Towards lunchtime he returned to his office, closed the door, and phoned Rosanna. She was on her way back from having dropped Sarah and the kids off at home. Carver felt another pang of guilt - the latest in a long line - over the fact that the Portmeirion trip had never materialised. He made a promise to himself he would make up for it the first chance he got.
‘How is it going?’ Rosanna said.
The night before he had filled her in on the day’s developments, as well as the operation he and Terry West had finally agreed he was now very much part of. ‘No more secrets, hedging, or excuses,’ he told her before he started. Which explained his ‘honesty’ call to Broom that morning.
‘If you can’t manage what I’m doing then tell me and we’ll talk about it,’ he told her.
Although she had agreed, he couldn’t help feeling there was a void there somewhere. He hoped with all his heart that his decision to follow his instincts hadn’t damaged them irretrievably. Time would tell, for now he couldn’t be certain whether her enquiry meant she was genuinely interested, or just being polite.
‘It’s all quiet at the moment. I’ll keep you posted.’
‘I take it you’ll be late?’
He closed his eyes for a second. The old question. ‘Unless something happens.’ Just before she hung up he said, ‘I love you Ros,’ but wasn’t sure if she heard.
Jess came back from her visit to the MIR and filled him in. ‘There’s not much coming in yet, and house to house around where the Maleeva’s live is a waste of time. No one sees anything in those big houses.’
By late afternoon Carver was pacing Jess’s office. He couldn’t stand these sit and wait ops. It was why he’d never been attracted to Crime Squad work. The hours spent hanging around in obs points and draughty vans on car parks would send him crazy.
‘Haven’t you got any work to catch up on?’ Jess said, looking up from the papers in front of her. She was going over the Durzlan stuff again, comparing the details with the case-notes Mikayel had brought them. Carver wondered how she was managing to concentrate.
‘I tried that,’ Carver answered. ‘Didn’t work.’
‘Well do something useful then,’ she said distractedly, turning back to her papers. ‘Make me a mint tea.’
‘Right away, Mist-’ He just managed to not say it as he saw her freeze, head still down.
He made her a mint tea.
Time passed.
CHAPTER 44
DC Dave Bradley reached behind the seat for his flask. A late cold snap had made for a chilly evening. With no heater in the obs van, it was destined to get a lot colder. By eleven, the end of the team’s tour, he would be freezing his bollocks off. As he twisted the top off the flask, the warm smell wafted around the van.
‘Whotcha got there Dave?’ a voice said from behind. ‘Left or right?’
Six weeks before, Dave’s wife, Naomi, known amongst the team for being well-endowed, had given birth to twins. The jokes about her post-natal attributes hadn’t stopped coming since the two members of the team designated to drop off the obligatory flowers had reported back their observations. It didn’t help that Dave, not long back from paternity leave, had let slip about her using a pump, so he could share in feeding duties.
‘Don’t be a smart-arse,’ Dave said. ‘It’s tomato soup.’
‘That’s clever,’ another voice snickered. ‘Does she do bitter as well?’
Dave looked in the mirror and gave them the finger, but all he could see was darkness. ‘I was going to pass it around. Now you can just all fuck off.’
Muted jeers sounded in back.
In the passenger seat next to Dave, Glen Swift, the unit team leader, shifted his considerable bulk to relieve his growing soreness and sighed. ‘Settle down team. We don’t want the neighbours reporting us to the bizzies. It might be embarrassing.’ Though still not loud enough to pass through the van’s fibre-board baffling, the mickey-taking fell to a soft murmur.
‘Bet the butter on his sandwiches is homemade as well.’
Dave shook his head, sadly, as he drank his soup. ‘Morons. I’m surrounded by fucking morons. When we get back to Longsight, I’m going to-.’
‘Cut it.’
Dave’s mug stopped short of his lips as Glen sat up. Noises of backsides shifting on seats sounded behind.
‘What is it Glen?’ This from Malia, one of the two women on the team.
‘Wait,’ he said. He was watching the tall young man in the long dark coat who had appeared round the corner at the top of the street and was now coming down towards them. He was carrying some sort of holdall.
‘Is it him?’
Glen grabbed the clipboard and studied the subject’s photograph. The man coming towards them seemed heavier. Then again he could have put on weight. They’d been told the photograph was several years old. ‘I’m not sure yet. The light’s not too good. Simon?’
‘I’ve got him,’ a voice said in his ear. Glen felt the weight of the long lens settle on his shoulder and he pressed himself back in his seat. In this light and given the distance, there was little likelihood they would be made, but no sense taking chances. As he waited for Simon’s verdict, he pressed the button in his palm.
‘Glen to all Narnia units. Stand-by, stand-by. One i-c-three, on foot, towards the O.P. Checking him out now.’
The come-backs - ‘Tony, yes-yes’, ‘Anna, yes-yes’ - confirmed the other teams had heard and were ready.
‘Well, is it or isn’t it?’ Glen asked Simon. The man was now within fifty yards of the house. If Glen was going to call a strike it would have to be soon.
‘I can’t tell,’ Simon said. ‘It looks a bit like him but I’m not sure. He’s certainly foreign.’
‘Give it here.’ Reaching over his shoulder Glen grabbed the camera, and zoomed in on the man just as he started to look around, as if he was half-expecting to see something, or someone.
Thirty yards.
‘Click him, Glen,’ Simon reminded. Glen depressed the shutter-release.
Click-click-click.
Twenty yards.
Shit, Glen thought. I can’t tell either. Similar sort of look, but is it him?
Click-click-click.
‘Glen?’
‘Wait,’ he snapped. His heart beginning to pound, adrenalin coursing.
Click-click-click.
‘Come on Glen. He’s nearly there.’
Looking into the houses. Reading numbers. Can’t make him properly.
Anna’s voice over the radio. ‘Are we going?’
At the gate.
Still can’t…. Turn this way, you bastard.
Click-click-click.
‘Yes or no, Glen?’
Fuck.
Click-click-click.
‘He’s at the fucking door, Glen.’
Glen lowered the camera and looked across to where the man was raising a fist, about to knock. The noises behind told him they were ready, hyped.
‘Glen?’
Glen Swift swallowed, and as he opened his mouth to speak he remembered why he always hated being ‘Eyeball’ on obs jobs.
CHAPTER 45
Mikayel Kahramanyan stepped out into the late evening chill, grateful for the chance to fill his lungs with clean air at last. The Dilizhan Gaol wasn’t that old - only thirty years or thereabouts - but the conditions were a disgrace. It looked like it had never been cleaned or painted since it opened. Torn bags of refuse lay everywhere and a stale, rotting smell hung over the whole facility. He understood better when he paid a courtesy visit to the Governor to introduce himself and explain his mission. The man was obese, his office a pigsty. Anyone willing to work in such conditions was fit only to be labelled accordingly, Mikayel thought.
The point was rammed home when he was shown into the detention block housing those he had come to see. God alone knew when they had last been allowed to bathe or clean themselves. Some were incapable of doing so without assistance. Slops of what passed for food in the place past
ed the floor, along with other things. Mikayel was minded to make an official complaint but knew it would do no good. This far from the capital, who would take notice? But at least he had been able to put ticks against another five on his list. Only seven more to go.
As he turned to his driver, he felt his exhaustion more acutely than ever. They hadn’t stopped since leaving the airport fourteen hours earlier and he desperately needed a shower and a proper bed. One of the more amenable guards had given him the name of a hotel up in the Old Town he claimed was better than the average.
‘Is that it for today?’ Mikayel said, hopefully.
The ministry official consulted his list in the way little men with clipboards sometimes do. Mikayel had already concluded that from the way his appointed guide was trying to cram as much into the day as possible, he was missing his comfortable Yerevan office badly.
‘Ijevan is only forty kilometres away. We could do that one, then find a hotel,’ the official said.
Mikayel was wary. ‘Are there any decent hotels in Ijevan?’
‘The Hotel Dilijan is very comfortable. I stayed there once.’
Mikayel checked his watch. It was getting late, but they could be there in less than an hour. Another hour to do the necessary, and there would still be time for a decent night’s sleep.
‘Alright,’ Mikayel nodded, grumpily. ‘But this is the last one, agreed?’
‘Of course, Doctor.’ The official all but sneered.
Mikayel suspected the man would be thinking that provincials such as himself had no idea what they were missing, living so far from the capital. As they reached the car, a thought occurred to him. He turned to his guide.
‘I didn’t know there is a prison at Ijevan.’
‘Oh, didn’t I tell you?’
The way he said it, Mikayel could tell he was enjoying the advantage that comes with fore-knowledge. Since setting off from the airport, Mikayel had wondered, several times, if the man was keeping back snippets of information, revelling in the feeling of power it gave him.
‘This one’s not a prison,’ the official continued. ‘We are going to the morgue.’
Lucy opened the door, and blinked in surprise. The events of the past twenty-four hours had caused her to forget all about her date. And in any case he was far too early. They hadn’t settled Dadda yet.
‘H- Hello,’ she said, trying desperately to cover her surprise. What to do? She couldn’t possibly go out tonight, not now. Nor any other night come to that. Certainly not until it was all over, whenever that might be. ‘I… I’m sorry,’ she stammered. ‘I am… we are just….’ She saw the amused smile, almost as if he knew something was amiss. Had it been his purpose to catch her out?
‘Am I too early?’ he said, dropping the smile. ‘I am sorry. I can go away and come back later.’ He half-turned, as if to leave.
‘NO,’ she yelled, then moderated her voice. ‘That won’t be any good.’ She saw the puzzled look. ‘What I mean is….’ Her mind raced. She needed time to think. ‘Look, you’d better come in while I…. Oh, just come in.’
She swung the door wide and he stepped inside. Her manners almost made her offer to take his coat, but she thought better of it. He wouldn’t be staying. He simply must not. She walked him through to the kitchen, realising as she went he would want to know why she was eating, when he was supposed to be taking her out. As she led him through the door, her mother dropped her knife and fork and looked up in shocked surprise.
‘Mamma, Dadda, this is Garo, the friend I told you about?’
Her father, his back to the door, tried to swing round, stiffly. Unable to put any weight on his withered legs he could only manage a half-turn. The man made things easier by stepping confidently into the middle of the room, where everyone could see him. Lucy’s father’s jaw fell open.
‘Mr and Mrs Danelian,’ the man said, smiling, broadly. ‘How wonderful to find you at last.’
As Lucy heard him use their real name and saw the look of horror on her parents’ faces, her stomach dropped to the floor, and she realised.
She had brought disaster upon them all.
CHAPTER 46
Jess peered at the image in the camera’s view-screen, before turning to Carver.
‘What do you think?’
Carver stared at it in silence. He could understand now why Glen Swift had been undecided. There was certainly some similarity. The gaunt look. The sharp features. But he was as familiar with Vahrig Danelian’s photograph as any of them. And if he couldn’t be certain, he couldn’t criticise Glen for not calling the strike. He sat back on the van’s bench seat.
‘You can’t tell.’ It was a statement of fact, not opinion. Damn, he thought.
Thirty or so minutes earlier, as they’d monitored the radio transmissions, he’d convinced himself this was it, that they were about to lift Vahrig Danelian. But when the strike call didn’t come, and there followed a jumbled mish-mash of calls; ‘Why the fuck not?’ ‘What’s happening?’ ‘Did we go?’ he could not contain his frustration. Dashing out of Op Control, Jess on his heels, he’d leaped into his car, raced to the designated rendezvous point – a community centre car park round the corner from where Lucy lived - and joined Glen and his team in the back of the van. Carver’s annoyance was plain to see, but fair-dos to Glen, he’d stuck to his guns.
‘It wasn’t on Boss,’ he said, bringing up the man’s image. ‘I didn’t feel positive enough to call it. My decision. If I was wrong, I’ll hold my hands up.’
Now, having seen it, Carver shook his head.
‘You were right Glen. It was the right call.’
There were no sighs of relief or expressions of self-satisfaction from the team, certainly not from Glen. An experienced Squad man, he knew the score. They had a problem on their hands. A big one.
For several minutes no one spoke. They were all waiting for Carver. It was his decision. Eventually he looked across at Glen, sitting opposite.
‘You say you think she knew him?’
Glen nodded. ‘She looked gob-smacked to begin with, but then opened the door and let him in.’
‘No arguments? No pushing or shoving?’
‘None at all.’
‘Definitely not, Boss,’ Simon joined in.
Carver turned to him, nodded. Simon had been eager to back his Team Leader up from the start. Typical squad, Carver thought. But it didn’t help matters. He racked his brain to remember his conversations with Mikayel. They’d talked a lot about whether his family would recognise him after so many years. Mikayel thought they would – even his younger sister, who would have been in her teens when she last saw him. Carver ran through the impressions he had formed of her from their meeting. Surely she wouldn’t have let him into the house willingly if she knew it was him? Then he thought on what he’d learned over the years about the fallibility of witness memory. It had caught him out before.
‘What’s the latest?’ he said to Glen.
The team’s leader made his way to the front of the van and they heard him speaking softly over the radio. Before coming away to rendezvous with Carver he had put one of the rear cover team in closer. He was now standing outside the Danelian’s back gate. Within a minute Glen returned.
‘Still nothing. He thinks he can hear voices, but it could be the TV.’
‘Well, no screaming is good,’ Jess said. Those of the team who weren’t already enjoying gawping at her turned in her direction. Seeing their faces, she said, ‘I wasn’t trying to be funny.’
The wry grins vanished.
Eventually Carver turned to her.
‘I don’t think we’ve any choice.’
She signed. ‘Neither do I.’
For the second time that evening, Lucy Danelian stood on the doorstep, blinking in surprise. Him. But why was he here? She hadn’t rung him. She wasn’t ready yet.
She saw a glance pass between him and the younger woman next to him who didn’t quite fit with her expectations of a female police officer.
The look seemed to show relief and made her wonder if he thought the address she had given him might have been false.
‘I’m sorry Lucy,’ he said before she could say anything. ‘I know this is unexpected, but I need to speak with you about something urgent. Can we come in?’ He put a foot across the threshold, trying to make the decision for her.
‘I, I’m not…. Th, this isn’t….’ Her anxiety was making her tongue tied.
‘It’ll only take a moment.’
Noises emanated from behind her, then her mother’s voice, full of apprehension. ‘Lucine?’
He gave her a sharp look, then he was in and striding down the hall towards the kitchen. Before Lucy could even react, the woman stepped in after him, taking Lucy’s hand from the door and closing it behind her. As Lucy turned to her, alarmed, the woman smiled at her.
‘It’s alright Lucy. Trust him.’
Despite sensing that the woman was trying to reassure her, Lucy’s alarm grew rapidly. Whatever was happening, it was too soon. She turned and went after the policeman.
He had stopped just inside the kitchen and she had to squeeze round him to get past. As she turned to look at him, she saw the shocked look on his face. He was staring at the table and the three people sitting around it, each in various stages of working their way through the steaming bowls of goulash before them.
For several seconds nobody said anything as they all looked at each other, apart from her father that is. Still with his back to the door, he hadn’t tried to turn, but was staring blankly across the table at his wife; Too much all at once, Lucy guessed.
But the policeman seemed to be paying particular attention to Garo. Running his eyes over him, head to toe almost, and back again. Surely he couldn’t think-’
‘Who are you?’
It was Mamma who had spoken, her face twisted again in fear as when Lucy’s first visitor had arrived.
‘Mamma, this is the man I told you about,’ Lucy said, sending her a warning glare. ‘The one I met yesterday.’
Family Reunion Page 23
