Death Can’t Take a Joke (28 page)

‘So you think she could be a suspect in the murder?’

‘I think it’s more likely that her boyfriend is involved. Do you like the sourdough?’

‘It’s awesome,’ she said, taking another slice from the board he held out. ‘Is it home-made?’

‘Of course,’ he shrugged. ‘If you want decent sourdough in this country you have to make it yourself.’

‘So who’s the boyfriend?’

Janusz hesitated, but only for a moment. ‘Barbu Romescu. A Romanian “businessman”’ – the quotes were audible – ‘I think one of his activities is bringing in girls from Ukraine to work in the sex trade. I think she was one of the girls he trafficked, before she got promoted to girlfriend status.’
No need to tell her about the smuggling, and the nature of the contraband – it would only complicate matters
.

‘Could Jim have been one of her … customers?’

‘Not in a million years,’ he growled.

‘Have you asked her? Whether she met Jim through her job as a sex worker?’

He stared at her. ‘That’s not the kind of question a man can put to a lady.’

Christ Almighty
, thought Kershaw, this guy would never cease to amaze her.

She made a sceptical face. ‘So what could your friend Jim have to do with a Romanian gangster?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve been trying to … befriend the girl, to try to find out.’

Something in his manner made her ask: ‘Good looking, is she?’

‘I haven’t noticed,’ he said, flashing her a grin said that yes, she was.

Kershaw pursed her lips. ‘And you think she would grass this Romescu up?’

Janusz paused, finishing a mouthful of bread, sensing the first stirrings of a plan that could get Varenka to safety.

‘She might, but not while she’s living with him.’

Pushing her bowl to one side she said: ‘That was delicious.’ Chin propped on one hand, she drummed her fingers on her cheekbone. ‘It’s not enough to bring him in for questioning, and I’m guessing that interviewing the girl might put her in danger?’

A sombre nod from Kiszka.

He stood to clear the plates, declining her offer of help with a graceful incline of his head. After setting a coffee pot on the stove, he turned, and leaned his back against the worktop, folding his arms. He reminded Kershaw of a colossal statue she’d seen once, on a school trip to the British Museum.
Zeus, was it? Or one of the Roman emperors?

‘Look,’ he said. ‘She wants to leave Romescu and I think once she’s somewhere safe, she can be persuaded to talk. Can the cops arrange for her to get some kind of asylum status, in return for her giving evidence – so she doesn’t get sent back to Ukraine?’

Kershaw pulled a doubtful grimace; she could already hear Streaky’s response:
If she gives us some rock-solid evidence that might actually solve a crime, I’ll have a word with those muppets at the Home Office – not a moment before.

‘I can ask,’ she said, ‘but to be honest, without a bit more to go on, I don’t hold out much hope.’

He grunted: from the cops’ perspective, he could see that the link between Jim and Romescu was tenuous, to say the least. Returning to the seat opposite her, he ran a thumbnail along his unshaven jaw, making the bristles rasp.

‘There’s something else – although I doubt if it is any help at all,’ he said. ‘You know that suicide up at Hollow Ponds a week or so back? Do the cops think there was anything suspicious about it?’ He went on to give her the edited version: how Romescu’s 4X4 was parked in the undergrowth the night that Stride died, but reassigning Oskar’s beating to ‘a friend of a friend’.

‘I should think it’s just coincidence,’ Kershaw shrugged. ‘But I’ll tell the team investigating Stride’s death, just in case.’

It took all her training and then some not to react to Kiszka’s revelation. She couldn’t get her head round it. The execution of Stride had vigilantism written all over it, which would be a pointless and risky exercise for an organised criminal to carry out. Why would a Romanian gangster kill some lowlife paedophile – or a local gym owner, come to that? And what possible connection could there be between the two victims?

The way they left it, Kiszka would continue to work on Varenka while Kershaw promised to see whether it might be possible to cut a deal to keep her in the country, in return for information connecting Barbu Romescu to serious crimes committed on UK soil.

As Kershaw drove back to Canning Town, something dawned on her. She might be feeling more confused than ever about the murders of James Fulford and Anthony Stride, but the time spent in Kiszka’s company had left her calmer and more centred than she’d felt for days.

Kershaw was starting lates the following day so she was less than impressed when the doorbell woke her just after 8 a.m. Rolling over in bed, she ignored it, but after a second, longer ring she rolled, cursing, out of bed and stumbled to the entryphone beside the front door.

It was Ben.

‘Nat, I really need to see you.’

He spoke in a low voice but the underlying note of desperation brought the storm of emotions she’d been suppressing rushing in on her. She hesitated for no more than a second or two before buzzing him in, hastily dragging on a pair of jeans and a jumper, and using her fingers as a comb to untangle her bedhair.

At the sight of his face, drawn and pale, and those troubled brown eyes it was all Kershaw could do not to put her arms around him, to try to make it better.
If only it were that easy
, she thought. Instead, she accepted the bouquet that he proffered with an awkward gesture, and he followed her into the kitchen.

She made tea in her best bone china mugs, the ones nearest the top of the box of crockery she’d brought back from their new place.

‘Teabags, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘Can’t find the teapot.’ They sat face to face across the kitchen table to drink it, avoiding each other’s gaze.

‘Look, Nat, I’ve been thinking about what you said on the phone. And I know now that you were right.’ He thumbed his forehead with both hands. ‘What I did – hiding those glasses, risking getting you in trouble – that was me acting like I was still on my own instead of being part of a couple. I’m really sorry.’

She met his eyes. ‘Just tell me one thing. What went through your mind when you saw me at the scene, with Stride’s body hanging there behind me, knowing that you had his bloodstained glasses in your pocket?’ She didn’t try to suppress the undertow of anger in her voice.

‘I …’ He raised a despairing hand, then let it drop. ‘I suppose at that stage I was still thinking that I might hand them in.’

She noted that he didn’t deny seeing the dried blood – the thing with the potential to transform an everyday suicide into something more sinister. ‘And at what stage did you decide you were going to play God with a suspicious death, exactly?’ She’d fallen into the tone she used when challenging a recalcitrant suspect, but she couldn’t help herself.

Ben stared at the ceiling, his face a picture of misery. ‘There wasn’t really any one moment. I suppose I kept thinking I could still change my mind and send them down to forensics … but I kept putting it off. Then it got too late to back out.’

‘What were you thinking?!’ She pressed her hands hard against her temples. ‘Risking your career; lying to me, the person you were about to move in with!’

‘I know. That was unforgivable.’ Ben raised his eyes to hers. ‘I know that trust is really, really important to you.’

‘And all this to save the Ryans a couple of weeks’ unwanted media attention?’ His gaze flickered away momentarily, the kind of telltale sign she looked out for in a suspect. ‘You told Streaky that was why you did it, didn’t you?’ Then it dawned on her. ‘Oh my God. You thought
Jamie Ryan
killed Stride, didn’t you? In revenge for what he did to Hannah?’

Ben let out a ragged sigh, like he’d been holding his breath. ‘Yes. It’s practically all he’s talked about since the trial fell apart – the thought of watching Stride die.’

‘So you weren’t just covering up some random vigilante killing – you were protecting someone you knew to be a prime suspect in the murder.’

‘You’ve got to believe me, Nat, I wasn’t thinking straight.’ He raked a hand through hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed in days. ‘I haven’t been thinking straight for ages. Not since the trial collapsed.’

‘All this because …’

‘Because it was my fault that Stride got off in the first place.’ Bitterness surfacing in his voice.

‘Some dozy DC couldn’t resist checking Stride’s search history on his computer – and that’s your fault? How do you work that out?’

‘I should have been at the flat when they did that search. I got held up, arrived late. If I’d been there earlier I wouldn’t have let anyone touch that bastard computer.’

‘Sometimes you have to rely on your team. It wasn’t you who made the cock-up.’

‘It happened on my watch.’ He gave a single shake of his head.

‘I can understand you feeling that, but you know the score, Ben. Shit happens, we have to get over it and move on – that’s the Job.’

‘I know, I know. Which is exactly what I was trying to do when I practically trod on those bastard glasses.’

‘Why didn’t you talk to me instead of bottling it all up? It makes me feel like I don’t even know you.’ At the look of misery on his face, Kershaw couldn’t suppress a rush of sympathy. ‘Look, you probably haven’t heard, but Jamie Ryan has a cast-iron alibi. He was away on business the night Stride died.’

His head snapped up. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yep. He was at some hauliers’ conference in the Midlands – Sophie checked it out.’

Ben grimaced. ‘So I’ve risked everything for someone who didn’t even need protecting.’ His voice was flat.

They sat there for a long moment, neither speaking nor pretending to drink their cooling tea. Ben was the first to break the silence.

‘I’m not going to ask you to forgive me, Natalie. If you can’t see a way past what I did, I totally understand. But if you do give me another chance, I honestly think we could have a great life together.’

She looked into his eyes, wishing she could believe him, trying to resurrect the vision she’d had of their future.

‘I don’t know, Ben. I just don’t know.’

After he was gone, she washed up their mugs in the kitchen sink, watching the odd tear plink into the soapy water. After drying them, she hesitated, unsure whether to put them back in their packing box or into the kitchen cupboard. In the end, she left them on the draining board, finding herself incapable of even this simple decision.

Around the time that Ben and Kershaw were having their heart-to-heart, Janusz was on his way to Café Krakowia in Islington on a mercy mission. Oskar had been texting him several times a day, complaining about the food in hospital, and finally Janusz had promised to bring him a slab of Pani Markowitz’s famous baked cheesecake. Run by a grumpy old Pole and his Jewish wife, the Krakowia had been around forever, long before he’d moved into the area, and as he strolled down the side street where it was located, he sent up his usual fervent prayer that it would still be open.

It was. The paint might be peeling and the glass front door’s sixties spiderweb design long past its sell-by date, but the café’s position on the ground floor of a fine Georgian terrace made it a serious piece of real estate, so Janusz could only guess that some arcane restrictive covenant saved the place from conversion into another multi-million-pound abode for an investment banker.

The doorbell jangled its old-fashioned peal and Janusz scanned the café, wondering afresh how it survived – only one of the gleamingly clean Formica tables was occupied, by an impoverished-looking man nursing a cup of tea. But in the chilled cabinet, alongside the egg mayo and slices of pallid ham, he found what he’d come for: the legendary cheesecake, its filling a rich, claggy yellow studded with dried fruits.

After scoring a kilo of the stuff, he was back on the street when his phone rang. The display showed the name
Varenka
.

He was on the point of greeting her when he heard an unexpected voice.

‘Kiszka? It’s Barbu Romescu. Triangle Investments.’

Janusz nearly dropped his box of cake. Not only had Romescu discovered his real name, but the fact that he’d used his girlfriend’s phone suggested that he suspected, at the very least, that the two of them had been in touch – and wanted Janusz to know it. Or maybe the girl had been in on it all along, had never had any intention of betraying her boyfriend over Jim’s murder. Then a much worse explanation occurred to him – that Romescu might have done the girl some serious harm.

‘We need to meet up.’ Romescu sounded relaxed, almost friendly. ‘I’ll be at the Pasha Café in Walthamstow at one.’

‘I’d love to,’ said Janusz, ‘but I’m having my hair trimmed this afternoon.’

‘Perhaps I should come to your apartment, instead?’ Superficially, Romescu’s tone was still affable enough, but it had acquired an underpinning of tungsten steel.

Janusz paused, considering his options, before deciding he didn’t have any. Anyway, so long as he watched his back, a face to face with Romescu could prove illuminating.

‘Where is this Pasha Café, anyway?’ he asked.

‘Don’t treat me like a
kretyn,
Kiszka.’ And with that, Romescu hung up.

Janusz took the comment as confirmation of something he’d long suspected: that it had been his first visit to the Pasha Café, his reckless outburst about Jim’s murder, which had alerted Romescu to his investigation. The Turk who owned the place had clearly informed his business associate, so when a big Pole fitting Janusz’s description had waltzed into the investor soiree wearing his best jacket a couple of days later, it wouldn’t have taken long for the Romanian to put two and two together.

At ten past one, Janusz – uncharacteristically and deliberately unpunctual – walked off Hoe Street and into his second café of the day. The mustachioed Turkish owner gave him a mournful nod from behind the counter. ‘Mr Romescu is waiting for you,’ he said. ‘Please go through to the salon.’ He waved a hand towards the doorway hung with thick red plush curtains.