Free Where the Devil Can't Go by Anya Lipska

half-inclined to tell her no, but an undercurrent of urgency in her voice stopped him. Anyway, he needed to find the missing girl fast if he was to replenish his depleted cash reserves.
    Thirty seconds later, he was jotting down the name of a Polish club in Stratford where the girl wanted to meet.
    Janusz retrieved his cigar from the ashtray and joined Kasia in the kitchen. With a stab at a nonchalant air, he said “Listen, darling. Something’s come up – it’s a job I’m doing for someone.”
    “A woman?” she asked.
    “Well, yes, the client is a woman, but an old lady – a babcia .”
    “And the woman on the phone – she is an old lady, too?” – her green eyes had narrowed, and she would no longer meet his gaze.
    “Well yes, she is young, but she’s just a contact. The thing is she insists on seeing me tonight, for some reason.”
    Without a word, Kasia started to collect her things, her movements uncharacteristically jerky.
    All his hopes for the evening teetered on a cliff edge. “Listen, Kasia,” he said, aware of a cajoling note in his voice he didn’t like. “I can get there and still be back by ten, maybe half past, we can have a late supper.”
    “So I sit here and watch Sky while you go out drinking with a woman?” She pulled a mirthless smile. “All the lies I have to tell Steve, making excuses so I can stay all night, and now this.”
    Janusz felt the anger bolt out of him like an unleashed dog.
    “I have a job to do, money to earn! You are not my wife to tell me whom I can and can’t see!” his voice boomed around the flat.
    “You are right – it’s none of my business,” she said, her voice tight. “How can I complain if you have other girlfriends? I am just some dziwka you are sleeping with who other men pay to see naked.”
    He clutched his head, mute before this irrational torrent.
    “And no, I’m not your wife,” she went on. “I’m someone else’s – and I shouldn’t be here.”
    Softening his voice with an effort of will, he said, “Listen, Kasia. You are still young, you could leave Steve, start life over again,” but he knew it was hopeless – this was old ground, the argument well worn.
    She pulled on her coat. “You know I can’t, Janek,” – sounding weary now.
    He caught her arm as she opened the flat door.
    “Don’t go off this way, kotku ,” he said.
    She smiled a sad smile at this big man calling her little cat, touched her fingers to his lips, and left.
    Thirty seconds later, the main door to the street boomed like a distant firing squad.
    Janusz paced the flat, cursing; running the last hour’s dramat through his head on a continuous loop. Half an hour later he still couldn’t make any sense of it: what right did she have to be jealous when she was the one sleeping with another man? The fact that man was her husband didn’t make it any easier. No! Being able to picture that rat-faced Cockney screwing her made it a thousand times worse.
    With an effort of will, he pushed Kasia to the back of his mind, threw himself onto the sofa and drank a glass of red wine in a single draught. He took the snap of Weronika, the one of her in the fur coat, out of his wallet. Something about this girl, her innocent beauty, and yes, okay, the way she reminded him of Iza, had got under his skin, made him preoccupied with finding her. Naprawde, it was even worse than that, he realised with an embarrassed grimace: he wanted to rescue her.
    He went to turn off the oven, and after a moment’s hesitation, scraped the roast potatoes into the bin: once cooled you could never recapture their crust.
    Leaving the block’s front door between the stone columns that flanked the entrance, Janusz noticed a new ‘For Sale’ sign had sprouted overhead. Oskar said that if he sold up and bought a place further out he could pocket a couple of hundred grand. But why would he want to live in some benighted suburb like Enfield?
    When he left Highbury Mansions, it would be wearing an