A small chest of drawers was pushed against a wall and there was a coat stand heavy with various jackets and scarves. I strode quietly on tiptoe past the first door, my heart beating a little faster. The final door needed only a gentle push for it to open on soft hinges and I stepped in. I needn’t have bothered being quiet because the dead body sitting upright on the chair wouldn’t have minded.
There was mass of bruising all over his face. His neck was speckled red where the life had been squeezed from his body. I stepped over towards the chair.
I heard a noise behind me. Before I could see who it was I saw a shape coming through the air and then I felt a dull thud and a flash of pain.
Chapter 36
I knew I was alive because my head was pounding and my shoulders were stiff with pain. I was staring at a dirt floor when I woke up, and when I tried to free my hands I realised they were tied to the chair. There was a small light hanging in the centre of the room and I could hear voices in one corner.
I squinted and saw Lech leaning against a table, the top caving slightly under his weight. He still had the same wide-lapelled suit but now he smiled at me. It was when Kamil stepped out of the shadows and pulled up a chair that I really wasn’t sure if I was alive.
‘I think you friends,’ Lech said. There was an edge like finely sharpened steel to his voice.
Kamil had shaved his head, had three days’ stubble and a determined look in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before. I could feel my anger rising and I screamed at him, but making myself heard through duct tape was hard. I even gave the chair a pathetic attempt at pulling my arms free.
‘I like to protect my investment,’ Lech said. ‘And you make life hard. I have much money invested in Frankie. And it is important he make payback.’
Kamil laughed and turned his head towards the door. Another man came to stand alongside Lech. He had a large baseball bat in his hand that had ominous red streaks down its side.
Now I regretted coming to Warsaw.
‘Michal was to be useful. But then Kamil keep check on him. When Michal decided that he no longer wanted to work for me and he went over… how you say?… To the dark side.’ He laughed at his own joke, displaying an array of yellow teeth. Kamil laughed along and baseball-bat man just stood impassively.
‘Michal had to die.’ It sounded matter-of-fact, routine. ‘And of course, Leon. Frankie tell me about Leon and Maria wanting money.’
Then I thought of Dagmara and my eyes opened wide. I tugged at the chair again and it scuffled along the floor. The baseball-bat man tapped the bat in his hand and tried to smile.
‘I suppose you are worried about your little Polish whore,’ Lech added. ‘For now she is safe for sure. But we will find her. There is nothing you can do Mr Policeman from England. There will be an investigation. Some of the police here will go looking for you but in the end, nothing. Nobody will remember you in few months’ time.’
The sweat was running down my arms and I wanted to piss really badly, but I wasn’t going to let them see me go to pieces. My breathing was heavy and I wanted to throw myself at Kamil and beat the shit out of him.
‘I hope that you enjoy your stay in Poland, Mr Marco,’ Lech said, as he stood up, straightened his lapels and then spoke to Kamil, who looked me straight in the eye before they both left.
Baseball-bat man took off his jacket and folded it slowly before placing it on the table that Lech had leant on. He looked at me and another smile nudged his mouth. He had small hands that he ran along the baseball bat like a masseur on the back of a client. He put the baseball bat down on the table and came over to me. He loosened his tie. Bad sign.
Then he kicked the chair from beneath me and I crashed to the floor. He gave a laugh that sounded like a squeak and then he pushed me around the floor. He kicked the chair and I moved a few centimetres and then he pushed my legs and the chair came with me. He drew his foot back and landed a blow on my right thigh. I cringed in pain. I wanted to scream. I thought I’d puke but I’d be a dead man if I did.
He was smiling more broadly now. I felt like a helpless animal in a cage. I thought of Dagmara and then about Trish. I didn’t want it to end this way. He cleared his throat, a serious look in his eyes. He stepped up to the table and picked up the baseball bat. He came over towards me and poked me. On my knees, then my shoulder and then my arms. I pulled at the chair again and he laughed.
He tapped the baseball bat in the palm of one hand as I heard a door open. I saw the perplexed expression on his face and then the face of Tomas as the light caught him. I didn’t know whether I should be pleased.
When he raised a pistol and shot baseball-bat man I had my answer. The relief hit me and I pissed my trousers. The big man stood for a moment, looking at the blood on his chest. Tomas aimed another shot and this time it was right in the middle of his forehead. He dropped the baseball bat and it span along the dirt of the floor. He swayed for a moment and then fell. There was a dull thud as his bulk hit the ground.
I gasped for breath when Tomas undid the tape on my mouth and then the pain shot through my legs. He rummaged through the dead man’s jacket and tapped out a message on the mobile.
‘Lech think you dead now,’ Tomas said. ‘We go.’
A thousand questions swirled through my mind.
My legs felt like sponge and I tripped and lost my balance as we left the room. Tomas opened the door and led me out into a long corridor that eventually finished at a metal door, which he pushed with his shoulder. My legs were burning and my shoulder ached and I needed a shower and some clean clothes, but when the fresh air burst onto my face I fell to the floor and took deep lungfuls of breath. It was dark, but I had no idea of the time.
‘We go,’ Tomas repeated, tugging at my shirt.
I got up onto my knees.
‘Where are we?’
‘Lech’s place,’ he said, pulling at my shirt again. ‘It not safe.’
I got to my feet and looked around. We were standing on waste ground near some factories and industrial buildings. It was dark: no street lights, just the barest outline of a road.
‘This way,’ Tomas said as he walked towards a tall building with streaks of light leaking around doors and windows.
I stumbled again until I fell into a slow pace, trying to catch up with Tomas. He strode on ahead of me until he ducked down under a broken fence. I followed him, my shoulder aching more when I bent down. Behind an old hut there was a Skoda that was unlocked, and he got in. I followed, pleased to be sitting down. He started the engine.
‘What time is it?’ I asked.
‘Twelve.’
‘Where is Dagmara?’
‘England.’
‘Cardiff?’ I said.
‘We need to leave now.’
‘Where do we go?’ I asked, struggling to think straight.
‘England,’ he said simply. ‘Change clothes from bag in back.’ He jerked his head to the back seat.
I leant over and pulled the overnight bag that I’d left at Dagmara’s apartment onto my lap and found my clothes, a wash bag and passport with my wallet. I struggled to take off my dirty clothes before eventually pulling on a pair of trousers and a clean shirt.
The old Skoda had a good heater and soon the car was warm. I tried sleeping but no matter how I shaped my body in the seat I was uncomfortable. Once we’d reached the countryside the rain started and the wipers struggled to clear the windscreen.
‘How long will it take?’ I said.
‘Many hours.’
After a couple of hours we stopped at services. I found the toilet but there was no soap in the dispenser and no hot water in the tap. I splashed cold water on my face and pulled wet hands through my hair. The coffee was strong and coated my mouth like syrup. We chewed on stale bread and pastries. From a chiller we paid for bottles of water and continued the journey.
By the early hours we were near the border with Germany and Tomas slowed.
‘Sometimes police on border. Po
lish guards are pigs and German same.’
Once he was happy that the border was clear we drove on.
‘German police on autobahn stop us always,’ he said, and my fragile optimism waned.
Through his broken English I understood that the German motorway police liked to stop Polish cars and check their documents. Tomas had been stopped five times in as many hours on one journey. The autobahn was smooth, well lit and Porsches screamed past in the outside lane.
‘Why are you involved?’ I said eventually, my mind thinking about Dagmara.
‘Special Forces with Michal and Leon,’ he said. ‘I was their friend; they saved my life. I could not save Michal or Leon.’
He spoke slowly and I pieced together the history of the unit that they’d all been in. They’d seen action in the Central African Republic where their unit had been ambushed. It took an hour for Tomas to sketch out all the details. They’d been young soldiers together in the Military Police and their commanding officer had sent them on a routine mission, but things had gone wrong and soldiers from Ireland had been killed and others from Latvia badly injured. Occasionally, he stopped to take a breath or find the right word and sometimes he used the wrong word but I didn’t correct him. It had been a bloody attack in difficult circumstances and for hours he had known his life was at risk. It was Michal and Leon who had saved him after risking their lives driving through hostile territory to reach them.
Tomas scanned the forecourt when we stopped for fuel, finding the pump furthest from the store. He seemed unaffected by the long hours of driving. I slept for a couple of hours, but I could still hear the traffic and the low hum from the radio. When I woke we were near the Belgian border and dawn was breaking behind us. Tomas stopped at the next services and when I left the car, pain shot through my back. I hobbled to the toilet and returned to the smell of greasy pizzas that Tomas had bought. After the service station the traffic built up, trucks and vans filling the autobahns.
He said we’d made good time once we were halfway through Belgium and he talked about catching the ferry to England. Coaches with Polish plates passed us on their way back to Poland, crumpled sleeping faces pressed against the windows.
‘Coach much cheap,’ Tomas said.
Another couple of hours passed; the burning in my eyes began to feel normal. Empty water bottles and plastic coffee mugs littered the rear. It had been ten hours since we’d left Poland and I wondered if baseball-bat man had been missed. If he had then we were in trouble. And Dagmara was in more trouble. I didn’t think Lech would make the same mistake twice.
On the dockside in Calais, trucks and articulated units had parked in tight formation. We paid for the ticket and pulled up alongside a French lorry. The ferry was half-empty and while Tomas went in search of more coffee I stretched out on the floor. I was asleep within seconds. The next thing I was aware of was Tomas prodding me in the thigh. He had chosen the spot with an enormous bruise and I cried in pain.
‘Time to leave,’ he said.
Once we were clear of the port I told Tomas to pull up by a telephone kiosk. I dialled Boyd’s number.
‘Where are you?’ he said a troubled pitch to his voice.
‘Dover.’
‘How did you get out of Poland?’
‘Just listen, Boyd.’ I said, dictating detailed instructions for him and the others. He cut across me before I’d finished. ‘You’re in deep trouble,’ his tone serious now.
‘What’s happened?’
‘The Polish police are after you.’
‘What?’
‘They found a journalist dead. Tongue cut out and fingers amputated.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘They have an eyewitness who puts you at the scene. They want to interview you.’
Chapter 37
‘You smell awful.’
Boyd creased his face and inched the chair a little further away from me. I couldn’t smell anything of course. I’d been sitting in the same clothes for hours.
‘I need a shower.’
‘And some clean clothes,’ Boyd added.
It was early evening and the services on the outskirts of Cardiff were full of salesmen in sharp suits and girls on high heels in narrow skirts. Then I noticed some of the glances and whispered comments that must have been about me and Tomas, whose eyes seemed more sunken and his cheeks more hollowed out than before.
‘Forensics have confirmed that Gerek was in the factory,’ Boyd said.
I should have been pleased. ‘Good,’ I said. It meant we had enough on Lech to satisfy Cornock. ‘Have you found out who the other men in the photograph might be?’
Boyd shook his head. ‘We’ve had the images scanned into the computer and then the faces were picked out by this geek from forensics. At least we’ve got a rogues gallery. If we find the girls and they give evidence we might have a chance of getting the CPS to agree to prosecute them. The chances of them admitting to having sex with underage girls is remote.’
We had to find the girls first and even if we did, the gangs would reorganise and the trafficking would start again. The WPS would investigate, Amnesty would write another report. Things might get better. I had to hope so.
‘I need a full alert on Frankie Prince. Everything. Somebody must have seen him.’
‘So what happened in Poland?’ Boyd said.
‘Fucking mayhem. Dagmara and Markus acting like a pair of vigilantes.’
‘Markus is the journalist?’
I nodded. Boyd continued. ‘The Polish police want to talk to you about his death. There’s an eyewitness who puts you in the flat just before the body is discovered. What happened, boss?’
Tomas had been quiet until then. It was difficult to see if he was tired or not. ‘I need food,’ he said. Boyd went with him to buy some fast food and I used Boyd’s mobile to call Cornock.
‘I need to see you urgently.’ Cornock’s voice was wintry, a tone he kept for special occasions. But I wasn’t feeling particularly special.
‘I need to clean up and then I have to find Dagmara—’
‘I want you in here before you go running all over Cardiff.’
‘Her life could be in danger.’
‘And the Polish police want to talk to you about a murder.’
‘There’s a computer somewhere that was hidden by Michal. It’s important enough for Lech and Frankie to go about killing people, trying to find it or trying to prevent someone else from finding it.’
‘Do you know where this computer could be?’
‘Not at the moment, sir.’
I could hear the exasperation in Cornock’s voice. ‘Then you don’t know where to look. So into Queen Street. Now.’
He rang off before I could respond.
I hadn’t realised how hungry I was until Boyd returned with burgers and fries. I finished the meal without stopping, mumbling occasionally through a mouthful of food as Boyd interrogated me about Poland.
I didn’t notice the traffic as we drove to my flat in the Bay. Tomas parked next to a man who was leaving his Audi. He pulled up his nose as we met him again near the lift. I muttered something about having a bad day at the office, but all he did was give Tomas a stare. I showered, had a change of clothes and brushed my teeth so hard the gums bled. But I felt more human and ready for Frankie Prince and Lech Balinski. On my way to the station I dropped Tomas outside the Catholic church, having spoken with Father Podolak on my mobile, grateful that he didn’t ask for an explanation.
Sitting at the lights near Queen Street police station, I thought about going straight to find Dagmara and Anna and arresting them for obstruction or perverting the course of justice or anything that would mean I could take them off the streets. Boyd would understand but Cornock wouldn’t, so I drove the car towards Queen Street.
Cornock fixed me with a cold stare and muscles in his jaw twitched. I gave him a summary of what had happened in Poland, ignoring the night in Dagmara’s apartment.
He leant back in his
chair once I’d finished.
‘The Polish police want to interview you about the death of the journalist.’
‘He was dead when I got there.’
‘I appreciate that, John. But you were there and they’ve got eyewitnesses.’
‘I need to find Dagmara.’
‘This computer better be worth it. I should send you home and get Hobbs to take over the investigation.’
I stood up before he had time to make a final decision.
‘I need to find Dagmara. She trusts me,’ I said, hoping that would help.
‘I’m sticking my neck out here, John.’
I was out of the door before he’d finished.
* * *
A woman with dreadlocks and a long flowing skirt opened the flat in Whitchurch. The air inside was so thick with cannabis smoke I could have sliced it and sold it to help reduce the national debt.
‘It’s for personal consumption only,’ the girl said. The drug squad would have disagreed when we saw the five other people sitting on the floor in the small living area.
Boyd and I looked in every room and opened every cupboard. We found lots of scarves, but nothing to suggest Anna or Dagmara had been staying there.
‘Sorry,’ the woman said, her eyes barely functioning. ‘I haven’t seen her for days, maybe weeks.’
Time was obviously a difficult concept for this woman and, while arresting her and her friends might contribute to the statistics, it wasn’t going to help me find Dagmara.
An hour later I stood by the back door of Anna’s house. The pane had been replaced and there was fresh silicone around the new glass. I rattled the handle a couple of times.
‘Looks empty,’ Boyd said, taking a step back and looking up at the windows of the bedrooms.
I tried the mobile number I had for Anna again. And then I tried Dagmara’s. With every ring I knew I should have arrested them when I’d had the chance and none of this might have happened.
We sat in the car outside the house and I lit a cigarette.
We watched a group of teenagers staggering home, and then a couple of taxis passed. The small hours were approaching and I knew I had to sleep. I could remember the sensation of the lumpy old bed in Dagmara’s flat and the heavy sheet and the duvet. My eyes were burning now, but I was clean and my clothes didn’t smell.
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