The Last Exile (11 page)

“Been in worse.”

“I’m really sorry. I—”

“Forget it,” she said, sounding more pissed off than angry, “but this thing with Demarku, you should leave it alone. He’s like the Scottish play. One mention of the name and all manner of disaster follows.”

T
ALLIS
paid his bill and checked out of the hotel with the intention of catching the next train back to Birmingham. Cavall had other plans.

“Nice work,” she said, congratulating him. Was it? he thought. A girl lost, a woman desperately injured, and he’d done fuck all to save either of them. He should have just taken Elena, kicked Demarku’s and Iva’s heads in, and to hell with the consequences, but, no, he’d just had to follow orders. “Handover go all right?”

“With Bill and Ben?” he said humorously.

“Bill and Ben?” Cavall, not getting the joke, sounded confused.

“The immigration officers. Yeah, I’d say so. Fortunate as Demarku pulled a knife.”

“Naturally, you’ll be properly remunerated. We’ll meet for a debrief tomorrow morning, early.”

“How early?”

“Six-thirty.”

“Where?”

“Epping Forest.”

“That wise?”

“Why?”

“Gangster land. Someone might be burying a body.” His second cheap attempt at some badly needed humour went unnoticed.

“These are the co-ordinates, Paul.”

He destroyed and got rid of the phone, hired a Jeep and spent the night in a dull, featureless boarding house in the small market town of Epping where the owners were glad to take his money for very little effort on their part.

Setting out at four in the morning, it took him over an hour to find the exact location. Only twelve miles from central London, one of the most ancient forests in the country, a vast crescent shape covering over six thousand acres and crossed by dozens of roads, trying to find a way through Epping Forest’s hidden depths was no easy task.

The rendezvous turned out to be a clearing deep within the forest, though heavy ruts in the path signified that farm machinery or a 4x4 had recently passed that way.

The air smelt of pine and earth. Light sifted through trees heavy with leaf and bladed the ground. A sky of apricot and Prussian blue suggested more rain to come. Apart from the sound of his footfall, there was nothing other than birdsong.

Tallis waited and watched, hidden. Something about the scenery, the trees shimmering in the early morning, reminded him of a long-distant memory, of him and his brother playing in some woods with another boy—not one of their kind, his dad had told them afterwards. Couldn’t even remember the lad’s name now. There’d been some spat. Dan had lost his temper and pushed the boy out of a tree. Fortunately, he hadn’t broken anything, though he had been badly winded and bruised. That evening, when the father of the lad had come round to complain, their dad, rather than apologise, had castigated
him, told the proud-looking man with the swarthy skin, coal-black hair, the gold earring in his ear, that he was nothing but a dirty gypo, a layabout, told him to bugger off, remove himself from his land. Tallis, cowering in the corner, had watched the man’s expression. He’d seen the proud mouth crease with contempt, the flare of anger in his eye. Tallis had felt real shame. Once the door had closed, the witch-hunt had begun. Dan had put the blame on him, and Dad, like he always did, had believed his eldest son. Tallis had gone to bed hungry that night, but he hadn’t cared. He’d been on the side of the gypsy.

In the distance, he heard the drone of a vehicle’s approach, the engine note suggesting an off-roader. The noise died some distance away followed by another, muffled by foliage, perhaps a door opening and closing, and the sound of one pair of feet moving along the track. He suddenly realised how vulnerable he was. Perhaps this wasn’t Cavall at all. Perhaps …

She stood like an archangel in the centre of the clearing, sunlight flickering through the trees and playing on her hair. Her face was scrubbed of make-up and she wore a simple shirt over jeans. She looked fresher, younger, innocent.

Tallis stepped out to meet her. She smiled in greeting, handed him a file. “Thought you wanted a debrief,” Tallis said, taking it.

“As long as we got our man, we’re happy.” She didn’t particularly look it, he thought, puzzled.

“Not interested in the method?” Not interested in the fact I watched and allowed two women to suffer, that an old pal nearly blew my cover, that Demarku tumbled me?

“Should I be?” She had a curious glint in her eye that didn’t quite square with the question.

“Ends justifying means and all that.”

“You must be tired, Paul. You’re not usually so cynical.”

Oh, I am, he thought. I just don’t always show it. “The girl I spoke of.”

“What of her?” Annoyance creased her features.

“Doesn’t matter. You should know that Demarku almost killed a woman in front of me, that he’s into VAT fraud involving mobile phones, that he deals in amphetamines and heroin.” He went on to name Demarku’s colleagues. “Two of whom were picked up by the police yesterday morning.” He added that he thought there was a Mr Big involved somewhere, probably hanging out at the house he’d seen Demarku enter in Belgravia. Cavall expressed little interest, the next job her only apparent concern.

“Your next target’s a woman.”

Tallis shot her a sharp look. “You never said anything before about a woman.”

“Didn’t I?”

“No.”

“What difference does it make?”

A lot he thought, wanting to slap the scheming smile off her face.

“Oh, I get it,” Cavall said. “Too much like déjà vu. Can’t afford to be squeamish, Paul.”

He stared at her. “If you’d seen what I’d seen, you wouldn’t be making such uninformed statements.”

Cavall bridled. “Witnessing the depths of depravity is part of the job.”

“Then I quit,” he said, shoving the file back hard into her small chest.

“Can’t do that, Paul.”

“And stop calling me Paul,” he said, angry now. “Only my friends call me that.”

The smile faded. “I apologise. It was presumptuous of me.” She studied his face for a long moment, let out a sigh as though she didn’t know what to do with him. “Here,” she said, taking the file and offering it back.

“Why should I?”

“Because you know it’s right. Because you need to.”

He didn’t move, simply looked into her lovely face. Did she know him better than he knew himself? “You’re taking a big risk with me.”

“A calculated risk.”

Tallis shook his head. “You’ve informed me of a plan that contradicts everything I’ve ever learnt about law enforcement. You’re giving me classified information. You’re allowing me to turn a blind eye when I should be singing like a canary. What’s really going on?”

A slow smile played on Cavall’s full mouth. “You always been a conspiracy theorist, or is this a recent development? Surely you’re not saying you retain sympathy for the likes of Demarku?”

“Not the issue.” In fact, Tallis nursed fond hopes that Demarku would be dropped at high altitude from the cargo hold of a jet somewhere over the Atlantic.

“Can I make a suggestion?” she said, touching his arm. It was the first time, he realised, that she’d shown any sign of physical contact.

“Feel free.” He suddenly felt weary.

“Go home.”

Home? Not his grandmother’s bungalow, or his mum and dad’s house, the dwelling where he’d grown up, the place from which he’d been exiled. Home, once, had been Belle, Tallis thought, and he could never go there again.
An image of her lovely face blossomed in his mind, and he remembered how they’d sneaked away for three precious days together, before things had got complicated. Dan had been away on a course, and they’d gone to Cornwall, found a lover’s retreat. It had poured with rain day and night. It hadn’t mattered. They’d hardly ventured out of their room except to eat and gaze into each other’s eyes in wonderment. For the first time in years, she had felt truly safe, without fear of saying the wrong thing, of causing unwitting offence, of living life on a knife-edge. He had felt more complete than at any time in his life either before or since.

Cavall was still talking. “You look tired. Get some sleep, rest, then read this,” she said, gently taking his hand, slipping the file into it and walking away.

T
ALLIS TOOK CAVALL’S
advice literally. From an early age he’d known how to take care of himself, to make himself feel better. It was all about creature comforts. He spent the first twenty-four hours either asleep or vegetating in front of the television, and the next pottering around the bungalow, and making sure he had decent food to eat. He worked out once, but was already up to a much higher level of fitness than only a week before. He knew it. Could feel and see it. Twice he called Belle to listen to her voice on the recorded message before hanging up the phone.

By Sunday, he felt more ready, or as ready as he was going to feel. Taking out the file, he saw that his next target’s home of origin was Romania, a country in southeast Europe caught between Bulgaria and the Ukraine, bordered by the Black Sea on one side and the Transylvanian Alps on the other. Shades of Dracula, Tallis thought with a wry smile.

The offender’s name was Ana Djorovic. Born in Romania forty-three years before, she was Serbian by blood and belonged to the significant ethnic minority that existed in the country, but Djorovic had long ago turned
her back on her roots and chosen to reinvent herself. Deeply superstitious, she professed to be a gypsy, a fortune-teller, specialising in removing curses from gullible clients and conning desperate women to give up their babies in return for money and the promise that they were going to childless couples with good homes. Tallis had heard somewhere that there was a vibrant baby-trafficking trade between Bulgaria and Greece where children were, apparently and for reasons he didn’t like to think about, in heavy demand. According to the notes, three babies, two girls and one boy, were taken from British women and sold by Djorovic to an unknown destination, though Greece was suspected. Djorovic might have got away with her crimes had it not been for one simple, fatal mistake. A woman conned by Djorovic had had a change of heart, a choice for which she was to pay with her life. Tallis studied the crime scenes and winced. Djorovic had plunged a viciously sharpened fingernail into the heavily pregnant woman’s neck, puncturing the carotid artery. A crude attempt was made to cut out and remove the baby from the woman’s body, but it failed. The unborn child died with his mother.

Ana Djorovic had been sent to Holloway with a recommendation that she be deported on release. But she hadn’t been. Tallis studied her photograph. A dark, thin-featured woman stared back at him. Her eyes were black seed pearls, her mouth small and unforgiving, nose Roman and too big for her face. Cunning, devious and calculating for certain, but worst of all, to Tallis’s mind, she had no heart, no soul. This wasn’t some woman blinded by infertility or bereavement or the deep desire to shore up a faltering relationship—she was doing this out of greed. For a man to trade in babies was barbaric. That a
woman should betray her own sex was unthinkable. He read on. Distinguishing features—a tattoo of five dots, four in the shape of a rectangle with one in the middle, like dice, or quincunx, on the flange of skin between thumb and forefinger. Tallis rubbed his chin. Somewhere, in the part of his brain labelled useless bits of information, he recalled that that type of tattoo was popular with Romanian inmates. It meant alone between four walls. Intriguing, Tallis thought, sliding the photograph into his wallet. And where are you now?

Needing to get out into the open to think more loosely, he grabbed his house keys and headed for the playing fields near the high school. Once, when he’d been on his way to train at the National Firearms School at Hindlip in Worcestershire, he’d taken the wrong turning and wound up at a travellers’ encampment. Close-knit, feudal and loath to inform on each other, the travellers had stared at him with open hostility. Even the kids had narrowed their eyes, unsmiling, and who could blame them? Tallis thought, remembering how his father had treated the gypsy at their door. He didn’t know much about gypsies other than they had a hang-up about mirrors, and a real fear of the dark, which explained why those engaged in criminal activity often carried out their crimes during daylight hours only. They also preferred the con trick to blatantly breaking into a property.

Twenty minutes later, he was watching a group of kids having a kick-about with a football. One had ripped the seat out of his trousers but played on, oblivious. All were covered in grass stains. When he and Dan had larked about in the back garden, they’d made temporary goalposts with dustbins. Must have been fourteen at the time, he thought, gut griping at the memory of the football
going through next-door’s greenhouse. Too young to take the blame for someone else’s mistake, too old to receive yet another beating from his old man. Tallis smiled. He hadn’t known it then, but the dynamics between father and son were quickly to change. About twelve months later, his father had come looking for him after a tip-off from Dan. Tallis had been out smoking with some of his mates, a cardinal sin. His dad had marched into the bus shelter, yelling as usual.

“I’ve been looking all over for you. What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he said, making a grab for Tallis in a bid to humiliate him. From the look in his eye, Tallis was in no doubt that his dad was going to give him a hiding, but by now Tallis had grown another three inches. He was starting to bulk out across the shoulders. He was beginning to feel his place in the world, outside the constraints of his family. Before his dad could touch him, he was up off the seat, facing his father, eyes boring into his.

“Did Dan grass me up?”

“You leave Dan out of it,” his father snarled, taking a step towards him, one arm swinging back ready to land the first blow.

“You fucking lay a hand on me and I’ll come back for you, I swear.” He didn’t know where the words came from. He hadn’t thought about them, hadn’t planned for the moment. They were simply the product of years of mental and physical abuse. For the first and only time, he saw fear flicker in the older man’s eyes, felt a stir of triumph in his own heart. When his father walked away alone and empty-handed, Tallis knew a landmark had been reached. From that day on, his dad never laid a finger on him, barely exchanged more than a few words with him. Until Belle.

The sky was darkening, and he heard the far-away sound of thunder. He set his chin down and walked on, felt the spit of warm rain against his face. A couple exercising two nutty English springer spaniels exchanged good afternoon with him.

His mind returned to Djorovic. She was a traveller by nature so he guessed she’d be more likely found in a rural location, her stamping-ground country fairs, mystic conventions, places where she could easily drift in and out. Christ, he groaned inside, realising the extent of the search—she could be anywhere.

Returning home wet a couple of hours later, the bungalow seemed to cast a brooding presence, as if someone had disturbed its peace. Maybe it was the beeping sound on the answering-machine. For a delirious moment, he thought it might be Belle. It wasn’t.

“Mum here. Wondered whether you’re free tomorrow. Dad’s feeling a little better and going out for lunch in Ludlow with an old police colleague. Thought we might get together. If you can make it, phone me … after nine.”

Tallis changed into dry clothes, jemmied open a can of lager, put the chicken he’d bought for dinner in the oven and slotted a Robbie Williams CD into the player. Belle couldn’t stand the singer, Tallis remembered with a smile. Her dislike was rabid, especially for someone who wasn’t given to irrationality. They’d once had a terrible row about it, though he suspected now it had been more connected to the stress they’d both been under rather than it being poor old Robbie’s fault. That was the funny thing about broken relationships. Not only did you miss the person you loved, you missed all the things you hated about them, too.

They met in Hereford outside the cathedral. His mum looked very small and lonely, he thought as he crossed the grass under a beating sun. She was wearing an old linen shift dress that she’d had for as long as he could remember. Once dark blue, it had faded to the same colour as her tired eyes.

“You look well. Lost weight?” she said, kissing him on the cheek.

“Dunno. Not consciously.”

“Suits you,” she said, slipping her thin arm through his.

He squeezed her hand. “Any ideas for lunch?”

“How about The Church? It’s a lovely day. We could sit outside.”

The Church lay in the centre of the city. Converted to a restaurant, it served no-frills food at reasonable prices—right up his mother’s street. She ordered home-made lemonade and quiche with salad. Tallis ordered coffee and a sausage sandwich—he’d never been much of a quiche merchant—and took their drinks and lunch outside to an outdoor table so that they could soak up the good weather and watch the world go by.

To start with there were more silences than words, and Tallis was glad of the distraction food provided. “Any news on the job front?” his mother asked at last.

Tallis swallowed the last of his sandwich and reached for his coffee. “Not really. Maybe a chance of a bit of private work.”

“Oh?”

“Investigative stuff.” He’d never been able to lie to his mother. His father was different.

“Sounds very mysterious.” There was a slightly disapproving note in her voice.

Tallis shrugged.

“You won’t do anything stupid, will you?”

More stupid than he had already? he thought. “‘Course not.” He smiled. “Anyway, enough of me. What about you? Anything new?”

“Not really. Invaded by the usual influx of fruit-pickers. I don’t mind so much but it upsets your dad. He’s written to several farmers about them, but they don’t take any notice. Must say I’m very disappointed in Harry Alder,” she sniffed. “Thought he’d understand.”

“They have to make a living, Mum,” Tallis pointed out reasonably. “And as long as their workers aren’t causing trouble, where’s the problem?”

His mother leant forward and dropped her voice a register. “Dad was horrified the other day. I’d only nipped up the road for a paper otherwise I’d have answered the door. Anyway, there was this young woman on the doorstep, didn’t speak a word of English. She carried a card, which she held up for him to read. It was written quite poorly, in capitals, according to your dad. It said that she was from Poland, or some such country, and her family were destitute. She had some drawings she wanted to show him, I presume to buy, though they couldn’t have been much good, your dad said, because they were rolled up underneath her arm. No better than door-to-door begging. And she was pregnant.”

“What did he do?”

“Told her to go away and phoned the police.”

“Right.” Not from concern, Tallis thought. Not because she was breaking the law. Not even because of the fear of crime. The woman was a foreigner, his dad would complain loudly, and she was on his bloody patch. For as far back as Tallis could remember, his father had tried to inculcate his children with his racist views. Tallis felt
baffled by his dad’s closely guarded prejudice. It seemed so illogical. His father had been born and bred in the countryside. Back then you didn’t see too many black people. Didn’t see too many of them now, come to think of it. It had been the source of a lot of heated argument between them. Tallis had once completely lost it and accused his father of being a hypocrite. “You married Mum and she’s half-Croatian.” For his pains, he’d received a clip round the ear. Thing was, his mum was white not black, not even vaguely foreign-looking. Tallis had seen some early photographs. With her blonde hair, fresh, pink-cheeked, even features, she looked every inch the Englishwoman. It was understandable that, initially, his dad had been hoodwinked.

Their paths, according to his mum, had crossed in the line of duty when a stabbing victim had been taken to the hospital where his mother had worked. Tallis’s dad, a young PC just starting out, had been ordered to take a statement from the victim. The pretty young nurse who escorted him to the ward had been none other than Tallis’s mother. The attraction, by all accounts, had been instant. His dad had asked her out on a date. She’d accepted. A whirlwind romance ensued.

Regarding herself as British born and bred, his mother never thought to inform her new love about her true origins. By the time he found out, he was too smitten to care. It wasn’t so unusual. In affairs of the heart, men and women could be fickle and inconsistent. Principles were often sacrificed. Even racists could be choosy with their labels. Problem was, the prejudice never truly went away. Like cancer, it could go into remission and resurface later. As Tallis grew up, he learnt to avoid the subject, or not to take the bait. To his frustration and annoyance, his mother
always defended his dad, insisting that theirs was simply a generational misunderstanding, a mismatch. Things were different when his father was growing up, she’d say.

“These fruit-pickers you mentioned,” Tallis said.

“What about them?”

“Where are they from?”

“Abroad, I don’t know. Why?”

“Just wondered,” he said, an idea formulating in his head.

While his mother went to powder her nose, as she so quaintly put it, he called a mate who, after leaving the army, had joined the police as a civilian working on the desk at the main nick in Hereford. Darren Mason steadfastly resisted the invitation to train as a copper, even though he was constantly moaning about the low pay. Thing about Darren, he was a fount of information.

After negotiating his way through the telephonic equivalent of an obstacle course, Tallis was eventually put through.

“Paul, my old mate, how you doing?”

“Good, thanks. Darren, I won’t take up too much of your time. Know how busy you are.”

“It’s like a sodding lunatic asylum here. Probably not allowed to say that any more,” Darren gave a husky laugh. “Somehow
a home for those with learning disabilities and personality disorders
doesn’t really do the business.”

Tallis grinned. Although he badly missed his job, every cloud had a silver lining. Lately, the political correctness thing had got a bit absurd. “Do you come across many foreign fruit-pickers in your neck of the woods?”