Speechless Read online

  I poured the vodka away and went to the first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting of my life. The three words had stuck in my throat like an enormous piece of stale bread and I had fled the meeting, deciding they were poor, pathetic idiots who didn’t have enough willpower.

  But I had gone back a month later and every month afterwards. Tonight was no different.

  Once I’d parked the car walked up to the hotel. I found the room at the back and sat down, nodding and smiling to the others. By the time it was my turn to speak I was ready.

  ‘I’m John. I’m an alcoholic.’

  Chapter 8

  ‘Inspector Marco?’

  I didn’t recognise the voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sergeant Parkes. BTP.’

  Normally I never dealt with the British Transport Police, whose task it was to police the railways and trains.

  ‘Yes.’ I sounded disinterested.

  ‘We’ve had a break-in at the left luggage lockers in Cardiff Central.’

  ‘I’m sorry. How…?’

  ‘I was told you might have an interest in this incident…’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, remembering our alert about unusual burglaries. ‘But how do you know if the locker…?’

  ‘All of them, Inspector.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘All of the bloody lockers were crow-barred last night. They even had guards posted at the entrance explaining that it was a routine security check and that nobody could access the area.’

  I slammed the phone down after telling the sergeant I’d be there as soon as I could. At first I walked but then I broke into a mild jog with Boyd panting behind me. Buses weaved their way down St Mary Street towards the castle and we turned into Wood Street, slowing as we saw Central Station.

  A couple of BTP officers stood by the entrance – arms folded, intense stares – in front of the flickering crime scene tape. I flashed my warrant card and asked for Sergeant Parkes. One of them spoke into his radio and soon Parkes appeared from inside the station.

  ‘Our scene of crime officers haven’t finished,’ Parkes said, motioning for us to follow him. The Transport Police were still in the twentieth century; even the Wales Police Service had CSIs.

  A voice boomed through the station tannoy, announcing a train for Birmingham and then another for Plymouth. The left luggage lockers had been added to a corridor lined with gaudy green tiles and SOCOs were working through the contents strewn all over the floor. Before leaving Queen Street I’d picked up the plastic pocket with Michal’s key, so I took it out and turned to Parkes.

  ‘Any idea if this might fit?’

  He shouted at one of the SOCOs. ‘Dave, over here…’

  A man with a dark ponytail unfurled his legs from his seating position and walked over towards us. I showed him the key.

  ‘Can I see if this fits any of the locks?’

  ‘You can try the lockers from the far end,’ he said, but then he looked down at the key and shook his head. ‘Doesn’t match any of the keys I’ve seen.’

  He was right and after we’d tried every lock I stood and thought about Michal. Why had he kept the key in his wallet? If the key was that important, why hadn’t the killer taken his wallet? Perhaps we were one step ahead of the game. But we couldn’t work out which lock the key fitted. Somebody else was wondering the same.

  * * *

  Boyd used all of the twenty minutes it took us to walk back to Queen Street to explain about the doormen working in the Four Seasons who we were going to interview later that morning. There were Poles, a Latvian, but mostly lads from the Valleys who had clean records.

  The civilian on the desk gave me a puzzled look when I walked in. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you. Tried your mobile a couple of times.’

  I cursed when I realised I’d left the mobile in my office.

  He continued. ‘Only we had a call. DI Hobbs took it. Left in a hell of bloody hurry.’

  I drove too quickly, failing to block out the red mist clouding my mind. Dave Hobbs was out of line and I’d see to it that this was the last time he’d make that mistake. The blue lights and the siren helped to clear the traffic but it was still a few minutes before I reached 14 Howick Street. This time it was a crime scene and the Scientific Support Vehicle was parked outside; a uniformed officer stood outside, scanning the street.

  I ducked under the perimeter tape and entered the house. When I heard the North-Walian twang to Dave Hobbs’s voice, it immediately set my nerves on edge.

  ‘That’s not the way to do it,’ he said.

  And then I heard the voice of Alvine Dix – it sounded melodious and almost attractive alongside Hobbs’s voice.

  ‘The correct procedure is quite different,’ Hobbs continued.

  Alvine was going to swear any minute.

  I took the narrow stairs two at a time and found Dix and Hobbs arguing outside one of the bedrooms on the first floor landing. I clenched my jaw and realised I was ready for a fight. Two officers emerged from one of the rooms down the corridor and I could hear the crime scene investigators inside the bed-sit.

  ‘Alvine, you’ll excuse DI Hobbs and myself. Protocols to discuss,’ I said, grabbing Hobbs by the arm and pulling him towards the stairs.

  On the second floor I pushed him down the corridor, checking that no other officers were present – wouldn’t do for junior officers to see two DIs arguing.

  Hobbs was shorter than me, but he’d puffed himself up like some exotic bird on heat. I clenched my fist and then thought the better of it. It could wait for a dark night when he was pissed. I unclenched my fist and prodded him with my middle finger.

  ‘You’re way out of line, Dave. You know this is my case.’

  ‘I took the call. Trying to help, seeing that you were unavailable.’

  He brushed my hand away from his jacket. He buttoned his coat and straightened his tie in one smooth movement, as though he was preparing for an interview.

  I carried on prodding. ‘You can just fuck off back to the station before I make a formal complaint about you breaking protocols. How would that look on your file?’

  He cleared his throat and moved his face closer to mine. I could smell the cheap aftershave and see the hairs growing from his nose. ‘Think you’re up to it, Marco? Think you can handle the pressure? Not going to have another incident are we?’

  I clenched both fists this time, but the sound of movement downstairs spared Hobbs a kicking and me from facing an assault charge and an early exit from the Wales Police Service with no pension.

  He smirked at me and then swaggered down the corridor; even the back of his head smirked at me.

  ‘There’s an eyewitness,’ he said, over his shoulder.

  I wanted to change my mind and beat the crap out of Hobbs, but I walked calmly along the corridor and down the stairs.

  ‘Where’s DI Hobbs?’ Alvine asked.

  ‘Urgent call from Area Control. Cat stuck in a tree… You know how it is.’

  A flicker of emotion crossed her eyes and her lips quivered.

  The bed-sit had been trashed like Michal’s but the difference was the body lying across the bed. Leon’s neck had been snapped like a twig in a storm and lay at an odd angle against the pillow, a trail of blood along the bedding.

  ‘Has his…?’ I asked.

  ‘No, his tongue has not been amputated,’ she said.

  Now I had two deaths from the same house, but there was still another body without a tongue. Nothing was making sense except the certainty that somebody had lost something very valuable indeed.

  ‘Where’s the eyewitness?’ I asked.

  ‘Girl in room five.’

  I left Alvine and the other CSIs to their work and walked down to the ground floor. The door to room five was ajar.

  ‘DI Marco,’ I said as I knocked on the door.

  The room was little changed from the last time I’d seen it. Dagmara was sitting on an old Lloyd Loom chair, her legs tucked underneath the seat. T
he flowers in the vase had died a little and there was a stale, air-less feel in the room. I noticed the double locks of the window, firmly secured.

  I held out my hand and Dagmara gave it a limp, lifeless shake. ‘I understand you saw something.’

  She nodded and I sat down on the bed. It was soft and sagged under my weight.

  ‘What can you tell me?’

  ‘It was very early.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Four. Maybe a little later.’

  ‘What were you doing at that time of the morning?’

  ‘I was with a friend until late.’

  She avoided eye contact. Her eyes were set high in her face and slightly at an angle that made her face look like an animation. Her skin was clear and her mouth was wide.

  ‘I came back towards the house and heard the voices when they came out…’

  ‘Did you hear what they said?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What language were they talking?’

  ‘English.’ But she sounded tentative.

  ‘Did you see them?’

  I heard my name being called and knew that I’d have to speak to Dagmara again so I arranged a time to see her in the station. I heard the scraping of the chain on her door as I walked away down the corridor.

  Dr Paddy MacVeigh was kneeling by the side of the bed when I entered Leon’s room. A sharp smell, like dirty clothes on someone in need of a shower, hung in the air. I couldn’t tell if it was Paddy or Leon or both.

  He glanced over and nodded. ‘Good morning, John.’

  I nodded back.

  ‘Lost the power of speech?’ he said.

  ‘Not funny,’ I said. ‘Not even sick-funny.’

  ‘Looks like a single blow with a sharp knife or blade. He’s been dead a few hours. No obvious sign of a struggle.’

  Paddy didn’t stay long. He didn’t need to. Leon was dead and the CSIs had work to do. The post mortem would tell us more. After he left, Alvine turned towards me.

  ‘Something you should see.’

  One of the CSIs passed over an exhibits box. Inside was another mass of pink and bloodied flesh.

  Chapter 9

  The preliminary forensic report was on my desk and I’d managed the first couple of pages before Alvine arrived. She looked different somehow. Perhaps it was the absence of the all-white one-piece suit but then I noticed her hair had been drawn back behind her head, making her chin more pronounced. She had a touch of blusher on her checks and that got me thinking she must have a date later.

  When I met Alvine years ago she was single and made a point of telling me that she hated her name – both of them, in fact. ‘It’s like the name of that big old car,’ she’d said. ‘And Dix sounds like it came out of a James Bond film.’

  Perhaps that’s why she went into forensics. A brief marriage to a librarian she met online had ended after a couple of years, and I’d heard some strange rumours about his nocturnal habits. Alvine wasn’t the same for a while. Now, she was married to her work.

  ‘The tongues aren’t human. Apart from the one in Michal’s pocket and the one in his flat.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Dogs. At a guess Alsatian or Labrador.’

  ‘So why cut out the tongues from dogs?’

  ‘Beats me. You’re the detective,’ she said, glancing at her watch. ‘Do you want to go through the rest of the forensics or are we going to talk about dogs?’

  ‘Are you due elsewhere?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  Must be a date. Poor unsuspecting bastard.

  She cleared her throat and gave me a summary of the forensics in Michal’s bed-sit. Fingerprints on the door casing and cupboards. She guessed they’d be Michal’s or Kamil’s or possibly the others from the house. In executive summary-speak, it was a mess. All the clothes had been taken to the lab but the results would take a week, maybe two.

  The locker in the factory was no better. ‘Shit place to work,’ she said.

  ‘Boyd thought so too,’ I replied.

  ‘There are prints on the door, on the lock and all over the inside of the locker, but nothing else. I hope you’ve got more to go on,’ she said. ‘All I have are a pile of cheap clothes and most of them will be Polish.’

  ‘What difference will that make?’

  ‘Tracing the clothes,’ she said, with incredulity in her voice. ‘I heard about the lockers at the railway station. Think they could be connected?’

  ‘Somebody’s lost something. And they want it back badly enough to warn people off with tongues from dead dogs.’

  ‘Think they know you’ve got the key?’

  I drew breath and paused. Eventually I shrugged. Alvine got up and left me to finish reading the reports.

  If they knew that Michal had a key in his wallet it must have been careless leaving it with his body or else the killer didn’t know he had to find something until after he’d killed Michal. If only I knew where to look.

  * * *

  ‘Why didn’t they cut Leon’s tongue out?’

  Boyd had a strained look on his face.

  I was reading the paperwork on my desk and preparing for the interviews with the doormen working at the Four Seasons.

  ‘Maybe the killer was disturbed,’ he continued.

  I looked up at Boyd. ‘Or maybe it’s a different killer. Different MO and Leon’s killer doesn’t have the stomach for amputating tongues.’

  Boyd didn’t seem to have thought about that possibility, but then he nodded slowly.

  There were ten names on the list. Three of them were names with multiples of ‘x’s and ‘z’s, making them unpronounceable and the others looked straightforward UK surnames. There was even a Benedetti and a Jones. Against each name Boyd had written a date of birth and confirmed whether the individual was ‘known’. He’d printed off the Police National Computer checks for each man.

  The first doorman had a neck like a tree trunk and a clean-shaven head. He wore a polo shirt a size too small that had Four Seasons printed over his left nipple. He called Frankie ‘Mr Prince’, but he didn’t know Leon or Michal, who worked different shifts from him and generally he didn’t like the Eastern Europeans. The second doorman was from Merthyr, like the first, and he had tattoos over his arms but his neck was a normal size.

  ‘Were you in the forces?’ I asked.

  ‘Welsh Cavalry, and proud of it. I did two tours in Afghanistan.’

  ‘Did you know Michal Dąbek?’

  ‘No. Never met him.’

  ‘And Leon Ostrowski?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  The next three were the same and it was clear that Frankie had been coaching them well: none of them knew Michal. It wasn’t until the first doorman from Poland sat opposite me that things changed.

  ‘Michal good person.’

  ‘How long did you know him?’

  He shrugged. ‘Months only. It is bad and Mr Prince is upset too.’

  Janek Symanski was tall and slim and built like an athlete. But his eyes darted around, looking at me, then Boyd. I took a mouthful of the coffee Boyd had organised after the previous bouncer.

  ‘Did you know Leon too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you work with them in the Four Seasons?’

  ‘Yes. I work with them all the time and they are good men.’

  ‘Do you know of anyone who would want to kill them?’

  He glanced around again and raised his hand briefly in the air.

  ‘It is very sad. Michal and Leon they…’ But he hesitated and didn’t finish.

  I took my time to finish the coffee as I tried to cajole more information out of Janek, without success. He knew more than he was telling so we’d have to see him again.

  We got back to the Incident Room just as a CD of the CCTV camera from Cardiff Central station arrived. Boyd loaded the CD into a computer and fiddled until the flickering images filled the screen. There was a time display in one corner and then a series of bust
ling images as the station concourse filled the screen. A crowd of teenagers in T-shirts and jeans ran in. One of them stopped to look at the monitor and I saw him mouthing something to the others before they ran up the stairs. After this a couple of drunks staggered through, lurching all over the floor. Then three men marched over towards the lockers and I moved closer to the screen.

  One of them must have been six foot three and not much less around the chest. He had a massive head, and shoulders like gravestones, and he walked purposefully. He knew exactly where he was going as he headed for the lockers. The other two followed him and then he stood upright at the entrance to the locker area.

  I watched the man blocking the entrance for a moment until someone came up to him. He turned, without showing his face, and the passenger moved away. It was like this for a couple of minutes but it felt longer.

  ‘Why the bloody hell doesn’t someone complain?’ I said, exasperated.

  Then the shed-like man twisted around and for an instant the camera captured an image of the other two.

  ‘Stop it now,’ I shouted and Boyd froze the image of Janek’s face on the screen.

  Chapter 10

  ‘What’s so special about Uncle Gino?’ Trish asked.

  I was scraping low-fat butter substitute on a piece of wholemeal toast, instead of my usual breakfast of white sliced bread an inch thick, with butter and strawberry jam. Trish said I would feel better for eating it but I had my doubts as I prodded the hardened bread with my knife. Trish was wearing an ‘Old Guys Rule’ T-shirt, a present from the lads in the station on my last birthday, and I caught a glimpse of a nipple pressing against the dark-blue material. The horizontal blinds cast hard shadows across her body. I’d seen much more of the nipple last night before falling into a dreamless sleep. Now, I felt refreshed and I watched Trish finishing a yogurt, the fat-free low-calorie variety that had the consistency of melted wine gums.

  ‘It’s Uncle Gino’s sixty-fifth birthday in a month and there’s a big family celebration. Cousins are flying in from Lucca and my mother has been full of the arrangements. She wants Dean to be there.’

  Trish raised an eyebrow. ‘So, tell me about the family.’