by Danuta Reah
The traffic was so bad that she was later than she’d intended, and there was no space in the car park. She had to waste time weaving in and out of the side streets looking for somewhere to leave the car without getting a ticket or, worse still, getting clamped or towed away. The steps into the Arts Tower were alive with students when she finally arrived from the parking space she’d found a good five minutes’ walk away, and the entrance was blocked with queues for the lifts and the paternoster. Roz pushed her way through the crowds, nodded a good morning as she passed the porters’ lodge, and took the doors to the stairs. A climb of thirteen floors was a good way for someone with a basically sedentary job to keep fit. Her routine was automatic. Walk up the first five, run up the next five, and walk the last three so that she wouldn’t arrive red faced and sweating.
As the doors to the stairwell closed behind her, she was in silence. The stairs were concrete and breezeblock, the steps covered in grey-flecked lino, the light the flat glare of fluorescent tubes. There was no daylight. She concentrated on her climb, feeling her energy start to come back after the initial fatigue. It was claustrophobic on the stairs, with just the high closed-in stone and the steps above and below her. For a moment, it was almost as if she was alone in the building, then she heard a door above her open and bang shut, and the sound of feet moving fast. The echo on the stairs was confusing, making it impossible to tell until the last minute if someone was climbing up or coming down.
There was a sudden rush and a young man shot round the corner, bounded past her jumping the stairs three at a time and vanished round the landing below her. His ‘Sorry!’ seemed to hang in the air after he was gone. Students. Youth. Roz was mildly amused by the display of energy and heedlessness. It shook her out of her weather-induced depression. She’d lost count of her floors. She checked the number on the landing and began her jog up the next five, feeling slow and cumbersome in comparison to the lithe young man.
She arrived on N floor not too out of breath and allowed herself a moment of satisfaction that lasted until she came through the door of her office and found Joanna waiting for her. Roz glanced at the clock as Joanna said, ‘I expected you in earlier today.’
It was only ten past nine, but it was the worst day she could have chosen to be late. ‘Parking,’ she explained. ‘Is there any news about Gemma?’
Joanna’s face was set. ‘This arrived, just this morning. Posted in Sheffield on Saturday.’ She was holding a letter, pleating the paper between her fingers. ‘You’d better read it.’
Roz looked at Joanna, and took the letter. It was written on official university stationery and dated Friday:
Dear Dr Grey
Personal circumstances make it impossible for me to continue with the Law and Language Group. Please accept my resignation effective from today’s date. I apologize for not giving you full notice of my intentions.
Yours sincerely
Gemma Wishart
Roz was thrown into confusion. She remembered the discussions they’d had the week before, Gemma’s concern that she might be late with her report for DI Jordan, her assessment plans for her students, her research schedule. She couldn’t believe that Gemma had been planning, then, to leave her job, suddenly and without warning. She clearly hadn’t discussed it with Luke, or he wouldn’t have been stirring up the police and the hospitals. She remembered his words on Sunday: ‘She’s going to go back there, when her research money runs out here.’ He and Gemma had talked about the future, but he hadn’t known about this. What had happened? What kind of trouble was Gemma in? Personal circumstances…
‘Aren’t you worried?’ she said. ‘About Gemma?’ Gemma was Joanna’s protégée. Joanna had spoken to Roz often enough about the brilliant future she thought that Gemma could achieve.
Joanna frowned, staring into space. ‘Gemma’s been planning to leave for a while,’ she said. So Gemma had discussed this with Joanna as well as with Luke. It was just Roz she had kept in the dark. ‘She’s put in several applications for funding to go back to Novosibirsk,’ Joanna went on. ‘I don’t want to lose her, but I supported her. The university there is excellent, and if that’s the direction Gemma wants her research to take, then she will be better off there.’ There was a faint line between her eyes. ‘I didn’t expect her to do it like this,’ she said. There was silence for a moment, then Joanna gave herself a shake. ‘I don’t have time for this now. We have the situation here to deal with. I had that Jordan woman on the phone half an hour ago, asking about her report. I can’t find it.’
Roz remembered the report. She’d promised to put it in the post on Friday, and she’d forgotten. ‘I’ll deal with that,’ she said with evasive diplomacy.
Joanna nodded. ‘I want to go through Gemma’s desk and her filing cabinet as well,’ she said. ‘I need to know exactly what’s missing.’
Hull, Monday
Lynne went over the statements that Farnham’s team had taken after Katya’s body had been found. Katya had been taken to the casualty department by someone called Matthew Pearse, a volunteer worker at a refugee support centre down near the old docks. Lynne read through his statement. She had understood that Katya had been found on the street, but now she came to read Pearse’s statement, she realized that Katya had actually come to the support centre seeking help. Pearse had seen the condition she was in and had taken her to the Infirmary. It had been the obvious decision, and the sensible decision, but, with hindsight, the wrong one.
Lynne needed to talk to Pearse. The statement gave an address in the Orchard Park area of Hull, but no phone number. She didn’t want to trail all the way across the city and find him out. Maybe she could track him down at this support centre. She needed to know when he was likely to be there. OK, the Volunteer Coordinator, Michael Balit, should be able to help her there.
Balit was his usual, unhelpful self. ‘Matthew Pearse?’ he said. ‘What do you want with him?’ It would have been easy to pull rank on him, tell him to co-operate as she was in the process of an investigation, but she knew that Farnham wanted to keep things low-key for the moment. The Michael Balits of this world existed to give her practice in the skills of patience. She reminded him of the Katya incident, and indicated that her inquiry was part of an ‘i’-dotting and ‘t’-crossing piece of bureaucracy. ‘We just need to close our file on the case,’ she said with vague mendacity.
He accepted this at face value. The place where Pearse worked was called the Welfare Advice Centre, he told her. ‘We don’t use the word “refugee”,’ he said. ‘For obvious reasons.’ There had been a series of racially motivated attacks on people since the dispersal system had sent groups to Hull, stretching the social services to the limit. ‘So the voluntary sector had to step in,’ Balit said. The advice centre was based in the old docks area, part that was still awaiting gentrification. ‘We’ve taken over one of the derelict buildings down there,’ Balit said. ‘It used to be a shop. We were using it to store donated furniture. We still do, but we cleared out some office space, put a translator in place and set up.’ So he clearly could get things moving when he had to. Perhaps he just didn’t see that Lynne’s work was his problem.
‘Matthew Pearse?’ she said.
‘Well, Matthew’s a volunteer outreach worker. He’s disabled, can’t work full-time. But he’s had a lot of experience in immigrant communities – we don’t have that kind of experience in Hull – so he’s been giving us a lot of help at the centre.’
And now she was looking at the latest addition to the refugee support network. The old shop was down a side street, beside one of the empty warehouses that were awaiting demolition or redevelopment. It had a boarded front and a look of abandonment in its sagging pipes and leaking guttering. But the door was well kept, the locks efficient and the notice on the door, typed in several scripts, looked recent. Welfare Advice Centre. 8.30-5.30 daily. Out of hours, ring night bell. She wondered if they had any information about this place back at the station, and she took out her phone. But t
he signal was weak – the area was low and she was surrounded by high buildings. She could check later.
The Centre reminded Lynne of the corner shop where her grandmother used to take her to buy sweets when Lynne went to stay. Just for a moment, she had a vivid picture of her grandmother’s front room, the textured wallpaper that had a mottled, sandy pattern, the tiled fire surround, the picture on the chimney breast – some gilded religious theme with clouds and halos and wings. How many years ago? Twenty-five or more. For a moment, she felt old. The shop near her grandmother’s had been the last survivor of a shopping parade that had been demolished now. There had been a window display, she remembered that, with plastic bananas, vivid yellow that somehow looked dusty and faded, with tins and packets that had lost their new brightness. The shop itself seemed dark in Lynne’s memory, the customers old like her grandmother. She had never liked that shop, with its dingy and run-down interior. She had liked supermarkets with their wide aisles and bright lights.
The Welfare Advice Centre had the same air of slow decay. The door gave a faint ting as she pushed it open, and for a moment she expected to find herself in the dark shop from her childhood, and hear Mrs Rogers’ voice saying, ‘Have you come for your sweeties then, flower?’ But this door opened on to a small room, the old shop with the counter adapted to a makeshift reception desk and chairs round the wall. The room was empty, but a door behind the counter opened and a woman in a shalwar kameez came through and looked at Lynne warily. Lynne showed her identification and said, ‘I’m looking for Matthew Pearse.’
The woman looked closely at the card Lynne was holding up. After she had studied it, she shot Lynne a closed look, jerked her head and said, ‘Come,’ indicating the door behind her. Her English was heavily accented.
Lynne followed her and found herself in a small office that was cramped with just a desk, a filing cabinet, some shelves and a couple of chairs. There was no one else there. The shelves contained some books, in a script that Lynne couldn’t read. Arabic? There were also boxes of leaflets that Lynne, without asking, looked at. They were mostly to do with welfare rights and health care, particularly relating to children: Immunization; Feeding your toddler; Housing Benefit; Family Credit. Welfare, as the notice on the door said. Tacked on to the wall behind the desk was a typewritten list of addresses and phone numbers, with handwritten additions. The woman watched her in silence. Lynne held out her hand. ‘Detective Inspector Jordan,’ she said.
The woman hesitated then touched the proffered hand. ‘Nasim Rafiq,’ she said, after a moment. Then, ‘Matthew Pearse is not here. But soon.’ Pearse would be back soon. OK, Lynne could wait. She smiled at the other woman, and got a hesitant smile in return.
‘Mrs Rafiq.’ Lynne wondered how good the woman’s English was. Good enough, presumably, to work here. ‘I wonder if you could tell me something about this centre, about the work you do.’
Rafiq looked at Lynne in silence for a while, then indicated the leaflets. ‘Welfare advice,’ she said.
This was presumably not irony, but a genuine attempt to explain. ‘Who do you offer advice to, Mrs Rafiq?’
‘Refugee,’ the other woman said, after another pause for thought. ‘They come from…other places? From government?’
A centre that was offering help to refugees sent north through the dispersal system. This matched the pattern Michael Balit had described to her – a patchwork of voluntary organizations, often run by members of the refugee communities themselves, often poorly trained and ill-equipped, trying to fill the gap. This was the kind of place she might find useful. She looked round the room. There was a door, presumably leading to the rest of the building. ‘May I look round?’ she said.
Rafiq seemed unsurprised by the request, and stood up. She locked the door leading through to the front, and took Lynne into the back room, gesturing for her to look at anything she wanted to. This room was virtually unfurnished. There was a settee pushed against one wall, and a chair with wooden arms, the upholstery sagging underneath the seat. A small Calor Gas heater was pushed against another wall, and the faint, sweet smell of the gas permeated the air. Beyond the room was a corridor leading to the stairs and a cubbyhole of a kitchen. Another door led to a dank back yard that was overshadowed by the high wall of the warehouse.
Lynne looked at the stairs and then at Nasim Rafiq. ‘We store,’ Rafiq said in response to Lynne’s look. ‘Go –’ she gestured permission to Lynne. Lynne took the opportunity to check the upstairs rooms, which seemed, as Rafiq had said, to be used for storage. There were stacks of boxes, the dust suggesting they had been there for a while. Lynne pulled up a cardboard flap of one, and found it was full of clothes, woollens. Some rather shabby furniture was piled up and pushed against the walls. Lynne came down the stairs wiping her hands on her skirt. They felt grubby. Rafiq saw, and gestured towards the small sink in the kitchen. Lynne washed her hands and dried them on the immaculate towel that the other woman gave her.
‘Thank you, Mrs Rafiq,’ Lynne said. ‘I’m interested in the welfare services for refugees. You’re very quiet here today.’
Rafiq made a weighing gesture with her hands. ‘Is quiet, is busy,’ she said. It varies, Lynne interpreted. The woman’s spoken English didn’t seem to be very good, but she had few problems understanding Lynne.
They went back to the small office, and Lynne took out the still from the security video that showed Katya leaving the hospital. It was a back view; the face was in profile and blurred, but it showed the dark hair, and gave an impression of her features. She put it on the desk and saw the woman lean forward in interest.
The door from the shop opened suddenly, and a man came into the room, carrying a pile of boxes. Lynne noticed that he moved awkwardly. He stopped as he saw her. Lynne smiled and offered her hand. ‘Mr Pearse?’ she said. He put the boxes down on the desk and shook her proffered hand, looking at Nasim for guidance. It was hard to judge how old he was. His hair was white, and he had the slight stoop of age, but his face looked younger.
His eyes fell on the photograph, and he stepped forward. ‘Have you…Do you know…?’ He had a slight stammer. Michael Balit had said he was disabled.
‘Is police,’ Nasim Rafiq said quickly. She kept her eyes on Pearse’s face.
‘Mr Pearse,’ Lynne said, ‘I understand you found this woman and took her to the hospital.’
He looked confused for a moment. ‘No. I mean, yes…that is…’ Lynne waited while he disentangled his sentence. ‘I took her to the hospital,’ he said. ‘She found us.’ Lynne was aware of Nasim Rafiq hovering protectively by his side. ‘I made a statement,’ he added.
‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’ she said. After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded and led her through to the back room she’d seen earlier. Lynne was aware of Nasim Rafiq’s eyes on her as the door closed. She sat on the chair, and adopted a relaxed, friendly pose – You can help me here – as she took him through his previous statement. It always helped her to listen to the spoken voice, observe the face of the witness. He had very little to add to what she already knew. He worked as a volunteer for the Welfare Advice Centre, he explained to Lynne. ‘There’s just the two of us at the moment,’ he said. ‘We aren’t properly set up yet. But word gets around, so we’re starting to get busy. It varies.’ He had trouble with his voice, a slight stutter that made him speak slowly and carefully, making his words sound hesitant. ‘It’s been used as storage for clothes and furniture,’ he said. ‘But now we’re getting the asylum seekers coming up here. They need a lot of support while…’ He struggled with his stammer.
‘While their claims are checked?’ Lynne said. He looked at her. ‘Into genuine and fraudulent,’ she explained.
‘I don’t make that distinction.’ His eyes were dark and direct. His disability, a slight curvature of the spine, had made him seem diffident and self-effacing, an effect enhanced by his speech impediment, but his manner was quiet and assured. ‘Poverty can be just as bad as political oppression. I�
�d do the same if I were young. Or if I had children.’
It was a sidetrack, but an interesting one. Here was a man who was sympathetic to the refugees, and who had contacts. Was this why Katya had come here? ‘Tell me about the woman who came to the welfare centre, Mr Pearse.’
He composed himself, and moved his lips once or twice, trying to find the words. ‘She came on…I can’t remember the date. I can check it.’ He paused, expecting a response, but Lynne said nothing. ‘She had very little English, but she had been hurt. Someone had beaten her quite badly, I think.’ The effort to control his stammer kept his voice level, but there was anger on his face.
‘Why did she come to you?’ Lynne wondered if this place was known as one where people might help and ask no questions.
Pearse shook his head. ‘I don’t know. By the time I thought to ask…I took her to the hospital.’
She nodded to him to go on. ‘I dropped her at the entrance and told her where to go. I said I would come in when I’d parked the car. I don’t know if she understood me. I watched her go in, then I went to park.’ He gave Lynne a faint smile. ‘That took some time. And I phoned Nasim to let her know what I was doing. It took me a while to find the pay phone. They’d taken her in by the time I got back. I waited. I went for a walk. My back gets painful sitting in those chairs. And I was just returning when I saw her. She came out of the hospital and started walking towards the car park. Then she waved to someone.’ He caught Lynne’s look. ‘I couldn’t see anyone, not from where I was. By the time I’d got there, she’d gone.’
