Vasile Bocean. A Romanian whose halfway-good English had apparently lifted him out of the ranks, putting him into a permanent caravan with electricity. Vasile told them that, proud of his caravan. Couldn’t be more than twenty-four. Spiky hair with gold highlights.
Hitchin left them alone with Vasile and they talked outside the office, under a metal awning. Vasile seemed to be a permanent resident now, going out with a local girl and, yes, he certainly remembered the Marinescu sisters.
He beamed.
‘From village near Sighi oara.’
Bliss nodded. He knew that much. Confirmation had come in late this afternoon from the Romanian police. The parents already contacted, photos exchanged, talk of family members coming over to take the girls’ bodies home. Elly Clatter had finally put out the sisters’ names in time for the six o’clock news.
‘Sighi oara!’ A short laugh from Vasile Bocean. ‘Is very famous town. Very small but very famous.’
Vasile was grinning, as though Bliss and Karen ought to recognize the significance. ‘Sighi oara, Transylvania? Famous tourist place. Old-fashioned buildings, like Middle Ages. But most famous…’ Vasile raising his hands, making his fingers into claws ‘… as birthplace of Mr Dracula.’
‘Really.’
‘Vlad Tepes. Impaler.’
Bliss let Vasile enjoy himself explaining how this English writer had borrowed this notorious serial killer’s name and his castle and his reputation, turning the already uncuddly Vlad into an eternal emblem of the Undead.
‘These were country girls, then,’ Bliss said when it was over. ‘Unsophisticated.’
‘Huh?’
‘Simple. Simple girls.’
‘People there is all very weird, detective. Everything, they believe. Curses. Evil… omens? Spirits of the dead? Mr Dracula! Woowoo!’
‘I’m sure.’
‘These girls… full of all that.’ Vasile waggling his fingers. ‘Spooky stuff.’
Bliss exchanged glances with Karen, bulky in a blue fleece, looking like she wanted to be anywhere but here.
‘Simple country girls, Vasile… can get preyed on. Like Dracula preyed on girls?’
Karen gave him a look. Bliss heard the rattling of a breeze on polythene, glanced down the valley, where no lights were visible, probably because of dense woodland.
‘Who preyed on the Marinescu sisters, Vasile? You know, don’t you?’
Karen barely spoke to him until they were back on the outskirts of the city. It had started to rain.
‘I had to push him,’ Bliss said. ‘His English wasn’t that good. He needed direction.’
‘He was upset,’ Karen said. ‘He was shocked. His grasp of English wasn’t great. He was very distressed when you told him what was done to them. And you capitalized on that. He didn’t know… He didn’t even know they were dead.’
‘Yeh, it occurred to me, when he was having a laugh about Dracula, that Hitchin hadn’t bothered to tell him about the girls. The firm’s way of distancing itself. Saying, we just employ them, whatever they get up to in their own time… nothing to do with us.’
Bliss wondered what Vasile was paid as personnel liaison officer. He figured about fifty pence an hour more than the pickers.
‘At least we’ve planted the idea, Karen. He’ll be thinking about it. And then we go back and talk to him again.’
Sex, Vasile. I’m talking about sex. Don’t tell me it doesn’t go on – and not necessarily always with consent. Women get raped on these farms, Vasile, you know that. It’s just that they don’t come and tell us about it, because of the possible repercussions.
Vasile had said, Cushions?
Because they’re afraid of it coming back on them. People get beaten up on farms like this, too. Injured. Hurt. Isn’t that right, Vasile?
I never!
Our information, Vasile, is that these girls, they were having a bit of trouble while they were here. No, no, I’m not saying it was anything to do with you, but if you don’t tell us what you know, there might be repercussions when we eventually find out. You know what I’m saying?
Cushions?
Cushions, yeh.
‘It’s not as if he’d ever make a witness,’ Karen said as they came up to the Westgate traffic island. ‘Is it?’
‘I don’t expect that to be necessary, Karen.’
Listen to me, Vasile. Suppose the Marinescu sisters had been the victims of sexual harassment – men asking for sex in return for favours, easier work?
That never happen here! Vasile backing off, shaking his head, hands going like windscreen wipers on fast mode. I swear to you -
Vasile, a few people are known to have taken their own lives because of intimidation, bullying. Not here, maybe, but other farms. We know what goes on, and maybe we haven’t asked as many questions as we ought to have. But murder, this is very, very different. Two young women beaten to death in the city, right under our noses? Anybody who withholds information about that, doesn’t tell us what they know, we’re gonna take a very dim view of it. Maybe they’ll go to prison, these people who conceal information, maybe they’ll get deported?
Listen, detective, please, I tell you everything I know. These girls, all they talk about… is about how this place is bad.
In what way, Vasile?
With ghostmen! Mr Dracula!
Ghostmen.
Come in the night… I dunno…
Of course you dunno, because…
I’m telling you -
Because what came in the night, Vasile, was ordinary men. No, listen to what I’m saying. I’m talking about men from outside. You understand? I’m not trying to blame your people – your workers – for things they didn’t do. Which happens sometimes, doesn’t it? Sometimes they get the blame for bad things done by local men. Bosses. I know there was a boss who was very interested in some of the girls. And somehow… I think you know that, too.
‘The name Bull,’ Karen said. ‘All the name Bull meant to that boy was the murdered man on the farm. Who he felt he had to keep saying he didn’t know in case you were trying to hang that one on him as well.’
‘He knows more than he’s saying. He thinks he’s gorra good job, with prospects, and the future’s rosy, and no way he’s going to jeopardize that by grassing up somebody important. You notice how his English seemed to get gradually worse the more we pressed him?’
Bliss felt Karen’s wobble of rage.
‘We? We pressed him? This blind obsession with nailing Sollers Bull to the wall, it’s turning you into a-’
‘What?’
‘Something I never thought you were.’
‘Mother of God, this is nothing to do with what Sollers thinks about me, or how well he knows me father-in-law. Sollers finds a source of uncomplicated sex with women he doesn’t even have to talk to. Vasile is the… intermediary, shall we say?’
‘Pimp.’
‘Whatever. All this spooky girls, Transylvania shit – he thinks we’re that thick? This is an old-fashioned gut feeling, Karen. Remember them?’
‘Sure, and you’re an old-fashioned detective, Frannie. Which is no longer a compliment.’
‘The blokes those kids saw in the pub,’ Bliss said. ‘Who’s to say they weren’t paid to do it? One job, big money. They’re probably on their way home now.’
‘Pulling two murders together – one knife, one blunt-force – because they both have connections to a man you don’t like?’
‘It was you who-’
‘Yeah, and I said tell the DCI. Leave it to a senior officer who hasn’t got a very visible axe to grind.’
Bliss drove slowly down towards the turn-off for Gaol Street. Traffic was light. The higher than usual percentage of police cars was very evident. He wasn’t expecting to see Annie tonight, though a late-night phone call couldn’t be ruled out.
Karen was right. It was best.
He needed Annie to get Sollers. Needed Annie to want to get Sollers.