is to be OK, yes? Krystka?’
Oh … crap. ‘You know her? The young Polish woman?’
‘My siostrzenica. How you say this? Brother’s daughter?’
‘Niece.’
‘Niece? Yes, niece. She come over here to get better job. Stay with me and Fryderyk. Send money home to her family. Now look…’ She sniffed.
Logan tried to sound reassuring. ‘I’m sure she’ll be fine. The doctors here are very good.’ They’d better be: he didn’t need any more guilt.
‘I see her in newspaper as unknown person: my brother’s daughter is unknown person. I am so ashamed.’
At least Finnie’s appeal for information had been good for something.
‘Do you know who she was working for?’
The little woman shrugged. ‘She never want to speak about it. Back home she is model for clothes. Very beautiful. Look …’ The woman went rummaging in a handbag the size of a small country, and produced an envelope with ‘PHOTOGRAPHS DO NOT BEND’ printed on it. She pulled out a glossy eight-by-ten of a young woman posing in a studio somewhere, wearing nothing but her underwear and a smile. She was stunning. Hard to believe it was the same person lying in the hospital bed.
‘Wow.’
‘She was most beautiful girl in Włoszczowski… Look what they have done to her.’
Logan turned the photo over, there was something scrawled on the back: ‘KRYSTKA GORZAŁKOWSKA’ and a mobile phone number. ‘Can I keep this?’ Adding a hasty, ‘I’m a police officer,’ just in case she thought he was a pervert.
The little woman looked him up and down. ‘You can keep.’
‘And you’re sure you don’t know who she worked for?’
‘All she say is she work for crocodile man.’
‘Crocodile…’ Logan closed his eyes and swore.
Steel was waiting for him back in the ward. The old lady in the corner bed had fallen asleep – lying starfish-spread under the covers, snoring.
‘Where the hell you been?’
‘Find your ring?’
The inspector held up her hand and there it was. ‘Must’ve been off my head last night. Found it stuffed inside a tub of anti-wrinkle cream.’
From the look of things, it wasn’t working.
Logan hooked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Got a small detour to make on the way home.’
‘Oh, you’re kidding me! First you bugger off for half an hour, and now you want to—’
‘Got to see a man about a porn film.’
And with that, Steel’s face blossomed into a smile. ‘Well why didn’t you say so?’ She hurried past, pulling her Barbie-pink suitcase behind her. ‘There’s always time for pornography!’
ClarkRig Training Systems Ltd was an industrial unit hidden away down a little alleyway off Hutcheon Street. Logan parked the inspector’s Mazda at the front door, next to a battered Volvo Estate, and Steel climbed out into the sunshine, still clutching Krystka Gorzałkowska’s photograph.
Logan locked the car. ‘You finished drooling over that yet?’
‘I’m no’ drooling, I’m assessing the evidence. And you can talk, had to prise it out of your hands with a bloody crowbar.’ She stopped and stared up at the ClarkRig sign. ‘You sure she was getting forced to make porn films?’
‘That’s what she told me. Said they’d get her deported if she refused.’
The inspector blew a long wet raspberry. ‘Silly cow. She’s Polish – a member of our glorious European Union, how are we going to deport her? We can’t even deport convicted bloody terrorists.’
‘Well, obviously she didn’t know that.’
‘You know what I think? I think Gorza-le-kowska—’
‘“Gorzałkowska”. You pronounce an L with a line through it like a W.’
‘Aye, thank you professor. If I want a bloody language lesson I’ll show up to the ones at the station.’ Steel hitched her trousers up. ‘As I was saying: she’s been making porn films and now she’s scared her family’s going to find out. So what does she do – admit she’s in it for the money, or say a bad man made her do it?’
‘If she’s telling the truth—’
‘I’ll buy you a big sodding T-shirt with “I told you so” printed on it. That make you happy?’ Steel was already heading for the front door. ‘Come on. Less talk, more porn.’
Reception was an airy room, the walls covered with safety industry awards and framed DVDs. A pair of ancient film projectors sat in the middle of the polished wooden floor, in matching glass cases. Leather couches, steel coffee tables. Everything gleamed and sparkled. No sign of naked flesh anywhere.
DI Steel marched straight up to the long mahogany reception desk, banged on it with her fist and shouted, ‘SHOP!’
A round face appeared from one of the doors behind the desk, bringing with it a cheery smile. ‘Can I help you?’ She was in her late sixties with dyed brown hair, arms like sides of ham, and as she wobbled towards her chair it looked as if her stomach was giving them a Mexican wave.
Steel stood entranced. ‘Bloody hell, it’s like—’
Logan took over before the inspector got them thrown out. ‘Is Mr Clark about?’
‘Whom shall I say is calling?’
‘Detective Sergeant McRae. We met a couple of—’
‘Oh aye! I remember you fine!’ She dropped the posh accent and beamed at him. ‘You just go straight through, he’s in the editing suite.’
Steel raised her eyebrows. ‘No’ a safety film is it?’
‘Oh no.’ She winked. ‘It’s one of our special ones.’
The editing suite was a bank of keyboards, dials, sliders and switches, dominated by a dozen flat-screen monitors. All of them full of naked people inserting things into each other. And for some strange reason, everyone was singing. Every time the cameras moved there was a flash of bright blue or green scenery.
Steel paused in the doorway, looking up at the wall of flickering flesh. ‘Bleeding heck …’
‘Hmmmph?’ The man sitting in
