Last Room

by Reah, Danuta

  ‘Are we nearly there yet?’

  Louisa, reading, glanced up without interest and when she saw nothing to catch her attention, returned to her book.

  He made his standard response. ‘Not long now,’ he said.

  Ania’s flat was in a warehouse conversion just off Piccadilly Gardens. If he tried to drive to it, he would get caught in the one way system. He followed the signs to a multi-storey, winding up and up in a seemingly endless spiral until he found a space. He could see the brightness of the day sandwiched between the concrete blocks as he locked the car.

  His legs felt like lead as he walked down the steps to street level.

  Piccadilly was still a mess of redevelopment. Like all urban centres in Britain, Manchester was promoting city living as the ebbing tide of industry left behind vacated mills and warehouses, high, Victorian and decaying. There had been a frenzy of renovation and for a few heady years, property prices seemed to rise by the day.

  The demands of his work meant they’d lived in cities all of their lives. He and Elžbieta had squeezed their income to the limit and taken on more debt than they should to give the children a private education. He’d objected to paying for something that should have been available by right but he didn’t feel able to abandon his children to the jungle that was local education where they lived.

  Ania would have survived but he’d wanted better than that for her, and Louisa… She was like a wood mouse in the undergrowth, watching, alert, vulnerable to predators.

  He hated cities.

  After his suspension he had fled the cities. It had been a city that had taken the life of his other daughter. But Ania loved them. The centre of Manchester had been her deliberate choice.

  He stood in front of the now familiar building, looking up at the windows rising in rows, tall rectangles on the ground floor, then high arches in doubles and triples, then smaller, narrower arches, then tiny square windows and finally the dormers crammed into the roof that marked the studio apartments. Ania’s flat was on the fourth floor. She had sacrificed the huge windows of the ground and first floors for the views and added security of being higher up.

  High windows.

  She had fallen from a top storey window, plummeting helplessly to her death. Her fall would have lasted only seconds but those seconds would have been an eternity. They were her eternity.

  He couldn’t think about it. He couldn’t bear it. He was here at the flat and there were things he had to do.

  He used the key she had given him to let himself in through the main entrance. The lobby was silent and empty. When he had come here before, he had walked along corridors with odd corners and niches where the builders had worked to fit modern flats into the irregularities of an old industrial building. Each front door was closed on silence. The building felt devoid of life, the redevelopment a mask that hid the decaying, rat infested warehouse it had once been.

  He pressed the button for the lift. He’d used the stairs the last time he’d come here, wanting the extra exercise. Ania must have seen him arriving because she had been waiting in the doorway of her flat for him, the light spilling out in a welcome burst of life and colour.

  As he came out of the lift, it was as if he’d stepped back in time. The door of the flat was standing open as he remembered it, and she was there, her fair hair cut in a soft bob round her face, wearing a red skirt and a black jersey.

  ‘I’m here,’ he said.

  She shook her head and he realised he was on his own in the corridor, holding the key in his hand. The door still stood open, but it was hard daylight that pushed the shadows of the corridor back. He was too late. Someone was already there.

  He stepped into the lobby, blinking in the sudden brightness. The door into the main room was wide open and the winter sun poured through the window, flooding the space with its chill light. A woman was moving along the book shelves, removing books, flicking through the pages, shaking them and replacing them with expert efficiency. A small collection of items had been placed on the low coffee table. He saw a laptop, various files, some sheets of paper, some computer disks.

  The filing cabinet that stood on the corner by the desk was open and the hanging files had all been removed and put on the floor. As he stood there, a man came out of the door that led into the bedroom, saying, ‘There’s nothing in there. Are you done?’

  Then they became aware of Will. He knew who they were, but he wasn’t going to accept anything without proof. ‘Who are you and what are you doing?’

  The man came across the room quickly and stood in front of Will, a bit too close, as if to exclude him from the place.

  ‘What are you doing in my daughter’s flat?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, I’ll have to ask you to wait outside.’

  ‘And I need to see your identification. I’m asking you again: what are you doing in my daughter’s flat? Come on.’ He snapped his fingers, deliberately insulting, and held his hand out for the man’s ID.

  The man flushed, but the woman had come across now. ‘It’s OK Bryant. We’ve finished here. Mr…’

  ‘Gillen.’

  There was a moment of silence. ‘Of course. I’m very sorry about your daughter, sir. Here.’ She held out her ID, indicating to the man to do the same.

  He checked the IDs they proffered, surprised at first to see that they were both detectives rather than civilian scene of crime technicians. Except this wasn’t a crime scene, nor had it been treated as one. Then he understood: this wasn’t an investigation into her death. It was part of the other investigation, the investigation into the possible fabrication of evidence, a criminal investigation into Ania herself.

  I don’t want them to find it!

  He was too late. He’d let her down.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ He spoke to the man, suspecting he would be the weaker link. He recognised the practised stonewalling in the woman’s courtesy.

  She answered him. ‘You understand there’s an ongoing investigation. We can’t discuss it with you. I’m very sorry, sir.’

  She wasn’t going to tell him anything. He could admire her professionalism, even through his frustration.

  ‘Is it necessary to take her computer?’ All her documents would be on there.

  ‘The hard drive on her office one has been wiped. We need to see if…’

  That was the man. The woman spoke quickly, giving him a quelling glance. ‘We have to check everything, sir.’

  ‘Of course.’ The woman was about to speak again but he gestured her to silence. He didn’t want to talk any more. There was nothing else to say. The man was packing everything into a large box to carry it away. ‘When will I get these back?’

  ‘Someone will be in touch with you. We’ve done everything we need to here. Is there anything…?’

  ‘No. Thank you.’ He waited until he saw them getting into the lift, then he went into the flat. They had done a good job. Apart from the hanging files on the floor in front of the filing cabinet, there was no sign that a search had been carried out. He wondered if he had arrived half an hour later, would those files have been put away? Would he have ever known they had been here?

  Chapter 12

  Dariusz Erland stood motionless at the large window as the technician on the other side drew the sheet over the face and covered the body again. It was a merciful concealment that came too late. Ania in his memory was overlaid by the smashed distortion he had just seen and had just confirmed was, indeed, his fiancée, Ania Milosz.

  She lay on her back on the trolley in a strange parody of peace. Her hair had been brushed back from her face and looked soft and silky. Someone must have washed away the blood and dirt.

  And someone had crossed her arms on her breast, maybe assuming – a logical assumption in Poland – that she was a Catholic. When the technician had pulled the sheet back, the first thing he had noticed was those slender fingers, still delicately beautiful on her left hand, bruised and swollen on her right.

  She
had been recognisably Ania, that was the terrible thing.

  He’d missed her call. When she’d phoned, just before ten the night before, he hadn’t been there. All she had was his father’s unfriendly dismissal. The last time they’d spoken, she had said, ‘I’m looking forward to Friday.’

  And now it was Friday. ‘I’m here, kiciu.’ Now it’s too late, now you don’t need me any more, I’m here.

  Hurdy-gurdy music was playing in his head and the police officer led him away.

  Chapter 13

  Will stood in the centre of the room, breathing in the smell. All he could detect was new carpet, the faintest smell of paint, and a lingering, intrusive fragrance that the woman had left behind.

  There was a pile of post on the table. He checked through it quickly, but there was only junk mail. If there had been anything interesting, they had taken it. His mind felt like cotton wool. He went into the kitchen. There was no milk in the fridge, but there was coffee in the cupboard. He made himself a cup which he drank black of necessity.

  I don’t want them to find it… That wasn’t what she had said. When she’d spoken to him, she’d told him to expect a letter. I don’t want them to find it… She’d said that in his dream.

  All he knew was that someone had ordered her flat to be searched, and the search had had high priority. Given the thoroughness with which the two detectives had done their job, he wondered if there was any point in his looking. He felt the shadow of defeat weighing him down, and braced himself against it. She needed him.

  He had an advantage over them. He knew Ania, and if there was something she had concealed, then he knew the ways she might have hidden it. But he was reluctant to start. He didn’t want to disturb this last place where she had been. Her books were on the shelves, neatly arranged, some modern fiction, some classics, a battered copy of Alice in Wonderland. A sudden image formed in his mind, him, lying on a bed with a child at each side, reading to them about strange creatures swimming in a sea of tears.

  There was an unframed photograph propped against the books, Ania, Louisa and Elžbieta on the beach surrounded by sand, spades, buckets, the detritus of a summer holiday.

  His wife and both his daughters.

  All dead.

  The sheer effort of drawing the next breath seemed beyond him. He stood still and let the pain wash over him, through him, and away, taking him with it, and leaving behind the professional, the detective who had worked on hundreds of cases, the detective who could work on this. Someone was dead, and he was here to find out why. He went across to the small office she had set up in an alcove and began his own systematic search.

  He checked the empty filing cabinet drawers inside and out before returning each file, going through it carefully as he did so. All he found were her financial papers, her accounts, household bills, a copy of her will that he couldn’t bear to read and a note with the address of her solicitor. He jotted it down for future reference then checked the desk. The desk top was empty and the drawers were neatly filled with stationery. In the back of the middle drawer, there was a small cardboard box with a pattern of cartoon ponies. It was battered and faded. He lifted it out and opened the lid, but it was empty.

  He knew it should contain childhood memorabilia and he felt a flash of anger with the two detectives for taking it.

  He checked every photograph and every picture, making sure there was nothing concealed in the frames, knowing he would find nothing, knowing the police would have found it first.

  If there was anything to find.

  She had been depressed when she called him. The probability of the public scandal must have been there in her mind, somewhere. There must be private things here, things she didn’t want made available to a rapacious press. If the police had them – her diaries, her letters, her e-mails – then they would find their way into the public domain. He knew how it worked.

  He was all too familiar with the system.

  ***

  Birmingham, 2005

  John Blaise, the Assistant Chief Constable for Security and Cohesion in the West Midlands, leaned back in his chair. ‘What are you saying, Will?’

  ‘You’ve read my report. Sir. There was nothing in that house. Nothing. It was clean.’

  ‘And you… We, it wasn’t just you, Will, we got it wrong.’

  They’d been given the warning in the small hours on the day of the raid: a bomb factory was operating, the threat was imminent. They had to move fast, get in, and neutralise it. A textbook operation, except one person had managed to get out of the house before Will’s team was in place.

  ‘Sir, I need to know – the people on my team need to know – where that information came from.’

  A faint line appeared between Blaise’s eyes. ‘I can’t tell you, Will. You know that.’

  ‘We killed a man. Someone on my team killed a man. Sir.’

  ‘The intelligence came from a reliable source. That’s all I can say.’

  He looked at Blaise. ‘You’ll have my resignation tomorrow.’

  And Blaise had smiled and shaken his head slowly. ‘No, Will. We aren’t doing it like that.’

  Politically, the whole event had been a major embarrassment. There was no bomb-making equipment in the house and no evidence that there had ever been. Soon after the raid, Will had been suspended, his team facing an enquiry. Blaise had quietly moved to a different area of operations. At the time he’d said to Will, ‘If someone had set out to damage us deliberately they couldn’t have done a better job.’

  ***

  He was right. Will, as senior officer, was left sitting out a long suspension; his team – a group of experienced, professional officers – was disbanded. Two of them had resigned through stress. Will had stayed, because the alternative was to be sacked and leave his team to face it on their own. Six weeks ago, the enquiry had made its findings public. No blame had been attached to his men. He himself had been criticised, but allowed to take early retirement instead of being disgraced.

  The matter was closed, except for the memory of the 17-year-old boy who had been shot dead on a dank platform at Birmingham New Street station.

  Chapter 14

  Will came reluctantly back to the present. His head felt light and the sharp delineation of the room around him gave it a sense of unreality. The clock on the wall jerked through one minute. It was after eleven. He hadn’t eaten since he’d taken a bite from that sandwich on his journey down, hours ago. He wasn’t hungry, but he needed to keep his strength up. Ania still needed him. There were things he had to do.

  He went into the small kitchen – when he’d first seen the flat, he’d made disparaging comments about the kitchen being designed for microwaving ready meals, so when he came to visit, she’d often cooked for him, making elaborate dishes that she served up with cool éclat.

  He saw her again, just for a moment, standing at the work surface. It was summer and the evening light was flooding into the room. She was wearing a grey camisole and black trousers, her fair hair hanging forward over her face. He could see where it was cut short at the back, and the little ‘v’ of hair at the top of her neck. She turned round and smiled as if she were going to say something, and then the image faded.

  They’d argued that day about the Haynes case. He had been worried that she was taking it on for the wrong reasons. In the end, she’d been angry with him. ‘Haynes isn’t just a sad pervert,’ she’d said. ‘The SIO on the case – that guy Cathcart I told you about – he thinks Haynes is part of an organised group, that the videos of Sagal were made to order. What we’ve got is just the tip of the iceberg. Haynes probably filmed her death. Cathcart thinks it involves influential people, people with money, people in charge. Someone’s been getting in the way of the investigation. If I can do something to stop just one person…’

  ‘You shouldn’t get personally involved. You have to be dispassionate. The best expert witnesses are impartial.’

  ‘I am impartial,’ she said. ‘I’ll do the analys
is and tell them what I find. That doesn’t mean I have to feel any compassion for Haynes.’

  But she hadn’t been impartial. In a case like this she could never be impartial.

  His eyes felt sore and he brushed at them with the back of his hand. He went to the fridge and opened the door. There was a loaf of bread still in its wrapper. It would be stale and dry, but he could toast it. There was some cheese, some salad leaves that were brown at the edges and an open bottle of white wine in the door.

  He found a bin liner in the cupboard. He left the cheese and the bread on the work top, and dumped everything else. He made himself some cheese on toast, then went back into the main room carrying his plate. The low winter sun didn’t reach the windows at the front, and he switched on the lamp to relieve the dimness.

  As he ate, he tried to take stock. He had no idea what to do next – he had come here in the daze of shock, trying to fulfil some request he wasn’t even sure Ania had made. He felt old. He had aches in his joints that he’d never noticed before. There were things that had to be done, but he was reluctant to leave the flat. It was a last haven, as if a trace of Ania’s presence was still here, but once he left, it would go and he would have lost her forever. Slowly, he put the papers back into her filing cabinet. Whatever it was she wanted him to find, it wasn’t here, not any more.

  All he had to do now was check through her clothes. He went into the bedroom and opened the drawers in the tallboy. It felt wrong to be sorting through the silky underwear, all the lace and frills that reminded him his daughter was a woman, with a woman’s life. There was a drawer full of carefully folded knitwear and tops, each one smelling of soap and cleanness. He found the grey camisole she’d worn last time he was here, and held it to his face, picking up the faintest fragrance that brought her vividly into his mind again. He couldn’t stand it. He shoved it back where he had found it.