Homeland (49 page)

As the two men came through the pass door a heavy silence fell. One of the officers at the table clambered to his feet and the other joined him. Their eyes travelled with scant curiosity over
Bennett before fixing watchfully on Shearer.

The sergeant said, ‘Dr Tring’s in there now, Inspector.’

Shearer nodded and said, ostensibly to Bennett but more to the whole room, ‘We’ve always had a good record, a very good record. Just two in the last three years, isn’t it,
Sergeant?’

‘Sir.’

‘Both of them accidental?’

‘One natural causes, one inhalation of vomit, sir.’

‘And none recently?’

‘That’s correct, sir.’

The inspector gave a vexed sigh and, crossing the room to a heavy door with a wire-reinforced window, held it open for Bennett. They entered a passage with more bleak lighting and green paint.
There were eight cells, four on either side, with heavy metal doors and shuttered Judas holes. Some of the doors were open, spilling a dull glow of natural light into the passageway. Voices sounded
from a cell on the left.

Shearer murmured, ‘You know Dr Tring, the police surgeon, do you, Doctor?’

‘Slightly.’

Bennett had in fact met Tring on several occasions, and had learnt to avoid him whenever possible.

At the door, Shearer gestured Bennett to go ahead. Inside the cell Captain Robertson was standing next to a uniformed police officer, while Tring’s broad back was bent over the body on the
metal-frame bed.

The uniformed man, a tall sergeant with a drooping face, straightened his shoulders and looked past Bennett to the inspector. ‘He used a bedspring to rip up the blanket, so far as I can
make out, sir. Though for the life of me I still can’t fathom how he managed it without us seeing.’

Bennett moved forward and gazed down at Jozef’s body. The young face looked virtually unaltered, as pale and worn and haggard in death as it had been in life. Bennett had never subscribed
to the belief that a man’s final emotions remained etched on his face, yet Jozef’s forehead seemed to be corrugated in a frown of despair.

Tring glanced up. ‘Bennett! Hello, old boy, what brings you here? Not one of yours, is he?’

‘He was a patient for a while, yes.’

‘Well, well. Been doing a bit of War Ministry work on the quiet, have you?’ He gave a soundless chortle, which had the effect of spreading his several chins. When Bennett failed to
respond, Tring nodded towards the dead man. ‘Always mentally unhinged, was he?’

Bennett immediately recalled why he disliked Tring. It wasn’t just the sweeping judgements, but the mocking, boastful contempt he showed for the hapless creatures he was called to examine
in the course of his police work.

‘Not in my opinion, no.’

Tring raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? He seemed pretty far off the rails when I saw him last night.’

Bennett’s anger came from nowhere and caught him by surprise. It was all he could do not to bark:
Then why didn’t you have him put on suicide watch? Why didn’t you have him
admitted to a place of safety?
If he had thought Tring worth a second more of his attention he might have added:
Because you’re a pompous self-satisfied idiot who’s unworthy of
the job.

Tring said, ‘I gave him a bromide to quieten him down, but he probably spat it out the moment I left.’ He leant down to snap his bag shut. ‘Alcoholic, was he?’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because he showed all the symptoms of DTs, old boy. Rapid pulse, agitation, sweating, and trembling.’

‘He’d suffered a lot of war damage.’ Bennett wasn’t sure why he chose an expression normally reserved for buildings, but on reflection decided it was entirely
appropriate. ‘He was badly injured in Italy. His head took a crack, and I think you’ll find he was left with only half a stomach.’

Another mirthless chuckle from Tring as he got to his feet. ‘Not for me to find anything of the sort, thank God. Leave that to the pathologist.’ He added in the tone of someone
getting to the crux of the matter, ‘So, a neurasthenic, was he?’

Bennett realised that Tring was planning his report, looking for a diagnosis that would absolve him of any suggestion of dereliction. But Bennett wasn’t prepared to play that game,
certainly not with neurasthenia, a disparaging diagnosis used to imply that nervous disorders without obvious cause sprang from lack of backbone. ‘Not neurasthenia, no,’ he stated
firmly. ‘I would say that he was a brave young man for whom the battle simply went on too long.’

Tring threw him a dubious glance. ‘Indeed, indeed,’ he said briskly, making for the door. ‘Well, thank you, gentlemen. Thank you.’ The inspector left with him, the rumble
of their voices fading down the passageway.

In the silence that followed, Bennett pulled the blanket up over the dead man’s face.

On entering the cell he had glanced at the barred window and just as quickly glanced away again. Now he took in the height of the window and the ragged makeshift rope fastened to one of the
bars, and the severed end from when they had cut him down.

‘Must have taken him hours,’ the sergeant remarked, following his gaze. ‘We checked regular as clockwork every half-hour through the night, but we never caught him tearing up
the blanket, let alone shifting the bed under the window. He seemed to know exactly how to go about it, I’ll say that for him.’

Robertson’s voice said, ‘He gave no sign of what he was intending?’

‘Depends what you mean by sign,’ the sergeant replied, a touch defensively. ‘There’s some that yell and shout all night, and there’s some that stay quiet. It
doesn’t mean much. They usually perk up just the same after a good breakfast. This one, he was quiet when we began our shift. Then, about nine, he started making a commotion. First, we put it
down to him being foreign, if you know what I mean. But when he didn’t calm down, we called Dr Tring. After that, he was quiet again. Looked like he’d gone to sleep. Nothing to tell us
he was planning something like this. Nothing at all.’

Bennett asked, ‘When was he found?’

‘At five a.m., sir. He must have done it right after the four-thirty round, because by the time we discovered him he was long gone.’

Bennett pictured Jozef feigning sleep as the officer looked in through the Judas hole, waiting for the footsteps to fade before shifting the bed and reaching up to the window to tie the
makeshift rope to the bar. What would go through a man’s head in those last moments? Did he think of his family? Of his God? Did he look forward with joy and anticipation to the release from
his agony? Was he filled with longing for the freedom to come?

Robertson asked, ‘Did he have any family, do you know?’

‘I believe he had a mother in Poland, but best ask Wladyslaw. He’s aware of what’s happened, I presume?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Yes, he knows,’ confirmed the sergeant.

The sergeant escorted them to a cell at the end of the passage and unlocked the door.

Wladyslaw was sitting on the bed, his forearms resting on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him. He turned his head unhurriedly, without interest. Only when he saw Bennett did his eyes
sharpen in greeting. Getting up, he grasped Bennett’s hand and sat him down solicitously on the bed next to him.

Bennett said, ‘I’m so very sorry, Wladyslaw.’

He gave a minute shrug. ‘With Jozef it was always big problem to keep him alive in his own thoughts.’

‘But this business.’

‘Yes. This was not good.’

Robertson offered Wladyslaw a cigarette, which he took with a brief nod. Inhaling slowly, he said, ‘He believed that bad things were following him. That he had no hope of a better life. I
told him there is no evidence, but he did not listen. All the time I shouted across to him, calm down, calm down, it will be OK, but nine, ten o’clock he went crazy for a while. Then after
the doctor comes he is quiet. I ask police to leave the thing open’ – he mimed the sliding shutter over the Judas hole – ‘and I called to him all the time, you OK? Then at
one, two o’clock he said he wished to sleep.’ Wladyslaw spread a palm in a gesture of impotence. ‘He had made his decision by this time. I listened in the night, I called two,
three times, but I heard nothing. Nothing at all.’

After a suitable pause, Robertson said, ‘He had family in Poland, I believe?’

‘He had his mother and three sisters.’

‘Where would I find their address?’

‘At the farm. There are letters in his kitbag. You will not tell them how he died?’

‘I’ve no doubt Major Rafalski will find some way round it. Influenza, something like that.’

‘You will leave me a copy of this address, please? And tell me what caused his death when you know, because I will write also.’ He scoffed, ‘If – when – I get out
of this place.’

Bennett said, ‘They can’t hold you much longer, Wladyslaw.’

‘They say I killed Hanley because I lose Stella to him. They say I am mad with jealousy. Because Poles are passionate crazy people who go mad with jealousy all the time for no reason. We
know this well.’ He looked from Bennett to Robertson and rolled his eyes in silent comment. ‘I tell them, next time I kill someone, it will be for better reason than this. Like they are
Russian soldiers. But they don’t think this is too funny. They sure don’t smile.’

Bennett could imagine how well this had gone down with Inspector Shearer and his colleagues, for whom talk of other enemies and other wars would be deeply suspect.

In the same tone of exasperation, Wladyslaw added, ‘I ask them why I wish to kill Hanley when the lady has made her choice. I ask them why I wait three, four weeks to do it. I ask them how
I get Hanley into the river.’ He made a question of this with a wide swing of his cigarette. ‘They have no answer.’

‘They can’t hold you for more than twenty-four hours without evidence, Wladyslaw. Isn’t that right, Robertson?’

The captain nodded. ‘Thirty-six at the most.’

But Wladyslaw had cocked an ear to the sound of approaching voices outside the cell. He said, ‘One thing, Captain. You will find a priest for Jozef?’

‘Well . . . of course.’

‘Some priests, they won’t say prayers for people who die this way. If the Polish priest won’t do it, you will find an English priest?’

‘Of course.’

‘Despite all the things that happened to Jozef in his life, he believed still in God. He has a bad bargain, I think, if he does not receive prayers at the end.’

The bolts sounded and the door opened. Inspector Shearer appeared, with the sergeant at his shoulder. ‘Mr Malinowski?’

Wladyslaw dropped his cigarette onto the floor and ground it out before looking up.

‘You are free to go.’

Bennett gripped Wladyslaw’s shoulder in triumph before climbing to his feet. ‘He’s completely in the clear?’

‘Yes.’

‘There!’ Bennett cried. ‘What did I tell you?’ Then, to Shearer, ‘You’ve discovered it was an accident?’

‘We have reason to believe so, yes.’

‘You found the motorbike?’

‘Yes. It has been retrieved from the River Tone at Stanmoor Bridge.’

‘And it had crashed?’

‘It would seem so. The, er, forensic expert believes he has found a point of impact on the bridge.’

‘There!’

‘Also, two witnesses have come forward on behalf of Mr Malinowski regarding his whereabouts.’

Robertson murmured, in the tone of someone wanting to get things absolutely straight, ‘On behalf of Mr Walczak as well?’

‘Him as well,’ the inspector agreed.

Wladyslaw asked, ‘This was Billy Greer?’

‘Mr Greer was one of them, yes.’

Wladyslaw seemed quietly pleased at this. He gave a slow nod.

It was a week before the burial could take place. The turnout was larger than Wladyslaw had expected. From the camp came not only Major Rafalski, Captain Robertson and two
other administrative officers but the godmothers and six of Jozef’s comrades from the Third Carpathian Rifles, who bore the coffin to the grave before forming an honour guard. To one side of
them and some way back stood Billy with Annie Bentham. Only Dr Bennett was absent.

The cemetery lay on the edge of a moor beyond Middlezoy in what was little more than a field. No trees grew there, and the large area not yet taken up by graves was covered in rough grass. The
plot allocated to Jozef was in a remote corner not far from a number of unmarked graves, presumably those of paupers and vagrants. Yet for a young man who had once dreamt of running a smallholding
it was an appropriate spot, for just beyond the iron boundary fence cattle grazed, and when the Polish priest began to intone his prayers it was to the accompaniment of soft ruminating and the
swish of hooves passing through long grass.

After the priest had finished, Rafalski spoke. ‘This soldier fought bravely for our freedom. Now he has given his soul to God, his body to foreign soil, and his heart to Poland.’
After a moment’s silence Rafalski stepped forward to cast the first earth onto the coffin.

Wladyslaw walked down to the gates with the godmothers. Danuta dragged a handkerchief across her eyes and said, ‘So you’re leaving us too, are you, Wladek?’

‘Yes. I’ve decided on Canada.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear.’

‘It’s meant to be a great country.’

‘I know. But it’s so far away. Everywhere’s so far away.’ Dabbing at her eyes again, she made for Robertson’s car.

Alina kissed Wladyslaw on both cheeks then touched her fingertips wistfully to the side of his head. ‘Maybe we will follow you, Wladek. Who knows?’

Wladyslaw waited for Robertson and Rafalski to come through the gates. As they approached, Wladyslaw was surprised to hear Rafalski talking in broken but passable English.

As Robertson hurried off to organise the transport, Rafalski reverted smoothly to Polish. ‘Ah, Malinowski,’ he murmured in his abstracted way. ‘You’re off now, are
you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Whereabouts in Canada was it?’

‘Toronto, hopefully.’

‘Ah . . .’ The note of faint bewilderment sounded again. ‘Well . . . what can I say except good luck? I’m off myself at long last. I should be in Paris by the end of next
week, in time for my sister’s wedding.’