Killing Time

by Mark Roberts

  ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ replied Clay, picking out on her iPhone the image she had taken of Marta in the Wavertree Mystery. She showed it to Aneta.

  ‘What’s happened to her hair?’

  ‘The person or persons who held her prisoner cut off her hair and kept it as a trophy.’

  Clay showed her another image on her phone. ‘Do you recognise this phone?’

  ‘It’s Václav’s.’

  ‘Our IT expert unlocked it and found some very damning footage.’

  ‘Ms Kaloza,’ said Hendricks. ‘We’re going to show you a sequence of still images which we’d like you to narrate. But before we do so, we need to know about the dates and times you visited the Adamczak brothers’ flat on Picton Road between Monday, 24th November this year to Monday, 1st December.’

  ‘I clean for the brothers on Mondays and Fridays – Monday to make things spick and span, Friday to sort out any mess from their working week. So, Monday 24th November you say. Yes, eight in the morning until nine-thirty. Friday 28th November, same time slot. I turn up on Monday 1st December and they’re both dead.’

  ‘Tell me about last Friday,’ said Clay.

  ‘Friday. I cleaned their flat. Eight until nine-thirty.’

  ‘Did you go into every room?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Were you on your own, Aneta?’ asked Clay.

  ‘Yes, the boys were at work in Anfield.’

  ‘Which company?’

  ‘CJ Construction. On Friday, they were on a site near the football ground...’

  ‘DS Hendricks, could you check that out, please.’

  Within seconds, Clay and Aneta were alone in the room.

  ‘I’m going to show you that sequence of images, Aneta. Tell me what you see.’

  ‘I see the narrow hall of Karl and Václav’s flat in Picton Road. Now, I see the door to the empty box room on the left of their hall. This is the inside of the box room.’ There was a long silence. ‘This must be the space under the floorboards in the box room, because they’ve been taken up...’

  ‘Did you go into the box room on Friday?’

  ‘Yes. I opened the door to air the room. That side of the flat gets damp.’

  ‘And what was in there?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘When our Scientific Support officer went in there, he saw something that made him lift the boards. When he lifted them, tell me what he found.’

  ‘I can see a length of darkness and Václav’s mobile phone. It’s a length of...’

  Clay opened the evidence bag and showed the contents to Aneta.

  ‘It’s almost certainly Marta Ondřej’s hair,’ Clay told her. ‘It was found under the boards in the box room of your friends’ flat.’

  Something shimmered in Aneta’s eyes and, for a moment, Clay thought she was going to faint.

  ‘Marta Ondřej is small and frail for her age...’ Clay carried on.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Based on video clips I’ve seen of Marta in captivity, the space in which she was imprisoned looks exactly like the box room in your friends’ flat, where her hair was discovered along with Václav’s phone. It’s a compelling triangle. Box room... shaven hair... video evidence on Václav’s phone.’

  ‘I swear to God, I know nothing about this.’

  ‘Box room, Marta... Shaven hair, Marta... video evidence on Václav’s phone, Marta. Marta who’d fit into a box room that can be locked from the outside for a little over a week. She’s got learning difficulties, she’s like a lamb.’

  ‘DCI Clay, she was not in that box room on Friday.’

  ‘Did you see Karl or Václav Adamczak between Monday 24th November and Monday 1st December? Don’t sit there in silence, Aneta.’

  ‘No! No, I did not see them from that Monday to the next.’

  ‘Did you communicate with them during that window of time?’

  ‘Yes, I spoke with Karl on the phone, after they had finished work one night.’

  ‘Did he sound odd, disorientated?’

  ‘No, Karl was perfectly normal, as always – calm, polite, friendly.’

  ‘Did he have a sexual preference for young girls?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘What about Václav?’

  ‘You can say what you like about the dead because they have no voices to defend themselves. No, Václav did not have a preference for young girls.’

  ‘Aneta, I’m working towards nailing down the truth here about an abduction in which your friends are heavily implicated. I’m also looking for a motive. Why would someone kill your friends? Help me out here. Tell me the truth.’

  ‘I’m telling you the truth.’

  ‘We’ve been in touch with the police in Pruszków.’ Clay watched the colour rise from Aneta’s throat and into her cheeks. ‘There were several complaints about Václav. Bothering young girls.’

  ‘None of which were prosecuted. Václav was over-friendly and under-intelligent, the opposite of Karl in spite of them being identical twins. These lying little sluts were trying to exhort money from him.’

  ‘Do you drive a car, Aneta?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you drive Marta Ondřej to Wavertree Mystery Park?’

  Aneta spoke with quiet unbottled anger.

  ‘Would you repeat that, Aneta, for the audio recording.’

  Aneta sat back and folded her arms.

  ‘Aneta, I heard you. If the machine didn’t pick you up, we can enhance the sound quality. You just said, fucking Roma.’

  ‘Yes, fucking Roma, wherever Roma goes trouble follows.’

  ‘She’s a fourteen-year-old girl...’

  ‘Are you sure she’s fourteen, these people aren’t good with numbers, and they’re even worse in telling the truth. Where was her birth registered? Get a DNA sample. She’s probably in her twenties, but her mother’s claiming child allowance. Do you know people all over Europe laugh at your country and the benefits it pays out. Stupid England. English dickheads, to use one of your words.’

  In the silence that followed, Clay watched Aneta freefall from the heights of her rage.

  ‘I-I-I didn’t mean that. It was an outrageous thing to say about Roma. I am stressed. My friends are murdered. My friends stand accused. I am in a police station answering painful questions. I apologise. I am not a racist. I apologise for my outburst and retract what I have said in anger and through distress.’

  ‘I understand, Aneta... I’m keeping you in custody for twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Enough now. I want legal representation.’

  ‘We can sort that out while you’re in the cells.’

  There was a sharp knock on the door and, as DS Hendricks entered, Clay dialled the desk for Sergeant Harris.

  Hendricks faced Aneta. ‘CJ Construction deny all knowledge of Karl and Václav Adamczak. As for the site manager in Anfield, not only have they never worked there, he’s never even heard the names Karl and Václav Adamczak.’

  Aneta looked like the marrow was setting fast in her legs.

  ‘Did they work the weekend or did they have Saturday and Sunday off?’ asked Hendricks.

  ‘No, I didn’t see them, but Karl told me they were taking the time off on Saturday and Sunday.’

  ‘According to the site manager, no one had the option of taking the weekend off. The job’s fallen behind and CJ Construction face a massive fine if they don’t deliver on time. All hands on deck at the weekend.’

  ‘This isn’t happening.’

  ‘The site manager’s going to contact his CJ Construction colleagues across the northwest to check that the Adamczak brothers weren’t on some other site.’

  There was a knock on the door and Sergeant Harris entered.

  ‘It is happening, Aneta,’ said Clay. ‘Choose a solicitor and have a good think when Sergeant Harris has taken you to the cells. Maybe your friends lied to you about where they were working because they were too busy – because th
ey had company.’

  *

  When the door closed, Clay said, ‘She had a racist outburst against Roma people.’

  ‘I read up about this when Marta went missing. The Roma people are widely despised in Poland and other countries in central Europe. Just as the travellers are here. We’ve got the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006. Voice your racist views and it’s up to two years in prison. The 2006 Act stopped millions of people from using the words nigger, gypo and ghost, but it couldn’t do anything to stop people thinking those words or from having racist views.’

  Clay’s iPhone rang out; she saw it was an incoming call from Stone.

  ‘What’s happening, Karl?’

  ‘Can you get to Otterspool Park, Eve?’ He sounded excited, and the bitter cold put a tremble in his voice.

  ‘What’s been found?’

  ‘Three items of the victim’s clothing.’

  ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can, Karl.’ Clay turned to Hendricks. ‘I’ll be back for Aneta as soon as she’s had a chat with her solicitor.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I’d be grateful if you’d stay here, Bill, in case she cracks.’

  55

  6.45 pm

  Father Aaron Bell placed the small colour photograph of Kelly-Ann Carter, clipped from the Daily Telegraph, on the table in the Chapel to the Virgin Mary and made the sign of the cross as he knelt before the statue. He picked the picture up and propped it against Mary’s stone feet, obscuring the head of Satan in the form of a serpent writhing under her feet, allowing him to see Kelly-Ann handcuffed and in her orange prison uniform.

  He looked at the image in the candlelight and then at Mary’s beatific face, and the words of prayer that flowed from his heart and soul stuck inside him.

  ‘I... I?’ He stared into Mary’s eyes for inspiration, but none was forthcoming. ‘I will stay here until the words come out of me. In the meantime, Mary, I will pray with the words of prayers that I know until I find words of my own.’

  The wind leaked in through a crack in a stained-glass window depicting Mary’s ascension into heaven, and the candles flickered at his side.

  ‘Hail, Mary, full of grace. Our Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women...’ He stopped, listened hard, wondered if a mostly sleepless night and stress were ganging up to play tricks on his senses.

  The sound came again, clearer this time, and louder. Someone was banging on the church door. Father Aaron got to his feet. As he went to answer, the words of the Hail Mary flooded through his mind.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! The person on the church steps tried to turn the circular handle.

  ‘Who is it?’ asked Father Aaron. Outside, the wind moaned around the sandstone walls but all else was silent. ‘Who is it? If you don’t tell me who you are, how can I possibly open the door to you? Tell me who you are and I will open the door if I know you.’

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  ‘I’m going away now. I can’t open the door to...’ Silence. ‘Is that you, Kate?’

  Bang!

  He slipped the large black key into the lock and turned it. As he opened the door, the words Dear Lord, please make it Kate! danced in his heart. Looking through the narrow crack, he saw that it was her.

  ‘Come inside out of the cold, Kate! Come in! Come in!’

  He closed the door after her and turned on the light around the font, casting them from darkness into half-shadow.

  ‘I’ve been to your house a few times over the past couple of days.’ He looked at her eyes, fixed on his lips. ‘Yes, a few times. The light bell you have to alert you when there’s someone at the door – is it working? I would check if I were you. I’m pretty sure you were in when I came to see you, but you didn’t come to answer. That’s never happened before, Kate. We’ve always been good friends, from my first day in the parish. You’ve been a good and faithful parishioner for years...’

  She placed the index finger of her right hand to her lips and made deeper furrows in the wrinkles on her brow. Silence, please!

  ‘What is it, Kate?’

  Kate walked in front of Father Aaron, made a gesture with her hand. Follow me!

  When she got to the very back pew, right-hand side, she stopped. She pointed to the place on the end of the pew where she always sat – seven days a week, twice on Sundays – and then at Father Aaron.

  ‘Let me get this straight. You want me to sit in your place?’

  She nodded and, as he sat down, Kate walked down the aisle in the direction of the altar. She walked past the altar rail towards the vestry and opened the door. In the doorway, she turned and looked directly at Father Aaron. He held her gaze and felt the rock at his core turning into quicksand.

  Father Aaron stood up and moved as quickly as he could to the third pew on the left-hand side, Mr Rotherham’s regular place. He turned his eyes to the vestry but could only see as far as the end of the altar rail. He moved to the front pew, to Iris’s place in the congregation, and couldn’t see the vestry door or Kate. Standing up, he hurried past the altar. When he came to the vestry door, Kate was gone. The door at the back of the church was closed and, when he looked for the key in the lock, it was gone.

  Father Aaron turned the handle but the back door was locked from the outside. He listened and heard her feet shuffling through the cold gravel at the side of the church.

  ‘No! No! No!’ he called to himself as he rushed out of the vestry and up the aisle towards the front door of the church, blood pounding and his breath coming in sharp spasms.

  He threw open the church door and looked both ways. Kate’s shuffling was coming from the side of the building, and Father Aaron swallowed his mounting outrage.

  As Kate reached the corner she stopped, staying out of sight.

  ‘I can hear you, Kate. What’s going on?’

  He walked down the steps, hanging onto the rusted metal rail, and watching his feet against the frozen grit.

  ‘You can hide there, but I’m coming now, so you won’t hide forever. And I know you can’t hear me, you deaf old bitch. I’ve humoured you for too long, you and your attention-seeking visions, and this is the way you repay me with this... this... goddamned nonsense.’

  He reached the corner and, turning around it at speed, found Kate flanked by Mr Rotherham and Iris.

  ‘How dare you speak to an old lady like that,’ said Mr Rotherham, his voice filled with shock and anger. ‘How dare you abuse her because of her disabilities?’

  ‘Father Aaron, I am shocked that these words have come from the mouth of a priest.’ Iris shook her head, tears in her eyes.

  Kate handed the back door key to Father Aaron.

  ‘This is all a big misunderstanding. I-I’ve been under enormous stress...’

  Kate linked her hands into Mr Rotherham’s and Iris’s elbows.

  ‘I’ve only just found out that a dear friend of mine has got weeks to live.’

  ‘Iris, Kate, are you ready to leave?’

  They walked towards the open gate.

  ‘Give me a chance, let me explain. Come back, I can explain everything...’

  They stepped onto the pavement and didn’t look back.

  56

  7.02 pm

  From the viewing room of Autopsy Suite 1 in the Royal Liverpool Hospital, Detective Constable Clive Winters looked in dismay at what was left of the naked female on the aluminium table.

  ‘I suspect we have the same mode of killing in this case and, almost certainly, the same perpetrators,’ said Doctor Lamb, flashing a beam of torchlight onto the dead woman’s throat.

  Winters sighed bitterly as he looked at the woman’s charred, unrecognisable features, and knew that getting an identification on her was going to be a major problem. Her face reminded him of a documentary he had seen about a man frozen in ice for over three thousand years, and it hit him hard that she had probably been alive and well only forty-eight hours earlier.

  Doctor Lamb touched a section of unburned skin on th
e base of her throat at the windpipe and counted, ‘One, two, two, one... She’s been strangled by someone behind her. Two thumbprints on her windpipe, and I’m estimating four fingerprints either side of her neck, but three of those have been burned.’

  Winters called Clay, who was evidently in reception at Trinity Road Police Station; he could hear Sergeant Harris’s raised but calm voice trying to settle down a difficult customer.

  ‘What’s happening, Clive?’ asked Clay.

  ‘I’m with Doctor Lamb. She started an external inspection of the Otterspool Park victim, and it’s looking like the same perpetrators as Picton Road. Manual strangulation and post-mortem burning. The fire damage is to her head, face, neck, back and both hands.’

  ‘Has she said anything about the sexual assault?’

  ‘She picked up on that straight away. It’s either rape or incredibly rough sex. There are lacerations to her vagina. She’s been penetrated in two orifices, her vagina and anus. How’s the search going in Otterspool Park?’

  ‘It’s ongoing. Some personal effects that may well have belonged to the victim have turned up. I’m going to Otterspool Park now.’

  ‘Has the CCTV footage from Aigburth Vale come in yet?’

  ‘Yes. Carol White’s on the job and Poppy Waters has stepped forward to help while the translator goes through all the documents on Václav Adamczak’s phone.’

  ‘Clive!’ called Doctor Lamb, interrupting. ‘Her hands have been burned. They’re both clamped together into tight fists.’ She turned to her APT. ‘Harper, can you open the right-hand first using a scalpel?’

  ‘Eve, there’s an APT filming the autopsy,’ said Winters. ‘And Harper’s about to prise open her fist.’

  ‘Ask Doctor Lamb to—’

  ‘As soon as it’s over, Eve, I’ll send it to you,’ called Doctor Lamb.

  ‘Clive, ask her to tell Harper to wait for a moment. I’d like to come into the suite and get some stills of the victim’s body.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘OK, thanks, Clive. Keep me posted.’

  Winters headed back immediately to the foot of the aluminium table. He took pictures of the overall view of the victim’s body, lingering on the purple thumb and fingerprints around her throat and neck. From the charred scalp to her bruised and dirty feet, he focused on her blackened and blistered right and left fists.