Dead in the Dark

9

Tammy Beresford was first on Jamie Callaghan’s list. A single mother in her late twenties, wearing clothes that smelled of charity shop. She looked from Fry to Callaghan as if they were aliens just arrived from another planet.

‘I don’t know what I can tell you,’ she said.

‘Anything would be helpful.’

‘You’d better come in, I suppose.’

She showed them into the kitchen, where she began folding a stack of washing from a basket. T-shirts and socks hung over the radiator. A kettle and microwave were plugged in on the worktop, but there was no offer of a cup of tea.

‘Is this your house, Miss Beresford?’ asked Fry.

‘It’s rented. I live here on my own with my boy, Jayden. He’s ten.’

‘Is he at school at the moment?’

‘Of course. Why wouldn’t he be?’

‘No reason.’

Fry looked around for a chair. She moved a pile of towels to make room on a dining chair at the table. Callaghan remained standing by the door and Tammy Beresford ignored him.

‘You know why we’re here,’ said Fry. ‘We’re making inquiries into the death of Mr Krystian Zalewski. He’s a near neighbour of yours. Or he was.’

Tammy beat a sweater flat. ‘Yes, I heard.’

‘Did you know him well?’

‘Hardly at all. We don’t know any of them. I tell Jayden to stay away from them at school, but he can’t avoid it.’

‘Them?’

Tammy sneered at her. ‘The Polish. Don’t you know anything?’

‘You have a problem with the migrant workers in Shirebrook.’

‘A problem? Yes, I’ll say there’s a problem. Why should people have to put up with them camping in front of our homes, sleeping in garages and sheds? You have Poles and the rest sleeping rough, using hedges and alleys for toilets, and looking in recycling bins for clothes. You try to get an appointment at the health centre because your child is sick and it’s booked solid, and when you go all the names being called out are Polish. They love our health service. And there’s rubbish everywhere. You can see it yourself. We’re a dumping ground. They’ve swamped us.’

‘I can see you’re angry—’

Tammy slammed the basket back down on the tiled floor.

‘My dad was a miner,’ she said. ‘One of the last men working at Shirebrook pit. He says this place was brought to its knees in the 1980s by the closures at Shirebrook and Langwith. It put hundreds out of work. He feels so let down by the government — not just this one, or the one in the eighties, but all of them. And so do I. We’ve been ignored for too long now — like my dad says, British people are second-class citizens in their own country.’

‘Are you going to say “I’m not racist, but...”?’ asked Fry.

The woman flushed. ‘It’s all right for you to sneer. But I bet you don’t live in a place like this.’

Fry opened her mouth to explain that she lived in the city of Nottingham, which was much more multicultural than anywhere in this part of Derbyshire. But Tammy didn’t give her a chance.

‘You can see perfectly well what the problem is,’ she said. ‘The Polish use their language as a barrier to keep separate from us. Yes, it makes me angry that a place where everyone used to help each other has become like this, with people divided into different groups, speaking in different languages. We’re not a community any more. I’d like to get Jayden away from here, but I don’t know whether I can afford it.’

Fry glanced at Callaghan, who gave her an ironic smile. She thought he had probably known what she was letting herself in for with this witness.

‘We wanted to talk to you specifically about Krystian Zalewski,’ she said.

‘Well, go ahead then.’

‘How often did you see Mr Zalewski?’

‘We’ve seen him at the back from time to time, going up the stairs to his flat.’

‘Did you ever see anyone with him?’

‘No.’

‘Never?’

‘He seemed to be one of those loners that you hear about.’

‘Yes, I think he was,’ said Fry. ‘Go on.’

‘But then one day we went down to the Polish shop, Zabka.’

‘You shop in the polski sklep?’

‘What else is there? Besides, Jayden likes the sausage.’

‘Kielbasa?’

‘That’s it. I have to get it for him, or he nags me about it.’

‘I see. So you were in Zabka—’

‘And he was in there too, this bloke.’

‘Mr Zalewski. Did he speak to you?’

‘Not exactly. Jayden spoke to him, because he saw he was buying the same type of sausage. He’s a friendly kid, you know. A bit too friendly sometimes. I’ve told him not to talk to strange men, but he’d seen Zalewski a few times and knew he was a neighbour. I suppose he hasn’t learned yet that a neighbour can be just as dangerous as a stranger.’

‘Especially those loners,’ said Fry.

Tammy scowled at her. ‘Well... yes.’

‘And did Mr Zalewski seem to present a danger to your son?’

‘Obviously not, or I would have done something about it. He was surprised to be spoken to at first, but he smiled and was quite pleasant actually. Jayden liked him, though he told me the man spoke a bit funny.’

‘Mr Zalewski’s English wasn’t very good?’

‘A bit basic. But at least he had some English. Some of them don’t bother.’

‘When was this meeting in the shop?’

‘Sunday teatime.’

‘That was the day he was killed,’ said Fry.

‘I suppose so.’

‘Did you see him speak to anyone else?’

‘He was still in the shop when we left.’

‘Was there anyone in the street outside?’

Tammy shook her head. ‘No more than the usual. Nobody I would have looked at twice.’

Fry wondered if Tammy Beresford looked at anyone twice, or whether she took the trouble to look at anyone at all.

‘Could you describe Mr Zalewski?’ she said.

‘I told you — I’d seen him going up the stairs to that flat above the shop. I knew it was him.’

‘So you recognised him, but you can’t describe him.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘Thank you, Miss Beresford,’ said Fry. ‘I think you’ve told us what you can. I assume you’ll be around if we need to speak to you again?’

‘I suppose so. But I’m not sure I’ll stay in this town for long,’ she said.

‘But you’ll be here for the foreseeable future?’

Tammy peered out of the window to see who was down there in the market square.

‘It’s all these takeaways I don’t like. People eat at those places for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They probably nip in for a snack in between to see them through. Then at night you get a group of Neanderthals fuelled up on Tennent’s Super Strong, roaming around looking for someone to fight. A punch-up outside a fast-food place doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. It’s just the evening’s entertainment.’

‘Is that the East Europeans, Miss Beresford?’

Tammy looked at her with a sneer, but didn’t reply to the question.

‘Are you done now?’ she said.

Next on Jamie Callaghan’s list were a Polish couple, Michal and Anna Wolak. They had rented a two-bedroom terraced house only a street away from Tammy Beresford and Krystian Zalewski.

‘I came here because of my sister,’ said Michal. ‘She came to Britain before me. She told me this was a place you can get work if you do not speak English.’

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?’

‘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.