by Anya Lipska
It turned out that Adamski had worked for Tadeusz as a mechanic in the little backstreet garage that he used to run, before the recession bit and the bank called in the loan.
“It was a good little business, too,” he told Janusz, with sudden vehemence. “But do you know what the bank told me?” Janusz shook his head. “They had to be stricter with loan conditions in the light of the economic climate,” he enunciated the phrase with disbelieving contempt. “I told them, don’t talk to me about economic climate – you’re the ones who made it snow!”
There was hurt in his eyes behind the anger – he had clearly taken the loss of the business hard. Janusz tried to work out his age and came up with early sixties – not that old, but too old to start again, especially in times like these. He studied Tadeusz discreetly. His jaws were clean-shaven and his shirt, although fraying at the cuffs, was freshly-pressed. A man keeping up appearances, in spite of everything.
“So how long did Adam... Pawel work for you?” asked Janusz, lighting a cigar.
“A year or more - right up to the end,” said Tadeusz, taking a decorous sip of the Zubrowka Janusz had bought him. “He wasn’t bad around engines, once I showed him the ropes.” He smiled to himself.
“Was his timekeeping any better when he worked for you?” asked Janusz with a grin, taking an educated guess at Adamski’s work ethic.
Tadeusz lifted a shoulder. “I won’t pretend there weren’t problems. Turning up late, sometimes still drunk from the night before.” He waved a hand. “And now and again he would lose his temper with customers.”
Janusz nodded. It certainly fit with the picture Justyna had painted of Adamski – and yet the old guy spoke protectively, even affectionately, of his former employee. “Everyone told me to sack him,” he said, sticking his chin out. “But I said, after the start the boy had in life, he deserved a second chance.”
Tadeusz told him the Adamski clan was notorious in Gorodnik – the father a falling-down drunk who supplemented his meagre income from agricultural work with petty thieving, the mother forever pregnant, and not always by her husband. “With such parents, is it any wonder that Pawel grew up wild?” Tadeusz asked. “Anyway, when he was just a little kid, he set fire to an outhouse at Jabonski’s place – they said it was a miracle the farmhouse didn’t catch – and that was that,” he dusted his hands. “They took him away and put him in a children’s home.”
“Terrible,” said Janusz, shaking his head. It sounded like Adamski’s career as a psychol had started early. He took a slug of beer and decided to risk a bit more digging. He sensed that Tadeusz was keen to discuss Adamski with someone less censorious than the locals.
“When he was working for you, do you think Pawel ever messed around with narkotyki?” he asked.
“Drugs?” exclaimed Tadeusz, setting his glass down. “No, no, not to my knowledge, only the drinking.” He scanned Janusz’s face with eyes the colour of stonewashed denim. “What makes you ask such a thing?”
“Just something I heard somebody say about him,” said Janusz. The girl he killed, actually.
Dropping his gaze, Tadeusz traced an ancient glass ring on the tabletop with a finger, his expression troubled. Janusz went to order more drinks.
“Getting anywhere?” asked the nosy barman as he pulled a small beer for Janusz.
Janusz tilted his head, non-committal.
“Tadeusz is a good sort,” said the barman, his voice low. “But when it comes to Adamski, he puts on rose-tinted spectacles.” Janusz raised his eyebrows enquiringly. The barman set the beer in front of Janusz, and leaned toward him, one elbow on the bar. “He lost his son a couple of years ago – some kind of cancer,” he said, with a sympathetic grimace. “Everyone knows Adamski is a bad lot, but maybe for Tadeusz, he filled the hole, if you know what I mean.” Janusz nodded – it explained a lot.
He returned to the table carrying his beer and a bottle of Tadeusz’s tipple.
“You know,” said Tadeusz, taking slightly bigger sips of the wodka, Janusz noticed, now its supply was assured. “If the business hadn’t folded, I think Pawel would have been alright.” His fingers tapped and stroked the table. “I could have got him on the straight and narrow, I know I could.”
Janusz nodded his encouragement.
“You know, I took him pike fishing on the river a few times – he was a different lad, out there in the fresh air,” Tadeusz smiled, revealing a flash of unnaturally white dentures. “Once, he caught a big one, two kilos easily.” His grin broadened. “It had such an ugly mug, we called it Vladimir, after Putin.”
Both men chuckled.
“Listen,” said Janusz, becoming serious. “We both know Pawel is... a good guy at heart,” he examined the end of his cigar, avoiding Tadeusz’s hopeful gaze, “but do you think it’s possible he fell in with some bad characters – around here, or maybe in Gdansk?”
The old man looked at Janusz for a long moment. “After the garage went bust, he told me about this idea he had. He was going to buy up old furniture and ship it to England, to sell to rich folk,” he hesitated. “I think that was what got him into trouble.”
Janusz adopted a sympathetic expression, feeling like a heel. Tadeusz clearly trusted him, perhaps even thought this stranger might be able to help his wayward young friend.
“The last time I saw Pawel,” Tadeusz pointed at Janusz, “he was sitting right there, in that very chair. It was about six weeks ago, the middle of February. I remember because it was the last time we had proper snow, yet the crazy boy came in wearing nothing but a T-shirt,” he plucked at his shirt, his expression a mixture of exasperation and affection.
Janusz stayed silent, let Tadeusz do the talking.
“He was all nerves, jumpy as a young deer. He drank four, five shots,” Tadeusz tipped his hand, mimicking how fast they’d gone down. “At first, he wouldn’t say a word. Finally, he grabbed hold of me,” he gripped Janusz by the forearm. “And he said, ‘Tadeusz – all my life, people have been fucking me around. Now it’s my turn.’”
“What did he mean by that?” asked Janusz.
“No idea,” said Tadeusz. “He wouldn’t say any more. Next thing I hear, someone’s spotted him on the bus to Gdansk. He tells them he’s off to live in London – and if he ever comes back it will be driving a BMW.”
Janusz relit his cigar, hoping that Tadeusz would never find out that Adamski’s scheme to get rich ran to blackmail and drug dealing.
“A week later, there’s a story in the Baltic Daily,” said Tadeusz, his voice so low Janusz had to lean close to hear him. “An old man called Witold Struk who lived outside town, has been found lying at the bottom of his own cellar steps – dead.” He spoke haltingly. “The front door was open, but there’s nothing missing, so the policja decide it was an accident.”
Janusz struggled to take in what Tadeusz was telling him. Mystification must have written all over his face, because the older man tapped a finger on the table between them and said slowly, as though to a child: “The week before Struk died, everyone saw the advertisement he put in the local paper. He was looking for a buyer for some antique furniture.” He watched the light dawn on Janusz’s face. He leaned forward and continued in a whisper. “Struk died the very same night that Pawel came in here talking like a crazy person.”
Janusz froze. Did Adamski murder the old guy? He remembered what Nowak had told him – that Adamski roughed up someone who’d refused to sell his antique furniture. He glanced over his shoulder, to check no-one was listening but found the place nearly empty now, and the barman leaning on the counter reading a paper, yawning.
“You think Pawel killed him,” he said in a murmur.
“Not deliberately, no,” said Tadeusz shaking his head. “Pawel wouldn’t do such a thing.” He sighed. “But maybe he lost his temper and somehow it... led to Struk’s accident.”
Or maybe, thought Janusz, he hit the old man over the head with a baseball bat and shoved him down the stairs.
“Did
you tell the police?”
“I couldn’t do that to Pawel,” said Tadeusz, in a whisper. “In any case, it’s not as if I had any proof”.
The two men fell silent for a moment. Then Tadeusz leaned forward, “The thing is,” he said in a meaningful whisper, “The police weren’t really interested – everyone round here was glad to see the back of Struk.”
“Why, what did he do that made him so unpopular?”
“Witold Struk was an esbek.”
Janusz eyebrows shot up. So Struk had worked for Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa, Communist Poland’s hated secret police, the equivalent of the East German Stasi. If you were considered an enemy of the regime, it was the SB who tapped your phone and read your mail, who bribed or bullied friends, neighbours, landladies, to turn informer against you. And the knock at the door in the middle of the night that every Pole dreaded back then invariably came on the orders of the local Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa office.
Janusz became aware of an eager expression in Tadeusz’s faded blue eyes.
“So when you see Pawel, will you let him know that the police have officially declared Struk’s death an accident?” he asked. Janusz stared at him. “And tell him it’s safe to come home?”
Just in time, Janusz remembered his role as Adamski’s supposed friend. “Of course,” he said. “The trouble is, I seem to have lost touch with him. Do you know anyone who might have his new phone number, or address?”
The older man subsided against his seat back. “No, nobody at all,” he said. “As far as I know, I was his only friend.”
TWENTY-ONE
Streaky agreed with Kershaw that Hurley might prove more co-operative if the interview took place in the nick, outside his comfort zone.
Kershaw had played it down when she called to ask him to come in. “We’re just crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s,” she said, “You know, routine police paperwork...” putting on a singsong bored voice.
“Should I be calling a solicitor?” he asked with a nervous laugh, and she chuckled along. “Listen, Alex, obviously you’re completely entitled to legal representation.” She paused, letting a note of doubt creep into her voice. “But, to be honest, I didn’t have you down as the kind of guy who would even have a solicitor.” If he got the impression that bringing a brief along might put him under some sort of suspicion, well, that would be unfortunate, but it was absolutely not her intention.
Streaky told Kershaw he’d be sitting in on the interview.
“I’m not going to say a word,” he said as they walked down to the basement of the nick, “But after half an hour the little fucker will be so spooked he’ll be spilling his guts just to get away from me.”
“The time is 1130am on March 30th 2009. I am Detective Constable Natalie Kershaw and I am interviewing – Alex, please give your full name and date of birth.” “Uh, Alex Richard Hurley, 21.3.82.”
“Alex, can you confirm for the purposes of the tape that you do not want a solicitor present for the interview?” she spoke flatly, with the air of someone going through the bureaucratic motions.
“That’s right,” he said in a faint voice.
Kershaw consulted her notebook. “Also present is – Detective Sergeant, er, Alvin Bacon.” (Alvin? she thought, who knew?)
Streaky, sitting to Kershaw’s left and slightly back from the table, produced a paperclip from his pocket and keeping his eyes levelled on Alex Hurley, started to straighten it out. Hurley stared at him nervously, his expression turning to horror as Streaky proceeded to use the length of wire methodically to clean his teeth, somehow managing to imbue this simple, if disgusting, procedure with a brooding menace.
Hurley had expected a friendly chat and a chocolate biscuit. Instead, he found himself in a real police interview room stinking of Dettol, facing the girl detective, who suddenly seemed all cold and serious, and a red-faced gorilla who was coming on like a scary cop out of some movie set in Mississippi – the kind that ended with the camera panning away as the victim is gang-raped in the cellblock showers by whooping Hells Angels.
Not bringing a solicitor had been a big mistake.
“So, Alex,” said Kershaw, giving him a bright and transparently insincere smile, “When would you say you first noticed that Derek and Milo were leaving the key to security behind front desk for each other to pick up?”
“I...I didn’t know they were doing that,” he said, showing her his palms. She left a pause, while Streaky gazed at something on the point of the paperclip he had dug out from between his rear molars, before once again locking his malevolent glare on Alex.
“According to the rosters, you’re usually on night shift twelve days every month, right?”
“Ye-es.”
“And you’ve worked at the Waveney for three and a half years?”
He nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on hers, trying not to look at the scary ginger bloke.
“And how far from where you sit at front desk is the security pigeonhole, would you say?”
“Four or five metres?”
“Actually, it’s only 1.5 metres!” she said in a ‘fancy that!’ tone of voice. “I measured it.”
Streaky made a noise between a sigh and growl, like someone who couldn’t wait for the talking to end so he could get his rubber truncheon out.
“By my calculations, there were more than 500 occasions when you were on front desk and Milo or Derek toddled past carrying a jiffy bag and popped it into the security pigeonhole,’ she said fixing him with a curious look. “But you say you never noticed what was going on? Would you describe yourself as visually impaired, Alex?”
He shook his head, then a look of cunning flashed across his face. “Here’s the thing,” he said, a little of his previous self-importance returning, “The security pigeonhole is behind me,” he gestured over his shoulder, “And, anyway, I’m always really busy with people checking out around that time.”
Gotcha, fuckwit. “What time would that be, Alex?” asked Kershaw. He opened his mouth and then, realising he had dropped a bollock, closed it again.
“So you have noticed Milo and Derek going to and from the pigeonhole at six am,” she said. “Do you really expect me to believe you never noticed what they were doing? Never said, ‘What’s with the jiffy bag, guys?’” She heard Streaky emit a derisive snort. “Never once been tempted – in three and a half years – to check out what was inside?” Her voice dripped with polite incredulity. Alex just shrugged.
She sat back again, dropped her eyes to her notes, exchanging a little look with Streaky out of the corner of her eye. Yeah yeah, I know: catch him out in a provable lie.
“Tell me, Alex, have you ever entered the security office?”
“Er, yes... now and again. It’s part of my management training to monitor all areas front and back of house.”
“But that wouldn’t include rifling through the filing cabinet that holds the CCTV tapes?”
“No, of course not,” he said, with a firm shake of the head.
God, he was properly thick, thought Kershaw.
“You see, we’re running forensic tests on the cabinet and the tapes themselves, and if you had touched them, the CSI team are going to find your fingerprints all over the place.”
At the mention of fingerprints, his face froze for a moment, and then crumpled, like a seven-year-old who’d just lost the egg and spoon race.
“We know for a fact, Alex, that somebody went into that cabinet and stole some VHS tapes. Not just any old tapes, either – the ones that showed the girl going up to the room with the suspect just before she died.” She left a beat. “So if we find prints on that cabinet that have no business being there, we’re going to assume they belong to the man who tied her up, raped and killed her.” OK, the last bit was her own scenario, but judging by Alex’s sudden sweaty pallor it did the job.
Kershaw could feel the pulse in her neck going putt-putt, putt-put. She didn’t think for a nanosecond that Alex was the killer, but it was crystal-clear that the litt
le creep had something to hide. She looked down at her notes, giving him time to work out the horrible Catch-22 he was in. The only way he could prove he hadn’t been in the lift with the girl would be to hand over the tapes, but that would mean admitting it was him who nicked them.
She leaned forward, elbows on the table, hands loosely clasped. “Listen Alex,” she said, with something of the old mateyness in her voice. “You strike me as someone who’s never been in any sort of trouble” – he nodded rapidly – “So I’m wondering if what’s happened here is that someone has talked you into doing something, without you having any idea what you were getting yourself into.”
Alex’s eyes flickered round the interview room – clearly thinking it over.
Finally, in a small voice, he said: “I don’t want to lose my job.”
Kershaw smelled blood in the water.
“I don’t see why you should lose your job, Alex, so long as you’re totally honest with us now,” she said, crossing her ankles beneath the desk. “Did you take the key from the pigeonhole after Milo left it there that morning?”
He nodded miserably. “For the benefit of the tape, Alex Hurley is nodding his head,” she said.
“Then you used it to get into security, where you pulled out the VHS tapes for the lift CCTV, and made the logbook entries saying the cameras were out of order.”
“Yes.”
“So where are those tapes now?”
“I haven’t got them,” he burst out desperately, “But I swear, it wasn’t me in the lift with the girl.”
“So what did you do with them?” she felt a needle of panic – if the silly little twat had destroyed them, they’d be mullered.
Alex seemed to clam up again, but at that moment Streaky threw his paperclip on the floor and stood up, breathing hard through his mouth.
Alex looked up at him, and emitted a single whimper.
“I gave them to Andrew Treneman,” he said.
. . .
The Waveney Thameside’s manager proved to be rather more slippery a customer than Hurley. When Kershaw phoned the hotel, she couldn’t even get past his secretary to talk to the guy, let alone get him down the nick for a chat. She left three messages for him throughout the morning, and was starting to wonder whether she should just drive down there and doorstep him, when his solicitor phoned. Treneman clearly wasn’t short of a bob or two: Dearbourne, Bunch and Hassock was a blue-chip firm known for its unstinting work on behalf of the deserving rich: if Godfrey Dearbourne had ever come across the phrase pro bono he probably thought it was something to do with the gazillionaire rock star.