Death Can’t Take a Joke (21 page)

‘Yes, really.’

By the end of the day, the pair of them were installed in a conference room on the third floor at the nick, eyeing each other across a round table. After cloning the drive to secure the evidence, the computer crime boys had sent the laptop back for review and Streaky had approved Kershaw’s request to get Kiszka’s help in searching the files.

The only sound in the chilly, windowless room was the pathetic whirr of a tiny fan heater. They must look like a couple of gunslingers in a spaghetti western preparing for a shootout, thought Kershaw, but instead of a gun she had the laptop, and he had a USB stick.

A couple of seconds passed before Janusz pushed the nugget of plastic towards her, as though making the opening gambit in a game of chess.

Kershaw plugged it into the computer.

She stroked the trackpad, flipping through the PDF. ‘All I can see on here is some old annual report for Orzelair. I don’t see …’

‘Keep going. There’s a bunch of photos, near the back.’

‘Oh, yeah. “
Orzelair’s new Berlin office …
um
… Meet the directors
…”’

She bent to peer at the screen. ‘
Christ on a bike!
’

‘I told you.’

‘That’s him, isn’t it?’ Eyes wide, she spun the laptop round and jabbed at a head and shoulders shot of a middle-aged man. ‘That’s the stowaway!’

Janusz lifted one shoulder in assent.

‘Where did you get this?’

‘That’s not part of the deal, Natalia.’ He had no intention of telling her what he’d worked out – that Angelika must have slipped the stick into his coat pocket during that farewell embrace at the airport. When he’d shown her one of the composite photos of the dead stowaway during their tour of airport security the previous day, she’d shaken her head – but he’d caught a flicker of recognition in her eyes.

‘Anatol Woj-tek,’ read Kershaw from the caption, pronouncing the ‘W’ and ‘J’ in his surname in the English way.

‘It’s
Voy-tek.’

‘Okay, whatever,’ she said, dragging her chair around the table so they could both comfortably view the screen. ‘But what does it say?’

‘It says “
Pan Wojtek will be doing a charity skydive over London
…”’

She gave him a hard stare.

‘Okay, okay. It says “
Anatol Wojtek is one of Orzelair’s longest serving employees, becoming head of security in 2009
”. Then it goes on about “
global challenges
…
threat of terrorism
…
new technology
…” corporate hot air. That’s all.’

‘So how come that guy from Orzelair – Janicki? – didn’t recognise the company’s
head of security
?!’

Janusz drew himself upright and adopted a stuffy, lawyerly tone: ‘I’m sure you will appreciate how difficult it would have been for Pan Janicki to match his memory of a living breathing colleague, whom he saw only rarely, with an artificially constructed post-mortem image of a cadaver …’

‘Why would he lie about it? Wouldn’t he
care
about the guy’s family?’

‘I guess having your head of security drop out of one of your planes over Canary Wharf could be a bit embarrassing? Especially now the company’s playing in the big boys’ league with their Lufthansa deal.’

‘But what the fuck was this Wojtek doing in the wheel well, anyway? He sure as hell wasn’t an economic migrant.’

Kiszka felt a twinge of discomfort at hearing profanity from such pretty lips. ‘Maybe he was a crazy person.’ He fidgeted with his tin of cigars.
Or maybe he was trying to get to the bottom of what Romescu and his gang were up to at Przeczokow Airport, and got killed for his trouble.

‘Is there anything you want to tell me?’ She scanned his face. ‘Anything at all? Do I need to remind you that you were an employee of the Met on our Poland trip? If you’re hiding anything you could be charged with obstructing a police investigation.’

He gave her a long, level stare that said, clearer than any words, that they both knew she was talking a load of horseshit.

Kershaw glared back at him. The fact that the ‘stowaway’ had turned out to be a senior employee only added to the general air of …
whiffiness
she’d smelt around the Orzelair set-up. This Wojtek character couldn’t have been murdered, could he? Even if he had, there was very little chance of her getting to the bottom of it all. And she had to admit that the prospect of spending the next God-knew-how-long flying back and forth to Poland to represent the London end of a murder investigation filled her with gloom.

Janusz nodded at the laptop. ‘I’ve supplied my half of the bargain, now it’s your turn. I want to run a search of Jim’s files for a few names.’

She waited, fingers hovering over the keyboard.

‘They wouldn’t be potential suspects that it slipped your mind to mention, would they?’ she enquired in a voice you could etch glass with.

He was ready for that one. ‘No, they’re just names I overheard at Jim’s funeral that I didn’t recognise.’ He opened his hands. ‘I’m clutching at straws here.’

That makes two of us,
she thought. Twelve days into the investigation of Jim Fulford’s murder and the team was no closer to unearthing a feasible motive than it had been on day one, which was probably why Streaky had agreed to let Kiszka have supervised access to his dead friend’s computer files.

‘Barbu Romescu and Varenka Kalina,’ he said.

‘You’re going to have to spell those for me.’

Ten minutes later, having searched Jim’s documents, emails and even his internet search history, they’d drawn a total blank.

Kershaw felt deflated: Kiszka really had just been clutching at straws. ‘Is there anything else we can look for?’ she asked.

He rested his jaw in one of those giant mitts.

‘Have you run a search for Jim’s deputy manager, Andre Terrell?’ It was as well to leave no stone unturned: Terrell might know what connected his boss to Romescu.

‘Not personally, but I know one of my colleagues has already been through Jim’s email traffic.’

One corner of his mouth twitched upwards. ‘Jim wasn’t a big fan of email. Try looking in documents.’

Not surprisingly, Jim’s deputy was name-checked in hundreds of the recovered documents, most of which were routine stuff about payroll, health and safety training, insurance and the like. But twenty minutes into the search, Kershaw found something. A letter addressed to Andre Terrell from his boss.

‘Listen to this,’ she said. ‘“
After issuing three formal warnings for misdemeanours ranging from persistent poor timekeeping to failure to upkeep membership records, I regret that I have no choice but to dismiss you from your position with one month’s notice
.”’

Janusz peered at the screen. ‘Look at the date.’

‘It’s the day before Jim’s murder.’ Kershaw’s voice was flat, matter-of-fact, but her face had grown pale with excitement. ‘Did Jim tell you that he was sacking this guy?’

He shook his head. ‘No, nor even Marika, or she’d have mentioned it. The only other person who would need to know was the payroll lady, but she only came in once a month and he probably hadn’t got round to telling her.’

Janusz recalled how shifty Terrell had been when he’d questioned him about the laptop: now it seemed his suspicion that the boy was behind its disappearance had been well grounded.

‘So Terrell gets the sack,’ said Kershaw, thinking out loud. ‘But when his boss gets killed, he sees a chance to keep his job.’

‘Right. And he steals the laptop because it’s the only record of his dismissal.’

Kershaw turned a look on him that was unnerving in its intensity.

‘Or because it’s evidence of a motive for murder.’

It was just before six the following morning and the receptionist at Whipps Cross A&E was looking forward to clocking off when the automatic doors opened to admit a large, angry-looking man in a long coat. Even though her desk was behind a security screen, her eyes went to the panic button: the night shift brought all manner of lowlifes and psychos through the door.

When the man gave her the name of someone who’d been admitted in the early hours she let herself relax a little. Foreign accent aside, he was nicely spoken, his manners a vast improvement on the average customer, even if his hands were bunched so tight on the counter that the knucklebones were visible through the skin.

‘I can’t find anyone of that name on the system,’ she said, peering at the screen.

‘Could you check again, please?’ asked Janusz, struggling to keep his voice calm. ‘It’s O-S-K-A-R – with a “k”.’

Finally, the computer system gave up the information that Oskar had been brought in by ambulance just after midnight the previous night.

‘He’s on Billingham Ward, over in the main building,’ said the receptionist.

‘
Dzieki Bogu
!
’

The thanks that Janusz sent God couldn’t have been more heartfelt.

The message from the hospital had woken him at five, so Oskar must have been conscious then, in order to tell them who to call, but ever since that moment he had lived with the crushing sense of fear that he’d find his mate in the intensive care unit – or worse. The fact that he was on a regular ward had to be good news, didn’t it?

The sight of Oskar laid out in a hospital bed brought him little consolation, however. He lay quite still, his twinkling eyes closed, and the chubby features above the neck brace sagged, as if they belonged to an old, sad stranger.

‘How are you doing,
chlopie
?
’
murmured Janusz, his voice cracking as he took in the fresh bruising around both eye sockets, the lip darkened and split like an overripe plum.

A nurse came in carrying a plastic bag of clear fluid. ‘So you’re Oskar’s brother?’ she asked as she replaced the near-empty one hanging on the bedside drip stand.

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Great, I can get you to sign a consent form.’ Checking the numbers on the monitor above her patient’s head she turned to Janusz. ‘So, apart from the obvious contusions, he’s got badly bruised kidneys and a wrist fracture.’ She nodded to his right arm, which was encased in a temporary splint. ‘He’s had a very bad bump on the head, but the CT scan didn’t find any nasties, so that’s the biggest worry out of the way. He has regained consciousness but be aware he’s under sedation.’

Janusz just nodded, grateful for her dry cheerfulness. Gently, he pulled up the neck of his mate’s absurdly jaunty multicoloured hospital gown to cover more of his naked chest. As he did so, Oskar’s swollen eyes opened just a crack.

‘Janek. Don’t tell Gosia.’ His voice was hoarse but the words were crystal clear.

‘Good to hear your voice,
broski.’

‘Don’t tell Gosia,’ he repeated with more urgency.

‘
Tak
,
tak
,
’
Janusz soothed. ‘If you hurry up and get better, I won’t need to tell her.’ He glanced over his shoulder: the nurse was talking to someone just outside the drawn bed curtains. ‘Who did this, Oskar?’ he asked in a fierce whisper.

His mate’s eyes drifted shut again.

‘Oskar. Who was it?’

The eyes opened lazily, semi-focusing on Janusz. He frowned.

‘One of them …’

‘Yes?’

‘Tattoo.’

‘What sort of tattoo?’

Oskar’s eyelids slid over his pupils.

‘
Oskar!
’

His eyes stayed closed but lifting his left hand a few centimetres he made a vague gesture towards Janusz’s forearm.

‘
Waz.
’

A snake? Kurwa mac
!
The snake tattoo.
Romescu’s thug, the one who’d chased him in the tunnel.
Janusz felt guilt and fury wrestle it out across his face. Guilt won.
Congratulations,
he thought bitterly.
Investigating Jim’s death nearly got another friend of yours killed.

‘What did the
skurwysyny
want?’

‘Where you live … and why you’re so interested in Romescu …’

‘You should have just told them,’ said Janusz, his voice hoarse with anguish.

Oskar half-opened his eyes and lifted one shoulder. ‘I said’ – the ghost of a mischievous expression crossed his ruined face – ‘that you have a thing for Romanian guys.’

The nurse stuck her head back in. ‘Can I get you to sign those consent forms on your way out?’

Janusz knew a dismissal when he heard one. He stood and patted Oskar on the arm. ‘Get some sleep,
kolego
.’

At the nurses’ station Janusz signed a bunch of forms, explaining away the difference in surnames by saying they had different fathers.

‘Where was he found?’ he asked.

‘Not far from here. Do you know Hollow Ponds, where the boating lake is? He managed to crawl to the roadside and a car stopped for him. I expect the police will want to question him.’

Janusz wondered what story Oskar would spin them.

‘It was a particularly nasty assault,’ her gaze scanned Janusz’s face. ‘I didn’t like to say in front of him, but he has rope marks on his wrists and … what look like cigarette burns. I thought you should know.’ Somewhat taken aback at the look in his eyes, she wondered whether her instinct had been right. ‘We have support services in the hospital, if you want to talk to someone?’

Janusz pulled a mirthless smile. ‘Oh, I want to talk to someone alright.’

He exploded through the doors of A&E in a blind fury, every molecule of his being harnessed to a single impulse: revenge. He scrolled through the address book on his phone –
Osip, Mirek, Gregor, Tomek
– men who knew and loved Oskar and who could handle themselves. They’d jump at the chance to administer retribution to Romescu and his tattooed thug
with the business end of a baseball bat.

But as he was punching out the first number, Janusz hesitated. Forcing himself to think things through, he reached a reluctant conclusion: however tempting the idea of cracking open a few
gangsterskie
skulls, it was a self-indulgent fantasy. The likeliest outcome of such an encounter would be him and his mates getting riddled with bullets – and the idea of seeing anybody else suffer on his account was unthinkable.