Tell No Tales (33 page)

‘We know you and Tomas had a fight and we know you threw him out. When we see a situation like this the ex-boyfriend is always a suspect. And given Tomas’s history of violence he is a very credible suspect.’

‘He was not violent,’ Sofia said flatly.

‘I’ve spoken to the police in Poznań. Maybe Tomas hasn’t told you about it, but before he came to England he served six years in prison for murder and attempted murder.’ She looked down into her lap. Didn’t ask for details. ‘And we have reason to believe that Tomas has been up to his old tricks over here too. Lukas didn’t act alone when he killed the young man we told you about. Tomas was involved in that murder, maybe others too. So we know exactly what he’s capable of.’

‘He would not do this to me and Jelena.’

‘Why are you protecting him?’ Ferreira asked. ‘He killed Jelena. He tried to kill you. Don’t you want to see him punished?’

‘I do not know where he is,’ Sofia said, that same flat tone. ‘If I knew I would tell you.’

‘Has he been back since you threw him out?’

Sofia shook her head. ‘I have not seen him.’

‘We found bloodstained clothes at your house,’ Zigic said, and she looked up at that, eyes wide. ‘They’re Tomas’s clothes and they were in the bin. I imagine you put your rubbish out every other week like the rest of us, so those clothes are two weeks old at the most.’

‘I threw them out last week,’ she said.

‘Whose blood is it?’

She stuttered, ‘There was an accident, at the pack house, last month. A man was injured, his hand, Tomas tried to help him. It is his blood, check with the farm, they will tell you.’

‘We will check,’ Zigic said. ‘But none of this is helping us find Tomas.’

Sofia blinked at a few strands of lank brown hair poking in her eye and when she moved to brush them away he saw that her hand was shaking.

‘The night you threw Tomas out, what did you fight about?’

‘I told you this already – money.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ Zigic said. ‘I think you knew Tomas was getting involved with something bad and you didn’t like it.’

She said nothing, looked at the bottle of water but didn’t reach for it.

‘The night before you threw him out a young man was kicked to death a few streets away. CCTV places Tomas and Lukas near the crime scene at the time of the murder.’ Zigic tried to catch her eye; failed. ‘Do you remember that night, Sofia?’

‘No.’

‘Tomas would have come home covered in blood.’

‘I do not remember,’ she said. ‘Me and Jelena must have been at work.’

‘We checked your time sheets – you weren’t working.’

‘Then we must have been out.’

‘Maybe you were at Anthony’s house,’ Ferreira suggested. ‘Or had you made Jelena dump him already?’

Sofia glared at her. ‘We were not with him.’

‘You seem very certain about that, considering you couldn’t remember where you were ten seconds ago.’ Ferreira shifted in her seat and Zigic realised she was on to something. ‘Maybe Anthony’s memory’s better than yours. Maybe he remembers what you two were fighting about.’

‘He wasn’t there. Anything he tells you is a lie.’

‘He told us Tomas was getting a bit too close to Jelena for your liking,’ Zigic said. ‘Was that a lie?’

Sofia’s face coloured and she spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Tomas was like a brother to her.’

For a moment nobody spoke and there was only the sound of the strip light humming and the pipes ticking behind the walls. Gilbert had insisted he was there the night Sofia threw Tomas out, Mrs O’Brien had said the same, and now Sofia was denying it.

Sofia would keep lying until they put incontrovertible proof in front of her, Zigic thought, but now that he was in the clear maybe Anthony Gilbert would be more forthcoming.

41

‘
TAKE THE CUFFS
off him,’ Ferreira said.

Relief washed across Gilbert’s drawn and stubbled face as the PC who had been stationed outside his room walked round the bed and unlocked the restraints at his wrist. He rubbed his skin, even though the cuffs were padded, and looked for marks which they hadn’t left behind. The only damage showing on the man was self-inflicted and even that was fading now.

The dark rings had disappeared from around his eyes, the swelling at his nose had calmed, and when he spoke to ask what had happened, the telltale rasp from the charcoal wash was gone.

‘The DNA results are back. We know you weren’t driving the car.’

‘I told you I didn’t do it.’

‘Funny enough, a lot of guilty people say that too,’ Ferreira said, closing the door behind the retreating PC.

Gilbert swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood carefully, none too sturdy, but he made it to the window and looked down across the small garden there, just a patch of grass and some flower beds dotted with tulips. He pressed his forehead against the glass and cried quietly for a few minutes.

Now he was officially innocent his pain would take over, Ferreira imagined, fill up every quiet hour until the hospital deemed him fit to return home, and then what? Pills again, but more this time, enough of them to kill what he was feeling once and for all.

His eyes were shining when he finally turned away from the window and he wiped them on the back of his left hand, a drip still plugged into his right.

‘Who do you think did it?’ he asked, voice thick. ‘Was it an accident after all?’

‘No,’ Ferreira said. ‘We’re certain it wasn’t. The car was bought with cash a few days before, the driver was very careful not to leave a paper trail, and he cleaned it thoroughly to be sure we wouldn’t be able to get DNA or fingerprints.’

‘But you got DNA.’

‘Guess he wasn’t expecting the airbag to punch him in the nose.’

‘Well, is he on the system?’ Gilbert asked. ‘You’ve got other suspects, right? You’re going to catch who did this.’

‘We have somebody in mind, yes.’

‘Who?’

‘Tomas.’

Gilbert lowered himself into the chair next to the window. ‘Is that all you can come up with up? Seriously?’

‘Tomas has a long history of violence,’ Ferreira said. ‘Even longer than yours.’

He scowled at her then quickly looked away, back to the window, but she wasn’t sure he saw the view any more. ‘What makes you think this is anything to do with Sofia and Jelena? They weren’t the only people there.’

‘We believe that Sofia and Jelena were the target,’ Ferreira said firmly.

‘You can’t know that. Not until you catch whoever did it.’ He threw his hand up, brought it down on his thigh with a slap. ‘I mean, these people come to Peterborough from all over Europe – the world – you don’t know who they are really, what enemies they might have.’

‘We’re looking into that now.’

‘Because you didn’t do it before,’ he said, disgust hitching the skin around his nose. ‘You were so fucking convinced it was me that you didn’t bother to look for another suspect. I’ve seen the paper. That other man there, who was he? What about if he was into something shady and someone wanted rid of him?’

‘We’re checking that out,’ Ferreira told him, feeling her patience beginning to give already. As much because he was right as anything else. They’d had too much workload put on them with not enough resources and Zigic prioritised as best he could, following the clearest lead, what looked like a nailed-on certainty. Riggott had encouraged it too, knowing they needed a swift resolution, one which wouldn’t stoke the simmering racial tensions in the area.

Everyone wanted Gilbert to be responsible.

If it was him it was terrible but understandable and it allowed them to concentrate on the murders which had been defeating them for weeks.

Had Zigic miscalculated? She didn’t think so, but from the outside it looked bad on them, and with a press conference looming later this afternoon it was going to get worse, questions would be asked about his judgement and their capability as a department, especially when Lukas’s suicide was factored in.

As of right now they had one missing suspect, still to be identified, one perpetrator dead by his own hand, and a hit-and-run with no known driver. Five murders unsolved.

Tomas was at the heart of it. She was in full agreement with Zigic on that, but the information which came in while they were questioning Sofia offered little hope of finding him. Nothing on the manifests from the local coach operators, nothing from passport control or customs. There were too many quiet ways to slip out of the city, or the country, for them to say with any certainty that he was still here. A fake passport was easily bought, especially if Tomas was as organised as the hit-and-run suggested. A different city could be driven to without leaving a trail – steal a car or hitch a lift, who would remember that?

Parr had finished canvassing the dosshouses by lunchtime, through them too fast to have done the job properly, and Ferreira regretted not speaking up when Zigic gave him the task. He didn’t know the area or the people, and his mind clearly wasn’t focused, judging by the amount of private conversations he was taking out into the hall, talking bottle temperatures and nap times and the colour of his new baby’s shit. Could they really trust his claim that Tomas wasn’t at any of the places he’d been to?

It was easy for ineptitude to slip by unnoticed in CID; with such a large pool of officers there was always somebody else to take up the slack. In Hate Crimes they didn’t have that luxury.

She was confident that when they finally found Tomas it would be in one of the ninety-pound-a-week B&Bs off Lincoln Road which Parr had visited.

Ferreira went round the bed and sat on the windowsill, getting between Gilbert and the view he was finding so fascinating.

‘Is there anything at all you can tell me about Tomas? Anything that could help us find him?’

‘It isn’t Tomas,’ Gilbert said, his voice loaded with frustration. ‘Is this how you work? You get fixated on someone and block out all other possibilities until you realise you’ve fucked up and move on to the next person?’

‘We look at the most credible suspects,’ Ferreira said, her own frustration bubbling up. ‘And after you, Tomas is next on our list. Him and Sofia fought, she threw him out and then somebody tries to kill her. You don’t think that makes him a likely candidate?’

He looked down at the floor. ‘It wasn’t Tomas.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because he went home.’

‘Sofia says.’

‘Why would she lie?’

‘To protect him,’ Ferreira said. ‘Which I get, kind of. She’s got some twisted sense of loyalty to him, or she’s scared of him. Maybe she just can’t handle the idea that he killed her sister because she loves the bastard. But you don’t. By your own admission you hated each other.’

Gilbert swallowed hard, tears shining in his eyes again. He never seemed to be far from crying.

‘You need to find who killed Jelena,’ he said.

‘We’ll find him.’

‘But you won’t,’ he said, almost wailing. ‘It wasn’t Tomas. You’re wasting your time looking for him. You need to concentrate on finding out who was really driving that car before they leave the country and you can’t touch them. You can’t let them get away with this.’

‘Him,’ Ferreira said, low and hard. ‘Tomas. And we are going to hunt him down wherever he’s hiding.’

She stood up and inched past Gilbert, heading for the door. She’d done what she was told, passed on the news, released him from their custody, and it was obvious he had nothing useful to tell her. Another dead end.

‘Wait.’

She sighed lightly and let the door swing shut again, blocking out the ward noise. Gilbert was on his feet now, one hand gripping the front of his hospital gown, a nervous gesture to match the expression on his face. He groaned, closed his eyes and almost whispered it.

‘I know where Tomas is.’

42

IT WASN’T QUITE
the middle of nowhere, but isolated enough that they missed it on the first pass. Zigic driving, Ferreira in the passenger seat scanning the countryside for the place Gilbert had described. The fens unfolded to the east, thousands of acres of bare earth, a few rippling green fields. The road was busy with agricultural vehicles, tractors with muddy ploughs overhanging that scattered the tarmac with sodden clumps of earth, lethal shears glinting in the afternoon sun. A couple of times Zigic had to pull onto the verge to let them pass, the cars behind him following suit, hedgerows scraping paintwork.

Peterborough fell away behind them, no longer visible in his rear-view mirror, the streets where they expected to find Tomas Kaminski becoming distant and remote.

Ferreira tapped on her window. ‘There, that must be it.’

‘Are you sure?’

He slowed and looked across her, saw a spread of dense woodland blocking off the horizon, a few of the trees coming into blossom. A dirt track led up to it, ungated, which was rare for the area, but there was obviously nothing worth stealing in the small, red-brick building which sat at the edge of the trees.

‘Gilbert said there’s a bunch of clapped-out machinery behind it.’

‘I don’t see it,’ Zigic said.

‘It’s there.’

He squinted, made out a patch of yellow paintwork and the silvery glimmer of broken glass, almost completely obscured by a wild tangle of greenery.

‘That’s the place,’ Ferreira said, reaching for the radio, passing it on.

Zigic turned onto the track, the patrol car swinging in behind him. The fields on either side lay fallow, tall grass swaying in the light breeze, stray stalks of rapeseed blown in from across the road making pinpoints of colour, everything perfectly serene and idyllic. Dust blew up from his tyres as he idled up the track and he punched the horn to scare off a cock pheasant strutting ahead of him. It sauntered away into the field, answering the call of a potential mate, the sound like a woman being strangled.

Up close Zigic saw that the old worker’s cottage was half derelict, its roof sagging at the centre and missing a few dozen pan tiles where an elder bush had somehow grown up from the inside and punched through, striving towards sunlight. Its windows had been smashed in, only a few shards of glass clinging to the stone frames, the front door long gone, the entrance blocked by a rambling rose bush beginning to bud.