Last Room

by Reah, Danuta

  Karzac cut across him. He sounded angry. ‘Listen. I’m very fond of Ania. We all are. But I can’t go on defending her. If she did this – and it’s beginning to look very much like she did – then it’s unforgivable. It doesn’t just put an innocent person behind bars. It undermines the whole credibility of the system, of what we do.’

  ‘You think she fabricated that recording? Gave false evidence?’

  ‘Believe me, Gillen, I don’t want to. I’ve gone over it and over it. Just find me someone else who could have done it.’

  Will made a decision. ‘I’m going to bring her back. I’m taking the first flight I can get to this – where is it? Łódź? And I’m bringing her back.’

  After Will put the phone down, he tried to drown his worry in anger – anger at Ania for not getting in touch, anger at Karzac for not believing in her, anger at the press for playing it this way before anyone knew what the true story was. He didn’t know what to do, and the sense of impotence made him rage with frustration. All he knew was that Ania was behaving like a fool by trying to hide from all of this. It wasn’t an empty threat he’d made to Karzac. If he didn’t manage to make contact today, then he was getting on a plane tomorrow and bringing her back. If she was here, she could defend herself.

  As it was, she was being destroyed.

  Chapter 8

  Gdynia, Poland 2007

  It was just after nine. Dariusz waited until the sounds of intermittent movement and mutterings of discontent faded, and he knew his father was asleep. He’d managed to get another tablet down the old man’s throat, and persuaded him to eat a bit. It was probably his imagination, but he thought his father looked slightly better. The old man was tough enough to fight off anything if he’d just take care of himself.

  He opened a bottle of beer and stretched out on the couch. It had been a long day. He’d got up early and he’d spent his time running around to replenish his father’s dwindling food supplies. The old man still lived as if he was in the middle of Stalinist shortages. He didn’t have the mindset for the plenty that was promised by EU accession. He’d repaired the leaking water tank – the ancient plumbing needed replacing, but it was beyond even Dariusz’ skill to find a plumber these days – and fixed the gaps in the windows that rattled and let in the cold. He’d checked the electric sockets and replaced two that were cracked beyond repair. He didn’t dare look at the wiring – he didn’t want to know. The flat was dilapidated. The best answer would be for his father to move. He’d have a talk with Beata, see if they could find a way of persuading the old man.

  He was waiting for Ania to call. The news reports from the UK were getting worse and he was worried about her. There was no point in his trying to call her. She was trying to avoid the papers and was keeping her phone switched off.

  ‘I’m getting hassle,’ she’d told him. ‘My boss and my dad both want to talk to me and I can’t face them, not yet. My boss wants to bawl me out, and my dad’s worried, I know he is, but that’ll only make him bawl me out as well. I’ve had it up to here with all of that.’ Her words were light, but there was a dead tone to her voice that told him it was getting to her.

  ‘Are they giving you hassle here as well?’

  ‘No. They’re tiptoeing round me as if I was mystery parcel that had just started ticking. It’s almost as bad.’

  ‘They’re worried about you kiciu.’

  ‘I know. There’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t tell them anything they want to hear, so what’s the point in talking about it?’

  He bit his tongue on all the questions he wanted to ask, and turned the conversation to his planned trip to Manchester in the spring. By the time the call ended, her mood had lifted. ‘I’m looking forward to Friday,’ she said. Friday evening he would be driving back.

  ‘Wait for me at the flat. I’ll be home by midnight.’

  ‘I’ll be there. I’d better go. I’ll call you from the hotel tomorrow – I’m working late again, so it won’t be until after ten.’

  He checked the time. It wasn’t quite nine. He could relax for an hour. His eyes were heavy. He could feel himself starting to drift. He was jerked back to wakefulness by the sound of his father’s voice. ‘Dareczek!’

  It was the use of the affectionate diminutive that he had barely heard from his father since childhood that alarmed him. He jumped up, wide awake at once. His father was sitting up in bed, looking worried, holding the sub-lingual spray he used to control his angina attacks.

  ‘It’s empty,’ he said.

  ‘You’re ill? You need it? Don’t worry, I’ll call...’

  ‘No, no, no. I just have a slight...’ He touched his chest.

  ‘Where’s your new one?’

  His father looked sheepish. ‘I have the prescription, I just…’ He fumbled for his dressing gown and started to get up. Dariusz sat him firmly back on the bed.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘In my pocket. In one pocket…’ Dariusz went through the trousers and jackets hanging in the cupboard, and in the end, found the prescription stuffed in the bottom of a coat pocket. He cursed under his breath, but this couldn’t wait.

  It was twenty past nine. He just about had time to get to the 24 hour pharmacy and be back in time for Ania’s call.

  It was raining, and the empty roads gleamed in the streetlights. The pharmacy was by the station, and it was busy. He stood in a queue, fuming with impatience, and then had to argue the toss with the pharmacist who didn’t want to fill the crumpled, barely legible prescription.

  He got back just before ten by dint of breaking the speed limit and jumping a couple of red lights. He listened for the phone as he got the old man settled. As his father sank back onto the pillows, he said, ‘That woman called. You know.’

  He’d missed her. ‘Ania. Her name’s Ania. Did she leave a message?’

  ‘What do I know about messages? She doesn’t talk to me.’ Meaning he didn’t talk to her. His family was hostile towards Ania.

  Before he met her, Dariusz had been seeing Krysia, a secretary in the firm he worked for in Łódź. It had been a fairly casual relationship, but Beata had met Krysia when she visited once and the two women got on well. Beata, the youngest of the family, had been spoiled by her three elder brothers, and she was used to getting her own way. ‘I like Krysia. She’s right for the family. I need a sister. Why don’t you get married, Dariusz? It’s time you settled down.’ She’d given him the blue eyes treatment and shaken her curls at him like she used to when she was small which made him laugh. ‘A sister, hey? I’ll have to see what I can do.’

  His relationship with Krysia had just about run its course by that time, and his meeting Ania had brought it to an abrupt end. Dariusz hadn’t handled it well – he had thought that Krysia felt much the same way he did, but Beata hadn’t only been working on him. Encouraged by her, Krysia had seen the whole situation differently. The fall-out had reverberated around his work and around the family. It had been months before he and Krysia were able to work together comfortably. Beata had still not forgiven him.

  Instead of blaming Dariusz, Beata had chosen to blame Ania who had waltzed into her brother’s life, dazzled him with her wealthy western European glamour and stolen him away. She encouraged their father in his instinctive hostility. He didn’t like the British anyway – the betrayal of Poland after the war still rankled with many of his generation. ‘What was wrong with that Polish girl?’ he’d grunted, when Dariusz had told him that he and Ania planned to marry.

  Things were no better almost two years later. Now wasn’t the time to have a row, but he was going to have a serious talk with Beata. She was the one who was fuelling this antagonism. He had no idea what lay behind her continuing hostility, but it had to stop. He settled his father down for the night, then tried Ania’s mobile, but it was switched off.

  He left a message and tried her hotel, but she wasn’t back. He left a message there as well. He felt anxious, as though he’d let her down, and told himself no
t to be stupid. She must have phoned as she was leaving work, and she would try again once she got back to the hotel.

  He’d have to wait for her to call.

  But she didn’t.

  Chapter 9

  Łódź, Poland 2007

  It was nearly three in the morning. The clouds that had filled the sky earlier had cleared causing the temperatures to plummet, and the wet streets to freeze. The air carried the scent of snow.

  The university caretaker, Jerzy Pawlak was reluctant to leave the cubbyhole that served as his office. He wanted to be away from here, he wanted to go home, but it would be a few hours yet before the day shift came in to relieve him at six, and he had the rest of the dragging night ahead of him in a deserted building. It was freezing. The authorities saved money by turning the heating off at midnight.

  He had to do another round. He pulled on his heavy coat and tucked his torch into his pocket. The building was dark and shadowed. The entrance hall was high-ceilinged and open, the staircase protected with ornate metal bars, the stairwell illuminated by huge windows through which the light flooded during the day.

  He climbed the stairs slowly, stopping off at each floor where the corridors vanished into the darkness. He walked along each one using his torch to dispel the shadows, ignoring the creaks and taps, the sharp patter like the sound of feet, all the noises that plagued the hours between sleeping and waking.

  The building lay still and expectant around him.

  It took him almost an hour to reach the top floor. As he climbed the last flight of stairs, he allowed himself to feel the relief of a task almost finished. Once he had done this, the main work of his night was almost over.

  He reached the top landing and stopped. He could feel a draught flowing round his legs like a river of ice in the cold air.

  There had been no draught when he had come up here earlier.

  For the first time, he listened properly. He could hear the drip of a tap, the occasional clink of the plumbing, the low hum of the residual warmth in the pipes as it fought its losing battle with the night’s chill. He touched one of the pipes. It was tepid as it leaked the last of its heat into the night air.

  The draught was flowing from his left. He turned towards it across the open landing and went to the door that led into the offices. He unlocked it and pushed it open. He was in a small lobby with three doors opening off it. The draught was stronger here and he could feel himself starting to shiver – with cold? He wasn’t sure.

  He tried each door in turn.

  They were locked. The first one was an empty classroom. He shone his torch round the chairs and tables, and at the windows that were all closed. The next room was a computer room and the equipment was valuable. He went in and checked the room carefully. The windows were all tight shut.

  His feet slowed as he approached the last room, a small office. As he opened the door, a flood of icy air engulfed him. He turned on the light.

  The window was wide open.

  His gaze moved quickly round the room noticing the phone on the floor, the chair pulled up against the sill, a shoe, a woman’s shoe discarded by the chair.

  Then he was at the window, his hand reaching to shut it. Instead, he looked out.

  Far below him was the car park, a concrete space of outbuildings and shadows. The silver of the moon was dimmed by the light from the window. On the ground, below the window, five storeys down, a shapeless bundle lay in a pool of something that gleamed black in the moonlight.

  Chapter 10

  It was Keeper’s bark that alerted Will. It was her deep, insistent bark, the one that said her territory was under attack from intruders. He was out of bed in a moment and on the stairs, a boathook in his hand as he saw the lights sweep across the cottage windows, the light that announced a car passing by. He felt himself relax as the minutes passed.

  Then he heard the knock.

  Keeper’s bark became frantic. He put his hand on her collar as he opened the door. Two police officers were standing there with tense expressions that he recognised. They had bad news to deliver and they didn’t want to do it.

  He let them in, sat down when they asked him to and listened blankly as they said what they had to say, knowing the words that meant nothing now would return with full meaning later, no matter how little he wanted to hear them. ‘Your daughter… in a fall. Late last night… University. So sorry… Anything you need.’ They were deferential, aware of the status he had held until a few weeks ago, a status that he would never quite lose.

  Ania had tried to cheer him up after he had conceded defeat and walked away from his work. ‘You’ll become a rent-a-quote for the BBC,’ she had teased him ‘You’ll be on Question Time and the Today programme.’

  ‘That’s not my style,’ he said, half smiling and found himself looking into the puzzled face of the young PC as she offered him a glass of water.

  ‘Sir, do you need us take you anywhere? Is there anyone we can call?’ The man, obviously senior, wanting to help or wanting to disengage.

  Nowhere. He wanted to be… nowhere. He wanted to be asleep in bed for a few more hours of blank unknowing. He wanted to be himself two days ago, saying to Ania: don’t get on that plane. He wanted…

  He needed time to think. He needed to be alone. ‘Thank you. I’ll… make my own arrangements.’

  They left awkwardly, shuffling in the doorway in a mixture of concern and relief. They didn’t know what to do for him so they were glad to get away from their own impotence. He wanted to tell them not to worry. They hadn’t failed him. There was nothing anyone could do for him now.

  He sat in his chair. Keeper rested her muzzle in his lap. ‘Ania,’ he said.

  Keeper whined.

  Look, you’ll get a letter, OK? I don’t want to take you unawares. Her voice spoke in his head, and he realised that tears were running down his face. He didn’t know when they had started, and he didn’t know how to stop them. ‘You never sent it,’ he said. The last letter, never posted, never arrived.

  His daughter was dead.

  The limbo of shock held him. He didn’t know how long he sat there. He felt as though he was about to slip into – not quite sleep, but another kind of unconsciousness. He welcomed it. He wanted the world to be gone. He felt as though a fragile web was all that protected him from some dark pit where the full understanding of Ania’s death lay, that the slightest jolt would cause it to rip apart and he would fall forever.

  Brown Jenkin.

  Brown Jenkin’s on my back today.

  He closed his eyes and let the grey nothingness take him.

  Then she was shaking him. He opened bleary eyes and he could see the urgency on her face. Please. You’ve got to hurry. I don’t want them to find it!

  He sat up, blinking in bewilderment. ‘Ania...?’ Then he was properly awake. He was in his chair in the cottage. The ashes were grey in the fireplace and the cold was eating into him. Keeper was watching him uneasily from where she lay on the floor with her chin on her paws. She whimpered when she saw he was looking at her and it all came flooding back.

  Ania.

  There were things he had to do, things she needed him to do. He had to get to Edinburgh, find a flight to Poland. His passport – he tried to remember where he had put his passport.

  He didn’t even know how she had died. The two constables had tried to tell him, but he’d barely heard them. A fall. They’d said something about a fall. He should phone the consul. Someone there would be able to… But he didn’t want to talk to anyone. He didn’t want to hear anyone say the words.

  He logged on to the internet and found the reports at once. They were as clear and as stark as he could have wished.

  DISGRACED VOICE PRINT EXPERT DIES IN FALL.

  Ania had fallen from the fifth floor of a university building in the centre of Łódź at some time the previous night. She had been found in the small hours by a caretaker doing his usual rounds. The police were investigating.

  Which meant
that they would, sooner rather than later, contact the British authorities and any investigation might move to the UK.

  I don’t want them to find it!

  Her flat in Manchester. She needed him to go to Manchester.

  Chapter 11

  Will left St Abbs at four in the morning, unable to sleep and unable to bear the inaction. He took Keeper to the caravan where Jack, the car park attendant lived, rousing him by hammering on the door. He explained to the bleary-eyed Jack what he wanted and pressed a fistful of notes into the man’s hand. ‘I’ll be back in a few days,’ he said, and scribbled down his number. He could feel Keeper’s eyes following him as he headed back to the car and knew he was leaving behind the last living thing in the world that cared for him. He didn’t know if he would ever see her again.

  He drove on automatic pilot, taking stupid risks until he remembered that it would do Ania no good if he ended up smeared across the motorway in the remains of his car.

  The roads were empty apart from lorries travelling through the night carrying goods from Scotland down south and beyond. Cars began to appear as he neared Southways. He pulled in at a lay-by where a van sold hot drinks and snacks. He got tea and a sandwich and sat in the car staring into the distance. His hand reached automatically for Keeper’s head, expecting to encounter a cold nose as she tested the air for the scent of bacon, but she wasn’t there.

  The road blurred in front of his eyes. He threw away the rest of the sandwich and resumed his journey, putting his foot down as he headed south.

  The roads were filling up by the time he reached the outskirts of Manchester and for the last few miles, he found himself in stop go traffic. Fatigue made everything bright and distant and he blinked his eyes to clear them. His hand hovered over the radio switch, and moved away.

  Are we nearly there yet?

  It always used to be him driving, Elžbieta in the seat beside him reading the map, the children in the back, Ania soon impatient with the inactivity of travelling, her books and her toys scattered around her on the seat. The question had started before they were a mile from home and it had taken all his ingenuity to distract her.