Talking to the Dead: A Novel

by Harry Bingham

  Butetown.

  The morning started out fine, but the clouds have scuttled in from Cardiff Bay and now lie damply gathered over the warm streets, as though anxious to cut off an escape. The city feels like what it is. A smear of brick and concrete slotted into the narrow gap between earth and sky, more beautiful than neither. This is the layer where the violence starts. We’re only three hundred yards from 86 Allison Street, and the ghosts of that place are pressing close.

  Jane Alexander is her normal brisk, bright, efficient self. Me, I’m nothing of the sort, still disturbed by yesterday. My neck feels jolted, as though something was knocked out of line by Penry’s blow and hasn’t yet slipped into place again. But it’s not so much a physical thing. More a mental one. As though some of my equanimity, my confidence, was dislodged. I keep remembering, not the actual blow as such, more the state of myself in the instant following. A rag doll utterly useless on the bottom step.

  Not a good state to be in.

  Not a good state to be in when our third interview of the day—the first two having been bland and unhelpful—starts with a dark doorway swinging open and a pale face looming toward us from the darkness beyond. A pale, frightened face.

  Ioana Balcescu. A prostitute.

  No known link to Janet Mancini or to Stacey Edwards. No known link to organized crime. We’ve got only her data from the records kept as a routine matter by the Vice Unit. She’s dressed in leggings and a loose cotton top. Long dark hair, not styled or even, from the look of it, combed. A thin face, not unattractive. But it’s not the shape of Balcescu’s nose that catches the attention, or whether her lips are full enough. What catches the attention is the dark purpling bruises around her eyes. The gashed lip and swollen jaw. The way one arm holds the other, providing a sling. The caution in every painful step.

  I find myself staring at her in shock, as though into a mirror. I feel exposed. I half-expect Jane to swing around, look me up and down, and say, “I knew it wasn’t the dentist.”

  She does no such thing and the moment passes. Balcescu doesn’t want to talk to us, but we’re here on her doorstep and she can’t summon the strength to tell us to get lost. We go through to her front room, which is halfway between somebody’s grotty living room and a tart’s boudoir. There’s a red light and a large unframed poster of a topless girl with her lips open and her eyes half closed, pulling down on her bikini bottom as though it’s chafing her. There are a few other pictures, not as big but more explicit. Also dirty wineglasses, a TV listings magazine, a gas bill, a portable telly.

  Jane Alexander sits on the edge of the couch, as though to sit back on it will transform her into a drug-addled prostitute. She’s dressed the way she’s always dressed. Far too classy for her present surroundings. And though she’s too professional to show it to Balcescu, I can tell right away that she’s not comfortable. She feels out of her depth. When she explains why we’re here, her voice is excessively formal. Tight and unrelaxed.

  I step in.

  “Would you mind, Ioana? We’ve been on the go all afternoon, and if you had a cup of tea, it would be just brilliant.” I’ve noticed before when working with these Balkan women that they’re all scared of the police. They don’t expect us to protect them. They assume we’re here to jail them or beat them up or extort money. Those feelings can be helpful or harmful in an interview situation, depending on how you play them. My instinct is that we need to go softly, softly. “Here, if you show me where the tea things are, we can make it together.”

  Ioana takes me to the kitchen. Jane remains where she is. If it were me, I’d be poking round the room. Since it’s Jane, she won’t be.

  Ioana stops at the kitchen door. I go on in, fill the kettle—an old-fashioned metal one—and pop it on. I find three cups, clean them, find tea bags and make tea. No herbal, but this is about relaxing Ioana, not about drinking tea.

  I put my hand up to her eye and touch it very gently. “Poor you. That looks horrible.”

  She jerks her head away, but I gently persist. I move my hand to her side, which flinches from the touch.

  “They gave you a really good going-over, didn’t they?”

  No response.

  I lift her top very gently. There are bruises all down her side, front, and back. “My God. You poor love.” She’s got prominent ribs and small breasts, like those of a girl. I wonder if she has an eating disorder. When I touch one of her ribs where the bruising is at its worst, she winces. A possible fracture.

  I put her top down. There is nothing premeditated in my look of sympathy. It’s as real as the walls and air. “Have you been to a hospital?”

  Stupid question that, because the answer is inevitably a no.

  “How do you take your tea, Ioana? How many sugars?”

  “One sugar, please.”

  “Do you know what? I’ll give you two today. You’ve had a big shock, and a big cup of sweet tea will do wonders. It was yesterday they hurt you, was it? Those bruises look horrible.”

  Ioana doesn’t answer directly but tilts her head in a way that makes me think yesterday was correct. The teas are made, and Ioana tries to pick up one of the cups.

  “Here, no, don’t take that, you just look after yourself. I’ll follow you through.”

  She moves back into the front room. I follow with the cups.

  “Now, Ioana, where would you be most comfortable? The big sofa maybe? Jane—this is Jane, by the way, you don’t need to call her D.S. Alexander, and you can just call me Fiona, or just plain Fi if you prefer—Jane, I wonder if you could make space.” Jane gets up, looking awkward, but also relieved that someone else is running things for the moment. “Ioana, why don’t you sit here? Or lie, if that’s more comfortable. Where does it hurt most? I can fetch you a pillow from upstairs if you’d like. I’ll put the tea just there so you can reach it easily. There, that’s better.”

  After a bit, Jane gets the idea as well, and turns from a vaguely scary blond detective into something a bit more maternal and mumsy. She does mumsy better than me, in fact, when she gets in the groove. I lift Ioana’s top again so Jane can see her injuries. Jane looks on in silence, and her face is grim.

  “Now, Ioana,” I say, exchanging glances with Jane and getting her permission to continue, “we’re going to ask you a few questions. You don’t have to tell us anything at all. You’re not under suspicion. We’re not from Immigration, so we’re not about to ask to see your visa or your passport or anything like that. Do you understand all that?”

  She nods.

  “Now, if you’d like us to call you ma’am or Miss Balcescu, then we’ll do that, but if you don’t mind, I’d prefer to call you Ioana. Such a lovely name. It’s the same as Joanna, is it?”

  Another micronod.

  “Now then, we’re here because we understand that you may have known Janet Mancini. Is that right?”

  A leading question. Bad police practice, but Jane allows me to get away with it.

  Ioana nods.

  “Horrible what happened to her. I don’t know if you knew Stacey Edwards too, did you?”

  No nod at all this time. A stiffening. Fear.

  “Well, you know what, let’s not go into that now. I mean after what happened last night, there’s only so much you want to be reminded of. You’re probably scared that if you say too much to us, they’ll come back again. Is that what you’re scared of?”

  “Yes.” A firm nod. Still the fear, but at least there’s something else in the room now.

  I exchange glances with Jane. She’s meant to be leading this interview. She led the last two while I took notes. That’s the way D.C.I. Jackson said to do it. As I recall, his precise words were You fuck up, Fiona, you fuck up at all, and you’re never working on a delicate assignment for me again. But there’s more than one way to fuck up, and though I’m not absolutely sure what Jane’s glance meant, it didn’t mean “shut up right now,” so I’m going to continue.

  “Okay, Ioana, we don’t want to get you in
to trouble, so we’re going to make it really easy for you. And I want you to know that we came here in an unmarked car. Do you know what that means? Not a police car with flashing lights and everything, just a perfectly ordinary car. And we look like two perfectly ordinary people. No one knows that we’re police officers, and we’re not going to tell anyone either. Do you understand that?

  “Good. And I think you’re going to need some help. I think you need to see a doctor.” Ioana instantly starts to protest, and I raise my hand to stop her. “I know you won’t go to hospital. That’s okay. But if we send someone to the house, that’ll be all right. We’ll do it the same way. An unmarked car. Not a police car. And a doctor just in ordinary clothes. Looking like anyone else. All right?

  “And then I know you know Bryony Williams. You know who I mean? The StreetSafe lady. Short curly hair.” Ioana nods. The name relaxes her a little. “I saw her this lunchtime. She said to me that she has a program you can go on to help you deal with the drugs. We know you take heroin—smack—and that’s okay. You’re not going to get into trouble with us. We just want to help, don’t we, Jane?” Jane is quick to nod, and again we exchange glances. This time I’m pretty sure that she is telling me to go on, so I do.

  “And, Ioana love, what we’d really like to do is take you away from all this. I know that’s scary, but it’s what we want and what Bryony wants. You don’t have to say yes now, but just don’t say no. We’ll take things one tiny step at a time. Do you understand what I mean? One tiny step at a time.”

  “Yes.”

  Ioana’s yes is half-saying that she understands, half-saying that she’s signing up for the deal. If I were a window salesman, I’d know this was the moment of maximum reward, maximum vulnerability. I shift over to the sofa where Ioana is lying, and put my hand on her arm. Leave it there. Human contact, without threat, without money, without drugs, without demand. When was the last time Ioana felt that?

  We fall silent. I trust Jane to keep her mouth shut. There’s something precious in this silence.

  Finally, “Ioana, you know we need to ask you some questions. I’m sorry but we do. I don’t want you to say anything at all out loud. Just nod, or shake your head. If you don’t know, raise your eyebrows. Yes, just like that. It’ll take only a few minutes. We won’t write anything down. We just want to know. Then we’ll go. The next person you’ll see will be the doctor. Then maybe Bryony. Are you all right with that? Do you understand what I’ve said?”

  Nod.

  “Good. Then let’s start.” Jane shifts in her seat. If I’m interviewing, she’s supposed to be note-taking, and I’ve just ruled that out. I’m outside procedure here, not in a bad way, but in a way that makes Jane uncomfortable. She’s rolling with it, though. Good for her. Her notebook is on her lap, but it’s lying idle for now.

  Time for my first question.

  “Did you know Janet Mancini?”

  Nod.

  “And little April perhaps?”

  Nod. Sideways nod, with a hint of no.

  “All right. You didn’t particularly know April, but you knew her by sight. Were you there on the night of her murder?”

  Shake.

  “No, didn’t think you were, but it’s one of those things we have to ask. My boss would go nuts if I didn’t ask it.”

  Smile.

  My hand is still on her arm. I’m not going to move it if she doesn’t.

  “Now I’m going to ask you if you know various other people. Some of them you will have heard of. Others you won’t. Others maybe or maybe not. We’ll see. Okay?”

  I get started.

  I begin with names that I’ve got partly from Bryony Williams and partly from police records. East European girls with an involvement in prostitution. I’m betting that Ioana knows a good half of them, and she does. More than. More than half. She’s getting comfortable with the nod-shake thing, which is my main reason for asking.

  “Okay. We’re doing brilliantly. Now some other names. You won’t know so many of these. Conway Lloyd.”

  Puzzlement. Shake.

  “Rhys Vaughan.”

  Shake.

  “Brian Penry.”

  Shake.

  “Tony Leonard.”

  Shake, but not a very confident one.

  “He sells drugs. About Jane’s height maybe. Dark hair. Receding hairline. You know, bald.”

  I mime bald, to help with Ioana’s comprehension. She smiles—crookedly, because the right side of her face isn’t doing anything much but causing her pain, but a smile’s still a smile. It’s accompanied by a mini-nod, indicating “sort of.”

  “He’s not the one we need to worry about, though, is he?”

  Shake. A very definite one. Tony Leonard owes Ioana Balcescu a box of chocolates, I’d say.

  “How about Karol Sikorsky?”

  Fear. No nod. No shake.

  “Was it him that did all this?” I indicate her damaged body.

  A very slow shake.

  “Okay. It was one of his friends. Part of his group anyway. That’s right, isn’t it? Just shake your head if I’m wrong.”

  No nod.

  No shake.

  But her eyes are telling me yes. One of Sikorsky’s accomplices. Again, I exchange glances with Jane. She’s reading it the same way.

  I say, really carefully, “Ioana, we think that Karol Sikorsky may be a very bad man. We want to catch him and lock him up. But we need you to help us. I think Karol Sikorsky is part of a group of men who brings girls like you over from Romania and countries around there to Cardiff and South Wales. They probably tell you how lovely your life is going to be here, then you find it isn’t, but you can’t get away. Am I right so far?”

  A nod. A good-quality, courtroom-ready nod.

  “Good. Thank you. Now I think that same group of men gets violent. Those men need to be in prison, and we want to put them there. So will you do this for me? If you know that Sikorsky is responsible for killing Stacey Edwards, then please say yes. I don’t mean that he necessarily killed her himself, but that he had something to do with it. That he was closely involved. If those things are true, please say Yes.”

  No nod.

  No shake.

  A frozen silence, bigger than the sky, emptier than the ocean.

  I let the silence expand for as long as I can keep it going, before nudging one last time. Now or never.

  “If you help us, we can catch him. We can stop him hurting you. We can stop him hurting anyone. Ioana, was Karol Sikorsky responsible for the murder of Stacey Edwards?”

  “Yes.”

  “And for the murders of Janet and April Mancini?”

  “Yes.”

  “And for injuring you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe because you knew about him and what he did? Maybe they beat you this badly as a way to warn you to keep silent?”

  “Yes.”

  It’s hardly even correct to describe her answers as words. She moved her lips. Her eyes said yes. I didn’t even know at the time—and I don’t think Jane did either—whether any actual sound crept out into the room. It didn’t matter. A silent yes works as well as a loud one. I notice that Jane has made notes of my last four questions and Ioana’s answers. She wants evidence that can be produced in court. Notes made “contemporaneously” with the interview. The kind of evidence from which a prosecution is formed. But I’m also conscious of my promise to Ioana.

  “My colleague Jane here has just made notes. Not of the whole interview, just this very last bit. We need that, because we want to arrest Sikorsky and put him in prison. For the rest of his life, I hope. Certainly until he’s a very old man. But I promised you we wouldn’t take notes. If you want us to tear up the notes Jane just made, we will. You just need to ask us to. You need to say it out loud.”

  A second goes by. Two seconds. Five seconds.

  Good enough for me. Good enough for Jane. On our side of things, the police side, the side that is always thinking about how somet
hing will play in court, there’s a huge sense of relief, but I know that Ioana is feeling the exact opposite. She’s scared that she’s just signed her own death warrant, and maybe she has. In the country she was born in, the police are not to be trusted. The same is true here. Ioana doesn’t have to worry that we’re in the pay of the mob. She doesn’t have to worry about corruption and criminality and violence. But she has to rely on our discretion, and a clumsy public statement or a snippet of gossip overheard in a pub could be enough to bring the retribution she fears. If we were seen entering her house, that too might be enough to kill her.

  For a few seconds, I have the feeling that, by answering as she has done, Ioana was choosing to end her own life. To end it bravely, selflessly—but still to end it, to quit the endless battle.

  Feeling uncomfortable, I wind up, as Jane is silently urging.

  “Good. Thank you. Now I’ll ask one last big question before we finish. Can you give me any other names? Friends of Sikorsky? The ones he gets to do his dirty work? Maybe the men who came here yesterday? If you can give me any names at all, then we can arrest them. We’ll arrest them, then send them to jail for a very long time. That’s what we want to do. We want to protect you and people like you. Do you understand?”

  A nod, but a frightened one. She doesn’t want to tell us. She’s not going to tell us anyway. Ioana’s cooperation is pretty much at an end, I’d say. From her face, I can see that Jane thinks the same.

  “Can you excuse us a moment, Ioana? I just need to chat with my colleague a moment. You stay lying there. Just say if you want anything.”

  Jane and I go out into the hall, where we talk in a rapid-fire hum. I tell Jane about the extent of Ioana’s injuries, which Jane had guessed at but not personally witnessed. Jane is worried about whether the evidence we’ve just collected will survive in a courtroom. It’s marginal, that’s for sure. Any defense lawyer would rip into it, accusing us of applying unfair pressure to the witness, breaching procedure in not noting down every interaction that took place. That’s fair enough. If I were a defense lawyer, I’d do the same.