not at the moment.’

‘You can deal with your nonsense later, now it’s time to watch and learn.’

‘This is my first day, Chyłka, mercy . . .’

She pointed the way to the corridor.