The Black Shepherd

by Steven Savile

  ‘A Volvo. Not a new one. An old model. It was rusty. Yellow.’

  He gave her directions to the place, deliberately not perfect, because witnesses made mistakes. It was important that he was close enough for police find the body, but he wanted them to search. Laying it up on a platter was a mistake. ‘I have to go. Find. Her. Please. She’s alone out there. Please.’

  ‘Can I have your name, please, sir?’

  ‘I left my mother on her own.’ He hung up before she could ask for his name again.

  Kask headed back to the car to the sound of the payphone ringing. He had no intention of going back to answer.

  He could still hear it ringing as he clambered back into the driver’s seat. He turned the engine over and turned the music back on and pulled away, driving for a few minutes.

  The police radio squawked into life.

  He listened to the general calling all cars alert, until he was sure the dispatcher had the location right, before he began to circle back towards the scene. He had no intention of being first responder, or second, or even third.

  He radioed in, ‘I’m in the vicinity. I’ll swing by and check it out,’ and made sure he sounded just disinterested enough that it felt routine, then thought to add, ‘Send an ambulance just in case.’

  ‘Already en route,’ the dispatcher told him.

  As he turned towards the wasteland he realized that he was first on the scene.

  He pulled up about three metres from where he’d parked when he’d dumped Annja’s body.

  In a moment of perfect irony he saw a dog walker approaching the corpse, being dragged towards it by a small, excitable dog. Kask thanked whatever god or devil looked after people like him. He watched the man approach the body, and saw that moment of understanding.

  He had two choices now, drive away, and risk the old man describing his car to the first officers on the scene, or getting out of the car and going over to flash his badge. It wasn’t much of a choice.

  He walked across the field toward the old man and his dog.

  ‘There’s a body,’ the old man called, seeing him.

  Even from this far away it was obvious he was shaken up. Kask could see that he was trembling. He didn’t know what to do, but then who did? Who stumbled upon a body in the wasteland and knew what they were supposed to do? Kask reached into his pocket for his badge and called, ‘Police,’ much to the relief of the old man.

  ‘Have you touched her?’ Kask asked, wincing inwardly as he realized he hadn’t seen the body. He cast a glance in Annja Rosen’s direction, unsure if it was actually possible to identify her sex from where they stood. Although the scrub grass was calf-high and higher in patches, there was no mistaking the fact they were looking at a naked woman.

  Kask took a deep breath, steeling himself. He needed to be utterly professional about this, go through the procedures step by step, keep it straight.

  In the distance he heard a siren from a squad police car and the different tone of an ambulance haring through the cramped streets. They couldn’t know that they were wasting their time.

  ‘Stay there please, sir,’ Kask said, holding out a hand like he was dealing with the dog, not the man. He stepped onto the grass, careful to follow the same path he had used to dump the body, deliberately confusing the muddy footprints by walking in them.

  He’d get a slap on the wrist for disturbing the crime scene, but he’d plead ignorance. All he needed to do was get to the girl, crouch down, and make a show of checking to see if she was dead or not before reinforcements arrived on the scene.

  He had all the time in the world.

  Kask walked in a slow circle around her, then again, this time not looking at the body but rather staring out over the wasteland as though trying to get a fix on where her killer could have come from and fled. It was good. Better than he had a right to hope for. His god was working overtime.

  He crouched down beside Annja Rosen, and put his fingers to her throat. Her skin was already so much colder than he’d expected it to be.

  He heard the first car pull up, followed a few seconds later by the ambulance.

  He rose slowly to his feet, raising a hand to signal the uniform.

  The officer shouted to him, but his voice didn’t carry. The paramedics were unloading a stretcher from the back of the wagon as he shook his head, sure the gesture would carry more effectively than any shout.

  He watched the man struggle across the muddy ground, another set of footprints to fuck with the tracks. Perfect.

  ‘Can you step away from the body please, sir,’ the officer repeated.

  Kask didn’t need twenty-plus years on the force to recognize someone who’d never seen a corpse before.

  The fresh-faced young officer was already reaching for his service weapon, which was a mistake.

  ‘I’m just going to get my identification out of my pocket,’ Kask said, moving slowly to reach into his inside pocket for his badge.

  ‘Keep your hands where I can see them,’ the uniform said. ‘Move away from the body. Walk back to the road.’

  Kask shrugged and held his hands up, ‘You’re the boss,’ he said, very deliberately following the same path back to the road he’d already walked twice.

  He tried to keep the smile off his face.

  A second uniformed officer waited beside the squad car. He was talking to the dog walker. Kask knew him.

  ‘Maksim Kask? What the fuck are you doing out this way, man? This isn’t your patch.’ Which was the one flaw in his plan, but he had an answer. The Estonian Police and Border Guard was divided into three agencies, Central Law Enforcement, Central Criminal, and the Forensic Service, and divided into East, South, North, and West prefectures, with him operating out of Tallinn East, and this field being squarely in the jurisdiction of Tallinn South.

  ‘Saving a girl from the walk of shame,’ he said.

  ‘Ever the fucking gentleman, eh, Max?’

  ‘Not sure the ex-wife would agree,’ Kask said with a wry smile.

  ‘You know this guy?’ the baby-face officer asked.

  ‘You might wanna call this guy Sir.’

  Kask turned around, his hands still raised. ‘OK if I put these down?’ He was happy to let the smile show now. They were all friends here, despite the macabre circumstances of their meeting.

  ‘Sorry, sir, I had no idea,’ the young uniform said.

  ‘No harm, no foul,’ he said. ‘You did the right thing. She’s several hours dead. We need to secure the scene and get on to the Forensic Service Centre, get the lab boys out here before things deteriorate.’

  ‘Of course, sir. Straight away. I’ll put the call in.’

  He let the older officer take a brief statement from the dog walker, who couldn’t really tell him much more than the fact his dog had dragged him through the scrubland, driven wild by the scent of the body. He hadn’t seen it until he was on top of it. He looked down at his shoes, covered in mud, and seemed to realize he’d trampled all over the crime scene.

  ‘Don’t worry, when forensics get here we’ll make sure your prints are eliminated,’ Kask assured him.

  He went back to his car and called it in, then settled in to wait until forensics arrived, along with the coroner.

  By the time they arrived half a dozen officers had trampled across the muddy track making it all but impossible to distinguish one print from another. They weren’t happy, but he really didn’t give a shit. He was pretty sure he’d just got away with murder.

  TWENTY-TWO

  They talked through much of the night into the early morning.

  Tasha evangelized the camp and, to be honest, did a pretty good job of selling Frankie on it. But what was most interesting was how she danced around certain phrases, though she couldn’t help but get carried away with her enthusiasms every now and then. That was the curse of the converted. She was so used to talking to those who shared her secrets, and saw the world through those Kool-Aid tinted glasses.

  It wasn’t
until they were clearing away, the last mug of tea drunk, and they were on their own that Tasha asked, ‘Can I trust you, Ceska?’

  Frankie didn’t immediately rush to say yes. She wanted to take her time with her answer, giving it the weight it deserved, because for a runaway trust was not lightly given. She had to force herself to be less decisive and assertive. More humble. Unsure.

  She nodded.

  ‘He saved my life,’ she said. ‘I was young and stupid. I was a runaway, like you. I’d packed my entire life into my car, an old battered estate car held together by sticky tape and a few prayers. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I had to get there. So I drove. And, I’m ashamed to say, I drank. I drank a lot. It was easier than being sober. One thing you probably know about this country, there are a lot more trees than people. It was the heart of winter. We’d just had snow for three days solid. I was deep in the forest on a single-lane road that was just twists and turns and more twists when I lost control of the car on the ice and started to slew sideways, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t stop. The car rolled onto its roof, and over again, and went off the road into a deep ditch. Something broke free, some bit of metal from the steering column or something, and it punched right through me. I knew I was going to die. There was no one out there, not in a million miles, and there was no way I could get to the hospital. I was just going to bleed out.

  ‘But then he came to me. The Shepherd. He got me out of that car with his bare hands. I don’t know how. God was on his side. He laid me down on the side of the road, and I swear, he healed me. It’s his gift. He laid his hands on the wound where the metal was still spearing out of my stomach. I can still remember the incredible heat of his hands as he healed me, Ceska.’

  And Frankie didn’t for a moment doubt that the woman believed what she was saying. Stress, shock, blood loss, there were lots of reasons to explain away a miracle.

  Tasha looked at her like she knew what she was thinking, and said almost exactly the same thing. ‘There are lots of ways to rationalize what happened out there, but I was there. I know what he did, Ceska. It’s his gift. He healed me. And I’ve been with him ever since.’

  She untucked the hem of her blouse and lifted it to reveal a mess of scar tissue, which seemed to back up her words.

  ‘He’s a very special man. I’ve seen him heal a girl of her burns with my own eyes. She was in so much pain, but he took that out of her. He is God’s mercy on the earth, Ceska. We are blessed to have him in our lives.’

  Frankie nodded.

  Feeling self-conscious, Tasha busied herself washing up the last of the dishes while Frankie wiped down the tables.

  Part of Frankie wondered why they didn’t just let some of the regulars bed down for the night here. It was warm. It was dry. But it wasn’t a shelter. She had no idea what sort of problems that would cause for One World. So instead, they wandered off to their own spaces. She’d heard a couple of them refer to them as home, which was a heartbreaking reality.

  Finally, they locked up, and went out to the van. The air had that wonderful post-storm crisp freshness to it.

  She opened up the van. There were a couple of inflatable mattresses in the back. As Tasha got in, she did a magic trick and produced a bottle of wine.

  ‘We’re worth it,’ she said, reaching for a corkscrew. She produced two more One World mugs and filled them. No rules against alcohol, then.

  Tasha didn’t push the training camp on her. Instead they talked about dreams. What did Frankie want to do with her life? What would she change, fix, that kind of thing, and Frankie found herself being as honest as she could be because despite everything, she liked the other woman.

  Eventually they fell silent.

  A little while later Tasha rolled over. And after that her breathing settled into alcohol-induced snoring.

  Frankie took the opportunity to fish the phone from the bottom of her rucksack. She slipped out of the van, gently closing the door so as not to wake the other woman.

  The moon was incredibly bright in the sky. Some sort of super-moon. There seemed to be one every couple of months at the moment. She’d never heard the term until a few years ago. In the distance she heard the clang and clatter of work going on further down by the docks. She couldn’t see any movement.

  She walked away from the van to lean against a wall, and keyed in the three-figure code that would unlock the phone’s true purpose. It only took a second for it to connect with Galileo, a single blip registering on her small screen. Her heart sank. She’d been banking on Peter being in Tallinn by now.

  She wanted a face-to-face debrief with him, because she’d got plenty she needed to tell, and stuff she wanted to ask about the so-called training camp, but wishes and fishes and all that.

  She was going to have to say yes and gamble that the others kept up with her.

  She’d missed the significance of the single dot.

  ‘Over here,’ a male voice whispered from the shadows, soft enough to not disturb anyone who wasn’t meant to hear it, loud enough to spook Frankie. The man stepped out of the shadows, the moonlight showing half of his face to the world.

  ‘Peter.’

  ‘I was beginning to think you’d fallen asleep. So, what’s the score?’

  Frankie kept it brief. ‘Going well. Maybe too well.’

  ‘Too well?’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s too easy. They seem too desperate to befriend me. I can’t help feeling like I’m being set up. I was found by Tasha.’ She pointed to the van. ‘She runs the soup kitchen. She fed me this morning, then asked me to help out tonight. She introduced me to someone from One World, they call him The Shepherd. I guess he’s some sort of spiritual leader.’ She told him the story of the miraculous laying-on of hands that had saved Tasha’s life, and shrugged at her own scepticism. ‘He’s invited me to some kind of induction camp out in the forest.’

  ‘I’ve just left a girl who escaped from human traffickers who was kept in a place called the compound – that was a place out in the forest. You do know what you’re doing, don’t you, Frankie?’

  ‘I’ve got you looking out for me,’ she said.

  ‘We need to be realistic here, there’s only so much you can do.’

  ‘It might be nothing, but if that compound is their staging post we need to know where it is. And we need to know what’s there. I’m not letting them get away with this, Pete. We’re talking about vulnerable young girls. I’m ending this. You understand?’ She knew he did. He’d almost lost his life six months ago because his own father had failed to protect the children he’d promised to, even if he was only a kid himself at the time. Those kinds of promises stick with you, like inheritances from one generation to the next. It was why Peter Ash was a cop. He wasn’t that complicated, but what men were?

  ‘When do you go?’

  ‘After breakfast. I’ve just got to tell them I’m in.’

  ‘Anything you need from me?’

  ‘Fill Laura in. I want to be able to relax knowing her eyes are on me.’

  He nodded. ‘Want me to follow?’

  She shook her head. ‘No need to risk it. The last thing I need when I’m in there is you triggering some sort of perimeter alarm or getting spotted by a patrol. Trust me, Pete, I’m a big girl. I can look after myself.’

  ‘Mitch told me,’ he said, with a grin. It was the first time he’d mentioned his old partner, Mitch Greer, in a while. She didn’t know if invoking his name now was a good thing or not.

  ‘Quid pro quo,’ Frankie said.

  ‘Clarice,’ Peter finished for her. She was about to ask who Clarice was, then she remembered the movie. ‘We’ve got a dead girl in the forest. She’d been there six months before the wildfires exposed the body. I’ve got a name, Maria Bartok. Next job is to find out who she was, and how she wound up murdered in the woods outside of Tallinn. Pound to a penny we’re going to hear the magic words One World. That whole fucked-up cult thing gives me the creeps.’

  Fra
nkie listened as he walked her through it, including his scheduled morning meeting with Annja Rosen, Irma’s flatmate.

  There was movement inside the van, the vehicle creaking on its suspension.

  Peter Ash disappeared into the shadows.

  Frankie quickly slipped the phone back into her pocket and was back at the van door before it opened.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, seeing Tasha’s sleepy face lit by the small interior light. ‘Didn’t mean to wake you.’

  ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Needed a pee,’ Frankie laughed. ‘Too much wine.’

  Tasha nodded, and settled back into her sleeping bag.

  Frankie clambered in beside her. ‘He saved your life,’ she said, meaning The Shepherd. ‘Do you think he could save mine?’

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘Then yes, I’m in. More than anything I just want to feel like I belong,’ she said.

  ‘I promise you, you’ve found somewhere worth belonging,’ Tasha said.

  Frankie was convinced she could see the smile on her face despite the darkness inside the van.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Ash walked back to where he had left his car.

  It was more than fifteen minutes from where he’d met Frankie, up a steep staircase that ran alongside one of the old bonded warehouses, cutting out a lot of the twists and turns of the road for the old dock workers. It was a staggering climb that left him breathless. Halfway to the top he was cursing his own stupidity for taking the crow-flies shortcut to save maybe five minutes of more gradual climbing. At the top his thighs and lungs were burning and he felt like he’d dropped half a kilo of water-weight.

  But Frankie was good. That was the key. She’d infiltrated the first ring of One World – and the second ring sounded like the same compound Ivan’s girl, Tanya, had escaped from, which put Frankie directly in the line of fire, quite literally.

  He’d have felt better being on hand, even if it meant sleeping rough in the forest for a few nights with nothing but a camping-gas stove and a one-man tent, but she was right, his being there put her at risk. She could get to places he couldn’t in this case purely because these bastards preyed on vulnerable women. He got that.