“How did you know how to get there?” Lyons asked.
“I have Google Maps on my phone,” Piotr replied.
“Go on then, you drove out to Clifden,” Hays prompted.
“No, we drove out in that direction, but we started arguing. I started to ask her about what she was doing – you know, the page on the internet. I told her if our parents found out it would kill them, and anyway it was disgusting – she was a perfectly respectable girl in Poland with good prospects. She didn’t need to do that.” He was getting animated now as he remembered the row with his sister. His cheeks were beginning to colour, and a fire had come into his steely blue eyes.
“Go on,” prompted Lyons.
“We got to a place, a town, with a narrow bridge and sharp bends across a river. The town name began with ‘O’, but I couldn’t pronounce the name, and we were shouting at each other. It was horrible, so I turned the car around and drove back to the city in silence and left her at the door of her apartment,” Palowski said.
“What time was this?” Hays asked.
“I’m not sure. Probably around six, I would guess, maybe six-thirty.”
“What did you do then?” Hays asked.
“I went back to my hotel. I was very upset. Things had not gone the way I had hoped. I thought she would see reason, see what harm she could be doing to our family, but I had failed to persuade her. I had some food in my room, and then decided to change my flight and go back to Krakow. I logged on and changed my flight to Wednesday,” he said.
Hays looked at Lyons and decided to end the interview for the time being. They would be able to check out parts of his story to see if he was telling the truth.
Outside the room Hays asked Lyons what he thought of Palowski’s story.
“I think it’s bullshit, but right now we can’t prove it. How could she have got from Oughterard to Ballyconneely unless he drove her?” Lyons said.
They asked Kowalski how long he could keep the man in custody.
“As long as you like, but sometimes it’s better to let them go, but watch them. He will think he has got away with it, and maybe slip up.”
“I agree,” said Lyons, “anyway it will take us some time to check with the hotel and see if he’s telling the truth.”
“I’ll release him then but don’t worry, we have his passport, and he will be watched carefully until you need him again,” the Polish officer declared. They had no doubt that he would!
“Thanks. Can we get an office with an international phone for the afternoon please?” Hays asked.
“Sure. You can use my office. I have to go to one of the other stations for a meeting. Will you be here tomorrow?”
“Yes, though that will be our last day. The Irish taxpayer won’t fund us for longer than a couple of days.”
* * *
Hays and Lyons settled into Kowalski’s office with a sandwich apiece, and two large cardboard cups of strong coffee.
Lyons got on the phone to Galway and spoke to Eamon Flynn. After a few jokes about foreign holidays, they got down to business.
Lyons asked him to check with Jury’s to see if Palowski had ordered food in his room last Tuesday evening. She asked him to check if it was a single meal, and more importantly, what time it was served. She then asked him to get onto the car hire company and find out exactly how many kilometres Palowski had clocked up during the hire period. She also asked Flynn to confirm the round-trip distance between Jury’s Inn in Galway and both Ballyconneely and Oughterard. Finally, she asked him to get back on to Ryanair to confirm the time that Palowski had changed his flight. Flynn said he would get John O’Connor to help him, and then asked to speak to Mick Hays.
Flynn told Hays that Lisa Palowski’s phone company had been back in touch. They had managed to identify another number that had called Lisa in the days before her death from her phone. It was made from a pay-as-you-go customer, but he had topped up using a credit card, and they had been able to trace him through that.
Hays told Flynn to track the man down and get him in for questioning.
Flynn reported that there was no word back yet on the detailed forensics from Lisa’s apartment. Flynn said the lab was having a hell of a time separating out all the DNA from her bed sheets and waste paper bin. Lisa had been a busy girl.
Hays reminded Flynn to get Jim Dolan to call on the Lake Guest House, and check up on Ciara O’Sullivan’s story about the curtains, and more particularly, to see if there was a passenger in the car when she called.
By five o’clock Krakow time Flynn was back onto Hays. Hays put his mobile on speaker, so Lyons could join in the conversation as well.
“Well first, Palowski did have a meal in his room in Galway on Tuesday. He had a burger and a bottle of Heineken, and it was delivered at ten minutes past ten according to the night kitchen staff that run room service up to midnight when the main kitchens are closed. Then there’s the hired car. If Palowski had driven to Oughterard and turned back, then adding the return trip to Dublin Airport, and a few kilometres for running around, there would be around six hundred kilometres covered in all. But Hertz confirmed that the car had actually done seven hundred and twenty kilometres, so there’s an extra one hundred and twenty to account for. And yes, you guessed it, that’s just about the exact round trip distance that would have got him out to Ballyconneely via Roundstone and back,” Flynn reported.
“That’s great work Eamon, well done. Is there anything on Lisa’s other mysterious caller yet?”
“Seems that he’s a travelling salesman for a paint company in Dublin, out on the Ballymount estate. He has several speeding tickets picked up on the N6. Looks like he comes to Galway once a fortnight on Tuesdays and stays overnight. The Dublin boys are getting him in for a chat. When will you two holidaymakers be back, boss?” Flynn asked.
“Very funny. We’ll leave tomorrow afternoon, but I want another hour or two with the brother before we go anywhere. He’s been telling us porkies,” Hays said.
“Oh, and there’s one other thing, boss. The hotel says that Palowski’s hire car re-entered their car park at 9:12 p.m. on Tuesday. They issue tickets at a barrier that residents get stamped at the hotel reception. It seems they don’t own the car park, or it’s operated by someone else at least. Their system keeps a record and has CCTV at the entrance, so they are quite positive about the time.”
“Ah that’s really good work, Eamon. We’ll make a real detective out of you yet! Thanks again.”
When the call was over, the two detectives used the blackboard in Kowalski’s office to build a timeline of Piotr Palowski’s movements on the Tuesday.
“Two things are clear,” Lyons said. “He obviously drove out well past Oughterard with the girl in the car, according to the mileage and the time that he got back to his hotel.”
“And the other?” Hays asked.
“He’s lying through his teeth!”
* * *
Kowalski hadn’t returned when the two detectives left the police station and walked back through the narrow wind-swept streets to their hotel. It hadn’t warmed up any, so when they got in they went straight to the bar and had a large brandy apiece to warm them through.
On the way to the rooms Maureen said that she needed a shower before going out to eat. She got to her door, opened it with the plastic key card and turned to Hays saying, “I need some company,” and held the door open for him.
Chapter Eleven
Tuesday, 9:00 a.m.
The weather had warmed up a bit overnight, but the cold had given way to a steady and persistent downpour. They borrowed large colourful umbrellas from the hotel, so by the time they got to the police station, only their feet and the last few inches of their trouser legs were soaking wet.
They met Kowalski going into the building. He apologised for the weather, but Lyons assured him that it rained just the same in Galway, and they were both well used to it.
They brought the Polish inspector up to date with the informati
on that they had received from Galway the previous afternoon.
“He’s not telling us the truth, Inspector, so we need to get him in again and give him a grilling,” Lyons said.
“Hmm, OK. You are right, and if I can suggest, maybe one of our less polite interrogators might be helpful to you?” Kowalski said.
They agreed, not quite knowing how impolite Polish ‘interrogators’ might be, but they both felt that as there was not much time left, they could do with some help with the man.
* * *
Piotr Palowski was disgruntled at being dragged away from his work two days in a row. In the small stuffy interrogation room, the two Irish detectives were joined by Inspector Kurt Nowak. Nowak was burly, at about six foot two, and weighed in at something over two hundred and forty pounds. He looked quite menacing with his head completely shaved and two days of stubble on his face. A dark tattoo all up along his left forearm completed the picture. He was dressed in black jeans, and a black collarless T-shirt with the word ‘Policja’ in white letters front and back. His hands were like small hams, and on two of his thick fingers he wore heavy gold rings that almost looked like knuckle dusters.
They had all agreed to let Nowak lead the questioning, although it was made clear that Hays and Lyons were free to join in at any time. They had also agreed to conduct the interview in English throughout. Lyons had her trusty notebook out to record any interesting points that cropped up. Polish police didn’t believe in taped interviews.
“Now Piotr, you know why you are here today, I’m sure,” Nowak started in a very soft voice.
“No, I don’t. I told these two everything yesterday. This is a waste of time,” he grumbled.
Nowak said nothing and waited for a full thirty seconds, then suddenly without warning slapped his palm down hard on the table and shouted into Palowski’s face, “You little shit. You told them a pack of lies. You expect us to believe your crap? Now listen carefully,” softening his voice again, “in about ten minutes I’m going to charge you with the murder of your sister Lisa, and then my friend, you and I are going down to the cells for a little one-on-one.” Nowak smiled at the thought of it, and cracked his knuckles loudly. Then, putting his face about twenty centimetres from the lad, he roared, “Tell the fucking truth.”
“OK, OK. Jesus, take it easy,” Palowski said. You could see that Nowak’s threat had got to him. Lyons wasn’t totally comfortable with the process but thought to herself, “when in Rome …”
Palowski went on, “What I told you yesterday was mostly the truth. I did collect Lisa from her apartment at around four o’clock, and we did drive out towards the west. We also had a row. But we drove out well beyond the town with the ‘O’ name. It was getting dark, and the weather was closing in. We were shouting at each other – it was horrible. At one point her mobile phone rang, and when she went to answer it, I lost my temper and grabbed it from her and threw it out of the window into the hedge. She was furious. She demanded that I stop the car and go and look for the phone, but I wouldn’t stop. We were out in the wilderness then. The rain was lashing down, and it was windy too. She wouldn’t stop shouting at me calling me ‘kutas’ (prick) and ‘dran’ (bastard) and shouting ‘kurwa, kurwa’. I never heard her talk like that,” he reflected.
“After I threw her phone out, she got worse. She went mad. Then we were passing a narrow point on the road, I think it might have been a little bridge. She grabbed the steering wheel, and the car slewed to the left and hit the wall.
“I backed up the car a bit. It wasn’t badly damaged, just a little bashed, and a few stones had come loose from the wall. She got a fright though. She got out to look at the damage. I was feeling so shit about her and everything that I locked the doors, turned the car around and drove away,” said Piotr starting to sob quietly.
“She was banging on the driver’s window, shouting at me ‘let me in, let me in’ but I didn’t, I just drove back the way we had come, I was so angry,” he sobbed.
“But she was alive when I left her, I swear,” he went on.
Lyons cut in, “So let’s get this straight. You put your sister out of the car on a filthy October night in the lashing rain in the middle of nowhere, and just drove away?”
“Yes, I was so mad with her. I know I shouldn’t have, but I thought it would teach her a lesson,” he broke down again. “The last time I saw my beautiful sister she was banging on the car window. My God, it’s awful, but I didn’t kill her,” he said, burying his face in his hands.
“OK, we need you to write all this down and sign a statement. Then we will see where we go from here, but if you’re still lying I can tell you it will go very badly for you, you have my personal word on that!” Nowak said.
Back in Kowalski’s office, they started to bring the inspector up to date.
“No need. I heard it all. The room has a listening device,” he smiled.
“What do you make of it?” asked Lyons.
“Nowak is a very experienced interrogator. It was his job since well before the end of communism, and he has questioned hundreds of people who have done much worse than kill an escort girl. He says he thinks the little shit could be telling the truth. He’s not certain, but it’s definitely a possibility. Unfortunately, we can’t use Nowak’s full range of talents on the boy these days – too many do-gooders watching us.”
“Do you think we could get him back to Ireland? I’d like to do a reconstruction of his story with him, and see how it stacks up,” Hays asked.
“That could be tricky. He would have to go voluntarily. Unless you want to try and extradite him, but that could take months, maybe longer, and quite possibly would not succeed. I’ll get Nowak to have another word with him in private, and maybe he will volunteer to travel to Ireland. Let’s see,” Kowalski said.
“We have to get back to Ireland today. Can you send on Piotr’s DNA and fingerprints?” Lyons said, handing her Garda business card to Kowalski.
“And how can we be sure he won’t flee the country?” Hays added.
“Don’t worry about that. We’ll keep his passport and a close eye on him. He won’t get far if he does run. One of our men lives in the same block as he does, so we’ll know his every move.”
The two Irish detectives had no doubt, given what they had witnessed so far, that Piotr Palowski would be closely monitored by the Polish police. Hays and Lyons thanked Kowalski for all his help and support over the two days.
“Well, we are all Europeans now, eh? But just one thing. Next time you come to Krakow, save the Irish taxpayer some money and just book one room.” He winked at Maureen and smiled.
* * *
As luck would have it, it wasn’t Gerry Byrne’s week for a trip to Galway. The two detectives from Store Street Garda Station in Dublin’s city centre found his two-year-old Mondeo in the driveway of his house in a neat but modest estate of semi-detached houses in Templeogue. The houses were packed tightly together allowing for just a small patch of grass to the front alongside the brick driveway. Byrne’s grass was well kept, and a very narrow border of flowers had been planted against the fence that divided his plot from next door.
The man that opened the door was your archetypal salesman in his mid-forties. He wore a shiny grey suit with a cheap striped tie and well-worn brown shoes. He was a bit overweight and ruddy about the face, probably from too many pints drunk in too many hotel bars up and down the country. The house showed evidence of kids, with cheap plastic toys scattered in the hallway, and family noises coming from deep within.
The Store Street detectives had no difficulty getting Byrne to go with them once Galway was mentioned. He was keen to get out of earshot of his wife and told her the Gardaí were looking for some information about one of his customers.
When they got back to Store Street, Byrne was shown to an interview room and asked to wait. The two detectives returned a few minutes later with three plastic cups and a litre bottle of cold water.
“Mr Byrne, we are making enquiries
into the sudden death of a girl from Galway, a Miss Lisa Palowski.”
Byrne looked back at them blankly.
“Do you know this woman?”
“No, I don’t think so, should I?”
“Well yes you should,” the younger detective said. “You spend an hour in her bed every time you visit Galway on every second Tuesday, so we just thought her name might ring a slight bell with you.”
The colour drained from Byrne’s face.
“Now look here,” he protested, “I’m a respectable married man. You have no right to make those sorts of accusations.”
The older detective leaned forward across the table. “Look Gerry, let’s cut the crap. We have your mobile number on her phone. We have your messages to her, and we have you in her diary every second Tuesday, regular as clockwork, so don’t piss us about.”
Byrne thought for a moment, sighed and said, “My wife doesn’t have to know about this, does she? She’d kick me out, you know.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. See, thing is, Gerry, Lisa’s been murdered. Last Tuesday in fact. Just about the time you were seeing her. So, we may have a bit of a problem keeping this to ourselves.”
“Murdered! Good God that’s awful,” he said. “I never,” Byrne gasped, “yes, yes I was supposed to see her at six as usual, but when I got to her apartment, there was no reply at the door. I tried calling her mobile, but it went through to voicemail. I never saw her on Tuesday. Honest.”
“What did you do then? Go back to your hotel and watch porn on your laptop?” sneered the detective.
“We’ll need your other mobile.”
“What do you mean, what are you talking about?” Gerry Byrne said.
“The one you used to call Lisa. We’ll see if the mobile operator can place the call you made outside her apartment, then we’ll see where we go from there. Oh, and if you have any other ladies that you call on regularly in any other towns around the country, now would be a good time to tell us, Gerry.”
The Galway Homicides Box Set Page 8
