Death Can’t Take a Joke (16 page)

As they joined the passport queue, he turned to her. ‘I meant to ask, what should I call you?’ he asked. ‘Detective Constable Kershaw?’

‘Just call me Natalie,’ she said.

‘
Natalia
,’ he said, his pronunciation transforming the name into something exotic and beautiful. ‘I remember now. I shall call you Natalia.’

Przeczokow Airport was a brick and glass hangar reminiscent of one of the smaller branches of B&Q. The official on passport control barely glanced at their documents and less than a minute later they were passing through a corridor designated as custom control by the addition of a single low bench without having seen a single other member of staff.

Having arranged to meet a representative of airport management, Kershaw was irritated to find no one waiting for them in the arrivals hall. After they’d hung around for ten minutes or more, by which time their fellow passengers had all left the building, she sent Kiszka to approach a passing girl, whom she gathered must work here judging by her lack of a coat and bag. Kershaw could hear every word of their conversation but the mellifluous singsong of the language, interspersed with the occasional staccato ‘
tak, tak’ –
like the pecking of a bird
–
was entirely alien to her. More used to travelling in the Med, where she understood so many words and phrases, her total ignorance of the language here gave her a feeling of powerlessness that she didn’t like one bit.

When Kiszka returned, he was tapping one of his little cigars on its tin box. ‘Angelika says the airport manager isn’t here today but Orzelair has sent someone to meet us. We’re to go to the main office in ten minutes’ time.’ He nodded towards a kiosk right behind her. ‘Why don’t you grab a drink, while I pop out for a smoke?’

Kershaw felt a wave of mild panic. ‘How do I ask for a coffee?’ she hissed at his departing back.

‘Just say
kawa,
and flutter your eyelashes,’ he threw over his shoulder.

When they were finally introduced to Mikal Janicki, the man from the airline, Kershaw was relieved to discover that he, at least, spoke perfect English with a slight American twang. Under his suit he wore a woven shirt without a tie, a casual look that matched his polite yet informal style.

The three of them sat at a round table as Angelika, the female assistant who Kiszka had buttonholed in arrivals, set a chrome pot of coffee and a plate of pastries down between them, before withdrawing to her own office.

‘I must apologise for keeping you waiting,’ said Janicki, pouring the coffee. ‘I’m afraid our director of operations has gone down with the flu, so I had to drive down from Rszezow at short notice.’

‘Please don’t apologise,’ said Kershaw. She pushed a clear plastic file containing images of the dead man across the table. Composited from post-mortem photographs, they showed him full face and profile, along with a shot of his suit and coat, arranged in such a way that you couldn’t see the bloodstains. ‘This is the man we are trying to identify. We have good reason to believe he stowed away in the wheel well of one of your jets.’

Janicki unfolded a pair of gold wire reading glasses and, setting them on his nose, studied the images one by one in silence for several moments, an intent frown creasing his brow. ‘And this man carried no passport? No identification of any kind?’

‘No, nothing at all,’ said Kershaw.

‘He doesn’t look like the average stowaway, does he?’ said Janicki. ‘And I have to say that in all my fifteen years working for the airline, I’ve never heard of anyone stowing away on a Polish plane.’ He took a sip of coffee. ‘Once people make it to Poland, you see, there are far easier ways of reaching the UK.’

Kiszka, whose sole contribution so far had been to send Janicki a couple of his trademark glowering looks, chose this moment to pitch in. ‘Maybe the guy was drunk, or maybe he just wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box,’ he said. ‘Either way, he managed to get through your security systems and find his way into that wheel well.’

Kershaw shot him a look that said,
I’ll ask the questions.
Kiszka obviously had issues with anyone in authority – not just the cops.

‘Obviously, my priority is to identify this man and inform his family of his death,’ she said. Janicki nodded, his expression solemn. ‘I’m not remotely interested in your security systems – that’s outside my remit – but I would like to get a handle on how he got into the plane, simply because it might give me some clue as to where he came from and what he was playing at.’

‘Of course.’ Janicki smiled. ‘I’ve already arranged to take you airside to talk to our chief engineer – he will know better than anyone how and when we might have acquired a non-paying passenger.’

They emerged back onto the apron, and Janicki guided them along a walkway painted in yellow on the concrete. The twin-engined jet they’d flown in on stood silent and empty, the only plane to be seen. Janicki told them that it would complete another internal leg before returning ready for tomorrow morning’s flight to City, the airport’s only international route.

‘I’m afraid there’s no smoking at all airside,’ he said to Kiszka, who was lifting a cigar to his lips. ‘Too much kerosene around.’

A two-minute stroll later, Janicki opened the door to a portakabin sited at the far end of the terminal building. A thickset balding man in oil-stained orange overalls behind a battered eighties vintage desk, who’d clearly been expecting them, got to his feet. ‘
Dzien dobry, paniom
,’ he said, followed by a glance down at his open hands, and a stream of Polish.

As Janicki and the man chuckled, Kershaw smiled, too, murmuring to Kiszka, ‘What did he say?’

‘He says he’d shake hands but we probably don’t want to get our nice clothes covered in oil.’

After Janicki introduced the overalled man as Chief Engineer Mazurek, Kershaw handed over the pictures of the dead stowaway. Then she told Kiszka to ask him: ‘Did you, or anyone on your team, see this man hanging around before the departure of the UK flight on November 6th?’

Mazurek examined them all before shaking his head slowly. ‘
Nie,’
he said finally, and pointing to the shot of the guy’s clothes, reeled off something else. Kiszka turned to her: ‘He says that anyone dressed like that hanging around airside would stand out like a sore thumb. But if he can keep the pictures, he will show them to everyone who was on shift that morning.’

Kershaw told him yes, he could keep them – she had a bunch more copies in her overnight bag.

After locking up the portakabin, Mazurek led them towards a corrugated structure about the size of a small house. They pushed their way through the flaps of plastic hanging down over the entrance and into the workshop. Inside, the air was filled with the volatile reek of engine oil. In one corner, a giant jet cowling strapped to some sort of hydraulic lifting device on wheels, cast a shadow over the long metal workbench in the middle of the room. There, a young man with fair hair clipped in a number two and safety glasses was drilling a hole into a curved piece of aluminium. So intent was he on his task that he didn’t notice the visitors until Mazurek leant down to catch his eye, at which point he leapt backwards, tearing off his glasses. He gabbled something in Polish and his boss replied in reassuring tones, patting him on the shoulder.

‘What’s going on?’ Kershaw asked Kiszka.

‘The boy lost track of time,’ said Kiszka. ‘He’s meant to be on his lunch break by now.’

Mazurek started a comprehensive rundown of the Orzelair maintenance operation at Przeczokow, pausing to allow Kiszka to translate it into English, which he did swiftly and fluently – although Kershaw noticed his eyes following the young technician as he donned a padded jacket and slipped out of the workshop.

After a few minutes hearing about the engineering set-up – as a small airport it was restricted solely to routine safety checks and minor maintenance jobs – Kershaw broke into the chief engineer’s spiel
with an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry,’ she said before turning to Kiszka. ‘Can you ask him to tell me how and when a stowaway might gain access to the UK flight?’

Kiszka’s question got a single word reply.

‘
Niemozliwe
!’

Kiszka gave Kershaw a deadpan look. ‘He says that’s not possible.’

She turned her sweetest smile on the chunky engineer. ‘In that case would you ask him if he can think of any other way a fifteen-stone Pole might fall out of one of his planes. Did he accidentally flush himself away, maybe, while using the toilet?’

As Kiszka relayed her words, trying to keep a straight face, Kershaw watched Mazurek’s self-satisfied expression evaporate like kerosene fumes off hot tarmac.

Janicki cut in, all affable reason: ‘If I may say something? Nothing like this has ever happened here before, so perhaps it’s a bit difficult for Pan Mazurek to … take it on board.’ He turned to the grim-faced engineer and made what was clearly a conciliatory speech, at the end of which Mazurek gave a grudging nod.

‘Pan Mazurek has agreed to suspend his … understandable scepticism,’ said Janicki, ‘and will take us through exactly what happens between an aircraft arriving and being turned around for next morning’s departure.’

After half an hour stood staring at the underside of an aeroplane in sub-zero temperatures, Kershaw had lost all feeling in her hands and feet and developed a nasty crick in the neck, but on the upside, she could now claim a working knowledge of the architecture of the Airbus A318’s wheel well. She’d discovered that it would be challenging but entirely possible for a reasonably fit, determined man to clamber up into the void, and that once in position, he stood little risk of being spotted when the captain conducted his last-minute visual check of the plane. In order to avoid the risk of detection by engineers running any final maintenance checks, the best moment to grab the ultimate budget seat would be about an hour before take-off: about 0630 hours in the case of the daily flight to the UK.

Kiszka appeared to have lapsed into semi-detached indifference since they’d left the workshop, restricting himself solely to translating her questions and Mazurek’s answers.

She dropped back to chat to him as the group made its way back to the terminal building. ‘You’ve gone very quiet.’

His response was a half-shrug half-grunt.

She breathed warm air onto her fingers through her gloves. ‘You could have told me it would be this cold – I’d have worn my thermals!’

‘You call this cold? You should come here in January.’

Entering the terminal was like slipping into a warm bath. After more coffee, Janicki and Angelika took them on a tour of the security protocols from check-in through to departure, which, in an airport the size of Przeczokow, took all of about four minutes. The only other person they saw was the guy who’d checked their passports earlier. He passed them with a polite nod, clearly on his way home going by the parka he now wore over his uniform and the large sandwich he was munching. After the feverish atmosphere of City Airport earlier that day, Kershaw found the airport’s stillness – its shuttered café and silent departure gate – strangely unnerving.

‘Is there anything else I can help with?’ Janicki asked Kershaw as they returned to the check-in area.

‘I think we’ve covered everything,’ she said. ‘As I said, I’m here primarily to look for clues to our stowaway’s identity. How he got through your security cordon is really a matter for you.’

‘And that seems destined to remain a mystery,’ he said, looking unconcerned. ‘Perhaps I can call for a taxi to take you into town, now that our business is completed?’

As they reached the top of the staircase, Janicki peeled off to answer his mobile and Kershaw turned to lean on the guardrail. Below her she could see Kiszka and Angelika, who’d fallen behind, approaching the foot of the stairs. They were walking slowly, and he had his head bent towards hers, speaking into her ear. Angelika had her eyes fixed on the deck, but she wasn’t exactly knocking him back, either.
Kiszka must be, what – fifteen, twenty years older than her?
thought Kershaw. All the same, she had to concede that he had a whiff of danger about him that some girls would find irresistible.

Janusz would have liked to spend the cab journey into town thinking over what he’d learnt and deciding on his next move but the girl detective – Natalia – wanted to chat.

‘Their security systems looked alright to me,’ she said, ‘but there must be a hole in them somewhere, otherwise I don’t see how our stowaway ended up in the belly of one of their planes.’

‘Hmmm.’ He had his own views on how that might have happened but he wasn’t about to share them.

‘Two rows of razor wire round the perimeter – and motion sensors. Unless he bribed his way onto the apron? Still, like this …’ she checked the airport man’s business card, ‘… Janicki guy said, why waste your money, when there are easier ways to get the UK?’

‘It’s
Yan-its-ky,’
said Janusz.

‘Sorry?’

‘In Polish a “c” followed by a “k” is pronounced “
itsk”.
’

She stared at his craggy profile. ‘Are you at all interested in our mystery stowaway?’

Janusz turned to her and grinned. ‘If I say no, do I still get paid?’

They passed the end of the airport perimeter fence and plunged straight into a deep birch forest, a strangely claustrophobic vista of densely-planted pale trunks that stretched right to the edge of the road. It was twenty minutes before they emerged into more open country, a view broken only by farmhouses and the occasional industrial chimney.
A conveniently remote setting
, thought Janusz,
if you were using an airport for some nefarious activity like, say, human trafficking.

The cab driver caught his eye in the mirror. ‘You chose a bad time to visit Przeczokow,
prosze pana
,’ he said, gesturing at the sky.

The girl turned those inquisitive blue eyes on Janusz.

‘He says it’s going to snow,’ he told her.

‘A lot?’

He shook his head. ‘No more than half a metre.’