Where the Devil Can't Go (10 page)

He insisted on walking Justyna to her flat, which was a mile away to the west, the other side of Stratford, beyond the River Lea. The route took them through the centre of town, where the music and strident chatter spilling from the lit doorways of pubs and clubs and the clusters of smokers outside suggested the place was just waking up, although it was gone eleven and only a Tuesday. As they passed the entrance to an alleyway beside one pub Janusz heard urgent voices and, through the gloom, saw two men pushing a smaller guy up against the wall. He froze, muscles bunching, but a second later the scene came into focus. The little guy was catatonic with drunkenness, head drooping and limbs floppy, and the other two, weaving erratically themselves, were simply trying to keep their mate upright.

Janusz and Justyna shared a look and walked on. No one would describe Poles as abstemious, but any serious drinking was done at home and public drunkenness was frowned upon. Janusz’s mother, who’d visited London as a child before the war, had always spoken approvingly of the English as a decorous and reserved people, so his first Friday night out with the guys from the building site, had been something of an eye-opener. Still, the greatest compliment you could pay a man back then was to say he could carry his drink, and those who ended the night by falling over or picking a fight were viewed with pitying scorn.

Justyna shared a flat in a tidy-looking low-rise estate run by a housing association. Pausing on the pavement outside, she turned to him, drawing smoke from her cigarette deep into her lungs against the cold. “Thanks for the drinks,” she said.

“You’re welcome.” He took a draw on his cigar, then exhaled, blowing his smoke downwind from her. She seemed in no hurry to go in.

“Look, I really shouldn’t do this,” she said at last. “I promised Nika…”

She pulled a folded slip of paper out of her pocket, and handed it to him.

“Pawel made her swear not to give their address to anyone. But she wanted me to look out for letters from her Mama, forward them on. She knew she could trust me,” she stared off down the darkened street, “…
thought
she could trust me”.

He glanced at the paper, registering an address in Essex before pocketing it. “Listen, Justyna. You are the best friend Weronika has,” he sought her gaze. “She’s probably found out by now that Pawel is no knight in shining armour - maybe she’s wondering how to leave him without too much fuss,” he flexed his knuckles. “If that’s how it is, I’ll make sure her wishes are respected.”

She took a step toward him. “Be careful,” she said, in a low voice. “I don’t think Pawel is right in the head. Nika must have let slip that I warned her off him, because one day he followed me home, all the way from work,” her eyes widened. “He grabbed me by the arm and went crazy.” Her lips trembled as she relived the shock of it. “He told me if I didn’t keep my fucking nose out, he’d kill me.”

The guy was clearly a
psychol
, thought Janusz. “Don’t worry,” he told the girl. “Guys like him are usually all talk.”

She nodded, not entirely convinced. “And Nika said she’d phone me, but I’ve heard nothing, not even a text.”

A child cried sharply somewhere in her block and she shivered, then said in a rush: “It’s freezing – can I make you a coffee? Or maybe you’d like a
wodka
?”

That was unexpected. Was she propositioning him? He sensed a fear of rejection in her averted face. Compassion, good sense – and yes, temptation, too – wrestled briefly in his heart, and then a vision loomed up before him – the stern face of that old killjoy Father Pietruzki.

He shook his head. “Another time, darling, I’ve got a lot on tomorrow.”

“You’ll let me know when you find out where Nika is?” said the girl, anxiety ridging her forehead.

“You’ll be the first to hear,” he said.

He watched her walk into the block, and two or three minutes later a first-floor light came on in what he guessed was her flat. He lingered, thinking that she might appear in the window, but then got distracted by the screech of a big dark-coloured car pulling out from the estate. Gunning its engine, it tore off down the street. When he looked back up at the block, the curtains had been closed on the oblong of light. Feeling a pang of loneliness, he threw down his cigar stub and left.

EIGHT

For DC Kershaw, the following day would turn out to be what her Dad might have called a game of two halves.

As she stretched herself awake in the pre-dawn gloom, her triceps and calf muscles delivered a sharp reminder of how she’d spent the previous evening – scaling the toughest route on the indoor wall on Mile End Road, handhold by punishing handhold. It was worth it, though. Climbing demanded a level of concentration so focussed and crystalline that it left no headspace for stressing about the job. And she was getting pretty good, too – last summer she’d ticked off her first grade 7a climb, up in the Peaks. She hadn’t been tempted to mention her feat at work, obviously, because that would mean the entire nick calling her Spider woman…like
forever.

Still half-asleep, she stepped under the power shower, and found herself assaulted by jets of icy water. Gasping, she flattened her back against the cold glass and spun the knob right round to red, but it didn’t make a blind bit of difference. A quick tour of the flat revealed all the radiators to be stone cold, too – the boiler must be up the spout. Cursing, she pulled on her clothes, then her winter coat, and hurrying into the miniscule galley kitchen, turned on all four gas rings.

While she was scaling K2 last night, the rest of the guys had gone out on a piss-up to celebrate Browning’s birthday. She’d almost joined them, but luckily Ben Crowther tipped her off – with a look that said it
definitely
wasn’t his thing – that the birthday boy wanted to hit a lap dancing club in Shoreditch later.
No thanks.
Being ‘one of the guys’ in the office was one thing, but she could live without the sight of Browning getting his crotch polished by some single mum with 36DD implants and a Hollywood wax.

The milk she added to her brewed tea floated straight to the surface in yellowy curds.
Bugger.
After making a fresh cup, black this time, she took it into the living room. As she sat on the sofa in her coat drinking the tea – too astringent-tasting without the milk – she fretted about how she would find time today to hassle the letting agents, let alone wangle a half-day off for the boiler repairman. Life had been a lot less stressful when Mark had lived here. Not that he was some spanner-wielding DIY god. No – Mark drove a desk in a Docklands estate agents and the only gadgets he’d mastered were the remote controls for the telly and the Skyplusbox – but it was so much easier when there were two of you to sort out the tedious household stuff.

As she attacked her last surviving nail, unshakeable habit and source of much mickey-taking at the station, her gaze fell on the dusty surface of the TV cabinet and the darker rectangle where the plasma screen used to sit. She’d let Mark take it when they split up last month.

How did I get to be sitting alone in a rented flat that I can’t afford, drinking black tea in my coat? she thought suddenly, and felt her eyes prickle.

She reminded herself how unbearable the atmosphere between her and Mark had become in those last few weeks, when their dead relationship lay in the flat like a decomposing body which they stepped over and around without ever acknowledging. By comparison, the previous phase had been preferable. The rows had started a couple of months ago, after she got the job at Newham CID and started coming home late and lagered-up two or three times a week. If she was in luck, he’d be asleep when she crawled into bed beside him, but if he was still awake, there’d be trouble. He’d complain she reeked of booze and fags, but they both knew that wasn’t the real issue. Mark never really accepted her argument that she went drinking with the guys because bonding was fundamental to the job, not because she
fancied
any of them. The argument would get more and more heated, and then he’d start in on her language –
Since you joined the cops, Nat, you talk more like a bloke than a bird.

The last accusation hit home: but you couldn’t spend all day holding your own with a bunch of macho guys, then come home and morph into Cheryl Cole. Sometimes she felt like she’d actually grown a Y-chromosome over the last few years.

Anyway, Kershaw had always felt more comfortable around men – probably because she’d been brought up by her father. The photos of her as a kid said it all – playing five a side with him and his mates in the park…holding up her first fish – a carp – caught at Walthamstow Reservoir…draped in a Hammers scarf on the way to the footie. Dad told her, more than once, that he never missed having a son, because with her he got the best of both worlds – a beautiful, clever little girl who could clear a pool table in under ten minutes.

Two years ago, when they told him the cancer was terminal, he confided, in a hoarse whisper that tore her heart out, that looking back, he had one regret.
I should have remarried after your Mum died,
he said,
so you had someone to teach you how to be a lady.

Checking her watch, Kershaw gave a very unladylike sniff, wiped her face, and told herself to stop being such a wuss. Then, gulping the rest of the lukewarm tea down with a grimace, she picked up her bag.

As she closed the front door behind her, she heard her Dad’s voice.

Up and at ‘em, girl,
it said,
up and at ‘em.

Parking in the miniscule car park attached to Newham nick was the usual struggle, and it didn’t improve her mood to see Browning’s car was already there. The little creep always got in early for his shift.

There was an email from Waterhouse in her inbox. The PM report had come back, and even better, the lab must have had a quiet week because they’d already done the tox report on DB16. It confirmed the cause of death as overdose by PMA – the dodgy drug Waterhouse had mentioned.
Yess!
She printed out the report, and surfing a wave of adrenaline, made a beeline for Streaky’s desk.

Later on, Kershaw would reflect it might have been better to wait till Streaky had downed his first pint of brick-red tea
before
she put the report under his nose.

He didn’t lift his gaze from the racing pages. “Sarge…” she tried, hovering over him, “Sorry to…”

“Fuck off, I’m busy,” he replied, without looking up.

“The PM report on the floater…”

He lowered the paper, and fixed her with a bloodshot stare.

“Which part of the well-known Anglo-Saxon phrase ‘Fuck off’ don’t you understand? Go and wax your bikini line or something.”

With that he swivelled his chair to turn his back on her and circled a horse in the 230pm at Newmarket. Face radiating heat, she slipped the report into his in-tray, and returned to her desk by the window. Browning, who occupied the desk facing her, caught her eye, his face a study in faux-sympathy.

“
Hangover,
” he hissed, leaning across the desk. “It turned into a bit of bender last night.”

“Oh yes?” said Kershaw, opening her mailbox.

“You should have come,” he said. “We had a good laugh at Obsessions – you know, the lap dance place?”

Suddenly, he started tapping on his keyboard. Glancing over her shoulder, Kershaw saw DI Bellwether standing behind them, deep in conversation with the Sarge.

Bellwether, a tall, fit-looking guy in his early thirties, was all matey smiles, although it was clear from his body language who was boss. Streaky had put on his jacket and adopted the glassy smile he employed with authority. Kershaw could tell he resented the Guv – not because the guy had ever done anything to him, but probably because Bellwether had joined the Met as a graduate on the now-defunct accelerated promotion programme, which meant he’d gained DI rank in five years, around half the time it would have taken him to work his way up in the old days. The very mention of accelerated promotion or, as he preferred to call it,
arse-elevated
promotion, would turn Streaky fire-tender red.

Kershaw thought his animosity toward Bellwether was all a bit daft, really, since Streaky was a self-declared career DS without the remotest interest in promotion. As he never tired of explaining, becoming an inspector meant kissing goodbye to paid overtime, spending more time on ‘management bollocks’ than proper police work, and having to count paperclips to keep the boss-wallahs upstairs happy. An absolute mug’s game, in other words.

She could overhear the two of them discussing the latest initiative from the Justice Department.

“We’ll make it top priority, Guv,” she heard Streaky say. He was always on his best behaviour with the bosses, and never uttered a word against any of them personally – a self-imposed discipline that no doubt dated from his brief stint as an NCO in the Army.

As Bellwether breezed over, she and Browning got to their feet – Kershaw pleased that she’d chosen her good shoes and newest suit this morning.

“Morning Natalie, Tom. Are you early-birds enjoying the dawn chorus this week?”

Ha-ha, thought Kershaw, while Browning cracked up at the non-witticism.

“What are you working on, Natalie?” Bellwether asked her, with what sounded like real interest, causing Browning’s doggy grin to sag.

“I’m on a floater, Guv, Polish female washed up near the Barrier.”

“Cause of death?”

“OD. Some dodgy pseudo-ecstasy called PMA.”

“PMA? That rings a bell…” mused Bellwether. “Let me surf my inbox and give you a heads-up later today.”

Kershaw stifled a grin. Bellwether was alright, but he had caught a nasty little dose of jargonitis from attending too many management workshops.

As soon as he left, Streaky called her over.

“So let me guess,” he drawled, flipping through Waterhouse’s PM report. “The good doctor has got you all overexcited about a dodgy drugs racket. You do know he’s a tenner short of the full cash register?”