would be ready to face Daniel. She would have to be.
V
Ive Jelacic lived on the sixth floor of a ten-story block of flats in Burmantofts, off York Road. In the gray November drizzle, the maze of tall buildings reminded Banks of a newspaper picture he’d seen of workers’ quarters in some Siberian city.
“Charming, isn’t it?” said Detective Inspector Ken Blackstone, waiting for them outside. He looked at his watch. “Do you know, the council had to put slippery domes on all the roofs to stop kids climbing down on the upper balconies and breaking in through people’s windows?”
Immaculately dressed as usual, Blackstone made Banks aware that his top collar button was undone and his tie a little askew. Blackstone looked like an academic, with his wire-rimmed glasses, bookworm’s complexion and thinning sandy hair, a little curly around the ears, and he was, in fact, something of an expert on art and art fraud. Not that there was often much call for his area of expertise in Leeds. Nobody had knocked off any Atkinson Grimshaws recently, and only an idiot would try to fake a Henry Moore sculpture.
“Jelacic’s alibi checks out,” Blackstone said as they walked towards the entrance. “For what it’s worth. And we’ve had a poke about his flat. Nothing.”
“What do you think it’s worth?” Banks asked.
Blackstone pursed his cupid’s-bow lips. “Me? About as much as a fart in a bathtub. There were three of them- all Croatian. Stipe Pavic, Mile Pavelic and Vjeko Batorac. They’d probably swear night was day to protect one another from the police. Here it is. Take my word, the lift doesn’t work.”
Banks looked through the open sliding doors. The walls of the lift were covered in bright, spray-painted graffiti, and even from where he stood he could smell glue and urine. They took the stairs instead, surprising a couple of kids sniffing solvent on the third-floor stairwell. The kids ran. They knew the only people dressed like Blackstone in that neighborhood were likely to be coppers.
There were a few times when Banks regretted smoking, and the climb to the sixth-floor flat was one of them. Puffing for breath and sweating a little, he finally arrived at the outside walkway that went past the front doors.
Number 604 had once been red, but most of the paint had peeled off. It also looked as if it had been used for knife-throwing practice. Jelacic answered on the first knock, wearing jeans and a string vest. His upper body looked strong and muscular, and tufts of thick black hair spilled through the holes in the vest. With his height, longish hair and hooked nose, he certainly resembled the descriptions of the man seen in St. Mary’s yesterday evening.
“Why you bother me?” he said, standing aside to let them in and letting his eyes rest on Susan for longer than necessary. “I tell you already, I have done nothing.”
Inside, the flat was small enough to feel crowded with four people in it and tidy enough to surprise Banks. If nothing else, Ive Jelacic was a good housekeeper. An ironing board stood in one corner, with a shirt spread over it, and there was a small television set in the opposite corner. No video or stereo equipment in sight. The only other furniture in the room consisted of a battered sofa and a table with three chairs. Family photographs and a couple of religious icons stood on the mantelpiece over the electric fire.
“How are you making a living now, Mr. Jelacic?” Banks asked.
“Dole.”
“Do you own a car?”
“Why?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Da. Is old Ford Fiesta.”
“Did you drive it to Eastvale yesterday?”
Jelacic looked at Blackstone. “Ne. I tell him already. I play cards. Vjeko tells you. And Stipe and Mile.”
Jelacic sat down on his sofa, taking up most of it, and lit a cigarette. The room quickly began to fill with smoke. Blackstone stood with his back against the door, and Banks and Susan sat on the wooden chairs. Banks soon noticed the way Jelacic was sliding his eyes over Susan’s body, and he could tell Susan noticed it too, the way she made sure her skirt was pulled down as far over her knees as it would go and the way she kept her knees pressed tight together. But still Jelacic ogled.
“The thing is,” Banks said, “that people will often lie to cover for their friends, if they think a friend is in trouble.”
Jelacic leaned forward aggressively, muscles bulging in his arms and shoulders. “You call my friends liars! Jebem ti mater! You tell that to their face. Fascist police. upak.”
Banks held out a photograph of Deborah Harrison. “Did you know this girl?”
Jelacic glared at Banks for a moment before glancing towards the photo. He shook his head.
“Are you sure?”
“Da.”
“She went to St. Mary’s, sang in the church choir, used to walk through the graveyard on her way home.”
He shook his head again.
“I think you’re lying, Mr. Jelacic. You see, she complained about you. She said you used to make lewd, sexual comments and gestures towards her. What do you think about that?”
“Is not true.”
“Father Charters said you were drunk most of the time, you didn’t do your job properly and you bothered the girls. Is that true?”
“Ne. He is liar. All St. Mary’s people lie, get Ive in trouble, make him lose job.”
“Did you ever enter the Inchcliffe Mausoleum.”
“Nikada. Is always locked.”
Banks looked at Ken Blackstone and rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, Ive. We found your fingerprints all over the empty vodka bottles in there.”
“Vrag ti nosi!”
“We know you went down there. Why?”
Jelacic paused to sulk for a moment, then said, “All right. So I go down there sometime in summer when it get too hot. Just for cool, you understand? Maybe I have a little drink and smoke. Is not crime.”
“Did you ever take anyone else down there? Any girls?”
“Nikada.”
Banks waved the photograph. “And you swear you didn’t know this girl?”
Jelacic leaned back on the sofa. “Maybe I just see her, you know, if I am working and she walk past.”
“So you do admit you might have seen her?”
“Da. But that is all.”
“Mr. Jelacic, what were you wearing last night?”
Jelacic pointed towards a coat-hook by the door. A red windcheater hung on it.
“Shoes?”
Frowning, Jelacic got to his feet and picked up a pair of old trainers from the mat below the hook. Banks looked at the soles and thought he could see gravel trapped in the tread and, perhaps, bits of leaves. There was also mud on the sides.
“How did your shoes get in this state?” he asked.
“I walk back from Mile’s.”
“You didn’t drive?”
Jelacic shrugged. “Is not far.”
“We’d like to take your shoes and windcheater in for testing,” Banks said. “It would be easiest if you gave us permission. You’ll get a receipt.”
“If I do not?”
“Then we’ll get a court order.”
