How does he feel about not seeing his father? Sasha asked. Have you talked to him about it?
Caroline shook her head. ‘I told him last night that his dad was out, but that he shouldn’t talk to him, that he’s dangerous. When I said that, he stormed out, and when he came back a few hours later he didn’t speak to me, just went straight to bed.’ She gave a sharp shrug. ‘Teenage boys, they’re not great at communication. He’ll do what I tell him, though.’
Don’t you think you should give him the opportunity to talk about how he feels? Sasha suggested. He’s sixteen, old enough to be involved in these sorts of discussions.
‘That boy thinks the sun shines out of his dad’s arsehole, so no, I don’t think he should be involved. He’s not mature enough to think sensibly about it.’
I understand your reservations, Sasha began, but Caroline didn’t give her a chance to finish, speaking over me as I interpreted Sasha’s words.
‘Do you? You’ve obviously come here to try and persuade me to let Lukas see Mariusz, so it’s clear you don’t care about whether or not he’s guilty.’ She stood up again and started pacing the room in front of us. It felt strange to still be sitting down, as if she was trying to unbalance us, but Sasha stayed calm so I followed her lead.
‘When we were together, Lukas was volatile,’ Caroline was saying. ‘I never knew what mood he was going to be in, how much he would have been drinking, or how he was going to behave.’ She stopped pacing for a moment and seemed to be thinking deeply about something before shaking herself and turning back to us. ‘I don’t doubt that he was exactly the same with Nadia. Maybe she pushed him a little bit too far one day, and he snapped. I don’t know. All I know is that it didn’t surprise me when he was arrested for her murder.’
I thought his drinking started after you split up, Sasha signed, her eyebrows drawn together in confusion. I’d thought the same, and that was always the reasoning he gave at his addiction support meetings too.
Caroline gave a hollow laugh. ‘Oh, that was his excuse: poor Lukas, everything fell apart for him when we split up. No, he’s always been a drinker. It’s the social side, for him. He loved it, being down the pub, making friends, flirting. He could always charm women, even when they didn’t know a single bit of sign language.’ She sighed deeply and I wondered if she was remembering when he’d first charmed her.
Was he ever violent when he wasn’t drinking? Sasha asked.
‘When was he ever not drinking?’ Caroline asked, a sour twist to her face. ‘I don’t think I ever saw him sober. Even when we were first dating, we went to the pub all the time.’ She glared at Sasha. ‘Are you going to try and tell me that suddenly he was a completely different person once he was sober? Because I don’t believe that bullshit for a minute.’
Sasha raised her hands slightly in a gesture of defeat to show she wasn’t going to try and convince Caroline of anything.
‘He wasn’t sober, anyway. I know he tried to make out that he’d changed, that his relationship with alcohol was completely different. He says he can go to the pub for a couple of pints now and that’s it, he can stop there. I don’t believe a damn word of it. He’s an alcoholic and he’ll always be an alcoholic.’
What did he do to you? Sasha asked gently. Was he physically abusive?
‘Well … not as such, no, but I knew he had the potential to be,’ Caroline replied defensively. ‘He always stopped short of raising a hand to me, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t hurt Nadia. She wasn’t as tough as I am,’ she said with a sneer. ‘I imagine she pandered to him more than I did, but if she refused to stand up to him it might have just made him more angry.’
It was at this point that I realised Caroline was talking herself round in circles. I wasn’t sure if she wanted to believe that Lukas had killed Nadia or not, but she obviously thought Nadia wasn’t as good for Lukas as she’d been. Had Caroline been jealous of their relationship? Was that why she’d tried to frame Nadia for theft?
‘Did you get on well with Nadia?’ I asked. ‘The two of you worked together, didn’t you?’
She gave me a sideways look, obviously wondering where I was going with this. ‘We worked for the same company, but we didn’t actually spend much time together. Paul’s not that stupid – he wouldn’t stick us together on the rota if he could avoid it.’
‘So you didn’t have a good relationship, then?’
Caroline let out a bitter laugh. ‘The woman my husband left me for? No, I didn’t like her much, surprisingly.’
We were told you’d already separated when Lukas and Nadia met, Sasha interjected.
‘Whoever told you that doesn’t know shit. He’d met Nadia plenty of times before we split up, and I bet he was shagging her before they let people know they were together. He’s always had a hard time with being faithful, has Lukas.’ She shot Sasha a pointed look that I couldn’t interpret.
Did you resent Nadia? Sasha asked, her expression blank.
‘Resent her? No, she was welcome to him,’ Caroline spat, though she wasn’t very convincing.
‘So why did you frame her for those thefts?’ I asked quietly, hoping such a brazen question would take her by surprise. Caroline gaped at me for a moment. I could feel Sasha’s annoyed gaze on me but I didn’t make eye contact with her. I knew she didn’t want me to get involved in this conversation, but I wanted to confront Caroline with this and see how she reacted for myself.
‘I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but your information isn’t correct,’ she said through gritted teeth. There was a long pause, then Caroline began walking up and down again, appearing to be deep in thought. She glanced at me but I refused to give in, giving her a hard stare that made her turn away again. It was clear she was wrestling with something internally, before she stopped and turned back to us, her arms folded defensively.
‘Okay, maybe a couple of the old dears occasionally fretted about things going missing, when really they were just in another room, or they were thinking about trinkets they’d thrown out years ago. And maybe I might have wound a couple of them up to think that Nadia might have pinched them. But it was just a bit of fun, something for me to take out my irritation at her.’ She looked up and glanced between me and Sasha. ‘It was nothing. Paul only changed the rotas to show he’d done something.’
I didn’t think we were going to get anything else out of her about the thefts. Was she telling the truth? Was it just a malicious prank? Or had she been hoping for a more serious outcome, and taken matters into her own hands when Nadia hadn’t been punished?
Caroline was still pacing when Sasha changed the subject.
How has Mariusz reacted to his father being arrested?
Caroline put her hands on her hips and stopped pacing to glare at Sasha. ‘How do you think he’s reacted? He’s angry. Teenage boys are angry at the world anyway, but now he’s got something substantial to be angry about.’
Was he angry with his father, or angry with the police?
‘I don’t think he’s even sure himself,’ she replied sadly, and her shoulders drooped all of a sudden. ‘I don’t see him much at the moment. Between my work shifts and him going out with his mates, we’re barely in the house at the same time. I only know he’s been here because the fridge has been emptied.’
The change in Caroline’s body language made me realise that here was our chance to get her to open up further. The fight seemed to have gone out of her, so I hoped she might be more cooperative now. I looked over at Sasha and she gave a quick nod, granting me permission to ask a couple of questions.
‘Do you know the friends he’s going out with in the evenings?’ I asked.
She shrugged. ‘Just lads from his school, I think. Why?’
‘I saw him the other day, with a group of older lads. It was during the day, when he should have been at school.’
She shook her head. ‘He hasn’t skipped school, they would have told me. It must have been someone else.’
I was surprised that Mariusz’s sc
hool hadn’t picked up on the fact that he was absent, but it was always possible he’d forged an appointment letter or something like that. Or, was Caroline lying to cover up what Mariusz had been doing? Either way, this time I decided not to push it.
To my surprise, Sasha didn’t change the subject. He wouldn’t be the first teenage boy to act out following such a major upheaval in his life, she pointed out.
Caroline’s face reddened. ‘Are you suggesting I don’t know what my boy’s up to?’
You told us yourself that you barely see him.
‘Yeah, because I’m working stupid shifts every goddamn day. How else am I supposed to put food on the table, if I don’t go out to work? You bloody social workers think we should all be magic, in two places at once – I’m a single parent and I’m working my arse off to provide for my son. My alternative would be to claim benefits and sit around with my feet up, but you’d frown on that too, wouldn’t you?’
Caroline, I’m not blaming you, Sasha replied gently, and I tried to put the same feeling into my tone of voice as I interpreted. You’re right, Lukas asked if I could help him, because he really wants to see Mariusz. I’m not going to try and force you, or him, to do anything you don’t want to do. I came here to ask if you’d consider it, and if the answer is no then I can suggest mediation.
‘Ha!’ Caroline let out a brittle laugh. ‘No way am I wasting my time with mediation. If he wants to see Mariusz he can bloody well take me to court. See what they say about the suitability of a father who’s been arrested for murder.’ She folded her arms and glared at us. I could see we weren’t going to get any further, and Sasha obviously agreed, because she thanked Caroline for speaking to us and stood up to leave.
Caroline shut the door firmly behind us, and Sasha and I walked away from the house. We were both taking a minute to process everything Caroline had told us, about Lukas’s behaviour and how she’d framed Nadia.
That answered some questions, but I don’t know if we’re any closer to the truth, Sasha signed to me when we reached her car.
I nodded and was about to reply when I heard Caroline calling my name. Turning around, I saw she was holding something out to me, and my heart dropped into my boots.
‘You dropped this,’ she said, her expression stony. It was my notebook, where I’d written everything we’d found out, everyone we’d spoken to and all our suspicions. Had she had time to read any of it before she came out to hand it back to me? I hoped not, but the way her gaze bored into me I suspected I was out of luck.
I thanked her, took my notebook and walked back to my car, expecting her to say something else, but she remained silent, staring at the pair of us for a moment before she slammed the front door again. Sasha said goodbye to me and set off, but I sat in my car for a couple of minutes, thinking. Nobody wanted to listen to me about Mariusz and this gang – Singh had told me to back off, Lukas didn’t believe his boy could ever get mixed up in any trouble, and Caroline clearly had her head in the sand. Even Sasha didn’t seem interested now that Lukas had been released. I wanted to find out what the boy had been up to, and what the group he was hanging around with were involved in. If I could find some way of linking them back to Lukas and Nadia, then perhaps I could get Mariusz off the hook.
An idea came to me. It was reckless, I knew that, but it would hopefully answer some of my questions. Looking at the street around me, I worked out a plan.
Chapter 29
It was dark by the time I returned to Caroline’s street that night. I parked a couple of minutes’ walk away, because she would easily recognise my car if I left it outside her house. I’d worn dark clothes, but nothing to suggest I was trying not to be seen – I thought that would make me look more suspicious.
It was too mild an evening for a hat or scarf, but I had a dark jacket that zipped up to my chin, dark blue jeans and black shoes. I’d left my mousy brown hair hanging loose rather than tying it back, in the hope it could hide my face from some angles.
The front window glowed blue with the light of the television, but that was the only light coming from their house. I didn’t want to go too close, in case Caroline or Mariusz saw me and confronted me, but I wanted to know who was in. Caroline’s car was parked outside, so I assumed she was there, but there was no way of knowing if her son was at home or if I was too late and I’d already missed him. The only thing I could do was wait.
Most of the houses along the road had their curtains shut, but I still didn’t feel comfortable sitting in one place and watching the house. You never knew which of the neighbours was a curtain-twitcher, and the last thing I needed was a police car pulling up and asking what I was doing there. Rav had got me out of a few scrapes in the last year or so, but I knew he wouldn’t do it this time, not after he’d warned me himself to stop digging.
I walked slowly up the road, keeping an eye on Caroline’s house for as long as I could before it became uncomfortable to crane my head round, then kept walking for a short distance, before pausing, checking my phone then walking back the other way. I did this a couple of times, but I knew it wasn’t sustainable, so I cast around for something else to do while I waited. For a few minutes, I stood at the end of the road, making a pretend phone call, until I ran out of things to say to myself, then I began my slow walk back up the road again.
When I reached the end of the road, I saw a small shop just round the corner. Glancing back over my shoulder, I didn’t see anyone coming up the road, so thought I could chance it. I ducked my head in, browsed the magazines for a moment, bought myself a chocolate bar and a drink then turned to leave. As I did, I saw someone pass the window, and I hurried out onto the street – the figure was about the same height as me, slight, and wearing a dark hoodie with a design I recognised from the other day. It was Mariusz.
Berating myself for nearly missing him, I followed him along the road. He’d had a head start, so I was far enough behind him that he wouldn’t notice me. I only hoped he wasn’t going to catch a bus or something like that, because there was no way I could stand at a bus stop next to him without him recognising me. For now, though, we kept on walking.
I assumed he was off to meet the gang he’d been hanging around with yesterday, which was precisely why I was following him. I needed to know who they were and what they were doing. They had to be connected to the fires, but I couldn’t quite make it all add up in my head. Nobody had been hurt in the second fire, so I wasn’t convinced they were responsible for Nadia’s murder, but I wanted to learn more and understand what they were doing.
It was Tuesday night, when I thought most teenagers should be at home doing their homework, but that didn’t seem to be a priority for Mariusz. I followed him along a couple of residential streets, until we came out on Frodingham Road. It was busier than some of the other roads, with numerous takeaways and off-licences still open at this time and doing decent business, by the looks of things.
To my dismay, Mariusz suddenly stopped and went into a kebab shop. I couldn’t follow him in there without being noticed, so I would have to hang around outside and hope he wasn’t in there for long. There were a couple of tables inside by the window, but I doubted many customers stayed and ate their food there. Then there was the issue of which way he would walk once he left the kebab shop – if he came back the same way then he’d walk right into me. To be safe, I crossed the road and lingered outside an empty unit. I could watch the kebab shop from there, then follow Mariusz when he came out, without risking him seeing me.
As I stood there I wondered if I was doing the right thing. If I was caught following one of Sasha’s clients’ children around Scunthorpe after dark there would be a lot of questions asked. Maybe I should have told Sasha what I was planning to do, but I knew she’d tell me I was being ridiculous, though before Lukas was released she would have probably encouraged me to do it.
I was mulling over this when Mariusz left the kebab shop, and I was left with a split-second decision about what to do. As I was already ther
e, I realised it was stupid to give up now and I might as well carry on, but if things looked like they were going to get risky I wouldn’t hesitate to duck out and go home. My desire to find out what was going on only stretched so far.
A little way down the road, Mariusz turned off and I followed him. The streets became quieter as we moved back into a residential area from the main road, so I kept my distance again to avoid him noticing me. He stopped outside a house, its windows dark, so I stopped too. I didn’t get any closer to him, but crossed the road to give me a better view of the house.
Mariusz walked up and down the pavement outside the house a couple of times, then turned round to see if anyone was watching him. There was a van parked on the pavement near where I was standing, so I ducked behind it. When I peered out again a couple of seconds later, Mariusz had vaulted over the gate and was slipping down the side of the house.
I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but a silent house wasn’t it. Were his friends round the back? There was no evidence from the front of the house that anyone was in, and the curtains were open, so light from a back room would have been visible from the road. No, the house looked completely empty. My heart sank. Was Mariusz breaking in? If so, where did that leave me? Should I call the police and report it, then have to explain what I was doing here in the first place, or should I pretend I’d never been here?
Ducking behind the van again, I thought about my options. If he was committing a crime, I knew I needed to call the police, but I didn’t want to give them my name. The obvious answer was to do it anonymously, but I didn’t know where I’d find a phone that couldn’t be easily traced back to me. Public payphones weren’t exactly common in Scunthorpe, and I wasn’t sure how to call 999 and block my number.
I was debating with myself over what to do when I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. Mariusz was on the move again. I hadn’t noticed him come from round the back of the house, because I’d been expecting him to be there for longer. He didn’t have a bag with him, and there was no noticeable bulge in his pockets, so it didn’t look like he’d stolen something. Had he met someone there? Was it something to do with drugs? I left my hiding place behind the van and followed him in the direction of the main road again.
The Silent Suspect Page 21