Page 42 of The Dead Come to Stay

MacAdams dabbed at his palms with antiseptic. If this kept up, he’d need to start carrying first aid around in his car. It

was supposed to be a straightforward day: shake Burnhope, pressure Sophie Wagner, track down this Gerald Standish—oil and

gas doctor. Now they had a suspect in an interview room, and they had also called in Anje and Artem for questioning. They came without

the same sort of fuss.

“All set, boss,” Green said, leaning through the storage room door.

“Thank you, Sheila.” She’d been his best asset; Newcastle police didn’t forget one of their own and so far, all their needs

had been fairly accommodated without a rumble.

“You really are okay?” she asked, eyeing the scrapes.

“Honest,” he said, patting them dry and leading the way to their suspect. He looked worse for wear through the one-way glass.

“I’m glad you didn’t render our suspect unconscious for his trouble.”

“He’d deserve it. By the way—you’re faster than you look.”

“Thanks, I think,” MacAdams said, opening the door.

Dmytro didn’t look up; he kept his eyes on the table in front of him. Green did the usual and started the tapes rolling.

“Do you want to tell us why you ran?” MacAdams asked.

No eye contact, but Dmytro rubbed at his nose.

“You were chasing me,” he said.

“Then maybe you want to tell us why you tried to kill a police officer with a motorcycle?” Green asked. A bit heavy-handed,

maybe, but it certainly got a startle response.

“I didn’t!”

“You might have.”

“I didn’t mean to—he was just standing there.”

“Yes, Dmytro,” MacAdams interrupted. “A detective showed you his badge and told you to stop. And you were going to run me

over for ‘just standing there.’ You’re already in about as much trouble as you can be in. So, I’ll ask again, why did you run when I asked about Rose?”

“I don’t know anyone named Rose.”

“We have your mobile; you’ve been sending texts to Rose for two days,” Green said. Technically, they hadn’t managed to hack

it, but they had Rose’s foster mom as witness.

“I just—She’s just a girl I met.”

“So you do know Rose,” MacAdams added. “Do you know she was arrested along with a boy named Benny?”

Dmytro looked at the ceiling, a despairing sound in his throat. “You arrested her? She didn’t even know why she was doing

it!”

“No. But you do.” MacAdams picked up the report from York. “A fortune in stolen artifacts. And that’s just what we seized.

Your pals got away with more.”

“I don’t even know them.”

“You’re working for them,” Green said. “We’ve already taken your photo to the job training center. We know you’ve been grooming couriers. Walkers , you were calling them. Poor kids with no prospects. Kids like Rose.”

“It’s not like that! They weren’t supposed to get involved...” Dmytro’s words had begun to run over each other, his accent

thick with emotion.

“They weren’t supposed to get caught ,” MacAdams corrected. “But they did. And that’s not all; you understand that Ronan Foley is dead, don’t you? You realize

that all of you—and all those you brought into this mess—are in danger?”

Dmytro dropped his eyes again and went silent. MacAdams had brought images of Foley, graphic ones. He hesitated to show them;

the boy seemed fragile.

“Listen to me, Dmytro. I need to find out who killed Foley so I can protect the others. Rose. Anje. The girl in the sketch

Sergeant Green showed you. It’s not over until we know who is responsible.”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t.” When Dmytro raised his head again, it was clear he was crying hot tears. “I just wanted

to get my family out.”

MacAdams exchanged a glance with Green. His family?

“Do you mean... from the Ukraine?” he asked.

Dmytro nodded. “Me and Artem. We’re the youngest boys, both of us. His brother and my father? They’re still fighting. Anje

doesn’t even know where her father is, or if he’s alive. And I have sisters.” He wiped his dripping nose and MacAdams nudged

Green to fetch him something for it. “Mr. Foley said there were ways to get them out.”

MacAdams hadn’t got his notepad; he didn’t want anything to disturb the moment. He leaned forward in his chair, speaking as

gently as he dared.

“Dmytro? You’re saying Foley told you he could bring people to this country—but not using the charity, as Sophie wanted to

do? How?”

“He said there were ways to make it go faster. And he could do the same thing for my family. I just had to do a little work for him. A year, he said. To pay their way. I could save them.”

MacAdams felt his stomach drop. There were names for this sort of contract: human trafficking, indentured servitude. “What

did you do for Ronan Foley?” he asked.

Dmytro looked up, his eyes wide and glassy. “It wasn’t drugs or anything. It was just stuff. Statues and things. Mr. Foley called it ‘refugee art.’”

“Come again?” Green asked. “He told you it had been made by asylum seekers?”

Dmytro shook his head. “No, the art—the pots and things. They’re refugees. Like us. We were rescuing it.” He sniffed and rubbed

his nose. “But then Ms. Wagner said I was stealing.”

“Your boss at the golf club?” MacAdams asked.

Dmytro nodded. “That’s what she said. When she caught me at it.”

“Caught you—when?”

“On Friday.”

***

MacAdams burst out of the interview room and into the hall, nearly colliding with Green.

“I can’t find tissues—”

“Forget that. I want Sophie Wagner.”

“What about Anje and Artem?” Green asked.

MacAdams kept walking, adrenaline making him forget he’d just sprinted a half mile.

“Wagner knew what Dmytro was up to the night of the murder. I want her. Now.”

“Boss—” Green started, but MacAdams shook his head.

“I want her in a room if it takes an arrest, and I want Burnhope down here, too, lawyer and all.”

“ Boss , I know. I’m trying to tell you, Sophie Wagner just called. She wants you to meet her at the club.”

***

MacAdams didn’t like the turnabout. He wanted Wagner on his turf, in a wired interview room walking distance from overnight

cells. Instead he walked into a busy club, buzzing with golfer bar-flies... then walked into her business office, a plant-draped

oasis against Hammersmith white walls. She stood up when he entered.

“You are aware that we have arrested Dmytro.”

“I am.” Sophie lowered herself to the chair and placed her hands in front of her, every movement seemingly thought out. “He

shouldn’t have run. I could have helped you understand.”

MacAdams sat down. “You cannot explain this away, Ms. Wagner,” he said.

Sophie shook her head violently, her mane of hair showering both shoulders. “It’s not—it’s not his fault . He’s vulnerable.”

“No doubt that’s what made him so attractive to you and Foley,” MacAdams said flatly.

Wagner drew herself up. “I had nothing to do with this! He did this. He’s the start of everything going wrong! I didn’t know—none of us knew—until—”

“He started it and what? You became his partner? Did you make promises to Dmytro, too, telling him you would save his family?”

Sophie had been working up to a purple rage, but appeared to have stalled, facial expression frozen. “Wh-what?”

“Foley said he could get Dmytro’s family here illegally, in exchange for helping him traffic artifacts.” MacAdams was talking

louder, but managed to keep his body language to a minimum. “Is that one more way you’re helping refugees? By trafficking

them, too?”

“Stop!” Sophie Wagner was standing. She’d slammed both hands against her desk, and now seemed embarrassed to have done so. Her face

suggested something between fear, confusion and anger. “This charity is my life. These people—these kids. They are my family. And I would never make promises I could not keep. If Dmytro was promised something—”

“Extralegal passage for his family in exchange for labor,” MacAdams said flatly. “Selling them to slavery, keeping them here

illegally, profiting from misery.”

Sophie shuddered and collapsed back into her chair. “ That’s what Foley was doing?” She put her head in her hands, voice coming out muffled. “I swear to God I didn’t know he was—”

“Selling stolen cultural relics?” MacAdams interrupted.

“ Lying to Dmytro !” Sophie half shouted. “It’s evil. It’s just evil— that boy has already seen so many terrible things, then to toy with his emotions like that!”

“You’re angry.”

“Of course I am!”

“Angry enough to kill him for it?” MacAdams asked. He was putting Sophie through her paces. She had turned an ashen shade

beneath the faux tan.

“No!”

“Then you had better work on proving it. Tell me everything , in order, in detail. Now.” He half expected her to begin shouting for a lawyer, like Burnhope had.

Instead, she nodded. “I’ll do better. I’ll show you,” she said stiffly.

***

The club already reminded MacAdams of an airport; now he’d followed Wagner into a concourse.

Sophie walked him down a corridor with windows to one side and framed photographs to the other.

Smiling children in bright clothes, all of them very apparently immigrants or refugees. It looked like a UNICEF commercial.

“Pathos,” he muttered under his breath.

Sophie turned sharp. “Yes,” she agreed. “Charity isn’t easily motivated by logos.”

It was only now that MacAdams noted the nameplates beneath. Each one had a donor name attached, the way you might name a building

in honor of the funders. Donations on display—just another way of showing off wealth, getting a tax break and looking pious

at the same time. He was suddenly glad Green didn’t have to see this.

“I know you don’t appreciate the work I do,” Sophie continued. “Or don’t trust it. My own father would be as skeptical. I

married into money.”

“You’re going to tell me a rags-to-riches story?” MacAdams asked.

Sophie had turned the corner into a lounge space; it wasn’t as fancy as the others.

“No. Comfortably middle-class. But I’m trying to explain—I have seen both sides of wealth. And when I had it to do with as