Last Room

by Reah, Danuta

  Gillen’s team had been involved in the raid of a house in Birmingham, a house the intelligence services had pinpointed as a bomb factory. A seventeen-year-old youth who had escaped from the raid had been spotted an hour later in the city’s main station, his rucksack bulking on his back, his eyes glancing nervously around. He had seen the police marksmen and his eyes had widened in fright. He had reached into his pocket with a jerky, panicky movement. Gillen’s men had shot him dead.

  In the end, no bomb-making equipment was found nor any evidence of radical activity. The house was one where asylum seekers were accommodated. The dead youth was an Iraqi Kurd who was destitute. He was living in the house illegally, given shelter by the residents who sympathised with his plight. The rucksack contained everything in the world he owned.

  The dead youth had no family to act for him. They had been killed in the war. The story had faded into obscurity in a matter of days with the consensus that the occupants of the house had largely brought the disaster upon themselves. A system that normally moved with the speed of a glacier suddenly accelerated, and all the men in the house had been deported by the time the enquiry into the incident began.

  The enquiry had released its findings just a few weeks before. It noted the unavailability of witnesses, and also queried the source of the misinformation that had led to the raid, but by that time, the news agenda had moved on. Gillen’s early retirement after the enquiry was seen as the act of an honourable man brought down by events beyond his control.

  Having met him, Dariusz was not so sure. Ania had suggested her father hadn’t wanted to retire, but hadn’t elaborated the point. Gillen himself looked worn down. Ania’s death would have done that to him, but the weary anger in the man’s eyes seemed to Dariusz to belong to an older wound. The death of his other daughter? Gillen had survived that, had gone on to be a success in his chosen field and as reasonably successful a parent as most.

  There was something else eating him away.

  Dariusz thought for a while, then scrolled though the numbers in his phone until he found the contact details for a journalist friend, Roman Strąk. He often worked with Strąk when he wanted to get stories about abuses of the labour laws into the national consciousness. Strąk worked for Zycie Warszawy, a national newspaper with a far wider circulation than the Łódź papers. If anyone in Poland knew the background to the story, he would.

  Strąk’s voice was blurred with sleep as Dariusz identified himself. ‘Erland! Do you know what time it is? In case you don’t, I’ll tell you. It’s three in the fucking morning. This had better be good.’

  Dariusz glanced at the clock. Strąk was right. He’d forgotten the time.

  When Strąk spoke again, his voice was less abrupt. ‘I was sorry to hear about Ania.’

  ‘The bastards have closed the case. I…’

  ‘Look.’ Strąk sounded embarrassed. ‘I’d like to do a story, but I can’t. There’s no angle. ‘Łódź police incompetent.’ Big surprise. And no editor is interested in ‘Foreign national jumps out of window.’ Sorry.’

  ‘Even if she didn’t jump?’

  The other man’s voice was suddenly alert. ‘You’ve got evidence?’

  ‘Nothing much. Not yet.’

  ‘Get me some evidence that will stand up, and I’ll run with it, OK? Until then…’

  ‘It isn’t that. It’s something else. I need as much information as you can get me about something that happened in the UK about eighteen months ago. I don’t have the contacts.’ He outlined what he knew, and heard the sound of a keyboard as Strąk looked the case up.

  ‘Yeah. Got it.’ There was silence as Strąk read through whatever it was he had found. ‘Trigger happy bunch of dickheads… What’s this got to do with Ania?’

  ‘Will Gillen is her father.’

  ‘Is he now?’ Strąk’s interest racked up a notch. Maybe Dariusz would get his story after all. ‘OK, what do you want to know?’

  ‘Gillen. He was suspended while they had an enquiry. He took early retirement a couple of months ago. What I want to know is did he jump, or was he pushed?’ It was an unhappy analogy to use, but Strąk didn’t comment.

  There was the silence of thought on the other end of the line. ‘Gillen’s head rolled. That seems to have stopped the criticism in its tracks. From what I can see – this is just gossip, right, not official stuff but it’s from a reliable source – the intelligence that led to the raid was dodgy.’

  ‘Dodgy how?’

  ‘It came via an informer.’

  And informers, especially in these times, often had their own agendas. Whatever had happened, one of Gillen’s men had been made a killer by that episode. Gillen’s career had meant everything to him – Ania had told him that: he cares about what he does and he cares about his team. After what happened to Louisa, and after Mum… they kind of became his family. If that was true, then Dariusz couldn’t see him accepting the comfortable berth of retirement with a good pension and no stain on his reputation, but that apparently was the deal that Gillen had made. Maybe Ania’s view of her father was idealised.

  ‘Thanks. That’s… quite a story.’

  ‘I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. I don’t think Gillen has. Listen, this is getting interesting. If you find anything else…’

  ‘You’ll get it first.’

  After he rang off, Dariusz thought about the call. Strąk hadn’t been remotely sceptical that the police had not investigated Ania’s death properly – he just wanted some evidence before he stuck his neck out. It was the way things were.

  Corruption had been a problem in Poland since the days of the Stalinist era and its fungus threads spread through the entire system, sending up its fruits in unexpected places. Just a few years before, ambulance crews had been found taking bribes from funeral parlours in exchange for dead bodies, bodies that, in some cases, may have been helped on their way. The fallout of fear and anger from this had led to a loss of faith in the health system – as demonstrated by his father’s refusal to go to hospital and his reluctance to take prescribed drugs.

  Dariusz came across it every day in his work: laws about working conditions being flouted, health and safety laws blatantly ignored. The problem was, people took the system for granted. They accepted that bribing a doctor was the way to get treatment, to the point where some hospitals put up notices reading, "Doctors here do not accept gifts". But there were still hospitals where bringing gifts to the people who were treating you was an entry ticket to the ward. Everyone knew, but no one was prepared to take action.

  His father told a story from his time in prison. The inmates had a way of distinguishing good wardens from bad ones. From the inmates’ perspective, the good wardens were the ones who were out for personal gain, who would accept bribes in return for longer visits, more coffee, larger packages from home. The bad wardens were the honest ones, who tried to treat the prisoners equally and who wouldn't accept the bribes. ‘The problem,’ he had said to Dariusz, ‘is that the country is being run by the good wardens.’

  They had laughed, but the sad fact was the story was true, or true enough. And it wasn’t just Poland. These days, the good wardens were in charge everywhere.

  Chapter 26

  When Will woke up the next day, he let the policeman he still was take charge. He wasn’t Will Gillen, bereaved father taking stock of what he had seen and what he needed to do. He was DCI Gillen, senior officer in the West Midlands counter-terrorism unit. Today, he would see the last place where Ania had been alive, he would meet the people she knew. He had already met the man she had planned to marry, and had not been impressed. He would talk to the people who had investigated her death, then he would arrange for her body to be flown back to the UK.

  After that…

  For a moment, his head felt as though it was filled with cotton wool, his thought processes tangling up in a haze of weariness. All he wanted to do was lie down again and escape into sleep. He forced his mind back to the job in hand. He was here
for Ania. Nothing else mattered. He would have all the time in the world to sleep once this was over.

  It was 8.30 when he left the hotel. Piotrkowska was quiet. The shoppers weren’t out this early in the morning and the rickshaw drivers had yet to set up their stalls. The opulent grandeur of the hotel dining room had offered only an indifferent buffet of tinned fruit, cold meats and dry bread. Swooping orchestral music had driven him out, breakfast virtually uneaten. He wasn’t hungry anyway.

  His appointment at the university wasn’t for another forty-five minutes and when he made enquiries at the desk he found that the faculty building was only five minutes from the hotel. He couldn’t face going back to his room so he hunched into his overcoat against the cold and started walking. He had no particular destination in mind. He just knew that he didn’t want to sit in his room, staring at the walls.

  He took one of the roads off Piotrkowska and stopped at a café with the improbable name of Coffees and Toffees, written outside in big letters in English. The girl behind the counter greeted him with a cheerful Dzien dobry and served him with a cup of good coffee that came with a piece of fudge.

  Coffee and toffee.

  ‘It does what it says on the tin.’ Ania’s voice. He turned round abruptly.

  She was sitting at one of the tables. She probably came here often, maybe with friends and colleagues from the university which was, according to his map, just round the corner.

  ‘Breakfast,’ he said, knowing she would disapprove of such an unhealthy diet. The girl behind the counter gave him a puzzled look and he smiled at her and indicated the piece of fudge. She nodded in incomprehension.

  He took his cup across to the table and sat down. The chairs were comfortable and upholstered in bright red. He felt old. He’d barely slept, and what sleep he’d had had been disturbed by dreams – not the dreams he’d feared, dreams of Ania falling, but a familiar dream, the dream where he was fighting his way through the crowds in a railway station, knowing that the minutes leaking away through the clock on the departure board were vital, that the cascade of seconds that raced past his eyes was counting towards something he had to stop, except he couldn’t find his way past the people who stood in his way, meandered across his route and turned the straight line of his run into a jagged path with no clear way through.

  Then he was in the mortuary, looking at the body of a youth, a boy of seventeen who had fled for most of his life, and had now come to the end of it.

  In his dream, the dead eyes opened and looked at him. The boy’s mouth moved and bled, but no words emerged.

  You are responsible for this.

  Ania’s fingers touched his wrist. ‘I never said that, and I never thought it. You did what you had to do.’

  ‘I walked away from it.’ Sweat broke out over Will’s body and for a moment, nausea overwhelmed him. He felt saliva flood his mouth and he clenched his jaw, breathing deeply through his nose. He sat very still and gradually the sickness faded. He straightened up, aware that the girl behind the counter was watching him, her cloth moving mechanically across the top of the bar. He managed to smile at her and after a moment she smiled back. He looked across the table but now there was no one there.

  He took several deep breaths and gradually he began to feel more calm. He needed to think about the forthcoming meeting he had with the head of department where Ania had been working. Konstantin Jankowski would have known Ania well – she had been coming here regularly for the past two years and had always spoken warmly of her Polish colleagues.

  He wondered what plans Dariusz Erland had. He didn’t feel any need to meet the man again. OK, Erland might well have become his son-in-law, become part of his life, his family, Ania and Dariusz, the father of his grandchildren, a man who Ania must have loved. To Will, experienced in these matters, Erland looked like a thug. He was angry that Ania had been planning to throw herself away on this man, this trades union activist turned lawyer. Erland’s profession only helped to confirm Will’s opinion. The law was the profession of choice for the spivs and barrow boys of this world. Erland had had the brass neck to ask him, Did you know her at all? They had nothing else to say to each other.

  It was getting on for nine thirty. He finished his coffee and nodded to the girl behind the bar. ‘Do widzenia.’

  She paused in her mission to polish the counter to flawless brilliance. ‘Do widzenia.’

  The centre of Łódź was built on a grid system. The department of English was on a main road that ran parallel to Piotrkowska. It was busy. He had to wait several minutes for a break in the traffic that roared past at reckless speeds. The air was tainted with the fumes.

  His footsteps slowed as he approached the university building. It was a tall, art deco structure with high railings and steps leading up to an imposing front entrance. Young men and women – students presumably – were going in and out through the main door. He let his eyes follow the frontage up and then down again to the wicked spikes on the railings that separated the building from the street. But Ania hadn’t fallen here. She had fallen from the back. If he wished, he could follow the road round, locate the car park entrance, go and stand on the spot where his daughter’s body had lain, see the stain that might still be discernible where she had smashed onto the unforgiving ground.

  He walked up the steps and through the entrance.

  The lobby was wide, high and light. Tall windows illuminated the space. A stairway curved up to his left, and straight ahead of him, more stairs led down to the basement. These were plain and utilitarian, lacking the ornamented iron balustrade of the main stairway. A sign on the wall directed him to the car park.

  There was no reception desk, just a small kiosk at the top of these stairs. A man in the uniform of a security guard was leaning against the counter. He was leafing through a newspaper, but he shot a glance at Will. Their eyes met, and the guard looked away quickly.

  The man who had found Ania had been a security guard – Jerzy Pawlak. This could be the same man. On impulse he crossed the lobby.

  ‘Mr Pawlak? Jerzy Pawlak?’

  The man hesitated, then nodded. He looked wary, as if he wasn’t sure he should make the admission. He was small and wiry with a narrow face and bright, sharp eyes. He had a thin, wispy beard.

  ‘My name is Will Gillen. My daughter died here a few days ago. I believe you were on duty that night. I’d like to talk to you.’

  Pawlak stiffened. ‘I talked to the police. I told them everything.’

  ‘You were the last person to see her. I’d like to hear from you what happened that night.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t have to.’

  ‘No. You don’t have to.’ Will trod hard on his impatience. It can’t have been easy for Pawlak. He didn’t deserve Will’s anger. If anything, he deserved thanks. ‘I can come back later. Are you working tonight?’

  ‘No. I’m on now.’ Pawlak pulled his sullenness round him like a protection, the seemed to relent. ‘I’m working tomorrow night.’

  ‘Can I come and talk to you then?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll be busy. I don’t want…’

  Will took out his wallet. ‘I don’t want to make things difficult.’ He took out a note for 100 PLN. ‘Here. For your time now.’

  Pawlak’s eyes flickered to the money, then round the lobby before he slipped the note from between Will’s fingers. ‘My time now?’

  ‘And I’ll give you something for your time tomorrow.’

  Pawlak hesitated. ‘Nine. Here. Tomorrow evening.’ His gaze moved round the lobby again. ‘I’ve got to work.’

  ‘Mr Milosz?’ Will turned round. A middle-aged man in a rather shabby suit was standing behind him, holding out his hand.

  ‘Gillen. Ania used her mother’s name. I’m Will Gillen.’

  ‘I am Konstantin Jankowski. I knew your daughter well. I – we all – admired her a great deal. I have to tell you how sorry we all are.’

  It was necessary, this expression of gr
ief, but it was what Will had been dreading. He let his breathing steady then he was able to say, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Did you want something from…?’ Jankowski gestured towards the booth, where Pawlak was no longer visible.

  ‘No. Nothing.’ He didn’t want to discuss it with Jankowski. He didn’t want his meeting with Jerzy Pawlak to become official.

  ‘I want to help,’ Jankowski said. ‘What do you need?’

  ‘I need to know what happened.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll tell you as much as I can. We none of us realised she was…’

  ‘What was she doing? Here?’

  ‘Please come up to my office. We can talk there.’

  Jankowski led the way up the stairs to the fourth landing. The stairwell was lit by a huge window. The banister was made of wrought iron, delicate and ornate. As they approached the top floor, Will saw that here, the ceiling was lower and to the left of the landing, the proportions were destroyed by a partition wall that cut the space off abruptly, presumably to create extra rooms. Jankowski led him to a door opposite the stairs and unlocked it. ‘My office,’ he said, ushering Will in.

  It was a small room, cluttered with books and papers, the office of an academic. Will was reminded of Oz Karzac’s office back in Manchester as Jankowski cleared some papers off a chair for Will to sit down. Jankowski switched on a kettle and with a quick query to Will, made tea. He produced a bag containing pastries and small cakes – Will could remember Ania commenting on the Polish sweet tooth.

  ‘First,’ Jankowski said as he sat down, putting a cup of tea in front of Will, ‘I must give you this.’ He put a carrier bag and a small backpack on the table. ‘These are the things she left in her locker. The police have checked – they don’t want them.’