Cold Courage

by Pekka Hiltunen

  She intended to turn on her computer and read the news, but then she changed her mind. Instead she lay down on the bed and tried to work out how she was coping.

  She thought about the bald man, Olafs Jansons, and the weapon in his hand. She thought about falling the previous night at the caravan site.

  No tears came. No panic came.

  After waiting a few minutes, Lia found herself wanting to get out and move about. She got up, dressed and put some money in her pocket. Along her North End route was an award-winning falafel shop.

  44

  Arthur Fried made his move on Friday morning at 7.20 during the live broadcast of the ITV breakfast show.

  This was the first interview request he had accepted since knowledge of his businesses’ tax evasion and Fair Rule’s support for racist organisations had come out.

  The female host tried to ask Fried several pointed questions, but the five minutes he spent on screen still ended up as a monologue. He had two messages.

  The first was that he was innocent and had been unfairly stigmatised. If he was guilty of any mistakes in his business activities, they were unfortunate accidents for which he offered his deepest apologies. Other people handled the party’s support payments, but as party leader he took full personal responsibility for rectifying the situation if any illegalities came to light.

  Fried’s second message was that two days earlier he had been ordained a minister.

  ‘This is why I have kept silent,’ he said, looking directly into the camera. ‘After these allegations emerged, I had to prove to myself what kind of person I really am. Am I the man I believed I was? Honest, upright, keenly aware of his duties? Or am I two-faced and hard-hearted as some have accused?’

  This contemplation had lasted several days. He had spoken with his wife and his family, as well as the pastor of his church.

  ‘I also cried. I cried alone and with my wife,’ Fried said.

  A glint appeared in the reporter’s eye. This was brilliant TV. News reports would be replaying Fried’s words all day.

  ‘I cried because I realised that I had failed,’ Fried said. ‘The success of my party has made me rush forward, overlooking things that I should have handled myself.’

  After these meditations, Fried had felt the need to cleanse himself.

  ‘When you correct your path, I feel it’s always best to do it in a way that really changes something.’

  As a prominent member of the community in good standing, the pastor of his non-denominational congregation had welcomed his desire to enter the lay ministry with open arms and he had given his first sermon the previous day to a small audience in the group’s chapel.

  ‘I’ve never felt so relieved. I know that I’m on the right path now. And I intend to continue as party leader, holding firm to the sense of justice I have now reaffirmed in myself.’

  Mari rang Lia immediately once the interview had ended.

  ‘Masterful.’

  Fried had not admitted to a single crime, instead shifting all the blame to others, whom he also did not name. He had repeated words such as deep, right, duty – putting across the feeling that he had really reflected on his life.

  ‘And taking orders was a brilliant con. It’s complete rubbish but looks important on the surface,’ Mari said.

  Anyone could become a minister in some churches. There were dozens of loosely affiliated evangelical Christian congregations in Britain, and ordination often required little more than a desire to serve in the church. Some organisations even allowed you to order your priesthood online.

  ‘Isn’t that too transparent?’ Lia asked.

  Mari guessed it wouldn’t go down very well with the media or anyone who already thought Fried was suspicious. But it might fool the people Fried needed now: Fair Rule supporters.

  Not announcing the interview in advance had also been an expert feint. If anyone had known about it, speculation about Fried’s intentions would have been rife. Now it came as a surprise and the first reports of his return from seclusion would just repeat what he had said. The interpretation would come later.

  Mari’s evaluation was spot on, Lia discovered when she reached Level. Everyone was talking about Fried.

  ‘A minister!’ Sam laughed. ‘That was the best bit of theatre I’ve seen in ages.’

  But in their editorial meeting, Fried was placed at the head of their topics for the next week. The political reporter, Timothy Phelps, was assigned to find an incisive angle to approach it from.

  Too bad I can’t give Tim what I have. Sarah Hawkins’ video isn’t going out until next week.

  After her long absence, the office felt like a boisterous place. The approaching holidays were keeping everyone busy, especially since they were all also making preparations for Christmas.

  Lia hadn’t had time to give the holiday a second thought.

  As she slogged away at her layout work, she felt better than she had in ages. She had slept well. If she had returned to those recent moments of danger in her dreams, she didn’t remember it.

  During the day, Sam and Timothy came to say that they had missed her.

  ‘And you aren’t Miss Finland any more. We have a new name for you,’ Sam said.

  ‘Is that so? Well, what is it?’

  ‘You’re our Lia Detector.’

  ‘And that means… what?’

  ‘You’re a lie detector. A bullshit alarm.’

  Sam said that a lot of people in the office had been waiting for her to get back so they could have her do their layouts. They wanted her to comment on their writing because she never let anything slide.

  ‘Hmmm. A BS alarm. I suppose that’s a compliment,’ Lia said.

  ‘It’s a huge compliment, Miss Detector.’

  In the afternoon, Mari rang again. Elza and Ausma would be leaving the Twineham Green Caravan Site that day. Elza had rented them a small flat. It was rather expensive, but they would only be there to begin with and Maggie would help them find a cheaper place. They especially wanted to thank Lia again.

  Mari gave Lia Elza’s number: she had bought a mobile phone and a prepaid SIM so as to keep the name of the owner confidential. Elza and Ausma had to be careful that their continued presence in London did not come to the notice of Vanags’ and Jansons’ accomplices.

  Lia rang Elza during her lunch break and talked with her and Ausma for some time. They sounded calm but expectant. Fiona Gould had prepared them for what their job search would be like.

  ‘Little problems aren’t going to scare us away.’

  Lia asked Elza to ring her anytime.

  ‘Thanks. Maybe one day we can go for coffee at some really smart place. I’ll buy,’ Elza said.

  At half past three, Lia’s phone trilled again. Unlisted number. Lia answered with trepidation.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Peter Gerrish here.’

  Oh bollocks.

  ‘Good afternoon, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Likewise. We would like to question you about any information you have concerning Kazimirs Vanags. We’ll send a car round to pick you up.’

  Such a quick departure in the middle of a working day would be difficult, Lia objected.

  ‘You’ll want to come down here right now,’ Gerrish said. ‘I don’t want to arrest you, but we can do that too if necessary.’

  Lia rang Mari immediately.

  ‘Do you think you can handle it?’ Mari asked. ‘We can always have our solicitor delay the interview.’

  ‘I think I can do it. But it would feel better if someone else were there with me. In case they ask something surprising.’

  ‘Would Paddy work?’

  Lia thought for a moment.

  ‘Actually, I’d like Fiona Gould.’

  Fiona didn’t know everything that had happened, but she would know when Lia had the right not to answer a question.

  ‘I’ll handle it. Wait a few minutes,’ Mari said.

  Soon Mari rang back and announced that Fiona would come by
cab to the Wood Street police station.

  Lia begged the AD’s forgiveness for having to leave so early even though she had just returned from sick leave. Taylor did not seem to take it amiss.

  ‘Christmas errands?’ he asked.

  ‘Something like that,’ Lia said.

  Gerrish had sent an unmarked car, Lia noticed with relief, and no one in the office was there to see her getting into the car waiting on the street.

  The driver was young, a plain-clothes cop, who introduced himself briefly and said he would drive Lia to the City of London Special Constabulary. He didn’t try to strike up a conversation along the way, and silence suited Lia too.

  Fiona Gould was waiting outside the police station, and seeing her made Lia feel more confident. The young driver called DCI Gerrish down.

  Gerrish then led them to his office, which was still dominated by the same familiar chaos of paper and files.

  DCI Gerrish quickly made it clear that Lia was not suspected of any crime. On the contrary, they believed she had information needed to solve four homicides.

  ‘Four?’ Lia asked.

  ‘Come now. That can hardly come as a surprise to you,’ Gerrish said.

  Of course he was referring to the killings of the two Latvian women, Daiga Vītola and Anita Klusa, he clarified. And the deaths of two career criminals, Kazimirs Vanags and Olafs Jansons, also of Latvian extraction. The police had found the men based on Lia’s tip that Vanags was involved in the women’s deaths. They had investigated the places where their databases claimed Vanags had businesses or other interests, and Jansons’ body had turned up as a result.

  Lia stated that she was unable to answer any questions regarding the men’s deaths.

  ‘But the two women. Them, I might know something about.’

  ‘Where did you get your information about them?’ Gerrish enquired.

  ‘From a Latvian prostitute. She knew them both.’

  A rigorous interrogation ensued. Who was this prostitute? Where had they met? How had Lia found the pearled comb at the Eastern Buffet? Why had she gone to the shop?

  Lia’s answers were succinct. She had thought through beforehand what she would say. She did not tell him Elza’s name or describe her in detail. She said she had run into some Latvian prostitutes at the Flash Forward club and met with one of them in a café at the Westfield London shopping centre.

  She did not mention visiting Vassall and Sangley Roads, and claimed she had only heard about Vanags from this prostitute. Olafs Jansons was a mystery to her. She remembered that a young woman had served her at the Eastern Buffet. Only through the prostitute’s story had Lia learned that the shop’s owner was a hardened criminal.

  Whenever Gerrish attempted to ask about Vanags and Jansons, Fiona Gould intervened.

  ‘Ms Pajala said at the outset that she is unable to answer any questions regarding these men.’

  The questioning lasted well over an hour. Gerrish took one break and fetched them coffee and tea.

  He kept the pace of the conversation brisk, and Lia sometimes had a hard time arranging her words. But Gerrish did not accuse her of anything. His approach was exacting but not bullying.

  He knows I know much more than this. But he believes I’m more on his side than against him.

  Gerrish taped the conversation on a digital recorder and made notes on his computer. At the end he leaned back in his chair, clicked the file closed and stretched his arms. Making himself more comfortable, he slurped down his cold tea.

  ‘Thank you, Ms Pajala,’ Gerrish said.

  Lia relaxed instinctively.

  But the recorder is still on. He wants me to think the interview is over, so I won’t think as carefully about my words.

  Because Lia had answered his questions so willingly, Gerrish wanted to describe how he believed the murders had occurred.

  The police did not have any evidence about who had killed the Latvian women. The cars they had been found in did not contain any evidence linking them to Vanags or Jansons or any fingerprints extant in the police records. But in the warehouse where they had found Jansons’ body, they had also found the machine gun used to kill Anita Klusa, as well as indications that she was killed in a concrete pit in the same warehouse.

  Lia shivered.

  The flat on Vassall Road had contained ample evidence that someone had been running a brothel there, and interviews with the clients had confirmed as much. Finding them in order to question them had been easy: the police simply waited inside and opened the door when they arrived. Daiga Vītola had apparently worked there. Strands of her hair had showed up in two rooms, and the tiny key found with the remains of her body fitted an empty suitcase they had found at the flat.

  They had not made contact with the women or pimps who had worked out of the flat. They were interviewing neighbours, and that might still yield new leads.

  ‘We also found three other brothels Vanags was involved with.’

  Lia raised an eyebrow.

  The police had located the brothels using a sat-nav they had found in Vanags’ car. The addresses stored in it had led to all sorts of interesting finds, including dozens of illegal guns. In the brothels they had found fourteen women in all, twelve Latvians and two Russians. The list of crimes of the men guarding them seemed long.

  ‘What will happen to the women?’ Lia asked.

  ‘They’ll probably be returned to their home countries. We’ve brought them in to take their statements. But once that’s done, I think most or all of them will be deported. They’ve been working here illegally without the proper paperwork or paying tax.’

  They had also been able to link Olafs Jansons to the place Anita Klusa’s body had been found. CCTV on Ludgate Hill had recorded the moment when the blue Hyundai had driven into the area. The pictures did not show the car’s driver, but Jansons’ bald head was clearly visible a little later walking in a crowd of pedestrians along the street.

  The same gun had been used to shoot Jansons and Vanags. The police hadn’t found it though.

  ‘They were shot at close range. Almost execution style. That could indicate an internal power struggle or an attack by a rival gang.’

  There was also another theory about the gunman, Gerrish said, inspecting Lia closely.

  In addition to that of the victims, the police had found blood from another person at the house on Sangley Road.

  The cut on Henriete’s shoulder. Will they catch her because of that?

  ‘Upon DNA analysis, we discovered that the person the blood came from is a near relative of the Holborn Circus victim. Daiga Vītola.’

  Gerrish waited to see what kind of impression this revelation would make on Lia.

  ‘Do you know anything that could explain that?’

  Lia shook her head and remained silent.

  ‘I have a theory about what happened,’ Gerrish said. ‘I’d like to hear your views on it.’

  The Chief Inspector believed that the men had not died at the hands of their partners in crime or their competitors. He believed that Daiga Vītola’s sister had killed them. She probably had a sister who worked as a prostitute with her, and this sister had shot the men out of revenge.

  Lia considered Gerrish’s theory.

  ‘Interesting idea,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know whether Daiga had a sister. The prostitute I met didn’t say anything like that.’

  Gerrish met Lia’s gaze. He did not give voice to the thought she could see in his eyes: right then. So be it.

  Gerrish announced that he considered the course of events mainly settled.

  ‘These two men may have killed the two prostitutes and some person or persons took revenge by killing them. We still have additional evidence we need to sift through.’

  Gerrish ended the meeting by turning off the recorder and standing up from his desk.

  ‘Thank you. We’ll be in contact if our investigation reveals anything else.’

  ‘Is that necessary?’ asked Fiona Gould. ‘Ms Pajala ha
s been more than forthcoming. Repeating things of this nature doesn’t improve anyone’s peace of mind.’

  ‘I’m sure it doesn’t,’ Gerrish said calmly. ‘But Ms Pajala had voluntary dealings with people connected to the case. We found two dead bodies based on her tip off. We’re going to have more questions.’

  Let them come. I can handle it.

  Lia thanked Fiona outside the police station and stored her mobile number in her own phone.

  She was home on Kidderpore Avenue by seven o’clock, feeling dog tired. She had survived threats to her life and she had survived a police interrogation, but now she was just an exhausted hound following the hunt. Piski.

  She felt a strong need to be close to someone. To Mari she could have said it, said the word piski, and Mari would have understood.

  But she did not have the energy to talk to anyone now. She did not want to talk about the police interview, the Latvian women, Arthur Fried or anything else.

  She drank a cup of tea and went outside. Every now and then, St Luke’s held evening masses or other events, and Lia had half expected that so close to Christmas something would be on. But the lights in the church were off, and it was closed.

  She stepped into the park. In the winter the trees were bare and dreary, but the statues shone dimly in the white haze created by the streetlights.

  There was nowhere to sit by Poundy the Dog, but she leaned on him and laid her hand on his neck.

  Us piskit, mongrels, you and I.

  She thought of Daiga Vītola, the woman whose picture she carried in her wallet. She thought of Detective Chief Inspector Peter Gerrish, who had interrogated her.

  Lia sat at the feet of the Elgars, the artist couple. She tried to see herself from outside, a small blonde woman sitting in a cold winter park. Sitting there she realised what she had accomplished. She had caught Daiga Vītola’s murderer.

  Before now that idea had never solidified. All the death and fear – with all that she had been unable to think clearly about what had happened. But undeniably, irrevocably, she had been involved in the work that solved the murders of Daiga Vītola and Anita Klusa.