The Last Exile (21 page)

“Exactly.”

“Which leads me to draw a very simple conclusion.” She smiled impishly.

“Yeah?”

“Barzani did what a lot of killers do—he destroyed his clothes.”

“Maybe, but the more I think about the fight, the more uncertain I feel. Barzani claimed that Jackson was the aggressor. He gave him a bloody nose so, of course, his blood was on Jones’s clothes.”

“Linking him in time and place.”

“But that’s my next problem. Barzani’s bedsit was in Oldbury. You telling me he travelled all the way to Smethwick on a bus, an iron bar in his hand, to duff his boss up? Barzani was apparently the last to see Jones alive, but what if Barzani was telling the truth? What if someone else went to the garage?”

“Is that likely?”

“Why not?”

“Motive? Anything stolen?”

“No.”

“Police would have covered all the angles.”

Tallis was silent for a few moments. “DNA testing has improved over the years, right?”

“Lots. Coming out with new techniques all the time.
Problem we have is that analysis doesn’t always keep step with DNA detection methods. The latest breakthrough is in disseminating between mixed DNA samples from crime scenes. We can work with what was originally classed as too poor in quality or too small. We’re looking at cold cases as far back as ten or twenty years ago. Should put the fear of God into those who think they’ve got away with murder.”

Yeah, Tallis thought. He hoped so.

H
E LEFT
the next morning against a breaking light. They made no plans to see each other—it was implicit they would. With his dad so ill they’d just have to take special measures to keep it a secret. Walking back to the car, he felt lightness in his step, warmth in his heart. Whatever else was going on around him, he could deal with it if he had Belle. A faint noise behind him broke his concentration. He kept on walking, conscious of footsteps shadowing his own. As he got to the car, he whipped round, peered into the morning shadow. Nothing. Nerves, he thought.

Once home, he checked the place for electronic bugs—found none—showered, dressed, nipped to the nearest Tesco Express and stocked up on basics then bought himself a new mobile phone to match any new identity he might want to assume. As before, he ensured that the number was untraceable by anyone wishing to return or check his call. Back home again, he phoned the prison. Answered by a recorded message offering a range of options, Tallis waited patiently for an operator. Next followed a short spell of Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons
before an unusually bubbly telephonist with a Yorkshire accent
greeted him with a ‘Hiya’. Tallis cranked himself up into flirt mode and explained that he was writing a book and wanted to check some basic facts with someone in the prison service.

“Ooh, is it a thriller?”

“‘Fraid not.”

“Shame. I love that
Wire in the Blood
. Tony Hill, he’s gorgeous.”

“You mean Robson Green,” Tallis said, referring to the actor playing the part in the TV programme.

“What? His name’s Tony.”

“Yeah, ‘course,” he said, thinking asylums and lunatics. “Who’d be best to speak to, do you think?”

“Our governor. He’s ever so nice. Comes from the north, like me. Hold on.” After a lot of clicking and whirring, the telephonist came back. “Sorry, he’s tied up in a meeting. How about you speak to the deputy? She’s the youngest female deputy governor in the country. We had the BBC down last year doing an interview.”

“Good for her,” Tallis said, feeling himself carried away by the telephonist’s rampant enthusiasm. Unfortunately, it wasn’t shared higher up. Stonewalled by a humourless secretary, he was told to contact the press office in London. Thanks but, no, thanks, he thought. Press officers were paid to sell a line, not give out information. Deciding he needed a different approach, he had some breakfast and left it an hour before he rang again. Same opening rigmarole, different telephonist. This time he asked directly for the probation and welfare department, most specifically the individual in charge of lifers. More clicking and buzzing and a guy called Ron Farrow picked up the call. Sounded warm and friendly enough, Tallis thought. From the seasoned tenor of the man’s voice, he
estimated Farrow’s age as around mid-fifties. Tallis explained that he was writing a book and wanted to include an account of the Barzani case.

“Rasu Barzani?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask why?” Slight edge.

Tallis took a deep breath. Impersonating a police officer was a serious offence punishable by a prison sentence. He’d already transgressed once when he’d waved his wallet instead of a warrant card in front of the new owner of Belle’s house. In for a penny, he thought. “I was the original officer on the scene. My name’s Tallis.”

“Right,” Farrow said. “Writing your memoirs?”

“Such as they are.”

“You know Barzani was due for deportation?”

“I did, actually. He got away. Some sort of data-sharing cock-up, wasn’t it?”

Farrow wisely resisted a comment. “I’ll have to run a background check.”

“Sure,” Tallis said.

“Give me a few minutes and I’ll call back.”

No, he wouldn’t, Tallis thought. People in institutions never did. He managed to cram in a
Thanks, really appreciate it
before the line went dead.

Tallis paced up and down, filled the kettle, spooned coffee and sugar into a mug, deliberated whether he really wanted a hot drink and decided he didn’t then changed his mind. The cellphone rang as the kettle was boiling.

“Tallis,” he said confidently.

“Hi, Dan. Ron here. You related to Paul Tallis?”

“Brother.”

“Rotten business, all that.”

Damn right, Tallis thought.

“So what did you want to know?”

“Gather Barzani continued to protest his innocence throughout his sentence.”

“That’s right.”

“What do
you
think?”

There was a moment’s hesitation. “That’s a very unusual question, especially from someone who arrested him.”

“I’ve had years to consider it.”

“Well,” Farrow said, “while we get a fair number of lifers who show little or no remorse, some protest their innocence. Of that small percentage, I’d say, there’s a tiny proportion that are either extremely good actors or, and this is strictly off the record, are telling the truth. You have to understand it’s not my job to have an opinion or pass judgement. My role is simply to look after their welfare.”

“Barzani had some mental health problems, didn’t he?”

“Considering what the guy had been through, he seemed remarkably well balanced.”

“Been through?”

“In Iraq. Saddam Hussein did his best to wipe out most of his tribe in 1983. Rasu managed to escape but all twenty-nine members of his immediate family were killed in the most appalling fashion. Then the village he fled to was caught up in the notorious Anfal campaign.”

“The gassing of the Kurds?”

“Frankly, no horror was unimaginable to this guy.”

If that wasn’t bad enough, Tallis thought, remembering the history, when the Kurds and Shi’ites had rebelled after the 1991 Gulf War—fuelled by plenty of Western encouragement—the Allies had fucked off, leaving them to
a terrible fate. No surprise Barzani had gone mental. Any brush with authority would evoke horrific memories of his past. “And the brief, violent episode after his arrest?”

“The only one. As you know, his mental state deteriorated considerably after his initial interview, and he was sectioned for a period of twelve months during which he received medication. Once convicted and sent here, he was drug free.”

Explaining why there were no medical reports suggesting otherwise, Tallis thought. “I remember he barely spoke a word of English. We had to get an interpreter for him.”

“Viva Constantine. We still use Miss Constantine periodically.”

“Any chance of getting her number?”

“Don’t see why not. Hold on.”

Tallis started to relax. This was going much better than he’d dared hope.

“Yup. Got a pen?”

Tallis took the number down. “One last thing. How did Barzani strike you as a person?”

Farrow took his time to answer. “I liked him. He seemed a very genuine, a very dignified man. As you know, offenders who refuse to acknowledge their guilt receive a rougher time in prison. Privileges can be axed. Journalists who might want to dig into the case are discouraged from doing so, visits limited.”

“Did he have any?”

“Visitors? Miss Constantine kept in touch.”

Kind of her, Tallis thought.

“Over the years, Rasu became resigned to what had happened to him without ever losing sight of his unshakable belief in his innocence. If I had to sum him up, he was a man of stoic endurance.”

“You wouldn’t say he deserved to be hunted down and kicked out of the country?”

“He’s here illegally,” Farrow said, sounding as if he was sticking to the party line.

“Off the record, think I got the wrong guy?”

“The system got the wrong guy.” There was a moment’s pause. Farrow let out a laugh. “But, of course, I never said that.”

Len Jackson’s garage on Cape Hill wasn’t listed in telephone directories—probably went out of business after the murder, Tallis thought. Determined to find out, he drove to Smethwick.

It was a blazing summer day, sun high in a sky of powder blue. Nothing, however, lifted the pall of dirt and deprivation hovering like a dark noxious cloud as he drew towards the town. Faces, black and white, young and old, looked careworn. Row upon row of terraced houses lined depressing-looking streets strewn with litter, vomit and cigarette ends. Razor wire the most common accessory to factory and warehouse security. It hadn’t occurred to him before but the entire area seemed to borrow names from other places—Londonderry, Soho, Waterloo. Something and nothing, he guessed.

Cape Hill was a reservoir of pubs, accountants and firms selling cash registers and stationery supplies. He saw two ambulances, one with lights blazing, siren blaring, heading for City Hospital. There was no sign of the garage, although plenty of possible sites were boarded up.

He pulled up outside the Dog and Gun pub and walked into a dark and dingy interior, lights on in spite of the odd blade of sunshine trying to force its way through windows
coated with grime on the outside, decades of nicotine on the inside. Four men had their backs to him. Four heads turned, stared and returned to their mild and bitter. A surly-looking bloke with a thin body and shaved head was standing behind the bar. Looked like a skull on a stick, Tallis thought. He asked him about the garage.

“Gone,” he said, the upward inflection of his Black Country accent making it sound like a question.

“Gone or located somewhere else?”

“Ah.” Tallis did the translation. He was fluent in Black Country: yes.

“Know where?”

“Cor help you.” Can’t help you.

“Remember the murder?”

Skullhead viewed him as if he’d just crawled out of a swamp. Tallis eyeballed him, took out his wallet and slapped two ten-pound notes on the bar. Both stuck to the surface. Four pairs of eyes swivelled to the counter then fastened on him. Skullhead peeled off the notes with a bony hand and slipped them into his pocket. “Darkie battered the old man’s head in.”

Old man? Tallis didn’t think fifty-four was that ancient. Unless, he realised, Skullhead was differentiating between father and son. “Follow the case much?”

“Hard not to. Cops all over the fuckin’ road, pokin’ their noses in. Dunno why. Clear who the murderer was.”

“Fuckin’ blacks for you,” one of the drinkers muttered. Tallis smiled at him. Tosser, he thought. “And the old site?”

Skullhead answered. “Which way you come?”

Tallis told him.

“Driven past it. Between the newsagent’s and the bookie’s.”

“Business just died, then?”

The bloke who’d made the racist remark chipped in. “New garage, ay it?” New garage, isn’t it? “Moved to Harborne.”

“Gone up in the world,” Tallis said.

“Ay called Jackson’s any more neither.” Not called Jackson’s any more either. “Poncy fuckin’ name. Trans Logistics and Distribution.”

Tallis met the man’s expectant gaze. Ordinarily he’d have bought him a drink for volunteering the information. Fuck him, he thought, walking out.

Boarded up and cordoned off, the old site was a wasteland of footings, broken bottles, syringes and fly tipping—home to nobody other than rats and junkies, Tallis thought, peering through a hole in the fence. Stepping back onto the pavement, something connected in his brain. He stopped, went back to the fence, looked again, thinking, wondering, the vague thought that had briefly penetrated his consciousness floating away.

The betting shop was awash with punters so he went to the newsagent’s on the other side.

A small very dark West Indian was serving. He wore a Rasta hat even though it was hot as hell.

“Wonder if you can help me?” Tallis smiled. “The site next door, know much about it?”

“Been talk of developing it for the past fourteen years,” he drawled.

“Who owns it?”

“Jace Jackson.”

“Jace as in Jason?”

“Jace as in Jace, man.”

Tallis guessed there was a whole generation of kids
whose parents had decided to call them something weird in order to give them a direct in-road to celebrity. “Any relation to the previous owner?” He knew but wanted to check anyway.

“Guy who had his head smashed in?”

“Len Jackson.”

“Son,” the West Indian said.

“He runs Trans Logistics and Distribution?”

“You got it.”

Tallis smiled, thanked him, went to the door then turned. “You ever have any trouble with rats?”

The West Indian frowned. “This is a food shop, man. We sell sweets and stuff.”

“It’s cool.” Tallis grinned. “I’m not from Environmental Health or anything. Just curious, what with the site being empty next door.”

“To tell the truth,” the black guy said, lowering his voice, “we always had a problem, bats as well, but you can’t do a damn thing about them, protected species and all.”

“The rats, where do they come from?”

“Canals, waterways.” The black guy shrugged.

“Much you can do about it?”

His eyes lit up. A broad smile stretched across his face. “Kill them, man.”

An early memory of his dad cornering a rat in the garden shed flashed through Tallis’s brain. His dad had hit it with a shovel, virtually decapitating the poor creature. Tallis had run away crying. Dan, waiting in the wings, had catcalled him, telling him he was a sissy. Tallis could still remember his old man’s laughter ringing in his ears. “How?”

“Rat poison. Kills them stone dead.”