The Silent Suspect

by Nell Pattison

  I interpreted this for Lukas, but he shook his head again.

  Forest leant back in her chair and narrowed her eyes at Lukas.

  ‘Mr Nowak, did you kill your wife?’

  Still no response from Lukas, which I imagined would wind Forest up even more. I didn’t understand why he wasn’t trying to defend himself.

  ‘We can sit here all day, Mr Nowak,’ she said. ‘If you think you’re going to achieve anything by refusing to talk to us, you’ll find you’re sorely mistaken. Whilst your statement would be beneficial to us, it won’t change the evidence we find, and if that evidence suggests to us that you killed your wife we’re going to charge you, with or without a statement.’

  She waited a while for it to sink in, then she opened the file that was sitting in front of her. Taking out some photos, she carefully laid them on the table in front of Lukas. His eyes briefly flicked down to the images and I saw the colour drain out of his face before he lifted his gaze again.

  ‘These are pretty hard to stomach, I know,’ Forest said, looking at the images herself. I kept my eyes on Lukas, knowing if I looked at the pictures I wouldn’t ever be able to forget them. ‘This is your wife, Mr Nowak. Someone killed her, and I will find out who did that, with or without your help.’

  Forest leant forward, her elbows on the table, her eyes narrowed.

  ‘What happened, Lukas? If you tell us the truth now, it might go better for you. Judges always look more favourably on people who have cooperated with us when it comes to sentencing.’ She paused, but Lukas just kept his eyes on me, waiting for me to continue signing but offering nothing himself.

  ‘Did she do something to annoy you?’ Forest asked, her voice light, but I could hear the razor-sharp undertone to it. ‘Did she make you angry? Was it the final straw, and you just snapped?’

  Lukas was visibly trembling, but he maintained his refusal to communicate. Whatever his reasoning, Forest was right – he wasn’t doing himself any favours if he didn’t even give a statement telling his side of the story.

  It continued in the same way for some time, until Forest seemed to give up and turned to Singh.

  ‘I don’t have time for this,’ she growled at the DS.

  Singh looked down at the file in front of him, then back at Lukas. ‘What about if we start at the beginning, Mr Nowak? Let’s talk about yesterday afternoon. Your employer has confirmed you left work at the steelworks at six, and we have CCTV of you getting on the bus that goes past your house. Was your wife, Nadia, in the house when you got back?’

  Lukas watched me as I interpreted, but then sat back and folded his arms. In the silence that followed, I thought I could hear Forest grinding her teeth.

  When Singh realised he wasn’t going get a response, he tried a different tack.

  ‘Would you like to tell us how you got the bruises on your face and body?’

  Lukas’s face coloured, but he stayed in the same position, still refusing to be drawn.

  I wondered how long he could keep this up, and if he was ever going to say anything about what had happened. When he’d told me last night that he knew who was responsible, I had assumed he was going to tell the police who they should be looking at, so this approach surprised me. He was making himself look even more guilty by refusing to defend himself.

  Snatching the file from Singh, Forest pulled out a piece of paper that looked like a witness statement, and I felt as if the temperature in the room had dropped a couple of degrees.

  ‘The police officers who were at the scene of the fire last night took some statements from other residents on your street. One of them informed us that you and Nadia had a very loud fight yesterday, shortly after you returned home. Is that how you got the bruises? Did she fight back? Is that why you killed her?’

  Lukas’s jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed, and I could see white patches appear on his knuckles from gripping his own arms so tightly. I couldn’t imagine him ever being violent; when he was in a bad mood he became depressed, not angry, in my experience. Surely this would draw him into communicating with the detectives? For a moment, I thought he was going to sign something, but then he took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and continued staring between the two detectives.

  They carried on for another ten minutes telling Lukas what they knew, and trying to provoke him into responding to them. It sounded like they’d been busy yesterday evening and this morning – they had already ascertained that Lukas left work at his usual time and took the bus home, that he and Nadia had argued at some point in the evening, and then he’d gone out to the pub, leaving her alone in the house.

  ‘We’ve spoken to two people who saw you at the Frodingham Arms last night,’ Forest told him. ‘Hopefully they’ll be a little bit more cooperative than you when we ask them about your state of mind, or if you already had these bruises when you came in.’

  I noticed that Lukas had developed a slight twitch in one eye in response to a couple of questions, and I wondered if Singh and Forest had picked up on it too. Sign language users are good at communicating with their body language and facial expressions, and it wasn’t easy to suppress that when it was your main mode of communication. I often found myself signing as well as speaking to hearing friends when I was particularly excited or worked up about something, and I could see Lukas was struggling to show no reaction to what the detectives were saying to him.

  The crunch came when Forest pulled out the piece of information they’d been keeping back.

  ‘Mr Nowak, your wife didn’t die in the fire. The pathologist examined her body at the scene, and she said it was clear that Nadia had been strangled. We expect the post-mortem to confirm that she was dead before the fire started.’

  Lukas jerked in his seat and his mouth hung open as he tried to take in this information. I felt bad that I’d known the night before, but he’d not been well enough for the police to question him, so I assumed nobody had explained the situation to him. Still, it had obviously come as a huge shock to him, as he covered his face and howled with grief, the first true display of emotion I’d seen from him that day.

  The detectives gave Lukas a minute to compose himself before continuing with their questions.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind and cooperate with us, Mr Nowak?’ Singh asked, his tone soothing, leaning towards Lukas as if to invite his confidence. ‘Did you and Nadia have a fight? Did things go a bit too far?’

  Lukas half jumped out of his seat and slammed his fist on the table, lifting his hands as if to sign something. The detectives and I all held our breath, expecting him to finally tell them something, but then he froze. He sat down again, his whole body trembling, then slipped his hands beneath the table and bent his head, tears running down his nose and dripping off the end.

  Just at that moment there was a knock on the door. Singh got up to see who it was, and was passed a piece of paper that he put down in front of DI Forest.

  ‘Well, this is interesting,’ Forest told Lukas, scanning the paper quickly, her voice scathing. ‘It seems that the preliminary examination of your house has determined that the fire was started deliberately. Did you set your house on fire because you thought we wouldn’t find out you’d killed your wife?’

  There was complete silence for a moment as Lukas stared at me, then looked down and slipped his hands underneath his thighs. He shook his head, over and over, continuing to sit on his hands to show his defiant refusal to answer any of their questions. He started to rock slightly in his chair, his movements getting more and more frantic, until Forest stood up suddenly. Her chair crashed to the floor behind her, making me jump.

  ‘Mr Nowak, we have enough evidence to hold you, so I’m not going to waste any more of my time on you. We’ve given you a chance to give us a statement. Next time we question you, it would be in your best interest to cooperate.’ She turned and stalked out of the room, leaving Singh to sort out an officer to escort Lukas back to a cell.

  ‘What was that all
about?’ he asked me quietly as we walked down the corridor a couple of minutes later.

  ‘I have no idea.’ I didn’t want to tell Singh how worried I was about this turn of events. ‘He wouldn’t speak to Sasha last night, either.’

  ‘Sasha?’

  ‘Sasha Thomas,’ I reminded him. He’d met her the same time I had. ‘She’s his social worker.’

  He nodded. ‘We might need to speak to her, find out some more about his background and state of mind.’ He paused, then gave me a smile that almost looked a little shy. ‘You look really good, Paige. I mean, well. You look really well.’ He gave an embarrassed cough and I felt myself blush.

  ‘Thanks, you’re looking well yourself.’

  We reached the door, when I remembered why I’d come in that morning.

  ‘I need to give a statement,’ I told Singh before he had a chance to usher me out.

  ‘Why?’ he asked, looking puzzled, but then I heard a door bang and someone yell my name, and my heart sank. Forest stamped down the corridor, brandishing a piece of paper at me.

  ‘You’re a witness! Why the hell didn’t you say anything? You can’t interpret for this case if you’re a witness. It’s a bloody good job Nowak didn’t say a damn thing.’

  ‘I tried to tell you when we went into the room,’ I replied through gritted teeth. ‘You kept interrupting me. I thought I’d been asked to come in to give my statement, not to interpret for an interview.’

  Singh looked between me and Forest. ‘You’re a witness?’

  I nodded. ‘I was there last night.’ I explained that Lukas had called me, and started to talk about what had happened, but Forest held a hand up.

  ‘Save it for the statement,’ she said. ‘Rav, you sort it out. I don’t have time for this,’ she snarled, then turned and marched away up the corridor again.

  ‘She gets worse,’ I muttered once I was sure Forest was out of earshot. She had always seemed to resent my presence during cases involving deaf victims or suspects, and had relished the opportunity to fire me, once.

  ‘You don’t know half of it,’ he replied, the look on his face making me think I shouldn’t ask. ‘Come on, let’s go and get this statement sorted,’ he continued, giving me a smile. ‘Then maybe we can get a drink later?’

  I nodded and returned his smile. ‘That sounds nice.’

  Before we started I got in touch with Sasha and explained what was happening. I checked with Singh how much I could tell her, but as Lukas himself would be able to tell her all of it, he told me I was free to keep her informed.

  Being deaf herself, Sasha was naturally assigned any social work clients who were deaf, especially BSL users, because she was more likely to build up a positive rapport with someone without the need for an interpreter. I was there to interpret when she met her hearing clients, and also for regular meetings with her colleagues. I had been working for her for three days a week since January, and it was working well for both of us: I had a regular salary, as well as regular working hours, and she had the benefit of knowing when she would have access to an interpreter and could arrange her diary accordingly.

  Singh looked deep in thought, and I was about to ask what was bothering him when he shook himself, and explained the procedure for giving a statement.

  I went through everything that had happened, from when I’d received the phone call from Lukas, through to when he was arrested. I didn’t include my conversation with Lukas in the hospital. For all I knew, he’d told me he knew who was responsible to manipulate me, to make sure I didn’t think he was guilty. In reality, I didn’t know what to think. Was he trying to use me to make it look like he was innocent, when all along he’d murdered his wife and set his house on fire? If he was innocent, why would he refuse to say anything to the police?

  Chapter 5

  This is completely ridiculous, Sasha insisted. There is no way Lukas would have hurt Nadia. I can’t believe it!

  The two of us were sitting in a meeting room with Singh, a couple of hours after Lukas’s interview.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ms Thomas,’ Singh replied, indicating the file on the desk in front of him. ‘A neighbour heard them arguing, and told our officers that it happens on a regular basis. Nobody else was seen entering the house, so he is the prime suspect in Nadia’s murder. Lukas stormed out, probably went to show his face at the pub, had a couple of drinks to calm his nerves, then it seems he went back to set the house on fire. He’s covered in bruises but won’t say how he got them. The fact that he won’t give a comment at all, even to protest his innocence, doesn’t look good for him.’

  I interpreted for Sasha and she slumped back in her chair and raised her hands to the ceiling.

  This doesn’t make any sense. Lukas has been doing so well, his mental health has improved dramatically, and I was going to recommend he was taken off my caseload. He didn’t need my support any more. She turned to me. You told me he looked horrified when he was told the fire was set on purpose. And that he looked shocked when he found out Nadia had been strangled.

  I nodded. ‘I haven’t known Lukas very long – I’ve just been in a few addiction support meetings with him and Sasha – but I don’t think he’s that good an actor.’ I spoke and signed at the same time, so both Singh and Sasha could follow the conversation.

  Singh shook his head. ‘What do you want me to say? I have the evidence, and he won’t give us anything to suggest he’s innocent. Paige, you were there the whole time, you know what happened. I was as surprised as you were when he refused to comment at all, but I can’t exactly take this to my DI and say I think he’s innocent despite all of this. She’ll want this case closed and off my desk.’

  ‘But why would he call me, if he’d killed Nadia? And why would he go into the house when it was on fire?’ I asked. ‘He could have just set fire to the house and then waited until a neighbour saw it and called the fire brigade. By getting me involved, surely that would have been too big a risk?’

  ‘Or it gave him the perfect witness,’ Singh replied, looking me in the eyes. ‘You believed what he told you, and he obviously thought he’d left it long enough that the fire would destroy any evidence.’

  Sasha and I looked at each other and I shrugged. Singh was right – there was nothing we could do. Lukas had been given the opportunity to ask for a solicitor, had refused, and had made the choice not to respond to any of the detectives’ questions. Even though I couldn’t understand what Lukas was doing, I could see it from Singh’s point of view.

  When Sasha had arrived, she’d asked to see Lukas straight away, but Singh had asked if she wouldn’t mind sitting down and speaking to him first. That’s how we came to be there, in that room, all baffled by what had happened.

  Paige tells me he was distraught last night when he saw the firefighters pull Nadia’s body out of the house and he realised she was dead, Sasha reminded Singh.

  ‘And plenty of murderers feel that way about their victims,’ he replied gently. ‘You’re a social worker. You must know that domestic abuse is almost always followed by a period of remorse. That remorse doesn’t last, however.’

  He wasn’t abusive, Sasha insisted. There was no history of any problems, with either Nadia or his ex-wife.

  Singh sat back and put Lukas’s file to one side. ‘Okay. Tell me about Lukas. Why are you involved with him?’

  Sasha blinked and a startled look passed across her face quickly, but a split second later it was gone. Pulling a much bigger file out of the heavy bag sitting next to her, Sasha sat it on her lap and gave Singh a searching look.

  Are you just humouring me?

  He sighed. ‘I want to understand Lukas Nowak better. I want to know how we got here. Even with the evidence we’ve got, I’d like to make sure we’ve covered all the bases in case he changes his mind and decides to give us a statement at any point.’

  Fine, Sasha replied, turning to a page in the middle of her file. I became involved with Lukas about five years ago. He was going through a period o
f deep depression following his separation from his ex-wife, Caroline, who had been very evasive regarding custody of their son, Mariusz. He became dependent on alcohol, and threatened suicide on two occasions.

  Singh turned to a page in his file. ‘We have two separate reports on the system of him being found on the footpath of the Humber Bridge, late at night. I assume these are the two occasions you’re referring to.’

  Yes. He’s been doing very well with a programme of medication and therapy, and his mental health is much more stable these days. He sees an addiction counsellor on a regular basis, and from what I’ve seen he’s been very honest and up front when he’s struggling.

  ‘Was the alcohol a problem when he was with Caroline?’

  She looked up at Singh. No, that started after they broke up. I know what you’re suggesting. There were no complaints of domestic abuse, no signs of anything physical between Lukas and Caroline. No phone calls to the police from neighbours, none of the tell-tale signs I’d normally look for. It was a bad break-up, and Lukas felt that Caroline was keeping him from seeing Mariusz.

  ‘Was there any truth in that?’ Singh asked, picking up a pen from the desk.

  Sasha grimaced. It’s a difficult one. He insisted she had told him he wouldn’t be allowed any custody because he was deaf and not British, but there wasn’t anything in writing. She didn’t text him anything that he could show us, so we only have his word for it. However, once we were involved and trying to support them to have regular contact, she was evasive. It took a long time to make concrete arrangements, and she would find reasons to change plans at short notice.

  ‘Did she ever give you a reason for this?’

  No, nothing that suggested she was worried about Mariusz spending time with his father. She leant forward. You and I will have both come across a lot of manipulative people in our professional lives, and that was what it felt like, to me. Do you understand?

  Singh nodded. ‘I do. So let’s assume you’re correct, and he has no history of violence, even unreported. How do you explain him going to the pub last night? We managed to speak to a couple of people who saw him there, and he was definitely drinking. It seems he’s a regular there. I can’t imagine his addiction counsellor would be supportive of that.’