The Last Exile (10 page)

“Our two nations have suffered much together,” Demarku said, his voice sombre.

“What has happened to our people is indeed shameful,” Tallis agreed.

“I hate the pig-eating Serbs, and their ethnic-cleansing campaigns,” Demarku said, his eyes dark with hatred. For a moment, he seemed lost in time. Was he thinking of all the days he’d spent helplessly in prison when his fellow countrymen in nearby Kosovo had been slaughtered? Tallis didn’t know.

“Drink?”

“No, thanks,” Tallis said. “Unless you have water.”

Demarku flashed another smile of approval. Without order or invitation, the woman scurried off, returning minutes later with a tray of bottled mineral water and three glasses. After obediently pouring, she left the room. Iva, meanwhile, took up a position at the back, one foot resting on the wall. Tallis wondered whether it was intended as a veiled warning.

“Please, sit,” Demarku said, indicating one of two leather chairs. There was a weird graciousness about the
man, Tallis thought. He seemed capable of exuding warmth but in the same way an electric fire heated a room while sucking all the air from the atmosphere. “Iva tells me you have an operation in place that might interest us.”

“Correct.”

“We have our own suppliers,” Demarku said—rather sketchily, Tallis thought. “But we’re always looking for new ways to import.”

“I understand.”

“I gather you use small craft to land the catch.”

“Yes.”

“And you have runners in place to do the pick-ups? We wouldn’t want some beach bum freeloading on several kilos of amphetamines.”

“This can all be arranged—for a price.”

“Ah, yes,” Demarku said. “Everything and everyone has its price.” He studied Tallis for a moment. Tallis was reminded of the great Brazilian footballer, Ronaldhino. He had a wonderful knack of looking one way while kicking the ball the other. “We like to build good working relationships with the people we decide to do business with,” Demarku continued. “Trust is essential. Can we trust you, Marco?”

“I think Iva can vouch for me,” Tallis said, glancing over his shoulder.

Demarku laughed. It was strangely high-pitched. “Iva trusts no one.”

“Don’t blame him.”

Demarku threw back his head and laughed again. Tallis found it contrived. There was no humour in the man, only vanity.

“Agreed, but enough business,” Demarku said, getting up. “I understand you enjoy women.”

For fuck’s sake, this was getting beyond a joke, Tallis thought. “Well, I …”

“I’ve planned something special,” Demarku said, sharp-eyed, the sub-text: do not disappoint me. “Please, join us.”

Tallis felt his smile wasting away. He didn’t like the sound of
us
.

He felt nothing but horror.

The room was small and airless. Even Demarku’s aftershave couldn’t mask the smell of sweat, blood and fear. Throughout the entire ordeal, Tallis was in conflict: save the woman or punish the men?

Apart from two chairs and the camera spotted when he first entered, there was nothing else. No need. Everything was attached to the walls—restraints, whips, handcuffs, knives.

The woman was absolutely terrified. As they ripped her clothes from her, she pleaded and begged then screamed, and the more she screamed, the more Demarku smiled.

Tallis was invited to join in with the rape but he fell back on an old excuse he’d learnt while undercover. “Sorry, some tart gave me the clap. I’m on pills the size of an ostrich egg.”

“And why you’re not drinking,” Demarku commented shrewdly. “Another time, then. Take a seat. Watch. Enjoy.”

Iva took his turn first, followed by Demarku. Then they ‘spit-roasted’ the woman, one having sex in front while the other sodomised her. It was cold, savage and brutal.

Skin crawling, bile rising from his gut, Tallis used every mental weapon to feign enjoyment, knowing that to fail would blow his cover. When they started on her
with knives, he feared they were going to kill her, that he was watching a snuff movie in the making. What would it take to make them stop? he roared inside. Could he rush Iva, by far the more dangerous, and take on Demarku? Could he bag him and call Cavall? Should he die trying? When approaching a dog, if you surprise it, it’s more likely to bite. It was the same with humans. He didn’t want either of them reaching for a knife or a gun, and the brief stated that the handover should be with absolute discretion and a minimum of fuss, with no other parties involved. No other witnesses, Tallis suspected grimly. Like it or not, he felt forced to sit it out.

By the time they finished, the white-painted walls were spattered red. The woman, in great pain and barely conscious, was like a piece of raw meat.

Afterwards, both men having showered and changed, Tallis walked with Demarku out onto the street. Rain lacerated the pavement. The air felt dense with traffic fumes, but it felt good, so good to be out in the open, to be back in the real world instead of the stuff of nightmares.

“You look pale, my friend,” Demarku said.

“Really?” Tallis smiled. He took Demarku’s hand, clasped it in both of his, thanked him warmly and promised to be in touch.

Demarku wished him goodbye, turned to leave then turned back. “Oh, Marco,” he called.

“Yes?”

“Something you haven’t asked me.”

Shit, Tallis thought. He’d slipped up and Demarku was on to it. “What’s that, then?”

“My name.”

“Never remember names,” Tallis bluffed. “Now faces, especially memorable faces …”

“My friends call me Agron,” Demarku said, obviously delighted by the implied compliment.

As soon as Tallis was clear of the perfumery, he vomited into the gutter.

T
HE
next morning, haggard from guilt and loss of sleep, Tallis returned early, and staked out the perfumery from a café on the opposite side of the street. Rain was pouring down, making the roads look like polished slate. He’d followed Goran and Janko’s example and thrown on a hoodie, not because of the weather but to protect his identity.

At eight-thirty, a white van drove up outside the shop. Goran and Janko got out, went in, came out an hour later with a roll of carpet under their arms, struggling with it before throwing it in the back of the van. Tallis’s alarm bells rang. As the two men drove away, he thought the poor, unfortunate woman from the previous afternoon had been inside. What to do? Stick rigidly to the brief, risk upsetting Cavall, or contact Crow again? And tell her what?

He pulled out his phone. Demarku had to be picked up. Nothing could jeopardise the plan. But neither could he simply leave the woman to the tender care of Goran and Janko. After a moment’s deliberation, he made an anonymous call to the police, giving the registration of the white van.

At ten, Demarku arrived, spent an hour talking to the woman in the shop then left. Tallis followed.

Demarku’s first stop was a jeweller’s shop where he spent fifteen minutes trying on several watches before leaving empty-handed. He spent an hour in a gent’s outfitters and walked out with a pale grey single-breasted suit and several shirts. Next, he asked to see a pair of black shoes with a two-hundred-pound price tag. After he’d tried them on he paid for them in cash. The man was an out-and-out narcissist, Tallis thought. He didn’t simply care about looking good—it was his reason for being. As for funds, either he’d managed to acquire some wealth before he’d gone inside and had hung onto it, or there was a big fish somewhere, acting as Demarku’s paymaster.

Tallis dropped back, heart racing, and followed Demarku down Lowndes Street. The rain was lighter now but still persistent, yet Demarku was walking as if he hadn’t a care in the world. For all his guile and cunning, Tallis thought grimly, Demarku was oblivious to the man stalking his every move.

There were more trees, more greenery, giving him cover as he followed his prey through leafy Belgrave Square through streets that were tranquil and moneyed. He passed four-storey Georgian houses with chandeliers and huge drapes at the windows and black-painted railings outside. How many millions of pounds would it cost to live in a place like this? Tallis wondered, incomprehensibly. Then Demarku turned. Instinctively, Tallis turned, too, cupping his hand, pretending to light a cigarette, watching out of the corner of his eye as his man ran up three stone steps to a house and let himself in. Now what? he thought. Make the call or wait? He knew from his time on close-target reconnaissance that if an arrest
was to be carried out, it’s imperative you got the right premises. And he just wasn’t sure.

Tallis crossed over the road, hoping that Cavall’s people were ready to move in, that they were on permanent standby. But there was every chance that this was not Demarku’s home. Perhaps he had powerful friends or a rich lover, someone with a heavy taste in S&M. Either that or he was squatting. While Tallis was deliberating, the front door swung open. Out came Demarku. He’d changed into jeans and a black roll-neck sweater, the shopping left behind. Looking left then right, he turned back the way he’d come. Tallis waited ten seconds then slowly picked up the chase.

The Albanian Embassy in Grosvenor Gardens came into view. Demarku slowed his pace. For a confused moment, Tallis thought he was actually going inside, but Demarku walked past, moved on. Perhaps it was nothing more than an instinctive connection with the fatherland.

Turning into the tube station, Demarku took the Victoria line to Warren Street, changing to the Northern line. Tallis, travelling in the compartment behind, kept pace, his focus only on the man, any qualms he had about the ethics of what he was doing dispelled by the events he’d witnessed the day before and his inability to prevent them. When Demarku got off at Camden Town, Tallis followed.

They were in a matrix of grubby streets and worn-out buildings, where the pub windows were mostly boarded up and there was dog shit on the pavement. Demarku was ten metres in front and slowing. A man in a crumpled suit nodded to him and he nodded back. Home territory, Tallis registered.

“Oi, Paul, you old bastard,” a voice yelled, “what you doing here?”

Tallis resisted the strong instinct to jump. He didn’t even turn, kept on walking. Demarku, however, had turned round and was looking intently at them.

“Hey,” the voice yelled again, angry now. “You ignoring me or what?”

Tallis whipped round, keeping his back to Demarku, thanking God for the added protection afforded by the hoodie. “Keep you voice down, Stu,” he snarled quietly.

Stu stared at him, red-eyed and dissolute. His breath reeked of so much lager Tallis thought he was probably flammable. Unsteady on his feet, loose-mouthed, Stu had the drunk’s typical loss of volume control.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” Tallis snarled.

“Wha’ you mean?”

“For Chrissakes, shut up.”

Stu looked shocked, then confused, then furious. He poked Tallis in the chest with a finger. “Fuck you think you’re ordering about? You’re not in the—”

“How much have you had, Stu?” Tallis said, touching his arm, desperate to steer Stu away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Demarku still looking.

“Nothin’. Me, I’m on the wagon.”

On the wagon to Stu meant low-strength lager. Fifty shots usually achieved the same hit as several normal pints. And it wasn’t even lunchtime. “Look,” Tallis said softly, eyes drilling into his friend’s face. “This is condition red.”

Stu blinked, nodded, sobered up. Condition red was the phrase used for when an arrest was imminent.

“I’ll meet you at that pub,” Tallis said, gesturing to a decrepit-looking place on the opposite side of the road. “Give me an hour.”

Stu shuffled away. When Tallis turned round, Demarku was nowhere to be seen.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. The streets all looked the same. The houses all looked the same. Even the bloody road markings were the same. In spite of scanning every building, every alley, the guy had vanished into the urban ether. He only hoped to God that Demarku hadn’t rumbled him.

Finally, retracing his steps, and about to cross the road, he saw something that brought him up short. The street was a dogleg and easy to miss but, parked on the corner, was a gleaming black Mercedes with new plates. Tallis sauntered over, noticed the heavy-duty sensor winking at him from the dash. Taking a step back, he kicked the passenger door, putting his full weight behind it. As predicted, the alarm went off, emitting a high-pitched screeching noise that made the leaves dance on the trees. Swiftly crossing the road, Tallis ducked behind a wheelie-bin and watched. Thirty seconds later, Demarku emerged from a tall squalid-looking house several metres down the road, a clutch of keys in his hand. Pointing at the car’s sensor, he switched off the alarm and inspected the car, cursing and spitting with fury at the damage. Tallis swallowed hard, felt his palms itch with suppressed rage. The guy could get steamed up about a dent in a car wing, but gouges and cuts and bruises on a woman’s skin only moved him to laughter.

Demarku spoke urgently into his cellphone, rattling orders in Albanian. Tallis listened. Demarku neither made mention of being followed nor of being betrayed. As Demarku returned to the house, Tallis pulled out his own phone and made the call to Cavall.

Ten minutes later, a black BMW turned into the street, a man and woman inside, and double-parked in front of the
Mercedes. Tallis straightened up, made his way towards them, exchanging glances. “You Tallis?” the man said. He was dressed casually, as was his companion. They looked so ordinary and unremarkable, Tallis wouldn’t have given either of them a second glance, apart from the fact both were wearing leather gloves, which on a summer’s day seemed distinctly odd.

Tallis agreed with his eyes. “You must be the immigration officers.”

The woman answered. “That’s right.”

“Target’s in number twenty-nine.”

“Thanks. We’ll take it from here.”

“I’d like to come with you.”

“Not necessary, sir.” The woman spoke again. She had pale blue eyes, plain, vapid features.

“How are you going to get him? Knock on the door and hope he comes quietly?” Tallis smiled a warning, eyes level with hers. “This guy knows me. He’ll respond without any aggro.”

The man looked at the woman who looked at Tallis then gave the go-ahead. Interesting, Tallis thought. The woman was the decision-maker.

The house was split into three flats. The first button on the entry phone was marked Patel, the second Cookley, and the third nothing. Tallis pressed the button for the third flat.

“Po?”
Yes.

“Agron? Marco.”

“What are you doing here? How do you know where I live?”

Tallis imagined his face, imagined the lines of suspicion etching his eyes. “You have a problem.”

“What sort of problem?”

“Iva.” Tallis stared into the eyes of the man standing next to him—unreadable.

Silence. Now there’d be confusion, Tallis thought. After what seemed like an interminable time, Agron spoke. “OK.”

Tallis looked at the others, giving them a good to go expression as they sneaked in behind him and ascended three flights of stairs.

The door to the flat was ajar. Tallis recognised it as a possible killing ground. Doorways or any point of entry were known as coffin corridors. Tallis scanned the entrance, stepped in. Agron greeted him with a smile on his face and stiletto in his hand. Tallis went to step forward to disarm him but the agency people swooped like a pair of Valkyries, knocking the blade onto the floor, the guy head-butting Demarku and pushing him to the ground. No ordinary immigration officials, Tallis thought, wondering what section they worked for.

Pinning Demarku’s hands behind his back, the woman clapped on a pair of handcuffs and hauled him up onto a chair. Tallis squatted down in front of him. “When was the last time you got it up without beating a woman senseless?”

Demarku smiled, threw his head back, and spat into Tallis’s face. Tallis wiped the spittle from his cheek, returned the smile. “Get him out of here,” he said, straightening up, striding out.

He told the woman what he would do to her, physically and sexually, in explicit detail. He said that she would never be safe, that he had friends in high places, that they would come for her in the night and take her and torture her, and that she would pray and plead for death.

She did not speak. She showed no emotion.

The man returned, carrying a bottle of whisky, which he gave to the woman who unscrewed the cap. The man clamped both hands on his mouth, wrenched at his jaw. Demarku twisted and struggled, would not open his mouth. The man hit him, knocked him almost senseless. Next thing, the woman was pouring the contents down his throat, choking him, drowning him, some of the fiery infidel liquor spilling down his neck and sweater, the stink of it strong in his nostrils. He retched and gasped, tasting the bitterness on his tongue, feeling his eyes swell, his brain uncouple. When they were done, they took off his handcuffs, dragged him to his feet, pulled him through to the bedroom and over to the open window.

He began to curse and kick and struggle. For a second, he broke free, fleeing to the bathroom, locking the door after him, trying to escape through the locked window, nails tearing blindly at the frame. He couldn’t think, or focus, the alcohol making everything swim before his eyes. He felt sick with the violation, sick with terror. Then they broke down the door, came for him, hauled him back out, dragging his body mercilessly across the floorboards, battering it against the doorframe. He saw the open window and screamed.

Falling and falling, his final vision was of the railings coming up to meet him.

Tallis didn’t meet Stu as arranged. Three hours in the company of a tanked-up Glaswegian wasn’t his idea of a good time. Instead, he returned to the hotel, took a shower, and shaved for the first time in days. His cellphone went just as he was coming out of the bathroom. It was Crow.

“Word of advice—leave the intelligence gathering to us.”

“This supposed to be cryptic or witty?”

“She wasn’t there.”

“What do you mean, she wasn’t there?”

“You dim as well? She wasn’t fuckin’ there. In fact, nothing and nobody was there other than several portions of cod and chips and the odd saveloy.”

“Oh, for Chrissakes.”

“Don’t get shitty with me,” Crow said. “I’ve just made myself look a complete fool. In fact, I’m thinking of doing you for wasting police time.”

Tallis put his hand to his head. It was like living in some horrible parallel universe. “But the rooms, the bar, the girls.”

“The rooms were just rooms. No sign of elicit goings-on. No evidence.”

Tallis fell silent. Perhaps Elena had talked. Maybe Duka had got wind and sounded the alarm. Certainly, someone had got there first. Maybe Cavall had relented, or maybe that was wishful thinking. He couldn’t bear to imagine what might have happened to Elena.

“Something else,” Crow said menacingly.

“Yeah?”

“Know anything about the abduction of a badly mutilated woman this morning?”

“Mutilated?”

“Cut to ribbons. Poor cow was barely alive.”

Alive. Thank God, Tallis thought. Then a worrying thought struck him. Would she be able to identify him as one of the men in the perfumery?

“We caught the blokes responsible red-handed,” Crow continued.

“Congratulations.”

“They were both Croats.”

“So?”

“So,” she said, a penetrating note in her voice, “you deny all knowledge?”

“I do.”

“You know nothing about an anonymous tip-off?” Crow pressed.

“Nothing.”

An uneasy silence prevailed. Tallis knew he wasn’t believed. He had the unmistakable impression that this was not the last he’d hear from the woman, and instantly felt bad for dragging her into his mess. “You really in trouble?” he said, contrite.