These armed civilians provided a sign of the confusion, bordering on anarchy, that Poland suffered that winter. Out in the rural areas it was clear that men were reverting to some primitive form of post-feudal mercantilism. Goods and services were exchanged in small transactions that did nothing beyond providing for a few days of subsistence at a time. Such societies seldom welcome strangers. I stopped the car.

'Where are you going?' He spoke Polish, his accent so thick that, it took me a moment to understand.

'To the castle,' I said. It was a tourist spot that would account for our foreign passports. I didn't want to say we were looking for the Kosinski house.

'The road is blocked.' He was the leader, a big red-faced man with an unruly black beard, a lumpy overcoat and fur hat; an angry peasant from a Bruegel painting. He carried a shotgun in his hands, a bandolier of cartridges slung across his shoulder. The others held spades and pickaxes.

The clouds were scurrying away to reveal some stars and a moon but the sleet was still falling. It dribbled down his face like snot, but in his fur hat the same icy driblets sparkled like diamonds.

'We're looking for Stefan Kosinski,' said Dicky in English. I'd told him to leave the talking to me, but Dicky was incapable of remaining silent in any kind of confrontation.

Blackbeard replied in German, good fluent German, 'Who are you? What do you want here? Show me on the map where you are headed.'

Dicky pointed a long bony finger at me. 'George Kosinski's brother-in-law,' he explained slowly in his schoolboy German, uttering one word at a time.

'Switch off the engine,' said Blackbeard. I did so. With the headlights extinguished the scene was lit by hazy blue moonlight. He pulled a whistle from his pocket and gave two short blasts on it then turned to watch one of his comrades leaning through the open side door of the VW van. There were faded bouquets painted on its panels, and the name and address of a Hamburg florist shop just discernible. I could see the butts of rifles and assault guns piled inside the van. With our engine switched off all was silent: the forest soaking up every sound of movement. We sat there like that for two or three minutes. Dicky availed himself of the opportunity to chew his fingernail. A man in a short plaid coat and patched jeans appeared from the forest, obviously in response to the signal. He was carrying a pickaxe over his shoulder and now, in a show of anger, he swung it so that its point was buried in the frozen ground. He glowered at everyone, then turned on his heel and was gone again. Suddenly there was the ear-wrenching noise of a two-stroke engine and he reappeared out of the gloomy forest riding a lightweight motorcycle. 'Follow him,' Blackbeard ordered.

The motorcyclist leaned over dangerously as he swung round in front of the car, leaving a trail of black smoke. He roared up the track ahead of us. I started the car engine, the main beams picked him out and I followed him, driving cautiously over the potholed road. Behind us, two youths of indeterminate age followed on bicycles. Perhaps they had never seen a vehicle with lights before; an accessory not deemed indispensable in rural Poland.

The narrow road led over a rise and passed close to a small lake; gray crusts of ice along its rim. A rowing boat had been pulled out of the water on to a pier, and left inverted to drain. Our appearance, and the noise of the motorcycle, sent dozens of birds into the air with a thunderous clattering of wings and shrill cries. They circled low over the water and then came back to earth in a circuit that seemed more like a practiced gesture of protest than a sign of fear.

Immediately beyond the tiny lake there was the Kosinski property. I had seen it in George's family photos. Behind the house, framing it against the dark sky, there was a line of beech trees, giant growths reaching about a hundred feet into the sky. Nicely spaced, their massive boughs stretched out like giants linking hands. The rambling property had once been a grand mansion; a typical dwelling of the minor nobility, the class that the Poles called sz1achta. When George's parents had fled penniless to England, other relatives had tenaciously held on to this mansion and preserved it as a family dwelling while other such houses were seized by socialist reformers. The main building was big and, despite its run-down condition, it retained a certain grandeur. Only a few of the windows were lit. Through the fuzzy glass I saw a shadowy interior and the mellow glow of oil lamps.

Light from the windows made patterns and revealed a path describing a circle round an ornamental stone fountain. The fountain was drained, and the stone maidens standing between two slumbering lions were wrapped in newspapers, and neatly tied with heavy string, to protect them against frost. Two more stone lions stood guard each side of the steps that led up to the front door, while above the entrance a pediment was supported by four columns. The overall mood of dereliction was endorsed by the tattered remains of several storks' nests, abandoned by those free to seek warmer sojourn.

'I was right,' said Dicky triumphantly. 'It's the Kosinski place isn't it?'

'Yes, Dicky. You were right.'

'People are always telling me I have a sixth sense: Fingerspitzgefühl — intuition, eh?'

'Yes,' I said. 'Fingertip sensitivity. It's what safecrackers and pickpockets have too.'

'Very bloody funny,' said Dicky, his usual sense of humor failing him.

We parked our rented Fiat at the side of the house where a long wooden veranda would in summer provide a shelter against the sun. Behind the house there were various coach houses and stables and other outbuildings arranged around a wide cobbled courtyard. By the dim light of the moon a couple of youthful servants could be seen there pumping water from a well and clearing up, having finished washing a horse-drawn carriage that was obviously still in regular use. Horses poked their heads out of stable doors to watch them. Which aspect of this rural scene could have stirred Boris's literary memories — of Chekhovian stage-sets lit by golden spotlights — was not easily recognized in this harsh moonlit winter setting. As a literary reference, Solzhenitsyn's gulag came more readily to mind.

Alerted by the approach of our noisy cavalcade, two women in aprons emerged from a side door and stood on the covered wooden deck that formed one side of the house. The front door also opened. We parked the car, went up the steps and were greeted politely and ushered inside by a seemingly unsurprised man in a dark suit, stiff collar and plain tie, who used accentless, German to announce his name as Karol, and his position as Stefan Kosinski's secretary.

A maid closed the door behind us and the hallway was darkened. I looked around. Glinting in the moonlight that came from an upstairs window, there were on every wall trophies of the hunt; so many furry, feathered, horned and melancholy heads that there was little space between them. A wide staircase gave access to a balcony over the front door and then continued to the upper floor where more inanimate beasts were displayed. From somewhere far away came the sound of a piano playing a simple melody, and the high reedy voice of a young girl singing.

'Herr Samson and Herr Cruyer?' said the secretary, as a maidservant hurried forward with an oil lamp. Now that we were more closely illuminated, the man looked quizzically from one to the other of us. I must have looked just as quizzically at him, for Dicky and I were both traveling on false passports, and had not used our real names anywhere since arriving in Poland.

'I'm Cruyer,' announced Dicky. 'How did you know?' The piano and the singing ended suddenly. Footsteps ran lightly across the upstairs floorboards and a child's head appeared and gazed solemnly down at us for a minute before disappearing again.