Blood Money (30 page)

‘When I talked to Katarina about it she said she was too ashamed.’

‘Wouldn’t you be? It’s a common response.’

‘But that means we might lose her and we might never get her captors to court to testify.’

‘Regrettable though that is, it’s not really my problem,’ said Lorelei, candidly. ‘For the moment Katarina is safe. There are other women out there whose need right now is greater.’

‘How long have we got?’ Mariner asked.

‘I could only guarantee her a couple more nights, then you’ll have to find an alternative.’

 

First things first though. Immediately he and Glover got back to Granville Lane, Mariner called the police officer he’d made contact with in Tirana, at the time when Nadia’s body was discovered, and followed up by faxing through the description and photograph of Nadia. The officer seemed optimistic that they would be able to trace her family, and would arrange for one of them to fly over. ‘No rush,’ Mariner wanted to say. It was a meeting he didn’t anticipate with any pleasure.

The other item low on his list of anticipated events was going back to Anna’s house, but even so, what he saw on the drive came as a shock. Snuggled in behind Anna’s car in Mariner’s usual spot was a gleaming one-year-old silver Audi TT. The front door of the house was open, so some little way back down the road Mariner reverse parked into a row of cars from which he could observe without being seen. His worst fears were confirmed when, after a few minutes, Dr Gareth appeared from the front door. He went round to the boot of the Audi and opened it up, at the same time as Anna emerged from the house carrying a cardboard box. The laughter and playful banter between them made Mariner’s chest constrict and his eyes well up again. He waited until they’d retreated again into the house, pulled out of the parking space, did a three-point turn and drove back to his place.

Mariner had never been afraid of his own company, and there were times in the last few years when he’d craved solitude. But that had been from the safe position of having an alternative. Suddenly he felt very alone and the house very empty. One of the next things he’d do was let out the second floor flat as he had done in the past, once successfully when Tony Knox was temporarily homeless, and then rather less successfully when Kenneth McCrae had taken up his unfortunate short-term occupancy. He might not feel like opening up his home to the general public quite yet, but there were plenty of trainee officers looking for cheap lodgings. He climbed the stairs to inspect the rooms. They’d need a bit of a clean, but otherwise everything was in good order. He’d get an ad put in the force magazine tomorrow. It wasn’t until he was standing under the shower the following morning that he had a much better idea.

DCI Sharp’s car was in the car park so Mariner went straight to her office. ‘I want to talk to you about Katarina, the girl we interviewed from Ocean Blue,’ he said.

‘All right.’ Sharp sat back in her chair.

‘They need her bed at the hostel. But I’m concerned that if we let her go we run the risk of losing our star witness. Katarina is the best we’ve had for years and we have no way of knowing what she’s going back to, or whether we’ll be able to keep track of her.’

‘So?’

‘She came here to be a translator. She’s a bright girl with skills and . . . experience. Can’t we do something to help, find her a job or something? We’d do it for offenders, why not for a victim?’ He was being naïve, Mariner knew that. They couldn’t possibly help every victim of crime. But Katarina had endured so much and in the long-run they were going to need her here.

DCI Sharp must have agreed.

‘Talk to Millie,’ she said. ‘See if they can’t do something through the offender rehabilitation scheme.’

Millie’s response was mixed. ‘We could probably get Katarina interpreting work through the Brasshouse centre, but accommodation will be more difficult, she’ll need somewhere to stay, an address.’

Mariner had already covered that base, though he hesitated to say it. ‘She can stay at my place.’

‘Is that wise?’

‘Probably not.’ But, as far as Mariner was concerned, it was the only humane thing to do.

 

Mariner and Glover had first interviewed Goran Zjalic at 158 Wilmott Road, Stirchley, the address where he and Alecsander Lucca lived. When there was no response today to their banging on the door, Mariner ordered it broken down. They and two uniforms burst into an empty house, but one that had until lately been lived in. There was recently bought food in the kitchen cupboards.

‘We’re looking for anything that might link Zjalic to Ocean Blue or to Nadia,’ Mariner told them. He dispatched one of the uniforms to knock on doors and talk to the neighbours on either side.

The house was as grubby and sparsely furnished as the last time they had been here, with fixtures and fittings that were beyond second-hand. Furniture was minimal, but in the small box room upstairs was a cot. ‘He had his sister living with him.’ Glover reminded Mariner about the young woman who had come in while they were talking, cradling a baby on her hip.

‘If that’s who she was,’ Mariner said. ‘From what we now know she could have been another Nadia. I mean, we don’t even know that the baby was hers—’ He stopped suddenly.

‘It could have been Nadia’s baby,’ said Glover, picking up Mariner’s train of thought. ‘We only know that Nadia and the child were killed at around the same.’

‘Nadia’s baby had a cleft lip and palate,’ Mariner reminded him. ‘I didn’t notice that about the child.’

‘It might have had a dummy in its mouth. That would have covered it up. The baby died of a crushed skull. Zjalic losing his temper when it cried too much?’

‘It’s possible,’ Mariner had to concede. ‘But I don’t think this is Zjalic’s normal residence. Valenka called him “the big man” but I don’t think she was just talking about his height. He’s higher up the food chain. He could afford somewhere much smarter than this.’

The uniform returned. ‘The neighbours on one side recognised the description of Zjalic, but according to them he hasn’t been seen since around the time of Ocean Blue.’

‘It doesn’t mean he hasn’t been here,’ said Mariner. ‘Didn’t you notice the lack of post in the hall when we first came in? If Zjalic has really been off the scene for three weeks there would have been a stack of junk mail on the floor. Someone’s been in and moved it. It might not have been at the time of day when anyone would see him, but Zjalic has been back. We’d do well to put this place under surveillance. Anyone else seen here?’

‘They said there’s sometimes a young woman with a baby, but again, not in the last two or three weeks.’

‘It’s always the same woman?’

‘They seemed to think so.’

‘Nadia’s baby died at the end of last year, so maybe it really was Zjalic’s sister we met,’ said Glover.

‘Sir.’ As they were talking, the second PC descended the stairs carrying a crumpled black bin liner, which he passed to Mariner. ‘I found it stuffed in the back of a wardrobe.’

When Mariner opened up the neck of the bag, sitting inside were a white leather handbag with multiple pockets, a mobile phone and a blue and white striped canvas ballet shoe with a buckle trim. ‘What the hell is going on?’ Mariner exclaimed. ‘Where does Christie Walker come into this?’

 

A pit-stop at Phyllis Gates’ house verified that the bag belonged to her late granddaughter and all three items were retained for forensic examination, and, Mariner hoped, something that would explain what they were doing in Goran Zjalic’s house.

 

Late that afternoon, Mariner fetched Katarina and her meagre belongings and took her to his house. He’d made sure that the fire was lit and that it was warm, and he had put some basic food in the fridge. She moved tentatively from room to room looking and touching. Out of the secure setting of the hostel she seemed jumpy, again prompting Mariner to wonder if he’d done the right thing.

‘You’ll be okay?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ But she hugged herself uncertainly. ‘It’s a big house. You have to go?’

‘Yes.’ Her face fell a little. ‘No. Wait a minute.’ He went into the hall to phone Anna. If she was going to be difficult he didn’t want Katarina to overhear. He needn’t have worried. The phone rang and rang until eventually the answering service kicked in. Mariner didn’t leave a message.

‘You have a woman?’ Katarina deduced when he went back into the living room. When Mariner hesitated she drew her own conclusion, raising a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Or man?’

Mariner laughed. ‘A woman, but it’s complicated.’ Not to mention finished.

‘Com-pli-cated.’ Her brow furrowed as she tested out the long and unfamiliar word.

‘Mixed up.’

She nodded, understanding.

‘So we’ll go out for dinner,’ Mariner declared.

‘We go out?’

‘To a pub, a restaurant.’

Her eyes filled with alarm. ‘People they will look at me.’

‘Yes they will,’ agreed Mariner. ‘You’re a pretty girl.’

‘But they look at me and you—’

Mariner knew what she was getting at. ‘Yes, and they’ll think you’re my daughter,’ he said, reasonably. ‘No one will know what’s happened to you. You’re just any other teenage girl out for dinner. Aren’t you hungry? Wouldn’t you like a steak, pizza, ice cream?’

That seemed to do it, and a smile brightened up her face again. ‘Yes, I like that very much.’

‘I’ll go and change.’

‘Change?’

‘Change my clothes.’

Her face dropped again and she looked down at the jeans and T-shirt, the same ones she’d been wearing since Mariner had last interviewed her. ‘I have only these clothes.’

‘It’s fine. We’ll take you shopping soon for more clothes.’

‘You go shopping with me?’

That made him laugh again. ‘Not me. I’m very bad at shopping.’ But he felt sure that Millie would be glad to help out.

‘I have no money,’ she pointed out.

‘I’ve got money. You can pay me back.’ Almost imperceptibly she stiffened, eye contact snatched away, and she flushed a deep red, but it took Mariner several seconds to fathom her reaction. Then it hit him like a sledge hammer. ‘Not like that,’ he said, quickly. ‘Never like that.’

At that she seemed to shrink a little, such a fragile self-worth. ‘You think I’m a bad person.’ She spoke in a whisper.

‘No.’ Mariner was firm. ‘You’re a sweet girl who has had some bad things happen to you, and my job is to keep you safe. You can pay me back when you have work and you have money.’ It took several seconds but she relaxed again, forced a smile. Christ this was going to be a minefield.

Wearing his oldest, scruffiest jeans to show solidarity, Mariner took her to the Coach and Horses, a mid-range pub where he knew they wouldn’t stand out. She devoured a twelve ounce steak that would have challenged his appetite. They used the whole experience to extend her vocabulary, Mariner naming some of the things she was less familiar with, while she introduced Mariner to some basic Albanian, though languages had never been his forte. It must have looked as if they were filming for the Open University. Mariner hammed it up to make her laugh, but towards the end of the meal she went quiet.

‘Penny for them,’ said Mariner, carelessly. Then, short of the voiceover translation, he added, ‘It’s an English saying, “a penny for your thoughts”. It means: what are you thinking about?’

‘I think about my friends, the girls from the house.’ She looked around her. ‘This is so nice.’ Her eyes glistened. ‘I think they don’t have such a nice time.’

‘What will they do when they go home?’ They must have talked about it when they were at the Daffodil Project.

‘They look for work.’ Mariner’s heart turned leaden. He didn’t like to ask what kind of work. ‘My friend Sonja, she go back to her little girl.’

‘She has a child?’

Katarina smiled, but her eyes had filled up. ‘She is very excited to see her.’

But then what? Mariner wanted to ask. What future for Sonja and her daughter? It was one of several moments through the evening when Mariner wanted to reach out and touch Katarina to reassure her, but after what she’d been through it was the last thing he could do.

 

After dropping off Katarina and taking her through the security routine, Mariner drove back to Anna’s house, but she wasn’t there. In the lounge and the bedroom he noticed that some of her clothes and personal things had gone. Propped on the kitchen table was an envelope. Mariner opened it.

 

So that was it. Their four-year relationship ended with the most cursory of notes. Mariner picked up the phone and dialled. Becky answered, but they didn’t linger on small talk and she put Anna on straightaway.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi. So you’ve moved out then.’

‘I’ve started to.’ Her tone was bright and pragmatic. ‘I’ll only be staying with Becky short-term though. They’re going to need my room.’

‘Oh?’

‘They’ve been approved to adopt a baby from China. It’s what we’ve been celebrating - along with my job of course. Fantastic news, isn’t it?’

‘The best,’ said Mariner without enthusiasm. ‘So where will you stay?’

‘Well obviously I’ll be on the lookout for somewhere—’

‘Heron’s Nest?’

‘Hm, I think not. But in the meantime Gareth has a spare room I can crash in.’ Her words tumbled out as if she hoped he might not hear them.

‘Good old Doctor Gareth,’ said Mariner, instantly rubbishing the spare room fairytale.

She ignored his sarcasm. ‘I’ll be exchanging contracts on the house next Wednesday, so I’ve ordered a removal van for the following Friday and will be handing over the keys and moving out the rest of my stuff, so you’ll need to—’