Where the Devil Can't Go

by Anya Lipska

  Crashing the receiver into its battered cradle, he leaned against the radiator, and fingered his swollen and aching face. All this dramat, from a single drunken shag – and that after they had been apart for seven years!

  Copetka was giving him the silent treatment from the kitchen doorway.

  “Don’t you start on me!” he burst out, causing the startled cat to flee, claws scrabbling on the floorboards. Then he realised he hadn’t fed him since the previous morning. Going to the kitchen, he clattered out a double portion of dried food onto a plate and stroked him as he ate it.

  Janusz filled a pint glass from the tap and stood drinking it, looking out of the kitchen window. In all his twenty-odd years living here, he’d never been burgled, but now he noticed for the first time how easy it would be to break in. Any reasonably fit guy could scale the two-metre fence at the rear of the block, and from there it was three flights up the handy cast-iron fire escape to the kitchen’s sash window, usually left open so the cat could go to and fro.

  “No more Hotel Kiszka for you, Copetka,” he said to the cat as he closed the window and fastened the catch. “You go out in the morning and don’t get back in till I come home, like a homeless hostel.”

  The idea that someone had simply strolled in while he slept filled him with impotent rage. Worse, it also made him feel vulnerable, an emotion he hadn’t permitted himself for many years.

  Getting dressed was a slow and painful process. Then he propped the medicine chest on the bathroom sink and, using the shattered mirror as a guide, dressed his wounds with antiseptic salve, stuck a small plaster over the cut on his temple which wouldn’t stop bleeding, and wound a bandage round his cut hand.

  Marta’s call had dredged up the past like silt in a storm drain. He found himself reflecting that marrying her had been his life’s biggest mistake – no, make that the second biggest. He couldn’t even remember the marriage service: he had been as drunk as a log. Back then, in the weeks after Iza’s death, he had been smashed from the time he opened his eyes in the morning till the moment he fell asleep – lost consciousness, more like – in the early hours.

  When he’d finally sobered up, weeks later, he found that somehow, amid all the craziness, he really had married Marta, even though friends like Oskar, and his mother, God rest her soul, said they had tried everything to talk him out of it. Well they’d been proved right. He and Marta were a disaster: the only thing that bound them was Iza, his lover and her best friend. When Marta found out she couldn’t compete with a ghost, she soured faster than a pail of milk in August - and who could blame her?

  As for Bobek, he loved the boy – would kill for him, no question – but he wasn’t cut out for parenthood. Whenever he remembered with a jolt that he was a father, he had the sensation of something reaching up from the depths of a murky lake to drag him under.

  He decided to make some kompot, defrosting his last precious kilo of damsons, retrieved from the back of the freezer. As always, the simple pleasures of cooking – weighing out the sugar, juicing a lemon, the sharp autumnal fragrance as he stirred the simmering berries – helped to settle and focus his thoughts. Until the harsh electronic tone of the doorbell made him drop the wooden spoon.

  Pressing the entry phone speaker, he heard the voice of a girl saying she was from the police. He froze for a moment, then buzzed her up – what else could he do? He spun through all his recent deals, racking his brains for what the visit might be about. The Smeg appliances he’d got for Slawek? OK, he hadn’t stolen them, but the payment method – a wad of cash handed over in a pub to someone called John – probably wouldn’t go down well with the cops.

  And then there was the escapade at Adamski’s cottage: what if someone had got the van’s plate and traced it to Oskar?

  Then he opened the flat door – and almost laughed out loud. The girl looked about twenty, for Christ’s sake, she barely came up to his chest, and she was much too pretty to be a policewoman. OK, she had a Met ID card, but from her smart trouser suit, he guessed she was a civilian officer – maybe working in community liaison or some such crap. If it were anything important they would hardly have sent a girl.

  Kershaw accepted Kiszka’s offer of coffee and took a chair at the kitchen table. From the moment she set eyes on him, adrenaline had started coursing through her veins. Two metres tall and powerfully built, the guy was the size of a wardrobe, and from the state of his face, he’d been in a major ruck in the last few hours. She noticed him grimace, hand shooting to his side, as he reached up to get some cups off a shelf. Broken rib, too. Janusz Kiszka was clearly no stranger to violence.

  While he was spooning ground coffee into an old-style steel percolator, Kershaw checked the place out. The scruffy, orange pine kitchen units hadn’t been replaced since the Eighties, and the piles of junk mail and dirty crockery on the worktop screamed ‘man living alone’, but a rack of pricey-looking copper-bottomed pans, and the hot fruity smell emanating from the hob suggested a girlfriend, or wife, in residence.

  “That smells good,” she said. “Does your partner enjoy cooking?”

  “Partner?” He laughed. “I live alone.” He waved a self-deprecating hand “Anyway, it’s not really cooking – just some kompot”.

  Go figure, she thought, Eastern European thugs make their own jam.

  When the percolator finished burbling, Janusz served the coffee in proper cups and saucers, and offered the girl milk in a china jug – she was a guest, after all. Then he sat down opposite her and leaned both forearms on the table. “Let me guess,” he said, with an apologetic grin. “One of my neighbours called to complain about some noise this morning?”

  Kershaw just smiled and took a sip of the insanely strong coffee. The guy’s condescending look, his relaxed body language, suggested he thought a female was nothing to worry about. Well, if it meant he was off his guard that suited her just fine. While he gave her some old bollocks about how he’d slipped getting out of the shower and smashed the bathroom mirror, she gave him the discreet once-over.

  Fortyish, with dark brown hair, longish – a style that went out of fashion in the Nineties – and peppered with grey. Not bad looking, if you went in for the caveman look.

  “Was that how you hurt your face, Sir, the accident with the mirror?” she asked, scrunching up her forehead in sympathy.

  He hesitated, then nodded, touching the swollen flesh over his cheekbone. Shit, he’d almost forgotten how he must look.

  She lifted the coffee to her lips, “And the bruise on the back of your neck?” meeting his eyes over the rim of her cup. He was about to agree when he realised that wouldn’t wash.

  “Actually, I was involved in a car crash last night. Nothing serious but, well I must confess I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt,” he said with an apologetic grin. “I’ve learned my lesson now.”

  Bullshit. “Was this your car, Mr Kizz-ka, or a friend’s car?”

  He looked up at the ceiling.

  “It was a hackney cab, actually.”

  “You mean a black cab?” Aside from the odd prehistoric phrase, his English was surprisingly fluent. In fact, if it wasn’t for the accent and something indefinably foreign about his look, his clothes, she might almost describe him, as well, posh.

  “Yes. I missed the last tube, so I hailed one in the street.”

  Making it untraceable, of course, should she want to check his story.

  “A broken mirror and a car crash!” she said. “Would you describe yourself as accident-prone, Mr Kizz-ka?” – a hint of sarcasm entering her voice.

  “It’s Kish-ka,” he corrected her, stretching his lips into a smile, “Yan-ush Kish-ka.” His head had started booming like a timpani, but he knew he had to keep his cool. What the hell was this girl doing here?

  “Can I ask what you do for a living, Mr Kish-ka?”

  “I am a businessman,” he said, cradling his coffee – the cup almost disappearing in his hands, she noticed. “Import and export, mostly.”

  Kers
haw nodded at a pile of New Scientist magazines lying on the table.

  “Is your line of work scientific?”

  “Not really, I just have a inquiring mind.” He smiled again, to soften any rudeness in the remark.

  She drank her coffee. Streaky had told her once that silence was the most underrated weapon in interrogation.

  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.