that come along? Davy can hear Manon’s voice saying, ‘Fucking never, if you’re me.’
‘Right,’ Bridget says, after a search on her computer. ‘We don’t have Lukas Balsys on our books. But that’s not unusual. Half these guys are not documented at all. He might be new. If I were you, I’d start at the HMO on Prospect Place. It’s the Lithuanian hub, if you like. But beware of the house spokesman. Someone will be pushed in your face who speaks good English and he’ll feed you a load of hokum about how happy they all are. Yes, yes, very heppy, very nice place.’ She says this last bit in a thick Russian accent. ‘You won’t get a straight answer out of them. Take an interpreter. And try to shake off Edikas. They won’t say a word with him in the room.’
‘Righto,’ he says, wondering if he could depart with something more flirty, but the subject matter of their conversation made this seem distasteful. Murder chat versus flanter (flirty banter). Murder chat wins. The attic room smells really nice – of Bridget’s floral perfume.
‘By the way, Davy?’ she says as he makes to leave. ‘It’s unusual that the note was in Lithuanian. Most of the guys who come over are Baltic Russians. Just thought it might help.’
‘So, not from Lithuania then?’ he asks, confused.
‘Yes, from Lithuania, but Baltic Russians from Lithuania. There’s loads of them, especially in Klaipeda, the town where they’re usually from. They relocated there during the Soviet occupation.’
Davy pulls up outside a red-brick terraced house with plastic windows, front garden piled with rubbish that is escaping its bags. The house next door is immaculate.
‘This must be driving them mad,’ Davy says to the interpreter who is following him up the path. Davy gives him a glance, which is part grimace, intended to say ‘it’s going to be unpleasant in here’.
Initially, no one answers the door. They ring and knock again, Davy shouts ‘Police!’ through the letter box.
Eventually, a sleepy man in tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt opens the door, leaves it open and walks away from them, back up the stairs, without speaking.
They stand awkwardly in the hallway until a rotund, bald man greets them from the back of the house, holding out his hand.
‘Hello, I’m Edikas. How can I help you?’ he says. In Russian.
Edikas arranges for Davy to talk to various residents. It is an awkward business as there is no seating – what would have been a lounge is set with mattresses, and the kitchen is a galley without a table. The house is dirty – smells of microwaved dinners, the kind made from meat of unknown provenance.
Davy stands at the doorway to one of the bedrooms with his notepad. His interviewee sits on a mattress, knees up, back to the wall. He doesn’t make eye contact. Everyone denies knowing Lukas or anything about Lukas.
The interpreter looks uncomfortable as he translates. He can speak both Lithuanian and Russian, as most older Lithuanians can. He casts an anxious glance at Davy, then looks at his notepad and holds out his hands. Davy hands the interpreter his notepad.
Scared, the interpreter writes. The word is underlined. Then he writes, Can you distract him?
‘A word out back, if you don’t mind,’ Davy says to Edikas.
‘When you have finished, we talk,’ Edikas replies, in English this time, folding his arms.
‘What’s this fella called?’ Davy asks, bending to pet the dog. The dog bares its teeth, snarling.
‘Skirta,’ says Edikas. ‘It mean devoted in my language.’
He is glancing into the bedroom where the interpreter is whispering to the interviewee. ‘What are you saying to my friend?’ Edikas demands loudly.
The man who had opened the door to them, the one in tracksuit bottoms, enters the kitchen and opens various cupboards. Edikas shouts at him in Russian, the man protests, but weakly. His face is ravaged with exhaustion. From the exchange, Davy guesses the man wanted food and Edikas told him he couldn’t have any. The man trudges away again up the stairs.
‘They never stop eating,’ Edikas explains.
Davy steps into the bedroom where the interpreter is trying to get blood from a stone. It should be him leading the questioning, not the interpreter, so he intervenes.
‘Did you know Lukas Balsys?’ Davy asks.
The interpreter relays.
The migrant on the mattress shrugs.
‘Is that yes or no?’ Davy asks.
Another shrug.
‘Would you like to come down to the station and talk to us there?’
Edikas enters. ‘You cannot take him to police station unless he is under arrest. What can be for arresting? Nothing!’
‘Do you know what happened to Lukas Balsys?’ Davy asks, deciding to attempt an interview despite the obstacles.
Another languid shrug.
He writes on his pad. Tell him we can protect him if he talks to us. He shows this to the interpreter.
The interpreter writes, I cannot tell him this without also telling the heavy. And he nods at Edikas.
‘Did Lukas have any things?’ Davy asks Edikas. ‘That he left in the house?’
Edikas nods and points to one of the mattresses. It is covered in a sheet that was once white but has a brown, human-shaped stain taking up most of its surface. Beside the mattress is a bottle of vitamin pills, a leather belt, a pair of socks.
‘What about his wallet, his phone?’ Davy asks.
Edikas shrugs. ‘That’s all,’ he says, nodding at the desultory collection of objects on the floor. Davy puts on a pair of gloves and places the objects into evidence bags.
He wants to get out. This isn’t the way to break open this hub. It’s a crime scene. It wants clearing out like a crime scene.
‘We can go,’ he says to the interpreter. He steps quickly around the mattresses and heads for the door.
Outside, Davy’s phone vibrates.
When will you be home Dudu Bear?
He looks at his watch. It’s only 4 p.m. and Juliet’s asking. He texts back, irritably.
Late. Job’s come in.
Can you give me an idea of time? Only it’s really hard to sleep if I don’t know when you’re coming in.
You sleep. I’ll go on the couch.
