by Adam Carter
Mr Polinski’s landlord was named Albert Wentworth and judging from what I could see of his house the landlord business was doing rather well for him. It wasn’t as though Wentworth owned a three-storey mansion with massive animals sculpted out of the hedges of his front lawn, but he clearly had a lot more money than I ever would. His driveway held two cars, while a garage promised the possibility of a third. The house itself was detached, with ivy climbing aesthetically past the windows. My flat could have fit into his house twice over with room to spare, and that was with a conservative estimate; I didn’t want to depress myself too much after all.
Attached to the door was one of those old-fashioned knockers and as I slammed down the iron ring it sent a dull metallic thump through the entire house. It was impractical to have such a thing, when a doorbell worked so much better, and my first impression of Wentworth was that he was a man who liked his wealth to be seen. I had met people like him before, and they had always annoyed me. I had visions of him coming to the door in a suit, and had no idea how I was going to handle this situation if that happened.
Something shadowy appeared behind the glass and I braced myself as the door opened. The man standing before me was aged somewhere in his seventies, with wispy white hair brushed meticulously to the side. He stood straight and proud, refusing to surrender to the stick upon which he supported his weight, as though he thought it was him doing the stick a favour by giving it a job. His eyes were narrowed, his chin slightly raised as he appraised me, and there was a distinct tang of spices to his porch which very much reminded me of a certain shop currently cordoned off by the police.
“Yes?” he asked imperiously.
“Mr Wentworth? My names Lauren Corrigan. I ...” Suddenly I experienced a horrible, sinking feeling that the police had yet to even contact this man. After all, he wasn’t next of kin, which meant I could well have been the one to break the news to him.
I must have trailed off longer than I had intended because he asked with narrowed eyes, “You with the papers? You think I really want to talk to the papers about this?”
So he had heard what had happened, which was something of a relief. “I’m not with the papers, Mr Wentworth. I was a friend of Mr Polinski.”
“A friend?”
“Well, he had a lot of friends. I saw him almost every day.”
“You mean you were one of his customers?” He was being incredibly short with me. I didn’t know whether it was because he was an uptight man, whether his age was a factor or whether he was just grieving. It didn’t much matter: the point was he was entirely correct.
“Mr Polinski was a good man,” I said without actually answering his question. “I’m just trying to find out what happened to him.”
“He was shot. Police told me that much.”
“But why?”
“Attempted robbery.”
“It wasn’t.”
He stared at me as though expecting me to say something more. I could tell in that moment Wentworth was a man of few words and that he always expected other people to fill the silence. “You know or you guessing?” he asked.
“If I was guessing I wouldn’t be disturbing you, sir.”
He adopted an air of being incredibly put out, but I could see that was all it was. He needed to make a show in order to justify to himself his involvement. Over his life he had clearly built up an impression to others that he did not care for anything, and that had consumed his entire being until the point that, years later, he had even begun to believe it himself. He would agree to talk with me, but he would feign annoyance at the very idea of doing so. Or at least that was my impression of him after having only met him two minutes earlier.
“You’d best come in,” he said, and trundled away from the door. Stepping quickly into his home, I wiped my feet on his welcome rug as though it was a touchstone stealing all the bad vibes as I entered his domain. It was at this point that I stopped and asked myself what I thought I was doing trying to solve this murder. I wasn’t a police officer, wasn’t even trained as one. Yet suddenly I thought I could do their job a whole lot better than them. What if I got in the way of the proper investigation? Carl had told me he didn’t have the manpower to deal with the case properly, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t investigating it at all. Even if they were willing to put it down to a chance shooting, they still needed to find someone to pin the blame to. Carl may have been told to hang it on anyone he could find, but knowing Carl he would also be looking for the real culprit. I could be tipping off all the suspects, or worse yet implicate myself by having had contact with all the people Carl would also be talking with.
But I was in Mr Wentworth’s home by that point and had given him my name, so I had already doomed myself. While I was there I decided I might as well try to find out all I could.
Wentworth proved a cordial host, offering me tea from a pot he had freshly brewed for himself. As I sat in a chair far more comfortable than anything I would ever be able to afford I looked about his living room. It was not incredibly large, but what he had accomplished with it was impressive. There were two bookcases against one wall, filled with what appeared to be old tomes and encyclopaedia, while a writing bureau was nestled in the corner. There were paintings on the walls, all original, none of them from artists I recognised. His furniture was minimalist, although what he did have was expensive, including the chandelier which hung in the very centre of the room. It was glass of course, not crystal, but drew the eye immediately. The room, likely the entire house, was designed to appear to be something it was not. Albert Wentworth was a man who found satisfaction in people believing he was wealthier than he was, and I had no problem with that. It was his house and I was intruding upon him; it was good enough that he had invited me in at all. But then if he didn’t invite people in, no one would ever see the character he wanted them to see.
“Can I interest you in a digestive, Miss Corrigan?”
I smiled as I returned my gaze to him. Some people would have felt irked that I had spent so long looking about their living room, but Wentworth glowed with delight. “Thank you,” I said as I took the proffered biscuit from the rose-etched plate. “You have a lovely house, Mr Wentworth.”
“One tries one’s best,” he replied as he poured the tea and splashed in some milk. “Sugar?”
“No thank you,” I replied sweetly, but nor do I drink my tea with milk and wondered what his reaction would be were I to point such out. He was in such high spirits as he handed me my tea that one could have been forgiven for forgetting that one of his tenants had just been brutally killed. I also noticed he wasn’t being so short with me now I was stroking his ego.
“Mr Polinski was murdered.” I didn’t know what else to say, how to broach the subject Wentworth did not seem to have any intention of approaching. It may have been blunt, but at least I wasn’t hiding anything.
“And who’d want to murder a nice man like Mr Polinski?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know him too well. He had a family. I suppose the police are telling them.”
“I would suppose they are.”
“Do you know where he was from?”
“Do you?”
He knew I didn’t; otherwise I wouldn’t have been asking. “I could never tell from his accent,” I said, “but his name sounds Russian.”
“Turkey.”
“He was from Turkey?”
A slight nod. “It does sound Russian, now that you mention it. But he told me he was from Turkey and I believed him.”
I felt bad even sounding as though I was questioning such a thing. The man was dead: it didn’t much matter where he was from. Unless of course it did. Maybe it mattered to his killer. Maybe it mattered a great deal.
“If you don’t mind my asking, Miss Corrigan,” Wentworth continued while my mind was busy assessing all the various possibilities with which it was getting nowhere anyway, “why are you here asking me these questions? Am I to expect the police next?”
&nbs
p; “I’m sorry, Mr Wentworth, I realise I must be scaring you witless just turning up like this. I guess I just wanted to make sure the police got the right guy. Did you ever have any problems with Mr Polinski?” I knew I had no right to be asking this man anything but ploughed right on ahead and hoped he would answer some of my questions before booting me out on my backside.
He did not seem to mind answering anything, and I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing. “Mr Polinski was the perfect tenant, Miss Corrigan. He paid his rent on time, never complained about anything. The boiler broke one time and he was very apologetic that he had to contact me to get it sorted. He was that kind of man. Never wanted to bother anyone with what he considered little matters.”
That fit with everything I knew about him. When I had spoken to Mr Polinski’s neighbour earlier I had asked a couple of questions then. There did not seem to be any bad blood between Mr Polinski and anyone in the street. But it was clear someone had it in for him, otherwise they wouldn’t have shot him.
“You said,” Wentworth said slowly, almost carefully in fact, “that you were certain Mr Polinski’s death wasn’t the result of an attempted robbery.”
There was no question involved in his statement, but nor did there need to be one. Wentworth was a guarded man, but being careful did not necessarily mean he was guilty of anything. I had a sudden sinking feeling that he was being so guarded because he thought I had something to do with the murder; that for some reason I was coming after him next. I could think of no way in which to ask him such a thing without putting him even more on edge so decided to just go with some of the facts.
“I have a ... friend in the police investigation.” Detective Robbins was many things, but I’m not sure I could ever really have considered him a friend, even when we were living together. “It doesn’t look like a robbery. He was shot too many times, no money was taken. There are too many reasons why this looks like a specific attack on the man.”
“Ah, so your evidence is circumspect.”
Actually it was, and I tried to work out whether he looked pleased or even relieved by this news. Or was he relieved purely because he was beginning to see that I was working with the police and not the people who had killed Mr Polinski? Or was he not looking relieved at all and I was just looking far too much into things?
I was beginning to see why I never would have made for a very good detective.
“Did Mr Polinski have any friends?” I asked.
“I thought you were his friend.”
“I meant friends outside of his customers.”
Wentworth thought a moment. “I didn’t really know him, to be honest. I only met him a few times. But I can’t say he ever mentioned any friends. He has family back home.”
“Have any of them ever visited him?”
“I wouldn’t know. Important thing, family. I get the impression if Polinski was involved in something illegal, perhaps his family would be better off staying where they are.”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Well, from what you’ve told me you think someone targeted Polinski on purpose, yes? I don’t know about you, but I can’t name anyone I’ve ever known who even owns a gun, much less anyone who’s prepared to use one. If someone shot Polinski he must have had a reason. And if someone shot him, that shooter must have been connected enough with the wrong people to even be able to get a gun.”
“So what are you suggesting Mr Polinski may have been involved in?”
“I have no idea, and I’m not suggesting anything. But what do either of us really know about him? Maybe he was dealing drugs under the counter or something.”
“I’ve seen him demand ID from middle-aged people trying to buy cigarettes.”
Wentworth shrugged. “Like I said, I really didn’t know the man all that well. Maybe neither of us did.”
It was a fair point, and I found any argument I might have given would have sounded false. I liked Mr Polinski, but that didn’t mean for one moment I knew anything about him. However, I could find no common ground in the man I had known with the man whose image Wentworth was painting. The clever thing at that point would have been to take a step back and allow the police to do their job. At the very least Carl would investigate and uncover a portion of the truth. Maybe Carl’s suggestion was a good one: maybe I should have gone directly to the media and get them to create enough of a noise to get the police to solve the case properly.
If there’s one thing I had never been in my life, it was clever.
“Thank you for your time, Mr Wentworth,” I said as I rose. “And the tea.”
“Not at all. Would you like for me not to tell the police you dropped by if they come to talk to me?”
“I’m not hiding anything from the police, sir. But I would advise you having a hard think about what you might know. Even the most inconsequential thing may well be of use.”
“You sure you’re not the police yourself?”
I smiled, knowing the gesture was insincere. “It just rubs off on me.”
Wentworth was not saying all he knew, although as I left his house and walked back to where I had left my car I knew there was nothing more I could really say to him. I did not know his connection to the killing, or even if there was one at all, but I was certain Wentworth was hiding something. I wondered whether Carl would be able to get it out of him, or whether I might have just screwed up the whole investigation by tipping off the prime suspect.
Pulling away from that nice house, it struck me that I had nowhere else to turn. My investigation had died before it had ever truly begun.
CHAPTER THREE
The Spanner
I spent the remainder of the day trying to work out how I could do anything which might actually help Mr Polinski. Returning to his house and questioning his neighbours further was one option, but I could not see how I was going to get much from them. The one I had spoken to had likely given me an answer which would have been repeated by them all. Mr Polinksi was a pillar of society and no one would have a bad word against him. If Wentworth was right and there was a chance Mr Polinksi was involved in something illegal, he was hardly going to let his neighbours know about it. I still could not reconcile the two images of the man, however, and by the evening a part of me was thinking that perhaps it was best I had no idea how to proceed. I could in fact be doing Mr Polinski more harm than good, and he was such a nice man I could not live with myself were I to do that to him.
That evening I tried to keep myself as busy as I possibly could. I’d never been a great TV watcher, had never been able to sit still in one place long enough, and found myself pottering about the flat doing whatever chores I had been putting off all week. Several times I was sorely tempted to phone Carl, just to see how the investigation was going, although always stopped myself. If he wanted to talk to me he would call, and if he had found out about my going to see Wentworth then he would definitely call. That I had not done the one thing he had suggested, go to the media, told me I still felt there was a chance I could do some good by my own investigation. It was a silly thought, yet one I could not seem to let go. I was not trained in this, and it didn’t matter whether I had stumbled upon Carl’s junior detective kit; I was simply not able to do what Carl could.
Phoning the media was still something I could do, certainly, but I would see to that tomorrow. I would sleep on things first and reach a decision come the morning.
I had just decided to rearrange my kitchen cupboards purely for something to keep my mind occupied when the doorbell sounded. I frowned, checking the clock on the kitchen wall. It was approaching ten in the evening and I could not think of anyone who might be stopping by at such an hour. That it was Carl was more than likely, and if it was Carl it meant he would be on at me about whether I’d called the papers yet. That was an argument I could have done without and I contemplated just ignoring the bell.
It sounded again, and if possible seemed more insistent this time. I knew it was exactly the same s
ound as before, that a doorbell could not grow angry any more than the door itself could sprout legs; but my imagination had been running wild since I had learned of Mr Polinski’s death and I knew I would have to rein things in. Carl was at the door and he wanted to ask me a simple question. That was all it was. I could open it, he could ask, I could reply, and he would leave. Maybe he would even let slip a few more details about the case. If he did that, I could even gain enough material by which to continue my own investigation. At which point I could forget all about rearranging my kitchen.
Moving quickly to the door, I pulled it open, a smile ready upon my face, an emotional guard up as always around Carl, but there I froze. The person before me was not Carl. In fact the person at my door was as much Carl Robbins and Toto was the Wicked Witch of the West.
She was tall, although by her slouch it was difficult to determine for certain. She was also slim and wore clothes to make herself look thinner than she was. She was aged somewhere in her late-thirties, early-forties, although with such liberal application of make-up it was difficult to be certain. Her face was rounded, with small, slit-like eyes. It was as though God had experimented with the possibility of creating a human snake in defiance of everything that had happened in the Garden of Eden. Her cheeks were too pink, her lips a full-bodied red which was far too striking in the darkness of the doorway. Her hair was long and frizzy, exploding about her head and culminating at her shoulders as though it formed the mane of a lion. Her attire was tight, while about her shoulders was draped some form of animal-skin scarf which did not appear all that dead. The woman assessed me with almost demeaning eyes and did not seem all that impressed with the results.
Despite myself, I became immediately self-conscious and raised my chin perhaps a little haughtily. After all, it wasn’t me knocking on her door at ten o’clock at night.
