The Burning (35 page)

Jenny felt a crawling sensation along her spine as she recalled the unassuming young man she had spoken to at the end of her visit to the rendering plant.

‘As you may surmise, there are several reasons why Mr Zaleski is inclined to keep his head down at present,’ Falco said.

Jenny weighed her options. Falco’s terms were out of the question. Evidence could only be given via a video link if there were a good reason for a witness not attending court in person.
Seeking to avoid arrest on a lawful warrant didn’t qualify.

However, there was also a danger that refusing to hear what might prove to be definitive evidence would amount to a denial of justice.

‘Would you step outside for a moment, Mr Falco, I need to consider.’

Falco did as she asked.

Ten minutes later Jenny had arrived at a decision that, at a push, she felt able to square with the law and her ethics, and made phone calls to settle arrangements. She called Falco back in and,
without inviting him to sit, told him that she would be reconvening her inquest at 5 p.m. that afternoon in a first-floor conference room at Chandos House, Queen Square. The session was to be held
in camera
. If Mr Zaleski wanted to give evidence, this was his one and only opportunity. Mr Anthony Burden was, of course, welcome to attend.

‘And if Zaleski won’t take the risk?’ Falco said.

‘If there’s any truth in what you’ve told me, the more people who hear his story, the safer he’ll be.’

Falco nodded. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Unsettled by her encounter with Falco, Jenny adjourned proceedings until the following morning and headed out of the building via the judges’ entrance. Once again,
everything she had assumed about events at Blackstone Ley had been called into question, leaving her feeling even more uncertain and alone. She wanted to talk to Ryan, to ask him if he thought
there was any truth in what Falco had told her, and whether she was right to be scared; was it even safe to meet Zaleski? But she knew that calling Ryan was out of the question, at least until the
afternoon was over. He was a police officer, after all, and given what she had just heard, she could trust him only up to a point.

As she went out into the chill wind, a figure stepped out from the wall to the side of the doorway and accosted her. Jenny spun round in alarm, a shot of adrenalin coursing into her veins.

‘It’s me, Mrs Cooper.’ Alison pulled down the hood of her anorak and revealed herself. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.’

Jenny caught her breath. Her heart was pounding out of control.

‘I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable, turning up in court – I just needed to keep an eye on things. To see what might turn up. I didn’t post those messages on the
internet, Mrs Cooper,’ Alison said with total conviction. ‘I may be brain-damaged, but I’ve still got most of my marbles. I don’t have any enemies I can think of, and my ex
has got himself a new girlfriend, so I can only think that someone’s trying to isolate you. Weaken your resources. Make you lose confidence.’ She looked at Jenny with concern. ‘I
know you can’t tell me what Mr Falco said, but I can see it’s shocked you.’

‘I’m OK,’ Jenny lied. ‘And I really don’t think you should be worrying about this right now.’

‘I’m going through the CCTV footage for you – cutting together pictures of everyone who bought diesel in a jerrycan from each of those four stations. Call it clerical
assistance.’

‘I’m grateful. But Alison, you know I can’t—’

‘Remember that bent solicitor named McAvoy, who crossed your path a few years ago?’

The name brought Jenny up short. McAvoy had swept through her life like an intoxicating demon. ‘What about him?’

‘Back when I was in CID, a snout once told me he followed a three-stage strategy for seeing off people who were becoming a problem for his clients: I-I-D: isolate, intimidate, and if that
doesn’t work, destroy.’

Jenny’s unease grew deeper.

‘So don’t forget, Mrs Cooper, you’re not alone. Whoever is responsible for this isn’t even at stage one.’

Alison pulled up her hood and trudged off determinedly through the snow.

T
HE CONFERENCE ROOM IN
Chandos House was on the second floor of the elegant early Victorian building, with a view across the formal gardens that
occupied the centre of the square. The decor was spare and elegant, the room dominated by a vast mahogany table that smelt of beeswax polish. Jenny had seated herself facing the door with her back
to the fireplace, and positioned the stenographer at the far end, where she sat filing her nails while they waited. Proceedings in court had been tape recorded, but Jenny had wanted the
stenographer present to emphasize the formality of the occasion. She needed both Falco and his witness to understand that the hired space was no less a courtroom than the one she had presided over
that morning.

Jenny and the stenographer sat in silence as the antique carriage clock on the mantel ticked towards five o’clock and quietly chimed the hour. There had been no communication from Falco
since their earlier meeting. After another ten minutes the stenographer gave her an expectant look. Jenny had promised her the job would last an hour at most. She was the right age to have a child
at school. She would probably have made arrangements that would be difficult for her to alter.

‘We’ll give him another five minutes,’ Jenny said, secretly hoping that she would soon be on the way home, with the danger having passed.

The clock sounded a single chime on the quarter hour. The stenographer was readying to pack away when they heard voices on the stairwell and a cautious knock at the door.

Jenny exhaled. ‘Come in.’

Falco entered first. He was wearing a fedora hat and a scarf that obscured most of his face. Tomasz Zaleski followed, dressed in a tatty green parka and a baseball cap.

‘Good afternoon, gentlemen. I’d almost given up on you.’

Falco took off his coat and reminded Tomasz to remove his cap. ‘My apologies, ma’am. There were complications.’

He didn’t elaborate, and, aware that, as requested, the stenographer had already started to record their words verbatim, Jenny didn’t ask him to.

‘Are we expecting Mr Burden?’ Jenny inquired.

‘Family commitments,’ Falco said. ‘I promised him a full report.’

The men settled into chairs opposite Jenny. Tomasz (she thought of him by his Christian name) was pale and unshaven with the hunted look of a man on the run, but the soft blue eyes Jenny
remembered from their meeting at Fairmeadows retained their trusting, childlike quality. She felt instinctively sorry for him. He didn’t look tough enough to be caught up with the world of
Jacob Rozek and organized crime.

Jenny formally opened the proceedings by informing Tomasz that he was in the Severn Vale District Coroner’s Court and that she had agreed to Mr Falco’s suggestion that she hear any
evidence he may have of relevance to the death of Daniel Burden. At Falco’s prompting, Tomasz replied that he understood. Jenny directed him to a card sitting alongside a Bible on the table
in front of him. Very solemnly, Tomasz took the Bible in his right hand and read the words of the oath like he meant it.

‘Seeing as we have no written statement, I’m happy to let you begin, Mr Falco,’ Jenny said.

Falco poured glasses of mineral water for both him and his witness as he took him through the formalities of confirming his name, age and address. Jenny noticed a faint tremor in Falco’s
hand.

‘And your principal occupation, Mr Zaleski?’ he said.

‘I’m a processing operative at Fairmeadows Farm,’ Tomasz answered, stumbling a little over the long words.

‘And you have had another job alongside it?’

‘Yes. I used to work sometimes for Mr Rozek. Jacob Rozek.’

‘In what capacity?’

Tomasz looked at him, not understanding the question.

‘What work did you do for Mr Rozek?’

‘Painting. Painting and decorating.’

‘Where?’

‘His properties. He has houses all over the city. Buy, sell, you know. Each one, a team of guys come and turn it into flats. Carpenter, plasterer, plumber, then me.’

‘Is that the only work you did for him?’

‘Yes.’ Tomasz said the word insistently, as if he had been accused of lying.

‘And what did Mr Rozek do with these properties once you had worked on them.’

‘He rented them.’

‘To whom?’

‘Sometimes to different people, sometimes to two guys who took the whole building. And then they rent the flats to their own people.’

Falco shot Jenny a glance, reading her thoughts. ‘If I could continue for a moment, ma’am?’

She nodded.

‘Who were these men?’

Tomasz made his hands into a single fist on the table and stared at it, the muscles of his arms tensing.

‘Are you able to tell us their names, Mr Zaleski?’ Falco nudged.

‘Aron Janick and Danek Mazur,’ Tomasz said.

They paused for a moment while Falco spelled the names out for the stenographer. Tomasz continued to stare at his hands. Jenny sensed he’d crossed a Rubicon and knew there was no way
back.

‘Where were these men from?’ Falco asked.

‘Krakow. They have the accent,’ Tomasz said. ‘A lot of people from Krakow come to Bristol. They don’t speak English. They trust guys like this who get them somewhere to
live.’

‘Did you meet them?’

He shrugged. ‘A few times.’

‘What is the nature of their business, Mr Zaleski?’

‘They put girls in the flats. Prostitutes. They’re pimps. They sell drugs.’

‘You know that for a fact?’

‘Yes. Sometimes I did a day’s work for them, too. Fix up a flat when a girl moves out.’

‘Describe these men for me – their characters.’

‘They can be nice, you know, give you cigarettes, talk about home. Then the next minute they’re crazy – shouting at girls, hitting them. Like animals. Everyone’s afraid
of them, even Mr Rozek.’

‘Tell the coroner what you told me about Jacob Rozek, Mr Zaleski.’

Tomasz stalled. He shook his head. Falco allowed him a moment, but still he didn’t speak.

‘Does any of this have any bearing on Mr Burden?’ Jenny asked.

‘In a moment, ma’am – if Mr Zaleski feels able.’

Tomasz blew out and shook his head like a man afraid to take a dangerous leap.

‘Come on,’ Falco urged in a whisper.

The stenographer glanced Jenny’s way. Jenny nodded at her to note every word and aside.

‘OK,’ Tomasz began. ‘It was last year, a few months ago. I was in a house in Redland. I heard them beat up a girl who owed them money. They broke her arm. I took her to the
hospital after they’d gone. She was frightened. She told me that Janick said to her next time she didn’t pay they would get rid of her at the “farm”, like they had done to a
guy who owed them money – Lech Weil. They told her they had friends there who’d grind her up, turn her into sausage meat.’

‘Did the name Lech Weil mean anything to you?’

Tomasz nodded. ‘He was Mr Rozek’s cousin. He had a taxi company. He went missing last July.’

‘What did you do with this information?’

‘I called Mr Rozek. He wouldn’t speak on the phone. He asked me to come to his office. I went the next day, told him everything about Janick and Mazur.’ Tomasz paused and cast
Jenny a nervous glance.

‘Carry on, Mr Zaleski.’

‘He told me there was nothing he could do. He said these guys were working for the police and no one could touch them. He told me his cousin refused to give them money and they killed him.
He knew it was them who killed Lech. He told me just stay out of their way, they’re dangerous. I’d never seen him look scared, but that night he was. Real scared.’

‘Do you know why he was scared?’

‘Afterwards, I heard some of the other guys talking when we were working in one of Mr Rozek’s properties. They said he was having problems with these two – they were hurting
his business. Some guys had heard the story they were police, but most just thought they were gangsters.’

‘How does this connect with Mr Burden?’ Jenny asked.

‘A few days later – it was a Friday night – Mr Rozek called me and asked would I pick something up for him. I had to go to his office first and collect a package, what do you
call it? – a Jiffy bag. He gave me an address in Henleaze: 15 Janus Avenue. He told me to speak to Daniel – he had something for me to bring back. I went to the flat. A short guy came
to the door. He took the package, gave me an envelope for Mr Rozek. That was it.’

‘What size was this envelope?’ Falco asked.

‘Small,’ Tomasz said, and placed his forefingers six inches apart on the table.

‘Passport size?’

‘Yes. Could be.’

‘Was anyone watching you?’

Tomasz shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t looking.’

‘Do you remember the date this happened?’

‘November 29th.’

‘Did you see Mr Rozek again?’ Falco asked.

‘No. I never did.’ Tomasz shook his head. ‘His wife called me on December the 20th and said the police found his car empty. She asked if I had heard anything. I told her about
the night he was scared. That’s all. I never told her about the package. That was his business.’

Falco sat back in his chair. ‘That’s it, ma’am, although there is one piece of documentary evidence I would like to offer the court, if that’s appropriate.’

‘I’ll decide on relevance, Mr Falco.’

He reached into the slim leather document case he had brought with him and took out a single sheet which he offered across the desk. It was a printout of a Ryanair e-ticket. It was in the name
of Mr Lech Weil and was for a one-way flight from Bristol International to Warsaw at 15.35 on 19 December: the day Rozek had vanished.

‘I finally persuaded the airline to release their records. It took a little persuasion,’ Falco said with ironic understatement.

‘Let me put your case together, Mr Falco: you are suggesting to me that Mr Rozek paid Mr Burden for a false passport using the identity of his dead cousin, Mr Lech Weil. That he bought a
ticket for Warsaw in Weil’s name, but was intercepted and murdered en route, possibly by Janick and Mazur, who were criminals, or police officers
acting criminally
, who then disposed
of his body with the help of contacts they had at Fairmeadows Farm.’