‘I wasn’t there, I tell you!’
‘We think you were.’ Annie actually doubted that Flinders had the bottle to watch Robert Tamm torture and drown Mihkel Lepikson, but she was aiming for maximum discomfort. People seemed to think the police fitted people up all the time, so why not let Flinders believe that he was going to get fitted up for conspiracy to murder.
Flinders licked his lips. ‘I should go. I have to get to the airport. I have a flight to catch.’
‘I don’t think that’s going to happen,’ said Annie. ‘You might as well relax and get used to the idea. I hope you took out some cancellation insurance.’
‘But you can’t... I mean, I have freedom of movement. I—’
‘Like your workers?’
‘I resent that.’
‘Shut up, Mr Flinders I’m sick of your whining. Where’s Krystyna?’
‘Who?’
‘Krystyna? The girl you picked up this morning at the yeast factory where some of your migrant crew used to work.’
‘I don’t know wh—’
‘You were seen. Your car was seen. Your man in the gatehouse told me everything. Didn’t seem to think he’d done anything wrong. We know that nobody showed up for their shift yesterday morning, the morning after Corrigan was killed. We think you’re running scared because you’re worried that what happened to him might happen to you. You cut the crew loose, but the guard on the gate phoned you when he saw Krystyna hanging around the gates. She was looking for her friend Ewa. Krystyna had been gone for over a week, since the day Mihkel Lepikson was killed, in fact. You were worried she knew something. What have you done with her?’
Flinders was very red. He flopped into an armchair beside the bed and his head sank to his chest. His breathing sounded laboured. Annie glanced at Winsome, a little alarmed, worried that he’d had a heart attack or something. He fumbled in his pocket, brought out a little cylinder, then opened his mouth and sprayed lightly under his tongue. ‘Nitro-glycerin,’ he said, patting his chest.
Annie knelt so that her eyes were level with the top of Flinders’ head and spoke softly. ‘Take it easy. It’s all over now, Roddy. Tell us where she is and things will go better for you.’
‘I never wanted any of this,’ Flinders said. ‘Nobody was supposed to get killed. Nobody. Do you understand? That wasn’t part of the plan. I abhor violence. Nobody was supposed to die. I had nothing to do with any killing.’
Annie felt a chill run through her. Was he referring only to Corrigan, Quinn and Lepikson, or did he mean that Krystyna was dead, too? ‘That’s what you get for playing with the big boys. You can’t just pick up your toys and go home whenever you want. You’re in, and you’re in deep. Accessory to murder. It’ll help if you tell us where Krystyna is.’
Flinders raised his mournful, tear-stained face to hers. ‘I told you, I don’t know. I haven’t see her.’
‘But you do know her?’
‘If you say she’s one of my workers, then I suppose I must do. I don’t know them all by name. Can’t even pronounce most of them.’
‘Have you hurt her, Roddy?’
‘I haven’t hurt anyone.’
They went back downstairs. Annie looked towards the open kitchen. ‘Is there a cellar here?’
‘No.’ Flinders answered just a little too quickly, and sounded just a little too desperate.
Annie pointed to a door beside the stainless steel fridge. ‘Where does that door lead?’
‘Nowhere. It’s just a larder.’
‘I’ll go see,’ Annie said to Winsome. ‘Why don’t you stay here and keep Mr Flinders company? He still seems a bit peaky to me. We don’t want him having a coronary or something, do we?’
‘You can’t do this. It’s private. It’s—’
But Annie had already opened the door, and what she saw was a flight of stairs leading down to a basement. It probably wasn’t a cellar in the old sense, coal cellars having been out of fashion for many years now, but a lot of modern houses had basement areas that could be used for storage, entertainment rooms, or even extra living space. Annie flicked the light switch, but nothing happened.
She turned to Flinders across the room. ‘No lights?’
‘I never go down there.’
‘Got a torch?’
‘No.’
Annie searched through the drawers and cupboards in the kitchen, and finally found a small torch, along with a box of candles and matches. She checked to make sure the battery worked and set off down the wooden steps. The basement floor was concrete, and the large area under the house was separated into a number of rooms or storage areas by wooden partitions. Annie could make out some lawn furniture, an old barbecue, a bicycle with flat tyres, an upturned wheelbarrow, some camping equipment, an ancient radiogram.
She stood still, shone her torch into the dark the corners and walls and called out, ‘Krystyna!’
She thought she heard a sound. Hardly daring to breathe, she listened closely. It could be a mouse or something, though it sounded more like a muffled voice trying to speak. She couldn’t be completely clear where it was coming from, so she began a systematic search in the general direction.
In the third partitioned area she entered, the torchlight picked out a small bundle curled on the floor in the foetal position. On examination, this turned out to be because Krystyna’s feet and arms were tied in such a way that she could stretch neither without tightening the rope around her neck.
Annie dashed over and tore off the sticky tape that covered Krystyna’s lips, then she pulled out the rag that had been shoved in her mouth. Krystyna gagged and coughed while Annie worked on the ropes, which she finally managed to untie. When Krystyna was free at last, she threw her arms around Annie’s neck and buried her face in her shoulder, crying and muttering thanks or prayers in Polish. Annie got her to her feet, and together they made their way upstairs. When Annie appeared with Krystyna in the kitchen, Flinders held his head in his hands and wept.
‘What were you going to do with her while you buggered off to Mexico, Rod? Leave her down there to starve or suffocate to death alone in the dark? She’s half starved to start with. It wouldn’t have taken long. Or had you been in touch with Robert Tamm? Was he going to come down and take care of her after you’d gone, do your dirty business for you? Like he killed Mihkel Lepikson and Bill Quinn?’
‘That wasn’t my idea,’ said Flinders through his tears. ‘None of it was my idea. I told you. Nobody was supposed to get killed. Nobody was supposed to get hurt.’
Annie stood up. For the first time in many a year she wanted to kick someone hard in the balls. But she suppressed the urge and tightened her arm around Krystyna. ‘We’ll sort out the blame later,’ she said. ‘First we’ll get you to the station and see how sweetly you can sing.’
Chapter 12
Stone walls do not a prison make / Nor iron bars a cage. The lines from the old poem came to Banks as he got out of the taxi in front of Patarei. Perhaps in some cases, that was true, he thought, but nobody had mentioned it to the builders of this prison. Beyond the rusted, graffiti-covered gates, a guard tower stood commanding a view over a prison yard overgrown with weeds and scattered with rubbish. The long grey brick building stretched alongside it.
Banks followed the signs to what he thought was the entrance, all the while keeping his eyes open for a tail. But he saw no one. Eventually he came to the entrance. Beside it stood a small ticket office in which an old woman sat alone. She took some euros from him, gave him a guidebook, then smiled, showing a relatively toothless mouth, and pointed the way in. Banks thought she was probably the first Estonian he had met who didn’t seem to speak English. Perhaps she didn’t speak at all.