Dead in the Water

by Aline Templeton

  5

  ‘Wczes´nie dzisiaj wstaes´. You’re up early today,’ Stefan Pavany said.

  It wasn’t quite seven o’clock, and a dull morning with drizzling rain. The run-down kitchenette in the rented house had only a small window, covered by a dirty net curtain, but Kasper Franzik hadn’t put on the light. At the other man’s entrance he spun round so suddenly that water from the kettle he was holding splashed on the floor instead of on to the instant coffee in his mug. He dodged it and swore.

  ‘Not like you.’ There was an edge to Stefan’s voice. ‘Usually I’m turning you out of bed to get on site for eight. What’s going on?’

  He advanced on the meagre floor space so that Kasper was forced into the angle formed by the units and the chipped enamel sink.

  ‘It’s – it’s just—’ he stammered, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

  ‘What were you and Jozef talking about last night? I could tell you were plotting something. I don’t like plots.’ Stefan’s dark blue eyes were fixed on the younger man.

  Kasper somehow could not look away. ‘It’s just . . . well, I was going to tell you before I left. I’m taking the rest of the week off.’

  There was a brief silence, then Stefan’s face lit with rage. ‘What?’ he yelled. ‘Oh no, you’re not!’ He explained, in obscene detail, precisely what he would do to stop him, then went on, ‘We’ve a contract, remember? A great bonus if we finish next week, and we lose another job the week after if we don’t. Do you think I run this for your benefit?

  ‘Still, good that you’re up early. I’ll take you to the house now and you can start while I go back and fetch the others.’

  Kasper was taller and broader than the older man but even so he had to screw up his courage. ‘I won’t go. These people pay double what you pay me. It’s four days. That’s all.’

  He had been prepared for argument, prepared even to have to pay some share of his windfall into the gang’s kitty. He was not prepared for immediate violence, and Stefan’s punch caught him squarely on his cheekbone.

  Shock came first, then dismay. He was no stranger to street fights, yet for the second time recently he was trapped. He couldn’t dodge the rain of blows and kicks and with his injured arm, both his defence and attack were feeble.

  The noise had brought the other two occupants of the house bleary-eyed from their beds to stare, stupefied, at what was going on. At last one of them, Jozef, pulled Stefan off but not before a final vicious kick left Kasper doubled over in pain.

  Stefan had not escaped unscathed either: his lip was bleeding and there was a bloody bruise on his temple, but his adversary was in a much worse state. His nose was pouring blood, one of his eyes was half-shut and his jaw was swelling visibly. He turned to the sink and spat out blood and a chip off a tooth. He grabbed a dish towel and put it to his nose.

  Still breathing heavily, Stefan shook himself free of restraint. ‘Just a little misunderstanding. Kasper thought he would dump us and lose us the bonus, but he’s changed his mind.’

  He walked back into the living room. Kasper, his face black with rage and humiliation, limped out of the kitchen past him. He turned at the doorway in stubborn defiance.

  ‘You heard what I said. I’m going. You’ve beaten me up – you can’t kill me, or I’m no use to you. I can come back next week and work overtime, or I walk out and you’re a man short. You choose.’

  ‘The circus come to town, has it?’ The old man, a bemused look on his face, looked up and down Ardhill’s main street.

  There were trucks everywhere, almost constituting a small village on their own. A Winnebago stood in the pub car park and a catering truck opposite was producing a fine smell of frying bacon. A queue of people was lining up at the hatch for breakfast.

  Across the road, a generator with cables snaking from it was running and nearby a woman with a clipboard was in earnest conversation with a man who had headphones draped round his neck. The early rain had stopped, but the sky was grey and threatening, and clearly a source of concern.

  A uniformed policeman, there to reconcile production demands with the needs of the motorist, was eating a sausage butty and there were faces at the windows of the houses. A small crowd had gathered and a party atmosphere was rapidly developing.

  A minibus appeared and disgorged a self-conscious group of schoolchildren, among them Catriona Fleming and her friend Anna. They had been up since six this morning, getting ready and having intense phone consultations about such important matters as shades of lip-gloss. The result, in each case, was impressive: two pretty girls, one fair, one dark, dressed similarly in jeans and tops from Gap (one blue t-shirt, one green smock).

  Cat and Anna had checked out the competition and were now feeling distinctly complacent. ‘None of the others have even bothered,’ Anna whispered. ‘Some of them look a right mess.’

  They were directed to the breakfast truck, but Cat and Anna hung back. The bacon smell was tempting and they both had healthy adolescent appetites, but having taken so much trouble with the lip-gloss – renewed on the bus – it would be a shame to eat it off before the director got the full effect. Cat waved to Karolina, serving at the hatch, but she was looking harassed and gave her only a brief smile.

  ‘Look,’ Anna said, nudging her friend, ‘someone’s coming over.’ They both produced nervous grins.

  There were two men, one small, plump and cheerful-looking and the other dark and unsmiling.

  ‘You’re the kids from the school, right?’ the dark one said. ‘If you wait all together over there, I’ll come and explain.’

  The youngsters gathered slowly, clutching bacon rolls and croissants, and in one case a bowl of cereal. When they were assembled, the dark man looked round them with a professional eye.

  ‘Hi. I’m Tony. Can’t use you all, I’m afraid, but thanks for coming anyway. The storyline calls for a bunch of kids throwing stones at a car. Who fancies stone-throwing? Legal vandalism – could be fun.’

  All the hands went up, Cat and Anna looking at each other uncertainly. It wasn’t what they had expected and both were getting a sinking feeling that all their efforts might have been wasted.

  ‘OK.’ Tony’s eyes scanned them again. ‘I need five. You, you, you, you and you.

  ‘The rest of you – sorry. Thanks again for turning up. Feel free to wander around, have some more breakfast, watch for a bit if you like. I warn you, though, it’ll be slow. Watching paint dry’s a thrill a minute by comparison. If you’re heading back to school, the bus is there to take you whenever you want to go.’

  Cat bit her lip. Anna gave a small, miserable sniff as they turned away with the other rejects. One of the scruffiest boys went past them sniggering.

  ‘Being smart’s not always as smart as not being smart,’ he said, leaving them, as he would have said if he’d thought of it, smarting.

  Karolina had been looking forward to today, and now it had been ruined by anxiety. Oh, the cooking wasn’t difficult and the kitchen crew had been friendly – at least until Kasper’s arrival.

  The Glasgow friend who had got her the job in the first place had phoned on Saturday to say another person was needed locally to fill in. She’d mentioned it to some Polish friends after Mass on Sunday, among them Kasper who got in first when she said what it paid. She hadn’t been altogether happy – and she certainly hadn’t told Rafael – but at least she’d been able to say she’d found someone.

  When Kasper appeared, it was clear he had been fighting. With his height, his dark colouring and his usual intense expression, he tended to look forbidding. Today, with the gashes on his face and a black eye, he looked positively alarming.

  Chef, a plump and peaceable man, looked at him askance. ‘You all right? What happened to you, then?’

  ‘Had problem. OK now. What you want I do?’

  He was set to peeling vegetables. Karolina, pink with embarrassment, came over and hissed at him, ‘Co to jest? What is this? Why have you come looking li
ke this? You have let me down.’

  Kasper was aggrieved. ‘You think I wanted this? My gang boss didn’t like me taking days off. Went for me like a crazy man.’

  ‘I can see that. Why did you take this, if you had a job already?’

  ‘Because it paid more. Why do you think?’

  ‘You are too fond of money, Kasper. You haven’t learned—’

  He interrupted her. ‘I don’t need a lecture. This man is a slave-driver – takes most of the money for himself, then charges us rent to live in a pigsty house.’

  He set down his knife and took her by the wrist. ‘Karolina, I don’t know if it is safe to go back. He is dangerous – you can see. If the others hadn’t pulled him off me, he might have killed me.

  ‘Can I stay with you and Rafael, just for a while? We’re old friends, you have a house, we are Poles who must stick together—’

  ‘No!’ She wrenched her hand away. ‘It’s a small house, we have Janek – you must find somewhere else. Or go back to your job now and say sorry. I will explain here—’ She would be glad to, with the curious looks she was getting.

  He turned to stare at her fiercely. ‘I will never apologize. He must apologize to me.’

  ‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ Karolina said wearily. ‘Anyway, I’ve got work to do and so have you.’

  Chef looked at her enquiringly as she turned away.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘He had a row with one of his housemates. He’ll be fine. These things – they make up again, I guess.’

  And how Karolina hoped that what she said was true!

  Jaki Johnston came downstairs yawning at ten o’clock. Reaching the foot of the stairs, she heard Marcus’s voice from the drawing room and stuck her head in. He was on his mobile, but waved and mouthed, ‘Won’t be long!’

  He said into the phone, ‘For goodness’ sake! I can’t see it coming up in general conversation, anyway. Surely anything more would be most unwise? I’m sorry, I just won’t go down that road.’

  There was a lengthy response, then he said, ‘Easiest if you just keep them off my back, really.’ He laughed. ‘Then I won’t be tempted to confess.’

  Even Jaki could hear the agitated squawking at the other end of the phone.

  ‘OK, OK, calm down. That was a joke, all right? Yes. Yes, fine. See you sometime.’

  Marcus switched the phone off, pulling a face. ‘Idiot woman! Thinks I’m going to cause her trouble and wants me to lie to the police. I hate people trying to manipulate me – sends me in the opposite direction.’

  Jaki looked at him quizzically, but he only said, ‘Looking for breakfast? Mrs Boyter’s out shopping – an excuse to see what’s happening in the village, I reckon – but we can find you some toast, at least.’

  ‘It must be up that lane there, look,’ DS Andy Macdonald said to DC Ewan Campbell, dodging the chaos in Ardhill’s main street, avoiding cameras mounted on dollies, trolleys of equipment and people who seemed oblivious to anything except what they themselves were doing. ‘I hope we can manage to get through – and get back out again!’

  ‘Just as long as we don’t get ourselves blocked in,’ Campbell said.

  Macdonald looked at him in surprise. Campbell, who came from Oban, was famous for his linguistic economy. This almost came under the heading of small-talk.

  ‘Why does it matter?’ Macdonald asked, and saw Campbell’s pale skin go pink under the freckles.

  ‘It’s Mairi. She’s due today and I might get a call any time.’

  It was the most personal observation Macdonald had ever heard him make. He knew Campbell was married, but he couldn’t have been sure of his wife’s name and had no idea the arrival of a small Campbell was imminent.

  ‘Well – congratulations,’ he said, a little lamely. ‘My sisters tell me first babies are always late, anyway.’

  ‘Aye, maybe. But if she’s needing me they’ll have to get their cameras out the road right away.’

  He spoke ferociously and Macdonald looked at him, astonished. Maybe that was the Campbell blood coming out, and as a Macdonald he’d better watch his step.

  ‘Er – yes,’ he said, then with some relief, ‘Here we are – that looks like the house.’

  The address was the one given to the medical centre by the young man with the knife wound. It was a run-down area at the back of Ardhill, in sharp contrast to the smartly painted main street. The house was an ugly semi-detached bungalow, built of concrete slabs coated with beige pebble-dash. The garden gate was off its hinges and in the garden itself rubbish had accumulated – a rusted engine, some old enamel pails and buckets, a bicycle chassis with no wheels. Dirty net curtains hung at the window, one with a jagged tear in it.

  ‘How many of them do you suppose are living there?’ Macdonald wondered, not really expecting an answer. Campbell followed him up the path in silence as he went on, ‘Can’t be paying much rent for a place like this, though of course they won’t be earning much. They work for about half of what the locals charge.’

  They walked up the path to a front door which had once been blue but was now blistered and peeling. There was no bell, so Campbell knocked, then knocked again.

  ‘Out at work, probably,’ Macdonald said. ‘Not the best time to catch them in, really, when you think about it.’

  He stepped back, looking at the front of the house, then, noticing the rip in the curtain, walked over to the window and peered through it, shading his eyes. ‘It’s messy enough for a lot of men, anyway. Dirty dishes everywhere – just like home.’

  ‘Someone’s watching us next door,’ Campbell said suddenly. ‘Curtain moved.’

  The adjoining garden was similarly untidy, though this time the litter was mainly plastic toys, their colour bleached by sun and rain. The doorbell played a silly tune when Campbell pressed it.

  After a pause, the door opened a fraction and a young woman in a grubby T-shirt, tracksuit bottoms and bare feet appeared, holding an even grubbier infant clad only in a plastic nappy.

  She eyed them suspiciously round the door, the tall young man with a dark buzz-cut and the shorter one with red hair, one wearing a raincoat and the other a brown zipped jacket. ‘You’re polis, aren’t you? What are you wanting? He’s not here, anyway.’

  She had realized what they were remarkably quickly. Who, Macdonald wondered, was ‘he’? And if they went through the back, would they find someone they’d a warrant out on? From the woman’s anxious looks over her shoulder, he reckoned they would, but the rules were so strict now that it seemed as if you couldn’t pick anyone up without phoning first to ask if it would be OK to come round.

  Anyway, it wasn’t their business today. Macdonald said, ‘We’re not looking for anyone here. Just wanted to ask about the people next door.’

  The front door opened a little further. ‘The Poles, you mean?’

  ‘That’s our information.’

  ‘Wouldn’t know. They all talk funny, anyway. They’ll be out working – always away before we’re out our beds. There was a real stramash this morning – woke the baby. Some folks are just ignorant – no consideration.’

  ‘Where do they work, do you know?’

  ‘Someone said they’re at some big posh house over in Sandhead.’

  ‘You didn’t hear whose house, I suppose?’

  ‘No.’ The baby, an unprepossessing child with a runny nose, had started crying, a dreary, grizzling sound. ‘Oh, shut it,’ she said, jiggling it without effect. ‘That’s all I ken about them.’

  The door was closing again. Macdonald said hastily, ‘How many of them live there?’

  ‘Four or five maybe. No point speaking to them – wouldn’t understand a word I said. They’ve no right, coming here taking the jobs—’ The child was yelling hard now, snot mixing with its tears. Its mother went back inside and shut the door, still muttering.

  The piercing screams followed them down the path. ‘That’s what you’ve got to look forward to,’ Macdonald pointed out unkindl
y, and Campbell gave him a hunted look.

  ‘Not all like that, are they?’

  ‘Going by my nieces and nephews, pretty much. Mercifully it doesn’t seem to be so disgusting when it’s your own.

  ‘Now, how do we find this big posh house in Sandhead? Go and ask around, I suppose. There can’t be too many having work done at the moment. Mind you, I don’t know why we should be doing this instead of the uniforms. Big Marge seems to have her knickers in a bit of a twist about racist gang warfare in Kirkluce.’

  The great white bulk of the Stevenson lighthouse was shrouded in rain and mist as DI Fleming, pulling on a hooded oilskin jacket, stepped out of the car. She was on her own today: there had been a break-in at a solicitors’ office in Stranraer and she’d had to despatch MacNee and Kerr to deal with it, since Macdonald and Campbell were detailed to question the Poles, and she wasn’t prepared to postpone that. They were short-staffed at the moment, with one detective away on leave and another off with flu.

  What a shame the weather was so bad, with the views over to England and Ireland blotted out completely! It must look fantastic in sunshine – and even today, the place looked dazzlingly well maintained, the walls round about painted white like the lighthouse itself, but with a band of bright yellow on the coping-stones. The whitewashed cottages for keepers, long since departed, had windows and chimneys painted the same cheerful colour.

  Fleming set off to walk round the lighthouse to the farther side, bracing herself as she came out of its shelter into the wind from the sea, then stopped as she reached the point where she could see to the north-west.

  Visibility was poor, but she could make out the line of cliffs stretching up the Irish Sea coast, sandy-coloured with a black high-water mark of seaweed round the base. And there, a few hundred yards away, was a sharp spur of rock jutting out of the sea with a low, almost level platform connecting it to the cliff. Judging by the seaweed line, this would be submerged at high tide, but at the moment it was just above the water-level, with the stronger waves washing over it. It had been well described: Fleming could almost see Ailsa Grant’s wave-battered body lying on it.