Last Room

by Reah, Danuta

  He needed proof of chicanery that would stand up in court. His contact could provide that proof, but the man was scared. He’d insisted on meeting in absolute secrecy. The talk had taken place in Dariusz’ car on a back road close to the Jewish cemetery. Afterwards, chilled to the bone, he had called in at a bar.

  Now he was feeling buzzed from a double vodka and from an overdose of cigarettes. It made him feel better for the moment, but he would pay the price in the morning. He cleared his desk and slipped his digital recorder out of his top pocket. He’d taken the precaution of making a recording as his informant had talked and he needed to transcribe it.

  He switched on his laptop and waited for it to boot up. He entered his password, only for the system to refuse him entry. Invalid password. He put his face in his hands and swore under his breath. He’d loaded an illegal copy of some software a couple of days ago: that must be what was causing the difficulty. He was facing a classic chicken and egg problem: he needed to log on to remove the software, until he removed it, he wouldn’t be able to log on.

  He shelved it. He was too tired. He couldn’t be bothered with the rigmarole of dealing with a recalcitrant machine. He paced the small room, lit another cigarette then stubbed it out. He switched on the TV and channel-hopped for a while, then turned it off again. He felt too restless for sleep, and too weary to do anything useful.

  In desperation, he poured himself more vodka. Another drink should put him out and the hell with the consequences tomorrow. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d worked though a hangover. He showered, then, naked apart from a towel wrapped round his hips, he sat at his desk again and stared into the night, lighting another cigarette. His mind was blurred and unfocused with alcohol and his mouth tasted of old rope. He wondered what Ania would say if she came through the door and found him like this, half drunk and smoked out.

  You left me, kiciu. You’ll have to give me some time.

  ***

  Will’s sleep was broken that night. Sometimes he was walking along the dark platforms of New Street station, the brick tunnel above him pressing down as he continued his futile search. Sometimes he was walking along narrow streets in an unfamiliar town, a street with high wooden houses and narrow alleys, where things scuttered in the darkness and a witch-light flickered and gleamed in the night. It was after five before he fell asleep properly.

  The sounds of the street outside woke him. It was morning, the sky was light. He checked his watch. He’d slept until nine. He swore and dragged himself out of bed. The four hours’ sleep he’d managed had left him drained. The world looked strangely clear and strangely insubstantial. He could feel the threads of exhaustion starting to wear him down.

  Not long now.

  He dressed quickly and went out into the day. He grabbed some coffee and set off towards the Manufactura that had been built in the heart of the city. It was in an old industrial campus that had housed a massive textile factory, the mansion of Izrael Poznanski, the owner, workers’ houses, a school and a railroad station. Now it was an arts, leisure and shopping centre.

  It was a short walk from the top of Piotrkowska. He went in through a high brick arch and found himself in a huge square where the red brick of the old buildings was complemented by airy constructions of glass and steel. He could see spouts in the ground where fountains would jet water into the sky. For a moment, he let himself pretend he was here with Ania, that she was showing him round the city she had planned to adopt as her own.

  ‘It’s just another shopping mall,’ he said, deliberately contentious.

  ‘Just a shopping mall? How can you say that? It’s a whole cultural centre. There’s a theatre, a museum, art galleries, and, by the way, one of the best restaurants in the city.’

  He could take a hint. ‘I suppose you want me to take you to dinner tonight?’

  But he was alone. The open square stretched out around him. He could picture it in summer, busy with shoppers strolling in the sun, with children playing, running through the fountains, the sunlight prismed in the droplets. But he wasn’t here to sightsee. He located an interior design store and a photographer’s. From the first, he bought a roll of transparent self-adhesive wallpaper; from the second, a camera and a sheet of projection film. Together, these made an effective kit for lifting fingerprints. Some Scene of Crime officers preferred this method to the traditional one. He was going to lift the print on the phone wire in the room from where Ania had fallen. If the Polish police wouldn’t investigate it, then he would do it himself.

  He felt a bleak determination to finish what it was his daughter had started. He went back to the hotel where he put together his makeshift fingerprint kit, cutting a strip from the Cetafix wallpaper that he would use to lift the prints and a matching sheet of transparent projection film that would serve as a cover. He would only have one chance at this, and he had to get it right.

  He knew he ought to eat but once again the lush swoop of strings drove him away from the door of the hotel restaurant. It was as if he was caught in some nightmare, some groundhog day in which he would live and relive his empty search with no promise of release and no hope of moving on. Where was there to go? What lessons remained to be learned?

  He walked the short distance to Kościuszki, to the department of English Language. Here, the same sense of déjà vu wrapped itself round him as he went up the steps towards the main entrance.

  It was after ten and the students were moving purposefully in and out of the building and the lobby was full with the bustle of the day. The sound of voices echoed off the high ceiling. He felt like an automaton as he crossed the lobby and went up the stairs. This would be his last visit. Once he had the fingerprint, he had no reason to come back.

  There were no students on the top floor. There was no one around at all and the door of Jankowski’s office was shut. Will hoped to complete what he had to do before Jankowski became aware of his presence. The figure that lurked at the edge of his enquiry was still faceless, still unknown. Whatever form this figure may take as the light crept nearer, he was too well informed already. Will intended keeping his own secrets.

  He went to the end of the corridor. There was no daylight here. That night, Ania had walked down this corridor in the same darkness. He reached the door of the office and turned the handle with a sudden misgiving that it might be locked.

  It opened. There was a draught from the ill-fitting window. Against his will, his gaze moved towards it, towards the metal frame where Ania’s fingers had lost their last, desperate grip. The marks of the fingerprint powder were still visible. He turned to the filing cabinet behind the door.

  The phone wasn’t there. He looked round the room again. There was no sign of it. It was like the morning he’d arrived at her flat to find the police already there.

  Too late. He was too late.

  Slowly and stiffly, he walked back to the landing. He was about to knock at Jankowski’s door when it opened and Jankowski came out. He was holding Ania’s backpack, the one Will had left in his office the last time he was here. ‘The porter told me you were on your way up. I was…’ He stopped at the look on Will’s face.

  ‘I came to check the phone that was in the office.’

  ‘Where she….? Of course.’ Jankowski made as if to lead the way. Will stopped him.

  ‘It’s gone. The phone is gone.’

  Jankowski made an impatient noise in his throat and muttered something that sounded like a curse. ‘I’m sorry. Someone will have taken it. If I had known you wanted it… It’s what happens here. We’re always short of equipment so if something is not being used, it goes somewhere it will be used.’

  ‘Do you know who might have it?’ As evidence, it would be useless now, but it might still hold the information Will needed.

  Jankowski shook his head. ‘I can ask. But…’ He spread his hands in a gesture that encompassed the building. It could be anywhere. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.

  Will tried not to let his anger and fru
stration show. It wasn’t Jankowski’s fault. It was his, again. All through this, he’d let his emotions get in the way, let them make him careless and slow. As soon as he’d seen the prints he should have been here, should have made sure the phone was secure.

  Jankowski shook his head with regret. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘I’m glad I saw you because I wanted to ask you…’ His voice was careful. ‘The funeral. When will it be? I would like to come if possible. I may not be able to but please believe that I would wish to be there. At least we want to send something in memory. She was our friend and we weren’t there when she needed us.’

  ‘I understand. I’ll let you know.’

  He took Ania’s bag and went down the stairs against the flow of students walking up to classrooms and lecture theatres. Universities were places of hope and expectations, places where people with all their lives in front of them were just starting out. Oh, early adulthood carried as many miseries as any age, but it had the unquenchable hope of youth.

  And he was getting old.

  He was out in the street, walking aimlessly in the wind that was blowing down the long avenues of the city, barely aware of the cold cutting through his coat and chilling his hands to numbness.

  ‘Dad. You need to look after yourself. You need to get warm.’

  He saw that he was walking past the café he’d been to before, Coffees and Toffees. A hollow dragging feeling inside him reminded him that he still hadn’t eaten. He went in. It was the same girl behind the counter and she seemed to recognise him, giving him a bright smile and a cheerful, ‘Cześć.’

  He bought coffee and, mindful of Ania’s injunction, a piece of cake, then he took his tray across the room to a table in a corner away from the window. He didn’t know what to do next. He didn’t have the resources or the authority to investigate any further, and his chances of getting the information he needed to persuade the Łódź police to pursue the case were slim. Without the print, all he had was Pawlak’s claim to have heard someone on the stairs. He could take that to Król, but he doubted it would do any good.

  He closed his eyes and waited, and she was there. ‘You’ve done enough. It’s time to go back,’ she said. ‘You need to go home.’

  He looked across the table to where she was sitting. The light didn’t quite reach her and her face was in shadow. ‘I’ve let you down.’

  ‘You haven’t. You’ve done everything you could. You can go home now.’

  It was a moment before he realised the waitress had come across to him. Will looked at her blankly.

  ‘You want?’ she said in careful English.

  ‘No. Nothing. I was talking to…’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Is OK.’ She moved away, watching him from the corner of her eye.

  Maybe he was going mad. A part of him welcomed the idea.

  Chapter 36

  When he got back to the hotel, he called the airline. There were seats on a flight leaving at seven that evening if he was prepared to pay a steep fee for altering his travel plans. He dealt with the admin briskly and booked the seat, then he gathered up the few things he’d bothered to unpack and stowed them in his suitcase. His laptop and his papers were already in the bag he carried everywhere with him. At least with those he’d been careful.

  He didn’t know what to do with Ania’s things. He was half tempted to leave them here for Erland to deal with. Let him have them if he laid such a strong claim to her memory. He picked up the backpack, weighing it in his hands, then emptied the contents out onto the bed.

  He caught a drift of perfume, a fragrance that bought her vividly back to him. He saw her standing outside the cottage in St Abbs, Keeper tugging impatiently at the lead she was holding; he saw her in her life jacket throwing the ropes to someone on the harbour side; he saw her scrambling over the rocks under the cliffs, her hair blown about by a stiff breeze from the sea; and he saw a stream of grey ashes pouring into the water, drifting for a moment on the surface and then vanishing forever.

  ‘I understand. I’ll do it,’ he said.

  He shook the bag again and something rolled out, something he’d missed before. It was a pink teddy bear, faded and stained. The ears were uneven and the arms stuck out like starfish. He felt a stab of recognition that was so sharp it was painful as he picked it up

  Small Bear. He’d found Small Bear.

  He moved it in his hands, feeling its worn softness.

  Elžbieta had had this on the car seat next to her, that day she made her last trip, as if the toy could stand in for the child she’d lost. He’d never found out what had happened to it. He hadn’t cared. The police must have returned it with the bag of Elžbieta’s possessions. He had thrown the lot away, but Ania must have retrieved the toy. She’d said nothing, but she had kept it all these years.

  Small Bear has a secret. This was what the Facebook site meant. He had been looking too hard. There was no secret code, no hidden message on the page that he was unable to find. It was simply this, to tell him to look at the bear.

  He had found what she wanted him to look for.

  But as he turned it round in his hands, he could feel that it was loose and floppy. He checked more closely and saw one of the seams had been split open and the stuffing pulled out. He pulled out the rest, searching through it, pressing the empty limbs of the toy between his fingers, but there was nothing there.

  The awareness cut through him like a knife. Once again, by the time he understood what she was trying to tell him, it was too late.

  She had sent him to her flat and the police had got there first. He had tried to collect what was left at the university and lost it. His hands were working frantically as the anger and despair washed over him, testing again the fabric, the small arms, the reinforced head, looking for the secrets the bear held.

  Nothing.

  Whatever it was, it was gone.

  The despair hit him like a tsunami. It was overwhelming, and it drove him to his knees. The pain in his chest was so sudden, so intense, he couldn’t breathe. It was going to kill him. He struggled against it because he couldn’t die now, not now, not when he was so close.

  The abyss of nothingness reached out for him. He tried to speak but he couldn’t find his voice. Then he was at New Street Station, out of breath from running, looking down into the dank oubliette where the tracks lay. A boy sat on a bench, the bulk of his rucksack telling the story they thought they knew.

  And he was sitting on the bench looking back up towards the concourse, towards the men with their guns held ready. He reached into his jacket for the identity card, the card that would tell them he meant no harm. The bullet struck him squarely in the chest, driving red hot agony into the core of his being.

  Then the blackness took him.

  Chapter 37

  His head was resting on something soft, and he could feel a cool touch on his forehead. ‘Dad. Wake up. Wake up.’ In the background, an electronic sound beeped with maddening regularity.

  His hand was almost too heavy to lift but he reached up and felt her fingers as they entwined with his. He tried to say something. ‘Ania. I’m sorry.’

  It was more a breath than speech, but she seemed to understand him because he felt her squeeze his hand. ‘It’s OK. I’m OK,’ she said. Relief overwhelmed him and he slept.

  The relief stayed with him as he rose to the surface again. He’d been trapped in some terrible dream, but that was all it was, a dream. He thought he could hear the sea, and reached his hand out, waiting for the touch of Keeper’s nose as she welcomed him to the day.

  As his eyes opened, he saw something above his head, an odd shape that his brain couldn’t decipher, until it suddenly became a drip stand with a bag of fluid hanging down. His gaze followed the line down, to the needle taped into his arm.

  Hospital. He must be ill, must have had an accident, something… He struggled for recall.

  He’d been shot… No, he’d… a hotel room. A child’s toy ripped apart…
>
  There was someone sitting by his bed. He heard the crackle of a newspaper as the figure moved. ‘Ania?’

  ‘You’re awake.’ It was a man’s voice. Will forced his head to turn. Dariusz Erland was sitting in a chair by his bed, a newspaper folded carelessly beside him. ‘I’ll call the nurse. You’re lucky I came to the hotel.’

  ‘Lucky?’ Reality came flooding back. He had known, of course, that the moment of relief was false, a trick played by his mind to allow him to rest, but it was bitter to relinquish it. The moment he had felt Ania take his hand was still there and his fingers closed round the memory.

  ‘I was expecting you to call me. When you didn’t I went to see what was going on. I found you on the floor. You were unconscious.’

  Will shook his head. ‘What happened?’

  ‘They were concerned you may have had a heart attack but it seems you were just exhausted. You have been asleep for hours.’

  Before he could say any more, the door opened and a man came in, a white coat open over his suit. A nurse accompanied him. ‘Mr Gillen. You’re awake. How are you feeling?’ The man’s English was excellent and Will didn’t argue that he could speak Polish. He was too weary of strange places, strange voices, of straining all the time to understand.

  ‘Tired.’

  ‘No more pain? You were in pain when you came in.’

  He was going to be in pain forever, but this wasn’t what the doctor meant. ‘No pain.’

  ‘Good.’ The doctor was testing his pulse as he spoke, presumably a bedside trick as a monitor behind him beeped reassuringly. ‘Now, we aren’t sure what has happened. We thought at first you were having a heart attack, but the results of your ECG and blood tests suggest you were not. We would like to do more tests because…’

  Will struggled into a sitting position. ‘No. I’m OK. I’ve been overdoing it, that’s all.’ He needed to take better care of himself. Ania was depending on him. ‘I let myself get tired but I’m fine. I’ll get checked over back in the UK. I can’t afford time in hospital now. I have things I need to do.’