Where the Devil Can’t Go. Anya Lipska

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СКАЧАТЬ went a bit quiet,’ recalled Justyna. ‘But then she said Mama would be fine so long as no one cut off her supply of cytrynowka,’ she shot him a look. The sickly lemon wodka was a notorious tipple of street drunks – and alcoholic housewives. ‘Nika told me she would often come home from school and find her lying unconscious on the kitchen floor.’

      Apparently, Mama had been little more than a child herself when she’d fallen pregnant with Weronika. The little girl had grown up without a father and the only family apart from her chaotic drunk of a mother had been a distant uncle who visited once in a blue moon.

      Poor kid, thought Janusz. It was hardly surprising that after leaving home, she should fall head over heels in love with the first person who showed her any affection – like a baby bird imprinting on whoever feeds it, however ill-advised the love object.

      By now, there was standing room only in the bar area, and the crowd was encroaching on the small table where Janusz and Justyna sat. The thump thump of the music, the shouted conversations and the bodies pressing in all around set up a fluttering in Janusz’s stomach. So when the girl said she ought to go, she had an early start at the restaurant the next day, he felt a surge of relief.

      He insisted on walking Justyna to her flat, which was a mile away to the west, the other side of Stratford, beyond the River Lea. The route took them through the centre of town, where the music and strident chatter spilling from the lit doorways of pubs and clubs and the clusters of smokers outside suggested the place was just waking up, although it was gone eleven and only a Tuesday. As they passed the entrance to an alleyway beside one pub Janusz heard urgent voices and, through the gloom, saw two men pushing a smaller guy up against the wall. He froze, muscles bunching, but a second later the scene came into focus. The little guy was catatonic with drunkenness, head drooping and limbs floppy, and the other two, weaving erratically themselves, were simply trying to keep their mate upright.

      Janusz and Justyna shared a look and walked on. No one would describe Poles as abstemious, but any serious drinking was done at home and public drunkenness was frowned upon. Janusz’s mother, who’d visited London as a child before the war, had always spoken approvingly of the English as a decorous and reserved people, so it was fair to say that his first Friday night out with the guys from the building site had been something of an eye-opener. Still, the greatest compliment you could pay a man back then was to say he could carry his drink, and those who ended the night by falling over or picking a fight were viewed with pitying scorn.

      Justyna shared a flat in a tidy-looking low-rise estate run by a housing association. Pausing on the pavement outside, she turned to him, drawing smoke from her cigarette deep into her lungs against the cold. ‘Thanks for the drinks,’ she said.

      ‘You’re welcome.’ He took a draw on his cigar, then exhaled, blowing his smoke downwind of her. She seemed in no hurry to go in.

      ‘Look, I really shouldn’t do this,’ she said at last. ‘I promised Nika …’

      She pulled a folded slip of paper out of her pocket, and handed it to him.

      ‘Pawel made her swear not to give their address to anyone. But she wanted me to look out for letters from her mama, forward them on. She knew she could trust me,’ she stared off down the darkened street, ‘… thought she could trust me.’

      He glanced at the paper, registering an address in Essex before pocketing it. ‘Listen, Justyna. You are the best friend Weronika has.’ He sought her gaze. ‘She’s probably found out by now that Pawel is no knight in shining armour – maybe she’s wondering how to leave him without too much fuss,’ he said, flexing his knuckles. ‘If that’s how it is, I’ll make sure her wishes are respected.’

      She took a step toward him. ‘Be careful,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘I don’t think Pawel is right in the head. Nika must have let slip that I warned her off him, because one day he followed me home, all the way from work,’ her eyes widened. ‘He grabbed me by the arm and went crazy.’ Her lips trembled as she relived the shock of it. ‘He told me if I didn’t keep my fucking nose out, he’d kill me.’

      The guy was clearly a psychol, thought Janusz. ‘Don’t worry,’ he told the girl. ‘Guys like him are usually all talk.’

      She nodded, not entirely convinced. ‘And Nika said she’d phone me, but I’ve heard nothing, not even a text.’

      A child cried sharply somewhere in her block and she shivered, then said in a rush: ‘It’s freezing – can I make you a coffee? Or maybe you’d like a wodka?’

      That was unexpected. He sensed a fear of rejection in her averted face. Was she propositioning him? Compassion, good sense – and yes, temptation, too – wrestled briefly in his heart, and then a vision loomed up before him – the stern face of that old killjoy Father Pietruski.

      He shook his head. ‘Another time, darling, I’ve got a lot on tomorrow.’

      ‘You’ll let me know when you find out where Nika is?’ said the girl, anxiety ridging her forehead.

      ‘You’ll be the first to hear,’ he said.

      He watched her walk into the block, and two or three minutes later a first-floor light came on in what he guessed was her flat. He lingered, thinking that she might appear in the window, but was then distracted by the screech of a big dark-coloured car pulling out from the estate. Gunning its engine, it tore off down the street. When he looked back up at the block, the curtains had been closed on the oblong of light. Feeling a pang of loneliness, he threw down his cigar stub and left.

       Eight

      For DC Kershaw, the following day would turn out to be what her Dad might have called a game of two halves.

      As she stretched herself awake in the pre-dawn gloom, her triceps and calf muscles delivered a sharp reminder of how she’d spent the previous evening – scaling the toughest route on the indoor wall on Mile End Road, handhold by punishing handhold. It was worth it, though. Climbing demanded a level of concentration so focused and crystalline that it left no headspace for stressing about the job. And she was getting pretty good, too – last summer she’d ticked off her first grade 7a climb, up in the Peaks. She hadn’t been tempted to mention her feat at work, obviously, because that would mean the entire nick calling her Spiderwoman … like for ever.

      Still half-asleep, she stepped under the power shower, and found herself assaulted by jets of icy water. Gasping, she flattened her back against the cold glass and spun the knob right round to red, but it didn’t make a blind bit of difference. A quick tour of the flat revealed all the radiators to be stone cold, too – the boiler must be up the spout. Cursing, she pulled on her clothes, then her winter coat, and hurrying into the minuscule galley kitchen, turned on all four gas rings.

      While she was scaling K2 last night, the rest of the guys had gone out on a piss-up to celebrate Browning’s birthday. She’d almost joined them, but luckily Ben Crowther tipped her off – with a look that said it definitely wasn’t his thing – that the birthday boy wanted to hit a lap-dancing club in Shoreditch later. No thanks. Being ‘one of the guys’ in the office was one thing, but she could live without the sight of Browning getting his crotch polished by some single mum with 36DD implants and a Hollywood wax.

      The milk she added to her brewed tea floated straight to the surface in yellowy curds. СКАЧАТЬ