Resolution to Kill

by E. V. Seymour

  ‘Jesus.’ Clay wiped his mouth. ‘Think it belongs to Fitz?’

  ‘God knows. Wait, there’s a tattoo on the forearm,’ Tallis said, squatting down.

  ‘So there is,’ Clay said, peering gingerly over his shoulder.

  ‘Looks like a rank and serial number.’

  ‘Marines,’ Clay agreed. ‘Not looking great for our man. Why the fuck did you suspect something like this?’

  ‘A sobering piece of British maritime history. Pitch was used to seal wounds.’

  ‘So the guys didn’t bleed out?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘S’good. Means Fitz is still alive.’

  Depends on your point of view, Tallis thought. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘It’s some kind of sign, then,’ Clay said, peering at the limb. ‘Means whoever’s got him isn’t jerking off.’

  ‘More than that: it’s proof of life.’ And I think we were meant to find it, Tallis thought.

  Every journalist is a sleuth for the truth, his or her compulsion to find and reveal bordering on obsession. Don Shenton was no exception. He was in the secrets business. As a security correspondent for the BBC, it was his job to dig them up.

  In common with others belonging to his trade, he took the utmost pleasure in arranging his findings into a narrative that was logical and comprehensible and that retained a ring of authenticity. He could not, however, be too messianic in imparting his discoveries to the public. There were restrictions and protocols to be observed. To disregard those could both jeopardise his sources, and put national security and lives at risk. Others before him had blown operations by reporting on planned assaults and rescues. This was not his style, but the fine line he trod between his professional need to spill the beans and keep schtum was a strain. No doubt about it, an increasingly dangerous world lurked out there. The security services might on the surface have become more transparent in recent years, but some of the stuff he personally carried around in his head required him to self-medicate with wine and whisky.

  This morning was no exception. A hangover pulsated through his left temple, a condition made worse because it was his Saturday to take the kids out while his wife, Candy, indulged in what she described as me time. George and Lucas were good lads, biddable and mostly well behaved, but the demands of taking them swimming and shopping had already taken its queasy toll. They were now sitting in a chic café popular with what Don called the solo dads brigade, especially those on access weekends. Although he did not belong to their club, he liked to show a little solidarity. Work schedule permitting, he and his small tribe dropped in every other Saturday.

  Thank God for caffeine, Don thought, sipping his double espresso, hunched over a morning newspaper while the boys munched their way through pains au chocolat and croissants. Afterwards he planned to meet up with friends with their offspring at a little Italian place in Fulham where they didn’t mind youngsters dropping spaghetti on the floor. It was also a good excuse to have a glass of Gavi or three.

  Feeling the call of nature, Don put down his newspaper. ‘Either of you need to use the loo?’

  Lucas slid his five-year-old rear off the chair, planting both feet on the floor with a bounce. ‘Me,’ he said.

  ‘You OK on your own, George?’ his father asked.

  ‘Yep,’ the boy mumbled, spraying pastry across the tabletop.

  Don Shenton rose a little unsteadily to his feet, glanced around the café and worked out a risk assessment. Child-friendly without being dull and too pedestrian for adults, the place seemed safe enough. There were plenty of parents knocking about. Always busy, there had never been a scrap of trouble there before. Even so, Candy would go mad if she found out that he’d left their six-year-old alone in public. He hadn’t forgotten the verbal tongue-lashing he’d received when he’d done something similar a couple of months before. Best cover his back, he thought, catching the eye of the manageress, run off her feet as usual, and asking if she could keep a benevolent eye on his son for a few moments.

  ‘No prob,’ she called back through a crush of people before charging off with an order for two skinny lattes and a double choc with marshmallows.

  Conscience clear, Don Shenton took his younger son by the hand and wove his way through the web of tables to the door marked toilets. Minutes later he was back, no harm done. George looked up at him.

  ‘You all right?’ his father asked.

  George nodded. ‘You’ve got a present,’ he said, big-eyed.

  ‘A present?’ Lucas said, thrill in his voice.

  Don laughed even though it made the pain in his head worse than before. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘There,’ George said, pointing at the newspaper.

  Don Shenton dropped his gaze and frowned. The newspaper was as he left it. What on earth was George talking about?

  ‘Inside,’ George huffed, rolling his eyes at his younger brother.

  ‘Lemme see,’ Lucas said, grabbing it with stubby fingers so that whatever was inside clattered to the floor. ‘Look, Daddy, it’s a CD.’ Lucas pounced.

  Shenton snatched it from his son. There were no markings on it, no label. Believing it to be an omen, he felt his skin ooze one-part perspiration, nine-parts alcohol.

  He crouched down, bringing his eyeline level with George’s. ‘Where did this come from?’

  ‘A lady brought it for you,’ George said with a big smile.

  ‘A lady? What lady?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said it was a present for my daddy.’

  ‘What did she look like?’

  George’s shoulders hitched up and dropped.

  ‘Can we go now, Dad?’ Lucas tugged at his father’s sleeve.

  ‘Quiet,’ Shenton said, eyes glued to George’s. ‘Try to remember, Georgie. It really is very important.’

  George solemnly shook his head.

  ‘Was she fat, thin?’ his father pressed.

  ‘Medium.’

  ‘Brown hair, blonde?’

  ‘Brown, I think.’

  ‘Like Mummy?’ Shenton said hopefully.

  ‘No, Mummy has yellow in her hair.’

  Jesus, does she? He couldn’t really remember. OK, try again. ‘What was she wearing?’

  ‘Trousers and a top.’ George looked away, bored.

  ‘Jeans?’

  ‘Yep, jeans.’

  ‘Did she have white or brown skin?’

  George frowned, wagged a finger. ‘Miss Smith says we’re all the same, white or brown or green.’

  Shenton let out a world-weary sigh, then thought Shit: he hadn’t asked the most obvious question. ‘Which way did she go?’

  Another hitch of the shoulders.

  Shenton looked around as though the woman might materialise out of the walls. He quizzed both tables on either side of George, but one family had only just arrived and the other had been engrossed in playing a board game. He tried to nail the manageress, but she had been too busy, which meant, Shenton saw with a dull thud of realisation, that his son could have been whipped away without anyone bloody noticing. What would Candy say if she found out?

  ‘Can we go now?’ Lucas repeated, his voice a nasal whine.

  Don Shenton straightened up. ‘Change of plan, lads.’ If right, lunch and Gavi would have to keep.

  Each morning Sabina’s minder, a broad-shouldered man called Valmir, visited a café and patisserie frequented by businessmen near Alexanderplatz. Like them, he favoured smart suits, crisply pressed shirts and hand-crafted shoes. He carried a leather briefcase. Expensive clothes could not conceal the aura of violence encircling him, which explained why whatever he ordered was on the house.

  Often others approached him. Money would change hands.

  Around noon each day, he checked on the girls who were held in an unassuming house in an unassuming road off Karl-Marx-Allee not far from Strausberger Platz. I realised then that Sabina was special to him and the reason he kept her separa
te from the rest. This did not preclude him from forcing her to sleep with others at his apartment, but it did pose a problem. If I allowed myself to be picked up by Valmir, I would be kept with the girls. For the plan to work I needed for us all to be under one roof: Thomas with Sabina, me with Valmir. I needed us to be at the apartment.

  First I coached Thomas in the art of procuring a top-class hooker, the script for my part written already years before on my heart and soul. With Thomas, it was mostly a case of overcoming his nerves, building his confidence, showing him how to engage with a beast like Valmir, no easy matter. Each time Thomas flagged or looked likely to cave in, I reminded him of my decision to marry him. Or not.

  At last, after a week or so, we were ready, but I still hadn’t got word to Sabina.

  Wan and with dark circles under his eyes, Thomas left our apartment and made his way to the café. I, meanwhile, hurried to Strausberger Platz, entered the building and, taking the lift, went to number 1,530. My heart clattering in my chest, I tapped at the door. At first there was no reply, then I heard a shuffling sound. I put my ear to the wood, expecting to engage in a frantic and whispered conversation because Valmir, I knew, would have taken the precaution of locking it.

  I knew nothing. I was wrong. Who was more stunned, I have no idea.

  Dressed in a silk robe that revealed the curve of her breasts, her hair dishevelled, Sabina stood before me, dazed with confusion.

  ‘Sabina, it’s me, Anna.’

  She let out a small cry. Her hand flew to her mouth. I expected her to fling her arms around me. She did not. She stood rooted, her eyes darting from me to the corridor.

  ‘Are you alone?’ I whispered. She nodded, eyes wide like a cat’s in the night. ‘That’s good,’ I said, half laughing, half crying,

  ‘But Valmir,’ she said, her sweet voice a song in my ears.

  ‘No, it’s all right. I’ve been watching Valmir for weeks. It’s quite safe. He won’t be back for ages.’

  ‘You don’t know that. He’s unpredictable.’

  To my astonishment, she went to close the door. I stuck out my foot just in time. I’d always been stronger than her. Then, like being hit by a fast car from behind, it struck me that she had no desire to be rescued. Valmir had corrupted her completely, my lovely, innocent Sabina. In that moment all my hopes and dreams crumbled and turned to dust.

  ‘But Sabina, darling, I’ve come to rescue you,’ my voice cracked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please,’ I begged.

  ‘It won’t work. It’s not possible.’

  ‘Sabina,’ I sobbed in anguish, ‘I have travelled across borders to find you. For you I risked all to escape. Please, don’t turn me away. I can’t…’

  ‘Anna,’ she hissed, dragging me inside. ‘There is no escape. Don’t you understand it’s not locks and keys that keep me here?’

  ‘You want to stay?’ I was bewildered and angry, and very much feared her answer.

  She closed her eyes, leant her back against the wall. ‘It is a life I would not have chosen, but it is a life. I have fine things. I want for nothing. I am safe.’

  ‘Safe?’ I screamed at her. ‘You call this safe?’

  ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘What is it like? You have sex with men who pay. You enjoy it? Is that what you are saying?’ I was panting now, beside myself. We had never argued before.

  ‘No,’ she said, wearily rubbing her face. The haunted look had crept back into her eyes. She looked old beyond her years. Pity overtook my rage.

  ‘Sabina,’ I pleaded, trying to soften my voice. ‘You are safe for as long as you are young and beautiful. What do you think will become of you when your looks fade?’ I was breathing hard. My throat hurt. All I felt was pain and exhaustion.

  She smiled awkwardly. ‘Have you any idea what he will do to me, to you, if I attempt to leave?’

  Her breath burnt my face. As I stared into her eyes, something shifted in her expression. I saw that she was wavering between blind acceptance and hope. She needed to believe that things could change because I said so. I smiled to myself, knowing I had one slim chance. I imagined the corridor to the apartment already covered in Valmir’s blood.

  ‘That’s why I have it all worked out,’ I said, clasping her hands in mine. ‘We can be free from harm. We can be together. I promise. When have I ever let you down?’

  Tears rolled down her cheeks. I put my arms around her, held her close, kissed her cheek. And then she said the words I longed to hear. ‘Will you help me, Anna?’

  ‘You know I will.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Tallis and Clay were recalled to London. They did not go to Thames House, but to the mundane surroundings of a two-star hotel in Camden. Tallis had already relayed the information about Fitz and the warehouse to Asim. At that precise moment a German forensic pathologist was examining the severed limb and its likely provenance. In cases like this, without a head, the odds would normally be stacked against him. Fortunately the tattoo provided conclusive proof of identity. Meanwhile, the warehouse was being scoured for DNA, the River Spree, a popular dumping ground for a body, trawled.

  Entering discreetly through a tradesmen’s entrance, Tallis and Clay took the stairs to the second floor and room 33 where Asim and Beckett were waiting.

  They got straight to business. Asim spoke first. He held a CD in his hand.

  ‘This was passed to me by Don Shenton, security correspondent at the BBC. It seems our female terrorists have entered the film industry.’

  Tallis feared the worst. ‘And the victims?’

  ‘A four-star American general and his wife.’

  ‘Shit!’ Clay said.

  ‘Rather worse than that, as you’ll discover,’ Beckett said.

  Changed everything, Tallis thought, hostage-taking and kidnapping right up there as the most despicable crimes. Messy, charged with emotion, they were a nightmare to handle, with plenty of potential for political and ethical fallout. As for the actual hostages, when things went badly it proved an exceptionally slow and painful way to die. Tallis privately regarded it as one degree worse than murder, the type of criminal act where the victims were numerous, and the good guys got played instead of the perpetrator.

  ‘Any hostage demands?’ He addressed the question jointly to the spooks in suits.

  ‘None,’ Beckett replied.

  Bad, Tallis thought. Hostages were useful for negotiating purposes. No negotiation equals dead hostages. ‘As they’ve now gone public,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that going to compromise the covert nature of the operation?’

  ‘Only if we leak it.’

  ‘Lucky the BBC didn’t run it.’

  ‘With this type of material they come to us first,’ Asim said.

  ‘Unlike Al Jazeera,’ Clay snickered, forcing the others to laugh and puncturing some of the tension in the room. ‘Come to think of it,’ he said, his voice a low burr. ‘How did this dude, Shenton, get hold of the material?’

  Beckett explained.

  ‘Did the kid give a description?’ Clay asked.

  ‘Six-year-olds are not generally known for their acute powers of observation,’ Beckett retorted with a clipped smile. ‘We do, however, have CCTV footage outside the café.’

  A grunt of approval went round the room. At last, Tallis thought, a solid lead.

  Asim slotted the CD into a laptop computer. Tallis and Clay crowded round the screen. The film opened with the scene of an elderly man sitting in what appeared to be a brick-lined basement, curtains with no distinguishing features behind, a single bulb hanging forlornly from the ceiling. In one gnarled hand, a copy of a newspaper dated the day before. Proof of life, Tallis registered. The man’s red-rimmed eyes appeared to be searching beyond the camera, his expression expectant as though awaiting orders. Doing his level best to sit up straight, he looked defeated and ill, Tallis thought, although he didn’t come across as drugged. When he spoke it was in the measured and moderate tone befitting a man of
the military. Announcing that he was General Laine Everett, formerly of the US military, he explained, ‘I acted as an adviser to the President during the Balkan conflict.’ At once, Tallis leant in, every sinew and muscle in his body straining. ‘And I wish to apologise for the advice I gave at the time. I admit now that it was flawed and prejudiced and that my recommendations led to innocent people, Serbs mainly, suffering as a result.’ Swallowing hard, and sweat spotting his brow and upper lip, he continued: ‘I also wish to apologise on behalf of the United States of America for the way in which we cut and ran during the First Gulf War, leaving rebel Kurds to die at the merciless hands of Saddam Hussein.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Clay muttered under his breath.

  The general dropped his gaze, exhausted, and a young woman entered the frame. To Tallis’s surprise, she made no attempt to disguise either her voice or her appearance. She had

  straw-coloured hair, blue eyes, a small nose, thin lips, washed-out skin and cheekbones like razorblades.

  ‘As you have heard and witnessed,’ she said in English with a fearless delivery, ‘for every corner of the earth where nations have failed to take strong action against aggression, there are thousands of victims: sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters. These are the people we represent, and we, as the sisterhood, have hundreds of members spread across the globe.’

  Tallis listened hard. He detected a hint of a Serbian accent.

  ‘Our greatest criticism is reserved for the United Nations,’ she continued, ‘a self-serving institution dependent on the strategic interests of powerful national governments, whose moral neutrality and failure to intervene fuel and generate conflict. Where were you at Srebrenica? Where were you in Darfur and Rwanda, or East Timor or Kosovo? The list goes on,’ she added, a thin dark smile snatching at her mouth.

  Srebrenica? Tallis thought with puzzlement, a massacre carried out by Serb paramilitaries. It didn’t gel with the general’s apology, and the admission also presented an own goal in the woman’s argument.