Chapter 71

71

Garda Lei didn't mind being the dogsbody on the team. He loved being busy. Trawling through the dead girl's belongings, which some might see as a little morbid, proved satisfying. Getting his hands dirty. Being involved. That was what he relished. His recent work was a step up from the bike unit. Of course he was only called to work with the team when there was a major crime, but he was grateful for the experience.

‘Well there, Lei, how's it going? I've been sent to help you.'

‘Hi, Garda Brennan, didn't hear you come in.'

‘Jesus, Lei, it's either Brennan or Martina. Keep the formal stuff for when we're in public or in the presence of the head honchos.'

‘Oh, right. Great. Thanks. You can help me search this lot. Inspector Parker has already gone through it, but she asked for it to be thoroughly examined. Think you can do that?' He baulked when she rolled her eyes. ‘Sorry. Didn't mean to offend you. I forgot you know more about this kind of thing than I do.'

She laughed. ‘You're a scream. What are we looking for?'

‘Something to give us a clue as to who Aneta Kobza was or anything to aid the investigation. Gloves too, as this lot has to go to SOCOs.'

She tugged on gloves and a face mask, and opened the suitcase. She held up a bally jumper. ‘This stuff is old. It tells me she either hadn't much money, she wasn't proud or she didn't care about her appearance.'

He liked Martina. She was a roll-your-sleeves-up sort of person. As he extracted the magazines and brochures from the box, he remembered the boss's instructions. ‘We have to catalogue everything too.'

‘Might be a waste of time. Let's see what we find first and then we can draw up a list of anything that seems important. Okay?'

‘If you say so.' He wasn't so sure, but Martina was the more senior guard.

He watched her work. She took out each item as if it was a designer piece of clothing, rather than Penneys' past-its-best fare. He admired her for the reverence she afforded the dead woman's possessions. Her fingers traced seams, cuffs and pockets, searching for something hidden.

He had to be as meticulous. He extracted everything from the cardboard box, then searched around the inside of it, his only find a wayward spider in a corner. He turned each page of the brochures and, determining there was nothing of interest, put them to one side. Then he concentrated on the small bundle of papers that remained in a forlorn pile.

Most were typewritten in a foreign language. Polish, he presumed, seeing as the woman was from Poland. Some looked like pages from a CV, but the cover page was missing so he had no name or address.

‘Bingo,' he said at last, waving a sheet of paper.

‘What did you find?' Martina wiped her hands on her trousers, even though, like him, she was wearing gloves. ‘Treasure, I hope.'

‘One page of a bank statement. Dated 31December, year before last. She had the sum total of five hundred zloty in her account at that time.'

‘Is it her account?'

‘It must be. That's her name and an address in Kraków. It has an IBAN. She must have come here after that.'

‘She might have used the statement to open an Irish bank account. She'd have needed an account for paying rent and for her wages. We should get it from Cuan.'

He had an idea. ‘Give me a minute.' He googled Hill Point for details on how to rent an apartment. ‘She'd want at least a grand for the place she was living in, and unless she came into money after that bank statement, she didn't have it.'

‘Maybe she had cash, or opened an Irish account.' Martina went back to the clothes. ‘Catalogue the statement anyhow. The detectives can delve deeper. Anything else of interest?'

‘Nothing that I can understand. Most of it's in Polish. I'll check it on Google Translate.'

‘We haven't time for that,' Martina said. ‘We're supposed to be looking for a clue to Aneta's life, to what happened to her and why she went unreported as missing for a year.'

‘It's easy to fall through the cracks. So many people have no one in their lives to care about them. I always wonder?—'

‘Lei, it's our job to find out why she was taken and who killed her.'

He breathed out, the elated feeling dissipating quickly. There had to be something else.