Where the Devil Can't Go (44 page)

“Yes, I would.”

She gave a single, satisfied nod.

He had a hand on the crossbar of his crutch, ready to lever himself out of the chair, when she leaned across the table and put a hand on his forearm.

“Do you remember me saying that I thought Justyna’s killer left your card in her mouth, as a kind of message to you?” she asked.

He tipped his head.

“Well, I think that was another thing I got wrong.”

She saw Justyna’s face again, cheek pressed to the mattress, forefinger laid across her lips – a gesture which, at the time she had put down to chance. Now she believed it had been a deliberate sign by the dying girl, telling police to look in her mouth.

“I think she put the card there herself, when she realised Radomil was going to kill her,” said Kershaw. Janusz met her steady gaze. “It was her way of telling you what had happened – because she knew she could trust you to bring her murderer to justice.”

. . .

By the time Kershaw got back to the nick, DI Bellwether’s Volvo was parked up in its usual spot. According to Bonnick, right after his arrival he’d summoned Streaky to the eighth floor, and she’d barely had time to make a cuppa before the phone on her desk rang, too.

“Sit down, Natalie,” said Bellwether, from behind his desk, indicating the vacant chair next to Streaky, who, she noticed, had put on his suit jacket. “I hear from DS Bacon that you’ve been rather busy the last few days,” he said, setting both hands on his armrests.

“Yes, Guv.” Kershaw slid Streaky a sideways look –
was this going to be a herogram or a bollocking?
– but she couldn’t read his expression.

“You’ve got a good case against this priest character...” the DI went on.

“Monsignor Zielinski.”

“Zielinski, yes – for the disposal of Elzbieta Wronska’s body.”

He consulted a notepad on his desk. “Plus a suspect in custody for the murder of the man found in the warehouse toilets, and the murder of the girl in the Waveney Thameside Hotel. And let’s not forget his portable drug factory.”

She allowed herself to relax a fraction.
Herogram.

Bellwether looked up and smiled enigmatically. “He’s quite a catch, this Radomil Jan-ow-iak,” He rhymed the middle syllable with cow.

“It’s Yan-ohv-iak, Guv,” said Kershaw.

Streaky shot her a warning glare. “Whatever,” said Bellwether, his smile evaporating. He leaned forward and put both elbows on the desk. “Here’s the thing, Natalie. We all want to put the bad guys behind bars, but the way you’ve conducted this investigation has been inappropriate and wholly unprofessional.”

Make that a bollocking.

As Bellwether started turning the pages of his notepad, Streaky used his little finger to dig wax out of his ear.

“A complaint from Traffic about a private car with a Met logbook on the dash dumped in a bus lane in Islington...failure to attend a job in Leyton...failure to consult DS Bacon before deciding to follow this
Kiss-zaka
character...” Streaky shot her a look, in case she was planning to give him another lesson in pronunciation.

“There just wasn’t time, Guv. It was a spur of the moment decision,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “If I hadn’t jumped on the bus straight away I’d have lost him.”

“And what about when you got to this warehouse? What on earth did you think you were doing?” he said, his tone becoming incredulous. “You know the procedure – you should have called for back-up, not risked your life scaling four floors of wet scaffolding!”

“I
am
an advanced climber, Guv,” said Kershaw, pulling an apologetic grimace.

Bellwether continued as though she hadn’t spoken.

“And perhaps you could remind me, Detective Constable,” he said, tapping his pen on the desktop, “of the standard procedure when a police officer encounters a situation involving firearms?”

Fuck.
“Guv, it would have taken half an hour, more maybe, to get C019 there,” said Kershaw, aware of a pleading note entering her voice.

Bellwether put the tips of his fingers together and fixed her with a steely look. “I’m also interested in how this Kiszka got stopped at Stansted,” he said. “Special Branch can’t find anything official on the system. Any ideas?”

Double fuck.
She opened her eyes wide and shook her head. By the sound of it, at least Jason had covered his tracks after slipping Kiszka on the watch list.

Bellwether sat back, shaking his head. “When I first joined CID, the place was full of detectives who displayed a blatant disregard for the rules. They thought police work was all about boozy lunches with informants and getting physical with suspects,” Streaky sucked his teeth disapprovingly. “I’m glad to say that attitude is largely ancient history nowadays,” he continued, with a glance at the Sarge.

“As a modern police service we have to be rigorously professional – the public has a right to expect us to observe the rules and regs, and to follow
all the proper procedures
,” he tapped out each word with his pen on the desk. “This is a twenty-first century capital city, not the bloody Wild West!”

Bellwether squared his notebook on the desk and lined his pen up along the edge. “I am suspending you forthwith, pending investigation by Divisional Professional Standards. My advice is that you use the time to consider whether you possess the right attitude to be part of the Met, let alone CID.”

Triple fuck.
As she and Streaky left Bellwether’s office, Kershaw was aware of a buzzing in her ears and a numbness enveloping her fingers and toes.

“Well, that went well,” said Streaky.

“It’s not fair,” she protested. “If I hadn’t done what I did that girl would be dead! And probably Kiszka, too.”

Streaky stopped mid-corridor and whipped round to face her, his chin already reddening. “You know what you are, don’t you, Kershaw?” he jabbed a finger at her. “You’re
job-pissed
.”

She stared at her feet. A job-pissed cop was an over-excitable sad case who’d become hopelessly obsessed by their work, usually because he – or she – had sod-all else going on in their lives.

“It’s one thing being job-pissed in
Traffic
,” said Streaky, dismissing an entire department with a wave. “So what if a few motorists doing thirty-four in a thirty zone get tickets. But in CID, it’s
a fucking liability
.”

A passing civilian carrying a box file shot the big ginger bloke and the short blonde a curious look.

“Yes, Sarge,” she muttered. But Streaky wasn’t finished.

“I’ll bet that most of your brilliant deductions about this case have turned out to be a Load of Old Bollocks, haven’t they?”

She gave a half-nod – he was right about that.

“And d’you know what?” he went on. “If you’d kept me in the loop, instead of going off on your own private ego trip, we could have put the lid on this
before
villains started throwing girls in the river!”

Kershaw bit her lip hard enough to bruise it.

“You’ve got to learn you’re part of a team, not the Lone fucking Ranger!”

Breathing heavily, Streaky hitched up his suit trousers.

“Right then,” he said, calming down. “If you take all that on board, then one day, you might just make a passable detective.”

Their eyes met.

“Sorry, Sarge. And...thank you.” She felt an absurd rush of pride.
Streaky rated her
!

Back on the fourth floor, the Sarge barged through the door to the office. To her horror, the place was heaving – Browning, Bonnick, Toby the civilian officer, and – just her luck – Ben Crowther, too. “Chin up,” said Streaky under his breath, before clapping his hands and addressing the whole room.

“DC Kershaw here will be taking an unforeseen sabbatical from CID to catch up on the daytime TV schedule,” he said, with a sarcastic grin. “So to see her off, we’re all going down the Drunken Monkey for what I believe the bosswallahs call a ‘
working lunch
’.” He shot her a sly look.

“I’ll get my fags and meet you boys at the lift, but Spiderwoman here says she’d rather take the drainpipe.”

She was lifting her coat from the hook when she heard Ben’s voice by her ear.

“Bad luck, Nat,” he said softly, reaching past her for his jacket. She took a breath and turned round.

“Listen, Ben,” she said, her gaze hovering around his mouth. “I’m really sorry about the other day, I behaved like a total numpty,” she gave a backward nod and dared to meet his eyes. “I let Browning get to me, wind me up about the night we...went out.”

“Hey, don’t stress about it,” said Ben, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Streaky dropped a hint something like that had happened.”

He helped her on with her coat.

“Streaky as a relationship counsellor, what a thought,” said Kershaw. “Not like we count as a relationship!” she trilled, back-pedalling madly.

Ben just laughed. “Maybe he could have his own reality show, advising star-crossed lovers.”

“His top tip for healing rifts – take the little lady for an Indian.”

“Or, if it’s really serious, a slap-up meal at Romford Harvester.”

They stood there grinning at each other. I’m finally getting the hang of this apology business, thought Kershaw.

“I had a really nice time the other night, Natalie,” said Ben, straight-faced now.

“So did I, Ben.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

Ben brushed an invisible mark out of the sleeve of his jacket. “So, after this piss-up... I don’t suppose you fancy getting something to eat?”

What the hell
, she thought,
one of us could always get a transfer.

“That would be lovely.”

THIRTY-ONE

Janusz stood at the polished walnut bar of the Polish Hearth Club, ordering drinks for himself and Father Pietruzki. Kensington was a bit of a
schlep
and the place wasn’t exactly cheap, but they’d agreed to meet here for the same unspoken reason – it was a nice quiet spot for a discreet conversation. As the white-waistcoated bartender prepared his order, Janusz studied the oil paintings of Poland’s past presidents that lined the walls of the high-ceilinged Georgian salon. The Polish Government’s cabinet-in-exile had met in this room from 1939 right up until the ’89 elections. Now the next time he came here he’d see that bastard Zamorski’s mug staring down at him: although the polls only closed an hour ago, everyone said he had it in the bag.

Janusz carried the drinks to the corner table – a precarious manoeuvre given his knee-high plaster cast. He gave Pietruzki the latest news on Weronika – the doctors were saying she was out of danger – and had barely begun to relate Pawel Adamski’s revelations about Zamorski when the old man raised a hand to stop him.

“You can’t close your ears to this,” Janusz protested in an angry murmur. “That bastard’s probably president by now – and the Church helped put him there.”

The priest closed his eyes. The old guy was looking fragile since this business, thought Janusz with a stab of anxiety. “I know all about it,” said the priest quietly.

Janusz stared at him.

“But before you start thinking that I, or the Church, had any part in this wicked
konspiracja
, it was the poor young man himself who told me the story.”

“Pawel?” asked Janusz, incredulous. “When?”

“The night before last, before he came to you – he presented himself at the Church, just as I was locking the doors,” the priest stared at the table. “I could see he was in an overwrought state, so I agreed to hear his confession.”

The priest pulled a hand across his forehead, as though to erase what Pawel had revealed that night in a confession lasting two hours. “From what you said on the phone, you are already aware of Zamorski’s wicked depravity against helpless children,” he said, his face hardening. “But what Pawel wanted to talk about was the violence he himself had unleashed, by his lust for revenge.” He let out a wintry sigh. “He wasn’t a bad man, at heart. I only hope that my words that night were of some small help to him.”

They sat silently for a moment, imagining Adamski’s pitiful childhood, and his final, brutal hours.

“What do you intend to do – about Zamorski?” asked Janusz.

“What can I do?” asked the priest, turning weary eyes on him. “You know that I cannot break the seal of the confessional, even after death. And the Church is hardly in a strong position to accuse anyone of such a crime,” he raised a skinny old hand in a gesture of defeat, “even if we could produce a single scrap of evidence against him.”

So Zamorski was going to get away with it, thought Janusz, and unless Radomil could be persuaded to turn informant on his paymaster, so was Nowak. Then he remembered something he had to break to the priest.

“You know it was Zamorski who betrayed Marek Kuba?”

“Betrayed
Marek
? Are you sure?” asked Father Piotr, eyes wide with shock.

Janusz nodded. “It was all in the SB document. Zamorski warned them that he was about to give some big sermon, even told them where to pick him up,” he slumped back into his upholstered chair, feeling suddenly weary. “He might as well have been his executioner.”

Suddenly, the sound of tinny cheering rang out, a jarring note in that hushed setting. The barman, who had turned on a tiny television behind the bar, evidently at the request of a group of drinkers, smiled apologetically and reduced the volume to a whisper. Janusz and the priest felt their gaze drawn to the screen, which showed celebrations getting underway at Renaissance Party headquarters.

The piece cut to a shot of Zamorski, impeccably suited, casting his vote earlier that day, looking calm and in control, as a banner at the bottom of the screen ran an exit poll prediction saying he would receive 65% of the votes cast.

An explosive sound of contempt from the big man sitting with the priest drew some surreptitious looks from the bar’s other residents.

“With both houses behind him, he could be in power for a generation,” said Janusz.