‘It was minus 50 the first winter. Men died like snowflakes on a hot stove. I was young. I survived.’ Bracing his shoulders, he took a surprisingly large bite of his sandwich.
‘How long were you there?’
Stefan took his time finishing his mouthful, before dabbing his lips with a napkin. ‘They let me out in ’42 to join Anders’ Army – the Allies were desperate for young men by that time. So I exchanged Siberia for la bella Italia.’
‘You fought in Italy?’ Janusz was impressed: General Anders’ Second Polish Corps had played a decisive role in the Allied push through Italy, earning renown for their bravery at the Battle of Monte Cassino. ‘Yes. That was where I mislaid my kneecap, just outside Ancona.’
Janusz struggled to think of something to say that wouldn’t be a platitude: he always felt overawed to hear of the bravery and sacrifice made by the wartime generation of his fellow Poles. Stefan would have grown up under the Second Republic, when Poland had been one of the great European powers – until its invasion by the Nazis from one side, and the Red Army from the other. Then, to have survived Kolyma – the most brutal place in the entire gulag, graveyard to hundreds of thousands of Poles and countless other ‘enemies of socialism’ – to fight as an Allied soldier … and for what? To see America and Britain deliver his country into the arms of Stalin and decades of Soviet rule.
Stefan was frowning down at his stick-like wrists as if they belonged to someone else. ‘I was built like a bull, then, though you wouldn’t believe it now.’ Suddenly he flapped his free hand. ‘Anyway, that’s all ancient history, old men’s war stories. What about you? I take it you’re some kind of insurance investigator?’
Janusz paused. Put like that, he wasn’t at all sure he liked the sound of his new role. Private investigator was one thing, ‘insurance investigator’ summoned up something more corporate and somehow less … honorowy – especially when measured alongside Stefan’s life. He realised he felt something close to envy for the old man’s generation. He would never experience an existential fight, never be part of a band of brothers. He remembered something someone had once said on the subject that had always stuck in his mind: ‘War exists so that men can experience unconditional love.’
He laid out the bare bones of what he was doing for Haven – avoiding any confidential details – while making it plain that most of his work as a private investigator was carried out not for corporations but on behalf of fellow Poles.
The opening bars of a Chopin polka sounded from Stefan’s pocket. Setting down his sandwich, he pulled out an iPhone – Janusz was amused to see it was the latest model – and using a stylus device, tapped in his passcode.
‘Forgive me,’ he said, squinting at the screen, ‘I’m playing chess with someone in Kiev and the bastard has just threatened my queen.’
While Stefan decided his next move, Janusz took the opportunity to check his own phone. He wanted to find out what time Kasia would be arriving at the flat with her stuff that evening, but the two texts he’d sent since they parted on Saturday had so far gone unanswered.
Still nothing. There was, however, a missed call from Barbara, her partner in the nail bar.
‘Janek,’ she said, her voice strung as tight as piano wire. ‘Please call me the minute you get this. It’s urgent.’
Kershaw swiped her card at the entrance of the SCO19 office, trying to ignore the sour churning in her gut – which wasn’t entirely down to the bottle of Shiraz followed by Metaxa chasers she’d put away the previous night while watching some forgettable DVD box-set.
Throughout the long months of the internal inquiry, then the inquest, she’d convinced herself that once she’d been exonerated – and she’d never seriously considered the alternative – she’d be out on shouts within a few weeks. Yesterday’s session with the shrink had upended a bucket of cold water over that idea. She cursed her own naivety: she should have known they’d make her jump through hoops before she got back her firearms authorisation – if only for the benefit of the media.
‘Here she is,’ said a friendly voice. It was Matt, her fellow crewmate in the ARV on the day that Kyle Furnell had got shot. He set a mug of tea down on her desk. ‘Saw you parking up, so I made you a brew.’
‘That’s very thoughtful of you, Matt,’ she said, raising a quizzical eyebrow. ‘You’re not working up to a proposal of marriage, are you?’
He pretended to consider the idea, before shaking his head. ‘Nah. No offence, Nat, but I’ve set my heart on having kids who’ll grow up bigger than hobbits.’
With the routine hostilities out of the way, Matt sat down at his desk, opposite hers. ‘You all right?’ he asked – concern softening his features. She pulled a half shrug, half nod. ‘You did get my message, after the inquest?’
‘Yeah, thanks for that, Matt. Sorry I didn’t reply. I decided to have a quiet weekend, you know, after all the hoo-hah last week.’ She’d almost taken Matt up on his suggestion of a few jars down the local to celebrate the result, but after seeing the news report with Kyle Furnell’s mum, she just hadn’t felt like it.
He nodded. ‘I can imagine. I just wanted you to know that everyone here was made up for you, after the coroner gave you the all-clear?’
‘Ah, bless them,’ she said. A year ago, after the shooting, when she’d got back to the unit, all the guys had made a point of coming over to tell her they’d have done exactly the same thing in her situation. Well, nearly all the guys. ‘What about Lee Carver?’ she asked, eyebrows raised. They both knew there would be a few in SCO19 who’d be revelling in her recent troubles, older guys who still had a visceral reaction to the idea of a woman carrying – aka armed. Lee Carver, a firearms training instructor in his fifties, was one of them.
‘Well, maybe not him.’ Matt sank his head into his shoulders and deepened his voice to an inarticulate growl. ‘The only thing I want to see a female carrying is my dinner – on a fucking tray.’
They both laughed – but Kershaw’s heart wasn’t really in it.
During her first week of firearms training, Carver had more or less blanked her – pointedly avoiding eye contact and only addressing her when it was absolutely necessary. Then, out on the range one day, just as she was lining up on a target, he’d dropped to a crouch alongside her. ‘Help me out would you, Kershaw?’ he murmured close by her ear, all friendly curiosity.
‘Yes, Skipper?’ Men like Carver loved being called Skipper.
‘You are a woman, right?’ He let his eyes flick down to her breasts, once – as if they puzzled him.
‘Yes, Skipper.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ She could still see his hot blue eyes, inches from her face, and smell the gusts of his notoriously rank breath. ‘So what exactly are you doing here – on my fucking range?’
Pretty much everyone on the course – all of them guys her age or a few years older – thought Carver was a knuckle-dragging gobshite. And if Kershaw had reported his outburst, he’d have been chin-deep in shit. But that wasn’t her way: never had been, in all the four and a half years she’d been in the Job. No. Her
