Death Can’t Take a Joke (22 page)

Nie
! There were better ways to punish Romescu. First, put him behind bars for Jim’s murder. Second, bust up his smuggling ring, an enterprise evidently so valuable to him that it merited the risk of eliminating Orzelair’s head of security. It was clear to Janusz that Wojtek had got too close to the truth, and his bizarre death, with its echo of the young Romescu’s escape to the West, had the Romanian’s fingerprints all over it. The guy clearly had one sick sense of humour.

Ten minutes after leaving the hospital, Janusz reached the boating lake at Hollow Ponds, where Oskar had been found the previous night. At the log cabin café he ordered a cup of tea from the balding Cockney manning the counter.

‘Do you mind if I …’ Janusz held up the cigar. Even though they were out in the open, English people could be paranoid about smoking.

‘Nah, it’s a free country, or so they keep telling us … Milk and sugar?’

‘No thanks, just black.’

The guy handed him his tea in a massive china mug. ‘Polish?’ he asked. Janusz nodded. ‘What do you think of Szczesny, then?’

It struck Janusz that the handful of his countrymen who played in the Premier League had done more to promote a grasp of Polish pronunciation than the million or so who’d come here to find work in the last ten years.

‘I think he’s got the makings of a great goalkeeper,’ he tapped some ash onto the gravel. ‘But at his age it’s hard to be sure.’

‘Did you see the save he made in the UEFA qualifiers? The boy’s got a cool head, I’ll say that for him.’

‘Yeah! 59th minute!’

They shook their heads in shared admiration. The guy put a Tunnocks wafer in front of Janusz. ‘On the house,’ he said, resting his forearms on the counter. ‘I hear he said he wants to stay at Arsenal his whole career – you won’t hear many English players saying that. Do you think he means it?’

Janusz shrugged. ‘Maybe. Loyalty’s important to Poles.’ Fighting down a sudden image of Oskar undergoing torture rather than grass him up, he turned to scan the café. There were half a dozen people at the picnic-style tables and a row of cars visible in the car park beyond. ‘You’re quite busy already – what time do you open?’

‘6 a.m., on the dot, rain or shine – usually rain. I close at dusk.’

Janusz met the man’s gaze. ‘My mate got beaten up near here, late last night.’

‘Mugging?’

‘I think it might have been … personal. They gave him a proper working over – he’s going to be in hospital for a while.’

The guy winced as though he’d sucked on a slice of lemon. ‘Nasty. Was he dipping his wick where he shouldn’t be?’

‘Something like that,’ conceded Janusz with a man-to-man grin. ‘The jealous boyfriend drives a black 4X4 – a Land Rover Discovery? I don’t suppose you noticed one in the car park anytime yesterday?’

The guy shrugged apologetically. ‘We had a really busy day, it being sunny and all, so I can’t say I noticed.’

Janusz left a card with the guy, in case any of his customers mentioned seeing anything, and drank off the rest of his tea, trying not to grimace. In all the time he’d lived here there was one mystery he’d never solved: why the English took their coffee weak as dishwater and their tea strong enough to stain furniture.

He pocketed his uneaten Tunnocks wafer. ‘Thanks for the biscuit,’ he said.

Around the time Janusz left Hollow Ponds, Kershaw and Ben were driving into work under a sky as grey and implacable as the side of a battleship.

‘I hope we’re not going to get snow,’ she said, peering through the windscreen. ‘I don’t fancy taking the car out fully loaded if the roads are slippery.’

A ‘man with a van’ had already moved Ben’s furniture and belongings to their new place in Leytonstone, but she wasn’t taking her stuff over till later that day.

‘Are you sure you can get all your stuff in here?’ asked Ben, looking in the back of the Ka.

‘Yeah. I haven’t got any furniture, and anyway, it’s bigger than it looks.’

Kershaw realised with a stab of nostalgia that she had spent her last night in her little flat – although whether it was at the thought of leaving Canning Town, where she’d grown up and lived for most of her adult life, or at no longer having a place of her own, she couldn’t say.

Ben used his sleeve to clear a viewing hole in the steamed-up windscreen. ‘Why don’t I cook us a really special dinner tomorrow, to celebrate getting into the flat? I’m sick to death of takeaway.’

‘Me too,’ said Kershaw. ‘I suppose it is time I put your alleged cooking abilities to the test.’

Ben sent her a stern look. ‘I’ll have you know that my rendition of Jamie Oliver’s spaghetti marinara has been known to make grown men weep.’

‘Too much chilli?’

‘Ha. Ha.’

‘And Sunday morning we’re going to IKEA, right?’

‘Yep. Just like a couple of sad old marrieds.’

Kershaw felt a flutter of excited anticipation. Not only was she a detective working her first murder case – the dream she’d had since she was a teenager – she was setting up home with the man she loved. For the first time ever, she had a clear view of the future unfolding in front of her – and the view looked pretty good.

‘How did the press conference go yesterday?’ she asked, as they waited for a space in the oncoming traffic at the Green Man roundabout.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Jamie and his missus were pretty shaky, but I suppose that was inevitable – Stride topping himself has dragged it all up again.’ He stared out of the window – they were just passing the boating lake at Hollow Ponds. ‘Still, it’s the kind of closure they wouldn’t have got any other way, not even if we’d managed to put the fucker in jail.’

An image of Stride, the one that had been in all the papers during the trial, flashed up in her mind’s eye. ‘Did anyone find his specs near the scene?’

Ben leaned forward to wipe the windscreen again. ‘I don’t recall. Why?’

‘I think that’s why I didn’t recognise him, up at Hollow Ponds.’ It had been nagging at the back of her mind ever since she’d seen the body hanging in the clearing. ‘All the pictures I’d seen of him in the paper, he was always wearing glasses. Narrow frames, sixties style, remember?’

‘Yeah, it does ring a vague bell.’

‘Come on, Ben, you interviewed him – you must remember!’

He pulled a self-mocking face: ‘You know me and face recognition skills.’

‘So, the uniforms didn’t find anything when they searched the woods?’ The indicator tick-tocked as she turned left onto Church Lane to take the shortcut through the Village.

‘Nope – not unless you count half a dozen used condoms and a syringe or two.’

Her fingers tapped on the steering wheel. ‘It would be seriously weird though, wouldn’t it? Going into a wood – at night – to kill himself, without wearing his glasses?’

Ben leant back in his seat. ‘Especially when he knew he’d have to tie knots in that rope.’

Kershaw flicked a look at him, saw his troubled expression. ‘Look, chances are he left the specs at home ‘cos he was in a state,’ she said. ‘But if some dog walker stumbles on them, hands them in … Well, it’s gonna look like we dropped a bollock.’

Ben nodded slowly. ‘You’re right. As soon as I get in I’ll collar whoever attended Stride’s flat, find out if they logged any glasses.’

Kershaw’s first task of the morning was to update Detective Sergeant Bacon on the developments on her Polish stowaway.

‘Maybe the guy was a headcase,’ said Streaky with a shrug – apparently sharing Janusz Kiszka’s conclusion as to why Orzelair’s head of security would hitch a lift in the wheel well of one of the airline’s own planes.

‘I’m not sure that’s the correct terminology for an emotionally disturbed person these days, Sarge.’

He nodded, as though conceding the point. ‘Nutjob?’ he offered.

Kershaw raised an eyebrow. If any of the brass overheard the way Streaky talked, he was going to land in big trouble one of these days – however stellar his clear-up rate.

‘Anyway,’ he said, cleaning his nails with a paperclip, ‘the Polish cops are dealing with the death message, right? So let’s see what the family says. If I was you, I’d be hoping that your Wojtek turns out to be a plane-spotting paranoid schizophrenic with a lifelong compulsion for inserting himself into small spaces. Then you can get that file off your desk and back where it belongs – in Docklands nick.’

He picked up a document from his desk – the letter retrieved from Jim Fulford’s hard drive dismissing his deputy manager. ‘This, on the other hand, is a rather promising lead, Detective.’ She felt her face flush – praise from Streaky was rare. ‘Is the fence prepared to identify Andre Terrell as the one who sold him Fulford’s laptop?’

‘Apparently, Sarge, yes. In exchange for us putting in a good word with the judge.’

‘It’s heartening to see one of our customers suddenly so keen on our good opinion when they’re about to face a man in a horsehair wig,’ said Streaky. ‘Right, so, Terrell had a five-star motive to off his boss. Now we need to prove that he had the opportunity. He gave us an alibi when we first questioned him, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, Sarge,’ said Kershaw. ‘A mate of his came in and made a statement saying they were playing squash at the leisure centre about the time when Fulford was getting knifed.’

‘Calcott?’

She nodded.

‘There’s a CCTV camera on the main entrance, if memory serves,’ said Streaky. ‘Put in a request for the footage – assuming the beancounters haven’t switched it off to save cash, that is.’

He plucked a straggly hair from one nostril and studied it.

‘And I think we’d better invite young Mr Terrell in for another chat.’

By the time Janusz reached Millharbour, a low sun had broken through the cloud and was glinting off the wind-ruffled surface like knives floating on the dark water.

He stationed himself behind a large steel ‘sculpture’ just north of Romescu’s apartment block and unwrapped the biscuit the café guy had given him: it might be his only sustenance for many hours. The spot gave him a good view of anyone emerging from the block’s only entrance, whether they chose the pedestrian walkway down the side of the dock or cut west to the pickup point on Millharbour where he’d seen car valets delivering residents’ motors. With a black cab rank less than twenty seconds walk away, he reckoned he had all the options covered.

His target wasn’t the tattooed thug who’d beaten and tortured Oskar, nor even his boss, Romescu. It was Varenka Kalina.

Janusz remained convinced that Varenka was Romescu’s Achilles heel. She might have been promoted from his stable of hookers to become his ‘girlfriend’, aka his exclusive property, but her body language around him, her hidden ‘escape kit’, the fact she endured his blows, all spoke of servitude rather than a relationship of equals. Despite the lack of a smoking gun on Jim’s laptop, he was surer than ever that Varenka’s visit to Jim’s house to lay flowers meant that she knew Romescu was implicated in the murder. She probably knew about his smuggling activities, too. In other words, enough dirt to put him away for a very long time. The challenge would be persuading her to share.

The initial stage of his plan was simple: shadow the pair of them until he saw a chance to get Varenka on her own. After that, he’d just have to busk it.

Just after 9 a.m., he saw the boxy outline of the black Discovery nosing its way into the pick-up point. Switching his gaze to the block’s front door, he saw Romescu emerge, alone, pulling a carry-on suitcase. He climbed into the back seat and the car accelerated away.

Janusz was delighted to have Romescu out of the way – and apparently heading out of the country – but it left him with a dilemma. Should he simply turn up on Varenka’s doorstep and risk scaring her off? He was still weighing it up when, not five minutes after Romescu’s exit, he saw the girl herself step through the block’s revolving door. Outside, she paused to button up her hussar-style red coat, then strode off down the dock, in the direction of South Quay DLR station.

He slipped down a passageway between two high-rises to Millharbour, a road running parallel to the dockside walkway. She couldn’t really be heading anywhere except South Quay DLR, but when he passed another passageway and saw a sliver of red flash past, he gave a little nod of satisfaction.

Five minutes later, on reaching the end of the glass and concrete cliff formed by the dockside skyscrapers, he ducked behind a parked van. Its windows framed the stairway up to the DLR platform, which a moment later, was ascended by Varenka’s red-clad figure. Once she’d reached the top he followed, taking the stairs two at a time. At the ticket gate he paused, clocking a CCTV monitor that showed her tall slender figure walking to the other end of the platform.

They boarded the same train, Janusz leaving three carriages between them. Half a dozen stops later, at Bank, he saw her disembark. Within a few minutes they were both riding a westbound Central line tube train heading for the West End.

He followed her off the train at Bond Street, keeping her in view ahead of him on the up escalator, only to get stuck behind a German tourist fumbling for his Oystercard at the barrier. As the guy gave up on his pockets and started rooting in his manbag, Janusz threw a look around for any uniforms, and vaulted a barrier, drawing shocked looks from his fellow travellers. No sign of her in the thronged ticket hall. Faced with a choice of exits, he had to take a gamble. He jogged up the escalator to emerge on the south side of Oxford Street into a heaving sea of shoppers.

Kurwa.
He scoured the crowd for her, lapped by the babbling tide of humanity, feeling the slither of panic in his gut that a crush always triggered. But she’d disappeared.

He was on the verge of admitting defeat when he spotted something. A red-coated figure exiting the underpass on the north side of the street, heading in the direction of Selfridges. As he crossed the road, keeping her in view, he realised she was probably on one of those marathon shopping trips women were so keen on.
Jesus Maria!
The irony of the situation was not lost on him: he’d spent two years ducking Kasia’s repeated attempts to drag him on her clothes-buying expeditions, only to face God-only-knew how many hours watching a woman he barely knew go shopping.