by Anya Lipska
Oskar sighed in agreement, then grinned: “Remember that time we smuggled the Levi’s from Jugoslavia to Moscow?”
“Yeah, I remember,” said Janusz, with a rueful grin. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into it. We were lucky not to end up in some fucking gulag living on cabbage soup and watching frostbite turn our dicks black.”
They’d been fresh out of the military, sharing a room in a grotty Warsaw hostel. Even then, Oskar had been quick to spot ways to make cash. Communism had killed all normal commerce: the only stuff in the shops was the crap from ‘fraternal countries’ that nobody wanted. But since Poles could travel more or less freely there was a thriving trade in smuggled goods. Janusz had taken a lot of persuading, but Oskar finally wore him down: after all, apart from the promise of riches, getting one over on the Kommies was practically a national duty.
“And you made me promise on a fucking bible that if you went with me, I had to find you a copy of that song you were crazy about,” Oskar’s brow furrowed: “You know, the one by that poofter with the high voice.”
Bohemian Rhapsody. From the thrilling moment when Janusz had first heard it played on a mate’s transistor radio on Radio Luxembourg when he’d been what – fifteen, sixteen? – getting his hands on a copy had become an obsession.
“I don’t remember,” he said.
“You remember taking the night train to Belgrade, though,” said Oskar, waggling his eyebrows mockingly.
The pair had travelled with every zloty they and their mates could scrape together, and the address of a backstreet dealer scribbled on a scrap of paper.
Oskar knocked back another shot of vodka and his face split in a grin. “Every time you heard the milicja coming down the corridor to check passports you’d go ‘Look casual! Look casual!’” said Oskar, mimicking a squeaky voice. “And you kept threatening to swallow the piece of paper...” he started to crack up, “to...to... stop it falling into enemy hands!” He bellowed with laughter, slapping his thigh, tears brimming in his eyes.
All Janusz could remember was the cold fear of what it would do to his mother if he was caught: something that hadn’t occurred to him till the moment he’d met the steady stare of the official checking his passport. Thankfully, they got away with it, selling two dozen pairs of Levis to eager punters in Moscow for three times what they’d paid the dealer. Oskar had duly produced a shiny copy of Bohemian Rhapsody, bought from the Pewex dollar shop – but Janusz vowed never to put himself at risk again. Then, within three months, he had won a place to do physics at Jagiellonski, got involved in the protests, and all such resolutions flew out of the window.
“Anyway, kolego,” said Oskar, clearing his throat. “I was thinking, when you’ve finished playing detective, why don’t you go down to Warsaw, spend a few hours with Bobek?”
Janusz picked at the label of his beer bottle. The idea had occurred to him, too. In his imagination, he’d even got as far as the yellow door of the apartment, but the thought of Marta opening it, and her disapproving expression at the sight of his bruised face had been enough to dissuade him. No matter what he said, she’d be convinced he was back on the booze and had got himself into a fight.
“I’m here to work, not to play happy families,” said Janusz. His tone was level but Oskar detected a warning note.
He hesitated, then decided to have one last go. “It’s only a couple of hours on the train from Gdansk.”
“Don’t start nagging me, Oskar, you’re not my fucking wife,” Janusz growled.
Oskar decided not to press the issue. Janusz could be touchy on the subject of his family, which, according to Gosia, was because he felt guilty about being an absent father. Women’s heads were nine-tenths full of garbage, but any reasonable man had to admit they were usually right about shit like that.
An hour or so later, after a string of formal toasts to Olek, they were bedded down for the night under a couple of rugs, and Janusz was drawing a sigh of relief at the sound of snoring from his mate. Just before they turned in, he’d had to spend several minutes talking him out of his plan for a final valedictory gesture: prising open Olek’s coffin to give him a packet of crisps for the afterlife.
SEVENTEEN
“What do you mean, he’s gone to Poland?”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth Kershaw realised it was a silly question: the nerdy guy in the retro glasses could hardly have been clearer. His neighbour, Janusz Kiszka, had left the country yesterday, hours after she’d questioned him about Justyna Kozlowska.
“Another Polish guy, in a white van, came and picked him up,” said the neighbour, “at about five in the morning.” He raised his eyebrows to show what he thought of that.
“How d’you know the other man was Polish?”
“Because after Janusz got in the van there was a lot of shouting,” said the guy with a scowl, waving at his window. “I could hear everything.”
“Did it sound like a falling-out?”
He nodded. “Janusz was having a go at the other guy, I think.”
“Did he say when he was coming back?” she asked, aware of a note of panic entering her voice. If Kiszka had done a bunk, Streaky would kick her arse all over the office for scaring him off and he’d be right: she’d gone too far and too fast with him.
The neighbour looked worried now. “I certainly hope so – the night before he left he asked me to feed his cat for a few days.”
Phew. He hadn’t left for good then. Another thought occurred to Kershaw – if he was part of some drugs ring, maybe he’d gone to Poland to pick up PMA from one of those illegal factories the report talked about.
“I have quite a bad allergy to animal hair, actually,” the guy was saying.
He didn’t strike Kershaw as the old-fashioned neighbourly type, but then she couldn’t quite see Kiszka as a cat lover either.
“You and Mr Kiszka must be good friends.”
“No, no,” the bottom half of his face twisted into a grin, but behind the trendy glasses, his eyes looked nervous. “Not at all. I just...he said it was an emergency.”
Yeah. She imagined Janusz Kiszka would be a hard man to say no to.
The savaging Streaky gave her when she got back to the office was as bad as she’d anticipated and then some, but at least Browning and Bonnick were on lates, so Ben Crowther was the only other person to overhear the roasting. The worst thing about Kiszka’s disappearance was that Streaky now seemed to have a downer on every other bit of progress she’d made on the two dead Polish girls.
“Tell me if I’m missing something,” he asked, all innocence. “But on the Waveney Thameside case, you’ve got some CCTV footage of one suspect that’s about as useful as a chocolate fireguard, right?”
“Yes, Sarge,” she muttered.
“And, you’ve put the wind up a second suspect so bad that he’s legged it to Poland?”
“Sarge, I...”
“Now some stude who saw a picture of a misper on the website has conveniently handed you a name for the dead female in Wapping mortuary. And your latest devastating insight,” he shook his head, “if I’m not actually dreaming this, is that since this Ela Wronska’s room had a river view, she can’t have jumped in of her own accord, she must have been pushed!” Streaky jumped out of his chair. His face was so close to hers she could trace the tube map of broken blood vessels in his cheeks. “Just remind me – am I training you to be a detective, or a fucking clairvoyant?!”
“That’s not quite what I said, Sarge,” said Kershaw keeping her voice reasonable. “It’s just that I can’t see Elzbieta Wronska doing drugs. She was a total wallflower, she didn’t drink, and her idea of a great night was curling up with a book on 12th century theology.”
Streaky sat down, still breathing heavily. “So what? Maybe she was experimenting, seeing if a bit of Dr Feelgood would give her confidence, then got the heebie jeebies and topped herself.” But she could tell he was considering her point.
Kershaw put her hands behind her
back and picked at a ragged nail. If the Sarge didn’t buy the possibility of foul play there was no way he’d approve forensic checks on the room.
“What makes you think her room’s a scene, anyway?” he asked. “Any sign of forced entry?”
“No, Sarge. But the place looks like it’s been cleared out,” she said. “If she suicided, where’s her phone, her handbag, her laptop?”
“And no trace of the drugs she took?”
She shook her head. “I checked with the cleaner – she found nothing out of the ordinary in the room when she went in last week.”
“This vicar, or whatever you call him, who runs the place, what makes you think he’s a shifty character?”
She checked her notebook. “He couldn’t ID Elzbieta from the post mortem composite, but when I checked back with this friend of hers, Timothy Lethbridge, he told me Monsignor Zielinski was her personal tutor up till a year ago.”
Streaky cracked open a can of Lilt and took a slurp. “Hardly a hanging offence – he’s probably tutored hundreds of studes.”
He tapped his fingers on the can. “If the girl was murdered” – he shot her a warning look – “and I’m not saying you’ve got an ounce of evidence for it, I’d put this Timothy bloke top of the list. He fancied her but got the knockback, you say?”
“Yeah, but he fessed up to it pretty quick.”
“Still sounds like your best motive to me,” said Streaky. “If anyone else was even involved in her death.” He picked up his half-eaten sausage sandwich from the desk, then used a wetted finger to wipe a smear of brown sauce off the arrest warrant he’d been using as a plate.
Kershaw held her breath.
“Go on then,” said Streaky. “Get the CSI boys over there to check out her room. I’ve already had two bollockings for going over budget this month, I might as well make it the hat trick.”
“Brilliant, thanks Sarge.”
“Now piss off – before I find another wacky baccy factory for you to add to your collection.”
EIGHTEEN
When Janusz first noticed the guy in the hat, he and Oskar were just tucking into two platefuls of brined Baltic herring aboard an old fishing boat moored on the Gdansk waterfront.
The boat had been converted into a floating restaurant by the addition of a few makeshift benches and tables. In Janusz’s childhood, the quayside had been thronged with working vessels of all shapes and sizes, their shore ropes a cat’s cradle apparently designed to trip up small boys. Now this one, which had hauled its last cargo of herring long ago, was the lone survivor.
Rather than wodka, the traditional accompaniment to sledzia, they’d ordered steaming glasses of spiced wine, because – as Oskar had complained about a hundred times since they’d got here – it was bitterly cold, a good five degrees colder than London, in spite of the bright sunshine and clear cobalt skies.
The boat deck gave them a good overview of the harbour front. It was teeming with tourists, bundled up against the cold in fleecy jackets and woolly hats, mostly Polish and German from the snatches of conversation Janusz had overheard. They lounged on café terraces, or drifted along the cobbled quayside, admiring the tall, slender facades of the Hanseatic merchants’ houses, their wedding cake parapets reflected in the petrol blue surface of the Motlawa River.
Janusz tried to work out what it was about the man that made him stand out from the crowd. He walked at the same unhurried pace, but the way he held himself was more purposeful somehow, and his leather coat and hat jarred among that parade of leisure wear. He moved like a shark cruising through a shoal of ornamental carp.
“Oskar,” said Janusz, with a tilt of his head, “Don’t be obvious about it, but check out the guy in the hat who just went past.” Oskar immediately craned his head over the boat’s gunwale, forcing Janusz to kick him in the shins. By the time he thought it safe to look over his shoulder, the guy had disappeared, probably up one of the turnings leading off the waterfront.
“Forget it,” said Janusz, taking a warming mouthful of wine. But he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling he’d seen the man before. “Do you remember a guy wearing a hat on the ferry?”
Oskar put his fork down and tightly screwed up his eyes, a look which meant he was utilising all his powers of memory. “One of the Scousers was wearing a striped red and white top hat,” he offered finally, spearing his last chunk of herring. He wagged the loaded fork at Janusz, “You’re just jumpy,” he said, popping the fish in his mouth. “Because of the kicking that guy gave you.”
“Maybe,” said Janusz.
Oskar drank his remaining grzaniec in one draught and leaned back, slapping his stomach. “So, lady boy, what are we doing now? If your bus isn’t till four, we’ve got a couple of hours – although if the roads east of here are as crap as they were this morning I’ll probably be driving all night.” Janusz grunted agreement. After Germany’s autobahns, crossing the border had been like going back in time – mile after mile of potholed country roads, relieved only by the occasional stretch of dual carriageway.
“Let’s go to the Post Office!” said Oskar, eyes widening. The building had been the site of a famous siege in ’39, when the Nazis reached Gdansk. In a suicidally heroic act of resistance, a band of postmen and boy scouts armed with a few grenades and assorted firearms fought off repeated assaults by SS units with armoured cars and artillery for fifteen hours. It only ended when the Germans used flamethrowers to rain burning gasoline on the men inside.
Janusz avoided Oskar’s eyes. He didn’t want to remind him that the square the Post Office stood on had witnessed another futile act of resistance, four decades later – the protest rally where Iza had taken her dying breath.
“Nah, I don’t fancy it,” he said, counting out enough zloty bills to pay for their food. “I’ve got a better idea. Let’s see if you’ve got the balls to make it to the top of the cathedral tower.”
Janusz had been fearful that his home town would stir up dangerous memories. Instead, as he and Oskar made their way to St Mary’s, he was aware of an inexplicable sense of unfamiliarity. The feel of the cobbles underfoot and the screams of the gulls were just as he remembered, the layout was unchanged, yet it all felt strangely surreal.
Then he caught sight of a little boy clutching a yellow balloon, and realised what was bothering him. The street scene of his childhood had been drab, almost completely monochrome, the only relief the red flags of occupation flying outside government buildings. Now, Dluga, the town’s central promenade, looked almost gaudy in the bright sunshine, strung with the bright awnings of outdoor cafés, its ancient houses freshly-painted. He welcomed the air of unreality: it put a layer of gauze between him and the past, making him feel as though he were just another tourist.
As they meandered through the crowds in the pedestrianised old quarter, Oskar elbowed Janusz. “Where did you pick up your first leg over then?” His booming voice drew a few shocked glances from passers-by.
“Hold your muzzle, Oskar,” hissed Janusz. “You’re not in England now.”
On nearby Mariacka, the sombre Gothic facades, with the stone animal-head gargoyles that had frightened and fascinated Janusz as a little boy, were obscured now by a flock of white canvas parasols that sheltered jewellery and gingerbread stalls.
“I’m going to get some amber for Gosia,” said Oskar, stopping at one.
Janusz waited, arms folded, as Oskar held pieces up to the light, squinting critically, weighed them in his hands, and tapped the stones against his teeth. Finally, he settled on a big uneven chunk set into an oval-shaped silver brooch.
“Why don’t you get Kasia something?” he said, as he exchanged his notes for a box tied with yellow ribbon.
Janusz shrugged uncomfortably, “I don’t know if she likes amber.” Maybe he didn’t know anything about her, he thought gloomily, remembering the nail bar.
“She’s a woman, isn’t she?” said Oskar, as though to an idiot child. “I’d like someone to show me a woman who doesn’t
like jewellery. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?” he said to the girl running the stall, whose only response was an embarrassed smile.
Janusz’s eye fell on a chain strung with tiny nuggets of green amber, the colour of seaweed waving in a rock pool, and he asked the girl to wrap it up, suddenly confident that it was perfect for Kasia.
As they left the tourist quarter, the streets grew quieter and shabbier and yellowing ‘To Let’ signs started to appear in shop windows. Oskar paused to peer through the grimy window of a derelict government grocery store. “Look at this, Janek,” he said chuckling, “It’s just like the old days.”
Reluctantly, Janusz bent down, and, shading the glass with his hand, peered inside. The ancient chiller cabinet spotted with rust and an old fan-shaped scales on the dusty counter pitched him back to the Seventies.
“I know this place,” he exclaimed. “I used to come here after school, join the queue.” He shook his head. “Half the time I didn’t even know what they were queuing for, but if I went home with toilet rolls, or flour, Mama would give me a bar of Princepolo”. He straightened. The place stirred an uncomfortable mix of nostalgia and disquiet.
“Remember the jokes people used to tell in the queue?” asked Oskar. He punched Janusz lightly on the arm. “What would happen if communists took over the desert?”
“Nothing for a while, and then they’d run out of sand,” Janusz supplied.
They grinned at one another. Then the infuriating di-ding ding ding of Oskar’s mobile rang out.
“Czesc... Yes, I’m in Gdansk now,” shouted Oskar, rolling his eyes at Janusz.
He squinted at a street sign. “On Szeroka with my mate...Yeah, like I said, I’ll be at Elblag before the undertaker shuts tonight...OK...Cheerio.”
Oskar snapped the phone shut. “That guy nags me so much we might as well get married. Maybe he’s keen to get Olek into the ground so he doesn’t come back and haunt him.” He drew a windy sigh. “I’d better get going, though, what with the Stone Age roads in this country.”