Then there were the smells. Food vas being served - but it wasn’t microwaved beef and Yorkshire puddings, nor even boiled ham and baked potatoes. The smells were too spicy, a combination of rich meats and strong herbs. Even the alcohol in some of the glasses looked the wrong colour. Cooper wanted to turn round and walk out, then come back in again, to see if the
‘o ‘
confusion cleared. The inconsistencies were too disorientating, the noise and the smells too redolent of a strange land.
He could see Zvgmunt Lukasz and several other old men
v CS
at a table. He watched them drinking glasses of clear liquid. Poles, like Russians, drank vodka, didn’t they? The old men
‘ ‘ V
were knocking it back in one go, with a sharp flick of the wrist to toss the vodka to the hack of the throat. And then they put down their glasses and attacked their starters — something that was decorated with small pieces of potato and cucumber, but smelled of fish.
Out of curiosity, Cooper picked up a copy of the menu from the bar. The starter was j/eJxic M .smiefanie. A helpful translation informed him that it was herrings in cream. His stomach gave a small lurch. He was sure that wasn’t what he had smelled being prepared earlier. Maybe it had been the piero^i or the 6^0.’; that were on the menu for later. It hardly mattered. It would still be a frozen meal for one that awaited him when he got back to Welbcck Street.
‘We’re probably one of the most traditional Polish communities left in this country,’ said Peter Lukasz, watching him read
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the menu. ‘How long that will last, I don’t know. A lot of it is down to the old people, of course. Like my father and my aunt Krystyna. Will you have a drink?’
Fry shook her head. ‘That’s not what we re here for.’
Rut Cooper was starting to feel he deserved a little freedom.
‘Is there hccr?’ he asked Lukasz.
‘Za^/o6a O&ocim.’
‘I don’t know what it is, but that’ll be fine.’
The shelves behind the bar were full of vodka bottles, row upon row of them. Some of them were alarming colours, like a row of urine samples from people with virulent kidney diseases. He studied the labels. They were flavoured vodkas. He saw lemon, orange, pineapple, peach, cherry, melon and pepper. There was a pale green one that appeared to have a blade of grass floating in the bottle.
Lukasz was holding a tiny shot glass with a thick bottom and an eagle engraved on its side. Cooper noticed he was sinning his drink, not tossing it back in one go as the old
1 f oo o
men had done.
‘What are you drinking yourself?’ he asked.
‘Krupni^,’ said Lukasz. ‘Polish honey vodka. Do you know, you have to pay nearly twenty pounds a bottle for it here, even when you can find it at all. Back home, it would cost about fifty pence.’
Cooper nodded. He was more interested in the fact that Lukasz had said ‘back home’ than in the information about honey vodka.
‘Back home in Poland?’ he said.
‘Of course.’
Lukasz took another sip of his J?rupni&. Cooper knew perfectly well that Peter Lukasz had been born in Edendalc and had lived in the town all his life.
Lukasz led them through into a small lounge bar. Cooper sat where he could watch Zygmunt and the other old men in the main hall. Several of them wore blazers, with their medals displayed on their breast pockets. It occurred to Cooper that any one of them could have been an eighty-year-old Danny McTeague. He could have changed his identity; he could have
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been living a different life for fifty-seven years. But why would he send his medal to his wife after all this time? Did he want someone to come and find him? Was he seeking some kind of closure, as Zygmunt Lukasz was?
The other old men seemed to look to Zygmunt whenever he spoke. Women fussed around him, and children stood nearby and smiled at him. His pale blue eyes responded to everything with the same expression a kind of calm pride.
‘We need to talk to you about a man called Easton, Mr Lukasz,’ said Cooper.
‘Oh?’ The name didn’t seem to mean anything to him, but it was difficult to tell. Some people were better at hiding their reactions than others. They could be in turmoil inside, while calm on the exterior. ‘What did you want to ask me?’
‘It’s a pity you failed to identify him when you came to the mortuary on Friday.’
‘Ah, this is your dead person.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And why do you think I should have been able to identify him? At that time, you had some idea that he might have been my son.’
Cooper was conscious of the fact that he was a stranger here, an outsider. He had the feeling that people were watching him out of the corners of their eyes. He and Fry were guests here at the moment, but it wouldn t take much to transform them into the common enemy.
‘We believe Nick Easton was the man who visited you on 7th January,’ said Fry. ‘Last Monday.’
‘Who exactly is this man?’
‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me that, sir/
‘I’ve told you — I wasn’t even at home at the time. I was on duty at the hospital. My wife told me somebody had been, and she reported it to the police when she heard the appeals on the news. That’s all I know, I’m afraid. Grace was the only person who actually saw him. But you’ve interviewed her, so you know that.’
‘Mrs Lukasz didn’t tell us everything, though. She didn’t tell us why Easton came. Did she tell you, sir?’
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Lukas/ stared into his honey-flavoured vodka, and said nothing.
‘I suppose we should ask your wife again,’ said Cooper.
Lukas/ sighed. ‘Grace gets easily upset.
‘Then perhaps you’d hotter tell us yourself.’ ‘Grace says he was asking for Mr Lukasx. She thought he meant my father, because he was the only one home. He hecame insistent, and Grace was frightened that he was going to force his way into the house. So she sent him away. Grace tends to feel rather vulnerable when there’s just my father and herself at home. And you have to reali/.e, my father is terminally ill we can’t have him being troubled by people asking him questions all the time. Not this Easton, not the Canadian woman and not you. We’re trying to keep my father at home as long as feasible, but I’m afraid he’ll be going into the hospice soon. His pain needs constant management/ ‘Was it Easton’s visit that prompted your father to begin writing his account of the crash of Sugar Uncle Victor?’ said Cooper.
Lukasx looked surprised. ‘Why should you think that?’
‘The timing. And the fact that Nick Easton was an RAF investigator.’
c?
Lukasx put his glass down suddenly. The bottom of it hit the table so hard that it almost shattered, and a splash of honey-flavoured vodka flew over the rim.
‘Royal Air Force?’ he said.
‘Yes, sir. Have you any idea why Easton should have been asking to sec your father?’
‘I have no idea. None at all.’
Lukasz’s expression was hard to read. He was puzxlcd, certainly. Rut also, Cooper thought, he was relieved.
‘Have you heard from your son yet?’ asked Fry.
‘No?’ ‘
‘Have you any idea where he is?’
‘No.’ ‘
‘Can you tell us what Andrew was doing during his time here in Edcndalc?’
‘He said he had business up here.’
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‘What sort of business?’
‘He didn’t tell us. To be honest, the conversation was more, cr, family-orientated.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s got married since he’s keen living in London. We weren’t invited to the wedding. We only met his future wile once, and Grace took against her immediately, I’m afraid.’
‘There was some bad feeling?’ asked Fry.
‘Yes.’
‘So had your son come to make
peace?’ asked Cooper.
‘I just told you, he was here on business.’
‘It’s opAzteJ; time,’ said Cooper. ‘Doesn’t that mean forgiveness and reconciliation?’
Lukasz smiled. ‘You pick things up quickly. But Andrew didn’t stay for op/afeA. He disappeared again as suddenly as he came. He walked out last Sunday and we haven’t heard from him since.’
‘Had there been an argument?’
‘He’d been talking to my father. I don’t know what about, but I know my father was angry. Grace heard him shouting in Polish. I wasn’t there at the time, because I was at the hospital. And now my father won’t tell me why he was arguing with Andrew.’ Lukasx turned and looked through the bar at the small group of old men enjoying their op/ateA dinner. ‘You see, Detective Constable Cooper, it isn’t only you he won’t talk to.’
‘Mr Lukasz,’ said Fry. ‘What sort of business is your son Andrew in?’
‘He works for a medical supplies company.’
‘We’ll need you to come in and make a statement first thing
Vo
in the morning, Mr Lukasz,’ said Fry. ‘Your wife, too. And I’m afraid we’re going to have to arrange for a translator so that we can interview your father.’
‘Is that really necessary?’
‘It’s beginning to look extremely necessary,’ said Fry.
The noise level had risen in the main hall, as if in expectation of forthcoming excitement. Sure enough, preparations were being made on the little stage. Cooper was reminded again of the old (oiks’ parties the police choir sometimes sang at. Usually, half
27S
their audience had fallen asleep by the time they gut to the third song food and a glass of sweet sherry saw to that. But this audience was only warming up. He wondered what form of entertainment was appropriate to the evening.
Lukasz followed his gaze. ‘There’s a nativity play, he said. ‘A what?’ said Cooper.
‘A nativity play. Surely …’
‘I know what a nativity play is. But it’s the middle of January.’
‘This is our opAjfc^ dinner/ said Lukasz. ‘It’s the time for the community. Not like (ji^i/m, which is for the family. The nativity play will he performed by the children from the Saturday school.’
‘You mean Sunday school/ said Cooper, thinking he was getting the hang of it. Many of the Poles were good Catholics, and he had seen the Church of Our Lady with its little school next door.
‘Saturday/ said Lukasz. ‘On Saturday mornings, the children study Polish. This year, some of them will take their O-level. I took it myself. I got a Grade 2, and Dad was very proud. He said I spoke the language almost as well as they do hack home. Now my youngest children, Richard and Alice, are learning at the Saturday school, too.’
‘We’d better be going/ said Frv.
OO’ v
‘You could stay for the nativitv play, if you want/ said Lukasz. ‘You’re very welcome/
‘No, thank you. Oh, one more thing we need Andrew’s address in London/
‘Of course.
Cooper hesitated, finishing his beer. There was no detectable peach or melon or pepper flavour, no blade of grass lurking in the bottom of the glass. It was a bit disappointing really. Yet the aftertaste had an indefinable strangeness that he knew would stay with him for the rest of the night.
‘Mr Lukasz/ he said, ‘before Nick Easton’s visit, had something else happened to upset your father?’
Lukasz nodded. ‘You re right. My father has been outraged at the pillaging of the aircraft wrecks that has been going on for
276
years. The final straw was when his cousin Klcmens’ cigarette case turned up. It was an old silver case that Klemens had brought with him to Britain from Poland, and it had his initials engraved on it. My father was very angry ahout that. He wanted to know where it had come from, and who had taken it from Klemens. He thinks that taking things from the wrecks is desecration, because they’re war graves that are being robbed. All his old
VO O
hatred welled up again over that cigarette case. It was directed
1C)O
against the people he calls vultures.’
‘Vultures?’
‘Yes, vultures. Carrion feeders. My father says these people are picking over the remains of the dead, like vultures.’
‘Did your father see this cigarette case himself, or did someone tell him about it?’ asked Cooper.
‘Oh, he saw it, and held it in his own hand. He identified it beyond any doubt.’
‘Who showed it to him, Mr Lukasz?’
‘Well …’
‘Let me guess. Was it your son Andrew, perhaps?’ Cooper waited for the slight nod. ‘Do you think that might have been what they argued about last Sunday?’
Lukasz drained the last of his honey-flavoured vodka. ‘Yes, I’m afraid it was.’
Ben Cooper felt the cold air hit him when they got outside the Dom Kombatanta and he found himself back in Harrington Street near Walter Rowland’s house.
‘We need to find Andrew Lukasz,’ said Cooper.
‘Put him on the list then,’ said Fry. ‘Baby Chloe, Eddie Kemp, Andrew Lukasz. I wonder if they’re all lurking in the same place somewhere. That would certainly need your famous bit of luck, wouldn’t it, Ben?’
‘It looks as though Nick Easton must have been asking questions of the wrong people.’
‘The vultures maybe? The ones the old man was so angry about for pillaging the aircraft wrecks?’
‘Maybe so,’ said Cooper. ‘The other person we need to talk to is Graham Kemp, Eddie’s brother. It sounds as if he’s the number
277
one collector of aviation memorabilia. If anybody knows where items like Klcmcns Wach’s cigarette rase came from, he will.’
‘Docs he live in Lclendale?’
‘Yes, according to the guv at Lcadcnhall.’
They reached the Toyota and waited for the heater to clear the beginnings of another frost from the windscreen. The sky was completely clear and lull of stars. The gritting lorries would be out on the roads again tonight.
‘I wonder how close Graham Kemp is to his brother,’ said Frv. ‘I wonder if he might have been involved with Eddie in the
VO
double assault on Mondav night/
^ o
Cooper looked at her. ‘That would be a link.’ Fry rubbed her hands. “I think we have a couple of promising lines of enquiry to put to the meeting in the morning.’
‘It does give us the initiative,’ said Cooper. ‘Sergeant Caudwell
OI o
will be impressed/
‘All right, Ben. I admit that might be a factor/
‘On the other hand/ said Cooper, ‘what if someone thought Nick Easton himself was one of those vultures?’
‘What?’
‘If he was asking the wrong sort of questions, he could have given the wrong impression to someone who cared enough to be angry at the pillaging of the wreck sites/
‘Like who?’
‘Only someone with a personal interest. Someone who had lost a close relative in a crashed aircraft. Someone who thought it was a desecration, the robbing of a grave/
‘Someone like Zygmunt Lukasz, you mean?’
‘Peter Lukasz was very calm on the outside/ said Cooper. ‘And he attributed the hatred of the vultures to his father. But inside, 1 wonder if he shares the same feelings?’
Cooper put the Toyota in gear and drove down Harrington Street. They passed the Church of Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Polish Saturday School, and the lighted windows of the Dom Kombatanta.
He supposed it was inevitable the op/a(e6 traditions would die out with the old people. In the Lukasz family, Zygmunt
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and his sister Krystyna were-the only ones left who had been horn in Poland. The others were more English in their ways, even Peter Lukasz — though when the old man was around he seemed to take on the same set of the sho
ulders, the same look about the eyes that Cooper had noticed in the photograph of the young Zygmunt and Klemens. Determination, a fighting spirit. A capacity for hatred.
Cooper felt himself on unfamiliar territory. Yet these people weren’t recent immigrants, like the asylum seekers from Iran and Albania. The Poles had lived in Derbyshire for nearly sixty
JJ J
years. He had lived right alongside them all his life, and yet he knew almost nothing about them.
As they drove back down into the town, he lifted his head and looked at the barrier of hills to the west of Edcndalc. They were bare and glittering in the starlight, ancient and unchanged since the geological upheavals that had left them there millions of years ago. But as he stared at the familiar hills, Cooper felt his perception of them shift and blur, until they were no longer merelv hills. For the first time in his life, they had begun to look
J‘ - O
like the walls of a prison.
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25
rVlison Morrissey stood in the cobbled alleyway of Nick i’ th’ Tor outside Hden Vallev Books. She hanged on the door, ignoring
JO ‘ O O
the sign in the window, and kept banging until Lawrence Dalev appeared in the gloom inside and drew hack the bolts.
‘The shop is closed,’ he said. “I never open on Sunday.’
‘Not lor anybody?’ said Morrissey.
Lawrence peered at her carefully, wiping a finger over the lenses of his glasses.
‘I don’t sell books on a Sunday,’ he said. “I work six days a week selling books. Sunday is my day off from selling books.’
‘My name is Alison Morrissey. I’m the granddaughter of the pilot of the crashed Lancaster on Irontonguc Hill.’
‘I know who you arc,’ said Lawrence. ‘I saw you on the television news. You were in the papers, too.’
‘That’s good,’ said Morrissey. ‘Can I come in?’
Lawrence still hesitated, as if a great deal depended on making the right decision. Then, reluctantly, he pulled open the door of the shop.
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