Blood on the Tongue

24

Fry sat rigid and silent in the passenger seat of the Toyota on the way back from Harrop. Cooper wanted to tell her that she had some straw sticking to her hair, but he daren't say anything. They were almost in Edendale before he felt her start to relax a little. It seemed to be the street lamps that did it, and the appearance of houses and petrol stations, with more light from their security systems and forecourts.

'We could try the Lukaszes, Diane,' said Cooper. 'Or do you want to wait until morning?'

Fry shook herself. 'Let's do it now. It could be too late in the morning.'

'OK.'

When they drove down Woodland Crescent, they found the Lukasz bungalow in darkness, and the BMW missing from the drive. Cooper rang the bell anyway.

'No luck,' he said.

'Damn. It'll have to be the morning then. I suppose we ought to have known that some people have better things to do on a Sunday evening.'

'Hold on, what time is it?' said Cooper. 'Five o'clock? I know where they'll be.'

'You do?'

'Their oplatek dinner was due to start an hour ago. They'll all be down at the Dom Kombatanta.'

The Polish community seemed to be fond of their events. While they waited, Cooper read the notices inside the entrance to the club. There was an Easter dinner in April, followed by something called the Katyn Day of Remembrance, which was celebrated by a Mass and wreath laying. Then 3rd May was Polish Constitution Day, with another Mass and a parade of standards. Cooper wondered if Zygmunt would be on parade for that day, with other members of the ex-servicemen's organization, the Stowarzyszenie Polskich Kombatantow w W Brytanii.

They'd found someone working in the kitchen and asked them to take a message to Peter Lukasz, being reluctant to interrupt the event they could hear taking place through some double doors in the main hall.

'That's Peter Lukasz. Not Zygmunt Lukasz.'

Then Cooper noticed the final event on the spring calendar — the annual general meeting of the SPK itself, to be held at Dom Kombatanta. A poor turnout seemed almost to be accepted. The time of the AGM was set for 4 p.m., but underneath it was stated: If there is no quorum, the AGM will begin at 4.30 p.m. in any case. It gave Cooper a picture of the SPK — former soldiers and airmen, bent old warriors proud of the medals pinned to the breast pockets of their suits, some of them wearing their paratroopers' berets and their white eagle badges. But there were so few of them that they could no longer guarantee a quorum for a meeting once a year, acknowledging that death and illness would have intervened during the past twelve months.

He'd seen them before, or old men just like them, lining up at the cenotaph every Remembrance Day. But their numbers were dwindling each year, as if it were only the fading memories of their sacrifice that had sustained them until now. Some of those taking part in the parade last year had looked so fragile and translucent that they could have been an illusion, anyway. Perhaps they existed only because of the public's belief in them, like Tinkerbell or Santa Claus.

'Peter says why don't you go through,' said the woman from the kitchen.

Fry was still reluctant. 'Oh, but…'

'He says you're quite welcome tonight.'

Fry walked into the hall. Cooper hesitated in the doorway before following her. It was a strange feeling that he experienced, as if he were about to step into a foreign country. No — not a foreign country, but some kind of parallel universe where it was still England, but the people in it weren't English.

On the surface, the surroundings were familiar. It was a plain hall with a wooden floor and a stage, with a small bar to one side. The pumps and optics behind the bar looked like thousands of others, but the lettering on the bottles didn't make any sense. In the middle of the room were tables covered in white tablecloths and laden with cutlery and floral centrepieces. It could have been the Edendale old folk's Christmas party. It could have been the tennis club dinner, or a gathering of the Caledonian Society for Burns Night. The people sitting at the tables looked and sounded like any group of Derbyshire folk enjoying themselves — except that these people were speaking a language Cooper didn't understand. Their voices were raised, yet he couldn't make out the meaning of a single word. There were a lot of children here, too. Their presence gave a different atmosphere.

Then there were the smells. Food was being served — but it wasn't microwaved beef and Yorkshire puddings, nor even boiled ham and baked potatoes. The smells were too spicey, a combination of rich meats and strong herbs. Even the alcohol in some of the glasses looked the wrong colour. Cooper wanted to turn round and walk out, then come back in again, to see if the confusion cleared. The inconsistencies were too disorientating, the noise and the smells too redolent of a strange land.

He could see Zygmunt Lukasz and several other old men at a table. He watched them drinking glasses of clear liquid. Poles, like Russians, drank vodka, didn't they? The old men were knocking it back in one go, with a sharp flick of the wrist to toss the vodka to the back of the throat. And then they put down their glasses and attacked their starters — something that was decorated with small pieces of potato and cucumber, but smelled of fish.

Out of curiosity, Cooper picked up a copy of the menu from the bar. The starter was sledzie w smietanie. A helpful translation informed him that it was herrings in cream. His stomach gave a small lurch. He was sure that wasn't what he'd smelled being prepared earlier. Maybe it had been the pierogi or the bigos that were on the menu for later. It hardly mattered. It would still be a frozen meal for one that awaited him when he got back to Welbeck Street.

'We're probably one of the most traditional Polish communities left in this country,' said Peter Lukasz, watching him read the menu. 'How long that will last, I don't know. A lot of it is down to the old people, of course. Like my father and my aunt Krystyna. Will you have a drink?'

Fry shook her head. 'That's not what we're here for.'

But Cooper was starting to feel he deserved a little freedom.

'Is there beer?' he asked Lukasz.

' Zagloba Okocim.'

'I don't know what it is, but that'll be fine.'

The shelves behind the bar were full of vodka bottles, row upon row of them. Some of them were alarming colours, like a row of urine samples from people with virulent kidney diseases. He studied the labels. They were flavoured vodkas. He saw lemon, orange, pineapple, peach, cherry, melon and pepper. There was a pale green one that appeared to have a blade of grass floating in the bottle.

Lukasz was holding a tiny shot glass with a thick bottom and an eagle engraved on its side. Cooper noticed he was sipping his drink, not tossing it back in one go as the old men had done.

'What are you drinking yourself?' he asked.

' Krupnik,' said Lukasz. 'Polish honey vodka. Do you know, you have to pay nearly twenty pounds a bottle for it here, even when you can find it at all. Back home, it would cost about fifty pence.'

Cooper nodded. He was more interested in the fact that Lukasz had said 'back home' than in the information about honey vodka.

'Back home in Poland?' he said.

'Of course.'

Lukasz took another sip of his krupnik. Cooper knew perfectly well that Peter Lukasz had been born in Edendale and had lived in the town all his life.

Lukasz led them through into a small lounge bar. Cooper sat where he could watch Zygmunt and the other old men in the main hall. Several of them wore blazers, with their medals displayed on their breast pockets. It occurred to Cooper that any one of them could have been an eighty-year-old Danny McTeague. He could have changed his identity. He could have been living a different life for fifty-seven years. But why would he send his medal to his wife after all this time? Did he want someone to come and find him? Was he seeking some kind of closure, as Zygmunt Lukasz was?

The other old men seemed to look to Zygmunt whenever he spoke. Women fussed around him, and children stood nearby and smiled at him. His pale blue eyes responded to everything with the same expression — a kind of calm pride.

'We need to talk to you about a man called Easton, Mr Lukasz,' said Cooper.

'Oh?' The name didn't seem to mean anything to him, but it was difficult to tell. Some people were better at hiding their reactions than others. They could be in turmoil inside, while calm on the exterior. 'What did you want to ask me?'

'It's a pity you failed to identify him when you came to the mortuary on Friday.'

'Ah, this is your dead person.'

'Exactly.'

'And why do you think I should have been able to identify him? At that time, you had some idea that he might have been my son.'

Cooper was conscious of the fact that he was a stranger here, an outsider. He had the feeling that people were watching him out of the corners of their eyes. He and Fry were guests here at the moment, but it wouldn't take much to transform them into the common enemy.

'We believe Nick Easton was the man who visited you on 7th January,' said Fry. 'Last Monday.'

'Who exactly is this man?'

'Perhaps you'd like to tell me that, sir.'

'I've told you — I wasn't even at home at the time. I was on duty at the hospital. My wife told me somebody had been, and she reported it to the police when she heard the appeals on the news. That's all I know, I'm afraid. Grace was the only person who actually saw him. But you've interviewed her, so you know that.'

'Mrs Lukasz didn't tell us everything, though. She didn't tell us why Easton came. Did she tell you, sir?'

Lukasz stared into his honey-flavoured vodka, and said nothing.

'I suppose we should ask your wife again,' said Cooper.

Lukasz sighed. 'Grace gets easily upset.'

'Then perhaps you'd better tell us yourself.'

'Grace says he was asking for Mr Lukasz. She thought he meant my father, because he was the only one home. He became insistent, and Grace was frightened that he was going to force his way into the house. So she sent him away. Grace tends to feel rather vulnerable when there's just my father and herself at home. And you have to realize, my father is terminally ill — we can't have him being troubled by people asking him questions all the time. Not this Easton, not the Canadian woman — and not you. We're trying to keep my father at home as long as feasible, but I'm afraid he'll be going into the hospice soon. His pain needs constant management.'

'Was it Easton's visit that prompted your father to begin writing his account of the crash of Sugar Uncle Victor?' said Cooper.

Lukasz looked surprised. 'Why should you think that?'

'The timing. And the fact that Nick Easton was an RAF investigator.'

Lukasz put his glass down suddenly. The bottom of it hit the table so hard that it almost shattered, and a splash of honey-flavoured vodka flew over the rim.

'Royal Air Force?' he said.

'Yes, sir. Have you any idea why Easton should have been asking to see your father?'

'I have no idea. None at all.'

Lukasz's expression was hard to read. He was puzzled, certainly. But also, Cooper thought, he was relieved.

'Have you heard from your son yet?' asked Fry.

'No?'

'Have you any idea where he is?'

'No.'

'Can you tell us what Andrew was doing during his time here in Edendale?'

'He said he had business up here.'

'What sort of business?'

'He didn't tell us. To be honest, the conversation was more, er, family-orientated.'

'What do you mean?'

'He's got married since he's been living in London. We weren't invited to the wedding. We only met his future wife once, and Grace took against her immediately, I'm afraid.'

'There was some bad feeling?' asked Fry.

'Yes.'

'So had your son come to make peace?' asked Cooper.

'I just told you, he was here on business.'

'It's oplatek time,' said Cooper. 'Doesn't that mean forgiveness and reconciliation?'

Lukasz smiled. 'You pick things up quickly. But Andrew didn't stay for oplatek. He disappeared again as suddenly as he came. He walked out last Sunday and we've haven't heard from him since.'

'Had there been an argument?'

'He'd been talking to my father. I don't know what about, but I know my father was angry. Grace heard him shouting in Polish. I wasn't there at the time, because I was at the hospital. And now my father won't tell me why he was arguing with Andrew.' Lukasz turned and looked through the bar at the small group of old men enjoying their oplatek dinner. 'You see, Detective Constable Cooper, it isn't only you he won't talk to.'

'Mr Lukasz,' said Fry. 'What sort of business is your son Andrew in?'

'He works for a medical supplies company.'

'We'll need you to come in and make a statement first thing in the morning, Mr Lukasz,' said Fry. 'Your wife, too. And I'm afraid we're going to have to arrange for a translator so that we can interview your father.'

'Is that really necessary?'

'It's beginning to look extremely necessary,' said Fry.

The noise level had risen in the main hall, as if in expectation of forthcoming excitement. Sure enough, preparations were being made on the little stage. Cooper was reminded again of the old folk's parties the police choir sometimes sang at. Usually, half their audience had fallen asleep by the time they got to the third song — food and a glass of sweet sherry saw to that. But this audience was only warming up. He wondered what form of entertainment was appropriate to the evening.

Lukasz followed his gaze. 'There's a nativity play,' he said.

'A what?' said Cooper.

'A nativity play. Surely…'

'I know what a nativity play is. But it's the middle of January.'

'This is our oplatek dinner,' said Lukasz. 'It's the time for the community. Not like Wigilia, which is for the family. The nativity play will be performed by the children from the Saturday school.'

'You mean Sunday school,' said Cooper, thinking he was getting the hang of it. Many of the Poles were good Catholics, and he'd seen the Church of Our Lady with its little school next door.

'Saturday,' said Lukasz. 'On Saturday mornings, the children study Polish. This year, some of them will take their O-level. I took it myself. I got a Grade 2, and Dad was very proud. He said I spoke the language almost as well as they do back home. Now my youngest children, Richard and Alice, are learning at the Saturday school, too.'

'We'd better be going,' said Fry.

'You could stay for the nativity play, if you want,' said Lukasz. 'You're very welcome.'

'No, thank you. Oh, one more thing — we need Andrew's address in London.'

'Of course.'

Cooper hesitated, finishing his beer. There was no detectable peach or melon or pepper flavour, no blade of grass lurking in the bottom of the glass. It was a bit disappointing really. Yet the aftertaste had an indefinable strangeness that he knew would stay with him for the rest of the night.

'Mr Lukasz,' he said, 'before Nick Easton's visit, had something else happened to upset your father?'

Lukasz nodded. 'You're right. My father has been outraged at the pillaging of the aircraft wrecks that has been going on for years. The final straw was when his cousin Klemens' cigarette case turned up. It was an old silver case that Klemens had brought with him to Britain from Poland, and it had his initials engraved on it. My father was very angry about that. He wanted to know where it had come from, and who'd taken it from Klemens. He thinks that taking things from the wrecks is desecration, because they're war graves that are being robbed. All his old hatred welled up again over that cigarette case. It was directed against the people he calls vultures.'

'Vultures?'

'Yes, vultures. Carrion feeders. My father says these people are picking over the remains of the dead, like vultures.'

'Did your father see this cigarette case himself, or did someone tell him about it?' asked Cooper.

'Oh, he saw it, and held it in his own hand. He identified it beyond any doubt.'

'Who showed it to him, Mr Lukasz?'

'Well…'

'Let me guess. Was it your son Andrew, perhaps?' Cooper waited for the slight nod. 'Do you think that might have been what they argued about last Sunday?'

Lukasz drained the last of his honey-flavoured vodka. 'Yes, I'm afraid it was.'

Cooper felt the cold air hit him when they got outside the Dom Kombatanta and he found himself back in Harrington Street near Walter Rowland's house.

'We need to find Andrew Lukasz,' said Cooper.

'Put him on the list then,' said Fry. 'Baby Chloe, Eddie Kemp, Andrew Lukasz. I wonder if they're all lurking in the same place somewhere. That would certainly need your famous bit of luck, wouldn't it, Ben?'

'It looks as though Nick Easton must have been asking questions of the wrong people.'

'The vultures maybe? The ones the old man was so angry about for pillaging the aircraft wrecks?'

'Maybe so,' said Cooper. 'The other person we need to talk to is Graham Kemp, Eddie's brother. It sounds as if he's the number one collector of aviation memorabilia. If anybody knows where items like Klemens Wach's cigarette case came from, he will.'

'Does he live in Edendale?'

'Yes, according to the guy at Leadenhall.'

They reached the Toyota and waited for the heater to clear the beginnings of another frost from the windscreen. The sky was completely clear and full of stars. The gritting lorries would be out on the roads again tonight.

'I wonder how close Graham Kemp is to his brother,' said Fry. 'I wonder if he might have been involved with Eddie in the double assault on Monday night.'

Cooper looked at her. 'That would be a link.'

Fry rubbed her hands. 'I think we have a couple of promising lines of enquiry to put to the meeting in the morning.'

'It does give us the initiative,' said Cooper. 'Sergeant Caudwell will be impressed.'

'All right, Ben. I admit that might be a factor.'

'On the other hand,' said Cooper, 'what if someone thought Nick Easton himself was one of those vultures?'

'What?'

'If he was asking the wrong sort of questions, he could have given the wrong impression to someone who cared enough to be angry at the pillaging of the wreck sites.'

'Like who?'

'Only someone with a personal interest. Someone who had lost a close relative in a crashed aircraft. Someone who though it was a desecration, the robbing of a grave.'

'Someone like Zygmunt Lukasz, you mean?'

'Peter Lukasz was very calm on the outside,' said Cooper. 'And he attributed the hatred of the vultures to his father. But inside, I wonder if he shares the same feelings?'

Cooper put the Toyota in gear and drove down Harrington Street. They passed the Church of Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Polish Saturday School, and the lighted windows of the Dom Kombatanta.

He supposed it was inevitable the oplatek traditions would die out with the old people. In the Lukasz family, Zygmunt and his sister Krystyna were the only ones left who'd been born in Poland. The others were more English in their ways, even Peter Lukasz — though when the old man was around he seemed to take on the same set of the shoulders, the same look about the eyes that Cooper had noticed in the photograph of the young Zygmunt and Klemens. Determination, a fighting spirit. A capacity for hatred.

Cooper felt himself on unfamiliar territory. Yet these people weren't recent immigrants, like the asylum seekers from Iran and Albania. The Poles had lived in Derbyshire for nearly sixty years. He'd lived right alongside them all his life, yet he knew almost nothing about them.

As they drove back down into the town, he lifted his head and looked at the barrier of hills to the west of Edendale. They were bare and glittering in the starlight, ancient and unchanged since the geological upheavals that had left them there millions of years ago. But as he stared at the familiar hills, Cooper felt his perception of them shift and blur, until they were no longer merely hills. For the first time in his life, they'd begun to look like the walls of a prison.