Where the Devil Can't Go (25 page)

“That’s not quite what I said, Sarge,” said Kershaw keeping her voice reasonable. “It’s just that I can’t see Elzbieta Wronska doing drugs. She was a total wallflower, she didn’t drink, and her idea of a great night was curling up with a book on 12th century theology.”

Streaky sat down, still breathing heavily. “So what? Maybe she was experimenting, seeing if a bit of Dr Feelgood would give her confidence, then got the heebie jeebies and topped herself.” But she could tell he was considering her point.

Kershaw put her hands behind her back and picked at a ragged nail. If the Sarge didn’t buy the possibility of foul play there was no way he’d approve forensic checks on the room.

“What makes you think her room’s a scene, anyway?” he asked. “Any sign of forced entry?”

“No, Sarge. But the place looks like it’s been cleared out,” she said. “If she suicided, where’s her phone, her handbag, her laptop?”

“And no trace of the drugs she took?”

She shook her head. “I checked with the cleaner – she found nothing out of the ordinary in the room when she went in last week.”

“This vicar, or whatever you call him, who runs the place, what makes you think he’s a shifty character?”

She checked her notebook. “He couldn’t ID Elzbieta from the post mortem composite, but when I checked back with this friend of hers, Timothy Lethbridge, he told me Monsignor Zielinski was her personal tutor up till a year ago.”

Streaky cracked open a can of
Lilt
and took a slurp. “Hardly a hanging offence – he’s probably tutored hundreds of studes.”

He tapped his fingers on the can. “If the girl
was
murdered” – he shot her a warning look – “and I’m not saying you’ve got an ounce of evidence for it, I’d put this Timothy bloke top of the list. He fancied her but got the knockback, you say?”

“Yeah, but he fessed up to it pretty quick.”

“Still sounds like your best motive to me,” said Streaky. “
If
anyone else was even involved in her death.” He picked up his half-eaten sausage sandwich from the desk, then used a wetted finger to wipe a smear of brown sauce off the arrest warrant he’d been using as a plate.

Kershaw held her breath.

“Go on then,” said Streaky. “Get the CSI boys over there to check out her room. I’ve already had two bollockings for going over budget this month, I might as well make it the hat trick.”

“Brilliant, thanks Sarge.”

“Now piss off – before I find another wacky baccy factory for you to add to your collection.”

EIGHTEEN

When Janusz first noticed the guy in the hat, he and Oskar were just tucking into two platefuls of brined Baltic herring aboard an old fishing boat moored on the Gdansk waterfront.

The boat had been converted into a floating restaurant by the addition of a few makeshift benches and tables. In Janusz’s childhood, the quayside had been thronged with working vessels of all shapes and sizes, their shore ropes a cat’s cradle apparently designed to trip up small boys. Now this one, which had hauled its last cargo of herring long ago, was the lone survivor.

Rather than
wodka
, the traditional accompaniment to
sledzia
, they’d ordered steaming glasses of spiced wine, because – as Oskar had complained about a hundred times since they’d got here – it was bitterly cold, a good five degrees colder than London, in spite of the bright sunshine and clear cobalt skies.

The boat deck gave them a good overview of the harbour front. It was teeming with tourists, bundled up against the cold in fleecy jackets and woolly hats, mostly Polish and German from the snatches of conversation Janusz had overheard. They lounged on café terraces, or drifted along the cobbled quayside, admiring the tall, slender facades of the Hanseatic merchants’ houses, their wedding cake parapets reflected in the petrol blue surface of the Motlawa River.

Janusz tried to work out what it was about the man that made him stand out from the crowd. He walked at the same unhurried pace, but the way he held himself was more purposeful somehow, and his leather coat and hat jarred among that parade of leisure wear. He moved like a shark cruising through a shoal of ornamental carp.

“Oskar,” said Janusz, with a tilt of his head, “Don’t be obvious about it, but check out the guy in the hat who just went past.” Oskar immediately craned his head over the boat’s gunwale, forcing Janusz to kick him in the shins. By the time he thought it safe to look over his shoulder, the guy had disappeared, probably up one of the turnings leading off the waterfront.

“Forget it,” said Janusz, taking a warming mouthful of wine. But he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling he’d seen the man before. “Do you remember a guy wearing a hat on the ferry?”

Oskar put his fork down and tightly screwed up his eyes, a look which meant he was utilising all his powers of memory. “One of the Scousers was wearing a striped red and white top hat,” he offered finally, spearing his last chunk of herring. He wagged the loaded fork at Janusz, “You’re just jumpy,” he said, popping the fish in his mouth. “Because of the kicking that guy gave you.”

“Maybe,” said Janusz.

Oskar drank his remaining
grzaniec
in one draught and leaned back, slapping his stomach. “So, lady boy, what are we doing now? If your bus isn’t till four, we’ve got a couple of hours – although if the roads east of here are as crap as they were this morning I’ll probably be driving all night.” Janusz grunted agreement. After Germany’s autobahns, crossing the border had been like going back in time – mile after mile of potholed country roads, relieved only by the occasional stretch of dual carriageway.

“Let’s go to the Post Office!” said Oskar, eyes widening. The building had been the site of a famous siege in ’39, when the Nazis reached Gdansk. In a suicidally heroic act of resistance, a band of postmen and boy scouts armed with a few grenades and assorted firearms fought off repeated assaults by SS units with armoured cars and artillery for fifteen hours. It only ended when the Germans used flamethrowers to rain burning gasoline on the men inside.

Janusz avoided Oskar’s eyes. He didn’t want to remind him that the square the Post Office stood on had witnessed another futile act of resistance, four decades later – the protest rally where Iza had taken her dying breath.

“Nah, I don’t fancy it,” he said, counting out enough
zloty
bills to pay for their food. “I’ve got a better idea. Let’s see if you’ve got the balls to make it to the top of the cathedral tower.”

Janusz had been fearful that his home town would stir up dangerous memories. Instead, as he and Oskar made their way to St Mary’s, he was aware of an inexplicable sense of unfamiliarity. The feel of the cobbles underfoot and the screams of the gulls were just as he remembered, the layout was unchanged, yet it all felt strangely surreal.

Then he caught sight of a little boy clutching a yellow balloon, and realised what was bothering him. The street scene of his childhood had been drab, almost completely monochrome, the only relief the red flags of occupation flying outside government buildings. Now,
Dluga
, the town’s central promenade, looked almost gaudy in the bright sunshine, strung with the bright awnings of outdoor cafés, its ancient houses freshly-painted. He welcomed the air of unreality: it put a layer of gauze between him and the past, making him feel as though he were just another tourist.

As they meandered through the crowds in the pedestrianised old quarter, Oskar elbowed Janusz. “Where did you pick up your first leg over then?” His booming voice drew a few shocked glances from passers-by.

“Hold your muzzle, Oskar,” hissed Janusz. “You’re not in England now.”

On nearby
Mariacka
, the sombre Gothic facades, with the stone animal-head gargoyles that had frightened and fascinated Janusz as a little boy, were obscured now by a flock of white canvas parasols that sheltered jewellery and gingerbread stalls.

“I’m going to get some amber for Gosia,” said Oskar, stopping at one.

Janusz waited, arms folded, as Oskar held pieces up to the light, squinting critically, weighed them in his hands, and tapped the stones against his teeth. Finally, he settled on a big uneven chunk set into an oval-shaped silver brooch.

“Why don’t you get Kasia something?” he said, as he exchanged his notes for a box tied with yellow ribbon.

Janusz shrugged uncomfortably, “I don’t know if she likes amber.” Maybe he didn’t know anything about her, he thought gloomily, remembering the nail bar.

“She’s a woman, isn’t she?” said Oskar, as though to an idiot child. “I’d like someone to show me a woman who doesn’t like jewellery. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?” he said to the girl running the stall, whose only response was an embarrassed smile.

Janusz’s eye fell on a chain strung with tiny nuggets of green amber, the colour of seaweed waving in a rock pool, and he asked the girl to wrap it up, suddenly confident that it was perfect for Kasia.

As they left the tourist quarter, the streets grew quieter and shabbier and yellowing ‘To Let’ signs started to appear in shop windows. Oskar paused to peer through the grimy window of a derelict government grocery store. “Look at this, Janek,” he said chuckling, “It’s just like the old days.”

Reluctantly, Janusz bent down, and, shading the glass with his hand, peered inside. The ancient chiller cabinet spotted with rust and an old fan-shaped scales on the dusty counter pitched him back to the Seventies.

“I know this place,” he exclaimed. “I used to come here after school, join the queue.” He shook his head. “Half the time I didn’t even know what they were queuing for, but if I went home with toilet rolls, or flour, Mama would give me a bar of
Princepolo
”. He straightened. The place stirred an uncomfortable mix of nostalgia and disquiet.

“Remember the jokes people used to tell in the queue?” asked Oskar. He punched Janusz lightly on the arm.
“What would happen if communists took over the desert?”

“Nothing for a while, and then they’d run out of sand,”
Janusz supplied.

They grinned at one another. Then the infuriating
di-ding ding ding
of Oskar’s mobile rang out.

“
Czesc
... Yes, I’m in Gdansk now,” shouted Oskar, rolling his eyes at Janusz.

He squinted at a street sign. “On
Szeroka
with my mate...Yeah, like I said, I’ll be at Elblag before the undertaker shuts tonight...OK...Cheerio.”

Oskar snapped the phone shut. “That guy nags me so much we might as well get married. Maybe he’s keen to get Olek into the ground so he doesn’t come back and haunt him.” He drew a windy sigh. “I’d better get going, though, what with the Stone Age roads in this country.”

The two men embraced. When Oskar had gone twenty metres he turned, and cupping his hands into a megaphone shouted: “And stay away from the rent boys – I’m not bailing you out again!”

Ten minutes later, as Janusz emerged from a tobacconist, he suppressed a shiver – the temperature had dropped sharply. Overhead, a bank of leaden cloud pressed down on the slate rooves, and he could feel the damp chill in the air that signalled a sea mist rolling in off the Baltic. Buttoning up his coat, he checked his watch and set out for the bus station, but he’d barely gone a dozen steps, when he felt a prickle at the top of his spine.

A casual backward glance caught a rapid movement, a split-second impression of a dark figure outside the tobacconist he’d just left. Wheeling round, he scanned the pavement behind him. Clear. He strode back to the shop. Empty. The man – if the figure were more than just a phantom of his paranoid imaginings – must have ducked down neighbouring
Mariacka
, where he and Oskar had bought amber earlier.

Around the corner, he was startled to find lively
Mariacka
mysteriously restored to how it had looked in his youth – the tall medieval facades dark, shuttered and silent. The stallholders had closed up for the day, taking their parasols with them, he realised, leaving the narrow cobbled street empty but for a group of seagulls pecking at the ground half way down.

He scoped the only side turning at the top of the street, finding it empty. And only an Olympic sprinter could have covered the hundred metres or more to the Gothic archway at the far end that led to the waterfront. Which meant that if someone had been following him, he must still be on
Mariacka
. The flights of ancient stone steps that ran from every front door down to street level offered plenty of hiding places – as a child he remembered running ahead to duck behind them, then jumping out to surprise his mother.

Janusz advanced cautiously, eyes flicking left and right, every sense cocked, tensed for a crouching figure to spring out. Mist had started to creep up from the river, softening outlines and making him mistrust his eyes, and the age-pitted gargoyles perched at the top of each stairway – a crocodile, a lion, a monstrous fish – seemed to stare at him sardonically as he passed, his footsteps echoing. Then his eye fell on the stone head of a dragon, jaws ajar, three houses down to his right, and it came to him – he couldn’t say why –
That’s where the son of a bitch is hiding
. At that moment, the heel of one of his shoes skidded on the cobbles, made slippery by the mist. He cursed and a man bolted from behind the dragon’s head stairway, heading for the waterfront, scattering the scavenging gulls screeching into the air.

By the time Janusz regained his footing, the guy had almost reached the archway at the foot of the street, leather coat flying out behind him.

Janusz raced after him, his heart thudding.

Leather coat, hat
... He wasn’t going crazy – it
was
the guy he’d spotted that morning on the quayside.

On the waterfront the wall-to-wall crowds had thinned, but Janusz couldn’t see any trace of him. Bands of sulphurous mist rising off the
Motlawa
pawed at the legs of the remaining sightseers. Right or left? He gambled on left, making for where the quayside was busiest and where the guy could more easily hide.