Читать книгу: «A Devil Under the Skin»

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Kasia

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Kasia

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Kasia

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Epilogue

Glossary

Notes and Thanks

About the Publisher

Prologue

PC Natalie Kershaw gripped the wheel as she steered the armed response vehicle around the Green Man roundabout, the scream of the two-tone scything a path through the rush-hour traffic.

‘Third exit. Left, left,’ said Matt from the passenger seat, sending her a grin. She smiled back, breathing fast, her pulse marking a purposeful beat, yet feeling totally focused. This was what she’d spent eight weeks training for, and from what they’d been told about the shout, it was no false alarm this time – no kid poking a toy gun out of his bedroom window. Her brain noted the comforting cocoon of the body armour flattening her breasts, forcing her to sit upright, and the reassuring pressure of the Glock in its pancake holster against her thigh.

She felt … safe.

‘It’s the Maccy D’s on Leytonstone High Street, right?’ she asked, her voice sounding to her ears as tight and high as the engine of the BMW. She knew where they were going, obviously, but saying it out loud made it feel more real.

The gravelled voice of the Silver Commander came over the radio: ‘Control room to Trojan 3. Latest we have is the suspect is in the toilets. Staff have been instructed to stay clear.’

The Sarge leaned in from the back seat, his face impassive. ‘Pull up beyond the curry house, Natalie,’ he said, as calmly as if they were about to pop in for a biryani. A restless knot of rubberneckers had gathered on the pavement outside the McDonald’s. ‘No borough uniforms,’ he noted, with just the ghost of a sigh. ‘Natalie, you cover the front exit and manage the MOPs, okay?’ Although still conversational, his tone brooked no objection.

‘Sarge.’ She knew her place in the trio: she was the newbie, just a couple of months out of firearms training – still learning the ropes. No problem.

Matt and the Sarge approached the glass door of the McDonald’s at a crabbing run, cradling their weapons, while Kershaw radioed in an update. After signing off, she left the ARV and took a few steps towards the onlookers. ‘Armed police!’ she shouted, one hand on the MP5 carbine slung from her shoulder, the other gesturing south down the high street. ‘Move away now!’

Most of them scurried off sharpish, either at her tone or the sight of the gun. But one guy stood his ground, ignoring her command. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked in that ‘I know my rights’ tone that always made her heart sink.

She threw a look back at the Maccy D’s – wondering if the boys had immobilised the suspect yet. Where the fuck were the local uniforms?

‘Sir, will you just …’ She didn’t finish the sentence. Registered instead the sudden widening of his eyes, fixed over her shoulder. Heard the Sarge bellow ‘Natalie!’ His voice not cool any more.

She spun round. In the car park, jogging towards her from behind a parked van was a young guy. Not very big or threatening to look at. Mousy, you might call him. Except for the thing he whirled in a great flashing arc out to one side. Something that made a rushing noise as it carved a passage through the air.

A giant samurai sword.

One

‘This one is nice, no?’ Kasia leaned over to look at the pricetag. ‘Janek?’

Janusz Kiszka dragged his gaze from the black-denimed curve of his girlfriend’s rear to squint at yet another sofa, no doubt called something like Dipstykk or Kolon by some marketing executive in Stockholm.

He shrugged. ‘Yeah, it’s … nice.’

Tucking a lock of auburn hair behind one ear, Kasia shot him a mock-reproachful look. ‘You’re not taking this seriously, Janek! It’s your apartment we’re talking about here, you know.’

‘Your apartment, too, in a few days’ time,’ he told her, feeling the corner of his mouth tug upward. He and Kasia might have been lovers for almost three years but now, standing on the brink of this new chapter in their lives, he kept experiencing a return of that fizzing, heady feeling that had accompanied the affair’s early days.

Kasia regarded him sideways along her long lovely eyes, a dent in one cheek betraying a fugitive smile, before frowning down at the sofa again. She raked a long black-painted nail along its arm before giving a decisive nod. ‘Tak. I liked the tweedy one but leather is more hard-wearing, which is important with that cat of yours.’

Women, thought Janusz amiably. So … implacably practical. How the hell did men come to be labelled the unromantic sex?

As they queued to pay under the fluorescent glare of the IKEA exit hangar, he glanced over at another couple, also in their forties, in the neighbouring line. The woman looked purposeful, contented, but the guy had the air of someone who’d been shot with a tranquilliser dart before being handcuffed to the overloaded trolley he was steering. The men exchanged a comradely look. It lasted no more than a second but it summed up everything Janusz knew he was about to lose – and gain – by giving up his bachelor lifestyle.

Later, back at his apartment in a Highbury mansion block, Janusz knelt on the living room floor trying to assemble a bedside cabinet, while Kasia tidied around him, her movements quicksilver. She bent to retrieve an ashtray overflowing with cigar butts from under the sofa, wrinkling her nose – after giving up smoking a few weeks earlier she could no longer stand the smell of stale tobacco – before moving to the wide bay window, where she tried to straighten the collapsing ramparts of New Scientist magazines stacked against the radiator.

‘I’ll find another home for them,’ he promised, grinning up at her. She was still looking a little drawn and preoccupied, as she had for the last couple of weeks, but whenever he brought it up she just waved off his concern. He reminded himself that it must be a stressful time for her.

She paused for a moment, gazing out of the window over the soft green ellipse of Highbury Fields, marshalled on its eastern side by a phalanx of Georgian terraces. ‘Such a fantastic location,’ she said. ‘It must be worth a fortune these days. Have you never been tempted to move, buy something bigger a bit further out?’

Janusz had bought the place off his landlord for a song back in the eighties, the deposit hard earned by toil on a dozen building sites. Since then the cars parked around the Fields had grown sleeker and glossier by the year, the windowsills of the houses sprouting boxes of conifers so manicured they looked artificial. Only one of his original neighbours in the block remained – a cantankerous sitting tenant called Ron; the rest were junior investment bankers, or something in branding. Whenever Janusz bumped into one of them, he relished their evident confusion and shock at finding a big Polish guy in a shabby greatcoat, here in their exclusive block.

Abandoning his attempt to locate the elusive lug A, a critical component of the cabinet, he went to join Kasia at the window. Threading his arms around her waist he noticed that the first leaf buds were emerging on the plane tree outside. ‘Nie, kotku,’ he said. ‘Practically all my work is in the East End, and from here I can be there in twenty minutes.’

He was looking forward to playing house with Kasia, especially the novelty of sleeping together every night and waking up next to her, but some things were non-negotiable. He’d be wearing an oak overcoat before he’d consider relocating to some suburban hellhole in Zone 6.

‘Nie, nie, I love it here!’ she said. ‘And only ten minutes to get into the West End!’ She turned her head up to him, eyes wide. ‘We could join the National Film Theatre!’

‘Sure. Why not?’ Janusz smiled to see her excitement. In her youth, Kasia had graduated from Lodz Film School, whose alumni included world class directors like Kieslowski and Wajda, but since Janusz had known her she rarely expressed any interest in film, and if he tried to bring up the subject, her manner seemed to say it was all a piece of a long-lost youthful foolishness.

Taking her hand, his fingers encountered her wedding band. She tugged at it. ‘I can’t get it off,’ she told him, ‘not even with oil.’

He sensed tears at the edge of her voice – most unlike Kasia.

‘I have a bolt cutter, if you want me to …?’

There was a tiny pause, before she said, ‘Okay. But not now. Next time I come, misiu.’

He kissed the nape of her neck, where wisps of hair had escaped the ponytail she’d put it in to do the cleaning. Leaning back into him, she turned her face up to his. Their kiss was just getting interesting when the entryphone buzzer shattered the mood. She arched an enquiring eyebrow.

‘It’s probably Oskar,’ murmured Janusz. ‘We’re going over to his place, to pick up the bathroom tiles.’ Kasia hadn’t asked for many improvements to his admittedly down-at-heel apartment, but on one score she’d been resolute: the vintage avocado bathroom suite and mould-streaked tiles had to go. Women were fussy about things like that.

Thirty seconds later, the barrel-shaped form of Janusz’s lifelong mate Oskar burst through the door. ‘Put your pantyhose on, ladyboy, I’m on a single yellow …’ He stopped in mid-flow. ‘Oh, przepraszam, Kasia, I didn’t know you were here.’ They kissed three times on alternate cheeks in the Polish manner, but – not for the first time – Janusz wondered if he didn’t detect a certain … reserve in Oskar’s body language. Had it always been there and he’d simply not noticed before, or was it a new development?

‘You boys go ahead,’ said Kasia. ‘I’ve got to get back to the nail bar anyway. Saturday afternoons are always busy.’

‘You haven’t eaten anything all day!’ Janusz chided; her lack of appetite was clearly another sign of the strain she was under. ‘Have a couple of pierogi at least, before you go?’

‘No time!’ she said, picking up her coat. ‘I’ll grab something in Stratford.’

‘I could manage a few pierogi,’ offered Oskar, before clocking the meaningful look Janusz sent him. ‘Dobrze. I’ll go and wait in the van, Janek, head off any traffic wardens. They’re like sharks round here.’ And with a lubricious wink at his mate, he disappeared.

Janusz drew Kasia to him by her coat lapels, getting a waft of the cinnamony scent he’d bought her for Christmas. She was tall, for a girl, but the top of her head only came to his nose. ‘Are you sure it’s a good idea to go back to the flat tonight?’ he asked.

‘Tak, why not?’ She lifted one shoulder.

‘Well, you said you’re not sure whether Steve really believes it yet – that you’re leaving?’ His voice darkened. ‘I don’t want him giving you any trouble.’ In the past, during domestic arguments, Kasia’s husband had been known to compensate for the poverty of his vocabulary by resorting to his fists.

‘Don’t worry. I told you, he hasn’t laid a finger on me in years.’ She reached up to set her hands on his shoulders. ‘Listen, I promised I’d stay for his birthday and I won’t go back on that. He says there’s something important he wants my advice on.’

Janusz didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Like what?!’

‘I don’t know – he won’t say. It’s probably just one of his business ideas.’

‘And what if he tries to talk you out of leaving?’ Janusz scowled at the floor, appalled at how needy the words made him sound.

‘Janek, kochanie. He knows I’m moving out Monday evening. I already booked the cab to bring my things. I know I’ve talked about leaving before, but you have to believe me.’ She cupped his jaw in her hand, let her seaweed-green eyes linger on his. ‘This time it’s different.’

After she’d left, he went over to the bay window so he could watch her crossing the Fields. Her figure, while no longer girlish, was still slender, and her brisk and hopeful walk gave her the look of a woman on the cusp of a great adventure. He craned to keep her in sight until the last possible moment before turning away, a lop-sided grin twisting his big jaw.

Had Janusz been able to keep Kasia in view for another twenty or thirty metres he would have seen something else: the outline of a black-clad figure hurrying across the park towards her.

Two

‘I made three and a half grand off the last shipment, and I can barely keep up with the orders!’ Oskar was in high spirits as the Transit van sped off Highbury Corner roundabout. The two men were heading east to Oskar’s lock-up garage, to collect the tiles Kasia had chosen for the bathroom.

Janusz grunted. Importing ceramic tiles from Poland, where they cost a fraction of the London price, was the latest in Oskar’s long line of moneymaking ventures and, even allowing for the inevitable exaggeration, it did sound like it might prove his most lucrative yet.

‘The tile factory’s in Torun, so I’ve been able to see Gosia and the girls twice in the last month.’ Oskar’s round face was flushed with excitement – or perhaps from the half-drunk can of Tyskie sitting in the cup holder between them. ‘I’m thinking I might hire a bigger van for the next run.’

When Janusz and Oskar had left Poland in the eighties, its economy had been flatlining, decimated by decades of Communist rule and the ideological inanities of a state-run economy. Nowadays, the rationing and queues for flour were ancient history, but like so many of their compatriots who’d arrived in the UK more recently, Oskar still couldn’t earn a decent income back home to support himself and his family – wife Gosia and two girls under ten.

‘Kurwa, Janek! I said, does that mate of yours in Hackney still have a Luton van?’ Janusz had been gazing out of the window, lost in thoughts of Kasia. ‘You should see your face!’ crowed Oskar, making loud kissing noises. ‘You look like a schoolgirl just back from her first date!’ Janusz rearranged his face into a scowl but it was too late – Oskar was on a roll. ‘What’s she got you doing next, loverboy, after the new bathroom? New carpets? Flowery curtains maybe? Mind you, that would be right up your street.’

‘If I need any advice on patterns I’ll give you a call,’ growled Janusz, digging in his pocket for his smokes – despite all his attempts to cut down he still got through a tin a day of the small slim cigars he’d smoked for twenty-odd years. ‘Anyway’ – he sent Oskar a broad grin – ‘whatever she wants, it’ll be a small price to pay for having her between my sheets every night of the week.’

Oskar roared with laughter. ‘Don’t tell me! After she moves in, you think it’s going to be pussy on demand?!’ He slapped the steering wheel. ‘You wait, sisterfucker. After a few weeks, she’ll be spending all her time and energy scrubbing the kitchen floor – when she’s not kicking your dupe because the place is a pigsty.’

The wind-up was to be expected, but this all-too-plausible picture triggered a flicker of disquiet in Janusz nonetheless. He hadn’t lived with a woman since his brief and disastrous marriage to Marta back in Communist Poland, a lifetime ago. Was he kidding himself that he could adjust so late in life to the inevitable compromises it would require of him?

‘We’d better grab a few beers before your prison door slams shut,’ said Oskar, draining the contents of his can. ‘I expect you lovebirds will be having a big romantic dinner tonight.’

Janusz wound the window down a few centimetres, tapped out some cigar ash. ‘She’s not moving in till Monday night.’

‘Why not?’ Oskar sounded mystified.

Janusz shifted in his seat. ‘It’s Steve’s fortieth birthday tomorrow. He begged her to stay till then.’

Oskar tapped his fingers on the wheel, fallen uncharacteristically silent.

Janusz studied his mate out of the tail of his eye. They’d first met on national service, a pair of green and gawky nineteen-year-olds, but even now – more than a quarter-century later – Oskar hadn’t got any better at hiding his feelings. He remembered the awkwardness he’d picked up in his body language towards Kasia, back at the apartment.

‘Spit it out, Oskar,’ he sighed.

‘I just don’t want to see you disappointed, Janek,’ he said – a wary expression on his chubby features. ‘After all, she’s talked about leaving him before, hasn’t she? Before some priest or other talked her out of it.’

Janusz fought down a spurt of fury, telling himself that Oskar only had his interests at heart. ‘It’s different this time,’ he said, hearing the pathetic cry of the eternally hopeful lover. Might Oskar be right – was he being a fool to believe her?

It was true that, up until the last few months – despite her clear disillusionment with her husband – Kasia had been adamant on one score: as a devout Catholic the idea of abandoning her marriage was niemozliwe. Impossible.

Steve Fisher was a loudmouthed Cockney who, in two decades of marriage, had never held down a proper job for any length of time. From what Janusz could gather, he was the type who was permanently on the brink of some get-rich-quick scheme or other, none of which ever came to fruition. Then, as Kasia was approaching forty, she suddenly announced she was starting her own business, opening a nail bar with a friend. Perhaps the venture’s subsequent success had given her confidence, or perhaps the milestone of her birthday had forced her to stare down the barrel of another four decades yoked to her useless kutas of a husband. Whatever the reason, a couple of weeks ago she’d indicated to Janusz that if he’d still have her, she was prepared to risk her mortal soul for the chance of earthly happiness.

Janusz threw his spent cigar stub out of the window. ‘She says the pair of them grew up together, reckons she owes him something.’ When Oskar didn’t respond he went on, ‘Listen, kolego, I know Kasia. Once she’s made her mind up about something it would take a thermonuclear device to change it. I can wait a couple more days.’

Oskar heaved a theatrical sigh. ‘It’s your life, Janek. I just never thought you’d go to such extreme lengths to protect your cover story.’

Janusz frowned in incomprehension.

‘Moving in with a woman, just to pretend you’re heterosexual.’

Janusz was spared a further onslaught by a piercing whistled ditty – the unbearably chirpy ringtone of Oskar’s new mobile. While he took the call, Janusz retrieved a crumpled newspaper from the footwell.

It was yesterday’s copy of the Evening Standard, with a front-page headline that screamed: ‘GIRL COP WHO SHOT SWORD MAN CLEARED’. Inside, Janusz found the full story, which covered an inquest into the death of some nutjob who’d gone berserk with a samurai sword in Leytonstone McDonald’s the previous year – an incident which, not surprisingly, had left swordboy with three police bullets in the chest. Janusz dimly recalled there had been a great fuss in the media about it all when the story first broke.

To protect her identity, the female firearms cop who’d shot the guy was referred to solely by her codename, and yet as Janusz read on, it dawned on him that he knew exactly who officer V71 was. Natalie Kershaw. The girl detektyw who’d crossed his path more than once, most recently when she’d investigated the murder of one of his dearest friends – an investigation that had led to her being brutally stabbed. According to the report, V71 was the only female member of the armed response unit based at Walthamstow. Hadn’t she told him, the last time they’d met, eighteen months back, that she was about to become Walthamstow’s first female firearms officer?

The inquest verdict was ‘lawful killing’, but a senior officer at the Met was quoted as saying that V71 would have to undergo ‘extensive psychological assessment’ to decide whether she was fit to return to operational duties.

Janusz closed the paper, a frown corrugating his brow. ‘You remember that girl cop, Natalia?’ he said, after Oskar had hung up.

‘Blondie, you mean? The one who tried to get you arrested once?’

‘Yeah, that’s her. I think she’s the one who shot that guy in Leytonstone, outside McDonald’s, last year.’

‘Naprawde?’ said Oskar. ‘Still, what do they expect, handing guns out to girls? She probably had a row with her boyfriend at breakfast, then some poor kutas looks at her the wrong way.’ Holding the steering wheel steady with his knees, he used both hands to aim an imaginary gun at Janusz. ‘Boum!’

‘Oskar!’ Janusz pressed himself back into his seat as the van veered to the left. ‘Anyway, this guy had it coming – he went for her with a samurai sword.’

‘Kurwa mac!’ Oskar gave an appreciative whistle. ‘The girl’s got bigger jaja than you, kolego!’

‘Yeah, and in any sane country they’d give the girl a medal, but here she’ll probably get a big black mark on her record.’

‘It’s “health and safety gone mad”,’ said Oskar. It was one of his favourite English phrases and one he used often, even when it signally failed to fit the circumstances.

Janusz stared at the front-page headline. The girl might have threatened him with arrest in the past, it was true, but she’d also saved his life once, and he’d grown to respect her uncompromising stance, her determination to nail the bad guys. He wondered if he should call her. And say what, exactly? That shooting the fruitcake had clearly been the right thing to do? As though his opinion on the subject would mean anything to her.

The last time he’d seen her, in a Walthamstow pub, she’d been recovering from the knifing, an attack that he still felt responsible for. He remembered sensing a change in her then, a feeling that beneath her usual tough girl bravado she was as raw as a freshly skinned blister.