Jill spread her arms wide. ‘Well, why did they have a blazing row every time it happened? You can’t tell me there wasn’t something going on there.’
I nodded slowly. ‘What were their fights about?’ I asked, hoping to get a bit more information and lead her back to Tuesday night.
She wafted a hand in front of her face. ‘Oh, I haven’t a bloody clue. I can’t understand a word those two say to each other. It’s not like they can speak properly, is it?’
To my horror, she proceeded to do an impression of what she thought Lukas and Nadia sounded like, causing me to grind my teeth and suck in a deep breath through my nose. I felt sorry for Lukas, having to live so close to such a vile woman. I knew it was an attitude that existed, and unfortunately most deaf people came across it occasionally, but it was still shocking to bear witness to.
‘They were at it on Tuesday, though, I remember that. There’d been people round on Monday night, right into the early morning, then they were rowing during the day on Tuesday.’
‘And you’re sure it was Tuesday?’ I asked. The fake smile had gone now; I couldn’t keep up the charade in the face of this awful woman.
Her lip curled. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Of course it was Tuesday. I’d been out to do me shopping, and when I was walking back from the bus stop I could hear them. It was mostly her, wailing about something or other. Didn’t give him a chance to answer back, she didn’t.’
I perked up at this bit of information. ‘So, you heard her side of the argument, but no sounds from him?’
She shuffled uncomfortably on the wall. ‘Well. Not exactly. But he was there; it were him she were shouting at. I saw him go past my house later, off to the pub I bet.’
That was exactly what I needed to hear: she couldn’t be certain Lukas had even been in the house. All she’d heard was Nadia shouting, or maybe crying, the way she’d described it.
‘Thank you, Mrs Adams, you’ve been very helpful,’ I said, forcing my lips into something close to a smile. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
‘Wait, but what about my compensation? For my COPD, the smoke?’
I should have known she wouldn’t have forgotten about that.
‘As I say, we’ll be in touch if we think there’s anything due to you.’
I was seething by the time I got back in the car and related what she’d told me to Sasha. She was still standing outside her house, watching my car.
So she told the police they were both in the house when she only heard Nadia? That’s good, Sasha told me with a nod. Hopefully the police will double-check her statement before putting too much stock in anything she says.
I agreed with her, but didn’t voice my concern that the police still didn’t know how Lukas had come by the bruises all over his body – and if there was an innocent explanation, why had he kept quiet about it?
Chapter 10
We sat in my car and discussed what to do next. My first instinct was to go to DS Singh and tell him everything we’d been thinking – even if they’re weren’t looking for an alternative suspect, I’d still feel better if we shared information. Keeping it from him made me feel like I was getting involved in exactly the way he’d warned me against. Sasha, however, wasn’t keen.
If we want to convince them they have the wrong man, we’re going to need to find something stronger than our gut feelings, and hearsay from Lukas’s neighbour.
If we can find something that the police should look at, then we’ll go and speak to them, Sasha reassured me. It’s not that I don’t want to involve them – of course I do. We’re not vigilantes. It’s just that I think we might only get one opportunity to convince them of Lukas’s innocence, and, based on what you’ve told me about DI Forest, if we mess it up then it’s gone for good.
So, what do you want to do next? I asked her.
She stared out of the windscreen for a moment, then frowned. Who’s that?
I followed her gaze to where a middle-aged man in an expensive grey suit was standing outside Lukas and Nadia’s house. As we watched, he stepped back and rubbed his chin, looking up at the smoke-blackened windows.
Journalist, maybe, I replied.
That or an ambulance chaser. A cheap lawyer. Maybe one of the neighbours is hoping for compensation, Sasha suggested, a dark look on her face. I felt a pang of guilt for the lie I’d told Jill Adams – maybe there really were people looking to cash in on the tragedy.
Let’s go and find out, she signed, already moving to get out of the car. I would have refused, but she wasn’t paying any attention to me, already moving towards the stranger.
I got out of the car and followed her up to the house. The man turned to look at us as we approached, a confused frown on his face.
‘Can we help you?’ I asked, keeping my face and voice neutral until we found out who he was and why he was there.
‘I … I’m looking for Nadia,’ the man said, looking back at the house. ‘She didn’t turn up to work this morning. What happened?’
‘You work with Nadia?’ My heart sank at the realisation that I would have to break the news to this man.
‘Paul Ilford,’ he said, holding out a hand for me to shake. ‘Nadia’s a carer, and I run the care agency she works for. I’m not just her boss though, I’m friends with her and Lukas, too. Where are they? What happened?’ he asked again.
Sasha and I introduced ourselves, and Paul didn’t seem fazed by the use of sign language. Sometimes people would stare awkwardly when they weren’t used to having an interpreter around, but if this man was friends with Lukas then he was probably used to signed conversations.
He turned to Sasha. ‘You’re Lukas’s social worker? Where is he? Are he and Nadia okay?’
Sasha and I looked at each other and I took a deep breath, signing as I spoke, for Sasha’s benefit. ‘I’m really sorry, Mr Ilford. There was a fire on Tuesday night, and I’m afraid Nadia died.’
Paul’s face paled and he took a step backwards, as if the enormity of what I’d told him had knocked him off balance. He ran a hand over his face and looked at the ground for a moment, before looking back at me.
‘Are you sure? It was definitely Nadia? Where’s Lukas? Is he okay?’
I looked at Sasha again, unsure how much we should tell him. ‘Lukas is okay. He was in hospital for a short time. But he’s been arrested. The police think he’s responsible for Nadia’s death.’
‘What?’ A mixture of confusion and anguish played across Paul’s face. ‘That’s insane. How could Lukas hurt Nadia? He’s devoted to her.’ He shook his head and looked between me and Sasha. ‘This doesn’t make any sense.’
Paul stepped back onto the pavement and ran a hand across his face again. I felt terrible for having to break the news to him but we couldn’t have left him there and pretended we didn’t know what had happened.
‘Look, I need to get back to my office. Do you have some time to come along, tell me what happened? I want to help Lukas if I can.’
I interpreted his request for Sasha, who shrugged.
Sure, she replied to me. He might be able to tell us something that can help.
Paul’s care agency was only round the corner, so ten minutes later we found ourselves sitting in his office while he paced restlessly.
‘I don’t understand. It must have been an accident. Surely?’
We don’t know exactly what happened, Sasha told him. The police are investigating the cause of the fire.
He paused in his repetitive journey across the office floor. ‘What were you doing at the house? You already knew Lukas was in jail, so why were you there?’ He looked between us as he spoke, seeming unsure of who to address his questions to.
‘Mr Ilford, why don’t you sit down?’ I suggested, interpreting for Sasha as I spoke. His constant motion was making me feel queasy.
‘Call me Paul, please,’ he replied, sinking down into a chair.
‘Okay, Paul,’ I said gently. ‘We’re trying to help Lukas. We agree with you; we do
n’t think Lukas could have hurt Nadia. But the police do, so unless we can find something that proves otherwise, there’s nothing that any of us can do.’
‘What do you need me to do?’ he asked.
Do you know of anyone else who might want to hurt Nadia? She worked for you, so you probably knew her better than I did, Sasha told him.
Paul nodded. ‘I knew her pretty well, yes. I can sign, and I think she was more comfortable with me than she was with some of the other carers. She always spoke very clearly, but there was some … unkindness,’ he said, grimacing. ‘Because she was deaf,’ he added.
What happened? Sasha asked, sitting up a bit straighter. Paul looked awkward, as if he didn’t want to tell us, but Sasha shook her head. Keeping it from us won’t help Nadia now. If you don’t think Lukas killed her, it must have been someone else, and anything you know could help us get closer to the truth.
‘But wasn’t the fire an accident?’
Sasha looked like she was about to respond but I gave her a look and quickly shook my head. We shouldn’t be giving out any information that the police hadn’t made public.
‘They’re treating it as suspicious at the moment,’ I told him, hoping that was neutral enough.
Paul’s face fell, and he looked down at his hands for a long time, before sighing. ‘Okay. Nadia was accused of stealing from a couple of her clients. One of them made a complaint about things going missing, but I followed it up and it turned out the items had just been moved, probably by the client herself. Some of them are in the early stages of dementia,’ he explained, ‘so I would always give my staff the benefit of the doubt until I’d looked into it.’
He frowned. ‘But then suddenly a couple of other clients complained about thefts, and they were all people that Nadia had been caring for. She was the only carer they had in common, so of course I had to look into it further.’
What did you find out? Sasha asked.
‘It was their word against hers, and it definitely did seem as though things had gone missing that time. But with numerous people going in and out of these clients’ houses, they also couldn’t prove it was Nadia.’ Paul chewed his lip for a moment. ‘Sometimes people get a bit annoyed with her, because she’s deaf. They think she’s stupid, or not as good at her job as some of the others, which was completely untrue. She was my best carer – she was always my first choice for my own mum, before she passed away. I wouldn’t have let her care for Mum if I didn’t think she was up to the job. But some people’s prejudices aren’t so easily dealt with. I changed the rotas around so Nadia didn’t go to any of those clients again, and it seemed to stop. But I know it bothered her. She thought I didn’t trust her,’ he said sadly, shaking his head.
‘When you changed her client list, were there any more problems?’
‘No, but that was only a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t had any more complaints, anyway.’
Was there anything particularly valuable or sentimental in the items that went missing? Sasha asked. I knew she was wondering if there was anything worth killing for, but if Nadia’s clients were mostly elderly I couldn’t imagine any of them being viable suspects in her murder. It was worth looking into though, in case a family heirloom had gone missing and a relative of one of her clients felt cheated out of their inheritance.
But Paul was shaking his head again. ‘No, nothing like that. It was mostly cash that the client said they had kept in a drawer or a handbag, and there’s no way we can prove it even existed. One woman said her jewellery box had been rifled, but then she couldn’t say if anything was missing. It was all very circumstantial.’
Sasha looked thoughtful, her brows pulled together as she processed this information. And you’re sure Nadia was the only one it could have been?
‘Well, she was the only carer who visited all of the clients who complained, but I don’t believe she could have done anything like that. She was very conscientious; a hard worker and she valued her job. I feel like some of my staff only do this job because they need something to pay the bills, not because they actually care about the clients. But Nadia was different – she genuinely cared. She enjoyed their company, and in turn they enjoyed hers. I know my mum always asked for her first.’ A wistful look came into Paul’s eyes, and he looked away for a moment. I wondered how long it was since his mum had passed away. If it was recent, the shock of losing a friend and colleague would be even harder to bear when he was already grieving.
‘Can I go and see Lukas?’ he asked us a moment later, after swallowing hard.
‘That depends if he’ll see you. You’ll have to speak to the police and see if he’s allowed visitors,’ I said. ‘I don’t know anything about that side of things.’ I wondered if there was any point, as Lukas had refused to communicate with everyone else he’d seen, but it couldn’t hurt for a friend to go and see him.
He nodded, then stood up. ‘Thank you for taking the time to speak to me, both of you. I’ll need to contact the rest of my staff and let them know what’s happened, as well as deal with the practicalities of reallocating Nadia’s shifts. Sorry, that makes me sound callous, but I can’t have clients being missed out.’
Sasha and I nodded our understanding. On our way out, I stopped to look at some of the photographs on the wall and spotted one of Nadia with an elderly lady. Was that Paul’s mother? I turned back to ask him, but he was picking up the phone and gave me a dismissive wave.
Do you think any of that could provide a motive for Nadia’s murder? Sasha asked me once we were outside.
That depends on a lot of things. Did she steal something valuable that someone wanted back? Or was she framed for the thefts, and found out who the real thief was? I hadn’t really known Nadia, but I was inclined to believe Paul’s assessment of her as honest – it wouldn’t be in the interests of his professional reputation to cover up something like that.
We definitely need to find out more, but I think we’ve outstayed our welcome for today.
As we were driving away, I noticed a familiar figure walking towards the office: Caroline. Of course, how could I have missed that? Caroline had been wearing a carer’s uniform when we spoke to her earlier. I hadn’t realised that she and Nadia worked together, but perhaps Caroline’s reluctance to talk to us was connected to the accusations against Nadia. Whatever she was hiding, we now had another reason to talk to her, if she’d let us in the door.
Chapter 11
I spent the rest of the afternoon brooding over what I’d learnt and discussed with Sasha. Despite not wanting to get sucked into the investigation, I really wanted to know exactly what Jill Adams had said in her statement to the police. Had they delved deeper and discovered the ambiguity in what she was saying, or had they just taken her assertion that Lukas and Nadia were fighting at face value? I thought it was unlikely that Singh would give me that information, but I could ask him to look at what she’d said more closely, or maybe get a uniformed officer to interview her again.
Then, a worrying thought struck me. What if she realised that I’d found a hole in her story, and she changed it? What if she now told the police she’d definitely heard Lukas’s voice too? From what she’d told me about reporting them to the council to try and get them evicted, I wouldn’t be surprised if she did something like that just to be spiteful, not realising the devastating consequences for Lukas.
Sitting down at the table in the kitchen, I pulled out the yellow notebook, reminding myself that I’d have to get Anna a new one at some point. I found the page where I’d noted down the date and time I’d spoken to Jill Adams, and read back the notes I’d made, adding in anything else I remembered. Below that, I added what Paul Ilford had told us about Nadia and the accusations of theft. I hadn’t been able to make notes at the time because I’d been signing for Sasha.
There were so many questions going round in my mind, things I wanted to discuss with Sasha as well as things I wanted to ask Singh, that I knew I needed to write them down to try and get my thoughts in order.
I supposed I couldn’t really blame the detectives for their attitude – after all, Lukas was the most obvious suspect and wouldn’t defend himself. What else were they expected to do, other than arrest him? I felt sure they were missing something, though, something big, and I hoped they would continue investigating until they were certain they had the right man.
As I was making some notes and writing down every question that came into my mind, my phone vibrated with an incoming text. It was Max. Usually, his messages would cheer me up, but since Tuesday night I felt a sense of dread when I saw his name on the screen. I knew he was going to want an answer about moving in together soon, but I’d been avoiding even thinking about it, let alone had made up my mind.
Do you want to come over tonight? xx his message read.
I thought for a moment before typing my reply. Sure. Pizza?
Of course xx
Thursday night pizza was a regular habit of ours, and it was comforting to see he still wanted to stick with our usual routine. I would have to think about what I wanted to say to him before I saw him, though.
That evening, I sat in my car outside Max’s flat for about ten minutes before I plucked up the courage to go in. He’d given me a key a few weeks earlier, and with hindsight I should have realised what he was building up to ask me. I still felt the urge to ring the bell, as if letting myself in would indicate that I’d made up my mind to move in with him, but I shook it off.
He was in the kitchen when I walked in, and I hesitated before stepping forward into his outstretched arms. If he noticed, he didn’t comment. I tried to remind myself that I wasn’t questioning my relationship with Max, just whether I wanted to live with him or not. But now that I was feeling resistant to moving our relationship further forward, a little voice at the back of my mind kept making itself heard – was this what I really wanted? I quietened it for now, determined to relax and enjoy my evening with him.
You’re later than I expected, he signed. Busy day?
I nodded. I was trying to get some emails sorted, jobs for next week, I replied. It wasn’t completely untrue. Before I left the flat, I’d decided to make a start on organising my taxes. Of course, my tax return didn’t have to be submitted until January next year, but there was nothing wrong with being prepared. I definitely wasn’t finding things to do in order to delay coming over to his flat. Absolutely not.
The Silent Suspect Page 8