I’ll ask the police to speak to Mariusz, and let them know you’re okay, I continued. Lukas still didn’t respond, but turned his face away from me. Was that a tacit agreement to what I’d suggested? I didn’t know, and I found his lack of communication a little unnerving.
I thought about Mariusz then, a boy I’d never met, but had been told a lot about. Lukas always liked to talk about his son, how proud of him he was, and how it was being a father to Mariusz that had helped him to tackle his own issues. He had been ten years old when Lukas and his mother had split up, an impressionable age, but I got the impression that now he was sixteen there was a strong father and son bond. Hopefully getting Lukas to think about Mariusz would help, so he remembered who he still had to be strong for.
Another thought struck me, and I moved slightly so I was back in Lukas’s eyeline.
Lukas, why did you call me and not Sasha? I asked. This had been bothering me earlier. Sasha would have the emergency text number on her phone, so she could have contacted the police just as easily as I had. Once again, however, Lukas didn’t respond.
I wondered about asking the doctor to come back and check him over again, in case he was suffering from some sort of concussion. Was this just shock, or was there another reason he was refusing to communicate with me? Whatever it was, it felt strange.
We sat there for a few more moments in an uncomfortable silence, then the door opened behind me, and I turned.
‘Hello?’ I said. I didn’t recognise the detective who had opened the door to Lukas’s room. I’d worked for the police twice before, both times with DI Forest and DS Singh, so I had been assuming if CID were involved it would be one of them. Part of me was disappointed; I got on well with Rav Singh. He was a brilliant detective, sharp-witted but also compassionate towards the people he dealt with. I hadn’t seen him since the start of January, when we’d gone out for a drink to celebrate the start of my new job. Our friendship had run aground since then, as neither of us ever had much time, but I kept meaning to get in touch to see how he was.
‘We need to speak to Mr Nowak,’ the detective replied without introducing himself, his face serious. ‘In private, please.’
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
The detective frowned at me. ‘As I said, we need to speak to Mr Nowak.’
‘Well, you’ll need me to stay then,’ I told him, explaining why. He looked uncomfortable, clearly not having been given the full information about the man he was coming to interview.
Once the detective had checked my ID and accepted the need for my presence, he turned to the figure in the bed. ‘Lukas Nowak, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Nadia Nowak.’
I stopped dead in the middle of what I was signing, shock rendering me motionless for a moment. Lukas frowned in confusion and I shook myself, forcing myself to continue. My hands shook as I signed while the man read Lukas his rights, tears in Lukas’s eyes the only indication that he’d understood. The detective stepped forward with a pair of handcuffs and went to cuff one of Lukas’s arms to the bed, but I held out a hand.
‘Wait, you can’t do that,’ I told him.
The detective made a frustrated noise. ‘I appreciate you interpreting for us, miss, but please don’t interfere. He’s in police custody now, so we need to secure him.’
‘But how is he supposed to communicate?’ I asked, anger flaring. ‘Handcuffing a sign language user is like gagging a person who speaks. You can’t take away his ability to communicate.’ I folded my arms and glared at the detective until he eventually backed down and nodded.
‘Okay, I see your point. My DI won’t like it, though. There’ll be a PC stationed outside the door until he’s transferred to the station once he’s been discharged.’
I interpreted this for Lukas, who nodded, then turned his head away from us. Taking this as my cue to leave, I followed the detective out of the room and waited for him to brief the PC. When he’d finished, he came back over to me.
‘Can I ask how you know Mr Nowak?’ he asked.
I explained the situation, and how I’d come to be at the scene of the fire that evening.
‘So you’re a witness. We’ll need you to come to the station tomorrow and give a statement.’
‘Fine,’ I replied, still bristling a little from his attitude. ‘What’s happened? Do you think Lukas set the fire?’
‘We’re still looking into that,’ he replied. ‘There needs to be a full fire investigation to see how and where it started.’
‘How can you arrest Lukas when you don’t even know yet if the fire was deliberate?’ I asked, indignantly.
The detective looked over his shoulder at the PC, then looked back at me and sighed.
Keeping his voice low, he said, ‘Look, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but his social worker will be informed soon enough anyway. Nadia Nowak was already dead when the fire started.’
Chapter 3
Once the detective had left, I called Sasha again, but there was no response. She was probably driving back, I told myself, so I sent her a quick text to tell her where Lukas was and that he had been arrested. Despite what he was being accused of, I didn’t want to leave him on his own. In the months that I’d been working with Sasha I’d learnt not to judge a person by their circumstances, and just to be there to support them without bringing any preconceived notions about them. Attending the addiction support sessions with Lukas had been a real eye-opener for me, seeing just how many difficult situations some people had to fight against. Even
