A Grain of Truth by Zygmunt Miloszewski

there was something about the inspector that he found repulsive. He looked like a tramp, and this quality was so integral to him that however he dressed and whatever he drank he’d always resemble a vodka-soaked tramp. There were no rational reasons for it, but Szacki’strust was melting away by the minute. He missed Kuzniecow. He missed him very much.
    “You can see what this town is like,” Wilczur continued. “It may still be sleepy, but it’s a gem of a kind that’s very rare in Poland, with the makings of a new Kazimierz Dolny or even better. They’ll build a marina, set up a couple of spas, the motorway will run past from Warsaw to Rzeszów and on to Ukraine. A stretch of motorway from Warsaw to Krakow in the other direction, and in five years there’ll be a queue of BMWs here every Friday from both directions. What’ll the profit on a plot of land be like then? Tenfold? Twentyfold? A hundredfold? It doesn’t take a genius to see it coming. And now please think. You know Sandomierz, it has lots of money and big plans. Hotels, restaurants, residential areas, tourist attractions. There are absolutely billions in this land. And you know that, but at most you can put up a dog kennel in the garden of your villa, because all the city’s land for investment goes back to the Church in a hail of glory, after which it quietly ends up in the hands of the most trusted types who know the right people. Where do you live?”
    “I’m renting a place on Długosz Street.”
    “And have you checked how much a flat costs here? Or a house? Or a plot of land?”
    “Sure. A sixty-square-metre flat costs about two hundred thousand, and a house is three times as much.”
    “In Kazimierz Dolny a flat that size costs from half a million to a million, and for a house there’s actually no upper limit, but the conversation starts at a million in the case of a hovel on the edge of town.”
    Szacki imagined taking out the biggest possible loan and buying three flats here in order to become a happy rentier in a few years’ time. Nice, very nice.
    “OK,” he said slowly. “Next question: who’s the most pissed-off builder of a dog kennel in the garden of his villa?”
    In response Wilczur tore the filter off a cigarette and lit it.
    “You have to understand one thing,” he said. “No one here likes Budnik.”
    Szacki started to fidget; he had been expecting the shrewd local policeman, but he was dealing with a paranoiac.
    “I’ve only just been painted a picture of Mr and Mrs Budnik in nothing but pastel tones, beloved by all, secular saints. Is it true he brought the Father Mateusz TV series here?”
    “It’s true. They were going to film it in Nidzica, but Budnik knew someone at the TVP channel and persuaded them to choose Sandomierz.”
    “Is it true that thanks to him the scrubland on Piłsudski Boulevard is becoming a park and a marina?”
    “True as true can be.”
    “Is it true he had Piszczele Street refurbished?”
    “Absolutely true. That even impressed me – I was sure there was no hope for that murderer’s and rapist’s alley.”
    It occurred to Szacki that he had never heard of any rapes or murders occurring in Sandomierz, not counting in the local eateries, where flavours were murdered and palates were brutally assaulted. He kept that comment to himself.
    “So what’s it about?” he asked.
    Inspector Wilczur made a vague gesture, designed to imply that he was trying to convey something that couldn’t be conveyed in words.
    “Are you familiar with the noisy social campaigner type of person who can’t bear opposition because he’s always in the middle of some crusade?”
    Szacki said he was.
    “He was that type. Never mind if he was right or not, he was always bloody infuriating. I know people who voted for his ideas just so he’d shut up. So he wouldn’t keep hanging around, pestering them on the phone at night and rushing off to the newspapers.”
    “Small beer,” remarked Szacki. “It’s