Family Reunion

by Robert F Barker

  Confusion flooded the old woman’s features. ‘The policeman? But I don’t understand. I thought-.’

  Ignoring the curious look that had suddenly come into Garo’s face, Lucy cut across her mother to speak to the man whose name she now remembered as Carver.

  ‘What do you want, Mr Carver? My parents are easily upset. I said I would ring you when I was ready.’

  ‘What is happening Lucy?’ her mother said, voice rising. ‘I don’t understand all this.’

  Lucy saw Carver starting to turn towards her. She couldn’t let him start asking his questions.

  ‘Well?’ Lucy demanded, grabbing his attention once more.

  His eyes flicked towards the table. ‘Your parents?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And this is?’ He turned to the man sitting next to her mother. Garo was staring at the policeman with a look Lucy thought bordered on amusement.

  ‘This is Garo. He is a friend of mine.’

  She fully expected more to follow. Instead, what the policeman did next surprised her as much as when he charged past her. He glanced once at his partner and nodded to her, as if to acknowledge some communication Lucy had missed. Then he turned on his heel, and walked out, the woman following. Caught unaware by his unexpected departure, Lucy looked to see what Garo was making of it. But he was now watching the officers’ exit with a strange look on his face. Shaking her head, Lucy made her way to the front door, where the policeman was already holding it open, waiting for her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lucy,’ he said. ‘It was a misunderstanding. I will explain later. But please, ring me tomorrow, when you are alone. We must talk.’ Not waiting for her response, he left her on the step.

  As they walked away, she closed the door behind them.

  Coming back into the kitchen, she almost bumped into Garo, standing just inside the door. The look on his face was one she had never seen before and his dark eyes followed her as she sat down at the table. The room was silent, her mother looking scared, her father confused. She doubted he even knew what was going on. Garo waited a few moments before coming round and taking his seat between her and her mother. As she reached across for the ladle resting in the pot, he reached out and took hold of her wrist. She looked at him, surprised.

  ‘Why does he want you to ring him?’ he said.

  On their way back to the van, Jess was struggling to keep up.

  ‘Slow down a minute will you?’ she said to Carver’s back. ‘I’m wearing Louboutin, not bloody Reeboks.’

  None the wiser, he slowed enough to let her draw alongside, before taking her arm and giving her a helping hand. The van was only a hundred yards away round the corner, but he was eager to get there as soon as possible. Jess squirmed in his grasp.

  ‘You’re hurting,’ she said. When he was on a mission he could be annoyingly single-minded.

  Suddenly aware he was holding her the way he would a prisoner, he threw her an apologetic look. ‘Sorry. We need to get back on plot. He could still turn up.’

  ‘I’m aware of that but if you don’t mind, I’d rather do it with two good ankles.’ She pulled her arm away, testily. He got the message and eased up a little.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said again.

  As she fell into step beside him, silent now, he returned to the thoughts whirring through his brain.

  Carver had known as soon as he saw him he was not their quarry. Nevertheless the similarities – the gaunt features, the dark, haunted look about the eyes – had aroused his interest. He was about to start tossing questions around, just to clarify a few things, when the mother’s reaction warned him he was in danger of unlocking a Pandora’s box. She was clearly on the edge and he sensed that if he had continued, she might have lost it altogether. The last thing he could afford right now was for it all to blow up in his face; not with Vahrig still likely to put in an appearance any moment. Besides, not knowing who Lucy’s friend was – Garo, did she say? - he had no way of knowing how much he could reveal without causing her even more problems; he was certain she had more than enough to be going on with. He was clearly a countryman of theirs – perhaps even another illegal – and Carver hadn’t dared say too much in case it got spread around. So, for the time being he was happier to keep things as tight as possible, at least until he knew more about the whole set-up: which is why he decided to cut things short and get out, and why he needed to talk with Lucy, soon. He had already decided that if nothing happened in the next twelve hours, he was going back in and, regardless of who was there, he would get Lucy to tell him everything. But right now he needed to get things back on line.

  As they reached the van doors, they swung open. He helped her step up and in and when Jess’s shapely bottom suddenly loomed in front of his face it didn’t even register.

  ‘So who is he, Boss?’ Glen said as Carver finished giving his account.

  ‘A friend of the family by the look of it,’ Carver said. ‘Right now it doesn’t matter. I need you to get back on plot while I catch up with what’s happening in the MIR.’ Carver was conscious that, as with all murder enquiries, the first twelve to twenty-four hours were the most critical. It is often during that period that the crucial pieces of information come in which, if not recognised and acted on early, can lead to an investigation becoming a long, drawn out affair. He had seen it many times, especially during reviews of long-running investigations. It was his one concern about West looking after the room, but now that the alarm over this Garo’s arrival was over, he felt the urge to make sure nothing was being missed. Ready to go, he turned to Jess. While he’d been briefing Glen Swift, she had been fiddling with the observation team’s camera, a cable and her mobile phone, her thumb dancing across buttons.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he said.

  She continued pressing. ‘I promised Mikayel we’d let him know when we found the Danelians. I’m sending him a picture of Lucy.’

  He waited.

  A moment later she said, ‘Done. Let’s go.’

  CHAPTER 47

  The tee-shirted night attendant with the paper-thin cigarette glued to his bottom lip slammed the metal drawer shut. Before the bang finished echoing around the cold bare walls he was already flipping through his papers, searching for the next one. Mikayel Kahramanyan shook his head, disgusted at the way the man wasn’t even trying to make any show of respect for the drawers’ occupants.

  As he waited, Mikayel wished again that he had stuck with it when he tried to insist to his guide that they leave it until morning. Rested, fed and hopefully, warmed up a bit, he would have felt more up to the task of identifying cadavers. As it was, he was just grateful there was nothing in his stomach. Had there been, he was certain he would have seen it again by now.

  Hard though it was to believe, the Ijevan Town Mortuary was in an even worse state than the Dilizhan Gaol. Now Mikayel was desperate to just get it over with and get out. He didn’t care what the hotel was like, he had had enough. On the way there, his all-knowing driver-guide had managed to take a wrong turn, meaning it was late evening when they finally limped into the small provincial town, forty kilometres south of where the Institute had once stood. Ignoring Mikayel’s plea to show some common sense, the ministry official had insisted there was still time. How the man had managed to keep from looking guilty as they hung around for another half-hour while the town hospital’s night porter rounded up the semi-inebriated mortuary attendant, Mikayel hadn’t a clue.

  ‘How many more?’ Mikayel said.

  The words were aimed at the man in the tee-shirt, but as he spoke he glared at the official standing against the wall, behind him. The man was hanging well back so he would not to have to witness what he had brought Mikayel to see. Mikayel couldn’t really blame him, but that didn’t stop him wishing he could entice the man close enough to share in the distasteful task. Most of the bodies – not all from the Institute - were not just suffering from having lain around in the sun for several weeks. Many were also mutilated. The Azerbaijanis had mad
e sure that tales of their incursion would linger long in the memories of the border region’s inhabitants.

  ‘Two. I think,’ the attendant said in answer to Mikayel’s question. As he spoke he set the dolly in front of another drawer, grabbed the handle and walked the drawer and its contents into the room. As with the others, there was no covering sheet – no need for niceties in a place like this – and a groan sounded from the direction of the ministry official as a blue-black arm, pitted and torn, slipped off the tray and dangled there. The attendant ignored it.

  Mikayel stepped forward and looked down, and had to make a conscious effort to control his stomach. He breathed through his mouth rather than his nose, so as to keep the worst of the smell from registering He examined the body for several minutes, walking its length, using only his eyes to gauge and measure, trying to imagine what he would have looked like alive. Several times during his inspection he referred to the list on his clip-board.

  Eventually he turned to the attendant. ‘You are sure he is one of ours?’

  Making no attempt to hide his boredom, the man shrugged his bony shoulders. He was interested only in returning to his bottle of Arax and the state-sponsored game show he had been watching when the porter came to tell him two madmen from the ministry wanted to view his flock - at this time of night.

  ‘I am told the others have all been identified,’ the attendant said through his yawn. ‘If he is not yours, then who’s?’

  Mikayel stared down at the body. The three he had seen so far had been the older ones, those who would not have been capable of outrunning or evading those who would kill them for the sheer fun of it. In each case, as he ticked off their names, he experienced the same stabs of guilt that nightly haunted his dreams. The knowledge that, had he not set them free the outcome would have been the same, was of no comfort and never would be. But if the body before him was one of the inmates, then he had to be one of the younger ones, that much at least could still be discerned through the swelling and discolouration. But which one? Most of the younger ones had already been accounted and of the few still missing this did not look like any he could remem….

  He stopped. A glimmer of something had registered in the back of his brain, but now it was gone again. What was it? It couldn’t be recognition, he thought. He was all but certain the body was not any of those whose names he had been hoping to be able to tick off. He shuddered. For some reason a strange, conflicted feeling had suddenly come over him, but he wasn’t sure why. He bent closer, bringing his face within inches of the mass of flesh and bone – you could barely call it a man – on the tray. Behind him the official gagged into his handkerchief and turned to the sand-filled fire bucket he had placed beside him, for safety.

  Suddenly Mikayel gave out a loud gasp and he stood up sharply, arms falling to his sides. A single word escaped him. ‘NO.’

  For a split second, the watching ministry official, who spent more of his spare time than he cared to admit watching poorly-made counterfeit DVDs of American horror movies, imagined something awful. Such was the looseness that came into his bowels, he actually clenched his buttocks, tight.

  ‘What is it Doctor?’

  For seconds there was only silence as everyone stared. The psychiatrist at the body. The surprised attendant and nervous official at Kahramanyan. But before anyone could speak, another sound, one totally alien in such an environment, made the official jump a second time. A jangling music, unlike anything he had ever heard before, blared out.

  The psychiatrist span round, looking at his astonished guide, back to the mystified attendant then around the room. Why would a mortuary – particularly one this old – be equipped with the sort of piped-muzak system you find in shopping malls? Then he remembered.

  ‘What is happening?’ the worried official cried, looking around him as if the walls were about to start closing in on them. This was not at all what he had imagined when he volunteered for what he thought was a relatively easy assignment. But instead of answering him, the psychiatrist was whirling around like some mad dervish, hands flying over and through the layers of anorak, jacket and fleece he had worn since disembarking from the plane.

  Suddenly he stopped, looking at something he had taken from inside his jacket. The music, louder now, bounced off the walls, echoing around the chamber. The official caught a glimpse of the device in the psychiatrist’s hand.

  For several moments Mikayel Kahramanyan was off-balance. He had to work hard to juggle the several strands of thought that were fighting for supremacy in his brain. As he stared again at the throbbing object in his hand he struggled to recall what she had told him, part of his brain still grappling with the crazy thought that had come to him just before the noise started. He remembered thinking at the time that when you looked at the buttons it was ridiculously obvious, but right now-. He interrupted his train of thought to return his gaze to the body. But if he-

  Boom-boom-twang. The jarring music made it difficult to think. Why would-?

  Boom-boom-twang. Which button to press to shut it off?

  He pressed one at random. The sound stopped.

  Thank God.

  He stared at the screen. A small envelope-icon flashed at him, beneath it, “Jess has sent you a message.”

  ‘Is everything alright, Doctor?’ the official said, unnerved but also interested to see what Mikayel was looking at. He had read recently that there were now more cell-phones in Armenia than there were people, but the one in the psychiatrist’s hand looked more advanced than any he was familiar with, certainly far more than his own, Ministry-issue Huawei. Perhaps the psychiatrist was not so old-fashioned after all.

  ‘Yes,’ Mikayel said. ‘Just give me a moment.’

  Conflicted as to what to do first, Mikayel did what at that moment was easiest. He pressed on the icon.

  Despite the grimness of his surroundings and the shock still running through him, a smile came to Mikayel’s lips as he read Jess’s message. A ray of sunshine in the darkness. And what her message said about them finding the Danelians was of great interest.

  But what did it all mean? If the thought that had come to him proved to be correct-. The screen changed suddenly. He must have pressed something. Jess’s words disappeared and in their place was a photograph. The message had said something about a photograph of Vahrig’s sister. This must be her.

  The image showed a dark-haired young woman at the front door of a house, talking to a man in a long coat whose back was to the camera. Mikayel wondered how it had come to be taken. But the picture was not very clear. It looked like it had been taken in failing light. Nonetheless it was good enough that he could make out her features, see what an attractive woman she had grown into, free from the shame and horror. As he looked at her pretty face, allowing himself a moment’s whimsy, he suddenly remembered the puzzle his friends back in England still had to unravel. He needed to- Wait.

  As he’d thought on what to do next, half his attention was still on the picture, but as he stared at it, something caught his eye, and he re-focused. He hadn’t really taken it all in the first time, interested only in getting his first look at the Monster of Yerevan’s sister. With Jess’s message not referring to the man he assumed he was of no significance. But now, looking at it again…. The face was only in quarter profile, little more than an impression, a corner of the mouth, the nose…. But something….

  Mikayel snapped his head around, looking at the body on the tray, then back to the picture.

  ‘Great God in heaven, say it isn’t so.’

  The mortuary attendant had supervised enough viewings to recognise shock when it hit, to know when someone was so affected by their experience, they were no longer capable of rational speech. Now, seeing the pained look that came into this doctor’s face, he knew it was one of those occasions. Strange really, he thought. Up to that moment the man had been holding up remarkably well. He turned to the official, shrugged up his shoulders and spread his hands close to his body in the universally rec
ognised gesture of, What gives?

  The ministry man saw the look and reciprocated. I have no idea. But having recovered a little from his sudden fright, he decided it was time he should impose himself. If the psychiatrist lost it now, it could delay things. And if that happened he may not be able to complete his assignment a day-and-a-half earlier than the Ministry-imposed schedule. The chance of that rarest of things, a day and a night with Ludmilla to himself, without having to manufacture elaborate excuses to satisfy his suspicious wife, would evaporate. Ludmilla would not be pleased.

  ‘What is wrong, Doctor. DOCTOR?’

  But it was too late, Mikayel Kahramanyan wasn’t listening. He was running for the door as fast as his legs would take him.

  CHAPTER 48

  The silence between them was unusual. Most often when Carver and Jess drove somewhere together, she usually took the opportunity to talk about incidents or scenarios that, according to her, amply demonstrated the fallibility of the male species. He would invariably respond with some throw-away comment which she was never sure evidenced the deep-rooted sexism she still saw in many male detectives, or was simply aimed at winding her up. But after a day as full, hectic and nerve-wearing as he could remember, Carver assumed that Jess was as grateful as him for the opportunity to order her thoughts and simply take stock.

  Not least among his own mental meanderings was what they were doing with Lucy and her family, the subject about which he was still in two minds. If their short-term safety was the main concern, they would now be in a safe house somewhere. By now he would be on his way to knowing exactly where he stood - as far as they were concerned at least. He may even have gleaned something that might help ensnare Vahrig Danelian. But was it the main concern? At some stage he would have to release them, even if only while any appeal to the Immigration Authorities was settled. And if Vahrig Danelian hadn’t been located by then…. He preferred not to think about it. At least this way, if Vahrig was intending to take a pot at them on the heels of what he had done to the Maleevas, they stood a better than even chance he would be arrested as soon as he showed his face. It was just a shame the man who showed up that evening was not him. They could all now be looking forward to a night’s sleep without having to worry about what the morning might bring. He was still curious to find out what the man’s status was. Pound to a penny he was an illegal, like them. But right now, he was well down on Carver’s list of priorities. He hoped to God that when he made contact with the MIR, there may be something there that would revive his hope they weren’t all looking in the wrong direction.