by Reah, Danuta
‘I went to the university last night. Jerzy Pawlak put a bullet through my arm.’
‘Pawlak?’
‘Pawlak. Then Król’s men are hammering on the door and Pawlak goes out of the window.’
‘The... Why?’
‘I think he was trying to get away. I think he was trying to reach the fire escape, but something... I don’t know.’
Will could hear the confusion in Erland’s voice. ‘Where are you?’
‘In Król’s office. For now. I’ll be in a cell as soon as we’re done.’
‘Pawlak killed her? He killed Ania?’ Jerzy Pawlak, the man who ‘found’ Ania’s body, the ex-SB agent, the police informer. Will had talked to Pawlak, observed his shifty hostility and seen no sign of guilt, but then a man like Pawlak wouldn’t feel guilt.
He had met enough Pawlaks in his time. It was only the blindfold of grief that had stopped him from seeing the man for what he was. At last, he knew the name of Ania’s killer. There was no comfort in the knowledge, just the bleak satisfaction of knowing her killer was dead. ‘What happened?’
There was a long silence. Will knew there was something Erland wasn’t telling him. His eyes met Blaise’s, but he couldn’t read the other man’s expression. This had to be part of Blaise’s game. Not shifting his gaze, he said, ‘There’s more, you know that don’t you?’
‘Yeah. I think I’m the price they’re willing to pay to keep the more quiet. They’re planning to charge me with Pawlak’s murder.’
It was a charge that would never stick, but Król could make Erland’s life very uncomfortable if he chose. ‘And you…?’
‘I’m not cutting any deals Gillen. I don’t work with the good wardens.’
That meant nothing to Will, and he didn’t have time for Erland’s scruples now. ‘Listen. I found the tape.’ He filled Erland in quickly about what he and Sarah Ludlow had found. ‘There never was a fabrication. The tape Ania analysed was the one taken from Haynes’ computer. That was the one that was faked.’
There was silence at the other end as Erland absorbed what he had said. ‘It was all a fake, right from the start.’
‘A child was murdered. That was real.’
‘The reason she was killed was real. Have you watched the video, the Haynes video?’
‘No.’ That was one piece of evidence he couldn’t bring himself to look at. The recording had been bad enough.
‘Nothing happens, Gillen. It’s just the kid being threatened.’
Blaise reached forward and took the phone out of his hand. ‘OK.’ He spoke to someone at the other end, then hung up. He looked at Will. ‘You’ve got everything you need now, Will. I’m told it’s a lovely day out there. I’ve got some calls to make. Go for a walk, and we’ll talk later.’
Chapter 70
Blaise was right. By the time Will left the building, the sun was up. It was a clear winter day with blue skies and small white clouds. The sun cast a warm glow over the city. He walked away from the main road towards the cathedral. He knew this area well with its mix of old and new, of Victorian stone and 21st century glass and steel.
He felt oddly detached. He had a name for Ania’s killer, and her killer was dead: Jerzy Pawlak, a police informer and an ex-member of the Communist secret police, the SB. Pawlak had fallen on hard times under the new regime, a regime that was slow to forgive the past because it was easier to focus on old grievances than try to correct the new. Pawlak’s death should be a closure, but it wasn’t.
Pawlak may have killed Ania but he was just the weapon. Will needed to know who Pawlak had been working for.
Who had paid him? Who had paid him to rip information out of Ania then kill her when he got it? Blaise? No. Blaise knew what had happened, he knew the whole story, Will was certain of that, but if Blaise had run this operation, there would have been no evidence, no trace, no tape.
His wanderings had brought him to the Cathedral Church of St Phillips. He walked along the pavement under a row of trees, gnarled and leafless. The railings of the graveyard were black tipped with gold. He went in and found a bench where he sat in the quiet and studied the grave stones as the bustle of the early rush hour gathered beyond the gates.
Eighteen months ago, the Birmingham raid had damaged the credibility of the Birmingham anti-terror squad and had effectively cost Will his job. The raid had led to a needless death – a seventeen-year-old youth, shot dead on the platform at New Street Station, his hand in his pocket reaching for his ID card. It was after the raid that François Akindès had been arrested and his wife had absconded with the children.
He took out his phone and keyed in Sarah Ludlow’s number. He wasn’t sure if she would talk to him, but he had to try. ‘It’s Will Gillen,’ he said when she answered.
Her voice was cautious. ‘Will. I… What do you want?’
‘Why was François Akindès was deported?’
‘You know that. He got involved with a bunch of Jihadists. It was a crazy thing to do.’
Crazy was not the word. Akindès had taken great risks to protect his family. It didn’t make sense that he had thrown it all away to get involved with an extremist group. ‘And then?’
‘He was arrested. Nadifa panicked and ran. They picked her up a few weeks later – it’s hard to go into hiding when you’ve got dependent children. She was arrested, he was deported.’
‘Hang on – they didn’t deport him until after they’d got his wife and children in custody?’
‘No. They were all supposed to go, but Sagal was ill. She wasn’t fit to travel.’
‘And then Blaise stepped in. Nadifa Akindès should have been sent back with her children. What was she prepared to do to keep them safe? What deal did you make, Sarah?’
‘The best deal I could,’ she snapped. ‘Her husband had decided to put politics before his family. I told her Blaise would help her if she cooperated with him. He promised he’d get her and the kids leave to remain if she told the police what she knew. That was the deal.’
‘OK.’ She’d tried to her best for them, he could accept that. ‘One more thing – what was wrong with Sagal Akindès? Why was she too ill to travel?’
‘Asthma. She suffered from asthma.’
Asthma. It was slowly coming together. ‘OK. Thank you for your help.’ As he put the phone down, he saw Blaise walking towards him. He stayed where he was, watching the familiar figure, tall, grey-haired now, his heavy overcoat slung round his shoulders. ‘It’s a good place for thinking,’ Blaise greeted him as he joined Will on the bench. ‘Have you got there yet?’
‘Almost.’
‘Good man. I was sorry to lose you.’
‘After the Birmingham raid… These are all the repercussions, aren’t they? I thought the information for the raid came from someone who’d already been deported, someone who was – what’s the phrase? – being robustly interrogated. Akindès didn’t get involved with a terrorist group, he infiltrated one. Was that his choice, or did you persuade him – safety for his family in return? What really happened? Was his cover broken, or was he angry enough to feed you misinformation deliberately? I can’t see him putting his family at risk.’
‘Neither can I. I think they knew he was working as an informer and they used him to get at us.’
‘And the guarantees you’d given Akindès?’
‘They only stood if he played by the rules. Someone decided he hadn’t.’
‘OK. You let Akindès go, but you stopped his wife and the children being sent back to Côte d’Ivoire. Sarah’s grateful to you. She’s been keeping you updated on everything because you’ve convinced her it will help Nadifa and the children. Why did you want his family?’
He could sense Blaise weighing things up in his head. He seemed to come to a decision. ‘Whoever fed us the information that led to the raid set us up. They knew far too much about how we operate – they had a line right into our system. We had to find that and cut it off, and François was the one who knew. He had the names and t
he contacts but he was too scared by then. They knew he was a plant. It wasn’t just him, it was his family. He wasn’t talking. He was afraid of reprisals. You’ve got to remember I didn’t know for sure Akindès had played straight. He might have turned double agent. Having his family seemed like good insurance to me.’
‘So you threatened him through his family.’
‘That was going to be the deal. Tell us, and we’ll protect them. Keep quiet, and they’ll have to take their chances back in Côte d’Ivoire.’
‘Going to be?’
‘After that, I moved on. Someone else took over the case.’
‘But it was still your plan, right? Only it wasn’t just deportation – it was a different level, wasn’t it? If Akindès thought his daughter was in the hands of a paedophile ring and he was the only person who could save her, then he’d talk. Was that your idea? It’s your style.’
Blaise gave a thin smile and quoted, apparently from memory: ‘“Inducing unfounded fear, physical discomfort, isolation can lead a suspect to cooperate with the authorities, and such methods have provided our own security forces with valuable, sometimes life-saving, information.” It is my style. It’s what I believe. But the key word is unfounded. I would never have sanctioned what they did to that child.’
‘Sarah Ludlow thought you were protecting them.’
‘Maybe I was, Will, as best I could. It wasn’t good enough as it turned out.’ Blaise paused and studied the inscription on the gravestone in front of the bench. ‘Read that. Two kids under ten dead, and the mother dead at forty. Autre temps, autre mœres. After the raid, I had to move on.’
‘Who gave the orders for Sagal Akindès to be abducted?’
‘It wasn’t an abduction. The child’s mother cooperated. It was done through Haynes. She trusted him because he’d helped her. She thought he was in touch with a support group who were going to get the child out of there. She let them take the kid. There was supposed to be a video, but just of the kid dancing. Someone got too clever.’
‘The child was murdered! For Christ’s sake…’
Blaise sighed. ‘She died, Will. She panicked when they started setting her up for the video. She died of an asthma attack.’
‘Where’s Akindès now?’
Blaise shrugged. ‘Who knows? It stopped being our operation once he left these shores. You’re looking at cock-up rather than conspiracy. If I’d known, I’d have stopped it. As it is, it’s my job to pick up the pieces. You know that.’
‘And Ania?’
‘I can promise you – you can believe it or not – that no one sanctioned any action against her. The files should never have been on Haynes’ system. He should never have been charged. Given that he was…’
‘Ania was the fall guy.’
‘I didn’t know about that video. Something went badly amiss and people have got some questions to answer. Ania would never have gone down for it. I could have handled that.’ He sat in silence, his gaze still on the gravestone. ‘One more thing you might need to know, Will. Pawlak was under investigation in Łódź. Child pornography. Seems he was moving into the supply side. He got a bit too clever and they tracked some stuff back to him.’
They sat side by side on the bench in a parody of companionship. The weight of it, the sheer weight of the useless, pointless mess made it hard for Will to move. He forced himself to his feet.
Blaise didn’t look at him. ‘Goodbye, Will.’
Will nodded and turned away, moving like an old man. The recording was running through his head as he left the graveyard and went out onto the busy streets of Birmingham. I can’t… I can’t… I can’t… Over and over again, she had struggled to say it, and the person behind the camera had just not been listening. I can’t breathe. No one had listened, and Sagal Akindès had died.
Then the cover-up had begun.
Chapter 71
Will waited in his car for an hour before Dariusz Erland called him. ‘They let me go. You’re doing what they wanted? I didn’t ask for that.’
‘There was no need. Blaise knows I can’t talk – I can’t prove a damn thing.’
‘So you’re giving up?’ The jeer was back in Erland’s voice, but it had lost its power to sting.
‘No. There’s one more thing to follow up. Who paid Pawlak? Who wanted that recording enough to pay Pawlak to kill her for it?’
There was silence as Erland absorbed this. ‘Your people over there. They paid him.’
‘No. The cover-up was complete when Sagal Akindès’ body stayed hidden long enough for the forensic evidence to be destroyed. The video wasn’t the responsibility of the UK intelligence people. That was someone else.’
‘You believe that?’
‘I know that. It wasn’t necessary. It was enough that Akindès’ family was in UK custody and under the control of John Blaise. Akindès worked for him. He knew what Blaise was capable of. The outcome of the trial didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if Ania was able to show she hadn’t tampered with the recording, that it was a plant from the start. All that would happen was Haynes would be released and the case would drift into the unsolved files. If Ania had spotted the fake at the start, then that’s what would have happened anyway. But she didn’t.’
‘You’re saying she worked for all those weeks on a recording that was a fake and she didn’t spot it?’
‘She was too close to it. She let herself get too close.’
He heard the hiss of exasperation as Erland let out his breath. ‘Jesus, Gillen, you don’t give up, do you? Sure, Ania had a rough time about her sister. Sure, she was still working through it. But she’d survived. She was a strong woman, your daughter. Your expert spotted that fake at once, right? There was no way, no way Ania didn’t see it.’
He was right. Of course he was. He had to get out of this pattern of thinking, of seeing Ania as a frightened, damaged child. He had to see his daughter as a woman who had survived everything fate had thrown at her and who had made a success of her life: a woman who was liked and respected, a woman who was loved. A woman with a future.
Erland was speaking again, and he had to backtrack quickly to catch what he’d missed.
‘…a message with my father. I was out when she called. She said something about being accused.’
‘Being accused? Was she talking about the Haynes case?’
‘I don’t know. He didn’t understand it so he didn’t pass it on. She said something about someone being accused. That’s all I know.’
‘Telling you that she’d been accused? Hadn’t she already…’
‘Told me? Yeah. We’d already talked about it. That’s why it doesn’t make sense.’
She must have been talking about herself, but why would she ask Erland’s father to tell him she had been accused? Why the urgency? Had there been some contact from the police in the UK, making formal charges? Had the Polish police been in touch with her? Will looked down the street ahead of him, a city street with shops and cars, a vista drawing his eye to the high tower of glass in the square at the end. As he watched, it seemed to fill with people wandering aimlessly along its length.
Then, at the far end, he saw a woman with fair hair. She was walking towards him. She vanished among the crowd, reappeared, was obscured briefly as someone walked across his line of vision, then she was gone. He blinked. The street was empty, but her voice was still there in his memory. Occam’s razor, Dad.
‘Something must have happened, something she needed to tell you at once.’
‘But she couldn’t because I wasn’t there. And then she died.’
There was nothing Will could say to that. Could Erland have prevented her death over those hundreds of miles, if he had taken the call, if he had got the message? But there was something else now, something he hadn’t realised before. ‘You’re right about the recording. She must have known there was something wrong with it. I need to work out why she didn’t say anything. I need to talk to some people. I’ll call you later.’
&nbs
p; Before Erland could respond, he put the phone down, and walked back towards his car. When his phone started ringing again, he switched it off.
Occam’s razor. He knew who he had to talk to. He had to get back to Manchester.
Chapter 72
DCI Cathcart didn’t look happy to see Will. He was at his desk in the small office where he had talked to Will last time, working his way through a pile of papers. He frowned when Will was shown through the door. ‘Mr Gillen,’ he said. He didn’t stand up.
‘I won’t keep you. I just need to know if there’ve been any developments.’
‘Apart from your causing a disturbance in Hale, you mean, sir?’
‘Apart from that, officer, yes.’ The two men locked gazes, until Cathcart looked away.
‘There’s nothing new.’ A muscle in his jaw was working. Will couldn’t understand what was making him so angry – the news about the tape? The events at Sarah Ludlow’s flat? Whatever it was, it was clear Cathcart wanted Will gone.
‘What’s the next stage?’ Haynes’ team would be pressing for a date for the new trial.
‘There isn’t a next stage. In the light of your recent findings, the investigation is being scaled down.’
‘And the trial?’
‘Probably won’t happen. Haynes’ conviction will be declared unsafe, and he’ll walk free.’
It was the worst outcome for everyone. Will began to understand Cathcart’s manner. He’d put all the effort he could into the case, into looking for new evidence, and now the whole thing had fallen apart. From Cathcart’s point of view, it was an expert witness fiasco, and Will was the closest thing he had to a target for his anger. ‘I need to know what Ania told you about that recording – not what she told you in her report, what she told you off the record – the things she believed but couldn’t prove. Tell me that, and I’ll get out of your way.’
Cathcart stayed at his desk, resting his chin on his hand while he studied Will. ‘She told me she was certain it was Haynes.’