Dead in the Dark Read online

  Michal Wolak was a fair-haired young man with neat sideboards and pale blue eyes. He wore a loose, short-sleeved shirt, which revealed powerful muscles in his forearms, covered in dense blond hairs.

  ‘It must be hard to get a job anywhere else if you don’t have the language,’ said Fry.

  ‘Yes. I couldn’t speak English too well when I came here, but I took a course. I’m better now, do you think?’

  ‘Yes, your English is fine.’

  ‘And then I met Anna. She comes from the same town as me, Góra Kalwaria. Both of our fathers used to work in the sports equipment industry, but the factories closed. They are no longer in our town.’

  Anna Wolakowa was darker, smaller, and very quiet. She sat close to Michal, squeezing his arm occasionally.

  ‘We were married by our parish priest, Father Posluszny,’ she said.

  ‘Which church is that?’

  ‘Kościół pod wezwaniem Matki Bożej Ostrobramskiej i Święty Barbary. The Church Of Our Lady of Ostra Brama and St Barbara. It’s in Mansfield.’

  ‘I don’t know it.’

  ‘We were part of the Polish baby boom,’ said Anna with a smile at Michal.

  ‘Baby boom?’

  ‘During martial law in the 1980s,’ explained Michal, ‘under Jaruzelski’s military government. There was a curfew, you see. People couldn’t go out after dark, so the baby boom was the result. And when we all came of age at the same time, there weren’t enough jobs for everyone. So we had to become migrant workers. We came here to the UK.’

  ‘And you work at the distribution centre outside Shirebrook?’ said Fry.

  ‘We both do, yes,’ said Michal.

  Fry knew the distribution centre had opened the year after Poland joined the European Union. Michal Wolak was just one of thousands of workers who had subsequently come in from Poland, Latvia, and other countries of Eastern Europe. It was said that they didn’t ask too many questions, and were willing to accept the terms of employment. In return, they earned more in a week than they would in a month back home.

  ‘This place has changed, though,’ said Michal, shaking his head sadly. ‘Now people feel frightened and threatened. Our children get problems at school. “When are you going home?” they say. “We’re sending you lot back.” It’s been the same ever since the vote.’

  ‘The EU Referendum?’

  ‘Of course. People say they have never been frightened here before. But some of them are frightened now.’

  ‘How do you know Krystian Zalewski?’

  ‘I met him at the distribution centre when he was working there. He wasn’t very good at the job. I don’t think the work suited him. He got into trouble a lot.’

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘He broke the rules. He arrived a few minutes late, he took too long going to the toilet, he was slow in his work. If you get six strikes against you the agency has to let you go. There are plenty of others waiting for the work.’

  ‘You talked to Mr Zalewski?’

  ‘When I got the chance. He was from a different part of Poland, down in the south, near Kraków. His English was not so good, so he liked to be able to talk to someone in Polish.’

  ‘Was he friendly with any of the other employees?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t say so. He was very quiet. Very … solitary.’

  ‘A loner,’ said Fry.

  Michal nodded. ‘I was sorry when he left. He just couldn’t fit in. But I saw him one more time after that.’

  ‘Where was this?’

  ‘At the car wash. We have a Ford Focus. It’s quite old, but we like to keep it nice. I took it to the hand car wash one day, and I recognised one of the men there. It was Krystian.’

  ‘This was recently?’

  ‘Just last week. I didn’t know he was working at the car wash until then.’

  ‘Only a few days before he was killed …’

  ‘It seems so.’

  ‘Did he speak to you?’ asked Fry.

  ‘He said “hello”. We chatted for a while in our own language. He asked how Anna was, and whether we had a baby yet. We’ve been trying for one, you see.’

  He looked at Anna, who gave him a big smile. Fry wondered from the smile if she was actually pregnant, but it didn’t feel appropriate for her to ask. The other question that came into her mind was whether they intended to have a baby here, in Shirebrook. Or in England at least. If so, what nationality would the child be brought up as? What language would it grow up speaking?

  ‘Krystian told me they wanted him to work night shifts at the distribution centre, and he said “no”. He thought he was being picked on after that, because they wanted to get rid of him. But I’m not sure. They’re just very strict on rules of timekeeping. Krystian wasn’t very good with time.’

  ‘Why didn’t he want to work night shifts? Would it mean working with someone he didn’t like, doing a different kind of job?’

  ‘No, it was nothing like that. It was a silly thing, I thought. Krystian just didn’t like the dark. He wanted to go to work and come home in the light. The car wash suited him, because they only get customers during daylight.’

  ‘That’s odd for an adult male.’

  Michal shrugged. ‘Perhaps there was some reason for it. If there was, he never talked about it to me.’

  ‘So did Mr Zalewski ever mention having trouble with anyone?’ asked Fry.

  ‘Trouble with local people?’

  ‘Well … anyone. Had he been involved in any arguments or disputes that you know of? Was there anyone who might intend to do him harm?’

  ‘He didn’t say anything like that. Not at all. He was a very nice man, Krystian. He didn’t really have friends. But I don’t know of any enemies either.’

  Fry noticed Anna fidgeting in her seat as if she wanted to interrupt.

  ‘What do you think, Anna?’ said Fry.

  ‘I’m sorry, but …’ she began.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, for some people here, we’re all the enemy, aren’t we?’

  ‘You mean there are people who resent all Polish workers.’

  ‘More than resent. They hate us.’

  Anna’s English was better than her husband’s. She had very little accent that Fry could detect.

  ‘Can you identify any individuals who hate Polish workers so much that they might attack Krystian Zalewski in that alley and stab him to death?’

  Anna exchanged glances with Michal.

  ‘We don’t know their names,’ she said. ‘We’ve seen them, though.’

  ‘Here in Shirebrook?’

  ‘We don’t know if they live here. We just see them sometimes. They stand outside a pub, or one of the shops, and they stare at us as we go past. It’s quite … intimidating.’

  ‘One of the shops?’ said Fry. ‘Any particular shop?’

  ‘It’s difficult to say. They’re usually there after dark, when the shutters are all down. A group of men. They dress in black, sometimes with leather jackets.’

  ‘There is one shop,’ put in Michal. ‘I’ve never been inside, so I don’t know what it sells. Even when it’s open, it looks empty. There are posters in the window.’

  ‘Posters? For heavy rock concerts?’

  ‘Heavy rock …?’ said Michal, with a look at Anna.

  ‘Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden,’ she said.

  ‘Ah yes. And Rammstein.’

  ‘That’s what I’m thinking of,’ said Fry.

  ‘The posters are so big that you can hardly see through the window without getting very close,’ said Michal. ‘I wouldn’t dare to do that.’

  ‘If we see those men, we walk the other way round the market square to get home,’ said Anna.

  ‘Have you heard of any actual attacks on Polish people?’

  ‘Not that anyone talks about. They may keep it to themselves.’

  ‘That’s the wrong thing to do,’ said Fry. ‘You must tell someone. Tell the police if it happens to you. Will you promise me that?’

&n
bsp; ‘Of course.’

  ‘There’s a Public Space Protection Order in force, so they shouldn’t be gathering in groups and intimidating people.’

  ‘Oh, we know about that order,’ said Anna. ‘They say it was our fault.’

  ‘There was a problem with Polish men drinking in the street.’

  Anna became animated for the first time.

  ‘You know, the English people used to drink in the street,’ she said. ‘And they urinated in doorways. The English people used to gather in groups in the alleys too. Now they blame us because they can’t do it without getting moved on by the police or arrested. We stand out more because we’re Polish. It’s easy to point the finger at us.’

  Fry nodded at Callaghan, and she got up to leave. Michal and Anna accompanied them politely to the door.

  ‘My uncle Tomasz runs a shop here in Shirebrook,’ said Anna, as she looked outside at the street. ‘He works night shifts at the distribution centre, goes home to kiss his wife and son, then opens up his shop.’

  ‘So he’s a hard worker,’ said Fry.

  ‘Yes, he is. So are we.’ Anna Wolakova gestured at the houses around her. ‘The people of Shirebrook are getting older, or they’re sick. None of them are working. So who would be paying tax if we Polish weren’t here? A few bad people give us all a bad name. People drinking in the street? There were ten of them, maybe. And now suddenly “all Poles drink in the street”.’ It’s not true. Most of us are normal people. We have jobs and families. We live our lives like everyone else does.’

  At the scene in the alley where Krystian Zalewski had been attacked, Diane Fry noticed that the crime scene examiners were already starting to dismantle their forensics tent and pick up the evidence markers. Everything had been carefully photographed and videoed in situ. It would be unrealistic to try to keep the scene contained any longer than absolutely necessary.

  DCI Mackenzie looked unhappy and dissatisfied.

  ‘How is the community cohesion going, sir?’ asked Fry.

  Mackenzie snorted.

  ‘I keep being asked over and over, “Is this a hate crime?” Do we have any evidence of that, Diane?’

  ‘None at all so far,’ said Fry.

  He nodded. ‘It would be better if it isn’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Just think of all the attention we’d get. All the national media – tabloid newspapers, TV crews. The Police and Crime Commissioner would be here. There’d be questions asked in Parliament. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘We’re getting some of that already. There’s been a bunch of reporters around Shirebrook asking questions, getting knee-jerk responses from the public. I think they’re probably looking for a pub now.’

  ‘Yes, we had photographers taking pictures of the tent and the scene guard too.’

  ‘But that tells them nothing.’

  ‘No. And that’s what we should carry on doing,’ said Mackenzie. ‘Telling them nothing.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘How did you manage with Mr Pollitt?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s something going on in the shop – if you can call it a shop. From what I’ve just been told by a witness, there may be suspect individuals meeting there.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Fry repeated what Michal and Anna Wolak had told her about the men outside the shop with the heavy metal posters in the window.

  ‘We ought to get a look in the storerooms at the back of the shop,’ she said.

  ‘We don’t have any justification,’ said Mackenzie. ‘Not on that basis.’

  Fry sighed. ‘I suppose not.’

  Mackenzie checked his phone for messages. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to go,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll make sure everything is being done here, sir.’

  Mackenzie looked up from his phone.

  ‘As you know, Diane, I’ve been asking for the appointment of a new DI.’

  ‘It’s long overdue,’ she said.

  ‘We were expecting to get a DI seconded from Nottinghamshire, but they say they can’t spare anyone. Apparently they have a shortage of experienced officers at that rank.’

  ‘Hasn’t everyone? But there must be someone in Derbyshire, or perhaps a DI might want to transfer from Eastern Command. It’s hardly a million miles from Lincoln to Nottingham.’

  Mackenzie put his phone away and fastened his coat.

  ‘We’ll carry on hoping. I just wanted to keep you up to date.’

  ‘I appreciate it, sir.’

  When Mackenzie had gone, Fry stood for a while and looked at the alley. With the crime scene examiners’ lights dismantled she realised now how gloomy this alley was. As DI Mackenzie had pointed out, there was no lighting for its entire length.

  And Krystian Zalewski had hated the darkness. Perhaps that explained it. Explained why he’d staggered away from the scene of the attack, growing weaker and weaker as he gushed blood from a fatal knife wound.

  He’d made his way back to his little one-bedroom flat, with the damp in the walls and the mouse droppings on the floor, just so that he wouldn’t die in the dark.

  10

  A hospital mortuary was always located near the boiler house and laundry, well out of the way of living patients as they came and went to their appointments. When you arrived for the first time, you looked for the chimney.

  ‘So you found me a body after all,’ said Dr Chloe Young. ‘You didn’t have to do that.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Was it a nasty one?’

  ‘Young people,’ she said. ‘They’re always difficult. They have all their lives ahead of them. Or they ought to. They shouldn’t be lying on my examination table.’

  Cooper nodded. ‘I feel the same, you know.’

  ‘Of course you do, Ben. I know.’

  Against his own better instincts, Cooper had spent his time on the way here picturing Shane Curtis in a hospital shroud, with a tag on his wrist and a tag on his ankle, and the grey, drained face of the dead. He’d seen the funeral directors collect the body at the scene of the fire and transfer it feet first to their vehicle, the way funeral directors always did.

  Of course, he could have left this one to Dev Sharma. In fact, Sharma had assumed he would be coming. He knew his DI had good reasons to avoid post-mortems on this kind of victim. But something had encouraged Cooper to make time for the call at the mortuary today.

  ‘His name was Shane Curtis,’ he said. ‘Eighteen years old.’

  Dr Young didn’t need to look at her notes for the details.

  ‘He wasn’t very well-nourished for a young man of that age,’ she said. ‘I imagine he had a substandard diet. So many people I see in here do. He also had substantial amounts of alcohol in his blood. Cannabis too. They’re familiar lifestyle signs. But he died of smoke inhalation from the fire. He has thermal damage to the respiratory system, burns around the mouth and nostrils, pulmonary swelling caused by carbon monoxide and various toxic gases. That couldn’t be called a lifestyle choice.’

  To Cooper, the physical details sounded all too familiar. For a moment, he couldn’t say anything. The words wouldn’t come out of his mouth, because the images in his mind were too clear.

  Young looked up, immediately sensing his discomfort.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘A fire death victim. You should have sent someone else. Why didn’t you?’

  Cooper shook his head. ‘I can’t avoid these things. They’re part of the job.’

  ‘Yes, but the memories must still be very painful. You were there at the scene when she was killed, weren’t you?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Cooper, ‘that’s not the problem. It’s the good memories that are the most painful.’

  Young put a hand on his arm. He found her touch reassuring. Cooper took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the antiseptic smell of the mortuary.

  ‘There were no traces of accelerant on the swabs from the victim’s hands,’ he said. ‘We’re working on the assumption t
hat someone else set the fire.’

  Immediately Young became professional again.

  ‘So your job is to find out whether it was an unfortunate accident, or if young Shane’s death was deliberate,’ she said.

  ‘And who started the fire,’ said Cooper. ‘That will be the first step.’

  Young looked at him closely. ‘What would be the most likely scenario from your experience?’

  ‘It would be someone Shane knew, possibly a friend. An escapade that went wrong. Our suspect will already have the death of a friend on his conscience, I’m afraid. He may be injured too. Those two factors will make it easier for us to identify him.’

  Young tapped a pen on her desk. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘I think your job must be a lot worse than mine. Dealing with the living is so much more complicated than handling the dead, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Cooper. ‘No matter what our skills and experience are, the living still tend to behave in completely unpredictable ways.’

  ‘That’s so true.’

  Cooper had his car keys in his hand, but turned back to look at Chloe Young.

  ‘When will I see you again?’ he said.

  ‘Well, Thursday night. We’ve got the tickets for Buxton Opera House, remember? Tosca.’

  ‘Oh, sure. But not before?’

  Young smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry, it’s a bit busy at the moment. People keep bringing me bodies.’

  Cooper felt irrationally disappointed.

  ‘Just one more of life’s unpredictabilities,’ he said.

  At West Street, Ben Cooper looked around his team as they came back from their assignments. Dev Sharma was on the phone and Luke Irvine had his head down over his computer. Gavin Murfin was looking for something in his desk drawer. And he couldn’t ask Carol Villiers.

  Cooper wandered over and hovered near Becky Hurst’s position. She looked up expectantly.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Do you listen to opera, Becky?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Yes, a bit.’

  ‘So what is Tosca about?’

  ‘Oh, the usual,’ said Hurst. ‘Murder, torture, suicide.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘But in a good production it can be done really well. Who are you going to see?’

  ‘English Touring Opera.’

  ‘You’ll be fine, then. I’m envious.’