Where the Devil Can't Go (16 page)

Janusz resisted filling it, felt the strain begin to tell in his smile muscles. He noticed her bitten nails: an ugly habit, especially in a woman.

“Can I ask if you’re married, Mr Kiszka?”

“Yes, my wife lives in Poland, we have a son.”

He hadn’t touched his coffee, she noticed.

“But you choose to live here?” She raised an eyebrow – deliberately needling him now.

“Poland’s economy isn’t in good shape at the moment – many people work somewhere else,” his perfect English coming a bit unstuck, Kershaw noted. “Listen, darling, I don’t want to be rude, but what is this all about?”

She flashed him a sweet smile: “Oh it’s probably nothing,” and rummaging in her handbag, pulled out a plastic evidence bag, which she put on the table between them, “Do you recognise this?”

He leant closer, earning a jab of pain from his rib.
Kurwa
mac!
It looked like it had been through a washing machine, but he recognised it alright. How in the fuck had she got hold of his business card? If he’d dropped it in the cottage, he was in big trouble.

“Sure, it’s my card,” he said, leaning back, and pulled out his box of cigars. “Is there a problem?”

“Yes Mr Kiszka, I’m afraid there is. I have to inform you that it was found in the possession of an individual found dead of a suspected drugs overdose yesterday. We are investigating the circumstances leading up to her death.”

Janusz loathed this kind of police-speak, its opaque menace reminded him of the language the
milicja
had used under Communism. It was clear this slip of a girl was a detective, if only a junior one, he realised, cursing his stupidity. Lighting a cigar, he took a drag to compose himself.

“I’m sorry to hear that, but I’ve given my card to hundreds of people,” he said, describing an arc with his cigar to indicate how widely they might now be scattered.

“You don’t seem particularly interested in who has died,” said the girl. Her grey-blue eyes were steely now, boring into his, and her flat Cockney vowels were starting to irritate him. He recalled a proverb his Grandfather had been fond of quoting:
Where the devil can’t go, he sends a woman.

“Maybe I’m in shock,” he said, staring back at her. “But since you are obviously dying to tell me, go ahead.”

The charm was slipping, thought Kershaw. Keeping her eyes pinned to his face she said: “Justyna Koz-low-ski.”

Janusz’s breath clotted in his lungs like soft snow and a high ringing sound filled his ears. He was engulfed by an extraordinary sensation, as if his body were physically unravelling from the back of his throat down to the pit of his stomach, while his mind floated up and watched the scene from above, a disinterested observer. One section of his brain noted that the cigar was burning his fingers, but was somehow unable to issue the order to act.

He just sits there
, thought Kershaw,
cool as a fucking
cucumber.

With an enormous effort, Janusz re-assembled himself, and transferring the cigar to his left hand, put it to his lips.

“Did you know Ms Koz-low-ski?” asked Kershaw, rhyming the middle syllable with ‘cow’.

“The name rings a bell, but I can’t place her.” He let a cloud of smoke drift between them to obscure his expression, making Kershaw wrinkle her nose, despite herself.

“So when I view the Waveney Thameside’s security camera tapes from the early hours of yesterday morning, I won’t find you on them, right?”
A stab in the dark.

He gave one shake of his head, his lips pressed into a line.

“When did you last see Ms Koz-low-ski?” she persisted.

Janusz exploded out of his seat: “It’s
Koj-loff-ski.
You could at least get her fucking name right!”

Kershaw counted to five, then spoke in a level and calm tone.

“I think you
were
with Justyna. Maybe she was your girlfriend or maybe a working girl. Either way, when she overdosed, you got scared.”

Janusz was barely listening. He was staring into space, seeing Justyna’s face light up when she talked about the future, her plans to train as an osteopath, the motherly concern in her brown eyes when she spoke of Weronika... Finished. Over. How could a girl who was so...
alive
, two days ago now be lying on a shelf in a mortuary fridge?

The guy was looking agitated now, thought Kershaw – probably wondering how he’d managed to overlook his card when he’d cleared the hotel room.

“Listen, Mr Kiszka,” she said, putting warmth into her voice. “I promise you this will turn out a lot better if you tell me about it now.”

Janusz didn’t respond. He just wanted this manipulative little
dziwka
to go, so he could think. Then he realised that he’d gone straight home after leaving Justyna on Tuesday night, which meant he didn’t have an alibi.
Play for time.

Taking a deep breath, he sat down again. “I remember the name,” he said, speaking slowly, not quite trusting his voice. “We went out for a drink once.” He paused to relight his cigar. “But it went no further, and I can assure you I never went to any hotel with her.”

“Can anyone account for your movements in the early hours of Wednesday?”

“Yes, I was drinking with a friend in Stratford on Tuesday, till about three in the morning.” Shifting last night’s session back by a day was the simplest thing to do – Oskar would back him up.

3am – the girl’s estimated time of death
, thought Kershaw –
how very convenient.

Janusz started clearing the empty coffee cups from the table.

“I can tell you one thing,” he said over his shoulder as he carried them to the sink. “She was no whore.”

“OK, but did you have sex with her in the last few days?” the girl persisted. “We might need a DNA sample.”

Janusz resisted a powerful urge to smash the cups to the floor. To be asked such questions by a girl young enough to be his daughter! Setting them on the worktop with care, he said, in as casual a tone as he could manage: “I should be more than happy to make a statement, or provide a sample should you deem it necessary, but right now I’m afraid I’m late for an appointment.”

Then he turned so that his big frame was backlit by the window, making it impossible for Kershaw to read his expression. “Unless, of course, you are going to arrest me now.”

She hesitated: all her instincts told her to drag Janusz Kiszka down the station and give him the third degree. Everything about him screamed involvement in Justyna Kozlowska’s death, and just maybe, in Ela’s, too. Despite the educated way of speaking, she could almost
hear
the static crackle of suppressed violence in the air around him.

In the end, it wasn’t the prospect of trying to get the cuffs on the big bastard single-handed that stopped her reading him his rights, it was picturing herself explaining to Streaky why she’d arrested him before checking out his alibi.

She stood up.
Take control.
Pushed her card across the table to him.

“We’ll let you know about the DNA sample, Mr Kiszka. For now, since you are a person of interest to the investigation, I would ask that you let us know if you make any plans to leave London.” He made a tiny bow of acknowledgement.

“And I’ll need contact details for your friend – the one who you say can account for your movements Tuesday night?”

He gave her Oskar’s number and accompanied her to the door. At the last moment, she turned and tilted her serious little face up to him – funnily enough, he reflected, she didn’t look quite so cute anymore.

“One last thing, Mr Kiszka,” said Kershaw, remembering the tattoo on her floater’s buttock. “Do you happen to know anyone called Pawel?”

He gave a dismissive laugh. “I know about a dozen guys called Pawel, darling.”

Which sounded reasonable enough, thought Kershaw, as she descended the staircase of the block, but then why had those big mitts of his clenched into fists at the mention of the name?

Janusz paced his living room, cigar clenched between his teeth, replaying the evening at the
FlashKlub
with Justyna over and over. According to the girl
detektywa
, just after he walked Justyna home, she had decided to head to some glitzy hotel in Wapping for a sex and drugs session. That just didn’t sound like the girl he’d met.

Had she lied about her relationship with Pawel Adamski? Perhaps she really had been his girlfriend once, and he’d jilted her for the younger girl.

Janusz stood staring out over Highbury Fields. He knew that a scorned woman could be ruthless, but the more he went over his encounter with Justyna, the harder he found it to make her fit the role. Recalling her steady gaze, the way she called the younger girl by her pet name, he could find no hint of duplicity or deviousness – her concern for Nika seemed as genuine as her contempt for Adamski.

No. She had been tricked into going to the hotel, perhaps on the pretext of meeting Weronika, he was sure of it, and forced to take the drugs – and everything pointed to Adamski being her killer.

Then Janusz remembered her asking him in for coffee that night. He stopped his restless pacing, and closed his eyes.
Mother of God!
What he’d seen in Justyna’s expression hadn’t been fear
of rejection
, it had been
fear
, plain and simple. He gripped the mantelpiece to steady himself. Justyna had been so frightened of Adamski that she had asked him in – would perhaps even have slept with him, a man old enough to be her father – rather than spend the night alone.

And he had turned her down. Guilt reached out to Janusz like an old friend: for the sake of some pious fucking hang-up about what he would say to Father Piotr at his next confession, he had signed the girl’s death warrant.

Just then, Janusz’s mobile rang.

“It’s me, sisterfucker,” bellowed a familiar voice. Oskar had never quite accepted the idea that mobile phones could carry the human voice unaided.

“
Kolego
!” said Janusz, with heartfelt warmth. “I’ve been trying to call you.”

“
Kurwa!
What’s with you? Does hearing my voice give you a hard-on?”

Janusz grinned: Oskar had always had this knack of lightening the gloomiest moments.

“Anyway, gayboy, your dick’s not big enough for me. So pull up your panties and tell me this – why are the fucking cops on your case?”

“The girl
detektywa
? Did she ask you about Tuesday night?”

“Yeah, she did, but here’s a funny thing, the signal was so bad I couldn’t hear a word,” said Oskar with elaborate regret, “In the middle of central London, too! I said I’d call her back later.”

Janusz grinned: “
Brawo.
When you do, tell her we were drinking at your place till late – I didn’t leave till three am, okay?”

“
Tak
, leave it to me, Janek – I’ll talk to her, give her the old Oskar magic with both barrels. After five, maximum ten minutes, she’ll be begging me for a date.”

Janusz arranged to meet his mate later in the day.

After hanging up, he pulled the photo of Weronika out of his wallet. She looked like a little girl playing at dressing-up in her Mama’s fur coat. There was no point going over and over how he’d let Justyna down – that would be to indulge in self-pity. His storm of emotion had passed, but it had left a sense of resolve as hard as tempered steel: he would do everything within his power to rescue Weronika from Pawel Adamski.

Then his phone rang again. According to the display, the caller was Father Piotr Pietruzki.

TWELVE

Kershaw gave the stubs of her nails a bit of a savaging as she drove away, worrying about how far she’d pushed Janusz Kiszka. Not that she gave a flying fuck about upsetting him – whatever alibi he and his Polish mate might dream up, she was convinced that Kiszka was mixed up in Justyna’s death – but because she was uncomfortably aware that Streaky might blow an artery if he found out.

Right from the off, the Sarge had been sceptical about the significance of Kiszka’s card being found in the girl’s mouth. According to him, it didn’t even put Kiszka at the scene. Maybe she’d used it to snort coke, he said, which would explain why it was rolled up.

Kershaw hadn’t risked arguing the toss, but inside she was fizzing with excitement, convinced that the card changed what looked like a random OD into manslaughter – or even murder. A gorilla like Kiszka could easily have overpowered Justyna, tying her up and forcing drugs down her throat before raping her. Maybe the poor girl had a flash of intuition about her fate and, in desperation, managed to hide his card in her mouth – pointing the finger straight at her killer.

Streaky had trusted her to check out the lead alone. Well, to be strictly accurate, by the time Terry had coaxed the girl’s name and address out of London Underground’s computer system, he was running late for his usual appointment at the boozer – but he had made it crystal that she treat Kiszka solely as a potential contact of the girl.

“We’ll send a uniform to her address to find a next of kin, and you pay this Mr Kiszka a visit. But don’t get carried away, Miss Marple,” he had warned as they left the Waveney Hotel together, the revolving doors spitting them out into a wintry dusk. He paused to light a fag and continued, apparently oblivious to the bitter wind coming off the river.

“We’ve got nothing concrete to put him at the scene. If it turns out he’s got no alibi
and
you ID him on the CCTV, that’s a whole different kettle of fish.” Jabbing the fag at her, he continued, “But if you start going hard at him now, he’ll just put the shutters up, or worse, fuck off back to Poland. Last thing we want.”

Now she was back at the Waveney. As she locked the motor, she felt a sudden conviction that she would find Kiszka’s Neanderthal mug on the tapes.

After collecting her from reception Derek, the hotel’s head of security, wasted no time telling her he was a retired cop – which couldn’t hurt, co-operation-wise. At the end of a corridor behind front desk he unlocked a door marked security, and ushered her into a world a million miles from the front of house luxury. Here the monogrammed carpets, modern sculpture and £100 a roll wallpaper gave way to imitation pine laminate flooring and painted breezeblock walls.