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Ashby frowned, studied him for a moment, his look one of extreme doubt. “Bit irregular,” he said.
“Not to worry,” Tallis began. “It was—”
“But I guess, as it’s you …” Ashby suddenly smiled “… we could stretch a point.”
Ashby drove. Conversation en route to the mortuary revolved around Arsenal, Aston Villa’s performance under Martin O’Neill and the latest cricket score. “Used to play a bit myself,” Ashby said, “but don’t get the time now.”
The formalities swiftly dispensed with, Tallis was shown into a viewing suite. The contrast from the crime scene shots was powerful. Cleaned up, Felka resembled a statue. Apart from where the gaping wound to her throat had been sewn up, and the bruising on her arms, her skin was the colour of old alabaster. In death, Tallis thought, she seemed childlike. He resisted the temptation to bend over her pale cheek and kiss her.
“That her?” Ashby said.
Tallis affirmed it was. “Extensive cuts to her hands,” he murmured.
“Defence injuries.”
Tallis nodded sadly.
“Come on,” Ashby said, giving his elbow a nudge. “I’ll buy you a drink. You look as if you could use one.”
Tallis cracked a smile, allowed Ashby to guide him back out into the world, to cleaner air untainted by death and decay.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE Rakowskis eventually arrived six hours later. They looked like any other bereaved parents—shocked, red-eyed and frightened. Tallis did his best to convey his condolences, but there was no language in the world that could soften the blow of losing a child, especially in such horrific circumstances. He stayed with them at the police station, acting as interpreter, escorting them to the mortuary and eventually booking them into a small hotel nearby. As he left to travel back to Birmingham the following morning, Mr Rakowski, a small man with ginger hair and a wispy, greying moustache, clasped his hand with both of his, thanking him profusely. Mrs Rakowski, handsome in spite of the emotional drain on her features, tipped up on her toes, kissed him on both cheeks, just as her daughter had done less than forty-eight hours before. As Tallis walked away, he felt choked.
Driving back up the motorway, exhaustion started to play games with his concentration, the misery he felt at Felka’s sudden and violent death inexplicably triggering thoughts of another long past miserable episode in his life when he and Dan had engaged in a fistfight in the middle of their parents’ kitchen. For weeks, Tallis had suspected that Dan had been stealing money from him. What had most upset him was that the loot had been so hard earned—he’d saved it up from many nights of laborious washing up in a rathole of a pub, then the only avenue to making money for a twelve-year-old schoolboy living out in the sticks.
He couldn’t remember now on what pretext he’d challenged his brother. Try as he may, he’d had no hard evidence that Dan was stealing yet he could come to no other conclusion.
Dan threw the first punch. “You little tosser,” he snarled, missing Tallis by inches.
“Tosser?” Tallis sneered back. “You’re the one with the mucky magazines. I’m surprised the whole village hasn’t heard you jerking off.”
Dan’s face contorted in rage. “Why, you—”
But he didn’t get any further. Tallis leapt at him like a lion taking down an antelope. The rest was a blur of shouts, blows, scrapes and fingernails in skin. That’s why Tallis didn’t realise that his father had stepped into the fray. Until it was too late.
“Come here, you little bastard,” his dad cried out, his cheek already beginning to swell where Tallis had landed one on him.
“What’s going on?” Tallis heard his mother cry.
“Stay out of this, Sandra.” Dad never called her by her Croatian name, Sanja.
“Accused me of stealing,” Dan said, bloated with indignation. “More likely, one of your mates. Right little tykes.”
“This true, Paul?” his dad demanded, eyes cold with fury, fists jabbing the electric air.
But Tallis’s gaze was on his mother. A curled hand was pressed hard against her mouth, the white knuckles making indentations in her skin. Her eyes were full of anguish.
“What, Mum?” Tallis said, suddenly feeling his skin crawl.
His mum turned imploringly to her husband. “I meant to put it back. I was going to,” she insisted. “It was just to tide us over, money being tight,” she mumbled, apologetic.
His father stared at her with belligerent eyes for what seemed like minutes then everyone gaped at Tallis. He, the accuser. He, the one who’d hit his father in anger. Dan, by contrast, wore the triumphant expression of someone who’d just won a phenomenal game of poker.
His father ensured that his youngest son was sorry for making such a poor error of judgement with a beating cut short only by his wife’s intervention. Neither of them noticed Dan looking on, mouthing Stupid cow in his mother’s direction.
He spent the rest of the journey wishing he’d taken Max up on his offer of the BMW. The Rover had about as much acceleration as a snail, and there were too many lorry drivers playing boy racers. Knights of the road, he thought grimly as yet another beast of a vehicle veered out in front of him without warning in a vain bid to overtake a similarly sized juggernaut.
His thoughts meandered to Cavall, the visit, illegal immigrants, what Finn would dig up, if anything. Questions that shouldn’t have concerned him spiked his thoughts. How do people go to ground? If they want to become invisible and lead an invisible life, where do they go? How do they reintegrate into a society when they never had a stake in it anyway? Easy, he thought, they don’t. They’re much too hard-wired for bad. All right, but I’m good at bad, he thought. So how would I go about finding someone who is hell-bent on disappearing into the ether? No National Insurance number to check, no Inland Revenue, no bank accounts, no driving licence. All the usual routes blocked.
He pulled off at the next service station, got out, stretched his legs and bought a shot of high-voltage caffeine. Taking a thoughtful sip, he reckoned the best place to look for people on the run would be in the kind of traditionally low-paid industries where nobody asked questions—building and construction, fruit picking, food preparation, kitchen work. In spite of threatened government clampdowns, unscrupulous employers still exploited those ripe for exploitation. But this was all obvious stuff. The guys Cavall was talking about had either returned to their criminal careers or gravitated towards people of the same ilk: in other words, one and the same. That’s why his skills undercover all those years before were important to Cavall, he realised. Infiltration was key to information.
He climbed back into the Rover, slotted Eminem into the CD player, jacking up the volume, and swiftly joined the M6. His first assignment undercover had been to chat up and gain the trust of a known drug dealer by posing as a dealer from another part of the country. For a short, adrenaline-spiked period of time, Paul Tallis hadn’t existed. Whether it was because he’d been a tearaway as a kid, or the dark side of his nature had come to the fore, he’d slipped into the role with unsettling ease. Humans, even the male of the species, were predisposed to gossip, and most secrets were leaked not because arms were twisted up around backs but in the natural course of trading information and friendship, usually down the pub. Two important lessons he’d learnt were never underestimate the enemy and always treat them with respect. But that was all a very long time ago. Undercover was all right, but it was the buzz of firearms that had turned him on, which was why, as soon as he’d been able to get back into it, he’d leapt at the chance.
Eminem was cracking on about one shot, one opportunity when Tallis’s mobile rang. He pulled over onto the hard shoulder, turned the volume down. It was Finn. “Cavall’s a political adviser with a formidable reputation. Educated at Cheltenham Ladies College and studied Political Science at Cambridge, where she was awarded a first class honours degree. Recruited by the Home Office, she worked for four years as a research officer before moving further up the food chain. Known to be a real babe with an obsession for meeting targets.”
Tallis scratched his ear. He couldn’t imagine Sonia Cavall being anyone’s baby, more the type of woman to freeze a guy’s plasma. “So you’re saying she’s above board?”
“As much as anyone in the department,” Finn said in a voice tinged with cynicism. “Gather she’s a bit of a cause merchant.”
Tallis thanked Finn and promised him a pint then pulled Cavall’s calling card from his pocket. He had meant to chuck it away, but Felka’s death had changed everything. Maybe a cause was what he needed.
After a hot shower and coffee, he rang Cavall’s number and listened to the click and buzz of the call being rerouted.
“Cavall speaking.” Not Sonia, not hello.
“Paul Tallis. That job you wanted me to do, I’ll take it.”
Silence.
“Hello, you still there?”
“I am.”
More silence.
Suffering Christ, the woman was a ball-breaker. What did she want him to do, beg? “Of course, if you’ve appointed someone else …”
“Why the change of mind?”
Change of heart would be more accurate, Tallis thought, but he wasn’t going to discuss his motives with Cavall. “Something to do with my bank balance. You’re all that stands between me and penury.” Actually, he hadn’t checked his finances for ages. He tried not to. Every time he did, he was deeper into his overdraft.
“So it’s money.” Her tone was scathing.
This time Tallis said nothing. After suffering at the hands of his father, he was no longer easily humiliated, and if she were going to be sodding difficult, he’d rather forget the whole thing. “I suppose I could fit you in tomorrow,” she said, finally. Sounded like a huge favour was being bestowed.
“Can’t,” he countered. No apology, no excuse, no reason. He had nothing planned, but he was fucked if Cavall was going to exert that much power over him.
“All right,” she said crisply. “Botanical Gardens, outside the Orangery, thirty minutes.” Click. Tallis closed the phone. Females for you, he sighed, unpredictable, capricious and utterly enthralling. No doubt about it, this was going to be a battle of wills. And in his experience, women always won.
He was three minutes early. Puffy clouds scudded across a sky the colour of a cormorant’s egg. The air seemed quieter because of the sunshine. It was going to be a nice day, he thought. Well, maybe.
Apart from staff, there were few people about at that time on a Thursday afternoon. Tallis paid the admission charge and made his way through the entrance, following a designated route outside and across landscaped gardens skirted by vibrant borders of rhododendrons and azaleas. According to the information sheet, there were more than four hundred trees, a rose garden, rock garden and terraces, as well as cactus, tropical and palm houses, but all Tallis could think about was Cavall, the job, what lay ahead.
She was already there. Wearing a white fitted jacket over black trousers and top, she looked more formal. He glanced at his watch: she was bang on time.
Cavall acknowledged his presence with a minute flicker of her eyes, and picked up her briefcase, which looked heavy. He immediately offered to carry it. “Ever the gentleman.” She smiled with dry humour. “But, no, thanks. I can manage. Walk and talk?”
He nodded, falling into step beside her. She had large feet for a woman, he noticed. “Money has already been wired to an account for you, details in here,” she said, briefly lifting the briefcase. Tallis was impressed but said nothing. People only gave money away with that much alacrity if there was risk involved to the recipient. “There are four individuals in total,” Cavall continued. “All served sentences for violent crime, including murder. We want them found. To assist in your search, you’ll be handed prison files and, in some cases, computer disks giving full profiles of each offender.” Tallis didn’t break stride. He wondered how she’d got hold of the information. Home Office or no Home Office, prison files were seen on a read-only basis.
“And the mechanics?”
“How you go about finding each target is up to you.”
“But you want them alive?”
“Of course.” Cavall shot him a sharp look, clearly repulsed by the notion of it being any other way. Good, he thought, he wanted to get that absolutely straight from the start. “As soon as the target’s located, call the contact number,” she continued. “It’s your job to stay with your man until the handover.”
“That it?”
“Yes.”
Sounded simple. Too simple. “What if there’s a problem?”
“You call and wait for further instruction.”
“Who’s on the rest of the team?” he asked. They were cutting through the palm house, steam rising, orchids and evil-looking insect-eating plants the only eavesdroppers on their conversation. It felt swelteringly hot. The damp air smelt of sap.
“There is no team.”
Tallis stopped. Cavall turned, met and held his gaze. He was trying to decipher whether one good man was good enough, or whether he was merely expendable.
“Think of me as your handler,” Cavall said, as if that should improve the situation. It didn’t. ‘Handler’ was a word used for police who ran informers. Tallis was starting to feel grubby.
“Do I carry a warrant card?”
She shook her head, making her blonde ponytail rock from side to side. “This is the equivalent of a black operation.”
“So I’m completely on my own.” There was no alarm in Tallis’s voice. He just needed to clarify the situation.
“Think you can do it?” Her brown eyes drilled into his.
“Don’t see why not.”
They carried on walking again. Tallis saw some kind of carnivorous plant swallow up a large bluebottle. “Will I be armed?”
“What the hell for?” She looked entirely horrified.
To protect myself, he thought. Should the need arise, he knew where to get hold of a weapon—not that he would do so lightly. After the Van Sleigh incident, he’d never wanted to carry a gun again.
“We really can’t have any fuss,” she said, half-smiling, more conciliatory.
He stole a glance, bet she was a blinding fuck. Not that he had any intention of trying to find out.
They left the suffocating dome of heat and emerged into open air scented with roses. “If this is unofficial, will I be able to talk to arresting and senior investigating officers involved with the case?”
“Up to you,” Cavall shrugged. “You’ll have to think of a cover story.”
Christ, this gets better. “Former cellmates?”
“I’m sure something could be arranged.”
What and how? he wondered. “And which prisons are we looking at?”
“The Scrubs, for starters.”
They walked in silence along a terraced area, Cavall’s heels clicking on the gravel. Sunshine leaked onto the ground. Distant traffic hummed through a background of trees. Eventually they came to a bench. Cavall sat down, clicked open the briefcase, handing Tallis a thick buff-coloured folder. He stared at it. Another poisoned chalice, he thought. He was accumulating them like people collected supermarket vouchers. “You realise these people might have reformed, gone straight. They could be trying to rebuild their lives.”
“Can’t afford another crisis of conscience, Paul.” She smiled but her voice was humourless. He noticed that whenever she used his first name, it served as a rebuke.
“They’ve done their time,” he insisted.
Cavall eyed him, her expression coldly remote. “They’re here illegally. They’ve already killed your fellow countrymen, women in some cases, and in the most horrific manner. In all probability they’ll reoffend. But if you want out, say so now and stop wasting both our time.”
He felt tempted. Just get up, walk away, and pretend he’d never seen her. Then Tallis remembered Felka, thought of the wounds to her body, her fear, her pain, and the piece of scum who’d inflicted it. “No,” he said decisively, “I’ll do it.”
“Good,” Cavall said, standing up. “Oh, and, Paul,” she said with a dry smile, “if you attempt to go public, or expose the plan, all knowledge of any link to me, and the department, will be vigorously denied. There will be no trail, no evidence, nothing to prove.”
Tallis looked up at her. “And if it goes wrong?”
“It won’t.”
But if it did, Tallis thought, watching her hips swing as she walked away, he’d be hung out to dry. Alone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BACK in his bungalow, Tallis stared at the folder as if it were an unexploded bomb. He must be cracked, he thought, taking a fresh bottle of single malt out of its bag and unscrewing the cap. Twenty-five thousand pounds’ worth cracked, to be exact, and that was just a down payment, according to Cavall.
He poured himself a healthy slug, looked at it, changed his mind and poured it back into the bottle. Unlike Stu, he now had a reason to stay sober. Pulling the file onto his lap again, this time slipping out all the contents, he spread them on the knee-high coffee-table. There were prison documents, press cuttings, reports of the police investigation and details of court hearings, and, of course, mug shots of Agron Demarku, past and present.
Demarku was Albanian. His crime: torturing and beating a prostitute to death with a baseball bat. Tallis expected someone with broad shoulders and aggressive raw-boned features but the lad, for Demarku had been barely nineteen years old at the time of the offence, was a mere slip of a guy. He had kind-looking eyes and the type of small cherubic mouth Tallis had only seen on little children. He wondered how, after twelve years inside, prison had changed Demarku. Generally inmates went one of two ways: got lean or got fat.
Tallis turned to the latest recorded photograph of his man. Demarku had lost the freshness of youth. The hair was dirty blonde, skin more sallow. The blue eyes were dead behind the light. And he was thin, very thin.
According to the prison profile, Demarku had been born in Durres, an ancient port on the eastern Adriatic and more recently, Tallis thought, a focus for Albanian Mafiosi. Albanians, in spite of religious differences, had fought bravely, sometimes alongside Croatians, against a common enemy, the Serbs. As far as the Mafiosi were concerned, they maintained a code of silence to protect against betrayal. Like their Italian counterparts, they believed in honour.
A model prisoner, Demarku had spent much of his time reading and improving his English. He was also a devout Muslim. His medical records were without note, but a psychiatric report deemed him highly intelligent, manipulative and dangerous. In other words, Tallis thought, psychopathic. Demarku had expressed no remorse for his crime and maintained that his extreme actions had merely been the result of severe provocation. Had Demarku been a wife-beater, Tallis thought, something snatching inside as he viewed the crime-scene shots, Demarku’s defence would no doubt have fallen into the she made me do it category. Scalds and burns inflicted on the twenty-three-year-old victim’s body spoke another narrative.
