2 A Different Face

Adam was not yet thirty, but he had the misfortune to have already seen people who were human in name only. He had seen them in jail, in the courthouse, in the detention center, and... on the street, just like that. Monsters in human skin, who, like chameleons, could blend into the background and pretend to be upright citizens.

Adam had seen them more than once, so he couldn't be wrong...

It was not the face of a man. It was the face of a monster that had momentarily forgotten to take on the mask of humanity.

"Counselor! How good to see you!" Now this face looked completely normal, exactly as the face of an innocently accused forty-eight-year-old manual worker should look. That was what he had always seen and believed.

In that case, what had he seen the moment he crossed the threshold? The true face of the monster or an illusion? What was true and what was false?

"I heard that you were arrested at the scene" Adam said slowly taking a chair opposite the handcuffed Kwiecień. The man wasn't wearing civilian clothes but the garb of an arrested man. Apparently the clothes were taken for analysis.

If they find traces of the victim's DNA on it, he will be able to claim that the defendant wanted to see if the boy was alive. Even that kind of evidence can be inconclusive. A good lawyer, and such was Lechoń, will certainly be able to undermine any argument, any evidence presented by the prosecution.

"I heard that Radek had run away from home. I thought maybe he was hiding in one of the houses waiting to be demolished. I wanted to find him. After what I had seen in prison, I was afraid he would end up a thief or worse. I never thought I'd find him in such a state..."

He lowered his head. There was grief and pain in his face. His hands intertwined as if for a pleading prayer.

"Did you... kill him?"

Kwiecień raised his gaze to him. There was only sincerity in his eyes as he answered:

"Counselor, how can you even ask? Of course I did NOT kill him!"

He's lying! At that moment, Adam experienced a painful daze. All the words coming out of Kwiecień's mouth were lies! Lechoń had before him a murderer, a beast that had murdered four innocent boys! The fourth had become a victim because Adam was such a damn good lawyer!

The walls of the interrogation room began to approach him - heavy, concrete, gray. He felt like a prisoner on death row. He broke away knocking his chair over.

"I'm sorry, I can't represent you" he announced.

"But in that case..."

"I'm sorry," he repeated and left. He felt as if the ceiling was going to fall down on him in a moment and the whole heavenly vault with it.

This boy, whose name he did not even remember, the fourth victim of Kwiecień, was on his hands. It was because of him that the murderer, instead of rotting in prison, went out into the world and without waiting a week committed another heinous crime. Kwiecień's crime was also his fault.

"Hey, counselor!" someone called out behind him, but he ignored it. "Hola, what's so urgent?" Someone grabbed his arm. "What about our interrogation?"

It was Niedzic. He set Lechoń down apparently ready to attack, but one look at the lawyer's face was enough to make him pause. At least for a moment.

"Well, Counselor," he murmured, "how do you feel about the knowledge that you let a murderer go free?"

It was not him who let him go, Lechoń could defend himself, the court did that. The police and the prosecutor's office did it by failing to provide adequate evidence. It wasn't him...!

But his conscience said otherwise.

Niedzic let go of his hand.

"So, are you going to represent him?"

"No," he mumbled. "Excuse me, I am in a hurry."

"Not this way," the policeman called after him as he moved off. "Unless you want to deal with reporters."

"I don't want to, thank you."

Niedzic led him through a winding corridor somewhere at the back of the building.

"This way we go out for a smoke" he said opening the door for him.

"Thank you."

Adam would still have to sneak into the parking lot, but that was not the biggest problem for him. At this point he was beginning to wonder if he could live with the weight of the crime he had committed by contributing to the release of a serial killer.

***

For some, night is an enemy hiding unknown, exaggerated by imagination dangers. For others, it is a friend. A bent woman, clutching her purse tightly in her hand, was walking fast, looking nervously around, jumping at every sound made by the night bird. She glanced fearfully at the well-built man approaching from the opposite direction. She could not see him well, the street lamps were already out, so only the moonlight and stars illuminated his silhouette.

The man, however, did not pay attention to her. He was checking something on his smartphone completely absorbed in this activity. He walked through the night as if she was nothing to him.

The man and the woman came closer and the man, hearing the other's footsteps, raised his head. The woman saw his phone-lit face and breathed deeply.

"Mr. Raymund! God, you scared me!"

"Mrs. Kniotek, good evening! What are you doing here so late?"

'Good evening' wasn't the best greeting considering it was already deep in the night, but a more appropriate greeting for this time of day didn't exist. At night people are supposed to sleep, not meet on country roads.

"My sister needed help and we sat up a little too long," explained Mrs. Kniotek visibly relaxing.

"You should have called for your husband."

"He was away on business..."

"In that case, I'll see you out," he offered.

The woman waved her hand vigorously.

"No, no, no need! It's not the first time I've walked back after a night out. I'm a little afraid of some dog, but only a little," she confessed. "And why are you coming back so late? Something wrong at the construction site?"

Her anxiety was justified. After all, it was her construction site.

The man turned sideways and pointed with his hand toward the dark shape of a new hotel visible in the distance, standing on the shore of a small but beautifully sparkling lake at night.

"You see there, right at the entrance a rock garden is being created..."

"I don't see anything," she admitted staring into the darkness.

"Well, that's just it. I think if we added some small led lighting in that area, the hotel would gain some extra charm. The light wouldn't be too intense, it wouldn't interfere with the hotel guests' relaxation, but from a distance it would be inviting to those who travel at night."

"And now won't that be the case as soon as you connect the electricity?"

"Exactly not," he announced and searched for something on his phone. "Please see," he showed her the site plan with the light points plotted on it. "The plan was to put the lamps here, here and here. They will give good lighting to the whole thing, but the winter storm damaged the trees here and they were cut down because they were causing a road hazard. From that point we have clearance in the trees, which gives us a chance for additional access to..."

Mrs. Kniotek felt overwhelmed by the barrage of information being given to her. She recognized that educated people from the big world had a very different reasoning than she did and certainly a lot more knowledge.

"All right, all right," she agreed. "Do whatever you want."

Had this been solely her investment, she probably would have asked about additional costs, but Raymund, the architect who had come from the North, was acting under contract and with money from the other, main investor. It was probably only out of courtesy that he consulted her about his proposed changes. It was, however, a courtesy that Mrs. Kniotek greatly appreciated.

Her acceptance of the change plan satisfied Raymund and they both said goodbye. Mrs. Kniotek went on her way. She too was pleased with the meeting and imagined how the change in lighting would affect the overall presentation of her hotel and the resulting influx of guests. The prospect was very encouraging.

Yes, it's definitely good to have a real professional overseeing the construction that can make adjustments on the fly. After all, a plan is just a plan and reality is reality. When this plan was made, those two old linden trees were still standing...

The woman looked around and was surprised to see that Raymund had not moved on. He was standing in the same place as before, looking towards the lake and somewhere above it...

Mrs. Kniotek could not see his face, but for some reason a shiver ran down her spine. She had the impression that she was looking at a completely different man than the one she had spoken to a moment ago....