The Last Exile

by E. V. Seymour

  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.

  “Been in worse.”

  “I’m really sorry. I—”

  “Forget it,” she said, sounding more pissed off than angry, “but this thing with Demarku, you should leave it alone. He’s like the Scottish play. One mention of the name and all manner of disaster follows.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  TALLIS paid his bill and checked out of the hotel with the intention of catching the next train back to Birmingham. Cavall had other plans.

  “Nice work,” she said, congratulating him. Was it? he thought. A girl lost, a woman desperately injured, and he’d done fuck all to save either of them. He should have just taken Elena, kicked Demarku’s and Iva’s heads in, and to hell with the consequences, but, no, he’d just had to follow orders. “Handover go all right?”

  “With Bill and Ben?” he said humorously.

  “Bill and Ben?” Cavall, not getting the joke, sounded confused.

  “The immigration officers. Yeah, I’d say so. Fortunate as Demarku pulled a knife.”

  “Naturally, you’ll be properly remunerated. We’ll meet for a debrief tomorrow morning, early.”

  “How early?”

  “Six-thirty.”

  “Where?”

  “Epping Forest.”

  “That wise?”

  “Why?”

  “Gangster land. Someone might be burying a body.” His second cheap attempt at some badly needed humour went unnoticed.

  “These are the co-ordinates, Paul.”

  He destroyed and got rid of the phone, hired a Jeep and spent the night in a dull, featureless boarding house in the small market town of Epping where the owners were glad to take his money for very little effort on their part.

  Setting out at four in the morning, it took him over an hour to find the exact location. Only twelve miles from central London, one of the most ancient forests in the country, a vast crescent shape covering over six thousand acres and crossed by dozens of roads, trying to find a way through Epping Forest’s hidden depths was no easy task.

  The rendezvous turned out to be a clearing deep within the forest, though heavy ruts in the path signified that farm machinery or a 4x4 had recently passed that way.

  The air smelt of pine and earth. Light sifted through trees heavy with leaf and bladed the ground. A sky of apricot and Prussian blue suggested more rain to come. Apart from the sound of his footfall, there was nothing other than birdsong.

  Tallis waited and watched, hidden. Something about the scenery, the trees shimmering in the early morning, reminded him of a long-distant memory, of him and his brother playing in some woods with another boy—not one of their kind, his dad had told them afterwards. Couldn’t even remember the lad’s name now. There’d been some spat. Dan had lost his temper and pushed the boy out of a tree. Fortunately, he hadn’t broken anything, though he had been badly winded and bruised. That evening, when the father of the lad had come round to complain, their dad, rather than apologise, had castigated him, told the proud-looking man with the swarthy skin, coal-black hair, the gold earring in his ear, that he was nothing but a dirty gypo, a layabout, told him to bugger off, remove himself from his land. Tallis, cowering in the corner, had watched the man’s expression. He’d seen the proud mouth crease with contempt, the flare of anger in his eye. Tallis had felt real shame. Once the door had closed, the witch-hunt had begun. Dan had put the blame on him, and Dad, like he always did, had believed his eldest son. Tallis had gone to bed hungry that night, but he hadn’t cared. He’d been on the side of the gypsy.

  In the distance, he heard the drone of a vehicle’s approach, the engine note suggesting an off-roader. The noise died some distance away followed by another, muffled by foliage, perhaps a door opening and closing, and the sound of one pair of feet moving along the track. He suddenly realised how vulnerable he was. Perhaps this wasn’t Cavall at all. Perhaps …

  She stood like an archangel in the centre of the clearing, sunlight flickering through the trees and playing on her hair. Her face was scrubbed of make-up and she wore a simple shirt over jeans. She looked fresher, younger, innocent.

  Tallis stepped out to meet her. She smiled in greeting, handed him a file. “Thought you wanted a debrief,” Tallis said, taking it.

  “As long as we got our man, we’re happy.” She didn’t particularly look it, he thought, puzzled.

  “Not interested in the method?” Not interested in the fact I watched and allowed two women to suffer, that an old pal nearly blew my cover, that Demarku tumbled me?

  “Should I be?” She had a curious glint in her eye that didn’t quite square with the question.

  “Ends justifying means and all that.”

  “You must be tired, Paul. You’re not usually so cynical.”

  Oh, I am, he thought. I just don’t always show it. “The girl I spoke of.”

  “What of her?” Annoyance creased her features.

  “Doesn’t matter. You should know that Demarku almost killed a woman in front of me, that he’s into VAT fraud involving mobile phones, that he deals in amphetamines and heroin.” He went on to
name Demarku’s colleagues. “Two of whom were picked up by the police yesterday morning.” He added that he thought there was a Mr Big involved somewhere, probably hanging out at the house he’d seen Demarku enter in Belgravia. Cavall expressed little interest, the next job her only apparent concern.

  “Your next target’s a woman.”

  Tallis shot her a sharp look. “You never said anything before about a woman.”

  “Didn’t I?”

  “No.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  A lot he thought, wanting to slap the scheming smile off her face.

  “Oh, I get it,” Cavall said. “Too much like déjà vu. Can’t afford to be squeamish, Paul.”

  He stared at her. “If you’d seen what I’d seen, you wouldn’t be making such uninformed statements.”

  Cavall bridled. “Witnessing the depths of depravity is part of the job.”

  “Then I quit,” he said, shoving the file back hard into her small chest.

  “Can’t do that, Paul.”

  “And stop calling me Paul,” he said, angry now. “Only my friends call me that.”

  The smile faded. “I apologise. It was presumptuous of me.” She studied his face for a long moment, let out a sigh as though she didn’t know what to do with him. “Here,” she said, taking the file and offering it back.

  “Why should I?”

  “Because you know it’s right. Because you need to.”

  He didn’t move, simply looked into her lovely face. Did she know him better than he knew himself? “You’re taking a big risk with me.”

  “A calculated risk.”

  Tallis shook his head. “You’ve informed me of a plan that contradicts everything I’ve ever learnt about law enforcement. You’re giving me classified information. You’re allowing me to turn a blind eye when I should be singing like a canary. What’s really going on?”