by Jay Gill
Orel sat down at the next table and said nothing. He looked straight ahead and sipped his coffee. Vlad watched Orel’s muscular, tattooed arm as he placed his coffee cup back in the saucer.
“Vlad, this is very important,” said Papa. “You will speak to the girl’s family. Offer our condolences. Send them a gift, a generous gift. Let them know the man who did this to their daughter will be brought to justice. They’ll know what you mean.”
Vlad showed no emotion as he listened to Papa.
Papa continued. “I am not asking you to do this. Tell them what they need to hear and do it soon.”
Vlad lit another cigarette. He turned in his seat to lean against the wall. “I’ll do as you ask, Papa.”
Orel got up and walked to the restaurant door, unlocked it and opened it. Vlad looked at Papa and then at Orel.
“Guess it’s time to go,” said Vlad with a smile. “So good to catch up again. I do love our morning strategy meetings.”
Nobody replied, and Vlad strutted out of the restaurant, pausing only to knock over some chairs on his way out.
Chapter Eleven
Around midnight I heard a knock at the front door and the doorbell being rung repeatedly. I checked my phone. It wasn’t Rayner; he always texts me before coming over late. It wasn’t my parents; they would call first.
“Okay, okay,” I called to the late-night visitor. I looked out the window and my heart sank. “Scott. It’s late. How can I help?” I said as I opened the door. I didn’t need to hear him speak; I could see he was drunk. I watched as he swayed and tried to gather his thoughts.
“I want to speak to my wife. She’s still my wife.” Scott looked past me and into the house. Then he started calling her. “Monica! Monica! I want to talk.” I saw a light go on across the street. I stepped forward to quieten him and calm him down.
“Scott – look at me, Scott,” I said soothingly. “Monica is asleep. It’s after midnight. My daughters are in the house and they’re fast asleep too. I don’t want them disturbed. What I suggest is you go home, sleep it off and call Monica to arrange a good time for you both to talk, preferably with your solicitor present. Take my word for it – that will be better in the long run. You don’t want her seeing you like this. How about I call you a cab?”
“Who the hell do you think you are? I know what you’re up to. You’re screwing my wife, aren’t you? Think you’re above the rest of us, don’t you? Get out of my way. I want to talk to Monny now.” Scott staggered forward and tried to push me aside. I stood firm on the front step. With fury in his eyes, and one foot on the doorstep, he looked up at me. From behind me I heard Monica come to the door.
“Scott? What are you doing here? Do you have any idea what time it is? Christ, you’re drunk.”
“I love you, Monny. I do. I’m so sorry. Sorry for everything. Sorry for what I said. Ashamed of what I did. I never should have hurt you, I know that. I will get help, I promise. I’m getting help. I’m going to be different. I want you back. I want to start again. Can we start again? I just want to hear that we can try again and I’ll leave. I promise I’ll leave. Just say it.” Breathing heavily and swaying, he took a few steps back from us and held his arms outstretched.
“Scott, you’re drunk. There are children asleep in the house. You’re waking the whole street,” said Monica.
“I don’t care. I love you. Say you’ll give me a chance.”
I could see this conversation going in circles. I came off the front step and put out a consoling hand. “Scott, now is not the time. Let’s do this later. Could you call a cab please, Monica?”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Scott lunged forward, gave me a shove and then took a wild swing at me, which I sidestepped with ease. He lost his balance and fell onto his side. He got back up and looked around for Monica, who stood with her hands over her mouth, looking dismayed.
“Monny, I just want to talk.” Scott turned his sights on me again. “Why don’t you sod off, Hardy? Just leave us to talk. You’re always around, aren’t you? No wonder we can’t put our marriage back together, what with you moping around her all the time, hovering like some pathetic injured child.”
“Okay, that’s enough. Monica, please call a cab now or call the police. I really don’t mind which,” I said.
Monica stepped towards Scott, and I immediately stepped between them. I hadn’t seen Monica like this before. She was furious. And so was I. How dare Scott come here and bring his aggression and foul mouth to the place she felt safe?
“Scott, just go home,” she said, struggling to keep her voice level. “I don’t want to talk to you. You’re a weak man. You’re a bully. You’re not a man. A real man doesn’t hit women. A real man doesn’t blame his wife for his problems. You’re nothing. You abused me, and that is unforgivable. I never want to see you again. You hear me? Never again. Now – fuck off!”
That had the textbook effect I’d been hoping to avoid. Scott completely lost it. He began pacing around in circles on the small front lawn, ranting and raging. He turned his focus to me again and charged at me. I grabbed him and held him while he spat more abuse in my face.
“She’s my wife,” he roared. He looked at me with loathing in his eyes. “You had your wife. She’s dead. Bled to death in the street like some whore. Some copper you are. You’re not a man. Can’t protect your own wife. How are you going to protect your kids when you can’t protect your wife? I bet you were screwing my wife while yours was dying in the gutter.”
Without hesitation I punched him. His legs buckled and he fell to the ground; he was out cold. I dragged him by his coat and lay him on his side, then tilted his head to clear his airway in case he vomited. I looked up at Monica. Without a word she walked into the house and returned with my mobile phone and two coats. We sat huddled together on the front step with Scott snoring on the lawn beside us. I looked at my phone, then at Monica.
“Shall I call the police or an ambulance?” I asked.
Monica shrugged. “Ambulance, I suppose.”
I made the call, then looked over at Scott and spoke to him as if he were able to hear me. “You know, Scott, I had a really bad day and you were able to make that bad day worse. That really is some talent. Now look at the three of us. You with your face in the dirt. Me effectively talking to an unconscious drunk. And Monica – well, Monica has dropped the F-bomb. Who knew she could swear like a sailor?”
Monica laughed and shoved me with her shoulder. “I know lots of swear words. Shall I tell you some of my favourites?”
“Perhaps we should save them.” I gently nudged her back. “That would be too much excitement for one day.”
Chapter Twelve
Papa and Orel were drinking Rakia and playing chess. Over the last few days Orel had noticed a change in the old man. He looked troubled.
“We’ve been friends a long time, Papa. Together we’ve been through a lot. Ups and downs. You’ve never questioned my loyalty. I’ve never asked for anything, and yet you’ve always been good to me.”
Orel was a quiet man. When he did speak, Papa had learned it was always for good reason. So he watched out of the corner of his eye and listened as he pretended to study the chessboard.
Orel topped up each glass, drank his down in one gulp and topped it up again. “Growing up I had a dog. I loved the dog. I think the dog loved me. But the dog was unpredictable. I felt the dog couldn’t be trusted. But I loved the dog, so I did nothing. One day my beautiful baby sister was playing with her dolls by the fire when the dog attacked her. Unprovoked. It nearly killed her. It grabbed her by the shoulder and thrashed her like she was nothing. She screamed and cried and there was blood, lots of blood. This only increased the dog’s blood lust.
“My father heard her cries and ran into the room and without hesitation grabbed a fire poker and drove it straight into the dog’s skull. My sister survived, though she was scarred down her face, neck and shoulder for the rest of her life. She was scarred because I avoided doing w
hat I knew had needed to be done. If I could have my time over again, I would not hesitate. I would cut that dog’s throat the first time it looked at me the wrong way.”
Papa sat back in his chair, amazed. The two men had known each other for over fifty years, and that was possibly the longest he’d ever heard Orel speak.
“What a load of nonsense,” said Papa. “You must be the worst storyteller I have ever heard. You never had a dog. You never even had a sister.”
Orel looked at the old man with shock on his face. Then the two men laughed, the sort of laughter that brings tears to the eyes. When they had regained their composure, the two men lit cigars.
“Thank you,” said Papa. “Watch him. I need to be one hundred percent sure it’s him. I want to know everything. If it is him, then I have protected him long enough. If he does anything to put the business at risk, then I can no longer protect him. If Vlad behaves like an animal, then like an animal he must be put down.”
Orel knew this was hard for the old man. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I know. Now pour me some Rakia. That bloody story of yours – ‘I think the dog loved me.’ Christ Almighty, you should have been a comedian.”
Chapter Thirteen
Anya stood smoking her third consecutive cigarette outside in the car park of the school. She had cut her hair short and was wearing sunglasses, but she doubted her new look would fool anyone who knew her. She felt exhausted and hadn’t slept properly for days. Every sudden noise or voice caused her to jump.
She watched as students began leaving the building. It was late evening. The students were adults of all ages, attending the school for a wide range of courses, some looking to learn computer skills, some wanting additional qualifications and some learning a new hobby like pottery, art or photography.
She crushed out her cigarette with her foot and walked over to the building. As she wove amongst the crowd, her eyes scanned the faces, looking for the teacher. She had met her once or twice; her name was Miss Reilly. Monica Reilly. Delina had talked about her a lot, the way she always did when she learned something new or had a new idea. She would talk and talk and talk, excited and full of enthusiasm like a child.
Anya continued to scan the faces of the crowd. She was worried now that she wouldn’t recognise her. Then it crossed her mind that Miss Reilly might still be in the classroom. She started up the steps of the school, and then, in the sea of faces, she recognised the one she was looking for. Miss Reilly was walking towards her, talking to a student. Anya had to speak to her: perhaps her husband the detective would help her.
Miss Reilly looked up and recognised Anya straight away. She immediately ended her conversation and walked quickly towards her.
Chapter Fourteen
The two women sat in Monica’s little Ford Fiesta and talked.
“You must go to the police,” said Monica. “They’re looking for you. Police officers all over London are looking for you. We thought you might have been, you know, killed.”
Anya began to cry; it was the first time she’d been able to. “Your husband is a detective? Will he help me?” she asked.
Monica put her arms around Anya. “James is a good friend,” she said. “He’s not my husband. We’re friends. It’s complicated, but none of that matters.” She handed Anya a tissue. “Yes, of course he’ll help you. You should come with me back to the house. You’ll be safe. He’ll be at home putting his children to bed right now. We can meet him there. You can shower, get a change of clothes and have something to eat.”
Monica hugged Anya again. “You’re going to be okay. James is a good man.”
Anya nodded and looked at her lap.
The car park was empty of cars now; there was not a soul in sight. The night air was hot and full of the smell of cut grass. Monica started her car, turned on her headlights and headed down the drive towards the road. She stopped at the entrance to check for oncoming traffic. Out of nowhere a black Mercedes 4x4 appeared and pulled up in front of her little Fiesta. The two women watched in alarm as the doors of the Mercedes opened and two men jumped out and ran towards them.
One of them wrenched Anya’s door open, and she screamed as a large, muscular man grabbed her hair and arm and tried to drag her out. Without thinking, Monica threw the car into reverse, and the Fiesta began lurching back up the driveway.
Anya’s attacker lost his footing. She grabbed his arm and bit down on it as hard as she could. The man cursed loudly, pulled back his arm and fell backwards onto the freshly cut lawn.
His partner looked at him and laughed. “These two have got some fight,” he said. “This should be fun.”
They both walked back to the Mercedes and, with little haste, followed the reversing Ford Fiesta up the driveway into the car park. They had no reason to rush; they knew there was nowhere for the little car to go and no escape for the two women.
Chapter Fifteen
Sometimes police work comes down to a little bit of luck. My father, once a detective himself, always told me we make our own luck. He also liked to tell me the luckiest detectives he’d worked with were usually those with the greatest levels of perseverance – and so it was today.
I’d spent the day calling every detective and investigator I knew, and some I didn’t, and eventually I got a lead. A vice detective I knew called Bartholomew Bellamy – everyone calls him Barty-B – told me of a case he’d worked on a few years back.
He’d been on a raid trying to bust a fast-growing prostitution racket in West London. Girls were being brought in from Eastern Europe and forced into sex work to pay off their debt to the traffickers. On this particular day the plan was to raid three flats at the same time in different parts of London. The idea was that none of the flats would get tipped off about the raid because they’d be all raided simultaneously.
“If I remember rightly the flats were all above tanning and beauty shops. Anyway, we got the call, and my team entered our target from the front of the shop and headed up the stairs,” said Barty-B.
“When we reached the top of the stairs, we met no one, which was really odd. Initially, I thought we had the wrong place. Usually there are women running around and clients trying to get out of windows with their trousers around their ankles. I’m exaggerating, but you know what I mean. It usually gets chaotic for a while, but not that day. That day there was no one in the shop, no girls on the stairs hurling abuse; the place was quiet. It wasn’t until the team started checking and clearing the rooms that we understood why.”
Barty-B cleared his throat and continued. “On a bed in one of the rooms, the bodies of four young women were piled one on top of another. It’s hard for your mind to comprehend when you see something like that. All those young women had been stabbed over and over again. I don’t mean stabbed just to kill them; I mean some of those young women had pieces of themselves hanging off, and some of the pieces were on the bed and some on the floor. I’d never seen anything like it before and nothing like it since. There was blood everywhere. I mean a lot of blood. One of the guys said it was like a bomb had gone off in a butcher’s shop, and I understood what he meant.”
At first I was unsure how this horrific story related to me and my enquiry. Then he told me each girl had been strangled and stabbed multiple times in the abdomen. He told me it was as though their necks had been put in a vice. Someone with a tremendously powerful grip had held each girl and crushed her throat while at the same time cutting and stabbing her.
“All three raids reported the same thing,” said Barty-B. “In total, eleven girls were found murdered in the three flats. Why? Well, at the time we assumed someone had become aware a raid was imminent and was covering his tracks in case any of the women decided to talk. Dead women don’t talk.”
He then told me that, unsurprisingly, no witnesses had come forward. A wall of silence went up, and they never got the guy they suspected of doing it.
I was hooked. I sat with the phone pressed to my ear and my pen poised, waiting for
the name. This had to be my guy. There were too many similarities.
“If I were you,” said Barty-B. “I would look at a man called Vladimir Kastrati. Known to his friends as Vlad the Wolf.”
“What else do you know about him?” I asked.
“Not much, really. Your man Vlad is Albanian mafia and, as you’d expect from any mafia boss type, he’s a real nasty piece of work with a ruthless reputation. I won’t go into details right now, but as far as we can make out, he’s into everything: people trafficking, prostitution, drugs, money laundering – you know the kind of stuff. He’s also right at the top of the food chain, so he’s always got someone willing to provide an alibi. Failing that, witnesses simply vanish or, like these girls, wind up dead.”
“So how do I get near him?” I asked.
To my surprise, Barty-B laughed. “You won’t have too much trouble with that.”
“I won’t have too much trouble getting near him? What do you mean?”
“Vlad is a real wannabe playboy. He loves an audience. I think he’s a little confused about whether he’s a gangster or a playboy. But whatever you do, don’t for a second forget what he is. From what I’ve heard, he’ll flip in a second from name-dropping to dropping you off a building.”
I could hear someone calling Barty-B’s name, so I knew he’d want to wind up the call.
“Listen, Hardy,” he said, “if you get anything on this animal, let me know. I can also tell you there are detectives in vice, serious crimes, fraud, Flying Squad, you name it – they all have their own reasons for wanting to see Vlad the Wolf taken down. So, anything you need, just ask. Right – gotta go. Good luck, mate.”
