Nice suit
VAYNOR WAS ON the phone from his car outside Hewell Prison in north Worcestershire. Bliss had been there a couple of times: Gothic mansion with red-brick extensions, often condemned as grossly overcrowded, famous for multiple suicides and a murder. Mixed bunch in there, from the newly remanded to the well-convicted, and Vaynor had expected problems.
Not the case, however. He’d got there before dark for his interview with Lech Jaglowski and he hadn’t been kept waiting.
‘Never what you expect, is it, boss?’ he told Bliss on the phone.
‘Darth…’ Bliss leaning his office chair back against the window sill. ‘… I gave up expecting things long ago.’
‘Good English, Lech,’ Vaynor said. ‘Well educated.’
‘PhD, is he? You’d gerron with him, then.’
‘Well, I did. It’s easy to understand why they come here. Apart from the wage levels, they relate to us, the Poles.’
‘Since World War Two.’
Vaynor hadn’t taken a terp, which could’ve been dicey if Lech was being interviewed more formally, with a view to a charge. Defence counsel were notoriously good at proving clients didn’t have the vocabulary to understand what they were being accused of, never mind cough to it.
But this was just a chat. Darth and Lech had talked for just short of a couple of hours in a private room. Before he left, they’d shaken hands. At one stage, he told Bliss, Lech had wept.
‘You can call me a softy, boss,’ Vaynor said, ‘but I’d stake my pension on him not having done it.’
Bliss was unimpressed. At Vaynor’s age, retirement was so far into the future you’d stake your pension on the Green Party winning a majority on Hereford Council if the odds were right.
‘Due to being banged up at the time,’ Bliss said, ‘yeh, but—’
‘Or got anybody else to do it for him. Not, frankly, that you could’ve blamed him. They let me talk to a couple of screws, and Lech doesn’t appear to have formed any particular friendships inside.’
‘Not even with the baccy barons? If they have them any more.’
‘Spends most of his time reading to improve his command of English. The cigarette smuggling – he tells me that got well out of hand because of some mates of Jag who he didn’t like to offend. He knew what he was doing, he was just afraid not to.’
‘Heard that before, too.’
‘Jag, undoubtedly, was a villain. The parents, back in Poland, according to Lech they could never see it. They thought Wictor, through no fault of his own, had got into bad company in Krakow, and he’d come to England to make a new start, clean up his act. Wrong, wrong, wrong, Lech says. He’d come to England to rob people.’
‘My old ma thinks I have a nice job with the NatWest bank. But then, I suppose…’
‘Lech, however… I asked him about the rape allegation. He said, You talk to police in Krakow, you find they never heard of me. Only Wictor. They knew Wictor all too well.’
‘Go on, then,’ Bliss said. ‘Bugger up the rest of me day.’
It was true that Lech liked Danni. A lot. Knew Jag had been lying to her.
Jag had filled Danni up with all this crap about loving Herefordshire and wanting to spend the rest of his life here, but that wasn’t true. ‘Economic migrant’ didn’t come close to describing Jag. The garage was rented, so was the flat. No ties. Everything short-term. Including Danni. Lech, well meaning, had tried to get this over to her. Danni had told Jag. Hence the discord.
‘Does he think Jag had him grassed up for the cigs to get him off his back?’
‘That’s open to dispute. It was an anonymous tip-off. I’m inclined to think – and this is a bit of a gobsmacker, boss, so let me just tell you what he said.’
Lech blamed himself. His own weakness. His naivety. He’d come to England with Jag, not realizing what that might involve. He had some money which he used to set up a Polish shop in which Jag was not involved. But friends of Jag had come after him for favours. It was difficult. More dangerous to refuse.
He’d told Vaynor he’d loved his brother but hadn’t admired him – yes, his English was good enough for subtleties. When he came out, in just a few weeks’ time, he was going back to Poland. He’d already offloaded the shop.
‘He’s scared,’ Vaynor said. ‘He says he never wanted to work with Jag at the garage, didn’t like some of the guys Jag was doing business with. The caravan park down by Bromyard? People-trafficking. Slavery?’
The caravan park had been temporary accommodation for a string of Lithuanians who, having put the last of their new Euros into the hands of individuals assuring them they had guaranteed jobs waiting for them in Hereford, had ended up in forced labour, unpaid except for basic meals. Part of a much bigger operation, according to Lech.
‘And Jag’s role in that was what?’ Bliss asked.
‘He’d find work for some of the illegals. Apparently straight work in return for IDs put together in Birmingham. Quickly turning into criminal work. In which context, I’m thinking of the van-man who ran into the farmer. Can’t remember his name.’
‘Lukas Babekis. Who Rich Ford reckoned was sent out into the sticks to nick stuff for Jag.’
‘There you go. Some of these people are very poor. Take anything they’re offered.’
‘You actually ask him if he’d had Jag killed?’
‘I said a few people were saying that. That was when he started getting emotional. “Why these people want hang me?” All this.’
‘Who does he think killed Jag, then?’
‘He doesn’t know. He was kind of fatalistic about it. Like he’d felt it coming. The final confirmation that he needs to go home.’
‘Could’ve gone home anytime, surely?’
‘That’s what I said. He said he couldn’t go home because Jag wouldn’t let him. Jag was making his life intolerable.’
‘Did he realize this sounded like a valid motive for removing his brother?’
‘Has DS Stagg come up with a name for whoever fingered Lech for the cigs?’
‘What’s that gorra—?’
‘If it emerged that it was Lech himself who alerted us to the cigs in his basement, which obviously it won’t, I wouldn’t keel over with shock. He wasn’t telling me everything, but I’d guess farm theft and allied crime was the tip of the iceberg. He was storing the cigs for Jag, that’s where he wanted it to end.’
‘You’re saying Lech would rather put himself inside with a criminal record than get dragged into it? Come on…’
‘He got extremely worried when I asked him if Jag traded in firearms. “No, no, never, never.” Though earlier he’d said his brother prided himself on being able to get anything for anybody.’
‘You think Jag wanted Lech to store the guns?’
‘And a refusal often offends. I think he just panicked, boss. Get me out of this. He said he was very appreciative of the way he’d been treated. Like a holiday.’
‘In Hewell?’
‘By the police, everybody.’ Vaynor paused. ‘He was especially pleased to see me, and he asked me if I’d been sent by the chief.’
‘Which chief?’
‘Ah…’ Another pause. ‘Prepare yourself, boss. He’d had a personal visit from a very distinguished man.’
‘In Hewell?’
‘Very friendly man. Of mature years. Nice suit. Paternal – he actually said that. “Like my father.” Not quite tearful, but you get the idea. Lech wasn’t sure what this nice man’s actual position was at the minute, but he did assure him that in a few months he’d be the big chief. He expressed himself sympathetic to migrants who, through no fault of their own, had fallen foul of British restrictions. He said he was talking to a wide range of people, collecting information about the situation. And then he asked him some other things you’ll be quite interested to know about.’
Bliss looked up at an eruption of rain on the window.
‘This a joke, DC Vaynor?’