Death Can’t Take a Joke. Anya Lipska

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      ‘Just give me fifteen minutes with him, Sarge,’ said Kershaw. ‘We spent a lot of time together on that job so I know all his little tics and tells. I might get something useful out of him, even if it’s not admissible.’

      Kershaw was perched on the edge of Streaky’s desk as she made her pitch for a chat with Kiszka, now installed in one of the holding cells downstairs. As the new girl on the squad, she was well aware she should be keeping her head down, restricting herself to ‘getting to know you’ chitchat with the other DCs, gathering crucial first day intelligence like where the biros and the digestives were kept – but that might mean her missing the chance to get herself drafted onto the Fulford case.

      As Streaky stared into the distance, apparently lost in a daydream, Kershaw waited, knowing that if she pushed him, he’d more than likely blow his top.

      ‘Copernicus!’ he said finally, slapping the surface of his desk.

      ‘Sarge?’

      ‘I’ve been trying to remember the name of Kiszka’s cat,’ he said. ‘You mentioned it once – when you were investigating the murder of that Polish girl he was mixed up in. Stuck in my mind. Not many people name their moggies after Renaissance astronomers.’

      ‘Er?’

      ‘Nicolaus Copernicus.’ Streaky enunciated each syllable as though talking to a twelve-year-old. ‘Polish. Established the principle of heliocentrism.’ Peeling the foil back from a half-eaten pack of Rolos, he offered her one. ‘Didn’t they teach you anything at that comprehensive school of yours? Plaistow, wasn’t it?’

      ‘Poplar actually, Sarge,’ she said, taking one. ‘And I have heard of Copernicus. I’m just not quite sure what it has to do with Kiszka being a suspect.’

      ‘It tells me, detective, that he’s not your average villain,’ said Streaky, through a mouthful of chocolate. ‘Our Mr Kiszka fancies himself as a bit of an intellectual.’

      Kershaw couldn’t disagree with that. Kiszka had always struck her as a man bristling with contradictions. He might have a science degree and the tendency to talk like someone out of a Jane Austen novel, but she knew from experience he wouldn’t hesitate to throw a punch – or break the law – in pursuit of an investigation.

      ‘So if it was him who shivved his so-called mate – and he’s top of my list at the moment,’ Streaky went on, ‘he might be tempted to play games with us.’

      ‘And let something slip.’

      ‘Exactamundo.’

      She jumped to her feet. ‘So I can have a chat with him?’

      He turned his pale blue gaze on her. ‘I hope you’re not planning any of your old antics,’ he said. ‘Like restaging your famous impression of a one-woman crime-solving machine.’

      ‘No, Sarge!’ She felt her cheeks redden, aware of her new colleagues earwigging on the conversation. ‘Nothing like that.’

      He pointed the half-empty pack of Rolos at her. ‘Don’t make me regret bringing you here.’

      ‘No, Sarge.’

      ‘Alright, then,’ he said. ‘Take him a cuppa. And since you’re putting the kettle on, mine’s a builder’s. Three sugars.’

      Kershaw found Kiszka pacing up and down his cell wearing a thunderous expression. He looked huge in the tiny space, like Daddy Bear in Goldilocks’ kitchen.

      ‘I brought you a cup of tea,’ she said brightly.

      He glanced at the offering: ‘I don’t drink tea with milk in it,’ he said, and threw himself down on the narrow bunk. He’d shown not a flicker of recognition or surprise on seeing her again.

      ‘I’ll have it then,’ she said, settling herself at the foot of the bed and taking a sip. Close up he appeared pretty much unchanged – the same caveman good looks, maybe a bit thinner about the face. ‘It must be getting on for two years since I saw you last.’

      ‘Yeah, and it looks like the cops haven’t got any more intelligent in that time,’ he growled.

      She had a sudden vision of their first meeting, a no-holds-barred stand-off which had ended with her – erroneously, as it later turned out – accusing him of murdering a girl, a Polish waitress found dead in a hotel room.

      ‘Well, you’ve not been exactly helpful so far, have you?’

      ‘I’ve told them everything I know, twice over! I showed them Jim’s text, his wife has vouched for me – what the fuck else can I do?’ He ran a hand through his dark brown hair, threaded with silver here and there, she noticed. ‘I apologise for the bad language,’ he added after a moment.

      Kershaw didn’t say so, but from the point of view of the investigation, the text simply put Kiszka in the right place at the right time for the murder.

      ‘So why did you clam up when the Sarge showed you that mortgage deed?’

      ‘No comment.’

      She paused. ‘Look, Janusz,’ she said. ‘I’m prepared to believe that you didn’t kill your friend. And from what I know about you, you must be dying to see the scum who did kill him locked up.’

      He shot her a look that said locking up wasn’t what he had in mind.

      ‘And the more time we spend fu… messing around following false trails, the less chance we have of finding the killers.’ Actually, Kiszka was probably more than capable of killing someone in a murderous rage, Kershaw reflected, but the important thing right now was to gain his trust.

      Janusz stared at her for a long moment, taking in the little heart-shaped face under the strangely lopsided hair, the steely set of her lips. His determination to find the chuje who had murdered Jim was as strong as ever but he had to admit it couldn’t hurt to have the cops looking for them, too.

      ‘Anything I say to you is off the record, agreed?’

      ‘Absolutely.’ This was true: although technically he was still under caution, the CPS took a seriously dim view of unrecorded unofficial chats, so nothing Kiszka told her could be used in court.

      ‘Because I’m not making any further statements until I talk to my solicitor.’

      ‘Understood.’

      He exhaled. ‘When I first met Jim, he wasn’t in great shape. He’d had a … breakdown, I suppose you’d call it – after fighting for his country.’

      ‘Yeah, the Sarge mentioned he was a Falklands veteran.’

      ‘A Royal Marine. He was no coward – they gave him a medal for bravery under fire.’ He frowned at her, making sure she took the point. ‘Anyway, by ‘92, he was just starting to get himself straightened out and he came up with the idea of starting a gymnasium – there wasn’t anything like that in Walthamstow back then. He found a spot he reckoned was perfect for it. A derelict space, under the railway …?’ He sketched a curved structure in mid-air.

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