One side of the shaft was open. Two men in hard hats and overalls were at work on the looped cables below the lift car.
‘We’re looking for Yurek,’ Diamond called out.
One of them turned his head. ‘What for?’
‘Are you Yurek?’
‘I’m busy right now, mate.’ A trace of East Europe came through.
‘We’re police.’
‘All of you?’
‘Two of us. Step outside and I’ll tell you what it’s about. You’re not in trouble.’
‘I will be if we don’t finish job tonight.’ He said something to the other man and emerged from the space. ‘Make it quick, mate.’
Diamond showed his ID.
Yurek, or Jerzy, was a slight man in his fifties with flecks of grey in his eyebrows. The eyes were blue, deep-set and intelligent. He looked at Tank and said, ‘Twerton, three years ago, right?’
Tank nodded.
Diamond and Ingeborg needed to speak privately to Jerzy. Tank and Headmistress took the dog to look at the other side of the building.
‘I know what this is about,’ Jerzy said. ‘Saw it on news. Skeleton in loft. Same fucking house.’
‘We’re trying to trace all the previous tenants,’ Diamond said. ‘You were there until it was condemned and the council took over.’
‘Whole sodding terrace condemned. Nothing wrong with it. Someone saw chance to turn profit. Walls would have stood for years. I was forced out.’
‘That’s you and your family?’
‘Just me.’
‘I thought there were others.’
‘You mean my woman and her old father? He died. And she pissed off back to Poznan.’
‘How long were you living in the house?’
‘Ten, eleven years, easy. Low rent suit us fine. Wasn’t luxury. Toilet in back yard.’
‘Do you know who owned the terrace?’
‘Some company. I deal with agency in Oldfield Park. Up Your Street. Fucking useless, they were. Not there any more.’
‘While you were living in the house, did you do any work on it?’
He hesitated, becoming wary. ‘What you saying? Anything needed doing, agency supposed to fix.’
‘Yes, but you’re a professional. You can fix things yourself.’
‘Like change light bulbs? I did that, sure. Anything else — their responsibility. Supposed to be.’
‘I was thinking of the roof. An old building like that. Tiles must have needed replacing.’
Jerzy looked at him as if he knew where this was leading. ‘Never went up there. Well built. Workmen’s houses, but well built.’
‘You wouldn’t have needed to go in the loft?’
‘No access.’
‘Wasn’t there a water tank up there?’
‘Water was from spring into catchment chamber outside. Storage tank in kitchen. No upstairs plumbing. We use old tin bath.’
‘So you lived there all that time without knowing what was in the loft?’
‘My woman wouldn’t stay one minute if she knew.’
The answers Diamond was getting may have been brief, but they sounded convincing. The real problem was that nothing new had emerged. ‘Who lived there before you did?’
‘Some guy on his own. Never met him. House was empty six weeks before we started renting.’
‘Lived alone, did he? How long had he been there?’
‘How would I know?’
‘Was he old?’ Diamond was thinking back to the few things he’d learned about the skeleton in the loft.
Showing his contempt, Jerzy vibrated his lips softly and looked away.
Diamond was starting to understand the difficulties John Leaman had faced when trying to compile a record of the tenancy. ‘Didn’t anyone mention this man’s name?’
‘Did once. Didn’t mean much to me.’
‘What was it?’
‘I forget.’
‘Try and remember.’
‘Something English, like Harry.’
‘Harry who?’
‘Or Bert.’
Ingeborg smiled. You had to, or you’d weep. Jerzy was the witness to make you think about jacking in the job.
‘So whatever his name was, he was probably English. Any clues what he did for a living?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If Harry or Bert had a trade, like you, he might have left some of his bits and pieces around the house.’
‘Bits and pieces?’
‘In your case, it might have been fuses, or cable-cutters or pliers.’
Bad example. Jerzy stared at Diamond in reproach. ‘I don’t leave nothing lying about. I have tool box. Each pair of pliers has slot in box. I take with me when I move to new place. My living, get it?’
Patience, Diamond told himself. This isn’t good for the hypertension. ‘What I’m getting at is this. Whenever I move into a new place there are signs of the people who were there before me. Small things, maybe, down the back of the sofa or between the floorboards. A receipt, a button, a few coins if you’re lucky. You come across some little item and it’s a link with the previous tenants.’
Jerzy frowned and shook his head. As well as having a poor memory he lacked curiosity, let alone observation skills.
‘You said you heard the guy’s name once, so you must have talked to somebody about him. The agency?’
‘No.’
‘A neighbour, then, or someone who called at the house, like the postman or a meter reader.’
‘You think so?’ It sounded like a challenge Diamond wasn’t going to accept.
‘And they didn’t say any more about him, whoever he was?’
‘They could have talked to my woman.’
‘Ah.’
‘Her English better than mine.’
‘And she’s back in Poland now?’
A nod.
‘She didn’t learn anything else about those tenants?’
‘Don’t know. Wasn’t interested.’
‘Are you still in touch with her?’
‘No, mate. Don’t I say already?’
‘Say it again.’
‘Back in Poland.’
Through gritted teeth, Diamond said, ‘Why? Why did she leave?’
‘She dump me, don’t she, after her dad die? I put up with smelly old man sleeping in my living room all those years. Soon as he is gone, so is she. Fucking fated, that house. Bad.’
Ingeborg immediately picked up on the last remark. ‘What did the house have to do with it?’
‘Dead man in loft.’
‘But you didn’t know that.’
‘Do now. Makes sense, don’t it, all the shit that went wrong? Rows we had. Old man and his bronchitis. Her leaving. It was house. Everyone touched by evil.’
This had strayed into the realm of gothic horror and Ingeborg wasn’t having it. ‘You can’t say that. Just because you had some bad experiences—’
‘Wasn’t just me. What about guy who lived there before me?’
Diamond butted in again. ‘This is who we’ve been on about for the past ten minutes. What about him? Go on.’
‘His woman left him, just like mine did.’
‘You didn’t tell us that.’
‘You don’t ask.’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ Diamond said.
Ingeborg, staying cool, said, ‘Tell us what you know, Jerzy.’
‘Well, we hear there is woman living with him and she can’t stick it so she walk.’
‘You can’t say who told you this?’
‘My woman, I expect. And she’s—’
‘Back in Poland. You told us.’
Jerzy grinned. He had a sense of humour.
‘But you still can’t tell us who they were, these people, or anything else about them?’
‘I told you name.’
‘You told me two names, Harry or Bert.’
‘Harry is more like. I think Harry.’
‘Okay, we’ll go with Harry. Did he keep the house nice?’
‘It was okay.’