Anya Lipska - Death Can’t Take a Joke

Around forty minutes later, Scarface re-emerged. Expressionless, he retrieved the plastic-wrapped parking ticket that a warden had left pinned under his wiper and dropped it into the gutter, before pulling out into the stream of traffic. Janusz decided that his disfigurement was a burn, despite its neat edges – the sort of thing that might be caused if someone had pressed a red-hot iron bar against the side of his face.

Janusz took his time finishing his drink and headed over to the café. Inside, it was surprisingly plush, kitted out with low, upholstered seating and Middle Eastern-style wall hangings. To the café’s rear, a doorway hung with heavy dark red velvet curtains led to what he assumed was a private salon. The Christmas cake smell of fruit-flavoured shisha tobacco hung in the air. Opposite the long glass counter was a giant TV screen tuned to Al Jazeera, on which a female presenter in a headscarf was interviewing an Israeli diplomat. English subtitles revealed that the subject of the interview was the shelling of southern Israel by Hamas militants in Gaza; attacks returned – with sky-high inflation – by Israeli forces. Not for the first time, the shared guttural phonetics of the Arabic and Hebrew languages struck Janusz as deeply ironic.

A young man aged about eighteen or nineteen, wearing a Galatasaray shirt, appeared behind the counter through a tinkling bead curtain. He greeted Janusz across the counter: if he was surprised to find a big white Pole wearing a military greatcoat in a shisha café, he didn’t show it.

Janusz pretended to be checking out the trays of sticky-looking pastries. There were squares of filo layered with green pistachio paste, nests of deep fried vermicelli, syrup-slicked dumpling balls … Dupa blada! You could get diabetes just looking at this stuff.

He made a random selection, then threw in: ‘Is the boss around today?’

The kid paused, the serrated jaws of his steel tongs hovering over a pastry, and flashed Janusz a smile. ‘I’m the boss,’ he said, gesturing at a document on the wall behind him.

Yeah , thought Janusz, and I’m the Dalai Llama.

‘That’s too bad,’ said Janusz. ‘I might have some information that would work to his advantage.’

The guy shrugged regretfully, as though to say if Janusz refused to believe him, there was nothing he could do about it.

Janusz turned to watch the TV, which had now moved on to the situation in Syria, a conflict so savage it made the Hamas–Israel stand-off look like a game of pat-a-cake. A moment later, the velvet drapes guarding the private sanctum were parted by a tall, mournful-looking man with a moustache. After giving Janusz a tiny nod of acknowledgement, he stood beside him looking up at the TV.

‘What is it you are selling, my friend?’ he asked in a soft voice.

‘I’ve just inherited a business, round the corner from here,’ said Janusz, ‘and I’m offering special rates to my fellow businessmen in Hoe Street.’

He turned to receive the box of pastries from the kid, passing a tenner across the counter.

‘If it is a Polish supermarket,’ said the man, ‘I’m afraid we buy our supplies from Costco.’ His gaze flicked back to the television, signalling an end to the conversation.

Janusz pocketed the change the kid gave him. ‘No, nothing like that,’ he said with a grin.

The man didn’t move his gaze from the screen. ‘What sort of business are we talking about then?’

Janusz held his silence until, finally, the man turned to look at him.

‘I suppose you’d call it a fitness club,’ he said. ‘Used to be run by a good friend of mine. It’s called Jim’s Gym.’

The man blinked, once. Left a pause that was just a fraction of a second too long. ‘I’m not familiar with it. But I’m afraid I am not a great exercise enthusiast.’

‘Pity. But if you do change your mind, drop in any time,’ said Janusz, holding out one of Jim’s cards. ‘We do a really competitive off-peak membership.’ When the man made no move to take it, Janusz left it on the countertop.

It was almost dark when he emerged onto Hoe Street and the temperature had taken a nosedive, but after the warm sweet fug of the café he welcomed the clean chilly air. As he navigated his way through the rush-hour throng he reflected on what he’d just done. It had been a moment of impulse, an urge to heave a boulder into the lake, to see where the ripples might meet land. He had no idea whether the Turk who owned the Pasha Café would report back to his Romanian associate. Nor had he any clue to the nature of their dealings, or whether they were in some way connected to Jim’s murder. All Janusz had was a powerful hunch: that the girl Varenka leaving flowers for Jim meant something . And he’d bet his apartment that the ‘something’ would lead him right back to Scarface.

Outside Walthamstow tube, he paused, and pulled out his phone: by the time he surfaced at Highbury it would be past office hours.

‘ Czesc, Wiktor! How’s the weather in Swansea? … Oh? Shame. Listen, have you had a chance to check that reg number I texted you? That’s right, a black Land Rover Discovery …’

His big face creased in a smile. ‘ Wspaniale ! Text me over the address, would you?’

Kershaw woke from sleep with a violent start, convinced there was an intruder in her flat. She held her breath, straining to hear what might have woken her. Then she heard the fridge door slam, hard enough to clank the bottles in the door against each other. Ben.

She threw herself back down and, putting a pillow over her head, waited for her heartbeat to subside. Just as she was starting to drift off, she heard the ringtone of Ben’s mobile, muffled at first, like it was in his pocket, then getting louder as he retrieved it.

Fuck! Until now, having their own flats – hers at the wrong end of Canning Town, his in leafy Wanstead – meant that even though they spent most nights together, if she felt in need of a bit of space or a solid night’s sleep, she could always escape. It struck her that in ten days’ time, after they moved in together, that would no longer be an option.

Pulling on a dressing gown, she padded into the kitchen where she found Ben, bleary-eyed, a half-eaten kebab in front of him on the table, his mobile clamped to his ear. He looked up, and waved his free hand at the phone, his face telegraphing comic apology.

‘Yeah, I know,’ he said. ‘Great to see you, too. Remember what I said, alright? Yeah, mate, definitely.’