Anya Lipska - A Devil Under the Skin

‘What’s up?’ asked Matt.

‘Guess what I’m gonna be doing the rest of the day?’

Matt shrugged.

‘Cleaning weapons in the armoury. Five years as a cop, two as a detective, all that grief getting my ticket to carry? And now I’ve literally been demoted to oily rag.’

The nail bar business that Kasia co-owned with Barbara stood in one of the farthest reaches of Stratford’s old shopping centre. Built in the early seventies, when poured concrete was the building material of choice for the trend-conscious architect, the mall squatted sulkily in the midst of Stratford’s one-way system, ugly sister to the glittering new towers of Westfield Stratford City across the way.

In fact, Janusz had always preferred the older, shabbier development over the flashy new pretender. For starters, it still housed an old-fashioned market on weekdays that – alongside the familiar ranks of anaemic Dutch tomatoes and golden delicious – now also boasted a Lithuanian stall selling passable kielbasa and decent pickles.

As he pushed open the door of Elegant Nailz, he was hit by a vaporous wave of solvent that made his eyes water. The place was more of a glorified kiosk than a proper shop, the original premises having been split down the middle to create two shop fronts, the other housing a shoe repairers run by a family from Hong Kong. There was barely enough room for three nail tables, but Kasia and Barbara did a brisk enough trade in acrylic and gel extensions to keep them busy past 7 p.m. most evenings.

Barbara was working on the nails of a pretty black girl with long straightened hair. Turning on the tabletop fan, she left her client drying her talons under the air stream and came over to the minuscule reception desk, to embrace him.

‘I kept getting your voicemail,’ he said. ‘So I came straight over. What’s up?’

‘Have you heard anything from Kasia?’ Her anxious eyes scanned his face.

‘ Nie. Not for a couple of days.’ Seeing Barbara’s pretty features crumple at his response, Janusz felt a physical sense of dread – as if someone just blasted his gut full of quick-setting cement.

‘I haven’t seen her since Saturday,’ Barbara went on. ‘When she didn’t turn up this morning I wasn’t too worried – Monday mornings are always quiet so she often works from home on the website, or following up email queries. You know me, I am a katastrofa with computers. But she missed three appointments this afternoon and her phone is going straight to voicemail – Kasia’s never done that before.’

After disgorging this rush of information, Barbara glanced over her shoulder and managed a smile at the black girl, still playing an invisible piano beneath the fan dryer. The girl returned the smile – she could see there was some drama unfolding between nail-lady and the big guy in the old-school army-style coat but since they were speaking Polish there was very little point in trying to earwig on their conversation.

Seeing how jittery Barbara was, Janusz took her hands in his and spoke quietly, reassuringly. ‘ Dobrze. So she came in on Saturday afternoon, right?’ – as he said it, he saw again Kasia trotting across Highbury Fields, her hair glinting in the sunshine.

‘ Tak. Around 4 p.m., in time for the late appointments. She left at seven.’

‘And you’ve had no contact since then?’ He kept his voice low and his eyes locked on hers.

‘ Zero .’

‘And … Steve?’

‘I can’t raise him either.’ Barbara’s voice fell to a whisper. ‘It’s as if they both dropped off the face of the earth.’

‘I am sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.’ Janusz dredged up a comforting grin. ‘Maybe she’s sick and Steve was meant to call you to let you know. You know what he’s like.’

She looked doubtful.

‘Look, I’m going to head over to the flat,’ he said. ‘Just to make sure everything’s okay.’

‘ Dobrze ,’ she sighed, twisting a bangle on her wrist. ‘I hope it’s the right thing to do.’ She met his gaze, before looking away, embarrassed. ‘You might run into Steve.’ As Kasia’s closest friend, Barbara knew all about their three-year affair, and – no doubt – the fact she was finally leaving Steve.

Barbara took a breath and for a moment seemed on the brink of saying more, but instead gave a tiny shake of her head. ‘Just be careful.’

He patted her hand. ‘Don’t you worry, Barbara, I can handle Steve.’

Twenty minutes later, he was approaching the Victorian terrace within sight of the Olympic stadium where Kasia and Steve lived, wondering what he’d say if he did encounter her husband. Their paths had crossed once before, after Kasia had turned up to meet Janusz sporting a black eye that make-up couldn’t quite conceal. After Janusz had coaxed out of her what had happened, he’d paid Steve a surprise visit, pretending to be Kasia’s cousin over from Poland, and given the chuj a taste of what it felt like to be on the wrong end of a fist. It seemed the encounter had achieved the intended effect – according to Kasia, he’d never raised his hand to her again.

It suddenly occurred to him that Kasia’s impending departure might have changed that. Was Kasia lying in a darkened room, ashamed to go out, wearing the souvenirs of her husband’s ungovernable rage? As that image rose before him, Janusz knocked on the front door of their maisonette louder than was really necessary. Far from being worried about bumping into Steve, he was starting to look forward to it.

When, after a second knock, it was clear that there was nobody home, Janusz pulled out the bump key he always carried with him. Twenty seconds of jiggling later and he was inside.

‘Kasia?’ he tried. ‘Steve?’ Nothing.

It was strange to be back here. The woodwork had been painted in one of those dreary heritage colours that Kasia liked – and she’d probably done the graft, too, no doubt while Steve was down the pub talking up his latest moneymaking scheme.

The place was as clean as a teardrop – even the skirting boards betrayed not a speck of dust – and the citrus smell of cleaning product sang in the air. The only sound was the discreet burble of the fridge freezer in the kitchen, where he found nothing out of place but for a single upended coffee cup in a rack on the draining board. He checked the fridge, which held a cling-filmed plateful of pierogi , a pint of fresh milk missing an inch, and a chiller drawer full of plastic wrapped vegetables, with use-by dates a couple of days hence.

So far, his professionalism had allowed Janusz to case the joint as if this were just another investigation, but he was finding it hard to fight down a yawing sensation in the pit of his stomach. Where was Kasia? And Steve? What the fuck was going on?

He realised he’d been putting off checking the bedroom till last. Grow up , he growled to himself as he opened the door.

Still, seeing the double bed, it was hard not to visualise Kasia lying there beside her husband. Janusz shut his eyes, trying to retrieve something she had said to him one night, early on in their relationship. How had she put it? Something like ‘the physical side of the marriage died a long time ago’.

The bedside tables bore no sign of any of the paraphernalia of illness – no water glass, no box of tissues. He tried the drawers of one, finding nothing more exciting than a Bible in Polish, a pair of women’s sunglasses he recognised as Kasia’s and a few female bits and bobs. Then he tried Steve’s side. Some survival book by an ex-SAS man, a few old lottery scratch cards (all losers – just like the fucker who bought them , he thought savagely) and a tatty photo of Kasia and Steve holding ice-cream cones, which looked like it had been taken ages ago, on holiday somewhere.