alleyway, close enough for Janusz to make out his lips working in a silent curse.
On reaching Upper Street, he found his progress slowed by knots of straggling pedestrians and baby buggies, and decided to cut across the road. The traffic slowed here as it approached Highbury Corner roundabout but he still had to employ a jinking jog and a raised palm, which did nothing to quell the cacophony of horns or the angry gestures of drivers. On the other side stood a double decker bus, pulled up at a stop. As Janusz rounded its rear, he saw a last passenger boarding and put on a determined spurt. The bus hid him momentarily from view – and, with luck, would whisk him away before bomber jacket had even worked out where he’d gone.
Janusz reached the front of the bus, his lungs burning – just as the doors sighed shut. Tapping politely on the glass, he caught the driver’s eye and – abandoning all dignity – pantomimed a hopeful ‘Please?’ Nearly three decades in London made the driver’s responding shrug depressingly easy to decipher. It said ‘Not my problem, sunshine.’
With a consumptive wheeze of its air brakes, the bus trundled away – leaving Janusz feeling brutally exposed. He looked back across Upper Street – and straight into the face of the man in the bomber jacket, standing on the kerb opposite. Seeing his vulpine half-smile, Janusz realised what a sorry picture he must make – one arm flung round the bus stop for support, gasping like a landed carp. As Janusz gathered up his last vestiges of energy to run, bomber jacket threw a look to his left and stepped off the kerb towards him.
There came the shriek of rubber on tarmac, a horn blast – and a bang. Janusz squinted through the traffic, trying to make sense of what just happened. The scene came into focus: a red mail van skewed across the lane blocking the traffic, a scatter of mirror fragments in the gutter behind it. And bomber jacket on all fours, in the road, a solicitous cluster of passers-by forming around him. He was shaking his head as if trying, unsuccessfully, to clear it.
Janusz allowed himself a grin before limping off into the thickening dusk.
After putting some distance between himself and his erstwhile pursuer he lit a cigar, dragging the reviving smoke deep into his lungs, but it was still five minutes or more before his pulse rate returned to normal and he was able to think clearly. Why on earth should anyone want to follow him? There couldn’t be any connection with Kasia and Steve’s disappearing act – could there? An all too plausible scenario occurred to him: if Steve had been driven into a murderous rage by the prospect of Kasia leaving him, then Janusz would be the obvious target for his revenge. He recalled Kasia complaining more than once that her husband had some questionable friends – including one who’d been in jail – so taking out a hit on his rival might not overly stretch his skillset.
Replaying the chase with bomber jacket in his mind, Janusz came to a sudden halt in the middle of the pavement. His pursuer had looked to the left before stepping out into the traffic. From which Janusz deduced that he either had the road sense of a four-year-old – or had recently arrived from a country where they drove on the right.
Whoever the guy was, Janusz had to admit the incident had left him rattled. Not because he feared for his own safety – he could look after himself. But if Steve really was crazy enough to take out a contract on him, then what did it say about the danger Kasia was in?
Just as this terrible thought entered his head, he saw the pale spire of St Stanislaus up ahead. He decided to pay Father Pietruski a visit: Kasia had been going to confession at St Stan’s for the last year, so there was just a chance that the priest might be able to offer some clue as to her whereabouts.
Hearing the deep clunk of the church door closing, Father Piotr Pietruski looked up from the altar where he was setting out wine and communion wafers, and peered into the gloom.
His expression brightened as he saw who his visitor was – although his tone sounded as caustic as ever. ‘Ah! Look what the wind blew in. I was thinking only today how long it had been since you had graced us with your presence.’ The old man bustled down the stairs from the altar, holding on to the rail. ‘I would hear your konfesja, but it will no doubt take some time, and as you can see, I am preparing for Holy Mass …’
‘I haven’t come to make confession, prosze pana. I need to talk to you about Kasia Fisher.’
Father Pietruski dropped his gaze, but not before Janusz saw his face sag in disappointment – and something else. Disapproval. Unlike Janusz, Kasia made her confession once a week without fail, so the old boy knew all about their affair, and since he steadfastly refused to recognise even Janusz’s two-decades-old divorce, in his eyes they were both committed and unrepentant adulterers.
‘Come into the vestry,’ he said. Janusz followed him through a side door, noting with a pang how stooped the old guy was getting, and how the sparse silver combover barely covered his age-spotted scalp.
Pietruski lowered himself into one of two dilapidated leather armchairs and waved at the other. ‘Siadaj. Sit. You’d better tell me what all this is about.’
Janusz sketched out what he knew about Kasia’s disappearance, her failure to show up at work and the couple’s empty flat. When he mentioned that she’d been due to move into his apartment, Pietruski didn’t look happy, but he didn’t betray any surprise either.
Janusz felt his spirits lift. The fact that Kasia had got up the courage to tell her priest she was leaving the marriage dissipated any last whisper of doubt he might have had about her changing her mind.
‘Perhaps she realised the terrible sin she was about to commit in betraying her marriage vows,’ said Pietruski, sending Janusz a reproachful look. ‘A sin you seem determined to encourage her in, despite being a married man yourself.’ He plucked distractedly at the embroidered cover on the arm of his chair.
Janusz tried to tell himself that he was immune to the old man’s disapproval, but he knew that wasn’t true. Pietruski had saved him from self-annihilation when he first arrived from Poland, a skinny nineteen-year-old fleeing a disastrous marriage. He’d wed Marta just weeks after his girlfriend Iza died at a demonstration against the Communist regime – a tragedy for which he held himself responsible. Father Pietruski – still in possession of a full head of hair back then – had found him sprawled across the steps of this very church, insensible with wodka. He had given Janusz a meal and found him somewhere to sleep, later introducing him to the Irish building contractor who gave him his first labouring job.
Janusz shifted about in the armchair – its high leather sides made it narrow and too deep for comfort, and an errant spring in the base pressed insistently into the back of his thigh. ‘I respect your views on how we should conduct our lives, Father,’ he said, making an effort to keep his temper. ‘But the fact remains that Kasia is an adult woman, free to do as she sees fit.’
‘The modern-day doctrine of “please oneself”, you mean? Which has brought people nothing but unhappiness, it seems to me. You do realise, that if she does leave, you can never marry, naturalnie?’ The look in Pietruski’s eyes was one of profound compassion.
The marriage question meant next to nothing to Janusz – his faith was a hazy affair, grounded more in nostalgia and respect for tradition than in any profound supernatural belief – although he knew what it would cost Kasia to live in sin for the rest of their days together, denied the sacrament of communion.
‘I’m not here to debate doctrine. And I don’t think Kasia has gone missing because she’s suddenly seen the light – I think her husband has abducted her.’
Pietruski blinked rapidly. ‘Surely not? Might they not simply have gone away to celebrate his birthday?’
Janusz stared at him for a moment. ‘It was you who persuaded her to stay till his birthday, wasn’t it?’
The old man lifted his chin. ‘You know very well that I cannot divulge what is said within the sacred confines of the confessional,’ he said – as good as confirming Janusz’s hunch – ‘but I would never apologise for doing everything within my power to preserve the sacrament of marriage.’
Janusz