Read Online A Grain of Truth by Zygmunt Miloszewski - Free Book Online

ground, but then the ground would give way and he’d have to take a step back again. He couldn’t see what was there behind him, but he took that step. On the other side of the crevasse was his old life, there was Weronika bustling about, Helka, Kuzniecow and his friends. Light, noise, laughter. Where he was, on one side there was darkness, and on the other the crevasse. Another day, another landslip, another step backwards. Finally he was surrounded by darkness on all sides,but even so, each day he took another step backwards. He had come to terms with the idea that that’s how things were going to be from now on.
    He poured a little water into the dirty frying pan and put it down on the cooker. He’d clean it up eventually.
    It can’t be like this, it occurred to him, as he pushed away the conscious thought that this conviction had come to haunt him every day. It can’t be like this. People go on living in harmony after a divorce, they sometimes make friends and bring up children jointly, Demi Moore was at Bruce Willis’s wedding and vice versa, you don’t have to sleep in the same bed or live in the same flat to be a family. After all, he, Weronika and Helka would always be a family, regardless of what had happened and what would happen.
    He reached for the phone – he still had Weronika on speed-dial. Except that now it said “Weronika”, not as it once had, “Kitten”.
    “Yes?”
    “Hello, it’s me.”
    “Hello, I can see that. What do you want?”
    She didn’t have to be friendly. He realized that.
    “I’m just calling to see if everything’s OK. How you are, how’s Helka?”
    There was a short silence.
    “Again?”
    “What do you mean, again? I’m sorry, but is there a time when I can call and find out how my daughter is?”
    He heard a sigh.
    “Your daughter’s fine, I’ve been nagging her to do her homework, she’s got a test tomorrow.” She sounded tired and unenthusiastic, as if she were completing an unpleasant task, and Szacki could feel a lump of aggression rising in his throat.
    “What’s the test on?”
    “Nature. Teo, is there something in particular? Sorry, but I’m quite busy.”
    “In particular I wanted to find out when my daughter is coming here. I get the impression you’re obstructing her contact with me.”
    “Don’t be paranoid. You know she doesn’t like going there.”
    “Why so? Because as soon as she starts to visit me, then her step-father will have competition and your wonderful new relationship won’t be quite so wonderful?”
    “Teo…”
    “Well all right, but she has to understand that I live here now.”
    He hated himself for letting a plaintive tone creep into his voice.
    “Explain it to her yourself.”
    He didn’t know how to answer that. Helka was reluctant to talk to him and reluctant to listen. She liked her new home, and not her father’s bachelor den, which was two hundred kilometres away. At one time she had tried to hide her disgust, but lately she had stopped bothering.
    “All right, in that case maybe I’ll come there.”
    “Maybe. As you wish. Teo… please, if you haven’t got anything in particular…”
    “No, thanks, kiss my little bunnikin for me. OK?”
    “OK.”
    She was waiting to see if he’d say any more; he could feel her reluctance and impatience. He caught some sounds coming from the other end. The television was on, a pot was clattering, and someone laughed, a child. Weronika hung up, and in the little flat on Długosz Street in Sandomierz unalloyed silence reigned.
    Szacki had to do something to avoid thinking. Work – he did after all have a proper case at last. He must prepare a case hypothesis, do some thinking, prepare the operational stages and draw up a timetable. Why wasn’t he doing it? Normally he’d have had three exercise books full of notes by now. He impetuously flipped his laptop open to look for information and get ready for tomorrow’s interrogation of Budnik. The man must have featured a