Chapter 5: The Discovery at Silver Lake
The fog over Silver Lake did not lift. It crept. It slithered just above the water's surface like dirty, ragged cotton wool, clinging to the reeds and plastering itself against the tree trunks in a damp, funereal shroud. It was four in the morning — that inhuman hour when night has already died but day has not yet been born. The world hung in grey, shapeless suspension. The silence in this place was not an absence of sound. It was a presence. A heavy, swollen pressure that bore down on the eardrums and made the heart beat in a rhythm that belonged to no healthy man.
Marian Krawczyk sniffled. The cold was working its way into his joints, drilling into his knees like a rusted bit. He was sixty years old, forty of which he had spent escaping his wife — escaping to this very spot, this godforsaken pond, where the fish rarely bit but at least nobody asked him for coal money or why he smelled of vodka again. He wasn't drinking today. Not yet. His hands were trembling, but that was from the cold. That's what he told himself, pulling his woollen cap deeper over his ears. The rubber of his waders squeaked with each careful step through the silty bottom.
The rod in his hand was an extension of his nerves. He felt every twitch of the line, every current curling around the lead weight. But the water was dead. Silver Lake — despite its name — was black as crude oil. The locals said the lake had no bottom. That there were caves underneath stretching all the way to the church. Marian spat to one side. Bullshit. It was just deep and cold, and the fish were smart.
A tug. Not like a fish. A fish strikes, fights, thrashes. This was a dull, heavy pull, as if the hook had buried itself in a waterlogged log. Marian swore under his breath. Just what he needed. A broken rig, another twenty zloty down the drain. He began to reel in slowly, carefully, praying the line would hold. The resistance was constant, inert. Something was sliding along the bottom, throwing up clouds of silt he couldn't see but could feel in the changing density of the water around his legs.
"Come on, you bastard," he growled, bracing his back muscles. "Let go."
A shadow surfaced out of the fog ten metres from the bank. At first he saw a pale patch. It looked like the belly of a great catfish, white and slick. Marian's heart lurched in his chest. Maybe, after all? Maybe his luck had turned? He pulled harder. The rod bowed into an arc, creaking dangerously. The object rolled in the water with a lazy slap.
It was not a catfish.
Marian froze. His brain refused to obey, rejecting the image his eyes were sending. It is a defence mechanism — an evolutionary curtain that drops to protect the senses from madness. He saw a shape but gave it no meaning. White. Elongated. Hair. Weeds? No. Hair. Long, wet strands plastered across something that looked like... an arm.
He took a step back. He caught his foot on a root hidden beneath the water, stumbled, but did not fall. Water poured into one of his waders — icy as liquid nitrogen — but he didn't even feel it. His gaze was locked on the thing swaying on the surface, drifting slowly toward him, pushed by an invisible current.
A face broke the surface for a moment, then slipped back beneath, as if ashamed to be seen. But Marian had seen enough. A mouth open in a silent scream. Eyes that were no longer eyes but cloudy, fish-like orbs staring up at the grey sky. And the throat. God, the throat.
The rod slipped from his hands. The splash was deafening in the silence. Marian opened his mouth to scream but from his throat came only a small, wretched whimper, like a kicked dog. He stumbled backward, shuffling his feet, fell on the bank, and went face-first into the wet leaves and mud. He smelled rot — that sweet, nauseating stench of decay that had suddenly filled the entire area, suffocating him.
He got to his hands and knees. He had to run. But he couldn't tear his eyes away. A girl. Young. Weronika. He had seen the posters on lampposts in town. Missing. Everyone had seen them. But a poster is paper and ink. What floated on the water was flesh. Ruined, desecrated flesh.
The wind briefly dispersed the fog, revealing the body in full. She had snagged on a branch jutting from the water. Her chest... Marian felt bile rising in his throat. These were not wounds. This was a slaughterhouse. Deep, ragged furrows, as if a pack of rabid dogs had attacked her — or a bear. Skin hung in tatters, exposing ribs as white as ivory. But there was something else. Something that made the hair on the back of Marian's neck stand on end, and made his bladder release a warm stream of urine down his trouser leg.
Symmetry.
The wounds were monstrous, but arranged in some sick, geometric pattern. As if the beast that had done this held not only claws but a scalpel. And a plan.
Marian pulled out his phone. His fingers, slick with mud and sweat, couldn't find the right keys. He dialled 112. The tone rang long, monotonous, indifferent. Finally someone answered.
"I'm at — I'm at Silver Lake," he babbled, his voice sounding strange and shrill to his own ears. "She's here. A fish got her — not a fish. Jesus Christ, she's here."
"Please calm down. Who is this?" The dispatcher's voice was metallic, light-years away.
"That girl. The missing girl. She's... she's been opened up."
He hung up. He dropped the phone in the grass. He couldn't look at the water, but he couldn't look at the forest either. The forest had suddenly become an enemy. Every trunk looked like the silhouette of a watcher. Every rustle of leaves sounded like a footstep. He felt a gaze upon him. Not the dead eyes of the girl. He felt the gaze of something living, something crouching in the undergrowth and waiting for him to finish his little performance.
The Kia Ceed patrol car bounced along the rutted forest track, its suspension rattling as if it were about to fall apart entirely. Staff Sergeant Kamil Jasiński gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles had gone white. He was young, ambitious, and until now his most serious call-out had been breaking up two drunk derelicts outside an off-licence. The voice on the radio spoke of "remains showing an advanced state of decomposition or mutilation." Jasiński felt his stomach tie itself in a knot.
Beside him sat Commissioner Tomasz Nowak. Sat might be too generous a word. He spread himself across the passenger seat, massive and motionless as a boulder. He smelled of last night's whisky and mints, which he chewed with aggressive regularity. His face was a mask of indifference, but his eyes — small, dark, and sharp — darted across the treeline sliding past the window. Nowak did not look nervous. He looked furious.
"Slow down, son, or you'll crack the sump," Nowak growled, not taking his eyes off the wall of trees. "The corpse isn't going anywhere. It won't get any more dead."
"Yes, sir," Jasiński slowed, though every instinct told him to floor it. He wanted this behind him. Or not to arrive at all.
"Who called it in?" Nowak asked, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. The lighter clicked loudly.
"Some fisherman. Krawczyk. Apparently in shock. He was rambling about something being opened up."
Nowak drew on the cigarette, filling the cabin with a grey cloud. For a moment he was silent, processing the information. Krawczyk. He knew him. An old drunk, but harmless. The problem with drunks is that they talk — once they've sobered up. And Krawczyk had seen something no one should see without the right... preparation.
"Listen to me carefully, Jasiński," said Nowak, and his voice turned hard and cold as ice on a lake. "When we get there, you stay by the vehicle. Nobody gets through. No gawkers, no mushroom pickers, and absolutely no journalists if any of them catch a scent. Understood?"
"Yes, sir. But protocol says we should secure the immediate vicinity of the—"
"The protocol is whatever I say it is," Nowak cut him off. "This is my case and my town. I don't need you trampling the evidence with your regulation-issue boots. I go in first. I assess the situation. Only then do we call in the forensics and the prosecutor. Clear?"
"Clear, sir."
They arrived. The clearing above the lake was swallowed in fog, and the blue flicker of the light bar reflected off it in a ghastly strobe. Marian Krawczyk was sitting on a fallen trunk, shaking as if with fever. At the sight of the police he lurched to his feet as though to flee, but his legs wouldn't carry him.
Nowak climbed out slowly. He ground his cigarette out with his heel, pressing the stub deep into the mud. He adjusted his jacket — straining across his belly — and walked toward the fisherman. Jasiński stayed by the car, resting his hand on his holster, though he couldn't have said why.
"Sit down, Marian," Nowak said, not raising his voice. "Where is she?"
Krawczyk pointed with a trembling hand toward the reeds. "Over there... Commissioner, that wasn't — no animal did that. I mean... something did this, but—"
"Shut up," said Nowak. Calmly. Almost warmly. "You didn't see anything. You found a drowning victim. That's all. Leave the rest to us."
The Commissioner moved toward the bank. The ground was boggy, waterlogged. His shoes — expensive leather brogues — sank into the muck, leaving deep impressions. Nowak made no attempt to step around them. On the contrary. He walked heavily, planting his feet wide, destroying the delicate structure of moss and undergrowth. Every step was an act of vandalism committed upon a crime scene.
He reached the water's edge. The stench hit him in the face. He knew that smell. The smell of death that had lain in water too long. But beneath it he caught something else. The smell of iron. Of blood. And musk. Wild, animal musk that had no business in a Mazovian forest.
He saw her. Weronika. She was drifting two metres from the bank, tangled in Krawczyk's line. She looked like a broken doll thrown on a rubbish heap. Nowak felt a twinge in his side. Stress? Guilt? No — just his liver. He hadn't had a conscience for years.
He leaned in, narrowing his eyes. The fog had thinned a little, allowing him to study the details. Wounds to the chest. Throat torn open. It looked like a wolf. A large wolf. But Nowak knew what to look for. He studied the wound margins. Ragged, yes — but underneath, where the tissue had been separated from bone, the cuts were clean. Surgical. Someone had taken great care to make this look like an animal attack, while simultaneously leaving a signature for those who knew how to read it. This was a message. For him? For the father? For the Guardians?
"For God's sake, Marek," Nowak whispered, his breath condensing in the cold air. "What have you done. This was supposed to be clean. It was supposed to be... different."
He knew what he had to do. He reached into his pocket for a pair of latex gloves — not to protect the evidence, but to keep his hands clean. He looked around. Jasiński was standing by the patrol car with his back turned, fighting nausea. Krawczyk sat with his head in his hands. The forest was empty. Only the trees watched.
Nowak waded in. Icy water flooded his shoes, but he ignored it. He took hold of the body by the arm. It was cold, spongy. The skin slid under his touch. Revulsion wrestled with pragmatism. He dragged the remains toward the bank — brutally, without ceremony. He had to check the pockets. He had to check whether Marek, the idiot, had left something of his own behind. Something from the abattoir. Something that would connect the Butcher to the Victim in a way even he could not cover up.
He turned the body onto its back. Weronika's head fell back at an unnatural angle. On her neck, just below the cut line that was meant to mimic a bite wound, he saw it. A small, precise symbol carved into the skin. A rune. Volos. The mark of ownership.
Nowak hissed through his teeth. This could not go into the report. The pathologist would notice. Kaczmarek in Płock? Maybe she could be intimidated. But Adam — that young, prying doctor — he could be a problem. Nowak reached for his belt. He drew the hunting knife he always carried. For foraging, he told people. His hand did not tremble. He was a professional, in his own warped fashion.
With a swift stroke he dragged the blade across the girl's neck, deepening the wound, tearing the skin, obliterating the symbol, reducing it to a shapeless pulp. Now it looked as though a predator had torn out another mouthful. Blood — black and thick — oozed sluggishly out, mingling with the water of the lake.
He pocketed the knife. He wiped the glove on the wet grass. Then he heard the click of a shutter.
He went still. The sound was quiet, mechanical, but in the forest silence it rang out like a gunshot. Nowak spun sharply toward the undergrowth on his right.
"Who's there?!" he roared, his hand moving instinctively to his holster.
From the bushes, hands raised in a defensive gesture, stepped Grzegorz Nowicki. A journalist from the Sierpc Gazette. He had a camera with a telephoto lens hanging around his neck. He was wearing that insufferable, rat-like smirk of his.
"Easy, Tomek. Don't shoot the press," said Nowicki, stepping closer, indifferent to the mud. "I heard it on the police scanner. A scanner's a beautiful thing."
Nowak felt the blood rush to his head. His temples were throbbing. "Jasiński!" he bellowed. "I told you to secure the perimeter, you useless bloody—"
The young officer came running, white as a sheet. "Sir, he came out of the forest, not from the road—"
"Get him out of here," Nowak said through his teeth, moving toward the journalist. He was a head taller and twice as wide. He stepped in close enough for Nowicki to smell his stale breath. "Give me the memory card, Grzegorz."
Nowicki didn't step back. His smile turned cynical. "Free press, Tomek. Public interest. People have a right to know there's something prowling the forest — a wolf, is it? Or something worse?"
Nowak grabbed the camera. His fingers closed around the lens. "This is a crime scene. You're obstructing an investigation. I can hold you for forty-eight hours just for breathing in my direction."
"Do that, and tomorrow there's a front-page story about Commissioner Nowak destroying evidence," Nowicki whispered, looking him straight in the eye. He'd seen. The bastard had seen what Nowak was doing at the body. Or he had guessed.
The tension between them was thick enough to cut with the same knife Nowak had just used. It was a game. A game of power, information, and narrative. Nowak knew he couldn't arrest him without making noise. But Nowicki also knew that Nowak was dangerous.
"You get one photograph," the Commissioner said quietly, releasing the camera. "One. From a distance. The body in the water, no details. And you write what I tell you to write. That it was an animal attack. A stray dog, or a pack of wolves that drifted in from the east. Understood?"
Nowicki blinked. This was a deal. A devil's bargain, but a deal. "Animal attack. Fine. But I want exclusivity. No leaks to that podcaster from Warsaw — that Julia."
"She gets nothing," Nowak growled. "Now get out of my sight."
The journalist stepped back, snapped one quick photograph — Weronika's body, the fog, the grim forest — and vanished into the undergrowth as silently as he had appeared. Nowak was left alone with the corpse, the terrified fisherman, and a useless constable.
He turned back to the body. The water was slowly washing the blood from the fresh wound. It looked... acceptable. Chaotic. Animal.
"Jasiński!" he called out. "Get forensics on the phone. And the coroner. Tell them to bring bags for large dogs. We've got a bloody mess on our hands."
He took out his phone. He dialled a number he didn't have stored under any name but knew by heart. Czesław Borowski. The mayor. One ring. Two.
"Yes?" The mayor's voice was drowsy but alert.
"We have a problem at Silver Lake," Nowak said, looking into Weronika's dead eyes. "The cycle hasn't closed, Czesław. He's only just opening it. And he made a mistake."
"Have you cleaned it up?" Short. Direct.
Nowak looked at his mud-caked shoes. At the churned earth around the place where the girl lay. At the trampled ground that might have told the truth about what had happened here. At the water into which blood and evidence were dissolving.
"It's cleaned up," he said, tasting bile. "But we need a scapegoat. And quickly. Because when that woman from Warsaw gets here and starts digging around, she won't just find a wolf. She'll find the whole pack."
He hung up. The fog was thickening, as if the forest wanted to conceal what people had done to one another. Nowak felt the chill. Not from the water. From within. He knew this was only the beginning. That Weronika was merely a prelude. That Marek Sokołowski, back in his abattoir, was probably already sharpening his knives for the next one. And he — Commissioner Tomasz Nowak, guardian of the law in Sierpc — would have to clean up after him. Until the end. His own, or Marek's.
He looked at Marian Krawczyk, still rocking back and forth on his log. The old man had seen too much. There would have to be a conversation. A different kind of conversation. More... direct. But later. For now, all that mattered was making the world believe the story of the big bad wolf, and forget that the worst beasts walk on two legs and wear human faces.
From the distance came the sound of more sirens. They were coming. Forensics, the prosecutor, the whole circus. Nowak lit another cigarette and drew deeply until the smoke scorched his lungs. He was ready. The scene was set. The players in position.
Curtain up.