She yelped.
The dark figure was standing on the edge of the scaffold platform, waiting for her, a length of timber in its hands. As it swung the weapon up to shoulder height the hood of its anorak pulled back and she saw the face of Felix Kowalski, snarling with rage. She automatically put up her left arm to deflect the blow as it came, smashing across her forearm and bouncing up to slam into the side of her head. She saw a flash of light and half turned, stunned, feeling her right foot slide away. Then her other foot gave way. She went down, arms and legs flailing, and hit the beam hard with her left shoulder. Instinctively her arms went round the beam like a baby round its mother’s neck. She could hear herself snuffling like a baby. She looked up, past the beam from which she hung, and saw him raising his timber club again. The blow came on her right hand, although she didn’t feel it. She just knew that she was flying.
29
Felix Kowalski was led into the basement interview room shortly after midnight. Despite the events of the previous hours, he held his bandaged head high, and appeared alert. His eyes took in the room, the metal office desk and chairs, the flask of water, the tape recorder, with interest. He sat in the chair which Gurney pulled out for him, clasped his hands loosely on his lap, and looked around confidently.
Alerted by Kathy’s scream, the two security guards hired especially by Danny Finn had come upon Kowalski, peering over the edge of his platform at her body sprawled down below. He had reacted by leaping to his feet, swinging the length of timber, so that they had felt no compunction in using their sticks to beat him into a more co-operative state, with the result that he now had a heavily bandaged crown, one purple, swollen eye and a bandaged hand. The security men had radioed for the emergency services, as well as for Danny Finn, who arrived on the scene shortly after Brock. By that stage the rescue team had managed to extricate Kathy, badly injured, from the pit, and sent her off in an ambulance. Kowalski too had been taken to hospital, with Bren and another detective, to have his injuries X-rayed and dressed before he was pronounced fit for questioning.
It was Finn who explained to Brock about Peg’s box in the foundations of the building, and her announcement at Eleanor’s funeral. Together they went down to see where Felix Kowalski had been disturbed as he sliced away the polythene sheeting which had been wrapped around the box. Grunting with effort, Finn pulled the sheeting away to reveal a shiny black cube.
‘I thought you said it was a wooden box?’
‘Aye, it is. But it’s covered with bituminous paint-that black stuff. It’s used for waterproofing.’ He poked gingerly at a corner of the dark shape and his finger came away covered with black goo. ‘You’d get in a real mess trying tae get it off now tae get at the screw heads holding the lid down. Do ye really need tae get into it?’ Finn looked doubtfully at Brock. He was panting with his exertions, his breath steaming white in the glare of the arc lights which had been set up overhead for Kathy’s rescue, and were now being dismantled.
‘What did Peg put inside?’
Finn shook his head. ‘I don’t know. She came down tae the site office about 6 this evening with this big handbag she carries, and I left her alone for a couple of minutes. I offered her plastic bags tae put the canister of ashes and whatever else she had in, but she preferred tae wrap them in newspaper. I suppose suggesting plastic bags was a bit tactless under the circumstances. Then I screwed down the lid, and the two men from the security firm carried it down here with me. I had a drum of the bitumen paint, and I more or less poured it all over the box tae seal it. It won’t set in this cold. Does it really matter what’s inside?’
‘Probably not. When will it get concreted in?’
‘Depends on the weather. Supposed tae be tomorrow, but with this cold, and more snow forecast tonight… We’ll just have tae see.’
‘Will you keep the security men on?’
‘Aye. I promised Peg they’d stay till the concrete’s poured. I want tae find out where the hell they were when Kathy and that bastard were down here. By the time I’ve finished with them, they’ll never move from this spot again, I can promise ye that.’
Kowalski was talking in a calm, almost amused tone when Brock entered the interview room. Bren stopped him, and had him repeat the earlier part of his story for Brock’s benefit. He had been on his way home from the conference he had been attending at the University of Nottingham, he said. When he arrived back in London, he decided to go to Eleanor’s funeral before catching the train home to Enfield. He had read the announcement in The Times while he was away, and the arrival of his train at Euston just gave him time to catch a taxi out to the crematorium for the service. He wasn’t really sure why he had bothered, apart from curiosity. When he heard Peg’s strange announcement about her sister’s remains, he recalled something his father had once mentioned, about the sisters owning valuable family papers which they were unwilling to part with. He wondered if this was their way to hide them, and thought it at least worth investigating. It was a stupid thing to do, he now acknowledged-he was guilty of trespassing on the building site-but then it had seemed a fortuitous way in which the sisters might repay his parents for the trouble and distress they had suffered through Meredith’s meddling. The beauty of it was that, though technically a theft, no one would know that the papers had been removed, and so no one would be the worse for his actions. He paused briefly to look over his shoulder and smile with satisfaction at Brock, then continued his story. The accident with the woman police officer was very distressing. While he was trying to get at the box, he heard her on the scaffolding. The noise alarmed him, and he began to leave. However, when he saw her walk across the plank, then slip and fall, he tried to go to her assistance, but had been prevented by the security men, who without provocation had assaulted him.
Felix Kowalski related these details in a normal voice, and when Gurney probed and questioned his account, responded quickly with an air of confident reasonableness. Nevertheless, Brock, from the other side of the room, thought he detected the unnatural glitter of shock and adrenalin in the man’s eyes. And something else. Whenever his interrogator looked away, Kowalski would flick up his eyes and glare at him, only softening his gaze once Gurney returned his attention to him. Brock recalled this vividly from the interview which he and Kathy had had with Kowalski the previous September in his father’s empty shop. It was the flicker of an intense anger. Why anger? It seemed an odd, almost involuntary response, as if anger had rooted itself so deeply in the man that it had taken the place of fear, shame and guilt.
For half an hour Brock watched silently as Gurney tried to shake Kowalski, then he got up quietly and left.
There were endless waves of nausea. Each time the brain struggled through the nightmare dark into consciousness it was only to achieve a few moments of agonized retching, hot with curry and bile, and then to slide back into the foul dark again. The eyes wouldn’t open, and the struggle went on with her unaware that Brock was there, frustrated at his inability to help her.
When finally the retching stopped, the brain was overwhelmed by a sensation of clammy claustrophobia. It tried to tell the mouth to cry out a warning. Someone is trying to suffocate me. But nothing came, and the brain slid away into darkness.
Brock watched her become calm at last, falling back into sleep. He sighed, nodded to the nurse and left.
Brock and Gurney spoke in the corridor outside the interview room.
‘I can’t shake him on any of it. He’s a superior little prick. He talks as if he’s not got a worry in the world.’ Gurney didn’t try to hide his anger from Brock, just as he hadn’t from Kowalski.