by Anya Lipska
‘Oi, you!’
He whipped round. Saw a guy framed in a doorway set into the fence, his body tensed, his right hand poised as if to reach inside his long leather coat.
Kurwa mac!
‘Ah, hello there!’ Janusz hailed him like a long-lost friend, channelling the posh diction picked up from countless black and white war movies his mama made him watch as a child to learn English. ‘I was hoping I’d find somebody.’
‘How the fuck did you get in here?’ asked the guy, striding towards him, suspicion twisting his face. In his forties, he was lean, stacked around the shoulders, and his hard, flat London vowels matched the menace in his eyes. His greasy hair was cut longer at the back than the front – a style that Janusz recalled used to be known as a mullet.
Trying to keep his eyes away from the man’s hand, still hovering at waist level, Janusz managed a lazy wave towards the door in the fence. ‘It was open,’ he said, taking a punt.
The guy frowned, clearly wondering whether he’d left it unlocked by mistake.
‘I’m guessing I shouldn’t be here?’ Janusz went on, all jocular innocence. ‘My apologies. I heard there was an outdoor pool and I was hoping I might put in a few lengths.’ Tempted to mime a few demonstration strokes, he stopped himself – don’t overdo it, kolego. As the guy looked him up and down, Janusz felt a sudden rush of gratitude for the absurd towelling robe that surely only a hotel guest would wear.
‘It’s not open to guests yet.’
Janusz saw the man’s right hand relax down to his side – if he had a weapon, he’d evidently decided against using it. His expression had uncurled from outright menace into a disaffected scowl that appeared to be its default setting. He had a strangely concave face, sunken in the middle, as if a heavy weight had been left on it when he was a baby, his nose had suffered so many fractures it looked like a ziggurat, and he bore the dull purple scars of youthful acne on each cheek.
‘You shouldn’t be in here. It’s … it’s not safe.’ Beneath his London twang, hints of another accent kept surfacing that Janusz struggled to place.
Janusz clocked a see-through supermarket carrier bag hanging from the guy’s left hand, the handles bunched around a tidy-looking fist. ‘That’s a shame,’ he said, stepping closer and lowering his voice. ‘I don’t suppose you could just slip the covers off, let me have a quick dip?’
Incredulity bloomed in those stony eyes. ‘No chance. You need to leave.’
With a cordial shrug, Janusz made for the open door, hands in the pockets of his robe. Before stepping through the doorway, he half-turned. ‘Shall I leave it open?’
The guy was standing exactly where he’d left him, his stare still fixed on the trespasser. ‘No, shut it after you.’
‘Right you are.’
Janusz waited until he’d reached the other side of the screen of conifers before letting out a big breath. That was fucking close. He’d had the misfortune of being up close and personal with too many scumbags over the years not to know that the dish-faced fucker was bad news. It wasn’t just the threat of violence that shimmered off him like the heat haze off melting tarmac. There was something else. Something that Janusz had glimpsed through the clear plastic of the carrier bag that had set his mind racing.
Twenty-Three
Since Nathan King had finished eviscerating cadavers for the day and Kershaw wasn’t exactly rushed off her feet, the coffee they’d planned had sort of morphed into a drink in a nice old pub in Walthamstow Village.
When she confessed that her interest in the late Jared Bateman wasn’t, strictly speaking, officially sanctioned, his response wasn’t what Kershaw had expected.
‘So you’re actually meant to be on sickness leave?’ he asked. She dropped her gaze, gave a guilty shrug. ‘Because you arrested a chap who was being boorish to a barmaid?’
‘’Fraid so.’
‘And now you’re helping this Polish character find his missing girlfriend, who you think is a gangster’s moll.’
‘Yes.’
‘Good for you,’ he said, raising his glass to her. ‘I must say, it all makes my life seem desperately quotidian.’
Kershaw scanned Nathan’s face discreetly. Beneath the over-long hair that brushed his shirt collar, his complexion was fresh and wrinkle-free, but from the way he spoke, you’d think he’d qualify for a free bus pass. Her eyes fell on his hands: slim and long boned, the nails with perfect half-moons – more like the hands of an artist than a pathologist – and wondered what it would be like to go to bed with a man who spent much of his day up to his elbows inside dead people.
A troubled look crossed his face. ‘Of course, I shall have to report your interest in Mr Bateman to DS Bacon.’
Kershaw’s eyes widened.
The corner of Nathan’s mouth twitched upward. ‘I jest. Mum’s the word. As far as I can see, you’re simply trying to solve a crime.’
‘Yeah, while breaking every known rule on proper procedure,’ she said.
‘Proper procedure can go hang,’ said Nathan.
Kershaw grinned. ‘Can I push my luck then and ask something else?’
‘Be my guest.’
‘Have you done a PM on a guy called Bill Boyce? Died a couple of days back?’
‘I don’t think so, but I haven’t seen tomorrow’s list yet. Was he a Category 1?’
‘Just a bit. Someone gave him a going over with a blowtorch before he died.’
‘I think I’d remember that.’ He frowned. ‘Are you sure he’d come to us at Walthamstow?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘Because I was chatting to one of the chaps in Hackney, and he told me about a body he examined last week. I’m sure he said the guy had been burned with a blowtorch or welding gun.’
In a piece of unfortunate timing, a waitress was passing just as he said this. She turned to stare at him, a horrified expression on her face, before hurrying on. Nathan and Kershaw exchanged a rueful look.
‘I remember thinking it was pretty unusual at the time,’ he went on. ‘Cause of death was two bullets in the back of the neck, execution style.’
‘Really? Where was he killed?’
‘Victoria Park.’
‘Do you know the name?’
‘Nobody does. Apparently, he had no ID of any kind on him.’
Hackney was only a stone’s throw from Walthamstow, and Kershaw knew that detectives from the two murder squads talked to each other regularly. If the Vicky Park guy had been tortured in the same way as Bill Boyce then Streaky would be swift to join the dots – especially now that he was questioning the accidental nature of Jared Bateman’s death.
‘Have you got time for a spot of late lunch?’ asked Nathan, deliberately off-hand.
Unless Kershaw’s single girl radar was seriously on the blink after – what, eighteen months of celibacy? – she’d have to say that Nathan King sounded … interested.
She glanced at her watch. ‘Shit. Sorry, Nathan, but I’ve got to dash. I’m meant to be seeing the shrink in ten minutes.’
‘I thought you said you went yesterday?’
‘I did.’ She pulled a long-suffering face. ‘But I’m more or less under orders to go every day while I’m off work.’
‘Dinner then. If you fancy it sometime?’
That threw her for a loop. Kershaw hadn’t thought seriously about starting another relationship since splitting up with Ben. She’d had offers, sure, but she’d told herself she was too busy, first with the firearms training, then with her new job … and then there’d been the shooting of Kyle Furnell and all its fallout to contend with. As she met Nathan’s gaze, it dawned on her that there was another reason. The idea of getting physically intimate with a man – of someone touching, or even seeing, the knife scar beneath her ribs – that was something she wasn’t sure she was ready for.
Twenty-Four
Janusz covered his glass as Oskar went to refill it with beer. ‘I’m taking it easy, remember?’
‘Tak.’ Oska
r waggled his eyebrows. ‘I nearly forgot, kolego, you’re on “A Mission” tonight.’
Janusz sent him a warning look.
‘Kurwa, Janusz!’ Oskar opened his arms. ‘It’s not like there’s anyone listening.’
It was a fair point. Although it wasn’t even 9 p.m., the brasserie stood empty, the last two diners, a young couple, having left a few minutes earlier. Now the only sound was the tinny sound of Britpop through overhead speakers and the distant hum and sloosh of a dishwasher.
The waitress – a Bulgarian girl called Maria – came to clear their plates. ‘Everything is all right?’ she asked, seeing that Janusz had left his steak and fries half eaten.
‘Yes, thank you. I just wasn’t that hungry.’
After she’d left, Oskar bent towards him. ‘Do you really think that you might find Kasia over there, in … that pool place?’ he asked in an intent whisper.
Janusz shifted in his chair. The idea that Kasia was being held prisoner in a swimming pool changing room did seem pretty outlandish now, sitting here listening to the strains of ‘Wonderwall’. He shrugged. ‘All I know is, the skurwiel who threw me out had villain written all over him.’
He didn’t tell Oskar what he’d seen through the thin plastic of the carrier bag in the guy’s fist. A sandwich, a bottle of water – and a roll of duct tape. Of course, there might be an entirely innocent explanation, but the idea that he might walk away without checking the place out? – that was out of the question.
‘You stay in the room with the TV on, okay?’ he told his mate. ‘Then it’ll look as though we both turned in for the night.’
‘Why can’t I come with you, Janek?’ Oskar wheedled. ‘I could be your lookout guy. What if the bad guy turns up again?’
Janusz eyed his mate, trying not to smile at the contrast between his serious expression and the bright blue jacket. ‘Nie, Oskar,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘Last time you got involved in my shit you nearly got yourself killed. I’m not risking that happening again.’
It was gone 11 p.m. by the time Janusz slipped out of the side entrance of the annexe where they were staying. He’d left Oskar working his way through the minibar, watching back episodes of Battlestar Galactica, thankful that his mate had given up on his campaign to play wingman with only minimal grumbling.
He struck out into the chill moonless night, hoping that his dark windcheater jacket and black jeans would make him near invisible once he’d left the pool of light spilling from the handful of occupied rooms. In the sturdy inside pocket of his jacket he carried some basic tools that had proved useful over the years: a glasscutter with a suction pad, and a monkey wrench. The first two were intended to get him inside the changing block, the last was an insurance policy in case he should bump into Dish-face.
As the screen of conifers loomed up ahead, an unmoving wall of black against the deepest blue of the sky, something else occurred to him – might the skurwiel have checked the boundary fence and fixed the weak spot? If so, he didn’t rate his chances of climbing over those high wooden walls. By the time he’d reached the right corner of the fence, apprehension was making his heart thump, but when he played his hands down the join, his fingers found the gap, still there. He grinned. A good start.
The white walls of the changing block gleamed through the darkness, but that didn’t stop him stubbing his toe on the wheelbarrow he’d seen earlier. Cursing, he paused for a moment, ears cocked. Hearing nothing, he fumbled for the wheelbarrow’s handles and steered it carefully over the paving slabs to a spot just below the high window he’d seen earlier. Upending it, he climbed onto its upturned base, which allowed him to reach the glass. The window was top hinged, so he clamped on the suction pad and with the diamond head of the cutter started to score a half-moon where the glass met the bottom of the frame. A single tap and the crescent of glass came free with a discreet ‘pok’. Pushing aside the flimsy cardboard inside, he groped around and flicked open the catch, sending thanks to the Virgin that it wasn’t a security lock.
The process of getting himself up onto the ledge wasn’t the most elegant gymnastic manoeuvre, but by using the struts of the wheelbarrow to boost himself up, he made it with nothing worse than a few scrapes to his ribs and shins.
Lowering himself down into the profound darkness, his questing foot touched something solid. Pulling out his phone, he flicked it into torch mode – and found that he was standing on a sink, facing two dank-smelling shower cubicles, everything monochrome in the bluish light of the torch. The only sound was the tink … tink of a dripping tap. His beam illuminated a balled towel on the floor. He crouched to touch it. Still damp. Feeling his heart start to pummel his chest wall, he pushed open the shower room door – and felt his breath slow and solidify in his lungs.
Not three metres away, bullseyed in the blue circle of light, lay a sleeping figure swathed in bedclothes.
‘Kasia,’ the word came out of him, harsh as an old man’s dying croak, or the cry of a raven. Falling to his knees, he reached for her. His fists closed on … fabric. A bunched-up sleeping bag. Empty. A pillow. Nothing else. His vision darkened as a curtain of black despair engulfed him. He fell back on his haunches, breathing hard. His heart was booming so hard he felt it might burst through his chest like a piston thrown by a defective engine. Don’t die here, you stupid old fucker, said a voice in his head.
Janusz took a giant breath, held it … and after a long moment, managed to master himself. Unzipping the sleeping bag, he pressed its lining to his nostrils. Was it his imagination, or could he discern, beneath the characterless smell of human sweat, the faintest trace of Kasia’s scent?
The sleeping bag lay on a cheap blue mattress. It was badly stained, which gave him a nasty moment, but on closer examination the blotches appeared neither recent nor sinister. He could find no clue around the makeshift bed to its recent occupant, and a search of the lockers that lined the wall behind yielded nothing. Pausing to straighten and stretch out a threatened cramp in his side, Janusz cocked his head. He had heard something from the direction of the shower room. He waited. There it was again. The faint but clear sound of snuffling.
Killing the torchbeam, he got to his feet and padded softly in the direction of the sound. Listening at the half-open window he’d used to break in only confirmed his fears. It was the sort of noise a dog would make, investigating an alien scent. A big dog.
Kurwa mac! Where the fuck had it come from? Janusz got along fine with most of the mutts he came across, but the flutter in his gut told him that the thing snuffling around beneath the window wouldn’t be greeting him with a big doggy grin and a wagging tail. The thing was likely to start up barking at any moment, and the idea of being cornered in this straszne place by a vicious guard dog – and perhaps its master, too – didn’t appeal.
Tiptoeing back through the changing room, Janusz located the double doors to the outside and gave them a hefty push. The big chain and padlock securing the handles on the other side gave a deep, satisfying rattle. Pressing his ear to the door, he waited. Ten or twenty seconds passed. He was about to try again when he heard the faint scratch-scratch of claws crossing paving and then the sound of sniffing at the crack between the doors. Bending down, Janusz pressed his open palm against the spot where he reckoned the thing’s snout would be. Sure enough, the snuffling intensified, accompanied now by an alarmingly deep-throated growl. Having piqued its interest, Janusz took hold of the door handles and shook them as hard as he could, rattling the chain so violently it would put Marley’s ghost to shame.
That triggered a paroxysm of baying and snarling, quickly followed by a series of door-shaking thuds, which Janusz realised was the beast flinging itself at the obstacle standing between it and its quarry. Backing away, Janusz headed for the shower room, and clambered up onto the sink, grateful for his adrenaline-charged agility. He manoeuvred himself carefully onto the window ledge – and paused. From the front of the block he could still hear the mutt’s hysterical snarling and intermittent th
umps as it continued trying to demolish the locked door. Dogged, he thought, suddenly understanding the English word.
Knowing that he’d only have seconds once the beast cottoned on, Janusz decided against jumping down, gambling that silence would buy him more time. Turning face-on to the ledge and gripping the bottom of the window frame, he began to lower himself, his feet blindly seeking any toehold in the wall’s surface. As his shoulders and arms took the weight, he felt his muscles starting to scream. He pictured the individual fibres snapping, like overstretched piano wires. Jaw clenched in a rictus of pain, he was close to letting go when his right boot touched something. The life-saving strut of the upturned wheelbarrow.
No sooner had Janusz reached the ground, than he realised that the barking had stopped. A split-second later, a black ball of muscle on legs came tearing around the corner. It was the biggest pit bull he’d ever seen, shoulders as broad as it was tall, and he was confused to see the bottom half of its face glowing white through the gloom, till he realised its jaws were lathered with foamed spittle. Hearing himself mutter something, Janusz realised he was reciting the ‘Hail Mary’.
The only upside was that taking the corner so fast caused the dog to veer off-course, and as it tried to correct its trajectory, claws scrabbling on the paving, Janusz took his chance. Grabbing the handles of the wheelbarrow, he yanked it up in front of him like a shield, just as the thing launched itself at his face. There was a dull clang as its skull rang against the steel edge and it bounced off to one side. It rolled onto the grass but within seconds was back on its feet, shaking that great head.
The beast stalked him, dodging left and right in his hunt for an opening, while Janusz pivoted his wheelbarrow-shield this way and that, ducking to protect his throat and face and trying to keep his arms safely tucked in. The dog leapt again, and he danced backwards, the meaty snap of its jaws so close to his hand that he could feel the hot damp breath on his knuckles. Janusz cast around for something to use as a weapon, his breathing ragged from the exertion. There was nothing. It came to him with absolute clarity that the loser of the standoff would be the one who tired first – and eyeing the dog’s pitiless stare he had a pretty good idea who that would be.
