There was a strange calm in the newbie-burrow. Not unlike pictures of Chernobyl with its desolate buildings and abandoned playground, the battery farm looked as if it had once teemed with life. Discarded personal belongings were scattered here and there, chairs had been moved away from desks, and occasionally there were photographs of long-forgotten people pinned to cubicle walls.
The last soldier on the battlefield was Oryński, spinning in his chair and trying to think of anything that might change Langer’s fate. Some time had passed since Chyłka had visited him in prison, and the trial was fast approaching. In fact, Kordian should have been planning how to dress for the event rather than desperately searching for something that could save his client.
Selecting the right clothing was no trivial matter. Lawyers were expected to dress appropriately, not only as individuals, but as a duo. They had to match in terms of colour, and general aesthetics. It had nothing to do with vanity; experts insisted that the smallest of nuances could subconsciously affect how their arguments were perceived by the judge.
Oryński, however, decided he would leave this to Chyłka, while he focused all his attention on making a last-minute breakthrough. There was not much room for manoeuvre. The adjudicating panel was bound by the accusations put forward by the defence. In the Polish legal system, cassation appeals were not just the next stage in proceedings, but an extraordinary judicial remedy. The Supreme Court could not review the whole case, but only the accusations filed by the defence against the previous hearings. A broader examination of the case would only be possible if it turned out that Langer had had accomplices not included in the cassation appeal, or if there were absolute grounds for an appeal against the previous judgement. But neither of these options applied in this case, which left only one possibility: to prove that the legal assessment of the case had previously been flawed.
It was a hard nut to crack, but not impossible.
What sort of result could they expect? Again, there were few possibilities. The court could reject the appeal, uphold it or overrule the previous judgement, either partially or entirely.
If the appeal was accepted, the case would be handed over to another court to be reheard, and that was what Oryński and Chyłka were counting on.
There was also one more possibility, highly optimistic and highly unlikely. The court could discontinue the proceedings or even acquit the accused. It would take a miracle. And the light at the end of the tunnel seemed very faint indeed.
After Chyłka’s visit to the prison, the two lawyers had filed a request to suspend Langer’s prison sentence – everyone filing for cassation had the same right. Chyłka had argued that Langer’s stay in prison was causing him irreversible change, and also that in the light of recent discoveries regarding the Grey-Haired Man, there was a possibility that he was being manipulated. Unfortunately, their arguments did not convince the Supreme Court and the application was rejected, giving a clear signal that they couldn’t count on the power of the media.
Kordian was not especially surprised. It would take an immense dose of altruism to believe Piotr had not murdered those people. If he was one of the five judges deciding Langer’s fate, he’d have suspected the lawyers were bending the rules. Playing intellectual games, as Radwański put it.
All the evidence was against Langer. His behaviour, and the sheer impracticality of all other scenarios, meant he must surely be the perpetrator; also, his fingerprints were all over the murder weapons, and he had never denied his guilt, either to the police or the courts. The fact that someone had kidnapped and threatened the two lawyers proved nothing, at least as far as Langer’s case was concerned. Without a convincing chain of cause and effect, to the court these were unrelated events.
Oryński stopped spinning the chair when he started to feel dizzy. He spun the other way a few times, then, still in the chair, rolled towards his desk. He leaned his elbows on the surface and stared blankly at a Supreme Court ruling he was trying to get through. It didn’t look particularly useful at first glance, but he needed to kill time somehow.
‘Zordon!’ called the only other person on that floor. Other employees also worked long hours, especially in the newbie-burrow, but by two in the morning, Chyłka and Oryński were the only ones left. Deadlines usually expired by midnight, so anyone who stayed after that needed their heads examined.
‘Zordon!’
Oryński turned the chair around and jumped off it. He walked down the empty corridor and turned to the open door of Chyłka’s office. He entered slowly and calmly, and was met with a disapproving look.
‘At the sound of my voice you should be scurrying here like a rabbit!’
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘Quiet,’ she interrupted him, rising from her chair. ‘Look at this,’ she said, turning her laptop round to face Kordian then tapping the monitor.
‘What’s that?’
‘A revelation. One brilliant fucking revelation. A breakthrough.’
He looked at the screen, where the video player window was maximised. The image was of an interior; it looked like a visiting room.’
‘What’s that?’ repeated Oryński, leaning to take a closer look. Joanna pressed the space bar to set the recording in motion.
‘Don’t you recognise it, dumbass? It’s the visiting room in Białołęka holiday home.’
Sometime later, Chyłka appeared in the picture. In a dignified manner she made her way around the small metal table and sat down opposite the entrance. Then she spread a pile of documents on the table. The date in the bottom right corner indicated that the recording was made shortly after the police had arrested Piotr.
After a while, the star of the show appeared. Langer sat down opposite Joanna, and then it was as if time stood still. They both sat motionless.
‘At first, you may remember, he wasn’t very talkative,’ said Chyłka. ‘Then towards the end of the recording he proposed that I do something for him up against the wall.’
‘Why the hell are we watching this?’
‘Just watch.’
He watched the next several dozen minutes of recordings. Kordian had no idea whether Chyłka had coerced the detention centre to give her the recordings, they’d been given to her out of goodwill, or if she had obtained them illegally. One way or another, he was sure her determination and wiliness had played a significant role.
‘Are you watching it?’ she asked when the next recording started.
He was, but he didn’t spot anything interesting. Chyłka pulled out a packet of cigarettes, and handed one to Oryński. With another, she pointed to Langer.
‘The eyelids,’ she said. ‘Can you see what he’s doing?’
‘He’s blinking like a madman. But that’s not all that strange. We knew about his tic from the start.’
Chyłka replayed the first recording. There was no nervous blinking. ‘The blinking started later,’ she said before Kordian could light his cigarette.
‘Yes, but what has that . . .’
‘Look at his eyes, dumbass,’ she said, playing the next recording. ‘Three short blinks, three long ones, and then three short ones. SOS. Di-di-dit, dah-dah-dah, di-di-dit.’
‘What?’
‘SOS in Morse code.’
‘Are you trying to tell me that Langer . . .’ began Oryński, but then paused. For a moment he wondered whether Chyłka was pulling his leg. Then he took another look, and realised she wasn’t.
Without thinking, he took a drag of his unlit cigarette.
‘How on earth did you notice that? And all the time he was giving signals in Morse code?’
‘Yup,’ she confirmed, stopping the recording. ‘We were both completely blind to it. He even drew our attention to the camera in the corner of the room, and we interpreted it in our own way,’ she said, lighting her cigarette. Kordian kept looking at the laptop screen.
‘How did you notice it?’ he repeated.
‘By accident. I’ve been watching these recordings over the last few days, I know them by heart. An hour ago, I was browsing some stupid news website and came across an item about someone whose door intercom could be opened using Morse code. And the rest you can imagine. Sudden revelation, total enlightenment.’
Oryński looked at the frozen image, and replayed it. Yes, Langer was definitely signalling SOS.
‘Could it be a coincidence, maybe?’ he asked, trying not to get too excited.
‘Maybe,’ she conceded. ‘But Langer is a sailor, he sails yachts and other boats, so he must know Morse code. It all makes sense,’ she said, switching to the browser. She opened a tab and found a tool for decrypting Morse messages.
It took them ten minutes to decipher the next phrase.
‘Long, short, long, short, long,’ said Joanna. ‘Start of transmission.’
‘OK,’ said Oryński. ‘Now what do we do?’
She looked around the office, and thought for a moment. Deciding that any more attempts at deciphering the messages by themselves would be futile, she picked up her phone and rang Kormak.