Sasha and I introduced ourselves, and Paul didn’t seem fazed by the use of sign language. Sometimes people would stare awkwardly when they weren’t used to having an interpreter around, but if this man was friends with Lukas then he was probably used to signed conversations.
He turned to Sasha. ‘You’re Lukas’s social worker? Where is he? Are he and Nadia okay?’
Sasha and I looked at each other and I took a deep breath, signing as I spoke, for Sasha’s benefit. ‘I’m really sorry, Mr Ilford. There was a fire on Tuesday night, and I’m afraid Nadia died.’
Paul’s face paled and he took a step backwards, as if the enormity of what I’d told him had knocked him off balance. He ran a hand over his face and looked at the ground for a moment, before looking back at me.
‘Are you sure? It was definitely Nadia? Where’s Lukas? Is he okay?’
I looked at Sasha again, unsure how much we should tell him. ‘Lukas is okay. He was in hospital for a short time. But he’s been arrested. The police think he’s responsible for Nadia’s death.’
‘What?’ A mixture of confusion and anguish played across Paul’s face. ‘That’s insane. How could Lukas hurt Nadia? He’s devoted to her.’ He shook his head and looked between me and Sasha. ‘This doesn’t make any sense.’
Paul stepped back onto the pavement and ran a hand across his face again. I felt terrible for having to break the news to him but we couldn’t have left him there and pretended we didn’t know what had happened.
‘Look, I need to get back to my office. Do you have some time to come along, tell me what happened? I want to help Lukas if I can.’
I interpreted his request for Sasha, who shrugged.
Sure, she replied to me. He might be able to tell us something that can help.
Paul’s care agency was only round the corner, so ten minutes later we found ourselves sitting in his office while he paced restlessly.
‘I don’t understand. It must have been an accident. Surely?’
We don’t know exactly what happened, Sasha told him. The police are investigating the cause of the fire.
He paused in his repetitive journey across the office floor. ‘What were you doing at the house? You already knew Lukas was in jail, so why were you there?’ He looked between us as he spoke, seeming unsure of who to address his questions to.
‘Mr Ilford, why don’t you sit down?’ I suggested, interpreting for Sasha as I spoke. His constant motion was making me feel queasy.
‘Call me Paul, please,’ he replied, sinking down into a chair.
‘Okay, Paul,’ I said gently. ‘We’re trying to help Lukas. We agree with you; we don’t think Lukas could have hurt Nadia. But the police do, so unless we can find something that proves otherwise, there’s nothing that any of us can do.’
‘What do you need me to do?’ he asked.
Do you know of anyone else who might want to hurt Nadia? She worked for you, so you probably knew her better than I did, Sasha told him.
Paul nodded. ‘I knew her pretty well, yes. I can sign, and I think she was more comfortable with me than she was with some of the other carers. She always spoke very clearly, but there was some … unkindness,’ he said, grimacing. ‘Because she was deaf,’ he added.
What happened? Sasha asked, sitting up a bit straighter. Paul looked awkward, as if he didn’t want to tell us, but Sasha shook her head. Keeping it from us won’t help Nadia now. If you don’t think Lukas killed her, it must have been someone else, and anything you know could help us get closer to the truth.
‘But wasn’t the fire an accident?’
Sasha looked like she was about to respond but I gave her a look and quickly shook my head. We shouldn’t be giving out any information that the police hadn’t made public.
‘They’re treating it as suspicious at the moment,’ I told him, hoping that was neutral enough.
Paul’s face fell, and he looked down at his hands for a long time, before sighing. ‘Okay. Nadia was accused of stealing from a couple of her clients. One of them made a complaint about things going missing, but I followed it up and it turned out the items had just been moved, probably by the client herself. Some of them are in the early stages of dementia,’ he explained, ‘so I would always give my staff the benefit of the doubt until I’d looked into it.’
He frowned. ‘But then suddenly a couple of other clients complained about thefts, and they were all people that Nadia had been caring for. She was the only carer they had in common, so of course I had to look into it further.’
What did you find out? Sasha asked.
‘It was their word against hers, and it definitely did seem as though things had gone missing that time. But with numerous people going in and out of these clients’ houses, they also couldn’t prove it was Nadia.’ Paul chewed his lip for a moment. ‘Sometimes people get a bit annoyed with her, because she’s deaf. They think she’s stupid, or not as good at her job as some of the others, which was completely untrue. She was my best carer – she was always my first choice for my own mum, before she passed away. I wouldn’t have let her care for Mum if I didn’t think she was up to the job. But some people’s prejudices aren’t so easily dealt with. I changed the rotas around so Nadia didn’t go to any of those clients again, and it seemed to stop. But I know it bothered her. She thought I didn’t trust her,’ he said sadly, shaking his head.
‘When you changed her client list, were there any more problems?’
‘No, but that was only a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t had any more complaints, anyway.’
Was there anything particularly
