The Last Exile (32 page)

H
E DROVE
at speed in the direction of The Mailbox, parked in the street near Belle’s flat and ran up the drive to where the concierge was stationed. The black guy with the wide smile was finishing his lunch. When he saw Tallis he looked startled.

Tallis didn’t mess about. “She in?”

The black guy nodded.

“Alone?”

He shook his head and looked down.

“There a problem?”

“I don’t know. She said she was all right, but she didn’t look happy. She—”

“How many?”

“Just one guy.”

“Know who he is?”

The concierge looked down again. “He said he was her husband.”

Fuck. “Can you get me in?”

“Well, I d—”

“He’s not her husband any more. He has a history of violence towards her. Think how you’ll look if she gets beaten up, or worse.”

The black man flinched. “All right. I’ll get you in.” He swiped a bunch of keys from a rack behind him and they both moved towards the gates. The concierge punched in a code, releasing the lock, then crossed the courtyard to another door where he punched in another.

Tallis followed him inside. “This is the key,” the concierge said, pointing it out to Tallis. “I’ll call the police.”

“He is the police,” Tallis said, making for the stairs.

The corridors were empty, the door to the apartment closed. He silently drove the key into the lock, turning it, the thickly carpeted floor masking the sound of his feet as he crept inside. He could hear voices: Belle and Dan’s.

“You tricked me,” she said hotly.

“Easy, wasn’t it?” he sneered. “I only have to mention his name and you come running.”

“Where is he?”

“All in good time. Must say you’ve got a nice place here. Cleaning me out obviously came in handy.”

“Clean you out?” she raged. “You’re bent, Dan. You’ve got more money than you know what to do with.”

“And you didn’t know?” he sneered. “Come on, sweetheart, didn’t hear you complain about the nice house, the smart cars, foreign holidays. How else do you think I could have afforded that kind of lifestyle?”

“You covered up for a murderer,” she yelled. “Your hair was found at the scene, your footprint.”

“So what? Got another of those foreign spongers off our streets. Result, I’d say. You really shouldn’t go poking your nose in where it’s not wanted. Is the head of the science unit aware you’ve been trawling through an old case without permission, interfering in the natural laws of justice?”

“What would you know about justice?”

“You’re not going to go all moral on me? That would be rich, coming from you, a lying little tart.”

“I didn’t kill anyone.”

“No,” he said thoughtfully, painfully. Made Tallis wonder about the emotional damage they’d inflicted on him. Dan was talking again. “There’s an old Mafia maxim. Avoid killing if you can. If you can’t, be discreet. Well, we were discreet. Unfortunately for my lunatic brother, he’s been quite the opposite of discreet—reckless, I’d say. Did you know he was working for us?”

Tallis swallowed.

“My, I can tell by the look on your face you’d no idea. You don’t know my brother very well, do you? He was a sleeper for our group. He tracked
people
.” Sounded like
vermin
. “Then he handed them over for disposal.”

“You’re lying.”

“Ask him.”

“He wouldn’t do that.” Her voice cracked.

“Ask him about the murder of a pregnant young girl who got in his way. Ask him about the shooting of a Home Office official. His prints were found at both scenes. Add it all together, he could go down for years and years.”

“And you’ll be coming with me,” Tallis said, stepping inside. Belle was standing over by the window, arms rigidly crossed in front of her. Dan was sitting on the sofa. Dressed all in black, wearing an expensive set of sunglasses, he cut a threatening figure.

“There, what did I tell you?” Dan said, looking at Belle. “The man with the gun.”

Belle’s jaw went slack. Fear and confusion flashed across her eyes. And something else: despair.

“What are you going to do now, Paul?” Dan said, goading. “Shoot me?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Paul,” Belle cried. “Whatever you’ve done, it doesn’t matter. This isn’t the way out.”

“As it’s truth time,” Tallis said, staring at his brother, “did he tell you about his shady relationship with John Darius, leader of the BFB?”

“What?” Belle cried in horror.

“Did he tell you about his nasty little team of people, the kind of scum who take pleasure in bumping off foreign nationals?
Immigration officers
,” Tallis scoffed, “Where did you recruit them—prison?”

Dan leant back expansively, smiled. Something in his expression reminded Tallis of their father, a man that could disembowel a son with just one look.

“Thing is, they weren’t the only ones pretending. The Home Office official,” Tallis said with a penetrating expression, “that’s where you really cocked up.”

“Me, cock-up?” his brother sneered.

“Big mistake to bump her off, Dan.”

“Fancied her, did you?”

Tallis said nothing.

“Bet you did. She was a great shag, by the way. Just your type.”

“My type? Don’t think so. She was gay.”

Dan’s face froze for a second. Nobody other than a brother would notice. Tallis decided to go for the jugular. “And that wasn’t your only mistake, Danny boy. You read it all wrong. Patience was never your strong suit. You thought she was on your side. You thought you could manipulate her, just like you manipulate everyone else in your life. You used John Darius as your go-between, letting him feed misinformation about me to Cavall so that she would think that I was part of the plot,
your
plot.
Except you’re not quite as smart as you think. Cavall was with MI5.”

“That’s bollocks,” Dan jeered. “She was nothing more than a bored government tart who tried to play fast and loose with the big boys.”

“Sent to ingratiate herself with Darius,” Tallis persisted, “infiltrate the BFB, and find out who was running Fortress 35 and break it.”

Dan, hatred in his eyes, tipped back his head and laughed so loudly Tallis almost missed the shouts from outside. “Get down! Get down!” At once a shot rang out, shattering the window, followed by the sound of two more shots, different from the original. Tallis instinctively ducked but it was too late for Belle who was in the line of fire and already falling. Tallis crashed to the floor, elbowed his way across the room, belly down, gun at the ready.

He looked down at Belle in horror. Blood was oozing from her mouth. She was pale, sweaty, eyes flickering. He slid his arm underneath her, making her moan with pain. As he cradled her in his arms he could feel the gaping hole in her back, her blood warm on his shirt. He looked around him desperately, blinded in anguish, torn between trying to get help that he knew would arrive too late and staying with and holding the dying woman he loved. All the precious times they’d spent together flashed before his eyes. In disbelief, he wondered how it was that in a matter of seconds life could be so suddenly and with such cruelty snatched away.

“Don’t leave me,” he cried, his eyes misting with tears. Images of Rinelle Van Sleigh, Matt Cronin, his best friend, floated before his eyes. He’d heard their last dying breaths, too, witnessed the fear in their faces, but nothing could have prepared him for this. Nothing.

“I’ll always love you,” she said softly. “Find Dan. Don’t let him get away.”

A shadow fell across them both. As Tallis glanced over his shoulder, he saw that his brother had gone. In his place stood Asim, the man who’d been so keen to offer his assistance in Manchester. He had a gun in his hand.

“L
EAVE
her, Paul. She’s gone,” Asim said.

How can I ever leave her? Tallis thought, holding Belle tight, rocking her back and forth, feeling the warmth go out of her, his eyes blinded by tears. He didn’t care about anything any more. Asim could shoot him.

“Paul,” Asim said gently, the pity in his voice like an electrode to Tallis’s brain. Blind hatred consumed him. “You killed her,” Tallis raged, raising his weapon.

“No. I’m an intelligence officer with MI5. I was working with Cavall.”

Tallis blinked, mystified.

“It’s the truth.”

Truth? What the hell was that? Tallis thought. “You’re covering for my brother,” Tallis said slowly, deliberately, rising to his feet. “You let him get away.”

“I came up the stairs. He took the lift.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Then believe what you can see,” Asim said, dark eyes flashing. “Look,” he said, pointing out of the window.

Tallis let out a cold mirthless laugh. “Classic trick. I don’t think so.”

Asim put down his gun, kicked it away. “Now look.”

Bewildered, Tallis scooped up the weapon, glanced out of the window, saw the bodies of a man and a woman lying in the courtyard, Bill and Ben, gunshot wounds to their heads. Residents were already running to the scene, mobile phones in their hands, the concierge trying to herd them away. Tallis looked back at Asim.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to them soon enough. Sorry about Belle,” Asim said gravely, positioning his body in the entrance to the flat, blocking Tallis’s exit. “But, truly, I’m on your side.”

“I don’t know whose side you’re on, but it’s definitely not mine.” Tallis turned, darting down the stairs to the study and second bedroom, heading for the secret unmarked door. Wrenching it open, he scooted through, finding himself in a corridor on the second level. Dropping the catch after him, he ran. Revenge was in his heart and on his mind.

He had been taught in the army that a mission must never be jeopardised by casualties. A man down was just that. You didn’t stop, loiter or go back. You remained focused on the job. You kept on moving. If ever he’d needed to draw on that training, it was now.

Dan wouldn’t have got far, Tallis thought, but which way? And how had he got there—by car, by train? Insanity to take the car in the middle of rush-hour traffic so, he concluded, however Dan had travelled, he must have escaped on foot, which meant there was a fifty-fifty chance of him heading for the station at New Street. Bigger and heavier, Dan had always been a lousy runner. It was the only advantage Tallis had over him. That and the fact he was armed.

He raced along the side of the canal, the water sparkling in the glare of a beaten sun. Feet clattering over the
bridge, he passed the restaurant in which he’d so recently eaten with Belle. One of the Polish girls was standing outside, ready to welcome the next diner. Their eyes met briefly. She smiled then saw the blood on his shirt, her expression changing to one of horror. Tallis stared back with a heart that felt numb and cold, the misery inside him suddenly welling over, all-consuming.

Up the steps and into the entrance to The Mailbox, he pounded through the cloistered confines of the empty lower floor, his footsteps eerie and hollow in the relative silence then out the other side, feet flying down the steps and dodging through a stream of heavy traffic, car horns blaring as he wove in and out. Eyes scanning the horizon for sight of his treacherous, lying, murderous brother, he saw nothing other than a wall of people. In desperation, he speeded up, hoping for some underdeveloped sense of fraternal direction to kick in, knowing that Dan could have taken off in the other direction, that he could be anywhere by now.

Stubbornly, Tallis continued at a calf-burning pace, his gun concealed, though, from the startled and terrified expressions of strangers, there could be no mistake about the intent in his eyes. Kids leapt out of the way. Dealers stared after him with grudging respect. It never occurred to Tallis to give up. Doing anything other than continuing the pursuit would signal defeat and allow the heavy surge of mixed emotions room to come flooding in.

The sun was lower now, less cocky as it bounced off walls of brick and concrete and steel. Automatically, Tallis narrowed his perfect twenty-twenty vision, scanning the crowds of commuters and city dwellers, buses slow with lassitude, the ever-changing lights. That’s when he spotted a figure in black up ahead. As if by instinct, the
figure turned. No longer wearing sunglasses, Dan’s eyes locked with his. In that moment, it was as if the city was empty of people. It was just him and his brother and the deep-set hatred between them.

Both men took off, Tallis kicking hard on the back foot. Although Dan was moving more quickly, dodging in and out of the crowd, the gap was lessening with every passing second. To Tallis’s amazement, they were no longer taking a direct route to the station. Dan appeared to be aiming for the Bull Ring, formerly the centre of old Birmingham, the original market dating back to the twelfth century. Currently, it was a vast, modern, glass-fronted shopping mall and throbbing retail heart of the city.

Tallis felt his mouth dry as he shot down the main drag, memories of another time flashing through his head, the not-yet-developed Rotunda looming over him like a prophet of doom.

A
Big Issue
seller, foolish enough to try and collar Dan, was rewarded with a swift punch in the gut, felling him and causing a small riot of disturbance. Two young police officers ran to the aid of the victim, one of them talking into his radio. Tallis sidestepped the lot of them, ran on, the ground between him and his brother swiftly diminishing.

They were in sight of the bronze statue of the bull, the symbol of the shopping centre. Dan had a choice, Tallis saw, whether to disappear inside, or flee, or give himself up. He did none of those things. He pivoted on one foot, turned, a slow, satisfied smile on a face cracked with decades of bitterness and resentment. Tallis stared at the gun. Diving to the pavement, he saw the flash, heard the shot, the screams of shoppers ringing in his ears. Then
there was another: aimed, guaranteed to maim, not kill. Tallis saw Dan fall, the weapon spinning from his hand. He ran forward and knelt at his brother’s side, instinctively tearing off his shirt to bind the wound in Dan’s shoulder.

“Finish the job, you fucker,” Dan snarled, his face contorted by pain.

It would be easy, Tallis thought, payback for all the death and destruction, for Belle. What use would life be without her? he thought. What would it matter if he spent the remainder of it in prison?

“Come on, what are you waiting for?” Dan goaded.

Tallis raised his weapon, looked into his brother’s eyes, saw the darkness reflected inside, and realised that he didn’t want to be like him. He didn’t want to give Dan the satisfaction of winning. Dan had taken the heart and best of his life, but he didn’t have to hand him the rest. He put the gun down on the ground quickly before he could change his mind.

“You stupid? It’s an order,” Dan screamed.

“Stop. Armed police.”

Tallis looked round, saw eight police officers armed with Heckler and Kochs. He knew the drill and got down on the ground, spread-eagling himself. “My brother needs an ambulance,” he said as he was frisked and searched.

“Fucker tried to kill me,” Dan cried out. “I’m a police officer, Detective Chief Inspector with Greater Manchester.”

“Not for much longer,” a voice said. Tallis glanced up.

“Think it’s about time you and I talked,” Asim told him.